Wednesday Reads: The State of The Union Is Awful and Boring

Posted: February 25, 2026 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: 2026 midterms, angel moms, Donald Trump, hatred of immigrants, Marcelo Gomes da Silva, SAVE Act, Seth Moulton, State of the Union Address 2026, tariffs, U.S. men's hockey team, U.S. women's hockey team | 8 Comments

Good Day!!

I actually watched quite a bit of Trump’s “state of the union” speech last night. As expected, it was horrific. He told lie after insane lie, and actually did not report on the state of the union.

He did begin the “speech” by claiming “America is back.” Back to what? I guess we’re back to where we were at the end of his last term as “president”–with Americans dying unnecessarily, the economy going down the tubes, and Americans living in fear about what he might do next. Except it’s even worse now. At least in his last term, he didn’t have a secret police force going around the country attacking and even killing people.

Trump didn’t offer a legislative agenda. He claimed he had designed a health plan in which he would give Americans money and they could use it to find their own health care. He also claimed he had lowered the cost of drugs with his website TrumpRX. He treated these as faits accompli with no need for legislation. He did push for passage of the SAVE act, as his plan for stealing the midterms.

Trump spent most of the “speech” introducing people in the audience, and in one section he sounded like a true crime podcaster, describing ghastly murders committed by undocumented immigrants. After each bloody story, he had the mothers of the victims stand up to be recognized. Much of the “speech” seemed designed to get his fans to hate immigrants more than they already do.

At one point, Trump spoke directly to Democrats, telling them they should be ashamed for not standing and applauding him.

He bragged about the economy, and especially his tariffs, which he claimed have been a huge success. Of course he attacked the Supreme Court for trying to explain to him that tariffs are a tax and must be passed by Congress, not imposed by the “president.” He actually said that maybe tariffs could replace the income tax! So maybe he does know that tariffs are a tax that puts the heaviest burden on the poorest Americans.

Most of all, the “speech” was incredibly boring. It was also overwhelmingly negative, even though he bragged about his imaginary achievements. He made our country sound like a hellhole. Oh, and guess what? He never once mentioned the Epstein files.

an image of Trump's discolored hand during his State of the Union speech(Win McNamee/Getty)

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-02-25T02:54:56.329Z

Here are some reactions to Trump’s presentation.

Tom Nichols at The Atlantic (gift link): President Trump’s State of the Union Variety Show.

The longest State of the Union in modern history is now over. Donald Trump held court in the House of Representatives and said little of substance, but substance wasn’t the point. This year, he intended to put on a show, with an array of guest stars and special appearances. He was happy because he was playing the roles he clearly loves: game-show host, ringmaster, emcee, beneficent granter of wishes—and, where the Democrats were concerned, a self-righteous inquisitor.

Trump did his usual rote lying about the economy—pity the fact-checkers who tried to keep up even in the first 10 minutes or so of the speech—along with some of his other greatest hits, including the many wars he stopped and the magic of tariffs. (He referred to the “unfortunate involvement” of the Supreme Court on the tariff issue, as if the justices had barged into his office like interlopers.) [….]

Tonight, however, was not about communication—it was about showmanship. Almost every line was a cue for applause from obedient Republicans; they even gave Jared Kushner a standing ovation. Every few minutes, Trump told a story and reached out into the audience like the host of The Price Is Right, telling people to come on down.

He started, of course, with the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team. Just basking along with Team USA wasn’t enough. Trump soon announced that the goalie Connor Hellebuyck would receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Normally, this honor is bestowed for a lifetime of achievement, but this time it was given as if the young athlete had chosen the right door and found a new car.

And so it went, all night. Sometimes, the guests were meant to tug at the heartstrings, such as when Trump recognized Erika Kirk, the wife of the murdered activist Charlie Kirk. Others were presented as ornaments meant to illustrate Trump’s successes: Enrique Márquez, a Venezuelan political prisoner freed after U.S. forces deposed the strongman Nicolás Maduro, was given a round of well-deserved applause. Trump also gave a shout-out to a woman whose IVF medications were now, he claimed, cheaper because of him.

But no group received more attention than the U.S. military. Trump handed out two Purple Hearts (one posthumously), a Legion of Merit, and not one but two Congressional Medals of Honor. Military awards that should have been treated with dignity and respect were placed on men like prizes, including a moment when Trump’s co-host, the first lady, put one of the Medals of Honor around the neck of a 100-year-old fighter pilot.

Trump even had designated heels in the audience: the Democrats. He called them crazy and accused them of impoverishing the nation. He dared them to stand up if they agreed with him that “the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.” This stunt was obviously meant to force Democrats either to stand or boo or otherwise do something that Trump could exploit; instead, it merely resulted in several awkward seconds of a staring contest between the president and the Democrats in the chamber. Trump managed to bait Representative Ilhan Omar into shouting at him, but for the most part, he seemed genuinely irritated that the Democrats sat through his show in stony silence.

As the whole business dragged on, the atmosphere started to seem less like a game show and more like the late-night Jerry Lewis telethons of the 1970s, in which a tired but pumped Lewis alternately griped at the audience, broke into maudlin emotion, or jumped up to welcome a new guest. The only thing Trump did not do was explain his policies—especially about war and peace—to Congress or the American people.

Use the gift link to read the rest.

Make America Healthy Again

— Michael McDonald (@electproject.bsky.social) 2026-02-25T17:23:58.533Z

The New York Times Opinion Scorecard (gift link): ‘He’s Debased This Country’: The Best and Worst Moments From Trump’s State of the Union.

President Trump addressed a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, celebrating his record on immigration and the economy. “We’re winning so much,” he said. “Inflation is plummeting, incomes are rising fast. … America is respected again.” Here’s what our writers thought of his speech. [I’m just giving you a sampling–you can read more opinions with the gift link.]

The best moment:

Jamelle Bouie The single best moment was when this long, exhausted and repetitive speech finally ended. It was then that I felt true relief.

Michelle Cottle The appearance of the men’s Olympic hockey team. The young guys playing to the crowd and showing off their medals were adorable. Here was an appropriate moment for those “U.S.A.” chants. So wholesome.

Michelle Goldberg The moment when, after setting a record for the longest State of the Union in recorded history, it finally ended…..

Matthew Schmitz Democrats are feeling emboldened on immigration amid Trump’s controversial enforcement push. But Trump effectively invoked what is still one of his strongest issues, while drawing a contrast with Democrats: “The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.” Many Americans agree.

Worst Moment

Appelbaum It was a tedious, tiresome performance. For much of the night, the president seemed to be boring everyone, perhaps most of all himself. Even his efforts to bait Democrats felt well-worn, familiar and strikingly devoid of real heat on either side.

Barro The “everything is terrible in America” section — which lasted roughly from minute 30 through 75 of this interminable and plodding address — significantly undermined the “everything is wonderful in Trump’s America” messaging that preceded it.

Bouie There are just too many bad moments to choose from. Was the worst one of the many instances where he gave lurid descriptions of pain and suffering? Was it when he began to hand out awards like reality television prizes? Or was it when he tried to write Democrats out of the political community? If I have to choose, I’d say the braying racism against Somali Americans — it would not have been out of place in a D.W. Griffith film.

Cottle So many options. The xenophobia. The scaremongering. The lying. The name-calling. The pettiness. But I’ll go with his ongoing mission to destroy faith in the electoral process. “Cheating is rampant.” The Dems “want to cheat. They have cheated.” It’s the “only way they can get elected.” Heavy sigh.

Lazy Caturday Reads: News Accompanied by Japanese Cat Art

Posted: February 21, 2026 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: cat art, caturday, Donald Trump, Epstein Files, iran, Japanese cat art, Jeffrey Epstein, New Mexico, sex trafficking, Supreme Court tariff decision, tariffs, Trump temper tantrum, Zorro Ranch | 2 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

By Toshiwo Katsuma

Yesterday was quite a day. The Supreme Court actually decided against Trump’s insane tariffs instead of bowing down once again to the man who thinks he’s a king. Predictably, Trump threw a gigantic tantrum and then decided to more or less ignore the SCOTUS decision.

Nina Totenberg at NPR: Trump throws a temper tantrum after tariff loss.

At a hastily called press conference, an agitated Trump railed against the conservative [John] Roberts and two of the courts other conservatives, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, both Trump appointees.

“They’re just being fools and lapdogs for the RINOs and the radical left Democrats,” Trump said, using the apparently derisive acronym for “Republicans in name only.”

And that was hardly all. Trump called the three conservatives “disloyal, unpatriotic,” and at one point he launched into a rant about how the court should have invalidated the election results in 2020, which Trump lost to Joe Biden….

