I saw a transcript of Nick Fuentes talking about the Epstein Files and was chagrined to find myself agreeing with an open Nazi. Fuentes made points about how evasive Trump and crew look and how his behavior sure does seem to indicate guilt about something. If the whole sordid mess was brought into the open, I'm sure Trump would be revealed as the wretched pedophile that we already know he is. Of course, nothing would probably happen to the anointed scumbag anyway.
We're being marched back to a barbaric age in which, among other things, women are meant to know their place, be subservient to manly, barbaric men and so on and so forth.
Too, as noted in the linked piece, part of Donny being a pathological piece of shit of a subhuman monster (again, no hyperbole there but summing up what's documented) is being an unhinged misogynist--and alleged rapist including of underage women and, IMO pending concrete proof to the contrary, a serial molester or worse of his older daughter when she, too, was underage.
Every fucking resentful piece of shit that makes up a huge part of MAGA and the Republican really, really hate women, no matter how they care to characterize it.
It's the hate.
I have to say, a lot of this stuff is simple and trying to see depth because one assumes there's depth when there really isn't tends to be a waste--as a rule, there are exceptions where it's useful.
i want that greasy sewer pipe to spew a narrative of self-incrimination that lays there among the courtier media bunch for a dead 8 seconds before everyone runs from the room to file the story or video their take. We're in such a fine fix because a large number of our 'friends and neighbors' have elected this dude, twice, who conveys the message that this country can be an open sewer real easy, snap of the fingers. It's hard to admit that, and throw the thing out of the white house. We don't do chagrin well as a people.
yeah. i guess he'll just hafta keep metamorphizing into the monster that he is for all to see — kinda like Jeff Goldblum going back into that fly machine — but even then…
"Underage women" is a corrupt media whitewashing of statutory rape (and from what I've read of the Epstein files, forcible rape) and you and I should not participate in it. "Underage women" are GIRLS, so let's call it like it is.
OTOH, isn't it interesting how, when we're talking about actual women and we want to diminish their agency, we call them girls? The inverse operation is being attempted here on children who had none.
P.S. I saw new photo from the files yesterday of Trump on an airplane cuddling up to a blonde seven year-old — even the memory brings tears to my eyes.
Have you seen the label on that pic purporting to be Pam Blondi? One wonders if it is true, and if so, could that be a reason why she's been inflicted upon the rest of us...
I think we need to be careful about what we swallow (sorry). There is enough ghastly stuff in this document dump that we don't need to embroider it. The "Pam Bondi as a girl" pic not only doesn't look like her beyond the hair color, it doesn't even look like a real photo. Especially the stuff from the FBI tip line, or at least some parts of it, is giving Rolling Stone rape-case vibes.
Excellent observations. The words have strong mental implications for how we feel and frame and therefore behave subsequently. Framing affects are real and impactful.
The routine seems to be "oh, it's not CHILDREN", thus negating all their whining about consent from those under 25 which seems to only work for gender issues. "Anyone under the age of 25 has a brain that's still developing and can't think straight" up until it's contemplating 14 year olds.
The incredible misogyny evident in some of the ads in Fifties family magazines have been, I suppose, a source of amusement to some, and shock to others, are a pastel guidepost to the expectations of men in the Twentieth Century. I was a little boy in those days, and I was puzzled by these things but didn’t take them too seriously. As time went on, it became apparent that this crap permeated the culture at every level, and even the people whom I admired were not immune to it. From MAD onwards, it seemed that all the marvelous satirists, cartoonists and comedians I loved had some real problems when it came to women, and I did too. Studying art history on the G.I. Bill in the Seventies was the last straw. When the paramount survey text for the basic survey courses had had no women in it for many years, and the women in my art classes were clearly as talented as the men, the jig was up, as it was throughout society at that time. Five thousand years of patriarchy was not going to roll over easily, though, and the shittiest people in our society have been lashing out in all directions in an effort to erase every change that has occurred over the last hundred years.
