Lazy Caturday Reads: Scandals Galore!
Posted: April 11, 2026 Filed under: just because | Tags: Amanda Ungaro, Artemis II, Bryon Noem, cat art, caturday, Donald Trump, Epstein Files, Eric Swalwell, Iran War, Iran's ballistic missles, Jeffrey Epstein, Kristi Noem, Melania Trump, mines, NASA, Paolo Zampolli, political scandals, rape, sexual assault, Strait of Hormuz 4 CommentsGood Afternoon!!
By Mary Cassatt, 1883-84
The negotiations about the proposed cease fire in the Iran war are expected to begin soon, but meanwhile the news in the U.S. is suddenly filled with scandalous stories.
Yesterday, Dakinikat wrote about Melania Trump’s mysterious announcement to the White House press; I have a bit more context to add to that. Then last night the news about serious accusations of sexual misconduct by Eric Swalwell broke. There’s also news about Kristy Noem’s husband and his identity crisis.
I’ll get to those items, but I want to begin with a feel-good story for once.
Marcia Dunn at AP: Artemis II’s record-breaking journey around the moon ends with dramatic splashdown.
HOUSTON (AP) — Artemis II’s astronauts closed out humanity’s first lunar voyage in more than half a century with a Pacific splashdown on Friday, blazing new records near the moon with grace and joy.
It was a dramatic grand finale to a mission that revealed not only swaths of the lunar far side never seen before by human eyes, but a total solar eclipse and a parade of planets, most notably our own shimmering Earth against the endless black void of space.
With their flight now complete, the four astronauts have set NASA up for a moon landing by another crew in just two years and a full-blown moon base within the decade.
The triumphant moon-farers — commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen — emerged from their bobbing capsule into the sunlight off the coast of San Diego.
In a scene reminiscent of NASA’s Apollo moonshots of yesteryear, military helicopters hoisted the astronauts one by one from an inflatable raft docked to the capsule, hauling them aboard for the short trip to the Navy’s awaiting recovery ship, the USS John P. Murtha.
“These were the ambassadors from humanity to the stars that we sent out there right now, and I can’t imagine a better crew,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said from the recovery ship.
NASA’s Mission Control erupted in celebration, with hundreds pouring in from the back support rooms. “We did it,” NASA’s Lori Glaze rejoiced at a news conference. “Welcome to our moonshot.”
Read more at the AP link.
Now for the feel-disgusted news about Eric Swalwell. Based on what I’ve read, it’s surprising that this didn’t come out sooner. Apparently, he’s been DM young women, sending dick picks, and sexually assaulting women for years.
A former staffer of Rep. Eric Swalwell, a leading Democratic candidate for California governor, says that the congressman raped her when she was heavily intoxicated and left her bruised and bleeding, an allegation Swalwell strongly denies.
“I was pushing him off of me, saying no,” the woman told CNN of the incident, which she said happened in 2024 after she had stopped working in Swalwell’s office. “He didn’t stop.”
By Francesca Strino
She said it was the second time Swalwell had nonconsensual sexual contact with her while she was drunk. In 2019, when she was still working for him, she said she woke up naked with him in a hotel room after a night of heavy drinking. She said she had no memory of what happened but could feel physically that they’d had sexual contact.
Three other women who spoke with CNN also alleged various kinds of sexual misconduct by the Democratic congressman – including Swalwell sending them unsolicited explicit messages or nude photos.
One woman who connected online with Swalwell over her interest in Democratic politics says she ended up extremely drunk inside his hotel room after a night out with the congressman, with little memory of what occurred. Earlier in the night at a bar, he kissed her and touched her leg without her consent, she said.
Another woman, who described receiving unsolicited nude messages from Swalwell, was social media creator Ally Sammarco. She said she initially reached out to the congressman on Twitter to discuss politics. “I truly never thought he would respond – I had like 1,000 followers at the time,” she said. “And he actually responded.”
Swalwell denied the women’s allegations.
“These allegations are false and come on the eve of an election against the front-runner for governor,” Swalwell said in a statement to CNN. “For nearly 20 years, I have served the public – as a prosecutor and a congressman and have always protected women. I will defend myself with the facts and where necessary bring legal action. My focus in the coming days is to be with my wife and children and defend our decades of service against these lies.”
