FBI agents livid that Trump is amplifying ‘bullshit theories’ about Jeffrey Epstein’s death ‘that have no basis in reality’

FBI agents livid that Trump is amplifying ‘bullshit theories’ about Jeffrey Epstein’s death ‘that have no basis in reality’

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Business Insider reports: “The Epstein case was hypercharged from the get-go,” one current FBI agent, who requested anonymity to freely discuss Trump’s actions, told INSIDER. “The last thing investigators need is the president of the United States fanning the flames with these bulls— theories that have no basis in reality.” Frank Montoya, Jr., a recently retired FBI special agent, characterized Trump’s actions as “crazy talk coming from no less than the President of the United States.” “This would be a…

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Inside Kashmir, cut off from the world: ‘A living hell’ of anger and fear

Inside Kashmir, cut off from the world: ‘A living hell’ of anger and fear

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The New York Times reports: On the streets of Srinagar, Kashmir’s biggest city, security officers tied black bandannas over their faces, grabbed their guns and took positions behind checkpoints. People glanced out the windows of their homes, afraid to step outside. Many were cutting back on meals and getting hungry. A sense of coiled menace hung over the locked-down city and the wider region on Saturday, a day after a huge protest erupted into clashes between Kashmiris and Indian security…

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Joe Biden’s time is up

Joe Biden’s time is up

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Henry J. Gomez reports: It can be easy to miss and hard to put your finger on, especially when Biden leads the Democratic presidential field in polling and puts on his aviator-clad frontrunner’s face. But Biden presents with a vibe of doubt. He can come across as a candidate who’s worried that he’s running out of time — and that he’s wasting yours. And he’s not always sure how to make the most of it. Sometimes Biden talks too much,…

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The international disinformation machine behind the rise of far-right nationalism

The international disinformation machine behind the rise of far-right nationalism

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The New York Times reports: [N]ativist rhetoric — that immigrants are invading the homeland — has gained ever-greater traction, and political acceptance, across the West amid dislocations wrought by vast waves of migration from the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. In its most extreme form, it is echoed in the online manifesto of the man accused of gunning down 22 people last weekend in El Paso. In the nationalists’ message-making, Sweden has become a prime cautionary tale, dripping with…

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Epstein suicide conspiracy theories: Twitter’s central role in directing the flow of disinformation

Epstein suicide conspiracy theories: Twitter’s central role in directing the flow of disinformation

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Charlie Warzel writes: Epstein’s apparent suicide is, in many ways, the post-truth nightmare scenario. The sordid story contains almost all the hallmarks of stereotypical conspiratorial fodder: child sex-trafficking, powerful global political leaders, shadowy private jet flights, billionaires whose wealth cannot be explained. As a tale of corruption, it is so deeply intertwined with our current cultural and political rot that it feels, at times, almost too on-the-nose. The Epstein saga provides ammunition for everyone, leading one researcher to refer to…

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Protecting our communities from gun violence

Protecting our communities from gun violence

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Elizabeth Warren writes: The next president has a moral obligation to use whatever executive authority she has to address the gun crisis. But it is obvious that executive action is not enough. Durable reform requires legislation — but right now legislation is impossible. Why? A virulent mix of corruption and abuse of power. Big money talks in Washington. And the NRA represents a particularly noxious example of Washington corruption at work. Over the last two decades, the NRA has spent…

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A common trait among mass killers: Hatred of women

A common trait among mass killers: Hatred of women

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The New York Times reports: A professed hatred of women is frequent among suspects in the long history of mass shootings in America. There was the massacre in 1991, when a man walked into Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, Tex., and fatally shot 22 people in what at the time was the worst mass shooting in modern United States history. The gunman had recently written a letter to his neighbors calling women in the area “vipers,” and eyewitnesses said he had…

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Norway mosque attack suspect ‘inspired by Christchurch and El Paso shootings’

Norway mosque attack suspect ‘inspired by Christchurch and El Paso shootings’