The irony or whatever is that the me. Pushing back DEI are such stupid, mediocre pieces of shit that they should be the argument for DEI. OTOH, since the nation’s now in a regressive, reactionary mode, only the worse and most unqualified will do…
Yeah. I always take the position that affirmative action, DEI and the like are hurtful to mythical people the same way Jim Crow and other bog-standard racisms/sexisms were genuinely hurtful to genuine people.
it's always been based on grievance; much of the modern Right's success is due to effective ways of putting grievance to use. Right now, this is especially overt in the anti-immigrant pogrom. Official neo-Nazi stuff aimed at the voting base, with pitches like, "deportations will free up affordable housing for you pure Americans."
And much of the influence effort goes to painting a picture of heroic "agents" under attack. They will be victimized and doxxed if they don't wear masks. They're already being assaulted -- by words on signs, whistles, and being yelled at.
Here ya go: “Rural communities like mine are paying the price for illegal immigration,” said Ken Yager, senate Republican caucus chairman, in a release. “It places a real strain on local resources and drains taxpayer dollars that should be reinvested right here at home to strengthen our communities.”
Sure, buddy, that's why rural Tennessee is poor, it's those damn immigrants. We all know Tobacco Road was paved with gold before THEY showed up.
I agree. No one with any ability to do the right thing, like Weiss, want to be the first to 'break the seal', lest the rest of the Sex Creep Brigade be pressured into following suit... more 'look what you made me do' than taking any responsibility or showing any moral backbone, which none of the involved possess so SSDD. It's almost like a dare, a taunt at this point: the playground bully going 'yeah, what are you gonna do? Tell on me?' It emboldens them rather than shaming them.
Meh. Even at the height of Me Too#, it didn't look like ANY of the effects on MEN were going to be especially severe or long-lasting (and it was immediately obvious that it would have more adverse effects on the women involved).
So while there is an element of strutting "whatyagonnadoboutit" from the Right, it feels to me more like a continuation of the dick-first world we all knew and loathed before, but with a lot more documentation in this specific case.
(There is, however, the bonus head-fuck aspect of all the Q-Anon and Righteous Rightwingers who spent the last 15 years squealing about how Democrats are all pedophile sexual libertines being forced to reckon with the fact that it's their favorite Republicans who are the pedophile sexual libertines.)
But are they? I don't have the stomach to check, but in the Land of QAnon, how are people taking it, if they're taking it at all? Do they even acknowledge any of this is happening? I would never underestimate people's ability to simply ignore inconvenient truths.
Al Franken resigned from the Senate because of his naughty but not especially egregious prank he played. Al Franken recognized that, and, having a conscience and, not being an irredeemable pig, did the right thing, at least in his mind. It really pisses me off, especially as a Minnesotan, that we lost a pretty good senator and these numerous skeevebags are still out there un- or barely-scathed by any consequences of their crimes.
I couldn't agree more. In fact over the weekend on Bluesky I was having this discussion with others in the replies to Moira Donegan's account. I noted that a not insignificant number of men on both the Right and Left were dismissive of any code of conduct that could potentially constrain their dicks.
The message is "what's the big deal?" It's doubly ironic that many of the same people screaming "Pedophiles!" who stirred up the whole bizarre Pizzagate conspiracy are now the first to shrug over Epstein.
"the same people screaming "Pedophiles!" who stirred up the whole bizarre Pizzagate conspiracy are now the first to shrug over Epstein."
One wonders whether they really cared at all, huh? But I suppose that's how it works with virtue-signaling, making the whole thing about YOU, elbowing the victims aside so you can take center stage as their savior, hell, I never really cared that much about those whales anyway.
The underlying psychology maps to Us versus Them. Contradictions my granddad taught me about racist thinking: Lazy as a N. versus Work hard like a N. I was four or five but I recall it. My granddad used to talk to me as if I were an adult at times. He liked to use me as a confidant and share his observations about everything.
Yeah, it's why they don't even ring the bell for you anymore when you say, "Hey, THIS thing they believe completely contradicts this OTHER thing they believe!"
