Finally Friday Reads: Jack is Back
Posted: January 23, 2026 Filed under: #We are so Fucked, Elections, FARTUS, GOP Crimes Against Humanity, ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE raids | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, broken government, constitutional crisis, ICE Crimes Against Humanity, Jack Smith Testimony 6 Comments
“Jack Smith returns to Washington to testify publicly in front of Jim Jordan’s House Judiciary Committee.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Yesterday, the entire news cycle was dedicated to the testimony of former Special Counsel Jack Smith, who prosecuted the rotter in the White House for his election interference scheme. Many of the Republican members of the Judiciary Committee were far from up to the task of diminishing Smith’s appearance and the merits of the case. At one point, Democratic Ranking Member Jamie Raskin and Republican Darrel Issa got into a shouting match.
PBS had this headline yesterday, along with a tick-tock of the day’s events. It was a strange thing to see that Republicans were part of what was a look at Trump’s Election crimes, which appeared to be less daunting to them than dealing with the Epstein Files. Anyone paying attention surely took the event and the testimony as yet another way Trump defies our Constitutionally defined form of government.
Jack Smith is set to testify in a House Judiciary hearing Thursday. It’s an opportunity for the career prosecutor to offer his inside perspective on the investigations into Trump’s mishandling of classified documents and attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The president was indicted in two federal cases, but both were scuttled once it was clear that Trump would return to the Oval Office, due to DOJ policy that prevents prosecution of a sitting president.
One of the things we learned is that the manner in which the case was dismissed lets a future Congress and DOJ go after him again. This was yesterday’s New York Times’ conclusion. “In Testimony, Jack Smith Defends Decision to Prosecute Trump. The former special prosecutor argued a case he was never allowed to in court: that President Trump “engaged in criminal activity” that undermined democracy.” The leded is shared by
By Glenn Thrush and Alan Feuer.
But the hearing also provided Mr. Smith with what was likely to be his best opportunity to challenge, in an official forum, Mr. Trump’s justification for ordering the Justice Department to pursue his enemies: that he was persecuted for his politics, not prosecuted for his alleged misdeeds.
“Our investigation revealed that Donald Trump is the person who caused Jan. 6, that it was foreseeable to him and that he sought to exploit the violence,” Mr. Smith said, sitting alone at the witness table with a water bottle, legal pad and white ballpoint pen.
He appeared wan and tired, speaking so softly at times his voice did not register with voice transcription apps. Before sitting at the witness table, Mr. Smith greeted four law enforcement officers who were attacked by the pro-Trump mob at the Capitol — Michael Fanone, Daniel Hodges, Aquilino Gonell and Harry Dunn.
Republicans repeatedly accused Mr. Smith of participating in a Democratic conspiracy to destroy Mr. Trump by investigating his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as well as his handling of classified documents after he left office.
Mr. Smith and his team interfered in the “democratic process by seeking to muzzle a candidate for a high office,” Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio and the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said in his opening statement, quoting from an editorial in The Washington Post.
But Republican lawmakers offered no new evidence to support that claim, and spent much of their time rehashing political arguments and grilling Mr. Smith about his decision to seek a court order for metadata about phone calls Mr. Trump and his allies made to nine Republican lawmakers as they sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
This may seem like more rehashing of old news, but remember, Trump is angling to interfere with the 2026 midterms. It’s a good refresher as to the criminal lengths he will go to retain power. The news today still reflects the regime’s abuse of constitutional rights. ICE is still in the headlines. The abuse is on full display in Minneapolis. This analysis of the last Constitutional Crisis nightmare can be found on Joy Vance’s SubStack, Civil Discourse. “Breaking the Fourth Amendment.”
Last night, we learned from a report in the Associated Press that ICE, contrary to longstanding Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, is taking the position that it can enter people’s homes without a judicial warrant. Instead, they believe that an administrative warrant suffices. An administrative warrant is a form signed by an “authorized immigration official,” which means an executive branch employee who can be fired if they displease the president. It’s not difficult to see the problem here.
The Fourth Amendment provides that: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” It’s the reason your home can’t be searched by the police without a search warrant that has been supported with probable cause to believe that evidence or fruits of a crime will be found there.
ICE seems to be arguing that if they think a non-citizen for whom there is a final order of deportation is in a house, they can blow right past the Fourth Amendment, take the doors off the house if they aren’t admitted voluntarily, and go right in. But the Fourth Amendment doesn’t change just because ICE says so.
The Supreme Court has made it clear that a search warrant must be signed by a “judicial officer” or a “magistrate.” Their signature on the warrant says that they have reviewed the evidence that the agents believe constitutes probable cause to justify a search, and they agree that it is sufficient to breach the wall otherwise established by the Fourth Amendment and allow law enforcement into a private home (or car, or private areas of a business, etc.). The idea is that a detached, neutral judge—not someone involved in investigating a case or “on the same side” as law enforcement—should evaluate the evidence before a search warrant or an arrest warrant is issued.
As the Supreme Court explained in Johnson v. U.S., in 1948: “The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime.”
This report by The Washington Post shows how utterly evil, cruel, and lawless the agency has become. “ICE detains four children from Minnesota school district, including 5-year-old. Columbia Heights Public Schools district officials accused ICE officers of using the 5-year-old “as bait.” A 10-year-old and her mother were also detained.” Andrew Jeong provides the report.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minnesota have detained at least four children from the same school district this month, including a 5-year-old boy, school officials in a Minneapolis suburb said Wednesday.
The events have inflamed tensions between residents and ICE officers, sparked by the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renée Good by an ICE officer this month. The Trump administration has sought to justify the presence of ICE personnel by saying that the officers are detaining immigrants convicted of violent crimes.
“Why detain a 5-year-old?” Zena Stenvik, the superintendent of the Columbia Heights Public Schools district, located just north of Minneapolis, said at a news conference. “You cannot tell me that this child is going to be classified as a violent criminal.”
Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, whom the Department of Homeland Security identified as Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias in an emailed statement, were detained in their driveway Tuesday afternoon, just as they were returning from the child’s school, according to a news release from Columbia Heights Public Schools.
The father fled on foot when ICE officers approached him, DHS said. “For the child’s safety, one of our ICE officers remained with the child while the other officers apprehended Conejo Arias,” it added.
After detaining the father, ICE officers then asked Liam to knock on the door to see if any other people were inside the home, “using a 5-year-old as bait,” according to the school district.
Another adult living in the home, who was outside at the time, “begged the agents” to leave the child with them, the school district said. ICE agents refused.
Liam’s middle-school-age brother returned home 20 minutes later to find that his younger brother and father had been taken away.
Liam and his father are now in San Antonio in the custody of Homeland Security authorities, the family’s lawyer, Marc Prokosch, said in an email. They are not U.S. citizens but “have been following the legal process perfectly, from presenting themselves at the border to applying for asylum and waiting for the process to go through,” he said.
The Substack Strength in Numbers of G. Elliott Morris has this true and frightening headline. “The consent of the governed has been withdrawn. One year into his second term, Trump has suffered the largest approval collapse of any modern president (except the one who resigned in disgrace). He is underwater on every major policy area.” He’s so underwater that the numbers are worse than during the worst of the COVID pandemic.
One year ago this week, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th President of the United States. He entered office with a net approval rating of +5 in the FiftyPlusOne.news approval rating aggregate. Despite a tumultuous first term — which ended with the president posting his worst-ever numbers after the January 6 insurrection — voters, it seemed, were willing to give him another shot.
They are no longer willing to give him that chance. Trump sits at an -16 net job approval on average today, down from +5 on his first day in office. His 21-point drop is the worst first-year performance, in the eyes of public opinion, of any president’s first term going back to at least 1948. If you compare the last year to other second-term presidencies, Trump’s is still the worst first-year performance of any president in the modern polling, with one exception: Richard Nixon (who was consumed by Watergate and other national crises at this point in his term).
Either way, Trump is in historically bad company.
As The New York Times reported this week, Trump’s support among key groups he persuaded to vote for him in 2024 — notably, young, Black, and Latino voters — has now sunk below levels measured in the run-up to the 2020 election (which Trump lost to Joe Biden by 4.5 points in the national popular vote)
Let’s hope that turns into some momentum to get rid of Republicans in Congress. As noted before, the Trump Regime, plus many Republican Congress Critters, are truly afraid of what’s coming for them. Don Moynihan has this to say at his Substack. “Can We Still Govern? Past the breaking point. The violent occupation of an American city is more than a warning.”
We use words like “police state.” Then we see it happen. To watch is not the same as to experience it, of course. Of being afraid to leave your house. Or having a classmate, co-worker, or family member disappear. But the images make it more real. It removes any illusion that it could not happen here. It is happening here. We see it happening here, if we are willing to look.
In recent weeks, the paramilitary occupation of the Twin Cities has moved us past some invisible breaking points. About how we expect our government to treat us. And about what might be done about the government agencies that fail those expectations.
Lets step back: the primary purpose of this occupation is the selective use of government power to establish federal dominance over blue states or cities that President Trump dislikes. Thats it. Trump thinks Minnesota is the enemy, and so he unleashed an armed and masked paramilitary upon its people. There is no serious case that this is about the number of immigrants, or some level of violent crime not seen elsewhere. It is about the Department of Homeland Security, in the form of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Patrol, developing their skills as the President’s stormtroopers. It is about making an example of a community.
To make matters worse, Congress did not defund ICE thanks to a handful of turncoat Democrats. This is from Newsweek. “Seven Democrats Just Voted to Approve ICE Funding: Full List.” This news is reported by Gabe Whisnant.
Seven House Democrats broke with much of their party to vote in favor of funding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), helping advance a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spending measure in committee despite strong opposition from progressives.
The votes came during a markup of the DHS appropriations bill, with Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky casting the lone Republican vote against the funding, which passed 220-207 and will fund ICE as well as FEMA through September 30.
“Right now we are about to take a vote and that vote is on DHS and whether or not we will give more funding to ICE. Right now I am willing to shut it down. I am going to do what it takes instead of just kind of being a go-along to get-along lawmaker,” Representative Jasmine Crockett, a Texas Democrat, told Newsweek ahead of the vote.
The seven Democratic representatives who voted yes to approve ICE funding were:
- Tom Suozzi (New York)
- Henry Cuellar (Texas)
- Don Davis (North Carolina)
- Laura Gillen (New York)
- Jared Golden (Maine)
- Vicente Gonzalez (Texas)
- Marie Glusenkamp Perez (Washington)
We have met the enemy, and he is us.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: What would Martin Do?
