Happy Valentine's Day! Caution: sexual predators are not just on Epstein Island

Have you been turning to coverage of the Olympics to get away from more depressing news? Might not always help.

The new revelations from the Epstein Files are a disappointment so far to people who expected to be able to prosecute participants in a massive child sex ring, but do they help to explain some history?

A woman who flirted with Epstein in emails, accepted thousands of dollars of gifts from him, and was his unofficial attorney was Obama's top vetter and Ethics advisor.

Just spectacular stuff.

2017. Jeffrey Epstein's good friend Kathryn Ruemmler explains that she ran Obama's vetting and ethics department and was responsible for vetting all of Obama's cabinet members.

Ruemmler also said that she was saddened because Trump had "debased" the Presidency.

Ruemmler was so close to Epstein that she called the convicted sex offender "Uncle Jeffrey."

Ruemmler's involvement with Epstein is a reminder that the scandals surrounding him are not all about exploiting girls and women for sex. Walter Kirn suggested, You'd better read this from Matthew Stoller:

The Jeff Epstein saga isn't a scandal about pedophilia, it's about a Russian word called 'blat,' a Soviet-era word meaning 'the use of personal networks for obtaining goods and services in short supply and for circumventing formal procedures.' It's about a kind of government.

As with the large number of 'blatniks' in the Soviet era who made sure their factories got what they needed outside the formal state procurement process, Epstein greased the wheels for the neoliberal state. His job was governance.

What does that mean? Well it's clear that Epstein was an entrepreneurial broker across multiple public and private bureaucracies, helping organize 'under-the-table' deals among the legal, business, intelligence, and political elites to allow them to escape the rule of law and traditional conflict of interest restrictions. It's statecraft to allow a superclass to systemically escape the formalized rules.

The pedophilia and prostitution were part of it - that is obviously violating the rule of law - but so are the random favors Epstein bestowed. Like Epstein sending Senator Joe Manchin's request for a yacht, a request which came from the First lady of the Virginia Islands, to a random NY financier who might have one. Or working with Joi Ito at MIT and billionaire Reid Hoffman to restructure the Bitcoin Foundation. It's all about matching capital and talent and inputs outside of the restrictions ordinary people are subject to.

This kind of governance is particularly important in Soviet-style states, where everyone knows the rules are fake, where skirting the system IS the system. Epstein and his affiliates thrived because of the weakened institutions of the United States, institutions enfeebled in many cases by the men in his network, like Larry Summers. These men adopted multiple roles - advisor, businessman, academic, board member, regulator - and put on the hat that best maximized their self-interest and the self-interest of their narrow network at that moment.

The old world, where handing someone your business card meant you represented that institution, disappeared in the 1980s. Over the course of the 1990s, neoconservatives, neoliberals, bankers - ultimately Epstein's network - built this new social order. It was one where you couldn't succeed through the formal rules, but if you were let into the networks of trust by blatniks, you could do anything you wanted.

While all the specifics of Epstein's network are not known, and while conspiracy theorists often have crazy views, they have correctly fingered that the world of meritocracy and formalized systems is increasingly a fraud. And that the real government lies elsewhere.

In short, when formal democratic institutions like Congress stop governing, the networks of men like Epstein fill the power vacuum. . .

There's an academic reference plus interesting comments at the link.

So, where do we go from here?

Concerning weakened institutions, Larry Summers is not the only one weakening them. I just learned from someone who is an instructor at a top fine arts college that this year, Chinese students, who have recently constituted up to half of the student body, have disappeared, fearing that they will be detained or deported. Instructors at the school are losing their health insurance because the school is short on money.

How did this college become so dependent on Chinese and other foreign students? They pay up front rather than taking out student loans. They are not top students due to "cultural challenges". But our resources have apparently been going to educate them, until this year. And the arts are not the main focus of Chinese students in the USA, OR in China. They are not much into DEI.

What's happening in the UK?

The Epstein Files touched the Ambassador to the USA and advisors to the Prime Minister. And here's another "contact".

We have been reminded during the week of the UK government's hostility toward young girls and others trying to defend themselves against "Asian" abusers, both casual and heinous. But here is a reminder that most of the world would not be aware of the Rotherham and similar scandals without Elon Musk's insistence that news about them belonged on Twitter, and then on "X":

Worse than the worst nightmare I could have imagined https://t.co/XUlysocFsI

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 13, 2026

The government reportedly wants to erase the PUBLIC RECORDS of trials that have already taken place. Bad, bad, bad.

As noted above, the inquiry above just scratched the surface.

This is a wacky idea: Darryl Cooper is wacky, but why go with the namby-pamby suggestion of deporting families from the area of Pakistan where they believe in putting Sikh and British girls into sexual slavery and murdering the occasional girl from their own families? Put UK authorities who facilitate mass gang rapes and other abuses, including murders, on trial?

Weekend

Happy Valentine’s Day, a day to celebrate all kinds of love!! Be kind to yourself and those around you, today and always. I love you all lots!! 🩷💌💘

“We were born to love one another, this is something we all need” - Peter Tork pic.twitter.com/JIIiEQxI0o

— 💌 annie💘 (@magnoliasimmss) February 14, 2025

The Week in Pictures: Bugs Bunny Halftime Edition

I am calling for a complete and total shutdown of all Super Bowl halftime shows until we can figure out what the hell is going on. Moreover, I am calling for President Trump to appoint a bipartisan commission of inquiry chaired by Bugs Bunny, with full subpoena power over Bad Bunny, Good Bunny, and Okay Bunny. Also Roger Goodell, who I am renaming Roger Badell. I vote for next year’s halftime show to be Bugs Bunny and Weird Al Yankovic. Just be sure to check everyone’s ID before they vote.

Music

Ever heard traditional Gaelic Irish music sung by an a cappella group like this?

This is Ceann Dubh Dilis (My Sweet, Dark-Haired Love), arranged by Michael McGlynn and performed by Spokanki.pic.twitter.com/wywddM23PJ

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) February 12, 2026

Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend. Got any extra time off?

This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.

Last week's thread, February 7, Which feelings are okay in non-leftist social media? In K-12 protest marches?

Comments are closed so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment on a week-old thread. But don't try it anyway.

posted by K.T. at 11:08 AM

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