After Epstein, Who Knows?

4/25/25 BBC:

"Virginia Giuffre, Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein accuser, dies...

.

"Relatives said in a statement on Friday that she had been a "fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse", and that the "toll of abuse... became unbearable".

'"She lost her life to suicide, after being a lifelong victim of sexual abuse and sex trafficking," a statement from her family said."

Victims of abuse have disproportionately high suicide rates and this is not surprise.  I will be curious to know the circumstances.

Pizzagate Was Obviously Crazy, Right?

6/20/23 ABC News story that is too horrifying to summarize. And these are the people who think Christians want to keep women in subjugation.

Who Are They Investigating Still?

 9/10/22 Daily Wire:

A well-followed internet sleuth believes he has uncovered evidence that the FBI could be sitting on potentially explosive secret records involving dead sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

The anonymous Techno Fog, an self-described lawyer and writer who has nearly 400,000 followers on Twitter and also writes a popular Substack column, says a recent response to a Freedom of Information Act request indicates the beleaguered bureau may be hiding something. Techno Fog sought all records relating to any interviews the FBI had done with Epstein.

“The records responsive to your request are law enforcement records; there is a pending or prospective law enforcement proceeding relevant to these responsive records, and release of the information could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings,” was the answer he said he received, which he posted online.

It cannot be Ghislane Maxwell (already convicted) or Jeffrey Epstein (beyond the jurisdiction even of the FBI).  Are they really trying to create a criminal case against an Epstein client?  Or just delaying the embarrassing pictures of members of the elite demonstrating that Pizzagate was a spoiler warning?

The Power of Epstein

 There has been a lot of questions as to why Ghislane Maxwell got off so easy and Epstein's supposed suicide.  Without following the Pizzagate wormhole, let me observe that child sexual abuse shows u in governmental malfeasance often enough to make me wonder how much of GOPe is staying closeted about pedophilia.

This problem of governmentally protected molesters is not just Cosmic Pizza conspiracy theories. 8/30/18 BBC reported o  how A child rapist/murderer named Dutroux brought down the Belgian government because they were protecting him. He starved two girls to death in his basement. 

1/1/19 BBC reports about the Dunblane Massacre that led to a handgun ban in Britain.  This mass murder  was done by a guy who did not meet the legal requirements for a handgun license, had been the subject of complaints by parents for his unnatural interest in little boys, and shared fraternal membership with local police officials. Parts of the Cullen Reports on the incident were sealed for 100 years.  That is a very long time; most secret documents (such as the British War Cabinet minutes from World War I) were only sealed for 50 years.

I wonder how much of our elite system of government is maintained by gentle reminders that there is still one sin so generally horrifying that it will cost you not only an election but likely bring out the pitchforks and torches.

Sometimes Conspiracy Theories Are Actually "Spoiler Alerts"

 12/13/21 Tom Knighton points to something that has long curioused my brain.  (Yes, it's a verb now.)  

In this day and age, if you want to dismiss anyone’s concern, you just call it a conspiracy theory. If you do, then you’ll completely dismiss the argument without even having to argue against it.

That’s the state of our nation right now, I’m afraid.

One of the companies most behind this was CNN. The “news” network opted to refer to talk of pedophilia by the elites as nothing more than conspiracy theories as well as outright lies.

Now, I’ve always tried to be cautious about accusing someone of lying. After all, if they believe it, it’s not a lie, even if it’s false. Being wrong isn’t be dishonest, after all. Lots of honest people say wrong stuff all the time. It doesn’t make them dishonest.

But CNN didn’t blink about calling a whole lot of people liars.

However, it seems that CNN might well have been hoping no one would look too deeply at their own dirty laundry.

He then points out how the bizarre Pizzagate conspiracy theory of political elites molesting children at a pizza place in DC suddenly cause head scratching when you look at the indictment of a CNN producer for sexual abuse of little girls for purposes that should have feminists doxxing him and seeking summary castration, if they actually believed their own often inflamed rhetoric, and the CIA employee pedophiles report, most of whom were not prosecuted.

