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How Did Epstein Get Rich? The New York Times Investigates His "Scams, Schemes, Ruthless Cons"
Democracy Now • Dec 17, 2025

How Did Epstein Get Rich? The New York Times Investigates His "Scams, Schemes, Ruthless Cons"

As the Trump administration is expected to release investigative files related to Jeffrey Epstein later this week, a recent New York Times investigation delves into one of the biggest mysteries about the deceased sexual predator: how the college dropout with no financial training rose through the world of finance and amassed his wealth, which enabled his abuse and insulated him from scrutiny for decades. David Enrich, deputy investigations editor at The New York Times and lead author of the report, headlined “Scams, Schemes, Ruthless Cons: The Untold Story of How Jeffrey Epstein Got Rich,” says Epstein’s early success in business was due to a series of lucky breaks, lies and scams that nevertheless convinced sophisticated investors and business titans to give him their money.

Julian Assange: Sweden Broke Own Laws With Nobel Prize to Venezuela’s Machado
Scheer Post • Dec 17, 2025

Julian Assange: Sweden Broke Own Laws With Nobel Prize to Venezuela’s Machado

By awarding its peace prize to Trump’s favorite Venezuelan opposition figure, pro-war coup plotter Maria Corina Machado, the Nobel Committee contravened the principles enshrined in its founding documents, as well as Swedish law, Julian Assange alleged in an explosive brief reviewed by The Grayzone.

Chile's Trump? Ariel Dorfman on the Election of Pinochet Admirer José Antonio Kast
Democracy Now • Dec 17, 2025

Chile's Trump? Ariel Dorfman on the Election of Pinochet Admirer José Antonio Kast

José Antonio Kast has won Chile’s presidential election, with the far-right leader getting about 58% of the vote in Sunday’s runoff against Jeannette Jara, a member of the Communist Party who served as labor minister under outgoing President Gabriel Boric. Kast has openly praised former U.S.-backed dictator Augusto Pinochet and is the son of a Nazi who fled Germany after World War II. Kast campaigned on fighting crime and carrying out mass deportations of immigrants. “It is a political and ethical earthquake,” says acclaimed Chilean American writer Ariel Dorfman, who served as a cultural adviser to socialist President Salvador Allende from 1970 to 1973. He pins much of the blame for Kast’s rise on an “uninspired left” that has lost its way since the end of dictatorship and “turned its back on the troubles of the people.”

A Path to WWIII? Greg Grandin on Venezuela, Trump's "Madman Doctrine" & More
Democracy Now • Dec 17, 2025

A Path to WWIII? Greg Grandin on Venezuela, Trump's "Madman Doctrine" & More

President Trump has ordered what he called a “total and complete blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, as the United States escalates pressure on the government of President Nicolás Maduro. The move comes amid a major U.S. military buildup in the region and days after U.S. forces seized an oil tanker carrying Venezuelan oil. Since September, the U.S. military has carried out at least 25 airstrikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific near Venezuela, killing at least 95 people. The administration’s actions against Venezuela signal “the total renunciation of liberal internationalism” and further abandonment of “a world governed by common laws,” says Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Yale University professor Greg Grandin. This comes as Latin America is on a “knife’s edge between the left and the right,” with the Trump administration eager to boost its authoritarian allies across the region, says Grandin.

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