Epstein
Doublethink
Admin, 8th Day Host
Amongst all the mountains of crap - what the fuck were our intelligence services and dps police doing !
Doublethink
Admin, 8th Day Host
Comments
(I have emailed my mp to ask him to ask what police and security services knew - there were active terrorist attacks on the UK mainland during this time, you would expect they were vetting people and places the royal family went for safety and security reasons.)
It seems like they were either incompetent or complicit.
The irony of this whole situation is that crazy people have been saying for decades that there are a bunch of princes, oligarchs and powerful people who meet together to do disgusting things. Turns out they weren't wrong.
Given the presence of the dps, it beggars belief that Andrew's actions were not widely known and regarded as acceptable within his circle.
It is definitely beyond time that the protocols for PPOs are reviewed and updated because it is obvious that they have been present when principals have crossed the line from dubious to criminal behaviour.
I remember years ago when Princess Anne was in court, I think for speeding. She got a fine which was ten-pence-ha'penny, far below what ordinary people got in the same situation.
The law hasn't touched the royals and their cohort for a very long time.
Per Steaknife, I think they probably knew Epstein for who he was - and they should have done something about it, regardless as to whether their principal was engaging in unlawful behaviour or simply immoral behaviour. Child protection should trump that.
I think a large part of billionaires going right is a reaction to #MeToo, but I don't think that's the full extent of what was going around Epstein's influence network
This, alas, seems to be all too true. No doubt there are yet more 'shocking revelations' to emerge from the toxic swamp. which will prove the crazy people right. Again.
In those sorts of circles, "house parties" that existed to facilitate affairs and casual sexual liaisons were normal enough. Various guests would go and stay in someone's home, and nobody would talk about who visited whose bedroom during the night.
There are, and were, any number of parties and gatherings whose purpose is to put attractive young women in the presence of wealthy powerful men. This describes the operation of quite a few nightclubs, as well as private gatherings. In itself, that is not illegal. It only becomes legally problematic when the consent of the young women is impaired.
"Randy Andy" earned his sobriquet. His attitude towards women was well known, and everyone surrounding him would naturally be discreet about a parade of consenting young women marching through his bedroom.
Would those surrounding him have been aware that many of the girls associated with Epstein were children? Would they have been aware that even for those that were adults, informed consent wasn't really Epstein's priority? I don't know, but I think it's worth asking some questions.
If I had apply Occam's razor to the location - a cellar beneath a suburban Pizza Hut, or someone's private island - I would have ended up in the broom cupboard too. The Q-anons must be a bit sad that Hillary isn't (so afar as I know) in the files, while someone else...
Generally people know not to ask questions that their bosses won't like the answers to.
I think that's the troubling part. It's entirely possible that (as with creeps like Weinstein) a lot of people knew or suspected something was going on, and it wasn't necessarily that they liked it or were threatened to keep it quiet, but just found the perpetrators (or their associates) too useful to their other goals or decided it wasn't worth the personal cost to be the one to put their head above the parapet. It reads like Starmer and the rest of establishment Labour were well aware that Mandelson was at least corrupt and possibly implicated in CSA but decided he was too useful to be without. A lot of people behaving quite rationally in their individual circumstances can do as much and more harm than a full-blown conspiracy.
The photo of Giuffre dates to 2001 and sexual offending by UK citizens abroad came within jurisdiction of the UK courts only in 2003, The Modern Slavery Act, which is in part designed to combat sex trafficking came in in 2015 (one of Therese May’s better ideas). I am not sure the law would have recognised the coercive control involved prior to that - defence would have argued she could have sought assistance from the authorities the moment she stepped off the plane.
I suspect the only thing they have a decent chance of making stick in court in the uk, would relate to his conduct as a trade envoy - ? misconduct in public office ?
Whereas he might face more legal jeopardy in the USA because the statutes were different at the time.
I think it's magnified in the UK because the media and politics are interlinked, small and incestuous - concentrated in one place and the product of a very small number of educational institutions.
Political news stories go from something no one will admit to something everyone knows but no one will mention, and in this case it was evident that it was actions in the US that were the precipitating factor in what has taken place since (most people on social media would have seen the two photos of Mandelson and Epstein which have been in circulation for years - one of which was very probably taken by Jean Luc Brunel).
Take this from Lewis Goodall's substack:
"more journalistically valuable" leaps out doesn't it ? (And Goodall is one of the better journalists -- still and all, he shares a podcast with Maitlis and his wife works for the TBI).
Your comment about the speeding fines is untrue.
Anne has been fined for speeding on three occasions since 1970.
In 1977 she was fined £40, which was the standard penalty at the time.
In 1990 she was fined £150, when the average was £85.
In 2001 she was fined £400, when the standard was £60.
It's almost like you read history books about the crazy things rich people do and...they just keep doing it.
I've been reading this book about 19th century Europe and...yikes!
And I don't think that's a uniquely European thing.
I think this is it. If somebody with police protection were regularly attending parties full of sexually available young women, and took full advantage of this, we might reasonably call them immoral and sleazy, but they wouldn't be a criminal.
One of the problems with consent is that there aren't always bright lines between someone who gives free and informed consent and someone who doesn't. There's a continuum of behavior, with free and enthusiastic consent between equal-status peers at one end, and coercive control and rape at the other end. The grey middle is full of more or less reluctant consent, persuasion, false promises, quid pro quo, and a bunch of similar things that might be sleazy, but might not be illegal.
At one time in the Republic Of Korea, it was a criminal offense to make knowingly false marriage proposals in the pursuit of sex. I don't recall that I ever followed any trials employing this law, but I do remember it being removed from the books. IIRC, the abolition of the law was fairly non-controversial.