Froma Harrop: How Low Can Deviancy Go?

 

How Low Can Deviancy Go?

Epstein survivors issue urgent plea to Congress, Trump now wants materials released, and the ultimate corruption of money.

Hmmm. . . that's interesting.  Trump's now okay with it.

Trump and his acolytes went from demanding their release, to absolutely opposing it.  Now they're in favor of it again.

What gives?

Well one thing may simply be that so much time has gone by, these files are now scrubbed.  Sounds conspiratorial, I know, but files can be scrubbed, or lost.

The problem here is that the whole thing sounds so, well, all over the place that an effective scrubbing might be impossible.

Another one is that Trump might already know it won't get past the Senate.  Just yesterday loyal flunky John Barrasso stated he wasn't sure if they'd vote on it or not.  Figures like Barrasso figure their Senate seats are so safe that they're untouchable.  They aren't, and he was running pretty scared last time, but they tend to think that way.

Or it just isn't worth the political capital that it was burning up.  That would suggest that whoever is getting protected just isn't worth this level of damage, particularly that some formerly loyal MAGA's have gone overboard into the lifeboats.  The Republicans only barely control the House now and are set to lose them in the midterms.  If only two or three more Republicans in the House abandoned ship, Mike Smarmy Johnson is done for and the GOP would start to break free of King Donny.  Two Republican House members, including amazingly Marjorie Taylor Greene, are openly poking the king and he's been able to do nothing about it.

Yet another is that, related to above, Trump just intends to lie his way out of whatever they say, if they're damaging to him, and so far we have no reason to believe that in spite of his personally gross behavior towards women, that he's implicated in kiddy diddling.  At the worst, it's possible that he knew what was going on and didn't do anything about it,  and there's likely a lot of rich and powerful people in that boat.  Or maybe he actually didn't.  Epstein was a creep, but just having young bikini wearing women on the premises doesn't necessarily mean that diddling is going on.  So whatever is in there, he may be confident won't touch him directly, and whomever it does, well he can always say it includes Democrats too, which it probably does.

Which may be, after all is said and done, the biggest lesson.  Since Ronald Reagan this country has followed the absurd notion that's what's good for the wealthy is good for everyone.  As Oliver Bullough has stated; "All money corrupts, and big money corrupts bigly".   

Businessmen plotted to take over the government and install fascism in the 1930s.  The plot failed, and nobody was prosecuted.  Reagan sold the American public the idea that vast wealth trickles down.

Epstein hung out with the rich and powerful. Some of them he supplied with teenage girls.  The money didn't trickle down, and its not trickling down.  Rather, it's morally corrosive and effectively the Business Plot ultimately won out with the election of Donald Trump, aided by the Democrats prime strategy being a judicial coup rather than an oligarchic one.  

There's still time to reverse that. This might be a good place to start.

Blog Mirror: You Can’t “Protect Children” While Defending a Predator. And, also, What's in those files?

You Can’t “Protect Children” While Defending a Predator

How much longer can Republicans pretend not to see?

We of course also wrote on this just yesterday.

Lex Anteinternet: The dog that hasn't barked.:   By the way, by odd coincidence, they've given Ghislaine Maxwell a therapy dog. None of this will matter.  People will say this doesn...

What is going on here?  Something sure is.  Trump's called out all the stops, even bringing in Lauren Boebert to the Situation Room to pressure her.  Beobert, who is somebody in the MAGA camp, is apparently refusing to go along with Trump.

That in and of itself is remarkable.

What we know is that up to 1,000 girls were raped in association with Epstein.  We don't know all of the details of that by any means.  Some of the rapes were pressured "statutory rapes", but others may have been physically violent rapes of female minors, based on what little we know.  In either instance, the entire thing is horrific.

Was Trump a rapist?  So far we have no reason to believe that, other than the "where there's smoke there's fire".  Trump has, a long history of hanging out with those who have an interest in screwing teenagers and who have carried out their interest.  Epstein wasn't the first in that category.  The first that we know of, and probably the first significant person, was John Casablancas, who owned a modeling agency. Frankly, modeling agencies tend towards being morally dubious in some instances, but Casablancas was personally so.  He divorced his first wife due to an affair with model Stephanie Seymour whom he began seeing when she was 14 years old. At age 50 he married 17 year old Aline Mendonça de Carvalho Wermelinger.

Casablancas  represented Ivanka Trump when she became a fashion model at age 15.¹ 

It's worth remembering here that Trump is nearly 80 years old.  He was born in 1946, which means he turned 20, as a rich man, in 1966, and 30, in 1976.  Trump, therefore, had wealth right in the era in which American sexual morals really began to plummet and he was in his 70s when the clubbing scenes in New York was in full swing.²  People complain about the US being a moral sewer now, but that's because their memories are bad.  The 70s were really a decade of rank libertinism.³ 

They were also one which winked at Hebephilia and Ephebophilia, or rather, more accurately accepted the gross sexualization of early teenage girls  and men preying on them, with that getting advanced at first by Playboy which really flirted with the lines of illegality with its centerfolds.⁴   Advertising in the era really dipped down into the younger years, for girls, in a way that you couldn't and wouldn't now, for instance:

How old do we think that girl is?  Not old.

