The Atlantic, via Emptywheel.
One wonders if Trump thinks the sun rises to shine on him, and if he resents the clouds when they get in the way.
"I would like to say 'This book is written to the glory of God', but nowadays this would be the trick of a cheat, i.e., it would not be correctly understood."--Ludwig Wittgenstein
"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards."--Soren Kierkegaard
The Atlantic, via Emptywheel.
One wonders if Trump thinks the sun rises to shine on him, and if he resents the clouds when they get in the way.
Six members of the Guard — including infantrymen, officers and two officials in leadership roles — spoke of low morale and deep concern that the deployment may hurt recruitment for the state-based military force for years to come," reported Shawn Hubler, shielding their identities to protect them against military rules prohibiting discussing active deployment. "All but one of the six expressed reservations about the deployment."You see, the problem with democracy is that it’s like the fabled mills of God: it grinds slowly. But it grinds exceedingly fine. Trump’s stunts with immigration have both failed spectacularly, and driven over 3/4’s of the country to think favorably of immigrants. Overcoming American xenophobia, by making Americans sympathize with the immigrants? Who but Trump and Miller could pull that off?
Many of the members "said they had raised objections themselves or knew someone who objected, either because they did not want to be involved in immigration crackdowns or felt the Trump administration had put them on the streets for what they described as a 'fake mission,'" the report continued.
“The moral injuries of this operation, I think, will be enduring. This is not what the military of our country was designed to do, at all,” one member of the Guard told The Times.
A number of Latino soldiers were uncomfortable with what they were being asked to do, the report continued.
"In one incident that several soldiers said occurred early in the deployment, 60 troops were awaiting transport to planned immigration raids in Ventura County when a Latino soldier approached officers in charge of the mission. He told them that he strongly objected, and he offered to be arrested rather than take part in the operation. Eventually, they said, he was reassigned to administrative tasks. Officials at the military’s Northern Command declined to comment about the incident."
Additionally, the report noted, many of the soldiers called up to the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos in Long Beach didn't end up doing much.
"Mostly, they said, they lounged in warehouse-sized tents, listening to music and playing games on their cell phones. Only about 400 of the 3,882 deployed Guard members had actually been sent on assignments away from the base, Guard figures showed."
On Truth Social, he wrote: "I have asked the Justice Department to release all Grand Jury testimony with respect to Jeffrey Epstein, subject only to Court Approval."Trump undeniably started this fire.
However, he was not done and continued by ranting, "With that being said, and even if the Court gave its full and unwavering approval, nothing will be good enough for the troublemakers and radical left lunatics making the request. It will always be more, more, more. MAGA!"
This video is making the rounds: young women (some only 14) parading around a room of fully clothed adults, so they can be assessed and graded like pieces of meat. It reminds me of the picture of Roger Vadim in a Playboy article: he was sitting, fully clothed, surrounded by naked women. Nobody reading the article really wanted to look at Vadim, anyway.UNEARTHED: Donald Trump judges the 1991 Look of the Year modeling competition organized by Elite Model Management, featuring participants as young at 14-years-old.
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) July 18, 2025
A 2020 Guardian investigation into Elite's Look of the Year competition uncovered allegations from former… pic.twitter.com/tgwoMqjf8Y
We know that Bondi’s carefully crafted memo claiming that there is no Epstein “client list” — the quotation marks are in the memo— is also nonsense. There might not have been a “client list” in the FBI’s Epstein files, but the FBI certainly has compiled a list of clients."Insurance”? What did it insure Epstein against? It makes the suicide a more likely explanation, because this stuff is child pornography. Whether or not Epstein imagined it was blackmail material (i.e., “insurance”), he knew it cooked his goose.
When the FBI raided Epstein’s New York mansion, they seized a vast amount of material. In a court memo filed on July 8, 2019, two days after his arrest, the Department of Justice outlined some of the evidence they had seized. This included stacks of compact disks labeled “Young [Name] + [Name].” In short, Epstein kept a carefully curated library of videos showing various people having sex with underage women. Even if Epstein was not actively blackmailing anyone, he sure seems he had plenty of insurance at the ready.
The really unfortunate reality:
The unfortunate reality is that SCOTUS already gave Trump all the tools he needs to fire Jerome Powell, and saying "please please please don't do it!" isn't going to stop him....is that the Supreme Court stopped explaining its actions a long time ago. So they don’t need to justify their decision to protect the Chair of the Fed from reprisals. They can just refuse to intervene on the inevitable DOJ appeal of the equally inevitable injunction staying the dismissal and leave the matter for the lower courts until Trump’s term has expired.
With @dahlialithwick.bsky.social on the majority's incoherent, self-defeating jurisprudence here: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/07/supreme-court-trump-chicken-jerome-powell-fed-chair.html
…because they were smarter than government employees? And all they did was fuck things up?
Since February, his administration has deported 14,700 people per month on average, according to NBC News," Zakaria wrote. "That’s far below Obama’s peak in 2013, when he deported 36,000 per month. And it’s not even close to the Trump administration’s reported goal of deporting 1 million people in a year."---And DOGE was really popular, too:
The perception of Trump's immigration policy as a massive success comes down to two things, according to Zakaria: Trump is simply "louder and meaner" about it.
"Trump’s deportation dragnet is less effective than those of his predecessors because it is chaotic, theatrical and detached from the systems that work," Zakaria wrote. "Rather than effectively coordinating with local law enforcement, following rules, laws and norms, or expanding and expediting legal processing, Trump has prioritized optics over outcomes. What his administration lacks in strategy, it tries to compensate for with spectacle — sweeping up schoolchildren, targeting families, broadcasting raids on social media."
