Author: VD

Epstein arrested for sex trafficking

One hopes that this time there will be a full and proper investigation into the man’s nefarious activities and connections. As well as (((Epstein’s))) island.

Billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was arrested for allegedly sex trafficking dozens of minors in New York and Florida between 2002 and 2005, and will appear in court in New York on Monday, according to three law enforcement sources. The arrest, by the FBI-NYPD Crimes Against Children Task Force, comes about 12 years after the 66-year-old financier essentially got a slap on the wrist for allegedly molesting dozens of underage girls in Florida.

For more than a decade, Epstein’s alleged abuse of minors has been the subject of lawsuits brought by victims, investigations by local and federal authorities, and exposés in the press. But despite the attention cast on his alleged sex crimes, the hedge-funder has managed to avoid any meaningful jail time, let alone federal charges.

The new indictment—which, according to two sources, will be unsealed Monday in Manhattan federal court—will reportedly allege that Epstein sexually exploited dozens of underage girls in a now-familiar scheme: paying them cash for “massages” and then molesting or sexually abusing them in his Upper East Side mansion or his palatial residence in Palm Beach. Epstein will be charged with one count of sex trafficking of minors and one count of conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of minors—which could put him away for a maximum of 45 years. The case is being handled by the Public Corruption Unit of the Southern District of New York, with assistance from the district’s human-trafficking officials and the FBI.

Mike Cernovich always gets his man….

Do keep up, evangelicals

Even rabbis are publicly teaching that there is no longer a covenant between the Jewish nation and the God of the Old Testament.

At the synagogue where I belong, Shaarey Zedek Congregation in suburban Detroit, Rabbi Aaron Starr  sermonized on Shavuot  that there no longer is a Covenant between the Jews and their God.

He quoted Richard Rubenstein, author of Beyond Auschwitz, who wrote: “I believe the greatest single challenge to modern Judaism arises out of the question of God and the death camps.  I believe that our problem is how to speak of religion in an age of no God.”

He also quoted Rabbi Irving (Yitz) Greenberg, who wrote: “What then happened to the covenant?  I submit that its authority was broken.”

That settles that, then. But I’m pretty sure that particular covenant was broken a long time before Auschwitz.

The hypocritic bankruptcy of neoliberalism

Who do the British neoliberals think they are fooling when they hypocritically condemn China for insufficiently respecting democracy in Hong Kong?

The UK has been accused of brazen hypocrisy after raising concerns about the state of democracy and human rights in Hong Kong, a former British colony once ruled by unelected colonial governors. Beijing denounced British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt as “shameless,” after Hunt declared that the UK would “stand behind the people of Hong Kong in defense of [their] freedoms” amid protests over a controversial extradition law with China.

The British haven’t always been so concerned about “protecting democracy” in Hong Kong, however. Before the city was handed over to China in 1997, Hong Kong was a British colony and administered by an unelected, and always British, governor.

The glaring double-standard is clearly hypocritical, former US diplomat Jim Jatras told RT.

I’m sad to say that not only the British but the American and most other Western governments – ‘hypocrisy’ should be part of the official title of how they conduct their affairs, how they deal with human rights issues at home, and then how they will use any pretext to support things like color revolutions.

The British are currently ruled by the unelected European Commission and they never allowed elections in Hong Kong while they ruled it. Why on Earth should China, or anyone else, pay any attention to their pious virtue-signaling now?

Chuck Dixon’s Avalon #4

Chuck Dixon’s Avalon #4: Hit Charade

The streets of Avalon are a hard place, even for superheroes. But while King Ace’s new employers at the SPC are busy trying to track down the mysterious female vigilante who is assassinating politicians in broad daylight, Fazer’s new friends are helping him escape from the high-tech security cells meant to hold even the strongest superhumans. Fazer is more than happy to get free of his electroshock collar and out of prison, until he learns to his dismay that his new friends may be even more cruel and ruthless than the SPC.

And to make matters worse, the very worst of them appears to harbor ambitions that have led him into the lair of the most powerful gang leader in Avalon.

Chuck Dixon is the most prolific comic book writer in history. Set in the world of Alt★Hero, CHUCK DIXON’S AVALON is the legend’s newest creation. Chuck Dixon’s Avalon #4: Hit Charade is now available in CBZ and Kindle formats at Arkhaven Comics. Kindle edition also available at Amazon should you care to Look Inside.