Brooke Shields as a young woman was shown only in her "Calvin Klein's" and portrayed a 12 or 13 year old prostitute in the 1976 film Pretty Baby (which she now detests) and a castaway in Blue Lagoon who grows into, I guess, a teenage common law marriage portrayed as the natural ideal.  Shields regards herself as having been exploited, which she truly was.  Only slightly older, 1968's Romeo and Juliet by Franco Zeffirelli featured Olivia Hussey' topless visage, albeit briefly, in a quite sexualized portrayal of the Juliet character. She was 14 years old and later sued.⁵

In spite of the horrors of such things as transgenderism, the re-creation of the lower class Victorian "common law" marriage arrangement in a new form in the American lower middle class, and the overall breakdown in sexual standards in the Western world, the outright aggressive exploitation of women sexually has really retreated.  Retreating with it was a fairly open acceptance of what we'd now call "date rape".  The concept that pressuring women into sex by way of position and power constituted rape flat out didn't exist.  Even as a teenager myself in the 1970s, I can recall that jokes based on "get 'er drunk" were really common with the suggestion that happened relatively commonly, and that it wasn't regarded as rape.  For that matter, as early as the early 1980s, I can recall instances of men in certain positions being caught in sexual relationships with underaged teens and simply losing their positions, quietly, over it.⁶ 

The point of all of this is that maybe a person could party down with John Casablancas while being a self admitted libertine and avoid picking the teenage fruit that others were picking, but most people who would find that morally reprehensible, which would be most people, would avoid hanging out with such people pretty quickly.  For one thing, the behavior is gross and disgusting. For another, hanging out with kiddy diddlers would cause a person to run the risk of being regarded as a diddler.

Be that as it may, Trump went from Casablancas on to Jeffrey Epstein, whom he started hanging out with in the 1990s, some twenty, more or less, years after Casablancas. Epstein shows up in a Mar A Lago party's video footage in 1992. That party featured NFL cheerleaders. Trump flew on Epstein's private jet at least seven times in the 1990s.  In 1997 Trump and Epstein were photographed together at a Victoria's Secret "Angels" party in New York.  In 2002 Trump made his now infamous comment that Epstein was a "terrific guy" they shared interest in "beautiful women".  Trump noted that Epstein's interests were in women on the "younger" side.  In 2003 Trump drew a nude figure, with oddly small breasts, in a birthday card for Epstein, with a really enigmatic comment, and signed his name as, basically, pubic hairs.⁷

Now we know that Epstein had commented that Trump knew about the "girls" and that Epstein claimed, in a private email, that Trump knew this due to Virginia Giuffre, the teenager who would be supplied to Prince Andrew.. Giuffre's father worked as a maintenance manager at the Mar-a-Lago property and helped Giuffre obtain a job there.  Maxwell recruited her to Epstein from Mar A Lago.

None of this proves in any fashion that Trump was diddling.  Indeed, Giuffre states that Trump never touched her.  Other women who were associated with Epstein have claimed that, but all of those claims have remained basically on the fringes of this story.  So all that can really be said is that Trump has lead a life of moral dissolution with adult women, and he's hung around with men who had an extremely creepy attraction to girls in their teens, but there's no evidence that Trump personally crossed that line.

But there sure is a lot of evidence that he doesn't want the Epstein files released.

Indeed, he's downright desperate about it.

Why?

Earlier on Trump indicated he wanted the files released.  Releasing the files became sort of a MAGA crusade, with MAGA's convinced that they'd provide damaging information on Bill (and maybe Hillary) Clinton.  Indeed, as recently as a couple of months ago a MAGA I know maintained that the files were being kept secret due to what they'd show about Clinton, and maybe Obama (who is in no way implicated in any of this), thereby making the bizarre assertion that the Republicans are keeping material secret to protect a former Democratic President they detest.

Eh?

Given Trump's change in tune, what probably is in there is one of two things.  One, the most likely, is that it's been pointed out that some rich and powerful person in the Trump circle is implicated, and badly.  Trump may be protecting that person or persons, and if he is, there's some connection either with Trump or the GOP that must really be needed for protection.

The other possibility is that he knows, which he didn't before, that he's implicated as somebody who really knew something grotesque.  Epstein himself, in his emails, noted that he apparently told Ghislaine to knock something off, and Trump has maintained that had to do with raiding staff from Mar A Lago.  But what if what he knew is something worse, that women were being recruited to be sex slaves, which is basically what these poor girls were.

Whatever it is, we don't know.

The files are going to be released, which brings up these two things.

