Epstein Files vs. TUSCL content

dustyj callling 80% of TUSCL members child rapists may or may not be equivalent to the uninvestigated tips to the FBI.

You're not paying attention buddy. I called Trump a child rapist because he obviously is one. I've actually never referred to a TUSCL member as a child rapist. The man that many people support is one.

Oh sorry my bad.

Not every woman in the Epstein files was under age. If they knew someone like Epstein there are tons of people who could get caught up in something like that unknowingly. A rich guy who always had attractive young women around who made introductions.

Virginia Giuffre was almost 18 when she first met Prince Andrew and he’s caught hell about that. If she had been working at Follies at 17 and 10 months and a scandal broke there would definitely be a lot of nervous PLs here.

Imo you are just as much of a pedophile if you like her on her 18th birthday as you are if you liked her the day before it

I kind of think pedophile is not really applicable to the ages where legality has traditionally varied state by state.

There is a point where it’s dubious and maybe illegal where it’s not really about being a pedo.

Yes, it's a fine line. There are 18 year olds who are more vulnerable than many 17 year olds. After his 2008 arrest, I've read Epstein was more careful when not on his island. He'd limit himself to barely legal women. Because of his relationship with Les Wexner, he could convince naive women that getting in his good graces was their ticket to being Victoria Secret models. Questionably legal, but harder to prove than statutory rape. An obvious question: why didn't he limit himself to women who'd made a considered decision to do sex work? Why would a hyperwealthy guy he's procuring for ask "civilian or pro?" Why wouldn't he say "she'd better be a pro, who's professional enough to be discreet"?

I don’t know. I’m mainly talking about some of the people in his orbit. Epstein himself in addition to his own proclivities was fully aware of the the situation with all of the girls. I’m not really convinced some of the people in his orbit realized though. I think he was essentially a pimp but it wasn’t for payment but for connections and influence. For instance with the Giants owner it sounded like a young adult woman who wanted to get ahead with an industry contact and Epstein made the introduction. He’s been mentioned a lot but to me that really isn’t dicey because everything related to Epstein has been assumed to be trafficking and pedophelia. Most of these people who had communications with him about women didn’t say anything about underaged girls. With Prince Andrew it doesn’t sound like he paid and we have no way of knowing if he knew the girl’s age. It was close to her 18th birthday as well.

However I think the public perception of anything remotely connected to Epstein has become much more extreme.

@boomer so you're assuming Maxwell trained Giuffre to flirt with men 30+ years older, and convince them she had the hots for them? Or Epstein told Andrew that Giuffre had the hots for him, and he wasn't skeptical of that? Andrew had an ongoing thing with a porn star when he was young, he's not some overaged incel.

An @8 year old flirting g with a rich famous person isn’t that far fetched. I’m sayi g she was so close to 18 he may not have known. Even if it was about money if she was 18 and Epstein”s name wasn’t attached it wouldn’t be nearly the same in terms of perception.

@boomer I agree with the state laws that make it clear it's not statutory rape if one is barely legal and the other is barely illegal. But, if you're over 22, and a girl might conceivably be more than 5 years younger than you, then you need to make a reasonable effort to be sure she's of age. If that causes you to miss your window of opportunity, that likely means that fucking you would not have been a good memory for her anyway.
If Andrew gets charged for this, and he says Giuffre told him she was of age, and Maxwell takes the 5th, it probably couldn't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt Andrew was lying. It's understood in Britain that maintaining a royal title puts constraints on your personal life.

===> "You're not paying attention buddy. I called Trump a child rapist because he obviously is one."

Dusty you need help. Like a lot of it. Accusations aren't the same as evidence. Know the difference girly man.

Btw I'd say the same thing no matter who the target was. I don't much like Trump but this shit is getting silly now.

baptistnews.com

So RedJohnson should we believe the 69 women who have accused Trump of rape or the biggest and most obvious liar in the world Trump? That's a tough one Red, who is more believable? Trump who tells ridiculous lie after ridiculous lie or countless women, many of whom have nothing to benefit from admitting they were raped as children other than seeing the people who raped them actually be held accountable.