The missus made the point yesterday that she is very relieved she did not saddle any spawn with the soon-to-be-dead planet issue. That is, she had no issue, therefore she has no issue...or, said another way...ah, maybe not.
I think that this is a story as old as time itself. The average person thinks of rape as something that happens to a woman who is out alone at night, on a street, and is accosted by a stranger. The vast majority of sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone known to the victim, someone who she trusts enough to be alone with or to allow in her home. Women who have been sexually assaulted in settings other than the stranger on the street scenario have learned the hard way that if the guy wasn't a stranger and you weren't stabbed or strangled or roughed up, you will often be accused of trying to set some poor guy up. Particularly if the perpetrator has money and influence, it is fairly easy to besmirch a victim's reputation. This is why so many victims of sexual assault don't come forward. I doubt that anything will come of the Epstein files considering the piecemeal way they're being grudgingly doled out. If Donald Trump didn't have money, he'd be washing dishes somewhere.
One thing that always puzzled me when I was a lad was this: In fairy tales or fantasies, a central part of the story often was the forced marriage of the nice princess to a wicked king. That was the dilemma, the fate from which the hero, thank goodness, saved her. But what I never understood was, not "why does she have to do that," but even more bafflingly, "why would the king want to marry a woman who obviously doesn't love him?"
Adults (and even teenagers) know the answer to that, but I never asked, and can't imagine the answer I'd have received if I had. If any. The result was a lifelong dead zone in my brain, a place where the wires are unplugged and there's just a sign reading DON'T ASK. Discovering all those areas and learning to plug them back in is the work of a lifetime.
I'm sure someone has done a long essay somewhere on the "stranger danger" idea that's been sold to adults - that the world is full of people evil enough to even predate on other adults. (I'm not putting it well but I'm waiting for a prescription and my wrist HURTS. Fucking gout.)
But I think moreso to your point that it might be more about showing the world they do not give a rat's patoot (as Melania's sweatshirt said). Women, men, children; the gatekeepers are keepin' their gate closed, and NO ONE not on the list has standing.
Meanwhile, in a foxhole somewheres on the Great Western Patriotic Front, Ruskies be goin' "Did you hear that dr – " whilst Putin amuses himself reminiscing about the ease with which he detroyed a considerable portion of the world, then rounds up a few more losers for a quick tour of duty...
This sounds depressingly real. And here I thought you could not meet my level of serious depression when contemplating the current world. I stand corrected.
What I can't figure out is why this stuff hasn't been completely destroyed by now. Although as you imply perhaps the real shit has already been disposed of.
It's good to bring the Epstein issue and the misogyny issue together in to the single context in which they belong. I'm obsessed with non-Epstein rape suspect Pete Hegseth, our incompetent "Secretary of War", and his tireless efforts to purge women from every military and quasi-military arena, now including the Scouting movement. He may end up being Trump's most successful cabinet member because he's the only one who's found an issue where MAGA's heart is beating.
If MAGA has a heart, it is full of misogyny and racism and grievance, but Hegseth like Trump is running on the fumes of the office he occupies and the culture of respect for it.
What I find so strange and still stubbornly refuse to accept, clinging desperately to my precious naïveté, is the constant frustrating inertia we’re being forced to live with, because, yes, while I can process the sheer cynical gall of a perp going whaddayagonnado, it’s impossible to dismiss that there actually are (and always were since before the capital E files came to light) mountains of evidence—victim statements, timelines, photos, witnesses—from which a dedicated prosecutor could at least open a righteous case where enough locking pieces could fall into place to definitively punish someone. Yet now that this stuff is finally being made public, stuff we all kinda knew as it was being leaked and trickled out, including credible allegations of murder, it’s like a package of damp firecrackers. Barely a fizzle.
Young people too innocent and too hopeful to have yet adopted a fake-smart pose of savvy cynicism, have every reason to hate their elders for letting gross evil men (and women too, obviously) set a moral agenda that allows not just an organized ring of rampant sex criminals to go unpunished, but all kinds of horrors, including street executions and a construction spree of death camps. Cul-de-sacs of despair no matter where you turn.