Over the past 14 years, the Central Intelligence Agency has secretly amassed credible evidence that at least 10 of its employees and contractors committed sexual crimes involving children.

Though most of these cases were referred to US attorneys for prosecution, only one of the individuals was ever charged with a crime. Prosecutors sent the rest of the cases back to the CIA to handle internally, meaning few faced any consequences beyond the possible loss of their jobs and security clearances.

Oh, and the essential non-coverage of the Ghislane Maxwell trial.  

I have been intermittently working on a novel whose backstory involves the dissolution of Canada and the USA and the formation of the Confederation of Northwest North America caused by the revelation that the political elites keep themselves in power to enjoy the benefits of, and to keep secret their abuse of children.  From the time of Tiberius (if you believe Suetonius), this has been one of the "Why would you?" perqs of being a tyrant.

CNN Only Hires the "Woke"

12/11/21 NBC News:

CNN producer John Griffin was arrested by the FBI on Friday after a federal grand jury charged him with enticing minors to engage in "unlawful sexual activity" at his Vermont property.

Griffin, 44 of Stamford, Connecticut, was charged with three counts of "using a facility of interstate commerce" to lure minors and people claiming to be their parents to train them to be sexually subservient, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Vermont said in a statement. ...

According to his Linkedin profile, Griffin said he worked "shoulder to shoulder" with ex-CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, who was fired earlier this month after an investigation by the New York attorney general showed how he helped his brother, the former New York governor, defend himself against sexual misconduct allegations....

Griffin used messaging apps Kik and Google Hangouts to communicate with parents of underage girls and convince them to allow him to train their daughters to be subservient to men because they are "inferior," the federal indictment said. He believed that a “woman is a woman regardless of her age," officials claim.

In June 2020, Griffin texted with the mother of two girls, ages 9 and 13, telling the mother that it was her responsibility to ensure the elder girl was "trained properly," according to the indictment.

Griffin transferred $3,000 to the mother for plane tickets from Nevada to Boston. In July 2020, the woman and her 9-year-old daughter flew to Boston where they met Griffin and drove to his Vermont home. There, the girl was "directed to engage in and did engage in illegal sexual activity," according to the indictment.

 The more that I think about this, the more horrified I get.  This is a feminist's fever dream of what fundamentalist Christians do to create subservient women.  What is it about CNN that attracts such creeps?  Or is it that people who have no morals see that anything that they want is okay?

Epstein Succeeds on 2nd Suicide Attempt

Yeah, right.  There are already four big names exposed.  I suspect even more would have come out of a plea bargain.

How Did Epstein Become a Billionaire (Is He?)

7/11/19 New York Intelligencer discusses how real hedge fund billionaires have never heard of Epstein's firm, nor do they know of any any customers.  They suggest that whatever money is invested may be under threat of blackmail:

I think he’s engaged in blackmail. The reason I think this is that I read the Palm Beach police report when they did the search warrant. Epstein had advanced warning they were coming, so he scrubbed the place as much as he could, but he left wires and audiovisual cables for uploading video files to computers, and I guess the Palm Beach Police themselves installed some of his audiovisual surveillance equipment in his residence — it’s a service they apparently do, putting in security cameras for residents. And some of his victims, like Virginia Roberts, in her court filings, said that Epstein remarked to her that “information is king,” and mentioned that Bill Clinton was there because “he owes me a favor.” He bragged that that’s how powerful he was. So I suspect, based on that evidence, that’s it’s likely, since that’s the way Epstein operates, is he uses information to his advantage. Does he get investment money for his hedge fund that way? That’s a strong possibility. Does he not have to pay back investors maybe using the blackmail information as a threat? That’s a possibility.

Hint: If you are rich or powerful, or plan to be so, don't do anything that might be criminal or embarrassing in front of a possibly hidden video camera.  Even better:  don't do anything that might be criminal or embarrassing.  The scrubbed Wikipedia page has been unscrubbed.