69 women accused him of "rape?" That's news to me and I think the world. 😉

During the Salem witch trials, it wasn't hard to gin up enough hysteria to get a group of people to accuse a woman of witchcraft. Finding 69 hysterical women to exaggerate or outright fabricate encounters going back 30+ years with a guy as polarizing as Trump is no incredible feat.

Where are the videos? Where are the police reports? Where are the firsthand witnesses?

Like I said, accusations aren't the same as crimes.

A jury found that it was more likely than not, that Trump had inserted something into the vagina of E. Jean Carroll without her consent.

In a civil case based upon nothing but her testimony, corroboration by two friends who were supposedly told about it at the time and a circus act of other uncorroborated accusation by other people not even part of the case. All of course conveniently times to line up with his re-election campaign. It was a travesty that should have never happened and probably wouldn't have anywhere outside of NY.

^ for something that purportedly happened in 1996 I might add.

^ We can assume the jury also considered that Trump was on record as bragging that he could get away with sexual assault.

She couldn't even remember when this supposed traumatic event happened beyond late 95 or early 96, which of course made it impossible for him to provide counter evidence as to his location and activities. This case never should have happened and wouldn't have anywhere else.

"Despite attacking Carroll for not remembering the exact year of the alleged incident, Trump was unable to state the exact years of the beginning or end of any of his marriages when asked, and claimed that he was unsure if he had any extramarital affairs during his first marriage (including with Maples, despite this affair having regularly featured in New York tabloids)."

en.wikipedia.org

Apples and bananas. If she really suffered some traumatic event, she would have remembered more. Trump maintained throughout that he had never even met her and they could produce nothing to prove that he did. This never should have gone to trial to begin with.

I get that this was very emotionally satisfying to a silly girl like you. And like a silly girl, you have ample capacity to rationalize away the problems with this. But this has consequences far beyond on person. When our courts can be misused like this, then people lose trust in them, which has rippling consequences.

@RJ I tip my hat to your MAGA authenticity. We should put no trust in the due process of law. We should put no trust in the auditable elections with many safeguards. Leaving vicious thugs, like those of Jan 6, and those of ICE, as a substitute for rule of law and democracy.

Recall that Bill Clinton paid a $90K fine and lost his law license for testifying under oath that he hadn't had sex with his intern. So, if Trump was the target of a witch hunt, why didn't he get charged with perjury, for testifying he was unsure he'd cheated on Ivana? Even though he has his daughter Tiffany as a reminder.

You're mashing together random shit to justify kangaroo court proceedings.

ICE's efforts to gather up people who are in the country illegally are perfectly legal, even if the manner in which it is happening is extremely distasteful. Though calling them "viscous thugs" is a bit melodramatic.

Our election processes have not changed and survived Trump's legal challenges, showing the durability of the system.

Tbh I actually don't like Trump and never have. But I like stupid people with no emotional control. who behave like every policy disagreement is an existential crisis, even less. Say what you will about Trump, but when push comes to shove he abides by court decisions and works within the framework, albeit loudly and loosely. Stupid hyper-emotional people are the real danger because they are able to rationalize blowing up anything in order to achieve their ends.

So breaking into someone's home without a judicial warrant is perfectly legal?

You don't think Trump's pardoning of the Jan 6 thugs is an endorsement of what they did? Or, was vandalizing the Capitol, assaulting police officers, and attempting violence against members of Congress all perfectly legal?

^ I don't think that any of that is right.

Now to be clear, the ICE memo you are referencing only advocated relying upon administrative warrants for those already subject to deportation orders, so it's not the free-for-all that you are spinning. But it still wasn't right based upon existing SC precedents.