Posted: January 19, 2026 Filed under: #We are so Fucked, democracy is threatened, Foreign Affairs, freedom of speech, GOP Crimes Against Humanity, Greenland, Norway | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, attacks on DEI, Greenland, Martin Luther King's Birthday, Norway 3 Comments
“Wait until you see the Washington Monument makeover!” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
We’re a long way from the kinds of dreams we used to have as Americans. That seems particularly important as we celebrate the Birthday of civil rights hero Dr. Martin Luther King. I frequently wonder what he would be saying about the current DEI war led by one of the most racist presidents we’ve ever had. Here’s a quote from former President Obama about today’s holiday, posted on Instagram.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. dedicated his life fighting for equity and justice. He taught us that even in the face of intimidation and discrimination, we must never stop working towards a better future – a lesson that feels especially relevant today.
Change has never been easy. It takes persistence and determination, and requires all of us to speak out and stand up for what we believe in. As we honor Dr. King today, let’s draw strength from his example, and do our part to build on his legacy.
Here are a few reads to think about today’s holiday. This one is from AXIOS. In Trump’s land of remaking that dream of the little Jim Crow over there on John’s Featured Cartoon today. “Trump’s DEI crackdown is changing MLK Day.” Jason Lalljee has this analysis.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day will look different in many parts of the country this year after a series of administration moves to limit observances — part of President Trump’s broader crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion.
- “Since the start of Trump’s second term, we have seen a coordinated effort to erase or rewrite parts of American history, especially Black history and the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement,” Martin Luther King III, son of the civil rights leader, told Axios.
Here’s what we know:
Across government Trump removed a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office last summer. It had been there since 2009.Following Trump’s signing of a sweeping executive order overhauling federal DEI programs last January, the Defense Intelligence Agency ordered a pause of all activities and events related to MLK Day.
- The DIA also paused programming for Black History Month, Juneteenth, LGBTQ Pride Month, Holocaust Remembrance Day and other “special observances” to comply with Trump’s order, per NBC News.
The White House did not respond to request for comment.
National Parks
Free entry to national parks will now be granted on Trump’s birthday but no longer on MLK Day or Juneteenth, the White House announced last month.
Beyond its elimination of a “fee-free” MLK Day, the Trump administration is administering an extensive purge of exhibits across the nation’s parks that includes a substantial removal of materials related to MLK, said Kristen Brengel, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association.
- The Department of the Interior last May required every park to conduct a review of “public monuments, memorials, statues, or similar properties” complying with a Trump executive order targeting “race-centered ideology” and “narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.”
- The DOI’s order said that it would flag items for removal that violated the executive order. The NPCA has a database of items flagged by the DOI based on reports from current National Parks Service employees, which Axios has viewed. Those items include exhibits, films, books, and youth-oriented materials such as junior ranger pamphlets.
The DOI identified “about 80” items for removal at the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail, where King led a march in support of the Voting Rights Act, according to Brengel.
-
- Brengel said that materials related to slavery, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow were also flagged, adding that they are featured at a diverse range of parks, including the National Mall, the Louis and Clark National Historic Trail, and Revolutionary War sites.
- “When you look at the totality of everything identified throughout the parks system, African American history is being targeted more than anything,” she said.
There’s more at the link. This next piece is written by Jenna Prestininzi and published in the Detroit Free Press. “Did Trump get rid of MLK Jr Day? How the holiday is different in 2026.”
Monday, Jan. 19, is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, honoring the prominent civil rights leader, but, thanks to President Donald Trump’s administration, national park visitors won’t get a free visit to sites because of new federal guidelines.
Although the Trump administration can’t cancel or end the holiday, the administration changed the lineup for National Park Service free entry days and eliminated Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Jan. 19, from list. The federal holiday previously was among dates national parks and other sites offered a free visit, recognizing a key figure in African American history.
For 2026, eight free entry days — which are now limited to U.S. citizens and residents — will begin with Presidents Day, Feb. 16.
The worst news of the day comes from Trump’s obsession with Greenland and other countries with which he has a Monroe Doctrine complex. This is from the New York Times. “Trump Links His Push for Greenland to Not Winning Nobel Peace Prize. In a text, President Trump told Norway’s prime minister that he no longer felt obliged to “think purely of Peace” and that the U.S. needed the island for global security.” Trump’s mental, physical, and emotional illnesses are on full display. Jeffrey Gettleman and Henrik Pryser Libell share the lede.
President Trump is now claiming that one reason he is pushing to acquire Greenland is that he didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize, according to a text message he sent to Norway’s prime minister over the weekend.
Jonas Gahr Store, Norway’s leader, received the text message on Sunday, an official in the prime minister’s office said on Monday.
“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Mr. Trump wrote in the message, which was first published by PBS.
Mr. Trump also questioned Denmark’s claim to Greenland, saying, “There are no written documents,” and adding, “The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you!”
The tensions over Greenland have sharply escalated in the last week, and the message injected a new level of uncertainty into Mr. Trump’s thinking and his campaign to gain control of the island.
Greenland has been part of the Danish Kingdom for more than 300 years, and world leaders have condemned Mr. Trump’s insistence that the United States take over the territory, a giant icebound island in the Arctic region.
According to copies of the messages provided by the Norwegian prime minister’s office, Mr. Trump’s message was a response to one that Mr. Store sent Mr. Trump on Sunday. It was co-signed by the president of Finland, Alexander Stubb, a leader with whom Mr. Trump is close.
The European leaders asked to speak to Mr. Trump about Greenland and his threat of using tariffs to pressure Denmark into selling it, which Denmark has refused to do. They asked for a phone call and struck a collaborative tone, writing, “We believe we all should work to take this down and de-escalate — so much is happening around us where we need to stand together.”
After Mr. Trump’s response, Mr. Store said in a statement, “As regards the Nobel Peace Prize, I have on several occasions clearly explained to Trump what is well known, namely that it is an independent Nobel Committee, and not the Norwegian government, that awards the prize,” Mr. Store said.
Anne Applebaum, writing for The Atlantic, has this terse analysis. “Trump’s Letter to Norway Should Be the Last Straw. Will Republicans in Congress ever step in?”
Let me begin by quoting, in full, a letter that the president of the United States of America sent yesterday to the prime minister of Norway, Jonas Gahr Støre. The text was forwarded by the White House National Security Council to ambassadors in Washington, and was clearly intended to be widely shared. Here it is:
Dear Jonas:
Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only a boat that landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT
One could observe many things about this document. One is the childish grammar, including the strange capitalizations (“Complete and Total Control”). Another is the loose grasp of history. Donald Trump did not end eight wars. Greenland has been Danish territory for centuries. Its residents are Danish citizens who vote in Danish elections. There are many “written documents” establishing Danish sovereignty in Greenland, including some signed by the United States. In his second term, Trump has done nothing for NATO—an organization that the U.S. created and theoretically leads, and that has only ever been used in defense of American interests. If the European members of NATO have begun spending more on their own defense (budgets to which the U.S. never contributed), that’s because of the threat they feel from Russia.
Yet what matters isn’t the specific phrases, but the overall message: Donald Trump now genuinely lives in a different reality, one in which neither grammar nor history nor the normal rules of human interaction now affect him. Also, he really is maniacally, unhealthily obsessive about the Nobel Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee, not the Norwegian government and certainly not the Danish government, determines the winner of that prize. Yet Trump now not only blames Norway for failing to give it to him, but is using it as a justification for an invasion of Greenland.
Think about where this is leading. One possibility, anticipated this morning by financial markets, is a damaging trade war. Another is an American military occupation of Greenland. Try to imagine it: The U.S. Marines arrive in Nuuk, the island’s capital. Perhaps they kill some Danes; perhaps some American soldiers die too. And then what? If the invaders were Russians, they would arrest all of the politicians, put gangsters in charge, shoot people on the street for speaking Danish, change school curricula, and carry out a fake referendum to rubber-stamp the conquest. Is that the American plan too? If not, then what is it? This would not be the occupation of Iraq, which was difficult enough. U.S. troops would need to force Greenlanders, citizens of a treaty ally, to become American against their will.
For the past year, American allies around the world have tried very hard to find a theory that explains Trump’s behavior. Isolationism, neo-imperialism, and patrimonialism are all words that have been thrown around. But in the end, the president himself defeats all attempts to describe a “Trump doctrine.” He is locked into a world of his own, determined to “win” every encounter, whether in an imaginary competition for the Nobel Peace Prize or a protest from the mother of small children objecting to his masked, armed paramilitary in Minneapolis. These contests matter more to him than any long-term strategy. And of course, the need to appear victorious matters much more than Americans’ prosperity and well-being.
These remarkable comments have rattled our European allies. John Irish and Nora Buli, writing for Reuters, have this headline today. “Trump links Greenland threat to Nobel Peace Prize snub, EU prepares to retaliate.”
U.S. President Donald Trump has linked his drive to take control of Greenland to his failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize, saying he no longer thought “purely of Peace” as the row over the island threatened to reignite a trade war with Europe.
Asked by NBC News in a brief telephone interview on Monday if he would use force to seize Greenland, Trump said “No comment,” adding he would “100%” follow through on plans to hit European nations with tariffs without a Greenland deal.
Trump has intensified his push to wrest sovereignty over Greenland from fellow NATO member Denmark, prompting the European Union to weigh hitting back with its own measures.
The dispute is threatening to upend the NATO alliance that has underpinned Western security for decades and which was already under strain over the war in Ukraine and Trump’s refusal to protect allies which do not spend enough on defence.
Trump’s threat has rattled European industry and sent shockwaves through financial markets amid fears of a return to the volatility of 2025’s trade war, which only eased when the sides reached tariff deals in the middle of the year.
In a text message on Sunday to Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, Trump said: “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”
Norway’s government released the messages on Monday under the country’s freedom of information act.
Stoere had sent an initial message on behalf of himself and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, calling for de-escalation of tensions and suggesting a call, eliciting a response from Trump less than half an hour later.
We’re all wondering exactly how Trump plans to do this, and whether it will involve force. So far, the biggest threats are tariffs, which, of course, hurt American consumers and businesses more than anyone else. This is from NBC News. “Trump won’t say whether he would use force to seize Greenland. The president was guarded in how far he’ll go to take control of the semi-autonomous Danish territory in an exclusive interview with NBC News.” This lede is shared by Peter Nicholas and Alexander Smith.
As tensions escalate over President Donald Trump’s efforts to acquire Greenland, he was guarded Monday in how far he’ll go to take control of the semi-autonomous Danish territory.
