THURSDAY, MARCH 12, 2026
...more than one thing on your mind? Is Bill Clinton on the level?
This morning, we showed you some of what he said about his reason for taking those plane trips with Jeffrey Epstein. In our view, this statement poses a question to each of us who have survived the current political era--a ludicrous era after which so very little remains:
PRESIDENT CINTON (2/27/26): When I left office, we had done all the preliminary work to set up the global funds on HTV malaria, but it was not yet funded. And there were other instruments and institutions who were later founded, including President Bush's PEPFAR program. It had not yet been funded.
There were only 200,000 people in the entire developing world who had AIDS medicine, most of them in Brazil, which had a big drug operation on its own, and in Thailand, which also had its own drug population.
In Africa, there were like 30,000 people or something, just next to no people, and they were dying like flies. And I thought we had found a way to drastically drive the price down, and that if we could drive the price down, we could empower people to administer the medicine right, we could save a lot of lives, and I was obsessed with it, and I was being helped by a man named Ira Magaziner who had helped us in the White House in whom I had known since we lived as road scholars together in 1960s.
So anyway, that's why, when Larry Summers said this, I thought, "Well, this would be great." And so we followed up and took the trips.
That's President Clinton's account of his outlook after leaving the White House. It's also his explanation of why he took four or five trips to foreigh ocales on Jeffrey Epstein's plane:
Out there in the rest of the world, people were dying from AIDS like flies--and he thought he could save a lot of livres. He even said that he was obsessed with the possibility.
Our questions:
Do you believe that some such thing is true? Do you believe that some such thing could be true? Do you believe that some such thing could be true about Bill Clinton?
Or has your sense of who Bill Clinton is, has it been eaten alive by something like forty years in which our garbage can American discourse has endlessly focused on one topic--his sexuality, possibly just as we imagine it?
We're inclined to think the best about Bill Clinton. We're inclined to throw up our hands in despair when we encounter constructs of the type we see below about this largely mythologized person.
Molly Jong-Fast is a good decent person. On February 7, her guest essay for the New York Times started off like this:
Now We Know What All Those People Got From Epstein
Jeffrey Epstein, as has become clear again with the latest Department of Justice file dump, will go down in history as perhaps this century’s most horrifically accomplished social climber. He knew pretty much everybody, name-dropping, favor-trading, sex-trafficking and possibly blackmailing his way all the way up, up, up.
[...]
Many people stuck with him even after he had gone to jail in 2008 in Florida for sex crimes, and in some cases even after he landed in jail again in 2019 on sex-trafficking charges. Back then, the plight of the victims often seemed to be an afterthought. That’s most likely because whatever they received from him in the past—access to career-enhancing people, access to young girls and an endless supply of freebies—might still be on offer. This is the nature of the Epstein files: It’s the record of what a global class of very privileged, accomplished and self-important people want to get gifted.
Sometimes it was a Prada bag. Other times it was a flight on Mr. Epstein’s jet, or a weekend at his island. Sometimes it was a donation to a charity or school. Or a job for their kid working on a Woody Allen film, or a shortcut for Mr. Allen’s own kid to get into Bard. Sometimes it was a “tall, Swedish blonde.” Other times it was a young woman who might be a “a little freaked by the age difference.”
So wrote Jong-Fast for the New York Times. She was listing the various things (some) people wanted to get from the criminal Epstein.
For the record, at least as it seems to exist:
In the case of Bill Clinton, he didn't "stick with [Epstein] even after he had gone to jail in 2008." He says his association with Epstein ended in 2003, long before he was publicly charged with sex crimes. As far as we know, that account hasn't been challenged.
Also, he didn't want a Prada bag. He did want some flights on Epstein's jet--but to judge from his testimony and from the apparent public record, he wanted those flights because he was building a program to confront AIDS in the world.
Are you able, at this point, to believe that something like that could be the actual truth of the matter? Or has the constant sexualizing of Clinton made it hard for you to picture him in any other context?
