Yesterday is the first time I thought that maybe he didn't kill himself. I'd always figured prison is awful enough to explain it, particularly since he was probably treated as a child abuser.
What makes you think he may have been offed?
Trump and company's ridiculously transparent lies.
The three minute gap is the new 18 minute gap.
Me too. He didn't strike me as the kind of person to be consumed by guilt.
I didn't think he was consumed with guilt, I just assumed it was, "Party's over, fuck all of you."
I did note that it seemed weird that there was extra talk about monitoring suicide watch etc in the short time he was locked up before dying. I remember wondering why.
Wasn't their a previous suicide attempt/attempt on his life?
We're probably never going to know. But if Wired is right that nearly three minutes were edited out, something shady seems likely.
I feel like at least equal odds that the people monitoring him fucked up and he committeed suicide when they weren't watching & were supposed to be, they and their bosses up the chain covered up for their own sake, now Trump is engaged in a coverup of the coverup. Or something Burn Before Reading-esque like that.
Apparently right-wing media personalities have been hammering the Epstein issue for so long (esp. because it links up deniably to QAnon) that it's harder for them to disavow just because Trump tells them to. But they're working on it. Very Eastasia/Eurasia.
For a moment I thought "Wait, wasn't Epstein the name of the hated scapegoat in 1984?" That was Goldstein; and for him there was no back-and-forth on enemy status.
My thinking has been that (a) sure, lots of people wanted Epstein dead, so it's wicked convenient, but (b) Epstein wanting out and seeing suicide as the way is entirely unsurprising (knowing what he had done, what evidence existed, how he was likely to be treated in prison, etc.). His death was overdetermined.
It was weird how like 100 hours of Epstein tapes dropped the weekend before the election and nobody noticed.
My brother killed himself, last year, in a secure room in admissions unit in a hospital. So I am very aware of the fact that it can happen, even when people are on "suicide watch", and I'm also very aware of the lengths the institutions then go to to avoid having blame cast upon them.
But, I've just always assumed he was killed. But as per 12, it's overdetermined, and the (b) hypothesis is also perfectly plausible.
Very Eastasia/Eurasia.
I share heebie's mystification about this. Some form of reversal by Trump on Epstein was inevitable, and deep down, his cult surely knew this. The Trumpists have never struggled with doublethink. (Did anyone -- besides maybe Arendt -- understand Trumpism better than Orwell?)
The sheer clumsiness of it must be a factor. You watch the videos of Trump discussing this and he really seems to be off his game. Is this iteration of Trump and his cabinet so incompetent that they couldn't come up with a reasonably satisfying explanation for their failure to expose the Epstein murder? (In this I am reminded of GW Bush. You would think they would have had a throwdown nuke they could plant in Iraq.)
But also, I'm guessing that for the cultists, Epstein was about something -- I'm not quite sure what -- that is distinct from child exploitation or even tarring Democrats. This case strikes close to the heart of the conspiracist worldview itself, and suddenly yanking this away from people is disorienting.
And now, even I find myself wondering what Trump might be covering up.
It's too bad when someone comments without a username, their comment is eaten & only shows as visible to them.
Ah, good. I wouldn't have said that if we didn't have what appear to be new people who like to go bare.
But also, I'm guessing that for the cultists, Epstein was about something -- I'm not quite sure what -- that is distinct from child exploitation or even tarring Democrats. This case strikes close to the heart of the conspiracist worldview itself, and suddenly yanking this away from people is disorienting.
JMM pointed out it occupied a similar space for them as Pizzagate. It was how the entire elite being a single network of child rape cultists was going to unravel and change everything.
But that's kind of my point. Maybe I'm not in tune with the QAnon crowd, but I'm thinking Pizzagate just vanished without protest once it became too ridiculous.
I don't think it vanished. I think the people just switched conspiracies.
Not even to less ridiculous conspiracies. Because in 2024, the idea that Trump was going to release the Epstein tapes without redacting was ridiculous.
