DAVID GREENE, HOST:
All right. In recent months, the press has been digging into news about the late Jeffrey Epstein - his powerful friends and the allegations that he sexually exploited dozens of underage girls. For years, the media had paid only intermittent attention to the Epstein story until an investigative series last year in the Miami Herald. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik's story might help explain why. It includes an early-morning visit, a bullet and a dead cat.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: One morning some years ago, Vanity Fair's editor-in-chief Graydon Carter arrived at the magazine's offices in midtown Manhattan. A man was standing still by himself in the magazine's reception area behind locked glass doors. It was Epstein. John Connolly was a Vanity Fair contributing editor who reported on crime and scandal.
JOHN CONNOLLY: Jeffrey had somehow gotten into the Vanity Fair's office before Graydon one day. And he was torturing Graydon.
FOLKENFLIK: Connolly says Epstein repeatedly besieged and berated Carter then and in subsequent calls - don't report on the young women.
CONNOLLY: Jeffrey Epstein would terrorize people.
FOLKENFLIK: Vanity Fair eagerly dissected the missteps and foibles of society's elites and eagerly rubbed shoulders with them. And for years, Graydon Carter led the way on both. In 2002, Carter assigned a reporter to find out more about Jeffrey Epstein. Just who is this enigmatic financier, and why is he flying around with Bill Clinton and other celebrities? Here's that reporter, Vicky Ward.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
VICKY WARD: At the time, it was two-pronged. You know, the mystery about Jeffrey Epstein was how he had made his money.
FOLKENFLIK: Ward spoke on MORNING EDITION last month.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
WARD: It was also known that he would gather New York's rich and famous for dinner parties at his home. But there would be these very young women. The women were always part of the Jeffrey Epstein story.
FOLKENFLIK: Ward interviewed sisters Annie and Maria Farmer, as well as their mother, Janice. They accused Epstein of luring the two younger women into his world and then sexually assaulting them in the mid-1990s. Annie Farmer was a minor at the time. They also accused Epstein's then-girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, of participating in his predatory schemes. Epstein and Maxwell denied all the claims. Again, John Connolly.
CONNOLLY: Graydon made the decision not to publish about the women.
FOLKENFLIK: In March 2003, Vanity Fair did publish a piece by Ward taking a tough look at Epstein's lavish lifestyle and questioning the origins of his fortune. It did not report the Farmers' accusations. Connolly says Carter soon called to share an ominous development.
CONNOLLY: The day it came out, there was a live bullet put on Graydon's - you know, his - outside his house in Manhattan.
FOLKENFLIK: Even in the absence of any evidence Epstein was involved, Connolly tells NPR that both Carter and he considered the bullet a clear warning.
And NPR's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED offered:
A coterie of intimidating lawyers. A deployment of charm. An aura of invincibility. A five-figure donation to a New York Times reporter's favored nonprofit. A bullet delivering a message. Even, it is alleged, a cat's severed head in the front yard of the editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair.
Such were the tools the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein is said to have used to try to soften news coverage and at times stave off journalistic scrutiny altogether.
Before his death earlier this month, Epstein owned the largest townhouse in Manhattan, little more than a mile from many of the nation's leading news organizations. He counted a former and a future president among his friends. He partied with royalty and supermodels. He was said to advise billionaires.
Patrick Martin (WSWS) reports:
A prominent article published in the Washington Post Thursday exposes the systematic violation of prison rules governing the detention of multimillionaire sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein during the period immediately preceding his death on August 10.
Reporter Devlin Barrett writes: “At least eight Bureau of Prisons staffers knew that strict instructions had been given not to leave multimillionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein alone in his cell, yet the order was apparently ignored in the 24 hours leading up to his death, according to people familiar with the matter.”
His report continues: “The fact that so many prison officials were aware of the directive—not just low-level correctional officers, but supervisors and managers—has alarmed investigators assessing what so far appears to be a stunning failure to follow instructions, these people said.”
This language is quite extraordinary, suggesting that Post reporters have reason to believe that the security failure has no legitimate explanation, and may have been the result of concerted action to leave Epstein exposed and vulnerable.
The report continues, “Investigators suspect that at least some of these individuals also knew Epstein had been left alone in a cell before he died, and they are working to determine the extent of such knowledge …”
In other words, numerous prison officials, including some in authority, were aware that Epstein—on suicide watch from July 23 to July 29—was alone in a cell, in violation of rules governing at-risk prisoners. (Other press accounts claim that his cellmate was granted bail on Friday, August 9, and released from custody, leaving Epstein by himself.)
