Todd Lewis is joined by Keith Preston, Right Ruminations and Swithun Dobson in a rebooted round-table series. We will be discussing the Rise and Fall of the Alt-Right.
Category Archives: Culture Wars/Current Controversies
Lyceum Round-Table #4: Problems with Liberalism: Cultural Liberalism Reply
Todd Lewis is joined by Keith, Swithun and Right Ruminations we will finish our discussion of liberalism by analyzing cultural liberalism.
Trump’s impeachment inquiry may help his re-election campaign Reply
Press TV. Listen here.
The rapidly escalating impeachment inquiry against US President Donald Trump may backfire and increase the Republican president’s chances of getting re-elected in 2020, says an American political analyst in Virginia.
Staunch Democrats “want to get rid of Trump by any means they can” but are “concerned that if Trump is impeached, that may have the effect of rallying his base, which may actually help him win re-election next year and discredit the Democratic candidate,” said Keith Preston, chief editor of AttacktheSystem.com.
“There are some people who really dislike the president and just want him out of office, period, but there are other people who see this as a safety valve; they think that perhaps he won’t actually be impeached but this will have the effect of strengthening his base and strengthening his re-election potential, ” Preston told Press TV.
Democrats in the US House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry in September after an unidentified whistleblower alleged Trump had unlawfully used his office to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former US Vice President Joe Biden, a leading contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
The rapidly escalating impeachment inquiry against Trump is the latest and perhaps most serious threat to his presidency, and the White House is failing to contain the crisis.
On Friday, House Democratic lawmakers demanded that the White House provide documents related to allegations that Trump pressured Ukraine for political favors.
PressTV-Democrats subpoena White House in impeachment probeHouse Democrats issued a subpoena to the White House Friday evening for documents relating to the President Donald Trump’s contact with Ukraine.
During a July 25 call, Trump asked Zelenskiy to speak with Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani about whether Ukrainian officials improperly dropped an investigation of a company that hired Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
Trump’s aggressive new strategy to thwart the Democrats’ impeachment offensive is already breaking down under the weight of new revelations.
Text messages released on Thursday between US diplomats and a senior Ukrainian aide reveal that Zelensky was told he should open an investigation against Biden if he wanted an invitation to visit Washington.
Poll: Most Americans favor presidential impeachment Reply
The Conscience of a Contrarian Reply
By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit
Exile in Happy Valley
Some months are harder than others to be a poorly trained anarcho-gonzo visionary. During these last couple months of the hellishly hot post-apocalyptic summer of this year of our lord Xenu, twenty-hundred-and-nineteen, I couldn’t seem to write a blog post that didn’t smack one class of my dearest motherfuckers or another across the face like a goddamn dead cat. I attempt to make an argument that Ilhan Omar voters and Tucker Carlson viewers have far more in common in the realm of war and peace than they do with any carcinogenic class of moderates in their own parties and the leftists act like I’m some kind of crypto-fascist Rudolf Hess apologist. The very next month, I make an argument that the white race is little more than a violent social construct that does a grave injustice to all poor people and the same paleos who applauded my daring and seemed primed to declare me their genderfuck Phyllis Schlafly last month are taking their turn tying the fucking noose. I just can’t win with you people. It’s not every month that you manage to piss off people you admire on both ends of the aisle, but what can I say? I’m a regular Renaissance bitch.
It’s months like these that I get saddled by my friends on both the left and the right with the dreaded C-word, and I ain’t talkin bout See-You-Next-Tuesday. The word reserved for cantankerous ideological perverts like me is contrarian. Such a universally reviled slur, but what the hell does it actually mean. The popular consensus among the mainstream politicos is that a contrarian is simply a childish rebel who picks confrontational opinions based largely on their radical cache or lack of popularity among the scions of the centrist wonkgeist. A contrarian zigs when the rest of the country zags. A contrarian picks fights just for cheap kicks and the verbal exercise.
