Thanks for posting, I think this is absolutely correct—however I also believe that those people who are saying they're "fatigued" from hearing about it are just tired of having to defend against...
Thanks for posting, I think this is absolutely correct—however I also believe that those people who are saying they're "fatigued" from hearing about it are just tired of having to defend against that very realization mentioned: we are here due to pure evil, in many aspects. Anything controversial, pretty much hot button issues of all kinds, arise because some people want it one way and other guys want those people dead—not everybody, your racist dad probably wouldn't murder anyone, but the people who are putting brown Americans in unmarked vans probably didn't choose that as a career path in high school either. And if those people are forced to acknowledge, even just purely from a legal standpoint, that the political crowd they have supported under the guise of "Christian values" is really just using those values to get them to give their support & money to billionaire child molesters so they can make more money & molest more children, then maybe we won't have to do this again. Literally the only argument I've seen against smearing it is that it will affect democrats too, the stability of our nation, etc--ok. Do people really think we should keep protecting whatever this is instead? I've heard the same talk against any investigation into the 2024 election & voting irregularities—"we would never recover politically," "it's a sensitive time," etc. Dude it's happening, anything to stop it is better than watching it all burn down for these losers. If my dad was a rapist & no one knew I would 100% not be all like "Well I better just sit on this one to protect everybody," but it seems like that's not the usual take? And it worked for Bill Cosby for a long time. I dunno man.
But can he get away with having raped children after the q crowd were spun up to a frenzy with promises that the global elite child molesters would be publicly exposed. It's an open question. This...
But can he get away with having raped children after the q crowd were spun up to a frenzy with promises that the global elite child molesters would be publicly exposed.
It's an open question. This could be like Watergate. We'll see.
It's insane to me how normalized all this bullshit has become. If Watergate happened today, it would be out of the news cycle in hours and no one would care. I'd like to think the Epstein files...
It's insane to me how normalized all this bullshit has become. If Watergate happened today, it would be out of the news cycle in hours and no one would care.
I'd like to think the Epstein files would finally be Trump's undoing, but I've thought that about hundreds of things over the years that just get brushed off. At this point, I'll believe it when I see it.
He can't have an "undoing" if no one holds him accountable. And I think the Republicans have pretty much shown they're willing to risk it until mid-term elections - if those even happen.
He can't have an "undoing" if no one holds him accountable. And I think the Republicans have pretty much shown they're willing to risk it until mid-term elections - if those even happen.
I mean, to be honest, it won't be a "cancel all elections" type of situation. I think we're well on our way to breaking them in a lot of little ways. CISA pulling back from providing support to...
I mean, to be honest, it won't be a "cancel all elections" type of situation. I think we're well on our way to breaking them in a lot of little ways.
CISA pulling back from providing support to election officials.
Gerrymandering kicking into over drive.
ICE agents scouting out polling locations and/or harassing people there, keeping others at home.
Rolling back voting options - less early voting days, fewer ballot drop offs, etc.
If you feel like it’s actually going to happen you should probably say that you’ll put up a fight. So instead of “If we even have an election” you could say “If they try something I’m going to...
If you feel like it’s actually going to happen you should probably say that you’ll put up a fight.
So instead of “If we even have an election” you could say “If they try something I’m going to fight like hell because it may be our last chance to hold onto our democracy”.
People are fighting against the 1, 2, 3, 4 nord listed, and I support some of those organizations monetarily, but no one person can effectively fight all of the strategies everywhere all the time.
People are fighting against the 1, 2, 3, 4 nord listed, and I support some of those organizations monetarily, but no one person can effectively fight all of the strategies everywhere all the time.
I’m skeptical, too. And for the record, I was aware on some level that even after the “grab them by the…” comment he was going to win, and knew it for sure a month or so in front if Nov 2016....
I’m skeptical, too. And for the record, I was aware on some level that even after the “grab them by the…” comment he was going to win, and knew it for sure a month or so in front if Nov 2016.
What’s going for his downfall here is the degree to which he and his pals made such a big deal if the files. It was a symbol for Trump overthrowing the corrupt elites. But now there is no way he is not lying, whether when making pre election claims or now about the list not existing/his name not being on it.
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded as Leonard Cohen told us, but sometimes the game is so egregious you have to step away from the table.
Why is that annoying? I think it's satisfying. That may be some people's motivations, but fundamentally this is a good issue for democrats (and the rest of the political coalition of people who...
It's annoying because Democrats are now doing the same thing people like Bongino and Patel were doing in 2021. Back then, the "Epstein files" was deployed as an undefined term over and over again because it filled people's heads with the image of a pristine and maximally destructive list of Epstein's clients
Why is that annoying? I think it's satisfying.