He warned, "this is a rare case of Trump’s Teflon wearing thin. Immigration was once his strongest issue politically. Today, it is fast becoming a vulnerability," as a recent Quinnipiac University poll showed Trump’s approval on immigration "dropped sharply, with 55 percent disapproving and only 40 percent approving."You might even call it a “political cudgel”:
"A recent Gallup poll showed that the number of Americans who view immigration as a good thing has risen from 64 percent in 2024 to 79 percent now, a record high. Even more telling is the erosion of support among independents, many of them suburban voters who had once been sympathetic to a tougher border stance but are now recoiling at scenes of cruelty and overreach," he added."
The lesson is clear, he said: "Americans want immigration to be managed with competence and decency, not bombast or cruelty.
But Zakaria wrote that Trump may be more interested in using the immigration issue as a "political cudgel" rather than coming up with an actual solution for immigration reform, as evidenced by his "torpedoing" of a bipartisan Senate immigration deal when he was between terms.Where is DOGE now? All that performance, and nothing got better. Almost as if DOGE didn’t know what it was doing.
Zakaria argued that true reform must honor America's laws as well as the immigrants themselves.
"It is finally time to replace fearmongering with solutions, and to turn away from performance and toward policy," he concluded.
...would save him from Watergate.Trump: So, under the Trump administration -- I just got back from Saudi Arabia and we went to Qatar. We went to a number of countries and I will tell you the level of respect that this country has now is incredible. At the UAE, I tell you what, we had a time there but every… pic.twitter.com/lJydQFy9cJ
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 18, 2025
Gotta admit, Nixon never tried blaming the autopen.Trump: This is not an autopen by the way. Which is a big scandal. If that were a Republican, it would really be a big scandal. It is one the great scandals of our time. pic.twitter.com/bKncGMUzzA
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 18, 2025
How many times can he contradict himself in two minutes?Trump: That is why when we heard about this group from BRICS, six countries basically, I hit them very hard. If they ever form in a meaningful way, it will end very quickly. They won’t be gone very long. They’re virtually afraid to meet. pic.twitter.com/0z6HG82qCh
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 18, 2025
Wholly unremarkable. Right?Trump: He was introducing me to Mr. Honda. I said, oh are you in the car business. Then, he said Mr. Toyota. And I said what business are you in. pic.twitter.com/yfB6zebDN5
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 18, 2025
I’m going to try to post this in one piece. The immediate context is not important here (you can guess it readily enough):
/2 The clergy-penitent privilege was familiar in common law and is protected by statute in almost all American jurisdictions. It just says that if you consult a spiritual advisor in private for religious advice they can’t be compelled to disclose what you said.IOW, the “totalitarian mindset” is as American as violence and cherry pie. It’s just a matter of who is protecting us from them. Because I don’t trust anyone but me and thee; and I’m not too sure about thee.
/3 Traditionally that’s a Catholic priest in confession, but it applies to other faith traditions as well.
Note that ALL THIS DOES is prevent the state from compelling the religious advisor from disclosing a specific private communication.
/4 In form it’s like the attorney-client privilege: it just allows private communications with a particular kind of advisor.
But the American sentiment is that if any potential piece of evidence of a crime exists, not allowing the state to use it PROMOTES THE CRIME.
/5 Americans would likely support using torture to compel testimony if Dick Wolf phrased it right. Americans pay some limited lip service to rights but in general are prone to treating any limitation on state power whatsoever in the criminal context as pro-crime.
/6 Note that this decision does not say “a priest can threaten a kid not to testify against a parishioner.” It doesn’t allow anyone to destroy evidence. It doesn’t allow any attack on a victim. It doesn’t immunize the conduct. It doesn’t reduce a penalty.
/7 All it does is say “this particular narrow human communication can’t be used as evidence.” But to the American mindset, that’s the same as endorsing crime. That is the thinking of a people who have embraced the totalitarian mindset.
“According to information my office received, the FBI was pressured to put approximately 1,000 personnel in its Information Management Division (IMD) … on 24-hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in order to produce more documents that could then be released on an arbitrarily short deadline,” Durbin wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino.No, not flagging Trump’s name (quelle surprise 🤷🏻♂️), but following privacy laws, among other things. I mean, there may be adults named in those documents who had nothing to do with Epstein’s sexual activities. And there is the protection of minors (who may be adults by now, but still…), that has to be honored.
“This effort, which reportedly took place from March 14 through the end of March, was haphazardly supplemented by hundreds of FBI New York Field Office personnel, many of whom lacked the expertise to identify statutorily-protected information regarding child victims and child witnesses or properly handle FOIA requests,” the letter continued.
“My office was told that these personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned," Durbin added.
Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, pointedly asked Bondi to explain why she had claimed on Feb. 21 that Epstein had compiled a "client list" that she had sitting on her desk, when the DOJ released records just six days later saying such a list did not exist.He is certainly asking the right questions. Ultimately, this has less to do with Trump being embarrassed (which is where I think the Epstein trail ends), and more to do with his Administration being thoroughly incompetent. And corrupt.
"Aside from the negative backlash you received over the February 27 record release, what was the purpose of placing almost 1,000 FBI IMD personnel on 24-hour shifts to review Epstein-related records over the course of a two-week period in March?" the senator asked. "Who made the decision to reassign hundreds of New York Field Office personnel to this March review of Epstein-related records?"
"Why were personnel told to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned?" Durbin added.
