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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
Elon Musk had more extensive – and more friendly – communications with the financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein than previously publicly known, according to documents released on Friday by the Department of Justice. Emails in the files appear to show the two cordially messaging each other on two separate occasions to make plans for Musk to visit Epstein’s island.
The documents include Musk and Epstein emailing in both 2012 and 2013 to determine when Musk should make the trip to Little St James. Neither exchanges appear to have resulted in Musk visiting the island, due to logistical issues.
Here’s the one people are talking about:
In November 2012, Epstein sent Musk an email asking “how many people will you be for the heli to island”.
“Probably just Talulah and me. What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?” Musk replied, in an apparent reference to his former wife Talulah Riley.
Musk followed up with an email on 25 December in response to another Epstein message that encouraged him to visit and offered use of his helicopter.
“Do you have any parties planned? I’ve been working to the edge of sanity this year and so, once my kids head home after Christmas, I really want to hit the party scene in St Barts or elsewhere and let loose. The invitation is much appreciated, but a peaceful island experience is the opposite of what I’m looking for,” Musk wrote.
“Understood , I will see you on st Barth, the ratio on my island might make Talilah uncomfortable,” Epstein responded.
“Ratio is not a problem for Talulah,” Musk said.
Apparently, this visit was also cancelled. Read more at the link.
You may recall that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick claimed he cut all ties with Epstein after he saw the massage room in Epstein’s New York City mansion. It turns out that Lutnick lied.
Howard Lutnick, the billionaire businessman who serves as President Trump’s commerce secretary, once planned a trip to Jeffrey Epstein’s private island, according to documents that the Justice Department released on Friday.
The planned visit in 2012 came years after Mr. Lutnick has said he severed ties with Mr. Epstein.
Mary Sara holding a cat, by Mary Cassatt
In December 2012, the records show, Mr. Lutnick sent an email to Mr. Epstein saying that he had a group of people — including his wife and children and another family — who were visiting the Caribbean. He asked where Mr. Epstein was located and whether they could visit for a meal.
Mr. Epstein replied through an assistant to give more information about the location of Little St. James, his private island off the coast of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. They eventually settled on plans for a lunch gathering.
Prominent people who were close to Mr. Epstein have been scrutinized in recent years for their visits to Little St. James, but Mr. Lutnick’s planned visit had not been previously disclosed. Reached by phone on Friday, Mr. Lutnick said he could not comment about the island visit because he had not seen the latest Epstein documents.
“I spent zero time with him,” Mr. Lutnick said. He then hung up.
The documents suggest the visit did occur. The gathering was set for Dec. 23, 2012. A day later, an assistant to Mr. Epstein forwarded Mr. Lutnick a message from Mr. Epstein: “Nice seeing you,” it said.
In a podcast interview last year, Mr. Lutnick claimed that around 2005, he and his wife had been so revolted by Mr. Epstein that they decided not to associate with him again.
An allegation of rape against President Donald Trump involving a 13-year-old girl is part of an explosive new tranche of documents released by his own Justice Department into the crimes of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The bombshell claim, which the White House says was “unfounded and false,” was made in an FBI file dated from August last year linked to an investigation into the Alexander brothers, three wealthy Florida siblings who are currently on trial, accused of sex trafficking.
It contained a spreadsheet of uncorroborated tips made to the FBI with references to Trump, as well as brief details of the bureau’s often limited follow up.
One allegation, for example, notes that: “(Redacted) reported an unidentified female friend who was forced to perform oral sex on President Trump approximately 35 years ago in NJ. The friend told Alexis that she was approximately 13-14 years old when this occurred, and the friend allegedly bit President Trump while performing oral sex.
“The friend was allegedly hit in the face after she laughed about biting president Trump. The friend said she was also abused by Epstein.” [….]
In a column labelled “response” – outlining the action taken by authorities – it said: “Spoke with caller who identified (redacted) as a friend. Lead was sent to Washington Office to conduct interview.”
In another shocking allegation, an “online complainant reported she was a victim and witness to a sex trafficking ring at the Trump Golf Course in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA between 1995- 1996” for which Ghislaine Maxwell was the resident “madam and broker for sex parties.”
A draft indictment against Jeffrey Epstein prepared by federal prosecutors in 2007 listed a series of sex crimes he was accused of committing against more than a dozen teenage girls over six years, saying he told one 16-year-old victim that bad things could happen to her if she reported what had transpired at his house.
The draft, which was never filed but was released Friday by the Justice Department, had been one of the most sought-after documents in the Epstein files, because it showed how much federal investigators knew about the extent of his crimes.
The Bridge, by Carl Olof Larsson
The 32-count, 56-page indictment laid out extensive charges against Mr. Epstein and two of his employees for sex trafficking and enticement of minors. But it was shelved in 2008 when federal prosecutors agreed to let Mr. Epstein cut a deal with state prosecutors for solicitation of a minor for prostitution.
Instead of facing the prospect of decades in prison, Mr. Epstein instead spent about 13 months in a local jail in Palm Beach, Fla., which he was allowed to leave during the day so he could work out of his home office.
The draft indictment detailed the many crimes that authorities decided not to prosecute in order to strike a lenient plea deal with Mr. Epstein in state court. It described a “conspiracy to procure females under the age of 18” to go to Mr. Epstein’s house in Palm Beach, so he could “engage in lewd conduct with those minor females” and satisfy his “prurient interests” in exchange for money.
The draft indictment detailed the many crimes that authorities decided not to prosecute in order to strike a lenient plea deal with Mr. Epstein in state court. It described a “conspiracy to procure females under the age of 18” to go to Mr. Epstein’s house in Palm Beach, so he could “engage in lewd conduct with those minor females” and satisfy his “prurient interests” in exchange for money.
Some of those victims were asked by Mr. Epstein and his employees “to recruit other minor females to engage in lewd conduct,” the draft indictment said.
Eleven of the victims attended the same school — presumably high school — in Palm Beach County, the draft indictment said.
The document laid out a pattern of interactions Mr. Epstein had with teenagers as far back as 2001. He would call a girl and arrange for her to come to his house, then lead her upstairs to the bedroom. He often had two girls with him at the same time. Afterward, he would pay them several hundred dollars.
One girl was first victimized in 2001 when she was 14, then again when she was 15 and 16. That victim, identified only as Jane Doe #2, was also asked to bring younger girls to Mr. Epstein, according to the draft indictment.