Trumps willingness to act illegally is now so pronounced that there has to be a strong suspicion that the files are being scrubbed.  When they are released, and they will be, there's a good chance that some of the contents will be gone.  This did occur to some extent with the files on the Kennedy Assassination, although I personally don't believe in the various conspiracy theories in that area, so it can definitely be accomplished.

For that reason, and for others, I also feel that the files should be released as is, complete with names of the victims.  I know that's not the norm, and why, but the whole truth here is never going to come out if we don't know who was subject to this barbarity.  And, ironically, in this instance releasing the names protects them.  As noted earlier, Trump was sued by an anonymous woman who withdrew her suit after being subject to much pressure.  There may perhaps be nothing to those claims, but the fact is, at this point, that we're dealing with men who are enormously wealthy and powerful, and have the means to threaten their victims as long as their identities remain unknown.

Footnotes:

1.  On this, Trump has famously remarked about going back stage in, I believe, Miss World, competitions, or some such competitions, while the competitors were topless. These young women would, however, be of age.  This is still pretty creepy.

2.  The New York club scene was famously a cesspool, and heavily associated with drugs.  There is, however, no reason to believe that Trump has ever taken illegal drugs.  Indeed, due to the exposure to alcoholism provided by his brother, Trump does not drink.

3.  As a minor note, the culture of the times reflected back in the form of music.

Rock music has been regarded, probably pretty inaccurately, as sort of countercultural.  More accurately, when it was really popular, it reflected the cultural influence of people ranging from their teens into their thirties.  Real rock music is pretty much dead now.

The 1970s and early 1980s saw a fair amount of rock music that outright endorsed ephebophilia and hebephilia.  Ted Nugent's 1981 Jailbait outright did, with the female subject (victim) declared to be 13 years old. Kiss' 1977 subject was a bit older in Christine Sixteen. The Police hit the subject with Don’t Stand So Close to Me in 1980, which involves a teacher being attracted to a female student. That song is particularly creepy given its reference to Lolita and due to the fact that one of the members of The Police had been a teacher who admitted to having been attracted to female students, but not having acted upon it.

ABBA, which is regarded as sort of a bubblegum rock band, touched on the topic in 1979's Does Your Mother Know?, with the protagonist outright expressing torture over the advances of an underaged girl.  The Knack's 1979 song Good Girls Don't at least kept the behavior down at mutual teenage level.  Aerosmith broke into popularity with 1975's Walk This Way which is a tour de force of sexual double entendres all celebrating teenage sex. The story was flipped in Rod Stewart's 1971 Maggie May in which a teenage male regrets being seduced out of school by an older woman. 

So that's a bunch of song, but were they that popular?  Some really were, at least by my memory.  I don't recall Nugent's song at all, but the only song of Nugent's I recall being popular wsa Cat Scratch Fever, which is about prostitutes.  And Kiss was regarded, where I lived, as sort of juvenile joke more popular with junior high kids than us mature high schoolers, so I don't remember their song either.

The Police's Don't Stand So Close To Me, however, was hugely popular, although not with me, mostly because I can't stand that band.  ABBA's Does Your Mother Know? was also big.  Walk This Way was so big that even though it had been released in 1975, it was still really popular in the early 80s, which at the time was amazing as songs aged quickly.  Maggie May shares that status as it was popular over a decade after its original release.  Good Girls Don't didn't age well at all, in contrast, but it was huge in 1979.

Almost all of these songs, or maybe all of them, are outright reprehensible, which is the point.  Amazingly, they were heard all the time in the 70s and 80s, and nobody really said anything about it. The only time I recall anyone condemning the lyrics of a song was in 1977 when a Parish Priest lambasted Only The Good Die Young by Billy Joel from the pulpit.  I don't know where he'd learned of the song, but the Church was associated with the school, which went up to 9th Grade, and I now wonder if it was there.  I was in junior high myself at the time and I had no idea what he was talking about.  My father didn't either, and asked me about the song after Mass.  It'd be years before I heard it, and like every Billy Joel song, I was underwhelmed.

4. We've touched on this before, but Playboy got in trouble in Europe as it was viewed as encouraging ephebophilia and hebephilia, and moreover being in that category while barely disguised as not being.  It actually changed some of its content, notably its cartoons, as a result.  Nonetheless, some Playboy models, such as Frances Camuglia were barely legal teens when photographed, and in fact a few were younger than 18 years old.  One model's photographs went to press when she was still 17, with it apparently being the case that Playboy was unaware of her actual age, while it still played up that she was just out of high school.  Another was outright known to be 17 when she was photographed with the magazine holding her photos until she turned 18.

5.  All the then teenage actors in these films later maintained, probably correctly, that they suffered lifelong emotional trauma for having been in these films.  Shields has been particularly critical of her mother for pushing her into them.

6.  More specifically, I can recall three high school teachers in this category.  Neither was arrested, they were simply let go.  Another was a National Guard officer who was a local businessman.  He was quickly discharged from the National Guard and there was as criminal proceeding, but the charge never hit the news and the resulting sentence was minor.