It’s not that the details aren’t out there:
A mindbending thing to me about the Epstein story is that I could publish stuff I did years ago now and it would come off as fresh because despite all the attention paid to it, the people most interested in it have never really been very interested in the details.It’s that details are complicated:
If I were a Politics Editor, I'd be assigning Epstein timelines, explainers, etc etc etc. Almost everyone has missed/forgotten almost everything about this story along the way. I'm extremely online and just read dude's Wikipedia page for the first time last night, realizing I knew like 10% of itWhich is why conspiracy theories are so appealing to stupid illiterates like the current POTUS.
…and say almost none of this is covered by the term “grand jury transcripts:”
The only newly-released document in "phase one," which received little public attention, was a three-page catalog of evidence that appears to be an accounting of evidence seized during the searches of Epstein's properties in New York and the U.S. Virgin Islands after his arrest in 2019, and a search of his Palm Beach mansion a dozen years earlier.Not that I don’t think there are serious legal and ethical issues involved in throwing all this stuff into the public maw, but…
That little-noticed index offers a roadmap to the remaining trove of records that President Donald Trump's administration has declined to release, including logs of who potentially visited Epstein's private island and the records of a wiretap of Maxwell's phone.
The three-page index is a report generated by the FBI that lists the evidence inventoried by federal law enforcement during the multiple investigations into his conduct. According to that index, the remaining materials include 40 computers and electronic devices, 26 storage drives, more than 70 CDs and six recording devices. The devices hold more than 300 gigabytes of data, according to the DOJ.
The evidence also includes approximately 60 pieces of physical evidence, including photographs, travel logs, employee lists, more than $17,000 in cash, five massage tables, blueprints of Epstein's island and Manhattan home, four busts of female body parts, a pair of women's cowboy boots and one stuffed dog, according to the list.
The unreleased evidence notably includes multiple documents related to two islands Epstein owned in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Little Saint James -- where his compound was located -- and Greater Saint James. According to the index, the files include a folder containing Island blueprints, photographs and other documents.
Some of the documents could shed light on who visited the island. According to the index, the files also include a Little Saint James logbook as well as multiple logs of boat trips to and from the island.
The evidence also includes multiple lists, one vaguely described as a "document with names" and an employee contact list. Investigators also recovered pages of handwritten notes, multiple photo albums, an Austrian passport with Epstein's photograph and more than a dozen financial documents.
I am not a Shakespearean scholar. But I taught “Othello” for several years in Brit. Lit. Survey, which means I re-read the play every time I taught that course.
There is no such line anywhere in the play. Not even close. And it’s neither iambic nor pentameter. (It’s trochaic tetrameter.)
...Alina Habba, nothing?Alina Habba doesn’t have the votes to get confirmed. https://t.co/H2irFj7OAv
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 18, 2025
Trump, himself, has boasted about his artistic benevolence, and in a 2010 book titled, Trump Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges into Success, he wrote: “Sometimes being a giver will open you up to new talents. Each year I donate an autographed doodle to the Doodle for Hunger auction at Tavern on the Green. It takes me a few minutes to draw something. … Art may not be my strong point, but the end result is help for people who need it.”So he couldn’t have made that “bawdy” drawing on that birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003.
Mike Johnson: "The president and I talked about that ridiculous allegation this morning. He said it's patently absurd. He's never drawn such a picture. He's never thought of drawing such a picture. And he said, 'Did you see the language of this bogus supposed communication?' He… pic.twitter.com/pLdh8Kpjah
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 18, 2025
Here’s where the Epstein story does real damage:
It's pretty clear there is no client list," Aronberg said. "The people closest to this say there is no client list. Jeffrey Epstein's former lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, says there is no client list, but there are files, documents, images that have not been turned over to the public, in part because of privacy rules. But the reason why this is not going away is that the Trump administration officials, namely Dan Bongino, Kash Patel, Donald Trump's son, they have all been perpetuating this myth. They've been using this lie as a way to help their own careers, and now it's biting them in the butt."Even if there was, do you publish it, and prove guilt by association? Is that in anyway justice? Can we all agree justice is not what MAGA is after?
Ahead of the weekend, Trump took to Truth Social, asking, "If there was a 'smoking gun' on Epstein, why didn’t the Dems, who controlled the 'files' for four years, and had Garland and Comey in charge, use it?"There we are: there’s nothing there, so release the files. (No, that’s not what Trump means. But then, he’s old. Oh, wait! George Clooney hasn’t said that yet.)
He added, "BECAUSE THEY HAD NOTHING!!!"
I mean, this is what happens when you continue to feed the alligator," the ex-prosecutor added. "The alligator is always hungry, and eventually it's going to bite your face off, and so this is a problem of their own making, and their base is not going to be satisfied by these grand jury records, and not only will they be redacted, the Trump administration says they're only going to request and release the pertinent ones. What's pertinent? Well, it's in the eye of the beholder, so this issue is not going away."The alligators are eating their faces, now. Why not give the alligators something else to eat? Like the names of people who just happen to be in some document somewhere in the material now loosely being called the “Epstein files”? What harm could it do, besides undermine the most basic tenet of our criminal justice system? I’m sure we’ve done that before. One more time won’t hurt, right?
It's not clear a federal judge in New York, where Epstein was investigated, will release the transcripts, which are kept secret as a general rule, but Aronberg noted that the Trump administration has thus far shown great enthusiasm for shattering norms.
"They can release the files," Aronberg said. "Now, it would go against DOJ policy. It has been a tradition that the Department of Justice will not release the names of people who are uncharged, unless you are charged, you're not going to be put out there, and that is something that's been the policy of the Department of Justice for years."
