Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Kid Berwyn
Kid Berwyn's Journal
Kid Berwyn's Journal
February 19, 2026
Anyone Against War?
Asking for a friend.
Trump is continuing a tradition started when Smedley Butler was a pup.
"Money trumps peace." -- George W Bush
I oppose a madman using the United States military as his own, personal armed gang.
February 19, 2026
The accomplice who was going to testify against Jeffrey Epstein—then went dark
by Khadeeja Safdar, Caitlin Ostroff
Wall Street Journal/MSN, February 18, 2026
Jean-Luc Brunel was ready to turn on the man who had been his patron and partner. The French modeling scout was prepared to tell prosecutors what he knew about Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking.
Brunel was secretly negotiating in 2016 with lawyers representing Epstein’s victims, according to newly released Justice Department files. Brunel’s lawyer told them his client recruited girls for Epstein and had incriminating photographs. They discussed a date for Brunel to walk into the U.S. Attorney’s office in New York—in exchange for immunity.
“One of Epstein’s bfs, Jean Luc Brunel, has helped get girls. He is wanting to cooperate,” according to handwritten notes taken by a federal prosecutor in February 2016. “Brunel is afraid of being prosecuted.”
Snip...
Epstein had discovered that negotiations with Brunel were taking place, the files show. On May 3, he fired off an email to Kathy Ruemmler, an attorney he corresponded with regularly. He wrote that Brunel was planning to go to the U.S. Attorney’s office the following week and one of Brunel’s friends had “asked for 3 million dollars so that Jean Luc would not go in.”
Epstein told Ruemmler that Brunel was afraid he would be arrested if he didn’t show up. “I want to know more,” Epstein wrote. He also dismissed Brunel’s lawyer and his friend as “scammers” and cast doubt on their credibility.
Continues...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/the-accomplice-who-was-going-to-testify-against-jeffrey-epstein-then-went-dark/ar-AA1WCNSM?ocid=BingNewsSerp
Jean Luc Brunel was going to testify against Jeffrey Epstein--then went dark (soonafter, permanently)
The accomplice who was going to testify against Jeffrey Epstein—then went dark
by Khadeeja Safdar, Caitlin Ostroff
Wall Street Journal/MSN, February 18, 2026
Jean-Luc Brunel was ready to turn on the man who had been his patron and partner. The French modeling scout was prepared to tell prosecutors what he knew about Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking.
Brunel was secretly negotiating in 2016 with lawyers representing Epstein’s victims, according to newly released Justice Department files. Brunel’s lawyer told them his client recruited girls for Epstein and had incriminating photographs. They discussed a date for Brunel to walk into the U.S. Attorney’s office in New York—in exchange for immunity.
“One of Epstein’s bfs, Jean Luc Brunel, has helped get girls. He is wanting to cooperate,” according to handwritten notes taken by a federal prosecutor in February 2016. “Brunel is afraid of being prosecuted.”
Snip...
Epstein had discovered that negotiations with Brunel were taking place, the files show. On May 3, he fired off an email to Kathy Ruemmler, an attorney he corresponded with regularly. He wrote that Brunel was planning to go to the U.S. Attorney’s office the following week and one of Brunel’s friends had “asked for 3 million dollars so that Jean Luc would not go in.”
Epstein told Ruemmler that Brunel was afraid he would be arrested if he didn’t show up. “I want to know more,” Epstein wrote. He also dismissed Brunel’s lawyer and his friend as “scammers” and cast doubt on their credibility.
Continues...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/the-accomplice-who-was-going-to-testify-against-jeffrey-epstein-then-went-dark/ar-AA1WCNSM?ocid=BingNewsSerp
February 17, 2026
“Every time my bullet fells a Nazi I have the feeling that I have saved lives. Any people who have had Nazis trampling over their land know that. For the Nazis kill children, women, old men. To let a Nazi remain alive in your land is to abet the murder of your own people. Only the dead Nazi can he trusted to leave the innocent unharmed. Every Hitlerite killed is a step forward on the road to the liberation of mankind.” — Lyudmilla Pavlichenko
ALL NAZIs deserve no less.
