Bill Gates reportedly apologized to staff at the Gates Foundation on Wednesday for his relationship to Jeffrey Epstein and his extramarital affairs. He still insists that he never did anything “illicit” though. That is hard to believe given that he has lied so many times about his relationship with Epstein. He has said in the past that he only ever had dinner with Epstein, which turned out to be false. He has said that Epstein had nothing to do with the Foundation, which turned out to be false. Who would believe this guy now that he has been shown to have such a long and complicated relationship with Epstein? “In the conversation, Bill answered questions submitted by foundation staff on a range of issues, including the release of the Epstein files, the foundation’s work in AI, and the future of global health,” a Gates Foundation representative told CNBC in an email. “In the townhall, Bill spoke candidly, addressing several questions in detail, and took responsibility for his actions.” I, for one, am not satisfied. The FBI documents related to Gates contain some damning allegations with no proof that the Justice Department ever lifted a finger to investigate. The media have bent over backwards and then forwards again to avoid implicating Bill Gates or investigating for themselves. Gates himself should not have the final word on this. Apologies delivered in controlled environments are not substitutes for independent scrutiny. The post Bill Gates Apologizes And Escapes Scrutiny appeared first on Redacted.

This week marked the four-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Zelensky marked the occasion by demanding a €90 billion loan from the European Union to fund the war for another two years. President Zelensky says that Ukraine will pay it back but…how? Another two years of war like this and there will be no Ukraine to pay anything back. Zelensky participated in a conference call with U.S. negotiators to once again negotiate a peace agreement, but the fact that U.S. negotiators are doing this over the phone is telling. U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and adviser Jared Kushner are in Geneva for weapons treaty discussions with Iran. Clearly, they squeezed Zelensky in between potty breaks. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated that President Trump’s patience with Zelensky is wearing thin. “That war will be settled through a negotiation. And right now, we are the only country in the world that can be a catalyst for negotiation. If we forfeit that role, no one else can do it,” he said. “That said, do I believe the president’s [Donald Trump] patience is infinite? I do not, but I’m not going to forecast for you when that runs out, or at what point he decides not to do it any longer. I can tell you, and I think you’ve heard him express deep frustration that this has not come to an end, because he sees it as a completely stupid and senseless war.” Well, he’s right about that. He could just, you know, stop funding it. The post The War That Won’t End — But Keeps Getting Funded appeared first on Redacted.

A left-wing judge handpicked by Hawaii Senators “Crazy” Mazie Hirono and Brian “Piece of” Schatz just handed a massive win to one of the biggest targets President Donald Trump is taking on . . .