Writing for a hefty 6-to-3 majority, Chief Justice Roberts said that the nation’s founders deliberately and explicitly placed the power to impose taxes, including tariffs, with Congress, not with the president.

As the Chief Justice put it, “Having just fought a revolution motivated in large part by taxes imposed on them” by the King of England without their consent, the Framers wrote a Constitution that gives Congress the taxing power because the members of the legislature would be more accountable to the people.

Nonetheless Trump asserted at his press conference that he will go ahead with his tariffs, using alternative statutes that allow him to act without the consent of Congress.

A bit more:

There are, in fact, several statutes that allow him to impose some tariffs on his own, but they are limited. For example, one of the key statutes he cited Friday does allow him to impose certain tariffs on his own, but only for six months, and after that he must get approval from Congress. The other statutes he cited have other provisions that make it far more difficult to act unilaterally.

The other problem that Trump faces is that the billions of dollars already collected in tariffs were supposed to offset the tax cuts that the Republican-dominated Congress adopted last year at Trump’s behest. Now, however, the money isn’t there.

The federal government has been collecting about $30 billion a month in tariffs, about half of which will be eliminated by Friday’s court ruling. So it’s a big deal for U.S. businesses that have been paying the lion’s share of these tariffs. That said, tariffs are still a fairly small slice of overall government revenues; about 5%. So if half that tariff money goes away, that will mean a larger, but not crippling federal deficit.

In contrast to the stock market’s plunge when the tariffs were first put in place, the market reaction on Friday was fairly stable. That could be because investors believe the White House will try to make good on that threat to replace the outlawed tariffs with other taxes, using different statutes where the president’s claims his authority is more clear. Even those statutes, however, have more strings attached. None give Trump the power he claimed to have to impose unlimited tariffs on goods from any country for any reason….

Unresolved by the Supreme Court’s decision was the question of whether U.S. businesses that paid the tariffs for the last year can get their money back. Chief Justice Roberts did not address how refunds might work, so a lower court will have to figure that out.

There’s more at the NPR link.

David Rothkopf at The Daily Beast: Trump’s Unhinged Tantrum Is Just the Beginning. Buckle Up.

Donald Trump on Friday attacked the Supreme Court majority that ruled against him in a landmark decision on tariffs with a venom and ferocity he has never directed against America’s foreign enemies. He suggested they were disloyal to the country, under the sway of other nations. The entire performance was unhinged, an old man’s tantrum about an affront to his manhood. He called the three Republican appointed justices who voted against him “fools and lapdogs.” [….]

The president seemed to miss the entire point of the Supreme Court ruling—that the power to levy tariffs lay with the Congress—as well as the nuance in the majority opinion, such as a footnote by Chief Justice John Roberts that suggested while there were may be other ways by which he could seek to put tariffs in place, those “contain various combinations of procedural prerequisites, required agency determinations and limits on the duration, amount and scope of the tariffs they authorize.”

By Kazuaki Horitomo Kitamura

In other words, he could not behave like a king. He could no longer go around the world threatening other leaders whenever it suited him. He could no longer ignore the law, existing U.S. treaties, or the role Congress is assigned by the Constitution. He said he could—he said he didn’t need Congress to impose the new types of tariffs he mentioned during his press conference. But that was either denial or ignorance or a special Trumpian combination of both.

Because it will be very difficult for Trump to recreate the tariffs of the past year. Should he attempt to put some in place, and should he get the Congress and government agencies to work with him on this, the process is going to be more complex, require periodic renewals, and be far more limited in scope.

But watching Trump, it was clear that the thrust of his remarks had nothing to do with the letter of the law. With him, it seldom does. His feelings were hurt. Someone told him “no.” And he was going to lash out until he felt better.

The outburst was notable, then, because it revealed just how battered, exhausted, and at wits’ end the president is after weeks and weeks of similar experiences, of serial defeats and embarrassments, and of the prospect of many more such humiliations in the months ahead in a world that is finally learning how to say “no” to him.

With pressure building on him because of a soft economy, public anger at his immigration policies, fears of spiking healthcare costs for millions of Americans, the Epstein scandal and a looming massive defeat in the November midterms, Trump has returned regularly to the authoritarian playbook in the hopes that it would make him feel more powerful, less enfeebled by age, more like the kind of leader the slavering courtiers in his daily retinue say he is.

Go read more and enjoy the schadenfreude.

Naturally, reacted immediately with a new round of tariffs. He could have decided to work with Congress on rational trade policy, but he’d rather be a king.

Politico: Trump signs order imposing ‘temporary’ 10 percent global tariff after Supreme Court ruling.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing a new “temporary” 10 percent global tariff following the Supreme Court’s decision Friday striking down many of the global tariffs he raised last year.

“It is my Great Honor to have just signed, from the Oval Office, a Global 10% Tariff on all Countries, which will be effective almost immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter!,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump is invoking Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president to impose tariffs of up to 15 percent to address a “large and serious balance-of-payments deficit,” according to a White House fact sheet. Tariffs imposed under the authority may remain in effect for no more than 150 days unless Congress passes legislation extending them….

The announcement seeks to keep many of his tariff policies intact even after the court’s ruling.

Tama the Cat, Woodblock Print by Hiroaki Takahashi, 1926

“Effective immediately, all national security tariffs under Section 232, and existing Section 301 tariffs — they’re existing, they’re there — remain in place, fully in place, and in full force and effect,” Trump told reporters at a White House press conference Friday afternoon. “Today, I will sign an order to impose a 10 percent global tariff under Section 122, over and above our normal tariffs already being charged. And we’re also initiating several Section 301, and other investigations, to protect our country from unfair trading practices of other countries and companies.”

The duties are set to take effect Feb. 24 at 12:01 a.m.

The White House fact sheet lists exemptions that are similar to the ones included with the tariffs that were invalidated Friday, carving out specific products within sectors such as energy, pharmaceuticals, autos, and aerospace, and shielding goods from North American neighbors compliant with U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a trade pact Trump signed in his first term.

Yet, it won’t allow the president the kind of flexibility he has wielded under the emergency powers law. By statute, the tariff must be “nondiscriminatory,” meaning the U.S. can’t give breaks to certain trading partners and not others.

Today, Trump decided to increase the newly announced tariffs to 15 percent.

The New York Times: Trump Says He Will Raise Global Tariff to 15 Percent.

President Trump announced Saturday that he would raise his new, global tariff to 15 percent, a day after he took steps to replicate some of the punishing duties that had been struck down by the Supreme Court.

Mr. Trump announced the change in a post on social media, and said the tariff would take effect immediately, as he signaled anew that he would press ahead with his trade war despite the stunning legal setback.

On Friday night, Mr. Trump had set that tariff at 10 percent, using a provision in a law that allows him to impose an across-the-board tariff for 150 days unless Congress agrees to extend it.

“I, as President of the United States of America, will be, effective immediately, raising the 10% Worldwide Tariff on Countries, many of which have been “ripping” the U.S. off for decades, without retribution (until I came along!), to the fully allowed, and legally tested, 15% level,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “During the next short number of months, the Trump Administration will determine and issue the new and legally permissible Tariffs, which will continue our extraordinarily successful process of Making America Great Again — GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE!!!”

This man is looney tunes and he controls our nuclear arsenal.

By Ayako Ishiguro

Meanwhile, Trump and Hegseth continue to order the murders of people in small boats. NBC News: U.S. military says it struck another alleged drug boat in eastern Pacific, killing 3.

The U.S. military said that it struck an alleged drug trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific on Friday, killing three people.

U.S. Southern Command said the strike in the eastern Pacific was against a boat that was traveling along a drug trafficking route.

“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” the military said.

U.S. Southern Command said earlier this week that the military hit three boats on Monday, killing 11 people, in the Pacific and Caribbean.

Since September, the military has conducted strikes against boats in the Caribbean and Pacific that it alleges are involved in drug trafficking, which has been criticized by some members of Congress as legally questionable.

Before the strike Friday, there had been at least 41 boat strikes that have killed at least 134 people, according to statements from the Department of Defense tracked by NBC News.

We still have seen no evidence that these murdered people were actually transporting drugs to the U.S. and even there was such evidence, the U.S. government would have no right to kill them.

From The New York Times, an update on Trump’s possible attack on Iran (gift link): Dozens of U.S. Planes Are at Jordan Base, Satellite Images and Flight Data Show.

New satellite imagery and flight tracking data show a base in central Jordan has become a key hub for the U.S. military’s planning for possible strikes on Iran.