7.  Trump has denied this, of course, but there seems to be no doubt.  Assuming that it is Trump's, it's impossible not to conclude that he at least knew of Epstein's unrestrained lustful conduct.  There was at least one other drawing, by somebody else, that alluded to the same thing.  The thing here is that Epstein was strongly attracted to teenage girls, and if you know that the guy is strongly attracted to females sexually, and his targets are. . . well.

Postscript:

I thought about predicting this, but thought it too icky.

The last few days, as this has been breaking, I thought that, at some point, MAGA commentors would come out and basically start excusing ephebophilia.  I should answer the question, first, on "what's that" although its been explained here before.  According to Wikipedia:

Ephebophilia is the primary sexual interest in mid-to-late adolescents, generally ages 15 to 19 and showing Tanner stages 4 to 5 of physical development.

And now its happened.

Megyn Kelly "There's a difference between a 15-year-old and a 5-year-old…”

Well, yeah, there is, in more ways than one.  A 5 year old is particularly gross as a victim and technically that's pedophilia.  But ephebophilia is pretty darned disgusting as well, and rape in that context, which much or all of this would be by modern definitions is horrific.  Moreover, according to some of the testimony, some of these girls were 14, or even 13, which is hebephilia and creeping right up n the edge of pedophelia.

And it's being excuse.  That's what I thought would start to happen.

So, what we're starting to see, so that it's clear, is "yeah. . well, sure, they were jumping little teenage girls, but that's okay. . "

It's not okay.

And not only is it not okay, these people are starting to make the excuses now, without anything actually saying that Trump did that.  We know of course that somebody was. . . but we don't know who.

What a moral sewer.

Related threads:

The dog that hasn't barked.

Labels: Donald Trump, Ephebophilia, Epstein Scandal, Hebephilia, Monarchy, Oligarchy, United Kingdom, United States

The Epstein Files. What's in them that Trump wants to keep them hidden?*

Labels: Donald Trump, Ephebophilia, Epstein Scandal, Hebephilia, Sex, Teenagers, The Second Trump Administration, Women, Zeitgeist

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 97th edition. The Epstein Connections.

Labels: Donald Trump, Epstein Scandal, flap de jour, Sex, Teenagers, Women, Zeitgeist

The Madness of King Donald. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Third Edition and Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 98th edition. The Perverts and Fellow Travelers Issue.

Labels: 25th Amendment Watch List, Donald Trump, Epstein Scandal, Ezra Klein, J. D. Vance, National Conservatism, Populism, Republican Party, Scandal, Stupidity, Teenagers, The Madness of King Donald, The written word, Women, Zeitgeist

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 96th edition. The Epstein Files.

Labels: 1980s, 1988 Election, 2020s, 2025, Bill Clinton, Crime, Donald Trump, Hugh Hefner, Pamela Jo Bondi, Playboy Philosophy, Scandal, Sex, Sic transit Gloria Mundi, Standards, Teenagers, The written word, Virgin Islands, Women, Zeitgeist

The dog that hasn't barked.

 

By the way, by odd coincidence, they've given Ghislaine Maxwell a therapy dog.

None of this will matter.  People will say this doesn't prove that Trump was screwing a teenage girl, and it doesn't.  It just says one was there and he knew about the girls.

But knowing about them is a lot.

This is more proof, as if any was needed, that we live in an oligarchy.  A big chuck of the population has basically accepted that the rich and powerful can have teenage sex slaves. . . it's okay. . .they're rich.  They basically occupy the same position that kings once did, complete with underaged concubines if they wish. Ironically, our former colonial overlords, have decided that its not okay, not even for a prince.

The Agrarian's Lament: Now, more than ever, it's time for an Agrarian/Distributist remake of this country.

The Agrarian's Lament: Now, more than ever, it's time for an Agrarian/Dis...: 

Now, more than ever, it's time for an Agrarian/Distributist remake of this country.

I was going to use the work "revolution", but didn't as I don't want it suggested that I mean an armed revolution.  I'm not.  Indeed, I'm not keen on violence in general, and as I intend to refer to the American Revolution in this essay, I'll note that had I lived in the 1770s, I'd have been genuinely horrified by events.  I highly doubt that I would have joined the "Patriots" and likewise I wouldn't have joined the Loyalist either.  I'd have been in the 1/3d that sat the war out with out choosing sides, but distressed by the overall nature of it.

The other day I posted this:

The Agrarian's Lament: Lex Anteinternet: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 10...: Lex Anteinternet: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 108th Edition. “The... :  CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 108th Edition. “The brave men and w...

In that item, I noted this:

Interestingly, just yesterday I heard a Catholic Answers interview of Dr. Andrew Willard Jones on his book The Church Against the State.  The interview had a fascinating discussion on sovereignty and subsidiarity, and included a discussion on systems of organizing society, including oligarchy.

Oligarchy is now where we are at.

