The morning news dump brought with it a story from the Guardian in which Jill Harth breaks her long silence about a sexual assault by Donald Trump back in 1992.

The account given by Ms. Harth is extremely compelling and prompted me to research other allegations of sexual assault that have been seriously lodged against the Republican nominee over the course of his public life.

Perhaps the most disturbing example is his implication in the rape of a thirteen year old girl at a sex party hosted by his friend Jeffrey Epstein in 1994.

“Epstein has been named in multiple similar lawsuits over the last several years, served 13 months in jail, and is registered as a sex offender for life.”

Trump famously said the following about Mr. Epstein in  a New York Magazine profile some years ago:

“I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump booms from a speakerphone. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

Rather than going into all the offensive details contained in a variety of reports concerning the alleged pedophile rape, I thought I’d cut straight to the chase by citing an analysis of the available evidence by Snopes which provides about as much objective perspective on the story as might be hoped for.

Once again, the available record suggests that the story is true, but one of these claims is the subject of current legal actions, and the other was only made public after the Trump campaign preemptively called the alleged victim a “liar;” so we cannot legally draw a line under his guilt. Of course, Trump uses that ‘l’ word as liberally as he does the other ‘l’ word: ‘loser.’

This verbal tic always reminds me of the old retort, “It takes one to know one.”

Then there is Ivana Trump’s charge, made during their divorce proceedings, that Donald indulged in angry rape against her when procedure to address baldness, performed by someone she had recommended, went horribly wrong. She later withdrew the word ‘rape’ from her testimony but the account remained pretty much the same. He aggressively forced her to have sex after subduing her by pulling her by the hair of her head…hair that was in roughly the same position on her scalp as had been affected by his own botched baldness procedure.

To me that sounds pretty much like angry rape. That his accuser later modified her allegation is not particularly surprising, considering that the two shared three children, a business relationship, a divorce settlement, and the clear understanding that nobody…absolutely nobody… crosses Donald Trump.

Why does the major news media seem to be avoiding discussion of these and other allegations of Trump’s predatory sexual appetites? Apart from very occasional sly jokes about his inappropriate remarks concerning his female offspring, virtually no mention has been made of this unsavory aspect of the candidate.

He has been free to call Hillary Clinton a liar, and to traffic in her guilt by association with Bill Clinton and his infamous indiscretions, but it almost seems as if there has been some agreement that his own accusers will receive network and cable silence.

Everyone knows of the smoke = fire scenario that eventually played out in the case of Bill Cosby; so, why isn’t more attention being given to an alarming pattern that appears to be emerging in credible stories about a man who is now just inches away from the Oval Office?