Lazy Caturday Reads

Posted: January 31, 2026 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: 2, cat art, caturday, DHS funds, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Epstein Files, Ghislaine Maxwell, Howard Lutnick, Jeffrey Epstein, Melania documentary, temporary government shutdown, Trump's triumphal arch | 7 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

Young Girl With Cat, by Berthe Morisot

Before I get going with the latest news, I want to share this hilarious review of “Melania,” the “documentary” financed by Jeff Bezos as a bribe to Donald Trump. The reviewer was the only person in theater when he saw the film.

Xan Brooks at The Guardian: Melania review – Trump film is a gilded trash remake of The Zone of Interest.

When Brett Ratner’s contentious, Amazon-backed documentary previewed at the White House last weekend, the guestlist included Mike Tyson, Queen Rania of Jordan and the president himself. Today it’s just me in the room and Melania on the screen. It makes for a more intimate and exclusive affair.

This mood of cosy conviviality extends all the way through the opening credits; at which point the chill descends and the novocaine kicks in, as the film’s star and executive producer proceeds to guide us – with agonising glacial slowness – through the preparations for her husband’s second presidential inauguration. She glides from the fashion fitting to the table setting, and from the “candlelit dinner” to the “starlight ball”, with a face like a fist and a voice of sheet metal. “Candlelight and black tie and my creative vision,” she says, as though listing the ingredients in a cauldron. “As first lady, children will always remain my priority,” she coos, and you can almost picture her coaxing them into her little gingerbread house.

No doubt there is a great documentary to be made about Melania Knauss, the ambitious model from out of Slovenia who married a New York real-estate mogul and then found herself cast in the role of a latter-day Eva Braun, but the horrific Melania emphatically isn’t it. It’s one of those rare, unicorn films that doesn’t have a single redeeming quality. I’m not even sure it qualifies as a documentary, exactly, so much as an elaborate piece of designer taxidermy, horribly overpriced and ice-cold to the touch and proffered like a medieval tribute to placate the greedy king on his throne.

And so it goes on. Melania moves through the action like a listless automaton, talking constantly but saying nothing, squired from Mar-a-Lago to Trump Tower to her final destination, the White House. What drama there is chiefly hinges on her concern that her white blouse is too loose at the neck and needs to be cut and then tightened, much to the consternation of the fitters. Melania misses her mother, she says, but she loves Michael Jackson and Barron and possibly her husband as well, although Trump himself is mostly a background presence here, shuffling in at intervals to brag about his election win and complain that his inauguration clashes with the televised college football playoffs. “They probably did it on purpose,” he says.

It’s dispiriting, it’s deadly and it’s spectacularly unrevealing. Ratner’s film plays like a gilded trash remake of Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest in which a button-eyed Cinderella points at gold baubles and designer dresses, cunningly distracting us while her husband and his cronies prepare to dismantle the Constitution and asset-strip the federal government.

This review by Owen Gleiberman at Variety is pretty good too: ‘Melania’ Review: Brett Ratner’s First Lady Documentary Is a Cheeseball Infomercial of Staggering Inertia.

“Melania” is a documentary that never comes to life. It’s a “portrait” of the First Lady of the United States, but it’s so orchestrated and airbrushed and stage-managed that it barely rises to the level of a shameless infomercial. Is it cheesy? At moments, but mostly it’s inert. It feels like it’s been stitched together out of the most innocuous outtakes from a reality show. There’s no drama to it. It should have been called “Day of the Living Tradwife.”

Julie Manet with cat, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The movie was shot, by director Brett Ratner and a trio of prestige cinematographers, over the course of the 20 days leading up to (and including) the 2025 Presidential Inauguration of Donald Trump. And to the extent that it allows Melania Trump a whisper of personality or agency, it’s as a designer. She helps to tweak the design of her own outfits. She has chosen the color of the inaugural invitation envelopes (a lovely shade of scarlet). She offers design tips about the plates and flowers and glassware. And, during the first Trump presidency, she helped to redesign sections of the White House.

The movie was shot, by director Brett Ratner and a trio of prestige cinematographers, over the course of the 20 days leading up to (and including) the 2025 Presidential Inauguration of Donald Trump. And to the extent that it allows Melania Trump a whisper of personality or agency, it’s as a designer. She helps to tweak the design of her own outfits. She has chosen the color of the inaugural invitation envelopes (a lovely shade of scarlet). She offers design tips about the plates and flowers and glassware. And, during the first Trump presidency, she helped to redesign sections of the White House.

The movie plunks us down at Mar-a-Lago, where Melania struts out the door and into the back of an SUV, which will take her to the red-white-and-blue private plane painted with the word TRUMP that’s waiting for her at the airport. Wherever she lands, she’s in a mobile bubble, jetting from the palace of Palm Beach to Trump Tower in New York, where she meets for a fashion fitting in what looks like a dining room of the Titanic designed by Liberace, then to St. Patrick’s Cathedral right down the block (where she attends an anniversary mass for her mother) and on to the renovated 19th-century charm of Blair House in Washington, D.C., then back to Trump Tower and back to the Capital.

Poor Melania. At least she got her $40 million payoff from Bezos. I think the film could have been interesting if Melania had talked about her life in Slovenia, why she chose to come to the U.S., how she got the genius visa, how she really met Donald Trump, and her friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and Gislaine Maxwell. After all, she’s not a real first lady. She doesn’t live in the White House and Trump reportedly has to pay her for any appearances she makes with him.

The big headline news today is all about Jeffrey Epstein. It’s almost as if the Trump administration decided to release some shocking Epstein files in order to distract from the violence perpetrated by their secret police AKA ICE in Minneapolis and elsewhere. Here are a few of the top revelations in the files.

The Independent: What are the main revelations from the new Epstein files release?

The U.S. Justice Department released millions of files related to the case of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein on Friday, shedding further light on his expansive network of high profile figures.

The latest dump – expected to be the last – contains some three million pages, including 180,000 images and some 2,000 videos attached to the case.

Initial findings from the drop include emails from Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former British prince, inviting Epstein to Buckingham Palace years after the financier was convicted of sex crimes.

Messages from billionaire Elon Musk asked Epstein when his wildest party would be and discussed visiting his notorious island. It is unclear whether Musk, who is not accused of wrongdoing, ever visited.

And inn other emails, Epstein made allegations Bill Gates had engaged in extra marital affairs. A spokesperson for Gates vehemently denied the “absurd” allegation.

Some details:

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor invited Epstein to Buckingham Palace for dinner and “lots of privacy” years after the financier was convicted, the new documents suggest.

In one email, Andrew said that he was travelling to London, where Epstein was staying. He told Epstein: “We could have dinner at Buckingham Palace and lots of privacy”.

The Cat at Play, by Henriëtte Ronner-Knip

Epstein responded: “Already in london [sic]. what time woudl [sic] you like me and we will also need/ have private time.”

It is not clear whether a meeting at the palace took place….

The latest release also included pictures that appeared to feature Andrew poised on all fours over a woman on the floor. It is unclear where and when the photos were taken, and the woman’s identity is masked….

The newly published files included hundreds of documents that mention Trump, many of which were collections of media reports.

One file details what appeared to be internal emails by federal investigators looking into salacious accusations involving the president and Epstein. The emails, from August 2025, give no indication that any claims had been substantiated. Investigators said several of the accusers were deemed not credible.

Another message, whose sender and recipient were both redacted, reads, “What does JE think of going to Mar-a-Lago after xmas instead of his island?” referring to Trump’s Florida club. The message is from 2012, years after Trump said the two men had stopped socialising.

Extra Lazy Caturday Reads

Posted: January 17, 2026 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: cat art, caturday, Delcy Rodrigues, Denmark, Donald Trump, Greenland, Maria Corina Machado, medieval cats, Minnesota, Nobel Peace Prize, Trump Tariffs, Venezuela, Walters Art Museum Baltimore | 8 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

I really struggled to get out of bed this morning. I’m usually an early riser although I don’t really get going until I’ve had some caffeine and psyched myself up a bit, but today my body resisted all my efforts to be dragged out of dreamland.

Like many Americans, I’m traumatized by what’s happening to our country and the cumulative effects of a decade of dealing with the monster from Mar-a-Lago. Everything is awful, and I’m not sure we can make it until the midterm elections.

So here’s a Caturday distraction from The Smithsonian Magazine. (The illustrations are from the article except for one from The Baltimore Sun.)

A cat left pawprints on this 500-year-old manuscript.

A Cat Left Paw Prints on the Pages of This Medieval Manuscript When the Ink Was Drying 500 Years Ago, by Christian Thorsberg

More than 500 years ago, after dedicating hours to the meticulous transcription of a crucial manuscript, a Flemish scribe set the parchment out to dry—only to later return and discover the page smeared, filled with inky paw prints.