I've been thinking about it, and Dr. Jones has really hit on something.  The nature of Americanism, if you will, is in fact not its documentary artifacts and (damaged) institutions, it is, rather, in what it was.  At the time of the American Revolution the country had an agrarian/distributist culture and that explained, and explains, everything about it.

The Revolution itself was fought against a society that had concentrated oligarchical wealth.  To more than a little degree, colonist to British North America had emigrated to escape that.

We've been losing that for some time.  Well over a century, in fact, and indeed dating back into the 19th Century.  It started accelerating in the mid 20th Century and now, even though most do not realize it, we are a full blown oligarchy.

Speaking generally, we may say that whatever legal enactments are held to be for the interest of various constitutions, all these preserve them. And the great preserving principle is the one which has been repeatedly mentioned- to have a care that the loyal citizen should be stronger than the disloyal. Neither should we forget the mean, which at the present day is lost sight of in perverted forms of government; for many practices which appear to be democratical are the ruin of democracies, and many which appear to be oligarchical are the ruin of oligarchies. Those who think that all virtue is to be found in their own party principles push matters to extremes; they do not consider that disproportion destroys a state. A nose which varies from the ideal of straightness to a hook or snub may still be of good shape and agreeable to the eye; but if the excess be very great, all symmetry is lost, and the nose at last ceases to be a nose at all on account of some excess in one direction or defect in the other; and this is true of every other part of the human body. The same law of proportion equally holds in states. Oligarchy or democracy, although a departure from the most perfect form, may yet be a good enough government, but if any one attempts to push the principles of either to an extreme, he will begin by spoiling the government and end by having none at all. Wherefore the legislator and the statesman ought to know what democratical measures save and what destroy a democracy, and what oligarchical measures save or destroy an oligarchy. For neither the one nor the other can exist or continue to exist unless both rich and poor are included in it. If equality of property is introduced, the state must of necessity take another form; for when by laws carried to excess one or other element in the state is ruined, the constitution is ruined.

Aristotle, Politics.

Corporations were largely illegal in early American history.  They existed, but were highly restricted.  The opposite is the case now, with corporations' "personhood" being so protected by the law that the United States Supreme Court has ruled that corporate political spending is a form of free speech and corporations can spend unlimited money on independent political broadcasts in candidate elections.  This has created a situation in which corporations have gobbled up local retail in the US and converted middle class shopkeeping families into serfs.  It's also made individual heads of corporations obscenely, and I used that word decidedly, wealthy.

Wealth on the level demonstrated by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump simply should not exist.  It's bad for average people and its corrupting of their souls. That corruption can be seen in their unhinged desire for self aggrandizement and acquisition.  Elon Must acquires young white women of a certain type for concubinage  Donald Trump, whose money is rooted in the occupation of land, has collected bedmates over the years, "marrying" some of them and in his declining mental state, seeks to demonstrated his value through grotesque molestation of public property.

Those are individual examples of course, but the government we currently have, while supported by the Puritan class, disturbingly features men of vast wealth, getting wealthier, with a government that operates to fork over more money to those who already have it.  The MAGA masses, which stand to grow poorer, and in the case of the agricultural sector are very much already suffering that fate, deservedly after supporting Trump, continue to believe that the demented fool knows what he's doing.

I don't know the source of this, but this illustration perfectly depicts how MAGA populists treat Donald Trump.

This system is rotten to the core and it needs to be broken.  Broken down, broken up, and ended.

The hopes of either the Democrats or the Republicans waking up and addressing it seem slim. The GOP is so besotted with it's wealthy leaders that the Speaker of the House, who claims to be a devout Christian, is attempting to keep the release of the names of wealthy hebephiles secret.  Only wealth and power can explain that.  The Democrats, which since 1912 have claimed to be the part of the working man, flounder when trying to handle the economic plight of the middle class.  Both parties agree on only one thing, that being you must never consider a third party.  

It is really time for a third part in this country.

In reality, of course, there are some, but only one is worth considering in any fashion, that being the American Solidarity Party.  Perhaps it could pick up the gauntlet here and smack it across the face of the oligarchy.  Or perhaps local parties might do it.  In my state, I think that if enough conservative Republicans (real conservatives, not the Cassie Cravens, John Bear, Dave Simpson, Bob Ide, Chuck Gray servants of the Orange Golden Calf Republicans) it could be done locally.  The U.S. has a history, although its barely acknowledged, of local parties, including ones whose members often successfully run on the tick of two parties.  New York's Zohran Mamdani and David Dinkins, for example were both Democrats and members of the Democratic Socialist Party.  Democrats from Minnesota are actually members of the Democratic Farm Labor Party, which is an amalgamation of two parties.  There's no reason a Wyoming Party couldn't form and field its own candidates, some of whom could also run as Republicans.

