Sunday, July 27, 2025

The World Laughs At His Mighty Sword

Somebody’s got to take that man to the Texas Panhandle. Windmills grow there like tulips in Holland. Get that man a wig! Is it a secret now? Fear of a brown planet. 

It’s not any better for Lucky Lindsey:
During a Sunday interview on Meet the Press, Graham called for a special counsel after suggesting there was new evidence that former President Barack Obama conspired to smear President Donald Trump with an investigation into Russian collusion

"Hold on, Senator, as you know, former President Obama has weighed in through a spokesperson," Welker interrupted. "He says that's just patently false. I actually spoke to Susan Miller, who's a former senior CIA officer who helped oversee the 2017 intelligence assessment on Russian interference. She says it's completely false that Obama or anyone else asked them to change or sway their investigation."

"Senator, are you trying to rewrite history to distract from the Epstein matter, Senator?" the host wondered.

"I'm trying to let you know and the media know that we found something we didn't know before," Graham insisted. "At the end of the day, I'm not calling for a prosecution against President Obama for treason, but I am calling for an investigation."

"Senator, you're saying there's something new," Welker replied. "This report goes back to 2020. It's five years old. There's actually nothing new in this report and nothing that changes any conclusion."

"Whatever," Graham grumbled.
But poor Donald still had it worse: Please say “Thank you, Mr. President,” as you leave. He’s an old man, it would mean so much to him.
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Trump Does It…

MARKWAYNE MULLIN: Remember, there was a sweetheart plea deal that was struck in 2009, way before Trump was even considering to be in office, under the Obama administration

TAPPER: No. It was 2008. The US attorney at the time was a guy named Alex Acosta. He was a Bush appointee. He went on to become Trump's secretary of labor

MULLIN: Who was in office at the time?

TAPPER: George W Bush

MULLIN: No. 2009 was when the case came out, and Obama was in office at the time

TAPPER: Not true
...why can’t Markwayne? Maybe if he does it twice?

You know, they’d be better off arguing Epstein was prosecuted under GOP Administrations.
RUSS VOUGHT: NIH is a program that if they were a company, their stock prices would in shambles. They in some respects caused the pandemic by their gain of function research. You have an entire institute that does nothing more than DEI research at NIH.
Healthcare in America cares too much about non-white people. Russ Vought is going to fix that.

And Howard Lutnick has his finger on the pulse of America:
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NBC Has Entered The Chat

 Credit where credit is due:

“The defendant’s willingness to brazenly lie under oath about her conduct, including some of the conduct charged in the Indictment, strongly suggests her true motive has been and remains to avoid being held accountable for her crimes,” prosecutors wrote in a pretrial motion.

Prosecutors said that Maxwell also lied when she was given a chance to acknowledge her actions in a 2016 civil suit. “When the defendant was given the opportunity to address her conduct with minors in the context of a civil suit, she lied repeatedly,” they wrote.
And then there’s the judge at her trial:
“Ms. Maxwell today acknowledged the courage of the victims, talked about the pain and anguish they expressed, to some extent acknowledged the pain and suffering,” Nathan said. “What wasn’t expressed was acceptance of responsibility.”
As well as the purposelessness of the Blanche interview:
Jack Scarola, a lawyer who represents roughly 20 Epstein victims, said that Maxwell’s history of mendacity shows that any investigator who questions her must be thoroughly prepared. “It is apparent to us that approaching an interview casually will be a complete waste of time,” he said.
Trump fired the lawyer who prosecuted Maxwell, then sent in Blanche. I’m sure we can trust his account of what she said. After all, her own lawyer says she told the truth. Of course, her lawyers said that about her civil deposition, too.

That deposition led to the perjury charges which prosecutors finally declined to pursue, because Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in jail.
After her arrest, Maxwell was also charged with two counts of perjury alleging she made false statements in a deposition under oath in the 2016 civil case. Prosecutors alleged that Maxwell lied when she said she was not aware of Epstein’s efforts to recruit underage girls for sex.

Maxwell also lied when she claimed she was unaware of anyone 18 years or younger being on Epstein’s properties, they said, and when she denied that she had sexual contact with other women while with Epstein, and that Epstein had sex toys.
Does all of this make her a non-credible witness? It should. Could she be rehabilitated as a witness? Why, yes, she could:
Legal experts say that cooperating witnesses who have previously lied can still be effective witnesses if there is evidence that corroborates their claims. Their credibility can also be boosted if they give a compelling reason for why they lied.
Isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think?
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Networks Don’t Have Licenses

Only stations do. This is more empty bluster; but it is also abuse of power.