Imagery captured on Friday shows more than 60 attack aircraft parked at the base, known as Muwaffaq Salti, roughly tripling the number of jets that are normally there. And at least 68 cargo planes have landed at the base since Sunday, according to flight tracking data. More fighter jets could be parked under shelters.

The satellite images also show more modern aircraft, including F-35 stealth jets, compared to the aircraft normally seen there. Several drones and helicopters are also seen.

Soldiers also installed new air defenses to protect the base from incoming Iranian missiles.

Jordanian officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters, said that the American planes and equipment are deployed there as part of a defense agreement with the United States.

The changes at the base in Jordan are part of a large U.S. military buildup across the region, which comes amid negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. On Friday, President Trump told reporters he was considering a limited military strike to pressure Iran into a deal.

One benefit for Trump of the tariff decision has been the Epstein story has temporarily faded in U.S. news, so here are some Epstein files updates:

The Guardian: Epstein files place renewed attention on US authorities’ failure to stop him.

The Department of Justice’s release of millions of Jeffrey Epstein files has not only prompted questions about his crimes – but renewed attention on authorities’ failure to stop him after an accuser reported him in 1996.

By Kazuaki Horitomo Kitamura

This new cache of Epstein files has provided more insight into authorities’ familiarity with allegations against him in the years that followed, including time between his sweetheart plea deal in 2008 and federal arrest nearly six years ago.

While it’s known that accuser Virginia Giuffre’s attorneys met with federal prosecutors in 2016 about Epstein to no avail, recently disclosed files indicate that detailed information was provided to federal authorities years before that sit-down. This included allegations against Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor; documents indicate that he appeared on the FBI’s radar about 15 years ago.

A woman, whose name is redacted from these documents, gave an interview to FBI agents about Epstein and Maxwell in 2011, with a federal prosecutor in attendance by phone; her account echoes Giuffre’s public and legal allegations against the sex traffickers.

The US embassy in Australia told the country’s national police: “The Federal Bureau of Investigation Miami Field Office (FBI Miami) is assisting the Palm Beach Police Department in Florida with an ongoing investigation into JEFFREY EPSTEIN, a US citizen.”

The accuser, who was told in late 2008 about Epstein’s plea deal as she was found to be one of his victims, contacted federal authorities in south Florida three years later. Federal agents questioned her at the US consulate in Sydney on 17 March 2011.

This woman provided an extensive account of Epstein’s abuse and alleged participation of co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as other men as a teenage girl during the late 1990s. The woman, who described suffering at the hands of several predatory men after leaving a rehab facility, told agents that her father, a maintenance man at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, secured a job for her as a locker room attendant there.

That woman was Virginia Giuffre. There are other examples of FBI reports in the article. Why didn’t the government act?

Also from the Guardian: New Mexico to reopen inquiry into Epstein’s ranch amid pressure campaign.

New Mexico will reopen its investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro ranch in the state after a public pressure campaign for a fuller accounting of the role the location played in the late financier’s sex-trafficking conspiracy.

The New Mexico department of justice’s announcement came less than two weeks after the Guardian reported that federal agents did not appear to have ever searched Zorro Ranch.

The Guardian’s reporting also revealed that there appeared to be no active criminal investigations into Zorro Ranch at that time.

New Mexico’s department of justice said at the time that it was working with lawmakers on launching something it styled as a truth commission. That commission was given the green light several days ago.

“Upon reviewing information recently released by the US Department of Justice, attorney general Raúl Torrez has ordered that the criminal investigation into allegations of illegal activity at Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch be reopened,” the New Mexico department of justice posted online on Thursday.

“Upon reviewing information recently released by the US Department of Justice, attorney general Raúl Torrez has ordered that the criminal investigation into allegations of illegal activity at Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch be reopened,” the New Mexico department of justice posted online on Thursday.

One more from Nicholas Kristof at The New York Times: What Trafficked Girls Think of Jeffrey Epstein and His Pals.

As the world follows the drip-drip of sensational revelations about Jeffrey Epstein, here’s a number to ponder: Last year the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children received more than 113,000 reports of child sex trafficking.

Yiota Souras, the center’s chief legal officer, says that while no one knows the actual number of children trafficked annually in the United States alone, “the real number is absolutely higher” than that. Most of the victims reported to her organization are 15, 16 or 17, she said, but some are as young as 11 or 12.

By Toshiwo Katsuma

“This is happening in every community, in every city and state,” she added.

I’ve been speaking in the past few days with survivors of sex trafficking and those who work with them, and they’re thrilled that the Epstein files are bringing more attention to trafficking. But they’re also frustrated that the focus has been tightly on Epstein and his circle — and not on the victims or on the way we as a society enable the abuse.

We rightly condemn powerful associates of Epstein’s for their indifference to young girls being sexually assaulted. But collectively we show the same indifference, in a way that I fear leaves us complicit.

“If you told me 20 years ago that the word ‘trafficking’ and the concept of it would be on the nightly news every single night and be the national obsession, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Rachel Lloyd, who was trafficked as a teenager and once was nearly strangled to death by her pimp, told me. “But it’s bizarre to me that we’re having a national conversation about trafficking and yet it hasn’t made any difference.”

Lloyd, who now runs GEMS, an outstanding program for trafficked young women and girls, said of the increased attention: “It’s not elevating the lives of my young women. It’s not shining a light on their vulnerabilities and the things that they go through or the gaps in the systems. It’s not doing any of that.”

It’s terrific to see the scrutiny of Epstein’s world, and I hope that there’ll be investigations of allegations made against President Trump and many others, even as we acknowledge that, for now, they are lacking in evidence. If Britain can arrest the former Prince Andrew and Norway can charge a former prime minister, how is it that the United States has barely taken action?

Lloyd says she is not surprised that Epstein’s friends appear to have gotten away with raping children: In her experience and that of the girls she has worked with, she said, predators almost always get away with their abuse.

I’ll end this post on that powerful note.

Those are recommended reads for today. What else is on your mind?

Lazy Caturday Reads: “Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

Posted: February 14, 2026 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: Anti-drone laser, Border Patrol, Caribbean boat strikes, cat art, caturday, Department of Homeland Security, Donald Trump, El Paso air space, Iran attack plans, Jr., Love and hate, Martin Luther King, party balloon, Pete Hegseth, Social Security Administration, Trump's ballroom, Valentine's Day cats | 7 Comments

Happy Valentine’s Day!!

This morning, Steven Beschloss posted the following discussion question for his readers at his Substack “America America”: Is Love More Powerful Than Hate?

I had in mind to write about villainy. It’s a fact of our public life that the Trump regime is thick with this dark force and overloaded with people who revel in it. The villains come easily to mind: Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Pete Hegseth, Russel Vought, Greg Bovino (to name a few) and of course their ringleader, Donald Trump. They have motivated countless others to join their hateful cause to reject the Constitution and demolish democracy in America.

But on this day—Valentine’s Day—I want to turn this over and look at the flip side. Because behind this discussion of villains and villainy is my belief that their dark force can be defeated with the force of light and love. I don’t mean the biblical advice to “love your enemies,” although that may be a mindset that others more merciful than I can conjure.

I’m thinking more about the guidance found in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. on the topic of love. Let me share four shining examples:

“Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos.”

“Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”

“I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems.”

There are days that these insights—these deeply held convictions—may seem inadequate to confront the horrors we witness committed by men and women who have lost their moral compass, assuming that they once possessed one. But I’d like to suggest that the more powerful our revulsion toward the regime’s acts of villainy, the more we are influenced by the inverse.

I returned to yesterday’s essay, “Pam Bondi’s Utter Contempt for Justice,” to test this notion. If you read it and thought that I am horrified by her villainous behavior this week, you would be right. But let’s look at the basis for my horror in three sentences from the first several paragraphs: “It’s hard to imagine someone more overtly hostile to justice and more utterly incapable of basic human compassion…This person is responsible for serving the people…But when asked for the most basic show of humanity, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.” Behind the obvious criticism of her hateful action is love: For justice, for basic human compassion, for serving the people, for humanity.

My point is that in our articulation of the horrors, we can find the light that can inspire us to stay in the fight and overcome this dark chapter. “Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos,” King wrote. In other words, love is more powerful than hate and, as King also insisted, “the only answer to mankind’s problems.”

Bad Bunny sent a similar message with his Super Bowl performance. Is it true? Can love conquer hate? Food for thought on Valentine’s Day.

Now for the news, which is again filled with hate and fear.

Trump appears to be planning some sort of attack on Iran.

Reuthers: Exclusive: US military preparing for potentially weeks-long Iran.

The U.S. military is preparing for the possibility of sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran if President Donald Trump orders an attack, two U.S. officials told Reuters, in what could become a far more serious conflict than previously seen between the countries.

