Tag Archives: genocide

Epstein’s Connection with Israel Should not be Ignored

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Sometimes a lie is so apparent that it is obscured by its sheer audacity. A ruse so enormous that it defies our conceptualization of facts. In the case of Jeffrey Epstein, there are things about his life which seem to defy who he actually was.

Epstein moved amongst the most wealthy, influential and powerful men and women. Appearing like a rich, slick lothario. Yet, by all accounts, the man himself was dumpy, uncouth, outwardly vulgar and spectacularly stupid.

He had cunning. But his personality oozed qualities more commonly associated with a slumlord who runs a sleazy strip club and cheap brothel. Nothing about him comes across as authentic.

How was a working-class boy from Coney Island, son of a construction labourer and groundskeeper for the New York City Parks Department and a school aide and secretary, able to rise up so rapidly? Why was a man who never completed university hired to teach math and physics at the elite Dalton School on Manhattan’s monied Upper East Side?

Epstein was sacked from Dalton for inappropriate interactions with students and being abysmally bad at teaching. Yet despite this, he was hired by Wall Street executive, Alan “Ace” Greenberg, for the prestigious Bear Stearns. It is as if Epstein “failed up the ladder of success” from there. More on Greenberg later.

Epstein’s “success” has been easily explained away by media figures and influencers as being a classic “rags to riches” tale. But when one examines his life with any seriousness, a stunning mediocrity emerges which defies these fables. Some have noticed that Epstein’s riches mysteriously coincided with Robert Maxwell’s missing fortune. Robert Maxwell is the late father of the infamous Ghislaine.

Maxwell died in bankruptcy and disgrace, allegedly drowning after falling from his yacht. But he had established secret offshore trusts in places like Liechtenstein and Switzerland. Trusts which were beyond the reach of creditors and which reportedly provided his daughter Ghislaine with an inheritance of at least $10 million pounds. But there are other aspects that most likely contributed to the image of Jeffrey Epstein that deserve closer scrutiny.

Now, before I go further, I want to be clear about something. It is unfortunate that there are some who are peddling loathsome antisemitic tropes in reference to the Epstein files. Epstein’s worldview appeared to be far more informed by Zionism, which is a political ideology, than by Judaism, which is a religious and cultural identity. And that is an important distinction. Conflating the two is lazy and misinformed. There are many Jews who are not Zionists and many who are opposed to the ideology. And there are many Zionists who are not Jewish.

But Epstein’s ties to Israel have been well documented, although not widely reported on in mainstream media. He was very close to former Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak. And the two joked about Epstein being a Mossad asset.

And thus we return to the man who got Epstein going, the late Alan “Ace” Greenberg. It is well known that Greenberg was an ardent supporter of the Zionist apartheid state. He had donated large sums of money to medical centres and the Israel Museum, and funded the construction of a middle school and sports centre in Gilo, which is an illegal settlement in East Jerusalem, naming them after his mother and father, respectively.

Greenberg likely met Epstein through a connection with the latter’s failed position at the prestigious Dalton School in Manhattan. Epstein was known for schmoozing the wealthy parents of students. And Greenberg had a soft spot for working class men with aspirations to be rich. Even though Epstein was eventually compelled to resign from Bear Stearns due to involvement in insider trading, there is speculation that this opportunity connected him even more with Israel.

Epstein went on to fail upwards at businesses involved in “debt collection” and “hostile corporate takeovers.” He was named in the notorious Towers Financial scandal which bilked investors of nearly $500 million dollars. At the time, it was noted as being the “biggest Ponzi scheme in American history.”

Miraculously, Epstein avoided going to prison. His business partner, Steven Hoffenberg, wasn’t so lucky. Even though Hoffenberg maintained that Epstein was the architect of the scheme. Just two years after the case, Epstein would reinvent himself again and make a stunning comeback.

Here is where Epstein’s life became even more murky, with shadowy connections to figures like Adnan Khashoggi. The cousin of Dodi Fayed (who was killed with Princess Diana in a car crash in Paris) and the uncle of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, this Saudi businessman and arms dealer was known for being the richest man in the world in the 1980s, with a net worth of $4 billion.

