"Exposing jeffrey epstein's Sex Trafficking Empire" 60 Minutes Australia

I just ran across the video on youtube while watching the 30 minute 2018 BBC doc "trump-is the president a sex pest?" that aired just before the sexual-predator-in-chief's vulgar visit. The Australian doc features an interview with Virginia Giuffre.

DFW's post on Costa Rica reminded me, has anyone heard from Lake Arenal?

The last post was July 24 2025, and one rec several days later.

Today marks the FOURTH anniversary of putin's full scale, lllegal, unjust

war on Ukraine. His three-day "special military operation" has now entered its fifth year. And the brave people of Ukraine persist, despite putin's putrid puppet.

SMO:`1,461 days. 2014 invasion/occupation: 4,394.

SLAVA UKRAINI!!! HEROYAM SLAVA!!!

JFC!!! INTERLOCHEN??? NPR "All Things Considered" epstein and

maxwell used Interlochen Arts as one of their earliest recruiting grounds. (sorrry, I cannot link, but go to npr.org). Apparently, epstein at about age 14 was a student there, and later used his status as a donor to gain access to some of his victims.

'The Moral Property of Women': Mifepristone, Fibroids and the Stakes of Suppressed Science

(AND THE MISOGYNIST, PATRIARCHAL, CHRISTOFASCIST, THEOCRATIC, WOMAN-HATING WAR ON WOMEN CONTINUES APACE)



‘The Moral Property of Women’: Mifepristone, Fibroids and the Stakes of Suppressed Science
PUBLISHED 1/20/2026 by Carrie N. Baker
Mifepristone is more than just an abortion pill. From fibroids to miscarriage care, its medical promise has been sacrificed to antiabortion politics.



This is Part 1 of 3 in a new series, “The Moral Property of Women: How Antiabortion Politics Are Withholding Medical Care,” a serialized version of the Winter 2026 print feature article. Part 2 examines how mifepristone could transform treatment for endometriosis, cancer and other chronic illnesses that disproportionately affect women. Part 3 explores the drug’s promise as a safer, non-hormonal form of contraception—and the political forces working to keep it out of reach.

On Sept. 28, 2025, activists nationwide commemorated the 25th anniversary of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone for early termination of pregnancy. Beyond abortion care, the FDA has also approved mifepristone for treatment of Cushing’s disease (a hormonal disorder) and has granted “compassionate use” to treat meningioma (a benign brain tumor) and other serious or immediately life-threatening conditions. Doctors widely prescribe mifepristone off-label to manage miscarriage, treat ectopic pregnancies, support cervical dilation during childbirth and induce labor.

But the drug has many other uses, especially for women. Mifepristone functions as a synthetic hormone that adheres to progesterone receptors in the body, blocking the hormone’s action and preventing the negative effects it can sometimes have, such as when it stimulates the growth of uterine fibroids or certain cancer cells. Mifepristone also blocks glucocorticoid receptors, meaning hormones such as cortisol cannot attach and suppress the immune system, increase blood glucose levels or cause stress leading to depression.As a result, mifepristone has shown potential in treating a striking range of ailments, including fibroids, ovarian and breast cancer, depression, endometriosis, Gulf War Illness and potentially even symptoms of other autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Research also suggests that mifepristone may help prevent some forms of breast cancer and can serve as an effective weekly contraceptive without the side effects of hormonal birth control. Despite mifepristone’s broad medical promise, its development has been repeatedly stymied by abortion opponents who fear wider availability would weaken their attempts to suppress abortion access. Antiabortion politics have blocked or delayed the development of mifepristone for these other uses, leaving women in needless pain and subject to invasive and unnecessary surgical procedures such as hysterectomies.


Fibroids





Mifepin China recently synthesized all available studies on the use of mifepristone to treat fibroids. In a meta-analysis of 18 randomized controlled trials involving 2,066 patients, researchers found statistically significant support for the use of mifepristone to treat fibroids. Dr. Yefang Huang of Chengdu University in China told Ms. that mifepristone “effectively reduces fibroid volume, alleviates symptoms such as excessive menstrual bleeding and pelvic pain, and is generally well tolerated.” With small daily doses of mifepristone, patients experienced significant pain relief, allowing them to resume daily activities more comfortably. Many patients were able to avoid surgical intervention, including hysterectomies—an invasive and painful surgery that carries risks of complications, requires a significant recovery period and can lead to early menopause. Huang notes that current surgical and medical treatments for fibroids are associated with hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness, and are typically more costly. “Mifepristone presents advantages such as noninvasiveness, fewer side effects and lower cost. Patients generally demonstrate better overall tolerability and quality of life during mifepristone treatment.” China’s National Medical Products Administration approved mifepristone for the treatment of uterine fibroids in 2014. In China today, a three-month regimen of 10 milligrams per day is the approved protocol for treating fibroids.