The Pizzagate gunman was December 2016 and Q started posting October 2017, so in a lot of ways QAnon was the rebrand. Then QAnon itself lost its juice after J6 but the concepts persisted.
What's hilarious about this is how inept the Trump response has been, every "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" just drives it more and more. He's flailing and totally lost control of the narrative.
Yes, but like the 2nd point in the OP, I have no idea why now.
I know, it's not like the Democrats made hay of it when that's what they should have been doing all along.
It's okay to have anonymous commenters who agree with me, but not more generally.
23: Huh. I was not aware of that chronology.
21-22: So the question is: What happens now? Is there going to be a subculture (or a sub-subculture) that continues to pursue this?
24: That's perfect - the great and powerful Trump.
26: I think people err when they blame Democrats for failing to drive home Trump's loathsomeness. Trump himself does this every day, and it doesn't matter. The current brouhaha was initiated by Trump, and has only been covered by the mainstream media to the extent that it has been impossible to ignore.
29 was me again!
Per Trump, it is now to be known as the "Epstein Hoax." With Trump I can never tell if his spin is brilliant or idiotic.
30 I'm taking it as axiomatic that anything he calls a hoax is true
21-22: So the question is: What happens now? Is there going to be a subculture (or a sub-subculture) that continues to pursue this?
Probably. I think it's more or less the Satanic preschool thing. I'm hopeful they go back to not voting.
I'm pretty skeptical about successful conspiracies, if someone had Epstein killed surely we'd know about it by now.
That said, Trump appointing Acosta to the cabinet was so weird that it's hard to imagine that there isn't something weird going on.
That said, Trump appointing Acosta to the cabinet was so weird that it's hard to imagine that there isn't something weird going on.
Was it so weird? Republicans generally don't seem to have any idea who to appoint to DoL. Before Acosta their idea was the CEO of Hardees/Carl's Jr. After him it was Scalia's son (although he did have relevant experience under GWB). Now it's someone who was in Congress for 1.1 terms and a mayor before that.
Also Acosta resigned after Epstein's arrest and has not returned to the admin since then.
New Rolling Stone article today:
The end is nowhere in sight, as the president's supporters -- from MAGA influencers and Republican politicians -- continue to raise hell over the Justice Department's memo announcing the administration's belief that Epstein killed himself in prison, and that it was effectively closing its case on the convicted sex offender and accused sex trafficker. The melodrama has clearly eaten away at the notoriously mercurial president's patience. "They won't shut the fuck up about it," Trump privately vented -- referring to conservative influencers and media types lashing out over the Epstein memo -- according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter.
Also apparently with reference to Bongino, someone in the White House texted a journalist the video of George on Seinfeld returning to the office pretending that he had not quit the previous day.
Another reason this isn't going away anytime soon, I saw something about Ghislaine Maxwell's attorney filing an appeal or something of the sort basically saying if there's nothing to see here why is their client in prison.
38: I don't think that can contribute much practically, at least timing-wise, because it will get swatted down fast, the answer being "all the evidence you were convicted on". Publicity filing.
Keeps it in the news (though Trump seems to need little help with that)
I mean any new events it generates (other than additional press releases on their part) are going to come before anything else would have died down anyway.
On searching it looks like maybe they're also appealing to Trump for a pardon? Which likely elicits zero newsworthy response.
Has everyone seen the latest pictures of Trump's ankles showing clear signs of edema? How long does he have? His mind is clearly mush (the Powell thing among others).
And I honestly don't want him to go soon, I want him to sink into ever lower levels of decrepitude and only kick the bucket late in his term so Vance doesn't have time to consolidate power.
I'm surprised Trump went with "No files, hoax, why are you talking about it" instead of just forging some files implicating his enemies. Too much homework for this crew to cook up some fake documents with at least minimal internal consistency?
11: The hated scapegoats in 1984 were named Mondale and Ferraro.
You can live a very long time with heart failure, especially if you can get basically all the medicine.
