There is a powerful documentary about Hannah Arendt, one of the twentieth century’s most fearless and original thinkers, currently available to watch for free (until July 26th) on recently knee-capped PBS. Arendt is a hero of mine, I’ve seen the film twice so far, looking forward to seeing it at least once more before it vanishes behind a pay wall (though we all need to kick in some cash for PBS now after Koch/Project 2025 defunded it in a treacherous 51-48 “recission”). Her insights about totalitarianism (it is driven by intense mass loneliness/hopelessness) could not be more relevant today. Here is the link.
Charles Koch, fossil fuel baron and America’s most successful and influential living Nazi/Libertarian, has a favorite think tank, The Institute for Humane Studies. You can imagine how humane those studies must be if second generation Nazi Charles Koch loves them. The name of that outfit’s got to be up there with Arbeit Macht Frei for cynically “puckish” repurposing of language. That was a Nazi specialty, coming up with comically misleading names for hideous things. They even had a word for their creative designations to hide their actual purposes, sprachregelung. This refers to strict rules for language to be used about sensitive subjects. References to Jews on cattle cars heading to death camps in the East — sonderbehandlung [1] “special handling”, kind of darkly funny, to Nazis, anyway.
While playing with language, a central feature of our Age of Incoherence and brute force (destroy meaning, destroy the possibility of negotiation), as the largely incoherent master of the “weave” likes to do (or at least, can’t help himself from doing) why not contest the legitimacy of the National Endowment for the Humanities?
You can easily spin it: that agency, by its very title, is false, divisive and insanely, destructively over-inclusive — there is only one humanity, not multiple humanities! To claim there is more than one humanity is sick, a liberal plot to groom children to become sexual slaves to powerful creeps like Jeffrey Epstein. On second thought, not like Epstein, forget about Epstein, Epstein killed himself, Bill Barr said so, Epstein’s so-called victims are all lying, and anyway, who cares? Those “victims”, like the one who got millions of dollars in a settlement and then killed herself? Why does someone get millions of dollars and then kill themselves? You have to question that, don’t you? May I answer a question with a question? Is that questionable? That’s a funny word, when you think about it, “questionable”, right? What makes something questionable? Just asking a question, right? Right? Am I right?
Anyway, looking for concrete information about this sudden, posthumous fuss about one disgusting, rich, well-connected dead pedophile, I started reading the Wikipedia article about Virginia Guiffre. She was the young woman (14) who worked at Mar-a-Lago and fell into Epstein’s orbit, eventually broke free, sued and won large settlements against Ghislaine Maxwell and Prince Andrew (a real royal prince of a man, apparently) and then, quite recently, committed suicide.
Did you know that all this was out in 2005?
In March 2005, while Giuffre was still establishing her family in Australia, the Palm Beach Police Department began investigating Epstein after a 14-year-old girl and her parents reported his behavior.[39] The girl described being recruited by a female classmate from her high school to give Epstein a massage at his mansion in exchange for money, wherein he subsequently molested her.[22][39] By October 2005, the police had a growing list of girls with similar claims of sexual abuse, statements from Epstein’s butlers corroborating their claims, and a search warrant for his Palm Beach property.[39]
Police detectives noted that the accusers all described a similar pattern[40] where Epstein would ask them to massage him and then sexually assault them during the massage. When police searched through Epstein’s trash, they found notes with the telephone numbers of the girls on them.[39] One of the girls was called by Epstein’s assistant while being questioned by police.[39]
Giuffre told the Miami Herald that she received a series of phone calls in rapid succession over three days in 2007. The first call was from Maxwell, then one day later came a call from Epstein, both of whom asked if she had spoken to authorities, followed by a third call from an FBI agent who stated that Giuffre had been identified as a victim during the first criminal case against Epstein.[41] She resisted speaking at length to the FBI until she was approached again about the matter in person, this time by the Australian Federal Police, six months after being contacted by phone.[41][42]
Photos, records and witnesses confirm large parts of Giuffre’s statements about her time with Epstein.[43][44]
Anyway, Epstein, because he was very rich and had many powerful friends (who he would NEVER think of blackmailing), got a sweetheart non-prosecution deal on his Florida state prosecution from then US Attorney for South Florida Alex Acosta. The state of Florida declined to prosecute, after monkey business during the investigation caused the lead law enforcement officer involved to turn it over to the FBI for federal investigation. The FBI referred it to Acosta, who, somehow, left the case in state court instead of federally prosecuting Epstein, as he should have, given the weight of the serious allegations against Epstein.
Wikipedia continues:
Lead police detective Joseph Recarey asserted that the state prosecutors were at first eager to pursue criminal action against Epstein, but that “everything took a turn” when lawyer Alan Dershowitz got involved.[45] Krischer then decided to take the unusual action of turning Epstein’s case over to a grand jury, and then presented testimony from only one girl. Epstein’s legal team aggressively sought concessions and prolonged the process when negotiating a plea deal with Acosta.[46] Acosta, who described the tactics of Epstein’s lawyers as a “year-long assault on the prosecution and prosecutors”, eventually agreed to sign a controversial non-prosecution agreement in 2008, which was done without informing the victims,[46] later determined to be in violation of the Crime Victims’ Rights Act.[47]
Reiter expressed that the state and federal prosecutors’ handling of the Epstein case amounted to “the worst failure of the criminal justice system” in modern times.[40]
Pursuant to the “sweetheart” non-prosecution agreement negotiated between Dershowitz and Acosta, Epstein was able to leave the minimum security prison whenever he needed a “massage”, after kind of pleading guilty only to not verifying the age of the young “prostitute” he hired that one time. Acosta wound up in Trump’s cabinet, until he had to resign in shame, and former Florida AG (2011-2019) Pam Bondi is currently Trump’s Attorney General, the one with only one client, the president.
What does Bondi have to do with it? Just asking.
As for Joe Biden, check this out!
Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on July 6, 2019, at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey[99] and charged with sex trafficking and sex trafficking conspiracy by prosecutors with the Public Corruption Unit of the Southern District of New York[100] In the indictment, Epstein was accused of soliciting massages from underage girls where the activities became increasingly sexual and then of enlisting the girls to recruit other underage victims for pay.[100] U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York appealed for other victims of Epstein to come forward.[100] The federal indictment also listed the key role of Epstein’s paid “employees and associates” responsible for scheduling victims.[100]
One month after his arrest, Epstein was found dead on August 10, 2019, after reportedly hanging himself in his Manhattan prison cell.[11][101]
On August 29, 2019, in the wake of Epstein’s death 19 days prior, the case against Epstein was closed after District Judge Richard Berman dismissed all sex trafficking charges.[102][103] Judge Berman expressed support for Epstein’s accusers, stating that he invited them to speak publicly at a hearing on August 27, 2019, out of “respect” for “the difficult decisions victims made to come forward”.[102] Giuffre was among the 16 women who spoke publicly at the hearing, which included Anouska De Georgiou, Sarah Ransome, Jennifer Araoz, Chauntae Davies, Courtney Wild, Theresa J. Helm, and Marijke Chartouni.[104] At the hearing, Giuffre stated, “The reckoning must not end. It must continue. He did not act alone. We the victims know that.” Prosecutors signaled that they would continue an investigation for potential co-conspirators.[103]
I know what you’ll say, Trump was president in 2019. That’s what they WANT YOU TO THINK!
Watch the Hannah Arendt documentary, please. It is, in part, an instruction manual for what we are up against at this perilous moment in history.
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