HAS CONGRESS ACTUALLY READ EPSTEIN’S PREDATOR HANDBOOK?

We the people are reading more and more of what’s included in “The First Fifty Years,” a set of three leather-bound volumes commissioned by Ghislaine Maxwell to celebrate Epstein’s birthday in 2003. As she writes in the prologue, “The idea behind this book was simply to gather stories and old photographs to jog your memory about places people and different events.” Sometimes it reads like a catalogue raisonné of outsider art by registered sex offenders. Sometimes it’s like you’ve discovered a rich man’s contract with the devil, and, next to his signature, he’s drawn a little penis cartoon. A fragment titled “Castaways Vol. I” reads, “I was Porking Some girl in Bed + Jeff Brings in the maid to make Bed She Left screming + never came Back.” Or: “Jeff would call the house Rabbis voice + say this is [redacted’s] father. I would Bring her up to your mother’s house + make her take her top off so we could touch her boobs.” The section “Girl Friends” includes two pages of densely collaged snapshots of young women, predominantly in bathing suits or lingerie, all with their faces blacked out. The “Assistants” section reads as if someone asked a prospective employer for a job description and was given a millennial issue of Maxim: skimpy-bikini shots, butt shots, and a blacked-out horizontal shot with a caption asking, “Who Am I???” A photo of a couple taken from behind—the man’s hand is pushed deep into the waistband of the woman’s jeans—is captioned “Thank You!!!” Another grateful former employee lists the men of wealth and taste whom she has met through her work with Epstein: Clinton, Trump, Prince Andrew, the Sultan of Brunei, Kevin Spacey, Michael Jackson, and so forth. Some of the richest and most influential men on the planet—billionaires and leaders of the known world—helped out with Maxwell’s book, which includes a section titled “CHILDREN.” It appears to have four entries (and is significantly redacted). One kid contributed what amounts to an extended poop joke. There’s a colorful drawing of sad-faced little girls, with accompanying text that reads, “here comes the bride all dressed in whit were is the grom he’s in the lady’s room.” There’s a photo of a toddler-age child holding a stuffed toy. And there’s a group of photos of what appears to be a prepubescent girl. She wears a camisole and matching pajama bottoms; in one of the images, her top rides above her belly and she puts a hand on a jutted hip. The lead caption, in handwriting that resembles Maxwell’s, is, simply, “A new series of pictures.”  This is the kind of depravity and obvious pedophilic behavior that the GOP Congress, both House and Senate, are doing everything they can to help the Trump WH to cover up. Why on god’s green earth would you do that?