A few news items have come to my attention:
*I have finally got a tenuous handle on the Jeffrey Epstein case. Tell me if I’m wrong, but there is no evidence that the government has a list of Epstein’s clients, nor any evidence that he died other than by suicide. If this is the case, why is the public, especially Republicans, going nuts? My theory, which is not mine, is that MAGA-ites want there to be a conspiracy as they are addicted to such theories (remember QAnon?), and are going nuts since there’s no evidence of a conspiracy with Epstein. (Side note: t the QAnon January 6 shaman is not going to get his spear and helmet returned.) Trump has even ordered attorney general Bondi to show what the government has got:
The Justice Department asked a federal judge on Friday to unseal grand jury testimony from the prosecution of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein as President Trump seeks to dispel a storm of criticism and conspiracy theories coming from many of his supporters.
The request was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, where Mr. Epstein was awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges six years ago when he was found dead by hanging in his jail cell about a month after he was arrested. The New York City medical examiner ruled the death a suicide.
The government also sought the unsealing of grand jury testimony from the case of Ghislaine Maxwell, the socialite who in a 2021 trial was convicted of helping Mr. Epstein facilitate his sex-trafficking scheme and sentenced to 20 years in prison. She has appealed her conviction.
“Public officials, lawmakers, pundits and ordinary citizens remain deeply interested and concerned about the Epstein matter,” Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, wrote in a motion to the court seeking to unseal the transcripts. “The time for the public to guess what they contain should end.”
Ms. Bondi and Mr. Blanche referred in the motion to Mr. Epstein as “the most infamous pedophile in American history,” and called the facts of the case “a tale of national disgrace.”
The filings on Friday followed Mr. Trump’s announcement in a social media post Thursday night that he had authorized Ms. Bondi to “produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval.”
Still, as Ezra Klein said:
Does the plea deal Epstein got in Florida look unusually sweet? Yes. Does Epstein’s death seem weird to me? It does.
There is a remainder, a remnant, that will probably never be resolved. But I don’t find it easier to resolve that remnant in a conspiracy so total that no government, no law firm, no media organization, seems able to breach it.
What MAGA wanted out of Epstein was the same thing it wanted out of QAnon: a story that collapsed reality down to something that is well-ordered.
. . . But now Donald Trump is pitting himself against that fantasy. The reason the fizzling of the Epstein case has mattered in MAGA is it does something worse than undermine a conspiracy theory. It undermines a worldview.
*At a time when it’s becoming increasingly hard for researchers to get NIH and NSF grants to support their scientific work, Duke University’s med school has implemented a policy that seems almost draconian. From the Chronicle of Higher Education:
Duke University School of Medicine (SOM) plans to implement new faculty productivity guidelines that would tie tenured professors’ salaries to external research funding, according to documents reviewed by The Chronicle.
Set to go in effect in 2026, the proposed policy would apply to the school’s basic science units, which include departments ranging from biochemistry to neurobiology and various centers and institutes such as the Duke Cancer Institute and the Duke Human Vaccine Institute. These units rely heavily on grants from the National Institutes of Health, which have been increasingly difficult to come by due to slowdowns in grant review processes, an uptick in terminations and a lack of new funding opportunities since President Donald Trump assumed office.
Under the guidelines, each department must establish a minimum expectation for external grant funding. Tenured faculty members who do not meet the threshold — measured as a three-year average — would be given the option to either enter a 12-month “Safe Harbor” period, after which further inability to meet productivity standards will result in salary reductions, or consider career transition alternatives.
SOM administration initially proposed the guidelines in late May, drawing backlash that they had sidestepped shared governance processes. The May proposal stated that faculty members who failed to secure the minimum externally funded effort would be subject to a 10% salary “decrement” every six months to a minimum base of $50,000 a year — an amount lower than the salary of most postdoctoral researchers.
Note that while the standards are called “productivity” standards, they say nothing about what researcher’s have produced, but only whether they have garnered federal money. Granted, one’s scientific productivity is usually correlated with ability to support research, but for some areas, like theoretical work, the connection is more tenuous. In the end, though universities should do what mine does: explicitly judge a faculty member on production of scientific research, explicitly ruling out any discussion of grant funding.
*Remember Uri Berliner, the NPR editor who, in a widely-publicized Free Press piece last year, called attention to National Public Radio’s move towards progressivism, a slant on the news that he (and I) see as unconscionable given the public funding (not large) of NPR. He got in trouble and then quit NPR.
Now Congress has cut $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which partly funds NPR and PBS, and it’s because of this slant (if an organization purports to give objective news to a public that partly pays its way, it’s obligated to be as objective as possible.
Anyway, Berliner has followed up his original piece by celebrating NPR’s “independence day” (independence on public funding, which was, again, so meager that its absence won’t much hurt NPR. Click below to read it or find the piece archived here for free:
From Berliner’s piece.
The vote is a victory for Republicans who have long had National Public Radio (NPR) in their sights. But it is also a victory for those of any political stripe who believe the government has no business funding the media.
I didn’t use to count myself among them. But over the past year, under the leadership of a divisive new CEO, instead of taking criticisms of its coverage to heart, NPR instead doubled down on agenda-driven journalism. So, as someone who had spent most of his career at the network, I didn’t support defunding. I instead suggested that NPR could build back credibility by voluntarily giving up federal support. Obviously that didn’t happen.