You can understand why so many liberals are now eagerly taking up the cause of the Epstein files, because believing that there remains some fatally incriminating document that can still be attained is more comforting than sitting with what is already known:
That may be some people's motivations, but fundamentally this is a good issue for democrats (and the rest of the political coalition of people who don't like donald trump). Unlike the other way around, Trump got himself in a catch-22. He reaffirmed the existence of the Epstein list, and promised to deliver it in his campaign.
So there's no good way out now: either the "epstein list" exists, and most likely has information that does not look good for Trump, so releasing it would only provide dirt on himself, or it doesn't exist, and he has to admit that he was lying to his base to manipulate them.
I don't think it'll topple Trump or anything, but it's not like the minority party has anything else to do but whine loudly. That's the job out of the party out of power! Republicans were good at it. There's few things better to whine about than a catch-22 gordian knot from the opposing party. It's a low risk, high reward political move. People should be louder about "thE EpStein FiLes"!
If you ask me personally, if I think there is such a thing as the "the Epstein List", no, I don't think it exists. But that's irrelevant to whether or not Democratic politicians and spokespeople and generally famous people in this political coalition should hammer Trump about it.
Exactly. The republicans are in power because they realize most people are swayed by such deep arguments as “Benghazi!” or “Her emails” or “Hunter’s laptop”. I don't find it annoying for democrats...
Exactly.
The republicans are in power because they realize most people are swayed by such deep arguments as “Benghazi!” or “Her emails” or “Hunter’s laptop”.
I don't find it annoying for democrats to finally realize that. It’s better to have nonsense slogans than to have fascism.
Most people on the left probably realize that there isn’t one incriminating list, but just referring to the scandal with that shorthand is useful.
I think it's a far stronger argument to consistently point out the hypocrisy than it is to feign concern about the same insane elite deep state pedophile ring conspiracy theory that the far right...
I think it's a far stronger argument to consistently point out the hypocrisy than it is to feign concern about the same insane elite deep state pedophile ring conspiracy theory that the far right came up with.
The idea that people you don't like politically are all secret pedophiles is dangerous. It causes people to show up to pizza restaurants with assault rifles, storm capitals, attempt assassinations and so on. It's also just plain not true. The world doesn't operate like an alt right fantasy where there are comically evil people running the world and secretly molesting kids.
Is trump a sexual predator? Yeah, of course. We already knew that though. "The Epstein files" as they're imagined, aren't a thing, and if those files do contain evidence that implicates Trump in some sexual misconduct... That would be the least surprising thing ever, because Trump already has mountains of public evidence of engaging in sexual misconduct.
The real issue here is the hypocrisy of saying that the whole world is run by secret leftist pedophiles and if only you had the right access you'd blow the lid off the whole thing, and then when you gain power and do have access, you just pretend the whole thing was never really true.
That's what Democrats should be focused on. Otherwise, they're just being hypocrites too. Their stance was that we shouldn't obsess over a secret Democrat pedophile ring, and now they're pretending that there's actually a secret Republican pedophile ring? Come on.
I'm tired of these arguments where the left accuses the right of being hypocrites by being hypocrites themselves. They spent years making fun of Republicans for "butteremails!" and then trump also mishandles classified documents and it's suddenly a super serious threat to national security and evidence of corruption. They spend years defending signs of Biden's obvious mental decline, then they pounce on Trump's. Then they turn it around and say "you guys spent so long saying that Biden has dementia, but Trump has dementia too and you're defending him"!
Like, well yes, they're being hypocritical for political reasons, but so are you. Doesn't really make sense as an argument.
I feel like you're making a bad-faith equivalence between "but her emails" and Trump's egregious mishandling of classified documents. That sort of equivalence is one of the things that puts the...
I feel like you're making a bad-faith equivalence between "but her emails" and Trump's egregious mishandling of classified documents. That sort of equivalence is one of the things that puts the Democrats in an unwinnable place. They have to play by the rules in a way the Republicans do not. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the Democrats shouldn't have to play by the rules, but I don't think it's fair to say they're being hypocritical, because there is a massive difference in the severity of the situations being compared.
I was following along agreeing with you, until you got to your annoyance with the current Democrats. I resented the hell out of H Clinton's server and her wiped it like with a cloth bad faith...
I was following along agreeing with you, until you got to your annoyance with the current Democrats.
I resented the hell out of H Clinton's server and her wiped it like with a cloth bad faith question.
She knew better.
