domain:abc.net.au
Magusoflight
3m ago
While I loath Sam Hyde he was right about at least to a large extent that the other side wants you dead, your kids raped, and they think it’s funny. This has all been borne out over and over again.
The website CharliesMurderers has amassed twenty THOUSAND (and counting) reports of people celebrating CKs death all under their real names. It doesn’t count any of the anon accounts.
lurker
4m ago
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
4m ago
This is the correct reaction to have. It's a good excuse for me to shoe horn in shoe0nHead's reaction that went semi-viral and for many people put into words exactly what they were feeling. And something about it seems especially poignant in the style of a sleep deprived, unedited, 1000 word run on sentence. It ends with
posting videos and pictures of charlie’s wife and young kids will not move them because they cannot relate and never will. they are atomized bug people who hate their families and themselves. the unfortunate product of modern society. they are miserable evil human beings and i owe many people many apologies for ever thinking otherwise. maybe i will calm down, but i couldnt sleep, but i am absolutely demoralized and blackpilled beyond belief. i do not want my child growing up in a world like this. sick evil shit.
The last few days have been the clearest demonstration of evil I've ever witnessed. Teachers, doctors, lawyers, federal employees, friends, family all jubilant that a man different from me in the smallest of degrees was publicly executed, and his wife, not very different from my wife, and his children, about the same age as my child, are now widowed and fatherless. And they cheer. To bounce it back to shoe
it is clear how they reacted about charlie is how they would react about me, my friends, my family, any of you, your friends, your family that have ever stepped out of line of the nebulous ever changing definition of “progressive”, anyone who has ever been called a “nazi” for the stupidest shit in the last 10+ years.
And if it happened to you, they'd go over everything you ever said online, and cherry pick the worst of it, or the worst of it they could take out of context. And then tens of millions of people would receive their talking points and go around repeating how you deserved to die because you said "X". Did you actually say "X"? Did you actually say "X" in they way they thought you said "X"? Doesn't matter.
I've been beating the drum for over a year, and occasionally got in some mod trouble, that the left is roiling up their base to pogrom the right. Can there be any more doubt? Teachers are celebrating the murder of an innocent father and husband, publicly, under their real name, and we leave our children with them 40 hours a week. I keep seeing people push back "How do we know he was radicalized at college?" Now we don't have the ironclad chain of evidence to show. But we can plainly see that even in the moment he's shot, the crowd at that college is cheering. Sure looks like a radicalizing environment to me. Makes me wonder what the fuck they've been teaching there.
Mantergeistmann
4m ago
It's not about comfort, or affording things that are "good". It's closer to "status", which is inherently comparative. A lot of people have difficulty coping with a neighbor (or even a friend!) who appears to be doing materially better than themselves. It's yet one more reason social media is hell - "keeping up with the Joneses", but on a nigh-global scale. Bad for your mind, bad for your heart, but not easy to purge from your mindset. If you've done it, congrats, and I mean that without a hint of sarcasm. I still have work to do on myself and my own mindset.
HereAndGone
14m ago
Why didn’t Wexner measure his returns against the market? Hard to say, maybe he was in too deep, didn’t care, assumed Jeffrey was a genius, liked the attention and friendship, was a little in love, or was just under the thumb of an overbearing and domineering mother (which is the historical record) and didn’t really think of it much.
Yeah, I'm just reading bits and pieces but it does seem to be that Epstein did a genuinely good job of sorting out Wexner's finances, was smart enough not to milk the cow too hard, and probably was a 'friend' (not sexual) for someone who didn't have a lot of friends due to all you describe. Plus, if Epstein was already hosting and/or arranging the kind of parties he later threw, then it would have done no harm (and maybe a lot of good) to Wexner's public image to be seen in the society pages with attractive twenty-something women on his arm. Nobody would expect him to be seriously dating those girls, but to be 'out and about' in public with them would have helped as cover for "oh, Wexner is too much of a playboy to get married yet" if there were rumours about his sexuality.
Magusoflight
16m ago
I could be wrong but it seems the “hypocrite” accusations are a lot more muted this time around. I think centrists are waking up to how radicalized a lot of people are becoming, especially as it comes to light that the shooter was indeed a leftist.
I remember when Trump was shot, the right was accused of being hypocrites on cancel culture for trying to get people fired for celebrating it.
I don't think this is hypocrisy or "my-sideism" at all. The taboo against political assassinations is a load-bearing one for a liberal society with broad free speech rights. If cancel culture was limited to firing people who celebrated political assassinations, I don't think "cancel culture" would exist as a meme at all! I'm happy if the left only cancels people for celebrating political assassinations as long as the right gets to do so too. That sounds like a perfectly stable equilibrium and a well-tailored exception to free speech for a liberal society.
