For Now A Prince. How Long Till A (Fake) King?

The arrest of the U.K. rapist formerly known as Prince, and the echoing, trans-Atlantic edict that no one is above the law, lay ever-barer America's "true exceptionalism": A culture of immunity so corrosive our own heinous, in-his-fever-dreams "exonerated" Predator-In-Chief has enragingly yet to face any consequences for his manifold sins, crimes, cruelties and depravities, petty and profound. Finally, says Epstein survivor Maria Farmer, "(Let) all the dominoes of power and corruption begin to fall."

The stunning arrest by Thames Valley Police of "Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor" - notably, not "His Royal Highness," ”the Duke of York" or other niceties - on his 66th birthday was widely seen as not just an arrest but "a transfer of power," a possible, long- awaited shift in the tides for once-untouchable elites of the Epstein class that announces power and status may no longer keep them safe, at least outside the U.S. Shortly after 8 a.m., police arrived in six unmarked vehicles at Wood Farm on King Charles’ Sandringham Estate to haul Andrew off; they also reportedly searched his former residence near Windsor Castle. The charge, "suspicion of misconduct in public office" - talk about your euphemisms - stems from Andrew's term as UK trade envoy from 2001 to 2011, when he allegedly shared with Jeffrey Epstein confidential government reports on potential investment opportunities from Vietnam, Singapore, China and Afghanistan.

The envoy gig mandates a "duty of confidentiality"; any "abuse of public trust" that uses public power as "private currency for self-serving or nefarious reasons" carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. (Just imagine what they'd make of the Trump cartel's brazen, perennial grifting.) Andrew, of course, has also been charged with raping outspoken Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide last year at 41, which led to him being stripped of his royal titles before slinking out of public view. Regrettably, he never faced a rape charge in court due to several factors - a civil settlement with Giuffre, a high bar for conviction beyond a reasonable doubt, and other legal loopholes. Presumably for some Epstein victims, bringing Andrew to even a modicum of justice on the easier-to-prove misconduct in office charge may feel dispiriting, like nabbing the murderous Al Capone for tax evasion: Better than nothing, but not good enough.

Andrew's was the first arrest of a senior member of the British royal family in modern history. The last one arrested was King Charles I in 1647, following his defeat in the English Civil War by Parliamentarian forces; a believer in the divine right of kings, his tyrannical reign led to his imprisonment, trial for high treason, and beheading in 1649 - the moral arc of the universe moved faster then. After Andrew's arrest, his brother King Charles, who had received no warning beforehand, issued a statement on, not his bro but “Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor”; he expressed “deepest concern" but "whole-hearted support" for the investigation: "Let me state clearly: the law must take its course." Others cited the same probity. Prime Minister Keir Starmer: "No one is above the law.” The family of Virginia Giuffre: "No one is above the law, not even royalty." Heartbreakingly, they added, "For survivors everywhere, Virginia did this for you."

Waxing cautious about possible shifts in power, The Mirror’s Christopher Bucktin notes, "A birthday arrest should not stand alone as a rare spectacle. It should signal something larger: that no title, no fortune, no political office is sufficient armour against the law...Justice cannot stop at one imprisoned accomplice while others retreat behind legal teams and influence." A new report from the UN's Human Rights Council, which finds Epstein's wrongs "may reasonably meet the legal threshold of crimes against humanity," echoes him. Arguing the files' "credible evidence of systematic and large-scale sexual abuse, trafficking and exploitation" - thus contradicting the "little evidence" bullshit of our DOJ and FBI - it dismisses vapid calls to "move on" as "a failure of responsibility towards victims." Resignations alone aren't enough, it adds: "It is imperative that governments act decisively to hold perpetrators (criminally) accountable."

As further evidence "Epstein elites can't hide anymore" - except, infuriatingly, here - active investigations of Epstein-related crimes in 16 countries are now sweeping up officials on both sex-trafficking and corruption charges; Canada will reportedly open the next one. In the UK, former ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mandelson was fired and is under investigation for passing on financial info to Epstein; Starmer’s chief of staff, who appointed Mandelson, also resigned. In Norway, a former prime minister was charged with "gross corruption” for his Epstein ties, and two diplomats are being investigated. In France, so are a former Culture Minister, his daughter and a senior diplomat. Non-Epstein-related justice has also come for South Korea's former President Yoon Suk Yeol - a life sentence with hard labor for an insurrection - and Brazil's Bolsonaro, whose 2023 coup attempt got him 27 years, and no pardons.

"This is what accountability looks like," argues David Kurtz of Andrew's arrest and all the rest, which "sends a signal far beyond London - straight to Washington." What it proclaims: "If the King's own brother is not above the law, neither is the King's dinner guest, nor his Commerce Secretary." Infernally, the lesson has yet to be heeded in an America ruled by a two-bit, 34-count felon and rapist abetted by a cabal of flunkies managing a Mafia-style criminal regime with no bottom and a corrupt SCOTUS whose "out-of-thin-air immunity doctrine" has made him less accountable than actual royalty - spawning a nation "exceptional among developed nations solely in (its) unwillingness to hold the powerful to account, even in the most egregious cases." Confirming that stark reality was last week's unfurling, outside the DOJ, of a huge banner of Dear Leader, "an abomination and an outrage" straight-up declaring our alleged justice system "a pure creature of presidential whim, retribution and cover-up."

