Epstein, Epstein Epstein

There’s something almost insultingly predictable about the timing of all this, like a cheap magic act we’ve watched on repeat, wave one hand wildly about war, chaos, and looming global catastrophe, and hope nobody notices what the other hand is trying to quietly bury. But this Epstein story refuses to stay buried, no matter how many bombs get dropped, no matter how loud the saber-rattling becomes, no matter how desperately this administration tries to drag the world to the brink to change the subject. Because this isn’t background noise, it’s a pattern. And patterns, unlike Trump’s lies, don’t disappear just because you shout louder.

Now we have an unredacted email that slices straight through years of carefully crafted denial, suggesting that the whole “I threw Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago” narrative was, at best, fiction, and more likely, a calculated falsehood repeated for decades to create distance from a man he was clearly intertwined with socially and reputationally. “Never asked to leave.” Not vague. Not misremembered. Directly contradictory. That single line dismantles one of the most convenient talking points his defenders have clung to whenever this relationship comes back into focus, and it always comes back, because the truth has a way of resurfacing no matter how aggressively it’s suppressed.

If this much was hidden, if this required redaction, softening, concealment, then what remains behind the curtain? Six million files identified, barely half released. That’s not transparency, that’s curation. That’s narrative control. That’s deciding, piece by piece, what the public is permitted to see about a man who now occupies the Oval Office while steering the country into yet another conflict with no plan, no exit strategy, and no regard for the human cost. Asking what’s being withheld isn’t conspiracy, it’s responsibility.

Trump’s defenders will do what they always do, deflect, distort, attack, but the facts keep stacking up like a relentless backbeat you can’t ignore. Flight logs. Photographs. Decades of proximity. And now, documented evidence that undercuts one of his most repeated claims. This isn’t about partisan loyalty anymore. It’s about credibility, character, and whether the man holding the highest office in the land has been consistently dishonest about his association with one of the most notorious predators in modern history.

There continues to be many things in the mix. This isn’t just about whether he’s a perv or morally bankrupt, though the behavior certainly raises serious questions. It’s about a lifelong pattern of deception, about saying whatever serves the moment and trusting that chaos will erase the trail. It’s about whether accountability still exists in a country where distraction has become a governing strategy.

So the question lingers, heavy and unavoidable: is this finally enough? Or are we so conditioned to the constant churn of scandal, outrage, and misdirection that even this gets absorbed into the background hum? Because if this doesn’t matter, if this doesn’t trigger a reckoning, then the bar hasn’t just been lowered. It’s been erased entirely.

—Michael Jochum, Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition.