Epstein

So Jeffrey Epstein is in the news again and "questions" are being asked about his connections with various pols including the incumbent president. Hm. Well. Who'd a thunk it, right?

"Questions" are being asked about his money, too. Where does it come from? How much does he have? Or used to have. Or something.

And what about the girls? All those girls? Where did they come from? Where did they go? And what was done to them? Why has he been allowed to get away with so much?

And will this sex scandal finally bring down Trump?

The answer to that last question is "Probably not." Which gives you a clue to the sclerotic state of our politics.

I've mentioned a few times that I live not far from Epstein's New Mexico ranch, the Zorro Ranch it's called. For years we'd pass by it on the way to Santa Fe, and we had no idea he owned it. His "hacienda" was perched on the edge of a mesa quite a distance from the road, and it seemed to us that the place must be some kind of religious retreat, so we called it "the Monastery." Even from a distance, it's obviously huge.



The ranch itself is an 8,000 acre working ranch with some rather exotic cattle. There's a little village with barns and I assume quarters for the hands. About a year ago, another barn -- or is it mother-in-law's quarters? -- was built about a mile away from the main ranch/village complex.  Epstein's abode on the mesa is also about a mile away from the village in the opposite direction.

The video posted above gives some idea of just how ugly and tasteless the hacienda on the mesa is. It may be enormous, but it is very, very ugly. Supposedly, some of the trysts arranged for Epstein's clients took place there, but who, when and how is something of a mystery. When we pass by the place at night, we rarely see any lights on, but a couple of weeks ago, it was lit up like I don't recall ever seeing before. Somebody must have been home, eh?

We have seen staff coming and going from the place occasionally -- not often -- driving their working pick-ups and such. Only one time did we see a modest convoy of black Denalis or Escalades passing through the gates. There may have been three, possibly four cars. It was more than a year ago.

There is what appears to be a helipad up on the mesa beside the hacienda, but we've never seen a helicopter going to or from the place. Supposedly there is an airstrip, too, but we've never seen an airplane headed toward or away from the ranch, either.

We can see two microwave towers on the ranch from the road. I don't know why they are there, but I suppose if there are important guests, they would need to be able to communicate with their people, no? The thing is, there don't seem to be guests very often. So far as we can tell, there is hardly ever anybody up on the mesa.

But there is something going on vis a vis the whole Epstein story being suddenly renewed. Of course, the summer news hole is always filled with sharks and missing white women and... sex scandals. There seems to be nothing new in this particular re-telling of Jeffrey Epstein's proclivity for underage female companionship, but "questions" are being asked this time around that didn't get asked last time.



I doubt it will lead anywhere because too many Men Who Matter might be soiled. On the other hand, this effort to throw Epstein to the wolves --- again --- seems tailor-made to protect some of those men from scrutiny.

Could one of them be named Trump? Time will tell.

The Problem With Kavanaugh

He's a dick, sure, but that was obvious -- at least to some of us -- from the outset. It was clear, long before the emergence of these multiplying sex stories, that this man should not be serving as a judge in any court of law let alone the Supreme Court because he's a "Bad Judge."

No matter what he says, he doesn't understand the law or precedent, he doesn't comprehend the proper role of the judiciary, and he misuses the power of the court to attempt to enforce his personal will. He misrepresents his own opinions, and in too many cases, his opinions misstate or misunderstand the plain wording of the laws he's supposedly devoted to and in the end they present novel interpretations that cannot withstand the slightest objective scrutiny, though they certainly serve to advance a corporate, partisan and cruel agenda.  This appears to be his purpose. That and ensuring that no Republican president ever face the kind of scrutiny that, say, Clinton did.

This was all very obvious and nothing about the sex stories when he was in high school and college changes any of that.

But apparently it takes "the sex" to even begin to derail his nomination.

That's a big, big problem.

The courts throughout the land are chock-a-block with bad judges like Kavanaugh, and that is a problem. But you'd never know it, and you wouldn't know it about Kavanaugh if one of his victims hadn't brought up his long ago propensity for drunkenness, assault and sexual highjinks. In other words, his bad judgment from the bench didn't really matter all that much. It was mentioned of course, but apparently he was to be given a pass on that because, well, why not? In fact, his seat on the Supreme Court was pretty well secured until... the sex stories started.