Like the whole point of the Release The Files! frenzy was an anti-climactic trick to make the future look irretrievably bleak once they were revealed.
Prosecutors are reluctant to press charges where it is less than likely to get a conviction. The few men I can recall who were convicted tend to be non-celebrities like Harvey Weinstein, an unlovalble Hollywood power broker.
Release The Files! became a post-hoc damage control project, something Republicans have a lot of experience with. The Q coalition was a shaky foundation to build hopes of justice on (have you noticed that all mention of Q has vanished from our discourse?) and the cognitive dissonance of accepting the monsters were their heros has blown it to pieces.
Thing is, the Q Believers thought they were pursuing justice, even though they based it on comforting lies. They only dropped it when Reality began poking its nose under their tent. Interesting that the nuttiest women in Congress were the ones keeping the flame lit, or maybe just the ones getting all the media attention.
Pressure from above is more about making the problem go away. See the sweetheart deal Epstein got in Florida from AG Pam Bondi.
Yeah, sounds about right. How do you know if you have REAL power if you keep all your crimes secret? Works as a loyalty test, too: The people who stick with Tubby through this will stick through ANYTHING.
It's like how he lies (and lies, and lies, and lies) Tell obvious, outrageous lies, then you know anyone who pretends to believe them must be doing so out of fear/loyalty. Believable lies (hey, when was the last time he told one of those, huh?) don't work at all for the purpose.
I think they purposely released the names, addresses and nude photos of the victims to tell us that “alpha” males and the MAGA women like Bondi who service them don’t care who gets hurt, just like their immigration Naziism and slashing health care (first they came for abortions, then they came for your vaccines, now they’re taking away your insurance). Until the victims of all these fascist crimes figure out how to fight back, they’ll keep dialing up the cruelty.
Speaking of Peter Attia, who quit medicine part way through his surgical residency to go make money in the finance world, he has done podcasts about women’s health from fucking Texas and never mentioned the hellscape of that state’s attack on reproductive rights. Knowing that, how could I be surprised he shared cunnilingus jokes with a known pedophile. He has a wife; she should be ashamed to breathe the same air as he.
And now I'm thinking about banking, of all things (I must be low-T) About how big banks like Deutsche Bank kept throwing money at the guy as he ran one business after another into the ground, how the bankruptcy courts coddled him and allowed him to maintain the appearance of wealth that eventually won him the votes of millions of idiots. This is the consequence-free world the rich (or even once-rich-and-may-be-rich again) live in, we only occasionally get a glimpse of it
With Epstein, whatever the consequences for any individual child-rapist (ha ha, there will be none) at least we're getting a clear view of their world through a different window, learning how they see the law (it's for the Little People) and how they see the rest of us (as Kleenex to be used and discarded.)
I saw a transcript of Nick Fuentes talking about the Epstein Files and was chagrined to find myself agreeing with an open Nazi. Fuentes made points about how evasive Trump and crew look and how his behavior sure does seem to indicate guilt about something. If the whole sordid mess was brought into the open, I'm sure Trump would be revealed as the wretched pedophile that we already know he is. Of course, nothing would probably happen to the anointed scumbag anyway.
Firstly...
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2026/02/you-should-smile-more
We're being marched back to a barbaric age in which, among other things, women are meant to know their place, be subservient to manly, barbaric men and so on and so forth.
Too, as noted in the linked piece, part of Donny being a pathological piece of shit of a subhuman monster (again, no hyperbole there but summing up what's documented) is being an unhinged misogynist--and alleged rapist including of underage women and, IMO pending concrete proof to the contrary, a serial molester or worse of his older daughter when she, too, was underage.
Every fucking resentful piece of shit that makes up a huge part of MAGA and the Republican really, really hate women, no matter how they care to characterize it.
It's the hate.
I have to say, a lot of this stuff is simple and trying to see depth because one assumes there's depth when there really isn't tends to be a waste--as a rule, there are exceptions where it's useful.
i want that greasy sewer pipe to spew a narrative of self-incrimination that lays there among the courtier media bunch for a dead 8 seconds before everyone runs from the room to file the story or video their take. We're in such a fine fix because a large number of our 'friends and neighbors' have elected this dude, twice, who conveys the message that this country can be an open sewer real easy, snap of the fingers. It's hard to admit that, and throw the thing out of the white house. We don't do chagrin well as a people.
