This might be surprising, and in several ways it’s downright ironic, but I have a strong tendency to disbelieve conspiracy theories. And that was well before the foil-wrapped loonies started blubbering about the adolescent sex slavery ring run out of Washington DC pizza parlor by Hillary Clinton.

Historically speaking, telephones, same-day news, and now most certainly the interwebs have made most conspiracies unnecessary – to the extent that they ever were. In the redundant worlds of the business/legislature complex we can bank on people acting out of mutual self-interest without the need for consultation, coordination and anti-trust laws.

Here’s another big surprise: I am something of a news junkie. I’ve been reading four newspapers a day since 1962, I maintain a corpulent news feed, and I’ve woken up to radio news pretty much ever since I knew how to fondle an AM tuner. By the time I took my high school journalism course I knew that when I’m following a breaking news story (we used to call them “bulletins”) damn near everything we hear and read when a big story breaks is incomplete or just wrong. This always has been true; it’s grown a lot worse since the arrival of 24-hour news channels. It’s still fun to watch responsible reporters sort a story as it develops… although finding responsible reporters has grown a bit more difficult.

When Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide hit the streets, my initial thought was “oh, this is bullshit.” Then we started hearing about the coincidences. He has been on suicide watch. Thousands of papers were just released showing Epstein as a truly sick, twisted crawling piece of shit who hung out with a wide range of powerful people, including two presidents, several former presidential candidates, and a bone fide British prince. The whole thing seemed like a party at Lyndon LaRouche’s health spa.

I was right. It was wrong. The conspiracy theory was too good to be true and, as the saying goes, if it seems too good to be true it probably is just that. Since political wackiness floats on top of scum, it gets easy to dismiss the bull – but, to be fair, I continue to follow the story at least until the real facts come out. The wacky stuff can be fun, but in today’s spark-in-the-ozone world the distance between wacky and preposterous is roughly equivalent to the room it takes to back out of a driveway.

An intelligent person might appreciate how rapidly we can become cynical about cynicism.

Of course, with all of today’s nifty wires and tubes the breathtakingly bizarre Epstein conspiracy theories hit the wall faster than you could say “wait – what?” Jeffery Epstein’s murder was masterminded by Bill and Hillary Clinton in order to cover up their penchant for adolescent sex slaves. Hell, even President Orange Clown tweeted that one along. “Bill Clinton, who was a very good friend of Epstein’s, he was on the plane about 27 or 28 times,” according to our Kidnapper-In-Chief. “So why did he say four times?… The question you have to ask is, did Bill Clinton go to the island?”

No, he didn’t. Unlike President Fake Hair, Clinton didn’t even go to his Florida home. And he never was on the island. And he only had four flights. Alex Jones much?

President Donnydick, since we’re doing Q and A’s… Why was Epstein such a good friend of yours as well? You also flew on Epstein’s planes. Did you ever fly with the Clintons? Why did you say Epstein was a terrific guy? Just how frequently did you socialize with him in Palm Beach? Did he threaten to blackmail you? Well, did he?”

Conspiracies. Feh.

Besides, we all know Bill’s needs were filled by home delivery from Hillary’s pizza parlor.