Epstein’s Suicide Sends Both Sides Over The Edge

If you wanted to purge your social media accounts of those who push conspiracy theories, this weekend was your opportunity. The sudden death of billionaire pedophile and friend to the rich and famous, Jeffrey Epstein, brought the tinfoil hat crowd out of the woodwork and into plain view on the internet.

Within a few hours of the news of Epstein’s death on Saturday, keyboard warriors were advancing theories that reflected their political biases. Rather than a suicide, Epstein was killed by the Clintons, the Trump Administration, Russia, or the British royal family, depending on who you don’t like. And that’s if you think he’s dead at all. Some woke users advanced the idea that Epstein’s death had been faked so that he could be inserted into the witness protection program. The fact that there is so far not a shred of evidence that Epstein’s death is anything other than what it seems has done nothing to stop the conspiracy theorists who knew from the moment that they read the headline that their suppositions were correct.

While Epstein’s death seems convenient to numerous powerful people on the surface, the reality is different. While Epstein won’t be around to name names, he leaves behind a mountain of evidence. A search warrant had already been served on the accused sex trafficker’s Palm Beach home and investigators likely have incriminating photos, videos, and documents that can be used to indict co-conspirators. A potential murderer would have to know that Epstein’s death might not be the end of their own problems.

Epstein’s death might actually mean more trouble for co-conspirators who were caught on film or mentioned in his papers. Adam Klasfield of Courthouse News pointed out on Twitter that “no one else will have the standing to challenge the search warrant on his house. Everything will be admissible against any other defendant without possibility of a motion to suppress.”

Throughout the weekend, people asked the question of how Epstein could have committed suicide while on suicide watch from his previous attempt. The answer turned out to be that he was no longer on suicide watch. The question then became who removed him from suicide watch and why. It seems very suspicious until you find out details of how suicide watches work.

An interesting Twitter thread by C.Z. Edwards, who has experience with suicide watches in clinical facilities, explains the procedure. Inmates are typically not kept on suicide watch for more than 72 hours because it entails many things that could actually drive a person to want to kill themselves even more. Suicide watches include checks by guards every 15 minutes, having the lights on all day, no clothing other than a safety smock, no linens for a bare vinyl mattress, limited reading material with no other media allowed, and no privacy. Even bathroom breaks are supervised. She notes that about a third of in-patient suicides occur while the patient is on suicide watch. In other cases, inmates convince doctors that the danger is over and then bide their time until they have another chance to attempt suicide. That seems to be what happened to Epstein.   

There is also evidence that guards at the prison dropped the ball. The New York Times reported today that a procedure that required guards to check on Epstein every 30 minutes was not followed the night before his death. The jail also allegedly transferred out his cellmate and allowed him to be housed alone two weeks after being taken off suicide watch, another violation of procedure.

Epstein certainly had reason to want to kill himself. Up until a few months ago, he had the world at his fingertips, but in his last months, he had totally lost control of his life. He was at the mercy of the judicial system and would likely face a humiliating public trial to be followed by spending the rest of his life in prison.

Even though Epstein had the means and the motive to want to kill himself, it isn’t impossible that he was murdered. If we assume that Epstein was murdered, what about the difficulty of covering the trail of an assassin who just killed the most infamous inmate in America? Epstein’s death was certain to invite close scrutiny and a jail is a closely monitored facility. There are cameras, guards, locked doors, and records of who goes in and out. Any murderer would leave a trail that could be quickly followed.

Among the most unlikely suspects for a murder attempt would be the Clintons. The #ClintonBodyCount meme is a long-running joke that applies blame to the Clintons for pretty much any death within six degrees of separation. The Clintons are blamed for suicides and deaths from natural causes in addition to actual murders such as that of Seth Rich. Yet, to those who bother to look at the actual facts of the cases, the conspiracy claims don’t stand up to scrutiny.

The Clintons are said to have a motive because of Bill’s relationship with Epstein, yet the fact that we already know about their friendship cancels out the motive. The Clintons are said to be so sinister and sly that they have killed as many as 100 people and never been caught (even though everyone except law enforcement seems to know that they are guilty), yet Hillary was so incompetent that she forgot to visit the Rust Belt in 2016. The contrast between the two claims, which are often made by the same people, strains credulity.