I don’t think that’s going to work. These are not subtle accusations, and the women told others about their experiences at the time. Sammarco saved the messages she got from Swallwell. A bit more from CNN:
One member of Swalwell’s staff said they quit immediately after receiving CNN’s detailed list of questions about the allegations.
CNN found corroboration for key elements of each of the women’s claims, including the former staffer who said she was sexually assaulted. Two family members and a friend said in interviews with CNN that she told them about the alleged 2024 assault in the following days, and CNN also reviewed text messages she sent two friends describing her allegations at the same time. “I was sexually assaulted on Thursday,” she wrote to one of her friends, adding: “By Eric.”
The woman also shared medical records related to her receiving STD and pregnancy testing after the alleged assault.
For the woman who connected online with Swalwell over Democratic politics, a family member and two friends confirmed she told them last year about the incident where she ended up intoxicated in his hotel room. CNN also reviewed messages between her and Swalwell, including a photo he sent her that matches footage of him during a CNN interview in her city on the night they met in person.
There’s still more at the link.
Politico: Jeffries, Pelosi and other Democrats call on Eric Swalwell to end governor campaign.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi headlined a growing list of Democratic lawmakers called on Rep. Eric Swalwell Friday to withdraw his campaign for California governor amid allegations of sexual misconduct.
Lily Walton with Raminou, 1922, by Suzanne Valadon
“This extremely sensitive matter must be appropriately investigated with full transparency and accountability,” Pelosi said in a statement. “As I discussed with Congressman Swalwell, it is clear that is best done outside of a gubernatorial campaign.”
In a joint statement with other elected House Democratic leaders, Jeffries called for a “swift investigation” as well as the end of his pending campaign.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday that a former congressional aide accused the congressman of two sexual encounters without her consent, beginning in 2019. CNN later reported that four women allege that Swalwell has committed sexual misconduct, including one former staffer who accuses Swalwell of rape….
Key backers of Swalwell’s governor bid swiftly revoked their support after the Chronicle’s story was published, including Reps. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) and Adam Gray (D-Calif.), who served as campaign co-chairs.
“Today’s reports about Eric Swalwell’s conduct while in office are deeply disturbing,” Gray said in a statement. “Harassment, abuse, and violence of any sort are unacceptable. Given these serious allegations, I am withdrawing my support and Eric Swalwell should end his campaign immediately.”
But nothing underscored the peril for Swalwell’s nearly two-decade political career as vividly as Pelosi’s statement. The former speaker included Swalwell in her inner circle of favored Democratic members for years, tapping him for junior leadership roles and to serve as a manager in Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial in 2021.
Read the rest at the link.
The Melania Trump story might have stayed on social media if she hadn’t decided to make a public statement at the lectern that is supposed to be reserved for the POTUS. But it’s out there now, and she will have to deal with it.
It began with a disturbing story in The New York Times on March 20: Trump Friend Asked ICE to Detain the Mother of His Child.
Last June, the man credited with introducing President Trump to his wife asked the administration for a favor.
Paolo Zampolli, a former modeling agent turned presidential special envoy, had learned that his Brazilian ex-girlfriend was in a Miami jail, arrested on charges of fraud at her workplace. They had been in a custody battle over their teenage son. Now he saw an opportunity.
Eduard Manet, Woman with a Cat, 1880
He reached out to a top official at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, explaining that his ex was in the country illegally, according to records obtained by The New York Times and a person familiar with the communications. Could she be put in ICE detention? That could help him get his son back.
The official, David Venturella, promptly called the agency’s Miami office to ensure that ICE agents would pick up the woman from the jail before she was released on bail, according to the records and a person with knowledge of the conversation who requested anonymity to discuss it. During the call, Mr. Venturella noted that the case was important to someone close to the White House.
The woman, Amanda Ungaro, was placed in ICE custody and ultimately deported, an outcome that may well have happened regardless of Mr. Zampolli’s meddling. But the ICE official’s willingness to spring into action for a Trump ally — even one in a low-level, largely ceremonial role — reflects a recurring theme of the second Trump administration: The levers of the federal government can be pulled to settle a personal score.
I read this story when it was published, but I didn’t make the connections I should have.