Such a party, nationally or locally, needs to be bold and take on the oligarchy. There's no time to waste on this, as the oligarchy gets stronger every day.  And such candidates will meet howls of derision.  Locally Californian Chuck Gray, who ironically has looked like the Green Peace Secretary of State on some issues, will howl about how they're all Communist Monarchist Islamic Stamp Collectors.  And some will reason to howl, such as the wealthy landlord in the state's legislature.

The reason for that is simple.  Such a party would need to apply, and apply intelligently, the principals of subsidiarity, solidarity and the land ethic. It would further need to be scientific, agrarianistic, and distributist. 

The first thing, nationally or locally, that such a party should do is bad the corporate ownership of retail outlets.  Ban it.  That would immediately shift retail back to the middle class, but also to the family unit.  A family might be able to own two grocery or appliance stores, for example, but probably not more than that.

The remote and corporate ownership of rural land needs to come to an immediate end as well.  No absentee landlords.  People owning agricultural land should be only those people making a living from it.

That model, in fact, should apply overall to the ownership of land.  Renting land out, for any reason, ought to be severely restricted.  The maintenance of a land renting system, including residential rent, creates landlords, who too often turn into Lords.

On land, the land ethic ought to be applied on a legal and regulatory basis. The American concept of absolute ownership of land is a fraud on human dignity.  Ownership of land is just, but not the absolute ownership.  You can't do anything you want on your property, nor should you be able to, including the entry by those engaged in natural activities, such as hunting, fishing, or simply hiking, simply because you are an agriculturalist.

While it might be counterintuitive in regard to subsidiarity, it's really the case, in this context, that the mineral resources underneath the surface of the Earth should belong to the public at large, either at the state, or national, level.  People make no contribution whatsoever to the mineral wealth being there. They plant nothing and they do not stock the land, like farmers do with livestock.  It's presence or absence is simply by happenstance and allowing some to become wealthy and some in the same category not simply by luck is not fair.  It 

Manufacturing and distribution, which has been address, is trickier, but at the end of the day, a certain amount of employee ownership of corporations in this category largely solves the problem.  People working for Big Industry ought to own a slice of it.

And at some level, a system which allows for the accumulation of obscene destructive levels of wealth is wrong.  Much of what we've addressed would solve this.  You won't be getting rich in retail if you can only have a few stores, for example.  And you won't be a rich landlord from rent if most things just can't be rented.  But the presence of the massively wealthy, particularly in an electronic age, continues to be vexing.  Some of this can be addressed by taxation. The USCCB has stated  that "the tax system should be continually evaluated in terms of its impact on the poor.” and it should be.  The wealthy should pay a much more progressive tax rate.

These are, of course, all economic, or rather politico-economic matters. None of this addresses the great or stalking horse social issues of the day.  We'll address those, as we often have, elsewhere.  But the fact of the matter is, right now, the rich and powerful use these issues to distract.  Smirky Mike Johnson may claim to be a devout Christian, but he's prevented the release of names of men who raped teenage girls.  Donald Trump may publicly state that he's worried about going to Hell, but he remains a rich serial polygamist.  J.D. Vance may claim to be a devout Catholic, but he spends a lot of time lying through his teeth.

And, frankly, fix the economic issues, and a lot of these issues fix themselves.

The Epstein Files. What's in them that Trump wants to keep them hidden?*

It's absolutely clear that he does, and all the "well Biden didn't release" them doesn't change that fact. 

Something is in the Epstein material that he wants to never see the light of day.

What is it?

Did Epstein procure for Trump, and is Trump a hebephile or ephebophile?

That'd be a good reason for Trump to want to keep the materials hidden, and there's circumstantial evidence that Trump has some attraction to the shallow end of the pond.

One is simply his connection with Epstein, although that's clearly not enough.  It's very clear that Epstein traveled in rich and powerful circles as the rich and powerful do, and one of the things about that is that some rich and powerful people are creeps that the rich and powerful are nonetheless drawn to. Hugh Hefner provides a prime example.  In the heyday of Playboy, which fished near the legal limit itself, lots of people went to be parties at the Playboy Mansion, but not all of them were sexual degenerates.

Still, the counter evidence is provided by the same thing.  Some were sexual degenerates and weird creepy acts of sex happened there.  The place facilitated it.  Now we aren't surprised that James Brown and Bill Cosby were pretty creepy in part because they frequented the place.

Men like Epstein have a way of seeing who is willing to let their standards slip, blur the lines, and blur them some more.  We don't really know what happened with Prince Andrew and the teenage Virginia Giuffre, but it seems something did.  If something did, it's unlikely that it happened on the day of Epstein's and Andrew's first encounter.

Trump was a friend of Epstein for years. And now the Democrats have released the original (which apparently the earlier variant was not) of Trump's birthday greetings to Epstein.** The main difference between the two pornographic doodles is that the first one (I'm confused why there are two) was of an adult women with fully developed boobs. The second one is hard not to take as being of a very young girl with small boobs . . .shall we say a teen girl?