Meanwhile, American women still do not have access to this very effective nonsurgical treatment.

https://msmagazine.com/2026/01/20/the-moral-property-of-women-mifepristone-fibroids-and-the-stakes-of-suppressed-science/

Investors' Undervaluation of Women's Health Mirrors America's Devaluation of Women's Bodies

(AND THE MISOGYNIST, PATRIARCHAL, CHRISTOFASCIST, THEOCRATIC, WOMAN-HATING WAR ON WOMEN CONTINUES APACE)


Investors’ Undervaluation of Women’s Health Mirrors America’s Devaluation of Women’s Bodies
Jaharra Anglin Stubbs | February 6, 2026

For decades, women’s healthcare has been narrowly framed around reproduction and fertility, despite the reality that women’s health extends far beyond these boundaries. At the same time, women are expected to drive the economy, working, caregiving, and managing the health of their families, while the healthcare system continues to undervalue their needs. Until 1985, women’s healthcare largely neglected the rest of the body, often dismissed as irrelevant to fertility. As a result, countless medical realities affecting women across their lifetimes went unreported and unanalyzed. It was not until the 1990s that women were required to participate in federal clinical trials, meaning that the medical field still lacks adequate knowledge about how many drugs and devices affect women differently than men. Thus, it is unsurprising that healthcare market investors have also continued to undervalue women’s health.

Women, alone, account for approximately 80% of health care decisions for their families, use medical services more frequently, and spend more out-of-pocket for medical care. Although the U.S. Public Health Service Task Force on Women’s Health Issues reported that women are more susceptible to certain diseases than men in many instances, the Task Force makes clear that it is even more imperative to have legislation, dialogue, and policies that work to educate and expand access to care. Unfortunately, women are more likely to die from cancer, suffer from menstrual disorders, are more susceptible to urinary tract infections, and die from diabetes, to name a few. Still, the discovery of this data has largely occurred in recent decades. Other significant barriers to accessing health care and to inclusion in health research are racial and systemic in nature. These groups are at higher risk of underlying health complications, especially with age.

Due to the lack of research, exclusion of women from clinical trials, and recent policy shifts, such as the overturning of Roe, the absence of consistent reproductive care legislation across states, and cuts to Medicare, women face significant barriers to care. These policies have created maternal care deserts, resulting from many closures of essential departments, such as OBGYN wards. Despite women being the largest consumers of healthcare, the healthcare that is predominantly necessary for their care continued to be defunded and disinvested in. Nevertheless, as the Trump Administration and several agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have reduced support for women’s health programs, departments, and research projects, this has only further underscored the underinvestment in women’s healthcare. Major cuts to Medicaid programs and the dismantling of the Affordable Care Act have substantially reduced access to affordable coverage and care, especially for low-income women and families, leading to a “steep rise” in people becoming uninsured and reduced state healthcare funding for providers, resulting in many closures of essential departments, such as OBGYN wards.

Ultimately, the devaluation of women’s healthcare by investors reflects a deeper, systemic failure to prioritize women’s needs within the healthcare system. If government leaders demonstrated a genuine commitment to women’s health, investors would likely follow, expanding funding for care, research, and innovation. Instead, the lack of political will has reinforced disinvestment, even as women remain the largest consumer base in healthcare.


https://feminist.org/news/investors-undervaluation-of-womens-health-mirrors-the-american-health-systems-devaluation-of-womens-bodies-and-contributions/

The Pathetic Price of Entry to Epstein's World

(AND THE MISOGYNIST, PATRIARCHAL, CHRISTOFASCIST, THEOCRATIC, WOMAN-HATING WAR ON WOMEN CONTINUES APACE)


The Pathetic Price of Entry to Epstein’s World
PUBLISHED 2/12/2026 by Jennifer Weiss-Wolf


Access, favors and gifts were enough, apparently, for already-powerful people to continue to associate with a sex trafficker.



Jeffrey Epstein abuse survivors in the audience as U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Feb. 11, 2026. She was there to answer for her department’s handling of the files related to Epstein, President Trump’s investigations into political foes, and the two fatal ICE shootings of U.S. citizens. (Alex Wong / Getty Images)

This story was originally published by The Contrarian.

The latest batch of Epstein files—over 3 million documents, only around half of what the Department of Justice reports to have amassed—has unleashed a new cast of characters, a list that includes tech titans, health influencers, litigation rainmakers, university leaders, sports executives, Hollywood moguls and international royalty. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who has championed the release of the files, remarked that these revelations should “shock the conscience of this country.”