But that's not how "cancel culture" became a meme, and we all know that and I feel like I'm being gaslighted by people who should know better. People lost their job for misgendering, or arguing that male and female abilities were different, or supporting conservative ballot measures, or donating anonymously to a legal defense fund and getting doxxed, or casually hanging an "ok" sign out of a car window, or arguing that riots empirically hurt the political cause they were in support of.
The effect of all of these cancellations is to make social discourse dumber, to fence off a chunk of plausibly true beliefs as things you can't say. The effect of cancelling people for celebrating assassinations is to keep assassination taboo'ed beyond the doors of polite society.
Maybe there should be amnesty for entry level service workers. But even there, it shouldn't be too hard to get another entry level service job, and a slap on the wrist from polite society serves as notice to the social taboo.
I'll bite that bullet gladly. I'm happy if you cancel me for celebrating the intentional murder of a political figure. If the price of that was removing all other threat of cancellation, well I would be giddy with a sense of freedom that I haven't felt in 13 years.
Mantergeistmann
27m ago
This is a ludicrously hagiographic way of saying "he was a political commentator that did not actively advocate for violence". I suppose that, sadly, that last part is becoming an increasingly high bar these days.
It's probably worth noting here that one of the talking points I'm seeing from people on the left is that he did advocate for violence, and that's one reason why it's okay to celebrate his death. This claim is often accompanied by a reference to quotes of his, or a quote itself, which I tend to assume is misleading/out of context, but haven't the background or interest in looking into each and every time.
It, um, also doesn't necessarily bode well for them, even if they'd say that their own celebrations of/implicit support for violence (here and previously) is somehow different... live by the sword, and all that.
HereAndGone
29m ago
I don't think he embezzled from Wexner, even the most besotted suitor would have noticed millions drained away. But he did have a lot of control over Wexner's money and was able to spend it as if it were his own, in turn enabling him to present the façade of really, really wealthy guy (rather than just guy in charge of really, really wealthy guy's wallet).
I agree that, like a lot of the high-flying financial types of the time, it was all a house of cards and a downturn, bad luck, or close scrutiny would have shown that the emperor had no clothes. He genuinely had the most amazing luck in getting clear of the Florida sex abuse charges (as well as the dropped ball by the prosecution, as another commenter posted explaining the case in detail on here) and that is what motivates all the conspiracy theories about "was he really an intelligence asset? was he blackmailing people?"
Wikipedia does have a good précis of it all - lies, charm, connections and luck:
Although it took 12 years to deliver the story, as Matthew Goldstein of the New York Times tells it JP Morgan banker Jes Staley and CEO Jamie Dimon had a falling out over Staley's client Epstein sometime around 2012, after in October 2011 the General Counsel of the bank, Stephen Cutler, complained to Staley and others that Epstein was "not an honorable person in any way. He should not be a client." At the meeting between Staley, Epstein and Cutler, the last was assuaged when Epstein lied to his face and trotted out for character reference Bill Gates. The bank would not discard Epstein until, facing increased pressure from federal regulators, it did in 2013 coincidentally the year of Staley's departure from the bank. Thereafter Epstein moved his trade to the American affiliate of Deutsche Bank.
According to Forbes in 2025, the great majority of Epstein's wealth between 1999 and 2018 came from $490 million in fees, (most of that from two billionaires, Leslie Wexner, $200 million, and Leon Black, $170 million) with the remaining $310 million reported as income during that period by his companies as being from investment returns, and was worth $600 million when he died.
professorgerm
You shall love your crooked neighbor, with your crooked heart
36m ago
He said Floyd hagiography is possibly sillier than Kirk hagiography. Not that it is.
Given that one was a drug-addled serial criminal and the other a controversial but otherwise law-abiding speaker, any comparison that Floyd hagiography- and its attendant violence and racism- isn’t categorically orders of magnitude worse is insane or trolling.
It is uncharitable, but I think my lack of charity is roughly correctly tuned to Anti’s past issues in the forum.
HereAndGone
40m ago
No other billionaire gave all his money to one rando with no real qualifications and made that guy a billionaire for no apparent reason.
Just reading the barebones Wikipedia article on Epstein, it seems to be a combination of:
(1) Guy was charismatic in some way, he managed to charm a lot of people; he seems also to have been smart, with talents in music and maths.
(2) He had some amazing luck at the beginning - he managed to get a teaching gig in a private school that was run on sort of hippy-dippy principles (which meant he could get a job there where a conventional school wouldn't have hired him due to lack of credentials, and again seemingly by managing to charm the guy in charge) and one with a ton of well-heeled and connected parents, and he worked those connections as hard as he could (before getting bounced from the school for perhaps being a leetle too friendly with the girl students).
(3) By virtue of those connections, he wangled a job at Bear Stearns. This gave him vital exposure to the world of high finance, experience, and more networking/connections he could later call on (again, he seems to have been able to manage the high-wealth clients well, which would involve being able to create a personal relationship with them: "Jimmy Cayne, the bank's later chief executive officer, praised Epstein's skill with wealthy clients and complex products.")