Perhaps the world’s first known instance of a so-called “keyboard cat,” that manuscript is the inspiration for and centerpiece of an exhibition currently on display at Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum. Running through late February, “Paws on Parchment” explores the roles of cats in the Middle Ages—and the myriad ways humans showed affection for their feline friends hundreds of years ago.

“Objects like [the manuscript] have a way of bridging across time, as it’s just so relatable for anyone who has ever had a cat,” Lynley Anne Herbert, the museum’s curator of rare books and manuscripts, tells Artnet’s Margaret Carrigan. “Many medieval people loved their cats just as much as we do.”

This affection is evidenced by the myriad illustrations of cats across cultures. After finding the Flemish manuscript, Herbert searched the museum archives and found no shortage of other feline mentions or depictions in Islamic, Asian and other European texts and images….

“Because they were so stealthy and they could see in the dark, they were seen as a little bit ethereal as creatures,” Herbert told WYPR’s Ashley Sterner in August. “This sort of translates to the idea that that’s kind of the way the devil works. If you’re sinful, he can stalk you, and eventually he’ll pounce on you.”

Paws on Parchment is the first of three animal-themed exhibitions planned at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore over the next two years. The Walters Museum

In the margins of manuscripts on display, seemingly silly illustrations of cats playing instruments detail this double-sidedness. “[They] reinforce the importance of an orderly society by showing the chaos possible if the natural order of things got turned on its head,” Herbert tells Artnet.

But at the same time, humans relied on their pets’ killer instincts much more than they do today. Rats, mice and other vermin in the Middle Ages were more likely to carry disease, and housecats were an important defense for families.

“Their ability to catch and kill mice and rats was actually critical to healthy living,” Herbert told WYPR. “Those critters would often get into food stores and contaminate them or eat them. They would also chew on valuable things like cloth and books. … Very early on, people realized that cats were excellent mousers. They were actually defined in encyclopedias of the era by their ability to catch mice.”

You can read more about medieval cats and the Walters Museum exhibit at the link.

In the news today:

Trump beclowned himself and embarrassed most Americans by accepting the Nobel Peace Prize medal that was awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado. I can’t imagine being so shameless that you would accept a medal won by someone else, but Trump apparently can’t feel shame. In fact, he kind of strong-armed Machado into giving it to him. She probably imagined he might then let her return to her country as president–after all, she did win the election. But Trump isn’t likely to do that. In fact later yesterday, he seemingly forgot her name.

Jack Rwvell at The Daily Beast: Trump, 79, Appears to Forget Name of Woman Who Just Gave Him Her Nobel Peace Prize.

President Donald Trump was handed the Nobel Peace Prize he has been whining about for so many months—only to seemingly forget the name of the woman who passed hers on to him just hours earlier.

In a media huddle outside the White House, the 79-year-old president was asked why he has yet to support María Corina Machado’s bid for Venezuelan leadership.

“I had a great meeting yesterday by a person who I have a lot of respect for and she has respect, obviously, for me and our country and she gave me her Nobel Prize,” Trump said, notably avoiding her name.

“I’ll tell you what, I got to know her, I never met her before, and I was very, very impressed. She’s a really—this is a fine woman.”

On social media, several commentators noted that it appeared as though Machado’s name had slipped the president’s mind.

Machado, leader of the opposition to Nicolás Maduro’s government, has been vying for power in the South American nation following the U.S. gunpoint abduction of Maduro at the start of the month.

However, despite claiming Maduro was operating a “cartel,” the Trump administration left his vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, running the country, along with virtually all of his government….

While the coveted Nobel Prize was claimed by Trump, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has since reiterated its ruling that prizes cannot be exchanged and the transfer is ultimately meaningless.

I doubt if this will stop Trump’s incessant whining about how the Nobel committee cheated him out of his own Nobel Peace Prize.

Meanwhile, Trump is supporting Venezuela’s vice president Delcy Rodrigues as acting president.

AP: AP obtains documents showing Venezuelan leader Delcy Rodríguez has been on DEA’s radar for years.

When President Donald Trump announced the audacious capture of Nicolás Maduro to face drug trafficking charges in the U.S., he portrayed the strongman’s vice president and longtime aide as America’s preferred partner to stabilize Venezuela amid a scourge of drugs, corruption and economic mayhem.

Left unspoken was the cloud of suspicion that long surrounded Delcy Rodríguez before she became acting president of the beleaguered nation earlier this month.

In fact, Rodríguez has been on the radar of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for years and in 2022 was even labeled a “priority target,” a designation DEA reserves for suspects believed to have a “significant impact” on the drug trade, according to records obtained by The Associated Press and more than a half dozen current and former U.S. law enforcement officials.

The DEA has amassed a detailed intelligence file on Rodríguez dating to at least 2018, the records show, cataloging her known associates and allegations ranging from drug trafficking to gold smuggling. One confidential informant told the DEA in early 2021 that Rodríguez was using hotels in the Caribbean resort of Isla Margarita “as a front to launder money,” the records show. As recently as last year she was linked to Maduro’s alleged bag man, Alex Saab, whom U.S. authorities arrested in 2020 on money laundering charges.

The U.S. government has never publicly accused Rodríguez of any criminal wrongdoing. Notably for Maduro’s inner circle, she’s not among the more than a dozen current Venezuelan officials charged with drug trafficking alongside the ousted president.

Three current and former DEA agents who reviewed the records at the request of AP said they indicate an intense interest in Rodríguez throughout much of her tenure as vice president, which began in 2018. They were not authorized to discuss DEA investigations and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Rodríguez’s name has surfaced in nearly a dozen DEA investigations, several of which remain ongoing, involving agents in field offices from Paraguay and Ecuador to Phoenix and New York, the AP learned. The AP could not determine the specific focus of each investigation.

Obviously, Trump couldn’t careless about drug trafficking.

Trump is also still obsessed with getting control of Greenland. Here’s the latest from the AP: Trump says he’ll charge 8 European countries a 10% tariff for opposing US control of Greenland.

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (AP) — President Donald Trump said Saturday that he would charge a 10% import tax starting in February on goods from eight European nations because of their opposition to American control of Greenland, setting up a potentially dangerous test of U.S. partnerships in Europe.

Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland would face the tariff, Trump said in a social media post while at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida. The rate would climb to 25% on June 1 if no deal was in place for “the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland” by the United States, he said.

The Republican president appeared to indicate that he was using the tariffs as leverage to force talks with Denmark and other European countries over the status of Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark that he regards as critical to U.S. national security.

“The United States of America is immediately open to negotiation with Denmark and/or any of these Countries that have put so much at risk, despite all that we have done for them,” Trump said on Truth Social.

The tariff threat could mark a problematic rupture between Trump and America’s longtime NATO partners, further straining an alliance that dates to 1949 and provides a collective degree of security to Europe and North America. Trump has repeatedly tried to use trade penalties to bend allies and rivals alike to his will, generating investment commitments from some nations and pushback from others, notably China.

Trump is scheduled to travel on Tuesday to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he likely will run into the European leaders he just threatened with tariffs that would start in little more than two weeks.

The Washington Post: In Denmark, U.S. lawmakers contradict Trump on need to own Greenland.

Making a symbolic visit to Copenhagen, a bipartisan delegation of U.S. lawmakers — including senior members of the House and Senate — tried to reassure leaders of Denmark and Greenland, and their increasingly anxious citizens, that most Americans do not support President Donald Trump’s plan to annex or buy Greenland, let alone the prospect of military action against a fellow NATO ally.

The Congressional visit comes as tensions are soaring over the Trump’s threats. Thousands gathered Saturday in Denmark for “Hands-off Greenland” protests, with gatherings also planned for later in Greenland’s capital, organizers said.

“It is important to underscore that when you ask the American people whether or not they think it is a good idea for the United States to acquire Greenland, the vast majority — some 75 percent — will say we do not think that that is a good idea,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said Friday at a news conference after the American group met counterparts in the Danish Parliament. “This senator from Alaska does not think it is a good idea.”

“Greenland needs to be viewed as our ally, not as an asset,” Murkowski added.

Asked how Trump might be stopped in his quest to obtain Greenland, Murkowski suggested Congress would assert its authority. “You are hearing from the executive branch,” she said. “The Congress also has a role.”

That’s if Republicans in Congress are willing to stand up to Trump. Meanwhile:

NPR: ‘Not for sale’: massive protest in Copenhagen against Trump’s desire to acquire Greenland.

COPENHAGEN – Thousands of people marched from Copenhagen City Hall to the U.S. embassy Saturday afternoon in protest of President Trump’s comments that he wants to acquire Greenland.

The crowd, waving Greenlandic flags, chanted “Greenland is not for sale.” Many demonstrators wore red hats in Trump’s own “Make America great again” fashion that read, “Make America go away.” [….]

A 15th-century prayer book featuring an illustrated gray cat The Walters Museum

Saturday’s protest came on the heels of a bipartisan Congressional delegation that travelled to Copenhagen. House and Senate lawmakers met with Danish and Greenlandic officials, as well as members of the Danish business community. The visit was meant to be a reassurance tour — affirming the longstanding relationship between the U.S. and the Kingdom of Denmark in the face of Trump’s rhetoric.