My theory, based on not wanting think about it very long, is that Epstein probably committed suicide but probably in response to threats, not a completely independent decision on his part. It seems like it would be very difficult to cover up an actual someone-else-kills-him murder, less difficult to cover up threats. Someone could test the theory by trying to figure out if there was anyone Epstein cared about enough that threatening them would lead him to take his own life.
"Heart failure causes fluid accumulation in the lower legs," another commenter wrote. "His heart is too weak to pump blood through his kidneys efficiently so they can't remove excess fluid from the body." According to WebMD, venous insufficiency is one of the most common causes of swelling in the ankles and feet, where fluid accumulates in the legs. Swelling in the legs can also be a sign of deep vein thrombosis, congestive heart failure, or kidney or liver disease. The ankles are not the only part of the MAGA leader's body that has sparked debate about his health. On Tuesday, July 15, during a press conference, viewers could clearly see that Trump's hand was covered in foundation-purportedly to disguise bruising. The visible bruising is not new, as it was first noticed on Trump's hands in the spring of 2024. Observers also noted a slumped sitting posture that was equally alarming, as, according to medical experts, it could be interpreted as compensating for breathing difficulty.
This reminds me of a question I had about the Trump face paint. I saw various comments on bluesky to the effect of "everyone who's been close to people with dementia know immediately what that kind of makeup means" but I haven't seen any explanation of what they're referring to.
I don't remember makeup being a part of my grandmother's memory care but she didn't exactly have dementia.
My parents had memory issues (putting in mildly in one case) and never wanted too look orange.
They also never demanded Coke switch to cane sugar after getting the votes of everyone who sells the ingredient for HFCS.
48: ChatGPT advises: "It's not about makeup in the traditional or aesthetic sense, but more about disorganized self-presentation or perceptual misjudgment."
It goes on to list several factors associated with altered grooming or appearance: Decline in executive function; loss of self-awareness; compulsive behaviors; visual/spatial confusion.
And specifically regarding tan makeup (which I incorporated into the question): An attempt to look "normal" or "young;" a disoriented understanding of appearance; echoes of earlier habits.
Those who've cared for someone with dementia often recognize this kind of misapplied grooming as a sad, intimate sign of cognitive decline. So, when someone in the public eye -- especially an older adult -- appears with noticeably unusual makeup, some people who've experienced dementia close-up may instinctively interpret it as a possible symptom, not a style choice.
Interestingly, I mentioned nothing about being in "the public eye." But it kind of sounds like Trump, no?
The obvious course for the administration to change the subject is to have Vance get caught fucking a couch by the press. Nothing else can work.
Maybe he's got a touch of the McConnells.
Trump just fired the SDNY federal prosecutor who prosecuted Epstein and Maxwell. Now maybe the fact that she's Comey's daughter had something to do with it otoh the timing is very suspicious.
r/conservative is a joy to read right now
Omg so great. I was camping out there this afternoon.
Yeah, it looks like all the top threads on that subreddit are about Epstein now, and the top voted posts are mostly deleted but the ones remaining are still heavily critical of Trump, implicitly I suppose the rest were even more so. (They have some mechanisms there to keep out infidels?)
60 yeah, I take it "flaired" means vetted so these aren't a bunch of liberals flooding in.
So what are the odds that the Sunday morning network political talk shows are going to be dominated by this scandal?
"Flared" means wide enough they won't go to their own asshole.
52 & related remind me that I've often wondered why Trump doesn't get make-up professionally applied.
Trump should give that spokesperson a job.
Someone is kind of blocking my driveway with a Chevy SSR. I don't think I've seen one before.
My mechanic just told me he won't fix my car and that I can't drive it for long.
The only thing more impressive is the Chevy SSSR, or the UR.
70: what? A mechanic that doesn't want to take your money?
Yeah. I think he doesn't want to risk that I would call him a cheat if the car died in a few months. Also, he kind of knows me and I go to church with his mom and dad.