Further, the allegations against Bill Clinton were made by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a former Epstein employee, rather than by Epstein himself. Yet Giuffre, an easy target outside of the prison, remains alive while Epstein does not. Likewise, Ken Starr, Juanita Broaddrick, and Monica Lewinsky are all still breathing despite crossing the Clintons.

President Trump retweeted an allegation by a follower that blamed the Clintons for Epstein’s death yet it is Donald Trump’s Justice Department that will investigate. If there is evidence that the Clintons are complicit in Epstein’s death – or anyone else’s – it would give the president a good reason to “lock her up,” but he hasn’t done so.

And speaking of Trump, the president also makes a poor suspect. Although Mr. Trump also seems to have a motive in covering up his associations with Epstein as well as the opportunity to clear a path for the hit by virtue of his control of the Department of Justice, this also seems farfetched when examined more closely.

Fresh from the Russia investigation, Mr. Trump hopefully learned from the experience that it isn’t a good idea to flout the law. The Mueller report revealed the president to be willing to order aides to disobey the law, but, when they refused to follow illegal orders, the president did not force the issue by firing those who refused to fire the special counsel. It seems unlikely that he would act more forcefully to order a hit on a federal inmate. Trump would have to assume that anyone who received such an order would be quickly writing memorandums to memorialize the occasion in case there is another investigation if not to leak the information directly to the press.

The royal family and the Russians also don’t pass the logic test. The royal family might have a motive, given the allegations that Prince Andrew had sex with Epstein’s girls, but lacked an opportunity. Such an assassination, if it went bad, would jeopardize relations with Britain’s closest ally at a time when it is trying to develop closer trade ties due to the looming Brexit. The Russians have less to lose and fewer inhibitions about assassinations but lack a motive. Putin’s intention seems to be to weaken the US by wreaking political havoc. To that end, Epstein was probably more useful alive and able to spin yarns about everyone from the president on down.

As I write this, information is just coming about Epstein’s autopsy,

Occam’s Razor is a principle of logic that holds that when there are two possible explanations for an occurrence, the simplest one is usually correct. In a case like this, that means that the probability that the prison personnel messed up and unintentionally allowed Epstein to kill himself is the most likely explanation. If there was a conspiracy, evidence will probably surface given the tightly-controlled nature of prisons and the propensity of people to talk and make mistakes that leave a trail. My favorite aphorism, Hanlon’s Razor, puts it more succinctly: “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”

A lot of people posting conspiracy memes probably don’t really believe them. Many of the memes are funny and are probably shared in a spirit of fun. Nevertheless, as we’ve seen in recent years, conspiracy theories can be taken seriously by the suggestible people and can sometimes lead to real violence. We’ve seen time and again in recent years how heated political rhetoric can spur radicals to resort to violence. A lot of people that I thought were reasonable and sensible have jumped on the conspiracy bandwagon over the weekend.

The one thing that both sides seem to agree on is that they believe the other side to be capable of anything, including murder. In an already tense political situation, spreading conspiracy theories only serves to further inflame political passions. We should all sit back, take a deep breath, and wait for the facts before we make up our minds rather than squaring facts with what we want to believe.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Pediatrician: Transgender Treatments Are 'Child Abuse'

The movement to normalize transgender medical treatments for children has seemingly come out of nowhere. In the course of a few short years, cases of gender-confused children, some in kindergarten, seeking medical treatment to alter their sexual characteristics have become commonplace. Today, at least one pediatrician is speaking out to call the practice “child abuse.”

In an op-ed for the Daily Signal, Dr. Michelle Cretella writes that the treatments advocated by many in the “transgender affirming movement” can cause severe damage to children and “constitute nothing less than institutionalized child abuse.”

“Today’s institutions that promote transition affirmation,” Cretella says, “are pushing children to impersonate the opposite sex, sending many of them down the path of puberty blockers, sterilization, the removal of healthy body parts, and untold psychological damage.”

Michelle Cretella is no stranger to controversy and criticism from the left. A graduate of the University of Connecticut School of Medicine in 1994, she practiced pediatric medicine for 15 years before becoming president of the American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) in 2015, a group that the Southern Poverty Law Center labels “an anti-LGBT hate group.”