The courtier media is the courtier media precisely because they *won't* do that. And it's been like that with Republican presidents since Reagan.
yeah. i guess he'll just hafta keep metamorphizing into the monster that he is for all to see — kinda like Jeff Goldblum going back into that fly machine — but even then…
"Underage women" is a corrupt media whitewashing of statutory rape (and from what I've read of the Epstein files, forcible rape) and you and I should not participate in it. "Underage women" are GIRLS, so let's call it like it is.
OTOH, isn't it interesting how, when we're talking about actual women and we want to diminish their agency, we call them girls? The inverse operation is being attempted here on children who had none.
P.S. I saw new photo from the files yesterday of Trump on an airplane cuddling up to a blonde seven year-old — even the memory brings tears to my eyes.
Have you seen the label on that pic purporting to be Pam Blondi? One wonders if it is true, and if so, could that be a reason why she's been inflicted upon the rest of us...
I think we need to be careful about what we swallow (sorry). There is enough ghastly stuff in this document dump that we don't need to embroider it. The "Pam Bondi as a girl" pic not only doesn't look like her beyond the hair color, it doesn't even look like a real photo. Especially the stuff from the FBI tip line, or at least some parts of it, is giving Rolling Stone rape-case vibes.
Yeah, I assumed lack of verisimilitude. Interesting it is out and about on the web.
I was actually trying to figure out whether to go with girls or women…
At your age, I'd suggest women if the question is who to go with.
😂😭
Easy there, gal...
Excellent observations. The words have strong mental implications for how we feel and frame and therefore behave subsequently. Framing affects are real and impactful.
The routine seems to be "oh, it's not CHILDREN", thus negating all their whining about consent from those under 25 which seems to only work for gender issues. "Anyone under the age of 25 has a brain that's still developing and can't think straight" up until it's contemplating 14 year olds.
For them, every single question in life is just fuck/marry/kill
The incredible misogyny evident in some of the ads in Fifties family magazines have been, I suppose, a source of amusement to some, and shock to others, are a pastel guidepost to the expectations of men in the Twentieth Century. I was a little boy in those days, and I was puzzled by these things but didn’t take them too seriously. As time went on, it became apparent that this crap permeated the culture at every level, and even the people whom I admired were not immune to it. From MAD onwards, it seemed that all the marvelous satirists, cartoonists and comedians I loved had some real problems when it came to women, and I did too. Studying art history on the G.I. Bill in the Seventies was the last straw. When the paramount survey text for the basic survey courses had had no women in it for many years, and the women in my art classes were clearly as talented as the men, the jig was up, as it was throughout society at that time. Five thousand years of patriarchy was not going to roll over easily, though, and the shittiest people in our society have been lashing out in all directions in an effort to erase every change that has occurred over the last hundred years.
I was fortunate to come along at the same time as the very first college courses on feminist art history. Wow —
The irony or whatever is that the me. Pushing back DEI are such stupid, mediocre pieces of shit that they should be the argument for DEI. OTOH, since the nation’s now in a regressive, reactionary mode, only the worse and most unqualified will do…
Yeah. I always take the position that affirmative action, DEI and the like are hurtful to mythical people the same way Jim Crow and other bog-standard racisms/sexisms were genuinely hurtful to genuine people.
Great observations. Racism and reverse racism, ditto, real violence versus ego-emotional grievance.
it's always been based on grievance; much of the modern Right's success is due to effective ways of putting grievance to use. Right now, this is especially overt in the anti-immigrant pogrom. Official neo-Nazi stuff aimed at the voting base, with pitches like, "deportations will free up affordable housing for you pure Americans."
And much of the influence effort goes to painting a picture of heroic "agents" under attack. They will be victimized and doxxed if they don't wear masks. They're already being assaulted -- by words on signs, whistles, and being yelled at.