Not that I would do that. I think I'll test drive a Corolla or steal a Hyundai.
Apparently, you can get Chronic Heinous Insufficiency and the treatment is you have to be worse to others.
75: what about protein? I read that's the cure for everything.
Can you imagine sitting home one night and finding out the next morning that your spouse went to see Cold Play?
And having that all over the Internet! How humiliating!
Is the title for this post a "Welcome Back Kotter" reference?
The is most damage Chris Martin has done to a marriage since he made his wife to go a Cold Play show.
Interesting fact - the actor that played the famously Jewish Hispanic Juan Epstein was neither Jewish nor Hispanic.
77: he just has to explain to his wife that he didn't really want to go but his lover is a big fan and she made him.
JMM: "WSJ working on a piece on Trump/Epstein. Buzz was that it was coming out earlier this week. I'd heard that it contained a birthday card from Trump to Epstein with some raunchy stuff. That part I can't confirm. But this [paywalled] is the first more than rumor thing I've heard that there is a piece and it apparently contains stuff that has the White House big mad."
(Tucking away for later that the author of the status.news piece calls it a "scoop" that he has learned that... WSJ is working on a story. Wouldn't WSJ's work be the "scoop"?)
85 yup, nothing to see here https://bsky.app/profile/oliverdarcy.bsky.social/post/3lu6uwgei6c27
BREAKING: Everything is a scoop, say sources in the journalism industry.
WSJ article. Worked as a gift link for me but might stop working
The letter bearing Trump's name, which was reviewed by the Journal, is bawdy--like others in the album. It contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman's breasts, and the future president's signature is a squiggly "Donald" below her waist, mimicking pubic hair.
The letter concludes: "Happy Birthday -- and may every day be another wonderful secret."
In an interview with the Journal on Tuesday evening, Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the picture. "This is not me. This is a fake thing. It's a fake Wall Street Journal story," he said.
"I never wrote a picture in my life. I don't draw pictures of women," he said. "It's not my language. It's not my words."
This feels like something a conspiracist would have written as speculation, it's so disgustingly wry:
It isn't clear how the letter with Trump's signature was prepared. Inside the outline of the naked woman was a typewritten note styled as an imaginary conversation between Trump and Epstein, written in the third person.
"Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything," the note began.
Donald: Yes, there is, but I won't tell you what it is.
Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I also know what it is.
Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey: Yes, we do, come to think of it.
Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?
Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you.
Trump: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday -- and may every day be another wonderful secret.
He seems to have forgotten when he took a cognitive assessment in 2018 that included writing pictures of a clock & a cube.
what the hell. I have no priors to place that within.
Not going with "locker room graffiti" as the explanation?
To be honest, unless it's obvious evidence of an obvious crime*, I'm expecting that people's expectations that revelations will damage Trump to be out of step with the actual damage. After the Access Hollywood tape came out, didn't Trump's favorability actually go up in the demographics most likely to vote for him? I know "Trump remains popular among Trumpists" doesn't sound like a surprising outcome, but the initial press coverage was assuming he would bleed supporters.
*And even then, it would need to be more serious than the numerous other crimes he's already been convicted of, charged with, or found liable for.
95.2 this is different because 1) pedophilia 2) a large part of his rabid base has been obsessed with the Epstein files for years and are convinced there is a conspiracy of elites covering up 1
I tried just now and every time I write "Donald" it looks like pubic hair.
92: I'm confused. What is that? Is that how perverts write birthday cards?
The WSJ also reports that Trump has "chronic venous insufficiency", which seems to be the explanation for his swollen legs.
96: I know why it's supposed to be different. I don't think it will ultimately be that different, absent direct evidence of involvement in crimes. It could be different in terms of what deranged and armed Trump supporters do about it.
I'm thinking (hoping) a significant number of them get so disgusted they stay home for the midterms
I mean, he's already been effectively convicted of crimes (yeah yeah, found liable, whatever). I don't think that's the boundary so much as what story the implication tells.