I suspect he will be confirmed despite all, just like Thomas was, simply because there seems to be an agreement that unless a nominee is some kind of raving communist or completely unreliable to the ruling class, they will be confirmed come hell or high water. In the current situation, an agreement to confirm Kavanaugh seems to have been reached even before he was nominated. He was something like the consensus candidate given the others in line for the seat.

That's why I think he will be confirmed despite the accusations.

And he will be a problem on the court, but so was Scalia.

If people had any idea how common his kind is in the judiciary, or how common Trump's kind is in the high and mighty class...

I don't know that anything would change, but maybe it would.

The Witch Hunt

Of course it's a witch-hunt. The question is why? And why now? And why these targets?

The ever widening net of mostly rich and mostly powerful men caught with their pants down, metaphorically and literally, has shaken some of the complacency of the High and the Mighty that they can do anything they want to anyone they want and get away with it. Something in the air says no, no they can't. Not any more.

Or does it? There's a certain oddness about this particular witch hunt for predatory men of substance and power. For example, despite numerous ongoing accusations against him from dozens of women, going back years, Trump is somehow held harmless as a new-born babe in the current firestorm, whereas Bill Clinton's indiscretions, each of which was aired and paraded back in the day, are once again a Thing, the question being "Should he have been forced to resign?"

Well, maybe. But he isn't in office now, a different sexual predator is in office now, and literally nothing is said about him. Why is that?

What is really going on here?

I'm reminded of the Satanic Sex Cult panic that swept the nation during the Clinton years. Thousands of people were accused, hundreds went to prison, some of them still there, though so far as can be determined looking back on it, there was no Satanic Sex Cult and most if not all of the accused were innocent of the charges against them. It was a witch hunt, yes, but more than that, it was a gross manipulation of law and a misuse of child-witnesses to "prove" things that never happened. This was not just tolerated but sanctioned at the very highest levels of the US government for years, and even now, many prosecutors and judges involved absolutely deny they were caught up in and fostering as fraudulent a mania as has ever arisen in the country.

In this case, however, it's not quite the same because the men accused are for the most part rich and powerful; except for Weinstein, I don't think there is a criminal case being made against any of them, and the Weinstein case is perhaps an outlier due to factors we don't know -- yet; many of the accusations are decades old; and from an objective standpoint, little that is being revealed is all that unusual.

Yet many careers have been halted in their tracks, the long time careers of very prominent men in movies and show business, the arts, publishing, television news and print journalism, politics and on and on and on.

But in the course of this "housecleaning" as some people have called it, certain people (like Trump -- but no doubt there are many others) are allowed to get away with it, no matter what.

Something similar was taking place in the Church for many years. Certain priests and higher ranking clergy were clearly being targeted whereas others -- who may have been just as or more guilty of pederasty or rape or who knows what other kinds of sexual indiscretion or oddity -- were left quite alone throughout all the hew and cry.

Why?

So here we are now, with certain prominent men (and a few not so prominent) being burned at the figurative stake while others continue on in positions of power and influence as if nothing was happening, nothing had changed.

Hm.

Curious.

There must be an explanation, but I don't know what it is.

Creepy Clown vs The Hag

This election pageant has devolved into a cage match between Creepy Clown and The Hag. Some of it appears to be as scripted as a pro-wrestling match, other aspects seem to be ad libbed to the point where the contest is running the risk of spinning entirely out of control.

The irony is that the riveted focus of the contest is on the Sex Thing; dredging up Big Dog's past while all these new accusations against Trump are put in play. And blaming Putin and the Russians for the leaked Podesta emails...

Which puts a whole other layer of irony on this mess of a presidential campaign.

Sex sells, of course, so I guess we should have anticipated this focus on doing the nasty. Which, without consent, makes it assault and/or rape. Nasty indeed. Now of course we all know that Bubba was vehemently accused of doing likewise a couple of decades ago, and that got him in several tubs of hot water, including winding up impeached -- but not removed from office -- by the august majesty of Congress Assembled. It was quite the goon show. That was right around the time I started writing and commenting online. The impeachment of Bill Clinton triggered a lot of us to make some waves and call for... some semblance of reason in Our Government.

The thing was, there were plenty of things to criticize Clinton and his administration for. PLENTY. Every time the focus turned to The Sex though, all those other things -- from NAFTA to Serbia and Rwanda, the dismantlement of welfare as we knew it, the free rein given the banks, and on and on --
were shunted aside. And it quickly enough became clear that that was a prime motivation for focusing on The Sex. Keep the Rabble amused and entertained with prurient stories of Bubba's libido and poof, all those other things disappear.