Certain elements of the society have pushed that line of interest forever. Jong-Fast is a good, decent person, but we think the following passage from her column may qualify as a document drawn from the soul of the age:
There are numerous ways to look foolish and creepy in the Epstein files, the worst of which is obviously emails like the one Peter Attia wrote to Mr. Epstein in 2016, eight years after Mr. Epstein became a registered sex offender: “Pussy is, indeed, low-carb. Still awaiting results on gluten content, though.” Everyone has surely by now seen the photo of the erstwhile Prince Andrew with his arm around a 17-year-old Virginia Giuffre. There’s also a photo of Bill Clinton in a hot tub.
She cites the ways three different people managed "to look foolish and creepy in the Epstein files" To wit:
One man wrote a pathetic, slimy email. (For more of that general sort of thing, put on the Fox News Channel pretty much any night of the week.)
Another man was photographed with his arm around an Epstein survivor, now deceased, when she was just 17.
That's how those guys came out looking creepy. Also, Bill Clinton once sat in a hot tub! Plus, there's a photo to prove it!
You never hear about those lives allegedly saved around the world. We've suggested that there's a reason for that:
No one gives the first flying f*ck about such tedious topics!
I welcome Somerby’s defense of Clinton, but when he says things like “no one actually cares”, as he did in his earlier post, it seems that Somerby’s main focus is to defend Clinton, while denigrating everyone who does care who isn’t Clinton and who doesn’t have Clinton’s clout and prestige.
ReplyDelete"They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred."
DeleteFDR
Epstein tried to buy respectability by doing favors for people. His sex crimes obscure that he was also engaged in money laundering, blackmail, and meddling in foreign relations by helping produce kompromat for Russia. Why then is Somerby trying to shift any of that onto Bill Clinton's shoulders, when he is guilty of accepting free transportation to places he wanted to serve with his Foundation. He accepted a donation to a non-profit charity.
DeleteNote that when Clinton answers the questions about the flights he says "we". That implies it was not he alone on the flights and not he alone aware that he took them on behalf of the foundation. Does that change the picture of a dirty old man raping teens? It should.
Somerby doesn't quite blame the right for targeting Clinton. He is oddly vague about it, as if someone did it just for kicks or out of perversity. This was part of the right wing's campaign strategy, its propaganda and tactics since Bill Clinton first ran for office. And Hillary was targeted too, accused of murder, pizzagate, being a criminal and crook, and being a calculating manipulator. That has nothing at all to do with Epstein, but mainly with politics. The right needed villains, so they targeted the most qualified and capable presidential candidate in American history. UFOs are more believable than anything Hillary was accused of doing. But Somerby won't blame the right for what was obviously a "vast right wing conspiracy" as Hillary described it. Note that she was also right about Trump's deplorables, although she got maligned for that too, by Somerby not least.
Somerby rightly points out that this Gutfeld smear of Bill Clinton is just more of the same old stuff, believable largely by right wingers and not the left (as Somerby claims) but he is wrong when he says we on the left think of Bill Clinton as a womanizer. I suspect that those who know him best are less likely to believe the political smears.
My concern here is to wonder why someone like Somerby, who calls himself liberal, wouldn't recognize a smear campaign when he sees it, and why, knowing it is propaganda, he believes it himself to the point of advancing Gutfeld's jokes. We who care not only about Africa and AIDS but also about Clinton himself, debunk this stuff. We don't repeat it ad nauseum, the way Somerby does (two days now, and counting). We on the left defend our candidates. That is yet another reason why I don't think Somerby is the tiniest bit liberal. We on the left respect Bill Clinton. Somerby clearly doesn't give a damn about him as a person. Just as a way to knock Dems.
I have always wondered how the right would come to malign a sweet old man like Biden, who did such a good job of helping us through covid and the impact on our economy. It turns out he did more for working people and unions than any president in a very long time.
DeleteThey made him appear senile and then claimed he was too old, not really running his own administration, equating him with an autopen operated by puppetmasters. (It turns out that is damned close to how Trump's term has operated.) When they started their he's too old campaign they eased off on calling him a pedo, their go-to smear when he was first elected.
These people on the right are not good decent people. They aren't nice at all. They should be ashamed of what they do, but seem to have convinced themselves that all is fair in war, and politics is war so anything goes. And too many of the righty base gleefully joined in their crime spree. Look how much fun Elon and Doge were having! Watch Trump dance dance dance to YMCA!
