That’s always the case. It seems a potential scandal is roiling the UK right now, with the revelation that Prince Andrew may have been led into unseemly behavior. Or, rather than “led”, ran eagerly into it. Tsk.
Buckingham Palace has resisted growing pressure to explain Prince Andrew’s association with convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, whom the royal is believed to have met on numerous occasions, including on his private jet, yacht and in stays at his New York and Florida mansions.
Oh, right. Jeffrey Epstein. That guy has been on the radar for years — I recall being assured that no, this guy was just a little wild, but he’d never ever do anything illegal or sleazy. And now he’s caught owning a “sex slave” who he loans out to well-connected pals, and it’s coming out about how he suppressed news stories that mentioned his unsavory appetites.
But no, being a billionaire means you have lots of friends who will cover up your criminal behavior, until it’s discovered that you’re running an underage sex slave ring.
You know, it would be kind of nice if Lawrence Krauss came out and did the right thing, and mentioned that he was wrong about Epstein, way back when.
The story remains the same—only the characters ever seem to change.
–
Waiting to see if more names are revealed. Epstein’s friend Krauss may well be shaking in his boots right now.
Alan Dershowitz (scummy lawyer extrordinare) was also named as someone who had sex with said underage sex-slave.
His response was typical Dershowitz:
http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/01/05/bts-newday-alan-dershowitz-prince-andrew-sex-scandal-allegations.cnn
http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Alan-Dershowitz-says-Anti-Israeli-zealots-are-loving-accusations-against-him-386635
In his mind underage sex-slave = prostitute = liar. Oh, and any critique of him is antisemitism.
The lady in question’s lawyers came back swinging by suing him for defamation:
http://gawker.com/alan-dershowitz-sued-by-comic-relief-1677882350
(original link at NY Daily News, which seems to be offline at the moment. Is Dersh’s retalitation that swift?)
Oh my god, there are no words. Jesus fucking Christ.
The royal family is exempt from freedom of information act requests and can kill BBC pieces at will. They make heavy use of these powers…
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-royal-family-are-exempt-from-freedom-of-information-requests-and-can-veto-bbc-programmes-why-do-we-put-up-with-this-9956702.html
The royals are a horde of incestuous parasites. The sooner they go, the better.
If it somehow comes to pass that Andrew is left the reigns…
that will be the end of the Monarchy in the UK.
I’d bet money on it.
hell, I say with this entire family, maybe excluding William, it’s 50/50.
Andrew is not the only one. His father, Charles, is first hand friends with a bishop-pedophile. His grandfather, Philip, is first hand friends with a pedophile. And his grandfather, Mountbatten, was allegedly part of Jimmy Savile’s ring of clients. It seems to run in the family.
If it comes to pass that Andrew is the next in line to succeed, you can bet all those old rumours about whether Prince Philip is actually his father will be raised once more. Sure, he’ll still be the Queen’s son no matter what, but legitimate issue of the royal marriage come ahead of illegitimate issue, so it will be Edward who succeeds if that DNA test confirms the rumours. Edward seems Mostly Harmless.
@left0ver1under #8, Andrew is Charles’ younger brother, not his son, so the Queen is mother to them both (Prince Philip, OTOH, may possibly not be biological father to them both). Lord Mountbatten was one of Prince Philip’s uncles, not his father or grandfather. Other than that, little about the Windsors would surprise me, so carry on.
Coincidentally new legislation about freedom of information in the UK includes a clause providing the Windsors with absolute protection from any enquiry into their affairs, whether of public interest or not.
Coincidental because what it’s meant to protect is Charles past, present and avowed future intent to interfere in government, rather than this matter.
That it would as well, well, that’s just part and parcel of the privilege.
I have told all of my friends who run sex-slave rings that I firmly disapprove of their activities. I presume this puts me in the clear now, right? Of course it does. I mean, if it works for royalty, …
…Charles would do well to remember what happened to his namesake.
Great. David Icke was right. A bunch of cold blooded alien pedophiles from a different planet and dimension, indeed.
Ah yes, Lawrence “they looked 18” Krauss. Worth repeating(from the linked article above) :
“Raised” being the operative term. For shame.
Even before the current accusation, there has been ample evidence that
Andrew Windsor is an arrogant sleazebag. He had to give up his position as a “British trade envoy” in 2011, partly due to be photographed with Epstein after the latter had served his sentence for child sex abuse, partly because of other unsavoury associations, and condonation of bribery. His ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, who has come to his defence in the latest scandal, accepted a £15,000 “loan” from Epstein.
Well, not a sleazebag on Andrew’s level, but he and his wife had to become officially unemployed hangers-on when she was caught out trying to trade on her royal connection for commercial advantage.
The chances of either Andrew or Edward coming to the throne are remote, however. The current succession line-up in order is: Charles, his son William, William’s son George, Charles’s second son* Harry, then Andrew, then his two daughters, then Edward. When Kate’s expected child is born, it will slot in after George and before Harry. Andrew would have to do quite a lot of wicked-uncleing to get the top job.
fentex@11 mentions the legislation (not that new actually – 2011) to protect the royals from public scrutiny. Ophelia Benson has several recent posts on it.
*Or not, as persistent rumour has it.
Hey, I also have never seen him poop. Never done it when I was in the room. Therefore, as a scientist, I conclude that he doesn’t poop and will believe him over the person who has to clean his toilet.
Well, “loaning” said sex friends is a good way to blackmail them and use their influence to get out of trouble.
***
I must admit I’ve had a soft spot for Charles ever since he lobbied in favor of unpasteurized french cheeses.