Asked if he would use force to seize Greenland, the president said, “No comment,” in a brief telephone interview with NBC News.
Trump has stepped up his push to take possession of Greenland. He said Saturday he would impose 10% tariffs on Denmark and seven other European nations until a deal is struck for America’s acquisition of Greenland.
The president then introduced a new wrinkle to his standoff with longtime European allies, linking Greenland to his failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize last year in a text message Sunday to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre. The Norwegian leader released his text message exchange with Trump under Norway’s public disclosure laws, his press office said.
“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Trump said in the message, which was first reported by PBS and confirmed as accurate in a statement by the Norwegian prime minister.
Norway was one of the countries hit with the new tariffs, which would kick in Feb. 1, according to a post Trump wrote on his social media platform.
In a statement Monday, Støre said, “Norway’s position on Greenland is clear. Greenland is a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and Norway fully supports the Kingdom of Denmark on this matter.”
A five-member committee appointed by Norway’s parliament awards the Nobel Peace Prize each year. In 2025, the committee chose Maria Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader, for the honor. As a show of gratitude for his ouster of Venezuela’s repressive leader Nicolás Maduro in a military strike, Machado gave Trump her 18-karat gold medal in a visit to the White House last week.
Trump dismissed the idea that Norway has no sway over the Nobel Peace Prize competition and that the decision is entirely up to the committee.
“Norway totally controls it despite what they say,” he told NBC News.
Everything this rotter does these days is just amazingly wrong, stupid, and immoral. Again, his hallmark is cruelty. WTF is wrong with the Republican Party that they allow this to go on?
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
Finally Friday Reads: Deadly Dysfunction
Posted: December 5, 2025 Filed under: #We are so Fucked, Breaking News, Corruption and Criminal Insanity, Foreign Affairs, GOP Crimes Against Humanity, ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE raids, New Orleans, Venezuela | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, anti-vaccination twits, Attacks on Venezuala, No Quarter, RFK Jr Weirdo, The Media SUCKS 12 Comments
“I’m not sure, but that Cabinet Meeting may have been the most entertaining one yet. Two hours of trump fighting off sleep, like the toddler he obviously is, while his minions heaped praise upon his barely coherent body.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
And, hello again from Occupied New Orleans. We’ve had cold rainy weather for quite some time. Perhaps it will wash aways some of the dirty ICE terrorizing the city. The stories get more horrific and we’re barely into the first week of it. The complete idiocy with which this administration operates is ruining the country and a lot of it brings unnecessary death. I only wish we had a Congress that would function the way it was designed and a much better press. Let’s dig in while my tea is still hot.
The latest maneuvering of RFK jr’s death panels is once more directed to childhood vacinations. Where are all these supposedly pro-life people when something other than a fertilized egg is involved. No one cares about actually breathing children? This is from the Washington Post. “CDC panel makes most sweeping revision to child vaccine schedule under RFK Jr.. The panel voted to eliminate a long-standing recommendation for every newborn to receive a hepatitis B shot, excluding those born to mothers testing negative.”
An influential vaccine advisory panel on Friday voted to lift a long-standing recommendation that all newborns receive a vaccine for hepatitis B, marking the most significant change to the childhood immunization schedule under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices approved the change despite fierce objections from medical groups who said the recommendation had proved a successful public health strategy, nearly eradicating the dangerous virus among U.S. children.
The committee voted 8-3 to eliminate a recommendation, dating to 1991, for every child to receive a first dose of a hepatitis B vaccine shortly after birth. The panel said the newborn shot is no longer necessary for babies born to mothers who test negative for the virus. They suggested parents of those children delay the first dose for at least two months and consult with their doctors about whether or when to begin administering the three-dose series.
Supporters of the change said the universal recommendation regardless of risk was overly broad and undermined informed choice. Retsef Levi, an ACIP panelist who voted to change the language, said he believes the intention is to push parents to consider whether they want to give another vaccine to their child.
“It’s actually suggesting a fundamental change in their approach to this vaccine and maybe more broadly,” said Levi, a professor of operations management at MIT.
The recommendation from the group of outside government advisers goes to the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for final approval.
Medical experts have argued that it’s important to vaccinate all newborns for hepatitis B, even if their mothers test negative, because babies are at risk of infection if their mothers receive a false negative or become infected after testing. Some of the dissenting panel members pushed back on the change — one called the revised guidance on hepatitis B unconscionable, while another said the move was rooted in “baseless skepticism.”
“We will see hepatitis B infections come back,” said panelist Cody Meissner, a professor of pediatrics at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. “The vaccine is so effective, it does not make sense in my mind to change the immunization schedule.”
Select lawmakers were around yesterday for a hearing about the lastest, criminal act by our country against Venezuelan boats. The stories offered up by the Department of War were quite different than the story told by the film. This is from CNN. “Exclusive: Survivors clinging to capsized boat didn’t radio for backup, admiral overseeing double-tap strike tells lawmakers.”
The two men killed as they floated holding onto their capsized boat in a secondary strike against a suspected drug vessel in early September did not appear to have radio or other communications devices, the top military official overseeing the strike told lawmakers on Thursday, according to three sources with direct knowledge of his congressional briefings.
As far back as September, defense officials have been quietly pushing back on criticism that killing the two survivors amounted to a war crime by arguing, in part, that they were legitimate targets because they appeared to be radioing for help or backup — reinforcements that, if they had received it, could have theoretically allowed them to continue to traffic the drugs aboard their sinking ship.
Defense officials made that claim in at least one briefing in September for congressional staff, according to a source familiar with the session, and several media outlets cited officials repeating that justification in the last week.
But Thursday, Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley acknowledged that the two survivors of the military’s initial strike were in no position to make a distress call in his briefings to lawmakers. Bradley was in charge of Joint Special Operations Command at the time of the strike and was the top military officer directing the attack.
The initial hit on the vessel, believed to be carrying cocaine, killed nine people immediately and split the boat in half, capsizing it and sending a massive smoke plume into the sky, the sources who viewed the video as part of the briefings said. Part of the surveillance video was a zoomed-in, higher-definition view of the two survivors clinging to a still-floating, capsized portion, they said.
For a little under an hour — 41 minutes, according to a separate US official — Bradley and the rest of the US military command center discussed what to do as they watched the men struggle to overturn what was left of their boat, the sources said
During that time, Bradley also consulted with the uniformed lawyer on duty during the operation, he told lawmakers, according to two of the sources. The JAG officer, or judge advocate general officer, assessed it would be legal to move forward with a second strike, the sources added.
Ultimately, Bradley told lawmakers, he ordered a second strike to destroy the remains of the vessel, killing the two survivors, on the grounds that it appeared that part of the vessel remained afloat because it still held cocaine, according to one of the sources. The survivors could hypothetically have floated to safety, been rescued, and carried on with trafficking the drugs, the logic went.
Another boat was targeted by the Pentagon in the Pacific. This is from The Guardian. “Pentagon announces it has killed four men in another boat strike in Pacific. Strike comes amid congressional turmoil over legality of US attacks on suspected drug smugglers.”
The Pentagon announced on Thursday that the US military had conducted another deadly strike on a boat suspected of carrying illegal narcotics, killing four men in the eastern Pacific, as questions mount over the legality of the attacks.
Video of the new strike was posted on social media by the US southern command, based in Florida, with a statement saying that, at the direction of Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, “Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel in international waters operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization”.
“Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was carrying illicit narcotics and transiting along a known narco-trafficking route in the Eastern Pacific. Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed,” the statement added.
The footage showed a large explosion suddenly overtaking a small boat as it moved through the water, followed by an image of a vessel in flames and dark smoke streaming overhead.
It is the 22nd strike the US military has carried out against boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, bringing the death toll of the campaign to at least 87 people since September, when the strikes began.
U.S Foreign and Military policy has become so incoherent, illegal, dangerous, and likely leaked to our country’s traditional enemies, that our European partners no longer trust us. This link was shared to me by BB this morning and comes from The Economist. “Donald Trump’s bleak, incoherent foreign-policy strategy. Allies may panic; despots will cheer.”
YOU MIGHT think that in Trumpworld a new National Security Strategy (NSS) would not count for all that much. John Bolton, a national security adviser in Donald Trump’s first term, frequently laments that his boss had no strategy at all. Instead, the president worked by impulse—and without the encumbrance of too many briefings. From one day to the next, he veered in opposing directions.
Despite that, the new NSS matters. Released, weirdly, in the dead of night on December 4th/5th, it will be pored over by soldiers, diplomats and advisers in America and around the world. It is the latest and fullest statement of what “America First” means in foreign policy. It sets the terms for a soon-expected review of military power, and lays out the priorities for all those trying to interpret the president’s wishes. And, for many of its readers, it will be profoundly alarming.
For the most part, the new NSS rejects the decades-old insight that a common set of values are what cement America’s alliances. It declares that it is “not grounded in traditional, political ideology” but is motivated by “what works for America”. Instead, it embraces what it calls “flexible realism”. That means being “pragmatic without being ‘pragmatist’, realistic without being ‘realist’, principled without being ‘idealistic’, muscular without being ‘hawkish’, and restrained without being ‘dovish’.”
If that sounds like a dog’s breakfast, that is because it is. Shorn of the enlightened values that have long anchored foreign policy, America First becomes a naked assertion of power that owes more to the 19th century than the world that America built after the second world war. And that leads to a document riven by contradictions.
In some parts of the world, in particular in Asia, Mr Trump expects countries to behave as willing allies. In most others they are to submit meekly to America’s economic and military will. In one place the NSS rejects the interventionist idea of urging countries to adopt “democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories”. That suits Russia, China and the monarchies of the Middle East. Yet in Europe, where MAGA worries about wokeism, migration and the dominance of liberal values, the NSS bluntly declares that “our goal should be to help Europe correct its current trajectory.”
When the NSS applies this formula to the world, region by region, the full consequences of this shift start to become clear.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the section covering the western hemisphere. “We want to ensure that the western hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States,” it reads. Governments in the Americas will be enlisted to control migration and curb drug flows. They are expected to grant America control of key assets, resources and strategic locations, or at least a veto over “hostile foreign” ownership of them—a clear warning to refuse Chinese investments that offer a sway over ports or such assets as the Panama Canal. Where law enforcement has failed to halt drug smuggling, America will use armed forces, the NSS warns.
This swaggering right of intervention is called a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. That is a deliberate tribute to the “Roosevelt Corollary”, President Theodore Roosevelt’s assertion of gendarme-like enforcement rights over the western hemisphere in 1904.