Most of the U.S. government shut down as the clock ticked over to Saturday, Jan. 31, but the funding lapse is expected to be brief.
The Senate passed legislation Friday evening that would fund the government, but the House is not in Washington, leading to the partial government shutdown this weekend.
Cat With Her Kitten, by Julius Adam II,
The bill was the product of a deal between President Donald Trump and Senate Democratic leaders. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told members on a Friday call that he plans to hold a vote on it Monday, a source with knowledge of the matter said.
The funding lapse is not expected to have a significant practical impact, given that most federal employees don’t work during the weekend and Trump has vowed to quickly sign the package into law. But any unforeseen delay in the House could drag out the partial shutdown deeper into next week.
Among the agencies that will be temporarily shut down: the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration enforcement and has faced heavy criticism after two high-profile killings of American citizens in Minneapolis by immigration agents.
Others include the departments of Defense, State, Treasury, Transportation, Health and Human Services and Housing and Urban Development….
Once passed through the House and signed into law, the Senate-passed bill will fund the government through the end of September, except for DHS. That department is funded for just two weeks, a demand by Democrats as they insist on changes to rein in Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.
The bipartisan deal came together after Democrats turned against a previously negotiated DHS measure following the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by DHS agents, which caused an intense public outcry.
In a partial win for Democrats, Trump and GOP leaders acquiesced to their request to punt on DHS funding for two weeks. But it remains to be seen what policy changes they will agree to for ICE and CBP, as Democrats demand reforms.
Democrats plan to use the two weeks to negotiate changes such as ending “roving patrols,” tightening requirements for warrants to make arrests, imposing a code of conduct for immigration agents and forcing them to wear identification and body cameras.
Nothing happening with the health care crisis, I guess.
The White House stands about 70 feet tall. The Lincoln Memorial, roughly 100 feet. The triumphal arch President Donald Trump wants to build would eclipse both if he gets his wish.
Trump has grown attached to the idea of a 250-foot-tall structure overlooking the Potomac River, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe his comments, a scale that has alarmed some architectural experts who initially supported the idea of an arch but expected a far smaller one.
The planned Independence Arch is intended to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary. Built to Trump’s specifications, it would transform a small plot of land between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery into a dominant new monument, reshaping the relationship between the two memorials and obstructing pedestrians’ views.
Trump has considered smaller versions of the arch, including 165-foot-high and 123-foot-high designs he shared at a dinner last year. But he has favored the largest option, arguing that its sheer size would impress visitors to Washington, and that ‘250 for 250’ makes the most sense, the people said.
Architectural experts counter that the size of the monument — installed in the center of a traffic circle — would distort the intent of the surrounding memorials….
Asked if Trump prefers a 250-foot arch, the White House on Saturday referred to the president’s previous comments.
“The one that people know mostly is the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France. And we’re gonna top it by, I think, a lot,” Trump said at a White House Christmas reception in December.
The Arc de Triomphe — already one of the world’s largest triumphal arches — measures 164 feet.
He is truly insane.
I’m going to end there. I didn’t even get to ICE/immigration news, but I’ll add a few links in the comment thread. Have a great weekend, everyone!
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This morning I woke up and turned on the TV to see our “president,” easily the stupidest president in American history, walking hunched over and tired in Davos to give another long, rambling, nonsensical, insulting “speech” to the assembled political and business leaders. He spoke for 70 minutes and it seemed much longer.
I watched the speech for awhile, but it was the same old garbage he talks about off the cuff to the assembled press in the oval office. He went on and on in his old man voice, attacking allies, demanding that Greenland be handed over to him, ranting about windmills–all to complete silence from the audience. How could they sit there and watch this embarrassing display of abject stupidity?
I don’t expect this post to make much sense, because I’m just soooo angry!
The big headline, according to the legacy media is that Trump announced he won’t “take Greenland by force.”
President Donald Trump ruled out military force to acquire Greenland in his remarks Wednesday to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, providing a momentary sense of relief to Europe after weeks of worry that the U.S. would enter a confrontation with NATO.
“We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, where we would be, frankly, unstoppable, but I won’t do that,” Trump said. “That’s probably the biggest statement I made, because people thought I would use force, but I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force.”
Trump said Wednesday that he wants to see negotiation to acquire what he called “a piece of ice.”
The president, though, warned Denmark that if it doesn’t give up Greenland to the U.S., “we will remember.”
He argued in his remarks that the U.S. can protect “this giant mass of land” better than Europe can, insisting that taking over Greenland wouldn’t be a threat to NATO but would instead enhance security for the alliance. While the president’s obsession with Greenland has accelerated in recent weeks, his pledge to not use force to acquire the island marks a shift in his rhetoric.
“I don’t want to use force,” he added. “All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland, where we already had it as a trustee but respectively returned it back to Denmark not long ago after we defeated the Germans, the Japanese, Italians and others in World War II. We gave it back to them.”
He added that it was “stupid” for the U.S. to not keep the island after the war. Still, Trump downplayed the significance of his threats against Greenland, arguing it’s a trade-off for the years of support the U.S. has given to NATO allies.
“What I’m asking for is a piece of ice, cold and poorly located,” he said. It’s a very small ask, compared to what we have given them for many, many decades.”
What does that mess of words really mean? Nothing. Trump is the world’s worst liar and he’s insane. Not to mention stupid. Nothing he says can be believed.
The choice is impeachment and removal or calamity for the United States. I don't see how anybody watching Trump's speech in Davos can draw any other conclusion. He's a senile madman.
“Denmark’s investment in U.S. Treasury bonds, like Denmark itself, is irrelevant,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
It comes as Trump’s threats to impose 10% tariffs on eight European countries as part of his push to take over Greenland spooked markets. The levies would come into force on Feb. 1, Trump said, and later rise to 25%.
Danish pension operator AkademikerPensionsaid Tuesday it was selling $100 million in U.S. Treasurys. The decision was driven by “poor [U.S.] government finances,” said Anders Schelde, AkademikerPension’s investing chief.
When Bessent was asked how concerned he is about European investors pulling out of Treasurys, Bessent said at a news conference at the World Economic Forum: “Denmark’s investment in U.S. Treasury bonds, like Denmark itself, is irrelevant.”
“That is less than $100 million. They’ve been selling Treasurys for years, I’m not concerned at all.”
Really? I’d like to hear what Daknikat has to say about this.