And I’ll own up to some of this. I’ve always been a rebel, distrustful of any and all authority, I mean, shit, I’m a lapsed Irish Catholic raised on punk rock and cowboy movies, it’s practically in my fucking DNA. But the fact that this distinction is seen as some kind of vice is just proof positive to me of how far down that proverbial rabbit hole our nation’s special genre of bipolar bipartisanship has taken us. To your average partisan American dupe, a contrarian is essentially someone who refuses to comply with our toxic left-right paradigm. A leftist who refuses to blindly back Russiagate just because they recognize the well established fact that Trump sits somewhere on the psycho branch of the anti-social personality tree. Or a conservative who doesn’t require endless war or organized fag-bashing to satiate his or her own personal biblical philosophy.
Rope-A-Dope: How Red Flag Laws Will Eliminate Us Both 5
By Natasha Maria
An awful tragedy occurs, a shooting, a riot, a brawl, and as usual we hear the immediate cry, “Won’t the government do something to stop this?”
Yes, yes it will, in fact it wants you to beg them to.
Whether it be a mass shooting, or a riot in the streets, both are symptoms of a dysfunctional and neurotic society. The causes of such are deserving of multiple papers and discussions. The response though…that is the rub these days, that is what we must reassess.
-To the Right-
Whether an innocent journalist gets beat down, stores get windows broken, or a man gets a metal lock to the skull, the right are quick to call Antifa a ‘terrorist organization’. This is inconvenient for me I assure you. I consider myself to the right, and have done my fair share of talking smack about Antifa and enjoying their many failures. Nonetheless, the right must put their partisan anger aside and look at the bigger picture. Supporting legally categorizing Antifa as a ‘terrorist organization’ is not just shooting yourself in the foot, it is sawing off your whole leg. Of course Trump and the GOP support this, whipping the right into a frenzy, ‘do something to stop these masked thugs!’ Yes, do something alright, place yourself into a circular firing squad, having your enemy shot and you along with him.
-To the Left-
Let’s complete the circle. Mass shootings are horrific and unacceptable. It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the myriad of possible things that could be done to prevent or remedy what is causing this psychotic malfunction in society. Many of the shooters have had ‘manifestos’ which have espoused half-done White Nationalist-like thought. Again, Democrats and their constingency cry, “White Nationalism is the new terrorist threat!” And again, people are whipped into a frenzy, preaching that these dissident rightists must be labeled a ‘terrorist organization’ and handled as such. The latest, and most threatening development from this, is the idea of a ‘Red Flag Law’.
How vague, how flexible, how convenient. A man deported over ‘anti-American’ social media posts, or another jailed for social media posts that sounded ‘threatening’. Under such type laws, left or right, dissidence will be deemed a threat to the establishment, categorized as terrorism, and swiftly eliminated. It’s definition of dissidence will be flexible, and why shouldn’t it be? Both left and right have supported this flexibility.
The “Who’s Most Oppressed?” Pissing Contest Reply
I would emphasize two main points with this stuff. First, it needs to be recognized that capitalism, communism, and fascism are merely different points on the same triangle, whichever one of these one happens to view the most favorably. Second, the red/blue left/right cultural civil war is a matter of localized conflicts between localized tribes, whichever tribe one belongs to and whichever sides one prefers.
There are many different philosophies, movements, cultures, ideologies, and historical currents that are compatible with, overlap with, or resemble anarchist ideas. There are plenty of what I call “people of the anarchist book” anarchists, “doctrine of the anonymous anarchist” anarchists, or situational/tactical anarchists. Also, fairly significant actual anarchist movements have existed in some surprising places like Russia, China, and Korea in spite of the autocratic traditions of those places.
The main two things I’m interested in are voluntaryism and scale. The larger states become, the larger the populations they dominate, the more imperialistic they become (depending on a variety of factors like wealth and technology). In a post-globalization world, a PC social democratic micronation like Iceland, a communist island like Cuba, or a fascist city-state like Singapore would be acceptable or least tolerable. But we wouldn’t want any of these to become the EU or the modern USA, the USSR, or the Third Reich.
The Truth About the Hong Kong Protests Reply
TRUMP IS WORSE THAN HITLER, STALIN AND MAO COMBINED! 2
Skokie’s battle, The Skokie Swastika War Reply
Showdown coming in the former East Germany Reply
American elite divided over US-China economic ties Reply
Press TV. Listen here.
The American elite are divided over what the economic relationship between the United States and China should be like, says a political analyst.
Keith Preston made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Saturday when asked about President Donald Trump’s furious reaction after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had warned the trade war with China was a risk to the US economy.