"But, you know, if there's anything this administration does, it's break norms, break rules," he added. "But this is the one rule they're abiding by, and the fact that that birthday card is out there makes people believe, well, maybe that's the explanation for not turning over these files to the public. Maybe they just don't want the president to be embarrassed by his relationship with Epstein. The truth is, though, is that it's been well-documented that Trump has been friends with Epstein. There's no evidence that Trump has been part of a child sex trafficking ring, but they don't want to keep this smoke around any further. But they're not going to get rid of it by putting their head in the ground. They're going to get rid of it by transparency. After all, they fed this beast from the beginning."
Trump: If there were any truth at all on the Epstein Hoax, as it pertains to President Trump, this information would have been revealed by Comey, Brennan, Crooked Hillary, and other Radical Left Lunatics years ago. It certainly would not have sat in a file waiting for "TRUMP" to… pic.twitter.com/sfGsqTwLkh
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 18, 2025
Trump: If there were any truth at all on the Epstein Hoax, as it pertains to President Trump, this information would have been revealed by Comey, Brennan, Crooked Hillary, and other Radical Left Lunatics years ago. It certainly would not have sat in a file waiting for "TRUMP" to have won three Elections. This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS!Or this?
He's a public figure. How does he prove malice? Or damages?Trump: I don't draw pictures. I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn't print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I'm going to sue his ass off… pic.twitter.com/reNnUMF3y6
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 18, 2025
Because he knows the court won’t release it any time soon. Also, too, as well:Trump: Based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, I have asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval. This SCAM, perpetuated by the Democrats, should end, right now! pic.twitter.com/JbgQrUS0Je
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 18, 2025
Honig: And what Trump said to do there is not to turn over all the Epstein files. It is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of those files. We know from the FBI's memo last week that the entirety of the Epstein files is 300gb of information.
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 18, 2025
The grand jury transcripts means… pic.twitter.com/jconmYl5VH
The grand jury transcripts means the written transcript that the court reporter takes of whoever went into the grand jury and testified. So already you are leaving out tons of documents. Most witnesses don't even go into the grand jury. They just talk to you in a conference room, not in the grand jury. So we're talking about a 1%, 2%.Grand jury testimony is just enough to get an indictment; not enough to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
...sort of like a Waring Blender.”Wow -- the Journal reports that when reporters contacted Trump two days ago about this story👇, he threatened to sue if it was published, then hours later claimed that Obama and Biden "made up" the Epstein files https://t.co/t1t30xbbMv
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 17, 2025
"The letter to Epstein bearing Trump’s name is bawdy. It contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature…
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 17, 2025
"The letter to Epstein bearing Trump’s name is bawdy. It contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly 'Donald' below her waist, mimicking pubic hair.Or: Visualize Whirled Peas.
The letter concludes: 'Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.'"
Eh. I remember the GOP standing beside Nixon. Well, until John Dean broke the dam and that eventually became impossible. 7 years later we had two terms of Reagan, and one of GHWB. So it’s not like I think there’s a glorious future waiting when America finally discovers itself. Fehrlengetti wrote: “I am waiting for someone to really discover America/and wail.” He meant “wail” in the jazz performance sense. But by now, I think the traditional sense is the best we’re ever gonna get.Biden tampered with the Epstein files to make Trump look guilty but then didn't release them 🥴 https://t.co/jnvyXrCFOC
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 17, 2025
WSJ: Jeffrey Epstein’s Friends Sent Him Bawdy Letters for a 50th Birthday Album. One Was From Donald Trump.
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) July 17, 2025
The leather-bound book was compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell. The president says the letter ‘is a fake thing.’
The letter bearing Trump’s name, which was reviewed by the… pic.twitter.com/gSoohpSogG
The letter bearing Trump’s name, which was reviewed by the Journal, is bawdy—like others in the album. It contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly “Donald” below her waist, mimicking pubic hair.
Watergate redux; before the dam broke. This, by the way, is the content of that letter: Gotta say, it’s no “grab’ ‘em by the pussy.”McGovern: Either there is nothing here and Trump made all of this up and conned you guys into believing it and in that case, why would you vote against releasing files that don’t exist—or there are files and you want to keep them hidden because you are afraid of what’s in them. pic.twitter.com/YGYJ3k7H34
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 17, 2025
It’s already getting heated in the Rules committee over the Epstein files.
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 17, 2025
Scott: We know where you are. You are the party of child victims. That’s why you opened the border.
McGovern: We know where you are. Hiding the truth. pic.twitter.com/iZonJ0NiMP
Trump's brain is a rat in a can. A sealed can. His mind is whirling like a smoothie in a blender. And whether this story goes anywhere, or not, he’s not going to get better.He got out ahead of the story. pic.twitter.com/fffeSjhA30
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 17, 2025
Is it also out of Trump’s control to ask a judge to review and release the files?FOX: What is stopping the administration from just redacting any sensitive information in the Epstein files and putting out what is appropriate?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 17, 2025
LEAVITT: A judge would have to approve it. That's out of the president's control. pic.twitter.com/Rtw09PueLY
This is amazing. Yesterday Trump claimed he talked to his uncle about how brilliant the Unabomber was when the Unabomber was a student of his at MIT.Which was pretty clearly a response to the Epstein problem. The response of a malignant narcissist intent on protecting his “ideal self” at all costs. Are his lies catching up with him? At long last?
The Unabomber never went to MIT, he was identified in 1996, and his uncle died in 1985.
But which Justice Department…:
Mike Pence has the courage!...do you want?Maureen Comey, prosecutor of Jeffrey Epstein, to her former colleagues at DOJ.
"Release all of the files regarding Jeffrey Epstein's investigation and prosecution. ... Anyone who participated or was associated with this despicable man ought to be held up to public scrutiny."