If ever a President deserved to be removed from office….

Threatening prosecution for non-crimes (they didn’t pay for endorsements, and “illegal” does not always equate to a criminal violation of law) is another abuse of power. He is slandering them with obvious malice. And being a pea-brained idiot is not a defense.

And this simply doesn’t make sense:
Wait a minute. “6 months later”? It’s been 8 years since Obama was president. The only immunity would be for what Obama did when he was president. (Ignore the base ignorance of the question of “official duties.” Even Roberts left that definition to the lower courts to chew on, knowing full well the question would never come back before the Court in his lifetime.)

The whole thing is idiotic, but it’s not even internally coherent. It’s an Epstein files-esque conspiracy theory.

The King has a better idea:
Blame the messenger! And speaking of long ago and far away: Well, we don’t know because he won’t show us the evidence, will he? Or a powerful lie. The parties to the last four “deals” Trump announced all said there was no deal. Does “close it” mean something different to Trump? 

And why won’t people quit talking about Epstein?
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Saturday, July 26, 2025

So…

 If what Ghislaine Maxwell had to say showed up in the Epstein files: names, dates, who screwed/raped who (below the age of consent, it’s statutory rape):

Who needed what she had to say? It certainly wasn’t under oath. Most likely we’ll just have to trust Blanche’s account.

But MAGA hasn’t accepted Bondi and Patel’s word that there’s nothing to see in the files. Blanche has to carefully shape his report so it doesn’t contradict that position. But if it doesn’t, what good does it do?

And even if she did provide evidence not in the files, how do we verify it? How do we know it’s not in the files, if we can’t review them?

This whole controversy started with the conviction that documents would prove what testimony could not, because people lie, right? Or plead the 5th and the 6th, as Epstein did, under oath and on video. But documents! Lay people (lawyers know better) believe documents almost implicitly. Certainly that’s why there is still a clamor to “release the files!”

So how does a report by Blanche that Maxwell named names (which no legacy media outlet will report without saying they haven’t independently verified the information), show Trump is not in the files? Especially when we know he is.

I mean, if we’re going to say Bill Clinton’s name is “in the files” (it undoubtedly is) means he was diddling 14 year old girls (no, it doesn’t. Epstein liked to play philanthropist, and Clinton has been running a charity for decades now. Schmoozing Epstein for charity is not the same thing as joining orgies on the island. Barring direct evidence of the latter, guilt by association is for the nutters and conspiracy theorists.) Trump’s name in the files doesn’t convince me he was raping children. But if it convinces MAGA, what can I do?

😈

Trump is looking for Alexander’s sword to cut this Gordian Knot, a knot he encouraged in the making. But now everyone laughs at his mighty sword, as he proves he’s no Alexander the Great, he’s just an addled, aging old man, made more pathetic by his insistence that he’s not.

Ghislaine Maxwell is not the sword he’s looking for.

A lot of the information on Trump and Epstein is already in the public domain. I’m sure Trump is unaware of that; but he’s scared shitless of these files. Maybe Bondi told him more than that his name is simply in there?

And what is Ghislaine Maxwell going to change about any of this? Especially if Trump has to pardon her.

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Losing Power

Popehat thinks a majority of the public is gullible enough to believe anything Trump says:

I wish this were true but it’s not. A substantial number of Americans will believe any goddamned ridiculous facially fraudulent thing the Trumpists tell them, including this. And another large segment will PRETEND they believe it for the sake of power, which is indistinguishable.
But: And it’s the revolt of MAGA (forget Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon. They’ve always been running to stay in front of the parade.) that’s gotten the attention of the media and put Trump out of control of his narrative.

The problem for Trump is, he’s rapidly becoming a lame duck. Which means, for the sake of power, he has to be abandoned.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is preparing to send $608 million to states to construct immigrant detention centers as part of the Trump administration's push to expand capacity to hold migrants.

FEMA is starting a “detention support grant program” to cover the cost of states building temporary facilities, according to an agency announcement, opens new tab. States have until August 8 to apply for the funds, according to the post.
Or, as Emptywheel puts it:
Maryland can't have flood relief because Stephen Miller demands concentration camps.
Which is sure to make Trump’s immigration policies even more popular. Right?