In a furious flurry of tweets on Friday, Trump attacked the Powell’s stewardship of the world’s biggest economy.
“As usual, the Fed did NOTHING! It is incredible that they can ‘speak’ without knowing or asking what I am doing, which will be announced shortly,” Trump wrote on Twitter.
“We have a very strong dollar and a very weak Fed. I will work ‘brilliantly’ with both, and the US will do great,” he added.
“My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?”
Preston said, “There is a split within the American elite, within the American economic and political elite over the question of what the economic relationship between the United States and China ought to be.”
“It’s clear that the Trump administration represents a vein of the American elite that do view China as a primary enemy and wish to take a more hawkish position towards China when it comes to things like tariffs and trade and those kinds of issues, economic relationships and also military relationships as well.”
“On the other hand, there are other sections that the American elite that are very concerned about maintaining a trade relationship that currently exists between the United States and China, they do not want anything to disrupt that,” he added.
Trump lashed out at China on Friday, vowing a quick response to China’s announcement of new tariffs and ordering US companies to leave the country.
The attack came after China announced earlier on Friday it would impose new tariffs on US soybeans, lobsters, peanut butter and other imports worth $75 billion in retaliation for Washington’s latest round of punitive duties that take effect in two rounds, September 1 and December 15.
The United States will raise existing tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese imports to 30 percent from 25 percent, beginning on October 1, Trump said on Twitter Friday.
PressTV-US to hike existing, planned tariffs on Chinese importsPresident Trump says the US will hike tariff rates on most imports from China in retaliation for Beijing’s new duties on American goods.
He added that the duties on another $300 billion in Chinese products, set to take effect on September 1, will be increased by 5 percent, reaching 15 percent.
Why I Stopped Being White (and You Should Too) 9
By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit
Exile in Happy Valley
Race is a touchy subject in the West. People across the aisle, especially white folk, tend to avoid it like a plague. A big part of the reason behind this reservation has to do with the fact that both the left and the right maintain an equally immature grasp on the subject. While the right seems to be convinced that race is some kind of scientific fact like a species of bird, the left seems to view it as an inescapable historical prison sentence with no hope for escape. Like usual, the left is wrong and the right is way fucking wrong. There is nothing scientific or permanent about race. It is a social construct as fluid in nature as gender or sexuality, and it is constantly evolving. Almost every known race was created by a collision of former races that have ceased to exist. About the only thing that the clueless class in the left-right paradigm gets right is that the white race is a very unique creature, and a dangerous one.
The white race is unique in that it is the first defining race of the imperial era and modern day imperialism defines its very existence. The Western Europeans designed the concept of whiteness to justify their expanse and enslavement of the New World and it’s dark skinned cousins across the Global South. As the insatiable nature of capitalism demanded endless expansion, it’s moneyed mandarins required the creation of a new super-class to rationalize the enslavement of the darker nations. This concept became even more necessary with American independence and the fall of monarchism.
This new white aristocracy replaced the royal bloodline and shaped the very nature of the planet’s economic ecosystem. The First World was created with the excess wealth pillaged from the Third World, and it’s subjects soon became victims of new races invented to further empower the white race. The colored races of black and Latino were constructed to both consolidate white supremacy’s ill-gotten gains and to rob the many tribes that made up these racial monoliths of color of their diverse indigenous cultures. The white race is unique, not simply by the Machiavellian nature of its design, but by the necessity of its supremacy over other similarly constructed mass races to justify its very existence. But like most imperial schemes, white supremacy backfired.
How to SOLVE Illegal Immigration Reply
Kim has an interesting take on the immigration question that demonstrates how the way the issue is presented by the political class and the media is an insincere fraud.
I Was a Red Flag Kid 5
By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit
Exile in Happy Valley
Middle school sucks for everybody. But its harder for some people than others. After nearly a decade at a small, conservative, K-8 Catholic school, I was beginning to chafe beneath the cross of my mental illness. I had suffered from depression and anxiety since early childhood but as I entered the maelstrom of my teens, these issues became too turbulent to conceal. I didn’t feel like the other kids and my awkward individuality felt far from welcome among the pious adults. Even beyond my ability to cope with the basic everyday stress of being an active human being, I felt strange and detached from what passed as normal in this stifling environment. My body felt like a mistake and I couldn’t shake the fear that these feelings were evil. I had never heard of words like transgender or genderfluid. This was the Nineties and the only people who looked the way I felt were Dennis Rodman and Marilyn Manson, and the generally excepted wisdom at my church was that these freaks were going to hell, and so was I.