(4) After being let go from Bear Sterns, he set up his own consulting firm and managed to position himself where he worked with/on behalf of wealthy, connected, and important people. Connections, connections, connections: this seems to really have been Epstein's strength.
(5) Gets hired on by another guy for a firm that morphs into a corporate raider and when this all explodes later on, he managed to walk away without criminal charges for investor fraud. Another combination of luck, talent, and charm.
(6) Set up his own financial management firm while working at (5), and once more his luck meant he landed a really big fish. Indeed, one might even say, a whale. Was indeed competent at the job and sorted out the finances, which means more trust, more personal relationship, more connections. Not to be diagnosing someone when I have no information but it honestly does seem like the guy was deeply closeted gay and so gave over way more control over his finances to Epstein than would have been usual. Epstein used this opportunity to make hay, and while he seems to have been smart enough not to kill the golden goose by robbing him blind, he was able to more or less act as if the wealth was all his (" In July 1991, Wexner granted Epstein full power of attorney over his affairs. The power of attorney allowed Epstein to hire people, sign checks, buy and sell properties, borrow money, and do anything else of a legally binding nature on Wexner's behalf").
Epstein made a tidy fortune managing Wexner's affairs, worked his connections with other wealthy people to the maximum, and was careful to keep up his old networking with figures in Bear Sterns and elsewhere, plus he seems to have been genuinely capable with money (so long as he could resist any temptations to get involved in dodgy deals). So how wealthy was he really, as aside from appearances? Probably nowhere near as much as he liked to let on, but in those circles appearances are what count (see other stories of successful cons of the rich and famous by someone pretending to be part of that environment).
dev
47m ago
I did college debate as well. This is specifically a problem for prominent rightists doing open speeches or debate in front of leftists, in the last 10 or 15 years, where the rightists has a view that the left has decided is no longer in the realm of acceptable debate, ex: the current Republican presidential nominee/president is good; gay marriage is bad; 13 do 50 or anything race realist; ice deportations are actually good, etc. I can hardly think of any rightist other than Charlie who was still doing those kind of open-invite debates at colleges on those kind of topics. IIRC, Charles Murray basically stopped doing events after the attack at Middlebury.
until we get total numbers at year's end) has had fewer visitors in 2025 than 2023, an astonishing fact when you consider the earth's population has grown hundreds of millions over that time period.
There's a reason I selected average of 2021 to 2023 as the criteria. We skip 2020 because the Biden admin was not in charge then, so we include the remaining 3 years where pandemic-excused policies were relevant to tourists, though by 2023 they were pretty weak but not entirely absent.
You're welcome to provide data for the average of 2021 to 2023 against 2025 for Vegas.
Regardless, I specified "Visitors to the US" because the initial discussion was about international tourism, and "Visitors to Vegas" is a poor proxy for this because of domestic tourism. Most numbers I could find on the percentage of visitors to Vegas that are domestic tourists puts it somewhere between 70% and 80%.
To decouple the chilling effect from the desire not to travel during a pandemic is quite simple, just compare the total decline to the specific decline in places with legal restrictions, the difference will tell you approximately how many people didn't travel because they were banned, and how many didn't travel because they were afraid of the deadly global pandemic.
"Afraid of the deadly global pandemic" is not something independent of government policy, but instead the product of government policy. If a government makes people afraid to travel by telling them covid will kill them if they do, that's still the government's fault.
This is something we could agree on, but probably won't: The chilling effect of both covid restrictions and ICE deportations is the direct result of government policy, not something that happens without. Yet for some reason you think the chilling effect of covid restrictions is merely an organic "desire not to travel".
A good example seems to be Egypt, a country that is a tourist destination, centrally located, and had very light corona virus requirements (Between August 15th 2021 and June 16th 2022 you just had to show a negative test within the 3 days before arrival).
Not a comprehensive account of tourism restrictions, you need to also consider domestic restrictions that would affect the activities that tourists can do once in the country.
But regardless, we can use your method, with the actual source Wikipedia is using for these graphs.
Egypt's numbers as a percentage of 2019 visitors: 2020: 28% 2021: 62% 2022: 90%
Mexico's numbers as a percentage of 2019 visitors: 2020: 55% 2021: 71% 2022: 85%
Australia will be an example of an extreme restriction country. Numbers as a percentage of 2019 visitors via this dataset as OWID is incomplete: 2020: 19% 2021: 3% 2022: 39%
That some countries had returned to 90% of 2019 tourism numbers by 2022, while Australia remains down at 39%, strongly suggests that the overwhelming majority of the decline in tourism can be attributed to government policy. If the decline in tourism was instead mainly due to fear of covid, then tourists would have no reason to continue visiting Egypt while refusing to visit Australia.
Elections? What elections?
(Just joking….maybe?)
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