. . .Embracing the mantras of the Great Awokening, NPR became a caricature of itself with headlines like these:
Microfeminism: The Next Big Thing in Fighting the Patriarchy
Which Skin Color Emoji Should You Use? The Answer Can Be More Complex than You Think
Black Women’s Groups Find Health and Healing on Hikes, But Sometimes Racism, Too
Bringing Diversity to Maine’s Nearly All-White Lobster Fleet
Diet Culture Can Hurt Kids. This Author Advises Parents to Reclaim the Word ‘Fat’
These Drag Artists Know How to Turn Climate Activism into a Joyful Blowout
Inside NPR, rules on the use of language reflected the direction and mindset of the organization. We were told to avoid the term biological sex, warned not to say illegal immigrant (a hurtful label). A racial punctuation hierarchy was imposed; black would be uppercase, white lowercase. NPR adopted the phrase “gender affirming care” to describe childhood medical interventions that can mean sterilization and the surgical removal of genitals. These were not merely style choices. They were tribal signals, ideological markers.
NPR could have addressed these failings. I wrote my essay because I hoped the network might rediscover the values on which its success had been built. NPR could have regained some equilibrium, reclaimed a smidgen of independence, by copping to this reality even a little. It could have taken some visible steps back to the journalism gold standard of neutral impartiality. And it could have done all this prior to Trump’s reelection, so it wouldn’t look like NPR was caving to pressure from his administration.
No saying “biological sex”! Oy! I listen to NPR when I’m driving, and its descent into wokeness is palpable, and unpalatable even to left-centrists like me. Taxpayers should not be funding the organization, but cut it loose to be as woke as it wants.
*I guess when I was in the Arctic the government decided to start supporting Ukraine again, perhaps because Putin had become recalcitrant. European and American sanctions on Russia are in the offing, and that’s good. But what’s even better is that the U.S. is again helping deliver weapons to the beleaguered Ukraine:
The Trump administration has moved Germany ahead of Switzerland for the next Patriot air-defense systems off the production line, paving the way for Berlin to send two Patriots it already has to Ukraine, according to three U.S. officials.
The U.S. promise to quickly replace Germany’s Patriots is the first instance of the Pentagon facilitating weapons deliveries for Ukraine since President Trump announced earlier this month that he favored sending more arms.
But the move also underscored the difficulty in providing Patriots and other weapons to Kyiv, as defense production lines in the West struggle to keep up with Ukraine’s appeals for help defending its cities and front line forces against increasing Russian missile and drone attacks.
The effort to speed Patriots to Ukraine by backfilling Germany with systems from the American production line is consistent with Trump’s vow to have NATO allies pay the U.S. as part of providing additional weapons for Ukraine.
The initial deal is similar to a move made in 2024 by the Biden administration, which moved Ukraine to the front of the line to receive air defense interceptors directly from the U.S.
Ukraine may lose this war, and lose it big time, giving up much or even all of its territory to Russia. But if America stands for anything, even in these Trumpian days, we should stand for the defense of freedom against the incursions of despots like Putin. We should re-arm Ukraine to the best of our ability.
*Finally, I’ll steal a few items from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news-and-snark column, called this week “TGIF: The Client List.” (This of course refers to the brouhaha about Jeffrey Epstein that has erupted since I flew to Finland, and I still don’t understand what all the hubub is about
→ How to score a Beamer in London: This story is from March, but it’s new to me, so bear with me. In the UK, the government will give disabled people cars. It’s a really lovely idea. The trouble: You can claim any disability, including depression. It kind of relies on people acting in good faith, in a high-trust society where people don’t lie about such things. Did I mention that the government will help you get a brand-new BMW? And give you a new one every three years? You’ll be shocked to hear the program is now so popular that roughly one out of every five new cars sold in Britain is provided via this government program for the disabled. And what sort of disabilities are people reporting when they come for their Beamer? A huge number of people claiming disability in the UK report mental health issues, depression and anxiety and such (I assume it’s depression over not having a BMW). As in, “I’m too anxious to take the Tube; I need a Beamer.” Some of the car recipients actually report that their disability is acne (good, hide in the car, I don’t want to see that mountainous chin looming at me on the Tube). A handful of claimants even suffer from “factitious disorder,” in which your disease is thinking you are diseased. They get Beamers too, and a new speaker system thrown in so that they can really relax on those long drives to the NHS to check out another benign mole. This all comes from a Telegraph report on the program and is 100 percent real. I repeat: Beamers for Acne. Beamers for Fakers. Time for me to make a little trip to ye bonny England.
→ Doing reporting I don’t like is literal murder: Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of The New York Times, is freaking out at The Washington Free Beacon, which has been getting huge scoops on things like universities investigated for illegal DEI hiring methods and apparently race-conscious submissions practices at the Harvard Law Review. Or, in Jill’s telling: The site has been “a potentially lethal weapon aimed at elite universities.” Which is a weird way to describe reporting, if you’re ostensibly a member of and fan of the press? But that wasn’t the end of her reporter-as-murderer assessment: “It’s not just that the Beacon is conservative; it’s that it seems to be on a jihad, publishing scoops that have left blood on the floor at Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, Duke, and other prestigious corners of academia.” Lethal weapon, jihad, blood on the floor.
She goes through all of the greatest hits of Beacon reporter Aaron Sibarium—who I guess is a hitman or a jihadi? “Besides helping to bring down Claudine Gay, the Free Beacon bedeviled the Harvard Law Review in May by publishing insider documents leaked by a whistleblower on its staff.” Aaron Sibarium is stabbing administrators in the chest and dragging their bodies through marble halls (which is how it feels emotionally when he reports on their meetings).
I love that she’s articulating her philosophy so clearly. I’m personally forever indebted to legacy media’s belief that ignoring the most interesting stories will make them go away. And I can only hope they continue. Jill, run every newspaper! Now if I could get Aaron—that absolute killer, that stone-cold stunner, that literal jihadist murderer, like guys, he has a knife—to join The Free Press.
. . . and I can’t wait for this one! Mexican coke (available at a premium in some American towns) at American prices!
→ Trump trying to distract everyone with soda: While his party was undergoing its first civil war, Trump was trying to shore up his MAHAs over on Truth Social: “I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so. I’d like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola. This will be a very good move by them—You’ll see. It’s just better!” Soft drink soft power at work, folks. Catch me at the soda fountain next Tuesday, with a big old scoop of vanilla ice cream and an old-fashioned Coke. I don’t know if this makes America great again, but I am all for it.