I was terrified. Terrified of myself. Terrified that if I ever let people in, that if people ever really truly saw me, they would either burn me at the stake or run screaming for the hills. So I retreated and found ways to cope. I lost most of my friends but I found shards of myself through the awesome power of punk rock music and radical politics. George W. Bush dropped bombs on Baghdad when I was in 8th grade and the very next day I came to school with a peace sign strapped to my arm. In early post-9/11 middle America, this mild gesture of resistance was tantamount to burning a pentagram in your forehead and declaring allegiance to Al-Qaeda.
I spent the proceeding weeks and months engaging in all out verbal combat with nearly every student and teacher I crossed. It was exhausting, but for the first time in a very long time, I wasn’t scared, I was proud. I had declared my independence from “normal” and stood my ground and it felt empowering. So I dressed in all black, stopped standing for the pledge of allegiance and gave up on trying to please the normal people who occupied my life. I decorated my backpack with badges emblazoned with the portraits of my new saints; Kurt Cobain, Che Guevara and Joey Ramone. Then the wolves came in and normal bit back.
Who’s Afraid of Tulsi Gabbard? Reply
By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit
Exile in Happy Valley
Elections are different for anarchists. We’ve already made our peace with the basic fact that representative democracy is a sham even when it’s not rigged by moneyed oligarchs. So when we do actually take part in the process, it’s usually for purposes of propaganda and/or Machiavellian strategy. One thing Trump was right about is the influence of the deep state, though it’s hardly the shadowy coalition of dope smoking lesbian Bolsheviks the Alex Jones-set imagines them to be (I wish.) Rather, they’re more of a loose coalition of rich old white men who travel back and forth between unelected positions in the federal government and the numerous industrial complexes of the Fortune 500. At the risk of sounding like a member of the tinfoil hat brigade, these are the people who really run this country. Elections, especially at the presidential level, are largely just theater, a glorified reality TV show designed to feed the masses the illusion of living in a democratic society beneath the steel boot of a rapidly decomposing empire.
I personally subscribe to the Murray Rothbard philosophy on elections, which basically goes that since the state is defined by it’s monopoly on the use of force, the best we the people can do when we’re not loading rifles is to support the most antiwar candidate available. To me, this school of thought is made doubly relevant by the fact that theoretically the only thing the president has direct authority over is the armed forces. To say that this philosophy has brought me to some strange places is an understatement. I have personally changed political parties no fewer than three times and counting. And I’ve found myself openly backing everyone from Jurassic goldbugs like Ron Paul to New Age hippie vaxxers like Jill Stein (who’s 2016 campaign sticker continues to haunt Hillaryites from the bumper of my Ford Taurus.)
The DNC’s bottomless clown car of milquetoast morons doesn’t exactly provide a lot of options for the Rothbardian voter. Most of the candidates seem to come from the Oprah School of social democracy, chumming debt besodden millennials with the promise of an endless procession of free shit, payed through taxing super-villains without offering to cut a single missile. The only solidly antiwar candidate was 89 year old former senator Mike Gravel, but since Mike has called it quits after essentially being banned from Cable TV and screwed out of his rightful place in the latest debates, that only leaves contrarian powder-keg, Tulsi Gabbard.
Majority of Democrats Now Favor Trump Impeachment Reply
US Marines accused of smuggling immigrants & drugs over the border Reply
I’m a Little Bit Ilhan, and I’m a Little Bit Tucker Too 2
By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit
Exile in Happy Valley
As something of a radical contrarian, I often feel like my life is comprised largely of coming out of an endless procession of closets, often without even realizing I’m stepping through the doorway. What? You didn’t know I was a pro-life feminist? You’ve never heard of a libertarian socialist? I genuinely can’t keep up with all the peccadillos you partisan pussies find indigestible. All in all, with this experience of casually shocking boring people, it’s little wonder I took to being queer like a fish in a frying pan.