The disclosure by the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the planning, raises the stakes for the diplomacy underway between the United States and Iran.

U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will hold negotiations with Iran on Tuesday in Geneva, with representatives from Oman acting as mediators. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio cautioned on Saturday that while Trump’s preference was to reach a deal with Tehran, “that’s very hard to do.”

Meanwhile, Trump has amassed military forces in the region, raising fears of new military action. U.S. officials said on Friday the Pentagon was sending an additional aircraft carrier to the Middle East, adding thousands more troops along with fighter aircraft, guided-missile destroyers and other firepower capable of waging attacks and defending against them.

Trump, speaking to U.S. troops on Friday at a base in North Carolina, openly floated the possibility of regime change in Iran, saying it “seems like that would be the best thing that could happen.” He declined to share who he wanted to take over Iran, but said “there are people.”

“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking,” Trump said.

Trump has long voiced skepticism about sending ground troops into Iran, saying last year “the last thing you want to do is ground forces,” and the kinds of U.S. firepower arrayed in the Middle East so far suggest options for strikes primarily by air and naval forces.

The New York Times: Trump Says Regime Change Would Be the ‘Best Thing’ for Iran.

President Trump said on Friday that regime change in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen,” as he continued to threaten military action against the country.

“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking,” he told reporters after visiting troops at Fort Bragg. “In the meantime, we’ve lost a lot of lives while they talk.”

In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has called for new leadership in Iran, and The New York Times reported in January that he was mulling whether regime change would be a viable military option.

But his latest comments are, perhaps, Mr. Trump’s most overt endorsement of regime change, even as U.S. officials concede that ousting Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be much more complex than the operation that captured Nicolás Maduro, then the leader of Venezuela.

Still, officials have said that Mr. Trump had not made a final decision and was considering a range of military options.

The Trump administration has been steadily building up its military capabilities in the Middle East as Mr. Trump considers whether to strike the country again. Mr. Trump threatened last month to attack Iran if its government did not agree to a deal to curb its nuclear program….

But senior U.S. officials remain skeptical that the Iranians will agree to a deal that satisfies Mr. Trump, who has shown a growing impatience with the negotiations. This month, Omani officials mediated talks between Iran and a U.S. delegation that included Steve Witkoff,

A bit more on possible attack plans:

Mr. Trump has been weighing a range of military actions, including targeting Iran’s nuclear program and its ability to launch ballistic missiles. He is also considering sending American commandos to go after Iranian military targets, among other moves, the officials said.

To prepare, the Pentagon has been building up an “armada,” as Mr. Trump calls it, in the region. It includes the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, eight guided missile destroyers that can shoot down Iranian ballistic missiles, land-based ballistic missile defense systems and submarines that can launch Tomahawk cruise missiles at targets in Iran.

And on Thursday, the crew of a second aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, was told it would leave the Caribbean, where the ship joined the U.S. operation last month to seize Mr. Maduro, and deploy to the Middle East as part of Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign.

Yesterday, Trump posted a photo of a U.S. aircraft carrier on Truth Social, perhaps as a foreshadowing of his plans for Iran.

The Caribbean boat strikes are back.

NBC News: U.S. strikes alleged drug boat in Caribbean, killing three.

The U.S. Southern Command said it struck a vessel allegedly transporting drugs in the Caribbean on Friday, killing three people.

“Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations,” Southern Command said in a post on X, adding that “intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”

“Three narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No U.S. military forces were harmed,” the post said.

The U.S. has not provided evidence supporting its allegations about the boat, passengers, cargo or the number of people killed.

This latest strike comes after the U.S. on Monday struck a vessel also alleged to be transporting drugs in the eastern Pacific, killing two people and leaving one survivor.

A few days ago, there was a disturbing incident in Texas in which DHS used a powerful laser weapon with out notifying other parts of the government. It caused the FAA to close the air space over El Paso, Texas for a time. I have been curious about how this happened.

The New York Times, Feb. 11: Border Officials Are Said to Have Caused El Paso Closure by Firing Anti-Drone Laser.

The abrupt closure of El Paso’s airspace late Tuesday was precipitated when Customs and Border Protection officials deployed an anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense without giving aviation officials enough time to assess the risks to commercial aircraft, according to multiple people briefed on the situation.

The episode led the Federal Aviation Administration to abruptly declare that the nearby airspace would be shut down for 10 days, an extraordinary pause that was quickly lifted Wednesday morning at the direction of the White House.

Top administration officials quickly claimed that the closure was in response to a sudden incursion of drones from Mexican drug cartels that required a military response, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy declaring in a social media post that “the threat has been neutralized.”

But that assertion was undercut by multiple people familiar with the situation, who said that the F.A.A.’s extreme move came after immigration officials earlier this week used an anti-drone laser shared by the Pentagon without coordination with the F.A.A. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

C.B.P. officials thought they were firing on a cartel drone, the people said, but it turned out to be a party balloon. Defense Department officials were present during the incident, one person said….

The military has been developing high-energy laser technology to intercept and destroy drones, which the Trump administration has said are being used by Mexican cartels to track Border Patrol agents and smuggle drugs into the United States.

The airspace closure provoked a significant backlash from local officials and sharp questions by lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including some Republicans, who expressed skepticism about the administration’s version of the events.

This country is being run by morons.

NBC News: CBP shot down party balloons with anti-drone tech before FAA closed El Paso airspace, sources say.

The sudden closure of El Paso’s airspace Wednesday came sometime after U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials used an anti-drone laser that was provided by the military to shoot down objects that were later identified as party balloons, four people familiar with the matter said.

The testing of U.S. military-owned laser technology was taking place in the proximity of the airport. The FAA responded by issuing a “temporary flight restriction notice,” which was to shut down the airspace for 10 days. It prevented flights, including helicopters used for medical transport, below 18,000 feet. The airport is a major hub for the region, with more than 50 flights scheduled every day.

The airspace was reopened several hours later Wednesday morning. The decision prompted confusion and finger-pointing inside the Trump administration over who was to blame….

One of the people familiar with the testing said the Defense Department has a working relationship with Homeland Security, where CBP is headquartered, that allows its personnel to use certain military equipment for its objectives, testing, evaluation and use along the southern border.

Recently, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized the use of the weapon for CBP, the people said. Spokespeople for CBP referred questions to the White House, which did not elaborate beyond initial statements.

It figures Hegseth would be involved in this mess.

From military expert Mark Hertling at The Bulwark: The El Paso Balloon Incident Could Have Been a Disaster.

AFTER PROLONGED CONFUSION, we may have some clarity on what caused the emergency restriction on the airspace around El Paso International Airport: Someone used a sophisticated anti-air laser against what they thought was a drone launched from Mexico, but turned out to be a party balloon. Understandably, the first suspects were the Army units at Fort Bliss, which abuts El Paso and the airport. But it wasn’t the Army that fired the weapon.

According to the New York Times, Customs and Border Protection personnel fired an experimental anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense at what they thought was a cartel drone—without sufficient coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration. That prompted the FAA to shut down the airspace around the airport up to 18,000 feet in an extraordinary emergency move.

But focusing on the harmlessness of the target obscures the deeper issue: Why was this weapon employed without the discipline that governs every legitimate use of force in the military?

Fort Bliss sits on the edge of El Paso. While it’s a large post, and it has a very isolated desert training area, it borders a large city with hospitals, businesses, highways, civilian neighborhoods, and a relatively large international airport.

The post is home to the 1st Armored Division, an organization I once commanded. Like every major installation in the Army, Fort Bliss operates under detailed standing operating procedures governing weapons employment—whether on a live-fire range, during air-defense exercises, or in any activity that could affect surrounding airspace or population centers.

Those procedures are not bureaucratic red tape. They are necessary safety barriers. They exist precisely because military commanders understand various immutable facts: weapons are dangerous, coordination for any training event is critical, citizens live nearby, and mistakes do not stay contained.

It’s therefore unsurprising—though deeply concerning—that reports indicate the Fort Bliss commander and the command and staff of Northern Command were as alarmed as the FAA by the balloon shoot-down. That’s because they know any uncoordinated weapons use is not merely unsafe; it is unacceptable.

Please go read the rest at The Bulwark, if you’re interested. Personally, I find this incident deeply disturbing. There are simply too many incompetent–even stupid–people running our government. Eventually there is going to be a serious disaster.

More disturbing Trump Administration/DHS news–this time involving the Social Security Administration:

Wired: Social Security Workers Are Being Told to Hand Over Appointment Details to ICE.

Workers at the Social Security Administration have been told to share information about in-person appointments with agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, WIRED has learned.