Peder Dam, who lives in Denmark, attended the demonstration with a sign that featured an image of Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker from Star Wars that read: “Americans: I know there is good in you. Come back to sanity.”

“We know what is going on in the White House is not representative for all Americans,” he told NPR.

But he said he wonders why there isn’t more widespread outrage from the American public.

“I can’t understand. If my government said they would attack Sweden, then Denmark would step up and protest that,” he said. “I like protests in the U.S. But why aren’t there more normal, average Americans stepping up, trying to protest what is going on? It’s crazy.”

Another protester, Thomas, whom NPR is identifying only by his first name because of concerns about retaliation at work, said the march represents “an unseen level of resentment towards the U.S.

“I cannot express how deeply disappointed I am — that we have sent our troops to die with you in Iraq, we were with you in Afghanistan,” he said. “How dare you turn your back on us in this way?”

The Trump administration’s persecution of Minnesota is going from bad to worse.

Perry Stein at The Washington Post: Justice Dept. launches criminal investigation of Minnesota governor.

The Justice Department is planning to issue subpoenas for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey as part of an investigation alleging that the two Democratic leaders are impeding federal law enforcement officers’ abilities to do their jobs in the state, two people familiar with the matter confirmed Friday.

In partnership with the Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter, four foster kittens visited the exhibition shortly after it opened. The Walters Museum

The subpoenas, which are without recent precedent, escalate an already bitter political battle between the Trump administration and state officials following the fatal shooting of a woman in Minneapolis by an immigration officer last week. That shooting happened amid a surge of federal immigration officers in the state ordered by President Donald Trump.

One of the people familiar with the case confirmed that the plan was to serve the subpoenas Friday. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an open investigation. Neither Walz nor Frey had been served with a subpoena by early Friday evening, spokespeople for the officials said.

Walz and Frey have claimed they have been wrongly excluded from the investigation into the killing of Renée Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer through the window of her SUV as she and others were monitoring and protesting the crackdown. The governor and mayor have publicly said they fear that the Justice Department is not conducting a fair and robust probe. In turn, Trump administration officials have said that Minnesota’s Democratic leaders are corrupt and can’t be trusted to handle an investigation.

Minnesota’s attorney general this week sued the federal government over the surge, saying it amounted to an unconstitutional “federal invasion.”

The subpoenas suggest that the Justice Department is examining whether Walz’s and Frey’s public statements disparaging the surge of officers and federal actions have amounted to criminal interference in law enforcement work. The law under which they are investigating the two officials, a federal statute on conspiracy to impede a federal investigation, is similar to the charges filed against protesters who federal officials allege have attempted to block immigration officers as they do their work.

That sounds like a violation of the Walz and Frey’s first amendment rights.

In a statement Friday, Frey called the subpoenas “an obvious attempt to intimidate me for standing up for Minneapolis, our local law enforcement, and our residents against the chaos and danger this Administration has brought to our streets.”

“I will not be intimidated,” he said. “My focus will remain where it’s always been: keeping our city safe.”

“Weaponizing the justice system and threatening political opponents is a dangerous, authoritarian tactic,” Walz said in a separate statement Friday evening. “The only person not being investigated for the shooting of Renee Good is the federal agent who shot her.”

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: Watch What They’re Doing: Trump Threatens to Make War on the States.

We have late word this evening that the Department of Justice has launched a “criminal investigation” of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minnesota Mayor Jacob Frey over a purported “criminal conspiracy” to impeded ICE’s work in the state. Let’s start with the obvious and important fact that the bar that has to be cleared to launch such an investigation is essentially nil. All you need is a couple toadyish and corrupt DOJ appointees and they are currently in oversupply. Getting a criminal indictment let alone a conviction is in a different universe of possibility. The main point of this is simply to generate the headlines you’re seeing this evening (“criminal investigation!”) and perhaps load state and local government with subpoenas or perhaps raids.

Medieval cat art from the Walters Museum, source The Baltimore Sun

But none of that should distract from the fact that this is the main conflict being joined or at least pointed to in a very clear and public way. Right now Trump has created a kind of rickety authoritarian presidency with lots of prerogative powers on overdrive — military adventures, pardons, corruption of the DOJ, ICE wilding expeditions in Blue states — and a lot of corruption. But there’s not a lot more. It doesn’t have the kind of power in depth to really subvert the constitutional order in a robust or durable way. To do that you have to bring the states to heel. That’s where most policing power operates. It’s where elections operate. It’s where most of the actual governmental power in depth in the U.S. actually operates.

As recently as Monday I wrote this: “If you look at the trend of Trump rule in blue cities and blue states, the clear trajectory is that not being dominated is getting closer and closer to being a criminal offense, likely through conspiracy laws and such.” That’s precisely what’s being alleged here: that resisting these kinds of federal invasions or ICE wilding expeditions into Blue cities through entirely legal means and by the elected state authorities actually amounts to a criminal offense or, as predicted, a criminal conspiracy. In other words the states’ very existence as a separate albeit subordinate sovereign is a criminal offense against the federal government.

This is really scary, because we just don’t know what the Supreme Court will do with these arguments if they get their hands on the case. Fortunately, it will probably be hard to get a grand jury to indict on these ludicrous grounds.

More news from Minnesota:

AP: Judge rules feds in Minneapolis immigration operation can’t detain or tear gas peaceful protesters.

Federal officers in the Minneapolis area participating in its largest recent U.S. immigration enforcement operation can’t detain or tear gas peaceful protesters who aren’t obstructing authorities, including when these people are observing the agents, a judge in Minnesota ruled Friday.

U.S. District Judge Kate Menendez’s ruling addresses a case filed in December on behalf of six Minnesota activists. The six are among the thousands who have been observing the activities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol officers enforcing the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area since last month….

The activists in the case are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, which says government officers are violating the constitutional rights of Twin Cities residents….

Safely following agents “at an appropriate distance does not, by itself, create reasonable suspicion to justify a vehicle stop,” the ruling said.

Menendez said the agents would not be allowed to arrest people without probable cause or reasonable suspicion the person has committed a crime or was obstructing or interfering with the activities of officers.

Menendez is also presiding over a lawsuit filed Monday by the state of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul seeking to suspend the enforcement crackdown, and some of the legal issues are similar. She declined at a hearing Wednesday to grant the state’s request for an immediate temporary restraining order in that case.

“What we need most of all right now is a pause. The temperature needs to be lowered,” state Assistant Attorney General Brian Carter told her.

Menendez said the issues raised by the state and cities in that case are “enormously important.” But she said it raises high-level constitutional and other legal issues, and for some of those issues there are few on-point precedents. So she ordered both sides to file more briefs next week.

Those are my recommended reads for today. What do you think? What else is on your mind?

Lazy Caturday Reads: Epstein Files, Brown U. Shooter, and Trump Insanity

Posted: December 20, 2025 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: Bill Clinton, Brown University shooting, cat art, caturday, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, DOJ, Donald Trump, Epstein Files, Melania Trump, Trump insanity | 4 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

By Zakir Akmedov

The DOJ released a small portion of the Epstein files yesterday, with massive redactions. They seem to have tried to focus on Bill Clinton and conceal anything about Donald Trump. Democrats are angry, noting that the DOJ has broken federal law by holding back and selectively redacting the files that they released.

In this post, I will focus mostly on the Epstein files and reactions to the release. I also include stories on the Brown shooter and Trump’s insanity.

Sam Levine at The Guardian: Trickle release of Epstein files on a Friday signals move to bury Trump ties.

The justice department’s partial release of the Epstein files on Friday signaled how the agency is using a variety of tactics to try to bury and obfuscate Donald Trump’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein.

As the department raced towards a legally mandated Friday deadline to release its files, little emerged about what it planned to release. There never really seemed to be a doubt that the department would release the files late on Friday afternoon, deploying the well-worn Washington trick of burying unflattering news before a weekend.

Then, on Friday morning, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, went on Fox News to say that the department wouldn’t actually be releasing all of the files on Friday as required by the law. “I expect that we’re going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks, so today, several hundred thousand, and then over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more,” Blanche said on Fox News. “There’s a lot of eyes looking at these and we want to make sure that when we do produce the materials we are producing, that we are protecting every single victim.”

By the time the department eventually did release thousands of pages of materials on Friday evening – not the hundreds of thousands Blanche promised – many of the documents had been heavily or completely redacted. Other than a few pictures, the materials made no mention of Trump, even though attorney general Pam Bondi reportedly told Trump earlier this year his name was in the files.

The release underscores how the Trump administration is trying to balance both the demand to release the files – something encouraged in large part by the Maga base – while also obfuscating with a slow trickle of document dumps to prevent any embarrassment to Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years before they had a falling out. Blanche has said the department will continue to produce documents on a rolling basis in the coming weeks – a holiday period – a bet that Americans will simply tune out the story as it drags on.

Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who sponsored the law to release the files, was one of many members of Congress to express outrage. He said on Twitter that the release “grossly fails to comply” with the statute….

Trump is mostly missing from the release.

While Trump barely made an appearance in Friday’s release, Bill Clinton appears in several images. The Daily Wire, a Trump-friendly site, obtained a photo of Clinton and Epstein on Thursday, a day before the release. Photos of Clinton lounging in a pool and a hot tub were among those released on Friday. Justice department and White House spokespeople were quick to highlight the images on Twitter.

By Magdalena Lobao-Tello

“Beloved Democrat president. The black box is added to protect a victim,” Gates McGavick, a justice department spokesperson, posted alongside a photo of Clinton in what seems to be a hot tub with another person whose face is redacted. Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, posted another photo of Clinton with someone whose face is redacted and, quoting the song Jumpman by Drake and Future, wrote “them boys is up to something”.

Angel Ureña, a Clinton spokesperson, released a statement on Friday saying the Trump administration was using the former president to try to distract from Trump’s connection to Epstein.

“The White House hasn’t been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton. This is about what comes next, or from what they’ll try and hide forever,” he said. “So they can release as many 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton. Never has, never will be.”

Several other celebrities appeared in the images released on Friday, including Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, Richard Branson, Chris Tucker, David Copperfield and Kevin Spacey. Like Clinton, none has been accused of any crime in connection to Epstein. But their immediate appearance in the files benefits Trump, creating the impression that it was not unusual for famous men to hang out with Epstein.

Liz Crampton and Andrew Howard Politico: Epstein files put Bill Clinton under scrutiny – and the White House wants him there.

The Trump administration, initially wary over the Justice Department’s release of Jeffrey Epstein documents, pounced on go-to villain Bill Clinton’s appearance in Friday’s trove of pictures, emails and interviews.

“I wonder why the Biden DOJ refused to release the files…,” DOJ spokesperson Chad Gilmartin posted from his personal X account, alongside one partially-redacted photo of Clinton in a pool with an unidentified woman. Another swimming pool photo Gilmartin posted shows Clinton with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime co-conspirator who was convicted of sex trafficking charges in 2021….

Clinton has long been linked with Epstein, contributing to his status as MAGA’s favored boogeyman. Some high-profile members of the movement cited him in pushing for the release of the files, and continued that message after the DOJ made public a trove of documents from the government’s investigation into Epstein.

“Slick Willy! @BillClinton just chillin, without a care in the world. Little did he know…” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung posted to X.

“Here is Bill Clinton in a hot tub next to someone whose identity has been redacted. Per the Epstein Files Transparency Act, DOJ was specifically instructed only to redact the faces of victims and/or minors. Time for the media to start asking real questions,” White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson posted to her personal X account….

Clinton appears in photos posing with Epstein in coordinating shirts, interacting with a dancer, sitting with a redacted woman on his lap on what looks like an airplane and with someone who appears to be the late pop icon Michael Jackson. The music legend faced his own child sex abuse allegations as early as 1993, though he was never convicted of any crimes.

Edward Helmore at The Guardian: Bill Clinton says White House is using him as scapegoat after Epstein files release.

A spokesperson for Bill Clinton accused the White House late on Friday of using him as a scapegoat after pictures of the former president with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as with a young woman in a pool, were included as part of congressionally ordered release of government files.

“The White House hasn’t been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton,” the spokesperson said in a statement on X.

“This is about shielding themselves from what comes next, or from what they’ll try and hide forever. So they can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton. Never has, never will be,” the statement added.

Lady sitting with Siamese, Sharyn Bursic

It continued: “Even Susie Wiles said Donald Trump was wrong about Bill Clinton,” it said, referring to comments made by White House chief of staff to Vanity Fair in which Wiles acknowledged that Clinton had not been on Epstein’s Caribbean island despite repeated claims by Trump to the contrary.

Clinton has long maintained that he cut ties with Epstein around 2005, before the disgraced financier plead guilty to solicitation of a minor in Florida.

In the statement, Clinton’s spokesperson Angel Ureña said: “There are two types of people here. The first group knew nothing and cut Epstein off before his crimes came to light. The second group continued relationships with him after. We’re in the first. No amount of stalling by people in the second group will change that. Everyone, especially MAGA, expects answers, not scapegoats.” [….]

Epstein visited the White House at least 17 times during the early years of Clinton’s presidency, according to White House visitor records cited in news reports. He later travelled with Epstein on the financier’s private jet in the years after he left office in 2001, including to Asia and Africa, on trips related the Clinton Global Initiative. Clinton has never been formally accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.

Democrats were outraged. Zachary Schermele at USA Today: ‘Grossly fails.’ Lawmakers behind Epstein files’ release slam DOJ.

The Epstein files are out, and the lawmakers who forced their release are not satisfied.

High-profile Democrats are among the most enraged at the Justice Department’s decision to release hundreds of thousands of documents on a “rolling basis”about the late accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein .

“A fraction of the whole body of evidence,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York. To demonstrate his point, he highlighted how 119 pages of one document were entirely redacted.

“Simply releasing a mountain of blacked out pages violates the spirit of transparency and the letter of the law,” Schumer said in a statement. “We need answers as to why.”

Schumer wasn’t alone in his criticism. Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, the ranking member of House Oversight Committee, said on CNN that the Justice Department was “defying the Congress.”

The bipartisan authors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act – Reps. Ro Khanna, D-California, and Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky – also accused the Trump administration of failing to comply with their law, which nearly unanimously passed Congress in November.

“It is an incomplete release with too many redactions,” Khanna said in a social media post.

“Unfortunately, today’s document release … grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law,” Massie added.

The law required the Justice Department by Dec. 19 to fully disclose all information in its possession related to its investigations of the well-connected financier who died by suicide in a jail cell in 2019. DOJ under the law is also required to make the files publicly searchable, but basic searches of what DOJ called the “Epstein Library” show that even basic queries – such as for “Trump” or “Clinton” – come up blank.

Claudio Manuel Neves Valente

The Boston Globe: Brown campus shooter harbored resentment from time as a PhD student in the early 2000s, friend says.

Growing up in Portugal, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente stood out for his intellectual potential. In high school, he traveled to national and international physics competitions. He later graduated from Portugal’s top university for science and engineering.

But when he moved to the United States in 2000 to pursue a doctorate in physics at Brown University, his colleagues experienced an ill-tempered young man who felt that even an American Ivy League college was no match for his own intellect. Neves Valente complained the classes were too easy and left the school months after enrolling, apparently with hard feelings.

“He could be kind and gentle, though he often became frustrated — sometimes angry — about courses, professors, and living conditions,” said Scott Watson, a Syracuse University physics professor who befriended Neves Valente at Brown.

After authorities linked him to the mass shooting on Brown’s campus and the killing of an MIT professor earlier this week, Neves Valente, 48, was found dead by suicide Thursday night. In the immediate aftermath, a fuller picture of the suspect emerged: of a brilliant student whose academic promise seemed to dissipate abruptly, an angry genius with long-simmering resentment, a loner who painstakingly planned and executed extraordinary violence.

His death ended a frantic manhunt that began following the Brown shooting Saturday afternoon, according to police. He entered a storage unit in southern New Hampshire about an hour after shooting the MIT professor Monday night, officials said; based on an autopsy, authorities believe he died on Tuesday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound….

Investigators are still trying to determine what motivated his homicidal rampage after he seemingly abandoned the ambitions of his youth, what pushed him to finally act upon old grudges.

She and her cats, by Madison Moore

What’s clear is that he took careful steps to hide his identity and evade detection both before and after the shootings. Authorities believe he acted alone. They said he had been canvassing Brown’s campus for weeks, targeting a building where he spent significant time as a student in the early 2000s….

Both natives of Portugal, Neves Valente and Loureiro attended university together in Lisbon, authorities said. They graduated from Instituto Superior Técnico, a premier science institution that’s part of the University of Lisbon. Loureiro went on to pursue a lauded career as a professor and fusion researcher, with stops at Princeton University and in Europe; he joined MIT in 2016. Colleagues from across the world overwhelmingly praised his accomplishments and character, but none reported knowing Neves Valente.

More from Scott Watson, Valente’s friend:

Watson, his former classmate, said the two became friends despite Neves Valente’s standoffish nature.

“During orientation he was sitting alone, and I walked up and said hello. He was terse at first, but we eventually broke the ice and became close,” Watson told the Globe in an e-mail Friday, describing himself as essentially Neves Valente’s only friend at the university.

Neves Valente was a brilliant student, but he could be frustrated by the curriculum at Brown, which he found underwhelming, Watson said.

“He was by far the best graduate student in our class. Through our conversations, he was already ready to graduate when he arrived,” Watson said. “I don’t like the word genius, but he was.”