All this seems sure to provoke angry recollections of high-handed American interventions in the region in the 20th century, from military invasions and blockades to CIA-backed coups or security pacts that saw America arming and training autocracies guilty of extra-judicial murders and torture in the cold war. With its talk of conditioning aid and trade on co-operation from Latin American governments, the NSS signals a belief that resentment will not stop Latin Americans from doing as they are told.
In Asia, by contrast, allies will read the NSS with a mixture of immediate relief and long-term gloom. The passages on Taiwan could have been worse. The nightmare scenario for such allies as Japan, the Philippines and South Korea would have involved an NSS declaring that the fate of the democratically ruled island of Taiwan is not an existential interest for America.
Instead, the NSS restates America’s position that it “does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait”. True, there is nothing about Taiwan’s importance as a friendly, pro-Western democracy whose people overwhelmingly oppose coming under rule by China. But the strategy does make a cold-eyed realist case for Taiwan’s importance as a usefully-located redoubt in the middle of the “First Island Chain” that runs from Japan through Taiwan to the Philippines, penning in China’s navies and air forces. In addition, the NSS nods to Taiwan’s importance as the largest source of advanced semiconductors.
Accordingly, America will sustain forces capable of deterring any attempt to take Taiwan or to control the sea lanes near that island, or in the South China Sea. Asian allies must also spend much more on their own defences and grant America more access to their ports and bases. In short, the NSS demands that Asian countries risk China’s wrath by helping America contain Chinese ambitions in the Indo-Pacific. But there is not a word of criticism for China’s (or indeed Russia’s) expansionist ambitions or their desire to overthrow the post-1945 legal and multilateral order.
The NSS spares its sharpest barbs for Europe. The old world, it says, is undergoing a profound crisis, and this is not so much about economic decline or military weakness as it is about the loss of national identity, leading to the “stark prospect of civilisational erasure”.
Warning that “it is more than plausible that within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European,” the NSS warns that “it is an open question whether they will view their place in the world, or their alliance with the United States, in the same way as those who signed the NATO charter.” In other words, immigrants will corrupt the values of the societies they move to—a shocking assertion from a country that is itself built on immigration.
The NSS’s prescriptions for Europe flow from this assertion of Judeo-Christian nationalism. The NSS calls for “unapologetic celebrations of European nations’ individual character and history”, encouraging the revival promoted by “patriotic European parties”. That is a reference to the populist right, including National Rally in France, Reform UK in Britain and Alternative for Germany, which the vice-president, J.D. Vance, embraced earlier this year when he spoke at a conference in Munich. If that is the Trump administration’s programme, how are the centrist governments in Europe, who see these parties as a grave threat, supposed to treat America as an ally?
When the NSS applies this rationale to Ukraine, it draws some devastating conclusions. Suggesting that most Europeans want peace even if it means surrendering to Vladimir Putin, and asserting that their governments are standing in the way, the strategy calls for a rapid end to the war in order to prevent escalation. It says that America should curb the sense in Europe that Russia is a threat and warns that NATO cannot be “a perpetually expanding alliance”. Alarmingly, it has nothing to say about the repeated aggression and hostility of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. To much of Europe, this sort of appeasement will only serve to set up the next conflict.
“In everything we do, we are putting America First,” reads the letter from Mr Trump to the American people that opens the NSS. But it is the preceding sentence that will be read by allies with gloom, and with glee by China and Russia, for it is hopelessly at odds with reality: “America is strong and respected again—and because of that, we are making peace all over the world.” Alas, that claim comes from an administration that is indeed feared, resented and obsessed over, but one that is less respected or trusted than any American government in decades.
If that doesn’t give you geopolitical goosebumps, I don’t know what will. Meanwhile, we’ve been experiencing press coverage that’s not providing us the information we need. This article is from The Nation. “A New Roosevelt Institute Report Confronts the Roots of Our Media Crisis—and Calls for Breaking Up Corporate Media.” Today’s journalism crisis wasn’t inevitable, but it’s time to free journalism from the straitjacket of turning a democratic obligation into a profit-maximizing business model.” Concentration in this market is dumbing up America big time. This story is reported by Bilal Baydoun, Shahrzad Shams, and Victor Pickard
The desire to attack and ultimately control the media is a through line of modern authoritarian governance across the globe. President Donald Trump’s reign as the defining political figure of the last decade has demonstrated how quickly that tactic can take hold here. In courtrooms, agencies, and White House briefings, Trump and his allies have sought to punish and delegitimize journalists. In the second Trump term, the bully pulpit has been turned into a battering ram, with open or implied threats to withhold the broadcast licenses or block the media mergers of insufficiently loyal companies. But a singular focus on state meddling has, ironically, obfuscated how authoritarians come to wield such great power over the media system in the first place, and why a free press must be protected from both state and commercial coercion.
What we’re experiencing now is a dangerous convergence of the two.
The truth is that the administration’s threats have rippled across a media ecosystem buckling under the weight of commercial pressures—pressures that existed long before that fateful golden escalator ride more than a decade ago. It’s these longstanding commercial imperatives that Trump knows how to weaponize to manipulate media institutions. He understands that newsrooms accountable first and foremost to investors will sell out their accountability function to survive. Likewise, media conglomerates pursuing mergers cannot afford to anger the administration holding the regulatory pen. When journalism is trapped inside a commercial straitjacket, it can’t fight back.
In our oligarchic age, where billionaires can decide which fledgling outlets live or die for pennies on the dollar and even themselves command powerful roles in government, the line between state-run media and state-aligned media through private means becomes vanishingly thin. A press dependent on the whims of the ultra-wealthy cannot claim meaningful independence from the political forces its owners serve. And even though our Constitution protects the press for democratic reasons, our policy regime assumes that news organizations should behave like profit-maximizing firms.
How did we get here? As we show in our new Roosevelt Institute report, today’s media crisis wasn’t inevitable, but the consequence of policymakers embracing a corporate libertarian approach to media policy. This framework treats our information ecosystem as an ordinary market, rather than vital democratic infrastructure, resulting in a media system riddled with structural deficits. The result is a media environment that’s vulnerable to pressure from every direction, from the White House to the C-Suite.
The consequences of this policy failure have been catastrophic. Newsrooms have been gutted as advertising revenue collapsed. Local papers have closed or been absorbed by vulture capitalists whose short-term incentives are fundamentally at odds with journalism’s public mission. More than 1,000 counties now lack the equivalent of a single full-time journalist; the number of journalists per 100,000 residents has fallen 75 percent since the early 2000s. Platforms dominate news distribution, leaving publishers dependent on algorithmic systems designed to maximize engagement rather than inform the public. A handful of billionaires can bend the flow of information with the proverbial push of a button, and conglomerates continue conglomerating: Just earlier today, after a major bidding war, Netflix beat out Paramount Skydance and Comcast in a deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, resulting in a merger that will further concentrate cultural and informational power in fewer hands.
Today, most Americans, and even many policymakers, take these developments and the system that led to them for granted. As the late media scholar Robert McChesney argued, media policy has been rendered invisible, designed behind closed doors in the public’s name, but without the public’s consent—placing core questions related to our information ecosystem outside the purview of democratic contestation. This invisibility has given cover to a set of neoliberal assumptions that define the boundaries of what’s possible, empowering a small set of wealthy private actors to decide, for the rest of us, what our media system looks like, and whose interests it serves.
Such invisibility obscures how our media system’s design—and the many problems ailing it—is the result of policy decisions. Over the course of decades, policymakers diluted the meaning of the media’s public interest responsibilities, refashioning them into something more akin to consumer preferences. At the same time, the media market faced a series of re-regulatory structural moves that shifted power away from the public and into the hands of corporate actors. And well before Trump dismantled the CPB, Congress resisted meaningful public media investment. All these developments were in turn legitimized by a First Amendment media jurisprudence that prioritizes unbridled commercial speech over the public’s “right to know.” Combined, these constraints created a media system that treats commercial imperatives as natural law, and democratic obligations as optional.
I’ve probably over shared most of the excerpts and it will take you some time to get through them all. BB also wrote yesterday on the many ways our country is run by idiots with an angend American’s do not approve of and in a way that is beyond incompetent. Any of us in cities Occupied by the National Guard and Ice have horrors stories that sound more like NAZI Germany than your backyard. They have no incentive stop and they’re even ignoring court orders. This article is the view point of my home city by the BBC. “New Orleans residents in fear as immigration crackdown descends on their city.” The BBC’s North American Correspondent, Tom Bateman, is here and reports the story.
Two labourers stand on the roof of a house in Kenner, outside New Orleans, as US Border Patrol agents clamber up a ladder, getting closer.
As the agents move in, trying to arrest them, the men step to the roof’s edge, poised in an apparent act of resistance – but it’s too high to jump.
On the ground in the mostly Latino neighbourhood, an officer trains his weapon towards the rooftop while a sniper moves into position. Now, neighbours, activists, and crews of local press are gathering at the scene, watching in bewilderment: US President Trump’s new front line on immigration enforcement has just arrived.
It is day one of “Catahoula Crunch”, as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has labelled its operation, taking its name from an American leopard dog known for being well-muscled, powerful and territorial.
“These people came to work today to provide for their families and themselves,” said Zoe Higgins, an activist documenting the Border Patrol operation in New Orleans.
“That they could just be abducted, removed from all stability – I can’t imagine how terrifying that is,” she said, shortly after the agents coaxed the men down and detained them.
According to DHS, its agents were conducting immigration enforcement this week when “several illegal aliens climbed on the roof of a residential home and refused to comply with agent commands”.
An “illegal alien” was arrested, DHS officials told the BBC, but they did not answer questions about the immigration status of the labourers involved, nor whether agents had a warrant to access the property.
None of this sounds lawful. I’m not a Constitutional lawyer, but I do know that everyone deserves their day in court. Disappearing people is criminal.
So, I’m going off today to see my doctor for just a normal check up. But my body tells me every day that it’s not coping well with any of this. I usually can drop my blood pressure by meditating. My skills are no longer up to this fight or fly response I feel continually. I just put my birth certificate in my purse. I still doing my whistle brigade thing. This country is not going doing on my watch. This city and every one in it is not going to be given the No Quarter treatment here; especially when they’re not really a threat to any of us in any way.
What’s on your Reading. Action and Blogging list today?
