view the rest of the comments
politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
Can someone explain to this non-american why the Democrats are treating this as a successful upset when they could have released the Epstein files during Biden?
Because they COULDN'T release them under Biden. They were sealed by court order until January 2025.
There is a lot of desperate "both sides" nonsense going on here but the fact remains, Democrats are voting to release them and Republicans are not. If Democrats wanted to cover them up, why would they be doing that?
I don't see anyone saying this yet, but the Epstein files were sealed by a court order for Ghislaine Maxwell's trial. They weren't unsealed until January of 2025. Biden couldn't have released them without violating the court order that sealed them - and possibly giving Ghislaine's lawyers a slam dunk to get her off with a mistrial.
Here is seems to be at the discretion of the Attorney General. Why didn't Merrick Garland unseal them in September 2024 after her appeal failed?
Merrick Garland is a hard core libertarian centrist and Biden appreciated him for being status quo which means not rocking the boat or doing any effort to to hold anyone rich accountable as his previous bosses were BP and Amazon.
He also refused to prosecute Matt Gaetz.
Read his link. There's nothing in there to indicate that Garland could've released then in 2024.
That does nothing to change the reality of his character or negate his lack of action i pointed out above.
Why did he actually not do anything? Who can say?
Not a good enough excuse IMHO.
Its not meant to be an excuse. He just is a shitty person. Picked because they thought it would reach across the shitty aisle to shitty republicans.
That just is what it is.
Garland is a republikkkan and a member of the Federalist Society. He was Biden's greatest failure.
What exactly did you think that first link proved?
Because Merrick Garland is incredibly lazy. He spent his entire tenure sitting around doing nothing.
This doesn't get the Biden administration off the hook for not releasing the list sooner.
Unlike Trump, Biden respected court orders.
Is there any U.S. administration that should be let off the hook in the last 25 years of ratfuckery? I'll just be happy if your Democrats are desperate enough to combat overt corruption that they'll accept collateral damage among theirs and their masters.
Presidents can do whatever they want as long as it's an official act.
Because they couldn't, or at least not without potentially ruining the case while it was before the courts at the time?
It’s all bread and circuses until the 1% have extracted the last iota of capital from the rest of us and the country finally collapses.
Biden likely would have never released it because his donors are on the list, also the general public on the US, if you haven't caught on yet are like 30% complete idiots. A good example of this is that many people in comments on Instagram or other social media have said ''why would anyone even willingly fly on a plane called 'the Lolita express'?'' Because they can't figure out that the press started calling Epstine's plane that long after the accusations and convictions were over with. They're even more confused that the pilot of the plant never saw ANY sexual behavior or implied sexual relationship of any minors on the plane or even adults on the plane. How couldn't he tell?! Because Epstine was a blackmail con man, not a ''hay everybody here's all my dirty secrets! Look at this! It's incriminating!'' Man. Blackmail necessitates obfuscation, and likewise gaining access to wealthy targets ment he ALSO needs to appear harmless and well connected to other wealthy people, who only saw normal behavior. So this list, the flight logs, even the island visitors, will all be at the very least 50% innocent people, if not way higher numbers. You only need a few successful targets to get by with blackmail and if the targets all have lots of money and know eachother the last thing you want is for them to be aware your blackmailing them all at once. And if he never did blackmail and just ran a pedophile ring, the level of secrecy would still be crazy high and he'd still want to look innocent to the majority of people he knew that's how all child abusers and rapists in general tend to behave.
Biden wasn't able to release it because a judge sealed it as part on an ongoing investigation. Don't let that stop your ridiculous conspiracy theories.
The same "donors" would likely also support the Democrats now voting to release them.
30% feels generously low.
I'd say the people making shit up and are unaware of the files being sealed are the ACTUAL idiots.
… ok.
Piss poor response. If you're too immature to admit being wrong, that's on you, don't put it on us.
Politik-brained Canadian here:
IIRC they didn't raid Epstein till 2019. In 2020 Democrats had a narrow majority in the house which they would lose in 2022.
Than January 6, 2021 happened, and I think everyone thought that would be the legal case that brought Trump down.
It kind of seemed inevitable that the Epstein files would get leaked or released eventually. That is until Trump officially ran again in 2023; creating the possibility that the evidence would be destroyed permanently if he won.
And it might have been if they didn't drag their feet so much.
They full on chickened out!
Craven Republican “Trump is a threat to democracy.”
Proceeds to vote for acquittal
This is sort of where I keep going back to in my mind. Like, I've seen things about supposed redacting or whatnot. So, like, what is there to be released if supporters of the Current Admins had them for so long?
Some like original copy of something somewhere that somebody secreted away?
And, how does something like that get proven to be...legitimate? Especially to a point of actionable repercussions?
I honestly just don't understand how this all works. Hoping for the damn best though.
It makes their opponents look bad when they refuse
They were sealed by court order until January 2025.
Or you know, mindless nonsensical conspiracy theories.
I was under the impression that the president was above the law
The Dems have molesters/rapists on the list themselves. The difference is that we are not cultists and will gladly watch those perverts go to jail. Apparently MAGA just barely started caring about justice as it pertains to the files.
Why were the files not released under Biden? Hell .. Bill Clinton is on the list (shocking).
Is that proven?
Its a PR stunt. The democratic establishment doesn't want them released. The democrats that do, are the minority faction of progressives, and they don't have enough political power to actually get them released. Biden is not a progressive, he wants the uphold the status quo, including, protecting the Democrats on that list.
That makes no fucking sense whatsoever. Why would they overwhelmingly vote to realease them then?