Meanwhile, despite Epstein files that "scream 'Guilty" - with his hideous name appearing over 38,000 times across 5,300 released files representing just 2-4% of the grisly whole - Trump had the chutzpah to respond to a question about the possible ripple effect at home of Andrew's arrest by professing, four times in 30 seconds, he's been "totally exonerated." "Well, you know, I'm the expert in a way, because I've been totally exonerated," he blustered, prattling on in toddler-ese. "I did nothin'. It’s very nice. I can actually speak about it very nicely. I think it’s a shame. I think it’s very sad. It’s very, very sad to me. It’s a very sad thing. To see it, and to see what’s going on with his brother. King. So I think it’s a very sad thing." Fucking Christ. Nope, wasn't me, nothing to see here, all good, sad. And not a word on the survivors. Appalled observers: "Guilty as fuck," "The man on my TV screen is batshit crazy," and, "I hope to live long enough to see this POS in a cell with an open toilet." Or maybe none?

Epstein’s carefully curated, now slowly splintering network of elites included billionaires, academics, politicians, scummy MAGA hangers-on like Steve Bannon - “Dude. You up??" - with culpability circling ever closer to Trump. A trove of damning evidence has been unearthed by investigative journalist Roger Sollenberger. In one account, he cites the disappearance of allegations in both a civil complaint and FBI slideshow that the DOJ spoke four times to a Jane Doe who credibly charged she was about 14 when she was forced to perform oral sex on Trump; when she bit down on his penis, she said he punched her in the head, kicked her out, and later raped her vaginally and anally. Experts say such slowly emerging stories of abuse reveal a ghastly, familiar pattern; the latest, in Alaska, is "nothing short of horrifying." Thus does Masha Gessen argue that it's time for us to stop speaking of the Epstein story "as a story about extraordinary lawlessness. It is a story about ordinary lawlessness."

Dating back, in Trump's case, a savage lifetime. By now he's committed most of the crimes Thomas Jefferson charged King George with in the Declaration of Independence - ignored laws "necessary for the public good," sent "swarms of Officers to harass our people," kept "Standing Armies without Consent," altered "fundamentally the Forms of our Government," ravaging due process, free speech, health care, civil rights, history itself. The lies, deaths, grift, cruelty, unceasing assaults on decency. The "monstrous machine" to snatch up and spit out thousands of innocents - "¡Libertad!” - in grisly concentration camps. The children trapped with cancer, measles, trauma: "Please get me out of here." Two-month old Juan Nicolás, unresponsive in Dilley, choking on his vomit, abruptly deported with his family to Mexico, tracked down and cared for thanks to "America's most relentless immigration reporter," because, "The story is rarely the policy - (it's) the person standing in the rubble of the policy."

Today, the two essential pillars of Trump's "fantasy version of nationalist renewal" - ethnic cleansing and tariffs - are both rubble, rejected by the public, the courts and even a corrupt SCOTUS, which enraged him so much he revived a cringe John Barron to rave about the "fools and lap dogs” who rejected his cherished tariffs and the imaginary hundreds of billions they brought in to make us '"the hottest country in the world." The drek kept spewing. He praised lickspittles Thomas, Alito and Beer Keg Brett for "their strength and wisdom and love of our country," especially Beer Keg, "for his, frankly, his genius, his great ability." He respects them so much "because they not only dissented, their dissent is so strong. I'm very good at reading language and it read our way 100%....All of these things I know so well...My thousands of victories...Like the wars I stopped. The Prime Minister of Pakistan said I saved 35 million lives by getting them to stop. That's -- and I did it largely with tariffs."

Also somewhere he asked the owner of "they made steel products" how he was, and the man said, "I'd love to kiss you," because "we were down to working one hour a week and then you came in and imposed tariffs (and) now we're going to double shifts seven days a week and maybe to 24 hours almost seven days a week, we're hiring people like we haven't - like I've never..." Trump: "Nobody's standing in (the) position I have as president had the insight, the courage, I don't know what it is. They're all pouring into the United States. But just like that great patriot said, Sir, what you've done, nobody thought was possible." As to "slimeball" Gorsuch and Coney Barret, they're "an embarrassment to their families" and were "swayed by foreign interests." Dems were intrigued: The Judiciary Committee's Jared Moskowitz felt he should find out more about them, and another Dem felt the next president "will have no choice but to replace all 9 members with new justices with no foreign entanglements."

On Saturday, the White House held the annual Governors' Dinner, designed to "build relationships and discuss things in a bipartisan way." Historically, the staid, candle-lit, black-tie affair - Melania wore $2,400 silver foil pants - can serve as a genial distraction from Congressional battles. In this rancorous moment, it was a shitshow - actors on both sides alternately called it "a farce" and "a glowing evening" - because after the mob boss uninvited two Dems, the only Black and only openly gay governor, Dems all boycotted it, relegating the event to a MAGA ass-kissing fest. Trump used the occasion to blame two Dem governors for a sewage spill in the Potomac River. "We have to clean up some mess Maryland and Virginia have left us," he snarled. "It's unbelievable what they can do with incompetence." The ruptured pipe is part of a D.C.-based, federally regulated utility under the oversight of the U.S. EPA. As to "mess," we hope to see this face replicated soon at home.

"It could go either way. There's no other way. You have other ways you can go. You don't have to go that way. You can go other way." - Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America

The former Prince Andrew leaving the police station after his arrestPhoto by Phil Noble/Reuters, a portrait of power crumbling in real time that went viral on BlueSky