What's wrong with these pictures and what could justify pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell after three years since what she did justified a 20 year sentence?

Ghislaine Maxwell may have done far worse than what she was convicted of doing. We are hearing reports from more and more victims that this is true. I won’t go into specifics here, but she’d have been crazy to tell Todd Blanche about this since she knew he was part of her ticket to get out of prison. The crucial person in all this is her old friend, Donald Trump, who she knows needs a report from Blanche to give him a reason to pardon her. She has to be portrayed as a victim herself. Maybe not as a saint, but as a victim of the nefarious devil Jeffrey Epstein.

Lots of criminals get away with avoiding punishment for acts because the prosecution doesn’t have enough evidence to make the case in court. Sometimes a jury lets a suspect off on some counts even though they are guilty. This can be because they don’t think the prosecution made the case beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury may convict them on other, sometimes less serious, counts.

Maxwell is 65 years old. Federal inmates serve an average of 85% of their sentence. They are required to serve aminimum of 85% of their sentence before becoming eligible for release. So at best she will be elderly when she is released if she serves her full sentence. I point this out because it is the judge who sets a sentence. They consider various factors, including the nature of the crime and the defendant's criminal history, before deciding on an appropriate punishment. The judge in her case knew that a 20 year sentence for a 63 year old was basically a sentence, if not for life, for until she didn’t have much of her life remaining. Obviously, a 25 year old who got that sentence would get out and still have much of their lives to live.

In a normal sane world nobody who had a friendship with a criminal who’d been incarcerated for a crime would be allowed to order them to be released. No way, no how! 

This is not a normal world. Trump has become the new sentencing judge. Blanche is about to provide him with what would in a trial be a pre-sentencing report. Trump, in his insensitivety to victim’s feelings and callous disregard of what is just, seems about to set this criminal friend of his free.

The poor innocent lady doesn’t deserve to be locked up in a federal prison in Tallahassee, right?

What will follow? It might be a celebration for her at Mar-a-Lago. 

Maybe she’s been practicing her dance moves to impress her new Big Daddy, Donald, at the gala he throws for her. 

After all, she is serving her time in Tallahassee knowing how close she is to Palm Beach, so near yet so far…

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Jeffrey's Black Book: Is it real or will it turn out to be like H.P. Lovecraft's Necronomicon? By Hal M. Brown.

 

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The Necronomicon is…

also referred to as the Book of the Dead, or under a purported original Arabic title of Kitab al-Azif, is a fictional grimoire (textbook of magic) appearing in stories by the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft and his followers. It was first mentioned in Lovecraft's 1924 short story "The Hound",^[1] written in 1922, though its purported author, the "Mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred, had been quoted a year earlier in Lovecraft's "The Nameless City".^[2] Among other things, the work contains an account of the Old Ones, their history, and the means for summoning them. See Wikipedia for more.

There is currenlty an infamous “we know or think it exists, but we don’t know exactly what’s in it” Jeffrey Epstein Black Book. At least we, meaning everyone paying attention, believes it is a real, actual book that may or may not be black. It may look something like one of those in the Perchance AI images above. On the other hand it could be the modern version of a book, just a thumb drive or folder or folders on a computer. 

I hope it is what we’d call a book book, something we can at least can see photos of. I want to see an actual book that Epstein and Maxwell wrote in.

We won’t ever see pictures or PDFs of entire unmodifed pages, since if it ever is published all the names of victims and their identifying information will have been redacted. We may, however, see parts of it.

If the book is ever made public it may turn out to be a big ho-hum even if there are many well-known people there. Unless Epstein or Maxwell wrote about what they actually did of a sexual nature with minors it won’t be of particular interest. It may offer observations about a celebrity - so and so has bad breath, body odor, or flatulence - for example but people really want to hear about sex.

I’m starting to write this on Thursday so it’s anybody’s guess who will turn up in the news about who spent time with the most perverse power couple in American history, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Just now it’s the embarrassment to everyone in the Kennedy clan, RFK Jr.

Above is from Daily Beast, subscription, but you can read a summary of their article on RawStory here.

This article refers to a little black book:

According to The Daily Beast, in addition to taking trips on Epstein's private plane, recently resurfaced pictures "show RFK Jr. at a New York Academy of Art gala with Epstein in in 1994, while files from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office show a listing for 'Kennedy, Bobby & Mary' in Epstein’s 'little black book,' which featured contacts for socialites and politicians, as well as the girls he sexually assaulted."