I am all for the wall Street journal sticking a metaphorical shiv into Trump and the Democrats piling on. I hope it turns out to have been effective in the end.
That's fair. Right or wrong, it's much too soon to know the actual impact. It's either going to fizzle out or become a political avalanche. Joe Rogan The qanon shaman Congress just went home to...
That's fair.
Right or wrong, it's much too soon to know the actual impact. It's either going to fizzle out or become a political avalanche.
The Epstein debacle is only useful insofar as its providing subterfuge to prevent Trump from enacting his agenda. Beyond that, its pretty clear to me that nobody implicated will face any...
The Epstein debacle is only useful insofar as its providing subterfuge to prevent Trump from enacting his agenda. Beyond that, its pretty clear to me that nobody implicated will face any meaningful consequences.
The West Wing(Sorkin fuck off) brained libs think this is the ultimate gotcha but like always, its Lucy and the football, Charlie Brown.
West Wing, and Sorkin by extension, represents a species of debate brained liberal which believes if you "own" the other side hard enough, they'll see things your way and that's how you win...
West Wing, and Sorkin by extension, represents a species of debate brained liberal which believes if you "own" the other side hard enough, they'll see things your way and that's how you win politics. This, of course, is not at all how things work in the real world.
Despite its relatively thin ideological commitments, there is a general tenor to the West Wing universe that cannot be called anything other than smug.
It’s a smugness born of the view that politics is less a terrain of clashing values and interests than a perpetual pitting of the clever against the ignorant and obtuse. The clever wield facts and reason, while the foolish cling to effortlessly-exposed fictions and the braying prejudices of provincial rubes. In emphasizing intelligence over ideology, what follows is a fetishization of “elevated discourse” regardless of its actual outcomes or conclusions. The greatest political victories involve semantically dismantling an opponent’s argument or exposing its hypocrisy, usually by way of some grand rhetorical gesture. Categories like left and right become less significant, provided that the competing interlocutors are deemed respectably smart and practice the designated etiquette. The Discourse becomes a category of its own, to be protected and nourished by Serious People conversing respectfully while shutting down the stupid with heavy-handed moral sanctimony.
I can’t answer for @arrza but Skip Intro has been doing a really interesting series about The West Wing and as someone who never watched it I’m finding it enlightening.
I can’t answer for @arrza but Skip Intro has been doing a really interesting series about The West Wing and as someone who never watched it I’m finding it enlightening.
This seems really simple to me. Publish every single flight that ever touched the island, and every single location Epstein or his Lolita express ever flew off to visit. We don't need his client...
This seems really simple to me.
Publish every single flight that ever touched the island, and every single location Epstein or his Lolita express ever flew off to visit. We don't need his client list, we've got everyone's travel logs going back decades. Pretty sure his victims remember who and where and when things happened to them if we require more data points for future investigations.
Thanks to the patriot act our ridiculous overbuilt surveillance network already stores decades of cell phone, private message, email, and flight records which we collect without even bothering to involve the courts. Time to put that digital spy network to patriotic use. If not, then it's time to dismantle the spy network and repeal all parts of the patriot act since it'll be proven useless dealing with real crime. Either way it's going to stick in the government's craw for the next five decades, probably worse than JFK in that regard because it's a far larger crime than a single murder.
I'm less interested in who is on the list than I am in who was pulling Epstein's strings, and what agendas were accomplished by those pulling the strings - so we can promptly un-accomplish them and sanction those responsible. My money is on Mossad and the CIA collaborating around Epstein, I think they were both using him to develop assets.
I'm hoping some enterprising hacker or random ethical whistleblower dumps the whole collection of evidence directly onto the internet unredacted. Let's get it all out there. If Trump is on the list, he can simply pardon himself and release it all. He's already dodged one bullet, it's not like they can ratchet up the heat on him any higher than trying to kill him. If that results in the arrest of several hundred crooked assets going directly into the executive wing of Guantanamo I think people will tolerate him getting away with it, begrudgingly. He'll never live it down, but he won't be in jail and at his age he's not long for the world anyway.