No one can be watching this Davos speech and reach any conclusion but that the President of the United States is mentally disturbed and that something is deeply wrong with him. This is both embarrassing and extremely dangerous.
Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada delivered a stark speech in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, prompting global political and corporate leaders in the audience to rise from their seats for a rare standing ovation.
He described the end of the era underpinned by United States hegemony, calling the current phase “a rupture.” He never mentioned President Trump by name, but his reference was clear.
The speech came as President Trump doubled down on his threats to take Greenland away from Denmark, saying he would slap fresh tariffs on European powers as punishment for their support of Greenland’s sovereignty.
Global leaders have been scrambling to find a unified response.
“Every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great-power rivalry,” Mr. Carney said. “That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.”
And he warned, “The middle powers must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.”
He would know.
Mr. Trump started his second presidential term making claims on Canada as the 51st state and threatening Canada’s previous leader, Justin Trudeau, whom Mr. Trump publicly derided, with unilaterally scrapping agreements that have governed the relationship between the neighboring countries for over a century….
Mr. Carney chastised other leaders too, many of whom would have been following his speech in Davos, for not standing up for their interests.
“There is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along,” he said. “To accommodate. To avoid trouble. To hope that compliance will buy safety. It won’t.”
Mr. Carney made clear he is choosing a different path.
He wrote his own speech, according to a government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the inner workings of his team, which is a departure since speeches of this magnitude are usually prepared by high-level staffers with the leader’s input.
Mr. Carney, a former investment executive who has served as the governor of Canada and England’s central banks, has attended the global gathering about 30 times, according to his office….
Mr. Carney spoke not long after Mr. Trump had posted an altered image on social media that featured a map of American flags superimposed over both Canada and the United States, as well as Greenland.
Well worth a listen from Canadian PM Mark Carney at Davos summit.
President Trump said in Davos on Wednesday that Canada should be “grateful” to the U.S. for the “freebies” it receives because of the two nations’ relationship.
Why it matters: Trump’s dig at Canada came a day after Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered his own warning at the World Economic Forum over the “rupture” of the world order.
Driving the news: “Canada lives because of the United States,” Trump said Wednesday before taking a direct jab at Carney. “Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.”
Trump said Carney “wasn’t so grateful” in his address.
Carney avoided naming Trump in his speech — a strategy a Canadian official previously told Axios was deliberate. However, the official indicated that Carney’s remarks were aimed squarely at the president’s recent actions.
Zoom out: As Trump pushes a vision of hemispheric dominance — coupled with threats of the U.S. making its northern neighbor the “51st state” — Ottawa has reportedly started preparing for how to repel a U.S. invasion.
Growing up, I never really understood Aesop’s fable about the goose that laid the golden egg. It’s a cautionary tale about greed and hubris: A farmer with a miraculous goose that lays a solid-gold egg every morning gets fed up with passive wealth generation and figures killing the bird will speed things along. But alas: He finds no store of eggs within and realizes he butchered his meal ticket for nothing. The moral’s straightforward, but it never really worked for me as a story. Like, come on: Nobody’s that stupid.
Well, almost nobody, I guess.
As long as I live, I don’t think I’ll get over this pure, dumb fact: Trump told his fans he had to blow up the liberal order because it was the only way to secure the very benefits the liberal order was already bringing us.
Trump insists America needs Greenland as a strategic positioning ground from which to restrain Russia and China in the Arctic. But thanks to the liberal order, this was something we already enjoyed. Through the magic of multilateral cooperation, we were able to treat someone else’s territory as though it were our own for the purposes of military positioning—not by bribing or intimidating them, but because they agreed their interests and our interests aligned.
Trump insists America needs to blow up America’s preexisting economic relationships to ensure America gets an advantageous position in international trade. But America already had such an advantageous position: an orderly world economic system that had lavished previously unimaginable prosperity on America and to the entire globe, with us at the proverbial (and very profitable) head of the table.
It’s not just that Trump had the hubris to think he could hero-ball the country to a better deal by canceling a century of history and starting over. It’s that his own broken personality—his miserable meanness, his dispositional inability to cooperate with and trust others—has always prevented him from understanding what was good about the deal we had to begin with. The idea that multipolar agreements could be better for America, in some cases, than outright ownership—that, say, we already have everything we need from Greenland—he rejects as ridiculous. Ownership, he told the New York Times, is “what I feel is psychologically needed for success. . . . I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do, whether you’re talking about a lease or a treaty.”
He really is determined to burn everything down if he can’t get his own way on everything.
1/ Jonathan Lemire writes, "Trump's lust for Greenland is about increasing American dominance in the Western Hemisphere 7 redrawing the maps of the world. The island is roughly 836K square miles, which would make it the largest territorial addition in US history." Gift link.
Franklin D. Roosevelt famously illustrated with a simple metaphor the need for a healthy transatlantic alliance. Justifying his decision to lend Great Britain warships and other military supplies in the early days of World War II, Roosevelt likened it to loaning a neighbor a garden hose to put out the fire consuming his house. Sure, Roosevelt charitably wanted to help a neighbor in need. But it was self-interested too; if the neighbor could extinguish the blaze, it wouldn’t spread to FDR’s home. The United States benefited from the friendship—and the buffer—that allies could provide.
Today, Donald Trump will fly to Europe. Ukraine is already ablaze. And now the president is ready to set a bunch of new houses on fire.
The president will speak at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, tomorrow, and he appears prepared to shatter the nearly 80-year-old NATO alliance in order to seize Greenland. In his quest to claim a strategically located island of ice and rock, Trump has turned against his nation’s most stalwart friends. He has antagonized and mocked panicked European leaders, threatened punishing tariffs on countries that object to his plans, and pointedly not ruled out using military force. Trump’s thirst for Greenland—even if he stops short of ordering an armed invasion—threatens to unravel the partnership born from the ashes of World War II that has, in the decades since, ensured the spread of peace, prosperity, and democracy on both sides of the Atlantic.
Today marks one year since Trump’s return to office, and in that time, he has fundamentally reshaped the United States’ relationship with the rest of the world. But nothing has upended the global order more than what would happen if he follows through on his threats toward Greenland. The island, of course, belongs to Denmark, which says that it is not available for the taking. Troops from Europe have been dispatched to the territory, and Greenland’s prime minister warned his populace to prepare for an invasion. If Trump were to persist, Denmark could trigger NATO’s Article 5 mutual-defense pact, and then the unthinkable could occur: American soldiers firing on Europeans while Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dream of NATO’s self-immolation is thoroughly realized.