“If ICE comes in and asks if someone has an upcoming appointment, we will let them know the date and time,” an employee with direct knowledge of the directive says. They spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

While the majority of appointments with SSA take place over the phone, some appointments still happen in person. This applies to people who are deaf or hard of hearing and need a sign language interpreter, or if someone needs to change their direct deposit information. Noncitizens are also required to appear in person to review continued eligibility of benefits.

Social Security numbers are issued to US citizens but also to foreign students and people legally allowed to live and work in the country. In some cases, when a child or dependent is a citizen and the family member responsible for them is not, that person might need to accompany the child or dependent to an office visit.

The order to share information, which was recently communicated verbally to workers at certain SSA offices, marks a new era of collaboration between SSA and the Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency….

The SSA has been sharing data with ICE for much of President Donald Trump’s second term. In April, WIRED reported that the Trump administration had been pooling sensitive data from across the government, including from the the SSA, DHS, and the Internal Revenue Service. By November, WIRED learned that the SSA had made the arrangements official and had updated a public notice that said the agency was sharing “citizenship and immigration information” with DHS. “It was shockingly clear that there was interest in getting access to immigration data by [the] Trump administration,” a former SSA official tells WIRED. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity due to concerns of retaliation.

This is from the Professional Development Academy: ‘Suicide is only one option’: Social Security staff newly assigned to phone duties raise concerns over training.

The Social Security Administration has instructed employees newly assigned to answering phones to tell callers expressing suicidal thoughts that suicide is “one option,” raising concerns from employees and experts in the field who called the approach unorthodox.

SSA recently began shifting new swaths of its workforce to phone answering duty, including those who normally receive and process retirement and disability claims, manage the agency’s technology and work in the agency’s finances unit. Those employees received brief, three-hour training before they began answering calls.

As part of that training, they were warned some callers may express suicidal ideation and presented with examples using a theoretical employee named Fiona.

“It’s important for Fiona to keep the caller engaged and to remind her that suicide is only one option,” the animated trainer told employees in the video, a copy of which was obtained by Government Executive, “and that there is no urgency to make any decisions.”

Employees at the training, which occurred on Jan. 26 for benefits authorizers and post-entitlement technical experts, were taken aback by the comment and asked their supervisors for clarity. One employee at the training said there was “disbelief that it was just said” among those in the room.

Caitlin Thompson, a clinical psychologist who spent eight years at the Veterans Affairs Department as a clinical care coordinator on the Veterans Crisis Line and later as the department’s national director of suicide prevention, said SSA’s approach did not follow commonly accepted best practices.

“It’s not a normal thing to say,” Thompson said. “No. That’s not the thing you say to somebody who might be suicidal.”

Instead, SSA would be better suited telling employees to ask callers if they feel safe in the immediate term and if they say no, to tell the caller that they will work with their supervisor to get them in touch with a crisis line.

Lazy Caturday Reads: Trump’s Racism and Epstein Fallout

Posted: February 7, 2026 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: Bobby Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump, Dulles Airport, Epstein Files, Ghislaine Maxwell, Howard Lutnick, Hudson Tunnel project, Jeffrey Epstein, Mariam Ibrahim, Melania documentary, Penn Station, Peter Mandleson, Prince Andrew, Racism, US military, Video depicting Obamas as apes, women in Epstein world | 9 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

Yesterday, Dakinikat wrote about Trump’s disgusting Truth Social post of a video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. Trump left it up for at least 12 hours before someone at the White House finally deleted it. Of course Trump, who is a hateful and repulsive racist, won’t apologize.

The Washington Post: Trump refuses to apologize over video showing the Obamas as apes.

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE — President Donald Trump declined to apologize for sharing a social media video that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, saying he did not realize the image of the former president and first lady was tacked on to the end of the clip.

The president said Friday that he had watched and passed along the video — which focused on claims of voter fraud until the final seconds of the clip — to unidentified “people” to post to his Truth Social account, but that he “didn’t see the whole thing,” including the brief portion that showed the heads of the Obamas edited onto the bodies of apes.

In response to a question from The Washington Post about whether he would heed the calls of some Republicans to apologize for posting the video, which was widely condemned as racist and offensive, Trump said he would not.

“No, I didn’t make a mistake,” Trump said on his way to Palm Beach, Florida, for the weekend. “I look at a lot of — thousands of things. And I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine.”

Trump referred to the controversial video, which was online for about 12 hours before being deleted, as “a very strong post in terms of voter fraud.” [….]

…[T]he pushback was swift, including from Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina), the chamber’s only Black Republican, who also serves as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Scott called the post “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.” Several other GOP senators and House members joined Scott in condemning the video, with some calling on Trump to apologize….

Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One on Friday, Trump dismissed the notion that the post and his handling of it could hurt him with the minority voters he had made gains with during the 2024 election. He touted criminal justice reform legislation passed during his first term, as well as his efforts to ensure funding to historically Black colleges and universities.

We’ll see. I think Trump expects to be able to rig the 2026 election anyway.

Hanna Kiros at The Atlantic (gift link): The Obama Meme on Trump’s Truth Social Was Exactly What It Looked Like.

Donald Trump supercharged his political career by claiming that Barack Obama wasn’t American. Yesterday, 16 minutes before midnight, the president’s account on Truth Social posted a video that suggests Obama isn’t even human. It briefly shows the head of the first Black president and that of his wife superimposed onto the bodies of apes. They dance along to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

The video, which Trump’s account shared twice, seems to be a screen recording. Its first minute shows a clip promoting the lie that voting-machine tampering handed Joe Biden the presidency in 2020. Then, someone seems to swipe up, and the clip depicting the Obamas as apes flashes into focus. [The post was removed after about 12 hours.]….

In the interim, hundreds if not thousands of people responded to the clip with enthusiasm. Immediately after the video was first posted on Truth Social, the memecoin $APEBAMA was minted. Within 12 hours, more than $4 million worth of $APEBAMA had been traded back and forth. In an X group with the same name that now has hundreds of members, the pinned tweet implies that the meme stock will succeed because of how outrageous the video is: “this is pretty much on par with him calling Obama a nigga.” Some members posted their own depictions of Obama as a monkey or ape. The ape video’s apparent creator, the X user @xerias_x, reposted the full video to their X account early this morning. Besides the Obamas, the video shows a menagerie of Democratic politicians as animals, bowing down to Trump, who appears as a lion. It now has more than 1 million views. (@xerias_x also seems to be the originator of an AI-generated video Trump reposted in October that shows the president raining down what appears to be excrement on protesters from the sky.)

The “joke” that Trump’s account spread is plainly sinister. The idea that Black people sit somewhere between white people and apes has long been used to justify cruelty. In 1377, a historian wrote that Africans “have attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals,” meaning they “are, as a whole, submissive to slavery.” Cartoons circulated during the Civil War were printed with images similar to the one Trump posted: One labels a monkey holding a book upside down as a NEGRO-MAN; another depicts a Black man on all fours, accompanied by the words WHAR’S JEFF DAVIS. In 1906, a man born in what was then the Belgian Congo, Ota Benga, was displayed at the Bronx Zoo in a cage with an orangutan. In 1975, white teenagers harassed Black students desegregating a Boston public school with the chant “Two, four, six, eight, assassinate the nigger apes.”

The ape caricature still colors how Black people are received in America. But this morning, the administration played the video off for laughs. “This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in response to a comment request before the Truth Social posts were removed. (The Lion King features a monkey named Rafiki, but no apes appear in the film.)

There is absolutely no question that Trump is a vicious racist.

In other news, there are so many fascinating revelations coming out of the latest release from the FBI’s Epstein files. I haven’t had the patience to actually try searching through them myself, but I’ve been following what reporters are finding. Some of the latest examples:

Allison Quinn at The Daily Beast: Epstein’s Top Secret Relationship With Trained Russian Spy Revealed.

Jeffrey Epstein had a years-long relationship with an FSB-trained Russian official who sought his help connecting with a well-known hacker in 2016.

The late sex trafficker’s corresponJeffrdence with Sergei Belyakov is among the strangest revelations in the millions of case files released by the Justice Department last month.

Belyakov, a former deputy economic minister, helped Epstein secure visas to visit Russia, provided him with a dossier on a Russian woman Epstein had complained was trying to blackmail “a group of powerful businessmen,” and reported to Epstein about his work for the Russian government.

Epstein’s frequent bids to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov feature heavily in the newly released files—his assistant reminds him in one September 2011 email that he’d told his bodyguard he “had an appointment with Putin” coming up—but he appears to have had Belyakov at his beck and call.