Khashoggi lived an extravagant lifestyle, which included a owning 12 palatial estates worldwide, a fleet of private jets (including a DC-8) and a 282-foot superyacht, the Nabila, which he was later forced to sell to Donald Trump due to financial troubles. In 1986, Khashoggi sold his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine (originally named Princess Amar), to Robert Maxwell. He died in 2017.

The most important aspect of Khashoggi was that he was implicated in the Iran-Contra affair. Epstein’s consulting firm, Intercontinental Assets Group, listed him as a client. Khashoggi was the primary middleman for the U.S. weapons transfers from Israel to Iran that defined the scandal.

British arms dealer, Douglas Leese, apparently mentored Epstein in the early 1980s and introduced him to both Khashoggi and Robert Maxwell. Maxwell was known for having a deep connection with Israeli intelligence, and it is alleged that Epstein was involved in his network, which sought to facilitate Israeli arms sales to Iran and funnel the proceeds through offshore accounts.

Recent revelations from late 2025 seem to indicate that Epstein helped billionaire Leslie Wexner repurpose planes for his retail business which were previously used by Southern Air Transport, a CIA-linked airline used for Iran-Contra arms smuggling.

Epstein’s reported expertise in moving money through offshore accounts was allegedly utilized to facilitate the complicated flow of funds for these arms deals. During the planning of Iran-Contra, Epstein’s close friend Ehud Barak who served as the head of Israeli military intelligence (AMAN) at the time oversaw the logistics for Khashoggi’s shipments to Iran.

None of this is to say with absolute certainty that Jeffrey Epstein worked for Mossad. There is currently no definitive evidence to support that. But his relationship to Ehud Barak, who would go on to become prime minister of Israel, certainly raises legitimate suspicions.

It is worth noting that Barak and his wife visited Epstein’s Caribbean island, frequently stayed in one of Epstein’s Manhattan apartments and was seen visiting his townhouse on multiple occasions.

He was also was implicated in a violent sexual assault alleged by the late Virginia Guiffre who referred to him as “the prime minister.” He was the only prime minister Guiffre ever met. Former Epstein staff allege they saw Barak flying on Epstein’s private plane with young girls.

In a leaked three-hour recording from 2013, Ehud Barak was heard discussing a “selective” immigration strategy for Israel with Jeffrey Epstein. Barak suggested that the state should take in one million Russian immigrants to offset the Indigenous Palestinian population.

Epstein also served as a financial fixer for Barak, promising in a 2013 email to help him make “at least few hundred million” in the private sector. He reportedly facilitated Barak’s connections to tech billionaires like Peter Thiel and his cofounded, mass surveillance company, Palantir.

It is worth noting that Palantir has been heavily complicit in the genocide in Gaza. Through its extensive contracts with the Israeli military, it is largely responsible for providing the country with surveillance and drone technology, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Palantir technology was also used in the terrorist pager attacks Israel carried out in Lebanon in September of 2024, which killed scores of civilians, including children, and injured thousands, some of them with lifelong mutilations, eye loss and brain damage.

Palantir CEO, Alex Carp has been vociferous in his support of the genocidal apartheid state and the company held its first board meeting in Tel Aviv in 2024.

In addition to Epstein’s relationship with Ehud Barak, in 2006 he joined ultra-Zionist lawyer Alan Dershowitz to smear John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt as being antisemitic for their article: “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.” Epstein happily promoted the rebuttal by Dershowitz to all of his wealthy and powerful friends.

Alan Dershowitz, himself, was a key architect of the 2008 federal plea deal in Florida which allowed Epstein to serve only 13 months in a county jail with work-release for soliciting a minor, while granting immunity to unnamed “potential co-conspirators.” He continued to maintain his relationship with Epstein, saying it was predominantly “academic.” Yet he admitted to flying on Epstein’s private plane, staying at his homes, and taking a Lexus for his wife in lieu of legal fees.

In addition to this, the late Virginia Giuffre alleged she was trafficked to Dershowitz for sex on multiple occasions when she was a minor. Dershowitz vehemently denied these claims and Guiffre eventually dropped the lawsuit saying she “may have made a mistake.”

But other unsubstantiated allegations from former Epstein staff have surfaced alleging misconduct by the high profile lawyer. Dershowitz would go on to accuse Guiffre of lying about Andrew Windsor (formerly Prince Andrew). And most of us see how that turned out.