RFK Jr. was about 40 years old in the photo above. He’s admitted that he and his wife associated with Epstein and Maxwell a few times. It’s not clear which wife this was. It wasn’t his current wife, actress Cheryl Hines, since they were married in 2014. It was either Emily Black ​( m. 1982; div. 1994)​ or Mary Richardson ​( m. 1994; died 2012)​.

So whether he’s lascivious or just loony, that RFK Jr. was in the same room with Epstein at a gala, and as reported, on the same private plane with him twice isn’t the point. It would be mildly interesting to me if there were an entry about RFK Jr. saying he was a privileged asshole sullying the family name or already showing signs of having a brainworm.

It would be far more interesting if there were entries saying Trump was well aware of the sex trafficking of minors. This would be strong evidence he was part of a cover-up. It would be less interesting, but still satisfying, if there were disparaging entries about Trump. For example he could be called, in various way, a braggart who thought he was the smartest person in the room but was basically so stupid he needed help tying his own shoelaces.

Although it’s been reported that Bill Clinton knew Jeffrey Epstein and flew on his private jet several times for charitable work, he has denied ever visiting Epstein's private island and expressed regret about their association. He stated that he was unaware of Epstein's criminal activities at the time they interacted. Still if there was an entry in the black book that said something like “G. (referring to Maxwell) said Bill C. had the most charisma and was the sexiest man she ever met” it would gall Trump.

At this point people are so jaded that stories about the sordid sex lives of the rich and famous, even about Trump, elicit yawns. Most people don’t care about whatever depraveties they committed, even with minors. 

It would take revelations about self-righteous holier than thou figures, I won’t name names to use as examples, proving them not only to be world class hypocrites but also predatory perverts, to pique the public interest.

The Other Book:

This book is most likely an actual book. We don’t know what it looks like though it could resemble any of those in the AI images above. It is the book given to Epstein to mark his 50th birthday. It is the one that Trump allegedly drew a picture in of the outline of a naked woman with his first name over the pubic area. Reports of this led to the best one-liner of this entire scandal. Steven Colbert said that because of this he can no longer look at Trump’s signature without seeing pubic hair.

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I think of Trump and can't get "All the Light We Cannot See" out of my mind, by Hal M. Brown

 

My partner read the book, “All the Light We Cannot See.” When I told her there was a new mini-series based on the book she was eager to see it. Over the past few days we watched it. I keep flashing to scenes from the show whenever I think of what Trump is doing to the country.

The book was published in 2014 and a NY Times best seller for 200 weeks. I hadn’t read it, but a few days ago we watched the riveting miniseries based on the book. You can read the Wikipedia page about the book here. (This is the page about the TV show.)

The movie flashes between Germany and a small seaside town in France.

This could be one of many fictional, or based on fact, account of the horrors of Hitler and the Nazi regime. It happens to be the one I most recently became immersed in.

I won’t go into the actual storyline. You can skim the Wikipedia page to see this and hopefully decide to read the book, watch the mini-series, or both if you haven’t already done so.

There are two parts to the storyline that I keep thinking about. One is how a German in his late teens, an orphan, who was a radio genius was recruited to be a member of a special army unit to be used as a radio specialist. Before he could be admitted to the training academy a Josef Mengele-like doctor had to determine whether of not he had any “Jewish blood” in him. Of course without modern DNA testing, doing this was decidedly unscientific, but suffice to say there would have been no story if it was determined that he was Jewish since a major portion of the plot was about him. Radio, the media of the day, played a big part in the story. (I shouldn’t have to point out how, in a different way, television and the internet play a huge role in Trump’s story.)

You can see how this made me think of Trump and his demonization of immigrants. They have become the Jews of today when it comes to living their lives in fear.

The other part of the story that jumped off the screen every time it happened were the depictions of the real and feigned worship of Hitler. The German officers ended every other sentence with Heil Hitler, sometimes with the Nazi salute and sometimes not. In their presence French citizens always had to pretend allegiance to the Führer by ending whatever they said to the Nazi with the words “heil Hitler.”