The Boston Globe: How a single anonymous tipster cracked the Brown University shooting case.

Information from a tipster who had a strange encounter with another man on a sidewalk outside Brown University was key to police identifying the suspect they believe killed two students at the school and then two days later gunned down a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor.

Known only as “John” in a Providence police affidavit, the source is being hailed by investigators as the key figure who gave law enforcement the details needed to determine who was behind the Brown shooting, as well as the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who was shot in his Brookline home Monday.

Ever since a shooter unloaded more than 40 rounds inside a Brown engineering building, anxiety and frustration has plagued the Providence, Rhode Island, community as police appeared no closer to identifying the person.

Yet on the sixth day of the investigation, the case gathered steam, ending with police announcing late Thursday they had found the suspected gunman dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound….

“John” gave them the information they needed.

According to police, John had several encounters with 48-year-old Claudio Neves Valente before Saturday’s attack. As police posted images of a person of interest — now identified as Neves Valente — John began posting on the social media forum Reddit that he recognized the person and theorized that police should look into “possibly a rental” grey Nissan. Reddit users urged him to tell the FBI, and John said he did. The police affidavit said they learned about the tip on Dec. 16, three days after the shooting and a day after the tip line was created….

Up until that point, the police affidavit says officials had not connected a vehicle to the possible shooter.

That detail led them to get more video of a Nissan Sentra sedan with Florida plates and enabled Providence police officers to tap into a network of more than 70 street cameras operated around the city by surveillance company Flock Safety.

Bedtime Story, by Jeanette Lassen

The affidavit says John gave investigators additional critical details: he encountered Neves Valente in the bathroom of the engineering building just hours before the attack, where John noted the suspect’s clothing was “inappropriate and inadequate for the weather.”

John also bumped into Neves Valente outside, mere blocks from the building, where John watched Neves Valente “suddenly” turn around from the Nissan when he saw John. What ensued was then a “game of cat and mouse,” according to John’s testimony — where the two would encounter each other and Neves Valente would run away.

At one point, John says he yelled out “Your car is back there, why are you circling the block?”

“The Suspect responded, ‘I don’t know you from nobody,’ then Suspect repeatedly asked, ’Why are you harassing me?’” according to the affidavit.

John told police he eventually saw Neves Valente approach the Nissan sedan once more and decided to walk away.

I’ve quote a lot, because The Boston Globe doesn’t allow gift links or readers without subscriptions.

Trump Insanity Report

Jack Revell at The Daily Beast: https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-79-complains-the-fbi-made-a-mess-of-melanias-panties.

President Donald Trump raged at the FBI for making a “mess” of his wife Melania’s “panties” during a raid on their Mar-a-Lago estate.

In a rambling speech delivered at a rally in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, on Friday night, Trump went off on a wild tangent about federal law enforcement agents, revealing how they had disturbed the First Lady’s underwear drawer during their 2022 search of the Palm Beach, Florida, property.

Her Quiet Companion, by David Arstamyan

“They went into my wife’s closet. I’ll say this. Number one, it’s very bad, but it sounds a little strange. They looked at her drawers,” Trump told the crowd while both himself and the crowd laughed.

“You have drawers, and then you have drawers. They looked at both,” he continued, miming the difference between the storage item and the undergarment.

The unprompted revelation of intimate details did not stop there, however, with Trump going full disclosure on the way his third wife likes to store her underwear.

“She’s a very meticulous person… Everything is perfect. Her undergarments, sometimes referred to as panties, are folded perfect, wrapped, they’re like so perfect. I say, ‘That’s beautiful,’” Trump continued.

“You know, that’s the part of the world she came from. Everything was perfect, no problem. Fold, fold, fold. I think she steams them just to make sure.”

No doubt Melania was thrilled with these revelations, which are likely just Trump fantasies.That’s it for me today. What’s on your mind?

Lazy Caturday Reads: Some Positive News for Democracy Fans?

Posted: December 13, 2025 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: Affordable Care Act, cat art, caturday, Donald Trump, Health care, Indiana Senate Republicans, Obamacare, redistricting | 4 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

Cat and Butterfly, Ohara Koson

Trump is still “president,” and he continues to do terrible things; but there are beginning to be a few positive signs that his grip on the GOP is waning as his approval ratings continue to drop. One of those signs is the refusal of Republicans in the state senate to follow his demand for redistricting. As some people here know, I grew up in Indiana. I can’t help feeling a bit of Hoosier pride about this.

Thomas Beaumont and Isabella Volmert: Trump was unable to insult his way to victory in Indiana redistricting battle.

If Indiana Republican senators had any doubt about what to do with President Donald Trump’s redistricting proposal, he helped them make up their minds the night before this week’s vote.

In a social media screed, Trump accused the state’s top senator of being “a bad guy, or a very stupid one.”

“That kind of language doesn’t help,” said Sen. Travis Holdman, a banker and lawyer from near Fort Wayne who voted against the plan.

He was among 21 Republican senators who dealt Trump one of the most significant political defeats of his second term by rejecting redistricting in Indiana. The decision undermined the president’s national campaign to redraw congressional maps to boost his party’s chances in the upcoming midterm elections.

In interviews after Thursday’s vote, several Republican senators said they were leaning against the plan from the start because their constituents didn’t like it. But in a Midwest nice rebuttal to America’s increasingly coarse political discourse, some said they simply didn’t like the president’s tone, like when he called senators “suckers.”

Trump didn’t seem to get the message. Asked about the vote, the president once again took aim at Indiana’s top senator, Rodric Bray.

“He’ll probably lose his next primary, whenever that is,” Trump said. “I hope he does, because he’s done a tremendous disservice.”

Sen. Sue Glick, an attorney from La Grange who also opposed redistricting, brushed off Trump’s threat to unseat lawmakers who defied him.

“I would think he would have better things to do,” she said. “It would be money better spent electing the individuals he wants to represent his agenda in Congress.”

My mother used to say that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Trump never learned that simple lesson.

Jonathan Chait at The Atlantic (gift link): The Indiana Vote Is an Inflection Point.

In rejecting yesterday a redistricting plan backed by President Donald Trump, Indiana’s Republican-controlled senate did not merely deny Republicans two new U.S. House seats in next year’s midterm elections. They also engaged in a mass revolt against the president. The stakes of their defiance reach far beyond the midterms. This vote was possibly the most significant blow yet against the authoritarian ambitions that have defined Trump’s second term.

Tabby Cat. Benson b. Moore

The significance of Indiana’s noncompliance lies not in the specifics of what was refused—attempts to gerrymander electoral maps are hardly unprecedented, even though a mid-decade battle violates norms—but in the act of refusal itself. Trump’s authoritarian project relies on the cultlike hold he has over his party. Republicans have come to understand that the cost of defying Trump is the death of their political career. Trump has proved time and again that he will go to any lengths to destroy his intra-party critics, even if doing so harms the party.

That method was on vivid display in Indiana. Trump expected the state to go along with his plans to redraw its map to help his party in the midterms. When the state’s Republicans held back their support, Trump and his allies went on the attack.

Indiana Republican legislators faced bomb threats and intimidation in their homes (such as “swatting,” phone calls, and the like)—a climate of fear, my colleague Russell Berman reports, unlike anything the state has seen.

Heritage Action delivered a Mafia-like threat, as high-minded scholars apparently do these days: “President Trump has made it clear to Indiana leaders: if the Indiana Senate fails to pass the map, all federal funding will be stripped from the state. Roads will not be paved. Guard bases will close. Major projects will stop. These are the stakes and every NO vote will be to blame.”

This kind of pressure typically bends targets to Trump’s will. What politician is willing to sacrifice their career or their family’s safety for a single act of defiance?

Yet the spines of Indiana Republicans stiffened where so many others snapped. One reason for this may be that the state contains an unusually strong concentration of Trump-skeptical former governors. Mitch Daniels and Mike Pence remain influential in the state, despite having given up national ambitions by failing to submit fully to Trump. Daniels praised the vote as an act of “principled courageous leadership.”

Indiana’s Republicans also demonstrated strength in numbers. Trump employs the psychology of a schoolyard bully who isolates and targets victims one by one. By engineering a 31–19 vote, Indiana’s Republicans worked together to ensure that no single legislator could be blamed for defying Trump.

Use the gift link to read more.

At The Daily Beast, David Rothkopf enumerates the many ways that Trump’s grip on power is waning: President Trump Is Now Triggering His Very Own MAGApocalypse.

It is hard to know whether Donald Trump or the MAGA movement he created is falling apart faster.

The 79-year-old president is deteriorating rapidly before our eyes—cankles puffier, bruises and bandages on his hand more ever present. He’s nodding off at event after event, slurring his words, his behavior increasingly erratic. And he has become painfully sensitive to the fact that his decay is so apparent, going as far as suggesting that media outlets reporting about his health are guilty of treason.