Losing power, as I said.
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Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain

Japan says profits will be “based on the degree of contribution and risk taken by each party.” If the US contributes nothing, it gets no profits.
"There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
As a reminder, the only rule that really matters to Trump is "Win that day's headlines." So you send Lutnick out to brag about a $550 billion "signing bonus" that hasn't been agreed to in writing, and that isn't actually a bonus, and may not be $550 billion, because who cares if it turns out later not to have been true.
So who’s the unreliable narrator here? Trump? Or the legacy media? Who can’t understand why they’re losing their audience…. And why we don’ need no steenken’ Epstein files! I’m going with “Don’t ask, don’t tell” on that last one.Blanche didn’t ask, and she didn’t tell, and there’s no third-party who can say “No, that’s not what she said.” That pre-selected list obviously courtesy of the Epstein files. Which can’t be released. Because; “insert reason here.”

All being done very transparently and in complete accord with standard DOJ practice.

I’m sure.
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… And No Bite

Well, “South Park” is on cable, which the FCC can’t touch.

But Colbert is on the air until next March (IIRC). So when is the Chairman going to gag Colbert? Plenty of time left.
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Unreliable Narrators

There was no one in the room for 9 hours but Maxwell and Blanche.
It is almost unheard of for a convicted sex trafficker to meet with such a high-ranking Justice Department official, especially one who used to be the president's top criminal defense attorney.
What is unheard of is a DOJ lawyer questioning a witness without witnesses to the questioning: other staff lawyers, paralegals, a stenographer. Who is making an accurate record of what is said? Who is keeping notes? Who can verify Blanche’s version of what he says she said? 

Certainly not her attorney:
"We don't want to get into the substance of the questions," Markus had said about Thursday's meeting. "There were a lot of questions and we went all day and she answered every one of them. She never said 'I'm not going to answer,' never declined."
But he does want to exonerate his client:
Markus said Maxwell's legal team has not approached Trump about a pardon, but suggested it could happen in the future.

"We haven't spoken to the president or anyone about a pardon just yet. And listen, the president this morning said he had the power to do so we hope he exercises that power in the right and just way," he said.

Maxwell's attorney said on Friday she's been treated poorly for the last five years and is grateful to be able to meet with Blanche as she appeals her sex trafficking conviction and seeks to leave prison.

"If you looked up scapegoat in the dictionary, her picture would be next to the definition," Markus said. "She's keeping her spirits up as best she can."
A lot of “reliable” narrators here 🙄, and still no reliable record. Not from Blanche, not from Maxwell, not from reporters. Why isn’t a reliable record the point of this exercise?

 It’s the Acosta indictment of Epstein in Florida all over again:
Annie Farmer, who testified against Maxwell at trial, questioned why Maxwell was granted a meeting with the deputy attorney general in the first place.

"It's very disappointing that these things are happening behind closed doors without any input from the people that the government asked to come forward and speak against her in order to put her away," Farmer said. "There were so many young girls and women that were harmed by her."
Because this is not about justice. This is about “just us.” The government, and the institutions that report on the government (and don’t ask too many questions, or point out too many irregularities, unless everyone else is already doing it). Or it’s about just Trump, and the mouse he carries around in his pocket.
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Friday, July 25, 2025

Why Would Ghislaine Lie?

JMM:
I’m filled with awe and amazement that they seem primed to pardon ghislaine in exchange for her signing a statement that Trump is the least pedophilest man ever to walk the earth and was 100% never Jeff Epstein’s wingman with high school age models.
Which will make everything bad go away, and make Donnie a happy little boy again.

As long as the files confirm her story….😈

(Local news ran a story about the Maxwell interview. Sound was off, but they finished with a small plane towing a banner (where? 🤷🏻‍♂️) that read: “TRUMP AND BONDI ARE  PROTECTING PREDATORS.” So yeah, I’m sure pardoning Maxwell in exchange for a statement will make everything better again. Please, don’t let me stop you.) (They really think this is their “King’s ‘X’”. )

😈
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“HOAX!”