The revelations are monumental. Jeffrey Epstein and the notorious files cannot be separated from the murderous Israeli regime or the political ideology of Zionism. But this is just what we are seeing now, with mainstream media deliberately obscuring the connections and choosing instead to amplify a bigger Russian role.

Without a doubt, Epstein dealt heavily with Russian oligarchs and Vladimir Putin does not have clean hands in any of this. According to recently released emails, he arranged meetings with between Israel and Russian officials during the war in Syria. He also associated and consorted with a wide array of American politicians and billionaires and European aristocracy and royalty.

The idea that Jeffrey Epstein made it to where he was just before he died all by himself is the lie that is being peddled by many politicians and some in the media. It is a lie that is easily exposed. Yet it is being told repeatedly to reduce the urgency of interrogating these questionable ties.

The common markers of these relationships are simple: wealth accumulation for the wealthiest, obtaining and maintaining political power, arms dealing, money laundering and criminal impunity. And Epstein trafficked in all of these things as much, if not more, than he trafficked young girls. There are many villains in this story and they are from many places with many interests.

But despite the silence among Western politicians and legacy media, Jeffrey Epstein’s link to a nation-state that has implemented a decades-long campaign of ethnic cleansing and apartheid, ultimately culminating in the genocide the world has witnessed over the last 2+ years, cannot simply be brushed away.

Pointing this out is not bigotry. It is fact. And like the children in the files, the millions of victims of this sinister project deserve far better than being ignored once again.

Kenn Maurice Orfanos, February 2026

Navigating Trauma at the End of Illusions

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These past few years have been a reckoning on a global scale. From the genocide in Gaza to the rise of brutal fascist regimes to the revelations in the Epstein files, we are all bearing witness to the festering moral rot of the ruling class and the societal decomposition it has caused.

Our own governments supported and funded a genocide that they told us wasn’t happening, even though we saw it with our own eyes. We saw them lie and obfuscate and smear those who spoke out and contort themselves into the most grotesque spectacle to make excuses for blowing children to pieces, burying families under rubble, burning them alive in their makeshift tents, erasing entire bloodlines, shooting toddlers in the neck, torturing doctors and nurses, murdering journalists, teachers, poets and artists, leveling hospitals, schools, universities and shelters. We saw them run cover for the complete destruction of a society. And then draw up blueprints for a luxury, seaside resort over the mass graves.

We have seen the ascendency of a cruel, despotic narcissist in the most powerful and ruthless empire on the planet. A sadistic rapist, conman and gangster. One whose entire parlance is mendacity. One whose own body is a suppurating blob of Big Mac grease with bronzer slathered over its decay. One who has inspired grifters who turn a profit from sycophancy and a mob who delight in ignorance and humiliation and terror. Who have no problem with shooting women in the face or men beaten on the ground.

We have seen a billionaire class obsessed with living forever while condemning everyone else to a scorched earth. Who revel in demolishing the modest safety nets that keep people from absolute poverty. Who think democracy is quaint, but useless. And who use mass surveillance, usury and AI to suppress and distract us.

Now we are getting a glimpse into the nefarious machinations of the elite. A shadowy and sinister world of the most wealthy and powerful men, where human decency is a punchline. A world that uses sex as a bludgeon and treats the most vulnerable among us as objects to be used and discarded. And all the while we are seeing it, we are being gaslit again. Told that the world wants to “move on.”

Of course, none of this is new. Human history is littered with casual cruelties, unprovoked injuries, and banal evil. This world sits on top of a mountain of murdered corpses. The difference now is that the living biosphere, the one we all depend upon, is in the crosshairs. And the scope of brutality has expanded beyond the colonized or enslaved or racialized or otherized or dehumanized to include us all.

We have been integrated into the machinery of our own collective demise. Shoveling coal into a machine intent on our destruction for the profit of a few. And conditioned to see it all as necessary. As “progress.” If you are feeling overwhelmed or lost or shattered these days, you are not the abnormal one. You are grieving a world of illusion as it crashes to the ground.

Trauma can be a catalyst for change, but it can also be a drug. It creates bonds which can be regenerative, or ones which mire us in despair. Either way, it is unavoidable. Those who try to skirt its implications aren’t “the lucky ones.” They are like the ones who tell you to “stay put” in a building that is aflame. They aren’t saving you, they are choosing normalcy bias over urgency.