Of course, every effort he makes to prove he’s not one step away from melting into a bubbling orange puddle seems to make it clearer that he’s losing it.

Gertrude Abercrombie, 17 Feb 1909 – 3 Apr 1977

As bad as all that is, however, MAGA may be collapsing even more quickly than its creator. Prominent Republicans are defecting—like Marjorie Taylor Greene—and more are rumored to be threatening to do likewise. More former loyalists are willing to stand up to him—whether Indiana legislators rejecting Trumpian demands that they gerrymander the state or GOP senators leading inquiries into the possibility that war crimes were committed as part of Trump’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” phase.

Others are speaking out against Trump’s opposition to extending vital health subsidies to Americans—including hardliners like Missouri Senator Josh Hawley—or to express their discomfort with new executive orders seeking to block states from enacting AI regulation.

Trump is losing in the courts. His illegal picks to be U.S. attorneys are being kicked out; his efforts to, well, trump up charges against opponents like James Comey and Letitia James have been shot down by grand juries that simply will not go along with cases so obviously fabricated and motivated by retribution rather than any respect for the law.

And he is losing at the ballot box. Recent election results suggest that the onetime star to whom so many MAGA upstarts have hitched their wagons to in the past decade is now electoral poison. Across the country, elections last month produced resounding defeats for the GOP, while in the few elections in which Republicans squeaked out victories, their margins shrank considerably compared to 2024 support for Trump.

Just this week in Miami, Eileen Higgins beat a Trump-favored candidate to become the first Democrat to be voted the city’s mayor in three decades.

The economy is floundering. Deficits are exploding. Tariffs are unpopular. Trump’s inhumane and draconian immigration crackdowns are alienating substantial numbers of his erstwhile supporters, while his foreign policy plans have alienated our allies and empowered our enemies. His overt corruption and catering to billionaires at the expense of average Americans is driving real backlash.

Donald Trump has fallen and, given projections of a rough year ahead, it seems increasingly likely that he can’t get up.

There’s more at the link.

In a guest essay at The New York Times (gift link), E.J. Dionne writes: Trump Is Losing the Reasonable Majority.

Believing in democracy does not require faith that majorities are always right. It does mean having confidence that most of your fellow citizens will, over time, approach public questions with a basic reasonableness. Abraham Lincoln, tradition has it, said it more pithily: “You cannot fool all the people all the time.”

A corollary to Lincoln, that you can’t fool all the people who voted for you all the time, explains the sharp decline in President Trump’s approval ratings.

Cat in Bamboo, Hiroshima, by Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani

A significant share of the voters who backed Mr. Trump have decided that he has largely ignored the primary issue that pushed them his way, the cost of living. A billionaire regularly mocking concern about affordability only makes matters worse. They see him as distracted by personal obsessions and guilty of overreach, even when they sympathize with his objectives. Many of his former supporters see him breaking promises he made, notably on not messing with their access to health care.

Some abuses are too blatant to be ignored. A recent The Economist/You Gov poll found that 56 percent of Americans said Mr. Trump was using his office for personal gain; only 32 percent didn’t. A similar 56 percent saw Mr. Trump as directing the Justice Department to go after people he saw as his political enemies; just 24 percent didn’t.

The upshot: A great many Americans who helped put Mr. Trump in office have absorbed what’s happened since. They may not be glued to every chaotic twist of this presidency, but they do pay attention and have concluded, reasonably, that this is not what they voted for.

How many? Let’s take Mr. Trump’s 49.8 percent of the 2024 popular vote as a base line and compare it with his approval ratings. A New York Times analysis of public polling this month found his net approval rating had dropped to 42 percent. A A.P./NORC poll and a Gallup poll pegged it at 36 percent. This suggests that 15 to 25 percent of his voters have changed their minds

I think of these shifts as the triumph of reasonableness — and not because I agree with where these fellow citizens have landed (although I do). I’m buoyed by the capacity of citizens to absorb new facts and take in information even when it challenges decisions they previously made. It turns out that swing voters are what their label implies. The evidence of their own lives and from their own eyes matters.

Use the gift link to read the rest.

So, there really are some positive signs.

Republicans also continue to hurt themselves by refusing to help millions of Americans who are about to lose access to health care because of the drastically increased costs Republicans instituted with their Big Ugly Bill.

Ali Swenson at the AP: Higher cost, worse coverage: Affordable Care Act enrollees say expiring subsidies will hit them hard.

For one Wisconsin couple, the loss of government-sponsored health subsidies next year means choosing a lower-quality insurance plan with a higher deductible. For a Michigan family, it means going without insurance altogether.

For a single mom in Nevada, the spiking costs mean fewer Christmas gifts this year. She is stretching her budget already while she waits to see if Congress will act.

Less than three weeks remain until the expiration of COVID-era enhanced tax credits that have helped millions of Americans pay their monthly fees for Affordable Care Act coverage for the past four years.

The Senate on Thursday rejected two proposals to address the problem and an emerging health care package from House Republicans does not include an extension, all but guaranteeing that many Americans will see much higher insurance costs in 2026.

Young Cat Sleeping, by Mabel Wellington Jack

Here are a few of their stories.

Chad Bruns comes from a family of savers. That came in handy when the 58-year-old military veteran had to leave his firefighting career early because of arm and back injuries he incurred on the job.

He and his wife, Kelley, 60, both retirees, cut their own firewood to reduce their electricity costs in their home in Sawyer County, Wisconsin. They rarely eat out and hardly ever buy groceries unless they are on sale.

But to the extent that they have always been frugal, they will be forced to be even more so now, Bruns said. That is because their coverage under the health law enacted under former President Barack Obama is getting more expensive -– and for worse coverage.

This year, the Brunses were paying $2 per month for a top-tier gold-level plan with less than a $4,000 deductible. Their income was low enough to help them qualify for a lot of financial assistance.

But in 2026, that same plan is rising to an unattainable $1,600 per month, forcing them to downgrade to a bronze plan with a $15,000 deductible.

Kelley Bruns said she is concerned that if something happens to their health in the next year, they could go bankrupt. While their monthly fees are low at about $25, their new out-of-pocket maximum at $21,000 amounts to nearly half their joint income.

“We have to pray that we don’t have to have surgery or don’t have to have some medical procedure done that we’re not aware of,” she said. “It would be very devastating.”

Read more health care stories a the link.

Speaker Mike Johnson will allow a vote on an Obamacare extension next week, but it is expected to fail. From Politico:

House GOP leadership will permit a floor vote to extend enhanced Obamacare subsidies — an olive branch to moderate members who have been clamoring for a chance to go on record in support of an extension.

Republican leaders unveiled text of their health care package Friday evening, which they plan to put on the floor next week.

“The process” for considering that package “will allow” a vote on an amendment to prevent the subsidies from lapsing Dec. 31, according to a House Republican leadership aide granted anonymity to share the unannounced plans.

It’s a concession from leaders who have been reluctant to endorse an extension of the subsidies, which divides congressional Republicans. It’s a win for centrists and vulnerable incumbents, who see political peril in not acting on the tax credits and have been promising to push discharge petitions that would circumvent leadership and force votes on their own legislative proposals.

Speaker Mike Johnson and senior Republicans met Friday morning on the topic to chart a path forward.

But Republicans leaders ultimately expect the extension vote to fail, resulting in skyrocketing premiums for millions of Americans when the subsidies expire at the end of the year.

You read that right: Johnson has come up with a Republican “health care plan.” AP: Speaker Johnson unveils health care plan as divided Republicans scramble for alternative.

The Senate failed to get anywhere on the health care issue this week. Now it’s the House’s turn to show what it can do.

Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled a Republican alternative late Friday, a last-minute sprint as his party refuses to extend the enhanced tax subsidies for those who buy policies through the Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare, which are expiring at the end of the year. Those subsidies help lower the cost of coverage.

Two Cats, Eleanore G. Cohen

Johnson, R-La., huddled behind closed doors in the morning — as he did days earlier this week — working to assemble the package for consideration as the House focuses the final days of its 2025 work on health care.

“House Republicans are tackling the real drivers of health care costs to provide affordable care,” Johnson said in a statement announcing the package. He said it would be voted on next week.

Later Friday, though, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said: “House Republicans have introduced toxic legislation that is completely unserious, hurts hardworking America taxpayers and is not designed to secure bipartisan support. If the bill reaches the House floor, I will strongly oppose it.”

So what’s the GOP plan?

The House Republicans offered a 100-plus-page package that focuses on long-sought GOP proposals to enhance access to employer-sponsored health insurance plans and clamp down on so-called pharmacy benefit managers.

Republicans propose expanding access to what’s referred to as association health plans, which would allow more small businesses and self-employed individuals to band together and purchase health coverage.

Proponents say such plans increase the leverage businesses have to negotiate a lower rate. But critics say the plans provide skimpier coverage than what is required under the Affordable Care Act.

