How elites have been corrupted in the service of a garbage-bag president

I try to keep distance between me and the people I write about – for me, not them. I can’t get emotional every time Donald Trump does something terrible. That would get too exhausting too fast. Anyway, I got a newsletter to run. I won’t risk boring readers with daily rants.

Today, however, I’ll make an exception.

The Wall Street Journal published a copy of the birthday note Trump gave in 2003 to infamous child-sex trafficker and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. You can see it by clicking the headline of this email. (The Democrats on the House Oversight Committee also posted it after Epstein’s estate complied with a subpoena for it and other documents)

In brief, it’s a simple line drawing of a young woman’s body, complete with breasts, in which Trump wrote imaginary dialogue between them. He wrote that “we have certain things in common, Jeffrey.” He signs off with “Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret.” Where the woman’s pubic hair would be, he signed “Donald.”

After reading the Journal’s reporting, which added to what I already know about Trump’s “friendship” with Epstein, including the fact that Trump’s name was redacted in recent months from 100,000 Epstein documents in the Justice Department’s possession, I think it’s time for me to say, without reservation, that the president is barely a human being. He’s a hot garbage bag, unequivocal gutter sludge, beyond redemption. If a billion people pissed on his grave, the deluge wouldn’t be nearly enough to teach his criminal bones the meaning of shame.

At this point, little should prevent good and reasonable people from concluding that the “certain things” Trump had in common with Epstein, and the “secret” they kept, was their mutual habit of sexual intercourse with underage girls. Intimations of pedophilia have dogged Donald Trump for years. Time to drop the hints and just say it plain.

That Donald Trump is a sexual deviant of the highest possible order isn’t the most disgusting thing, though. Neither is the fact that this sexual deviant is the duly elected leader of my country of birth.

No, the most disgusting thing is that no sexual deviant could be president without powerful elites who found ways to ignore, rationalize or accept his sexual deviance, thus making the crime of statutory rape seem like a silly pastime rich white men do for fun.

Epstein’s co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, is the only person ever brought to justice. (She’s currently serving a 20-year sentence in a federal penitentiary.) How can that be? She and Epstein pimped girls to rich and powerful clients. These men made the world go round, yet none was ever perp-walked, none was ever convicted. Only Maxwell?

Meanwhile, Epstein’s “best friend” becomes president, despite their “secret” being known among elites who have all kinds of incentive to pretend that they don’t know anything about it. With that power, Trump is tipping America toward autocracy: stealing our money, shredding our benefits, stripping our liberties, and silencing us with crimes against the Bill of Rights. Still, the nation’s elites look away.

To see how this works, consider Politico. Its reporting on the Wall Street Journal’s scoop does pretty much everything it can, by way of word choice, to make Trump sexual deviance seem like nothing much.

It described the birthday note to Epstein as “alleged,” as if the Journal’s reporting was about an accusation against the president rather than a concrete document originating from the Epstein family. Ghislaine Maxwell confirmed its existence. Moreover, Trump’s signature matches signatures of the same period (conservative attorney George Conway provided evidence of that.) Perhaps more importantly, the Republicans on the House Oversight Committee do not dispute its authenticity, only that the panel’s Democrats “cherry-picked” it.

So … not alleged.

Politico also called the birthday note “racy,” which is an overwhelming understatement given the subject of discussion is the president’s involvement with a man who ran a child-sex trafficking syndicate.

Politico also said, oddly, that it could not “independently confirm the letter’s veracity” in the same sentence in which it said Trump denies association with it. It then quoted Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt saying Trump did not draw the picture or sign the letter, and that he would continue pursuing a defamation lawsuit against the Journal.

If there’s a better way of demonstrating how elites have been corrupted in the service of a garbage-bag president, let me know.

By the way, that lawsuit against the Journal always gets a pass from the nation’s elites, especially in the press corps, though every single one of them knows you cannot defame a president, especially not this one.

Under current law, plaintiffs must prove at least two things in a defamation case: actual malice and actual injury as a result of actual malice. Trump can’t prove the former, because the Journal is telling the truth. But even if it lied, he couldn’t prove the latter, because legally speaking no one can injure a president’s reputation, because he’s president. And that goes double for a president named Donald Trump.

That these “defamation” lawsuits get a pass is another way for elites to look away while Trump acts without consent. (ABC and CBS were similarly sued. Each settled to make nice, though neither case had an ounce of merit.) Elites know these lawsuits are not about self-defense, but Trump’s attempt to strong-arm who gets to arbitrate reality.

The president is snatching people off the street for the crime of their identity. (These immigrants are brown; they must be “criminals.”) Yesterday, the Supreme Court said that’s fine, effectively declaring that whole amendments in the Bill of Rights are unconstitutional. We are a ball-hair away from the leader of the free world outlawing opinions that displease him. Yet there’s still a question as to whether a president like that can possibly be a hot garbage bag who liked assaulting teenagers.

NOW READ: Expert warns of 'absolute madness' — thanks to 'worst dregs of society' in the GOP