- The letter quoted above was, allegedly, a gift from Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday. Given the circumstances, one can only conclude that the veiled references in the letter are to the obvious thing: sex with underage girls. Rape. Pedophilia.
The President of the United States is a pedophile.
It is common, or at least it used to be, to portray Trump as a unique irruption into the American political scene: uniquely crass, uniquely rapey, uniquely popular. In that frame of mind, one might dismiss Trump's association with Epstein as yet another uniquely Trumpian deformity.
What if it isn't? What if the connection between reactionary MAGA politics and the sexual abuse of children is deeper than we want to admit?
The name for this idea is pedocon theory.
These ideas were so fringe 10 years ago that you would be looked at as a deviant yourself for even bothering to track how many republicans are caught committing child sexual assasult and grooming behaviors to lead to the same. I am looked at funny by conservatives and progressives alike for pointing out that challenges to age of consent and related topics ALWAYS come from the right, ALWAYS on the basis of religious exemptions to the law/freedom of religion, ALWAYS to promote the marriage of adult men to teen or pre-teen women they rape. This is biblical, according to them.
I don't know what it says about the state of 'discourse' that its a basically open and shut case that the president raped kids as part of an Israeli kompromat farm, and has now used the machinery of the federal government to not only cover it up, but provide the legal basis to make this all 'normal' in the future, forever. And I'm the weird one somehow.
In that sense, the pedocons have already won. This is already normalized and tolerated past the point of sanity. The erosion isn't happening, it happened already.
I'm not going to endorse this wild flight of fancy because bloody hell if the whole point of being Republican is to diddle little kids they've got a piss-poor showing. Far better to become a priest, their numbers are better. BUT: Robert Maxwell definitely did business with the Israelis among others and his death left Gislaine without much in the way of meaningful support. Ari Ben-Manashe is in there because of course he his, and he's hoping you don't notice the timeline on this particular story because he was persona non grata with Israeli MID and legit in jail for selling arms to Iran by '91 when Robert Maxwell died (and Gislaine probably hadn't met Epstein yet). It isn't enough thread to knit a sweater. But it's reasonable to presume Gislaine Maxwell was at least known to Israeli intelligence. Robert Maxwell knew Epstein; Robert Maxwell might very well have been wiped out by Mossad so whether or not he introduced Epstein to Israeli spies is neither here nor there. People really want to see conspiracies when the fact of the matter is, Jeffrey Epstein was a craven opportunist, Gislaine Maxwell is a craven opportunist, Robert Maxwell was a craven opportunist and Israeli MID is, by all accounts a bunch of craven opportunists so the odds that their dicks rubbed a couple times are non-zero. Is it possible Jeffrey Epstein was blackmailing people for Israel? I mean... it's not impossible. Is it far more likely that Jeffrey Epstein created kompramat for his own purposes rather than Israel's? Indubitably. It takes a real conspiracist to go "he was obviously blackmailing people.... and he somehow amassed a giant fortune! How else could that have happened unless THE JEWS ARE BEHIND IT"
There's a lot I could add to KB's post. He's got some of the major nuts and bolts there. I'm sure any point I make wouldn't be given fair scrutiny. He died a spies death and Maxwell is buried on the Mount of Olives and part of his memorial was “He has done more for Israel than can today be said.” delivered by the then prime minister Yitzhak Shamir. I'm very much not going 'The jews are behind it' and very much saying 'The idea that a nation state* benefitted from Epsteins evil work isn't radical.' And to say that the government of israel has political ambition and power over the government of the united states through many different means isn't radical. Tell me what else AIPAC is. Ultimately it doesn't matter, because we can't do anything about it either way.
I have spent literally 8 days on and off trying to think of how to answer this without snark. Wrote and deleted lots of paragraphs with lots of links. They don't matter. There's not even any value in convincing anyone of it because it won't change anything anyway. Memory hole in full effect for literally everything. Sure. Hyperbole.
Why would you do that, though? cgod's response was snark. He said "tell me more" and the closest you could get was "tell me what else AIPAC is." What part of that exchange warranted eight days of linked paragraphs? There's an extra dumb column in the Washington Post this week in which a trained evolutionary biologist beats up liberals for not respecting her pig-headed tribalism, therefore it's liberals' fault that (waves hands). FKN THE PROBLEM IS TRIBALISTS SEE EVERYTHING AS "JUST ANOTHER TRIBE" You've mentioned your upbringing again and again and again. You've definitely got the ex-mormon song'n'dance down pat. But what you and everyone else from a conservative background just can't get is that the rest of us change our minds. We get uncomfortable when we see information that might make us change our minds, sure. But the difference between liberal and conservative thought is liberals go "are we sure about this?" while conservatives go "we are sure about this." How much of your personal journey has been enlightenment and how much of it has been dogma substitution? Dogma generally requires a grand unifying theory. QAnon was a bunch of fringe beliefs until somebody started pretending to be a government agent. Why can't Jeffrey Epstein be a rich grifter scumbag, period? Why does it have to extend to "Pedocon theory?" I mean, look - the halcyon times conservatives want to return to also involve an era where they could bang side pieces and nobody would say shit, an era where deviancy was wrong so you didn't talk about it (unless you need to drive someone out of the tribe). The grand unifying theory is that liberals tear each others' ideas apart to make the ideas stronger, conservatives tear each other apart to make the adherence to ideas stronger. That's all it is, man. "Can our way of life be derived from first principles" vs "our way of life is dictated to us by our elders." Do you question your assumptions or do you defend them. That's the whole ballgame. So when someone questions your assumptions, you either successfully defend them or you (uncomfortably) reconsider until your worldview feels comfy again. You don't spend eight days compiling a list of dogma to silence dissent about your rejoinder.I have spent literally 8 days on and off trying to think of how to answer this without snark
But what I really want is to be proof that if we allow science to become just another tribe, we will be asking people to choose between their loved ones and abstract principles.