A doodle is is just that, but the conclusions here are hard not to draw, even if they're incorrect.  Most male doodles of naked women go for larger mammaries, as men like them.  Small ones. . .well that's odd. . . 

And Epstein isn't the only sexually questionable person that Trump has hung out with.  There was John Casablancas whom he bought the Miss Universe Pageant from who hosted parties featuring young cheesecake and whose last wife was 17 when they married.  He was 50.  No normal 50 year old is interested in a 17 year old for a bride.  Casablancas is accused of having had sex with girls in their mid teens, but he denied it during his lifetime, and those claims may not have been true.

There's also plenty of statements from accusers about Trump directly.  As we earlier noted.

Let's start with this. There may be more on the Trump/Epstein connection that I had known.  Ed Krassenstein reports on Twitter, with some comments by me, note the following:

Trump personally hosted a private party at Mar-a-Lago in 1992 attended only by himself, Jeffrey Epstein, and 28 young women, according to Trump associate George Houraney. (Which wouldn't necessarily mean that they were underaged).

Trump’s name appeared in Epstein’s black book with at least 14 phone numbers, per Vanity Fair.

He flew on Epstein’s plane at least seven times, and Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell flew on Trump’s jet in 2000—alongside a very young girl brought by Epstein. (But Trump was not on the plane at the time).

A 14-year-old girl, groomed by Maxwell, was introduced to Trump at Mar-a-Lago, per sworn testimony from an Epstein victim. (Which is super creepy, but doesn't mean that  Trump bedded her).

Another woman accused Trump of raping her at age 13 during an Epstein-hosted party, even claiming Epstein and Trump argued over “who would take her virginity.” She later dropped the suit after alleged threats. (But this might not be true, and isn't verified). 

In 2000, after Epstein was accused of propositioning another underage girl at Mar-a-Lago, Trump still told New York Magazine that Epstein was “a terrific guy.”

Trump publicly wished Ghislaine Maxwell “well” after her arrest for trafficking minors.

Epstein called Trump his “wingman” in a recording, saying they shared a taste for young women. (But that isn't Trump acknowledging the same).

Former model Stacey Williams says Trump groped her in 1993 during a meeting arranged by Epstein.

Trump and Epstein were frequently seen together in New York and Palm Beach throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.

And it doesn’t stop there—Trump surrounded himself with others deeply tied to Epstein:

Alan Dershowitz, Trump’s impeachment lawyer, was accused of sexual misconduct by Virginia Giuffre, who said Epstein forced her to have sex with him. Dershowitz also defended Epstein in court. (Dershowitz denies the rape).

Alexander Acosta, Trump’s Labor Secretary, was the prosecutor who gave Epstein his sweetheart deal in Florida—granting him and his co-conspirators immunity. Trump later rewarded him with a Cabinet post.

Steve Bannon, Trump’s former strategist, worked on efforts to rehabilitate Epstein’s public image after he was accused of trafficking minors.

Roger Stone, one of Trump’s closest advisors, defended Epstein publicly and downplayed the abuse allegations.

George Nader, connected to Trump’s 2016 campaign, was later convicted of possessing child pornography and linked to Epstein investigations. (That doesn't really mean anything in regard to Trump).

William Barr, Trump’s Attorney General, has no direct link to Epstein—but his father hired Epstein to teach at a private school despite Epstein having no degree, raising long-standing questions. (This also means nothing).

What's it all mean?  Perhaps nothing whatsoever. 

Does any of that prove he's a kiddy diddler?  No, but all of it is enough to raise real questions.

And then there's direct connections between Epstein and Trump, involving at least one young woman that are known to exist.  Virginian Giuffre's father was a maintenance manager Mar-a-Lago property and he got her a job there.  From there, she met Ghislaine Maxwell working as a spa attendant at Donald Trump's private Mar-a-Lago club while reading a book about massage therapy.  Maxwell recruited here, and apparently didn't worry about Trump learning what that recruitment meant or was willing to risk it.  Trump has claimed that his break with Epstein came as Epstein "stole employees".

And as with Trump's birthday wishes to Epstein, he clearly knew what Epstein's proclivities were.  He noted that they both liked the ladies and Epstein liked them on "the younger side".  A guy who makes sexual comments about his own daughter and a teenage Lindsay Lohan at least cast gazes in that directly.

Finally, it's hard for people not to pick the low hanging fruit.  Epstein got away with his conduct for years.  Trump was a pal.  "Oh Don, why not just take one. . . "

Conclusive proof?  Not at all.  Don has no real friends and Epstein may really have been just another rich and powerful associate.

What's the counter evidence on Trump?

Early on Trump was a big backer on releasing the Epstein files.  That'd be really weird for a guy who might fear he was in them.  His change of mind, therefore, would suggest that something else is operating in his failing brain.

None of the really public accusers has accused Trump of anything.  There are accusers, but they've stayed in the shadows for one reason or another.  Of course, right now, we really don't know who the vast majority of Epstein's clients were, but still, if Trump was one, making releasing the files a policy position in his campaign would be really bizarre.

