1,049: The Epstein Files . . . It's Likely NOT What You Think

The Epstein Files, Phase I: Issue or Smokescreen?

Way back in 1949. Sheldon Harnick wrote the lyrics to a topical ditty he called The Merry [Little] Minuet. Harnick, (1924-1923) who, in collaboration with composer Jerry Bock, wrote some of Broadway’s most memorable musicals, including the Tony Award winners “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Fiorello,” started out life composing satirical songs made popular by the likes of “The Kingston Trio,” and the recently deceased Tom Lehrer (a.k.a. “The J.D. Salinger of Satire”). In a sense, Harnick was godfather to such musical satirists as “Weird Al” Yankovic, Randy Newman, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, John Prine (the “Mark Twain of songwriting”) and currently, Randy Rainbow. Harnick’s “Merry Minuet”, which lists many of the world’s political woes back in the post-WWII era, began with four introductory lines which were never recorded nor played in public:

There are days in my life when everything is dreary
I grow pessimistic, sad and world weary
But when I am fearful and tearfully upset
i always sing this MERRY LITTLE MINUET . . .

It goes on to proclaim:

There’s rioting in Africa
La, la la, la la, la la
They’re starving in Spain
La, la la, la la, la la
There’s hurricanes in Florida
La, la la, la la, la la
And Texas needs rain
La, la la, la la, la la

It never ceases to amaze me (who frequently performed this song at anti-war rallies in the 1960s) just how timeless it is . . . a hallmark of great satire. After several stanzas depicting the world’s woes, it ends with the lyric:

But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud
For man’s been endowed with a mushroom shaped cloud
And we know for certain that some lovely day
Someone will set the spark off, and we will all be blown away!

“So, what in the world,” I can hear you ask, “does all the above, have to do with “The Epstein Files” and our beloved “Pouter Pigeon?” Only this: misdirection. Satire, whether in prose or music, often works as a “double-reverse” - pointing out that that which at first seems clear-cut or obvious to “true believers” - is anything but.

Over the past several months, a wide array of polls have pretty conclusively shown that Americans are paying far more attention to the Epstein Files imbroglio than just about anything else. Goodness knows, it is frequently the lead story on the nightly news - perhaps with the exception of Fox. Signs indicate that upwards of 47% of those who voted for IT in 2024 disapprove of their leader’s handling of the Epstein case. Many journalists, op-ed writers and even political bloggers keep alive the notion that so many of ITs current spate of Executive Orders and midnight ramblings are meant to keep attention away from his handling of the Epstein controversy. . . such actions as:

· Moving the U.S. Space Command from Colorado to Huntsville, Alabama

· Sending National Guard Troops into Washington, D.C. and strongly hinting that he would repeat this action in several “blue” metropolitan areas

· Expanding his immigration policy to give free rein to ICE agents to conduct enforcement actions in and around houses of worship and other “sensitive locations”

· Threatening to cut $126.4 million in disaster relief to California unless the state enacts voter ID laws

· Preparing to cancel a large swath of federal funding for California over a transgender athlete’s participation in a sporting event.

· Urging SCOTUS to overturn a federal appeals court ruling which invalidated his most punishing global tariffs, thereby permitting him (not Congress) to regain control of his economic strategy, and

· Issuing an executive order directing the Justice Department to prosecute cases of flag burning that may incite violence. .

The above are really a smokescreen to divert attention away from the Epstein Files case, which includes having moved convicted felon Ghislaine Maxwell from a highly restrictive federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida to a minimum-security prison for female offenders in Bryan Texas, and delivering a tranche of documents to the House Oversight Committee which then released them to the public . . . documents which had already been seen by the committee during the Biden Administration. And while there is certainly a “double reverse” at work in all this, it is highly likely that it’s not all the presidential actions keeping public attention away from the casus Epstein, but rather vice versa . . . using the salacious Epstein quagmire to keep public attention from what the regime is really doing: implementing the Heritage Foundation’s 920-page blueprint for authoritarianism in the U.S. Called Project 2025, this is the political initiative par excellence to utterly reshape our federal government and consolidate executive power in favor of far right-wing policies, all the while declawing Congress, gutting many executive branch offices and pretty much ignoring the Federal Courts (save SCOTUS when they do something Pouter Pigeon likes).

(n.b. It should be noted that in his first 8 months back in the White House, Felon47 has issued precisely 198 executive orders; that works out to 329 per year. By comparison, in the 8 years he served as POTUS, Barack Obama issued 275, which worked out to an average of only 35 per year, and in a little over 12 years, FDR issued 3,726 . . . 307 per year. Of course, FDR served as POTUS from the earliest days of the Depression, created the New Deal, and was Commander-in-Chief during WWII. Source: The American Presidency Project)

During the 2024 presidential campaign, then-candidate IT was repeatedly asked about Project 2025; what he knew about it, had he read it, and would he use it as a partial blueprint should he be elected in November. In early July 2024, he (or his ghost) wrote in a Truth Social post that he had “no idea who is behind Project 2025.” He went on to say that “some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” and that “anything they do, I wish them luck, but have nothing to do with them.” Unsurprisingly, he was, as per usual, lying through his teeth. Remember, this is the man who now claims that he barely knew Jeffrey Epstein . . . or anyone else he ever palled around with or campaigned for who then lost.

For a man who claimed little if any knowledge of Project 2025’s aims and goals . . . and derided the few he "had heard about” . . . it should come as no surprise that since January 20, 2025, the Pouter Pigeon and his merry band of enablers have already enacted 47% of the project’s most jarring, most authoritarian, objectives. Breaking down their “successes,” we find that the regime has fulfilled 100% of its 6 goals for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID); 92% of its 13 objectives for the White House; 9 of its 21 goals (43%) for the CDC, 75% of its 11 objectives at the Department of State; 61% of its 18 objectives at the DOJ and 57% of 15 objectives at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

You may or may not agree with me about this “double reverse” - e.g. using the 24/7 Epstein Files news cycle to divert attention away from the evisceration of the oldest and most successful representative democracy in the history of the world. Hey, I have a pretty thick skin, and after having spent more than half-a-century participating in, and writing about politics, I understand there will always be those who think I just may have a point to share, and others who firmly believe I am nothing more than a tool of the old Weather Underground. Such is life.

But please consider . . . what if I am right? Are you sanguine with the Executive Branch taking away our rights and freedoms by force-feeding us a toxic diet of sex and sin?