And one extra:
→ Americans are getting very comfortable with political violence: Following a wave of antisemitic violence, the ADL conducted a survey “to assess the national mood toward antisemitism” and found that 24 percent of people felt recent violent attacks on Jews were understandable, with 13 percent saying they were justified. So that’s been keeping me up at night. No jokes here, just a knot in my stomach and a bigger hunch in my back.
***********
Today’s Caturday feature. First, a sign I saw yesterday in downtown Reykjavik:
Andhere’s moggie from Reykjavik sent in reader Ken Phelps. Titled “Reyk Cat”, Ken added this caption:
Here’s one tough cat in Reykjavik. Graciously accepted a a bit of head scratching, then gave me a good swat and moved away about a foot before sitting back down and dismissing me.
If Vikings were cats, they’d look like this one!
Yes, the Washington Free Beacon is a good news site, as is the Washington Examiner. The Washington Times seemed for a while like it might be a major alternative news paper/site, but never really got there.
As for Jill Abramson, whenever I read rhetoric like that, I think of Kent Brockman from the Kamp Krusty episode of The Simpsons: “Ladies and Gentlemen, I have been to Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, and I can say without hyperbole that this is a million times worse than all of them put together.”
Jill Abramson apparently is unaware of the “true meaning” of the word Jihad. She seems to think it involves violence, but we are always told that it just means struggle.
According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times), the Washington Times has always been an organ of Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church (the “Moonies”):
“The first edition of The Washington Times was published on May 17, 1982. The newspaper was founded by Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon, and it was owned until 2010 by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate founded by Moon. It is currently owned by Operations Holdings, which is a part of the Unification Church movement.”
The source of the WT’s conspicuous right-wing bias should be obvious.
Regarding Epstein, the FBI did seize computer disks that were labeled with names of victims and clients. Does that qualify as a client list? I don’t know.
The ‘raw footage’ of Epstein in his cell was released while you were gone, but apparently it was manipulated and is missing over two minutes of footage. That is no way to quell a conspiracy theory.
But to be sure, if photographic evidence was released of Trump having sex with a minor, nothing would change.
Unfortunately all the news on Epstein is intermingled with conspiracy theories, even when its from reputable outlets. The news organization may not be explicly endorsing the theory but they feel it their duty to report it. And they usually do so without saying how reliable it is.
From what I’ve gleaned lately is that there is definatly security cam footage missing on Epstein but thats not unusual for that facility. Something about cameras restarting or tape rewinding? I’m not sure because I dont actually pay attention to Epstein news.
One of the more interesting conspiracy theories Ive heard has come from Eric Weinstein, the crank former mathematican and finance guy. Hes definately gone off the deep end but his theory- that Epstein was created by some intelligence agency to gather evidence on and blackmail powerful men- is based somewhat in reality. There was a famous Mossad agent in the 70s, Elie Cohen who infiltrated Syrian govt and was phenominally successful and whose entire identiy was fabricated.
Trump may have ordered the Epstein files released, but as I understand it, it will have names and identifiers redacted.
He ordered the grand jury testimony to be released. That is not the files, and requires a court approval. So it may not satisfy everyone.
Does anyone else find “the most infamous pedophile in American history” hyperbolic? It’s not my intention to minimise any type of pedophilia, but I’d say that someone interested in underage teens is an order of magnitude less deranged than someone who rapes babies and toddlers.
Yes, that made me pause as well. Adults should never take advantage of adolescents, but assaulting a child is worse. It just is.
No conspiracy theories are needed, it’s just a coverup. Epstein and Trump were best buddies for a decade, both of them stated that. Epstein was arrested and killed during the first Trump administration. A major part of Trump’s second campaign ran on “releasing the Epstein files”. J.D. Vance, Kash Patel, and Don, Jr., all howled that the Epstein files should be released during the 2024 campaign.
After the election, Trump said he would release the files. Pam Bondi said she had the Epstein files on her desk ready to review.
Bondi released the jail video of the night Epstein died and said it was raw and unedited. When it was shown there was a minute missing from the video, Bondi said it was because the video system was resetting. Wired hired two forensic investigators who stated there are two separate videos spliced together and one of them is missing three minutes.
Trump then said the Epstein file is a total fake that was created by Obama, Hillary, and Comey. If the files were all fake, why did Epstein kill himself? Note the word “pertinent” in this newest bit about the possible release of grand jury testimony—that means things will be edited out. You don’t need to be Perry Mason to see the multiple levels of lies and deflections.
Also note that when the makeup covering the medical condition on Trump’s hand was shown this week, the official explanation from the White House was Trump got a bruise from shaking too many hands. Now it is because he has a venous medical condition. These people will lie about anything and everything.
The dear leader needs to support American business
be eating more double cheese burgers (4-5 daily) and
drinking several gallons of regular coke.
Given how energetic the guy is, especially for his age, maybe that diet will turn out to be the ultimate health regimen!
We do know that Epstein really was involved in shady hidden dealings with powerful people, and according to witnesses, he did film a lot of what happened in his NY house and on his island.
He did get a crazy light sentence in Florida and an unprecedented immunity agreement. This is strong evidence that his powerful friends helped him. And the deal was explicitly secret, kept from the victims and anyone else. This secret deal was illegal and was later overturned in the courts.
The most powerful man associated with Epstein is Trump himself. Before he entered politics he was once a good friend of Epstein and openly bragged about Epstein: “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” So he seems to have known what went on there. Trump has been acting weird about the Epstein case for quite a while. Trump had appointed Alexander Acosta, the man who worked out the crazy Epstein deal, as head of the US Labor Dept in his first term. Trump waffled mightily when asked (as a presidential candidate) whether he would release the Epstein files. His answer (which was edited out of the Fox News version of the interview) was bizarre. Pam Bondi did say that she had the Epstein client list (not just the “Epstein files”) on her desk. She later lied about what she had said.