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The Guardian reports: The suspected gunman in an attack on a mosque in Norway on Saturday was inspired by recent white extremist attacks in New Zealand and the US, online posts suggest. Police in Norway have so far only said the attack in Baerum, a town 20km from Oslo, the capital, will be investigated as a possible act of terrorism. In messages posted on the day of the attack, Philip Manshaus, a 21-year-old man who has been named by local…

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White supremacist terrorism: Attacks thwarted in Florida and Nevada

White supremacist terrorism: Attacks thwarted in Florida and Nevada

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ABC News reports: A Florida white supremacist has been arrested for threatening a shooting at a Walmart just days after 22 people were killed at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in one of the worst mass shootings in the country’s modern history. Richard Clayton, 26, was arrested by Florida Department of Law Enforcement authorities on Friday in Winter Park after making an online threat last week, according to police. On Aug. 6, Clayton allegedly posted on Facebook, “3 more…

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The very idea of a united kingdom is being torn apart by toxic nationalism

The very idea of a united kingdom is being torn apart by toxic nationalism

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Former British prime minister, Gordon Brown, writes: The first step to solving a problem is to see it clearly. And if we are to understand why we are facing not only our most serious constitutional crisis since the 17th century but an unprecedented economic calamity precipitated by a no-deal exit from the EU, we must recognise that nationalism is now driving British politics. Having set almost impossible terms for any negotiation with Europe and preparing to renege on legal obligations…

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How did Jeffrey Epstein have the means and opportunity to commit suicide — if that’s how he died?

How did Jeffrey Epstein have the means and opportunity to commit suicide — if that’s how he died?

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Harry Litman writes: For anyone familiar with Bureau of Prisons standard operating procedures, Jeffrey Epstein’s apparent suicide is more than mysterious; it is unfathomable. The 66-year-old accused sex trafficker was found dead in his prison cell at the Metropolitan Correction Center (MCC) Saturday morning, apparently after having hanged himself. The Bureau of Prisons, the federal agency that runs the MCC, has said the FBI will investigate. It had better. Epstein’s death almost certainly means that astounding blunders occurred, perhaps by…

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Pope Francis again warns against nationalism, says recent speeches sound like ‘Hitler in 1934’

Pope Francis again warns against nationalism, says recent speeches sound like ‘Hitler in 1934’

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The Washington Post reports: Pope Francis called for a united Europe in an interview published by Italian daily La Stampa on Friday, saying recent political rhetoric has echoed that of Nazi Germany. “I am concerned because we hear speeches that resemble those of Hitler in 1934,” he said. “ ‘Us first. We … We … ’ These are frightening thoughts.” It is not the first time the pontiff has made such remarks, but his comments published Friday came as Italy’s…

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From heat waves to ‘eco-apartheid’: Climate change in Israel-Palestine

From heat waves to ‘eco-apartheid’: Climate change in Israel-Palestine

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Matan Kaminer, Basma Fahoum, and Edo Konrad report: July 2019 was, according to European climate researchers, the hottest month ever recorded. Coming just one year after the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its landmark report warning of an impending climate catastrophe, temperatures soared to unprecedented levels in places like Alaska and Sweden, forests incinerated in Siberia, glaciers melted in Greenland, and entire cities in India went without water. Faced with rising temperatures, addressing climate breakdown and its effects…

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Moscow opposition sees record protest turnout despite violent crackdowns

Moscow opposition sees record protest turnout despite violent crackdowns

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The Moscow Times reports: Nearly 50,000 people took to Moscow’s streets to rally for fair elections on a rainy Saturday despite weeks of heavy crackdowns, making it one of Russia’s largest protests in several years. This summer’s protest movement, which began as a standoff between opposition figures and Moscow authorities over the barring of independent candidates from an upcoming local election, has gradually gained support from citizens since it began five weeks ago. Independent polling this week said that Moscow…

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