Shark Sightings
If you do not look, there's nothing to see
It’s July in New England which means “shark sightings” are in the news. Every summer, as the weather and the waters warm, people flock to the beaches and inevitably discover that sharks live in the ocean.
It’s the people who come and go to where they may see sharks, and it’s the people who fear encountering them. As very few people go swimming in February, folks are not as concerned around that time.
While the larger sharks like Great Whites and Tigers prefer the warmer waters of summertime, there are always dogfish and other biting fish (ever see a school of bluefish feed?) in shallower waters.
Shark sightings are actually about people, not sharks.
It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.
Actually, it is the crime, and what’s happened in less than a fortnight could not be considered a cover-up at all. It’s more a loyalty test—perhaps the make-or-break moment for the MAGA Regime.
I had put the talk of the Jeffrey Epstein “client list” to the side, figuring it was simply a short-term means of frothing up the base for November, 2024. I noted when the Trump White House released those binders to select members the MAGA blogosphere that the contents were no different than the flight logs that had been released under the previous Trump administration. I recall some of the recipients knew immediately they were being fed old news.
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Corporate media also bought the dissemination (see what I did there?) of the Jeffrey Epstein files, though the Trump administration chose to release them in what resembled a leak, in that information was passed to unconventional propagandists. A clutch of proto-Fascists, other right wing bloggers, and TikTok notables were handed hard copies of something.
It turned out to be exactly the same flight logs from the Lolita Express that were released years ago. They show Trump on the same seven flights.
The re-release-as-if-new has proven to be a bit of a miscalculation. Those included in the exclusive photo op came to understand—even if they were too busy with learning Algebra when the logs were originally released—this was old news. They and their viewer/listener/readers want more. The promise to release the Epstein files will turn out like Trump’s promise to release tax returns:
next month,after the election, not in your lifetime.
That’s where the Trump tax returns went to die—a promise to reveal them, followed by nothing.
So why did Attorney General Pam Bondi even mention Jeffrey Epstein, months later?
We may never understand her motivation to voice an outright denial there is “an Epstein client list,” especially after she had been talking like there was one “on my desk.” In fact, those were her exact words.
Then we hear the dissembling, as is the case. There is no “client list.” Of course not. There’s no master list titled “THE MEN WHO TRAVELED TO THE ISLAND TO RAPE TEEN GIRLS.” So MAGA beats on the shorthand characterization. By their argumentation if there’s no list, then all accusations are baseless.
Pam Bondi produced video from outside Epstein’s cell with “one minute” missing, due to “1990’s recording equipment” that requires a tape be “reset” every 24 hours at the same time every day. But when Epstein was first reported dead, prison officials said the camera was malfunctioning.
Not only would knowledge of the daily, 1-minute reset allow for nefarious opportunity, but closer analysis of the video (which did not exist in 2020) that was produced by the Department of Justice shows it was edited several times and there are three minutes missing.
Then on July 14, when Democrats forced a floor vote in Congress to release content of the Epstein files (which do exist, and contain the names of the men who traveled to his island to rape teen girls, and likely video evidence of the same since Epstein recorded encounters) the vote split on party lines. As Trump was accusing Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and former FBI Director James Comey of fabricating the case against Epstein (and Ghislaine Maxwell), his party was doing what it could to ensure the “hoax” would not be exposed.
It turns out the federal prosecutor for the Epstein and Maxwell cases was Maurene Comey, James Comey’s daughter, whom Trump fired on July 16 in a clear case of retribution. Retribution for Pam Bondi reanimating the corpse; meanwhile the AG has received public support from Trump, while she’s the clear and easy scapegoat. Had Trump fired her instead, claiming she was lying to the American people, that would have retained his base. This jumble of mixed messaging is not a cover-up—it’s a demand for loyalty. MAGA has been instructed to again forget what they saw and heard. Just like on January 6, what seemed to be one thing actually was something else. “Epstein’s dead, Maxwell’s in prison. Who cares?” That is the new Official MAGA Line.
In reality, Ghislaine Maxwell was more savvy than Jeffrey Epstein. She was on the lam for long enough to find a safe place to stash what she had secured from the island, and a safe person to trust with the dead man’s switch.