Inside Epstein’s network: what 1.4M emails reveal
economist.com
economist.com
It's hard to see conventional pipelines doing a faster job of parsing scattered mentions of rare phrases like 'jerky' across a million documents than the competitive environment of individual entrepreneurialism could.
jimmy kimmel didn't self censor himself off the air
The level of tinfoil hat theories (example: cannibalism) which people are now taking as the truth off of which to build more theories is really something. The unfortunate thing is - in our current environment, the crazy speculation and knowingly dealing in just shit you made up seems to actually pay off when pressuring public officials.
I am glad the files were released. A lot of people have a lot of explaining to do. I don't actually think this ends up going anywhere, but we'll see.
As a Jewish person, I can't help feel that the magnitude of the outrage is because Epstein and quite a few of his associates were rich Jews.
Not to downplay what they did as it was horrible, but I don't recall similar levels of outrage about all the scandals in the Catholic Church.
Epstein isn't the first person to be involved in sex trafficking. Every big city in the world has it and it is even legal in some countries, not to mention that Pedophilia as the term is being used in the Epstein case is basically legal in most European countries with the age of consent at 15 and even 14 in some cases.
It's hard not to feel like a lot of people want to paint a picture that Jews are especially depraved and amoral.
That is because it is true, a lot of people do want to paint all Jews like that. People would probably find the catholic church stuff even juicier if the vatican was running an intelligence agency that brokers with most other western intelligence agencies with these same rapists.
The thing with Epstein is that he really seems heavily connected to intelligence. Maxwells dad is alleged to be a Mossad agent. There are pictures of him in meetings in his office with a map of Israel, gaza, and the west bank on the wall. There are FBI documents that allege epstein himself was at least at one point a Mossad agent.
So you have this compelling israeli intelligence angle. The fact that global elites genuinely partied with this man. All the history of the case from the sweetheart plea deal in 2007 that stopped the federal investigation at the time in its tracks and granted immunity for potentially involved parties, the fact he was never actually convicted before he died (even that is suspect), the fact that outside Maxwell no one has been arrested.
I mean it really quacks like a tin foil hat global elite conspiracy. That is what makes this story so damn juicy and compelling. It isn't just a couple priests getting their rocks off with some alter boys, but an entire systematic thing where its looking like this guy was not only trafficking girls but running some sort of Bene Gesserit esque breeding program impregnating teenagers he thought had good genetic traits.
You couldn't even write this stuff into a movie it is so wild and hardly believable if it wasn't coming from DOJ evidence respositories.
1 The Epstein story has an interesting Mossad angle, maybe they contacted him or even paid him
2 Lunatic antisemites (and probably many bots) are overrunning the internet with medieval-style antisemitism in which Epstein is still alive, babies were eaten, etc.
> Every big city in the world has it and it is even legal in some countries, not to mention that Pedophilia as the term is being used in the Epstein case is basically legal in most European countries with the age of consent at 15 and even 14 in some cases.
I have no interest in dying on this hill, but there's 3 different technical terms which describe distinct kinds of attraction people have to children in relation to puberty, and that term does not describe 14-15 year olds. For whatever that is worth, with regards to the legality in parts of Europe indeed age of consent can vary widely across nations, and even states within nations. But let's be clear - what Epstein did was illegal even if it was done to adults. That's human trafficking.
He is also dead. I just don't think there was anything particularly exceptional/unique about him as a story other than his wealth as human trafficking is a global problem.
Also the number of celebrities and powerful people (including the sitting President) involved makes it a bigger story.
That said, yes the antisemites have come out in force around this, just as they did around Palestinian activism, and just as they always do. But I think most people's outrage is focused on systems of privilege and power and on the Trump administration in particular, not anything about "the Jews."
As someone who avoids forums where these ideas are promoted, it's hard to know when people are talking about things like "Satanic cults" whether that is some code word for Jews.
That came straight out of /pol/ so it definitely was, although I suspect that as with "cultural Marxism" it got diffused enough within the right wing that the antisemitism got obscured for most people, but the roots are still there. Trump tweeted this image of Hillary Clinton in 2016, after all[0].
But I think that it's important not to mistake online discourse for societal norms. All of that is intentionally engineered by social media platforms and political interests to maximize the effect of radicalism and extremism, and Twitter explicitly for right-wing ends. I think in the real world, most people don't fall in for that sort of thing.
[0]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/02/donald-trump...
Yet you go on to victim card yourself.
I saw a video on Instagram claiming (or at least insinuating) that Epstein had access to all of Lifetouch's photos, because "the company is in the Epstein files!". Turns out, it was a single line item for $109 in what looked like banking records. In comparison, that same selection of files mentioned Whole Foods ~250 times.
For those outside the US, Lifetouch does school photos for about half the schools in the US (or something like that) so you can understand how that's a thread that conspiracy theorists can pull on. But there's nothing there. Just a single payment to the company in a sea of thousands and thousands of normal, every day purchases.