The Republicans’ proposal would also require more data from pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, as a way to help control drug costs. Critics say PBMs have padded their bottom line and made it more difficult for independent pharmacists to survive.

Additionally, the GOP plan includes mention of cost-sharing reductions for some lower-income people who rely on Obamacare, but those do not take effect until January 2027.

The emerging package from the House Republicans does not include an extension of an enhanced tax credit for millions of Americans who get insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act. Put in place during the COVID-19 crisis, that enhanced subsidy expires Dec. 31, leaving most families in the program facing more than double their current out-of-pocket premiums, and in some cases, much more.

I think Republicans will find that this issue will destroy them in the midterm elections.

Lazy Caturday Reads: Mamdani, Greene, Ukraine, and Other News

Posted: November 22, 2025 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: cat art, caturday, Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Russia, Trump weakness, Ukraine, Zohran Mamdani | 3 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

Lornie at the Coast by Amelia Opie

Yesterday was another wild and crazy day in Trump’s U.S.A. I’m sure no one will be surprised to see me say this: the “president” is not well. He may be suffering from dementia and/or may be certifiably insane. He is also stupid, evil, and corrupt. Trump’s one consistent behavior is his willingness to to anything for money. This is the man who runs our foreign policy and controls our nuclear weapons.

Yesterday Trump met in the oval office with New York City mayor elect Zohran Mamdani. I had a feeling that Mamdani would be able to charm Trump, and that’s exactly what happened.

Trump has been screaming for months that Mamdani is a communist, and Republican have centered their plans for the midterms around attacks on Mamdani and his support from Democrats. Now that has been blown out of the water.

Dana Rubinstein and Benjamin Oreskes at The New York Times:

There were smiles and more than a few laughs. Compliments, ranging from genuine to diplomatic, were abundant.

And when reporters tried to interrupt the unexpected buddy movie that emerged in the White House on Friday, President Trump warmly placed his hand on Zohran Mamdani’s arm and gently advised him to keep it simple in response to a question about whether Mr. Mamdani considered him a fascist.

“You can just say yes,” the president said. “It’s easier.”

It was an astonishingly affectionate performance that sent heads spinning, as New Yorkers confronted the once-unthinkable possibility that Mr. Mamdani, the democratic socialist mayor-elect of New York City, and the president actually got along.

“I mean, it did seem like a little bit of a bromance,” said Nicole Malliotakis, the Republican congresswoman from the conservative stronghold of Staten Island. “Based on the election results, we knew Mamdani was charming, but who thought he’d be able to charm the president?”

I thought he would. Mamdani is quite charming and popular and Trump is weak and unpopular. His polls are terrible, and continuing to drop. He has wrecked the economy, sent troops into American cities for no reason, pardoned thousands of convicted criminals, blown up fishing boats in the Caribbean for no reason, torn down part of the White House, and his tariffs have increased the cost of everything.

Back to the NYT story:

For weeks, New York leaders have been bracing for the likelihood of a devastating confrontation between the Trump administration and a City Hall led by Mr. Mamdani. They have gamed out what, precisely, it might look like if Mr. Trump sends federal troops or a surge of immigration enforcement agents into New York City. They have fretted about more funding cuts. They have formed rapid-response groups and enlisted the help of business leaders.

They have had reason to worry. Not only has Mr. Trump threatened New York City, but he also personally tried to prevent Mr. Mamdani from winning the mayoral election, even going so far as to urge Republicans to abandon their party nominee in favor of Andrew M. Cuomo, the Democratic former governor.

But then the cameras went live on Friday from the Oval Office. There was Mr. Mamdani, standing with a quiet smile by Mr. Trump’s side as the president lavished him with praise; commended his decision to keep the current police commissioner; applauded his pro-housing, pro-affordability inclinations; and helped him swat away unfriendly questions from the conservative press.

To hear Mr. Trump tell it, the two men, who occupy starkly opposing positions on Israel and Gaza, even found common ground there.

Casting himself as the consummate peacemaker, Mr. Trump said Mr. Mamdani, too, “feels very strongly” about “peace in the Middle East.”

Ron Filipkowski at Meidas+:

… Zohran Mamdani visited Trump today at the WH, and it did not go the way most Republicans thought it would. Trump has always recognized and fawned over star power, and that is exactly the way he treated Mamdani. Fox reporter to Mamdani: “You referred to Trump as despot… Trump interrupts: I’ve been called much worse than a despot. So it’s not that insulting.”

… I was laughing hysterically during this entire meeting with Trump praising Mamdani. I was a one-way love fest from Trump to Mamdani, with Zohran playing it cool the entire time.

… Trump: “I tell you, the press has eaten this thing up. I have had a lot of meetings with the heads of major countries, nobody cared. The biggest people come over from other countries and nobody cares but they did care about this meeting, and it was a great meeting.”

… Q to Trump – “Would you feel comfortable living in NYC under a Mamdani admin? Trump: Yeah, I would.”

… Republican campaign consultants built their entire midterm strategy around making Mamdani into the devil incarnate and the face of Democratic Party, then Trump slobbers all over him today in the Oval!

… Trump then proceeded to end Elise Stefanik’s campaign for governor: Q – “Stefanik has campaigned on calling Mamdani a jihadist. Do you think you’re standing next to a jihadist? Trump: No… but she’s out there campaigning. You say things sometimes in a campaign. You’d have to ask her about that. I met with a man who is a rational person.”

… I’m dying!!! I soooo wish I could see her face right now. (First time I’ve ever said that).

… Mamdani: “I told the president that, you know, so much of the focus of our campaign has been on the cost of living crisis and when we asked those New Yorkers who had voted for the president, when we saw an increase in his numbers in NYC, that came back to the same issue: Cost of living, cost of living, cost of living. Trump: We have to get Con Edison to start lowering their rates. Mamdani: Absolutely.”

… I just pissed my pants laughing. I’m crying!

… Trump: “He has a chance to do something great for NY and he does need the help from the fed govt. And we will be helping him. But he’s different than your average candidate. He came out of nowhere.”

… Love is love. There’s no point in fighting it.

By Eduard Zentsik, 1975

I’m really starting to feel more hopeful for the future of our country. Trump is getting weaker by the day and it hasn’t even been a year yet. If the Democrats can manage to take over the House in the midterms, he will be a lame duck in danger of impeachment.

Norman Eisen at The Contrarian: Has Trump’s Power Peaked?

Since Jan. 20, this column and The Contrarian have been clear-eyed that Donald Trump is not merely a rhetorical autocrat; he actually wants to be a dictator. But if all dimensions of our society wake up and assert peaceful, lawful, vigorous pro-democracy power in opposition, his autocratic push can be defeated and democracy reinforced. This week’s events culminating in Trump’s Oval Office U-turn on Mamdani were an inflection point in that opposition. They were a sign that we are headed for a democracy U-turn of the kind that many nations have achieved in ousting authoritarianism.

The most dramatic evidence of democracy’s resilience and Trump’s dictatorial frustration was his getting steamrolled on the bill requiring the release of the government’s Epstein files, including those relating to Trump. He has for months fought the disclosure of these files and the remainder of his administration’s materials about the child rape and sex trafficking ring run by his long-time associate Jeffrey Epstein. Trump went so far as to privately lobby or publicly attack the handful of Republicans who originally joined all Democrats in the House in forcing a vote on a bill to release the files.

He ultimately failed—and abysmally so, with the bill passing both houses of Congress with just one vote against it (the execrable Rep. Clay Higgins). It was a sign of just how potent the Epstein scandal is and how politically shaky the president is at the moment.

Trump’s lack of strongman cred was further revealed when, in the span of 24 hours, we went from wondering whether Trump’s allies would block consideration of the bill in the Senate to unanimous consent to pass the legislation as soon as it arrived from the House. That was an indication of Trump’s weakness, sure, but credit where credit is due: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer read the room and pounced on the opportunity to move the bill….

But the signs of Trump’s weakness did not stop there. We saw an unhinged tantrum from him that can be explained by his own feelings of inadequacy. It came after members of Congress cut a video telling service members that they should not follow illegal orders.

Trump went haywire threatening the six members of the House and Senate who cut the video, all veterans: Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, Rep. Chris DeLuzio of Pennsylvania, Rep. Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania. He called the video “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL” and called the lawmakers “traitors” who “should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL.”

A video by members of Congress urging that the law be followed hardly amounts to sedition. But, given Trump’s other bizarre and baseless criminal investigations, we need to take his threats seriously. This whole controversy shows just how unhinged he has become with his continued losses. And it appears that more defeats are ahead for Trump in his wave of unfounded revenge prosecutions.

Read the rest at the Substack link above.

At The New York Times, Annie Karni reports on another surprising turn of events: Marjorie Taylor Greene Says She Plans to Resign in January.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the hard-right Georgia Republican, said on Friday night that she would resign from Congress in January.

Her announcement came days after President Trump branded her a “traitor” for breaking with him and helping compel the Justice Department to release its files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender.