So I submit that there is evidence of an actual conspiracy, at least with regard to the first Epstein plea deal, and that Trump knows this and may even be on the client list. He is after all a convicted felon and a self-admitted creep–see the Hollywood Access tape, and his own comments about being able to walk into the dressing room of his Miss USA pageants to see half-naked girls. Four participants in his Miss Teen USA pageant claimed that he also walked in on them, some of whom were 15, while they were dressing.
Look up the Rolling Stone article about Trump’s behavior with his pageant’s participants, and for more stories.
Most curious is the way Trump lies about these things. Of course he lies about everything so maybe this isn’t great evidence, but it is weird.
See the latest CNN arrticle about this, just released an hour ago:
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/19/politics/epstein-trump-ties-analysis
If a release would have sunk Trump, why did the Dems not use it?
Because people like Clinton also have been flying on the Lolita Express (though not necessarily with girls). Clinton appears nine times and Trump seven times. Epstein appears to want to be friendly with anyone rich and powerful, regardless of their politics. Any releases could be a problem for both parties.
I wonder why more victims don’t come out about this, especially if there were as many as has been claimed. It does seem strange.
Given everything we know of Clinton, why “though not necessarily with girls?”
The same applies to Trump, of course.
The WSJ found a birthday greeting from Trump to Epstein, in a bound book of such greetings. Except from article:
“The letter bearing Trump’s name, which was reviewed by the Journal, is bawdy—like others in the album. It contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly “Donald” below her waist, mimicking pubic hair.
The letter concludes: “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
Archived: https://archive.ph/KB2LC
Trump has gone nuts over this and has sued the WSJ for 10 billion!
After FOX was sued for the Dominion lies and settling for almost $800million, Murdock would have made sure all the “t’s were crossed and i’s dotted” before allowing the WSJ story to go to press. I bet Trump is bluffing, nothing new, right? Does he actually want this to go to discovery? I highly doubt it.
FWIW, this brings to mind Oscar Wilde’s disasterous defamation suit.
Totally Barbara. 100%
Didn’t work out well for ol’ Oscar at all! 🙂
D.A.
NYC
My information is from some very reliable lawyers who were interviewed on MSNBC over the last several days. Yes, there was a request to release the grand jury testimony, with names redacted. BUT that is only a miniscule amount of the total information, most of which is included in the files. There has been no request to release that information, which would include the client list, if there is such a thing. That is what the MAGA-ites want released; at least some of them realize that the files and the grand jury testimony are not the same thing.
This part is not exactly what it seems. He has only authorized her to ask the court to release transcripts of testimony. The vast bulk of evidence was not part of that activity but is under direct control of the administration. It is in that bulk of documents/video/etc. that evidence against other people (Trump himself, etc.) would be found.
MAGA is built upon the fantasy that there is a vast Deep State conspiracy of child trafficking to be found in the non-court-controlled material. Trump and his cronies repeatedly promised to release it all. Now they say there’s nothing there and MAGA ain’t accepting this reversal.
While the conspiracy theories are filled with the absurd, the Orange Menace has been freaking out, insulting his followers, and acting every bit the part of a guilty party. This ain’t going away.
Right on. Not to mention the WH distraction engine is in hyperdrive, e.g. announcements about Trump’s health for the first time.
IMO, iDJT is desperate for a a credible scapegoat or major distraction. Blaming the Dems or his acolytes is not working. I fear the coming distraction will be violent, maybe a terrorism event. Interesting times.
Note that while the standards are called “productivity” standards, they say nothing about what researcher’s have produced, but only whether they have garnered federal money.
Bingo. There is far too much emphasis on “research expenditures” and not enough on the quality of the scholarship produced.
It should also be noted that the (extremely expensive) research metrics software used by Deans and Chairs gives them the illusion that they can judge the quality of a faculty member’s science without knowing the first thing about it.
How do you suggest the quality of the research be judged? I’m not an academic, but as I understand it, such metrics as the number of citations is not a reliable measure. Add to that the fact that “high prestige” journals are publishing research on the gender of atoms, and I don’t see what metric would be used.
Maybe funding is a proxy for quality since someone at the gov’t funding agency thought the research was valuable.
My understanding is that several judges decided to redact the names of people identified as clients by victims, presumably because the judges concluded the reliability of the identifications are dubious. This routine redaction by the judges got distorted into a false dramatic story of a cover-up conspiracy scandal by powerful people to conceal a client list.
Allen Dershowitz was Epstein’s lawyer, he exhibits sufficient integrity to make him a reliable insider source of information. He says there is no client list and no big scandal or cover-up, he describes Epstein as a self-centered hedonist, see https://open.substack.com/pub/dersh/p/why-are-some-republicans-turning?r=19ipin&utm_medium=ios
On NPR and PBS. If they are so invaluable, they will be able to generate their own funding. They already have the infrastructure in place. All they need to do is to increase the proportion of their programming that is devoted to fund drives. Few will notice.
They can also get the huge cohort of Leftie m/billionairs to put up an endowment.
A cartel of Gov and Press is an egregious violation of free speech. FedGov+CPB must be broken up, on principle.
My opinion:
1) There are more Left than Right on the Epstein List. Democrats therefore did not release it.
2) Trump used this to get elected. His base was promised a reveal which would explode the Dems like an artillery shell.
3) Trump and/or someone he MUST protect is on it.
4) Not only does Left underestimate the straight-shooting, integrity, and intelligence of the Right, and their roaring demand to drain the swamp … so does Trump.
If Trump is in this particular putrid swamp, or breaks promise to reveal the list, the Right will turn on him.