Speaking of Alt-Hero, we are very close to shipping out the Volume 1 omnibuses that collect AH 1-6. If you are a backer of either the Volume 1 paperback or the hardcover and your address has changed since October 2017, please email me with VOL1 in the subject line. Include both your previous address and your new address, as well as your backer number. This is in reference to the original campaign, NOT the AH:Q campaign. Please do this even if you think you emailed me previously; better safe than sorry.

A charade of justice

Tommy Robinson is found guilty of contempt of court:

Tommy Robinson could be sent back to jail after he was again found in contempt of court today. Robinson was found to have broken the law by ‘aggressively confronting and filming’ defendants in a criminal trial and posting the footage on social media, in breach of a reporting ban, outside Leeds Crown Court in May 2018.

Following a long-running legal back-and-forth, the case was settled at the Old Bailey today, where a large crowd of Robinson’s fans turned nasty after the verdict.

As news of the judges’ ruling trickled through, a group of his supporters ran at barriers sectioning off police from the public, throwing missiles and chanting ‘shame on you’.

Robinson was previously jailed for the offence, but freed on appeal.

He’ll now have to wait to see whether he’ll be sent back to prison or be allowed to keep his freedom having already served two months of a 13-month sentence.

Today’s verdict means Robinson will return to prison if he is given a sentence of four months or more when he returns to court later this month. Anything less than that and he will have already served half the custodial period.

This strikes me as more gatekeeping kabuki than anything else. Tommy Robinson is clearly not a genuine nationalist or someone I would consider it meaningful to support. He’s very nearly as neoclownish as Jordan Peterson.

No tax for young workers

Poland is getting serious about shutting down labor mobility:

Polish lawmakers have approved a measure that would exonerate most workers under the age of 26 from income taxes as the country seeks to stem the flow of its young people to other EU nations in search of better paying jobs.

The lower house of parliament approved the measure introduced by the ruling conservatives in a vote late Thursday by an overwhelming majority.

The bill would exonerate workers under the age of 26 from Poland’s 18 percent personal income tax for those whose gross earnings don’t surpass 85,500 zlotys (20,000 euros, $22,500) per year.

That level is higher than Poland’s average income, estimated to be around 60,000 zlotys per year before tax.

The approval of the measure by the upper house of parliament and its signature by the president is widely expected.

Some two million people could benefit from the measure, according to supporters of the legislation, which should enter into force from August 1.

Despite the inevitable whining from the Open Borders crowd, it’s a great idea. Now they should do something similar for married couples with children. Incentivize the behavior that benefits the nation. De-incentivize the behavior that harms the nation.

It’s not a difficult concept.

REBEL’S RUN on BIC

Bounding Into Comics covers our recent announcement of REBEL’S RUN:

“I was contacted by an experienced producer.” He added, “Then I got contacted by first one producer then I got contacted by other people. Which puzzled me because we’ve published over a hundred books and nobody from the movie industry or TV industry has ever contacted us.”

Vox adds, “I was very curious about this and finally the smartest of the producers that had contacted me said, ‘Well, you have to understand, nobody in Hollywood reads.’”

He went on to praise the level of talent that is part of the film, “The level of talent that is taking in part in this, whether its with Chuck Dixon being the lead scriptwriter…we’ve got a great script, you can see from the trailer, the director, Scooter, has a really great visual eye. We are going to bring so many very strong elements to the table that I think that people are going to be really surprised at the final result.” He continues, “We are actually aiming for one of the best movie soundtracks. I want a soundtrack that is going to stand up against the Matrix, Mortal Kombat Annihilation…”

The third soundtrack I couldn’t recall during the stream, and which I consider to be a model along with the others, is Cool World. You might also be interested in last night’s Darkstream on the subject, during which I addressed a number of questions that have been raised, such as if Rebel is just another Strong Independent Woman who Knows Kung-fu and Doesn’t Need a Man to Save Her.

Warmongers against war

Are you beginning to understand how the neoclown gatekeeper strategy works yet?

There’s a new “anti-war” think tank coming to town. It will promote a new US foreign policy — one based on diplomacy instead of sanctions and war. Sounds great, until you hear it’s being funded by Soros and Koch.

The ‘Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft’ will oppose Washington’s “endless wars” and will “challenge the basis of American foreign policy in a way that has not been done in at least the last quarter-century,” according to co-founder Trita Parsi.

With financier George Soros coming from the left (though he’s hardly a real leftist) and industrialist Charles Koch coming from the right, everyone is supposed to applaud the bipartisan nature of the initiative. The Boston Globe called it “one of the most remarkable partnerships in modern American political history” as though the two billionaire businessmen come from alternate universes.

