• Wolf@lemmy.today
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    5 hours ago

    It’s simply astounding the slop Americans will accept as “Journalism” nowadays.

    Though Musk slammed Trump’s handling of the Epstein files, his attacks themselves were riddled with false assumptions, including conspiracy theories about the existence of an Epstein “client list,” which is unsupported by evidence.

    So ABC “News” just straight up parrots the Trump administrations talking points as if they are objective facts. “Left Leaning” bias my asshole :(

    And what is the “evidence” they use to back up this supposed fact, some lawyer hasn’t seen it. As we all know, absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Good Job ABC, case closed.

    Not to mention this lawyers story is full of holes.

    First of all he claims to be representing Epstein’s victims, but goes on to say that

    “he is bound by attorney-client privilege and cannot ethically reveal the names of any of Epstein’s alleged associates without permission from his clients.”

    Exsqueeze me? Admittedly I am not a lawyer, but what exactly would be the point of ‘representing’ the victims if they refuse to release the names of the people who assaulted them? Isn’t the point to bring these people to justice? How would it benefit the victims in any way to not release the names? The only way that would make sense is if Edwards was only there to distribute hush money payments. Can anyone explain this to me?

    Then he goes on to say

    “It’s difficult to even discern, when he would send a woman to one of his friends, whether that was even a motivation. What he was not is a person on the top of a sex trafficking operation that was sending women to powerful people around the world so that he could make money. It was not a business,”

    but later in the exact same article the writer says

    “And it raises questions whether those records, if made public, could finally lead to a better understanding of how a college dropout from Coney Island managed to accumulate astounding wealth and proximity to power – a transformation that has long defied ready explanation.”

    Gee, its so weird how a guy who was a habitual child molester, who was friends with some very rich and powerful scumbags, who’s partner was convicted of sex trafficking, and who was mysteriously able to accumulate “astounding wealth” is also clearly and unambiguously innocent of running a sex trafficking operation, because ‘some guy said so’. If anyone read that sentence and thinks it sounds plausible please PM me, I just got some really nice bridges in famous cities and I’m willing to let them go for cheap.

    Oh and here comes my favorite part:

    Edwards describes the enigmatic Epstein as living, essentially, two separate lives: one in which he was sexually abusing women and girls “on a daily basis,” and another in which he associated with politicians, royalty, and titans of business, academia, and science.

    “For the most part, those two worlds did not overlap. And where they overlapped, in the instances they overlapped, it seems to be a very small percentage,” Edwards said.

    Ok? Edwards let’s say that it was a ‘very small percentage’, WHO FUCKING CARES?! I don’t care if it was one person, that person should be named and prosecuted. For Fuck Sake saying he only did ‘a little bit’ of pimping out underage children for the wealthy to molest as if that excuses it or diminishes it in any way makes me want to puke.

    “There were occasions where a select few of these men engaged in sexual acts with a select few of the girls that Jeffrey Epstein was exploiting or abusing – primarily girls who were over the age of 18.”

    Again, WHO THE FUCK CARES?! Why does this even need to be said? Even if we take what this clown is saying as absolute fact, that still means young women were being exploited and abused, and some % of them were underage. WHO WERE THE ‘SELECT FEW’ MEN? That is what we want to know, not hear excuses like “Well it was only a few men, and only some of the girls were underage”. Get all the way the fuck out of here with that bullshit.

    “That conduct was coercive, it was exploitative, and it was bad. But it’s a small fraction of the men he was associated with,” Edwards said. "And he was abusing hundreds of women, if not a thousand. And it’s a very small fraction of those women that he was sending to men.

    I’m not going to say it again. 🤮

    he said he has seen no indication that Epstein kept a list of those men, or that he made it a practice to use those instances to blackmail or extort the men

    The cameras in the bedrooms and the bathrooms were just there for the molesters safety and nothing else I’m sure.

    “So the best thing would be: Protect the victims’ names, release everything else, so that the world can see what is real, versus what is total fiction, and then everybody can move on.”

    Except that you and ABC have just spent an entire article regurgitating the Trump administrations excuses for not releasing them, so why in the fuck would they bother? But hey, now you can guys can pretend that you are for releasing the information even though you just gave them every excuse not to. Convenient.

    There’s more I could say but I’m getting sick just thinking about this crap. The whole damn thing is disgusting.

  • Daftydux@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    13 hours ago

    I hate musk, think he is a nazi, and will reject the world he creates. Glad he is taking this one on though. They deserve each other.

    • thermal_shock@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      It’s like watching two nasty creatures fight each other while you, who was going to be eaten by one of them, can get away, at least for a little bit. But if you had the ability, you stomp the fuck out of both of them.

