The Epstein mine isn’t tapped out yet

There is a lot of stuff in the Epstein files that has been redacted out of the public eye, I guess. We’d been suspicious of Leon Botstein, the long-running (but now former) president of Bard College, and Jamie Raskin kept digging and unearthed some incriminating rot.

Documents in the Department of Justice’s Epstein files show that in May 2014, Epstein sent an aspiring young vocalist he’d been trafficking, called Jane Doe, to meet with Botstein, “ostensibly for him to assess her musical talents and provide her with educational guidance,” Raskin wrote. In a May 15, 2014, email to Epstein, Botstein asked, “Is [Jane Doe] for me, or are you keeping her for yourself.” The Department of Justice redacted Botstein’s official presidential email address in the publicly available file, but members of Congress were allowed to view the unredacted file at the DOJ, according to Raskin’s office.

That’s a dense paragraph. We learn that:

  • Members of congress have access to the unredacted Epstein files. Wouldn’t this be better managed by journalists?
  • Botstein was actively involved in sex trafficking.
  • Botstein regarded students as potentially “for him”. The attitude is horrifying.
  • In 2014, Epstein was a convicted sex offender, and Botstein should not have had the power to recruit students, so what was the nature of the “guidance” he was offering?

I’m wondering what aspirations a young vocalist might have had that were met by being sent by a rich sex trafficker to meet with a bald old man in a bow tie. We’ve also learned what advice she was getting.

But instead of helping her pursue her career, the lawmakers said in their letter, Epstein pressured her to take sex education and massage courses, and “employed” her while he was sexually abusing her.

This was an effective revelation.

The latest development appears to have triggered the immediate resignation of Botstein from all Bard-affiliated positions, including his professorship and roles in Bard’s music programs. Botstein had led the college for 50 years and only recently stepped down as president.

Fifty years too late. Botstein had made at least one trip to Epstein’s island and multiple trips to his New York townhouse, and we all know there’s only one reason to visit those places.

Campus drama

We had some drama among the music faculty and students the other day. We had a stabbing.

According to the criminal complaint, police were called to the University of Minnesota Morris’s Humanity and Fine Arts building just after 4 p.m. on a report of a stabbing.

A witness led the officer to a room where the victim, identified as a percussion instructor at the school, was bleeding and suffering from an injury to the arm. The witness told police that the victim had come to his office with “blood everywhere” and identified Cusey as the suspect.

A student, Alexander William Cusey, had attacked one of our instructors for reasons that are unclear.

In the hospital, Cusey told the doctor that he was “trying to kill my percussion instructor” and that he “stabbed my pinky a little bit,” according to the complaint.

He also told an officer that the instructor was a “goodie two shoes” and described the stabbing as “thrilling” and “hilarious.”

Cusey allegedly added that he had had previous violent fantasies involving his parents and his high school.

I don’t recognize the student, but then he was working on the opposite side of campus. I don’t think he’s at all representative of our student body, and clearly has some issues.

At least I can say our administration responded decisively — Mr Cusey was immediately arrested, is currently in jail awaiting trial, and won’t be returning to campus.

It’s not just Cornell

Dispiriting news from my alma mater: University of Oregon receives five sexual assault reports within first week of classes.

Students began the fall term at the University of Oregon in Eugene on Monday. But by midday on Wednesday, university officials sent out a community safety warning about five reported sexual assault attacks on or near campus in the past week.

According to the safety alert, officials said four of the incidents involved university students, and the fifth occurred near the Alton Baker Dog Park, adjacent to campus. They said police arrested someone in the fifth case and that all students affected have been offered university support resources.

The UO must still be on the quarter system if classes start this late (we’ve been open for about 6 weeks already). This sounds familiar and universal, though. The school year starts, a lot of new students arrive, free of familiar constraints, and the asshole fraction of students (often frat boys) take advantage in horrible ways. I hope my former university follows through and culls the student body of these jerks, rather than giving them another chance to abuse. They should know that this behavior is not permissible or forgivable.

In case you didn’t know, the movie Animal House was set at the University of Oregon, in an actual frat house I lived several blocks away, on E 13th, and remember seeing the rather dilapidated old house, before it was finally torn down about the time I graduated. Tearing it down was probably a wise decision — it represented a poor example.