Cretella attacks the sacred cows of the gay rights movement with science and logic. She points out that scientific studies of identical twins prove that gay and transgender identities are not a product of genetics since in 72 percent of cases of a transgender twin, the other twin’s sexual orientation is different. If sexual orientation were purely genetic, correlation would be 100 percent in identical twins.

She also points out that gender identity is very malleable in young children. Cretella cites the American Psychological Association’s Handbook of Sexuality and Psychology which acknowledges that 75 to 95 percent of children eventually come to accept their biological gender. In most cases, puberty is the cure for a confused gender identity.

Unfortunately, a new trend is preventing many sufferers of gender dysphoria, the new medical term for the problem, from going through puberty. A treatment that is becoming more common is the prescription of puberty blockers. Cretella writes that there have been no studies that prove these drugs are safe for the treatment of gender dysphoria. She writes that a new study of the treatments shows “evidence for decreased bone mineralization, meaning an increased risk of bone fractures as young adults, potential increased risk of obesity and testicular cancer in boys, and an unknown impact upon psychological and cognitive development.”

Perhaps even more disturbing, Cretella points out that there is not a single case in the scientific literature of transgender children choosing to discontinue the puberty blockers. “The only study to date to have followed pre-pubertal children who were socially affirmed and placed on blockers at a young age found that 100 percent of them claimed a transgender identity and chose cross-sex hormones,” says Cretella. Cross-sex hormones are associated with health risks including cardiac disease, high blood pressure, blood clots, strokes, diabetes, and cancers.

“There is an obvious self-fulfilling effect in helping children impersonate the opposite sex both biologically and socially,” writes Cretella. “This is far from benign, since taking puberty blockers at age 12 or younger, followed by cross-sex hormones, sterilizes a child.”

Cretella also debunks the liberal claims that therapies affirming gender identities will result in fewer suicides of transgender children. “Adults who undergo sex reassignment—even in Sweden, which is among the most LGBT-affirming countries—have a suicide rate nearly 20 times greater than that of the general population,” Cretella says.

The fundamental problem is that the transgender politics have outstripped medical studies and laws. The controversy over bathroom policies shows how difficult it can be to enact laws that restrict perceived transgender rights. Restrictions on the ability to administer puberty-blocking drugs to children or even commit children to gender-reassignment surgery would be no different. In the end, it will be the children who suffer.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Yemen suicide attack may have been intended for US warship

A Saudi frigate was attacked by Yemeni rebels in the Red Sea on Monday. Now Fox News is reporting that the attack, which left two Saudi sailors dead and three wounded, may have been intended for a US Navy warship.

The Saudi ship was originally believed to have been hit by a missile fired by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Based on a video of the attack, officials now believe that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber in a small boat. This is similar to the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 which was carried out in the Yemeni port of Aden and killed 17 US sailors.

Fox reports that on the video of Monday’s attack, a voice can be heard shouting in Arabic, “Death to America, Death to Israel, Death to the Jews.” The recording prompted US defense analysts to believe that the attack may have been carried out as a practice run for an attack on a US ship or that the Saudi ship may have been misidentified as an American ship.

American ships do inhabit the Red Sea waters near Yemen. Last October, the USS Mason and the USS Ponce were attacked by anti-ship missiles in the same area. The USNI News reported that the Mason fired three defensive SM-2 missiles and a single Evolved Seasparrow missile to destroy the attacking Houthi missiles.

It is also possible that Monday’s attack was meant for the Saudi ship. Saudi Arabia leads a coalition of Gulf states in an intervention in Yemen to support Yemen’s government in its civil war. Yemen’s government is fighting al-Qaeda as well as the Houthi tribesmen, who are backed by Iran.

If Iran uses its proxy forces to attack an American ship, it would be a dramatic escalation scarcely a week after President Trump’s inauguration. The suicide attack came just as Iran launched a medium-range missile test in violation of President Obama’s nuclear deal and a UN resolution.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Pilot suicides

Yesterday’s revelation that the recent crash of Germanwings Flight 9525 was caused by an apparent pilot suicide shocked the world. First Officer Andreus Lubitz reportedly locked the captain out of the cockpit and calmly flew the airplane with its 150 passengers into the side of a French mountain, killing everyone on board.

