Shots in the Dark

Yes, you read that right. Word has it that Jeffrey Epstein’s “assistant” may actually have been a sex slave.

As Gawker reports, citing previously undisclosed police documents,

According to one girl’s statement:

“The encounters included bringing in his assistant, Nada Marcinkova. [Redacted] explained Epstein had purchased her from her family in Yugoslavia. Epstein bragged he brought her into the United States to be his Yugoslavian sex slave.

In fairness, there’s not much context for this, it’s just a quote from one woman, Epstein could have been making a joke, and so on. But still…this story gets weirder and weirder. I was joking before when I said that Epstein’s reclusiveness might have been linked to his sexual idiosyncracies; now I think that’s more and more likely.

Below is the girl in question. How old do you think she is?

Because they get preferential treatment from the police, that’s why. First billionaire Jeffrey Epstein gets offered a sweetheart plea bargain, then he’s arrested on the relatively minor count of soliciting a prostitute when cops (as opposed to prosecutors) feel that he’s been hiring minors for sex.

Now there’s the suggestion that the LAPD tried to cover up for Mel Gibson after his arrest for drunk driving prompted Gibson to go on an anti-Semitic verbal rampage.

According to the Los Angeles Times,

On Friday, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman told reporters that Gibson had been arrested that day in Malibu “without incident.” But [TMZ.com] alleged that evening that supervisors at the Malibu-Lost Hills sheriff’s station tried to downplay the actor’s behavior by omitting his most offensive actions in an abridged version of the arresting deputy’s report, which has yet to be made public.

Just to clarify…the cop who arrested Gibson was actually ordered to re-write his report, eliminating all references to anti-Semitic remarks.

Now TMZ.com has learned that Gibson was twice before stopped for drunk driving…and the cops allowed him to leave the scene without a ticket or arrest.

(These guys are beating the MSM on this story pretty badly, by the way.)

According to the website,

We’re also told that deputies at the Sheriff’s station were star struck by Gibson and a number of them went to Gibson’s holding cell to get a look of the star. The problem for the Sheriff’s department — there’s a mounted camera in the station and the deputies can be seen fawning over the actor. Sheriff’s officials have called some of the officers who were caught on tape in and warned them they might be subject to discipline.

Of course, it’s no surprise that there are two different systems of justice in this country, one for the rich and famous and one for the rest of us. But it’s never a bad thing to be reminded of that.

Sea Lion, Santa Fe island, Galapagos

“I have two words for you: Cham—pagne.”

—Pamela Anderson, asked how she was coping with nerves before her wedding to Kid Rock, in the New York Daily News.

I am shocked: The New York Times has endorsed Ned Lamont in the Connecticut Senate race.

The Times rejects Lieberman’s dubious claim that a vote for Lamont means some kind of Democratic litmus test that will tear the party apart.

That’s far from the issue. Mr. Lieberman is not just a senator who works well with members of the other party. And there is a reason that while other Democrats supported the war, he has become the only target. In his effort to appear above the partisan fray, he has become one of the Bush administration’s most useful allies as the president tries to turn the war on terror into an excuse for radical changes in how this country operates.

Moreover:

Mr. Lieberman prides himself on being a legal thinker and a champion of civil liberties. But he appointed himself defender of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the administration’s policy of holding hundreds of foreign citizens in prison without any due process. He seconded Mr. Gonzales’s sneering reference to the “quaint” provisions of the Geneva Conventions. He has shown no interest in prodding his Republican friends into investigating how the administration misled the nation about Iraq’s weapons. There is no use having a senator famous for getting along with Republicans if he never challenges them on issues of profound importance.

This primary, the paper concludes, has become a referendum on [Lieberman’s] warped version of bipartisanship, in which the never-ending war on terror becomes an excuse for silence and inaction. We endorse Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary for Senate in Connecticut.

Eloquent—and accurate. Let’s hope that the Times endorsement helps Ned Lamont as he tries to topple the oleaginous Lieberman.

Mel Gibson was arrested for drunk driving on Friday, which is bad. He was drinking from an open bottle of tequila and going 80 mph in a 45 mph zone, which is bad.