Here ya go: “Rural communities like mine are paying the price for illegal immigration,” said Ken Yager, senate Republican caucus chairman, in a release. “It places a real strain on local resources and drains taxpayer dollars that should be reinvested right here at home to strengthen our communities.”
Sure, buddy, that's why rural Tennessee is poor, it's those damn immigrants. We all know Tobacco Road was paved with gold before THEY showed up.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/04/stephen-miller-trump-immigration-plan
I agree. No one with any ability to do the right thing, like Weiss, want to be the first to 'break the seal', lest the rest of the Sex Creep Brigade be pressured into following suit... more 'look what you made me do' than taking any responsibility or showing any moral backbone, which none of the involved possess so SSDD. It's almost like a dare, a taunt at this point: the playground bully going 'yeah, what are you gonna do? Tell on me?' It emboldens them rather than shaming them.
SSDD needs an update, simply to account for the volume. I propose SDDS (alt: DSSD).
ASED (All Shit Every Day)
Nailed it!
Meh. Even at the height of Me Too#, it didn't look like ANY of the effects on MEN were going to be especially severe or long-lasting (and it was immediately obvious that it would have more adverse effects on the women involved).
So while there is an element of strutting "whatyagonnadoboutit" from the Right, it feels to me more like a continuation of the dick-first world we all knew and loathed before, but with a lot more documentation in this specific case.
(There is, however, the bonus head-fuck aspect of all the Q-Anon and Righteous Rightwingers who spent the last 15 years squealing about how Democrats are all pedophile sexual libertines being forced to reckon with the fact that it's their favorite Republicans who are the pedophile sexual libertines.)
"being forced to reckon with the fact"
But are they? I don't have the stomach to check, but in the Land of QAnon, how are people taking it, if they're taking it at all? Do they even acknowledge any of this is happening? I would never underestimate people's ability to simply ignore inconvenient truths.
My Rightwinger boss just stopped talking about it. Avoidance is a way of coping, I guess.
Well, the Clintons are set to testify about it, that should perk up his interest.
Al Franken resigned from the Senate because of his naughty but not especially egregious prank he played. Al Franken recognized that, and, having a conscience and, not being an irredeemable pig, did the right thing, at least in his mind. It really pisses me off, especially as a Minnesotan, that we lost a pretty good senator and these numerous skeevebags are still out there un- or barely-scathed by any consequences of their crimes.
I couldn't agree more. In fact over the weekend on Bluesky I was having this discussion with others in the replies to Moira Donegan's account. I noted that a not insignificant number of men on both the Right and Left were dismissive of any code of conduct that could potentially constrain their dicks.
The message is "what's the big deal?" It's doubly ironic that many of the same people screaming "Pedophiles!" who stirred up the whole bizarre Pizzagate conspiracy are now the first to shrug over Epstein.
"the same people screaming "Pedophiles!" who stirred up the whole bizarre Pizzagate conspiracy are now the first to shrug over Epstein."
One wonders whether they really cared at all, huh? But I suppose that's how it works with virtue-signaling, making the whole thing about YOU, elbowing the victims aside so you can take center stage as their savior, hell, I never really cared that much about those whales anyway.
The underlying psychology maps to Us versus Them. Contradictions my granddad taught me about racist thinking: Lazy as a N. versus Work hard like a N. I was four or five but I recall it. My granddad used to talk to me as if I were an adult at times. He liked to use me as a confidant and share his observations about everything.
Yeah, it's why they don't even ring the bell for you anymore when you say, "Hey, THIS thing they believe completely contradicts this OTHER thing they believe!"
Yup. I know everyone focuses on racism, but it’s the misogyny that glues the right together. It’s not called the Patriarchy for nothing.
It's possible to have both; it's called "misogynoir" and Harris ran smack into it.
Glad my kids are grown. It must be tough raising them in the world where the biggest asshole wins. We don't even pretend anymore.
And then you get to have that Difficult Conversation about how we fucked the planet. It's all yours, kids!