(What’s the point of being a king if you can’t control everything?) (How’s that working out for him?) (About that well. Whaddya know….)
 He's been taken out of context
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🌬️

 Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts:

For the past 17 years, Texas has led the U.S. in wind energy production. In 2022, Texas had 40,556 MW of installed capacity — more than a quarter of all wind-sourced electricity in the U.S.7 Wind power generation surpassed the state’s nuclear generation for the first time in 2014 and exceeded coal-fired generation for the first time in 2020.8 In 2011, Texas became the first state to reach 10,000 MW of wind generating capacity and remained the only state with that capacity until 2020. Today, there are 239 operating wind projects in Texas, according to CleanpowerIQ, an online data platform the American Clean Power Association, most of which have generating capacities larger than 10 MW. Texas also has more than 15,300 wind turbines, the most of any state.
On immigration, you better get your act together or you will not have Europe anymore.
(Who elected this guy to be openly racist on behalf of the country?) Holland has entered the chat.

Trump had best not come to Texas. Despite Abbott’s openly racist new school voucher program (which won’t help the people who think it’s going to help, but will sure as shit be a tax cut for the rich while underfunding public schools), we’re really not all that interested in the Great Replacement Theory, either.

(And no, Vance has not gone rogue. Whatever gave you that idea?)

Maybe Trump thinks racism will deflect Epstein? Or it’s jet lag? Or the sun is already going down in Scotland?
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“When Will They Ever Learn?”



Once more, with feeling: Nope.🙂‍↔️ 

Read “Othello” one or two times, at least, paying close attention to Iago and the other characters in the play, particularly Othello, Desdemona, and Roderigo.

What Shakespeare shows us that fascists seldom proper (Willie wouldn’t recognize the term, but Iago is all for the primacy of Iago, uber alles), but they can do a lot of damage, especially if allowed to work in relative isolation.

Iago comes to grief when that isolation ends. The same is happening to Trump, now. He can no more escape the consequences of his lies, than Iago could.
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Forbes Has A Timeline

“I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him,” Trump told reporters from the Oval Office in 2019 when Epstein was arrested. “I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.”
Sure, buddy. Sure.
1980s
Trump and Epstein met around the time Trump bought Mar-a-Lago in 1985, when Epstein was also living in Palm Beach, according to Trump, who told New York magazine in 2002 he had known Epstein for “15 years,” calling him a “terrific guy,” and adding “it is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

1992
Trump and Epstein were spotted laughing together at a party Trump threw at Mar-a-Lago, according to NBC footage of the event unearthed in 2019.

1992
At a “calendar girl” party at Mar-a-Lago where Trump invited just two other guests, Florida businessman George Houraney and Epstein, Houraney’s girlfriend at the time, Jill Harth, said Trump forcibly kissed and fondled her, restrained her from leaving a bedroom and alleged Trump crawled into bed with another 22-year-old woman at the party in a 1997 lawsuit Trump settled the lawsuit with Harth (he has denied her allegations), The New York Times reported.

1993
Trump flew on Epstein’s private jets four times in 1993, according to flight logs made public during Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial, The New York Times reported.

1993
Photos released by CNN showed Epstein attended Trump’s 1993 wedding to Marla Maples—his second wife—at the Plaza Hotel in New York. A few months before the wedding, another photo published by CNN showed Epstein and Trump together at the opening of the Harley Davidson Cafe in New York.

1993
Trump groped model Stacey Williams when Epstein brought her to Trump Tower, she alleged in an October interview with The New York Times (Trump’s campaign denied the allegations as “unequivocally false” and politically motivated).

1994
Trump flew on one of Epstein’s private jets, according to the flight logs.

1995
Epstein reportedly called Maria Farmer—who has accused Epstein and Maxwell of sexual assault—to his New York office late at night, where Trump then arrived and “started to hover over” Farmer, who was in her mid-20s at the time, and “stared at her bare legs” before Epstein said, “No, no. She’s not here for you,” Farmer reportedly told the FBI, according to The New York Times.

1995
Trump took another flight on an Epstein jet, the flight logs say.

1997
Trump signed a note to Epstein in his book, “Trump: The Art of the Comeback,” that said “To Jeff—You are the greatest!” according to The New York Times.

1997
Trump took a seventh flight on one of Epstein’s jets.

1997
Trump and Epstein were photographed standing near each other at a Victoria’s Secret “Angels” party, according to a Getty image of Trump posing with model Ingrid Seynhaeve that shows Epstein in the background.