“My life is fucked,” he said when the cops pulled him over. “You motherfucker,” he told one officer. “I’m going to fuck you. You’re going tor regret that you ever did this to me.”

Also bad is the fact that, after being arrested, Gibson became “increasingly belligerent,” according to the police report, and started spewing anti-Semitic insults. According to the police report, “Gibson blurted out a barrage of anti-Semitic remarks about ‘fucking Jews.’ Gibson yelled out, ‘The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.’ Gibson then asked ‘Are you a Jew?'”

Gibson has since apologized, but did not specifically address the issue of his anti-Semitism, which means that his apology doesn’t mean a thing.

Mel Gibson has two problems: the fact that he’s an alcoholic, and the fact that he’s a bigot. What a sad way to end an impressive career.

A number of news reports suggest that the Palm Beach police have shown the kind of gentle treatment to Jeffrey Epstein that it wouldn’t show to, say, someone who isn’t worth a few billion dollars. Epstein at one point was offered a plea bargain which, among other things, mandated that he have no unsupervised conduct with minors.

Epstein was given months to respond—an option not generally given to people suspected of regularly hiring 15-year-olds for sex—but something went wrong and he failed to respond to the offer. In any case, according to the Smoking Gun, “police investigators-who anticipated five felony counts being lodged against Epstein-were incensed at what they clearly viewed as a sweetheart prosecution offer.”

This should be interesting: Larry Summers is joining others from the powerbroker class at a retreat hosted by Rupert Murdoch in Los Angeles. Other guests will include Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Bono. Billy Beane of the Oakland A’s will also be there, and there’ll be a panel called “Meet the MySpace Generation.” (Rupert Murdoch owns MySpace.)

Here’s a prediction: The fact that Rupert Murdoch is hosting a panel on the MySpace generation means that MySpace is over. I don’t know what will take its place, but the MySpace Generation probably does.

Summers will appear on a panel with Newt Gingrich and William Bratton. The theme: How to reform institutions.

Expect plenty of historical revisionism to go around….

In all seriousness, this is the kind of thing that folks at Harvard should be concerned about. First, Summers has a podium and an audience of extremely influential people to peddle his line about Harvard being afraid to change. Second, why didn’t the Corporation restrict Summers’ ability to talk about these things? Third, why is Summers even doing it? Could you imagine Derek Bok appearing on such a panel under similar circumstances?

That’s what Alan Dershowitz once said of billionaire recluse Jeffrey Epstein, who has given some $30 milllion to Harvard.

But apparently, he likes getting rub-and-tugs from underage girls even more—girls aged “sixteen or seventeen at most,” according to his houseman, Jose Alessi. (To whom fell the ghastly work of washing off Epstein’s sex toys.)

The Smoking Gun has posted the affidavit prepared in Epstein’s arrest, and, well, let’s just say it’s a lot dirtier than the Starr Report.

Epstein’s predicament makes it hard to read lines like these from the Crimson in quite the same way one did before.

University officials seem to appreciate Epstein’s proclivity to privacy, and did not return repeated phone calls requesting information about his donation.

Epstein himself also declined to comment for this article. His staff say he has never granted an official interview to a member of the press.

“He was very anxious to make this donation anonymously,” Dershowitz says.

Apparently Epstein has been making quite a few donations privately.

Let’s play a little Mad Libs with some more text from the Crimson:

Yet Epstein appears interested in more than the large collection of planes, trains and automobiles which his fortune has allowed him to amass—and he has found Harvard the perfect staging ground for his _________ pursuits.

Networking with the University’s greatest and most well-known _______, he has spurred research through both discussion and ________ he has contributed to various _______—most often in the _________.

I am sure Epstein’s friends at Harvard will rush to defend him. (Dershowitz, that great advocate for Larry Summers, O.J. Simpson and Claus von Bulow, is now part of Epstein’s legal team.) That’s the kind of friendship really large amounts of money can buy.

But because I think the obscene wealth of a handful of Americans is a real problem for this country, I will say this: Few things in life are as satisying as seeing a hedge-fund billionaire take a fall.

“Could Tanning Be Almost as Addictive as Heroin?”

Okay…I have completely come around on Stephen Colbert. The man is brilliant. This takedown of network morning shows is epic.