See that necktie? It’s holding back 5 pounds of foreskin from covering his face

RFN

Then we could believe it

some time ago? And why is the cover art of such an old (more recent rendition) DJT if they had allegedly severed ties some time ago?

Curious...could DJT be lying about this??? No, never.

If one assumes the Trump condoms are meant to be smart ass/derogatory (which was my immediate thought), then there's a possible (and even likely, IMHO) explanation for the discrepancy you're bringing up

It's one thing if there's proof that they were "involved", such as there is with Andrew (due to Guiffre's direct allegations), photos that confirm the "relationship" exists are legitimate evidence that might serve to establish the "credibility of the witness", if you will. THOSE kinds of photos are appropriate to share and I have no issue with the public seeing them.

But character assassination of people (I'd cite Larry Summers and the congressional rep from the VI as examples) simply because they knew him, or kept speaking to him after some point at which it could be argued they "should have stopped being friends by then", but there is no evidence of any wrong-doing apart from that? I'm just not a fan of that. Feels very "angry mob, out for blood" in nature, and I don't care to be a part of that.

We already know a hell of a lot of rich/powerful people associated with Epstein. It is NOT right, however, for de facto investigators (like congresspeople) to post pictures of people in such a way that the public will assume, without evidence, that because Epstein "associated with" them they are therefore a participant in his crimes, nor even aware the he was abusing minors. This would be esp. true if it's an old picture.

And while there's strong evidence Trump knew what Epstein was up to, the fact that there's a picture of him with a group of young women (seen if you visit the Huff Po article) is not particularly incriminating in and of itself, given that he was the owner of the Miss USA/Miss Teen USA pageants. BUT it is still kinda creepy, and Trump is a special case in that he's POTUS. So I consider Trump photos to ALWAYS be "fair game", to be clear.

As far as the standards I mentioned above goes, I'd prefer if the photos released of any given (non-Trump) individual were accompanied by reason(s) why this particular photo is being shared, i.e. why the relationship is incriminating, such as a victim saying that person abused them, or an email between them and Epstein containing incriminating language, etc. I'm just not a fan of making false accusations or bearing false witness against people without evidence is what it comes down to. I hope the congresspeople in charge of deciding which photos are released will adhere to this standard, because it feels like the right thing to do.

MHO, fwiw

as well as being a supreme dick in the past. I would also add that people are sick and tired of the mulligans that rich people get for consistent poor judgement or cruel behaviors, that in the individual cases probably do not affect us much - but in aggregate they most certainly do. I'm done deliberating what is "fair" for those folks. Not interested in their reasons. Every stinking video, text message, email and recording should be released and let the public sort this shit out. Let the fuckers spend some money for public relations flacks.

I'll leave it at that

Time will tell.

I was avoiding explicit political references on purpose, because I didn't want the overall principle (which I *do* believe in) to sound like it was purely partisan.

But I'll do so here since you've deigned to continue the conversation. If there was a photo of Obama, Biden, Bill & Hillary, and Epstein randomly together at some charity event somewhere sometime and Republicans (the ones actually in charge of Congress) were to release that photo, with no justification provided, would you insist this was so very righteous, and say "tough shit Obama, Biden, Bill & Hillary, lets let the public decide, and let them hire some PR flacks to defend themselves!".

As you consider your answer, you may also asymptotically approach my point of view WRT whether there should some semblance of "standards" in this particular endeavor

that the photos released today include a photo of Bill Clinton hangin' with the Jeff.

Which, I would argue, rather damages your hypothetical here.

As for your standards (and do your quotation marks around that word indicate you're using it ironically?), they seem rather flexible. You, for instance, declare that Trump is a special case because he's the president. Is that the only exception? Some of the people at issue here are extremely wealthy and quite influential. How do you justify excepting your standards for one person based, I guess, on importance, but deny that exception for other important people?

But I've said all I care to say. I think there should be standards, and that both the Dems and RepuQ's on the committee making decisions on what to release (whether its photos, emails, anything) should adhere to the same ones, and I've shared roughly what *I* believe those standards should be, and some of my logic as to why.

You are free to disagree, obviously and attempt to find flaws or exceptions to my arguments. My original post was quite clear that this is my opinion. I never said "all y'all must agree".

Thanks for the talk though in any case, friend

Last edited Sat Dec 13, 2025, 01:04 PM - Edit history (1)

When I said "Obama, Biden, Bill & Hillary" the connectors (, and &) were meant as logical ANDs, not a logical ORs. IOW, it should be read as "Obama + Biden + Bill + Hillary + Epstein". For some reason you misread my ampersand, which is normally read as AND, which implies everything earlier separated by commas should be interpreted also as AND.

