domain:alexberenson.substack.com
atelier
Jimmys: unrustled
14m ago
Exactly! It's odd if we accept OPs framing that Epstein is a simple conman.
JarJarJedi
16m ago
but I could imagine something similar for ICE.
Not the immigration branch of ICE though. It does have HSI branch that does investigations and asset forfeitures. Curiously, nobody gave a hoot about it until Trump. Trump has this peculiar quality that once he does something people start noticing how big the government is and how much abuse is possible - only to immediately forget it forever once it's not about Trump anymore. Example: https://archive.ph/QiXfH - this is from 2017. For the last 8 years, how much high profile public discussion did you hear about this? I'd assume "none at all" is not too far off the target.
you could see an argument that ICE being given too many people will lead them to go above and beyond their mandate.
If you want to go that road, you have plenty of targets beyond ICE. THe FBI itself, the ATF, the DEA, the NSA, not to speak of the leviathan in the room that is the CIA... I mean, operation Fast and Furious alone is a horrendous example, if Hollywood made a movie where a government agency forces US merchants to sell weapons to drug cartels, and then tries to prosecute them for it and use it as a basis for trying to kill the Second Amendment - people would say it's cartoonish, hammy and bordering on libel. Yet it happened, and people generally just let it slide, shrugged it off. And there are many examples on the same cartoonishly evil level. So is there a danger in a powerful government enforcement agency to go rogue? You betcha there is. Is there anything special in Trump financing immigration enforcement to increase this danger? You'd have to work a bit harder to establish any basis for it. I mean, if you have a hardcore libertarian credentials going back to 1960s on opposing any budget increase for federal law enforcement - ok, kudos for remaining consistent. If that's the first time when you're asking this question, I'd have much harder time taking it seriously.
JarJarJedi
1m ago
It's more like if the alien life exists, and is intelligent, and had the means to get here it would operate on technology and energy scales that is completely beyond what we can even imagine how to operate. And if such beings are around we'd either all notice them very well and far beyond the occasional case of butt-probing a rural weirdo, or wouldn't notice them at all because they wouldn't want to destroy our fragile backwards culture by inadvertently stepping on us in so many ways. In other words, if it happened, it would happen in completely different way - thus, what is happening, if anything is happening at all, is not it.
erwgv3g34
1hr ago
Not odd at all? If the whole point is blackmail, the of course you move the operation to where it is illegal.
faceh
3hr ago
Well this explains a lot about your stated positions.
Makes me realize that I probably turned out as weird as I did because I kind of had a one-foot-in-one-foot out upbringing, where half my family was churchgoing patriotic traditionalists and the other was more... bohemian? And both sides seemed pretty happy with their lives and had things mostly held together.
'How does everyone fit into society' is a question that needs to be answered and if you've already decided personal characteristics are the way to go about it, well...
We've talked about basic life scripts before, and in general I think that demolishing those scripts has made life harder, scarier, more uncertain, less fulfilling for most people. Becoming an adult is difficult enough when there IS a direct example to follow. Now you have to do it while explicitly being told there is no one 'right way' to go about it.
When every single day, month, year of your life feels like you're having to hack through uncharted wilderness, and determine your location via a hand-drawn map and dead-reckoning, then yeah you're going to keep second-guessing a lot of decisions and live in constant fear of bear attacks, vs. staying on a well-beaten, marked, and lit pathway. (I overstate the analogy just to make a point).
And as you note, people who LARP Conservativism don't really push a RETVRN to such life scripts, or have a plan for bring those scripts back. Because telling your viewers "go to church, follow the bible, and accept your given place and role in life without much complaint" is so utterly uncool and, for an influencer, self-defeating. If the audience does that they will start listening to their pastor more than you, right?
In fact, now I think about it: the term "Conservative Influencer" is almost a contradiction.
I don't think this mentality can come back from the government, but only from intermediating institutions that democrats would like to punish for doing their job and pushing this. But this is the key difference; most adults have probably worked it out for themselves but nobody ever says it out loud.
Agreed. But both the right and the left seem to have converged on the idea that the government ought to be the single wellspring from which all morality and practical guidance comes. What to eat, what to wear, how to arrange your affairs.
Again, overstating the case. I have spent a good portion of my adult life groping around for SOME institution, group, maybe even (ugh) ideology that would give me a provably reliable path towards a better life. But very explicitly not wanting to fall into a cult.
The only one that hasn't let me down in some egregious way, and has remained a steadying force in life is, no shit, my martial arts gym.