The trauma we are feeling is real. It is raw. It is unforgiving. But it is also a rejoinder to lived experience. It lives under our skin and its grammar is sorrow and confusion and rage. When we face it with integrity, we can eventually let the illusions go. It doesn’t mean the pain will be forgotten. But it can become the currency needed to unlock a door for our escape.

The rulers of this world have shown us who they are. Perhaps it is time we show them who we are.

Kenn Maurice Orfanos, February 2026

Bread and Circuses, Without the Bread

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Since the US-Israeli takeover of TikTok, there have been endless complaints about censorship, banned content and banned content creators. Some are saying the platform isn’t even allowing viewers to type in the letters “ICE.” Others have said that the word “Israel” pops up in any search, regardless of the topic. And any search for the word “Epstein” apparently may get your profile flagged for violating “community guidelines.” It has been hemorrhaging members who are going to the new UpScrolled as an alternative.

This all began when billionaires and American politicians were wringing their hands over the influence it was having regarding Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Unsurprisingly, all of them claimed it was because of Chinese censorship, date collection and surveillance. But everyone, except the feckless, understood the real reason.

After ardent Zionist and billionaire, Larry Ellison, bought the company via his corporation Oracle, everything changed. The new CEO of TikTok, Adam Presser, boasted about banning the word “Zionist” as a form of hate speech unless it was used in the context of being a “proud Zionist.” If the content criticized the political ideology, it would be considered a “dirty word” and be censored. Anti-Zionists, which include an enormous swath of Jews, are not welcome any more.

Larry Ellison, sixth richest person in the world and close friend of wanted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, has made significant donations to the IDF as it commits heinous crimes against Palestinian civilians, including children. His company Oracle is an enormous, AI-generated surveillance technology giant.

Ellison, himself, has said he would welcome a “1984-style” surveillance state where AI analyzes video feeds to track, record, and influence citizen behavior. The billionaire claimed “citizens will be on their best behavior” because they are constantly being recorded and reported. Larry Ellison and others claimed that they were afraid of “Chinese surveillance,” even as Oracle had ties to Chinese resellers who have provided surveillance technology to Chinese police.

What all of this means is rather simple and banal. Elites like Ellison understood that these social media platforms were sharing real content about the atrocities Israel was committing. For the first time in human history, a genocide became widely seen and livestreamed by the victims.

The new TikTok is shadowbanning and silencing critics of Israel and the political ideology of Zionism. But it is part of a larger project of social control in the United States. Larry Ellison financed his son David Ellison’s acquisition of Paramount Global (the parent company of CBS).

They then appointed journalist flunky Bari Weiss as the Editor-in-Chief of CBS News. Weiss, known for her crusade against woke windmills of the mind, has also peddled in genocide apologetics and denial from her virtually inconsequential platform The Free Press.

Since taking over CBS, Weiss has been busy making the once respected news organization into a facsimile of Fox News for old centrists. Her first big event was an interview with Charlie Kirk’s widow and grifter extraordinaire, Erika Kirk. It had some of the lowest viewership in the networks history.

What we are witnessing in the United States is the complete decay of its communications and journalism institutions. From CBS to TikTok to MGM Studios, the aim is in controlling the dialogue and manufacturing opinions and consent within the accepted framework.

MGM, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, is most notoriously known for its recent bankrolling of the documentary “Melania,” which follows the first lady around for a few weeks as she does practically nothing but exist and wear lampshade-sized hats.

Regardless of how much money billionaire elites spend, what they are managing is nothing more than the death spiral of American society. The rapid unraveling of an empire, now headed by a dying, narcissistic, rapist who is terrorizing Black, Brown, Indigenous, women, queer and immigrant communities and occupying American cities as he rattles his saber at allies and adversaries abroad. Meanwhile, Americans struggle to make ends meet, terrified of medical bankruptcy and choosing between rent and food.

This is Bread and Circuses, but without the bread.

Kenn Maurice Orfanos, January 2026

The Holocaust Taught Us that No Human Being is Illegal

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It is utterly loathsome to see this kind of dehumanization and Holocaust denial from anyone. But from a rabbi?

Anne Frank and millions of Jews, Roma and other ethnic or religious groups were rendered stateless for the very purpose of deporting them to death camps. Anne violated the law by hiding from authorities in a secret annex concealed in their father’s office building. She was not in the Netherlands legally because the Nazis changed the laws.