I spent my first semester at the university working too hard and earning straight As. Too many students think university is time to party. Tell your friends and family it’s not.

Building Better Men

I went through rush, the campaign to enlist new students into a fraternity/sorority, my first year at the University of Washington. They attempted to lure me in with alcohol, which I drank, and gambling, which I rejected as stupid, and with overly friendly women, which I was too addled by the aforementioned alcohol to have a coherent conversation with. I quickly concluded that fraternity life offered me absolutely nothing of interest, and would have just been a wasteful distraction. I’ve never liked the whole fraternity philosophy ever since — they are places for young men to gather and learn terrible lessons about the world.

I was not surprised by the news from Cornell. In short, a young underage woman was given alcohol at a bar. She drank it, and was probably not at all accustomed to it. She drunkenly staggered off to the Chi Phi fraternity, where “friends” gave her ketamine, and she stupidly consumed it. Then they took her to a back room, raped her repeatedly for 7 hours, and even got on snapchat and invited their fellow frat brothers to join in the gang rape. This was not something she chose, or could even choose, being zonked out of her mind on drugs and alcohol.

This was a crime, plain and simple. The 7 rapists should have been arrested and faced severe criminal sentences, greater than mere expulsion. They were not. When the reputable university of Cornell heard about this atrocious, outrageous criminal act, they held an internal investigation, and kicked two of the criminals out of the university, without passing them on to civil authorities. The others were told to write essays.

Essays. I had no idea that writing was such a dreadful punishment.

The university is not supposed to be a bubble where horrific crimes are diminished to the point where you can rape a woman and expiate your crime by writing words. Being a student shouldn’t be a state of privilege, but apparently in this time when being a student is associated with being a child of a rich family, it has become a mark of belonging to an elite who can be excused for criminal actions.

No. I reject that. They must face the consequences. The students should be arrested and tried for rape. The bar that willingly served alcohol to underage women should face severe criminal penalties, their liquor license should be at risk. The Chi Phi fraternity should be shuttered permanently. Or at least that’s what I thought until I read the national headquarters statement on the incident.

The sexual assault allegations involving parties at Cornell University are deeply concerning. Anyone who reports sexual violence deserves to be heard and treated with compassion, dignity, and respect.

Chi Phi unequivocally condemns sexual violence. Our founding principles of Truth, Honor, and Personal Integrity, and our mission of Building Better Men, call on every brother to demonstrate character through his actions and respect for the dignity and safety of others. Sexual violence is fundamentally incompatible with those expectations.

Oh god. Platitudes. How is the fraternity system at all about Truth, Honor, and Personal Integrity? How does drunkenness and notoriously wild partying Build Better Men? It’s all a lie. Burn every chapter to the ground.

And shame on Cornell. They’ve built a safe space for the rapist sons of wealthy donors. They (and many other universities) need to change the university culture, but they won’t. The system is built with layers of privilege maintained by fat cats on managing boards, and they don’t care.

Am I naive to believe a university should be a place of learning?

Don’t forget these names: Matthew Ingalls, Johnathan Newell, Winston Lee, Gillio Lopes, Diego Sarabia, Scott Norris and Scott Kretzschmar. They’re the ones who drugged and raped a helpless woman. That should be on their CVs, at the very least. I also hope their mothers know what their boys have been accused of.

What’s with all the pedos nowadays?

They’ve been here all the time, but somehow were allowed to continue to assault children. I don’t get it. This ought to be one of the greatest taboos in our society. We regard abusers of children as the lowest of the low, when they are caught, but when they’re running free our institutions seem to actively protect them.

The latest story is that another Duggar man has been caught. Joseph Duggar, one of the swarm of children exploited by The “Learning” Channel TLC in their show “19 Kids and Counting” has been arrested.

Former reality TV star Joseph Duggar is facing a child molestation charge in Florida, almost five years after his brother Josh, who also starred in the TLC show “19 Kids and Counting,” was convicted of downloading child sexual abuse images.