“Every time my bullet fells a Nazi I have the feeling that I have saved lives. Any people who have had Nazis trampling over their land know that. For the Nazis kill children, women, old men. To let a Nazi remain alive in your land is to abet the murder of your own people. Only the dead Nazi can he trusted to leave the innocent unharmed. Every Hitlerite killed is a step forward on the road to the liberation of mankind.” — Lyudmilla Pavlichenko
February 17, 2026
Epstein Files: Investigation suggests just 2% of data released to public
What Kash Patel was hoping you wouldn't see.
By Anushka Asthana
Channel 4, February 12, 2026
Analysis by Channel 4 News has identified emails within the latest Epstein files that suggest that the mountain of information released by the US Department of Justice could amount to just a fraction of the total – potentially just 2% of the information that the FBI retrieved from Epstein’s homes.
Epstein survivors have told Channel 4 News that they believe that the Trump administration has failed to meet their request to release all the files.
On another subject, I know several people at Channel 4 who know their stuff. 11 minute video here:
https://www.channel4.com/news/epstein-files-investigation-suggests-just-2-of-data-released-to-public
February 15, 2026
Pam Bondi
“President Trump — the greatest President in American history.”
“The Dow is over 50,000 right now…That's what we should be talking about!”
February 11, 2026
We All Live in Jeffrey Epstein's World
And it's not just Epstein.
We all live in Jeffrey Epstein's world
The most disturbing revelation so far
Carole Cadwalladr
How to Survive the Broligarchy, February 7, 2026
Excerpt...
It’s not just Epstein. That’s what these files reveal. Epstein is communicating with hundreds of men in these millions of pages. Men from every country and power structure: US finance, petrodollar royalty, Russian oligarchy, Hollywood, Palo Alto, Washington, Westminster. We know that more than 1,000 women and girls were trafficked and there are hundreds of Epstein survivors. As well as those who tragically didn’t survive, such as Virginia Guiffre. We must keep them front and centre, always.
Epstein was a criminal. Whether any of the men named in these files are too is not something we can know: no charges or prosecutions have been brought. But it’s not just Epstein. That’s what we now have to realise. Obsessive, pervasive sexual interest in teenage girls - and to some degree, boys - is threaded insistently through our culture.
We just choose to ignore it. We redact it. It’s a darkness that we cover with more darkness.
Are we going to reckon with that? Can we?
Continues...
https://broligarchy.substack.com/p/we-all-live-in-jeffrey-epsteins-world
Peter Thiel und Der Elon
February 9, 2026
First time Puerto Rico has been front-and-center for the USA in a long time.
From before a hurricane knocked out power for a year before FEMA and the Wall Street Penury:
A meaningful performance. The Spanish cellist Pablo Casals headlined the 1961 state dinner that the Kennedys held for Luis Muñoz Marín, the governor of Puerto Rico. Casals lived in Puerto Rico at the time because he opposed the dictatorship in Spain. One of the songs he performed, “Song of the Birds,” is a Catalan Christmas carol that, according to the Kennedy Presidential Library, symbolized Spain as well as Casals’ feelings for hope and freedom.
Source: https://stories.state.gov/dinner-is-served/dance/pablo-casals/
February 8, 2026
Could that be why Joe Manchin was so nice to conservative causes?
The sender, Ms. De Jongh, is a former First Lady of the US Virgin Islands.
https://www.elonnewsnetwork.com/article/2026/02/doj-files-reveal-jeffrey-epstein-paid-tuition-for-former-elon-university-student
Mr. Farkas co-owned a marina with Jeffrey Epstein.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/nyregion/andrew-farkas-jeffrey-epstein-marina.html
Small world made smaller by boats and much smaller by yachts.
Epstein wanted to do a favor for Sen. Joe Manchin
Could that be why Joe Manchin was so nice to conservative causes?