Mostly Monday Reads: Cassandras Among Us
Posted: November 17, 2025 Filed under: #FARTUS, #We are so Fucked, Disappearing Immigrants, Discrimination against women, GOP Crimes Against Humanity, Human Rights, ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Injustice system | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, Back to the Gilded Past, Brotacracy, Heather Cox Richardson, How can people be so Heartless?, Polycrisis, Public Intellectuals, Steven Beschloss, The Wise and Wonderful Kira, Wildmoon 8 Comments
“Breaking news, literally!” John Buss, @repeat1968, cartooning the anti-Cassandra
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I always take the counsel of Kira, the wise and wonderful cat, and her muse, my friend Wildmoon. Dinah and Kristal are big fans. Kira had some reading recommendations this morning during her morning revelations. We’ve begun to see the extent to which the fish is rotting from the head. Remember, this autocracy has come about not just from the foibles of Orange Caligula, but the likes of the techboys, lawyers, and Dark Money/Bad Research organizations like the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society. Maxwell and Epstein were both sex traffickers and abusers. However, as Kira tells us, there are these “elite muckitymucks.” ‘Tis the season, so let’s see if a klatch of we crones can take them down.
Kira speaks.
As usual, Kira did my morning reading before I got up and was waiting on the heated pad to tell me about it.
“Two things,” she said. “That professor lady and Margaret Sullivan.”
“Heather Cox Richardson?” I asked.
“Yes yes professor lady with three names. She writes about how the Epstein emails are exposing an undercurrent of elite muckitymucks similar to the robber baron era and earlier, before that era got going, plus how they tried to stop the dismantling of it despite how it was obvious their focus solely on wealth and their own wellbeing was destroying human society.”
“Ouch. That’s harsh, little girl.”
“It’s truth. HCR doesn’t put it in those terms, but it’s real. Then Margaret Sullivan. She writes about how the New York Times is going all nostalgic about the elite monsters who populate Epstein’s emails, calling it a “lost world” (gack), while Will Bunch from the Philly Inquirer writes in an oped (not a news story mind you) wrote about ‘the much deeper rot that’s already been laid bare about the entire decrepit class of men (because they’re almost all men) who rule the world with atrocious grammar amid a non-stop booty call.’”
“Again harsh.”
“Again truth. Are you going soft on me?”
“Hardly. I just need coffee.”
“OK, get your coffee. Then read those two.”
So I did. I may have more to say about them later. I’ll say this now – this whole sordid affair is laying out into the open that “much deeper rot” that permeates the real “elites” MAGAts go on about all the time. MAGAts tend to think, somehow, that everyone who’s not a MAGAt is some kind of rich elite being paid by other rich elites to disagree with them. That’s not who the “elites” are.
The real elites are a bunch of men, but not always men (as Sullivan and Professor Cox Richardson both point out) who are sometimes filthy rich and who are all powerful or just want to be near the powerful (Noam “can’t wait to come to the Caribbean see you in 3 weeks” Chomsky, looking at you) because of the veneer of power they get.This rot is waaaaaaaay deeper than the dumbfuck in chief and his band of merry idiots in the White House right now – this is about the motherfuckers who gleefully put him there while either “enjoying” the trafficked women and girls Epstein gleefully provided them or at the very least knowing full well about it and considering the damage done to those women and girls worth it.
And THAT, my friends, is what need to be destroyed. All of it. The Thiels and Chomskys and Dershowitzes and all of them – they all belong in the lowest depths of hell that can be imagined, worse than anything Dante wrote about.For the survivors of those monsters.
That’s why I’m exploring Kira’s suggestions today and adding a few of my own. Margaret Atwood has been a symbol of so much of women’s lived experiences written in prose that sings to our souls. She’s finally written about herself. This New York Times interview with the author captures the spirit of “The Book of Lives.” Alexandra Alter interviewed Atwood for this article in early November. “For a Literary Saint, Margaret Atwood Can Sure Hold a Grudge. She had to be pushed to write her new memoir, “Book of Lives.” The result reveals the experiences (and a few slights) that have shaped her work.”
Margaret Atwood doesn’t like being called a prophet.
“Calm down, folks,” was the withering response when I asked why her fiction often seems eerily predictive. “If I could really do this, I would have cornered the stock market a long time ago.”
Still, she concedes she’s been right on occasion.
When she published “The Handmaid’s Tale” in 1985, some critics were skeptical of Atwood’s vision of a future authoritarian America, where the government controls women’s reproduction and persecutes dissidents.
Since then, events in the novel that once struck unimaginative reviewers as implausible have come to pass. Abortion has been outlawed in parts of America. The rule of law feels increasingly fragile. Insurgents attacked the Capitol. Censorship is rampant — Atwood herself is a frequent target.
When I point out these parallels to Atwood, she still brushes off the idea that she can sense where things are heading.
“Prescient is not the same as prediction,” she told me recently when we met for lunch in Toronto. “People remember the times when you were right, and forget the times when you were wrong.”
At 85, Atwood is as droll, slyly funny and blunt as ever, prone to turning questions she doesn’t particularly like back on the interrogator. “And?” she’ll say in her low, gravelly monotone.
There is nothing more interesting and rewarding than watching and listening to one of my favorite writers tour the country in support of a book. Finding out that she was both a Scorpio, like me, and the daughter of a narcissistic mother just brought her closer to my heart and mind.
An awkward child who had a caterpillar for a pet, Atwood sometimes struggled to fit in. At 9, she was tormented by a group of girls who subjected her to degradations, like leaving her out in the snow and burying her in a hole. She drew on the experience in her novel “Cat’s Eye,” about a woman who was viciously bullied by other girls as a child. But she always dodged when asked if the story was autobiographical because the “chief perp,” as she writes, was still alive (she no longer is).
Other villains from Atwood’s past escape public shaming. She describes a frightening night when she blacked out after her drink was spiked at a party, and woke up being groped by a boy on a couch in the basement: “I know your names, but won’t mention them here because it was a long time ago and anyway you are probably dead,” she writes.
Atwood got her start as a poet. She self-published her first book of poems, “Double Persephone,” in 1961, and sold copies for 50 cents. A few years later, she started to gain recognition when another poetry collection, “The Circle Game,” won a prestigious award.
Her provocative debut novel, “The Edible Woman,” a biting satire about a young woman who develops a strange relationship to food and struggles to eat, made waves in 1969. Some readers and critics saw it as a feminist manifesto — a framing that Atwood still disputes.
“I suppose if you squint really hard, you could say I was an early feminist,” she said. “But did I think the feminist movement was coming? No.”
Who among those of us at a certain age can’t relate to that? I remember reading a book in the choir room in high school, then being dragged to the riser by two boys much bigger than me, stretched across it, and being told that I needed Christ because I wasn’t humble enough. That was followed a few weeks later by a session with the school psychologist about the results of my Ben Sex-Role inventory, and I was told I was a definite outlier because I was a teenage girl with a huge level of ambition. That was the point in my life where I was determined to become a lawyer and prosecute crimes against women and children, as I sat doing volunteer work on a nascent Violence Against Women phone number and listened to stories while desperately trying to find sources of help for them in my rather thin notebook. Those, sadly, are just a few of my experiences. It wasn’t the last time I would be assaulted for Jesus either.
Heather Cox Richardson is someone whose Substack gets shared here frequently. This is from her entry yesterday. (P.S. Kira was right)
On Thursday, November 13, Michael Schmidt reported in the New York Times the story of the 17-year-old girl the House Ethics Committee found former representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) likely paid to have sex with him. The girl was a homeless high schooler who needed to supplement the money she made from her job at McDonald’s to be able to pay for braces.
Through a “sugar dating” website that connected older men with younger women, she met Florida tax collector Joel Greenberg, who introduced her to Gaetz. Both men allegedly took drugs with her and paid her for sex, allegedly including at a party at the home of a former Republican member of the Florida legislature, Chris Dorworth.
The Justice Department charged Greenberg with sex trafficking a minor and having sex with a minor in exchange for money. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a decade in prison. The Justice Department did not charge Gaetz. In 2022 the girl’s lawyers asked Gaetz and Dorworth about reaching a financial settlement with her. She didn’t sue, but Dorworth sued her, sparking depositions and disclosure of evidence. Dorworth dropped the case. That material has recently been released and made up some of Schmidt’s portrait of the girl.
Schmidt’s story added another window into the world depicted in the more than 20,000 documents the House Oversight Committee dropped from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein the day before. Those emails show a network of elite people—mostly but not exclusively men—from politics, business, academia, foreign leadership, and entertainment who continued to seek chummy access to the wealthy Epstein, the information he retailed, and his contacts despite his 2008 guilty plea for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
When accusations against Epstein resurfaced in 2018, along with public outrage over the sweetheart deal he received in 2008 from former U.S. attorney Alexander Acosta—who in 2018 was secretary of labor in Trump’s first administration—Trump ally Stephen Bannon and Epstein worked together to combat the story. As Jason Wilson of The Guardian notes, Epstein and Bannon treated the crisis as a publicity problem to fix as they pushed Bannon’s right-wing agenda and supported Trump.
As David Smith of The Guardian put it, Epstein’s in-box painted a picture of “a world where immense wealth, privileged access and proximity to power can insulate individuals from accountability and consequences. For those inside the circle, the rules of the outside world do not apply.”
On Tuesday, November 4, Elizabeth Dwoskin of the Washington Post described the ideology behind this world. She profiled Chris Buskirk of the Rockbridge Network, a secretive organization funded by tech leaders to create a network that will permit the MAGA movement to outlive Trump. Dwoskin wrote that political strategists credit the Rockbridge Network with pushing J.D. Vance—one of the network’s members—into the vice presidency.
Dwoskin explains that Buskirk embraces a theory that says “a select group of elites are exactly the right people to move the country forward.” Such an “aristocracy”—as he described his vision to Dwoskin—drives innovation. It would be “a proper elite that takes care of the country and governs it well so that everyone prospers.” When he’s not working in politics, Buskirk is, according to Dwoskin, pushing “unrestrained capitalism into American life.” The government should support the country’s innovators, network members say.
We have heard this ideology before.
We all recognize that there is a huge circle of extremely privileged, mostly white men in this country where the rules of law and civility just do not apply at all. Here’s another Substack post. This time it’s Steven Beschloss. “Can America Avoid Moral Collapse? Even as Trump reverses himself and calls for the release of the Epstein files, he and his enablers may have already damaged our nation beyond repair.” This is in response to Trump’s call to release the Epstein Files. Those are the same files he’s been covering up since even his last term in office.
Make no mistake: Trump’s reversal is not a sign that he intends to come clean about his involvement with sex traffickers and child molesters Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell—not after he’s worked so aggressively to deny any role. On Friday, intensifying his effort to avoid accountability, Trump demanded Justice Department investigations of high-profile Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton. This was an obvious attempt to deflect attention from himself—look over there!—but also to serve up the classic schoolyard argument: They did it, too.