Robert Maxwell sold malware to the US for the Israelis which fucks with the whole "world government" angle. He also did work for the KGB - Czech arms for the Israeli war for independence came through Maxwell. MI5 tried to work with him and found him unreliable because he was such an opportunist. The idea of a "world government" is radical. It flies in the face of every experience the world has ever had with treaties and mutual defense organizations. Fuckn' NATO can't even agree who's supposed to pay the bar tab. As far as Israel? Hell yes they have political ambition and power over the government of the United States but it's fuckin' antisemitic to go "AIPAC is Jewish, Robert Maxwell was a Jew, Jeffery Epstein was a Jew, therefore Jeffrey Epstein maintained a honeypot for the express purpose of dominating the American government for Israel." I'll go one further - every time some dipshit on the internet leans into a conspiracy theory into the substantially damning available facts, Israel grows more powerful. The purpose of conspiracy theories is to drive credibility among the feckless and destroy it among the intelligentsia. Stop being feckless.
I should have said 'nation state' when I said 'world government.' I'm not screaming about globalists and blood libel. There is a specific line of associations, money, and national commendations and honors between Maxwell the elder, Maxwell the younger, Epstein, and the nation state of Israel. I would love to know what your understanding of these events is that isn't a conspiracy theory that accounts for the facts of Epstein's life as it relates to Maxwell and guys like Dershowitz and Trump.
No, but you are saying bugshit things like "its a basically open and shut case that the president raped kids as part of an Israeli kompromat farm." Donald Trump owned the Miss Teen USA Pageant and walked into the dressing rooms on the regular. Howard Stern asked him if he wanted to have sex with his own daughter and he didn't say no. 'member the pee pee tape? 'member how liberals were certain it existed, certain it was being hidden, certain it would be Donald Trump's downfall despite the number of voters Trump had after "grab 'em by the pussy?" I knew two different sound supervisors on The Apprentice, one white, one black. The white one didn't really want anyone to know he was a Republican so he was very careful not to talk politics but the black one pointed out that even if Donald Trump had said the n-word on tape somewhere, what on earth made everyone think it would make a difference? If there's one thing Jeffrey Epstein's birthday book proves, it's that nobody gave a shit. Nobody was embarrassed. Who has suffered real consequences for being associated with Epstein? Virginia Guiffre named Prince Andrew, Thomas Pritzker, Marvin Minsky, Alan Dershowitz and Bill Richardson. Are you telling me that Bill Clinton was somehow a part of that operation and nobody came forward to name him? The guy like five women have accused? How is it that the highest-profile blowback from all this was the ex-Sarah Ferguson? Do I think Jeffrey Epstein taped his friends? Absolutely. Do I think he leaned on them and threatened to expose them? I'm sure he did. How has any of it benefitted Israel? I mean the dude was tight with Adnan Khashoggi and facilitated Iran-Contra. "your blowjob is on my VHS tape" is pretty small potatoes compared to Ollie North shit. This is my point: Jeffrey Epstein was a powerful scumbag who didn't do nearly enough time for being a powerful scumbag because he's a powerful scumbag. There's plenty of Mossad shit to freak out about why focus on the scumbaggery? Kennedy had a number of lovers in office, that doesn't mean he took the office to get more lovers. There's this whole idea that 911 was an inside job because there are unanswered questions around bin Laden. A scholarly investigation into bin Laden illustrates that there's an Osama-shaped hole in the CIA's documents at the time and the fact of the matter is, if bin Laden wasn't on the payroll up until Khobar Towers the CIA was remiss. And there's this idea that the Kennedy assassination was some big shadowy conspiracy when the fact of the matter is, the FBI should have had better tabs on Lee Harvey Oswald but they suck much harder at their jobs than they want the world to know. There should have been a lot more scrutiny on Jeffrey Epstein and all the greasy shit he got up to but there wasn't and everyone responsible would like you to stop looking but that doesn't mean the whole dumb thing is somehow Israel's fault. Try this on for size: November 15, 2004 - Donald Trump gets in a bidding war with Jeffrey Epstein over a property formerly owned by Les Wexner, Jeffrey Epstein's biggest client and the proximate source of most of his wealth March 5, 2005: Jeffrey Epstein investigation begins Now - one way you could look at that is that Donald Trump retaliated against Jeffrey Epstein for driving up the price of real estate. Except there were more than two bidders, and Epstein didn't come in second. Another way to look at it is Alexander Acosta slipped Trump a note saying his buddy was under investigation for diddling little girls and Trump distanced himself immediately while Acosta rode that gravy train to Labor Secretary. The investigation never advanced far enough to ensnare anyone else because fuckin' hell it would have ensnared a lot of people, including Trump. Why did Donald Trump have a falling out with Jeffrey Epstein? Over a semi-competitive bid at a foreclosure auction or because Epstein was barely managing to contain a wildfire? And does any of that require Israelis? Because if the Israelis are involved why didn't they just whack Epstein in 2005? They probably killed Robert Maxwell. They definitely killed Gerald Bull. Are they crafty or incompetent? Or are they uninvolved?