I would believe that Somerby doesn't give a damn about any wrongdoing on the right, based on his focus here day after day. And if a man like Somerby doesn't give a damn about murdered Iranian school girls or ICE agents shooting an ICU nurse in the back or Kushner's cashing in by manipulating foreign policy or even Trump playing golf when he should be working, why would he care about sliming Bill Clinton in order to pretend Epstein's accomplices were Democrats and not Trump himself? You have to not care about anything important in order to look the other way on Trump's incompetence, grifting, crimes and ugly soul. And that is what Somerby has done, and is now accusing everyone else of doing too. Criminals always believe that people who appear honest are just as corrupt as themselves at heart -- just hiding it.
It takes a special kind of warped person to have the brains to see what is wrong with the right and to promote that wrongness day after day while pretending to be trustworthy. Somerby is evil.
Thank God you're here to wield the sword of fiery rigteousness against this evil incarnate!
DeleteI guess I can't spell "righteousness."
DeleteYes, evil is so funny that when people deplore it, they deserve to be mocked and name-called (DG's speciality).
DeleteCareer prosecutors have a sense of purpose as they accuser and make sure perpetrators of crimes are brought to justice. They perform a public service and they are generally respected, except by criminals. You should be ashamed to defend an asshole like Somerby, but you appear to have less shame than Somerby does, which should tell everyone here what kind of person you are.
It takes a special personality to lack shame. It means you don't care what other people think of you, but also that you don't care what others think period. And that is called lack of empathy. Studies show that those on the right lack empathy compared to those on the left. So, when you pretend to be a Democrat (like a Somerby mini-me), your words betray your lie, because they show clearly that you do not have the impulses, the caring, the interest in other people, the concern for the common good or the desire to achieve justice and right wrongs in our society, the desire for an equal, fair, non-discriminatory and level playing field, that most Democrats see as objectives. You are a narcissistic asshole, like Somerby. (That is at least one leg of the dark triad of personality traits held by trolls: Narcissism, Sociopathy, Machiavellianism). Poor spelling is the least of your problems.
I'm loving that you can't even see the irony: You decry namecalling even while calling me a "narcissitic asshole" who "'lacks shame" and "empathy," among other horrible thiings. In fact, you call me a Machiavellian sociopath. (And a poor speller. That hurts.)
DeleteThe lady doth protest too much, methinks.
You labeled yourself a narcissistic asshole by being one. Do you think no one notices? I have addressed your criticism, such as it was, while you do nothing but name-call me and others here. Now Quaker is calling people Bob-slappers for criticizing Somerby, again not dealing with the criticisms in any way except name-calling. I am pointing out to you that name-calling is an attack on another person, not an argument of any kind and certainly not discussion. Do something besides calling names and people might want to interact with you,. As it stands you are a troll (yes that is a name, but it describes what you do here).
DeleteI see. When someone else engages in name-calling, that is despicable behaviour. But when you do it, it's because you're speaking the simple truth. Got it.
Delete"Do something besides calling names and people might want to interact with you"
DeleteBTW, I'm done "interacting" with you, for two reasons. First, you cannot stay on a single point but deflect through lengthy Gish Gallop screeds. Second, any time you've tried to support your position you badly misstate what Somerby wrote in the past because your partisan blinders allow you to no shade of nuance.
You don't have to be here at all. Why don't you just go away and take Cecelia with you?
DeleteCitation of study showing that trolls have personality disorders:
https://www.google.com/search?q=dark+triad+trolls+study&rlz=1C1HKFL_enUS1199US1199&oq=dark+triad+trolls+study&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigATIHCAQQIRigATIHCAUQIRigAdIBCDYyMzJqMGo0qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:282e2b64,vid:1EJteES8T-w,st:549
"Research indicates that internet trolls frequently exhibit "Dark Tetrad" personality traits—narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism—with a strong, direct correlation to sadistic enjoyment of others' suffering. Studies show that these individuals are motivated by the pleasure of causing distress, often using social media for manipulative, destructive behavior, and are specifically driven by low empathy. "
https://neurosciencenews.com/drk-triad-trolling-18825/#:~:text=Summary:%20Individuals%20with%20dark%20triad,others%20suffer%2C%E2%80%9D%20said%20Dr.