Amanda Ungaro is on X AKA Twitter, and she is fighting back. If you have access, you can read the many tweets she has been sending to Melania.
Melania is apparently sensitive about how she came to the U.S. In fact Zampolli is the one who brought her here and got her an H1-B visa. When she first arrived, she moved into a building occupied by other models who worked for Zampolli’s agency. It looks like Melania has really stepped in it. The Epstein files are back in the news.
From Julie K. Brown, the journalist who originally wrote about Epstein in The Miami Herald, at her Substack The Epstein Files: Could a former Brazilian model be the whistleblower Melania Trump is afraid of?
The First Lady’s unprecedented public statement about Jeffrey Epstein yesterday raised a lot of questions about what, if anything, is about to be revealed about Donald and Melania Trump’s relationship with the late sex trafficker.
The Epstein case had quieted down in the wake of Trump’s decision to attack Iran — some critics allege that was one of Trump’s goals in launching a war in the first place — to cool the MAGA furor over DOJ’s inept release of the Epstein files.
Now it seems that plan, if true, has led to a Jack-In-The-Beanstalk effect — as in trading a cow for beans and climbing into danger without really thinking it through.
Because there is another story that I admit I missed when it ran in the New York Times a few weeks ago.
It appears that the Trump administration may have targeted Zampolli’s ex-girlfriend, a former Brazilian model named Amanda Ungaro, deporting her back to Brazil amid her custody battle with Zampolli over their teenage son.
As the NYT’s story notes: “The levers of the federal government can be pulled to settle a personal score.”
Self-Portrait with a Cat, created by Frida Konstantin
In this case, the score involved Paolo Zampolli, a former modeling agent who was appointed last year by Trump as special envoy for “global partnerships,” which allows him to travel the world to advance trade and other partnerships with the U.S.
Just days ago, he was in Hungary with Vice President Vance, supporting the re-election of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, an effort to publicly back the right-wing leader in the days running up to the election.
Zampolli, 56, was in Epstein’s orbit around the time that Trump met Melania in 1998. He was also friends with Epstein, as the two entertained a business deal over buying a modeling agency.
And Zampolli’s name is in the Epstein Files, with Epstein noting in one email that he was “trouble.”
Still all the drama surrounding Zampolli’s custody battle with his estranged girlfriend didn’t connect any dots, at least not for me, until the First Lady’s speech yesterday.
Read the rest at the link.
The New York Times has another piece about Melania’s statement today: Trump Says First Lady ‘Had a Right’ to Talk About Epstein.
President Trump said Friday that he had known his wife wanted to speak about Jeffrey Epstein at some point, and that he “thought she had a right to talk about it,” even if he had not known what exactly she planned to say.
“It doesn’t bother me,” Mr. Trump said in a brief telephone interview, referring to the remarks Melania Trump made from the entrance hall of the White House a day earlier.
“I didn’t know what the statement was,” he said, “but I knew she was going to make a statement.”
The first lady’s comments certainly came as a surprise to many other people who work in the White House, according to two officials familiar with the situation who asked for anonymity to discuss the matter. It was not clear why she had chosen that moment to talk about Mr. Epstein. Absent any explanation, questions and feverish conspiracy theories swirled.
The president said his wife had been agonizing for a long time over her press coverage and rumors connecting her to Mr. Epstein. What was particularly upsetting to her, Mr. Trump explained, was one theory positing that it was Mr. Epstein who introduced her to her future husband. In her remarks on Thursday, Mrs. Trump recounted the story of meeting Mr. Trump “by chance at a New York City party in 1998.” She said she did not encounter Mr. Epstein for the first time until two years after that.
“She finds it very insulting,” Mr. Trump said of the rumors. “And I said, ‘If you want to do that, you can do that.’ I said if she wants to do it — I didn’t recommend it, but I said, I let it be her, I said, if you want to do it. …”
He added, “She didn’t meet me through Jeffrey Epstein. And I could understand her feelings. But I said, ‘If you want to do it, do it.’”
He would not say when exactly he had this discussion with the first lady, but said that “it wasn’t a big discussion. I’d say it lasted for about two minutes. I had no problem. I thought she actually did a good job.”