But some closet doors are heavier than others and at this hybrid moment of Republicrat hysteria, they don’t get much heavier than the simple fact that I have a great deal of respect for both Ilhan Omar and Tucker Carlson, which is a bit like being a unicorn that everyone hates for a different reason. How could this be possible? Well, for one thing, I’ve long held a soft spot in my bleeding heart for both shocking people and, well, shocking-people. As a kid, I couldn’t seem to decide whether I wanted to be Mother Teresa or Marilyn Manson when I grew up. But more than any idiosyncratic character flaw, my respect for these two highly demonized figures stems from the fact that I am and will always be an anti-imperialist above all else. And regardless of their many many flaws both Ilhan and Tucker have been fairly consistent advocates for world peace.
I never expected to like Tucker Carlson and, for the most part, I still don’t. His demonization of immigrants and trans people like myself is nothing short of revolting. But like most paleocons, with Mr. Carlson you take the good with the disgusting. Regardless of how you or I may feel about the bastard’s social cluelessness, you have to be pathologically apoplectic to deny his post-partisan devotion to anti-interventionism. Where Tucker’s beloved pseudo-isolationist Caesar, Donald Trump, has faltered, Carlson has remained courageously resolute.
Since taking the prime time slot of pandering grope-a-holic Bill O’Reilly, Tucker Carlson has delivered some of the most breathlessly eloquent prose in defense of peace that this country has seen since MSDNC had Phil Donahue fired for speaking out against the war in Iraq, often going against the very president he rebuilt his career on defending in the process, and it’s effect appears to be profound. Donald Trump seems to have only reversed his decision to commit mass murder in Iran after a brief phone call with his favorite Fox News host. With an impetuously impressionable man-child in the Oval Office, this xenophobic, binarist dick may have literally saved lives by sticking to his guns on America’s existential need to drop hers. Hate the fucker for who he is, but game recognizes game, and Tucker is looking pretty damn familiar to this tranny peacenik. Crucify me for being big enough admit it.
Perhaps the only thing more enjoyable than seeing a neocon network hijacked by a modern-day Charles Lindbergh has been watching mighty little Ilhan make those same pigfucking giants sweat. While, as an anarchist, I may find Mrs. Omar’s pseudo-socialist, big-government-solves-everything approach to domestic policy nauseatingly tiresome, she has proven herself to be the Lower House’s most doggedly consistent critic of empire since Ron Paul.
US political hostility has reached the greatest level Reply
Press TV. Listen here.
Hostility between major political parties in the US has now reached is greatest level, according to an American analyst.
Large majorities of Americans believe the tone of political debate in the United States has become more negative in recent years and the inflammatory political rhetoric could encourage acts of violence, and President Donald Trump is a major factor in this growing problem, according to a new poll.
PressTV-Americans say Trump has made US political debate toxic: PollLarge majorities of Americans believe the tone of political debate in the United States has become more negative in recent years, a new poll shows.
“It is true that in recent years the rhetoric between political partisans, between Democrats and Republicans, and Liberals and Conservatives, has certainly escalated,” Keith Preston, told Press TV in an interview on Saturday.
“And, on the margin there has been some conflicts in the streets between the far left and the far right in recent years, as well,” he added.
“Research by social scientists will show that the level of hostility between members of the two major political parties is now at the greatest that it has been in at any time in US history since the late 19th century,” Preston insisted.
Some 85 percent of US adults say that political debate in the country is getting increasingly negative and less respectful, according to a survey conducted this spring by the Pew Research Center, a fact tank based in Washington, DC.
The poll found that 55 percent of Americans believe Trump has changed the tone and nature of America’s political debate for the worse, while just 24 percent say he has changed it for the better.
Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents overwhelmingly say the Republican president has changed political discourse for the worse. Eight-in-ten or more Democrats say Trump’s comments often or sometimes make them feel concerned, confused, embarrassed, exhausted, angry, insulted and frightened.
Preston said that “nowadays you have different networks that can appeal to different political constituencies”.
“And also, social media, and the alternative media, the internet media, since that has come into being, that has also fueled partisanship,” he argued.
Preston noted that American society had become a lot more diverse in the past few decades.
“Naturally, there is going to be a wider divergence of opinion on a lot of topics, as well,” he noted.
Despite the heated political rhetoric, the violence is still low-key, according to Preston.