By Gina Litherland

Ms. Greene, who was elected in 2020 and positioned herself as a die-hard Trump supporter until a series of recent ruptures with the president on a variety of issues, made the abrupt announcement in a video and statement she posted online, filmed from her home in Georgia, her Christmas tree on display behind her.

“Loyalty should be a two-way street, and we should be able to vote our conscience and represent our district’s interest,” Ms. Greene wrote in a long post. She said that if she had been cast aside by “MAGA Inc,” it was indicative that “many common Americans have been cast aside and replaced as well.” [….]

It is extremely unusual for a member of Congress to up and leave in the middle of a term, barring an illness or some extenuating circumstance that makes it impossible to carry on.

But Ms. Greene said she had made the decision to leave because she did not want to endure a “hurtful and hateful primary against me by the president we all fought for, only to fight and win my election while Republicans will likely lose the midterms.”

She added: “I refuse to be a ‘battered wife’ hoping it all goes away and gets better.”

Her impending departure will shrink the already slim Republican House majority, bringing it down to 218 members until her seat in a deep-red district can be filled.

There are rumors that Greene may run for Georgia governor or senator.

Trump is finally abandoning Ukraine.

Reuters: Exclusive: US threatens to cut intel, weapons to press Ukraine into peace deal, sources say.

KYIV, Nov 21 (Reuters) – The United States has threatened to cut intelligence sharing and weapons supplies for Ukraine to press it into agreeing to the framework of a U.S.-brokered peace deal, two people familiar with the matter said.

The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Kyiv was under greater pressure from Washington than during any previous peace discussions, and that the U.S. wanted Ukraine to sign a framework of the deal by next Thursday.

“They want to stop the war and want Ukraine to pay the price,” one of the sources said.

Washington has presented Ukraine with a 28-point plan, which endorses some of Russia’s principal demands in the war, including that Kyiv cede additional territory, curb the size of its military and be barred from joining NATO.

A delegation of senior U.S. military officials met with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Thursday to discuss a path to peace.

The U.S. ambassador in Ukraine and the army public affairs chief travelling with the delegation described the meeting as a success and said Washington sought an “aggressive timeline” for the signature of a document between the U.S. and Ukraine.

In the art room,, Charles Keiger

David E. Sanger at The New York Times (gift link): Trump Offers a Ukraine Peace Plan the Kremlin Can Love.

After veering wildly this year over how to bring an end to the war in Ukraine, President Trump appeared in recent weeks to have settled into a strategy of suggesting he was willing to put long-term pressure on Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin.

He imposed new sanctions on oil sales, though not as strong as many in Congress would have liked. He agreed to provide arms to Ukraine’s forces as long as they were purchased by the Europeans, bringing billions of dollars to American defense contractors. At one point, he even floated the notion that he would provide Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles, only to back away from offering the long-range weapons after a conversation with Mr. Putin appeared to convince him it could escalate into a direct American conflict with Russia.

Then he blew the whole thing up — yet again.

Many of the 28 points in the proposed Russia-Ukraine peace plan offered by the White House read like they had been drafted in the Kremlin. They reflect almost all Mr. Putin’s maximalist demands: Ukraine would have to cede to Russia all of the lands that Moscow has declared for itself in Donetsk and Luhansk. The United States would recognize that as Russian territory. No NATO forces could be based inside Ukraine that might prevent the Russians from regrouping and taking the whole country. The Ukrainian military would be limited to 600,000 troops, a 25 percent cut from current levels, and it would be barred from possessing long-range weapons that could reach into Russia.

In return, all sanctions on Russia would be lifted, and the country would be “reintegrated into the global economy,” — Mr. Putin’s most critical objective at a time when Russia is reeling from the long-term costs of a war he thought would be over in a week or two.

To add to the pressure, Mr. Trump set a short deadline, Thursday, Thanksgiving Day in the United States, for Ukraine to decide whether to give up not only part of its territory, but also its ability to defend itself with a fully staffed military and an arsenal of long-range weapons.

It is unclear what would happen if President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine were to refuse to surrender both his territory and Ukraine’s freedom to defend itself and form alliances with other nations, especially in Europe. But the implicit threat is a loss of military support — and critical intelligence — from the United States, especially if Mr. Trump decides to wash his hands of the conflict, no matter what the risk to European allies.

Use the gift link if you want to read more.

Anne Applebaum at The Atlantic (gift link): The Murky Plan That Ensures a Future War.

The 28-point peace plan that the United States and Russia want to impose on Ukraine and Europe is misnamed. It is not a peace plan. It is a proposal that weakens Ukraine and divides America from Europe, preparing the way for a larger war in the future. In the meantime, it benefits unnamed Russian and American investors, at the expense of everyone else.

By Tokuhiro Kawai

The plan was negotiated by Steve Witkoff, a real-estate developer with no historical, geographical, or cultural knowledge of Russia or Ukraine, and Kirill Dmitriev, who heads Russia’s sovereign-wealth fund and spends most of his time making business deals. The revelation of their plan this week shocked European leaders, who are now paying almost all of the military costs of the war, as well as the Ukrainians, who were not sure whether to take this latest plan seriously until they were told to agree to it by Thanksgiving or lose all further U.S. support. Even if the plan falls apart, this arrogant and confusing ultimatum, coming only days after the State Department authorized the sale of anti-missile technology to Ukraine, will do permanent damage to America’s reputation as a reliable ally, not only in Europe but around the world.

The central points of the plan reflect long-standing Russian demands. The United States would recognize Russian rule over Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk—all of which are part of Ukraine. Russia would, in practice, be allowed to keep territory it has conquered in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. In all of these occupation zones, Russian forces have carried out arrests, torture, and mass repression of Ukrainian citizens, and because Russia would not be held accountable for war crimes, they could continue to do so with impunity. Ukraine would withdraw from the part of Donetsk that it still controls—a heavily reinforced and mined territory whose loss would open up central Ukraine to a future attack.

Not only would this plan cede territory, people, and assets to Russia; it also seems deliberately designed to weaken Ukraine, politically and militarily, so that Russia would find it easier to invade again a year from now, or 10 years from now. According to a version of the text that appeared in the Financial Times yesterday, the plan does state that “Ukraine’s sovereignty would be confirmed.” But it then imposes severe restrictions on Ukrainian sovereignty: Ukraine must “enshrine in its constitution” a promise to never join NATO. Ukraine must shrink the size of its armed forces to 600,000, down from 900,000. Ukraine may not host foreign troops on its soil. Ukraine must hold new elections within 100 days, a demand not made of Russia, a dictatorship that has not held free elections for more than two decades.

In return, the plan states that Ukraine “would receive security guarantees.” But it does not describe what those guarantees would be, and there is no reason to believe that President Donald Trump would ever abide by them.

Read more with the gift link, if you wish.

One more on the Ukraine story from Politico: ‘Witkoff needs a psychiatrist’: Europeans fume at Trump’s plan to profit from frozen Russian assets.

BRUSSELS — Donald Trump has hurled a wrench into one of the most sensitive negotiations currently under way in Europe, potentially derailing efforts to help fund Ukraine to stay in the fight against Russia.

For months European Union officials have been trying — and failing — to work out a way to use around €140 billion of immobilized Russian state assets held largely in Belgium to support Kyiv’s war effort. The cash is desperately needed as Ukraine is at risk of running out of money early next year.

Talks in Brussels are now at an extremely delicate stage, diplomats said, as top officials try to finesse a legal text that would enable the frozen funds to be used for a loan to the Ukrainian government.

By Tokuhiro Kawai

But the United States’ new 28-point blueprint for a ceasefire includes a rival idea for using those same assets for American-led reconstruction efforts once a truce has been agreed. The U.S. would take “50 percent” of the profit from this activity, the document said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that the new Trump plan confronted his country with one of the most difficult moments in its history: a potential choice between losing its “dignity” and losing “a key partner.”

Multiple EU diplomats and officials said they feared the proposals, from Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, would wreck their chances of the loan proposal being agreed by the EU’s 27 governments. European leaders had been hoping to finalize the so-called “reparations loan” deal at a crunch summit next month.

A former French official, granted anonymity like others to discuss sensitive matters, said the Witkoff idea “is, of course, scandalous.”

“The Europeans are exhausting themselves trying to find a viable solution to use the assets for the benefit of Ukrainians and Trump wants to profit from them,” the person said. “This proposal is likely to be rejected by everyone.”

A few more stories to check out:

The New York Times: What to Know About the Nearly 10% Climb in a Key Medicare Expense for 2026.

CNN: Washington resident dies of complications from bird flu strain never before reported in humans.

The Washington Post: White House blew past legal concerns in deadly strikes on drug boats.

AP: Leaders adopt a declaration at the start of South Africa’s G20 summit despite US opposition.

The Washington Post: EPA just approved new ‘forever chemical’ pesticides for use on food.

That’s it for me. I hope you’re enjoying the weekend.

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