The sender, Ms. De Jongh, is a former First Lady of the US Virgin Islands.
https://www.elonnewsnetwork.com/article/2026/02/doj-files-reveal-jeffrey-epstein-paid-tuition-for-former-elon-university-student
Mr. Farkas co-owned a marina with Jeffrey Epstein.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/nyregion/andrew-farkas-jeffrey-epstein-marina.html
Small world made smaller by boats and much smaller by yachts.
February 8, 2026
Source: https://thehardtimes.net/blog/in-response-to-trumps-tasteless-meme-we-put-his-face-on-the-body-of-a-known-rapist-and-pedophile/
In Response to Trump's Racist Meme
We Put His Face on the Body of a Known Rapist and PedophileSource: https://thehardtimes.net/blog/in-response-to-trumps-tasteless-meme-we-put-his-face-on-the-body-of-a-known-rapist-and-pedophile/
February 7, 2026
To be fair, Tartaglione denied making the marks on Epstein’s neck when the presidents’ friend was found unresponsive in his cell the first time. Barr’s DoJ was surprised to hear the news and moved Tartaglione to another cell.
Perhaps this under-reported story is why many today think Epstein tried to kill himself.
https://yonkerstimes.com/dirty-westchester-ex-cop-is-epsteins-cell-mate/
The assignment of a violent psychopath as a cell-mate makes one wonder if Barr really had Epstein’s safety in mind. Otherwise, somebodies high up in the MAGANAZIGOP might have wanted to shut Epstein up permanently before there had been a trial, let alone a conviction.
Recently, Tartaglione told Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post that Epstein confided in him that the Feds offered Epstein a deal in exchange for dirt on Donnie Dipshit. Tartaglione added that Epstein told the Feds he barely knew Trump, that they didn’t like each other, but Dipshit was nice to females, and that he knew nothing about Trump’s politics. Right-o.
https://nypost.com/2025/01/18/us-news/feds-offered-jeffrey-epstein-a-deal-for-dirt-on-trump-ex-cellmate/
So, no mystery why Mr. Barr would think the former officer would make an ideal final cell mate for pedo poster boy Jeffrey Epstein. Seldom mentioned, of course, is how Barr's father, Donald Barr, recognized the young drop-out's potential as a teacher for the exclusive college-prep academy, The Dalton School of Manhattan.
The Ties That Bind Jeffrey Epstein, William Barr & Donald Trump
Todd Neikirk
Hill Reporter, May 19, 2019
During Attorney General, William Barr’s confirmation hearing, he was mostly peppered with questions about how he would handle the Mueller Report. Senator Ben Sasse’s (R-NE) questioning, however, diverged from the pack. Sasse asked Barr about the lenient sentence given out to billionaire pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein. The future Attorney General told Sasse that he would look into the matter.
This, however, was not the first connection between Barr and his family and the disgraced pedophile. In 1973, Barr’s father Donald, the headmaster at Manhattan’s Dalton School, hired Epstein as a calculus and physics teacher.
While hiring Epstein, a noted mathematics genius, was not strange on its face, the hire was unusual for a number of reasons. Epstein had not earned a college degree as he dropped out of New York’s prestigious Cooper Union. The other odd circumstance was that the new teacher was only 20 years of age.
Apparently, the hire was a successful one. The New Yorker wrote in a 2003 profile on Epstein, “he was something of a Robin Williams–in–Dead Poets Society type of figure, wowing his high-school classes with passionate mathematical riffs.” Epstein’s mathematical skills caught the eye of Bear Stearns’ chairman, Alan “Ace” Greenberg, whose son attended the Dalton School. Greenberg hired Epstein as an options trader and the former teacher was able to amass a fortune.
Continues....
BUSTED LINK: https://hillreporter.com/the-ties-that-bind-jeffrey-epstein-william-barr-donald-trump-34107
VIA Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20190710125505/https://hillreporter.com/the-ties-that-bind-jeffrey-epstein-william-barr-donald-trump-34107
Small world. And very, very bad.