Joseph Duggar, 31, was arrested in Arkansas, where he lives, and was awaiting extradition to Florida on Thursday. Duggar is charged with lewd and lascivious behavior on a child under 12 years old, according to an arrest affidavit from the Bay County Sheriff’s Office in Panama City, Florida.

Police officers in Tontitown, Arkansas, on Wednesday contacted deputies in Bay County, saying they had interviewed a 14-year-old girl who told them that Duggar had molested her several times during a family trip to Panama City Beach when she was age 9, according to the affidavit.

Remember that that show was cancelled in 2015 when Joseph’s brother Josh had abused his sisters and a babysitter. He’s in prison for that right now. I guess raping children was a family tradition. He’s from a Baptist family whose only claim to fame was a self-righteous belief that they should have more children than they could care for, and were further entitled by a terrible television network that thought it was entertaining to pump up their privilege by pretending they were role models. Maybe the parents and a few network executives should also be spending some time in a jail cell.

But if you thought the Duggar family saga was appalling enough, get a load of this. The Epstein files have been redacted and censored and hidden away under the shelter of an evil witch, Pam Bondi, who really doesn’t want the truth about her boss, Donald Trump, revealed. But there’s a way around that: congress people have been able to read the uncensored version, and here Representative Dan Goldman reads aloud one of the passages that the Republicans don’t want you to hear.

Trump tried to compel a 13-15 year old girl to perform oral sex on him, she was disgusted and bit him, so he struck her and called her a “bitch”. I am further disgusted by him.

Put Deviant Donald in a prison right next to Josh and Joseph Duggar. That’s one way to prevent him from bombing other countries to distract from his molesting of children.

But somehow we’ve got to fix this problem of rapacious older men attacking children — I don’t have an answer because I can’t even comprehend wanting to do such things.

Jeffrey Epstein thought he was mostly innocent. So did Noam Chomsky.

Warning: More crap from the Epstein files coming in, and it is truly nauseating. This one includes a lengthy rationalization for Jeffrey Epstein’s behavior, written by Jeffrey Epstein in the third person. We have this email because Epstein wrote to Noam Chomsky (Noam Chomsky!) asking him to critique it.

Im considering submitting this to the oped of the wash post id like your thoughts

Sweetheart deal!” So goes the attack on the resolution of the more than a decade
ago federal investigation involving our client Jeffrey Epstein. The attack is
profoundly misplaced, supported neither by the law nor the facts. Nor is it supported
by the structure of our constitutional republic. To the contrary, Jeffrey was subjected
to an extremely aggressive federal intrusion into what would typically be considered
a quintessentially local criminal matter in south
Florida. The offense investigated — at its core, sexual favors for hire — has long
been treated as a matter entrusted to laws of the several States, not the federal
government. The conduct — for which Jeffrey took full responsibility — was a
classic state offense and was treated exactly that way by able, honest prosecutors in
Palm Beach County. Nevertheless, without a request from the state prosecutors, the
federal government intervened. For their own opportunistic reasons, many are now
criticizing the federal decision-makers at the time, including now-Secretary of Labor
Alex Acosta (then-United States Attorney in south Florida), for not going far enough.
The critics are wrong on the facts and the law. They also ignore a fact going to the
heart of fundamental fairness: In the decade since paying his debt to society, Jeffrey
Epstein has led a life characterized by responsible citizenship, numerous acts of
generosity and good deeds.

So…a guy who has a massage table in his living room, who recruits high school girls for daily masturbation sessions, sees himself as living a life characterized by responsible citizenship, numerous acts of generosity and good deeds. He doesn’t say what the good deeds are, and most of all, he doesn’t explain where he got the huge amounts of money he used to fund his self-aggrandizing charities.

But then, he has all the “facts,” and he’s going to go on and on about his view of the truth. Sorry, this is long.