Politics The Immigration Angle to the Epstein Scandal The late sex trafficker had no problem bending American immigration law for his “girls,” with a little help from Democratic officials. Democrats are exulting over their brilliant move of bringing Jeffrey Epstein “survivors” to Trump’s State of the Union address. (It didn’t seem to faze him.) I gather that this means Democrats and the media have moved on from their complete indifference to Epstein’s victims to deep concern. Notwithstanding their current garment-rending, liberals could not have been less interested in Epstein’s victims when they first came forward. Back in 2006, across the entire national news landscape, only Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly billboarded Epstein’s sex crimes, and attacked the first government official to betray the girls, Palm Beach D.A. Barry Krischer. Incomprehensibly, he had intentionally thrown the case, hitting Epstein with a single charge of soliciting prostitution. Federal prosecutors stepped in to take up the case, only to let Epstein off with a non-prosecution agreement in exchange for a $30-a-month fine and a promise of good behavior for 18 months. The New York Times ran a single article on the sweetheart deal—on page A-19, under the riveting headline “Questions of Preferential Treatment Are Raised in Florida Sex Case.” (That almost beats the winner of Michael Kinsley’s Most Boring Headline Contest: “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative.”) Over the next 10 years, the Times seems to have run only four more articles about the underage sex ring until someone in the newsroom shouted, OMG! Trump and Epstein had once been friends! Surprised by the media’s sudden interest in his sexual depredations, Epstein himself emailed journalist Michael Wolff in 2018, saying, “Dems think I have the silver bullet.” Whether we’re supposed to “Believe Women!” or “Ignore Women!” evidently rests entirely on the media’s ability to assemble a link between Epstein and Trump with Scotch tape and chewing gum. And no, we would rather not discuss Epstein’s consorting with Democrats Bill Clinton, George Mitchell, Bill Richardson and Larry Summers. But as long as we finally have the media’s attention, perhaps they’d be interested in knowing how simple it was for Epstein to traffic his sex slaves into the U.S. under our immigration laws. The bulk of Epstein’s sexual playthings came from Eastern Europe, as indicated by innumerable witness statements and the hundreds of flight itineraries for females from Russia, Poland, Belarus, Latvia, and Ukraine. (As any number of lonely American guys can tell you, 50 years of communism really did a number on the morals of Eastern European girls.) Epstein operated like the worst of American corporations, getting his concubines here with phony student visas, work visas, sham marriages and English language visas. (Yes, you can get a visa to come to our country simply in order to enroll in an English language class, although this strikes me as putting the cart before the horse.) Consider how Epstein gamed our immigration laws on behalf of his Belarus girlfriend, Karyna Shuliak. Fraud No. 1: Epstein first brought Shuliak to the U.S. on a student visa to attend Columbia’s dental school, despite the fact that she’d never received a bachelor’s degree, an admission requirement. Fraud No. 2: Shuliak had also requested asylum, meaning she’d simultaneously filed two completely contradictory immigration applications. Student visas require the applicant to prove an intent to return to her native country, whereas asylum requires the exact opposite: proof that the applicant is being persecuted in her native country and wouldn’t return if you threatened her with hot pokers. Fraud No. 3: After Shuliak overstayed her visa, Epstein called on some Democrat bigwigs to bend the law for her. Specifically, Greg Craig, Clinton’s special counsel on the impeachment trial (Craig has an illustrious history of going to bat for sexual predators!) and—guess who!—Alejandro Mayorkas, who, as head of Obama’s INS, was apparently available to perform special favors for Jeffrey Epstein. (In a country of laws, knowing somebody who knows a guy is not supposed to be the path to citizenship.) Fraud No. 4: Whether on their advice or his own initiative, a few months later, Epstein arranged for Shuliak to “marry” another one of his girls, “Jennifer.” This is the same Jennifer whom Epstein had directed to date Elon Musk’s brother in a futile attempt to ingratiate himself with the Space X founder. On the basis of these four sleazy maneuvers, Shuliak became a U.S. citizen in 2018—and promptly divorced her fake “wife.” Democrats keep carrying on about Trump’s “racist” immigration policies, on the grounds that—although Biden alone rushed in more than 4 million Latin Americans, 700,000 Venezuelans and 400,000 Haitians—Trump’s admission of 59 white South Africans is straight out of the Nazi playbook. I will leave it to you to parse the logic there, but you know what would be a great way for Trump to prove he won’t admit just anyone for being white? How about deporting Epstein’s immigration-scamming, Eastern European hustlers, and disbarring the lawyers who enabled their frauds? COPYRIGHT 2026 ANN COULTERDISTRIBUTED BY IMPOLITE DEBATES The post The Immigration Angle to the Epstein Scandal appeared first on The American Conservative.