Jeffrey Epstein Bragged Bill Barr was in Charge, Not Trump
The pedophile told Ehud Barak he had “direct knowledge” that Barr was in charge in DC, according to a new book that also claims Steve Bannon gave Epstein advice on his PR strategy.
Lachlan Cartwright
The Daily Beast, October 15, 2021
A controversial new book from the journalist Michael Wolff claims that the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein bragged that Bill Barr was the man in charge during Trump’s time in office and that the president “lets someone else be in charge, until other people realize that someone, other than him, is in charge. When that happens, you’re no longer in charge.”
The tome, Too Famous: The Rich, the Powerful, the Wishful, the Notorious and the Damned, also claims that Steve Bannon and former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak tried to help Epstein rehabilitate his image, even suggesting that he try to get favorable coverage on Rachel Maddow or 60 Minutes.
According to Wolff—who reportedly tried to buy New York Magazine with Epstein and disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein—Barak asked Epstein the million-dollar question of who was in charge at the White House. “‘What I want to know from you all-knowing people is: Who is in charge, who is,’ [Barak] said, putting on an American accent over his own often impenetrable Israeli one, ‘calling the shots?’ This was a resumption of the reliable conversation around Epstein: the ludicrousness and vagaries of Donald Trump—once among Epstein’s closest friends. ‘Here is the question every government is asking. Trump is obviously not in charge because he is—’”
Wolff claims that Epstein interrupted the former politico and called Trump—his former playboy party pal—a “moron,” then confided, “At the moment, Bill Barr is in charge.” The pedophile financier continued: “It’s Donald’s pattern...he lets someone else be in charge, until other people realize that someone, other than him, is in charge. When that happens, you’re no longer in charge.”
Barak allegedly pressed, “But let me ask you, why do you think this Barr took this job, knowing all this?”
“The motivation was simple: money,” Epstein replied. “Barr believes he’ll get a big payday out of this ... If he keeps Donald in office, manages to hold the Justice Department together, and help the Republican Party survive Donald, he thinks this is worth big money to him. I speak from direct knowledge. Extremely direct. Trust me.”
Continues...
https://www.thedailybeast.com/epstein-bragged-barr-was-in-charge-not-trump/
Why does Who's da Boss matter? It shows who Putin answers to.
A: The Carlyle Group and Friends.
Who’s Enabling Putin’s Enablers?
BY SAM PIZZIGATI
CounterPunch, March 29, 2022
Where would Vladimir Putin be without the Russian oligarchy? Without Russia’s oligarchs, political leaders of the Western world have concluded, Putin would be tottering. Western leaders have made squeezing Russia’s richest a central piece of their strategy to end Putin’s Ukraine cross-border assault.
These same Western leaders, unfortunately, have failed to take seriously what ought to be an equally pressing question: Where would Russia’s oligarchs be without the West, without the Wall Streeters, wealth managers, and assorted other high-finance riff-raff “paid millions,” as Institute for Policy Studies analyst Chuck Collins puts it, “to help billionaires sequester trillions”?
Western leaders have essentially been ignoring this question almost ever since the old Soviet Union collapsed. And now we’re paying the price. Those Ukraine sanctions against Russia’s oligarchs? They come with a huge loophole. The Western world’s opaque web of tax havens and anonymous corporations is essentially rendering much of those sanctions ineffective.
Snippe…
The U.S. wealth defense industry, we need to remember, hasn’t just been helping Russian oligarchs hide their fortunes. America’s money-handlers have for years been helping them pile up ever grander fortunes. They’ve steered the illicit funds of Russian oligarchs into U.S. real estate, investment funds, and “even factories,” says Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jake Bernstein, a senior reporter on the 2016 bombshell “Panama Papers” tax avoidance exposé.
The Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has used “a network of banks, law firms and advisers in multiple countries,” the New York Times just reported, to invest “billions in American hedge funds.” Along the way, he tapped the expertise and contacts of U.S. high-finance giants ranging from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to BlackRock and the Carlyle Group.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/29/whos-enabling-putins-enablers/
Coolio was right. This world is a gangsters' paradise. If we're smart -- and lucky -- democracy will beat these demented and perverted Z Dixie NAZI scum.