Also, his increasingly sweaty panicked response.
It doesn't seem too implausible that the WSJ came out with this right now because he was poised to fire Powell.
97: Are you writing it just above your genitals?
Is that how perverts write birthday cards?
I don't write birthday cards.
104: Maybe a case of the difference between the WSJ reporting side and the editorial board, but there's a recent editorial opposing any kind of special counsel on Epstein that also basically buys into the idea that there's nothing there and what's unfortunate is that people believed Trump when he promoted Epstein conspiracy theories as a candidate.
In other news, I remembered that I have WSJ access via a library.
And now Trump is saying he told Murdoch not to print it and Murdoch "stated that he would take care of it". Murdoch's probably helped Trump in that way other times, but this time I bet either he never said that (Trump being senile and all) or he lied.
WSJ is not the National Enquirer
My suspicion is that 104 is right. Secret police and concentration camps they can live with. The dollar inflating at double digits, probably not.
If Trump's supporters find out that he's a pedophile, they'll get over it.
"Well, it was a long time ago, and then he stopped being friends with Jeffery Epstein anyway. You know you can't believe everything you read in the liberal Wall Street Journal."
All this is from before he became a Christian!
The Trump idiolect never ceases to amaze. "Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?"
[ Bletchley Park has been added to the chat. ]
I mean, he's already been effectively convicted of crimes (yeah yeah, found liable, whatever).
And also, in fact, actually convicted.
Surely Bletchley Park adds itself.
118: The stuff he was convicted of is slightly harder to understand. The assaults he was found liable for are much easier to comprehend.
113.1: This seems obviously correct to me, and I don't understand why it hasn't happened already. I just went over to r/conservative to sample some fascist tears, and the moderators have decided that they needed to do something about the topic being over-run by Epstein, to wit:
There are too many Epstein posts on this subreddit, so we are going to consolidate the topic to this one thread.
The idea that he signed this drawing is such a gift - otherwise it would be so deniable! - and to make your name the crude centerpiece... chef's kiss, truly.
I'm struggling to grasp the interest of the Trump cult in this, but this is a perfect storm for the media:
--Sex!
--Prospects for new information dribbling out, creating the opportunity for scoops.
--Easy to investigate because 95% of it is already out there. It's mostly just a matter of admitting it exists.
And the essential factor:
--Permission from the fascist rank-and-file to pursue it.
I don't suppose this will bring down Trump, but we can still enjoy it while it lasts.
||
First Kiss does nothing new, but it does it well, and shoots it better.
|>
Actually ENIGMAs do age or rather become obsolete, this is why we got a third rotor and the superencipherment plugboard
124: Really, drawing some crude boobs in Sharpie is so distinctively dumb as to be his signature regardless.
Everyone should really send money to Josh Marshall. He's so good at finding and articulating the core issues:
Big scandals usually first come into view as black holes do. You can't see them directly. But they exert a mammoth gravitational pull on the things are them. People start doing inexplicable things, acting in what seem like weird and self-destructive ways, people run for the hills for no clear reason or any logical explanation. Like a black hole the gravity of the scandal has this distorting effect on people and things around it and you can infer the scope and scale by those effects even though you can't see it directly. This is one of those cases. I don't know what "it" is. But its force is staggering. It looks like Trump's actions ar self-destructive and inexplicable. But the most straightforward explanation is that these actions are the only option he has. He's trapped and he's desperate and doesn't have any better options.
What makes me finally start to think Trump might really be in trouble - like trouble in a way we haven't seen in the Trump era, in a possibly existential way - is that he's doing his same old thing but it's not working. 'It's fake. Obama did it. I'll sue.' Yada yada yada. But none of it is working. And despite that he keeps doing the same thing that isn't working at a higher volume. He doesn't have any second angle.
If this is the thing that Trump can't avoid, I will never understand that in the same way that Heebie can't. Wasn't this always painfully obvious? Why is it different from Trump's other rapes? Because Epstein was eventually a loser and he's getting loser stench on Trump?