Epstein was found dead in his cell the following morning, at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, August 10. During that night, the two guards assigned to check in on him every 30 minutes did not do so. Both were said to have been asleep for some or all of that night, rather than standing watch.
The two guards reportedly falsified the logs to show that they had checked on Epstein as required, but these logs were contradicted by video evidence from a surveillance camera monitoring the hallway outside his cell.
Here's a variety of sources and outlets Tweeting about Jeffrey Epstein:
Search results
- On the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, as many as 20 correctional officers who work at the Metropolitan Correctional Center received grand jury subpoenas this past Friday.
- Convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein allegedly gave donations to places at the request of New York Times reporters This day just keeps getting worse and worse for The New York Times pic.twitter.com/p3wVIgqYTB
- Another MIT Media Lab scholar quits after lab's relationship w/ Jeffrey Epstein was exposed. @natematias was working to protect women and other vulnerable groups from online abuse and harassment. "I cannot with integrity do that from [this] place"
- Anyone using the terms “underage sex worker / prostitute” is contributing to the culture that looked the other way while Jeffrey Epstein sexually abuse minors. Anyone under 18 being bought/sold for sex = a #sextrafficking victim by law. Stop sanitizing it. Name it & intervene.
Be sure to catch Betty's ''.Diana Ross."
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Thursday, August 22, 2019. Another Democratic hopeful drops out, Israel's bombings of Iraq continue to outrage and more.
The number of people seeking the Democratic Party's presidential nomination is one person smaller.
The number of people seeking the Democratic Party's presidential nomination is one person smaller.
I know you agree that our mission to defeat climate change must continue to be central to our national discussion -- and must be the top priority for our next president. But I’ve concluded that my role in that effort will not be as a candidate to be our next president.
As disappointing as this is, it is only right to recognize what we have accomplished and how far we have come together.
The tremendous grassroots outpouring of 130,000 individual donors, from every state in the nation, is a testament to the movement that we’ve built together. We hit this high bar set by the DNC. Together, we changed and shaped the entire national dialogue around climate change.
Many of the campaigns started with little attention to climate, but since our campaign began, we’ve seen almost every serious candidate put out a climate plan; we’ve seen climate come up in both debates; and we now have two networks hosting nationally-televised climate forums.
Most importantly, we have introduced a detailed and comprehensive policy blueprint for bold climate action and transformation to a clean energy economy. We will fight to ensure this gold standard of climate action is adopted and executed by our party and our next president.
As we turn to the future, I will have more to say about what comes next for me in the days ahead. I will continue to lead, to demand bold action, and to do everything in my power to ensure the fight to defeat climate change stays at the top of the national agenda.
But for now, I want to once again thank everyone who helped in this effort. We have so much to be proud of. Make no mistake, we also have a lot more work to do.
So early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and organize. Together, we will continue the fight to defeat the climate crisis.
For those keeping track, Jay Inslee voted against the Iraq War when he was in the US Congress. Under current DNC guidelines, he's apparently ineligible for the presidential ticket. 2004's ticket was John Kerry and John Edwards -- both of whom voted for the Iraq War. 2008 and 2012 was Barack Obama and Joe Biden -- Joe voted for the Iraq War (Barack was not in the US Congress in 2002). 2016 saw Hillary garner the nomination and she voted for the Iraq War.
Jay's position was of no interest to the media. Last month''s debate saw him attempting to speak about Iraq in response to a question from Jake Tapper only to be ignored and cut off by Don Lemon. Don didn't want to talk about an ongoing war and the suffering, he preferred to waste everyone's time on a hypothetical impeachment discussion -- no one who wins the nomination, should they become president, will have any power of impeaching Donald Trump. Impeachment is a matter for the US Congress.
Jay ran a campaign based on issues. The media had no use for issues and they largely ignored him.
He was an important voice. Unlike Tulsi Gabbard, he tried to use his debate time to discuss war. He was there to discuss issues, not provide cover to War Hawk Joe Biden.
In other news, Liz Sly (WASHINGTON POST) reports:
Iranian-backed militias in Iraq
warned Wednesday that foreign aircraft flying over the country may be
treated as “hostile” amid growing suspicions that Israel is responsible
for mysterious explosions at militia bases.
The warning came in a statement
issued by Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, the deputy commander of the powerful
coalition of Shiite Muslim militias known as Hashd al-Shaabi, or Popular
Mobilization Forces (PMF), which includes paramilitary groups that owe
allegiance to Iran.
The statement blamed Israeli
drones for four big blasts at militia bases over the past month, all of
them at warehouses storing ammunition and weapons, and accused the U.S.
military of aiding the strikes by allowing Israel to use U.S. bases in
Iraq.