Named after John Quincy Adams, who declared in 1821 that the US “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy” but is the “well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all” and the “champion and vindicator only of her own,” the think tank will offer a platform to both progressive voices and anti-interventionist conservatives.

The Globe writes that this will mean its writers will “likely” advocate for things like pulling US troops out of Afghanistan and Syria, putting an end to regime change wars and “less confrontational” policies toward China and Russia. The problem here is not the concept. It’s just a question of whether or not the venture can actually be taken seriously when Soros and Koch’s fingerprints are already all over the world’s current endless wars, conflicts and regime changes.

Take some well-known Soros-funded think tanks; the Center for American Progress and the Atlantic Council, for example. They haven’t exactly been the biggest peace-pushers in the think tank world. The AC also received funding from a slew of arms manufacturers, so you’d be hard-pressed to find any anti-war sentiment there. Soros has also been linked to the “pro-democracy” European group Avaaz, which has advocated for no-fly zones in Libya and agitated for regime change in Venezuela and Iran.

Koch too has been linked to havoc-wreaking policies everywhere from Iraq to Venezuela. Despite supposedly opposing the Iraq war, independent journalist Caitlin Johnstone notes that Koch has been a major donor to the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, whose members are considered leading architects of the invasion.

This new think tank is as fake as the Edmund Burke Center for National Conservativism or whatever the neoclowns’ latest charade is called. It’s neoclowns from top to bottom and they’re attempting to subvert the opposition to neoclown warmongering by taking control of the opposition to imperialist warfare. National Review and the modern conservative movement are the model; the plutocrats provide lavish funding for a false front organization that is designed to vacuum up all the minds, money, and media that might otherwise go to the genuine opposition.

“The Quincy Institute opposes wars of no purpose that drag on endlessly.”

Wars of reasonable duration that aim at destroying any nation that the neoclowns don’t like, on the other hand, are just peachy.

She blames Scalzi

And rightly so. A fanzine author realizes who was always to blame for the destruction of the Hugo.

So fuck John Scalzi anyway.

Fuck his sense of entitlement. Fuck his arrogant, unilateral “fix” of things he didn’t understand, which weren’t actually broken to begin with. Fuck his self-promoting crusade to prove that a merely world-famous, best-selling professional author with an international following of devoted groupies, whose “fan writing” blog is devoted to the ideas and concerns of professional SF authors qua pro authors, and whose grasp of what a fan writer is came by way of the modern equivalent of reading it off a cereal box, can still drum up enough ignorant first-time voters to win himself a Best Fan Writer Hugo because gosh darn it, people like him. And the rules didn’t explicitly say he couldn’t. And because he tapes bacon to cats, I guess. Woo….

So as far as I can see, John Scalzi created the blueprint: providing both proof of concept and implicit permission for the Sad and Rabid Puppy ballot stuffing campaigns. The fact that they didn’t also win the rockets suggests to me that they weren’t as good at marketing (and were aiming at some rather tougher nuts to crack, in voting number terms – Scalzi was sharp enough to notice that the fan categories had long been low hanging fruit for wrangling a short list nomination), but what they did wasn’t materially or morally different from what John Scalzi did. Neither one violated the letter of the law, and both dismissed or ignored the spirit. If the actions of the Puppies were blameworthy, so were those of John Scalzi.

If what he did was okay within the rules and therefore okay, then so were the Puppy campaigns. The fact that John Scalzi is a funny, likable guy who tapes bacon to cats doesn’t change the moral quality of his actions, it just distracted a bunch of people from noticing it. Think of him as the Daenerys Targaryen of burning the Hugos to the ground, if you like – the Mother of Dingbats.

She’s correct. John Scalzi was absolutely the inspiration for the Sad Puppies, although he wasn’t the only one. It was the entire Tor Cabal, scheming and plotting to win as many awards as possible, then waving them in the face of better, better-selling authors like Larry Correia, that made it clear that the awards were no longer anything but a popularity contest.

Larry proved his case with the first Sad Puppies campaign; all the subsequent Puppies campaigns were intended to do was to underline for the entire world his original point that the awards no longer had anything to do with literary quality in the science fiction genre. And the Rapid Puppies in particular succeeded in doing that to perfection; literally no one takes the Hugo seriously as a statement on literature anymore now that Space Raptor Butt Invasion, Stix Hiscock, and N.K. Jemisin have permanently stained what was once a substantive award.