{"id":27820,"date":"2019-07-27T15:06:37","date_gmt":"2019-07-27T19:06:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=27820"},"modified":"2019-07-27T15:06:37","modified_gmt":"2019-07-27T19:06:37","slug":"government-by-blackmail-jeffrey-epstein-trumps-mentor-and-the-dark-secrets-of-the-reagan-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2019\/07\/27\/government-by-blackmail-jeffrey-epstein-trumps-mentor-and-the-dark-secrets-of-the-reagan-era\/","title":{"rendered":"Government by Blackmail: Jeffrey Epstein, Trump\u2019s Mentor and the Dark Secrets of the Reagan Era"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mint Press News <\/em>has a several part piece by Whitney Webb on some sordid history that I did not know about. The first part, which I have only partially read so far is Hidden in Plain Sight: The Shocking Origins of the Jeffrey Epstein Case<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\nEpstein is only the latest incarnation of a much older, more extensive and sophisticated operation that offers a frightening window into how deeply tied the U.S. government is to the modern-day equivalents of organized crime.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The second part, which is where I started, is Government by Blackmail: Jeffrey Epstein, Trump\u2019s Mentor and the Dark Secrets of the Reagan Era<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\nAppalling for both the villainous abuse of children itself and the chilling implications of government by blackmail, this tangled web of unsavory alliances casts a lurid light on the political history of the U.S. from the Prohibition Era right up through the Age of Trump.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My initial reaction on reading this second part was “If 1% of this is true, one might wonder why bother anymore?”<\/p>\n

I have mixed reaction to the prominent place that the Bronfman family plays in this story. Once, when I was growing up I remember my father mentioning some family. He claimed that our family name might originally have been something garbled which I remember as the sound “brnfmn” I never made much out of that until somehow it came up in conversation many decades later with a cousin of mine. He mentioned that what I was remembering was actually Bronfman. My grandmother had reportedly been the source of the story that there might be a family connection. My father and grandmother had long since passed away before I had this conversation, so I couldn’t check the original sources.<\/p>\n

All I knew about the Bronfman’s was their tie to the brand name Seagrams. I used to laughingly talk about this connection after I learned about it. Now I am not so sure I should ever mention it again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mint Press News has a several part piece by Whitney Webb on some sordid history that I did not know about. The first part, which I have only partially read so far is Hidden in Plain Sight: The Shocking Origins of the Jeffrey Epstein Case. Epstein is only the latest incarnation of a much older, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-27820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-stevegsposts","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27820"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27821,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27820\/revisions\/27821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}