“We have informed the Joint
Operations Command that we will regard any foreign aircraft flying over
our headquarters without the knowledge of the Iraqi government as
hostile, and will deal with it accordingly,” the statement said.
Israel has apparently been bombing Iraq for some tie now. Peter Beaumont (GUARDIAN) adds:The claim came after the findings of an Iraqi government inquiry into the huge blast at the facility of the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) were leaked.
A spokesman for the PMF said it had intelligence that showed the US had brought in four Israeli drones earlier this year to work as part of the US fleet in Iraq and target militia positions in the country.
Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis said the PMF would from now on use “all means at its disposal to deter and prevent such attacks on our positions”.
Last week, Iraq made a move that surprised some.
Ken Hanly (DIGITAL JOURNAL) reported, "The US-led coalition in Iraq has issued a statement indicating that they
intend to comply with demands from the PM Adel AbdulMahdi respecting
the use of Iraqi airspace for US warplanes." Meghann Myers (MILITARY TIMES) explained:
KURDISTAN 24 added,"The orders came after rumors spread on the Iraqi social media networks with some activists claiming the explosion in the militia’s munitions warehouse was in the result of an air attack by an Israeli fighter jet. Multiple Iraqi officials made the same claim." Israeli government sources (unnamed) have claimed to the Israeli press that the government was responsible for two bombings of Iraq awhile ago. From the June 30th snapshot:
How is this not an act of war?
Israel has expanded its operations against Iranian targets to Iraq, where Air Force jets have struck twice in ten days, a report said Tuesday morning.
Israel commonly conducts strikes in Syrian territory, targeting Iranian missile shipments meant for Lebanese terror group Hezbollah to use against the Jewish state, but strikes in Iraq by Israel have not been reported since the 1981 bombing of a nuclear reactor.
That's from Michael Bachner's report for THE TIMES OF ISRAEL.
Repeating: How is this not an act of war?
What if it was the US that was bombed?
Let's use Recep Tayyip Erdogan as an example because on his visit to the US he had his goons attack peaceful protesters -- and by the way, Barack Obama was president and refused to condemn that publicly. But Recep decides peaceful protesters are terrorists so he decides to send Turkish war planes over Baltimore to bomb the city.
We would rightly see that as an act of war.
How is this any different?
Tzvi Joffre and Anna Ahronheim (THE JERUSALEM POST) add:
Again, if Turkey did that to the US, we would rightly see it as an act of war. The only way we wouldn't see it as such would be if we learned that whomever our sitting president at the time was, that the sitting president had given an okay for the operation.
So that's really the first question to be asking right now.
Did the Iraqi government give permission?
We know the Parliament didn't. Allowing Israel to drop bombs on Iraq would be a very unpopular position in Iraq. Anyone known to have supported it would not only have trouble being re-elected, they might be targeted with violence. More to the point, though, the body is too large to keep a secret so if the Parliament signed off on it, it would have been known before the attack took place.
So did the leadership sign off on the attack? That would be the prime minister -- who has the actual power -- and the president. The presidential post is supposed to be a ceremonial one with no real powers to speak of. But Barham Salih has gone out of his way to grab powers and the US press, mirroring the US State Dept's position, has gone out of their way to treat him like a leader of the country. Adil Abdul-Mahdi is the prime minister. He's the only one who should have had the power for the okay (if Parliament's approval was not sought, he's the only one who could have given permission).
So the recent attack on the munitions warehouse is the third attack that the Israeli government is suspected of having carried out. These attacks are likely the reason for the prime minister addressing the issue of Iraqi air space -- finally addressing.
The notion that Israel is bombing Iraq has outraged the Iraqi people (as well as their neighbors).
U.S. military officials in Iraq
will now seek out Iraqi approval before launching any air operations, a
move made a day after that nation’s prime minister announced a ban of
unauthorized flights, including those involving coalition forces fighting ISIS.
Top leaders with Operation Inherent Resolve,
the joint task force leading anti-ISIS efforts in the country, have met
with Iraqi defense officials to discuss the mandate to have every
helicopter, unmanned aerial vehicle and fighter aircraft launch
pre-approved, according to a Friday release from the Pentagon.
“As guests within Iraq’s sovereign borders, CJTF-OIR complies with all
Iraqi laws and direction from the Government of Iraq,” the release said.
“The U.S.-led coalition immediately complied with all directions
received from our Iraqi partners as they implemented the Prime
Minister’s order.”