The gym I teach at provides the following:
- A strong routine. The schedule for classes has been the same for years and years.
- A curriculum of new material to learn (I've mastered basically all of it, but that just lets me reach out and find new stuff)
- A great social group of generally good, reliable people. (If they weren't good and reliable, they wouldn't stick it out. This stuff is HARD).
- A certain amount of moral instruction: "We are teaching you to inflict physical harm on your fellow human, here are the conditions under which you can do so or should do so."
- A system for advancement (there are tests on a regular schedule, and you earn higher belts as you go).
- Which also allows for a benevolent soft hierarchy. Higher belts are more experienced (and theoretically more dangerous) and thus command some respect, but they have a reciprocal duty to help lower belts learn faster. And nobody thinks, for example, a blue belt has the authority to ORDER a yellow belt to do something.
- Also fun.
I'd guess this checks a lot of the boxes for people who want to be able to follow instructions and see improvement in their life circumstances and be rewarded for the progress. There was a period of time where I think Corporations tried to sort of provide that to employees to make them more productive, but the underlying loyalty that requires has dissipated.
Church is still there, but good luck picking one that isn't compromised by political activism or that is mostly full of LARPers.
That seems to leave most people with joining up with political activism or getting into politics. Which tends to make everything worse.
Tree
1hr ago
Trump on his assassination attempt:
"They briefed me and I'm satisfied with it," Trump said. "They should have had someone in the building, that was a mistake, they should have had communications with the local police—they weren't tied in—and they should have been tied in. So there were mistakes made. And that shouldn't have happened."
"But I was satisfied in terms of the bigger plot, the larger plot," he continued, "I have great confidence in these people. They're very talented and very capable—they had a bad day, I think they'll admit that." "This is a very dangerous job being president,"
Trump’s claims of stolen election have led to much recriminations that he is no mere crook or liar, but damaging to democracy. His supporters otoh, have ramped up the anti-elite conspiracy to include this assassination attempt, in order to show loyalty/outbid themselves, even here on the motte. This rejection by the principal actor/TV star sends a clear signal where the truth lies in this matter, whether you agree with Trump’s politics or not. Test is over, results are in, you can calibrate. If you bought the assassination conspiracy, consider that your brain may have been fried by the culture war.
HMK2
15m ago
Some species has to be the very first sapient life in the galaxy. Maybe we're just the Progenitors.
atelier
Jimmys: unrustled
1hr ago
That's another odd thing about this case, the operation regularly too great pains to hold their events in places where the age of concent was 18 (Florida and the USVI). It's odd that potentially two people from states where they are above the age of consent were brought together in a state or territory where the age of concent is 18 specifically to have carnal relations.
ABigGuy4U
1hr ago
If he was just a compulsive liar, how was he squashing federal investigations and getting sweetheart plea deals where he doesn’t have to serve any time?
You do not need to blackmail rich Jewish-American billionaires to support Israel
Well-connected Jews have attempted to blackmail Jewish billionaires before. Rabbi Balkany tried to blackmail Steve Cohen into funding yeshivas. Balkany was famous for being a DC “fixer”, so this may have been par for the course for Balkany. There are some billionaire Jews who are unaligned with Zionism. I recall reading the Wikipedia of a Hollywood talent management owner who had no confirmed philanthropy whatsoever, but for the life of me I can’t remember his name, and there’s also Zuckerberg whose donations to Jewish causes are a pittance relative to his philanthropy.
The substantial majority of those alleged to have been victims of Epstein's supposed blackmail scheme were Zionist Jews
Source? If Epstein is meeting with Zionist Jews in private, this is not evidence that he is blackmailing them. Do you think he used a separate private jet to do this or a separate island? Even if they were raping the girls, do you think Mossad would prefer this to happen under the auspices of a Mossad handler, or do you think they’d prefer that they try it elsewhere? You have no evidence that the majority of blackmail victims were Zionists. The only confirmed blackmail case is Bill Gates.
He’s a liar
This is like saying James Bond is a liar. Epstein lying to his clients about why he’s loaded and what connections he has is exactly what he would do if he were Mossad. This cannot be used as evidence that he was unprofessional or untrustworthy, or that he wasn’t Mossad.
You are also ignoring very important evidence:
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Despite having connections to Israel, none of Epstein’s victims were Jewish. Even Jerry Seinfeld was dating a 17yo Jewish girl at this time. I imagine this will be excused away on account of Jewish girls not being as drawn to wealthy men, but Instagram attests to this not being the case.
