Arrogance squared. Crime cubed.
Arrogance squared. Crime cubed.
It is not known if Trump will survive the release of the Epstein files when it happens, but it is likely that taking a shower in his own lies will not wash the dirt off him this time.
Republished with permission from Lucian K. Truscott IV
Here is an ugly truth: practically every man, woman, and child in this country has either been a victim of sexual abuse or knows someone who has suffered abuse. That’s the one big reason the Epstein story has such staying power. Everyone knows how prevalent the sexual abuse of children is, and this time, a story has come along that promises to expose that fact by tying the abuse to prominent men in politics, business, and academia.
It is truly hard to contemplate how huge the incidence of sexual abuse is. We got a glimpse during the “me too” movement, when women were encouraged to raise their hands and say that it happened to them and to name those who were guilty. But it was only a glimpse.
I remember when I first became aware of how many sex criminals are out there. It was in the early 2000’s. We had just moved into a house in the Hollywood Hills above Sunset and Vine when the state of California passed a law making maps available that showed where people who were registered sex offenders lived.
Think of that for a minute. I just wrote the words, “registered sex offenders.” This was a new phenomenon, that those convicted of sex crimes could not only be sentenced to prison, but required to register with the state as a sex offender once out of prison, a label that we were assured at the time would stick with them for life.
You could log onto a website run by the state and type in your zip code, and a map would appear of your area showing the street address of every sex offender in the zip code. You could zoom in to show your specific neighborhood, which I immediately did. We lived just above Franklin Avenue to the west of Beechwood Canyon. There were lots of apartment buildings along Franklin and on the streets leading up into the hills.
The map of sex offenders in our neighborhood was dense with red dots, not only at addresses that were apartment buildings, but further up in the Hollywood Hills where I knew that the apartment buildings thinned out to be replaced by single family homes. I sat there for a time and counted the red dots. There were hundreds in the specific area where I had walked my daughter when she was in a stroller and where I took my son on walks with his scooter. Hundreds. In buildings I had passed and still passed with my kids every day.
Click here to read the rest of this story.
Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist and screenwriter. He has covered stories such as Watergate, the Stonewall riots and wars in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels and several unsuccessful motion pictures. He has three children, lives in rural Pennsylvania and spends his time Worrying About the State of Our Nation and madly scribbling in a so-far fruitless attempt to Make Things Better.
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