Of course, Trump was quick last night to further politicize and lie about what’s at issue. “It’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party, including our recent Victory on the Democrat ‘Shutdown,’” he posted.
The reversal makes clear that the feral Trump grasped that he’s in trouble and feared humiliation. But we can assume that Trump is counting on enough uncertainties and confusion in a subsequent flood of files to enable him to spin his way out—as well as enough sycophants to support his interpretation of what the documents really mean. He also clearly figured out that he couldn’t hold together a GOP coalition of coverup supporters, not as many have now calculated that the growing firestorm would eventually burn them if they didn’t vote for the release. So, too, Trump may be counting on a failure of the needed 60 votes in the Senate, providing him continuing cover.
But let’s not lose sight of what’s really happening here. This is a corrosive, criminal story involving profound immorality that will only deepen this week when the House votes.
The stench will linger: The man who holds the highest office in the land maintained a long-time relationship with convicted pedophiles and may well have committed pedophilia himself. The blight on our identity and our future as Americans is at stake.
We can say this is about Trump, not us. We can insist this is about Trump’s America, not our America. But there comes a point where any nation’s identity is defined by the values and behavior of its leaders, even leaders that are only supported by a minority of the population.
You and I and the majority of Americans can reasonably insist that he doesn’t represent us, but at what point does that become insufficient? In other words, is there a point when we cannot overcome the accelerating moral collapse resulting from his repugnant actions?
How much longer can we the people sit back and watch the body of evidence grow—the emails and text messages that make clear Trump “knew about the girls” and likely much more than that—before we become complicit by doing nothing to remove him from office?
What I want to know is how we make this happen, and who will actually make a thoughtful, strategic, and successful move on it? We see some progress with the courts, but then what happens when it hits the corrupt group of autocrats on SCOTUS? Here’s the latest on the vengeance indictment of Comey. This is from Reuters. “US judge orders DOJ to turn over Comey grand jury materials, citing ‘misconduct’.
A U.S. judge on Monday found evidence of “government misconduct” in how a prosecutor aligned with President Donald Trump secured criminal charges against former FBI Director James Comey and ordered that grand jury materials be turned over to Comey’s defense team.U.S. Magistrate Judge William Fitzgerald of the Eastern District of Virginia found that Lindsey Halligan, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney leading the case, may have made significant legal errors in presenting evidence and instructing grand jurors who were weighing whether to charge Comey.“The record points to a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps, missteps that led an FBI agent and a prosecutor to potentially undermine the integrity of the grand jury proceeding,” Fitzgerald wrote in his ruling.Comey has pleaded not guilty to charges of making false statements and obstructing a congressional investigation. He is one of three perceived political enemies of Trump who have been criminally charged by the Justice Department in recent weeks.
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to review the question of when a migrant actually arrives in the United States, in a case that could determine whether migrants intercepted before crossing U.S. borders can apply for asylum.
The Trump administration in July petitioned the Supreme Court to reverse a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which held that migrants stopped on the Mexico side of the U.S.-Mexico border have the right to apply for asylum in the United States and be screened for admission.
“The decision thus deprives the Executive Branch of a critical tool for addressing border surges and for preventing overcrowding at ports of entry along the border,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer and other Trump administration lawyers wrote in their petition.
The case arises from a class-action lawsuit filed in 2017 by 13 asylum seekers and the immigrants rights organization Al Otro Lado. They alleged then that U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents were unlawfully “denying asylum seekers access to the U.S. asylum process” by turning migrants away at border ports of entry.
In 2022, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California held that the class of migrants who are turned away in the process of arriving in the United States are unlawfully denied their right to seek asylum. A divided panel on the 9th Circuit affirmed.
The case centers on a former practice called “metering,” which allowed border officials to stop migrants without documentation before they enter the United States. It was implemented in 2016 during the Obama administration. The first Trump administration continued the policy and, in 2021, the Biden administration rescinded it.
In a brief in October, lawyers for Al Otro Lado and the other respondents wrote that the case is not ripe for Supreme Court review because the policy was not in use.
We’re at the point where we should scrub ‘liberty and justice for all’ right out of the Pledge. One last bit for HCR blog on what the fuck we now seem to have back from the dreadful past of the Gilded Age. There are still folks who want to see slavery and servitude for everyone but themselves.
In 1858, in a period in which a few fabulously wealthy elite enslavers in the American South were trying to take over the government and create their own oligarchy, South Carolina senator James Henry Hammond explained to his colleagues that “democracy” meant only that voters got to choose which set of leaders ruled them. Society worked best, he said, when it was run by natural leaders: the wealthy, educated, well-connected men who made up the South’s planter class.
Hammond explained that society was naturally made up of a great mass of workers, rather dull people, but happy and loyal, whom he called “mudsills” after the timbers driven into the ground to support elegant homes above. These mudsills supported “that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement,” one that modeled itself on the British aristocracy. The mudsills needed the guidance of their betters to produce goods that would create capital, Hammond said. That capital would be wasted if it stayed among the mudsills; it needed to move upward, where better men would use it to move society forward.
Hammond’s ideology gave us the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, in which the Supreme Court found that Black Americans “are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word ‘citizens’ in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States.”
In 1889, during the Gilded Age, industrialist Andrew Carnegie embraced a similar idea when he explained that the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few was not only inevitable in an industrial system, but was beneficial. The wealthy were stewards of society’s money, administering it for the common good by funding libraries, schools, and so on, to uplift everyone, rather than permitting individual workers to squander it in frivolity. It was imperative, Carnegie thought, for the government to protect big business for the benefit of the country as a whole.
Carnegie’s ideology gave us the 1905 Lochner v. New York Supreme Court decision declaring that states could not require employers to limit workers’ hours in a bakery to 10 hours a day or 60 hours a week. The court reasoned that there was no need of such a law for workers’ welfare or safety because “there is no danger to the employ[ee] in a first-class bakery.” The court concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution protected “freedom of contract”: the right of employers to contract with laborers at any price and for any hours the workers could be induced to accept.
In 1929, after the Great Crash tore the bottom out of the economy, Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon did not blame the systemic inequality his policies had built into the economy. He blamed lazy Americans and the government that had served greedy constituencies. He told President Herbert Hoover not to interfere to help the country.
“Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate,” he told Hoover. “It will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.”
Mellon’s ideology gave us “Hoovervilles”—shantytowns built from packing boxes and other salvaged materials—and the Great Depression.
Today, an ideology of “aristocracy” justifies the fabulous wealth and control of government by an elite that increasingly operates in private spaces that are hard for the law to reach, while increasingly using the power of the state against those it considers morally inferior.
We’re in trouble. That’s certain, and most of us feel it in our hearts, minds, and guts.
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging lists today?
How can people be so heartless
How can people be so cruel
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cold
How can people have no feelings
How can they ignore their friends
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no
And especially people
Who care about strangers
Who care about evil
And social injustice
Do you only
Care about the bleeding crowd?
How about a needing friend?
I need a friend
Mostly Monday Reads: UnLawful and DisOrder Episode ∞
Posted: July 14, 2025 Filed under: Constitutional Crises, Corruption and Criminal Insanity, Department of Homeland Security, Disappearing Immigrants, Discrimination against women, Epstein Files, FARTUS, Fascist Florida, FBI, GOP Crimes Against Humanity, immigration, Incontinentia Buttocks Cabinet picks, kakistocracy | Tags: Assault on democracy, Congressman John Lewis, ICE Raids and children, Jeffrey Epstein files, MAGA Epstein Quest, U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) 10 Comments
“True Story.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
The news continues to be deeply disturbing as we find out how much the damage done by Doge and bumbling Trump Cabinet members has impacted the basic services provided by the Federal Government. We also continue to find how deeply criminal the mindset is in the administration. It’s hard not to notice the many agencies that have been corrupted by Project 2025 and Yam Tit’s fascist wet dreams. Also, get ready for Good Trouble on July 17th.
Andrew Goudsward, writing for Reuters, has this astounding story about the number of lawyers leaving the DOJ. “Two-thirds of the DOJ unit defending Trump policies in court have quit.”
The U.S. Justice Department unit charged with defending against legal challenges to signature Trump administration policies – such as restricting birthright citizenship and slashing funding to Harvard University – has lost nearly two-thirds of its staff, according to a list seen by Reuters.
Sixty-nine of the roughly 110 lawyers in the Federal Programs Branch have voluntarily left the unit since President Donald Trump’s election in November or have announced plans to leave, according to the list compiled by former Justice Department lawyers and reviewed by Reuters.
Reuters spoke to four former lawyers in the unit and three other people familiar with the departures who said some staffers had grown demoralized and exhausted defending an onslaught of lawsuits against Trump’s administration.
Critics have accused the Trump administration of flouting the law in its aggressive use of executive power, including by retaliating against perceived enemies and dismantling agencies created by Congress.
The Trump administration has broadly defended its actions as within the legal bounds of presidential power and has won several early victories at the Supreme Court. A White House spokesperson told Reuters that Trump’s actions were legal, and declined to comment on the departures.“Any sanctimonious career bureaucrat expressing faux outrage over the President’s policies while sitting idly by during the rank weaponization by the previous administration has no grounds to stand on,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement.
The seven lawyers who spoke with Reuters cited a punishing workload and the need to defend policies that some felt were not legally justifiable among the key reasons for the wave of departures.
Three of them said some career lawyers feared they would be pressured to misrepresent facts or legal issues in court, a violation of ethics rules that could lead to professional sanctions.
All spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal dynamics and avoid retaliation.A Justice Department spokesperson said lawyers in the unit are fighting an “unprecedented number of lawsuits” against Trump’s agenda.
“The Department has defeated many of these lawsuits all the way up to the Supreme Court and will continue to defend the President’s agenda to keep Americans safe,” the spokesperson said. The Justice Department did not comment on the departures of career lawyers or morale in the section.
Some turnover in the Federal Programs Branch is common between presidential administrations, but the seven sources described the number of people quitting as highly unusual.
Reuters was unable to find comparative figures for previous administrations. However, two former attorneys in the unit and two others familiar with its work said the scale of departures is far greater than during Trump’s first term and Joe Biden’s administration.