As I Tell My Students...

Puritans were so concerned about sexual sin because in England dissipated noblemen would take advantage of the innocence of young women, and as soon as they started to show, abandon them to deal with the shame of bearing an illegitimate child.  This is why the rake is a recurring theme in Georgian and Victorian literature and art.  (I am thinking of Hogarth's A Rake's Progress series of engravings in the field of art.) 

Young women are not quite so innocent anymore.  This is an unfortunate but necessary accommodation to "the way of the world" (to quote Dr. Gosnell).  So billionaire rakes have to go younger.    7/8/19 AP:

Jeffrey Epstein has been ordered jailed at least until a bail hearing Thursday after he pleaded not guilty to federal sex trafficking charges.

He made his first court appearance Monday following his arrest over the weekend.Prosecutors say Epstein, a registered sex offender, is a significant flight risk and are asking that he be detained until his trial.

They say he has three active U.S. passports and has frequently traveled in and out of the country on his private jet.

The 66-year-old Epstein is accused of creating and maintaining a network that allowed him to sexually exploit and abuse dozens of underage girls from 2002 to 2005.

Prosecutors said several alleged victims have come forward since Epstein's arrest.

Trump said a few nice things about Epstein a few years ago, so the Democrat presstitutes are running with this.  But 7/8/19 ZeroHedge quotes a lawyer who would not let this case go away:

Edwards: The only thing that I can say about President Trump is that he is the only person who, in 2009 when I served a lot of subpoenas on a lot of people, or at least gave notice to some pretty connected people, that I want to talk to them, is the only person who picked up the phone and said, let’s just talk.  I’ll give you as much time as you want.  I’ll tell you what you need to know, and was very helpful, in the information that he gave, and gave no indication whatsoever that he was involved in anything untoward whatsoever, but had good information. That checked out and that helped us and we didn’t have to take a deposition of him in 2009. 

And even some Democrats (like Nancy Pelosi's daughter) are admitting:

This Epstein case is horrific and the young women deserve justice. 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 - whether on Republicans or Democrats.

7/6/19 Miami Herald:

At the time, Epstein owned an island off St. Thomas. The Herald report continues: “His plane records show that during the time he was abusing young girls, he was flying former President Bill Clinton, Harvard professors and administrators, Nobel-prize winning scientists, actresses, actors, philanthropists and a who’s who of wealthy and powerful people to his island.” 

7/7/19 Fox News:

It was unclear exactly to whom Pelosi was referring, but Epstein has long been connected with high-profile figures, including Britain's Prince Andrew and former President Bill Clinton. Court documents obtained by Fox News in 2016 showed that Clinton took at least 26 trips flying aboard Epstein's private jet, known as the "Lolita Express," and apparently ditched his Secret Service detail on some of the excursions. Records showed that President Trump may have flown on the jet at least once.

The president previously called attention to Clinton's dealings with the financier.

"Nice guy -- uh, got a lot of problems coming up, in my opinion, with the famous island, with Jeffrey Epstein," Trump told Fox News' Sean Hannity in 2015, referring to Clinton's connections with Epstein. "A lot of problems." 

And why would you ditch your protective detail when going on a ride.  I mean on the Lolita Express, of course.

Democrats are using their control of social media to persuade Christians that the Republican Party is too Christian.  Consider the alternative.

So Glad They Were Freed From Cisnormative Roles

5/30/19 ABC New York:

FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP, New Jersey (WABC) -- Four suspects involved in a pornography production company in New Jersey are accused of aggravated sexual assault and endangering a 7-year-old child.

The four were identified as 51-year-old Sean Allen, 30-year-old Marina Volz (formerly known as Matthew Volz), 26-year-old Ashley Romero (formerly known as Adam Romero), and 19-year-old Dulcinea Gnecco, all of Coburn Lane in Franklin Township.

Any guesses why Matthew Volz and Adam Romero are sexually confused and what happened to them as children?