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/mike-pence-says-time-has-come-trump-administration-release-epstein-files/q
Turns out all these pictures were photoshopped by Obama and Biden right before Epstein was arrested by Trump’s DOJ.Trump: [The FBI] ought to look into the Jeffrey Epstein hoax…
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 16, 2025
That was run by the Biden administration for four years. I can imagine what they've put into files.
pic.twitter.com/OXcKDO49nk
Sure, why not? It’s a robot Trump being controlled by Vance because they murdered the real Trump and buried him under the White House bunker.The one good news for MAGA today has been John Solomon saying Trump supports an Epstein special prosecutor. Then Solomon actually plays the tape, and it reveals Trump only wants an investigation of how Epstein was a Comey/Obama hoax against him. https://t.co/C7ybPGWSxy
— Will Sommer (@willsommer) July 17, 2025
...and told you it was raining outside, you should still stick your hand out the window.He’s so desperate to change the subject off Epstein that he even lied about Coca-Cola. pic.twitter.com/QSWlvsERKD
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 16, 2025
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 16, 2025High-fructose corn syrup can be American grown. (Is it the major source of supply? I have no idea.)
Boy, we sure put on over on MAGA and Q-Anon, didn’t we? Even suckered Trump into it, for a while.Trump on Epstein files: It is a hoax started by Democrats and run by Democrats for four years. You had Christopher Wray and Comey before him… It’s all been a big hoax perpetrated by Democrats. Some stupid Republicans fall into the net pic.twitter.com/7OP05huGL1
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 16, 2025
Crockett: For Trump to say Epstein is a non-factor—when we can go and find picture after picture of the two of them together—that’s a very interesting concept, right?
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 16, 2025
This idea that he’s a “non-factor”—well, why were you hanging around with non-factors, Mr. President? What was… pic.twitter.com/YBsQYhFQXy
This idea that he’s a “non-factor”—well, why were you hanging around with non-factors, Mr. President? What was that about?There’s a lot to be said for not playing the conspiracy game back against MAGA. But this? This pretty much raises the right “When did you stop beating your wife?” question. (My position is, Trump can’t release the files because there IS nothing there. But if he shows that, it’s a whole new coverup. In fact, that’s how the first coverup conspiracy started. And if he doesn’t release the files, it’s the same old coverup. Hoist on his own conspiracy theory. It was bound to happen.
I think he’s making it worse now that he’s seemingly privy to everything in the files—and suddenly doesn’t want to release them. When he was on the outside, I guess he just wasn’t confident in the investigations and didn’t think there was anything that necessarily linked him.
He is, overall, a creep. Like—we know he’s a creep.
The question is: is he also a criminal in that way?
And the fact that he’s so adamant about not releasing the Epstein files—I think that kind of answers the question.
😈CNN: One thing to keep in mind here is some of the people that “got duped” are people that he put into top administration positions, positions including AG Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, and Dan Bongino. All people who had called for release of the Epstein files. pic.twitter.com/3nVcBX9irD
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 16, 2025
I want to say the torture memos left him this way; but I’m pretty sure he was thus way already, and the torture memos were just a byproduct.https://t.co/j4y0MmxHqJ pic.twitter.com/rIKOjJr9qQ
— David Weigel (@daveweigel) July 16, 2025
"Sure sound like socialism to me, little lady. And Gawd hates socialists! It’s in the Bible!”AOC: We saw Republicans vote to completely gut Medicaid, which covers nearly half of all births in the U.S.
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 16, 2025
They did this despite the fact that the U.S.—the richest country in the world—also has the highest rate of maternal deaths among all wealthy countries.
We also have the… pic.twitter.com/FItFSeYmE6
Yale lawyer, so:Vance on tariffs: Democrats seem to like everything that increases taxes… The one group of people they don't seem interested in penalizing is foreign countries that take advantage of this country and that has got to stop. pic.twitter.com/VjBOlWiXZM
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 16, 2025
I think he really believes this. And if he doesn’t, what’s the difference?Trump on Epstein files: It is a hoax started by Democrats and run by Democrats for four years. You had Christopher Wray and Comey before him… It’s all been a big hoax perpetrated by Democrats. Some stupid Republicans fall into the net pic.twitter.com/7OP05huGL1
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 16, 2025
After Epstein's death, New York judge Loretta Preska ordered a list with names of more than 170 Epstein associates to be unsealed on January 1, 2024. Anyone on the list had until January 1 to appeal to have their name removed.Let 'em have all the rope they want. That tree’s still gonna be taller’n their rope is long.
During the presidency of Joe Biden, many right-wing figures hypothesized of a list of Epstein's clients not disclosed by the Biden administration. Kash Patel, who was not the director of the FBI at the time, claimed that the FBI was keeping Epstein's "black list", and encouraged a potential administration of Donald Trump to release them if he were to be elected. During the Turning Point Action convention in June 2024, Donald Trump Jr. accused the Biden administration of keeping the list secret to protect pedophiles. In October 2024, JD Vance said "we need to release the Epstein list".
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi was asked in February 2025 by Fox News journalist John Roberts on whether the Justice Department would be publishing "the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients", to which Bondi responded: "It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump. I’m reviewing that." On July 7, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Bondi had been referring more generally to the accumulated evidence against Epstein, stating: "[Bondi] was saying the entirety of all of the paperwork, all of the paper, in relation to Jeffrey Epstein's crimes, that’s what the attorney general was referring to, and I’ll let her speak for that".
Lawyer and law professor Alan Dershowitz said in an interview with Sean Spicer on March 19, 2025, that he knew the names of individuals on such a list and unreleased files relating to Epstein, adding that "I know why they're being suppressed. I know who's suppressing them" and that he was " ...bound by confidentiality from a judge and cases, and I can't disclose what I know". Dershowitz had been part of the legal team that negotiated a non-prosecution agreement for Epstein in 2006.