The annual meetings in Davos, normally a clubby gathering of business titans and political leaders, have been consumed by talk of what Trump may or may not do. European leaders have found themselves scrambling on strategy—appeasement? Defiance? Compromise? Early this morning, Trump posted screenshots of text messages that revealed the dilemma facing those leaders. (Lesson to everyone: Be careful what you text the guy unless you want the world to see.)
In one message, Mark Rutte—the secretary general of NATO, who has prized warm relations with Trump—praised the president’s foreign policies, then vowed that he is “committed to finding a way forward on Greenland.” But in another, French President Emmanuel Macron, whose relationship with Trump has been turbulent, admitted: “I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland.” In fact, Trump couldn’t be more clear, as he demonstrated once again by circulating a pair of presumably AI-generated images on social media. In one, he’s planting an American flag in Greenland. In the other, he’s lecturing European leaders in the Oval Office with a map behind him that depicts Greenland as part of the United States. (Canada and Venezuela too.)
Trolling close U.S. allies has seemingly been an unofficial policy of Trump’s second administration since its first days, beginning with Vice President Vance lecturing Europe in Munich on the virtues of free speech. But this time feels different for those nervously waiting in snowy Switzerland. The president’s address to the forum tomorrow is poised to be a defining moment, and Trump plans to make the unequivocal case that the United States should have Greenland, a senior White House official told me.
Pretty good predictions, except for Trump’s claim he won’t use force.
A few non-Davos stories:
Did you watch Lawrence O’Donnell last night? He still insists that Trump’s Greenland obsession is really a way to distract the press from the Epstein files. I think he could be right. If you didn’t see it, I recommend watching it now.
Three hundred and sixty-five days after Donald Trump swore his oath of office and completed an extraordinary return to power, many historians, scholars and experts say his presidency has pushed American democracy to the brink – or beyond it.
The scale and velocity of what he has been able to accomplish in just a year have stunned even longtime observers of authoritarian regimes, pushing the debate among academics and Americans from whether the world’s oldest continuous democracy is backsliding to whether it can still faithfully claim that distinction.
“In 2025, the United States ceased to be a full democracy in the way that Canada, Germany or even Argentina are democracies,” Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, the prominent Harvard political scientists and authors of How Democracies Die, and the University of Toronto professor Lucan Way, wrote in Foreign Affairs last month. They argued that the US under Trump had “descended into competitive authoritarianism”, a system in which elections are held but the ruling party abuses power to stifle dissent and tilt the playing field in its favor.
There is no universally accepted definition of democracy. Some argue the US is a “flawed” or “illiberal” democracy, or a democracy facing substantial “autocratization” – a process that began long before Trump came to power a decade ago but which his presidency has rapidly accelerated. Still, others believe the concerns are overblown, or reflect an intense partisan dislike of the current president.
Since Trump’s first term, scholars have warned that it can happen here. But many now say this moment is different – not only because Trump’s approach is more methodical and his desire for vengeance more pronounced, but because he now faces far fewer internal constraints.
Read more at the link.
Hunter Walker at Talking Points Memo: Trump Marks First Year In Office With Unhinged Racist Rant Targeting ‘Very Low IQ’ Somalis.
President Donald Trump spent the first anniversary of his second term on Tuesday pitching himself to the American people from behind the White House briefing room podium. In nearly two hours of remarks, Trump seemingly sought to address his cratering approval by running through a list of his supposed accomplishments. His remarks also included a series of vicious, racist remarks about Somali people and other immigrants.
I think Trump likes this photo.
“They all ought to get the hell out of here, they’re bad for our country,” Trump said of the Somali population at one point during the extraordinary rant.
At multiple points during his remarks, Trump indicated he felt the need to make his case directly because his team was not up to the task. A slew of anniversarypolls show the president’s numbers are currently underwater with notably steep declines in voter approval of the president’s handling of his signature issues: immigration and the economy. Those figures have come amid slow job growth and violent raids staged by Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
“Maybe I have bad public relations people, but we’re not getting it across,” Trump said as he argued the economy is particularly strong since he returned to office.
Trump came equipped with a couple of binders including one labeled “ACCOMPLISHMENTS.” Yet as he read through the provided list, Trump repeatedly raged against the Somali population, including suggesting that they are of inferior intelligence. Trump first turned to the topic as he alluded to the ongoing ICE raids in Minnesota, which have been met with massive protests. The state is home to the country’s largest Somali population and the federal crackdown has come amid a wave of right-wing influencers making exaggerated claims about alleged daycare fraud in the community.
“Nineteen billion dollars at a minimum is missing in Minnesota, given to a large degree by Somalians. They’ve taken it,” Trump said. ”Somalians, can you imagine? And they don’t do it — a lot of very low IQ people. They don’t do it. Other people work it out and they get them money and they go out and buy Mercedes Benzes.”
The Supreme Court will consider Wednesday whether President Trump can fire Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve board, in a case that tests the longstanding independence of the central bank, with potentially major consequences for the economy.
The court’s conservative majority has repeatedly allowed Mr. Trump to oust leaders of other independent agencies as he moves to expand presidential power and seize control of the federal bureaucracy. But the justices have signaled that the Fed may be different and uniquely insulated from executive influence because of its structure and history.
Lisa Cook
The case lands as the administration has dramatically escalated its attacks on the Fed, apparently aimed at remaking its board and lowering interest rates. The Justice Department this month opened a criminal investigation into whether Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, lied to Congress about cost overruns related to the Fed’s renovation of its headquarters.
Mr. Powell, whose term as chair ends in May, forcefully pushed back on the threat of criminal charges, saying it was a result of the Fed setting borrowing costs “based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president.”
The investigation prompted a backlash from Republicans, international policymakers, Wall Street and some Trump allies, who warned that the central bank’s independence and credibility was at risk.
It also threatened to complicate Mr. Trump’s plans to name Mr. Powell’s replacement as chair — and, legal experts said, the Supreme Court case being heard on Wednesday.
The justices agreed to hear Ms. Cook’s case on an expedited basis, and are likely to rule quickly on her status as litigation continues in the lower courts. The outcome of the case could determine how much latitude Mr. Trump and future presidents have to influence the direction of the powerful central bank, which Congress intentionally tried to insulate from political pressures.