Sure enough, it worked. It wasn't just the Rabble being entertained, either. This was hard core Presidential Porn for vast swaths of the Government as well. The Congress was entirely captivated; the media likewise. Special prosecutors went wild with glee. It was insane.

The echoes of all of that in the accusations once again being hurled at Bill Clinton, and by extension somehow tainting his wife ("The Hag") are dredging up plenty of revulsion among the masses. "Oh please, let us not go through all this again. Please!" I'm seeing the same sort of hyperbole about Bubba -- he's a rapist and worse, oh much worse, and Don't Forget Vince Foster, and Mina airport, and so much else that he's guilty-guilty-guilty of! -- being injected into the commentary about Trump's libido. It's as if the insanity of those times was institutionalized, and is now a permanent fixture of the government/media complex.

Of course many young people are being exposed to it for the first time. They didn't live through it like old codgers like me did. They didn't experience the utter hysteria the first time around, so this current hoo-hah must come as something of a shock to them. WTF? Right?

Not just the hoo-hah over Trump's stunted adolescent pawing of females and "locker room talk," but all the stuff about Bubba being a cad and a heel and an inveterate womanizer, too. Not that no one knew about it, it's just that until recently it wasn't much of a Thing anymore. Then suddenly, BOOM. It's back in all it's sleaze and tattered glory. 

Somehow this is supposed to impugn Hillary ("The Hag") for sticking with Her Man, yadda yadda. I'm surprised that the accusations that she's a lesbian or that Web Hubble is Chelsea's father haven't yet surfaced again. Let's try not to be shocked/surprised if they do.

There's a whole encyclopedia of accusations to draw from, after all.

Hag-Hate is a definite subculture in the USofA. What Bubba did back in the day -- and more importantly what he is accused of doing -- is a fundamental part of Hag-Hate. She was there, she enabled, she probably (an accusation) procured. She's therefore as Utterly Evil as he is.

Policy discussion and issues of (shall we say) more global importance get shoved to the background.

But isn't that the point? I think so.

In point of fact, the Clintons ("Clintoons" in the puerile lexicon of Hag-Hate) and their supposed rightist political opponents agree on most issues of global importance. Such disagreement as there is on the Important Issues comes from the left, not from the right. Never has been all that much disagreement on those Important Issues on the R side of the aisle, as there still isn't.

That's why I've said many times that Hillary ("The Hag") is running as the Establishment Republican candidate, not really as a Democrat at all. As many have pointed out, some of her policy proposals are to the right of Nixon. She isn't even as "leftist" as a Rockefeller Republican. Her belligerence and warmongering are direct throwbacks to Bush-Cheney, but they're rooted in the Kissinger perspective of world domination that flows through White House regimes like a river.

We the Rabble don't seem to be able to move or channel this river of hegemony in any way.

But who cares? It's not about The Sex, is it?

Trump is being portrayed as the prototype Creepy Clown, and I won't go so far as to say that's unfair. He's self-aware enough to understand that because he's rich and famous ("") he can get away with most anything he wants when it comes to Female Flesh, and he can crush his male rivals one by one or in batches (at least in his own mind.)  This is the mindset of a gangster and conman. No surprise, that's what he is.

That should be something the electorate pays attention to, but it seems that there's little or no comprehension of Trump's nature. Some see him as a bully and a predator -- but they like it. ("At least he's our Bully!" That sort of thing.) No, no, no. Trump does not bully on behalf of anybody but himself. Do you understand? No, they don't.

He's conning his supporters. Oh, but they like it. Whether they know it or not, they like being conned by Trump, because at least he's bothering to tell them what they want to hear ("Lock her up!") whereas the sticks in the mud "regular" Republicans endlessly tell them to sit down and shut up. Much as the "regular" Democratic Pooh-Bahs tell the rest of the Rabble to do likewise. "Sit down and shut up; there is no alternative."

Maggie Thatcher must be so pleased and proud looking up at us from her perch in Hell.

Sigh.

But again, none of that matters when the story is all about The Sex.

It's been noted that the obsessive focus on who did what to whom when is practically overwhelming the story of the Podesta email hack that is supposed to be exposing all the "devastating" details of what Hillary ("The Hag") really believes about the World and Everything.