During the Trump–Musk feud, Musk claimed that Trump was in the Epstein files and that this "is the real reason they have not been made public", though it is unclear if he specifically meant Epstein's client list.
In a July 7 memo, the Department of Justice stated it would not release any more documents relating to Epstein. At a cabinet meeting, as Trump criticized reporters for focusing on the Epstein case, Bondi clarified when she said “it’s on my desk” that she meant he was in possession of child pornography.
Democrats did that to themselves. The media are stenographers and bullhorns for the GOP; but George Clooney had to rush to his publicist to tell tout le monde how concerned he was about Biden.Imagine if Biden called his supporters “stupid” and then forgot he was the one who appointed the Fed Chair …
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 16, 2025
Oh never mind.
Of course, imagine if Biden had done this 👆Trump introduces 18th century mercantilism for the US to a 21st century global economy while congressional Republicans abdicate all authority over trade. If this ever goes into effect without him TACOing for the 3rd or 4th time, the hardest hit will be median earners and below. pic.twitter.com/jfgLdpJh8v
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 16, 2025
Trump: We have oil down to $2, $2.25, $2.15 in numerous states and one at $1.98 per gallon. That is one of the reasons inflation is in check pic.twitter.com/rKc8NWgu7q
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 16, 2025
The consumer price index, a key inflation barometer, rose 2.7% in the 12 months through June, up from 2.4% in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Tuesday.Hence the increase in June over May.
Economists said they expect the full impact from the Trump administration’s tariff agenda to raise consumer prices more in the months ahead — but they said trade policies have already started to noticeably affect inflation.
"...which is further proof it is all a hoax by Obama and Biden and Comey.” (Except Comey had been fired before Epstein was arrested.)"I don't like people who like me but don't like a child rapist who I liked to party with and who shared my love of girls 'on the younger side' before he died in a jail cell because it's all a hoax." https://t.co/RP3DCeyxLP
— Sean Casten (@SeanCasten) July 16, 2025
Whoever appointed him was obviously an incompetent fucking moron. https://t.co/x8pcRzqI2O
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 16, 2025
This was pointed out to me in an article, and set me to thinking about expectations and analysis.
Lex Luthor is the “bad guy” of the movie. But, unlike previous iterations of the villain on film (or in the comic books, IIRC), Lex has supporters and eager participants who help him carry out his plans. A roomful in one side, a camp full on another. And all happy to be doing the job. Cheering supporters who rejoice in their victories. They aren’t working out of fear. They want to be a part of the project(s).
Now pivot that to reality. Conditioned by movies where Alan Rickman is a bad guy commanding minions ready and willing to die but otherwise just cannon fodder, we think the bad guy rules alone, and at best his “gang” are just willing employees. Luther’s people are active participants wanting the outcome, not the robbery payoff. So it’s insistently not Luthor alone. Indeed, how could it be? That’s not the way the world works.
But we apply the lesson of action movies and comic books to reality, and assume Trump is acting alone or terrifying Congress to do his will. But maybe even Murkowski actually agrees with Trump; or thinks her voters do. It’s far more reasonable to think the GOP Congress is wholly supportive of Trump than that they are responding out of fear. Especially the way the OBBB moved through Congress despite all the reports about the support the bill didn’t have; until it clearly did.
We tell ourselves stories about reality based on the stories we call fiction. A lot of conspiracy theories are just tropes from fiction, most of them no more realistic than the action Twain mocked brutally in the Natty Bumpo stories of Fenimore Cooper. But while we all admire Tom Sawyer and the lesson of the white washed fence, or the adventures if Huckleberry Finn, what sticks in our mind are the improbable exploits of the Deer Slayer, and the absurdly incompetent Native Americans who try to get on that flatboat in the scene Twain dissects, being slowly towed down a canal. But it’s not the absurdity we remember, it’s the danger to white people Cooper describes. No surprise, really. Even a Tarantino movie shows “Hollywood” damage from gunshots or samurai swords; not the spray of viscera and bone and organs such weapons would produce. We like our reality neat, tidy, and simple. Leave the awful reality of GSW’s to the ER’s, where we don’t have to see it.
And leave the evil that people do to one person’s actions, the easier for us to think we would never fear an alien immigrant like Superman; only Lex Luthor alone would ever be that bad. So much more comforting to think the bad guy is, in the end, always alone.
…there is no “there” there, and Trump is trying to not say that (much as he quit complaining about Obama’s birth certificate, which, come to think of it, the media never said he was lying about. Even though he plainly was. But Trump finally abandoned it, and his gullible followers just moved on.)For Trump to go to these extremes to cover up the Epstein Files, including attacking his supporters and hanging his AG and FBI Director completely out to dry, the evidence against him must be incredibly incriminating. There is no other explanation that makes sense.
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 16, 2025
Some must die so Trump might live.I’m sure Corey Comperatore’s family will be thrilled to find out God wasn’t interested in saving his life https://t.co/W08zhOzYgW
— Michael A. Cohen (NOT TRUMP’S FORMER FIXER) (@speechboy71) July 15, 2025
It was a better country with only white men in it.Stephen Miller: "We have communities all across this nation that 20 years ago, before the era of open borders, were completely peaceful, completely stable. Look at a place like Minneapolis. Post mass migration they're unsafe, they're violent, you cannot use the public parks." pic.twitter.com/NQWAqGqXPr
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 15, 2025
See?Stephen Miller: "There is indeed a dystopia. That dystopia is the state of some of our inner cities, some of our Democrat cities where migrant gangs imported by the Democrats, imported by the Biden administration, have run free for years ... that's the dystopia that we are… pic.twitter.com/X7kO2LJUyq
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 15, 2025
Old conspiracy theories can always be renewed, right?REPORTER: Did the attorney general tell you that your name appeared in the Epstein files?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 15, 2025
TRUMP: No no. She's given us just a very quick briefing. These files were made up by Comey, Obama, they were made up by the Biden-- we went through years of that with the Russia Russia… pic.twitter.com/Zi5efVzhFA
But would they use their powers for good?Sometimes I wish Democrats were as good at organizing the complex and elaborate conspiracies they are accused of orchestrating.