Laws do not equate morality. They do not equate ethics. They represent control and power. Sometimes they are good. Often they are reprehensible.

The Holocaust was perpetrated by a regime that stripped millions of their citizenship, even in the nations that it invaded and occupied. This regime created laws that reinforced this otherizing and demonization in order to seize their property and annihilate them. And without passports or other documents, these people were trapped, unable to flee to other countries.

This is no different than what the Trump regime is doing (and other administrations, both Democrat and Republican, have done). They are dehumanizing people based on their colour, or accent, or immigration status. They are rendering them stateless for easy internment in their concentration camps. For easy disposal.

But this is the moral bankruptcy at the heart of Zionism. A political ideology which relies on ahistorical myths and supremacy, and which cannot recognize these simple facts because doing so unravels their narrative. And thus, it makes the only choice it has left, which is to support fascism.

If the Holocaust taught us anything, it is that papers and passports are all temporary and arbitrary based on who holds power. It taught us that no human being is illegal. And no excuse made by a ruthless and brutal regime will change those immutable facts.

Kenn Maurice Orfanos, January 2026

Jared Kushner’s ‘New Gaza’ is in Keeping with Zionism’s Colonial Project

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One of the most striking features of the Trump-Kushner plan for Gaza is that it erases anything resembling Palestine. The ancient architecture, most of which has been reduced to rubble by Israel, is replaced by something more akin to Dubai. And this is no accident.

Like so many Americans, Kushner and Trump view the entire Middle-East region as a monolith. One people. One culture. No variations. No complexities. The clothing, language, food? All the same.

The only cities they are familiar with are from the Gulf monarchies. Gaza, whose history stretches back at least 5000 years, was filled with ancient souks, mosques, hammams, churches, Roman mosaics, alleyways and ports, is transformed into a glittering hyper-capitalist dystopia. One which could sit comfortably in any of the Gulf nations.

When one considers the notion that this city would be built over the mass graves of hundreds of thousands of people, it becomes obvious how odious it all is. But this is also the story of Israel.

The Zionists came into this region with the claim that it was a “land without a people, for a people without a land.” But this was always a lie. And they knew it.

This is why they destroyed so many villages and planted forests on top of the ruins with trees not indigenous to the Levant. The result has been wildfires every year, as these European pines ignite in the dry, hot climate.

The seaside Palestinian village of Tantura was referred by the ancient Greeks as Dor. During the Nakba, a Zionist death squad from the Haganah, which came under the command of one of Israel’s founding fathers David Ben-Gurion, murdered hundreds of the inhabitants and buried them in mass graves. A kibbutz was later erected on the site. Today, it is a popular beach for Israelis.

Kushner’s grotesque vision for Gaza is in keeping with the Zionist project, which never sat comfortably in the Levant. It attempted to import its European identity on to a land that already had a long and rich culture of its own.

Despite its glittering skyscrapers, casinos, hotels and 5-star restaurants, this “New Gaza” will forever be stained with the blood of thousands. Their bones will be in every foundational stone. Though they will try their hardest to whitewash its edifice, the genocide will never be forgotten, nor forgiven by the millions of people around the world who have witnessed its horror.

Kenn Maurice Orfanos, January 2026

Gaza is What the Powerful are Planning for us All

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Imagine modern skyscrapers akin to Dubai. Imagine white sand beaches and hotels. Imagine first class restaurants. And imagine them all sitting atop the world’s biggest mass grave.

The New York Times, the so-called “paper of record.” presents Jared Kushner’s plan as “glittering.” It is almost as if Gollum, himself, penned it.

As this grotesque plan was presented in the posh resort village of Davos, a place where Nazis holidayed in the 1930s, where only the world’s most monied scoundrels convene to discuss their portfolios and prospects, Benjamin Netanyahu sat at home, unable to attend for fear of being arrested for war crimes.

The Trump regime, which resembles more a band of two bit gangsters, is assembling a pack of jackals to feast on the carcass of Gaza. With Israel razing what is left of its society to dust and pushing the remaining population into walled, militarized ghettos or deported somewhere else.