Police agencies in the United States kill more than 1,000 people each year. After many of those deaths, the agencies involved put out statements. Those statements often use what’s known as the exonerative voice to minimize officers’ involvement. The first statement from the Minneapolis Police Department after George Floyd’s death, for example, said that the officers at the scene “noted that he appeared to be suffering from medical distress.” Quite the understatement. These communications often cast events in a light most favorable to the officers involved, sometimes to the point of deception. Too often, they’ll try to smear the deceased by citing a criminal record or suggesting a drug addiction or gang affiliation.
Renee Good
I have been covering policing for more than 20 years and have read and parsed a lot of these statements. The Department of Homeland Security’s response after the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis this month is something else entirely.
For all their flaws, typical communications from police officials usually include a modicum of solemnity. There are assurances that there will be a fair and impartial investigation, even if those investigations too often turn out to be neither. There’s at least the acknowledgment that to take a human life is a profound and serious thing.
The Trump administration’s response to Ms. Good’s death made no such concessions. There were no promises of an impartial investigation. There was no regret or remorse. There was little empathy for her family — for her parents, her partner or the children she left behind. From the moment the world learned about her death, the administration pronounced the shooting not only justified but an act of heroism worthy of praise and celebration.
It isn’t just the lying; it’s that the lies are wildly exaggerated and easily refutable. All the evidence we’ve seen so far, including a meticulous Times forensic analysis of the available footage, makes clear that at worst, Ms. Good mildly obstructed immigration enforcement, disobeyed ambiguous orders or perhaps attempted to flee an arrest. None of those are capital crimes, nor do law enforcement officers get to dole out punishment in such cases. At one point, President Trump justified her shooting by claiming she’d been “very disrespectful” to immigration officers. That isn’t a crime at all.
The lies this administration is telling about Ms. Good aren’t those you deploy as part of a cover-up. They’re those you use when you want to show you can get away with anything. They’re a projection of power.
For the past decade or so, since the protests in Ferguson, Mo., America has engaged in a high-stakes dialogue about police abuse and accountability, the militarization of law enforcement and the push and pull between public safety and civil liberties. Those discussions, while occasionally heated, have been based on a shared understanding that the primary job of domestic law enforcement is to serve the public. What Mr. Trump is doing with federal immigration forces has rendered those debates obsolete.
Those are my recommended read for today. What do you think?
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Nothing like the threat of yet another war to start a New Year off. Today, the rotter in the White House is threatening to attack Iran if it does not allow peaceful protests. The Trump regime made it clear to the Iranian regime that it would intervene if protestors were shot or killed, that “We are locked and loaded, and ready to go”. Naturally, this was announced on social media, given that usual diplomatic channels appear to be dysfunctional.
I find this very odd, given that peaceful protests in this country have been investigated by the DOJ as acts of terrorism this year. I’ve specifically linked to CNN Coverage of protests at Columbia University here as an example. So much for the Nobel Peace Prize aspirations.
This is from The Guardian. “Iranian officials warn Trump not to cross ‘red line’ over threats to intervene in protests. US president’s posts that US will come to the rescue of protesters prompt warnings of ‘regret-inducing response.'” It is reported today by William Christou.
Donald Trump has threatened to intervene in Iran if its government kills demonstrators, prompting warnings from senior Iranian officials that any American interference would cross a “red line”.
In a social media post on Friday, Trump said that if Iran were to shoot and kill protesters, the US would “come to their rescue”. He added “we are locked and loaded, and ready to go”, without explaining what that might mean in practice.
Protests in Iran are in their sixth day, and are the largest since 2022, when the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini triggered demonstrations across the country. The current unrest was triggered by an unprecedented decline in the value of the national currency on Sunday. The Iranian rial dropping to about 1.4m to the US dollar, further harming an already beleaguered economy.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, called Trump’s statement “reckless and dangerous,” and said the country’s military was on standby. He also said the protests had been mostly peaceful, but that attacks on public property would not be tolerated.
“Given President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard within US borders, he of all people should know that criminal attacks on public property cannot be tolerated,” he said.
In response to Trump’s threat of intervention, Ali Shamkhani, adviser to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, warned that Iran’s national security was a “red line, not material for adventurist tweets”.
“Any intervening hand nearing Iran security on pretexts will be cut off with a regret-inducing response,” Shamkhani said in a post on X.
Today’s New York Times’Matthew Purdy has this excellent analysis. “After Watergate, the Presidency Was Tamed. Trump Is Unleashing It. In the 1970s, Congress passed a raft of laws to hold the White House accountable. President Trump has decided they don’t apply to him.”
A power-hungry president had twisted the government into a tool for his personal political benefit. His aides kept an “enemies list” of opponents to be punished. His cronies ran the Justice Department and he made puppets of other agencies that were meant to be independent. Corporations that wanted favorable treatment from the White House were pressured to make illegal contributions to the president’s political coffers.
As revelations of rot in the Nixon administration tumbled out through the 1970s, Senator Lawton Chiles, Democrat of Florida, captured the alarm of the Watergate era: “Nothing will bring the Republic to its knees so quickly as a bone-deep mistrust of the government by its own people,” he said. “We have seen other democracies fall within our own lifetime. Fall through internal corruption rather than outside invasion.”
…
The aim was not just to excise what one aide to President Richard M. Nixon described as “a cancer,” but to prevent a recurrence. “Watergate reform is not for the past or for the present,” Senator Lowell P. Weicker Jr., a Connecticut Republican, wrote in a 1976 addendum to a Senate report. “Our memories may indeed keep us free today. It is for unborn generations who will never know firsthand how close a democracy came to oligarchy.”
From the opening days of his second term, President Trump took aim at Watergate’s ethical checkpoints as if in a shooting gallery. First, he fired 17 inspectors general, a job established in the Watergate era to ferret out waste, fraud and abuse in government. He also fired the head of the Office of Special Counsel, an independent agency created by legislation in 1978 to protect government whistle-blowers. Then he fired the director of the Office of Government Ethics, created around the same time to guard against financial conflicts of interest by top government officials. And he has used the Justice Department and the F.B.I. as political tools, roles they worked to shed after Watergate.
A strain of conservative legal thinking has been aiming to reassert the president’s powers ever since they were curbed in the post-Watergate era. But while Mr. Trump’s lawyers successfully make the case for expanding presidential authority based on a high-minded Constitutional argument, there is a raw political result. He has removed barriers that might slow his pursuit of a highly personal presidency — punishing opponents and rewarding allies and financial backers while also reaping profits for family businesses that intersect with his powers as president.