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 16, 2025
Fact check: True. (Jennings is wrong.)Roginsky: We were promised on August 15th of last year that the price of eggs—
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 16, 2025
Jennings: Price of eggs are down
Roginsky: Actually, year over year they’re up
Jennings: They’re down.. pic.twitter.com/lpUIwkx0pg
Eggs US rose to 2.89 USD/Dozen on July 15, 2025, up 4.43% from the previous day. Over the past month, Eggs US's price has risen 7.61%, and is up 23.87% compared to the same time last year, according to trading on a contract for difference (CFD) that tracks the benchmark market for this commodity. source: USDA
The postponed cuts in the OBBB are not going to save Republicans from inflation tied to tariffs. Even if the courts deny Trump’s ability to impose them. The uncertainty can be enough for markets, for retailers, for people, trying to plan for Xmas. Or Presidents Day sales; or next summer. Enough to make them hold back; or raise prices.Phillip: Some of these are the highest increases that you've seen in inflation on some of these issues in years pic.twitter.com/i6N8ekjarn
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 16, 2025
So, the “essentials” are going down. Airline travel; hotel rates. Sounds to me like a contraction in discretionary spending.Kudlow: Yes, some items are affected by tariffs and the prices have gone up. But here's what fell… airline fares down… hotel and motel prices down
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 16, 2025
Hannity: Energy down.
Kudlow: Energy was up a little in this report. pic.twitter.com/o0d3oN8qH4
Maybe even a bit more.“Make sure they speak English. That’s about all we need” — Trump on the duties of the Department of Education pic.twitter.com/qaRiKfPU5T
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 15, 2025
JMM, catching up with the news:
Ahhh hadn’t caught this. I guess Charlie Kirk has now announced its time to move on from Epstein because Trump called him and said bitch it’s time to move on.Charlie Kirk saying he never said ”Move on."
This is a total obsessive hoax," Kirk said of the media coverage on Tuesday. "And even some people were emailing me, Charlie, why are you not talking about Epstein? Why are you saying to move on? I never, ever, ever said move on, ever!"So, you know, Trump is absolutely in control of MAGA. Or somebody is. Or somebody thinks somebody is. And MAGA has fallen back into line.
"I didn't whisper it. I didn't think it. I didn't say it," he continued. "But let me say this again. You know my opinion about Epstein. The messaging fumble."
But on Monday, he said, "Honestly, I'm done talking about Epstein for the time being. I'm gonna trust my friends in the administration, I'm gonna trust my friends in the government to do what needs to be done, solve it, ball's in their hands."
Kirk said he was making "an addendum to what was said yesterday."
"We're going to keep on talking about it," he insisted. "You see, but what's so disappointing, not disappointing, to an extent I get it, is that the MAGA base is so fired up about this. And that's why I didn't take a lot of this seriously. Is that, you know, people were incoming, Charlie, why are you moving on? No one's saying that!"
Not an Article III Judge.
Yes, this is a problem. Yes, we need immigration reform. Yes, it has been this way a long time. Yes, there are flaws in the system. Yes, reform is almost always needed, and certainly always late.
Alright , “Superman” is now “woke.” That’s the rap on the film from MAGA. And frankly, their opinion is beneath consideration; but it does expose something about them.
So Superman, as ever, is from Krypton, and he thinks his biological parents sent him to earth to help the people there. Basically, (in line with all the other “Superman” movies with an origin story, he’s Jesus, or, less accurately (because the term comes from literary criticism, and doesn’t mean what you think it means), he’s a Christ figure. He thinks this because his parents included a video message in whatever form of transport sent him to earth.
But the message was damaged, so he only knows the first part, the part that tells him he’s been sent earth for the people there. Bad guys recover the whole message, and it turns out his Kryptonian parents wanted him to be Elon Musk: rule the world with his superpowers, and fuck as many women as possible, to recreate the Kryptonian race. White people rule, IOW, with Kal El as their progenitor and overlord. A Tech Bros dream.
The dream of Elmo, for one.
It gets better: Lex Luthor is uber rich and has the technological genius Elmo only imagines he has. And, we find out, he really hates aliens; or any other meta human (the rest of DC’s superheroes), because they are “better” than him. Mostly he hates Superman because he’s stolen the world’s attention, that should rightly be on Lex. And Lex proves he’s willing to destroy the world to destroy Superman and reclaim his place on the world stage.
Yup. Lex is Donald Trump. Or close enough for highway work.
The central point of the plot, the point the story resolves on, is that Superman cares, and that he’s trying to do the right thing (not as easily accomplished as it is in the comic books or lesser movies). He is, in other words, fully human (I’m not doing that part of the story justice; but it’s the rest of the movie). In other words, he wants to do good. Lex doesn’t; Lex is as narcissistic as Trump. Kal El’s parents wanted an ubermencsh to supplant humanity. The classic sci-fi alien invasion scenario. They embody Musk’s raison d’etre. Enough, I suppose, to condemn the story as “woke.” But the joke is on MAGA. Because the movie is really about how Superman is a good man. A decent man who thinks of others more than himself. Not a Christ figure, but someone struggling to embody fundamental Christian teachings: to be last of all, and servant of all.