I am convinced that "enigma" here is an acronym, probably a very stupid and crude one.
||
Possibly of interest to the reprobates:
https://ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2025/07/14/a-meal-of-thorns-28-excession/
|>
Someone on reddit points out that gamine is an anagram of enigma and is used throughout Lolita, a book Epstein was known to have many copies of scattered about his residences.
https://www.reddit.com/r/thebulwark/s/NAklTD19Jx
It's just a hair too esoteric to be a smoking gun in the popular imagination, but imho this is it.
130
Wasn't this always painfully obvious? Why is it different from Trump's other rapes?
A few possibilities:
1. For years, conservatives have been happy to vilify Epstein and anyone in his circles because they thought they could hang him around the neck of Democrats. Turns out they can't manage a switch quite as smoothly as "Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia" yet.
2. Conservatives are OK with a lot of rape, if you'll pardon me for being so glib about such a serious topic, but there might actually be some faint vague lines they're hesitant to cross, and 13-year-olds actually might be on the far side of it.
3. It's deeply weird. Not to Monday morning quarterback the election, but Harris and Walz might have abandoned that attack too soon. The Access Hollywood tape isn't good, but sounds like a basically sane rich psychopath. Whereas the stuff in 90-92 sounds like something out of South Park.
I'm not saying this will be what brings him down, but if it is, those three things seem like plausible reasons.
134: Nah. First, this is in a letter from Trump, not Epstein, and I don't see Trump making an anagramatic reference to Nabokov. (Maybe Epstein fed it to him, but that's not in evidence.) Second, the code being engaged in is transparent: they're just being coyly vague. Looking for hidden messages is just the muscle memory of conspiracism. It's like reading notes on a conspiracy to murder and finding "murder" in elliptical anagrams in it.
136: Curious how you'd interpret "enigmas never age" from this context otherwise. This isn't a deep interpretation, this is just Wooderson's adage from Dazed and Confused dressed up in a pretentious code.
It's on the occasion of Epstein's birthday, so I think it's calling Epstein an enigma (for all the "wonderful secrets") and is an elliptical version of the commonplace "You're 50 but that doesn't mean you're aging!"
Holy shit is that wrong. Fifty is old and it hurts.
If you think about the kind of person that would believe in the QAnon story, this is a person that is living in a beautiful fantasy world in which the smug condescending moralistic people that they hate are actually evil almost beyond comprehension and Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking is a window into this degenerate world. And Trump may not be a saint, but he is a heroic warrior fighting against them. And if Trump pretended to be Epstein's friend, that makes sense if you think it was all part of a long-term plan to destroy him and his evil liberal buddies once and for all.
But how do you make sense of the fact that now that Trump seems to be in a position to reveal the full truth about Epstein, the Clintons, Soros, Gates, Obama, etc and instead he's concealing it, claiming it's all a hoax? How can you possible make any sense of that?
137: I'm finding that pretty persuasive! When I was a teenager -- and therefore someone with Trump's level of social development -- me and my friends had code words and inside jokes for things we didn't want to say straight out. I also immediately thought about Dazed and Confused. Maybe in certain circles, "gamine" isn't that exotic a word.
130, 135: Here's my theory: Trump is caught on the wrong side of his own epistemic method. We know that secrets hide liberal perfidy, and the exposure of truth exonerates fascists. We know that Trump is not a statutory rapist, just as we know he's not a sexual assaulter or a felon. So Trump is hiding information for some reason that is unrelated to his own culpability -- and whatever that reason is, it seems insufficient.
The cultists' main focus doesn't seem to be suspicions about Trump's guilt, but on the lack of a justification for withholding information that is damaging to the guilty. Hence the focus on Bondi, although Trump can't seem to resist grabbing the spotlight.