Here are the true key facts: Jeffrey Epstein, a successful self-made businessman
with no prior criminal history whatsoever, engaged in illegal conduct that
amounted to solicitation of prostitution. That conduct was wrong and a violation of
Florida state law. Although no coercion, violence, alcohol, drugs or the like were
involved, some of the women he paid were under the age of 18. Those facts were
carefully assessed by experienced state sex crime prosecutors who aggressively
enforce state criminal laws. No one turned a blind eye to potential offenses to the
public order. To the contrary, the Palm Beach State Attorney’s Office conducted an
extensive fifteen-month investigation, led by the chief of the Sex Crimes Division.
Mr. Epstein was then indicted by the state grand jury on a single felony count of
solicitation of prostitution.
During that intense investigation, the state prosecutors extensively gathered and
analyzed the evidence, met face-to-face with many of the asserted victims,
considered their credibility — or lack thereof — and considered the extent of
exculpatory evidence, including sworn testimony from many that they lied about
being eighteen years old to be allowed into Mr. Epstein’s home. After months of
negotiations, the state prosecutors believed they had reached a reasoned resolution
of the matter that vindicated the public interest — a resolution entirely consistent with
that of cases involving other similarly-situated defendants. The system worked as it
should have.
Then, in came the feds. The United States Attorneys Office extensively and
aggressively investigated whether Mr. Epstein had engaged in a commercial human
trafficking ring, targeted minors, or used the internet or traveled interstate in the
process. But that’s not what this was and that’s not what happened. That is
precisely why the federal authorities’ ultimate decision to defer prosecution to the
state was the right one.
However, the federally-demanded resolution was not without conditions. The federal
prosecutors insisted on various unorthodox requirements that Mr. Epstein’s
experienced defense team had never seen imposed on any defendant anywhere.
Under the federally-forced deal, Jeffrey was required to request that the state
prosecutors demand the imposition of a thirty-month sentence that included both jail
time and the strictest conditions of probation: lifetime sex-offender registration. Those
draconian measures were far more than warranted by the state grand jury’s
indictment and would not have otherwise been required under the previously agreedupon state disposition. As part of this highly unusual deal, the government required
Jeffrey to pay for a highly experienced group of attomeys to bring claims against him
on behalf of a government list of asserted victims. Jeffrey was required to waive the
right to challenge those claims without being provided the asserted victim’s identities
by the government until after he was incarcerated. Importantly, the feds’ decision to
decline prosecution in deference to the state in exchange for these extraordinary
requirements was reviewed and approved at the multiple levels of the U.S.
Department of Justice. Jeffrey took full responsibility, complied with the feds’
demands, served his sentence, and in the process was treated exactly the same
(including his time served) as any other state-incarcerated individuals. His conduct
while in custody was exemplary, and so characterized by the state custodial
authorities.
Jeffrey Epstein has paid his debt to society. The challenges to his Agreement with
the Government must also be understood as challenges to the millions Mr. Epstein
paid to the asserted victims and their lawyers pursuant to that agreement. Amongst
the beneficiaries of the Epstein-Federal Government Agreement were the many
victims who collectively received many millions as a result of the conditions imposed
on Mr. Epstein that prevented him from meaningfully contesting civil liability —
moneys that would be at issue if requests to invalidate the agreement were granted.
Our nation faces vitally important challenges, many involving the treatment of women
and basic human dignity. Voices are rightly being raised speaking truth to power,
especially about women in the workplace. But Jeffrey’s offenses of yesteryear,
which were entirely outside of the workplace, have long since been redressed by the
criminal justice system. He fully and faithfully has performed every promise and
obligation required of him by state and federal authorities. In the spirit of the
bedrock American belief in second chances and fundamental fairness, that chapter in
Jeffrey’s otherwise-productive and charitable life should be allowed to close once
and for all.

Again, what productive and charitable life? He’s a rich fuck with no discernible source of income living a life of excess and perversion, pretending to be a victim of an out-of-control state that caught him in one crime, in which he’d been tricked by a woman who said she was over 18.

He’s asking Noam Chomsky if he should publish it. Chomsky tells him no, for various reasons.