@8 left0ver1under. Its not just that – we’ve recently been told about a large dossier of information on paedophiles going missing. The dossier was handed to a Conservative cabinet minister who… is alleged to have attended a place of ill repute where kids were abused and possibly even killed. There’s meant to be an inquiry being set up but they cant find anybody who is not tainted or part of the ‘establishment’ who want the whole thing brushed under the carpet.
Fenex and others
Will everybody please stop getting shot over the exemption from the freedom of information legislation.
The fact that the offices of certain members of the royal family are , like a number of government bodies exempt from answering freedom of information requests does not mean that they cant be investigated or their doings exposed. Which should be blindingly bleeding obvious by the fact that there are two stories about their doings in the press right now.
I work for a public body and I quite often get requests from the public for information, which I normally answer as best I can.
However, in this paranoid age of big government I also occasionally get freedom of information requests because people think I’m hiding shit from them and they are a PITA.
Basically you can not answer an FOI request with “to the best of my knowledge this is my answer” but you must consider every point raised and answer it fully and factually , which means hours of research because if you even get a small point wrong you are liable to prosecution.
Its not even that you need to hand over any documents unless your answer is challenged on the basis of being factual, and then the questioner doesn’t get to see the documents as they are sent to a panel to judge whether you have properly fulfilled the request for information.
I can also in some cases refuse to answer some requests if I can show that gathering the information needed would be disproportionately onerous, so in this case I have immunity.
And all I do is fix peoples roads.
So being exempt from the FOI does not stop the royal family being investigated or having to answer legitimate questions, nor does it stop documents being leaked or speculation. It just stops the Queen having to respond to people who send her an FOI request fully and factually ,what brand of sanitary protection she uses .
Nick Gotts, #16:
Actually William and Catherine’s unborn second child comes before Harry, even if Charles and William die before it’s born. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posthumous_birth#In_monarchies
madtom1999
Do you have any proof that Leon Brittan was involved in a paedophile group? I have not seen any allegations that he was involved.
And the reason that the inquiry hasn’t started is that survivour’s groups have objected to the recent chairs on very specific grounds, not just that they are members of the establishment. It will be difficult to find and high ranking lawyer not linked in some way to the Home Office or Leon Brittan, as he was home secretary and therefor their employer for most of the 80s and 90s.
:-o
…OK, something will have to change.
Well said.
That’s what Nick said in comment 16: “The current succession line-up in order is: […] When Kate’s expected child is born, it will slot in after George and before Harry.” The future line of succession is not the current one.
Just to add to the confusion, there really isn’t much evidence at all the Dickens had a dossier as he claimed in the early 1980’s; it is clear that he was a bigot, hating homsexuals and was the kind of person to associate homosexuality with paedophilia across the board. He was also a campaigner against witchcraft and Satanism, yes, even you harmless pagans were, to him, evil horrible people who abused children.
For istance:
http://www.prattle.net/2014/07/a-tale-of-three-dossiers.html
And more here:
http://thethirdestate.net/2014/07/the-leon-brittan/
Which has the aposite quote:
“At the same time that real victims were being disbelieved, a panic about non-existent Satanic Ritual Abuse became so widespread that even the NSPCC lent credibility to it, and parents who were falsely believed to be engaged in abusive satanic practices lost custody over their children”
The media don’t care whether or not there was a dossier, all that matters is titillation and shock value.
Shorter Dershowitz: Sluts lie about rape to ruin good men and get attention.
When have we heard that before? Oh. Right. Every single time a woman comes forward about being raped.
I think the Ottoman Empire had an effective system to avoid trouble from younger princes.
Initially, the younger princes were put to death once the oldest had ascended to Big Cheese.
Later, they were merely imprisoned for life in palaces.
David Marjanović@23,
No, I think robinjohnson@21 is saying that Kate’s fetus is, in effect, already in the line of succession: even if Liz, Charlie, Wills and Georgie were all to pop their clogs before it came out, Harry still wouldn’t get a look in.
Danny Butts@20,
You’re completely misisng the point. The issue was over Charles trying to affect government policy by sending letters to ministers, not some nonsense about the Queen’s sanitary preferences. Charles should not be doing that, and if he is, the public should know what he’s saying.
No proof, but the allegations have certainly been around for a while. (I note that the linked article misspells Brittan’s name.) Brittan has been questioned by police about a 1967 rape allegation, but not charged.
@13 Indeed, it can be dangerous for a royal to be too… cavalier about public opinion.
fpjeromei @ 14
No. Privileged human beings who think that the rules don’t apply to them. If we other them, if we declare that members of the royal family, or that pedophiles, or that any other person, or goup of people, who do things that are legally and/or societally beyond the pale, then we do not need look at our laws, our society, our mores, and attempt to understand just how people can be like this. What they have done is monstrous. What they are, though, is humans.
Nick G @28 “No proof, but the allegations have certainly been around for a while.”
The earliest reference I could find to rumour’s came from Private eye (via the Daily mail), who published a story in 1986 that they had investigated the “whispers” against Britten and concluded that there was no truth in them. In fact they believed that the story had been put about by disgruntled MI5 officers with a view to undermining the Jewish(a point they believed to be pertinent) home secretary, after he threatened them with a shake up for the way in which they handled the Libyan embassy crisis.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2816508/Are-vile-paedophile-allegations-against-Leon-Brittan-sinister-MI5-smear-plot-Labour-MP-uses-Commons-privilege-link-Tory-abuse.html
“(I note that the linked article misspells Brittan’s name.)”
so did I.
Brittan has been questioned by police about a 1967 rape allegation, but not charged.”
and that has what to do with what we are discussing?
Norman Finkelstein show Dershoshits, or Dershowitz, to be a plagiarist and a liar. Dershoshits tried to used his prestige and influence to prevent the publication of Finkelstein’s books. He did succeed in creating a movement to keep Finkelstein from getting a tenured university post. There is no lower life-form than Dersho.