“But, at the same time it has to be viewed in context since the political environment may involve a lot of heated political rhetoric, but it is still fairly low-key compared to what you find in many countries where there is full-blown civil war, or routine acts of political violence,” he concluded.
Smash All the Camps (Or Sympathy For Willem Van Spronsen) 2
By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit
Exile in Happy Valley
I sympathize with Willem Van Spronsen. Maybe that’s a bad way to start this post but it feels like the most honest way to start this post. A mentally ill anarchist, not unlike myself, Willem wanted to end his life but he wanted to end it for a cause. So he attacked an ICE detention center with pipe bombs and let the cops do the rest. I’ve never made my disdain for Antifa a secret, I’ve befriended too many right-wing anti-imperialists caught in their crossfire, but god help me, this struck me as a move in the right direction for Pacific Northwest anarchists, who have lately been far too busy bombarding alt-right imbeciles to confront our growing police state.
My sympathy is not exclusively political however. My sympathy comes from a place of very personal outrage and my outrage comes from a deeply traumatic childhood. I can usually retain a pretty jaded gonzo snark with my writing, stemming from my misanthropic drag queen sense of humor. But when you’ve been fucked with by role-crazy adults as a child, part of you will always be that child. So when I see kids in fucking cages, I see myself brutally misgendered in a confessional waiting for hell. And that’s when I flip my proverbial shit and get downright histrionic. The only reason why I haven’t gone full Kaczynski like Willem, aside from the fact that my meds are working and I generally appose initiatory violence, is because I’m usually too livid in these moments to handle anarcho-home-ec projects like IED’s. I’m also probably too pissed off to write a completely lucid blog post, so this time I decided to wait a week and take a closer look at the issue of the camps.
It’s very tempting to drop the lion share of the blame on a loud-mouth bully like Trump. He’s certainly made the immigration issue more personal by declaring entire classes of people war criminals and encouraging his beloved gorilla juice-heads in ICE to get their Gestapo on. The harsh reality that the media has chosen to ignore however is that there is nothing particularly new about Orange-Man-Bad’s persecution of pint-sized undocumented line-crossers. In fact, the bastard still comes in fourth behind the last three presidents in mass deportations. The modern militarization of the boarder actually started decades before Trump with another sanction-happy rapist named Bill Clinton (I believe the two may have met once or twice at one of Jeffrey Epstein’s Pretty Baby-Eyes Wide Shut Parties) which was just one small part of his fascistic war on children, the hallmark of which was his draconian Biden-approved crime bill which essentially declared black childhood to be a felony. And this is where we meet the concentration camp question.
Epstein a flight risk, should be held without bail, analyst says 1
Press TV. Listen here.
Accused child sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, is a “flight risk” particularly as he is in possession of a Saudi passport and, therefore should be held without bail, says a political commentator.
Virginia-based Keith Preston made the comments in an interview with Press TV Wednesday after a raid on the house of the American financier and close friend of President Donald Trump, who has been charged with sex trafficking underage girls.
The investigators found an expired Saudi Arabia passport and a “pile of cash” after the Monday raid.
PressTV-Did pedophile Jeffrey Epstein work for Mossad?Jeffrey Epstein’s sex scandal smacks of a sophisticated intelligence service compiling material to blackmail prominent politicians and other public figures.
“Under American law, it’s a fairly standard practice that if a person is charged with serious crimes, they will be held without bail; they will be held in detention before they go to trial,” Preston said, further calling Epstein a “flight risk.”
Being a billionaire, Epstein has “a lot of connections and support all over the world,” argued the commentator, therefore; such a case applies to him.
Preston further suggested that it is natural for such a billionaire to have Saudi ties.
PressTV-Accuser says Epstein raped her when she was 15Thirsty-two year old Jennifer Araoz has stepped forward, accusing registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein of having raped her when she was 15.
“Someone of his class, a billionaire class, is typically going to have business that they’re conducting in countries like Saudi Arabia,” he said. “The American business class and the Saudi business class are heavily and intricately connected with one another in a number of different industries, not just petroleum.”
The expired Saudi passport was found in a “locked safe” in Epstein’s Manhattan mansion.
At a bail hearing in Manhattan federal court, Assistant US Attorney Alex Rossmiller revealed that the passport, issued in the 1980s, has a photo of Epstein but a different name.