I see. You call me a troll with a personality disorder, but that's not despicable "namecalling" because in your view it's the truth, and someone (God, I presume) appointed you the arbiter of truth. Have I got that right?
DeleteTruth exists independent of people.
DeleteAnd you're been ordained as the one to tell us the "truth" that exists independent of people. I feel so honored to be in your presence!
DeleteBTW, Satan's game, the way I understand it, is to convince people they know the Truth, and that the Truth is that the Other is Evil! That's why the Ayatollahs call the US the Great Satan, and why W Bush calls them and their kind the Axis of Evil, and why you call Somerby "evil."
DeleteBob weirdly wants you to think that poor decisions in the sexual realm is totally isolated from decisions made in other realms.
ReplyDeleteWhat a weird goof Bob is.
Clearly Bob does not care about whatever good the Clinton Foundation has done, no what he is doing here is whitewashing sexual predators.
Clinton was at best a mixed bag as president, handing the keys of the kingdom over to neoliberals, and he does not have a history in his treatment of women to be proud of, but he is lightyears away from all the right wing Epstein creeps like Dershowitz, Trump, Pinker, Summers, on and on.
Interestingly, Trump has filled his admin with sexual predators, like Hegseth; birds of a feather flock together.
"Clearly Bob does not care about whatever good the Clinton Foundation has done, no what he is doing here is whitewashing sexual predators."
DeleteSlapslapslapslapslap!
I was told just a couple of hours ago that no one cares about matters like that, Quaker. By Bob.
DeleteReally, Not A? You read Somerby's COMPLAINT that "nobody cares" as his ADMISSION that he himself does not care?
DeleteThere is no evidence Clinton ever mistreated a woman the way Trump has. If there were such evidence, the right would have used it. The smears against Clinton are manufactured by the right and they didn't stick because he isn't that guy. Even Monica said that she was not mistreated by Clinton but by the right wingers who invaded her privacy, ruined her reputation and used her to attack Clinton.
DeleteIt is an outrage the way anyone still cares about Bill Clinton and Monica, without taking seriously the assault claims against Trump, coming from so many women, substantiated by evidence, even adjudicated by a judge who called what he did rape in the context of a trial by jury. No one can claim to care about Clinton without caring about Trump -- that is where the conclusion that no one cares should be obvious.
DeleteSomerby deserves more than slapping. He deserves to be shut in a room with Trump while Trump tells him all about his current list of grievances against the world. And he deserves one of those $75 campaign hats in white and gold, so all of his readers will know where he is coming from.
DeleteAre you saying, DG, that Somerby is saying no one cares, except himself? He’s the only one?
Delete"It is an outrage the way anyone still cares about Bill Clinton and Monica, without taking seriously the assault claims against Trump"
DeleteI imagine there are right-wingers who care about Bill and Monica but who don't care about Trump's transgressions (because they falsely believe the charges against Trump are all fake news), but otherwise I think you're talking about a null set of people.
And yet nothing is done about Trump.
DeleteAs long as Trump's cronies wear those ill-fitting clown shoes without protest, the idea that they will ever do anything about Trump's many crimes is ludicrous. You don't get points for thinking Trump raped teens, if you don't say so and do something about it. At the very least, these enablers voted for Trump. Now they are standing by while he attacks Iran for no reason, damaging our own resources to play war. If the right won't stop a sexual predator, why would they stop Trump's treason? This problem matters way beyond Bill Clinton's reputation.
Dogface says that right wingers do care whether teens are raped and sex trafficked, but they don't believe Trump is part of that because they think the accusations are fake news.
DeleteAre people no longer responsible for believing true things, telling truth from fiction? Somerby has used this excuse for Trump himself, saying that if he believes his own false statements then all is forgiven. Somerby used to argue that truth could not be known. He still says anything is possible.
In our justice system, ignorance of the law is no excuse. People are expected to know right from wrong. I think the same applies to right wingers with respect to Trump, and for Trump himself. If right wingers wrongly believe lies told to them, that is on them. They have the same access to truth as any of the rest of us, and it is their responsibility to find out, especially when it comes to serious accusations about rape, theft, and Trumps performance in office.
In the Nuremburg Trials after WWII, Nazis were not forgiven their acts with the excuse "I was just doing as I was told". Right wingers are individually responsible for Trump's lies about who he raped or whether that girl's school was bombed by the USA. It is their job to figure out what is true and support whoever stands for what they believe in.