It’s a powerful and convincing statement, but my feeling is that it would not be wise to submit it for
publication. Taking the stance of a reader who comes to the matter from afresh, perhaps having
heard some rumors but knowing nothing, the reaction I suspect will be of the “where there’s smoke
there’s fire” kind. Few are willing to think through the arguments and factual details or to try to
adjudicate conflicting claims. I’ve seen this happen over and over on other matters — many years of
having been accused of Holocaust denial, for example.. Ugly and bitter as it is, I suspect the best
course now is not to stir the pot by raising the issue publicly, opening the door to charges and
accusations that can no doubt be answered in the court of logic and fairness — but that’s not the
public domain, where innuendo and suspicion and accusation reign.
Anyway, for what it’s worth, that’s the way it looks to me, in part on the basis of experience.
The great work that you have been doing speaks for itself. My feeling is that you should keep at it,
and simply develop a thick skin to fend off whatever ugliness breaks through now and then,
diminishing over time.
Noam

Great work, my ass. Chomsky is sucking up to a rich patron here, nothing more. Epstein’s crimes were not the product of innuendo and suspicion, but were actually victimizations of women and girls that he used and discarded.

Chomsky makes it worse.

Cultures unfortunately can be swept by craziness. Nazism for example. Or the Great Awakening.
We’re in one of those phases now. If there’s a charge, it’s true, in fact True. Any response is
“mansplaining,” another power play, reinforcing the charge. You’ve seen I’m sure what happened to
Lawrence. Full and complete response, amounts to zero. Isn’t even considered. It’s like trying to
discuss rationally with religious fanatics.
Noam

Poor Lawrence Krauss, a victim of a feminism that is comparable to Nazism.

My opinion of Noam Chomsky has just plummetted down into the basement. Fuck you, Noam.

The Battle of Chicago has begun

It is not bringing glory to the fascists.

In the pre-dawn hours of September 30, federal agencies coordinated a large-scale immigration enforcement action targeting a five-story apartment building near 75th Street and South Shore Drive, according to a Department of Homeland Security official. The DHS said that 37 individuals were arrested and that the operation involved the U.S. Border Patrol, FBI, and ATF.

The agency claimed the building and surrounding area were tied to activity by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, and that those arrested included people allegedly involved in drug trafficking, weapons offenses, or immigration violations.

Ebony Sweets Watson, who lives across the street from the building, told WBEZ Chicago that she saw federal agents dragging residents, including children, out of the building without clothes and loading them into U-Haul vans. She said the children were separated from their mothers.

Assaults on apartment buildings to tear naked children from their mothers is not very photogenic, especially when the assailants are armored up and masked. Were the children members of Tren de Aragua? Were they armed and selling drugs? I could believe that there were a few individuals in that building who were suspected of “drug trafficking, weapons offenses, or immigration violations,” but that doesn’t warrant harassing and harming and terrifying the innocent people who lived there.

Follow the rule of law or GTFO, ICE.

Church shooting in Minneapolis

Another mass killing, this time at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. It was horrifying: the killer opened fire at a group of kids in the school, killing two and injuring 17 before they killed themselves. No more horrifying than every other school/church/public killing with freely available weapons, but one thing will enrage the right wing: the shooter was a trans woman.

It’s more complicated than that, though, although we are already getting the usual fingerpointing at everything but the gun culture.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also confirmed the identity of the suspect, calling Westman a “deranged monster.”

“This level of violence is unthinkable. Our deepest prayers are with the children, parents, families, educators, and Christians everywhere. We mourn with them, we pray for healing, and we will never forget them,” Noem said in a statement.

Yeah, they were a bad person who committed a deeply evil act, but quit pretending it’s unthinkable: it happens all the time, it’s become routine, and all we’re ever supposed to do is “pray”…which never works. We don’t know why the killer snapped, but there is evidence that this was the end result of long-festering issues in this person’s life.

Two videos, posted Wednesday morning and since removed by YouTube, show someone flipping through dozens of pages of notes dated over the course of several months, which include what appears to be doodles of weapons, middle fingers, and expletives. There are also repeated references to killing.

The videos, which depict handwritten journals and a display of high-powered weaponry, paint a portrait of a person with a rambling and deeply nihilistic outlook, according to analyses by law enforcement and ABC News.

The writings in the notebooks and on the firearms, which are written in a blend of Cyrillic alphabet, English and other languages, indicate a series of grievances, anger and ideations of harm to self and to others.

The writings also appear to show overt references to other high-profile school shootings and shooters.

In one notebook, there is a sticker that says “defend equality” with an LGBTQIA flag, overlaid with a gun. A gun also has writings against Israel.

Taking up a full page of a notebook is a hand-drawn birdseye view of the inside of a church with pews. The drawing appears to show the interior layout of Annunciation Church.

In one of the videos the shooter refers to personal depression and apologizes to family members.

“Depression,” “nihilistic,” “grievances” and “repeated references to killing”. This person needed serious help. Were they given any? From this article it’s not clear.

Their mother was retired from a job at the Catholic church, and they’re clearly obsessed with the church, given that they targeted it. I came away from reading about them feeling that a significant problem here was conflict with the church’s position. Maybe rather than blaming transness for the shooting, we should consider Catholicism to be the problem?

Nah, this was a crisis that can’t be pinned to one single cause. Trust me on this though: the media will blame anything but easy access to guns and hateful religious beliefs.

Some people think the innocent are still criminal

Someone named Dewey took exception to my article about a prison being reopened, and quickly fired off a “rebuttal”.

Aw, cry more. Criminals belong in prisons. People who illegally enter homes belong in prison. People who illegally enter businesses belong in prison. People who illegally enter the country belong in prison.

Sure, criminals belong in prison. Listing crimes that get people arrested doesn’t impress me. By the way, he forgot “People who riot and commit violence against the police and vandalize the US Capitol belong in prison.” Or “People who rape women and sexually harass young women belong in prison.” The problem is that these penalties are not justly applied.

Also, people are allowed to enter the country and, for instance, apply for residence or for asylum. Just being in the country doesn’t make a person a criminal.

I’m sure you’d love to completely eliminate the prison system and switch to the honor system, but you’re not in charge, thankfully. Obama was a rockstar who deported over 3 million illegal aliens and did so without the nebulous “due process” you liberals love to whine about.

I’m not lobbying to completely eliminate prisons, but do find it wasteful to reopen prisons that were declared redundant and shuttered over a decade ago. Why reopen a prison unless you’re planning to throw more people into it, in a country with declining levels of crime?

“Due process” is not nebulous. It’s a specific legal process that requires that the state demonstrate criminality and give the accused an opportunity to present their case in court.

Trump probably isn’t competent enough to get even close to that record level of deportations, but any number helps. Beyond him, the people’s minds are changing rapidly. You’re going the way of the dinosaurs. It would be best that you accept that fact.

Why should I accept the fact that injustices are being done? I will oppose them to the end.

Nightmare scenario

There is an app called Tea which purports to be a tool to protect women’s safety — it allows women to share info about the men they’ve been dating.

Tea launched back in 2023 but this week skyrocketed to the top of the U.S. Apple App Store, Business Insider reported. The app lets women anonymously post photos of men, along with stories of their alleged experience with them, and ask others for input. It has some similarities to the ‘Are We Dating The Same Guy?’ Facebook groups that 404 Media previously covered.

“Are we dating the same guy? Ask our anonymous community of women to make sure your date is safe, not a catfish, and not in a relationship,” the app’s page on the both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store reads.

When creating an account, users are required to upload a selfie, which Tea says it uses to determine whether the user is a woman or not. In our own tests, after uploading a selfie the app may say a user is put into a waitlist for verification that can last 17 hours, suggesting many people are trying to sign up at the moment.

I’m already dubious — they use a photo of the applicant to determine their sex? That’s sloppy, and I can see many opportunities for false positives and false negatives.

But that’s not the big problem. The Tea database got hacked…by 4chan.

Yes, if you sent Tea App your face and drivers license, they doxxed you publicly! No authentication, no nothing. It’s a public bucket, a post on 4chan providing details of the vulnerability reads. DRIVERS LICENSES AND FACE PICS! GET THE FUCK IN HERE BEFORE THEY SHUT IT DOWN!

Congratulations. Your personal info has just been delivered to the worst collection of slimy sleazebags on the internet.

I’m just shocked that this app went live without the most rigorous evaluation of its security. You’re collecting scans of driver’s licenses with selfie photos, with only the most rudimentary precautions? What else? Social security numbers, bank accounts?