Honestly? None of the named men (and women) are individuals I presumed would possess particularly stellar moral character. Call me cynical, but their collective fall from grace stirs no sense of shock on my part. The litany of expressions of regret—I am ashamed, this is not who I am!—reek merely of being the ones who got outed. That said, I have to admit to feeling—stunned? blindsided? nauseated?—by how pathetically small their price of entry was. That includes absurd favors curried (an internship with Woody Allen … really, does anyone still aspire to work with him?), crude jokes traded (“pussy is, indeed, low carb”), dating advice sought (“pro or civilian?”), or, most of all, shared handwringing over the #MeToo movement. For others, that meant giddily accepting gifts—Apple watches, Prada bags, monogrammed sweatshirts—they surely could afford to buy themselves. All in emails littered with typos, as if the rules of punctuation don’t apply, then surely no rules apply. (This might explain a whole lot about President Trump’s ALL CAPS and errant caps approach to posting, a.k.a. the Epstein code?) Whether anyone who appears in this round of files participated in or bore witness to sexual abuse and trafficking is only a fraction of the story. Rather, the overt, desperate desire to stay in Epstein’s circle—in many instances, well after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from girls—speaks volumes.

Molly Jong Fast’s standout piece for The New York Times drove home the bizarre need for Epstein adjacency among power players:

“[T]he plight of the victims often seemed to be an afterthought. That’s most likely because whatever they received from him in the past—access to career-enhancing people, access to young girls and an endless supply of freebies—might still be on offer. This is the nature of the Epstein files: It’s the record of what a global class of very privileged, accomplished and self-important people want to get gifted.”

Objects, even when they were humans, mattered because they kept the connectivity to the source relevant and close.

… The overt, desperate desire to stay in Epstein’s circle—in many instances, well after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from girls—speaks volumes.



. . . . .
They deserve our protection, they deserve our respect, they deserve accountability. So do we. So does democracy.

https://msmagazine.com/2026/02/12/epstein-emails-trump-petter-attia-doctors/

Mifepristone Manufacturers Move to Block GOP Lawsuit Seeking Nationwide Telehealth Abortion Ban

(AND THE MISOGYNIST, PATRIARCHAL, CHRISTOFASCIST, THEOCRATIC, WOMAN-HATING WAR ON WOMEN CONTINUES APACE)



Mifepristone Manufacturers Move to Block GOP Lawsuit Seeking Nationwide Telehealth Abortion Ban
PUBLISHED 2/11/2026 by Carrie N. Baker


“Attacks on mifepristone are not about safety—they are part of an anti-science, autocratic playbook that is unfolding across the nation that threatens people, families and communities,” said Democracy Forward president Skye Perryman.



Former Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry testifies in front of the U.S. House on March 30, 2023. As AG, Landry joined a multistate lawsuit led by Mississippi and other antiabortion officials that sought to roll back the FDA’s expanded approval of mifepristone. The state’s current AG, Liz Murrill, has continued and escalated these efforts. (Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

The attorneys general of Louisiana, Idaho and Missouri filed a lawsuit in October 2025 in a Louisiana federal court, seeking to overturn the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 2023 decision to allow telehealth abortion. Represented by the antiabortion juggernaut (and ironically named) Alliance Defending Freedom, the Republican attorneys general inaccurately claimed the FDA had ignored the safety risks of easing access to mifepristone.
The lawsuit, Louisiana et al v. FDA, seeks to restore an outdated in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone, used as part of a two-pill regimen for medication abortion, and block access to mifepristone through pharmacies and mail. The states have asked U.S. District Judge David Joseph, a Trump appointee, to issue a preliminary injunction blocking telehealth abortion and pharmacy dispensing of mifepristone while he weighs the merits of the case. In the first half of 2025, 27 percent of all abortions within the U.S. healthcare system were provided via telehealth. Telehealth abortion from out of states is a critical avenue of access for women living in states that restrict abortion providers located inside the states from providing abortion services. With telehealth abortion access on the line, mifepristone’s manufacturers are moving to join the lawsuit and defend access to medication abortion.