5:34 - You want to have Nuremberg trials to convict right-wingers of thought-crime?
DeleteI want Noem to be tried for her crimes, along with those ICE shooters and I don’t want them saying they were just following orders. Pretti and Good didn’t die from thought crimes.
DeleteAnother bloody day on Wall Street and and oil tankers blowing up. Hopefully this won’t interfere with Orange King’s golf weekend
ReplyDeleteIt is the price we have to pay as Republicans keep us safe. That is the talking point. No one except for the most brain dead of cult members is falling for it.
DeleteAnd yet Orange Mussolini goes down to KY to do his spastic dance and tell us everything is great,
DeleteSomerby always whitewashes sexual predators, but Clinton is not a predator. Trump is the predator. Clinton is being attacked as a distraction from Trump's activities with Epstein (and those of guys in his own cabinet and administration, and those of some billionaire friends). Somerby is advancing that distraction by repeating what Gutfeld said about Clinton. Yes, Gutfeld made up that leering. Why does Somerby think he did that?
ReplyDeleteSomerby's focus today on Clinton's motives is like examining whether Rosie O'Donnell is really the size of a real live cow, and discussing whether she ever gave milk. Gutfeld's joke was never about Rosie, and his made up leering at photos is not about Clinton. Somerby makes a fool of himself when he pretends there is any reason to think about whether accusations against Clinton are true or not. This is all an attempt to deflect from Trump, who we all know in our hearts is guilty of every accusation.
The 25th Amendment
ReplyDelete"Every single thing he (Trump) says may, at any given time, be taken as an official hard-line policy of the US government, the opening gambit to a long flexible negotiation, or a random pronouncement that will never be mentioned again."
"It’s impossible to know in real-time which is which — especially so if you’re actually in the US government and in charge of translating his words into actions and plans."
Chelsea Clinton has an article in Vanity Fair, about her friend Paul Farmer who recently died, and about health care needs in our country and abroad. She reflects what the Clinton's are about as people.
ReplyDeleteToday, Somerby spits in the face of Bill Clinton while denying the hard work of those who DO care about others, pursuing non-profit work worldwide. These people exist and they help people who then go on to lead better lives.
Who else does that? The people Trump has targeted with his cuts and persecution (via ICE, Doge, and theft): Local politicians, fire-fighters, police, librarians, teachers, churches (who help others not collect souls like scalps to enrich their own coffers), preschools, home caregivers, doctors and other medical workers (nurses, technicians, staff), environmental workers, parks and recreation staff, pro-bono lawyers and agencies to help indigent accused and enforce laws via class action and public lawsuits, farmers and ranchers, pet rescuers and animal asylums, volunteers who use their retirement for good causes, and the many elderly people who care for grandkids (sometimes full time). People are connected to others and they help freely without asking for recompense because they care and want to see others thrive, to give back to others who have helped them by paying it forward, or who simply have the means and want others to thrive too.
To deny that this network of community does not exist, as Somerby claims, is not just wrong but pathetic because it reveals the poverty of Somerby's own existence. Nihilism is a cry for help, not a philosophy, because it reveals that something is broken inside a person.
You guys need to realize what you look like to the many people who do care, not just about Bill Clinton (who is one of us) but to human beings to whom you reveal the emptiness of your souls. Somerby says "pity the child" in his defense of Trump and Tucker Carlson and Greg Gutfeld, but then he cannot find any pity for actual victims while he furthers the agenda of the right wing, which is selfish, greedy and destructive of our nation at all levels with these stupid daily essays. What a waste of a life Somerby's has been.
Somerby is doing absolutely nothing to fight fascism.
ReplyDelete"Or has your sense of who Bill Clinton is, has it been eaten alive by something like forty years in which our garbage can American discourse has endlessly focused on one topic--his sexuality, possibly just as we imagine it?"
ReplyDeleteWere the mischaracterizations of Bill Clinton really the result of "our garbage can American discourse" or was it the result of relentless right wing persecution (funded by Richard Mellon Scaife among other wealthy individuals) of a Democrat who was an unusually effective politician elected to high office, in an attempt to derail his actions and destroy his accomplishments? Given that the same treatment has been accorded his wife and collaborator in her political career, how likely are the sexual accusations as a motivator of the attacks on Bill Clinton himself?