AG Bill Barr assigned psycho killer cop as Epstein's first cell mate.
Nicholas Tartaglione, Jeffrey Epstein’s first cellmate, is a hulking ex-cop-cum drug dealer then-charged, now convicted, quadruple murderer. For some reason no one in authority found confusing, Epstein said he didn't appreciate it when he woke up to find the killer ex-cop's muscle-y hands around his neck.To be fair, Tartaglione denied making the marks on Epstein’s neck when the presidents’ friend was found unresponsive in his cell the first time. Barr’s DoJ was surprised to hear the news and moved Tartaglione to another cell.
Perhaps this under-reported story is why many today think Epstein tried to kill himself.
https://yonkerstimes.com/dirty-westchester-ex-cop-is-epsteins-cell-mate/
The assignment of a violent psychopath as a cell-mate makes one wonder if Barr really had Epstein’s safety in mind. Otherwise, somebodies high up in the MAGANAZIGOP might have wanted to shut Epstein up permanently before there had been a trial, let alone a conviction.
Recently, Tartaglione told Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post that Epstein confided in him that the Feds offered Epstein a deal in exchange for dirt on Donnie Dipshit. Tartaglione added that Epstein told the Feds he barely knew Trump, that they didn’t like each other, but Dipshit was nice to females, and that he knew nothing about Trump’s politics. Right-o.
https://nypost.com/2025/01/18/us-news/feds-offered-jeffrey-epstein-a-deal-for-dirt-on-trump-ex-cellmate/
So, no mystery why Mr. Barr would think the former officer would make an ideal final cell mate for pedo poster boy Jeffrey Epstein. Seldom mentioned, of course, is how Barr's father, Donald Barr, recognized the young drop-out's potential as a teacher for the exclusive college-prep academy, The Dalton School of Manhattan.
The Ties That Bind Jeffrey Epstein, William Barr & Donald Trump
Todd Neikirk
Hill Reporter, May 19, 2019
During Attorney General, William Barr’s confirmation hearing, he was mostly peppered with questions about how he would handle the Mueller Report. Senator Ben Sasse’s (R-NE) questioning, however, diverged from the pack. Sasse asked Barr about the lenient sentence given out to billionaire pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein. The future Attorney General told Sasse that he would look into the matter.
This, however, was not the first connection between Barr and his family and the disgraced pedophile. In 1973, Barr’s father Donald, the headmaster at Manhattan’s Dalton School, hired Epstein as a calculus and physics teacher.
While hiring Epstein, a noted mathematics genius, was not strange on its face, the hire was unusual for a number of reasons. Epstein had not earned a college degree as he dropped out of New York’s prestigious Cooper Union. The other odd circumstance was that the new teacher was only 20 years of age.
Apparently, the hire was a successful one. The New Yorker wrote in a 2003 profile on Epstein, “he was something of a Robin Williams–in–Dead Poets Society type of figure, wowing his high-school classes with passionate mathematical riffs.” Epstein’s mathematical skills caught the eye of Bear Stearns’ chairman, Alan “Ace” Greenberg, whose son attended the Dalton School. Greenberg hired Epstein as an options trader and the former teacher was able to amass a fortune.
Continues....
BUSTED LINK: https://hillreporter.com/the-ties-that-bind-jeffrey-epstein-william-barr-donald-trump-34107
VIA Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20190710125505/https://hillreporter.com/the-ties-that-bind-jeffrey-epstein-william-barr-donald-trump-34107
Small world. And very, very bad.
Jeffrey Epstein Bragged Bill Barr was in Charge, Not Trump
The pedophile told Ehud Barak he had “direct knowledge” that Barr was in charge in DC, according to a new book that also claims Steve Bannon gave Epstein advice on his PR strategy.