So releasing a pic of Bill and Epstein alone is not what I meant, therefore it does not "damage my hypothetical". I specific meant Republicans releasing a pic of a group of prominent Dems, 3 of which we can all safely assume of no wrongdoing around Epstein, but that doesn't mean there might be not be some picture somewhere of any number of them with Epstein, esp. because Epstein was big into charity stuff. He actually was a fairly generous philanthropist, despite his other glaring faults.

What I'm on about really comes down to is that I personally have a strong sense of Justice, which has two applications to this situation.

The first is, I want to see the *actual* criminals held accountable. If someone broke the law, go after them, right? But these actions of dumping all his emails and yesterday a bunch of photos of people with him is deeply unsatisfying to me. It's just voyeurism masquerading as "actually doing something" to my mind.

In the case of the emails, we have no idea how they were curated. Neither who did it, nor how they chose to what to leave in, right? But we can probably safely assume that if there were any that were part of any ongoing criminal investigation, they were likely withheld. Like, we the public were never going to get the "real goods", so the whole exercise just feels kinda pointless. All we got was a small handful of people we could point at and go "WHY WERE THEY STILL TALKING TO EPSTEIN!?!". That's deeply unsatisfying to me & NOT Justice. It's just voyeurism, and mob justice.

As an aside if one presumes that every email was really released a couple weeks back, then MANY people should seriously be questioning the presumptions they've made WRT there being some big group of people who were aware what Epstein was up to, that people were being extorted, that their was a bunch of "clients" or an "Epstein List", because there was NO evidence of anything like that contained in the emails

Which is a possibility that I've long considered, and in fact lean towards, but that's not the conclusion so many others have been led to. You can see it here everyday, with wide swaths of people 100% convinced there was a giant cabal of "wealthy customers" who were part of some organized pedo ring where everyone knew what each other was up to, and they are acting in unison to threaten the victims, committing "money laundering" crimes, and had Epstein whacked in jail, to name a few among the many adjacent components to many people's conspiracy theories about Epstein. The fact is: NOTHING in the emails supported any of those CT's

But if one still supports these theories, the only possible explanation as to why there was nothing incriminating along those lines in the emails has to be "well, that stuff was purposefully left out/hidden from us", right? So, I posit to you that if we're not going to get "everything", then what is the point of us getting "anything"? So we can point fingers at people who we have NO IDEA whether they were involved in the crimes, nor even if they had any knowledge of them that they failed to report? I don't find that "fair', it rubs me the wrong way, and offends my sense of justice.

So that leads to my second point: I think it's bullshit for Congress to be messing with the lives of people who broke no laws (that we know of). As I say I'm no Summers fan, I don't know anything about VI congressional rep other than it appears she is/was a Democrat and has at least at some point in the past, gone after Trump. Ergo, my consternation about their emails being exposed is purely based on principle. I hate that I'm kinda sounding like I'm on Trump's side on this somewhat, but assure you my reasons for taking a similar position is entirely different from his. It feels wrong to me to expose people's private emails and cause them to lose their jobs over simply "talking to Epstein". It's not real justice, it's mob justice. I disagree with the premise that Congress should be doing that.

But that is MY OPINION, it's just how I'm wired. I don't like "guilt by association", I want to know if someone really did something illegal, and if so, hold them accountable. I would include in that set any person who knew what Epstein was up to and said nothing. If there was a Summers (or other persons) email that proved that they knew what he was doing with minors, back in the day before so much was public, THAT I think the public deserves to see. Even if it might not technically be illegal if someone knows and doesn't report it (not sure on that question actually), it still crosses the threshold for me that they deserve a public upbraiding over it. I would have no issue with Congress releasing a private email that conclusively proved THAT about Summers, or anyone else.

Which brings me to my last point: Trump KNEW. That is why he made that drawing in the birthday card. Personally my theory is that this card was actually meant as a blackmail threat, because Epstein knew that Trump was laundering Russian mob money through his FL properties (which Epstein did know). So the gist of it to my mind was actually "you keep my secrets (money laundering) and I'll keep yours (paying minors for sex)". Not "oooh, we have a mutual secret of banging kids". It was mob boss extortion shit.

But that theory is not super-relevant here. The drawing, of the underdeveloped female body, to my mind PROVES he knew. Plus he didn't just have a casual acquaintance with Epstein. He fucking KNEW, I'm absolutely convinced of that. So that, along with the fact that there's already dozens of pics of Trump/Epstein/Maxwell out there, everyone already knows they were friends for years, AND the fact that he is POTUS creates a clearly defined public interest in his relation with JE/GM.

Combined, those reasons are why I declare Trump "fair game", since you seemed interested in what my proposed standards are. Larry Summers OTOH does not meet similar evidentiary or public interest standards.