In one January 2016 email under the subject, “My new position,” Belyakov told Epstein he’d started working at the Russian Direct Investment Fund–now led by Kirill Dmitriev, one of Vladimir Putin’s most trusted envoys, and a key player in ongoing peace talks with the Trump administration to end Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Much of their correspondence focused on investment opportunities and potential investors, though it’s unclear to what extent Belyakov involved Epstein in his work beyond the emails documented in the latest files.

The pair met several times in person over the years. In numerous email exchanges from 2014 through 2018, they reference personal meetings they had together, along with sporadic phone calls.

Epstein described Belyakov as a “very good friend” in a 2015 email to billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel as he tried to arrange for the pair to meet. Belyakov also apparently put Epstein in touch with other Russian officials, with emails showing he helped Epstein apply for a Russian visa in 2014 to meet with then-Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak and Alexei Simanovsky, the deputy head of Russia’s Central Bank at the time.

There’s more interesting stuff at the link.

J Oliver Conroy at The Guardian: The Epstein files reveal that a vast global conspiracy actually exists – sort of.

The millions of Jeffrey Epstein files dumped last Friday by the US Department of Justice will provide journalists, conspiracy theorists and interested members of the public with months of reading. And what they will read is enraging.

What makes these files so infuriating, however, is not just Epstein’s horrific predatory behavior, which is well-known, but the more mundane examples of elite conduct that the documents continue to expose. They vividly illustrate a world whose existence many everyday people, whether fevered with visions of the Illuminati or just jaundiced by banal anti-establishment cynicism, already suspected exists: an informal global club of powerful, ultra-rich people who all seemingly know each other, help one another out, and protect each other from the consequences of their depravity.

The new files will probably not provide satisfying answers to questions about, say, whether any of Epstein’s famous friends participated in his sex trafficking, or if his death in custody in 2019 was truly a suicide, as authorities have said. But conspiracy theorists may still feel vindicated – and to some extent they should, Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University, said.

Although the documents may not expose an actual criminal conspiracy, he said, they confirm the belief behind most conspiracy theories: that elites “get special treatment, that they’re shielded from the rules that are supposed to apply to everyone equally, and that there is a kind of corruption in the broadest sense of the word”.

The new material is the largest, and possibly last, tranche of the so-called Epstein files, though the government is keeping as many as 3m more pages under wraps. Yet even the initial revelations of these files deepen the astonishing constellation of ties between Epstein and members of the global elite – including tech billionaires; a former US president; British, Norwegian and Saudi royalty or royal courtiers; current and former US cabinet secretaries and governors; and prominent business executives and academics….

[T]he files, especially Epstein’s typo-filled email and text-message correspondences, are fascinating – and ultimately grim – in what they show of how elites act in private, among themselves. At the least, many of Epstein’s powerful acquaintances remained friendly with him years after the notoriously lenient sweetheart bargain, in 2008, in which he pleaded guilty to soliciting an underage girl for prostitution, and as survivors continued to accuse Epstein of further crimes.

Again, there is lots more enraging material at the link.

AP: Epstein revelations have toppled top figures in Europe while US fallout is more muted.

LONDON (AP) — A prince, an ambassador, senior diplomats, top politicians. All brought down by the Jeffrey Epstein files. And all in Europe, rather than the United States.

The huge trove of Epstein documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice has sent shock waves through Europe’s political, economic and social elites — dominating headlines, ending careers and spurring political and criminal investigations.

Former U.K. Ambassador to Washington Peter Mandelson was fired and could go to prison. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces a leadership crisis over the Mandelson appointment. Senior figures have fallen in Norway, Sweden and Slovakia. And, even before the latest batch of files, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, brother of King Charles III, lost his honors, princely title and taxpayer-funded mansion.

Apart from the former Prince Andrew, none of them faces claims of sexual wrongdoing. They have been toppled for maintaining friendly relationships with Epstein after he became a convicted sex offender.

“Epstein collected powerful people the way others collect frequent flyer points,” said Mark Stephens, a specialist in international and human rights law at Howard Kennedy in London. “But the receipts are now in public, and some might wish they’d traveled less.”

The documents were published after a public frenzy over Epstein became a crisis for President Donald Trump’s administration and led to a rare bipartisan effort to force the government to open its investigative files. But in the U.S., the long-sought publication has not brought the same public reckoning with Epstein’s associates — at least so far.

Rob Ford, a professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said that in Britain, “if you’re in those files, it’s immediately a big story.”

“It suggests to me we have a more functional media, we have a more functional accountability structure, that there is still a degree of shame in politics, in terms of people will say: ‘This is just not acceptable, this is just not done,’” he said.

In other words, our media sucks and many of our politicians are shameless. I can’t argue with that.

A couple of Trump cabinet members captured in the files:

CBS News: Lutnick and Epstein were in business together, Epstein files show.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said he had “limited interactions” with Jeffrey Epstein, but documents show they were in business together as recently as 2014.

Lutnick and Epstein each signed on behalf of limited liability companies that agreed on Dec. 28, 2012, to acquire stakes in a now-shuttered advertising technology company called Adfin, documents released among the so-called Epstein files show.

Epstein and Lutnick’s signatures appear on neighboring pages in the contract, with Epstein signing for his Southern Trust Company, Inc. and Lutnick for a limited liability company called CVAFH I. The documents list nine shareholders in total.

Lutnick, the former chairman of the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald who at one point lived next door to Epstein, told the New York Post in October that he and his wife Allison had cut ties with Epstein in 2005, deciding after taking a tour of Epstein’s New York townhouse, “I will never be in the room with that disgusting person ever again.”

However, it appears Epstein and Lutnick continued to maintain contact and emails show they arranged calls and planned to have drinks in 2011.

The following year, the couple and their four children planned a visit to Epstein’s island, Little St. James, emails show. Lutnick was invited for lunch on Dec. 24, 2012, and later, Epstein’s assistant wrote on behalf of Epstein, “it was nice seeing you.”

Their Adfin deal was signed four days later.

Lutnick is such a fucking liar.

Farah Tomazin at The Daily Beast: RFK Jr.’s Bizarre Trip With Epstein and Ghislaine Exposed in Files.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went hunting for dinosaur bones in the Dakotas with child sex traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, according to the latest tranche of documents released by the Justice Department.

As the fallout over the Epstein files continues, an email exchange between the two sex predators centers on the now-Trump Cabinet secretary, one of the many prominent people whose friendship the pair cultivated over the years.

The exchange took place in 2012, seven years before Epstein died in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial.

In one email, Epstein writes to Maxwell about a trip involving “dinosaur and fossill hunitng (sic) with jack horner on the ranch, found 90 million year old clams and fossils.”

“Right up your alley,” he adds.

The following day, Maxwell replies: “Love that – didn’t we go fossil hunting with him and Bobby Kennedy in N Dakota?”

“Yes,” Epstein replies.

Maxwell, a former British socialite now serving 20 years for her crimes, also disclosed the fossil hunt during an interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche last year, apparently catching him off guard when she said of Epstein: “Bobby Kennedy knew him.”

One more from Amelia Gentleman at The Guardian on women in the Epstein files: Sex and snacks, but no seat at the table: the role of women in Epstein’s sordid men’s club.

Pluck an email at random from the millions in the Department of Justice’s Epstein Library. It is a Saturday evening in February 2013, and Jeffrey Epstein is messaging Bill Gates’s assistant about guests for a dinner he wants to organise.’

“People for Bill,” the email begins. Epstein starts listing possible candidates: the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, the film director Woody Allen, the prime minister of Qatar, a couple of Harvard academics, the billionaire CEO of Hyatt hotels, a White House communications director, a former US secretary of defence.

He names 10 powerful men, before suggesting “Anne Hathaway (really)”. Epstein has to make it clear, with the bracketed word, that he is not joking when he proposes that a woman might join them at the table. The lists ends tentatively: “victoria secret models?” Epstein wonders: “Who on the list do you think he would enjoy the most?”

The Epstein files reveal a patriarchy in action. This is a world where the men are rich and powerful, and the women are not. The emails showcase the private behaviour of a male ruling class, as they network, joke and trade information. Women exist at the periphery, tolerated because they organise the diaries of the busy men, they arrange food, they grace a table, they provide sex.

A typical email from Epstein to a woman might say: “Take a selfie of your pussy and send.”

Spend three days rummaging through the chaotic, sprawling, sordid pit of information contained in the Epstein files, and you learn valuable lessons about how this modern global patriarchy operates: through flattery, the exchange of favours and occasional curt reminders of who owes what to whom.