He’s lying, obviously. I doubt if she told him. Now she has revived interest in the Epstein files and Trump can’t be happy about that.
The Black Cat, by Carl Wilhelm Wilhelmson , 1922, Swedish, 1866-1928
The last scandal for today–the Kristi Noem story. The story was originally in the Daily Mail, but it’s behind a paywall.
The Independent: Kristi Noem’s husband offers cryptic three-word answer to report that he talked about leaving wife and becoming a woman.
Kristi Noem’s husband, Bryon Noem, has pushed back on a report that he insulted his wife in phone calls and online messages with a dominatrix and expressed a desire to become a woman.
Bryon Noem told The Independent the claims in the report were “not all true.” He did not elaborate when asked for more information.
The 56-year-old was reported to have been in an on-off relationship online with Shy Sotomayor, a 30-year-old sex worker known as Raelynn Riley, since 2016, she claimed in an interview with the Daily Mail, published Friday.
It is the latest in a series of exposés on the husband of the recently ousted Homeland Security Secretary, who has been keeping a low profile since the story broke last week.
Sotomayor shared recordings of phone calls and screenshots of messages she said she exchanged with Bryon Noem, where he said she was “so much better” than his wife. He also expressed wanting to transition to become a woman, the messages showed.
In one recent message, the South Dakota insurance boss said he wanted to change his name to Crystal “so bad,” and that he wanted plastic surgery. “I want to be your trans bimbo b****,” the messages showed.
The outlet linked Bryon Noem’s telephone number to the messages with Sotomayor, and it also corresponded to an email address under the pseudonym “Chrystalballz666.”
The messages reportedly from Bryon Noem appear in stark contrast to Kristi Noem’s opposition to transgender rights. As South Dakota governor, she signed an exclusionary bill to ban surgical and non-surgical gender-affirming treatments for children in the state, and barred transgender girls and women from playing on women’s sports teams.
Read the rest at The Independent.
There’s no news on the Iran talks yet, so I’ll end this with two disturbing Iran stories:
The New York Times: Iran Unable to Find Mines It Planted in Strait of Hormuz, U.S. Says.
Iran has been unable to open the Strait of Hormuz to more shipping traffic because it cannot locate all of the mines it laid in the waterway and lacks the capability to remove them, according to U.S. officials.
The development is one reason Iran has not been able to quickly comply with the Trump administration’s admonitions to let more traffic pass through the strait. It is also potentially a complicating factor as Iranian negotiators and a U.S. delegation led by Vice President JD Vance meet in Pakistan this weekend for peace talks.
Woman with a cat, Pierre Bonnard
Iran used small boats to mine the strait last month, soon after the United States and Israel began their war against the country. The mines, plus the threat of Iranian drone and missile attacks, slowed the number of oil tankers and other vessels passing through the strait to a trickle, driving up energy prices and providing Iran with its best leverage in the war.
Iran left a path through the strait open, allowing ships that pay a toll to pass through.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has issued warnings that ships could collide with sea mines, and semiofficial news organizations have published charts showing safe routes.
Those routes are limited in large part because Iran mined the strait haphazardly, U.S. officials said. It is not clear that Iran recorded where it put every mine. And even when the location was recorded, some mines were placed in a way that allowed them to drift or move, according to the officials.
As with land mines, removing nautical mines is far more difficult than placing them. The U.S. military lacks robust mine removal capabilities, relying on littoral combat ships equipped with mine sweeping capabilities. Iran also does not have the capability of quickly removing mines, even the ones it planted.
One of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s main defenses of the U.S. decision to negotiate a controversial ceasefire with Iran is that its ballistic missile program has been “functionally destroyed.”
But that claim has now been shot down by U.S. intelligence assessments, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
“Iran still has thousands of ballistic missiles in its arsenal that it could use by retrieving launchers from underground storage areas, according to American officials familiar with U.S. intelligence assessments,” said the report. “The assessments come as the U.S. is working to cement a cease-fire that would fully open the Strait of Hormuz and also insulate Iran, American troops and states in the region from further attacks. Some American officials said they are concerned that Iran will use the break in fighting to reconstitute some of its missile arsenal.”