Why Defense Attorneys Often Choose Not to Put Defendants on the Stand

3/6/19 Page Six, reporting on R. Kelly's CBS interview about sexual abuse charges. His defense seems to be:

But Kelly insisted he was in a relationship with the women, Jocelyn Savage and Azriel Clary.

“What kind of love is it that keeps these young women away from their families?” asked King.

“What kind of father, what kind of mother would sell their daughter to a man?” he [Kelly] countered.

 “So you’re saying the parents handed their daughters, Azriel and Jocelyn, to you?” King asked. “Is that what you’re saying?”

He replied, “Absolutely.”

Casting blame on the parents for "sell[ing]" their daughters implies that he bought them.  I thought the 13th Amendment was supposed to be the end of that sort of thing.  And he stupidly admitted his part in this transaction on TV.

Some Readers Have Dismissed the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report

because statute of limitations has expired.  On this?  8/14/18 Fortune:

Among the horrific revelations of a 1,356-page Pennsylvania grand jury reportthat found more than 1,000 identifiable child victims were abused by over 300 Catholic priests, one stands out starkly: Priests allegedly used church property to produce child pornography.

With one priest, George Zirwas, the grand jury says his diocese knew of complaints starting in 1987 that he purportedly sexually abused children. Zirwas was shuffled among positions until he was placed on “personal leave” in 1995, which lasted until he was murdered in Havana, Cuba, in May 2001. The report claims Zirwas and three other priests created child pornography in parishes and rectories using whips, violence, and sadism while raping their victims.

Not Just a Catholic Problem

8/25/18 Philadelphia Inquirer:

Chessa Manion insists she's not looking for revenge, or to spark an ugly confrontation, when she heads to Berks County this weekend.

The plan that she and a group of former Jehovah's Witnesses have cobbled together is fairly simple: They'll gather in front of the Reading Santander Arena on Sunday with signs and artwork, and try to catch the eyes of some current followers of the millenarian religion who will be streaming into the building for a convention that's expected to draw thousands from Pennsylvania and Maryland congregations.

For some of the ex-Witnesses, it'll be a chance to share painful experiences that they tried to bury for years — in Manion's case, the rape that she suffered as a 5-year-old at the hands of a teenage Witness in a small Illinois town in 1994. Others hope to encourage active Witnesses to question the organization's leaders, who have responded to a growing number of child sex abuse cases around the world with denials and instructions to destroy records that could prove harmful in litigation.

Powerful Call to Holiness by Bishop of Madison, Wisconsin

Here.  Unlike Donohue, he gets it, and speaks uncompromisingly for the clergy to follow their duties to chaste lives, and to make no excuses for homosexuality.

It is time to admit that there is a homosexual subculture within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that is wreaking great devastation in the vineyard of the Lord. The Church’s teaching is clear that the homosexual inclination is not in itself sinful, but it is intrinsically disordered in a way that renders any man stably afflicted by it unfit to be a priest. And the decision to act upon this disordered inclination is a sin so grave that it cries out to heaven for vengeance, especially when it involves preying upon the young or the vulnerable. Such wickedness should be hated with a perfect hatred. Christian charity itself demands that we should hate wickedness just as we love goodness. But while hating the sin, we must never hate the sinner, who is called to conversion, penance, and renewed communion with Christ and His Church, through His inexhaustible mercy.

Some People Should Stop Digging Before the Hole Collapses on Them

Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights:

How many of the 300 were probably guilty? Maybe half. My reasoning? The 2004 report by the John Jay College for Criminal Justice found that 4 percent of priests nationwide had a credible accusation made against them between 1950-2002. That is the figure everyone quotes. But the report also notes that roughly half that number were substantiated. If that is a reliable measure, the 300 figure drops to around 150.

Of course, substantiated means going back over accusations made in the 1950s, where many of the witnesses, victims, and abusers, were dead.

Myth: The grand jury report was initiated to make the guilty pay.