Thanks for posting, I think this is absolutely correct—however I also believe that those people who are saying they're "fatigued" from hearing about it are just tired of having to defend against that very realization mentioned: we are here due to pure evil, in many aspects. Anything controversial, pretty much hot button issues of all kinds, arise because some people want it one way and other guys want those people dead—not everybody, your racist dad probably wouldn't murder anyone, but the people who are putting brown Americans in unmarked vans probably didn't choose that as a career path in high school either. And if those people are forced to acknowledge, even just purely from a legal standpoint, that the political crowd they have supported under the guise of "Christian values" is really just using those values to get them to give their support & money to billionaire child molesters so they can make more money & molest more children, then maybe we won't have to do this again. Literally the only argument I've seen against smearing it is that it will affect democrats too, the stability of our nation, etc--ok. Do people really think we should keep protecting whatever this is instead? I've heard the same talk against any investigation into the 2024 election & voting irregularities—"we would never recover politically," "it's a sensitive time," etc. Dude it's happening, anything to stop it is better than watching it all burn down for these losers. If my dad was a rapist & no one knew I would 100% not be all like "Well I better just sit on this one to protect everybody," but it seems like that's not the usual take? And it worked for Bill Cosby for a long time. I dunno man.
He could shoot a man on fifth.
But can he get away with having raped children after the q crowd were spun up to a frenzy with promises that the global elite child molesters would be publicly exposed.
It's an open question. This could be like Watergate. We'll see.
I’m not holding my breath.
There really is no need. If it happens, everyone will know.
It's insane to me how normalized all this bullshit has become. If Watergate happened today, it would be out of the news cycle in hours and no one would care.
I'd like to think the Epstein files would finally be Trump's undoing, but I've thought that about hundreds of things over the years that just get brushed off. At this point, I'll believe it when I see it.
He can't have an "undoing" if no one holds him accountable. And I think the Republicans have pretty much shown they're willing to risk it until mid-term elections - if those even happen.
I believe that every time someone publicly speculates we won't have a future election they are actively increasing that probability.
I mean, to be honest, it won't be a "cancel all elections" type of situation. I think we're well on our way to breaking them in a lot of little ways.
So anyways, I'll keep saying it
If you feel like it’s actually going to happen you should probably say that you’ll put up a fight.
So instead of “If we even have an election” you could say “If they try something I’m going to fight like hell because it may be our last chance to hold onto our democracy”.
People are fighting against the 1, 2, 3, 4 nord listed, and I support some of those organizations monetarily, but no one person can effectively fight all of the strategies everywhere all the time.
I’m skeptical, too. And for the record, I was aware on some level that even after the “grab them by the…” comment he was going to win, and knew it for sure a month or so in front if Nov 2016.
What’s going for his downfall here is the degree to which he and his pals made such a big deal if the files. It was a symbol for Trump overthrowing the corrupt elites. But now there is no way he is not lying, whether when making pre election claims or now about the list not existing/his name not being on it.
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded as Leonard Cohen told us, but sometimes the game is so egregious you have to step away from the table.
Why is that annoying? I think it's satisfying.
That may be some people's motivations, but fundamentally this is a good issue for democrats (and the rest of the political coalition of people who don't like donald trump). Unlike the other way around, Trump got himself in a catch-22. He reaffirmed the existence of the Epstein list, and promised to deliver it in his campaign.
So there's no good way out now: either the "epstein list" exists, and most likely has information that does not look good for Trump, so releasing it would only provide dirt on himself, or it doesn't exist, and he has to admit that he was lying to his base to manipulate them.
I don't think it'll topple Trump or anything, but it's not like the minority party has anything else to do but whine loudly. That's the job out of the party out of power! Republicans were good at it. There's few things better to whine about than a catch-22 gordian knot from the opposing party. It's a low risk, high reward political move. People should be louder about "thE EpStein FiLes"!
If you ask me personally, if I think there is such a thing as the "the Epstein List", no, I don't think it exists. But that's irrelevant to whether or not Democratic politicians and spokespeople and generally famous people in this political coalition should hammer Trump about it.
Exactly.
The republicans are in power because they realize most people are swayed by such deep arguments as “Benghazi!” or “Her emails” or “Hunter’s laptop”.
I don't find it annoying for democrats to finally realize that. It’s better to have nonsense slogans than to have fascism.
Most people on the left probably realize that there isn’t one incriminating list, but just referring to the scandal with that shorthand is useful.
I think it's a far stronger argument to consistently point out the hypocrisy than it is to feign concern about the same insane elite deep state pedophile ring conspiracy theory that the far right came up with.
The idea that people you don't like politically are all secret pedophiles is dangerous. It causes people to show up to pizza restaurants with assault rifles, storm capitals, attempt assassinations and so on. It's also just plain not true. The world doesn't operate like an alt right fantasy where there are comically evil people running the world and secretly molesting kids.
Is trump a sexual predator? Yeah, of course. We already knew that though. "The Epstein files" as they're imagined, aren't a thing, and if those files do contain evidence that implicates Trump in some sexual misconduct... That would be the least surprising thing ever, because Trump already has mountains of public evidence of engaging in sexual misconduct.
