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Comment by tototrains | Hacker News Reader

No, this is very unusual. The US government taking a 10% stake in intel is very unsual.

There have been a few cases where national security has prompted the government to nationalize private institutions: the Railroads in WWI, steel mills in the korean war, CINB which was deemed a security risk by being too large a bank.

This admin has so far acted like a kleptocracy and, like, because of the Epstein files if they lose power many will go to jail, so there's a huge incentive to remain in power.

Wars are good for remaining in power. Dictatorship is good for remaining in power.

This is all very, very, very unusual in US history (except maybe when businesses tried to overthrow the government in the 30s but we don't talk about that).

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> This admin has so far acted like a kleptocracy and, like, because of the Epstein files if they lose power many will go to jail, so there's a huge incentive to remain in power.

I find this to be unrealistic worry. Just like with mee too, the perpetrators will eventually be protected. Just like with any previous abuses, including war crimes and so on, high level people will be protected first, celebrated second and then we will collectively move onto pretending they were being treated unjustly the whole time.

The amount of people who think that the real victims of abuse are perpetrators and real wrongdoers are victims who talk about it is just too high. It is rarely openly framed or phrased this way, the used words are always nicer, but this is the overall theme of the things.

Former trump adviser Steve Bannon said:

"If we lose the midterms and we lose 2028, some in this room are going to prison, myself included."

Seems like it's not so unrealistic.

In the UK and other parts arrests have already been made and in the US the FBI director is drinking beers.

Bannon was already jailed for failing to adhere to a congressional subpoena.

What he probably means is being killed in prison, "suicided" when the cameras are mysteriously off, but this doesn't make sense, he's in the side of the oligarchs.

Yes, people were arrested in UK, but UK is not USA. It is a country with different legal system, different politics and somewhat different ideology.

The Trumps history was known prior election, but it was only advantage for him. Kavanaugh is on supreme court. People in Epstein files were defended with bad faith and excessive benefit of the doubt in the past and will be defended the same way again.

When it comes to abuse, harassment and such, when you look at supreme court, president, ministers, politicians, college leaders, religious leaders etc etc etc, there is no history of even credible rape accusation being a disadvantage for the person. There is a track record of hysteria that something might happen to those important people and then elites circling the wagons protecting each other.

There are going to be angry blogs from progressives and feminists, they will be accused of overdoing it and of moral panic. And if democrats gets voted into power, they will continue reconciliatory doormat politics of last 40 years.

>This admin has so far acted like a kleptocracy and, like, because of the Epstein files if they lose power many will go to jail, so there's a huge incentive to remain in power.

This is a bold claim that requires some evidence to accompany it.

So far there's been very little in the Epstein files to implicate anyone of consequence in any criminal activities.

When the rare documents that actually did offer evidence of potentially criminal behavior surfaced, Andrew and Mandelson were swiftly arrested. We can see that the evidence is being acted upon, it's just not very exciting.

> So far there's been very little in the Epstein files…

Numbers get thrown around, some suggesting only 2% of the files have been released.

I'm confident that even if 99% of the files were eventually released that the last 1% held back are far and away the most damning.

Possible, but we don't really have any genuinely convincing reason to believe that there are any particularly damning (in terms of criminal conduct) files there.

There are many genuinely convincing reasons to believe that.

The simplest is Trump administration aggressively asserting the importance and impact of Epstein's network, followed by excuses to downplay the impact and prevent release of the files (going as far as calling it a hoax, claiming Trump was an FBI informant, only investigating Democrats). These contradictory deflections are genuinely convincing reasons to believe that there is more damning evidence which they're trying to cover up.

More convincing reasons that there is further evidence of crimes in the unreleased files:

- Witness/survivor testimony. Many victims have come forward, several naming Trump officials directly.

- Epstein ran a sex-trafficking network which is thoroughly documented in the released files. Over half the files have not yet been released.

- Many questionable/excessive redactions which US lawmakers have called "inappropriate". US lawmakers have also said that removal of certain files is illegal under the Epstein Act.

- Epstein's extensive political, financial, and legal networks include lots of high-profile figures which have already caused confessions, firings, resignations, and arrests.

There are a lot more reasons, this was just off the top of my head.

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