You expected to see one of the train wreck graphics didn’t you? Well, this is a train wreck graphic…
Usually humor is not something Ethics Alarms associates with ethics train wrecks, but the ridiculous bi-partisan Jeffrey Epstein Ethics Train Wreck is already producing a large number of metaphorical appearances by Nelson Muntz…you know, the mocking “Simpsons” character?…
…with more certain to come. The lesson here, it appears , is “Don’t play Cognitive Dissonance Scale games if you don’t understand the rules!”
First, the Republicans made releasing the “secret files” about long-dead and even longer-disgraced sex-trafficker and pervert Jeffrey Epstein a 2024 campaign issue for idiots. (The national welfare will be neither enhanced nor harmed by anything regarding Epstein at this point, but the matter was a campaign squirrel. The news media, however, as it has an Epstein addiction that began once Bill Clinton seemed out of harm’s way, couldn’t resist. )
Then Trump was elected and appointed a none-too-bright Attorney General (Pam Bondi) and an incendiary FBI chief (Kash Patel) who soon said “Surprise! There are no Epstein files or nothing is in them or something!” This (predictably) inflamed the idiots, particularly Democrat idiots, who decided, “AHA! There must be something that will allow us to smear Trump and derail his second term like we did the first one with the fake Russia collusion investigation!” The idiot voting bloc is, one must admit, unusually large, so the Democratic Party has been using Epstein with some success—aided by their unethical news media, aka. “the news media,” which elevated Epstein files rumor-mongering and “Trump must have something terrible to hide, because he’s terrible” stories ahead of substantive news that the public genuinely needed to know.
Now it became the old Cognitive Dissonance Game…you must know the drill by now. Here’s Dr. Festinger’s invaluable scale showing how we form and maintain our attitudes toward, well, everything:
Studies have shown that when something in negative attitude territory can be attached to something or someone in the positive attitude region, it will pull down the person, belief or thing held in positively esteem down the scale. This has been pretty much the Axis strategy to destroy Republicans and Trump for the last decade. Trump is a Republican, and the party is evil because he is evil…Ooops, Trump got elected President somehow and people usually favor our President: Look! He’s a Russian asset (We don’t like Russians!)…Okay, that flopped: Hey, everyone…He’s a racist! A rapist! A convicted felon! Hitler! A Nazi! He’s an autocrat (whatever that means), a narcissist (ditto), a compulsive liar! He’s demented and senile!
More attitudinal anchors have been hooked to Trump by his political foes and its complicit media than to any previous President, and to a limited extent the strategy has worked. The Democrats have hooked themselves to so many heavy anchors of their own, however—discrimination against whites and men, open borders, trans extremism, a fake President, an embarrassing Presidential candidate, behaving like the Politburo—that they resorted to Epstein.
Bad idea. The metaphor I am seeing repeated on conservative media is “the dog that catches the car.” Behold:
Item: Del. Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands (D) was receiving texts from Jeffrey Epstein during a 2019 “Get Trump” House hearing with Trump’s corrupt fixer, Michael Cohen. Here’s House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries huminahumina-ing when a CNN host suddenly practices journalism and asks, “What the hell?”:
KAITLAN COLLINS: “Do you think it was appropriate for her to be texting with Jeffrey Epstein, 11 years after he pleaded guilty?”
JEFFRIES: “I mean, I have not had a conversation with Stacey Plaskett to discuss this issue because we’ve been focused today on making sure that there was a decisive vote as it related to the Epstein files and the release.”
COLLINS: “Do you plan to talk to her about it?”
JEFFRIES: “I think that we……successfully defeated a resolution [ to punish Plaskett] that lacked any basis, was not credible and was being brought by an individual who was trying to weaponize this issue to reinvigorate his own failed gubernatorial campaign in south Carolina.”
How can he say that with a straight face? Both parties have been trying to “weaponize” the issue!
JEFFRIES: “It was rejected on a bipartisan basis on the floor today. That’s the end of the story.”
COLLINS: “Yeah, I was just asking if you personally believe messaging with Jeffrey Epstein, who is at that point a registered sex offender, is appropriate for a member of the House Democratic caucus?”
JEFFRIES: “That’s the third time you’ve asked me this question, and I’m going to give you the same exact answer. Our focus today is on making sure that the Jeffrey Epstein files were released. If you want to have a conversation with Stacey Plaskett about it, I’m sure she’d be willing to talk to you.”
Item: Larry Summers, Democrat, former Cabinet member, and implicated in the Epstein files, is suspended as a professor at Harvard.
Item: Hakeem Jeffries invited Epstein to a dinner to solicit money from him for his campaign in 2013. This was after Epstein had been convicted for procuring a child for prostitution.
Item: Campaign finance records show that from 1990 to 2018, Jeffrey Epstein sent 89% of his political donations to Democratic and progressive causes, including Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and Chuck Schumer.
Cognitive Dissonance, man! What can’t it do?
Ethics Alarms 
The national welfare will be neither enhanced nor harmed
I’m not sure I believe this. It depends what’s revealed in the files. If it brings prominent figures to justice or prevents other young women from being harmed, that’s a benefit.
News Flash!!! [beep beep beep…] Nothing of substance, nothing not already known, will be revealed in this latest “release of the whole file”. There are already revelations that the law requiring that full disclosure contains provisions for redacting some content due to… things.
If there were anything, and I trust you have heard this before, but just in case, anything that will adversely impact President Trump in those files, it would have been brought forth years ago when the Democrat party had control of the White House and Congress. You cannot believe that the Biden DOJ would have withheld it in favor of the bogus lawfare it did use. Can you?
I personally don’t think Trump will be shown to be doing anything illegal, but he’s hiding something. Either protecting donors or there’s crap in there that makes him look really awful. It’s why he tried to convince Boebert from voting on the release.
Yep. The walls are closing in. He’s a bad guy.
But JD reminds us that Garland was a completely apolitical AG and the Biden Justice Dept. above that sort of things…..
Marissa
To bring prominent people to justice you need to have an identifiable victim who makes a specific accusation about a given person and the crime they believe was committed. To date only a few victims have leveled specific accusations that could result in criminal proceedings. One of those is dead, one has been convicted and the other is in England and beyond the reach of our laws unless his brother the King sends him here to face charges.
What are the alleged victims waiting for? Any one of them could walk into any police department and claim rape if they wanted to. We don’t need wade through thousands of pages of texts or emails to make a claim and anyone accused has a constitutional right to face the accuser.
Statute of limitations?
The sexual predator’s friend.
No idea, but felony sex charges involving a minor can still be brought if the victim is dead. I still think brining crimes to light is always beneficial to society vs hiding them.
Not if the statute of limitations has been exceeded. The only crime where there is no time limit to prosecute is murder. I believe the time has passed in this case. And, again, where is the victim?
Perhaps President Trump initially opposed opening that “file” is that there are lots of accusations and lots of innuendo there about people who were not involved with anything… only that they got an email or text from someone… They don’t need to have their lives turned upside down over this. Maybe he now supported opening the file because he knows he is clear and mostly Dems will get exposed. Time will tell.
Allegations, suppositions and circumstantial evidence do not prove “crimes.” Trump would have been prudent to keep the Epstein files under wraps for the reason illustrated by some of the comments here. The news meida and Democrats will use innuendo and conspiracy theories to accuse and denigrate Trump whatever is in there, just as with the completely meaningless birthday card. These aren’t good faith critics., as the lawfare cases proved spectacularly.