You may read the entire analysis at the link. It’s gifted, and it’s worth taking the time to read the entire thing. I was in high school when the entire Watergate scandal unfolded, and I must say that the entire experience profoundly shaped my political views.
We have another TACO event today, which is good news. This is from the AP. “Trump delays increased tariffs on upholstered furniture, kitchen cabinets, and vanities for a year.” This is reported by Michelle L. Price.
President Donald Trump signed a New Year’s Eve proclamation delaying increased tariffs on upholstered furniture, kitchen cabinets and vanities for a year, citing ongoing trade talks.
Trump’s order signed Wednesday keeps in place a 25% tariff he imposed in September on those goods, but delays for another year a 30% tariff on upholstered furniture and 50% tariff on kitchen cabinets and vanities.
The increases, which were set to take effect Jan. 1, come as the Republican president instituted a broad swath of taxes on imported goods to address trade imbalances and other issues.
The president has said the tariffs on furniture are needed to “bolster American industry and protect national security.”
The delay is the latest in the roller coaster of Trump’s tariff wars since he returned to office last year, with the president announcing levies at times without warning and then delaying or pulling back from them just as abruptly.
One last bit of analysis by NPR’s Stephen Fowler. “With few Epstein files released, conspiracy theories flourish and questions remain.”
During the 2024 election, President Trump promised to release the Epstein files as part of a campaign message arguing the government was run by powerful people hiding the truth from Americans.
At the start of 2026, many people agree — and believe that he is now one of the powerful few keeping the public in the dark.
In the two weeks since the Justice Department failed to fully meet a legal deadline to release its expansive tranche of files on Jeffrey Epstein, old conspiracy theories about his life and death have subsided and new ones have taken shape. The late financier was a convicted sex offender and accused of sex trafficking minors while associating with top figures in politics, academia and other influential industries.
Both supporters of the president and his opponents have criticized the rollout of documents, often heavily redacted and shared without any clear organization or context. Included in the roughly 40,000 pages of new information published in the last week are unvetted tips from the public — and a complaint made to the FBI more than a decade before Epstein was first criminally charged.
There could be well over a million files still unreleased, along with potentially terabytes-worth of data seized from Epstein’s devices and estate, according to 2020 emails between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York included in the most recent batch of files.
On Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote on social media that lawyers were working “around the clock” to review documents but did not specify the scope or scale of the remaining work.
“It truly is an all-hands-on-deck approach and we’re asking as many lawyers as possible to commit their time to review the documents that remain,” Blanche said. “Required redactions to protect victims take time but they will not stop these materials from being released. The Attorney General’s and this Administration’s goal is simple: transparency and protecting victims.”
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is threatening to take action against the Justice Department for failing to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed in November, but the law itself contains no penalties or enforcement mechanism.
Politically, the Epstein files saga caps off a rocky first year for an administration facing record-low favorability ratings and a president whose grasp on his base is appearing to slip. Trump spent most of 2025 downplaying the significance of the files, at times lashing out against Republicans who demanded the release of information about other potential perpetrators.
Read more at the link.
So, I’m fighting a cold that won’t give up and trying to spend my last few days of vacation cleaning up the house. It’s definitely a period of out with the old and in with the new for me. I’m fortunate to have a friend helping me in all these endeavors, but the last thing I needed was a damn cold. But, with the wacky weather we’re having this winter, I’m not surprised. We keep jumping from near-freezing temperatures to the 80s. Drastic changes like that always get to me.
I’m wishing all of you the best for this new year. It’s more important than ever to be kind to yourself, and as Maya Angelou once said, “Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.”
What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?
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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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
“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.
“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.
Read more at USA Today.
One more from Julie K. Brown, who researched and wrote the series on Epstein at the Miami Herald that forced new investigations into the sweetheart deal that Epstein got from the DOJ in September 2007.
Pages and pages of blacked-out documents. Photographs of Epstein’s mop closet and HVAC systems in house. Message pads, notes and other material from the Florida case that has been on the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s website since at least 2018. They didn’t even release the victim interviews; just pictures of the tapes of the interviews. Think about that. A photograph of a tape cassette.
This would be funny if it wasn’t about a crime involving the rapes of 14-year-old girls.
It’s clear that the Department of Justice is not only thumbing its nose at the public’s demand for transparency and accountability, it is not taking the crimes committed against children seriously. It’s as if they think we are so hungry for any crumbs about Epstein that stale bread will do.
What’s worse is that the documents and photos they did release were tossed up like a salad and served in such a mixed-up way that few people will even understand the significance of the material that was released on Friday.
Miss Kitty, a lazy afternoon, by Jan Panico
Imagine being a survivor who was raped by Epstein, and having to click, one photo at a time, through hundreds of photographs, just searching for something, anything, to explain how Jeffrey Epstein did what he did, hoping for some shred of hope that the FBI actually investigated your complaint — the story you painfully found the courage to tell.
There were few stories in the thousands of pages released Friday. Even victim Maria Farmer, who found some validation in the fact that her 1996 FBI report about Epstein’ was tucked into the mess, would learn that the FBI did nothing about it. Had they taken some steps, they may have prevented the sexual assaults of countless other girls and young women.
And what about Epstein’s clients? Pam Bondi, the attorney general, said there was no list. But Rep. Tom Massie has said he knows of 20 men who have been implicated in Epstein’s crimes. And what about Ghislaine Maxwell? Well, she filed a habeas corpus petition a few days ago that claims that 25 men arranged civil settlements with Epstein victims who could have “equally been considered as co-conspirators.” She adds: “None of them have been prosecuted.” [….]
Here is a link to the Epstein Files on the Palm Beach State Attorney’s website. You will learn more about the case here than what was released by the DOJ Friday: https://sa15.org/public-records/
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.”
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.
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?
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Long-time friends Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump
Yesterday was a dramatic day in the efforts by Congressional Democrats and a few Republicans to force the release of the Epstein files held by the DOJ. Could the Epstein scandal along with the struggling economy finally bring down Donald Trump after all these years?
President Donald Trump’s approval rating fell to 38%, the lowest since his return to power, with Americans unhappy about his handling of the high cost of living and the investigation into the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
The four-day poll, which concluded on Monday, comes as Trump’s grip on his Republican Party shows signs of weakening. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a measure to force the release of Justice Department files on Epstein. Trump had opposed the move for months while one of his closest supporters in Congress, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, turned into a harsh critic over his resistance. Trump reversed his position on Sunday as lawmakers prepared to move forward without him.