For women, these files offer an unprecedented chance to eavesdrop on conversations from which they are usually excluded. They provide salutary insights into what a set of distinguished global figures think and say about women when they assume the women aren’t listening.

Read the rest at The Guardian.

I’ll end with a few tales of Trump idiocy:

Jonathan Karl at ABC News: Trump wants Penn Station, Dulles Airport named after him in funding deal with Schumer, sources say.

President Donald Trump last month told Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., that he would be willing to unfreeze $16 billion in funding for a major infrastructure project in New York if Schumer would agree to rename New York’s Penn Station and Washington’s Dulles Airport after him, two sources familiar with the conversation told ABC News.

The Hudson Tunnel Project — which would connect New York City and New Jersey — had already started. The project includes building nine miles of new passenger rail track and rehabilitating the North River Tunnel, according to the commission responsible for it.

Officials in New York and New Jersey said if the money isn’t freed-up by Friday, the project would stop, leaving approximately 1,000 construction jobs in jeopardy.

Sources told ABC that Schumer rejected Trump’s offer.

Daniel Dale at CNN: ‘I did that’: Trump takes credit for a prisoner release that happened before he even ran for president.

At the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, President Donald Trump spoke from prepared remarks as he discussed the persecution of Mariam Ibrahim. Ibrahim was unjustly imprisoned and sentenced to death in Sudan in 2014, in a case centered on her Christian faith, until she was released that same year following a global outcry.

Trump correctly said: “Believers all over the planet rallied to Mariam’s cause, prayed for her protection, and successfully pressured for her release.”

But then the president appeared to ad-lib – and claimed that he was the one who got Ibrahim freed.

“I did that. I did that. I did that with one phone call, actually,” he said. “And she had such support, it was so easy. And when I explained it to the powers that be: ‘Yes, sir, we will do it right away.’ I just wish I knew earlier. But it’s a big world with a lot of people.”

For years, Trump has told fictional stories that feature unnamed people referring to him as “sir.” This was another one.

Ibrahim was released in 2014, during the Obama administration. Trump did not become president until January 2017. He was not even a presidential candidate until June 2015. There has never been the slightest indication that a private citizen in the US, a businessman and celebrity at the time, was the person who convinced Sudanese authorities to let her out of prison.

A former Obama administration official who served on the National Security Council in 2014 told CNN on Friday: “I neither had at the time nor have now any knowledge of Trump’s involvement whatsoever. It’d be very surprising if he were.”

Jack Jenkins, a reporter for Religion News Service, first raised skepticism about Trump’s story on Thursday.

Robert P. George, a Princeton University professor who is a prominent conservative legal scholar, said in a Friday email: “As Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in 2014, I advocated for Mariam Ibrahim. I do not recall Donald Trump being involved in the case or assisting our Commission’s efforts. Of course, he was not President at the time.

Jack Revell at The Daily Beast: Military Pressured to See ‘Melania’ Against Their Will.

Thousands of active-duty military personnel may have been “pressured” into seeing the Melania documentary at cinemas around the country, a watchdog has warned.

The $75 million Amazon film opened last week to $7 million at the box office—despite universally terrible reviews.

According to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, those numbers have been artificially inflated by pressure from MAGA-aligned officers leaning on their troops to buy tickets.

“People are scared,” Mikey Weinstein, president and founder of the MRFF, said. Weinstein said he has received letters from members of the U.S. military at eight facilities worldwide, complaining that their superiors encouraged or pressured them to see the film.

He told Business Insider. “They were pressured to see the movie. Your military superior, that’s not your shift manager at Taco Bell or Starbucks. They have complete and total control over you.”

The MRFF, a non-profit founded in 2005 to promote the separation of church and state within the military, has roughly 100,000 members.

“Nobody that I know wanted to go except for those that did not want to get jacked up by our unit commander for not attending,” one of those members told Weinstein in a letter seen by journalist Jonathan Larsen.

That’s it for me today. What stories have you been following?

Wednesday Reads

Posted: February 4, 2026 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: Ashley Parker, Children in Minneapolis, Christopher Columbus statues, Donald Trump, Fulton County 2020 election, ICE, ICE and elections, Jay Inlee, Jeff Bezos, Minneapolis, Minnesota, The Washington Post, Tom Homan, Trump attempts to steal state elections, Trump's White House ballroom | 3 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

As usual, there is just too much news for anyone to deal with. I’m going to focus on the death of a great newspaper, the torture of an American city, the efforts of a vain and ignorant “president” to grab power and steal elections, and his obsession with building monstrosities. Here’s what’s happening.

The Death of The Washington Post

Benjamin Mullin, Katie Robertson and Erik Wemple at The New York Times: Washington Post Begins Laying Off More Than 300 Journalists.

The Washington Post told employees on Wednesday that it was beginning a widespread round of layoffs that are expected to decimate the organization’s sports, local news and international coverage.

The company is laying off about 30 percent of all its employees, according to two people with knowledge of the decision. That includes people on the business side and more than 300 of the roughly 800 journalists in the newsroom, the people said.

The cuts are a sign that Jeff Bezos, who became one of the world’s richest people by selling things on the internet, has not yet figured out how to build and maintain a profitable publication on the internet. The paper expanded during the first several years of his ownership, but the company has sputtered more recently.

Matt Murray, The Post’s executive editor, said on a call Wednesday morning with newsroom employees that the company had lost too much money for too long and had not been meeting readers’ needs. He said that all sections would be affected in some way, and that the result would be a publication focused even more on national news and politics, as well as business and health, and far less on other areas.

“If anything, today is about positioning ourselves to become more essential to people’s lives in what is becoming more crowded, competitive and complicated media landscape,” Mr. Murray said. “And after some years when, candidly, The Post has had struggles.”

Mr. Murray further explained the rationale in an email, saying The Post was “too rooted in a different era, when we were a dominant, local print product” and that online search traffic, partly because of the rise of generative A.I., had fallen by nearly half in the last three years. He added that The Post’s “daily story output has substantially fallen in the last five years.”

“Even as we produce much excellent work, we too often write from one perspective, for one slice of the audience,” he said.

The Post’s sports section will close, though some of its reporters will stay on and move to the features department to cover the culture of sports. The Post’s metro section will shrink, and the books section will close, as will the “Post Reports” daily news podcast.

Mr. Murray told the staff that while The Post’s international coverage also would be reduced, reporters would remain in nearly a dozen locations. Reporters and editors in the Middle East were laid off, as well as in India and Australia.

At The Atlantic, former Post reporter Ashley Parker writes (gift link): The Murder of The Washington Post. Today’s layoffs are the latest attempt to kill what makes the paper special.

Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of The Washington Post, and Will Lewis, the publisher he appointed at the end of 2023, are embarking on the latest step of their plan to kill everything that makes the paper special. The Post has survived for nearly 150 years, evolving from a hometown family newspaper into an indispensable national institution, and a pillar of the democratic system. But if Bezos and Lewis continue down their present path, it may not survive much longer.

Over recent years, they’ve repeatedly cut the newsroom—killing its Sunday magazine, reducing the staff by several hundred, nearly halving the Metro desk—without acknowledging the poor business decisions that led to this moment or providing a clear vision for the future. This morning, executive editor Matt Murray and HR chief Wayne Connell told the newsroom staff in an early-morning virtual meeting that it was closing the Sports department and Books section, ending its signature podcast, and dramatically gutting the International and Metro departments, in addition to staggering cuts across all teams. Post leadership—which did not even have the courage to address their staff in person—then left everyone to wait for an email letting them know whether or not they had a job. (Lewis, who has already earned a reputation for showing up late to work when he showed up at all, did not join the Zoom.)

The Post may yet rise, but this will be their enduring legacy.

Ashley Parker

What’s happening to the Post is a public tragedy, but for me, it is also very personal. When my parents’ basement recently flooded, amid the waterlogged boxes of old photos and vinyl records, we found my younger sister’s baby book. There, on a page reserved for memories from the month she was born—news about visits from doting grandparents, perhaps, or descriptions of her mewling gurgles—my dad had filled the lines with news from our hometown paper, The Washington Post.

“Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).” “Irangate.” “The Bork nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.” “The NFL went on strike.” “Wall Street had the worst day since 1929!!!” “The U.S. was having a garbage crisis, i.e.; running out of disposal sites, esp. in the northeast.” (To be fair, he worked in waste management. But also … welcome to the world, Baby Girl!)

Which is to say: The Washington Post feels like a part of my family’s DNA, imprinted on our earliest memories, memorialized among clippings of our hair and other, more traditional, recollections (first diaper blowout, first word)….

