The Lie Going Around the World

I sat down to watch the Epstein documentary on Netflix last night, and I got maybe 10 minutes into it and I just couldn’t watch it anymore. The first victim was a talented artist who was arm twisted by another rich idiot into selling her art at a discount to Epstein and Maxwell, and I assume worse happened to her, but I didn’t want to spend more time watching the obvious play out.

Even though it’s now obvious that rich mostly Republican assholes engaged in decades of pedophilia, rape and coercion, Republicans persist in their conspiracy theories. Kyle Clark, one of the best journalists in the country, has decided to go after one of them, Colorado State Rep Scott Bottoms, who is running for governor. These three minutes are worth a look:

The short story is that Bottoms, who is running for governor, has said that there’s a pedophile ring running out of the statehouse in Colorado. Another Republican, Joe Oltmann, a podcaster and candidate for Governor, has said that people will take matters into their own hands if nothing is done about this fictional pedophile ring. Kyle Clark is doing two good things: exposing the lies and questioning the liars, and Bottoms sure doesn’t like to be questioned.

The Colorado Republican Party is both a throwback and a preview of coming attractions. It’s a throwback because it’s so full of die-hard true believers that it keeps repeating the lies that the national Republican Party has pretty much given up on. It’s a preview because it’s the bare rump of the Party, and they’re going to believe that there are liberal pedophile cabals around every corner, even though their leader is clearly a rapist and pedophile.

The first, glaringly obvious question is: where’s the money in the Colorado legislature to support a pedophile ring? There are many other obvious questions after that.

Bottoms is the pastor of a church in Colorado Springs. I wonder if someday we’ll find out that he’s another case of every accusation being a confession.

In the meantime, these accusations diminish the suffering of the victims of the real pedophile ring, run by Epstein with Trump’s gleeful participation.