Lachlan Cartwright
The Daily Beast, October 15, 2021
A controversial new book from the journalist Michael Wolff claims that the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein bragged that Bill Barr was the man in charge during Trump’s time in office and that the president “lets someone else be in charge, until other people realize that someone, other than him, is in charge. When that happens, you’re no longer in charge.”
The tome, Too Famous: The Rich, the Powerful, the Wishful, the Notorious and the Damned, also claims that Steve Bannon and former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak tried to help Epstein rehabilitate his image, even suggesting that he try to get favorable coverage on Rachel Maddow or 60 Minutes.
According to Wolff—who reportedly tried to buy New York Magazine with Epstein and disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein—Barak asked Epstein the million-dollar question of who was in charge at the White House. “‘What I want to know from you all-knowing people is: Who is in charge, who is,’ [Barak] said, putting on an American accent over his own often impenetrable Israeli one, ‘calling the shots?’ This was a resumption of the reliable conversation around Epstein: the ludicrousness and vagaries of Donald Trump—once among Epstein’s closest friends. ‘Here is the question every government is asking. Trump is obviously not in charge because he is—’”
Wolff claims that Epstein interrupted the former politico and called Trump—his former playboy party pal—a “moron,” then confided, “At the moment, Bill Barr is in charge.” The pedophile financier continued: “It’s Donald’s pattern...he lets someone else be in charge, until other people realize that someone, other than him, is in charge. When that happens, you’re no longer in charge.”
Barak allegedly pressed, “But let me ask you, why do you think this Barr took this job, knowing all this?”
“The motivation was simple: money,” Epstein replied. “Barr believes he’ll get a big payday out of this ... If he keeps Donald in office, manages to hold the Justice Department together, and help the Republican Party survive Donald, he thinks this is worth big money to him. I speak from direct knowledge. Extremely direct. Trust me.”
Continues...
https://www.thedailybeast.com/epstein-bragged-barr-was-in-charge-not-trump/
Why does Who's da Boss matter? It shows who Putin answers to.
A: The Carlyle Group and Friends.
Who’s Enabling Putin’s Enablers?
BY SAM PIZZIGATI
CounterPunch, March 29, 2022
Where would Vladimir Putin be without the Russian oligarchy? Without Russia’s oligarchs, political leaders of the Western world have concluded, Putin would be tottering. Western leaders have made squeezing Russia’s richest a central piece of their strategy to end Putin’s Ukraine cross-border assault.
These same Western leaders, unfortunately, have failed to take seriously what ought to be an equally pressing question: Where would Russia’s oligarchs be without the West, without the Wall Streeters, wealth managers, and assorted other high-finance riff-raff “paid millions,” as Institute for Policy Studies analyst Chuck Collins puts it, “to help billionaires sequester trillions”?
Western leaders have essentially been ignoring this question almost ever since the old Soviet Union collapsed. And now we’re paying the price. Those Ukraine sanctions against Russia’s oligarchs? They come with a huge loophole. The Western world’s opaque web of tax havens and anonymous corporations is essentially rendering much of those sanctions ineffective.
Snippe…
The U.S. wealth defense industry, we need to remember, hasn’t just been helping Russian oligarchs hide their fortunes. America’s money-handlers have for years been helping them pile up ever grander fortunes. They’ve steered the illicit funds of Russian oligarchs into U.S. real estate, investment funds, and “even factories,” says Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jake Bernstein, a senior reporter on the 2016 bombshell “Panama Papers” tax avoidance exposé.
The Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has used “a network of banks, law firms and advisers in multiple countries,” the New York Times just reported, to invest “billions in American hedge funds.” Along the way, he tapped the expertise and contacts of U.S. high-finance giants ranging from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to BlackRock and the Carlyle Group.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/03/29/whos-enabling-putins-enablers/
Coolio was right. This world is a gangsters' paradise. If we're smart -- and lucky -- democracy will beat these demented and perverted Z Dixie NAZI scum.
Profile Information
Member since: Mon May 6, 2019, 07:01 PMNumber of posts: 23,854