It is hard for Left to see this, because of their stereotype of Right as Stupid and Religious and Despicable. Little do they know, this is a matter of principle.
It’s hard to see the GOP as standing for any principle, aside from power at any cost.
Their hypocrisy of the last few decades has been stunning. (Even for my very low expectations.)
That does seem true for the self-interested professional politicians, but not for the MAGA base. If the politicians lose MAGA then they lose their power, and they know it. Watch for some rats to begin disembarking.
@Jim Blilie
Hilarious – by comparison to the Democrats.
Jim, you mean like this, from just the past year:
He’s as sharp as a tack
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/05/20/biden-book-reviews-mental-acuity-00357152
Special counsel Hur is a political hack
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/05/16/biden-hur-audio-recording/
Will the Schumer abandon his life-long convictions?
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/chuck-schumer-zohran-mamdani-new-york-jewish-people-antisemitism-bdec700c
Follow the Science
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/transgender-youth-skrmetti/683350/
I will not pardon my son. No one is above the law.
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-biden-crime-family-gets-away-with-it/
He will not pardon his son.
Oh wait, those are the left, my mistake.
This; ” the straight-shooting, integrity, and intelligence of the Right…” is one of the funniest things I’ve read in awhile. Thanks!
Agree with you on pretty much all points today, PCC(E), and am glad you’re back to WEIT after your outer space adventure.
I imagined you, an unashamed news junkie like me, out on the bow of the ship, Titanic style, satellite dish in hand, wildly it waving at the heavens, ocean spray in your face yelling: “Give me a signal, damnit!” to re-connect with humanity.
Next – the Iceland Penis Museum! We all await your review.
best,
D.A.
NYC
Oh this farking Epstein thing. You know .. this is the biggest social mania I have seen in a long time. As a defense attorney it baffles me. I get it though – it is gossip wise irresistible on many levels and I also peeked into this sorid abyss.
You also know…. all the victims are adults now, many middle aged, why are they all so silent when they could make millions in tell-alls? The original accuser was… (the late Ms. Guifre) to be charitable.. of unsound character and mental acuity. And, interestingly, she was above the age of consent in all 3 relevant jurisdictions (V.I., NY, UK) at the time of the alleged offenses. (16, 17 and 16 respectively.) He was never charged with statutory or forcible rape. (Again friends, my own repulsion aside, I’m talking as a defense lawyer here).
Yet there is this “vast conspiracy of elite pedophiles”. FFS. Pedophilia as a disorder runs at about 1-2% of (only) men, and is negatively corelated with IQ if you check the Basean priors and psych literature on this kind of thing. Y’know… REALITY!
Yet this vast conspiracy! Nothing adds up here. Gimme a break. He was a creepy rich guy who employed….the apt term here… damaged teen proto-hookers. Sad cases but not the end of the world.
I was going to write an article “A Defense Attorney’s Defense of Epstein” when he died – bc I was a defense atty then and I liked a fight. Plus I knew the Upper East Side high finance world he lived in, we went to similar parties and we knew at least two people in common, tangentially, but I never met him thank goodness. I’ll say he had excellent taste in real estate – the ranch, the island and the UES brownstone – mwah! Top notch. Sometimes being a scumbag weirdo can be profitable. Not my personal way of going about life though.
Pinker did meet him and said he was a boorish boor. This tracks from all other witnesses like Eric Weinstein, a hedge fund manager I know, and even Trump. Pinker fumes that as a Harvard celeb he was roped into coffee klatches with this rich moron for fundraising shakedowns. I applaud Pinker, as always, you gotta play the fundraising game, I’m sure PCC(E) knows the drill at UC. And some “donors with money” are annoying, arrogant, and stupid (like Epstein by all accounts – a loudmouth, arrogant know-it-all.).
But my better friends and judgement advised against my “defense” article. Listen to your friends.
hahha It was my second worst article idea, my first being something like: “So this Mohammed chap, what was he all about then?”
But I like my life here and not living under an assumed name lurking out of a no-tell motel across the Hudson like somebody in the Sopranos. Both the above articles might have deranged my life.
D.A.
NYC
Right on, David. ++
“Damaged teen proto-hookers.”
You mean “victims of sexual abuse.” There’s no such thing as a child or teen hooker. You may think that such abuse “isn’t the end of the world,” but it is for them. Sex traffickers tend to choose victims who are already traumatized and marginalized because they know that their victims will be dismissed.
Victims of sexual abuse often do not come out either because they were threatened by their abusers or they know they will likely be dismissed. You know – some rich, callous attorney will write them off as just some ‘damaged teen proto-hooker,’ whose abuse ‘isn’t the end of the world.’
Why does Virginia being above the age of consent matter? Women above the age of 16 are sexually abused all the damn time., You think she was of unsound character? Look at her life path,. Do you know what childhood sexual abuse does to a person? Epstein and his ilk are the ones of horrendously unsound character. Not their victims.
“+ a very large number
It matters, Jessie, because a man no matter his moral character is usually* entitled to rely on the consent of a woman above the legal age, and is never allowed to rely on the consent of one under it. A scumbag deserves the best defence his lawyer can advocate for him: no one else in the whole wide world will. His strategy will be different if she is of age. It is there, and only there, that ruthlessness toward the Crown’s case is permitted. (If she’s under age, his only defence is, “It wasn’t me.”). This includes, but is by no means limited to, impugning the credibility of the witness(es). The very life history traumas you cite that make it immoral for a powerful man to exploit her vulnerability are also those that might cause her to lie about her consent or about the facts that followed.
A high-school classmate of mine, a feminist psychologist, makes a career as an expert witness explaining to juries why women who’ve been raped will invent all kinds of things in response to trauma current and prior but we must believe their central truth anyway. This might even be true, but it can apply only to women who really were raped, not those who agreed to it and regretted being “abused” the next morning. (*Yes there are nuances to consent such as intoxication, intimidation, deceit, power/authority imbalances, all the things that are uncomfortable because for the Crown to rely on them infantilizes adult women.) FWIW the offence in Canada is “sexual assault” which includes what is usually thought of as rape, plus any unwanted sexual touching short of intercourse. We don’t put people in jail for vaguely defined “sexual abuse” of consentable adults which is defined as 16.