UK Special Coverage Can the UK Populists Remain Popular? The Reform juggernaut could run aground on fiscal policy. UK Special Coverage The paramount aim of populist nationalist parties like the Rassemblement National (RN) in France, the Scottish National Party (SNP), or Reform UK is to be, well, popular. That may seem a banal observation, but their success depends on appealing to the widest possible range of voters, albeit united by their love of country and opposition to the dilution of national culture by immigration. Coherent policies on economics, tax, and spending come second to la Patria. Reform has dominated the British opinion polls for most of the last year and could be the next government. Yet, true to form, it offers a ragbag of disparate policies drawn from right and left.  Reform UK has supported nationalization of water companies, redistributing tax money to lower earners, and increased spending on public services like the NHS, police, and prisons. It even called for a £20 billion raid on commercial bank profits by scrapping Bank of England interest payments on reserves created through Quantitative Easing. Until this week, Nigel Farage also appeared to support the abolition of Britain’s most controversial welfare policy: the two-child cap on benefits. Paid to those in Universal Credit, this benefit is worth over £3,000 a year per UK child. The cap was introduced by the Conservatives in 2015 on the grounds that it is unfair for people on benefits to afford larger families than working couples not on benefits. In her recent budget, Labour’s Chancellor Rachel Reeves abolished the two-child cap, claiming that it was a major cause of child poverty. Reform UK agreed with the abolition—until last week, when their new treasury spokesman, Robert Jenrick, announced that he would restore the cap as part of an assault on Britain’s unaffordable benefits bill. Jenrick wants to support “alarm-clock workers” and stop them having to fund, through their taxes, an army of working-age benefits claimants which has grown to some 10 million according to the UK government’s figures. Health-related benefits alone are scheduled to rise to nearly £100 billion in the next four years.  But all this talk of fiscal rectitude and welfare cuts comes at a price. In compassionate Britain, no one talks of benefit “scroungers” any more—at least not in public. The problem with Britain’s social democratic state is that many voters support it.  A majority wish to see more money for the inefficient National Health Service, which now accounts for nearly half of all day-to-day departmental government spending. There is genuine loathing of utility companies like energy and water, and state ownership is approved by a majority of British voters, as are higher taxes on the wealthy. It may come as a shock to discover just how socialist the UK has already become. The state now consumes 45 percent of GDP. At 36 percent, the overall tax burden is the highest since the Second World War. The overall benefits bill, including the state pension, is now over £300 billion.  The Labour government abandoned its attempt to curb disability benefits after a backbench rebellion by Labour MPs afraid of blowback from voters who have come to expect these benefits. But the picture painted by the left-wing Green Party, which is leading the latest opinion poll for today’s Gorton and Denton by-election, is of Britain as a workhouse-stricken Dickensian land dominated by greedy billionaires and fascist right-wingers. Many voters seem to agree with this portrayal. Yet it is almost comically wide of the truth.   Income inequality, measured on the internationally-recognized Gini coefficient, is lower than during the last Labour government. The national minimum wage, at two-thirds of median earnings, is higher than ever. Diversity mandates apply throughout the public and most of the corporate sector. Capitalism is seen by many Brits as inherently immoral. Seventy percent of young voters say they want a socialist system. The wealth taxes and rent freezes offered by the charismatic Green leader, Zack Polanski, are absurdly popular, though even Labour-supporting tax experts say they don’t work.  Winding back these socialist aspirations and abolishing benefit entitlements is going to be an immense task. There is no doubt that things need to change and that Britain can no longer afford its quasi-socialist economy. But people don’t want realism—or at least the UK media doesn’t. There is outrage whenever a government attempts to curb benefit entitlements, like disability benefits, even though there is evidence they are abused. Voters want more money spent on public services as well as lower taxes. Many seem to believe this can be paid for by taxing the rich, even though the top 1 percent of earners already pay nearly 30 percent of income tax revenues. Indeed, the top 0.1 percent pay more than the bottom 50 percent of UK earners combined. Attacking the “1 percent” is irrational. The wealthy bring businesses and jobs to Britain and finance the National Health Service. The hated billionaires are leaving Britain and taking their businesses and taxes with them. This is partly because of the threat to their assets posed by confiscatory inheritance taxes introduced by Reeves. Britain arguably needs more wealthy people and more enterprise to promote growth.  But Jenrick has already had to promise not to cut taxes. Some in Reform sound as if they would  prefer to follow the approach of the most successful national populist party in Europe: the Scottish National Party. The SNP has increased income taxes in Scotland to an even higher level than the rest of the UK. It is currently spending some 30 percent more on public services than England, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The Scottish government has abolished university tuition fees and introduced a £20-a-week Scottish Child Payment on top of UK child benefits.  The SNP has nationalized the rail service and introduced a raft of giveaways like free prescriptions, free bus travel for under-22s, and the Baby Box of maternity products that New York’s Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently sought to emulate. And it seems to work. The nationalists have been in government for nearly 20 years, and are on course to win a fifth consecutive term in May.  Of course, Jenrick would say that it is time Scotland learned to live without UK fiscal transfers through the Barnett Formula on public spending. But spending public money is popular. The RN in France has learned from the SNP and is offering social protectionism as well as economic protectionism. The supposedly “far-right” party, which has been on the cusp of power in recent legislative elections, is promising to reduce the retirement age for French workers, increase workers’ rights, and promote social housing, along with more traditional right-wing policies on immigration and borders. This is the trouble with populism. It is not really interested in talking truth to the people, to paraphrase the left-wing cliche. Jenrick will face immense pressure to keep Reform policy vague and in line with public prejudices while it concentrates on its core issue of immigration and defending “Christian culture,” as the deputy leader, Zia Yusuf, has described its mission. The problem with that is that the New Testament is generally regarded as the property of the left. The post Can the UK Populists Remain Popular? appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs Three Things to