1999
A video released by CNN showed Trump and Epstein laughing and chatting with each other at another Victoria’s Secret event.

2000
Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre was working at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort when she was recruited by Maxwell to work as Epstein’s personal masseuse and was groomed by the two to provide sexual services for Epstein and his wealthy circle, according to a deposition Giuffre gave that was made public in 2019.

2003
Trump allegedly gave Epstein the birthday card that said “may every day be another wonderful secret,” according to the Wall Street Journal report, which the president denies and has sued the paper over; The New York Times later reported Trump was on a list of contributors for the book of birthday cards to Epstein Trump’s letter allegedly appeared in.

2004
Trump and Epstein had a falling out when Trump outbid him for a Palm Beach mansion, according to a Washington Post report.

Pre-2006
Trump and Epstein appeared in a photo with singer James Brown, The Times reported (the photo is undated, but Brown died in 2006).

2010
Resurfaced video, posted to social media by the progressive outlet MeidasTouch, showed Epstein confirming he socialized with Trump and declining to answer when asked if he has ever socialized with Trump “in the presence of females under the age of 18.”

2015
Trump’s name appeared circled in Epstein’s “little black book” of 1,571 personal contacts, which spanned 97 pages of names, numbers and addresses of Epstein’s associates, including high-powered figures such as Prince Andrew and Ehud Barak, whose names were among about 38 also circled, according to a copy of the document published by Gawker in 2015.
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Our AI 🤖 Paradise Is Just Around The Corner


 

Ghislaine Maxwell Can’t Help But Notice Interview Room Covered In Plastic Sheeting

From The Onion. Clearly a sarcastic reference to the murder of Ahmad Khashoggi. Unless you ask AI:
As Asher Langton says:
Silicon Valley is lighting hundreds of billions of dollars on fire to generate this slop.
I just read a CNN article about Tesla’s disastrous sales history since the complete flop of the Cybertruck and the failure of the robotaxis in Austin (a child can see a drunk driver would be a more reliable chauffeur), and investors are starting to sour, but also still believe whatever P.T. Barnum nonsense about the future that Musk spouts. Even though every business he’s ever run has been run into the ground (or saved by getting rid of him), “level headed business people” still insist Musk has the keys to the future.

I’m old enough to remember when “businessmen” were all wise and practical and understood risk and investment and made better decisions about finance than any government could, and government should be run by these gods among us on the sound principles of corporate America. You know, utterly ignoring the example of Robert McNamara as the SOD, and his complete inability to understand why he couldn’t defeat “those little brown men in black pajamas” with his business acumen and his equations.

And now edge lords are our new seers and prophets even though nothing they’ve done (social media; search engines) has improved daily life, and more arguably has made it worse. But “smart glasses” combined with AI and driverless cars will liberate us from want and need and all the ills that flesh is heir to. In the words of Iago to Rodrigo; “Put money in your purse!”

And also alleviate the need to puzzle over satire, and sarcasm. O, what a paradise it seems!
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“Lived with [Epstein]”?

Is that in the Epstein files? Now we really need to see them!

🤪
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Um…Nope

IIRC, the New York State criminal charges did not result in a prison sentence because of issues of federal supremacy (the states can’t imprison a sitting POTUS), which have nothing to do with US v Trump.

The special counsel prosecutions ended with Trump’s inauguration. Trump wasn’t about to appoint an AG who would continue those cases, which is how we got Bondi. 
I agree with Judge Luttig, but that case has nothing to do with Trump skating all those criminal prosecutions/sentencing. And honestly, all the shadow docket decisions this term are pushing Trump v U.S. and Dred Scott out of contention for the #1 spot (and there’s nothing lower than #1).
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Media: “Trump Said Nothing About The Condition Of The Dollar”

If MAGA hadn’t lost their shit over the “Epstein files,” the media wouldn’t give a wet snap about them. If media is ever convinced MAGA has given up on Epstein, media will shrug if Democrats keep talking about him.
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“Get ‘Em Out By Friday!”

Trump on homelessness: "Tents -- I'm getting rid of them right now. You can't do that, especially in Washington DC. I talk to the mayor about it all the time. I said, 'you gotta get rid of the tents. You can't have it.' When leaders come to see me to make a trade deal and there's tents outside the White House, you can't have it."
The man really doesn’t give a thought to the lives of other human beings.
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Jesus Doesn’t Love Me This Much

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