The GOP Has Become a Single-Issue Party. The Issue Is Elite Impunity.

From protecting rapists to shielding Monsanto or helping Big Oil avoid climate change lawsuits, Republicans are showing their true agenda.

I’ve been finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate lately. There I’ll be, trying to work, or read, or eat dinner, when the intrusive thought returns: For decades, many of the wealthiest men and women in the world actively participated in the trafficking and rape of children; the powers that be knew what was happening; nobody was held accountable.

Even today, few of Epstein’s enablers are facing consequences—in this country, at least. America’s legal system insists on punishing regular people harshly for even the most minor crimes—currently merely for the noncrime of being an immigrant, or being someone who looks like an immigrant to one of Trump’s gestapo thugs. But the rich and powerful spent year after year manifesting nightmares straight out of conspiracy theories, and have faced zero consequences for these depravities. Trump’s Justice Department continues redacting the names of abusers. His administration transferred Ghislaine Maxwell to a cushy minimum-security prison, where she is reportedly waited on hand and foot by prison officials. It looks increasingly likely that the president will grant this convicted teen sex trafficker clemency in exchange for her publicly testifying that Trump—whose name is apparently referenced over one million times in the Epstein files—is squeaky clean. And, with very few exceptions, Republicans in Congress are doing everything they can to protect these........

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