      • StarryPhoenix97@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        Please, trump is just the lighting rod for your rage at a system that is in the final stages of being taken over by economic forces. He’s the finger puppet on the hand of the general elite. Just because he’s a moron doesn’t mean he’s not your equivalent of a WWE heel.

    • selkiesidhe@sh.itjust.works
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      10 hours ago

      Fuck! Nail on the head with that comparison! It’s literally like the worst white trash Nazi bullshit episode from Jerry Springer is currently squatting in the White House.

  • mavu@discuss.tchncs.de
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    18 hours ago

    comeon Elmu, just put your money where the mouth is.

    Tesla shares for everyone who brings/leaks hard evidence.

  • pyre@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    mind that he was willing to do all this together until he couldn’t get enough shit from mango mussolini for his pockets companies. he can choke on a bag of dildos after he gets his nuremberg trial.

    if these people, all of them, including the Dems who capitulate, owners of the media companies that censor in their name and push their fascist agenda, all ICE employees, don’t get their own nuremberg trials, and examples aren’t made of them, the US might as well throw the towel and declare itself a lawless land and a failed state.

    • rumba@lemmy.zip
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      18 hours ago

      That’s not going to happen, but it’s really gonna be fun watching them fight more while he tries.

      • venusaur@lemmy.world
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        16 hours ago

        I’m surprised how much faith you have in people’s critical thinking skills and short term memory.

      • Taldan@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        I don’t find it fun at all. It coukd easily lead to Trump consolidating his power

        If he decides to really go after Musk ny stripping his citizenship, or taking away federal money, it’ll send a strong message to the other oligarchs to fall in line

        • rumba@lemmy.zip
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          15 hours ago

          it’ll send a strong message to the other oligarchs to fall in line

          If that’s going to happen, it will happen with or without this.

        • rumba@lemmy.zip
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          15 hours ago

          He’s not drawing any left support, but splitting the right who will be completely open to crazy shit

          • venusaur@lemmy.world
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            15 hours ago

            Yeah I agree. That’s good for the left. Split votes. What we really need is a third party that hates the rich and loves guns.

        • Ragnor@feddit.dk
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          9 hours ago

          Yeah, I’m rather confident that bots are rampant on here. All the wrong news sites are constantly the ones that are upvoted the most. The bots don’t care who you hate, just that you hate. It doesn’t matter if it is leaders, minorities, businesses, other nations, or whatever.

          The bots agenda is to make it harder for people to work together in unison. Create disruptions and lower the operational efficiency of other nations.

          • WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            And I doubt the Lemmy devs will do anything to stop them. Fortunately, with other software like PieFed and mbin reaching maturity the Lemmy devs won’t matter soon.

  • peteyestee@feddit.org
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    1 day ago

    Remember trumps a pawn… the game doesn’t die with his demise. It barely changes at all.

    The truth is probably far more dark and fucked up than trump and Epstein.

    Don’t let the drama take away your vision of the full spectrum of americas situation.

    • rumba@lemmy.zip
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      18 hours ago

      Watching them fight each other is the only moment of solace I get in the news these days. Don’t take that away from me.

      He’s not going to change my view on anything.

    • Honytawk@feddit.nl
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      22 hours ago

      The cult of personality behind Trump will shatter. And there will be cracks formed in the MAGA movement. New figureheads will try to take power and split the base.

      They will still be racist republicans, but to say little will change is simply not true.

    • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      The only thing trump has ever been successful at in his entire life is being a reality TV star. It’s amazing that people don’t understand that that’s his role now, too. I guess he’s also been successful at laundering Russian oligarch money, but that’s his role now, too.

    • aceshigh@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      I agree. It’s rotten at the core. T is a symptom, not the root cause. Something/someone else will take over once he dies. Things won’t get better.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      20 hours ago

      I’m not so sure… Maybe a pawn that has made it to the other side of the board, but turns into a King instead of a Queen

    • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      22 hours ago

      That crowd are fucking tens of thousands of children daily in ways other than those the pedos did to the young girls they preyed upon.

    • Bahnd Rollard@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      From their own social media platform. Thats the part that always gets me about their spats. They only post and read on the platform they own.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Nah, they read everything about themselves, or have someone read it to them.

        Then they go to the place where they literally control the narrative and respond.

