Jeffrey Epstein's Wikipedia Page Stealth-Edited To Remove Ties To Democrats -
On Sunday, the sentence “Epstein flew Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey, and Chris Tucker to Africa in his private jet. Flight records show Bill Clinton flew on Epstein’s plane 26 times” (a charge Clinton denied on Monday, claiming it was only four times).
A reference to having ‘attended parties’ with Donald Trump was left untouched.
And as Steve Straub of the Federalist Papers points out, “This comes after Christine Pelosi, Daughter of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and a top official with the Democratic National Committee (DNC), sounded the alarm over the weekend arrest of Jeffrey Epstein on sex trafficking charges. Pelosi speculated that ”some of our faves“ may be indicted in the wake of Epstein’s arrest, the Daily Mail reports.”
Epstein was hauled into court Monday after his Saturday arrest, where prosecutors revealed that they found nude photos of underage girls during a raid on his Manhattan home. He has pleaded not guilty, while his attorneys have argued that Epstein has immunity under a 2008 plea agreement in which he admitted to procuring a person under 18 for prostitution and felony solicitation of prostitution, serving just 13 months in a Florida state prison after cutting a sweetheart deal with current labor secretary, and then US Attorney, Alex Acosta.
In court on Monday, attorneys for the billionaire argued that the case was “essentially a do-over” on “ancient stuff.”
According to various reports the Miami Herald - which police used in their investigation, Epstein has victimized around 60 girls between his residences in Florida and New York. His next court appearance is Thursday.
(via shad0ww0rdpain)
[video]
(via shad0ww0rdpain)
Lions and tigers are being born with painful deformities caused by inbreeding at industrial-style centres that harvest their body parts for a growing trade in traditional Asian “medicine”, investigators have revealed.
Big cats have been found with abnormalities to their faces, feet and legs, and may also suffer sight, hearing, breathing and chewing problems, a major report says.
The animals are among the thousands cooped up in tiny enclosures likened to factory farms, to be killed for their body parts, which are boiled or chopped up to make tiger bone wine and remedies for conditions from arthritis to meningitis, the document exposes.
The first ever global study of the Chinese “medicine” supply chain lays bare how faith in unproven treatments is directly causing captive big cats to suffer on a huge scale and threatening their existence in the wild.
Increasingly wealthy populations in China and Vietnam are driving up demand for “traditional medicine” products, the report says – and as the wild tiger is driven to extinction, so lions, jaguar and leopards are also being killed to supplement supplies.
People believe remedies made from big cats can treat conditions such as arthritis and rheumatism, promote strength and increase sexual vigour.
A majority of those questioned in both countries prefer the animals to come from the wild rather than farmed, believing the products are more effective, according to World Animal Protection (WAP), which produced the report.
The investigators also found “harrowing evidence” that inbreeding and breeding at speed leaves some animals with painful health problems including deformities, and they may also suffer sight, hearing, breathing and chewing problems.
China has up to 6,000 tigers awaiting slaughter, South Africa up to 8,000 lions, and Thailand 1,500 tigers. Laos and Vietnam both also farm lions and tigers, the charity says.
The big cats are either snatched from their mothers in the wild or are born at breeding facilities – an increasing trend as demand for tiger products has risen in recent years.
(via shad0ww0rdpain)
I hope Jeffrey Epstein sings like a bird. And if some Democrats go down, so be it -
I hope Jeffrey Epstein sings like a bird.
The wealthy and well-connected financier and registered sex offender was arrested this week in New York on accusations of child sex trafficking. He just may bring a lot of bad men – and a few bad women – down with him.