Hopefully you can see now that I put thought into my, yes, opinions on the subject, and that there are not really any glaring logical consistencies therein, at least not that I'm seeing. BUT I'm not insisting everyone else agree with my opinion, I'm aware there are valid opposing "takes" to what I'm saying here and my stance on the subject.

"my, yes, opinions on the subject, and that there are not really any glaring logical consistencies therein,"

Just a typo joke.

Your argument is valid so long as one accepts your premises and inconsistencies. Otherwise, not so much.

And that's enough for me to say.

I don't think any of it is logically INconsistent, but it's still just opinion on my part. But granted, people often fail to catch their OWN logical inconsistencies, so I'm sure I also make this mistake from time to time

Good talk, see ya around

Or maybe it's projection. Or generalizing from your particular.

You say:

What is this "such a way that the public will assume..."?

For starters, I'm not sure how you know so certainly what the public will assume.

Then there's the fact that there's been a vast amount of discussion, sans pictures, of the many people who associated with Epstein. Did you miss the birthday book? Have you not been keeping up with the various lists of people who hung out with Epstein?

Why is it so terrible, and terribly different, in your mind to show pictures of people associating with Epstein? The pictures show what they show, and that is that Steve Bannon and Woody Allen and Bill Clinton and Alan Dershowitz did some hanging around with Epstein. Anything beyond that is a flight of your imagination.

As is your belief that these pictures somehow represent bearing false witness.

like 20 different times on this board. I'm well aware of the list of people. I've paid closer attention than probably 95% of other people regarding this case. For example, I can name every person (or description of person) on Virginia Guiffre's list of alleged abusers from her 2015 suit against Maxwell off the top of my head. You?

Anyways, please see my reply to the other poster who replied to me on this same thread, it may be of some help in gleaning what I'm actually getting at

But I will add here that Congress is in a position of increased imprimatur relative to, say, a private party, or the Epstein Estate. Whatever pictures they post are likely to be hyped from all corners (we already saw it today).

Therefore Congress has, again, IN MY OPINION, a responsibility to apply reasonable standards in terms of what they divulge because logically SOME of the public will perceive the release of pictures from Congress as being something like proof of wrongdoing by the people shown in them, simply because they're in a picture with Epstein.

I mean, I presume you've noticed the public at large are pathetically uninformed, and they only see "the big stuff", at most? Congress releasing tranches of photos (or emails) with Epstein qualifies as a big thing IMHO, and a lot of people will just see the pictures and assume they're being put out because there's evidence against the particular people in them. That's not some flight of fancy on my part, that's an entirely logical presumption.

In the end, I am not, and will never be, Mr. "Release ALL the Epstein Files". I've made no secret about that. I disagree with the premise behind it. You don't have to share my opinion, I'm just sharing mine. I have my principles, and I stick to them.

To reiterate in ending, if it weren't Congress putting them out, my take would be different.

As long as we're perfectly clear that this is all "IN MY OPINION" and based on what you believe to be logical inferences (which, again, is purely your opinion).

There is, however, no point in trying to test your argument, if those are the parameters.

If I question the following statement, which you just made: "But I will add here that Congress is in a position of increased imprimatur" and you can simply say, "I didn't say it IS, I just stated my opinion," there's no discussion there. It's just you making assertions and then, if the assertions are challenged as not being quite in concord with your signature line, saying "I said it was just opinion, dude."

But in my final post on the subject for now, YES I am positively *asserting* that The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability IS in a position of increased imprimatur vs the average citizen.

To the point where I'd OPINE that they're obliged to display some reticence when it comes to putting out pictures of people with Epstein, and in particular, people who were not PREVIOUSLY shown to the public in pictures. They should be cognizant of the fact that they could mess with people's lives who are guilty of absolutely no wrong-doing other then being in a picture with Epstein.

I'd also OPINE that it's not right for them to do so with no regard for any standards. I don't like that it happened to Summers, or the US VI Rep. Not because I love Larry Summers. But because of principles that are inherently MY OPINION. If it doesn't bother you, that's also a valid position, we have differing opinions in this regard.

Another piece that's opinion is that I can't look up House Committee on Oversight and Accountability in the dictionary or elsewhere and find the words "a group which is perceived by everyone in the US public as having increased imprimatur vs. average citizens". I therefore recognize this assertion as being "my opinion". I could sit and argue WHY that is my opinion, but I don't care to ATM. We could back and forth it all night and it will always come down to your opinion vs. mine.

BUT ... I'm not someone who cheaply cops out in the way you're seemingly accusing me of, so I take a small offense there. I'll try to revisit this with you another time

buddies with Epstein. Tells us things went on a whole lot longer than anyone thought.