Epstein, Kiddies, And Trump. Oh, My

[Toni]

...and yet again I find myself astonished that US workers haven't risen up in bloody revolution and hanged their bosses from the streetlamps, or set up guillotines in the Capitol Mall.

Or even just collectively agreed to not work for anyone who treats them like shit.

Perhaps they remember some history.
The guillotines led to Napoloeon which led to the invasion of Russia and Waterloo.
The frogs have not won a war since.

France set itself back 30 years with their revolution.

Did it? By what measure?

French peasants probably wouldn't care too much if France didn't go to war with Russia, or expand her empire, of if French GDP fell, or French wine exports collapsed.

By whose standards are you measuring "back 30 years"?

Military and economic strength on the world stage are not the only measures of a nation.

Everyone knows monarchies are the best!

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Appealing the ruling doesn't taint anything. It means he goes to the higher court and explains why he thinks the lower court is wrong.

Biden didn't even try that.

Why didn't Biden try that?

Did he want them sealed for reasons other than tainting the jury?

You still NOT going to get over the burden Trump has now to do exactly what you say and release the files, assuming he was innocent which he wasn't. Clown around all you want, people see what you are.

That's not my burden, that's a Republican burden. You bear the Democrat burden. I bear the Libertarian burden. I criticized Trump for not releasing them, and Johnson for keeping congress out of session to avoid a vote in the issue. Find a Republican to defend Trump and Johnson on this.

So, why didn't Biden appeal the ruling?

No, to appeal you have to show what the lower court did wrong. And "a decision you don't like" is not something you can appeal. You have to find something wrong about the process.

I did not write "a decision you don't like", I wrote "explains why he thinks the lower court is wrong". Nice of you to imply something that isn't there.

I'm sure grounds can be found, even if he knows the appeal would fail as well. Then he could say he tried, which would make him a better president and a better person.

 

[bilby]

...and yet again I find myself astonished that US workers haven't risen up in bloody revolution and hanged their bosses from the streetlamps, or set up guillotines in the Capitol Mall.

Or even just collectively agreed to not work for anyone who treats them like shit.

Perhaps they remember some history.
The guillotines led to Napoloeon which led to the invasion of Russia and Waterloo.
The frogs have not won a war since.

France set itself back 30 years with their revolution.

Did it? By what measure?

French peasants probably wouldn't care too much if France didn't go to war with Russia, or expand her empire, of if French GDP fell, or French wine exports collapsed.

By whose standards are you measuring "back 30 years"?

Military and economic strength on the world stage are not the only measures of a nation.

Everyone knows monarchies are the best!

Trump certainly seems to think so.

 

[Tigers!]

Brooke Shields considers herself to have been massively abused in the making of that movie.

Does she? [citation needed]

Brooke Shields Ignored ‘Blue Lagoon’ Director’s Phone Call After She Criticized the Film for Exploiting Her ‘Sexual Awakening’

Brooke Shields says "The Blue Lagoon" exploited her sexual awakening.

variety.com

Your claim was that she was "massively abused". The article does not back up your claim.
It is true that she feels exploited in hindsight of several decades and changes in societal attitudes toward how teenage sexuality is portrayed, but that is not the same as being "abused" on set, much less "massively" so.

You’ve never been a 14 year old girl, much less a 14 year old girl with a stage mother.

Girls are very much raised to not make waves, to be ‘nice’ which means compliant. It is difficult to push back against violation of boundaries if you have never been allowed to have boundaries.

I realize that it is a common fantasy for some males that 14 year old girls are just waiting for some man to awaken their innermost sexual desires. But that’s a male fantasy. 14 year olds are children, even if their bodies arouse sexual desire in adults. 14 year olds are trying to figure themselves out, to figure out what, if any, say they have about their own lives, their own thoughts, their own feelings. Those are just everyday 14 year olds. Add in all of the adults telling you you must do this or it will hurt your career . Brooke Shiekds’ mother was divorced and put her daughter in commercials at age 11 MONTHS. Her income depended upon her daughter’s career, pressure that was not lost on her daughter as it is never lost on any child, particularly the only child of a mother. Her mother saw Brooke as ‘a sexy child’ and capitalized on that, monetarily and emotionally. FWIW, the actors who played Romeo and Juliet felt similarly exploited, and had been told that they would be wearing body suits during the infamous love scene and then were not allowed to wear body suits and told that their willingness to do the scene nude would determine whether the film succeeded or failed. That’s an enormous amount of pressure to put on a kid who lacks the maturity and agency and who has no life experience to help them advocate for themselves.