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According to Maria Farmer, a victim, there was a theme of Jewish supremacism that pervaded Epstein’s circle, among Epstein / Ghislaine Maxwell / Eileen Guggenheim. “You’re nothing because you’re not Jewish”, “useless white girl”, “anyone who was not Jewish, the way they spoke about them was really horrifying”, “it was every one of them, the way they spoke”. If Epstein’s circle was Jewish supremacist, this would explain his link to Mossad.
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You are forgetting that Wexner was linked to Mossad by way of the Mega Group, and Epstein’s connections were throughout the Mega Group.
The spy said he was tasked by the Israeli ambassador to get a copy of a secret letter given to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat by then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher for a source identified only as “MEGA.” “The ambassador wants me to go to MEGA to get a copy of this letter,” the Israeli spy said, to which the superior replied, “This is not something we use MEGA for.”
The counterintelligence report was an embarrassment for the NSA and Israel sought to deflect the identification of MEGA by claiming it referred not to an individual but to the CIA. The leak set off a major hunt for MEGA, believed to be an Israeli mole in the State Department and other agencies.
Then, in 1998, The Wall Street Journal solved the mystery. The newspaper published a story on U.S. titans of industry working for Jewish philanthropy that called themselves the “Mega Group.” It included 20 of America’s wealthiest and most influential Jewish businessmen who met twice a year.
Among the members of the group were Hollywood director Steven Spielberg, Seagram Chairman Edgar Bronfman Sr. and former hedge fund manager Michael Steinhardt. The group was founded in 1991 by two billionaires: Charles Bronfman, Edgar’s brother and Seagram co-chairman, and Mr. Wexner.
Also, 4. the attorney handling Epstein’s 2008 case was told that Epstein belonged to intelligence: In 2017, "a former senior White House official" reported that Alexander Acosta, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida who had handled Epstein's criminal case in 2008, had stated to interviewers of President Donald Trump's first transition team: "I was told Epstein 'belonged to intelligence' and to 'leave it alone'", and that Epstein was "above his pay grade".
Side question, have there ever been any people who said Epstein tried to get them to the island but they refused? Anyone whose kink turned out to be adult women? Anyone who was blackmailed but it call came out in a divorce or some other legal trouble?
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
59m ago
· Edited 50m ago
Similar to the push about the harm that adults having sex with kids isn't from the sex, it's from the social stigma around it which teaches the child to be ashamed and that they were harmed.
The people who push that attitude want to fuck kids without consequences.
No, I don't. One does not have to be personally benefitted by a hypothesis to believe it.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1hr ago
Most spies don't "need" to be "turned" against their country; they just need to be found.
This is only two sorts, and there are conventionally four. Those who do it for the money, those who do it for the ideology, those who are coerced into it, and those who do it for ego. You can find those who do it for ideology or ego; those who do it for money or (especially) because they are coerced have to be made.
2rafa
5hr ago
If it was Maxwell and the lynchpin of so many online conspiracy theories, why can’t the powers that be (which surely have access to Reddit or - at worst - Ghislaine’s recovery email) just log in as her and post something?
And besides, you again ignore the entire point. In one of the most expensive intelligence operations in modern history, the most banal, easiest, entry level bulk reposting of links (which would have been botted even back then) was supposedly manually done by a middle aged ultra-rich heiress who knew many of the most powerful people in the world and who was moonlighting as a Reddit powermod and farming karma by reposting (in 99.9% of cases) uncontroversial news stories, the kind of thing any third world teen on a gig work site would have done for $3 an hour and which, in the most sensitive cases, would have been done by 22 year old junior intelligence analysts on their first job.
“Sorry, Your Royal Highness, I’m going to have to interrupt our drinks so I can repost an article about an avalanche in Spain on Reddit for 500 karma because the huge intelligence operation I work for values me not for my contacts and charisma but because I can press submit on m.reddit.com several dozen times a day, a skill nobody else you have access to can do”?
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
5hr ago
We're not going to take sides in a situation like this. People accuse other posters of misrepresenting and strawmanning them all the time. Sometimes people are misrepresenting and strawmanning other posters, but y'all need to work this out yourselves-civilly!-or let it go.
When we do intervene is when threads become pointless back and forth exchanges of "Did not!" "Did too!" Which is what this is becoming.
We also dislike people declaring they have reported someone. "I'm telling on you!" is not any more effective or impressive here than it was in kindergarten. What is that supposed to accomplish? Put extra pressure on the mods? We can see your report. Submit your report and move on.
