AYFKM: This is the biggest steaming pile of dung I have ever seen

This is the first newsletter from the new home. If you find anything wrong, please let me know.

Every once in a while, I see something on a news site, and I am just gobsmacked. I mean completely and totally thrown for a loop.

Today, it was this:

This festering pustule of shite was penned by Mr. Daniel Richman, a former Federal prosecutor. He starts off solidly:

Every day seems to bring new reports of financiers, academics, politicians and royalty (among others) who cozied up to Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender whose predation took a horrendous toll on innocent lives. With accountability for people in power in short supply, it can be hard to see a downside in the huge dump of documents relating to Mr. Epstein and his various associates.

But we should recognize the release of millions of pages of the Epstein files as both a sign of institutional failure and a cause for concern. If our justice system were working properly, the public would never have such access. (accent mine)

I agree with this. If we had a fucking justice system that actually did something, and held these fucking monsters to account, then yes, this argument is worthy.

But we ain't got that. And we really never have had that.

Look, we've all known in our hearts that the concept of "justice for all" and "no one is above the law" were euphemisms, and not really accurate. Sure, we do not have formal castes in our society, but since the founding, there has always been some implicit inequities. From the Slave Owner class that fought to ensure that they got 3/5 there benefit for their chattel slaves to help increase their leverage, to the "land holders" being recognized as the "real" men, we had some imbalances from he very start.

A lot of that has been financial hinkiness. And us mere mortals were tolerant of that. The saying that Americans were happy with the über wealthy because they could see themselves on day advancing to that level of society. It was always bullshit, and luck or your parents were the only real tickets to that easy street.

But, the sleaze has always been there, hidden behind nods and winks.

Calls for the Epstein files’ release predate the Trump administration. But they are now online and searchable because too many Americans didn’t trust the Justice Department’s leadership with control of them. In the past, departmental leaders could limit suspicions about their motives by conspicuously leaving a matter such as this to career subordinates, rather than political appointees. Seen by so many as having fired or driven out prosecutors and agents who refused to become tools of President Trump’s will, Attorney General Pam Bondi lacked credibility. She couldn’t get away with asking the public to rely on the apolitical and independent judgment of those who remained. The eventual result was the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

Yer goddamn right that this was caused by a lot of bad faith, and general ineptitude by the Trump administration and cabinet. They fucked around, and this is the net result.

Where I disagree is the next section, where he says that these documents and information should have remained hidden, and only to feed the investigation and eventual prosecutions:

The release of the files is also cause for concern because so much of the raw investigative material in them — untold layers of hearsay, unverified accusations and vague circumstantial connections — ought not be released for the public to pick over.

The implication is that the public should be spared this indignity. I say fuck that. Fuck that sideways with a chainsaw.

There are reports that the FBI first received tips on Epstein in the mid 1990's and they didn't act. Any investigation was at best cursory, and dismissive. Victims were discounted, and like so often ignored as being unreliable, or hysterical.

And the whole 2008 "plea bargain" that is just a fucking black blot on the justice department. Alex Acosta should be put in the stocks and have rotten fruit thrown at him in the main square for that disgraceful tap-dance.

He then pulls out the "won't you think of the victims, and them being revictimized" canard. I mean, as if the fact that Pamela Jo Bondi wouldn't even glance in their direction in the hearing last week wasn't them being revictimized. They have waited years and even decades to try to get a scintilla of satisfaction, while the slow turning wheels of justice fail to deliver even a modicum of accountability.

Then he has the fucking audacity to compare this to the invasion of his work product as the Trump administration was looking to crucify James Comey:

These coercive investigative tools can and have been misused, as when prosecutors and F.B.I. agents illegally rummaged through my emails and computer files in an effort to come up with a case against James Comey, the former F.B.I. director. Cogent arguments have been made for more rigorous legal restriction of these tools and the government’s use of information obtained with them.

Boo fucking hoo. He then goes on to posit that this sort of raw dump hampers the ability for justice and investigations to be served:

When materials collected in a criminal investigation get released in bulk for public consumption, the justification for the coercive and privacy-invading tools we give investigators gets a lot weaker. Institutions claiming to protect user or customer privacy might be more likely to resist valid uses of these tools. Witnesses who would otherwise speak to investigators about sensitive matters might start to rethink whether they want to provide grist for internet searches.

Ok brain surgeon, because the DoJ slow walked this, because the Federal Prosecutor in 2008 gave Epstein a sweetheart of a deal, because the power brokers were comfortable going back to the Epstein well, I would argue that all your high and mighty "sanctity" of the watchers becomes null and void.

Sir, you can go fuck yourself. For your righteous, arrogant bullshit, you can just take that proverbial flying leap.

Coda: I do not want to let any member of the DoJ and the FBI off. This spanned from Clinton, through Shrub, Obama, Trump, Biden and Trump. This institutional rot has always been there, and a fear of holding the captains of industry, and the billionaire class to account has long been a feature of American justice.

Remember that the creation of the modern police forces (particularly in NYC and London in the 19th century) was to protect the hoi polloi from the rabble, without inconveniencing the higher classes. It was just more explicit back then.