I can’t get over what’s going on with the Epstein Case. It sounds like the chickens are coming home to roost. Lady Justice knows the victims need closure and peace. As an activist against the abuse of women and children since I was 17 years old, I can only say we still haven’t caught up with what would be proper Justice. However, if this is what ultimately splits the MAGA coalition into pieces, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings or sensibilities at all. If the heat hasn’t driven me to take multiple baths, this story has added to it. You know if Yam Tits is obsessively using his Truth Social Platform, that he certainly knows there’s damning evidence of it. The AG has his back, and it’s a disgusting place for a woman.
This is from The Hill. “Carlson: Bondi ‘made up a bunch of ludicrous’ Epstein files claims.” Yes, that is Carlson, as in Tucker Carlson. I guess all those years of inner hate and outer support have caught up with him.
Political commentator and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson blamed Attorney General Pam Bondi in a new interview for the intense scrutiny the Trump administration has faced over its handling of documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In the NBC News interview published Monday, Carlson said he doesn’t believe the Department of Justice (DOJ) has “much relevant information about Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes” that would satisfy those who have long called for the release of “Epstein files.”
“Rather than just admit that, Pam Bondi made a bunch of ludicrous claims on cable news shows that she couldn’t back up, and this current outrage is the result,” Carlson told the outlet.
Bondi has faced intense backlash after acknowledging last week there was no client list connected to Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking of minors and no evidence to suggest he didn’t die by suicide in prison in 2019 while awaiting sex trafficking charges.
President Trump has repeatedly defended Bondi and urged his supporters to move on from the Epstein case, but pressure has continued to mount among the president’s base to fire the former Florida attorney general.
Bondi said in a Fox News interview in February that an Epstein client list was on her desk to be reviewed and alleged that the DOJ had obtained hours of video related to the case. The White House in March invited 15 far-right influencers to an event, where they received white binders labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1,” but the display drew immediate backlash because the documents provided were already publicly available.
Bondi later claimed in another TV interview that she was duped into thinking she had all the files related to the government’s Epstein investigations and was seeking additional documents after hearing from an alleged “whistleblower.”
Bondi said last week that she was initially referring to documents related to the Epstein case — not a specific “client list,” and the footage she had mentioned was child sex abuse material that would not be released to the public. She said there was nothing else to be released from the case.
NBC News published this analysis of the Carlson interview! (Look, Mom! We’re a tabloid now!) The analysis is by Allan Smith. “Tucker Carlson leads MAGA’s worried warriors in questioning Trump. The former Fox News host and “America First” leader spoke with NBC News as MAGA influencers rebel over amnesty, Iran and the Epstein files.” Look who is trying to resurrect his career!
No other issue has tested the MAGA base’s commitment to Trump like the Epstein files.
For years, many on the right — including some people who are now in the Trump administration — have called for the release of all government documents related to Epstein. Epstein died in custody in 2019, and a medical examiner ruled his death a suicide. He was facing sex trafficking and conspiracy charges.
Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi released a memo saying the Justice Department’s review turned up no “client list” of powerful men alleged to have participated in Epstein’s schemes, enraging the MAGA base, who are calling on her to be fired. Trump’s defense of Bondi and his attempts to tell his supporters to move on from the issue have done little to quell the furor.
On Saturday, Trump wrote “LET PAM BONDI DO HER JOB — SHE’S GREAT!” on Truth Social, adding the United States should “not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.”
In his NBC News interview, Carlson said he now believes the Justice Department actually doesn’t have “much relevant information about Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes.”
“Rather than just admit that, Pam Bondi made a bunch of ludicrous claims on cable news shows that she couldn’t back up, and this current outrage is the result,” he said.
A Republican Senate aide thinks Carlson is actually having a bit of a “revival” as he carves out distinct space on the right.
“He’s more of a dissident figure now,” this person said. “For whatever else you’re going to say, Tucker is just kind of saying what he thinks.”
Back in the day!
Good luck rescuing that career, Tuckums! I’m not sure getting further in the pig trough with the big hogs is going to help, but then, I’m not a MAGA whisperer. Adam Gabbatt has more on this at The Guardian. “Trump encounters rare uproar from ardent rightwing allies over Jeffrey Epstein. White House claim it didn’t have list of Epstein’s alleged clients and that he wasn’t murdered has caused tumult even within administration.” Mudville is not a happy place.
Donald Trump managed something unusual last week. In his administration’s claim that it did not have a list of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged clients, and that the convicted sex offender was not murdered, it succeeded in upsetting the rightwing influencers and commentators – and reportedly even Trump’s deputy FBI director – people who typically champion his every move.
“This stinks. This just reeks,” was the verdict of Jesse Watters, the primetime Fox News host.
He added: “The feds spent decades investigating Epstein and have had total access to his property for years, they still cannot give us a straight answer? This is not anything new; the government has been keeping us in the dark for generations.”
Watters was careful not to criticize the Trump administration directly, blaming “the feds” as he described Pam Bondi, the attorney general, and Kash Patel, the director of the FBI, as “great Americans”.
There was also tumult within the Trump administration. Dan Bongino, the deputy FBI director and former rightwing podcast host, spent years pushing Epstein conspiracy theories, and was reportedly very upset with Bondi over how the Epstein files were handled.
“Bongino is out-of-control furious,” a source close to Bongino told NBC News. “This destroyed his career. He’s threatening to quit and torch Pam unless she’s fired.” Axios reported that Bongino didn’t show up to work on Friday, and the row prompted Trump himself to step in.
Asked by reporters on Sunday if Bongino would remain in his position, Trump said: “Oh I think so … I spoke to him today. Dan Bongino, very good guy. I’ve known him a long time. I’ve done his show many, many times. He sounded terrific, actually.”
But within the rightwing, Epstein-curious sphere, others had continued to wade in.
“Pam Blondi [sic] is covering up child sex crimes that took place under HER WATCH when she was Attorney General of Florida,” wrote Laura Loomer, the 32-year-old conspiracy theorist whose influence over Trump has come under scrutiny.
Loomer accused Bondi of failing to pursue legal action against Epstein, despite lawsuits being filed against him in the Florida.
“She is afraid of that being discussed and brought to light. She needs to be fired. She has tainted the investigation,” Loomer concluded.
Let’s see. He’s losing Fox, Loomer, Patel, and Bongino. This might be fun to watch after all. Although I still think I’ll need a lot of baths.
“NO ONE IS BUYING THIS!! Next the DOJ will say ‘Actually, Jeffrey Epstein never even existed.’ This is over the top sickening,” Alex Jones, the rightwing commentator and conspiracy theorist, wrote on social media.
The lackluster release also left others, outside of the far right, dissatisfied. Andrew Schulz, the host of the Flagrant podcast, who interviewed Trump in October and said he voted for him, included the Epstein saga as part of his reason for feeling let down by the president.
“When you feel like the status quo will do nothing and change nothing, you have way more of a longer leash for the outsiders’ ideas than you do the status quo’s ideas,” Schulz said, talking about Trump’s appeal.
“And I think that was the idea with Trump, it was like: ‘Maybe he will stop these wars.’ No. ‘Maybe we will see what’s up with this Epstein shit.’ No.”
Trump, who once enjoyed a friendship with Epstein, said in the run-up to last year’s election that he would declassify files related to Epstein, although he added: “You don’t want to affect people’s lives if there’s phoney stuff in there, because there’s a lot of phoney stuff in that whole world.”
At a cabinet meeting this week, however, Trump expressed surprise that people were “still talking” about Epstein, suggesting that the president was, for once, out of touch with his Maga base. “This guy’s been talked about for years,” Trump said, describing Epstein as a “creep”.
That failed to quell the anger, however, prompting Trump to write a lengthy Truth Social post over the weekend, pleading for calm from his supporters.
“What’s going on with my ‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals?’ They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening. We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and ‘selfish people’ are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein.”
He added: “One year ago our Country was DEAD, now it’s the ‘HOTTEST’ Country anywhere in the World. Let’s keep it that way, and not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.”
The replies to Trump’s post, however, suggested his appeal had not worked.
“My wanting pedophiles to be punished for their crimes doesn’t make me less of a patriot, but more,” one user wrote. “I don’t understand the reason for your current attitude and frankly I’m beyond the point of caring. I do care about justice, wether [sic] you approve or not.”
Adam Wren and Dasha Burns of Politico have this headline. “Playbook: Trump’s Epstein headache isn’t going away.” Guess I’ll need to stock up on my soap supply.
HERE TO STAY: At what should be the height of his political powers — having racked up signature wins in enacting his sprawling GOP megabill, bending U.S. allies to his will on defense spending, launching a successful and limited attack on Iran with no meaningful reprisals on U.S. forces — President Donald Trump is instead facing a fast-metastasizing MAGA rebellion over his administration’s handling of the files from the criminal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
First in Playbook: This morning, we have three threads of new reporting suggesting that this isn’t likely to go away any time soon.
1) A special counsel?: In an interview last night with Playbook, MAGA influencer and far-right activist Laura Loomer said “there should be a special counsel appointed to do an independent investigation of the handling of the Epstein files so that people can feel like this issue is being investigated, and perhaps take it out of [AG Pam Bondi’s] hands, because I don’t think that she has been transparent or done a good job handling this issue.”
2) MAGA allies press for presser: Playbook has also learned that at least one key figure in the extended MAGA universe, an ally supportive of the Trump DOJ’s handling of the Epstein case, has pitched senior White House officials on the idea of Bondi and Deputy AG Todd Blanche doing an all-questions-addressed news conference in an attempt to exhaust the press and put the story to bed.
3) Dems sense an opening: Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas), who is introducing legislation today that calls for the release of the Epstein files, shows Playbook how he’ll tie the “corruption and cronyism” of the handling of the Epstein case into a broader critique of Trump’s priorities. “I think he’s trying to protect some billionaire friend of his,” Veasey tells Playbook. “That’s what he lives for more than anything else in the world: protecting billionaires. Look at what he did with the so-called ‘big, beautiful bill.’”
WHAT MAKES THIS TIME DIFFERENT?: To a degree we have truly not seen over the past decade of Trump as a national political figure, his movement seems genuinely fractured. The Epstein case is fundamentally different from past divisions inside MAGA because it undercuts Trump’s self-styled brand as a speaker of uncomfortable truths, a slayer of sacred cows and a tribune of the people. This isn’t just a policy or ideological disagreement like, say, the MAGA unease over the Iran strikes; this cuts to the heart of his very political identity.
This is a problem partly of Trump’s own making. For years, many on the MAGA right alleged a massive governmental cover-up aimed at protecting Epstein, the convicted child sex offender and wealthy financier who circulated among the highest echelons of the rich and powerful. Trump and his allies were happy to amplify those whispers to their own political benefit.