I think a lot of adult men confuse their own feelings with what it is like to be a 14 or 15 year old girl.

In other words, the problem was her mother, not the producers.

Part of the problem was the mother, but another part of the problem was priducets pushing those roles and expectations.

Exactly. The DIRECTOR and the producers are to blame because if it hadn’t been Brooke Shiekds, it would face been some other child. Let’s not leave out the studio heads and all the other big wheels and money guys who wanted to make a pen adjacent film featuring an actual CHILD. And everyone else who produced these films, marketed, booked these films. And let’s not let off the green ass men who looooved these movies so much—and who told their middle school students about how great the films were ( true story but unlikely confined to just one teacher or just my town) possibly not being very conscious of exactly what it was that so delighted them.

Brooke Shields’ mother had a duty to protect her child. Absolutely. Movie studios are now held to standards that don’t legitimately allow them to exploit children in this way.

If people did not wish to see such material it not would not be made.
The blame/fault is widespread.

 

[Toni]

Brooke Shields considers herself to have been massively abused in the making of that movie.

Does she? [citation needed]

Brooke Shields Ignored ‘Blue Lagoon’ Director’s Phone Call After She Criticized the Film for Exploiting Her ‘Sexual Awakening’

Brooke Shields says "The Blue Lagoon" exploited her sexual awakening.

variety.com

Your claim was that she was "massively abused". The article does not back up your claim.
It is true that she feels exploited in hindsight of several decades and changes in societal attitudes toward how teenage sexuality is portrayed, but that is not the same as being "abused" on set, much less "massively" so.

You’ve never been a 14 year old girl, much less a 14 year old girl with a stage mother.

Girls are very much raised to not make waves, to be ‘nice’ which means compliant. It is difficult to push back against violation of boundaries if you have never been allowed to have boundaries.

I realize that it is a common fantasy for some males that 14 year old girls are just waiting for some man to awaken their innermost sexual desires. But that’s a male fantasy. 14 year olds are children, even if their bodies arouse sexual desire in adults. 14 year olds are trying to figure themselves out, to figure out what, if any, say they have about their own lives, their own thoughts, their own feelings. Those are just everyday 14 year olds. Add in all of the adults telling you you must do this or it will hurt your career . Brooke Shiekds’ mother was divorced and put her daughter in commercials at age 11 MONTHS. Her income depended upon her daughter’s career, pressure that was not lost on her daughter as it is never lost on any child, particularly the only child of a mother. Her mother saw Brooke as ‘a sexy child’ and capitalized on that, monetarily and emotionally. FWIW, the actors who played Romeo and Juliet felt similarly exploited, and had been told that they would be wearing body suits during the infamous love scene and then were not allowed to wear body suits and told that their willingness to do the scene nude would determine whether the film succeeded or failed. That’s an enormous amount of pressure to put on a kid who lacks the maturity and agency and who has no life experience to help them advocate for themselves.

I think a lot of adult men confuse their own feelings with what it is like to be a 14 or 15 year old girl.

In other words, the problem was her mother, not the producers.

Part of the problem was the mother, but another part of the problem was priducets pushing those roles and expectations.

Exactly. The DIRECTOR and the producers are to blame because if it hadn’t been Brooke Shiekds, it would face been some other child. Let’s not leave out the studio heads and all the other big wheels and money guys who wanted to make a pen adjacent film featuring an actual CHILD. And everyone else who produced these films, marketed, booked these films. And let’s not let off the green ass men who looooved these movies so much—and who told their middle school students about how great the films were ( true story but unlikely confined to just one teacher or just my town) possibly not being very conscious of exactly what it was that so delighted them.

Brooke Shields’ mother had a duty to protect her child. Absolutely. Movie studios are now held to standards that don’t legitimately allow them to exploit children in this way.