No wonder it drives MAGA crazy. Coming or going, this story confronts their selfishness, their narcissism, their disdain for anyone they consider “NOK.” Because the good guy in this movie is the dead opposite of everyone they admire most in the world.
We chose the word “dog” to mock God, too.They’re uncovering all the secret plans. pic.twitter.com/kNqOCymTCv
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 14, 2025
As folks may recall, the student loan case first reached the Court on a pair of emergency applications from the Biden administration—to vacate nationwide injunctions against the program that had been imposed by the Eighth Circuit (in a suit brought by a number of red states) and the Northern District of Texas (in a suit brought by private plaintiffs), respectively. In both cases, one of the administration’s central arguments for emergency relief was that the government was likely to prevail on the merits because the plaintiffs lacked Article III standing (that is, they weren’t injured by the policy they were seeking to challenge)—and that the standing obstacle was reason enough to allow the government to continue to implement its policy.The good professor is too circumspect to state the obvious: this court is deeply, and nakedly, political. He makes that point by drawing the picture. But he won’t state it openly, so that the conclusion isn’t dismissed as “political.” I’m not saying it isn’t, nor that that’s a bad thing. But it leaves his analysis with enough “plausible deniability” to let his analysis stand as an objective one.
In both cases, the Court deferred its resolution of the applications while it considered the merits of the government’s appeals—rulings that had the effect of keeping the program on hold for an additional 6.5 months. After argument, the Court held (unanimously) that the private plaintiffs lacked standing; and it held 6-3 that one of the states had standing (in analysis I heavily criticized at the time). In other words, the Court kept a controversial Department of Education policy initiative paused for 6.5 months while it sorted out whether anyone had standing to challenge it—rebuffing the President’s request that the policy go back into place in the interim.
Contrast that with Monday’s ruling. In asking the justices to stay the district court’s injunction against the mass firings and restructuring of the Department of Education, the Trump administration’s principal argument was not that those measures were legal, but that the plaintiffs lacked Article III standing to challenge them.* The best explanation for Monday’s ruling is that a majority of the justices agree that the government is likely to prevail on its standing argument—and, as has been the case so often in the Court’s recent approach to emergency applications, gave short shrift to the equities.
If that’s true, then we have this rather obvious contrast—where serious standing objections were not enough to justify emergency relief when it was the Biden administration looking to put its student loan debt relief plan back into effect, but where (to my mind, weaker) standing objections were enough to justify allowing the President to effectively strangle a critically important federal agency (and to defeat the various acts of Congress standing that agency up and giving it responsibilities it will now struggle to discharge). Perhaps there is a good explanation for why the standing concerns were sufficient to justify a stay here but not in the student loan cases (where, again, the Court unanimously agreed that the private plaintiffs lacked standing). I’ll confess that it’s possible such a distinction exists. It’s also possible that a majority found the government’s other arguments in support of a stay in this case persuasive—although there’s a reason why the government didn’t lead with them (and, in any event, Justice Sotomayor’s dissent seems to make quick work of them).
But to go back to a post I wrote a few weeks ago, that’s yet another reason why the Court needs to explain itself when it grants emergency relief—not just to provide guidance to lower courts and the relevant government actors (to say nothing of the public), but to rationalize what, at least at first blush, sure look like alarming inconsistencies in the Court’s behavior that seem best-explained not by a legal principle, but by which party controlled the White House (and, through it, the Department of Education) at the time of the Court’s ruling. Now, more than ever, that ought to be an impression the justices are ill-inclined to reinforce.
Only Congress has the power to abolish the Department. The Executive’s task, by contrast, is to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” U. S. Const., Art. II, §3. Yet, by executive fiat, the President ordered the Secretary of Education to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department.” Exec. Order No. 14242, 90 Fed. Reg. 13679 (2025). Consistent with that Executive Order, Secretary Linda McMahon gutted the Department’s workforce, firing over 50 percent of its staff overnight. In her own words, that mass termination served as “the first step on the road to a total shutdown” of the Department. Dept. of Ed., Press Release (Mar. 11, 2025); infra, at 7.The professor is right:, dissent should be read in whole. But neither of them states the obvious, which needs now to be stated: this Court has abandoned all claim to being a third branch of government, standing apart from the other two as the third leg of the stool. It is wholly an arm of this Republican administration.
When the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it. Two lower courts rose to the occasion, preliminarily enjoining the mass firings while the litigation remains ongoing. Rather than maintain the status quo, however, this Court now intervenes, lifting the injunction and permitting the Government to proceed with dismantling the Department. That decision is indefensible. It hands the Executive the power to repeal statutes by firing all those necessary to carry them out. The majority is either willfully blind to the implications of its ruling or naive, but either way the threat to our Constitution’s separation of powers is grave. Unable to join in this misuse of our emergency docket, I respectfully dissent.
The application for stay presented to JUSTICE JACKSON and by her referred to the Court is granted. The May 22, 2025 preliminary injunction entered by the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, case No. 1:25–cv–10601, is stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought. Should certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this Court.Curiously, there is no mention there of standing as an issue (or at all), and the dissent doesn’t raise the issue, either. It was argued by the Administration; was it considered by the Court as equitable grounds to issue the stay? If so, why didn’t the Court say so? I know I’m repeating what Professor Vladeck said, but I’m trying to clarify his argument for non-lawyers. Equity, like general law, works by rules. What has happened to those rules is not explained by this Order; but it appears those rules no longer matter because of the person in the White House. At the very least, the courts, and the public, have no guidance at all from the Supreme Court. And that makes it even harder to offer any argument that this Court is not now plainly, and indeed wholly, political.