Jeffrey Epstein And Professor Leon Botstein

0:00What's up everyone and welcome back to the Epstein Chronicles. Jeffrey Epstein had his tentacles wrapped around just about every single lever of power that you could imagine, but one of the places where he was the most firmly entrenched was the world of academia. And Jeffrey Epstein was one of the biggest patrons to some of the biggest universities in this whole entire country. We're talking Harvard, we're talking MIT, and we're talking elsewhere. And all of these people who were taking his money knew exactly what he was. And one of those people who we're going to talk about today is Bard College President Leon Botstein. And how he said that he thought that Epstein was just, you know, a normal sex offender. And I guess that carries weight in academia, but in the real world, people who are sex offenders are usually cast out of society and ostracized and guess what they should be. Anyone who's out here hurting people against their will, especially in that sort of way,

1:04should be kept away from the rest of us. You really want somebody like Epstein running around the neighborhood where your kids are playing, where your wife's going to the store? I certainly don't. So when it comes to people who hurt children, people who hurt women, and people who commit these kinds of crimes, I want the most harsh penalties that you could possibly imagine. Now frame that against what academia thinks, and you see the disconnect in society. You have all of these so-called smartest people in the room who are actually pretty fucking stupid when it comes to day-to-day life. You can have all the book smarts in the world, but that's not going to guarantee you having one bit of common sense as these idiots have shown us time and time again. Today's article is from the LA Progressive Headline, co-zying up to Monsters. Bard College president Leon Botstein thought Jeffrey Epstein was just a normal sex offender, whatever that means again. What the hell is a normal sex offender? And why would you still want to hang out with somebody considered a quote-on-quote

2:07normal sex offender? This article was authored by a Robert Reich. As more and more of the nation's income and wealth is siphoned off to the top, an increasing number of people are kissing the derriers of the wealthy in order to raise money for worthy causes. The heads of entire non-profit sectors of the economy, of universities, museums, concert halls, research institutions, public broadcasters, charitable institutions, have turned into sickle fans. 100% there is no doubt that there is a huge disconnect. And while I don't agree with a lot of stuff that Robert Reich has to say, he's not wrong about this here. There's a lot of people out there that really don't care what people are up to if they're going to pony up some bucks. And I've said it once and I'll say it a million more times, I guess, but the only crime you could possibly commit in the upper crust of society in places like New York or London is being broke.

3:09So these people will do whatever they can do to not be broke. And if that means getting in bed with somebody like Jeffrey Epstein, even though Jeffrey Epstein has been convicted of horrible crimes against children, so what? They never thought their chickens were going to come home to roost. They figured that their pals in the legacy media would be able to continue to whitewash the story. Well, breaking news, that's not the case and the damn has now busted. They're kissing often involves bestowing honors on the wealthy, naming buildings after them, awarding them honorary degrees, giving them medals and certificates of merit, putting them on boards of directors and making them trustees. It also requires endless visits to and from them countless dinners and lunches with them and every possible effort to make them feel appreciated and valued, not just for their money, but also for their friendship, wisdom and all around wonderfulness. The problem is that some of those derriers are truly abhorrent,

4:12which is causing a great deal of moral confusion and ethical hand wringing. Well, guess what? All of this should have been called out years ago when all of this was really happening in real time, nobody had anything to say about it. Robert Reich included. All of these guys were paling around with Jeffrey Epstein, meaning the most powerful people in the country, all the way from Bill Clinton on down, but now all of a sudden that it's being exposed now it's a problem. All of these Johnny cum latelies who are now showing up are as late to the party as you could possibly be. Think of the Sacklers who made a fortune by getting people hooked on opioids or Michael Milken convicted for junk bond fraud or David Koch, the right wing media donor. Or why don't we throw George Soros in their wall we're at it? I mean since we're talking about scuzz bags because what Robert Reich seems to miss here is that there's plenty of scuzz going around and it doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on. All of these people

5:12who are in these offices in these positions of power look at you with disdain. So why are you out here carrying their water and fighting some kind of created artificial battle against the quote on quote other side? This is the oldest trick in the book. If you keep the pitchforks and the torch is busy then the pitchforks and the torches never storm the castle. Me I stay focused on the real enemy and my real enemy is never going to be my neighbor. My enemies are the people that are making my life more difficult by the day and the people that continuously protect people like Jeffrey Epstein point blank period. I don't have time to argue with people over artificially created wedge issues when there's serious stuff going on all around us. They want us focused on that infighting they want us focused on who voted for who or who believes in what because while that's happening at the same time they're busy pilfering our future and I don't understand how people don't see it. All have been the objects of falling attention by the presidents of universities

6:17museums and opera houses seeking their money. Perhaps the worst is Jeffrey Epstein. The disgraced billionaire sex offender in 2008 Epstein was accused of sexually abusing girls as young as 14 but he minimized his legal exposure with high-powered lawyers settlements that silence complaints and a plea deal that short-circuited an FBI investigation. He served a short time in jail in 2008 and was registered as a sex offender. Not new Mexico he wasn't and remember in New York they tried to argue it down to the lowest level of offender. So why the hell would they do that? Has anyone ever asked side vans what the hell he was thinking having his office ignore what was going on because that's what happened they ignored it and then the SDNY forget it. They had a mountain of evidence and they didn't act on it for years. Between then and when Epstein was arrested again on July 6 2019 on federal charges of sex trafficking minors in Florida and New York