And, frankly, people make stuff up, including women about rape and sexual misconduct.

If not Trump, then what?

The really remarkable item on all of this is the sudden change.  That strongly suggest that when this administration came in, it learned of a name or names that it really wants to keep secret.

Whoever that might be, it would have to be somebody that Trump really fears having named.  It might be rich and powerful donors to the GOP, or even just one rich and powerful donor.  Whomever that might be, the revealing of that name must be feared as something that would have direct impacts on Trump.

What sort of impacts?  Who knows?  Perhaps just monetarily. But perhaps the name or names is of somebody holding a big sack of beans of some sort that he's waiting to spill.

Rep. Thomas Massie, who is sponsoring a bill to release the files, keeps mentioning the CIA.  Massie knows more than regular member of the public, so that's interesting, if weird.  The CIA does actually dabble in all sorts of icky stuff, so that's not as odd as it might sound.  Compromising sources with honeypots is an old intelligence trick, so if they didn't look into Epstein and using him in some fashion, they were missing a bet.  

We haven't heard all that much about the CIA under Trump, it's worth noting.  Trump is messing with every governmental agency pretty much, but if he is with the CIA, its not really coming much to light.  Anyhow, if the CIA was involved with Epstein somehow, its frankly really hard to see Trump caring about not blowing their cover, especially in a way that's hurting him, unless blowing it is even more damaging to Trump, or if Trump is just afraid of the CIA.  Presidents have in fact been afraid of the CIA, and for all we know the CIA has a file marked "Trump in Moscow" that Trump fears being released.

Anyhow, the CIA thing seems far-fetched.  The rich and powerful make more sense, and beyond that, the rich and powerful reaching out to Trump is some fashion that's going to hurt him personally or politically if things go wrong seems the most likely thing going on here.  Trump may have been pals with Epstein, but that doesn't mean that he knew everyone that Epstein was passing out 14 year olds to.

Will the truth ever come to light?

An interesting thing about all of this is that this fight is going on over information which many wished to have released, which suggests that there is material to release.  If this all involves the CIA, it'd be hard to imagine the files even existing at this point, unless the CIA is keeping them to use.  Given t he corruption of the Trump regime. it's also hard to imagine Trump simply not ordering files destroyed.  All of that suggests that there are files, and that whomever has them keeps a close grip on them for their own reasons.  

That might not continue forever.

Footnotes:

*"I don't think my colleagues are happy about covering up for pedophiles...They're terrified of President Trump's political machine. His legislative affairs folks are reaching out from the White House to every Republican member of congress."

Rep. Thomas Massie.

**The birthday book contains entries from Bill Clinton, Jean Luc Brunel (rapist), Alan Dershowitz, Nick Leese (arms dealer who claimed not to know Epstein), Trump as well as others.  It's packed with sexual references, including multiple ones on young women.  It's pretty clear that those contributing were well aware of Epstein's sexual proclivities, and some of the entries make it pretty clear that some of those who contributed to the book had partaken of his services with what, effectively, were teenage sex slaves.

Related threads:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 97th edition. The Epstein Connections.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 99th edition. A second Perverts and Fellow Travelers Issue.

The following has the best explanation I've heard of the entire Epstein story:

Granted, there's obviously a lot we don't know about Epstein, but what this basically leaves us with is that probably two administrations have kept the full story secret as there's members of the wealthy and political class who would be hurt by the full revelation. That doesn't necessarily mean that Trump is one of them, but it probably means he knows more than one.

The wealthy and powerful protect their own.

The stuff needs to come out.  A lot of young women seem to have been passed around like party favors and used, and they've never received justice. They're afraid to come out now, after what those who have, have received.

And also this:

Trump's effort to distance from Epstein complicated by his deep ties to Epstein

As a slight addition, I think the video, while not directly addressing it, puts to bed the conspiracy theories about Epstein's suicide.  He'd gotten away with a prior conviction related to kiddy diddling due to powerful connections.  He wasn't going to this time.

And, by the way, this entire matter is a first rate example of investigative journalism.

On a sort of related item, but only in terms of sexual misconduct, Astronomer AI company CEO has resigned following having taken a tryst to a Cold Play concert.

Why?

No, I don't think he should have been cheating on his spouse, but why does that matter for a CEO of a company I've never heard of, when it doesn't matter for those in high public office, or for those who are ultra wealthy?

Double standards, to be sure.

And indeed, that applies to the first item as well.  Men get prosecuted for sex with minors all the time.  Rich men, however, don't.  They should be.

Last edition:

The Madness of King Donald. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Third Edition and Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 98th edition. The Perverts and Fellow Travelers Issue.

Labels: 25th Amendment Watch List, Donald Trump, Epstein Scandal, Ezra Klein, J. D. Vance, National Conservatism, Populism, Republican Party, Scandal, Teenagers, The Madness of King Donald, The written word, Women, Zeitgeist