I think David’s point is just that he could have beaten the rap for Mr. Epstein had he gone to trial.
David if you’d written your piece and got driven out of Manhattan, you could have hidden out in our spare bedroom till the heat died down.
Thx Leslie and I agree with your points. Actually I’d welcome a spell in Canada, even in the context of a Soprano’s style “Lambin’ it”!
I’ve always been curious about our great north neighbor. You guys have a pretty civilized country up there by all accounts, even if some of your compatriots seem to disparage it. Jon Kay particularly is up to speed on that and writes well about it.
best,
D.A.
NYC
Below you say the “14-year olds” are rumor. What is Ghislaine Maxwell doing in prison then? What was she convicted for again…?
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/ghislaine-maxwell-sentenced-20-years-prison-conspiring-jeffrey-epstein-sexually-abuse
Not bending to social niceties sometimes isn’t a good thing. When it involves denigrating teenagers who are the victims of trafficking and sexual abuse, it doesn’t make you look edgy. It comes off as callous, even if that wasn’t your intent. I honestly can’t tell.
You wonder why more women will not come out about being abused? Society will typically heap more abuse on them. You know – denigrating them, claiming that, at age 14, they consented to being prostituted. That they are just damaged goods, and that their abuse doesn’t really matter.
I don’t care about nit-picking age of consent laws. I know that 14-year-olds do not deserve to be prostituted by perverted old men and that it’s not something our society should tolerate.
Is North America under an Islamic Theocracy? No? Why is what they do in Islamic countries relevant? It’s not acceptable for men to coerce 14-year-olds into prostitution. It doesn’t become acceptable because certain societies stuck in the past allow old men to marry teenagers. That isn’t acceptable either.
This is an extremely personal subject for me. You will not convince me that 14-year-old victims of sexual abuse are just a bunch of a bunch of worthless “proto-hookers” who consented to what happened.
You do know that many of Epstein’s victims were fourteen? Still think they were all consenting? Or that they should be dismissed as “damaged teenage proto-hookers?” That’s one of the more callous remarks I’ve seen about this case, by the way. How can anyone write off kids like that? Do you want to argue that 14-year-olds really wanted to spend their lives stuck on an island sexually servicing a middle-aged man?
It’s nice that David could have beaten Epstein’s rap. I’m not sure that preventing a sex trafficker and rapist from facing justice is something to brag about.
Also, the sexual abuse of 14-year-olds may not be the “end of the world” for rich attorneys but it is horrible for the victims. You really should learn more about the long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse. You then probably wouldn’t defend people who liked to denigrate sexual abuse victims by calling them “damaged proto-hookers.”
+1 Jessie
Goodness, Jessie! I — might — have been able to beat Epstein’s rap – but only b/c everybody deserves as defense. And the cases against him were very thin.
(On a personal note – I never actually defended sex offenders in sex offence cases. Like animal cruelty cases, I am morally unqualified as I’d be conflicted.) My understanding of the dynamics of sex abuse is why I avoided those cases. But I’d have probably taken Epstein’s case actually.
You write:
“14-year-olds really wanted to spend their lives stuck on an island sexually servicing a middle-aged man?”
This is nonsense. No “spend their lives”, and no person was ever co-erced to Lolita Island. Near adults, making informed trade-offs, boarded planes with ID (and the UK, passports they applied for). These are facts, not the moral gloss and outrage you paint on them here Jessie.
Further…. there is nothing but rumor about the “14 year olds”. Don’t push the facts please. I dislike rumor. I like people coming on record, with documentation, proof. Not some journalist or tweeter alleging “14 year olds in tropical orgies!!!” type media. All we have to go on is court transcripts and that’s all I read. No mention of 14 year olds. What if there were though? Another topic for another day – I won’t debate age of consent laws here.
We also disagree on the definition of “child”. And, as Dawkins has discussed in his discontinuity discussions, there’s no hard edge or sold definition of many categories, including that of when, exactly, a young woman has responsibility for her own actions (irrespective of her sad past) and when she doesn’t. And different civilizations have different ideas of this age of consent idea. In a few contexts internationally, it is 20, in most of the Islamosphere, for example, it is much, muuuch younger. You can look that up but it’ll annoy you Jessie. My vague idea is kinda mid-late teens, older for girls perhaps, but these are personal judgements.
I’d like to apologize for my phrasing of “proto-hookers” which annoyed you twice, but I will not apologize. It fit as a phrase. I don’t bend to political or social niceties – which is why I was a good attorney.
Nuance, Jessie, nuance.
Respectfully, your new friend and sparing partner!
D.A.
NYC
Please know that many here support your perspective and analysis and are equally disgusted with some of the rhetoric of your “sparring” partners.
The claim that the abuse of 14 yo and younger girls is just rumor is undermined by multiple lawsuits e.g. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1180481/dl and others with victims as young as 11.
I referred to her being a bad witness or of unsound character b/c of various public
published reports of her erratic nature. I think her recent sad demise goes to that fact.
That is not a good witness for the prosecution. Similarly, Jessie, if you recall 2016, there was “a 16 year old accuser!!” against Epstein, and Trump, which threatened to sink his campaign. Until she was also regarded as…. a very dodgy character herself.
For sure, such creeps exploit vulnerable women, I’ll grant you that, but it has absolutely no relevance to the allegations at hand. One can be a cad, a creep, a weirdo, and even “handsy” (our PotUS, for eg,), but the law is pretty specific in what it forbids and I’m on that side, not the side of mass lynch mobs.