The missus made the point yesterday that she is very relieved she did not saddle any spawn with the soon-to-be-dead planet issue. That is, she had no issue, therefore she has no issue...or, said another way...ah, maybe not.
I think that this is a story as old as time itself. The average person thinks of rape as something that happens to a woman who is out alone at night, on a street, and is accosted by a stranger. The vast majority of sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone known to the victim, someone who she trusts enough to be alone with or to allow in her home. Women who have been sexually assaulted in settings other than the stranger on the street scenario have learned the hard way that if the guy wasn't a stranger and you weren't stabbed or strangled or roughed up, you will often be accused of trying to set some poor guy up. Particularly if the perpetrator has money and influence, it is fairly easy to besmirch a victim's reputation. This is why so many victims of sexual assault don't come forward. I doubt that anything will come of the Epstein files considering the piecemeal way they're being grudgingly doled out. If Donald Trump didn't have money, he'd be washing dishes somewhere.
MAGASA! Make America Grab A Sponge Again!
Donald Trump: NOT spongeworthy.
One thing that always puzzled me when I was a lad was this: In fairy tales or fantasies, a central part of the story often was the forced marriage of the nice princess to a wicked king. That was the dilemma, the fate from which the hero, thank goodness, saved her. But what I never understood was, not "why does she have to do that," but even more bafflingly, "why would the king want to marry a woman who obviously doesn't love him?"
Adults (and even teenagers) know the answer to that, but I never asked, and can't imagine the answer I'd have received if I had. If any. The result was a lifelong dead zone in my brain, a place where the wires are unplugged and there's just a sign reading DON'T ASK. Discovering all those areas and learning to plug them back in is the work of a lifetime.
Tangentially related, when Emma Thompson was filming Sense and Sensibility, a friend of hers asked, "Why don't they all just get jobs?"
I'm sure someone has done a long essay somewhere on the "stranger danger" idea that's been sold to adults - that the world is full of people evil enough to even predate on other adults. (I'm not putting it well but I'm waiting for a prescription and my wrist HURTS. Fucking gout.)
It's the Ruskies.
But I think moreso to your point that it might be more about showing the world they do not give a rat's patoot (as Melania's sweatshirt said). Women, men, children; the gatekeepers are keepin' their gate closed, and NO ONE not on the list has standing.
Oh, and in reply to myself – you IDIOT! It is still and always was just a MacGuffin!
Biden lost the election because of the Egg MacGuffin
War on Americans to distract from Epstein files ---> Epstein files to distract from war on Americans
Meanwhile, in a foxhole somewheres on the Great Western Patriotic Front, Ruskies be goin' "Did you hear that dr – " whilst Putin amuses himself reminiscing about the ease with which he detroyed a considerable portion of the world, then rounds up a few more losers for a quick tour of duty...
There you have it.
It’s a Nazi daisy chain, an ouroboros of sleaze.
Invade Russia to distract from your failed invasion of Britain, bomb the shit out of London to distract from how badly the war on Russia is going.
This sounds depressingly real. And here I thought you could not meet my level of serious depression when contemplating the current world. I stand corrected.
What I can't figure out is why this stuff hasn't been completely destroyed by now. Although as you imply perhaps the real shit has already been disposed of.
It's good to bring the Epstein issue and the misogyny issue together in to the single context in which they belong. I'm obsessed with non-Epstein rape suspect Pete Hegseth, our incompetent "Secretary of War", and his tireless efforts to purge women from every military and quasi-military arena, now including the Scouting movement. He may end up being Trump's most successful cabinet member because he's the only one who's found an issue where MAGA's heart is beating.
Sadly, I agree! Glad to read your words again. Welcome back (I may be late, but better late than…)!
If MAGA has a heart, it is full of misogyny and racism and grievance, but Hegseth like Trump is running on the fumes of the office he occupies and the culture of respect for it.