7:19Epstein had multiple dealings with several well-known people. He died in his jail cell on August 10 2019 the medical examiner ruled it a suicide by hanging. According to a recent expose by the Wall Street Journal among the supplicants was Leon Botstein the president of Bard College who made frequent visits to Epstein's upper east side townhouse and unfortunately that's how it worked. These guys would go and they'd kiss the ring if you will of Jeffrey Epstein in hopes that he throw them a few bucks for whatever project that they're working on. And you would think that with all of the rich people in the country who are into giving money away for charity that they could find somebody besides a sex offender to throw them a couple of false rules. So what's really going on here and why is it Epstein that is the guy that they all go to what was he offering that the other donors weren't and that's really the five hundred pound gorilla in the room that nobody wants to talk about. And we know for a fact that some of these scientists have been

8:22fingered as taking part in the abuse. So what's to make us think that other scientists weren't abusing girls as well. Remember we only have a small sample size of women who are abused by Epstein who have come forward. What about all of the other women that we've never heard from? And that's a pretty pretty disturbing thought, right? All these other women out there that nobody's ever even heard of that were molested and abused by Epstein. How many of them were abused by some sicko scientist that was hanging out over at Epstein's island for the weekend. In his defense, botstein explained to the New York Times that he was seeking donations from Epstein for Bard. You cannot pick and choose from whom you're going to ask for money. Botstein said presumably because the number of the ultra wealthy who will give it to you is limited. Not if the ultra wealthy are telling it. Aren't they always telling us how charitable they are, how they're giving away so much money all the time. This that the other thing. The reality is these rich people when they're

9:22donating all of that money more times than not those donations are going to one of their friends and they're going to benefit from it somehow on the back end. The hustle is real folks and I hope you're paying attention. Botstein further explained that among the very rich is a higher percentage of unpleasant and not very attractive people. No shit, who else has been telling you that. And believe me when I tell you, I haven't been invited to hang out with the billionaire class ever in my life. Being the president of a college or the director of a nonprofit is hard enough. Having to spend lots of time with unpleasant and not very attractive people, that is not to mince words with rich assholes and act as if you enjoy their company must be excruciating. That's true. I don't think I could fake the funk with these people. I mean, I've told you before when I worked at a Wall Street firm that had a gaming division here in Nevada. These guys would come to town for conferences and whatnot and we'd go to like business dinners and sit down and

10:23have talks and stuff. And I was just disgusted and put off by the way that the financial sector looked at everybody else. Everybody else is just chattel, right? And they're the ones who rule the whole entire world. They're the ones that are pulling all the strings. And I'm not talking about big time executives either. I'm talking about junior bankers who have desire to be big time executives who really have the same sort of feeling for the plebs as their bosses. And that's something that's just endemic in the financial sector. And when you're going to try and get money for a seed start-up or you're trying to raise money for a college or whatever, those are the kind of people you're going to have to deal with. And unfortunately, most of them are scumbags. Why do the rich harbor a higher percentage of assholes? Botsdeen pointed out that capitalism is a rough system and applying that becoming very rich under capitalism often requires people to act like assholes. Breaking news, it doesn't matter the system you're under. Rich people are

11:27going to act like assholes. That's just how it works. Rich people are going to act like they run the world. You know why? Because they do. Do you really think that you're a little $10 donation to your presidential candidate of choice? Makes a difference? It does not. People like Epstein, people like his friends, those are the ones who are really making things happen. They're the movers, they're the shakers, and they're the ones that the politicians have to keep happy. And it doesn't matter if we're talking about communism or capitalism or whatever. It's just the system of power in general. That's how it works. Those with are in control. Those without are the ones that are being controlled. That certainly seemed to describe Jeffrey Epstein. Botsdeen's further defense is, as it were, rich. He says he had no idea. The public record had no indication that Epstein was anything more than an ordinary, if you could say such a thing, sex offender, who had been convicted, and went to jail. There is no such thing as an ordinary

12:30sex offender. If you're out here rapin, didlin, and all the rest of it, you are broken, and you need to be behind bars for the rest of your life. Because there's only one other option, and that's you're going to get out, and do it again. People like this just don't change. This is something that is hardwired into you. If you're into children or you're into, you know, dominating women by force, that's something that doesn't go away. That's a pattern that's going to pop up throughout your whole life. And somebody who's done this is somebody who is going to continuously do it and have a pattern of this behavior. So the whole ordinary sex offender thing, coming from people in college who are, I guess, a lot smarter than the rest of us, at least as far as books go, you would think that those same people would have a decent grasp on what society thinks is okay and isn't okay. Because guess what, Mr. Botstein? The vast majority of us don't think there's anything ordinary about a sex offender. I've got to hand it to Botstein,

13:30drawing a distinction that makes it permissible to kiss the derriere of an ordinary billionaire sex offender to raise money for a worthy cause, but not to kiss the derriere of a billionaire sex trafficker is a remarkable achievement in the navigation of moral justice. I don't mean to pick on Lee on Botstein. My point is that wealth concentrates in America's new billionaire class, otherwise reputable people like Botstein must now bow to horribly disreputable people like Epstein in order to raise money for worthy causes. Or here's another way to go about it. Have a little bit of morality, have a little bit of self-respect, and if you can't find somebody else to donate, don't accept money from somebody like Epstein. Pretty simple. You mean to tell me there's no alumni there that went to Bard College that would be willing to pony up a few bucks each to make up for what Epstein would have maybe brought into the school? See, I don't buy any of that. And when you start trying to pitch me that, well, I automatically think that you're sowing seeds of disinformation.

14:34This gives the super wealthy, extraordinary power over the botsteens of the world, which, unless the botsteens are exceedingly careful, could compromise their integrity as well as the worthy causes they represent. They need to do a better job vetting people. They need to do a better job vetting who they're going to get donations from. And if they don't do that and they just get into bed with people with their eyes closed or knowing that those people are scum, I don't want to hear anything about their reputation being ruined. They have nobody to blame but themselves. And the same certainly goes for Mr. Botstein. All right, folks, that's going to do it for this one. All of the information that goes with the episode can be found in the description box.