If people did not wish to see such material it not would not be made.
The blame/fault is widespread.

Oh, you do not need to convince me that the world is full of ‘men’ who want to diddle kids.

That doesn’t mean that Hollywood or anyone is obligated to provide fodder.

 

[Tigers!]

Oh, you do not need to convince me that the world is full of ‘men’ who want to diddle kids.

That doesn’t mean that Hollywood or anyone is obligated to provide fodder.

No argument on me on that score.

 

[southernhybrid]

There's some new developments. Let me go find one of the articles and gift it. It looks like Trump was part of the Epstein files, but of course, the Republicans will say it's all fake news.

 

[southernhybrid]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...e_code=1.0k8.3Lpz.iTD47fdAx-gH&smid=url-share

House Democrats on Wednesday released emails in which Jeffrey Epstein sent messages to his longtime confidante Ghislaine Maxwell and the author Michael Wolff suggesting that Donald J. Trump knew more about the convicted sex offender’s abuse than he had acknowledged. Our reporters are reviewing the larger trove of documents released by Republicans and are updating their findings here.

 

[southernhybrid]

The Times keeps updating the article, so I'll post what was just published about 10 minutes ago.

Here’s the latest.​

House Republicans on Wednesday released 23,000 pages of documents from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein after months of delays. The move came shortly after Democrats disclosed emails from that trove suggesting President Trump knew far more about Mr. Epstein’s sex trafficking than he previously acknowledged.

The documents were obtained by the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Representative James Comer, through a subpoena in August. They were published online about two hours after House Democrats released an email from Mr. Epstein in which he wrote that Mr. Trump “spent hours at my house” with one of Mr. Epstein’s victims.

It was not immediately clear if the release would include other disclosures. The Times is reviewing the documents and will provide updates. But the emails from Mr. Epstein to friends and associates were laced with unflattering, at times mocking, references to Mr. Trump — including a description of Mr. Trump’s financial disclosures by an Epstein associate in 2019 as “100 pages of nonsense.”

A year before that, Mr. Epstein described Mr. Trump as “borderline insane” in an email exchange with Lawrence H. Summers, the former Treasury secretary and Harvard University president.

House Republicans are walking a thin and perilous political line in the Epstein case.

They are seeking to protect Mr. Trump, Mr. Epstein’s close friend until the two men had a falling out years ago. But they have their own political flank to cover by appeasing a restive party base that has demanded full disclosure of Mr. Epstein’s interactions with other powerful men — an issue that has at times transcended loyalty to the president.

The release of documents appears to be intended to provide Republicans with a defense against charges that they have not released all of the government’s files on Mr. Epstein and his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell — and possibly to stave off demands, including from some House Republicans, to force a vote to release the files.

Democrats claimed that the sheer volume of the release on Wednesday was intended to disorient, and to distract attention from their revelations about Mr. Trump’s actions during the time he and Mr. Epstein were close.

Here’s what else to know:

• Who had the documents? The oversight committee in August requested documents from the Epstein estate as part of its investigation into Mr. Epstein, Ms. Maxwell and the government’s handling of their cases.
• A de facto adviser: A recurring presence in the messages is the author Michael Wolff, who acted as an adviser to Mr. Epstein. “I believe Trump offers an ideal opportunity,” Mr. Wolff wrote to Mr. Epstein in March 2016, according to the emails, suggesting that “becoming an anti-Trump voice gives you a certain political cover which you decidedly don’t have now.”
• Trump connection: The thousands of documents include numerous references to Mr. Trump, including some in which he Mr. Epstein discusses their relationship. Others are innocuous. In one exchange, Mr. Epstein is apparently pitched on a transaction related to his Boeing 727 by someone who says they previously worked for Mr. Trump.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

GOP is getting desperate.

 

[starwater]

Desperation ensues....

Lauren Boebert met with Trump administration in White House situation room about Epstein files

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Wednesday that the conversation took place as part of the administration's efforts to get Boebert and at least one other Republican congresswoman to drop their backing of a measure that would force the release of all unclassified documents...

coloradosun.com