Gaza is the template for what the powerful plan for the rest of us. Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, said in his speech in Davos that “if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.” He was talking about the so-called “middle powers.” But the stark reality is that most of us will never be invited to the party. And if we are, it will be through the kitchen door and straight into the oven.

Gaza is only the beginning. Trump’s sham “Board of Peace” is both an oxymoron and an insult. Its raison d’etre is a mechanism for the wealthy and powerful to extract even more wealth, property and power. Billionaires like Peter Thiel will be integral to this plan. Through his surveillance company, Palantir, it will clamp down on dissent in a manner only dreamed about by elites in decades past.

Others, like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Sam Altman and Michael Bloomberg, are heavily involved in this slash, extract and suture economy. Every region on earth is viewed as a capital investment to them. In truth, they were always viewed as such. But with the planet’s climate heating up, the game has become more cutthroat than ever before.

As for the rest of us, we are the dregs of the earth to them. An impediment which is best replaced by AI and robotics. Servants who cannot complain, cannot organize, cannot strike. We are expendable, as is democracy, a concept they see as quaint, but useless.

Gaza called out to us. It shouted its warning to the world. And it is still shouting. They aren’t listening. The question is, are we?

Kenn Maurice Orfanos, January 2026

The ‘Rules Based Order’ Has Always Been a Farce

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Let’s be clear about this thing called “international law.” There are laws and treaties and agreements on the books which are designed to hold power to account. The contradiction lies within its application. In this supposed “rules based order” that we have been told is now in tatters, the powerful have always manipulated the terms and conditions.

This is no more apparent than in the genocide in Gaza. Without a doubt, there have been other atrocities and genocides committed. But this one was completely funded and supported by the United States and other Western nations. They are the engine of this project of annihilation. And in no other case is the hypocrisy more glaring.

Now that the Trump regime is in power, the same aggression meted out on the Global South is turning inward toward the states that have long been in the political and economic orbit of the United States. Remember, most European countries were not perturbed by the “rupturing” of international law when it was being shredded by bombs and drones in Gaza. They are only upset now when those threats and belligerence are being aimed at them.

This is not to excuse the Trump regime and its Hitlerian aspirations. It is not an excuse for imperialistic, oppressive or violent regimes outside the American Empire either.

But it underscores the truth about the arrangement of power throughout most of the 20th century, most especially following the second world war. Where was this order when the US carpet bombed Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia? When it overthrew democratically elected governments or subverted democratic movements, from Iran to Chile and beyond? Where was it when the US invaded Iraq based on a lie?

NATO did not “keep the peace,” as some neoliberal politicians opine. It managed American imperialism and largely carried out its wishes, while handsomely profiting multinational corporations. It is an organization set up to ensure white, northern countries would always dominate the Global South. Now, that alliance is falling to pieces. But after watching it destroy Libya and turn it into the biggest, modern-day slave trading region on earth, it would be ghoulish to grieve the demise of what amounts to a consortium of white supremacy and violence.

If international law was ever to be evenly applied, it would not only condemn despotic leaders like Vladimir Putin or the brutal, clerical theocracy in Iran. It would have every US president, many Western leaders and every billionaire apprehended and taken to the Hague for crimes against humanity and the planet.

The unwillingness for so many in the West to see their leadership as fundamentally corrupt and deserving of criminal prosecution is not merely hypocritical. It is grounded in a racism that sees Western leaders and billionaires as somehow above the law. As flawed, but redeemable when they speak well or present themselves as stately. Essentially, as too white to be in the same league as some murderous tyrant from Africa, Central America, the Middle-East or Asia. And this racism has been the underpinning foundation for the farce of the “rules based order” for centuries.

Kenn Maurice Orfanos, January 2026

Atrocity and Gaslighting in the Post Truth Era

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We live in a post truth era. A time of gargantuan gaslighting. Immediately following the murder of an unarmed woman in her car by an ICE agent in Minneapolis as she drove away, Kristi Noem began the process of sanitization. Despite clear evidence that this was an unprovoked murder, she reframed it as domestic terrorism.

Donald Trump chimed in not long after with his usual lies and swift scapegoating of the “radical left.”

And since then, a swarm of online trolls, who are mostly white men, have flooded their newsfeeds and the comment sections of anyone who will still keep them on their friend list with comments like “FAFO” or “this is what happens when you try to run over law enforcement.”