KURDISTAN 24 added,"The orders came after rumors spread on the Iraqi social media networks with some activists claiming the explosion in the militia’s munitions warehouse was in the result of an air attack by an Israeli fighter jet. Multiple Iraqi officials made the same claim." Israeli government sources (unnamed) have claimed to the Israeli press that the government was responsible for two bombings of Iraq awhile ago. From the June 30th snapshot:
How is this not an act of war?
Israel has expanded its operations against Iranian targets to Iraq, where Air Force jets have struck twice in ten days, a report said Tuesday morning.
Israel commonly conducts strikes in Syrian territory, targeting Iranian missile shipments meant for Lebanese terror group Hezbollah to use against the Jewish state, but strikes in Iraq by Israel have not been reported since the 1981 bombing of a nuclear reactor.
That's from Michael Bachner's report for THE TIMES OF ISRAEL.
Repeating: How is this not an act of war?
What if it was the US that was bombed?
Let's use Recep Tayyip Erdogan as an example because on his visit to the US he had his goons attack peaceful protesters -- and by the way, Barack Obama was president and refused to condemn that publicly. But Recep decides peaceful protesters are terrorists so he decides to send Turkish war planes over Baltimore to bomb the city.
We would rightly see that as an act of war.
How is this any different?
Tzvi Joffre and Anna Ahronheim (THE JERUSALEM POST) add:
Israel used their F-35i stealth fighter jets to conduct attacks on
Iranian targets to Iraq in the past month, hitting two Iraqi bases used
by Iranian forces and proxies and storing Iranian ballistic missiles,
the London-based Saudi daily Al Sharq Al Awsat reported on Tuesday.
The first attack
happened on July 19 at a base in Amreli in the Saladin province of
Iraq. Iraqi and Iranian sources blamed Israel at the time, and Al Sharq
Al Awsat reported that "diplomatic sources" confirmed this to be true,
specifying that the attack was carried out by an Israeli F-35.
Al-Arabiya reported that Iranian-made ballistic missiles were
transported to the base shortly before the attack via trucks used to
transport refrigerated food. The identity of the aircraft which
conducted the attack was unspecified at the time, and the US denied any
involvement. Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah members were
killed in the air strike, according to Al-Arabiya, however the
Iranian-backed al-Hashd ash-Sha'abi (Popular Mobilization Forces - PMF) denied that any Iranians had been killed in the attack, according to Fars.
Again, if Turkey did that to the US, we would rightly see it as an act of war. The only way we wouldn't see it as such would be if we learned that whomever our sitting president at the time was, that the sitting president had given an okay for the operation.
So that's really the first question to be asking right now.
Did the Iraqi government give permission?
We know the Parliament didn't. Allowing Israel to drop bombs on Iraq would be a very unpopular position in Iraq. Anyone known to have supported it would not only have trouble being re-elected, they might be targeted with violence. More to the point, though, the body is too large to keep a secret so if the Parliament signed off on it, it would have been known before the attack took place.
So did the leadership sign off on the attack? That would be the prime minister -- who has the actual power -- and the president. The presidential post is supposed to be a ceremonial one with no real powers to speak of. But Barham Salih has gone out of his way to grab powers and the US press, mirroring the US State Dept's position, has gone out of their way to treat him like a leader of the country. Adil Abdul-Mahdi is the prime minister. He's the only one who should have had the power for the okay (if Parliament's approval was not sought, he's the only one who could have given permission).
So the recent attack on the munitions warehouse is the third attack that the Israeli government is suspected of having carried out. These attacks are likely the reason for the prime minister addressing the issue of Iraqi air space -- finally addressing.
The notion that Israel is bombing Iraq has outraged the Iraqi people (as well as their neighbors).
Meanwhile in news of hysterics . . .
This is no longer funny. Danish troops fought alongside the US in Afghanistan and Iraq. 50 Danes died. The president dishonors the alliance and their sacrifice. On the same day he sought to appease Putin by supporting his return to the G8.
Clutch the pearls, Tom, with your anus. Nothing the president has in the Tweet you reposted is worth gasping over. And you're the one who is "no longer funny" as you try to use the illegal Iraq War to prop up your stupid argument because you're too inept to argue policy. This has nothing to do with the ongoing Iraq War. This has nothing to do with X number of people killed -- or when! You trot out Iraq to use as a prop, you try to silence a serious conversation by hiding behind that topic but otherwise you ignore the ongoing suffering in Iraq, ,the ongoing war.
You're pathetic. I don't expect much from Donald Trump -- I didn't vote for him. But right now, I'm more appalled by you than by his Tweet. You have serious issues and you actually are a menace to honest and free debate.
The following sites updated:
