Not necessarily because of the awful things in it (and they are horrid) but because they are dabbing on us.

Like, let’s just step back and review what we’ve just witnessed. Damning and viral evidence ofremoved and abuse of little girls by presidents and the most publicly famous people on Earth. The democrats wanted the release of the files and now that they have them, there’s no response because they forgot they are weak and pathetic, and beholden to these same people in the files. So nothing will be done. These people are committing the most taboo of crimes in the open, with impunity.

  • JustSo [she/her, any]@hexbear.net
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    16 hours ago

    It’s much less depressing than domestic spying, psyop and cointel secrets that stay sealed for 50+ years IMO.

    Obviously it is disgusting stuff and it is bleak that the perpetrators will likely never face justice nor will most of the victims get adequate closure. But at least there is no hiding the impotence of the liberal institutions nor the impunity of your ruling class.

    I’d have to expect something other than the commentariat making money and drawing eyeballs away from ongoing action in order to be bothered about this outcome. I certainly didn’t expect heroic cops to swoop in and arrest anyone or principled judges to sentence them and I sure as fuck didn’t expect humility and shame from a pack of thieving child molesters.

  • Dessa [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    1 day ago

    I expected absolutely nothing to come of this, so I’m not disappointed when nothing does. My cynicism is my shield

  • Carcharodonna [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    1 day ago

    They were doing this stuff before, the only difference is that now everyone knows about it. Doesn’t that seem like a good thing from the perspective of delegitimizing the capitalist class and the bourgeois democracy that keeps them in power?

  • RedWizard [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 day ago

    Apparently the black bars are over readable and selectable text in the existing dumps. Not all files but a lot of them. So you can select the redaction and copy paste it. You can also do a Ctrl+f in the docs and see it highlight redactions. I have not personally verified this.

  • DaMummy [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    1 day ago

    There’s a saying, in many different communities, even some white supremacist communities (but that’s a story for another day) that says “Success isn’t earned, it’s given”. I’ve been thinking about that quote a lot with all this Epstein stuff going around. There seems to be some truth to it. They couldn’t have possibly all earned their billions. It takes having to have blackmail on you.

    • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      1 day ago

      They couldn’t have possibly all earned their billions.

      I’ve never read a good explanation as to how Epstein amassed his gigantic money horde. And reporters seem to have been insanely lazy in their efforts to find out. They always write that he somehow “convinced” a few billionaires into giving him train cars full of cash. They never say how.

      -–

      Ninja edit

      Here’s a ~9,000 word NYT article from last week: Scams, Schemes, Ruthless Cons: The Untold Story of How Jeffrey Epstein Got Rich. I assume it’s shit but I’ll read it tomorrow anyway. I want to know but I assume it’s like every other shit article I’ve read. It’s filled with generalities and vagueness. I swear - some media outlets and journos write this shit to try to impress each other. Just give the public under 1,000 words and get to the fucking point. And if you’re going to mention his mysterious billionaires connection without explaining it yet again - put that in your first paragraph so we know your reportage is copypasta crap.

      • novibe@lemmy.ml
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        12 hours ago

        He was a boy genius. A prodigy of some obscure brass instrument or something. He graduated school at like 14. And he went to the most prestigious art conservatory in the US on a scholarship at that. He played Carnagie Hall at like 8 or something.

        He was likely abused for the first time at this conservatory, as he would return there to commit abuse himself.

        Anyways, after that he went to college for a bit. He then went backpacking around Europe with a friend. They spent a good while walking around continental Europe before going to England.

        There they met and befriended a very famous cello player, who introduced them to the royal family. They hung out there with them for a bit.

        After that he and his friend returned to the US and went to New York. There he started attending high society parties.

        He was then hired to teach at Dalton shortly after that.

        This means he likely made connections in the parties that led to that job. But that job was likely a front.

        Because from that teaching job he was handpicked to start working at Bear Sterns.

        He rose super quickly at Bear Sterns, allegedly because of his genius with numbers, but also likely due to the connections he started making.

        He became a VP super fast, but left just as fast. His boss, Alan Greenberg was being investigated for financial crimes, and Epstein took the fall for him.

        He then opened his own firm, and became a “free agent” for some time. He was a “financial bounty hunter”, finding and hiding stolen money for the uber wealthy. He was really good at this as well. One of his main customers at this time was an aristocratic family from Spain. Epstein allegedly helped them find hundreds of millions of stolen euros.

        After this, he met his first mentor. He was a “client” of Epstein’s firm for years, but he was really his mentor. Adnan Khashoggi, the Saudi arms dealer.