The last one is the most striking. Renee Nicole Good was killed in cold blood in front of cameras. We all saw it. So, how can anyone not connected to power still defend ICE?

It demonstrates two things. One, they did not watch the video. Two, they did, but they simply don’t care about facts. Either way, protecting the fragile edifice of American power and domination is more important than evidence, even when that evidence is incontrovertible. The only options available to them are to ignore it or redefine it to fit the only acceptable narrative.

For over two years, we have witnessed a literal genocide being carried out by Israel in Gaza. The evidence is overwhelming in this regard. Thousands of photos, videos, testimonies, eyewitness accounts, doctors, nurses, journalists, scholars all attest to this. Yet, as with the murder of Renee Nicole Good, we are being gaslit to deny our own critical thinking and accept the version of the powerful, no matter how absurd or ridiculous it may be.

When truth becomes an option rather than the primary foundation of a society, the result is brutality. It always ends in atrocity. Genocide is the very worst crime against humanity. The US was and continues to be the primary engine of that crime. It has used every power it possesses to crush the truth about it. And this is the result.

Those defending the treacherous and murderous actions of ICE today are no different than those who defended Israel or the United States as they carried out a genocide. Both require a monumental suspension of critical thinking skills and the complete bankruptcy of moral integrity. And, in this regard, America excels at both.

Kenn Maurice Orfanos, January 2026

The End of Pax Americana

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Trump: “Colombia’s very sick too, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States. And he’s not going to be doing it very long. Let me tell you…He’s got cocaine mills and cocaine factories.”

Reporter: “So there will be an operation by the U.S. in Colombia?”

Trump: “It sounds good to me.”

The Trump regime is not finished. Not by a long shot. Its imperialistic rampage is targeting Columbia, Cuba, Mexico and Greenland. And if you think he will stop there, you haven’t been paying attention to his Hitlerian rants and the support he has received from his sniveling sycophants and even Democrat dolts like Debbie Wasserman Schultz and John Fetterman. Canada, I am looking at you.

Of course, what Trump is doing isn’t very different than any other project of the American Empire. Republican or Democratic, both arms of the empire do their part at the behest of its ruling class and their capital investments.

But Trump has ripped the veil off of the “Pax Americana” brand and showed it for what it really is. He has legitimized its gangsterism. And he is ramping it up to grab whatever is left for him and his wealthy friends on a planet that is on the brink of ecological devastation and climate chaos.

The American corporate media doesn’t know what to do with any of this, other than wring their hands about “legality” or worry about how it sounds rather than what it is. They are more concerned with preserving the old narrative of a benevolent and ethical, if not flawed, America, even though it is a complete lie.

And political leaders in Europe have demonstrated their complete subservience to American hegemony by couching their language in cautious “observatory” terminology. Except for Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who warned Trump to stop threatening the takeover of Greenland, which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark.

The latter is significant for several reasons, since Denmark is a member of NATO. Any attack on Greenland would be an attack on it, on NATO, and on Europe itself.

Trump’s actions are in keeping with American imperialistic aggression. The difference now is that under Trump its scope has expanded beyond the Global South to include white, Western nations as well. It is a clear signal that the old order of relations and allies is over.

But the Trump regime isn’t saving American Empire. On the contrary, he is stealing as much of the resources he can on behalf of its ruling class who know all too well that the party is almost over.

Even if Fox News flunkies believe that climate change is a hoax, they do not. Why else would they spend billions of dollars to suppress the science and silence the scientists? They know. They just care more about their wealth than they do about a livable biosphere. Because in some daft way, they think their wealth will insulate them.

And if the genocide in Gaza has taught us anything, it is that this class is thoroughly capable, without reservation, to annihilate anyone who might hamper their investments. Israel is, after all, one of the most important colonial assets of the American Empire. It has invested billions into what amounts to the biggest US military base in the world. They have shown us what they are more than willing to do or to justify. Only the willfully blind and toxically naive would not see that now.

We are entering a new phase of the resource wars. The old imperial houses and gangster capitalists are preparing to scrape up the last bits of fortune at our expense, even if that means burning it all to ash. Trump is merely accelerating that inferno.