But none of that justifies using our legal system as a political weapon. When that becomes acceptable, our last line of defense against overreaching politicians goes away. Indeed that very issue you highlighted about ICE playing fast and loose with the warrant process is precisely what our courts are there to stop.

What happened in NY was a chilling travesty. I'm talking about all the lawfare waged against Trump in that state. Judges became political activities, allowing outlandish interpretations of existing laws and even giving juries instructions almost guaranteed to achieve desired outcomes. It is utterly unacceptable.

In fact, just today the Supreme Court struck down Trump's broad sweeping tariffs. He went too far outside of his authority and the SC put a stop to it.

But this is only possible when the courts haves enough credibility that executive branch agencies comply with and, when called upon, enforce the rulings. Federal and state-level courts do not have independent enforcement arms. The executive branches comply and assist only because there are heavy political consequences for not doing so. But when judge start blatantly behaving like partisan activists, then the whole system is put at risk.

This is what made the behavior of the NY judiciary so tragically unacceptable. Sure Trump is easy to hate, but these issues go far beyond one politician in one moment in time. Those judges should have known better than to behave in that manner, yet they chose emotional self-indulgence over preserving the power and credibility of the NY judiciary.

Certainly everyone should understand that Trump might very well have gotten a not guilty verdict if he had been charged criminally for assaulting Carroll (because of the stricter standard of proof). But it's just hysterical, to be convinced it was all about the jury, the trial judge and all the appellate judges being out to get Trump. Many, many court cases come down to a jury's opinion of the credibility of testimony. You seem to get it that Trump is clearly of bad character. Why don't you think Carroll's attorneys were able to legitimately convince the jury he was of bad character, and less believable than Carroll?

^ In what universe was he going to get an impartial jury trial in a Manhattan courtroom? He was a former sitting President who most of those jurors likely detested for both his boorish personality and his politics. They were all too fine with ignoring the gaping holes in the case, like any hard evidence about when it occurred, if he ever even met her at all or even if he was even in the city or the state on that day.

Like I said, Salem witch trial. A he said/she said, "corroborated" by hearsay of two friends and then supported by other completely unproven allegations treated as supporting evidence. The outcome was a foregone conclusion.

This judge should never let this go to trial without more concrete evidence.

I say all that as someone who knows NYC quite well. I traveled there often during Trump's presidency and couldn't get in a cab, sit at a coffee shop or visit a client without hearing whining about Trump. I couldn't even go to a strip club without hearing it from some of the dancers. He was fucked the moment that circus act was allowed to proceed.

@RJ I guess maybe Trump should have picked you to represent him on appeal. The Federal court that heard his appeal was unimpressed by the arguments of Trump's lawyer: reuters.com . Maybe he'll have better luck with the Supreme Court. Trump's lawyers didn't raise partiality of the jury as an issue. His lawyers did not seek a bench trial.
Trump's pardons make it clear he has no moral objection to violent crime. But, when a jury finds him responsible for one, you assume it's only because they don't like him. Even though they were required to swear they could decide the case impartially. You prefer to call people you don't know liars, rather than accept that someone who's let criminals off the hook committed crimes himself.

Admittedly there wasn’t much to the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit although he’s done worse things that matter he should be in jail for. The federal caee and the GA case were a lot more serious and actually about something that mattered.

Of course this is about the man who has ICE making arrests that seem more like kidnappings and flying the accused across the country to get it in front of a judge he likes in a more sympathetic area. I can’t feel too bad for him if one or two of his cases were in New York instead of his people in East Jesus, Alabama.

Trump's criminal case in NY is troubling. Seems super sketchy that you can turn a misdemeanor into felony based on another felony you haven't been convicted of. Legislatures like to pass these laws that give power to the executive, but keep them vague, so they can claim the law was abused if it causes problems.
One of the appeals court judges raised a valid point about the judgement against Trump for loan fraud, that it was unknown if this is common if questionable practice. I can remember, when I got my mortgage, the loan officer tried to convince me to (dishonestly) tweak some of the numbers.