I’ve been thinking that if Trump’s name, his last name or even his first name, had the right sound to it, by now we’d be hearing a version of Heil Hitler. Obviously “heil Trump” wouldn’t be used since it isn’t English and would be an admission that Trump was Hitler incarnate. The word "Heil" in German means "hail" or "to salute."

I looked up synonyms for hail and salute and the only one that sounded like it could be used for Trump as heil was used for Hitler was “praise.” This doesn’t have the euphonious ring to it as “Heil Hitler.” It is, however, the best I could come up with. I don’t think we’ll actually hear “praise Trump” emanating from the mouths of Trump supporters or those who may at some point be faced with their wrath. 

Trump doesn’t have anything like the arm raised salute but he does have a hat. 

In a way it would be much simpler for those who want to curry favor with Trump to do so by uttering just two words everytime they are either in his presence or talking about him. Instead they have to try to outdo each other by lavishing praise on him.

ADDENDUM: 

Trump and Hitler have personality similarities and differences. I haven’t seen reports that Hitler manifested the kind of personal narcissism and need to be worshipped when meeting with his aides which Trump does. I have’t read anything saying that he engaged in the braggadocio which we see with Trump. I assume Hitler got satisfaction when he spoke to cheering crowds of Germans, though perhaps not as much as Trump does. 

There are many significant similarities between the two of them. A major one is a callous disregard for human suffering. Hitler may not have taken personal pleasure in knowing how much pain he was inflicting on his chosen enemies as Trump does. Trump can, in many ways, be considered a clinical sadist. My impression of Hitler is that he wouldn’t fit this defintion.

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What did Hitler have that Trump doesn't? By Hal M. Brown

Hitler needed two things to accomplish what he did. 

These were a loyal military and the support of the majority of German citizens. 

We don’t know at present how far Trump can go in his quest to turn the country into a ruthless dictatorship where his enforcers aren’t just armed federal agents, but also the active duty military. 

We haven’t seen non-compliance with his orders and dictates being punished by the military in Nazi SS style. 

It is possible that there is a line Trump can’t cross before enough elements of the military say either a soft “no” or a hard “no” to thwart him. A soft “no” would be telling him that there were orders they would not follow. A hard “no” would be implied with such a soft “no.” 

If it came to it this would be implemented by an actual coup where Trump was formally arrested or just physically removed from the White House (having the football taken from him of course). A hard “no” would involve tanks not parading down Constitution Avenue, but turning onto the White House lawn.

Instead of Vance being installed as president the military would install temporary leaders until the country, which probably would be reeling with possibly violent pro-Trump protests, could be stabilized. At some point the military would be in charge of free elections.

What the military might do is a known unknown. 

What we do know about Trump is that he does not have the majority of the country behind him the way Hitler did. This is why prognosticators are envisioning a second civil war where Americans take up arms against each other. This is another scenario which could lead to the military taking over, not on one side or the other, but to stabilize the country.

Now to the question in my title: What did Hitler have that Trump doesn't? 

Hitler was 56 years old when he died. During his ascension to power he was a young man. He had youth. He had all his mental faculties intact. Not having social media to look at, I assume he wasn’t up in the wee hours of the morning obesessing over personal grudges, for example, against his predecessors Kurt von Schleicher and Paul von Hindenburg.

Trump is now 79 years old. His cognition appears to be if not impaired at least suspect.

Next year he obviously will be 80. This is a milestone birthday. It is sometimes called “The Big Eight-Oh” (I’m 81 so I know how it feels and since I live in a senior community I know how others react to being kind of offcially old just because of this number).

I thought of this just looking at the subtitle of Amanda Marcotte’s column in Salon this morning: 

“The Epstein files give MAGA a post-Trump future: Even his loyal followers can see Dear Leader is getting quite old”

Here’s an excerpt showing the highlighted portion above the text:

His legs swelled so much recently that the White House even admitted the self-described “perfect physical specimen” has been diagnosed with a vein condition. But there’s also the visible general decline. Though he’s as loud-mouthed as always, Trump speaks more slowly, and his already tiny vocabulary has shrunk to the point where, in denying the provenance of a naked woman doodle he reportedly sent to his pal Epstein, Trump said, “I never wrote a picture in my life.” (This, too, is a lie.)