For the record, back then (2016) I voluntarily worked on the Hillary campaign and gave them some dosh. I’ve never voted GoP in my life. I will soon though b/c I feel the Dems have become utterly lost: See the mayoral primaries where I live. 🙂 This is an aside.
The boss deleted a defense post of mine, properly no doubt, but I have a twitter account where we can hash this out. I’d like to, Jessie, to prove to you and our interested readers I am not a monster. And we’ll get this headache off PCC(E)’s plate. He has whale and puffin to munch on under the beautiful northern sky.
I’m new to X so not good at using it yet, but….
https://x.com/DavidandersonJd
D.A
NYC
Trump has only himself to blame. He campaigned on releasing the list (or files). Bondi said she had it on desk earlier this year.
AIUI, Epstein made his money as a quant, and was even tolerated/feted by M.I.T. Definitely a scumbag; definitely not low IQ. Maybe an idiot-savant?
Again yes, Barbara. The REAL thing that intrigues me about this case is his financial past. Lots of guys have an eye for the younger ladies… this is not excellent but for a minority of men, hebephilia is their thing. Just don’t let them near my niece! Horrible, but not interesting.
Where I’m fascinated is his wealth. I say that as a former Wall Streeter and trader. I can’t quite work out where the 100+ mil bucks came from given there are no “counter-parties” to his “trades” (of securities).
Neither can Eric Weinstein (the non-idiot of the brothers)… who has a history in finance and trading also.
Did he have Wexler, who was exceedingly generous to him, including his Upper East Side mansion as some kinda gift for cry’n out loud! — -did he have Wexler’s nuts in a vice? It is all so murky.
The celebs I don’t care about and this scandal is obviously a device to slime good people like Dersh, Clinton, or Pinker, etc.
Follow the Money, it is always the most interesting story.
D.A.
NYC
Trump and his minions are all about the big reveal. Remember when he sent people to Hawaii to look for information on Obama? “You would not believe the stuff they are finding. It’s incredible.” No, it wasn’t. And Mike Lindell’s repeated promises? “I will make a major speech this Friday where I will lay out absolute proof that the election was stolen.” Never happened. Always stirring the pot, never filling the bowl. MAGA followers have short attention spans and thrive on hype, not substance. (I was amused to hear one of his impatient followers breathlessly declaring that “He thinks his followers are stupid!!!” Yes, he does. And for once, he’s right.) So, this time the hype led to expectations that persisted beyond the point of their actual usefulness. Pam Bondi had the client list on her desk just like Joe McCarthy held in his hand the list of 2000 communist agents who had infiltrated our armed forces. So, what’s going on? First of all, we know that there is not a list with the names of prominent Democrats on it. They would be going bat shit crazy with that. Is Trump on it? Maybe, but I don’t see evidence that he was all that close to that whole mess. My best guess is that A) some kind of list exists but, B) it has the wrong names on it. There are some Trump allies, supporters, bootlickers on it. If they could, Pam Bondi, et. al. would edit the list and put out only the information they wanted to, but it’s a big enough thing that they can’t get away with manipulating it. It’s all or nothing. And for once, they dangled a promise out there and they can’t just forget about it and go on to the next lie. It has its own legs now and its own positive feedback loop: the more they try to distract, the more people want to see what’s there, causing them to want to distract more and on and on. I wish the worst for them.
Nailed it. 💯
The man who rose to power by encouraging his voters to believe in conspiracy theories is now reaping what he sowed. Little did he know he’d joined the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.
Hubris. Tragic flaw. Classical tragedy.
I adore that metaphor Sastra. Always cracks me up: Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.
hahaha
best,
D.A.
NYC
The sign for the “Cats of Down Town Reykjavik” reminds me of the lovely documentary “The Cats of Mirikitani”. It’s the story of Japanese American street artist Jimmy Mirikitani, a homeless man the documentary maker met covered in dust from the fallen WTC towers. He was familiar in the neighborhood for his fabulous paintings of cats, which are really very nice. Though homeless at the time, he had lived a remarkable life before winding up on the streets, including spending time in a Japanese internment camp during the war where he painted haunting images of life in the camp and later he lived in Manhattan as a real life Chauncy Gardiner.
The report on getting a “free” BMW does not seem to be accurate.
Here’s a description of the scheme: https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/new-and-used-cars/article/motability-car-scheme-explained-aGss89b6MbnY
Takeaways:
Claimants must be on a mobility allowance – that is they must have mobility problems and be getting benefit payments to help with those problems.
The money for the car is taken from their benefits. If the benefits aren’t sufficient to cover payments then the claimant needs to cover the difference.
The available BMW models “typically require a sizeable advance payment” in addition to the money taken from benefits,
From investigating further, the cars seem to be leased rather than owned outright and there’s no option to keep the car when the lease ends.
This is easy enough to verify with an internet search. Nellie Bowles is undermining her blog by posting false rumors too quickly, unfortunately she is not entirely reliable.
BMW offers programs to support mobility-impaired individuals in accessing their vehicles. The BMW Mobility Program provides a one-time reimbursement of up to $2,500 for adaptive equipment purchases when buying a new or Certified Pre-Owned BMW. Additionally, the Motability Scheme, a UK-based charity, allows individuals to exchange their mobility allowance for a new BMW, including benefits like insurance, servicing, and adaptations.
BMW Mobility Program:
Reimbursement:
The program offers a one-time reimbursement of up to $2,500 for adaptive equipment when purchasing a new or Certified Pre-Owned BMW from an authorized center.
Eligibility:
This program is designed for individuals requiring modifications to their vehicle for mobility
Yes, the scheme is called Motability, designed to give independent mobility to people with disabilities, and it’s been around since 1977, so it’s survived scrutiny by self-styled waste-cutters Thatcher, Major, Cameron and the ever-shittier shit-shower of Tory non-entities that succeeded them, which tells you at once that there’s more to it than Nellie Bowles implies. It’s a registered charity to enable it to raise money independently as well as funnelling the disability payments from the government. Most of the leased vehicles it deals with have, historically, been adapted for wheelchair users. The FP story is — well, I suppose the tone of the column is light and satirical, fair enough — but the absence of any context just sounds like standard-issue American incredulity at the idea of a welfare state.