The survey showed Trump’s overall approval has fallen two percentage points since a Reuters/Ipsos poll in early November.
The poll, which was conducted online, surveyed 1,017 U.S. adults nationwide and had a margin of error of about 3 percentage points.
Trump started his second term in office with 47% of Americans giving him a thumbs up. The nine-point decline since January leaves his overall popularity near the lows seen during his first term in office, and close to the weakest ratings for his Democratic predecessor in the White House, Joe Biden. Biden’s approval rating sank as low as 35% while Trump’s first-term popularity fell as low as 33%
Heading into the 2026 midterm elections, there are some very big warning signs for Republicans in the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll.
The survey of 1,443 adults, conducted from Nov. 10-13 found:
Democrats holding their largest advantage, 14 points, since 2017 on the question of who respondents would vote for if the midterm elections were held today;
President Trump’s approval rating is just 39%, his lowest since right after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol;
A combined 6-in-10 blame congressional Republicans or Trump for the government shutdown; and
Nearly 6-in-10 say Trump’s top priority should be lowering prices — and no other issue comes close….
Coming off huge wins up and down the ballot across the country in this year’s off-year elections, Democrats lead Republicans, 55%-41%, when people were asked who they would vote for in their district if the election for Congress were held today.
It’s the largest Democratic advantage on this question, known as the congressional ballot, in the Marist poll since November 2017. The parallel is striking, considering that was at the same point in Trump’s first term as this poll now. Democrats wound up winning 40 House seats in 2018.
If the midterms were today, most say they would pick a Democrat. What’s more, independents chose Democrats by a 33-point margin on this question. It’s all quite the reversal of fortune from a year ago when, just before the 2024 elections when President Trump won back the White House, the parties were tied on the congressional ballot.
Historically, Democrats have needed a sizable advantage on the congressional ballot to signal that they would do well in upcoming midterms.
After months of efforts by Democrats to force the release of the Epstein files, suddenly yesterday their plans came to fruition in surprising fashion.
Both the House and Senate acted decisively Tuesday to pass a bill to force the Justice Department to publicly release its files on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a remarkable display of approval for an effort that had struggled for months to overcome opposition from President Donald Trump and Republican leadership.
Congressman Thomas Massie speaks at a news conference on the Epstein Files Transparency Act on November 18, 2025, with fellow Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ro Khanna [Annabelle Gordon Reuters]
When a small, bipartisan group of House lawmakers introduced a petition in July to maneuver around Speaker Mike Johnson’s control of the House floor, it appeared a longshot effort — especially as Trump urged his supporters to dismiss the matter as a “hoax.”But both Trump and Johnson failed to prevent the vote. The president in recent days bowed to political reality, saying he would sign the bill. And just hours after the House vote, senators agreed to approve it unanimously, skipping a formal roll call.The decisive, bipartisan work in Congress Tuesday further showed the pressure mounting on lawmakers and the Trump administration to meet long-held demands that the Justice Department release its case files on Epstein, a well-connected financier who killed himself in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial in 2019 on charges he sexually abused and trafficked underage girls.For survivors of Epstein’s abuse, passage of the bill was a watershed moment in a years-long quest for accountability.“These women have fought the most horrific fight that no woman should have to fight. And they did it by banding together and never giving up,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as she stood with some of the abuse survivors outside the Capitol Tuesday morning.“That’s what we did by fighting so hard against the most powerful people in the world, even the president of the United States, in order to make this vote happen today,” added Greene, a Georgia Republican.In the end, only one lawmaker in Congress opposed the bill. Rep. Clay Higgins, a Louisiana Republican who is a fervent supporter of Trump, was the only “nay” vote in the House’s 427-1 tally. He said he worried the legislation could lead to the release of information on innocent people mentioned in the federal investigation.
Read more about the bill and Trump’s sudden reversal at the AP link.
The Senate has officially passed legislation forcing the Justice Department to release more information about the case it built against the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Senators had locked in an agreement to automatically pass the bill as soon as it was received from the House, which overwhelmingly passed it on Tuesday.
It now heads to President Donald Trump’s desk, where he has said he will sign it. That comes despite the fact that Speaker Mike Johnson sought eleventh-hour changes to the House-passed bill and didn’t rule out the possibility he would encourage Trump to veto it.
Assuming Trump follows through, the Justice Department will have 30 days to release the materials with redactions to protect Epstein’s victims.
Will Pam Bondi resist releasing the files? William Kristol at The Bulwark: ‘The Epstein Class.’
Who says Congress never gets anything done?
It was only a week ago that newly sworn in Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) provided the final signature needed on the discharge petition to force a vote on The Epstein Files Transparency Act. Yesterday, the House approved the act by a vote of 427–1. About three hours later, the Senate deemed it passed by unanimous consent. The legislation will be transmitted to the White House today. President Trump has said he will sign the bill into law.
Epstein survivors speak at Capitol Hill news conference.
This act requires that the Justice Department make public within thirty days all the unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in its possession related to any of Jeffrey Epstein’s criminal activities, civil settlements, immunity, plea agreements, and investigatory proceedings. It specifies that “no record shall be withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”
The authors of the legislation tried to make sure any exceptions were narrowly drawn. The attorney general can only withhold or redact information from personal or medical files—the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy—or information that would jeopardize an active federal investigation or ongoing prosecution, “provided such withholding is narrowly tailored and temporary.” The law requires that all redactions must be accompanied by a written justification in the Federal Register.
Obviously, there is no guarantee that Donald Trump’s attorney general will carry out these legislative instructions in good faith. Pam Bondi could try to turn tight and reasonable exceptions into wide open loopholes. Her boss, the president, has already ordered up an investigation of Democrats tied to Epstein—and she quickly said she’d comply. Could that be a predicate for withholding documents?
But would she even bother to cite that investigation? There are, after all, no assurances that the attorney general won’t try to simply withhold documents and information without telling us she’s done so.
And so “distrust and verify” should be the motto going forward. Congress, the media, the survivors—everyone committed to having the truth come out—needs to be prepared to keep the pressure on throughout, and to scream from the rooftops if there seems to be evasion or stonewalling.
Read the rest at The Bulwark.