Paedophilia is the term that needs definition. There have been some extreme claims of 12-14 year olds being raped, but it seems in the main to be more "underage by American law" which is "not 18 yet" (in other countries, age of consent is 16, for example).
Actually, the age of consent in America varies by state, from 16 to 18. The myth that it's a flat 18 across the country is due to the fact that virtually all television and movies are made in California, where it is indeed 18.
naraburns
nihil supernum
1hr ago
The Federalist Party's primary achievement (at least arguably, as the party itself didn't officially exist until after the Bill of Rights was adopted) was the replacement of the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution. If anything, the Federalists would have preferred an even stronger Constitution. They were the faction of wealthy Northern elites who wanted the nation to function in stable concert, at least militarily and economically (and under their leadership, naturally). They were broadly abolitionist and accommodated slavery within the Constitution substantially under the view that by doing so they could be instrumental in bringing about its end; consequently, they were not friends of "states rights." They were also much more interested than their opponents in healing the rift with England, to the point where some New England Federalists began to advocate for secession during the War of 1812 (although it might sound a bit like California or Texas "threatening" to secede today, depending on who is in the White House, the War of Independence was still in living memory). Siding with the enemy during a war is a good way to accrue a lot of populist hatred really fast.
EdenicFaithful
Dark Wizard of Ravenclaw
1hr ago
So, what are you reading?
Adding Who Killed the Berkeley School? Struggles Over Radical Criminology to my list, another open access book. It's from a radical left perspective, and sadly spends more time on the struggle than the Berkeley School itself, but its a good read.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
3hr ago
Somebody with her profile, especially if she was ever an actual intel asset, puts their fucking real name as their handle?
Ross Ulbricht was arrested for a similar OPSEC failure, so I don't think it's completely implausible. Per Wikipedia, "[t]he connection was made by linking the username 'altoid', used during Silk Road's early days to announce the website, and a forum post in which Ulbricht, posting under the nickname 'altoid', asked for programming help and gave his email address, which contained his full name." I won't discount parallel construction here, but I think there is a certain point in an effort like this when you realize "this is for real", but you can't easily scrub the account history: a new account would itself look pretty suspicious and probably point right back to the original -- "DM'd all the other mods and asked for a new account to be blessed" is itself suspicious if you don't trust all those mods, and it's visible to users that a brand new account was given mod access. Satoshi seems like an exception here, but I think it's hard to leave no trace in these sorts of situations generally.
Early Reddit also strikes me as a place where a power-user could steer the conversation more broadly in ways that would be useful to more than just intelligence agencies, or could just be a personal power fantasy. Bots weren't believable conversation partners a decade ago. Observably, various political activists have gotten a lot of mileage out of moderating default Reddit subs, so even if maybe the impact of that is fading today, I think "digital conversation influencer" might have been a playable role that would get one into real conversations in the halls of (non-digital) power.
magic9mushroom
If you're going to downvote me, and nobody's already voiced your objection, please reply and tell me
47m ago
I mean, I knew about the first of those three, but the latter two are decent points. Thanks.
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
It seems notable that libertarians and communists are very different kinds of people- I don't think this is entirely assimilatory in nature, I think this is more selection effects. EG you see very few female libertarians.
Now she is planning to remarry.
Just to clarify, is this because she met someone new, or is that her vague expectation on how she'll proceed?
I wonder what socially conservative child support reform would look like.
The money goes into an account handled by a third party who is in charge of ensuring the money is spent on the child's needs.
None of it goes into an account the mother controls. When the child turns 18, we can either give the child full control of the account or (here's a thought!) refund it back to the father.
erwgv3g34
4hr ago
I usually wonder about this kind of thing in a different sense, because men in spheres bemoaning lack of trad values often mention virginity but I'm never clear on if they're offering the same virginity themselves.
You aren't clear because it is not relevant. Nobody cares if the groom is not a virgin, least of all the bride. Look up mate choice copying (or, as PUAs call it, pre-selection).
It's like worrying about how the groom will look in a dress.
I'm curious what you think the counterfactual world looks like, where Trump comes out instead and claims "There were malicious people at work, and it was all orchestrated by [specific actors]."
What would happen next?
And if you're going off the assumption that Trump is being truthful and fully transparent, then why'd you bring up the election issues?
Are YOU saying that his claims of the election being stolen are credible, since you're here saying that he's honest about such serious matters?
Neat.
Now do the people who don't think Trump was shot at all.
So long as we're addressing conspiracy theories.
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