The conflict has taken a toll on Iran, with around half of its missile stockpile lost, the assessment found — but “it retains thousands of medium- and short-range ballistic missiles that could be pulled out of hiding or retrieved from underground sites, said U.S. and Israeli officials.”
This comes as even a number of Republican and conservative analysts are crying foul about the terms of the ceasefire, which appear one-sidedly in favor of Iran.
That’s it for me today. I guess it’s okay to focus on salacious stuff on the weekend. Happy Caturday!
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NPR: There’s growing disquiet in the military. The Iran war made it worse.https://www.npr.org/2026/04/10/nx-s1-5771612/military-iran-war-trump-conscientious-objector
Bill Galvin has spent much of the past month answering the phone.
“It’s been very, very busy,” he says. Galvin is the counseling director at the Center on Conscience and War, which helps run the 24-hour GI Rights Hotline, set up to inform service members of their options for military discharge.
Most callers are asking how to apply to become a conscientious objector — a difficult, invasive and rarely used process. But they’re also airing their concerns and frustrations, often anonymously, as the hotline allows them a space to do so without repercussions.
Military members are citing myriad reasons for wanting to leave, but the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran has been a powerful motivator. In March alone, Galvin’s center took on more than 80 new clients — almost twice as many as it takes on in an average year. The busiest single day saw 12 new clients join, with one person saying four other members of their platoon were also interested.
Those numbers are a drop in the bucket when compared with the more than 1.3 million people enlisted. But for outside observers and former military officials, those calls and conversations are an indication of a troubling disquiet within the ranks.
The uptick is part of a larger pattern of military members seeking ways to end their service, according to NPR interviews with several organizations like Galvin’s and military members who deal directly with these issues. While there is no hard contemporaneous data on the number of members seeking to exit, the people NPR spoke to for this story say they have seen undeniable cracks in the military’s ability to retain troops, largely due to low morale or ethical concerns.
Religion News: Hegseth mentor Doug Wilson’s vision for a Christian nation means married women can’t vote.
In Pastor Doug Wilson’s Christian nationalist America, there would be no minarets — only the sound of church bell towers. There would be no statues of Hindu deities or other non-Christian religious symbols in public spaces. Adultery would carry legal penalties, and Obergefell v. Hodges would be overturned. Wilson says he’s not trying to get there tomorrow. But he and his Moscow, Idaho, church are building what he calls “a working prototype.”
“What I mean by Christian nationalism is America being what it was founded to be,” said Toby Sumpter, a pastor at Christ Church, the congregation led by Wilson.
Sumpter joined Wilson and Pastor Jared Longshore, dean at New Saint Andrews College, the school run by Christ Church, at a town hall on the University of Idaho campus, where the three laid out their vision for America’s future.
The trio made national headlines last year after they appeared together in a CNN profile examining Wilson’s Christian nationalist movement and its ties to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth….
The pastors argued that Christian nationalism isn’t a new idea — it’s a return to America’s founding. They pointed to state constitutions that acknowledged the Christian God and held religious tests for officeholders. They said it had been done before and could be done again. A number of the original 13 colonies that made up the United States had established state churches at the founding, but those ties between church and state were cut early in the country’s history.
Wilson claimed members of minority religions would actually have “more liberty” than they do now, though he did not elaborate. He was clear, however, about the limits. The pastors argued that what the Bible defines as sinful behavior would not be treated as private — that it has consequences for society as a whole.
“We’re living in the nuclear fallout of the destruction of the American family,” Sumpter said.
Under that framework, public celebrations of LGBTQ+ identity would not be tolerated. Wilson said Pride Month and Pride parades would receive no government support, and Obergefell v. Hodges would be overturned.
Wilson went further, offering praise for the 1969 Stonewall raids — the police action against a New York gay bar that sparked the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. He added that said sodomy laws — which were on the books in some of the 50 states until 2003 — should be restored, though not aggressively enforced. “I would not want a sexual Gestapo,” he said.
Their vision extends beyond sexuality and into the structure of the family — including who should have the right to vote. Wilson and the other pastors also argued for cutting the number of voters. Under their model, voting rights would belong to the head of each household — not to individuals. Women in households led by a husband would not. That means women who are widowed, divorced or otherwise head of their own households would vote.
Excellent work BB, thank you.
Thank you!