And of course it's all Putin's fault.

Jeebus.

What I've seen of these emails (note, it's useless to try to search WikiLeaks for anything of interest), suggests to me that there's essentially nothing in them that we didn't already suspect or know, and that to a surprising degree, Hillary ("The Hag") was using her position and the opportunity to inject something resembling a social conscience into the crowds of malefactors of great wealth before whom she was speechifying. WHAT???? If there's a smoking gun of perfidy worthy of more than a passing glance, I haven't seen it. But then, we only see what others want us to see...

In other words, if she were smart, and her campaign wasn't so focused on the Creepy Clown, she'd actually be using these leaks in her defense; if she and her campaign were smart, they would have been using these things from day one. No, she doesn't come across as an antagonist to these High and Mighty Owners, not at all; but she does come across as a Persuader, "helping" them to do the Right Thing for once in their sorry lives. In this, she really strikes me as akin to a Republican moralist of yore.

But no. The focus must stay on the Creepy Clown and how Outrageous he is.

It's political malpractice, but then, side issues are always more important in the Pageant, aren't they? Gossip and scandal, you know? That's what the People really want.

And of course, Blame It All On the Russians.

I've been thinking about this anti-Putin, anti-Russia propaganda campaign quite a bit. It makes no logical sense at all. It's not just out of bounds, it's crazy, and it could spin out of control at any time, leading to God only knows what. But why? Why does it exist at all?

A theory is that it grows directly out of the neocon "Project for a New American Century" which is the blueprint for the catastrophe in the Middle East, and the plan for establishing and extending American Hegemony over the entire globe. The destruction of Russia -- regime change, followed by dismemberment -- is part of the long-term goal. So, too, the destruction and dismemberment of China. Any rival to American Imperial Power must be destroyed, vanquished or absorbed. The two strongest rivals are Russia and China, so it is proposed, and taking them out is in the National Interest. Or something.

So Putin, fully aware of this, sees the saber rattling and tub thumping coming out of DC and particularly from the Clinton campaign as an existential threat to Mother Russia, never mind to himself. That's actually quite rational.

But the blaming of Putin/Russia for everything is propaganda-silly. When I see it parroted in the "news" and online, I'm just gobsmacked. Have we learned nothing from the barrage of lies and half truths that led to the monstrous invasion and occupation of Iraq? And all the continuing fall out from that? What? How can Americans still be so gullible?

Dear God, no.

But I think there's something more than merely the Plan being followed. No, I think the current propaganda barrage is the result of something more immediate: Snowden. What? 

Think about it. Russia-US relations changed fundamentally when Putin-Stalin granted asylum to Edward Snowden three years ago (or whenever it was, I forget now...) That act was blamed directly on Putin, and it was cited as defiance of US orders and demands that he be turned over to American authorities forthwith.

Not only has that not been done, but Russia has provided Snowden with a home, apparently with a good living, a girlfriend, and much, much more. He has become well integrated into Russian high life. And he is being carefully protected by the Kremlin.

Anti-Russian and particularly anti-Putin propaganda ramped up immediately, and it has now reached a fever pitch unseen since the propaganda barrage preparatory to the invasion of Iraq. We're seeing a similar anti-WikiLeaks propaganda barrage, which I attribute at least in part to WikiLeaks' assistance in spiriting Snowden into comfortable exile in Russia.

For a long time, I thought Snowden was a black op, a "limited hangout". Perhaps he started out that way, but something changed along the way, and once he was protectively ensconced in Mother Russia, his revelations became less about domestic spying and so forth (which the NSA, etc. were quite prepared to "explain") and more about international spying, some of which was quite embarrassing from a diplomatic point of view (let alone  from the security state standpoint.)  In other words, he crossed a line that was unpermitted. That enraged his former supervisors at the Agencies. And revenge became their prime directive, no just revenge against him, but revenge against all those who had helped him.

That sort of revenge appears to be in play in the actions of the Clinton campaign to literally destroy the Republican brand and if possible take Congressional power away from them -- while utterly destroying Trump in the process.

It's revenge for the impeachment and the follies that followed.

It's all very, very personal.

Yes, our governing class is just that nasty. Oh yes.

All this is sickening, but there's nothing we can do about it from our position Outside the Gates. Our Betters don't listen to us. They govern contrary to our interests. They dismiss our pleas.