The real issue here is the hypocrisy of saying that the whole world is run by secret leftist pedophiles and if only you had the right access you'd blow the lid off the whole thing, and then when you gain power and do have access, you just pretend the whole thing was never really true.
That's what Democrats should be focused on. Otherwise, they're just being hypocrites too. Their stance was that we shouldn't obsess over a secret Democrat pedophile ring, and now they're pretending that there's actually a secret Republican pedophile ring? Come on.
I'm tired of these arguments where the left accuses the right of being hypocrites by being hypocrites themselves. They spent years making fun of Republicans for "butteremails!" and then trump also mishandles classified documents and it's suddenly a super serious threat to national security and evidence of corruption. They spend years defending signs of Biden's obvious mental decline, then they pounce on Trump's. Then they turn it around and say "you guys spent so long saying that Biden has dementia, but Trump has dementia too and you're defending him"!
Like, well yes, they're being hypocritical for political reasons, but so are you. Doesn't really make sense as an argument.
I feel like you're making a bad-faith equivalence between "but her emails" and Trump's egregious mishandling of classified documents. That sort of equivalence is one of the things that puts the Democrats in an unwinnable place. They have to play by the rules in a way the Republicans do not. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the Democrats shouldn't have to play by the rules, but I don't think it's fair to say they're being hypocritical, because there is a massive difference in the severity of the situations being compared.
I was following along agreeing with you, until you got to your annoyance with the current Democrats.
I resented the hell out of H Clinton's server and her wiped it like with a cloth bad faith question.
She knew better.
I am all for the wall Street journal sticking a metaphorical shiv into Trump and the Democrats piling on. I hope it turns out to have been effective in the end.
That's fair.
Right or wrong, it's much too soon to know the actual impact. It's either going to fizzle out or become a political avalanche.
Joe Rogan
The qanon shaman
Congress just went home to face the voters so we'll see. Watergate took many months start to finish.
The Epstein debacle is only useful insofar as its providing subterfuge to prevent Trump from enacting his agenda. Beyond that, its pretty clear to me that nobody implicated will face any meaningful consequences.
The West Wing(Sorkin fuck off) brained libs think this is the ultimate gotcha but like always, its Lucy and the football, Charlie Brown.
Can I ask about your Sorkin hate?
West Wing, and Sorkin by extension, represents a species of debate brained liberal which believes if you "own" the other side hard enough, they'll see things your way and that's how you win politics. This, of course, is not at all how things work in the real world.
See Luke Savage's article on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2017/04/how-liberals-fell-in-love-with-the-west-wing
Or, if you prefer some spicy humor with your commentary, the Chapo review: https://youtu.be/TPxxp03a13w?si=7huoMmthLQVABsBW
Lol, ouch.
I mean, his name is Luke Savage.
I can’t answer for @arrza but Skip Intro has been doing a really interesting series about The West Wing and as someone who never watched it I’m finding it enlightening.
I liked the show -- its worth a watch. If you know Sorkin's work, you'll know what to expect, which isn't a bad thing.
This seems really simple to me.
Publish every single flight that ever touched the island, and every single location Epstein or his Lolita express ever flew off to visit. We don't need his client list, we've got everyone's travel logs going back decades. Pretty sure his victims remember who and where and when things happened to them if we require more data points for future investigations.
Thanks to the patriot act our ridiculous overbuilt surveillance network already stores decades of cell phone, private message, email, and flight records which we collect without even bothering to involve the courts. Time to put that digital spy network to patriotic use. If not, then it's time to dismantle the spy network and repeal all parts of the patriot act since it'll be proven useless dealing with real crime. Either way it's going to stick in the government's craw for the next five decades, probably worse than JFK in that regard because it's a far larger crime than a single murder.
I'm less interested in who is on the list than I am in who was pulling Epstein's strings, and what agendas were accomplished by those pulling the strings - so we can promptly un-accomplish them and sanction those responsible. My money is on Mossad and the CIA collaborating around Epstein, I think they were both using him to develop assets.
I'm hoping some enterprising hacker or random ethical whistleblower dumps the whole collection of evidence directly onto the internet unredacted. Let's get it all out there. If Trump is on the list, he can simply pardon himself and release it all. He's already dodged one bullet, it's not like they can ratchet up the heat on him any higher than trying to kill him. If that results in the arrest of several hundred crooked assets going directly into the executive wing of Guantanamo I think people will tolerate him getting away with it, begrudgingly. He'll never live it down, but he won't be in jail and at his age he's not long for the world anyway.
Also Senator Wyden pointed out that the Treasury department has custody of documents that detail the financial transactions. Follow the money.