The opposite of anxiety is not calmness, it is desire. Anxiety and desire are two, often conflicting, orientations to the unknown. Both are tilted toward the future. Desire implies a willingness, or a need, to engage this unknown, while anxiety suggests a fear of it. Desire takes one out of oneself, into the possibility of relationship, but it also takes one deeper into oneself. Anxiety turns one back on oneself, but only onto the self that is already known. There is nothing mysterious about the anxious state; it leaves one teetering in an untenable and all too familiar isolation. There is rarely desire without some associated anxiety: We seem to be wired to have apprehension about that which we cannot control, so in this way, the two are not really complete opposites. But desire gives one a reason to tolerate anxiety and a willingness to push through it.
Mark Epstein refuted an old claim the president made about his pedophile pal.
President Donald Trump’s long-ago claim that he hadn’t spoken to Jeffrey Epstein in 15 years got challenged by the late financier’s brother on CNN Thursday. (Watch the video below.)
“OutFront” host Erin Burnett played a 2019 clip of Trump insisting after Epstein’s arrest for sex trafficking that he hadn’t “spoken to him in probably 15 years or more” and that he wasn’t a big fan of Epstein. That would place their last conversation in 2004.
But Burnett noted that Mark Epstein had claimed they had a conversation in 2016. The sibling elaborated that it was after Trump had beaten Hillary Clinton to become president for the first time.
“After the election, I usually speak to Jeffrey regularly, and in one of the calls .. Jeffrey told me that ... it was after the election that Trump called him and it was sort of like, ‘Can you believe this?’ Because nobody believed Trump was going to win,” Mark Epstein said. “Trump was sort of surprised himself that he won. So Jeffrey said [Trump] called him like, you know, ‘Could you believe this?’ type of a phone call.”
Trump allegedly wanting to share his joy and surprise ― or just to brag ― to Epstein paints a different picture of why and when Trump and Epstein’s friendship soured.
"Is it a joke? Is it not? Who’s he talking about? We don’t know,” U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia said about the peculiar discovery in an interview
Christopher Wiggins at The Advocate:
The latest tranche of emails from the estate of late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein includes one that contains what appear to be references to President Donald Trump allegedly performing oral sex, raising questions the committee cannot answer until the Department of Justice turns over records it has withheld, says U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.
Garcia insists the Trump White House is helping block them.
In a Friday afternoon interview with The Advocate, the out California lawmaker responded to a 2018 exchange, which was included in the emails released, between Jeffrey Epstein and his brother, Mark Epstein. In that message, Mark wrote that because Jeffrey Epstein had said he was with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, he should “ask him if Putin has the photos of Trump blowing Bubba.”
“Bubba” is a nickname former President Bill Clinton has been known by; however, the email does not clarify who Mark Epstein meant, and the context remains unclear.
[...]
“Donald Trump is clearly panicked,” Garcia said. “He’s obviously obsessed with hiding the files, and he has the power to release them today. If he wants real justice for the survivors, he should release the files today.”
In a written statement released to the public, Garcia added: “Our Oversight investigation has Donald Trump panicked and desperate. He is trying to deflect from serious new questions we have about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. The President has not explained why he won’t release the files to the American people. Or why sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell was moved to a cushy low-security prison after her interview with Trump’s former personal lawyer.”
[...]
Newsweek reported Friday that Mark Epstein told the outlet the “Bubba” he mentioned in the 2018 email was not Clinton, though he did not clarify who he meant. On Saturday evening, Mark Epstein, through a spokesperson, sent The Advocate a statement denying that “Bubba” is Clinton.
Turns out that the “blowing Bubba” reference in the Epstein Emails has nothing to do with Bill Clinton.
See Also:
LGBTQ Nation: Did Donald Trump have sex with Bill Clinton? Bizarre Epstein email has everyone wondering
Robert Rauschenberg - Postcard Self-Portrait, Black Mountain (I). 1952
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The opposite of anxiety is not calmness, it is desire. Anxiety and desire are two, often conflicting, orientations to the unknown. Both are tilted toward the future. Desire implies a willingness, or a need, to engage this unknown, while anxiety suggests a fear of it. Desire takes one out of oneself, into the possibility of relationship, but it also takes one deeper into oneself. Anxiety turns one back on oneself, but only onto the self that is already known. There is nothing mysterious about the anxious state; it leaves one teetering in an untenable and all too familiar isolation. There is rarely desire without some associated anxiety: We seem to be wired to have apprehension about that which we cannot control, so in this way, the two are not really complete opposites. But desire gives one a reason to tolerate anxiety and a willingness to push through it.