Fact: False. It has nothing to do with punishing the guilty. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh "Salacious" Shapiro admitted on August 14 that "Almost every instance of child abuse (the grand jury) found was too old to be prosecuted." He's right. But he knew that from the get-go, so why did he pursue this dead end?

Why did he waste millions of taxpayer dollars in pursuit of alleged offenders when he knew he couldn't do anything about it? Because he, and his predecessor, Kathleen Kane (who is now in prison for lying under oath and misusing her Attorney General's office) wanted to shame the Catholic Church.

Too old to prosecute doesn't make them irrelevant to understanding the damage done.  Shaming officials who assisted in hiding these crimes seems like a way to discourage repeating.

Fact: This is an obscene lie. Most of the alleged victims were not raped: they were groped or otherwise abused, but not penetrated, which is what the word "rape" means. This is not a defense—it is meant to set the record straight and debunk the worst case scenarios attributed to the offenders. 

Furthermore, Church officials were not following a "playbook" for using terms such as "inappropriate contact"—they were following the lexicon established by the John Jay professors. 

Examples of non-rape sexual abuse found in the John Jay report include "touching under the victim's clothes" (the most common act alleged); "sexual talk"; "shown pornography"; "touch over cleric's clothes"; "cleric disrobed"; "victim disrobed"; "photos of victims"; "sexual games"; and "hugging and kissing." These are the kinds of acts recorded in the grand jury report as well, and as bad as they are, they do not constitute "rape."

True: no penetration means it isn't rape.  But that list of covered-up offenses is hardly what most people think of when you say "in the Name of Christ."

There have been two scandals related to the sexual abuse of minors in the Catholic Church. Scandal I involves the enabling bishops who covered it up. Scandal II involves the media cover-up of the role played by gay molesters. 

Let me repeat what I have often said. Most gay priests are not molesters, but most of the molesters have been gay. Not to admit this—and this includes many bishops who are still living in a state of denial about it— means the problem will continue. Indeed, there are reports today about seminaries in Boston and Honduras that are disturbing. How do I know that most of the problem is gay-driven? The data are indisputable.

He is right that this is overwhelmingly priests going after boys.  Heterosexual abuse is a minority of the offenses.  Still, blaming gay men and ignoring their status as priests and the role of the Church in covering up both secular crimes and violations of Christian standards is hardly a ringing endorsement of Christ's representatives on Earth.  Matthew 18:6:

"If anyone causes one of these little ones--those who believe in me--to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

Donohue should be looking for a way for the Church to make amends to these victims and make sure that the hierarchy that covered up these crimes never does this again.

News Stories That Make You Wonder Whose Side The Criminal Justice System is On

8/15/18 NBC News reports that the compound where child abuse and murder were performed along with training children to do school mass murders by a jihadi has been demolished by the police.  Doing so after a trial might make sense; but before trial?  What if the defense claims the compound contained exculpatory evidence?  This almost looks like an attempt to prevent a successful prosecution.  Whose side are the local police on?  And 8/14/18 NBC News:

Four of the five suspects are expected to be released with GPS monitoring today -- a turn of events in a case that has focused on allegations of starving children being taught to carry out school shootings.

This is Among the Most Horrifying News Stories That I Can Imagine

8/15/18 CNN:

(CNN)The Vatican has declined to respond to an explosive grand jury report detailing decades of sexual abuse and cover-ups by priests and bishops in Pennsylvania, refusing even to say whether church officials in Rome have read the damaging documents.

"We have no comment at this time," Paloma Ovejero, deputy director of the Vatican's press office, said Wednesday....

In the United States, both liberal and conservative Catholics displayed a rare unity in pressing the Pope to respond to the Pennsylvania grand jury report.

"The silence from the Vatican is disturbing," said Massimo Faggioli [an unfortunate last name], a theology professor at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. "I don't think the Pope necessarily has to say something today. He needs time to understand the situation. But someone from the Vatican should say something."