I haven’t seen any indication of “people that didn’t previously believe in cannibal elites now believe in cannibal elites after reading the emails” being a phenomenon that actually exists.
I’ve yet to interact with anyone that has seriously said “I didn’t believe they ate babies on Tuesday but it is Thursday and now I believe they were eating babies.” but people are posting like that’s a thing that happens frequently now. It’s almost like the tinfoil hat theory I’ve seen the most isn’t “pedophile cannibals” but rather “reading the emails will make you go crazy and start believing in cannibal pedophiles” like they are an actual real-life Lovecraftian hazard, which is a much more outlandish idea than… kooks and hucksters continuing to be kooks and hucksters.
Search "jerky"
The range of responses I ultimately saw was “this proves my existing belief that they were eating babies” to “wow that guy’s colon must’ve been a disaster”. The “I already believed they were eating babies” crowd lost a lot of steam and went quiet as soon as someone pointed out that there are several reasons why people refrigerate jerky (high-fat jerky, lack of nitrites in the recipe, humid conditions, etc.)
But on balance - he kept on staff a professional chef of some acclaim who was known for selling amazing jerky at his restaurant. That restaurant incidentally included the word "cannibal" in the name.
I'm on the fence between "jerky" literally meaning jerky and something else (the discussion sure is weird), but I'm going to need a lot more to think it is human meat.
Oh absolutely, I agree. That aside, given what I’ve read I’d expect to see something more like
“lo=v d th hu=mn babme,et . can u sed mro baby meat ,, th stuff from hunam b.by that we at on my ranch in New Mexico on March 3rd of this year? got a guy @ fedex can do human baby meat shiping sez just declare it’s a h=midor and itl go thru.
Sorry for all my typos, I am on my iPhone.
Sent from my BlackBerry For Business”
It was especially bad for his mental health, all of these new speculative theories.
I’ll put it this way: if somebody believes that it is more likely that people were eating babies than the fact that it’s actually somewhat common to refrigerate beef jerky, it’s because they’ve already been primed to think that way; there are several leaps in belief that have to take place before that becomes an even acceptable notion to consider let alone something to earnestly take as gospel.
I’ve seen 20x more people have to stop after reading about Leon Black than the cannibalism/“he’s still alive” stuff (because there aren’t actually that many people that believe in cannibal elites, they’re just very vocal). Heck, I’ve seen quite a few more people have to step back after reading about Epstein funding the bitcoin devs than after reading the more kook stuff. If there’s any sort of general “hazard” in the emails it’s not the things that aren’t true, it’s the things that are.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15545409/330-gallon...
Half of the files were released, and instead of the congress mandated removal of victim names, perpetrators were blanked out.
Приятных снов y'all
AFAICT it's not well considered by DoJ that this works roughly in proportion to the technical aptitude of opposing counsel. The public has excellent technical aptitude when motivated and none otherwise and this is clearly a situation of motivation.
1) The slow and steady institutional journalists who are reporting on the government
2) The fast and loose citizen journalists who are reporting on the government
3) The government who is saturating the attention of both of them while they look for something that exists in the 98% portion of unreleased documentation about government wrongdoing
I mean who’s the idiot? Maybe it’s the government interns who need to read 100% to release 2%.
You don’t need to appeal to shadowy cabals to explain why media professionals have been desperate for this stuff to not be true (and why, every day these days, you can still read examples of them absolutely writhing as they are obliged by public outrage to continue to report on it).
All you really need is to remember that a) they have mortgages to pay, too, so why rock the boat, and b) the people who end up writing for the WSJ and the people who end up in Jeffrey’s rolodex are by and large the same class of people. They went to the same colleges, they consume similar culture and media, they play the same games of keep up with the joneses, they read the Economist on their days off and fret over Gen Z slang and wonder whether the Chase card or the Amex will get them enough airline miles to fly to London for free with their spouse etc etc. They recognize themselves in the “Epstein class” — not in their crimes, but in their manners. So why would they be party to showing the world that class is so profoundly rotten? It’d give the lie to their whole lifestyle.
(And yes, to anticipate a critique here, of course there’s a difference between a producer at NBC and a billionaire! Not denying that. But they are cut from the exact same cultural and social cloth. The best proof of this is in the Epstein files themselves: not in the creepy or criminal bits, but in the mundane stuff. How he talks, what’s on his mind, the advice he gives, etc. It’s all American upper middle class humdrum stuff.)
Yet, here we are, no media wants to report on it, and they all wish that we all just forget about it and go back to buying khakis.
The issue is that the line between 'opinionist' and 'reporter' journalists is blurred, while the difference between an investigative journalist and reporter journalist grow. I think it's due to a bigger personification of reporters (they are now filmed doing stuff, involving themselves instead of listening and taking notes/pictures in the background). The profession is split in two. And for sure, on part of the split seems to have sided with opinionist (mostly in televised media. Somehow written journalism is still good)
Never heard of them, started browsing the site just now. Very impressed so far.