Epstein allegedly groomed and recruited dozens of underage girls, many of them vulnerable runaways, for sex with him and his friends. Despite being caught by authorities, Epstein has largely evaded serious punishment. Thanks to heroic reporting by Julie K Brown at the Miami Herald, Americans learned that back in 2008, Epstein was given an exceptionally favorable plea deal by then-prosecutor Alex Acosta – now Trump’s secretary of labor. The deal was shamefully hidden from Epstein’s victims, and while it forced Epstein to register as a sex offender, it allowed him near-total freedom for the 13 months he was technically in jail – he was allowed to leave the facility to work in his luxurious private office instead of serving life in prison.
It’s unclear why Epstein was given such favorable treatment. But given who his friends are, speculation has run rampant that his powerful connections (and the potential wrongdoings of other powerful men) may have had a hand in keeping him in relative freedom.
Epstein’s friends and contacts include President Donald Trump, President Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, and high-powered attorney Alan Dershowitz, among many others. In 2002, Trump characterized Epstein as a “terrific guy” who enjoyed the company of girls “on the younger side.”
In the immediate aftermath of Epstein’s arrest, Twitter exploded with political gotchas. On the right, it’s near-gospel that President Bill Clinton and Epstein are jet-setting pals, and that Clinton is at best complicit and at worst a participant in Epstein’s sex crimes. (We know Clinton used Epstein’s private jet for work related to the Clinton Foundation; according to Clinton, they were always accompanied by Secret Service agents or Clinton Foundation staff.)
On the left, Trump opponents wonder if the president was ever a participant in Epstein’s sexual crimes. Trump was at one point accused by a young woman of raping her at Epstein’s New York home when she was 13; the lawsuit in which those accusations were made was withdrawn by the accuser. We also know that Trump and Epstein socialized, that Trump’s various phone numbers were written in Epstein’s notorious little black book, and that Epstein was once asked whether he had ever been around Trump and underage girls – and he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
This is not a story in which anyone should find satisfaction. Dozens of vulnerable girls were allegedly sexually exploited and abused by Jeffrey Epstein. A great many adults, who should have done the right thing and stood up for these children, chose to look the other way. A few may have even participated in exploitation and rape.
“I hope Jeffrey Epstein sings like a bird. And if some Democrats go down, so be it
Holding people accountable for abusing girls should be nonpartisan. Sadly, in the Trump era of lowered expectations, we can’t count on that”
David Attenborough says it's 'extraordinary' climate deniers are in power in Australia -
David Attenborough has highlighted Australia as an “extraordinary” example of a country where people in power remained climate change deniers despite the country facing some of the worst effects of global heating.
Appearing before the UK parliament’s business, energy and industrial strategy committee on how to tackle the climate emergency, the celebrated broadcaster and natural historian was asked about claims people were overreacting to the threat of a climate emergency.
He replied: “I am sorry that there are people who are in power … notably, of course, [in] the United States but also in Australia [who are climate change deniers], which is extraordinary because Australia is already facing having to deal with some of the most extreme manifestations of climate change.
“Both [in] Australia and America, those voices are clearly heard and one hopes that the electorate will actually respond to those.”
Asked to recall his most vivid impressions of humans’ impact on the planet, Attenborough said it was returning to the Great Barrier Reef, where he had first dived in the 1950s.
“I will never forget diving on the reef about 10 years ago and suddenly seeing that instead of this multitude of wonderful forms and life that it was stark white. It had bleached white because of the rising temperatures and the increasing acidity of the sea,” he said.
Attenborough said radical action was needed to tackle the climate emergency – “we cannot be radical enough” – but also called for pragmatism in working out what was possible and how best to convince the public of the need for change.
He said he did not think opposing voices should be suppressed. “It’s very, very important that voices of dissent should have a place where they’re heard and the arguments between the two sides can be worked out in public, and compared and analysed in public,” he said.
He found reason for optimism among young people who were “already making themselves and their voices very, very clear”.
“I’m OK, and all of us here are OK, because we don’t face the problems that are coming. But the problems in the next 30 years are really major problems that are going to cause social unrest, and great changes in the way that we live and what we eat. It’s going to happen.”