I don't think I can understand the mind of a QAnon supporter, but I've come to understand that the average Republican leader (very broadly speaking) thinks that every man wants to have sex with young teens and that the only reason they don't is if they aren't smart/powerful enough to get away with it. This is better at explaining why Trump felt safe campaigning on releasing the Epstein list than it is at explaining why he is taking heat from being on the list now.
Trump himself offers an interesting question:
If there was a "smoking gun" on Epstein, why didn't the Dems, who controlled the "files" for four years, and had Garland and Comey in charge, use it? BECAUSE THEY HAD NOTHING!!!
This ties in with one of my own conspiracy theories. How is it that Trump is lately acting somewhat defiant of Putin, to the point where it's conceivable that he is telling the truth about his intent to send weapons to Ukraine?
I think Putin and the Democrats understand that nothing in their kompromat is worse than the things that Trump has already bragged about publicly. (Plus, the Democrats have scruples about the release of investigative materials for political reasons, and Putin understands that a bullet that is fired is no longer available as a threat.)
I mean, if we trust the WSJ reporting, then the album is an item that the Garland really did have in hand. I find myself wondering -- if this continues to get traction -- what other shoes will drop from people who had thought that Trump's ties to Epstein were as dead as Epstein himself.
I'm starting to think that Garland wasn't very good at his job.
The other point I saw someone make was along the lines of "When Versace was killed by his lover and the story made waves for months, I realized that deep down, all the serious media is dying to be tabloids, and this story is perfect tabloids-for-serious-news-outlets."
142.1 yes and I would suspect that it was Epstein who told Trump about this that became their own private in joke.
Apparently there is nothing about all this on the front page of the NYT or the WP, do I have that right?
I'm still really curious about the Sunday talk shows, speaking of which, where is Stormcrow?
147: It occurs to me that this sort of thing wasn't limited to my teenage years. I spent the '90s working with a small group of people in the same office, and we were just like the old joke with the punchline: "Well, I guess some people can tell a joke and some can't." The key here is long familiarity and a tendency to talk about the same things over and over again.
148: Both have Epstein on the front of their webpages -- not at the very top of the page, but not buried. People who read news on paper aren't relevant anyway.
The only paper subscription I get is The Onion.
148: I just looked at the front page of the paper NYT. Nice picture of Connie Francis in a red dress, and no mention of the Epstein fooferaw.
150 is correct but we can probably take this further. People that read aren't relevant.
I can't disprove this whole "enigma" flight of fancy, but it still seems of that bent determined to find all the truth encoded in the source at hand. Hidden messages in the dollar bill, things of that nature. Tbc, I think Trump probably did sex crimes with Epstein's help, I just don't think they were encoding that in every interaction. Looking at how Trump used the word "enigma" in context, it seems like his fictional Epstein was also using it to describe Trump personally ("it was clear to me the last time I saw you").
154: The hard part of the "flight of fancy" is clearly correct: Trump was being circumspect about something he didn't want to address directly. Look at 92 again, and let's remember that this was written in the context of a drawing of a naked woman and starts out with a discussion of the thing they both know but won't talk about.
I find myself wondering what "certain things in common" they had. What do we think the "wonderful secret" might be?
You have to take "Enigmas never age" out of its context to make it seem potentially innocent. Me, I wonder what Epstein and Trump were up to "the last time I saw you."
I find myself wondering what "certain things in common" they had. What do we think the "wonderful secret" might be?
I agree with you on all of that! I think the whole faux-conversation is about the sex stuff they got up to together - elliptically, conveyed via vibes. I just don't think there are specific code words; "Enigma" is not "gamine".
I was speaking too loosely, tbc, when I saw "I just don't think they were encoding that in every interaction." It was encoded in this interaction in the broad sense of being intimated. The flight of fancy is that individual words were mutually agreed code for specific things. (Remember Trump loves the mafioso style of vagueness.)
"Enigma" is pretty clearly a word that is specifically encoded to mean a specific thing. My bet is that "young women" is the specific thing. But hey, maybe rich middle-aged men is the specific thing, as you suggest. In context, it seems less plausible to me, but not impossible.