Not just one treasonous man, not just a few rich perverts, the whole thing is a supranational criminal syndicate looting everything they aren’t raping.
The circle of dirt does extend very wide and the scoundrels really are worried prosecution of the guilty will collapse everything.
Yeah, no shit.
Basically take the most sad and disturbing Eastern European horror and put it in email form.
I had to stop my Seinfeld rewatch because I saw one email were he just happened to be boating by and stopped by the island for lemonade.
The richest people and political elite were openly trading prices on children, leaving rave reviews on child services and how great that torture film was that was sent
Its sick
After the 3-4th blacked out little girl showing her genitals so they can be sold, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that if someone is connected to the island they need to be thoroughly investigated. That’s not a stretch.
Replies like yours are what’s sick downplaying the most prolific industrial child rape in modern America and only one person is sitting in prison. And none of the customers.
After investigating Jerry further, yeah dating a 17 year old high schooler and picking her up after school is equal distressing.
So thank you for your astute analysis and defense of a person who drove to a high school to have a physical relationship 21 years younger but I’ll hold off on watching Seinfeld for now. If that’s not too controversial.
Happening before JE, happening now.
Jimmy Savile, same thing.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't buy the "separate the artist from the artwork" line.
I can't say I've ever watched Seinfeld, but there are plenty of other artists whose work I just won't consume anymore because they've done things I find despicable (and that I know of).
Why would I want to see or hear them or even think about them while trying to enjoy something?
But everyone knows Snopes is leftist propaganda, so it's probably false. /s
Wouldn't there be a clip of her saying it?
No one has even bothered to spend the 25 cents on an AI generated one as far as I've seen.
I think it has a lot of memetic power because it’s plausible given the other things she’s said, like trying to deflect to economic “success” by pointing out the DOW ~is~ was over 50,000.
It also doesn’t need to be an attributed quote in order to reflect the countering sentiment: “Yes, prosecute those in the Epstein files no matter the geopolitical and economic cost.”
It also has a certain whiney, servile tone to it that makes it just annoying enough to trigger the leftist “ick” instinct.
Idk, I hope the 50,000 dol- meme picks up and people stop spreading this fabricated quote.
This is a criminally colluding Pam Bondi saying this. I guarantee that every single person on the Epstein list is replaceable many times over. There is not a single person on that list that is indispensable in any role they play in society. Full stop. Don't fall for it.
It's just the way the system is built. Even Pam Bondi is replaceable (and should be replaced) by many, many actual qualified people.
She is just a figurehead, her or her family's life is almost certainly under threat
If Bondi doesn't want to execute the duties of the office she can resign.
This is an incredibly naive view of a world in which people get blackmailed and murdered all the time at the whims of extremely powerful people.
It is very strange that you can't imagine a situation where someone is forced to play a role.
And again, you're being incredibly naive - there's no chance you'd be doing anything different in her position unless you are totally fine with sacrificing yourself, your parents, wife, children etc.
It seems that you think "criminal threats" from elites are something that only happen in TV shows, not real life. I'm not sure why this is your perspective because the Panama Papers murders were real, whistleblowers are killed all the time, etc.
If there were democrats on that list, they’d already be in jail.
Democrats WANT to see the pedos in our party getting justice! We have no loyalty to our party. We are the party of purity testing and infighting.
Anthony Weiner went down quickly. Cuomo went down quickly. Even folks who didn't deserve it like Al Franken go down quickly!
Or as the rest of the world calls it, “not being a criminal organization”.
He's still alive.
I understand the reporting is like "LOOK AT ALL THESE CRIMES" but the files themselves are stuff like "Tee hee I know some girls for you".
How do you get from that to an arrest or conviction? If you unredacted that person, identified them and called them would they tell you that the girls were all 18 or older? Or would they incriminate themselves? Do you know it hasn't already been followed up on?
I honestly dont understand what people are expecting here.
You do an investigation
> Do you know it hasn't already been followed up on?
Yes because that would be a part of these files. It’s not disputed that at minimum any leads, including victim testimonies, were not followed up.
I would love a source that discusses this.
Or is the issue that, now we have some transparency, we can see the FBI is misallocating resources?
Because I keep hearing the former, but if the issue is that theres a bunch of crimes that have been reported that werent investigated, thats more of a process issue.
An investigation...?
Start with... investigating that?
Ask them: why this person should be going around telling people you raped her? Have you ever met?
You know, like law enforcement does when there is the suspect of a crime.
Really? Like the multiple "thank you for the pizza" e-mails which the sender was censored, or the whole obsession they have around "jerky" and how to cook jerky, "walk the jerky", or when it was mentioned that Epstein would eat less jerky because he was having some intestinal issues? Even mentioning these things, it still is such a small portion of all the sick shit that is on the files, pictures with literal children, a video of Epstein using a magnifying glass to burn a woman, and you're literally calling it a nothingburger?
There is a clear pattern of inaction, going back several administrations.