        • The Quuuuuill@slrpnk.net
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          1 day ago

          you know. just like jefferson and hamilton. america has always been this weird form of fascism that fetishizes libertarian ideals while having a top down authoritarian regime. trump is just a lowering of the curtain. everything can get worse faster now because there’s nothing preventing them from being who they really are

          • troglodyke@lemmy.federate.cc
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            23 hours ago

            It’s absolutely wild that the US president is able to pardon convicts. Like you have a supposedly independent legislature and judiciary, and the the president can just go “nuh-uh” to anything he doesn’t like

            • The Quuuuuill@slrpnk.net
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              20 hours ago

              the power of the pardon is meant to be a check/balance. no one really planned for the american people knowingly and willingly voting for corruption

              • troglodyke@lemmy.federate.cc
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                9 hours ago

                That makes no sense to me, it just reinforces the fact that the US president is essentially just an king that gets elected and has a term limit

              • anomnom@sh.itjust.works
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                18 hours ago

                The way that the parties used to control nominations helped keep ideologues out, and deal makers who knew how to play along in.

                Then the tea party and money in politics went insane and now we have the dumbest Congress people and a somehow even dumber President.

                • Triasha@lemmy.world
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                  18 hours ago

                  People thought the smoke filled rooms that gave us Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Goldwater were the most corrupt thing and what we needed was more democracy.

                  And 2 generations later we got trump.

  • Doug Holland@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    It doesn’t matter.

    If someone unearthed video of Trump raping an 11-year-old, Republicans would love him even more, his approval ratings would go up, leaders on the “religious right” would explain that it’s all Biblical, and Trump would successfully sue for the profits from video sales.

    • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      If you truly believe this, you need to take a step back from one or more echo chambers, because you’ve lost touch with reality.

      Trump waffling on the topic, without any ‘hard’ evidence, has already caused momentum in the opposite direction.

      • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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        14 hours ago

        But it’s just performative resistance. They still vote to give him everything he wants every time without exception.

        • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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          13 hours ago

          But it’s just performative resistance.

          That’s your assumption, not a fact. If hard evidence of Donald Trump literally raping a child was made public during his last campaign, I’d bet my life savings he wouldn’t be President today.

    • SilentStorms@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day ago

      I’d usually agree with this sentiment, but the MAGAsphere actually seems to be breaking with him on this one. The chuds are upset about this, and it might not go away so easily, especially now that he’s attacking his base over this.

      • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Well one of the things that nobody seems to have considered is that Elon has a bot army, an AI, and Twitter he can turn against Trump.

        In addition, and it may or may not be a coincidence, but he’s not as buddy buddy with Putin as he once was.

        • ScatterBrain@lemmy.world
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          22 hours ago

          I absolutely believe Putin is fueling this. President Vance is a collaborative agent for Peter Thiel and the Heritage Foundation. Heritage is a longtime Putin ally. The question is, will MAGA stop questioning their echo chamber after Trump is put out to rot? That is the gamble, and they are going for it.

          • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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            22 hours ago

            I absolutely believe Putin is fueling this.

            Yeah, but liberals believe that Putin is behind everything, so that’s not surprising

            • iopq@lemmy.world
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              6 hours ago

              Just because we think Putin is behind everything doesn’t mean he’s not behind this exact thing. The same way just because you’re paranoid it doesn’t mean you’re not being followed

            • ScatterBrain@lemmy.world
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              22 hours ago

              … because he has a ton of global influence??? He’s former KGB, one of the greatest misinformation diseminators of history. If you don’t believe that, you likely consume some of it.

              • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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                22 hours ago

                Ok. That doesn’t mean he’s behind literally everything the way liberals make out. The KGB were second rate information manipulators compared to domestic US operations anyway.

                • ScatterBrain@lemmy.world
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                  21 hours ago

                  You are making a strawman argument. I didn’t say I am liberal, nor did I say Putin does everything. I said Putin is likely behind this, because Putin definitely has compromat on Trump. I also said he has global influence, which he does. These statements are obvious, supported by overwhelming evidence, and not so broad as your strawman

    • qarbone@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I don’t like the presumption of video sales for CSAM.

      Edit: not a dig at you, but of the unpleasant viability of that statement.

    • slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org
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      19 hours ago

      That’s my takeaway too. What are americans gonna do about it? Nothing. He’d just gain popularity and the church will like him more too because of their common interests

    • 68727@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      15 hours ago

      There’s pictures of him with Maxwell floating around that he’s been trying really hard to erase, right? It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s on the list himself and feeling confident that he’s not going to get fucked over because he knows there’s too many powerful people who have no interest in ever seeing those files released around or because he and the Elonjugend just happened to get rid of any evidence that could implicate him.

      Anyway, he’s only doing this because he’s mad that Trump doesn’t want to play Tesla salesman anymore.