What I find so strange and still stubbornly refuse to accept, clinging desperately to my precious naïveté, is the constant frustrating inertia we’re being forced to live with, because, yes, while I can process the sheer cynical gall of a perp going whaddayagonnado, it’s impossible to dismiss that there actually are (and always were since before the capital E files came to light) mountains of evidence—victim statements, timelines, photos, witnesses—from which a dedicated prosecutor could at least open a righteous case where enough locking pieces could fall into place to definitively punish someone. Yet now that this stuff is finally being made public, stuff we all kinda knew as it was being leaked and trickled out, including credible allegations of murder, it’s like a package of damp firecrackers. Barely a fizzle.
Young people too innocent and too hopeful to have yet adopted a fake-smart pose of savvy cynicism, have every reason to hate their elders for letting gross evil men (and women too, obviously) set a moral agenda that allows not just an organized ring of rampant sex criminals to go unpunished, but all kinds of horrors, including street executions and a construction spree of death camps. Cul-de-sacs of despair no matter where you turn.
Like the whole point of the Release The Files! frenzy was an anti-climactic trick to make the future look irretrievably bleak once they were revealed.
Prosecutors are reluctant to press charges where it is less than likely to get a conviction. The few men I can recall who were convicted tend to be non-celebrities like Harvey Weinstein, an unlovalble Hollywood power broker.
Release The Files! became a post-hoc damage control project, something Republicans have a lot of experience with. The Q coalition was a shaky foundation to build hopes of justice on (have you noticed that all mention of Q has vanished from our discourse?) and the cognitive dissonance of accepting the monsters were their heros has blown it to pieces.
I never gave the Q outrage any credence or even attention. There were no hopes of justice following that path; only political misdirection.
But plenty of potential evidence was popping up, including Epstein’s first run-ins with the law, long before the conspiracy mongers got on board.
And I’m more likely to believe it was pressure from above rather than fear of not getting a conviction that made prosecutors reluctant.
Thing is, the Q Believers thought they were pursuing justice, even though they based it on comforting lies. They only dropped it when Reality began poking its nose under their tent. Interesting that the nuttiest women in Congress were the ones keeping the flame lit, or maybe just the ones getting all the media attention.
Pressure from above is more about making the problem go away. See the sweetheart deal Epstein got in Florida from AG Pam Bondi.
Even Qanon Anonymous has moved on from it and now does stories on general right-wing atrocities.
I'm sorry, "Qanon Anonymous"? Because Qanon wasn't anon enough?
Yeah, sounds about right. How do you know if you have REAL power if you keep all your crimes secret? Works as a loyalty test, too: The people who stick with Tubby through this will stick through ANYTHING.
It's like how he lies (and lies, and lies, and lies) Tell obvious, outrageous lies, then you know anyone who pretends to believe them must be doing so out of fear/loyalty. Believable lies (hey, when was the last time he told one of those, huh?) don't work at all for the purpose.
I think they purposely released the names, addresses and nude photos of the victims to tell us that “alpha” males and the MAGA women like Bondi who service them don’t care who gets hurt, just like their immigration Naziism and slashing health care (first they came for abortions, then they came for your vaccines, now they’re taking away your insurance). Until the victims of all these fascist crimes figure out how to fight back, they’ll keep dialing up the cruelty.
Speaking of Peter Attia, who quit medicine part way through his surgical residency to go make money in the finance world, he has done podcasts about women’s health from fucking Texas and never mentioned the hellscape of that state’s attack on reproductive rights. Knowing that, how could I be surprised he shared cunnilingus jokes with a known pedophile. He has a wife; she should be ashamed to breathe the same air as he.
And now I'm thinking about banking, of all things (I must be low-T) About how big banks like Deutsche Bank kept throwing money at the guy as he ran one business after another into the ground, how the bankruptcy courts coddled him and allowed him to maintain the appearance of wealth that eventually won him the votes of millions of idiots. This is the consequence-free world the rich (or even once-rich-and-may-be-rich again) live in, we only occasionally get a glimpse of it
With Epstein, whatever the consequences for any individual child-rapist (ha ha, there will be none) at least we're getting a clear view of their world through a different window, learning how they see the law (it's for the Little People) and how they see the rest of us (as Kleenex to be used and discarded.)