They are Bourbon-like. This would be true no matter which unacceptable candidate is in office. It is who they are, and it is what they must do. No matter who it is. We saw quite clearly how this works with Obama's transformation once he was installed in the Big Chair. He became the creature of those he had denounced.

So we're screwed once again.

But meanwhile, we can focus attention on the All Important Sex Issues once again.

Save us.

So...?

It appears that the upshot of the "election" is that the masses will be further ground down to satisfy the insatiable appetites of the metastasized financiers, their handmaidens and their hangers-on.

Word has it that the president will go out on the hustings to sell his plan to reduce benefits for the poor, the sick and the old in an effort to get the "other side" to agree to a minute increase in the tax liability of the highest of the mighty.

Of course the H & M won't agree. This has been made clear over and over again: Our Betters simply refuse to pay any more taxes. They refuse to pay the absurdly low taxes they are obligated to even now; all they will pay is what they choose to pay, and they will direct the use of that tax money as they see fit. Period. End of discussion.

The social contract has been broken, irrevocably.

The question is, what do we do about it?

The key to understanding is that elections are not how these matters are resolved. Elections may or may not provide a modest amount of guidance to the ruling class about how to proceed with programs and policies they have already determined to implement, but they are not the way those policies and programs are determined in the first place.

In our case at the moment, the ruling class has decided that it will implement policies and programs which will further squeeze the poor, the sick, and the old, while simultaneously reducing the living standards of the working class and significantly reducing both the numbers and the living standards of the middle class.

This is now Doctrine, agreed to by all the "serious" political factions, regardless of party identification or ideology.

Those least able to will be forced to pay. Forever.

We see the results of the implementation of this policy and these programs in Europe, starkly and with a kind of awful ugliness we didn't think was possible even a few years ago. People are going hungry in Europe's "periphery." They lack many basic services and care. They are unemployed and unemployable in their own countries because their economies have been looted for the sake of a handful of a financial sector run completely amok. The results are painful and obvious, and Europe's elected leaders do not care. They see their future is secure only through adherence to the dictates of the out-of-control financial sector. The People and what happens to them do not matter.

The People, for their part, have complained more or less loudly, and massed and marched and carried signs, sometimes even battling with police, but they have not reached the point of rising up to overthrow their exploiters and oppressors. No, it appears that that phase of human response to adversity is gone, vanished into the mist.

What we see instead is a response tailored to the People's immediate needs for succor and sustenance, sidestepping the apparat that has been deployed for their suppression. Much as has happened in the United States in response to the calamity of Hurricane Sandy -- "The Storm" -- the People have spontaneously adopted the practice of Mutual Aid, and are acting on behalf of one another quite apart from the bureaucratic mills of the corporate state.

It's a wonder to behold.

In addition, there is a surprising awakening to the fact that certain limited interests are profiting mightily -- and expect to profit much more -- from the nearly universal governmental obsession with austerity policies in the midst of an economic disaster of global proportions.

Some people are getting far richer than even their wildest dreams through the implementation of economic austerity programs and policies, and that is why they are being pushed so strenuously in the corridors and halls of Power.

So in the midst of this, there's one of the most magnificently tawdry sex scandals in our long history of of them. Hm. What could be going on? Certainly not a  distraction from what is important? Certainly not that!

Sex scandals tend to be ginned up to distract the Palace courtiers from otherwise productive tasks. In this case, the tawdriness of the cat-fight over the General(s) is matched by the delicious irony of the rightist "moralists" (apparently) doing in not just one of their own but the very star of their ongoing Morality Play. Of course what's apparent may not be what's true, so I'll withhold any judgement about what's really going on. I don't know. But for now, it looks like the Scandal has the media courtiers and not a few of the governmental and military ones fully engaged.

The fact that this is happening just as the Pretend Liberal Candidate was re-elected and plans to go on a campaign to sell his version of austerity programs and policies leads me to wonder whether there isn't some design and intention behind the events.

In other words, by keeping the courtiers engaged in Scandal Watch all sorts of mischief can take place under, around, and over the radar. The mischief of which I speak, of course, is the economic sales-job that is underway as we speak.

My prediction is that this Mother of All Sex Scandals will last just as long as it takes to implement the economic policies that have been waiting in the wings for just the right moment. And then it will be over as if it never happened at all.

Don't be too surprised if His Divinity St. David Petraeus winds up on the Throne just the same.

Oh what a tangled web...