[YouTube-Times of India] Newly released Epstein files are fueling explosive new questions after intimate emails between Jeffrey Epstein and senior UK politician Peter Mandelson surfaced. Intimate messages have triggered speculation that Epstein’s interest in Mandelson went beyond politics or money. Investigators say the tone of the exchanges appears unusually personal, reigniting long-standing theories about Epstein’s private life, and what these powerful connections may have concealed.
The "other side of espionage - subversion, deception, disinformation, provocation, and influence - has an intangible impact compared to "spying," but it's effects can be every bit a significant if not much more so.
#3
What Mercutio said. I would have suggested pansexual, to include animals, the dead, and the occasional tree knothole for variety — in whatever combination he could find interested parties to join in, as it seemed rather an obsession of his, for some reason. The Daily Mail recently posited he was a Russian honeypot operation rather than Mossad, but I’m not sure it matters who his backers were, as I suspect they lined up to offer themselves once he’d established himself as a connector par excellence and a blackmailer — why else the reported security cameras in the bedrooms and tales of a safe full of tapes? And I can’t imagine Russia running him while China did nothing to take advantage of his Rolodex.
#1
now facing logistical challenges getting out of their countries
Why don't they jus stay there, instead of self-deporting virtue signaling?
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/09/2026 1:40 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Surely the logistical challenge is buying a one-way airplane ticket instead of the usual round trip, and perhaps packing up a household for shipment. But they also need to find a new job, so since the mortgage or rent has already been paid for the month, perhaps they should instead concentrate on finding a new job, possibly even where they are — having been downsized and all — and then they might never need move at all.
#7
Why don’t they just volunteer to become anti-ICE protesters? They would get huge amounts of cash and a relocation package is noting to those NGOs. It’s all federal cash. A main stream journalist ought to be fully qualified to perform as a leftist activist. They have years of experience in that very thing.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
02/09/2026 5:42 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Wouldn’t the CIA pay to return their communication Chief to the USA
#10
WaPo went so far in supporting a Far Left Liberal Political agenda over the real news and facts. That even their advertisers figure out the WaPo was a joke.
Heck even the Average daily paid circulation figure is only 97,000, down from 250k just a 10 year ago..
#12
Nothing stops these children from establishing a consortium and raise the funds to buy it and run it themselves. Oh, wait, that's capitalism. never mind.
Israel is not responsible for vicious idiots attacking the innocent in America and elsewhere — their own governments are. And certainly in America the Trump government now feels a strong responsibility to protect American Jews that the Biden Politburo was completely uninterested in — when it wasn’t at least emotionally supporting the other side. Also, American Jews have been hardening their synagogues and community centers against attack since 9/11 with advice and support by the local police and federal Justice Department programs, and making education choices for their children based on where the shrieking Hamas supporters have been most and least rambunctious. Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities have patrolling volunteer guards, the Shomrim, who hold miscreants until the professional police arrive. Anyone caught by surprise now has been working really hard to avoid reality.
[Jpost] Earthquakes rarely cause the greatest destruction. The devastation usually comes afterward — when tsunamis strike unprepared shores.
As tensions rise between the United States and Iran, leaders are focused on what happens during a confrontation. Far fewer are asking what happens the day after — especially if Heaven forbid, American casualties occur. Because the backlash may not land where policymakers expect.
Because in that moment, a geopolitical earthquake abroad could trigger a social and political antisemitic tsunami at home. And the first place that wave would hit would not be Israel, but American Jews.
WHY AMERICA CONFRONTS IRAN — AND WHY IT MATTERS
A hard truth must be acknowledged: from Washington’s perspective, confronting Iran is not primarily about Israel. It is about American strategic interests.
The Monroe Doctrine once warned that threats in the Western Hemisphere threatened the US itself. Today, geography matters far less. Missiles, cyber warfare, drones, and nuclear proliferation mean hostile actors do not need to sit on America’s borders to threaten American interests.
A nuclear Iran would destabilize the Middle East, threaten energy markets, embolden armed proxies, and likely push neighboring states toward nuclear capability of their own. Such instability affects global economic systems on which the United States depends.
There is also a China dimension. Beijing’s economic and strategic ties with Tehran — including reliance on Iranian energy supplies — give China leverage across the region. Weakening Iran’s capacity for regional expansion weakens China’s foothold in a region already central to global power competition.
In addition, efforts to build a new Middle Eastern architecture — sometimes described as a regional "Board of Peace," managing as well as linking economic normalization and security cooperation — depend on reducing Iran’s destabilizing role. A prosperous and integrated Middle East cannot coexist with an expansionist Iran armed with nuclear capability and proxy militias.
From Washington’s viewpoint, this is an American interest first.
But even policies rooted in national interest carry consequences beyond the battlefield. And those consequences rarely unfold where policymakers expect them.
A PUBLIC NOT PREPARED FOR WAR
Another uncomfortable reality remains: most Americans do not want another Middle East war. Polling consistently shows strong support for preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, yet deep reluctance toward direct military conflict.
A war, no. A blitzkrieg raid in force is fine — there has been no downside in the polls following the raid on Venezuela that netted Nicolas Maduro and his wife, despite Progessive mainstream media briefly fussing about it
Meanwhile, influential media voices like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens increasingly frame US involvement in Middle Eastern conflicts as serving foreign interests rather than American ones. Such rhetoric, often directed toward Israel and Jewish influence, risks assigning blame even before conflict escalates.
Both have already been doing that. They have their audiences, but no one else will be persuaded by whatever hateful nonsense they spew.
Now imagine the scenario.
An Iranian escalation leads to American casualties — through proxy attacks, missile strikes, or incidents involving US forces already stationed in the region. The shock lands not in policy circles but in American living rooms.