Attenborough recently presented a primetime BBC documentary, Climate Change – The Facts, which was watched live by almost 3 million people in the UK. It is yet to be shown in Australia.
(via shad0ww0rdpain)
Former Tesla workers claim they were fired for using maternity and sick leave -
In February 2018, Devon Beccera started working at the Tesla Giga factory in Sparks, Nevada. A few months into her employment she was promoted to supervisor , making about $25 an hour. She found out in July that year that she was pregnant, and informed management she planned on taking maternity leave in February, 2019, once she became eligible.
Instead, on 14 December 2018, Beccera was fired.
“Nevada is a right-to-work state, so they didn’t need any sort of reason for firing me, but it was very convenient to fire me two weeks before Christmas, and about 50 days before my maternity leave started,” she said.
It meant that 28 weeks into her pregnancy, Beccera lost her medical insurance and only source of income, as her husband was a stay-at-home dad. They later struggled to pay for diapers and other essentials for their newborn.
A Tesla spokesperson said Beccera’s termination was due to performance issues.
Over the past few years, Tesla has faced numerous lawsuits, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) charges and allegations that have included unfair firings, union busting, and a work atmosphere that enabled racial discrimination and sexual harassment. In March, an NLRB settlement mandated Tesla post flyers that affirmed workers’ rights to organize at their Fremont, California plant. A few months later, workers at Tesla’s Buffalo, New York plant filed federal labor charges accusing Tesla of firing workers for union organizing.
Now a Guardian investigation has revealed numerous cases where former workers claim they were unfairly fired and current workers allege threats of termination and disciplinary action for taking sick days.
Jennifer Peercy worked at Tesla as a customer care agent in Las Vegas, Nevada, since August 2018. A mother of four and more than five months into her pregnancy, her colleagues offered her their own time off to help with childcare. But Tesla management told her the time wasn’t transferable between employees. She stopped taking it, but was fired two weeks later for doing so.
“If I knew that, I never would have taken it,” Peercy said. “I’m 22 weeks pregnant without a job or income and four girls to care for.”
She’s currently applying for unemployment and looking for jobs while still hoping to return to Tesla . Peercy provided the Guardian with her termination letter and an email she sent the chief executive officer, Elon Musk, which resulted in another follow-up from an HR staffer who reaffirmed her termination.
(via shad0ww0rdpain)
HPV vaccine for boys 'will prevent thousands of cancers' -
The boys will be eligible from the start of the new school year, 11 years after girls were first vaccinated.
The jab protects against human papilloma virus, which causes many oral, throat and anal cancers.
One man, Jamie Rae, says he went “to hell and back” during his treatment for throat cancer caused by the virus.
“All the things you enjoy are gone. I couldn’t speak or eat for months afterwards, and I was just skeletal by the end of it,” he says.
‘I was left with no saliva to eat’
Jamie, from Falkirk, had never heard of HPV when he found a small, disc-shaped lump growing in his neck.
After being diagnosed with oropharyngeal cancer in 2010, aged 44, he had a tonsillectomy and then six weeks of chemotherapy and six of radiotherapy.
He needed therapy to retrain his muscles so he could talk again - and he was left with very little saliva, making eating and even drinking water a real challenge.
All that took its toll, Jamie says.
“I became very depressed and it was two years before I started to feel normal again.”
At that point he set up a foundation to raise awareness of the virus that had caused him so much pain.
How do boys get the vaccine?
Boys aged 12 and 13 in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, along with boys aged 11 and 12 in high schools in Scotland, will be offered the vaccine in secondary schools from the start of the next school term.
Because health policy is devolved in the UK, timings and arrangements will vary slightly across the different nations.
Girls aged 12 to 13 have been offered the HPV vaccine since 2008 in the UK.
Two doses are needed to be fully protected. Protection lasts for at least 10 years, although probably much longer.
(via shad0ww0rdpain)
(via shad0ww0rdpain)
[video]