        So Epstein was already a very prolific financial operator, and became an arms dealer. Epstein was likely involved in getting arms to many groups in Africa and the Middle East.

        After that he got involved with his second mentor, Robert Maxwell. A spy, with a blackmail ring.

        So Epstein was a high level financial operator, an arms dealer, and a blackmail ring owner.

        Also, he was involved in so many financial crimes. He was involved with the second biggest Ponzi scheme in history. His partner was arrested, convicted for decades, and Epstein’s name was dropped from the case after 3 months…

        His other financial firm was the first to use mortgage amortization. Like they were the first to use the instrument they caused the 08 crash.

        Epstein was NOT a dumb guy, who just got rich from giving children to billionaires. That was maybe his hobby.

        He was one of the biggest financial criminals in history, a massive arms dealer, and a spy.

          • novibe@lemmy.ml
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            11 hours ago

            🤷‍♂️ dude I’m sure we’ll have a movie on his life in some years. He is the most evil dude ever, but his life was insane.

            And I tried to be as brief as possible on the main moments that shaped his life imo. There’s more ofc. I’d suggest reading Whitney Webb’s books on him.

      • DaMummy [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        1 day ago

        Best I’ve gotten so far is(not including from that article) that he was a teacher… So yeah. Utterly fucking useless piles of shit media. Though it is a weird coinky-dink that western media is literally owned by the Epstein class.

        • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          18 hours ago

          I assumed the article would be bad but the NYT surprised me. On a scale of 1 to 10 - I rate it a zero.

          The article is fucking awful and it beggars belief. I only managed to read about a couple thousand words but I was already highly annoyed and irritated. I’m shocked at how awful it is. Besides it being garbage - they blindside the reader with a gigantic mass of information, details, and names. You’d need a flowchart to keep track and it would still be a gigantic slog to follow their ever meandering narrative.

          What’s fascinating and notable is that they don’t say there was no evidence of a blackmail operation. They make it seem that any pooh-pooh any reasonable guess about Epstein’s wealth is being a “conspiracy theory”.

          Abundant conspiracy theories hold that Epstein worked for spy services or ran a lucrative blackmail operation, but we found a more prosaic explanation for how he built a fortune.

          The NYT actually pretends Epstein became a billionaire because he had “many extraordinarily lucky breaks” and that he was “a prodigious manipulator, liar, and scammer”.

            • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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              12 hours ago

              It’s hours later and I’m still mad. Yeesh - what a garbage media outlet.

              And I now assume the reporters surely made a fundamental error in their reportage and their lack of skepticism went way beyond Epstein. Did they not think “Gee, how did Epstein human traffic girls to be sexually abused across borders? Who might have helped him? And how might they have helped him? I guess we can never know!”

              A horrible person might have friends who have no idea how grotesque he is. But others surely went way beyond being helpful to being just as evil.

              Epstein was about to meet someone who would usher him into even more elite circles while also playing a central role in his darkest crimes. His nearly decadelong romance with Eva Andersson [a model and former Miss Sweden] came to an end around 1990. In Epstein’s telling, the split was the result of a mutual realization that his future did not include “staying in one place and having a family.” The two remained close until Epstein’s death.

              Did the reporters not consider that she might be the sort of evil human being who helped him? Could she have been directly involved? How could she remain “close” to him even after he was found guilty of sex crimes? Cltr-f for “Andersson” only gave three results. I don’t know if the article actually explains her “playing a central role in his darkest crimes”. Could she have been a recruiter.

              • DaMummy [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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                13 hours ago

                That’s kinda what I assume Naomi Campbell role was in all that. Though I have nothing to prove, just a suspicion. And I think it’s important to point out that one of the owners of the NYT has a home in stolen Palestinian land.

                • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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                  12 hours ago

                  That’s kinda what I assume Naomi Campbell role was in all that.

                  I simply don’t believe Epstein had some kind of cult leader-like charisma or he was some kind of wizard at getting access to children. I think in this case - Occam’s Razor is in play. I think quite a few (very) attractive women who had charisma and got girls to trust them funneled girls to Epstein. I wish the truth of all this would come out but it never will.

                  And I think it’s important to point out that one of the owners of the NYT has a home in stolen Palestinian land.

                  Who?

        • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          21 hours ago

          Teacher + Brains + Billionaire connections + Investments + Hustle = Self-made billionaire

          The average person looks at that as nonsense but that’s because we haven’t been to j-school and we have no idea how to understand that really fancy journalism math.