Remember If U.S. Bombs Iran War was chosen, not inevitable. Credit: Stringer/Getty Images The air and sea power that is massing near Iran is terrifying. The same aircraft carrier that was deployed to Venezuela is now on its way to Iran, where it will join a second aircraft carrier. They are accompanied by guided missile destroyers, cruisers, submarines, hundreds of fighter jets, and ballistic missile defense systems. Axios reports that “the Trump administration is closer to a major war in the Middle East than most Americans realize.” Sometimes, U.S. President Donald Trump has set the red line by saying simply that Iran can have “NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS.” At other times, he has said that a deal must include zero enrichment in Iran. When asked why the U.S. is considering bombing Iran, though, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “There are many reasons.” But she listed none. She then said that Trump’s previous Operation Midnight Hammer mission had “totally obliterated Iran’s nuclear facilities.” There are three things to remember if the U.S. goes to war with Iran: It was never about nuclear weapons, it was never about helping the Iranian people, and Iran was genuinely negotiating a diplomatic solution. First: It was never about nuclear weapons. If it were, there would be no urgency because the White House claims to have obliterated Iran’s nuclear facilities.  More importantly, the U.S. does not believe Iran is building a nuclear weapon. The 2022 U.S. Department of Defense Nuclear Posture Review concludes that “Iran does not today possess a nuclear weapon and we currently believe it is not pursuing one.” That assessment was maintained in the 2025 Annual Threat Assessment, which “reflects the collective insights of the Intelligence Community,” and clearly states that U.S. intelligence “continue[s] to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” And, if it were ever about nuclear weapons, then Trump would not have pulled out of the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran in his first term. That agreement successfully restricted Iran to enriching uranium to levels necessary for civilian use but insufficient for military use. Multiple consecutive International Atomic Energy Agency reports verified that Iran was completely and consistently in compliance with the commitments made under that agreement. The JCPOA nuclear agreement assured Iran would not build a nuclear bomb. If going to war with Iran were about nuclear weapons, Trump would not have pulled out of the deal. Second: If the U.S. goes to war with Iran, it will not be to help the people of Iran. The U.S. has never been concerned with the people of Iran. If the U.S. were concerned with the welfare and wishes of the people of Iran, it would never have supported the coup that took out their democratically elected leader, Mohammad Mosaddegh, in 1953. It never would have installed the savage and repressive dictatorship of Shah Mohammad Pahlavi. It never would have supported the Shah’s murderous SAVAK secret police and their notorious torture chambers. More recently, if the U.S. were concerned with helping the people of Iran, it would not use their suffering as the way to bring about that goal. The U.S. attempted to instigate a coup by bringing the Iranian people out to the streets in mass protest. But it brought them out into the streets by starving them.  Iranians took to the streets initially to protest a cost-of-living crisis largely brought on by American sanctions. It was U.S. policy to bring about its goal of regime change by causing economic suffering to the people of Iran. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explained that “the Iranian currency was on the verge of collapse… President Trump ordered… maximum pressure on Iran. And it’s worked, because in December, their economy collapsed… and this is why the people took to the street. This is economic statecraft… Things are moving in a very positive way here.” On February 5, Bessent again boasted of this deliberate policy. He told the Senate Banking Committee that “what we have done is created a dollar shortage in the country… The Iranian currency went into free fall, inflation exploded, and hence we have seen the Iranian people out on the street.”  Finally: If the U.S. bombs Iran, it will not be because Iran was unwilling to negotiate. Iran was willing to put itself under maximum inspections, to convert its stockpile of 60 percent enriched uranium, cease high-level enrichment, and cap its enrichment at the 3.67 percent needed for a civilian energy program.  Under a second proposed solution, Iran was potentially willing to limit their role in the enrichment cycle by becoming a member of a nuclear enrichment consortium.  The consortium could include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and perhaps others. Enrichment would be capped at the 3.67 percent required for civilian use and monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Most importantly, a consortium would allow Iran to enrich uranium but deny it access to the full enrichment process by distributing various roles in the process across different member states. At the most recent round of talks, Iran reportedly indicated a willingness to compromise even further. Iranian officials told the New York Times that Iran was willing to dilute its stockpile of enriched uranium, suspend nuclear enrichment for three to five years, and then join the already proposed nuclear consortium. The head of  the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mohammad Eslami, has suggested that the dilution of Iran’s 60 percent enriched uranium was conditional on sanctions being lifted. All of this is more than Iran has to do, since, as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has “the inalienable right to a civilian program that uses nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.” But this diplomatic willingness would satisfy Trump’s hard redline of no weapons and no ability to enrich uranium on its own. There is a clear diplomatic path to peace with Iran. If that path is not taken, it will not be because Iran was unwilling to negotiate and compromise, it will not be because of U.S. concern for the well-being of the Iranian people, and it will not be because the U.S. prioritizes preventing Iran from building a bomb. The post Three Things to Remember If U.S. Bombs Iran appeared first on The American Conservative.

"They're really great..." The post The band that made Lou Reed bond with Bono: “One of the great people” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Europe is once again flirting with the idea of exporting its immigration problem. Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece, and the Netherlands are reportedly discussing “return hubs” outside the European Union, described as offshore […] The post New EU Immigration Plan: Will It Succeed Where UK Failed? first appeared on The Expose.

from Your News: Justice Department records show five-year investigation examining possible drug and prostitution links. By yourNEWS Media Newsroom A Drug Enforcement Administration document included in Justice Department files related to Jeffrey Epstein reveals a previously undisclosed federal probe into suspicious wire transfers that investigators believed could be tied to illegal drug activity and prostitution. […]

A man has been sentenced after pleading guilty in the 2023 crash that killed the former Dixie Chicks lead singer. Continue reading…