On Feb. 3, Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro—manufacturers of the brand-name and a generic of mifepristone—filed motions to intervene, opposing Louisiana’s request for a preliminary injunction and urging the court to dismiss the lawsuit. The drugmakers argue that mifepristone has a long-established safety record—proven safe beyond any doubt by over 100 peer-reviewed studies and 25 years of real-world use by more than 7.5 million women. GenBioPro explained its reasons for filing the motion. “We are increasingly concerned by extremists’ complete disregard for the large body of scientific evidence supporting mifepristone’s use and safety,” said GenBioPro CEO Evan Masingill. “We will not stand by while politically motivated efforts put Americans’ access to medication abortion in jeopardy.”
Generic mifepristone tablets, 200 mg, from GenBioPro, the first FDA-approved generic medical abortion pill in the U.S. (Courtesy of GenBioPro)

GenBioPro is represented by Democracy Forward Foundation and Arnold & Porter, who warned about the dangers of this attack on the FDA’s authority to make decisions based on science.“Attacks on mifepristone are not about safety—they are part of an anti-science, autocratic playbook that is unfolding across the nation that threatens people, families and communities,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward. “In this matter, it isn’t just mifepristone—which has a decades-long demonstrated safety profile—that is being threatened in pursuit of ideology and unbridled power, it is also our nation’s science-based drug approval system.”

. . . .

When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court said the power to regulate abortion would lie in the states, yet this case is about a handful of conservative states trying to ban telehealth abortion nationwide, including in states that currently allow it, by forcing the FDA to change its science-based approach to mifepristone. “The overwhelming majority of Americans support the legal right to abortion and understand that healthcare decisions should be made by people, not politicians,” said Perryman. “Yet, ideologically extreme organizations have repeatedly tried to weaponize our courts to strip people of essential healthcare and put all Americans in harm’s way.”

https://msmagazine.com/2026/02/11/mifepristone-manufacturers-move-to-block-gop-lawsuit-seeking-nationwide-telehealth-abortion-ban/

The Next Phase of the Abortion Wars: Targeting Pills, Helpers and Patients

(AND THE MISOGYNIST, PATRIARCHAL, CHRISTOFASCIST, THEOCRATIC, WOMAN-HATING WAR ON WOMEN CONTINUES APACE)

(There is a very useful interactive map at the link below)


The Next Phase of the Abortion Wars: Targeting Pills, Helpers and Patients
PUBLISHED 2/12/2026 by Ava Slocum


Four years after Dobbs, state lawmakers are shifting from outright bans to a sweeping strategy of lawsuits, criminal penalties and cross-state battles aimed at cutting off the last remaining routes to abortion care.



(Amanda Andrade-Rhoades / The Washington Post via Getty Images)

The first year of Trump’s second term marked major blows for reproductive healthcare. Medicaid funding cuts forced about 50 Planned Parenthood clinics to close throughout the U.S. and blocked 1.1 million Planned Parenthood patients on Medicaid from using their insurance to pay for reproductive healthcare. Twenty-three independent abortion clinics throughout the country also shut down in 2025, according to Abortion Care Network’s annual report. 2025 also saw some new, troubling trends in state-level reproductive healthcare policies, including restrictions on medication abortion and shield laws and criminalization for people who help patients access abortions.

“Prior to [2025], much of the focus was on straightforwardly banning and restricting access to abortion care,” said Kimya Forouzan, principal state policy advisor at the Guttmacher Institute, at a webinar outlining Guttmacher’s policy analysis about 2025’s state policy trends for reproductive healthcare access. “In response, patients, providers and helpers showed incredible resiliency in finding ways to ensure that abortion care is still available for many people.” Forouzan continued: “Now, state legislators are increasingly going after these avenues of care and pushing forth criminalization of care.”

Currently, 13 states have total abortion bans in effect. Another 28 have bans based on gestational duration (including states such as Florida and Georgia, which cap abortion at six weeks, before most women even know they’re pregnant).Now, at the start of 2026, there are only nine states where it is possible to get a legal abortion with no restrictions. In 2025, Guttmacher tracked 841 legal provisions introduced throughout the U.S. that would restrict access to sexual and reproductive healthcare. Of these, 70 were enacted—many attacking abortion pills and other channels for abortion access that have managed to survive post-Roe v. Wade. Now, four years after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturned Roe, here are some of the key ways states are pushing harder than ever to end any access to abortion.

. . . . . .



Still, pro-abortion lawmakers are gearing up for another year’s worth of fights against antiabortion laws and the GOP’s tactics to take away women’s access to reproductive healthcare. “All in all, 2025 state legislative sessions demonstrated a vital point,” Forouzan said. “Attacks on abortion access and all forms of sexual and reproductive health and rights have in no way settled. State lawmakers continue to push forth legislation that seeks to limit the remaining avenues of care as well as criminalization.”

https://msmagazine.com/2026/02/12/abortion-bans-pills-state-shield-laws-fetal-personhood/

"Break the Chain/One Billion Rising Flash Mob SF 2013"