These weren’t just allegations coming from anonymous cranks on the internet. JD Vance spoke publicly about an Epstein “client list” being kept secret by the government. Kash Patel did the same. Ditto Dan Bongino. Earlier this year, asked about “releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients,” Bondi told Fox News “it’s sitting on my desk right now to review.”
Now? It’s a huge credibility problem. Vance, Patel, Bongino and Bondi — among others — effectively have to either acknowledge that they were not just wrong about the government covering up for Epstein, but actually making stuff up, or they come off like they’re part of a cover-up themselves.
To wit: In a new interview this morning, Tucker Carlson told NBC’s Allan Smith he now believes DOJ doesn’t actually have “much relevant information about Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes.” And therein lies a problem: “Rather than just admit that, Pam Bondi made a bunch of ludicrous claims on cable news shows that she couldn’t back up, and this current outrage is the result,” Carlson says.
WHAT’S TRUMP TO DO? The president has limited and conflicting options.
More on this at the link. Heather Cox Richardson brings a historian’s perspective to her SubStack this morning.
For the first time ever, Trump got ratioed on his own platform, meaning that there were more comments on his post than likes or shares, showing disapproval of his message. According to Jordan King of Newsweek, by 10:45 this morning (Eastern Time) it had more than 36,000 replies but only 11,000 reposts and 32,000 likes.
Trump sounds panicked, not only over the Epstein issue itself, but also because he cannot control the narrative his followers are embracing. After stoking the fire of his followers’ anger against what they seemed to see as powerful men getting away with crimes against children, he is now being burned by it. His reflex is to return to his greatest hits, accusing Democrats of writing the Epstein files and then, as he always, always, always does, snapping back to the Russia scandal and calling it a hoax.
Over the weekend, attendees at a conference held by the right-wing Turning Point USA booed the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein case. MAGA influencers kept up the drumbeat; Matt Walsh called the administration’s about-face on releasing information “obvious bullsh*t.” Natalie Allison of the Washington Post reported that even the Fox News Channel warned this morning that “[t]here has to be some explanation” and that questions about the way the administration is handling the Epstein files were “very valid.”
Musk, who controls the X social media platform preferred by the right wing, is amplifying the story. After Trump’s Saturday post, Musk wrote to his 222 million followers: “Seriously. He said ‘Epstein’ half a dozen times while telling everyone to stop talking about Epstein. Just release the files as promised.”
Trump appears to be planning to regain control of the narrative by persecuting his political opponents.
But it is not clear that will silence MAGA voters who backed Trump in part because they thought he would lead the fight against an elite group of pedophiles controlling the country. As Trump’s policies on the economy, immigration, tax cuts, firing of government employees, and gutting of disaster relief have soured Americans on his administration, loyalists stayed behind him. Now he has turned against their chief cause, giving them an off-ramp from a presidency that seems increasingly off the rails.
Mike Flynn, who served as Trump’s first national security advisor until forced to resign for lying about his contact with Russian operatives, posted on social media: “[President Trump] please understand the EPSTEIN AFFAIR is not going away. If the administration doesn’t address the massive number of unanswered questions about Epstein, especially the ABUSE OF CHILDREN BY ELITES (it is very clear that abuse occurred), then moving forward on so many other monumental challenges our nation is facing becomes much harder.”
Flynn concluded: “We cannot allow pedophiles to get away. I don’t personally care who they are or what elite or powerful position they hold. They must be exposed and held accountable!!!”
Adam Wren breaks this news at Politico.
President Donald Trump faces a fast-metastasizing MAGA rebellion amid fallout over his administration’s handling of the files from the criminal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
And some of his closest allies are cautioning the situation for the president will get worse before it gets better — even as it threatens to derail his megabill victory lap and continues to divide parts of his administration and, more broadly, his supporters.
Trump has tried twice in as many days to tamp down his base’s anger, posting to Truth Social Saturday that he didn’t “like what’s happening” among his own supporters. He also threw his support behind Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has taken the brunt of much of the right’s ire over the Epstein files. Several news organizations have also reported that Bondi clashed with Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino over the files.
After disembarking Air Force One Sunday at Joint Base Andrews, Trump faced a question about Bongino, who skipped work Friday. Trump insisted that he’s “a very good guy. … He sounded terrific, actually. No, I think he’s in good shape.”
Mike Davis, the MAGA legal brawler and occasional Oval Office visitor, has taken up defending Trump’s DOJ, said in an interview that “the Trump Justice Department wanted to be fully transparent, but can’t.” He added: “This is a case of no good deed going unpunished.”
Davis argues DOJ can’t release more, including that there is grand jury material involved, court records under seal, child pornography involved, the need to protect victims of “heinous crimes,” and “unsubstantiated, bogus claims, like we saw during the Kavanaugh proceedings, where you had double and even triple hearsay.”
A spokesperson for the White House declined to comment.
You may want to read Greg Sargent’s latest at The New Republic. “The Young GOPer Behind “Alligator Alcatraz” Is the Dark Future of MAGA. Sunshine State Attorney General James Uthmeier is the real brains behind this notorious migrant detention camp in the Everglades. The more barbarities that emerge, the brighter his star will no doubt shine.”
The other day, Stephen Miller went on Fox News and offered a plea that got surprisingly little attention given its highly toxic and unnerving implications. Miller urged politicians in GOP-run states to build their own versions of “Alligator Alcatraz,” the state-run immigration detention facility that officials just opened in the Florida Everglades.
“We want every governor of a red state, and if you are watching tonight: pick up the phone, call DHS, work with us to build facilities in your state,” Miller said, in a reference to the Department of Homeland Security. Critically, Miller added, such states could then work with the federal government by supplying much-needed detention beds, helping President Trump “get the illegals out.”
Keep all that in mind as we introduce you to one James Uthmeier.
Uthmeier, the attorney general of Florida and a longtime ally of Governor Ron DeSantis, is widely described in the state as the brains behind “Alligator Alcatraz.” Peter Schorsch, the publisher of Florida Politics, sums him up this way: “In Uthmeier, DeSantis found his own Stephen Miller.”
Uthmeier is indeed a homegrown Florida version of Miller: Only 37 years old, he brings great precociousness to the jailing of migrants. Like Miller, he is obscure and little-known relative to the influence he’s amassing. Also like Miller, he is fluent in MAGA’s reliance on the spectacle of inhumanity and barbarism.
“You don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter,” Uthmeier said of “Alligator Alcatraz” in a slick video he recently narrated about the complex, which featured heavy-metal guitar riffs right out of a combat-cosplay video game. “People get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons. Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.”
Any migrant who dares escape just might get devoured alive by an animal—one animal eating another. Dehumanization is so thrilling!
The real-world “Alligator Alcatraz” is already gaining notoriety for its very real cruelties. After Democratic lawmakers visited over the weekend, they sharply denounced the scenes they’d witnessed of migrants packed into cages under inhumane conditions. Meanwhile, detainees and family members have sounded alarms about worm-infested food and blistering heat. And the Miami Herald reports that an unnervingly large percentage of the detainees lack criminal convictions.
But Uthmeier is getting feted on Fox News and other right wing media for this new experiment in spite of such notorieties—or perhaps because of them. There’s good reason to think more red state politicians will seek to create their own versions of “Alligator Alcatraz” or get in on this action in other ways—and that more young Republican politicians will see it as a path to MAGA renown and glory.
I’ll let this Washington Monthly article by Jonathan Alter end this increasingly depressing news dump today. “America Is Now a Police State, The Medicaid cuts are terrible; the ICE expansions are even worse.”
If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And if you have $75 billion over four years in new funding for ICE, you—Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, and Tom Homan—will use it to fund a huge domestic army to round up four million people in the next three years, put them in “detention centers” and deport them.
If these cruel men planned to go after criminals, as they claimed, they would have needed only a fraction of the money that Republican lawmakers just gave them. And ending the genuine shortfall in the Department of Homeland Security budget doesn’t require this kind of dough.
So with virtually unlimited funds, they’ll make up for lost time. We’re already witnessing swarms of masked agents grabbing people off the street. Within weeks, it’ll get a lot worse. The grandma who has been here for 30 years paying taxes; the Dreamer college student who has been thoroughly American since he was a toddler; the small business owner who gets a traffic ticket—3,000 of them a day will be ripped from their families, sent to a prison and shipped to a country where they don’t know anyone.
Count on it. The iron law of government budgeting is use-it-or-lose-it. Only bureaucratic fools have money left over at the end of the fiscal year. ICE will spend billions on meeting Chief Homan’s arbitrary and inhumane quotas—the same kind of arrest quotas that drive police states all over the world, as Ronan Farrow has explained.
And the thousands of new Border Patrol agents? They already bring to mind those old ads about the Maytag Repairman—waiting in vain for something to happen. With border crossings plummeting, it’s only a matter of time before they’re shifted north for an even heavier presence in blue urban America.
Before long, many of us won’t even notice the roundups, just as white Californians in 1942 didn’t pay much heed when their Japanese-American neighbors were whisked away to detention camps in the desert.
That was an inexcusable act, but the conditions in those camps, while spare and dehumanizing, were not as bad as in the “Alligator Alcatraz” that Trump is gloating over. These will be jails—not camps—built to be as close to the abusive Salvadoran model as the president can make them. And the scale of his migrant gulag is much larger. All told, about 120,000 Japanese were interned. The capacity of the new detention centers is planned to be roughly 120,000 per day.
With most detainees only weeks or months from deportation, that means millions of new migrants cycling through. Many will have done nothing worse than Trump’s German immigrant grandparents (and my Jewish grandmother) did a century ago, namely, overstaying their visas. Of course, if they happen to be employed at a golf course or hotel (exempted by Trump for obvious personal reasons), they wouldn’t be in jail in the first place. Here’s where we’re headed: If migrants work on farms or in slaughterhouses (lots of both in red states), or a kitchen (hospitality), they’re OK or maybe even headed for amnesty, as Trump—to the dismay of MAGA—hinted last week. But if they cut grass, clean houses, or work in other occupations unprotected by the Dear Leader, off to jail you go.
I should have no words, but I do, and all of them are surrounded by expletives. There are actions on July 17th in the spirit of Good Trouble and the late Congressman John Lewis. Do what you can to lift your voice against this reign of terror. If I can’t find an action or get there, I wear my No Kings T-shirt wherever I go, and I get attention on the St Claude Bus like you wouldn’t believe. I have signs in my front yard. I talk to people. I show up where I can. Keep on walking. Keep on talking, marching to Freedomland.
What’s on your Reading, Blogging, and ACTION list today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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