And someone inevitably asks: Why were we there?
In moments of national trauma, blame seeks targets.
THE FIELD IS ALREADY DRY The danger is magnified by another reality: antisemitism in the United States has already surged dramatically in recent years.
In 2023, antisemitic incidents exceeded 8,800 nationwide — more than double the previous year. In 2024, incidents rose again, surpassing 9,300. After the October 7 Hamas attack and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza, antisemitic incidents in America spiked by more than 300% in the months that followed.
Jews represent roughly two percent of the US population, yet account for nearly 70% of religion-based hate crimes.
Synagogues now routinely employ armed security. Jewish students face harassment on campuses. Violent incidents have occurred across major cities.
The ground is already dry. It would not take much to ignite it.
THE TSUNAMI SCENARIO
In disaster science, tsunamis often cause more destruction than the earthquake that triggers them.
If American soldiers are killed in confrontation with Iran, the first wave of backlash would likely not hit Tel Aviv. It would hit New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, and other cities with large Jewish populations.
Communities already under strain could face escalating attacks on synagogues, institutions, businesses, and individuals. Online hostility could spill into physical violence, as seen not only in the US but across Western societies and even as far away as Australia.
Global Jewish communities would feel the second wave. Israel would face the third — renewed diplomatic pressure, intensified protests, and fresh attempts to delegitimize its actions or existence. Much of this backlash would be disconnected from policy realities. But in crisis moments, perception often outweighs facts.
Snip
PREPARING BEFORE THE SHOCK
None of this argues against American policy choices. Nations must act in their interests.
But responsible leadership demands preparation for consequences, not just victory scenarios.
If confrontation with Iran escalates — whether by design or miscalculation — the United States, Jewish communities, and Israel must be ready for what follows.
Preparation means security planning, community coordination, narrative readiness, and crisis-response systems already in place before events unfold.
It means recognizing that modern battlefields extend into societies, campuses, social media, and neighborhoods.
And it means understanding that antisemitism does not require logic, only a trigger.
The tsunami risk is real.
The earthquake may or may not come. But the conditions for a tsunami already exist.
The wise are prepared. The willfully blind will learn the hard way, as is always the case. And Iran’s tools who are stupid enough to act will feel the heavy hand of the law, whether police, FBI, or Homeland Security — and those sleeper agents who keep their heads down instead of following orders may well be caught in the backlash.
[TheHill] For more than a decade, policymakers and advocacy groups have cast teenagers’ use of social media as a looming public health crisis. This now widely accepted assumption has fueled calls for bans and sweeping restrictions on teen use of social media, including Australia’s enactment of a ban for children under 16 in 2025, a House of Lords recent vote in favor of a similar proposal, and growing interest in comparable measures across the European Union and New Zealand.
However, the assumption that social media use harms teens has always relied on an inconclusive body of research. New research from the University of Manchester complicates this narrative, finding that increased time spent on social media or online gaming does not, by itself, cause mental health problems in adolescents.
These findings echo a familiar pattern: Just as earlier generations warned that television or video games would rot young minds, today’s panic over screens outpaces the evidence, encouraging blunt policy solutions to complex challenges in children’s online worlds.
The University of Manchester’s study, published in the Journal of Public Health in December, followed 25,000 11 to 14-year-olds over three school years, tracking their social media use, gaming frequency and emotional and behavioral struggles. Researchers asked participants to report their average time spent on social media on a normal workday during the school year, answer how often they play games on a computer or gaming console, and complete a 10-item measure of child mental health. The study found no evidence that time spent on social media or online gaming predicted emotional and behavioral struggles.
These findings echo previous findings by the American Psychological Association, which issued a “Health Advisory on Social Media Use in Adolescence” in 2023, stating that “using social media is not inherently beneficial or harmful to young people.” Instead, the advisory emphasized that the impact of social media on adolescents varies based on many factors, such as individual personal and psychological characteristics, social circumstances, what content they choose to engage with and what functions and features social media platforms offer.
Moreover, the advisory emphasizes that adolescent development is “gradual and continuous” and also varies from individual to individual, meaning there is no specific age at which children are capable of safely and responsibly managing their social media experience.
Also in 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General’s office issued its own advisory on “Social Media and Youth Mental Health,” acknowledging the positive and negative impacts of social media on children and teens and highlighting the lack of research-backed consensus on the subject. It likewise highlighted numerous factors influencing adolescents’ experiences — including those that the American Psychological Association mentioned in its advisory — as well as brain development, the degree to which social media use disrupts an individual child’s sleep and physical activity, and cultural and socioeconomic differences.
Almost none of the proposed or existing social media regulations reflect this complexity or lack of scientific consensus. Wholesale social media bans for children under a certain age are ineffective solutions, encouraging children to circumvent restrictions and disincentivizing platforms from offering safety features aimed at improving children’s online experiences.
Because each child’s relationship with social media is shaped by many individual factors, policies that give parents — who are best positioned to understand their own children’s needs and capabilities — greater control over their children’s social media use, including through parental controls, are better aligned with the reality of social media today.
Ultimately, the growing body of research points to a clear conclusion: There is no concrete evidence to support one-size-fits-all approaches when it comes to social media and youth mental health concerns. Treating screen time itself as the primary harm distracts from the more difficult but necessary work of designing evidence-based, flexible policies that reflect how children actually experience the internet.
Rather than repeating past cycles of tech panic, policymakers should focus on empowering parents, incentivizing safer platform design and targeting specific, demonstrable risks. Children’s online safety is a serious challenge that requires nuance. Any other approach will not sufficiently protect young people from online harms while preparing them for the modern world.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