The term "garbage can American discourse" seems to encompass not just the right but the left too. Somerby has always tried to extend his complaints to the left but there is little evidence that the left participated in the ongoing smear campaigns against the Clintons. How then can his blame extend to all of our American discourse and not be limited to the bad behavior of the right wing?
Somerby likes to bothsides whatever is going on among right wingers to the left too, but the left and right are far from similar in their media behavior, discussions or truth telling. This false equivalence has always been Somerby's lie and his own fake accusation. There is not a single garbage can American discourse. There is a left wing discourse and a right wing propaganda machine (aka noise machine) that spreads manure to anyone who reads it.
Today, the right has managed to extend its lies and noise machine to the previous mainstream media. That still doesn't make it all of American discourse. The left is still engaging in investigative journalism and publishing the truth, including about Trump and the right, but it no longer has access to mainstream to do so, now that those sources are owned by right wing oligarchs. There is still a thriving independent media that is focused on truth seeking and honest discussion. This is what the right also calls fake news, along with its own lies about left wing figures, revisionist history, manufactured sensationalist news reports and doctored video of its own politicians and celebrities,. So we have two separate discourses, one fake and the other attempting to be truthful and honest.
This is clearly not Somerby's view of the media. That he presents a distorted view of discourse is part of his ongoing spread of manure himself, his promotion of right wing talking points, media sources and celebrities (such as Gutfeld, Watters, Brooks, Stephens, and other right wing pundits), quoting them without rebuttal, whether he praises or says he deplores them.
""We love women," Trump announced. "Women are the whole deal, okay? And today is very special because we celebrate Women's History Month. That's what it's about every year."
ReplyDeleteThe president went on to thank women in attendance, including first lady Melania Trump, second lady Usha Vance, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
"Doing a fantastic job, Karoline," he remarked. "She keeps me straight, she keeps you. No, sir, you can't do that, you can't do this. I can't do anything. Life would be so much more exciting, wouldn't it? Thank you, Karoline."
Trump also spoke of the "incredible women" throughout America's history.
"And now the Trump administration is working every single day to make America better, safer, and more prosperous for women and men. But much more importantly for women. And they are really the inspiration," he observed. "They are so powerful and so important and so beautiful. I'm not allowed to use the word beautiful, but I'm using it anyway. Usually, it's the end of your political career."
"If you say a woman's a beautiful woman, they say that's a termination of his career, but somehow it hasn't hurt too much," he added. "You are, you're incredible women, and you're beautiful women."
Takeaways:
1. Women are beautiful but you can't say so.
2. Women tell men what they can do and not do and men don't like it.
3. Women are inspirations to men.
4. Women did lots of things but Trump doesn't know what any of them are.
Trump is proud of not preparing for events and not knowing what is going on. From Mediaite:
ReplyDelete“ President Donald Trump took a detour during a Women’s History Month Event at the White House, which he said he did not prepare for.
At one point, the president made some meandering remarks that involved Kaillie Humphries, a bobsledder who has represented Canada and the U.S. at the Winter Olympics. Humphries was in the audience as Trump said:
But a person I recognized immediately when I came into the room, I looked down, I said, because I didn’t read. I can’t prep– if I prepare my speeches, I won’t have time to get things done, you know? Do you ever hear that? Yeah, I cannot prepare. So I didn’t know who the hell I was speaking to, but I walked in and saw this beautiful woman with the blonde hair. I watched that bobsled. I don’t know how the hell you do it, Kaillie.”
This is our president.
@8:03 - Trump focused on Iran and petroleum rather than prep for some ceremony. That is good judgment. He knows what is important and what is not.
DeleteI have never in my life seen a man so desperate to make another man appear smarter than he actually is. You’re shameless, dickface
DeleteDid he say for the billionth time that he really won in 2020? Did he outline the ways he and his family are massively corruptly profiting off his office?
DeleteDid he discuss the drapes? His new ballroom?
DeleteHow did his hair look?
Delete"Trump focused on Iran and petroleum rather than prep for some ceremony."
DeleteIsn't that how those problems got created in the first place, by Trump focusing on them?