There is a real problem here, and although the Telegraph article highlights it in a tendentious way (as if BMWs are the only cars on offer), it does lay out the real issue (which Nellie Bowles doesn’t), and the likely cause: the extension of disability definitions into the realm of mental illness, which the founders of Motability certainly did not have in mind when they created the scheme and which, to be frank, has no discernible impact on mobility. And the ballooning rise in applications over the last five years as being linked to Covid, furloughing, and the mental impact of lockdown.
The solution is clear: a thorough review of eligibility criteria with the aim of limiting it to those whose disability does have a real, practical impact on their mobility. Simply being on a disability allowance should not be enough.
This is a good example of going overboard with good intentions resulting in bad outcomes. Government employees may prefer not to be the bad guys rejecting applications for mobility disability and dealing with upset customers, or they may not want to be investigating and deciding which applications have integrity, and they may not have the time to properly verify the integrity of all of the applications anyway, so they accept all the applications. BMW sees an opportunity to lease more cars, a charity sees an opportunity to insert itself, and it is mostly other people’s money.
Thanks for that clarity Mr. King. It is a teaching moment to consider that not everything on X/twitter, or right wing youtube, is accurate.
Your take is appreciated.
The horror stories didn’t pass the smell test.
That said, there seems to be a lot of …disharmony in your lovely country (land of my Mum’s birth) regards immigration and particularly immigration of a particular type. And some free speech issues.
Please keep us up to speed at WEIT if you don’t mind commenting in future.
Tally Ho! 🙂
D.A.
NYC
Pam Bondi announces she has a list of Epstein guests on her desk. Then announces there is no list. Who can trust her? Apparently there was a safe full of videos. Some of it involving undressed young girls. And much more Bondi is happy to ignore. This is going to drag on for years. Nobody is going to trust Trump with his bellows of “FAKE NEWS!”. Or anything out of Bondi’s mouth. Remember Clinton? It wasn’t the blowjob that was the problem. It was the lying about it that enraged the Congressional Republicans like Nutty Newt Gingrich. Bondi’s apparent lying is going to be judged just as unacceptable as was Clinton’s lying. Where is this all going? Nobody initially though an arrest of a few burglars at the Watergate Hotel would eventually doom Nixon’s presidency.
Thanks for posting this Paul King, you are correct. Plus the Motability scheme is not as good as it looks as there is quite a tight mileage allowance and then a lot per mile, I forget the exact figure, if you go over during the three-year lease period.
I know a few genuinely disabled people who receive mobility allowance but prefer to take out private HP or PCP deals as they are usually better.
Ukraine news: Further evidence of an increasingly weakening Russia. Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan have apparently formed a trade route consortium that cuts Russia out of the loop, to its considerable chagrin.
Seems to me that Russia is looking more like Germany in 1944 at about this same time of year. Good! (Tomorrow is the anniversary of von Stauffenberg’s tragically failed attempt.)
YES Mr. Hempenstein, watch this space.
Recent-ish “victory” of Azeri Islamism over Nagorno Karbak is a telling point. And the… Zangazor (?) corridor is actually a very big deal with larger implications.
I wrote about this area a few years ago, broadly. I think you’ll enjoy it.
https://democracychronicles.org/putins-rolodex-of-fake-states/
variously syndicated.
It is a shame we are all so distracted by things like Epstein’s address book and whoever farted in “poor opwessed Pawestine” Gaza today rather than bigger issues like you mention. Also Russia’s economic situation which is actually extremely dire (See “Perun” defense economics podcast).
All the best Mr. H.
D.A.
NYC
I particularly enjoyed this NPR headline classic: “Bringing Diversity to Maine’s Nearly All-White Lobster Fleet”. A fine example, from the high-water point of wokeliness (2021ish, I would guess), of how parody became superfluous.
The high-water period of wokeliness simply illustrated the way eager, dim-witted functionaries will copy a few clichés over and over, creating an entire mythos. Hence, the DEIshchina.
By the lack of diversity in Maine’s commercial lobster fishery, NPR presumably means few black people do it, as this is what diversity and the causally linked equity and inclusion have come to mean.
But there is more to diversity than blackness. NPR should come next door to Canada’s Maritime Provinces where a thriving indigenous lobster fishery exists outside the national licensing and seasonal quota regime that non-indigenous — OK, white — lobstermen have to comply with. The indigenous people claim their treaty rights to catch eels in traditional estuarine weirs extend to more valuable marine species caught out of season while the female lobsters are laden with delicious eggs, using efficient seaworthy yard-built diesel boats and radar navigation governed only by their own ways of knowing about sustainability. (Their stated view is that if the combined fishing should cause the fishery to decline, the Canadian Government should revoke the licences of white fishermen and leave the indigenous one alone.). They resist efforts by Fisheries and Oceans to suppress their illegal commercial business and there have been violent clashes between the licensed and “self-licensed” lobster boats dropping pots in the same waters. The police can arrest the unlicensed boats but the Crown has no stomach for prosecution.
Diversity is our strength, we say. NPR would approve, no doubt. The CBC sure does.
My apologies if you’ve heard this joke before, but your opening remark about the Jeffery Epstein broo-ha-ha reminded me of it. A conspiracy theorist dies and goes to heaven. God greets him at the Pearly Gates and tells the guy that he can ask one question, and that it will be answered truthfully. The guy says to God, “Who killed JFK?” God says, “Lee Harvey Oswald, and he acted alone.” The guy says, “Wow! This goes a lot farther than I thought.”