"Gamine" is just one guess for how they could have arrived at enigma. Other narratives could be contrived.
But young women clearly age, which is especially noticeable to men who want them to be young. They're calling the old men the enigmas, flatteringly, on a birthday.
159: Well, if I can't get Megan to buy into an anti-Trump conspiracy, I'm obviously not making an adequate case.
It's possible that as a member of Trump and Epstein's general demographic group, I am more acquainted than others with Dazed and Confused, per ittle's 137.
"That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age."
"Enigma" is pretty clearly a word that is specifically encoded to mean a specific thing.
This is where we diverge. I don't see this as clear or obvious.
I mean, Trump is clearly using "enigmas" as an in-joke. If the in-joke is that Trump and Epstein call themselves enigmas because they never age, then the natural way of conveying that sentiment is to say, "We are enigmas." The whole point of an in-joke is that it isn't defined for the benefit of outsiders.
But okay, maybe it was just a flattering reference to a couple of middle-aged men. Maybe the in-joke is that enigmas (whatever they are) have many characteristics, of which the failure to age is one, so that must be spelled out specifically in the context of a birthday. And maybe Trump is bragging that he looked particularly good "the last time I saw you." Otherwise why bring up that particular occasion?
But I think there's a more natural reading.
162: So this is a word that likely has no special meaning between the two men? Yup, that's our irreducible difference on this.
I think it's just icing on the cake of the overall subject of the birthday greeting, talking about all the secrets they share. The secrets are the in-joke, and enigma is a fancy way to refer to someone with a secret.
That is, the content of the secrets is the in-joke. The existence of secrets is textual, of course.
142.1 shall not stand.
I would absolutely believe they think they are clever intellectuals who know big fancy words to call each other, and that they would love to think they are mysterious international sophisticates who appreciate fucking underage girls in ways that the plebes can't even contemplate. But I don't necessarily think it goes deeper than that.
Versace wasn't murdered by his lover. He was murdered by some rando who wanted to be famous. I take the trouble to point this out because randos who want to be famous are clearly at least the second-biggest problem in America.
The biggest problem is the Americans.
Coincidence that the note leaked the day after Trump fired the prosecutor in the Epstein case, who also happens to be the daughter of one of Trump's enemies? She almost certainly had access to it.
The claim is that Trump spent some number of days issueing threats to the WSJ behind the scenes. So maybe cause-and-effect is the reverse.
171 I don't think she's the source, the WSJ would have needed to double checkitge story and source, perform due diligence, and run it by their lawyers and that's not enough time.
It's a fart joke between two boys who never grew up. ENIGMAS anagrams to GAS IN ME.
other anagrams for ENIGMAS
SIN GAME
MEGA-SIN
SEAMING
The thing about that dialogue is that it's so cringy pretentious. Like, I hadn't realized that Trump ever leaned into that vibe.
What this thread is reminding me of is reminding me of the Eulenburg Affair in that,
1. A bunch of rich sex criminals* are connected to,
2. A broken idiot man-child who,
3. Is the monarch in a constitution which has no mechanisms to handle him.
I don't remember the author or book, but someone pointed out that Wilhelmine Germany had a scandal like this every couple of years, and each one nearly brought down the Reich, because the constitution just implicitly assumed the monarch would be at least minimally competent. Your constitution is better designed, but has the same basic problem.
*By the laws of the day.
Like, "Replacing Bismarck's clear rule with a muddle and his foreign policies with a confrontational, expansionist Weltpolitik" has a very familiar ring.
I didn't realize there was a third Moltke in the German army.
At least back then the military leaders knew how to get a tutu off a dead man.
Naively, I would think the challenge is less in taking off the tutu than in putting on the uniform afterward.
Just say the doctor cut his uniform off during the attempts to save his life.
They couldn't just cut off the tutu because it had to go back to the ballerina.
The dead guy probably owned it.