For MAGA influencers, the pressing knowledge that Trump won’t be around forever must be frightening. It’s not unusual for fascist movements to be incoherent in their ideology or goals. But with MAGA, it’s especially pronounced because Trump so thoroughly dominates and defines them through a cult of personality. If the movement is to survive, however, they need something other than Trump worship as a central organizing force. The best that most MAGA influencers have come up with is conspiracism. Spinning non-stop liesabout secret cabals conspiring against red America keeps their audiences hooked, and it also isolates them from reality-based society. That combination of nuttiness and alienation is their best bet for continuing the MAGA cult after the leader dies or ages out of his capacity to control them.

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Once weird was good. It has a new definition thanks to Trump. By Hal M. Brown

 

I live in a suburb of Portland, one of the three cities that takes pride in claiming to be the weirdest city in the United States. Here’s a not atypical resident:

Like most of the residents of the city proper and its nearby communities, I find it to be wonderfully weird in the sense of the word as highlighted below:

Trump, in stark contrast, fits the part of the definition which is almost the opposite of the first.

If you dispassionately analyze what, at first blush, may seem to be Trump’s very strange and bizarre behavior, you can see that there is method in what seems to be his madness. For example, in the news since the Epstein file offshore tremor seemed to threaten to develop into an earthquake leading to a tsunami, we have what could be called inexplicable Trump weirdness on steroids unless you look more closely. 

Just the most recent examples today are the reports that the administration is releasing 200,000 previously sealed Martiin Luther King FBI investigation files (see BBC article). We also learned that The Department of Justice is requesting a meeting with convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell (see article). 

In his press conference today Trump was asked about this, he claimed he didn’t know anything about the planned Maxwell DOJ meeting about it. He did say he thought it was appropriate. (This seems to contradict the claim he didn’t know anything about it.)

All this is accurately being reported by the non-Trump media as being an attempt to distract from the Epstein matter, which some publications like this one, summarizing how the story developed, are calling Epsteingate.

Portland, Austin, and Ashville are weird for a reason. Most of their residents are proud of living in them because of their being weird, weird in a decidely good way.

Whether you like pot, tattoos, or strip clubs, if you are a Portlander you are proud that you can’t drive more than a few blocks without seeing one or more of these businesses. Portland just had its Pride Parade (article) and is known for its Naked Bike Ride (article).

Trump, who just called Jerome Powell a numbskull during a press conference while meeting with the president of the Philippines, is weird. Of course, measured against all his weirdness, this is small potatoes.

I am not about to make a top ten list of Trump’s most motely, often malevolent, manifestations of weirdness, but for those of you who listened to his remarks during the meeting this morning, where he ranted about the evils of Hillary Clinton, “Barack Hussein Obama,” and the “rigged election” you would be justified in saying that this man could be considered the prototype of bad weirdness, not merely bad, but demented, deranged, and downright dangerous to democracy weirdness. 

Just now on MSNBC as I finish this Substack the panel is talking about how Trump is trying desperately to talk about anything but Epstein. 

Boil all this down and what it amounts to is that Trump is the fucken weirdest president the United States has ever had. As far as the world goes, historically, he makes leaders like Caligula look normal.

You can’t have a list of crazy leaders without including the king of them all – Emperor Caligula. Caligula was known for his sadism and his odd behavior. Once, he had his army build a two-mile floating bridge so that he could ride his horse on it.

Another time, he had his troops “plunder the sea” by gathering sea shells. Caligula also built a lavish house for his horse, but he didn’t love all animals. He hated goats and banned anyone mentioning goats in his presence. (Reference: 30 Most Unhinged Leaders in History)

What is most appalling is that there are millions of Americans who find Trump’s weirdness endearing. 

Update:

'Irrefutable proof!' Trump makes wild claims that Obama tried to 'lead a coup' in RawStory

Excerpt:

During an Oval Office meeting with Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Tuesday, President Donald Trump kept circling back to attack former President Barack Obama, regardless of the reporters' questions.

Even when asked about information Trump has received on the man who tried to assassinate him in Butler, PA, before the 2024 election, Trump ended up accusing Obama of staging a "coup" against him.

"You know, they went into him very, you know, in great detail," Trump began saying about would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks. "And I spoke with the FBI — the new FBI. I spoke to the FBI. If it was the old FBI, I wouldn't have believed a thing they said because the old FBI under Comey was crooked as hell."

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