Trump’s blatant corruption and his disdain for women reporters were both on display as he struggled to deal with his failure on the Epstein files issue.
Trump hosted Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in his tacky, gold-encrusted oval office yesterday, and then held a state dinner in bin Salman’s honor last night. The U.S. intelligence community found that bin Salman gave the order to murder Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2019, but also Saudi Arabia was largely responsible for the 9/11/2021 attacks.
President Trump welcomed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, to the White House with an elaborate military display Tuesday, praising the crown prince and insisting the U.S.-Saudi relationship has never been better as the two countries look to sign major business and national security deals.
Trump meets with Saudi Crown Prince in the oval office.
The pomp and circumstance — and the president’s praise and warmth toward MBS — were more typical of a visit from an allied Western democracy than an absolute monarchy with a troubled human rights record, pointing to the president’s focus on economic and business ties above virtually all else. The White House sees Saudi Arabia as a critical security partner in a turbulent Middle East, as well as an economic partner.
The White House arrival ceremony for the crown prince on Tuesday morning was laden with fanfare, complete with a U.S. military flyover, cannons, horses, and a red carpet. American and Saudi flags adorned the White House South Lawn, and a military band greeted the Saudi royal. Mr. Trump and the crown prince exchanged greetings as they shook hands, and then watched the formation of F-35 and F-16 fighter jets fly by before going inside the White House….
Ahead of bin Salman’s arrival, Mr. Trump told reporters Monday that the U.S. would sell F-35 fighter jets to the Saudis. In the Oval Office, MBS said the Saudis will increase a planned investment of $600 billion in the U.S. to closer to $1 trillion, an announcement that pleased Mr. Trump greatly.
Mr. Trump praised the crown prince in the Oval Office, calling him a “very good friend” and insisting his record on human rights is commendable, despite the State Department’s long list of concerns of human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia. Arbitrary and unlawful killings, disappearances, torture, serious restrictions on freedom of expression and restrictions on religious freedom continue to plague the nation, according to the latest 2024 State Department report.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday called for ABC’s broadcast license to be revoked as he angrily lashed out at a reporter from the network who asked why he has not released files on notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, his former friend.
ABC News reporter Mary Bruce
“I think you are a terrible reporter,” Trump told ABC News White House correspondent Mary Bruce.
The president said he did not like Bruce’s “attitude.”
President Trump frequently demonstrates his disdain for journalists. He expresses his admiration for authoritarians almost as often.
Tuesday showed how intertwined those two instincts really are.
Trump repeatedly objected to press questions during an Oval Office photo op with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, whose country does not have a free press.
He lashed out at an ABC correspondent, Mary Bruce, after she invoked the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents.
The president said his ally, Brendan Carr, the chairman of the FCC, should “look at” punishing ABC over its news coverage.
“I think the license should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake and it’s so wrong,” he asserted.
Trump misstated how FCC licenses actually work, but his message was clear: He’d like his government to retaliate the way a dictator would.
The president also called Bruce “insubordinate,” a word he rarely ever uses, while sitting next to the son of the Saudi king.
According to Reporters Without Borders, which tracks press freedom all around the world, “independent media are non-existent in Saudi Arabia, and Saudi journalists live under heavy surveillance, even when abroad.”
US President Donald Trump said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “knew nothing” about the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as he welcomed the kingdom’s de facto ruler to the White House.
Trump’s comments appeared to contradict a US intelligence assessment in 2021 which determined the crown prince had approved the operation that led to Khashoggi’s death at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
Jamal Khashoggi
The crown prince, who has denied any wrongdoing, said at the White House that Saudi Arabia “did all the right things” to investigate Khashoggi’s death, which he called “painful”.
It was his first US visit since the assassination, which sent shockwaves through the US-Saudi relationship.
In the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump shot back at a reporter who asked a question about the killing.
“You’re mentioning someone that was extremely controversial,” the US president said.
“A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about. Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen.”
“But he [the Crown Prince] knew nothing about it,” Trump added. “You don’t have to embarrass our guests.”
The crown prince added that Saudi Arabia “did all the right steps” to investigate the murder, which he called “painful” and a “huge mistake”.
A US intelligence report made public in 2021 – under President Joe Biden’s administration – determined that the crown prince had approved of a plan to “capture or kill” Khashoggi in Istanbul. During his first administration, Trump White House officials declined to release the report.
While dozens of Saudi officials faced sanctions in the wake of the assassination, none directly targeted the crown prince.
Donald Trump, who has a history of making extremely personal attacks on female journalists, referred to a Bloomberg News correspondent as a “piggy” during a clash onboard Air Force One on Friday.
While the remark did not initially get much attention, it picked up some traction on Tuesday and has drawn backlash from fellow journalists, including some who have previously been attacked by Trump themselves.
Bloomberg reporter Catherine Lucey
Catherine Lucey, Bloomberg’s White House correspondent, had taken advantage of a press opportunity with the president – known as a gaggle – to ask a question about the unfolding Jeffrey Epstein scandal and the possibility of the House voting to release all of the files related to his case, which now appears likely.
As Lucey started to ask why Trump was behaving the way he was “if there’s nothing incriminating in the files”, Trump pointed at her and said: “Quiet. Quiet, piggy.” [….]
When asked about the incident, Lucey directed the Guardian to a spokesperson for her news organization.
“Our White House journalists perform a vital public service, asking questions without fear or favor,” a Bloomberg News spokesperson said on Tuesday afternoon. “We remain focused on reporting issues of public interest fairly and accurately.”
The world’s richest man. One of the world’s most famous soccer players. The president of soccer’s governing body. Dozens of executives from the finance, tech and energy sectors.
These are some of the guests who attended President Trump’s black-tie dinner for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia at the White House on Tuesday evening.
The red carpet welcome for Prince Mohammed is an extraordinary moment in diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. It is his first visit to the United States since the 2018 killing of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, which U.S. intelligence determined the prince ordered. Prince Mohammed has denied involvement.
After Mr. Khashoggi’s murder, some Western business executives and government officials backed out of Saudi Arabia’s global investment conference, including leaders of major American financial institutions. But by the following year, top deal makers were back at the event in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.
The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
Today’s 
You may read the entire analysis at the link. It’s gifted, and it’s worth taking the time to read the entire thing. I was in high school when the entire Watergate scandal unfolded, and I must say that the entire experience profoundly shaped my political views.
One last bit of analysis by
Read more at the link.
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