Kenn Maurice Orfanos, January 2026

Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro and the Disintegration of MAGA

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It is hard not to notice the civil war unfolding within MAGA world. Some say it began with the murder of the notorious far-right bigot, Charlie Kirk. Others say it began long before this. But one thing is undeniable. The war is reaching epic proportions now.

On one side are the establishment hacks. The ones who have used their access to power in order to promote an ideology of authoritarianism. On the other are the monsters largely created by the establishment hacks. Those who use their skills with social media manipulation and grift to stoke old stereotypes and social hatreds. Neither are traditionally conservative. But both have captured the conservative mind.

This has reached its most visible example in the battle between social media grifters, Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens. Shapiro, who is Jewish, is known for his vile dehumanization of transgender people, Muslims and immigrants. Owens, who is Black, also participated in these bigotries. But since the murder of Kirk, she has taken it a step further in peddling odious antisemitic conspiracy theories and demonization.

Ben Shapiro has always supported the ethnostate of Israel. He has rationalized its apartheid, championed its most brutal policies and whitewashed its genocide of the Palestinians. Anyone who opposes Israel or Zionism is cast as antisemitic by the far right ideologue. But Owens, who was fired by Shapiro from the far right outlet The Daily Wire, has not only come out against Israel, she has used her platform with millions of followers to attack Jews as a whole, regurgitating ahistorical and debunked myths.

Whether it is the supposed notion that Jews were responsible for the Atlantic Slave Trade or that they believe all non-Jews are inferior to them, the story is an old one which has its roots in the antisemitic Protocols of Zion. This was a collection of fabricated conversations supposedly between Jewish elders in Russia. One which characterizes Jews as the cunning creators of a secret cabal whose aim was global domination.

The Protocols of Zion is not just an innocuous fiction. It was used by the Nazis and contributed to the persecution of Jewish communities in Germany and throughout Europe and to the Holocaust which claimed millions of Jewish lives and millions of other marginalized groups, including Roma, communists and queer people.

It may be mildly entertaining to watch this mostly online war between two grifters on the far right. But there is far more at stake. Both figures have captured a huge following in their own right. Shapiro’s camp is not only okay with US support for Israel as it commits genocide, it is cheering it on. They revel in the demonization of Palestinians and their supporters, including anti-Zionist Jews, tarring all as antisemitic for opposing the political ideology of Zionism and the apartheid and genocide it has fostered.

Owen’s may speak about genocide being wrong in any instance, but she has no real solidarity with the Palestinian people. Her new found hatred of Israel is not rooted in a principled approach to equality or collective liberation either. It comes from a deep hatred of Jews as a people and a pernicious delusion about them being some menacing, all powerful monolith.

Both Shapiro and Owens represent the darkest underbelly of far right politics in the United States. A toxic brew of white grievance and paranoid social hatred. That Owens is Black does not take away from this reality. In fact, she is the perfect token for peddling it to a population that has been conditioned to feel like they are under attack. They easily jettison facts for fantasy. Her irrational and incongruent conspiracy theories, whether it be that the moon landing was fake or that Brigitte Macron is actually a man, play to an audience which has been largely denuded of critical thinking skills.

Shapiro, who now has the devotion of professional widow Erika Kirk, is using his platform to whip Christian Zionists into a frenzy. Their support of Israel and his do not come from the same place. Evangelicals are not so concerned about Jews as they are in the fulfillment of an unhinged, eschatological opera. But both go hand in hand with American Empire and its goals.

And Shapiro helped create the culture of moral decay we see amongst US conservatives. One that easily dehumanizes and scapegoats minorities and champions the most sadistic policies of the Trump regime. They may all have different motivations, but the result is the same fascist dystopia.

Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens are visual aid to where MAGA was always destined. The deceitful and hateful rhetoric routinely employed by Donald Trump has fed into a miasma of confusion and paranoia. His disdain for intellectual discourse, informed dissent and moral curiosity created a cesspit of vicious hatefulness that has fostered racism, misogyny, transphobia, antisemitism and Islamophobia. It is a poisonous brew that led to the rise of some of the most odious figures of this century, which include Shapiro and Owens.

Perhaps this civil war signals the end of MAGA as a movement. But it is best understood as a death cult. And cults rarely, if ever, dissipate peacefully. It remains to be seen whether this one will fade quickly, or cast a long, dark shadow on the American psyche for generations to come.

Kenn Orfanos, December 2025