8/15/18 Washington Post:

Poulson is one of more than 300 Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania named in a grand jury report released Tuesday that accuses church leaders of covering up rampant child sexual abuse over the course of 70 years. In the most sweeping probe by a government agency of clergy abuse in the United States, the grand jury was able to identify more than 1,000 victims while advising that there were likely to be thousands more. 

The report is an index of frightful physical and psychological violence. It recounts how one priest allegedly abused five sisters in a single family; how another confessed to raping 15 boys as young as 7; how a victim was bound and whipped with leather straps; and how a victim died from an overdose of painkillers taken for a back injury suffered during a particularly violent attack. Most of the victims, the court said, will never be able to pursue cases against their alleged attackers, as state law gives victims of child sex abuse until they are 30 to undertake civil suits, 50 to file criminal charges. 

Now I know some of my readers blame the Jews for this because their Church could not do this.  The Church is not responsible for every depraved priest in its employ.  But I am surprised that the Catholic Church hasn't experienced a revolution from within because of this.  There are plenty of priests who did not abuse children, and I am sure the laity are truly horrified by the depravity committed in the Name of Christ.  But is there no mechanism for the good and godly majority to force a house cleaning?  The Council of Constance resolved the three popes controversy by asserting that ecumenical councils are above the pope in authority. 

I really want this mess cleaned up.  Every Catholic kid who is told that sexual abuse is a way of growing closer to Jesus Christ is a child unlikely to grow up a believing Christian.  The Catholic Church's defense of innocent life and Biblical morality is pretty well discredited in battles with the world by these horrifying crimes.

Film? Who Still Used Film in 2012?

11/15/13 Los Angeles Times article too repulsive to summarize (except for "Yuck!") involving a teacher sent to prison for 25 years (most of which he will regret with an intensity that he probably needs):

Berndt was arrested in January 2012 after a South Bay drugstore photo technician alerted authorities to images of children blindfolded, some with tape over their mouths, on film Berndt left at the store for processing.

And who is stupid enough to send stuff like that to a photo lab?

Coincidence, I Am Sure

5/21/18 U.K. Sun:

In a private dialogue, the Pontiff is understood to have told Juan Carlos Cruz, a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests, that God loves gay people and it is fine to be homosexual.

The comments are the most striking public acceptance about homosexuality ever made by a head of the Roman Catholic Church.

The remarks were made during a private meeting at the Vatican between the pair, in which the Pope offered a heartfelt apology.

Cruz was a victim of Chile’s most notorious paedophile priest Fernando Karadima.

Father Karadima, now aged 87, was found guilty of sexual abuse by the Vatican in 2011.

God does love gay people, and alcoholics, and the greedy, and hatemongers.  It is okay to arrive broken, just not okay to stay that way.

Backpage.com Seized

From a site that is apparently an Arizona TV station:

The site allows users to post ads for 'escorts' and investigators say many of the ads are actually for underage girls.

The FBI seized the website because it was allegedly being used to facilitate crime. The FBI has done this before with other sex trafficking websites and online pharmacies.

There are 17 victims named in the documents who are both adults and children who say they were forced into sex trafficking. ...

The Department of Justice (DOJ) says almost every single sex trafficking case involves online ads, mostly from Backpage.com.

According to the DOJ, the biggest issue with these websites is that it facilitates sex trafficking for people who would have been to sheepish to pursue sex on the streets, especially to look for children. ...

But investigators say the site lost that protection when they alerted posters to key terms related to child sex trafficking. Investigators found proof of these alerts in internal Backpage.com documents. 

The site even gave the third party posters a chance to rephrase their ads so they wouldn't be flagged for child sex trafficking. Some of the terms Backpage.com admins told posters not to use include "Lolita," young, teenager and even "Amber Alert."

I know, some of you think this will facilitate suppression of conservative voices, but the suppression of conservative voices isn't the FBI, but Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.  Making it harder for pedophiles to find little girls and boys for sex is a big win.