The act of suicide by an airline pilot while flying is not common, but has happened more than most people think. The most well-known suicide pilots, the Japanese kamikazes of World War II, carried no passengers, although the September 11 suicide hijackers did. The Aviation Safety Network lists nine crashes dating back to 1976 that were confirmed to be suicides. Additionally, ABC News notes that a Japan Air Lines pilot crashed his DC-8 in 1982, killing 24 people, but surviving the crash himself. Last year’s disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370 is widely believed to have been due to a pilot suicide as well.

Airline suicide crashes are usually not well known because they have primarily occurred in the third world. The sole suicide crash before Germanwings that affected a Western country was EgyptAir 990, which crashed off the island of Nantucket, Mass. in 1999. The American NTSB determined that a relief first officer crashed the plane into the ocean, killing all 217 people on board, but Egypt disputed the conclusion.

For most people, there are strong psychological barriers against killing oneself or others. A pilot who intentionally crashes his plane has obviously overcome these strong taboos against killing and suicide. While pilots are normal people with normal problems, few people who commit suicide do so while taking hundreds of other lives at the same time. Nevertheless, one study cited by Air & Space Magazine found that suicide was suspected in .33 percent of fatal crashes over 20 years. This is slightly more than one crash per year, mostly involving small airplanes.

Flying is a high stress occupation. Being an airline pilot involves long periods of time away from home and family, which leads to a high divorce rate. The airline industry is often unstable and furloughs (layoffs) or demotions can come suddenly and last years, leading to financial problems. Add to that a grueling schedule with irregular work hours, regular flight tests and medical exams that can quickly end a career, and the knowledge that a momentary lapse can kill or lead to a violation by regulatory authorities and it is easy to understand how a pilot could suffer from depression or substance abuse. In spite of the stress, suicide is not demonstrably higher for pilots according to most studies.

“It's a special job. You are working at irregular times; if you have a family, you are often not there [or] may be at home when everyone is at work,” said Dr. Andre Droog, president of the European Association for Aviation Psychology on Voice of America. “If you are flying intercontinental flights, you may build up jet lag and fatigue and of course you have to manage your life very well.”

In spite of policies at many airlines that encourage pilots to self-report addiction or mental health issues, many pilots are fearful that doing so will cost them their jobs. In 2010, the FAA changed its policy to allow pilots to take antidepressants for mild to moderate depression, but the current policy stipulates that approval is on a case-by-case basis and requires successful treatment for six months, during which time they would not be legal to fly. This effectively means that pilots have to either forgo treatment, fly illegally, or take a six month leave of absence.

In Asia, where several suicide crashes have taken place, many airlines now subject their pilots to psychological testing. “They ask about your mental health, about events that could affect you psychologically,” one captain from an Asian airline told CNBC. “But who willingly admits to anything that could lead to a suspension of their license? I won't. I need my job.”

Since airline crewmembers know each other best, flight crews are encouraged to report any potential problems that they observe. In the United States, many pilot unions have professional standards committees to help resolve interpersonal conflicts. Concerned crewmembers can talk to representatives on these committees without involving company representatives and threatening jobs.

“Never leave a person alone - that's probably the most effective suicide prevention technique there is," said Tony Catanese, a clinical psychologist at Glen Iris Psychology in Melbourne on CNBC.

Federal aviation regulations already require that both pilots remain in the cockpit, but contains an exception for “physiological needs.” For flights lasting from six to eight hours, it is unrealistic to assume that neither pilot would ever have to visit the lavatory. On most flights, there are no relief crews to fill the empty seat for a few minutes. Cockpit doors have been strengthened since the September 11 attacks to resist forcible entry, making it difficult for the second pilot to break back in.

One solution might be for a flight attendant enter the cockpit when one pilot leaves. The Flight Attendant would probably not be able to wrestle the controls from a suicidal pilot, but might be able to at least prevent him from locking the other pilot out.

Ultimately, there is no way to effectively prevent any possibility of future airline pilot suicides. At present, even though the shock of the Germanwings crash is still fresh, the problem of suicides by pilots is a tiny statistical blip. The vast majority of airline pilots around the world are professionals who have learned to cope with life’s problems and keep them out of the cockpit.

 

Read the full article on Aviation Examiner