The Post was also how I fell in love with journalism. Every newspaper lover has the section they read first—Sports, Comics, Metro—and mine was Style. The section, which debuted in 1969, was like nothing that had come before it, or what has come since: a newspaper that gave its writers the time and space and freedom and voice to produce narrative long-form journalism that was must-read, holding its own against the New Journalism magazine greats of the era. And for me, it was a chance to commune with giants—to read people such as Libby Copeland, Robin Givhan, Paul Hendrickson, Sally Quinn, David Von Drehle, Gene Weingarten, Marjorie Williams—and puzzle over how they’d done it.

Then, in 2017, I arrived at the Post as a reporter to cover the Trump White House, and I stayed for eight magical years. I had planned to stay forever. So what is happening at the Post right now—what has been happening there for a while—is personal. But it is also so much larger than me or any single person.

The least cynical explanation is that Bezos simply isn’t paying attention. Maybe—like so many of us initially—he was charmed by Lewis’s British accent and studied loucheness that mask an emperor whose bespoke threads are no clothes at all. Or maybe, as many of us who deeply love the Post fear, the decimation is the plan.

Bezos is killing the Post. I’m not sure if he just wants it to die or he wants it to become a propaganda arm of the Trump adminisration.

The Agony of Minneapolis

Corina Knoll at The New York Times (gift link): A Winter of Anguish for Minneapolis Children.

The morning her father called to say that he had been detained on a snowy Minneapolis road, Xochitl Soberanes was seized by an urgent and inescapable feeling. At 16 years old and the eldest of four, she would suddenly have to become the backbone of the family.

Their mother had died of pneumonia less than a year ago, so it was Xochitl who convinced her 4-year-old brother that their father was working late as they packed up belongings to go stay with a nearby aunt. That January night, a cousin found all four siblings curled up asleep in the same queen bed — cradled by Xochitl, who lay on the edge.

“We just wanted to be close together,” she said.

Xochitl cut her younger siblings’ breakfast into bite-size pieces.Credit…Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times

For weeks, the Minneapolis area has been a landscape of intense turmoil as federal immigration agents face off against furious citizens. But there is a quieter upheaval taking place behind closed doors as the city’s youngest residents attempt to grasp the altering of their neighborhoods, their schools, their sense of security.

Regardless of what they might understand about the politics embedded in their surroundings, some things are clear: The adults in their lives are weary and overwhelmed. Neighbors are scared to leave the house. Bomb threats have been called in to schools. Events have been canceled. Friends are missing from classrooms. And parents have been taken.

“I was just thinking, ‘What are we going to do without him?’” Xochitl said about the day her father, Victor, did not come home. She began to insist to her aunt that she could finish her final exams and be available to help with her siblings. Within a week, her friend, a U.S. citizen, was also detained and later released.“It’s like living in fear all the time,” Xochitl said.

It is a sentiment that many children in the area speak of — this fear that now feels innate and will continue to linger in ways they cannot yet comprehend. They live in a world where a barrage of honks and whistles signal that immigration agents are in their midst, and that something bad could happen soon.

It is not unusual for them to see agents dressed in riot gear and carrying rifles stationed on their streets. And those who have found themselves swept up unwillingly into altercations have been left to endure the aftereffects.

Use the gift link to read more.

The New York Times: Border Czar Says He Is Pulling 700 Immigration Agents Out of Minneapolis.

Tom Homan, the White House border czar, said on Wednesday that the federal government would immediately withdraw 700 law enforcement officers from Minneapolis, scaling down the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the area.

Tom Homan

The change comes after the Trump administration sent thousands of federal officers and agents to Minnesota, a deployment that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said was the agency’s “largest operation to date.” About 2,000 officers and agents would be left in the state, Mr. Homan said.

Tom Homan, the White House border czar, said on Wednesday that the federal government would immediately withdraw 700 law enforcement officers from Minneapolis, scaling down the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in the area.

The change comes after the Trump administration sent thousands of federal officers and agents to Minnesota, a deployment that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said was the agency’s “largest operation to date.” About 2,000 officers and agents would be left in the state, Mr. Homan said.

“This is smart law enforcement, not less law enforcement,” he added.

I’ll believe that when I see it.

Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis, a Democrat, said in a statement that the reduction in officers was “a step in the right direction” but that 2,000 federal officers in the region was still “not de-escalation.”

“My message to the White House has been consistent — Operation Metro Surge has been catastrophic for our businesses and residents. It needs to end immediately,” he said, referring to the name of the federal crackdown in the city.

Mr. Homan also emphasized that immigration officers would focus on more targeted enforcement operations that prioritize arresting criminals who pose public safety threats. Last week, Mr. Homan said that was “the way we’ve always done it,” but that “we got away from it a little bit.”

Still, he said that any immigrants residing in the country illegally would not be exempt from enforcement operations.

“If you are in the country illegally, you are not off the table,” Mr. Homan said.

Again, we’ll see. I’m not holding my breath.

Stealing Elections

Max Rego at The Hill: Trump doubles down on suggesting federal government ‘get involved’ in state elections.

President Trump reiterated his support for nationalizing elections Tuesday, despite backlash from both sides of the aisle on the proposal.

“I want to see elections be honest, and if a state can’t run an election, I think the people behind me should do something about it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after signing legislation to end a partial government shutdown, with Republican lawmakers surrounding him.

“Because if you think about it, a state is an agent for the federal government in elections,” the president continued. “I don’t know why the federal government doesn’t do ’em anyway.”

He added, “But when you see some of these states, about how horribly they run their elections, what a disgrace it is, I think the federal government [should get involved].”

Trump initially called for transferring control of elections from certain states to the federal government during an interview Monday with former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, who departed the bureau last month and returned to hosting his podcast.

“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting in at least 15 places,’” Trump said. “The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

In the Oval Office on Tuesday, the president referenced Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta — all Democratic-run cities — as places where “horrible corruption on elections” is occurring.

Destroying the Culture of Washington, DC

The Washington Post: Trump plans to install Christopher Columbus statue outside White House.

President Donald Trump is planning to install a statue of Christopher Columbus on White House grounds, according to three people with knowledge of the pending move,in his latest effort to remake the presidential campus and celebrate the famed and controversial explorer.

In 2020, demonstrators targeted monuments deemed symbols of racism, colonialism, and oppression.

The statue is set to be located on the south side of the grounds, by E Street and north of the Ellipse, two of the people said, although they cautioned that plans could change. The three people spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak on private discussions. The piece is a reconstruction of a statue unveiled in Baltimore by then-President Ronald Reagan and dumped in the city’s harbor by protestersin 2020 as a racial reckoning swept the country.

A group of Italian American businessmen and politicians, working with local sculptors, obtained the destroyed pieces and rebuilt the statue with financial support from local charities and federal grant funding.

Bill Martin, an Italian American businessman who helped recover the remnants of the original sculpture and organize a campaign to rebuild it, said the statue is expected to be transferred from a warehouse on Maryland’s Eastern Shore to the Trump administration in coming weeks.

The White House declined to comment on its plans but praised the 15th-century explorer.

“In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero,” spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement. “And he will continue to be honored as such by President Trump.

The Independent: Trump reveals latest rendering of what he calls: ‘the much anticipated White House Ballroom.’

President Donald Trump shared a new rendering showing his vision for a new White House ballroom replacing the now-demolished East Wing.

Trump celebrated his $400 million project on social media, posting that it will be the “Greatest of its kind ever built!!”

A rendering of President Donald Trump’s ‘New East Wing’ at the White House, including his nearly 90,000 square foot ballroom (The White House)

He wrote on Truth Social Tuesday that the new building “replaces the very small, dilapidated, and rebuilt many times, East Wing, with a magnificent New East Wing.” He also said that the new structure will be taller than the White House’s Executive Mansion.

“If you notice, the North Wall is a replica of the North Facade of the White House,” he wrote in the post.

The new rendering is generally similar to previous drawings of the upcoming ballroom shared by Trump.

The ballroom is projected to be approximately 90,000 square feet, and the attached “New East Wing” complex will include a new office for the First Lady, a new movie theater, and a commercial kitchen.

Trump’s decision to demolish the historic East Wing for a ritzy ballroom has been met with severe criticism, particularly from historic preservationists.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued the Trump administration in December in an effort to force the president to submit his plans for the ballroom to several review bodies, including Congress and the public. The lawsuit asked a court to pause his construction project until those demands are met.

Construction at the site has not been ordered to stop and Trump’s Department of Justice is moving to try to ensure that doesn’t change.

A DOJ filing on Monday asked a federal judge overseeing the lawsuit to stay any injunction into the construction over alleged “national security” concerns, ABC News reports.

That’s all I have for today. I hope you find something of interest here.

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