#Or having no problem in conveying how loathsome they find the US and American people (mostly tourists and politicians of course)

[afaroffsong]

I wrote such a cheeky poem the other day.

[bountyofbeads]

Jeffrey Epstein Is the Ultimate Symbol of Plutocratic Rot https://nyti.ms/2LKqTY8

"Women have no value. Girls even less. They exist to be exploited by despicable old men. We live in the same world we always have, women are a commodity to be bought, sold, traded and used until you are tired of them. Look at our entertainment. Look at our advertising."

MJ, SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE

Ms. Goldberg points out that Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. inexplicably asked a judge to reduce Epstein's sex offender status from the most to the least serious, a suggestion that the judge fortunately rejected. This is not the first time that Vance has protected the rich and powerful. in 2012, he ordered his prosecutors to drop a fraud investigation of Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. for misleading potential condo buyers. In 2015, he chose not to prosecute Harvey Weinstein despite considerable evidence that he groped a woman without her consent. One of Weinstein's defense attorneys was Vance's former law partner who had donated to Vance's election campaign. It's time for Vance to go. BRUCE A, BROOKLYN NY

"Let’s hear it for Julie K Brown … and Jim DeRogatis … and all the other journalists who care more about the common man than they do the plutocrat, the girls being exploited over the cool bros who can afford private jets from Paris, living on money they earned by actually working over favoritism and nepotism. People: Pay the paywall. Buy the paper. Subscribe to the magazine. Except, now, for Vanity Fair. Or, be a part of the problem."

ANGELA RAVENSCROFT, LOS ANGELES

"“He’s sensitive about the young women.” This makes me livid. Yet again - one powerful man protects another powerful man, and all at the expense of the lives, and emotional and physical well-being of girls. It just shows that we NEED more women writing, editing, and reporting...only then will these stories get the attention" LAURA, NYC

"It is so hard not to be a conspiracy theorist when it comes to this reality show government. Bill Barr's dad, the thirteen year old who accused both Epstein and Trump of rape and then, suddenly, dropped the charges, the disregard for the victims, the blanket pardon of Epstein's co-conspirators, the elevation of Acosta to a cabinet position, the people above Acosta who would have had to sign off on this extra-legal deal and, above all, the damaging evidence that would account for all the schizophrenic actions and reactions of the main players. Evidence of pedophilia or rape may not bring down our form of government but it remains the surest form of blackmail."

RICK GAGE, MT DORA

"In our society powerful men never pay a price for abusing women. And nearly half of our citizens believe this is as it should be. They voted for Trump after they heard him proudly boast of sexual assault, and they are poised to give him a second term. So let's have a thought experiment. Suppose Epstein has "the goods" on Trump and offers to spill the beans in order to receive a more lenient sentence. (As an attorney, I suspect the case against him is supported by a wealth of evidence, or it wouldn't have been brought.) And let's assume that Epstein will definitely face charges that may not be pardoned by Trump, because they are state criminal charges. So Epstein has a powerful incentive to either plea, or argue for a vastly reduced sentence. So he provides state prosecutors ample evidence of Trump's criminal acts (state crimes) regarding women, including underage women. A woman is already proceeding with a claim that Trump sexually assaulted her when she was 13 years old (and she alleges that this assault took place in Epstein's apartment). But prosecutors are powerless to proceed against Trump, while the statute of limitations is ticking. Trump's voters could care less whether he has raped women, and with the assistance of the Electoral College, elect him again in 2020. They continue to ignore the wealth of evidence of his crimes against women. This scenario is quite possible. And it shows how far nearly half of our citizens have fallen."

DB COOPER, PORTLAND OR

“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me." F. Scott Fitzgerald How true, perhaps even more so today. And it underscores why so many people are fed up with the "system", so fed up that they voted for a man most knew to be so corrupt and unfit for the job, they voted for him hoping that he would break that system. When it came to the Great Bail Out, who was served? The very rich. Not the average American who lost their savings, pensions, homes, jobs, because of the outright illegal activity of these very rich. But none at the top went to jail. And this is why there is a groundswell of support for candidates like Bernie and Liz who are running on a platform opposed to this wealth and power. And when I say "wealth and power", it cannot possibly convey how much power is being wielded, not only in the halls of government at all levels, but in the media and all other businesses that affect our lives. We are, by every measure, living in a plutocracy, not a democracy, and it's these "different" people, who live beyond the law that applies to the rest of us that are pulling the strings. But the scales are being peeled from our eyes, and people are realizing what has been happening. If they can't change it at the ballot box soon, they may turn to harsher remedies, like an American Spring." KINGFISH52, ROCKY MOUNTAINS

"There should be no mystery why he was handled with such leniency..his friends were rich, or powerful, or both and they all benefitted from the pain he caused his teenage victims. These are the guys in charge of big companies and/or working in government, heads of state.. each and every one of the people involved with this benefited from secrecy and sealed documents, and withholding details from their victims. And with all those important connections, who exactly is going to take him down, who would want to? This sets the tone for what's considered acceptable.. and we have in the USA much violence against women, many femicides, untested rape kits, health care stripped from us, even though we bear the next generation.. there is lip service given to women's rights, and handwringing over the status/safety of women abroad...with no reflection upon our status/safety right here." ELLEN, WILLIAMSBURG VA

Jeffrey Epstein Is the Ultimate Symbol of Plutocratic Rot

Powerful elites enabled the financier accused of trafficking underage girls.

By Michelle Goldberg, Opinion Columnist | Published July 8, 2019 | New York Times | Posted July 9, 2019 |

In 2003, the journalist Vicky Ward profiled Jeffrey Epstein, the financier indicted Monday on charges of sexually abusing and trafficking underage girls, for Vanity Fair. Her piece painted him as an enigmatic Jay Gatsby type, a boy from a middle-class family in Brooklyn who had scaled the rungs of the plutocracy, though no one could quite figure out how he made his money. It detailed dubious business dealings and mentioned that Epstein often had lots of beautiful young women around. But it left out Ward’s most important finding.

Twelve years later, in The Daily Beast, Ward wrote about how, in the course of her reporting, two sisters allegedly preyed upon by Epstein, as well as their mother, had spoken to her on the record. But shortly before the story went to press, Ward wrote, the Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter cut that section, saying, of Epstein, “He’s sensitive about the young women.” (In a statement on Monday, Carter said Ward’s reporting hadn’t been solid enough.)

Over the last couple of months, Ward told me, she’s started going through transcripts of the interviews about Epstein she did more than 16 years ago. “What is so amazing to me is how his entire social circle knew about this and just blithely overlooked it,” she said of his penchant for adolescents. While praising his charm, brilliance and generous donations to Harvard, those she spoke to, she said, “all mentioned the girls, as an aside.”

On Saturday evening, more than a decade after receiving a sweetheart plea deal in an earlier sex crime case, Epstein was arrested after getting off a private flight from Paris. He has been accused of exploiting and abusing “dozens” of minor girls, some as young as 14, and conspiring with others to traffic them. Epstein’s arrest was the rare event that gratified right and left alike, both because it seemed that justice might finally be done, and because each side has reason to believe that if Epstein goes down, he could bring some of its enemies with him.

Both sides are likely right. The Epstein case is first and foremost about the casual victimization of vulnerable girls. But it is also a political scandal, if not a partisan one. It reveals a deep corruption among mostly male elites across parties, and the way the very rich can often purchase impunity for even the most loathsome of crimes. If it were fiction, it would be both too sordid and too on-the-nose to be believable, like a season of “True Detective” penned by a doctrinaire Marxist.

[Listen to “The Argument” podcast every Thursday morning, with Ross Douthat, Michelle Goldberg and David Leonhardt.]

Epstein socialized with Donald Trump, who in 2002 described him to New York Magazine as a “terrific guy” whom he’d known for 15 years. “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,” said the future president. In 2000, a porter who worked next door to Epstein’s Manhattan home told a British newspaper, admiringly, “I often see Donald Trump and there are loads of models coming and going, mostly at night. It’s amazing.”

Epstein also hung out with Bill Clinton, who rode on his jet several times. Ghislaine Maxwell, a close companion of Epstein who has been accused of working as his procurer, attended Chelsea Clinton’s wedding in 2010, long after Epstein’s exposure. Following his arrest on Saturday, Christine Pelosi, daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, tweeted, “It is quite likely that some of our faves are implicated but we must follow the facts and let the chips fall where they may.”

Among the mysteries of the Epstein case are why powerful prosecutors of both parties treated him with such leniency. Alexander Acosta, now Trump’s labor secretary, was the federal attorney who oversaw the deal Epstein received in 2008.Though facing potential federal charges that could have put him away for life, Epstein was allowed to plead to minor state charges instead, an arrangement that was kept secret from his victims. He served 13 months in a county jail, where he got to spend six days a week in his office on work-release. In February, a judge ruled that Acosta’s team’s handling of the case violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act. (Naturally, Acosta still has his job.)

After Epstein served his time, he had to register as a sex offender. Inexplicably, the Manhattan district attorney’s office, under Democrat Cyrus Vance Jr., asked a judge to downgrade Epstein’s sex offender status from Level 3, the most serious, to Level 1, the least. The judge, stunned, refused. “I am a little overwhelmed because I have never seen a prosecutor’s office do anything like this,” she said.

In a detention memo submitted on Monday, federal prosecutors outlined some of the evidence seized from a search of Epstein’s house on Saturday night. It included hundreds — possibly thousands — of sexually suggestive photographs of girls who appear underage, as well as hand-labeled compact discs with titles like “Girl pics nude,” and, with the names redacted, “Young [Name] + [Name].”

It seems, at first, astonishingly reckless for Epstein not just to allegedly keep such material, but to keep it in Manhattan, instead of, say, on his private Caribbean island. Maybe, however, it’s simply a sign of how protected he felt. “In my mind there has always been this huge question mark: What is Jeffrey Epstein’s leverage?” Ward said. If we find out, we’ll know just how rotten our rulers really are.