Wednesday Reads

Posted: September 3, 2025 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: Alien Enemies Act, Donald Trump, Epstein Files, Epstein survivors, FTC, Jeffrey Epstein, Kim Jong Un, Nicolas Maduro, Posse Comitatus Act, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, Rep. Nancy Mace, Rep. Ro Khanna, Rep. Thomas Massie, Venezuela drone strike, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping | 8 Comments

Good Day!!

The Epstein Files are leading the news again, as Congress returns and Epstein survivors speak out publicly. Trump is not happy about it and is threatening any Republicans who vote for the files to be released.

The House Oversight Committee released some Epstein files yesterday they received from Pam Bondi, but they were the same ones that have been available for a long time–the same duplicates that Bondi gave to right wing influencers back in in February. Apparently, the DOJ is going to keep releasing the same stale, heavily redacted files over and over again.

A rally is taking place right now in Washington. Julie K. Brown and Emily Goodin at The Miami Herald: As many as 100 Epstein victims will attend Washington rally Wednesday.

As many as 100 survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and other victims of sexual abuse are expected to attend a rally Wednesday in Washington, D.C. as a bipartisan Congressional effort gains steam to force the U.S. Department of Justice to make public its controversial files on the disgraced sex trafficker.

Annie Farmer, left, and Courtney Wild, far right, both women who say they were molested by Jeffrey Epstein when they were teenagers, faced the wealthy sex offender in 2019 inside of a Manhattan courtroom. Emily Michot. Miami Herald

Two lawmakers, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) are pushing for a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives that would mandate U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to release the files on the Epstein case. The lawmakers are holding a press conference 10:30 a.m. Wednesday on the steps of the U.S. Capitol with 10 survivors, some of whom have not spoken publicly before. In advance of the press conference, some 100 survivors are expected at a rally organized by several victim advocate groups near the Capitol.

“The voices of survivors have been omitted from the conversation for far too long,” said Lauren Hersh, National Director of World Without Exploitation, one of the groups organizing the event.

“This is the moment to stand united to ensure that those who’ve been exploited and abused are heard loud and clear.”

Epstein victims have mobilized in recent weeks as his convicted accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, appears to be pressing for a pardon from President Donald Trump. In July, she was interviewed by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, and was then moved from a maximum federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida, to a minimum-security prison in Texas. The lawmakers also could be using Wednesday’s event as a form of public pressure. Massie and Khanna’s resolution – if it passes the House – would then have to be passed by the Senate before going to President Trump for his signature. It’s unclear how quickly Senate Republicans will want to bring the matter to the floor and whether Trump would sign it.

Yesterday a group of Epstein survivors met with House members. From yesterday’s

Guardian: Trump faces new Epstein headache as Congress returns from recess.

Congress returned to session on Tuesday, and with it comes a political headache for Donald Trump in the form of renewed attention on the investigation into the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and his death, a subject that the president has sought to avoid in recent weeks.

While the president got a month-long break from the Epstein issue when lawmakers left town for the annual August recess – with the House of Representatives wrapping up a day early because of the controversy over Epstein – the calm will probably end quickly. Representatives from both parties have planned press conferences and legislative maneuvers intended to put pressure on the Trump administration for more transparency over Epstein, whose suicide while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges in 2019 has been the subject of conspiracy theories the president amplified while on the campaign trail.

The Republican congressman Thomas Massie announced he had filed a legislative maneuver known as a discharge petition that could force a vote in the House on legislation mandating the release of investigative files related to Epstein, over the objections of the speaker, Mike Johnson.

Represenatives Ro Kanna and Thomas Massie

The petition needs 218 signatures to succeed and is expected to attract support from most, if not all, Democrats as well as some Republicans, but it is unclear if it will prevail. However, even if the bill passes, it still must be approved by the Senate, and it is unclear if the majority leader, John Thune, will allow it to be considered.

Meanwhile, victims of Epstein are on Capitol Hill to meet with Johnson, a source familiar with the speaker’s schedule told the Guardian. They will also sit down with lawmakers on the House oversight committee, which is investigating the government’s handling of the financier’s case.

The Democratic congresswoman and oversight committee member, Ayanna Pressley, said the encounter “is a step toward the healing, accountability, and transparency survivors deserve”.

“As the oversight committee continues its investigation, I continue to demand the release of the full, unredacted Epstein files with the names of survivors protected,” she added.

Nancy Mace, Lauren Bobert and Marjorie Taylor Greene plan to vote for the discharge petition, according to MSNBC. Nancy Mace, who has talked publicly about her sexual assault, left the meeting early after having a “full-blown panic attack,” according to Newsweek:

Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, left a closed-door House Oversight Committee briefing with survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse on Tuesday after she said she suffered a “full-blown panic attack.”

Representative Mace wiped tears as she exited the meeting, and she later said in a statement that she was “sweating, hyperventilating and shaking.” [….]

The closed-door briefing formed part of the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into how federal agencies handled Epstein’s case and the release of related records. Lawmakers said it was intended to give survivors a direct forum to convey their experiences to Congress, as per The Hill.

Mace’s emotional departure drew attention because she had publicly identified herself as a survivor of sexual assault earlier this year. Her previous congressional remarks about alleged abusers also prompted a federal defamation suit that a judge later dismissed on immunity grounds….

Lawmakers convened a closed-door Oversight Committee briefing with several women who have identified themselves as victims of Jeffrey Epstein and members of his network as the committee pursued documents and testimony related to the case.

Cameron Adams at The Daily Beast: Frantic Trump Tries to Kill Vote to Force Open Epstein Files.

The White House has warned Republican rebels in Congress that pushing for the full release of the Jeffrey Epstein pedophile abuse files would be seen as “a very hostile act” by President Donald Trump….

Kentucky Rep. Massie, and Californian Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna have led a bipartisan push in the House for the GOP to be transparent about Epstein.

A tearful Nancy Mace leaves the meeting with Epstein survivors.

“People want these files released,” Massie said. “I mean, look, it’s not the biggest issue in the country. It’s taxes, jobs, the economy; those are always the big issues. But you really can’t solve any of that if this place is corrupt.”

“There’s a major pressure campaign from the White House right now, and also from the speaker,” Massie said on Tuesday. “But I think there are enough Republicans who are listening to their constituents and care about these victims that we’ll get the 218 signatures we need.”

Greene, a normally full-throated Trump ally who has disagreed with him over the Epstein case, backed Massie in a post on X.

“I’m committed to doing everything possible for the victims of Jeffrey Epstein. Including exposing the cabal of rich and powerful elites that enabled this,” she wrote. “I’m proud to be signing @RepThomasMassie‘s discharge petition.”

A White House official told CNN, “Helping Thomas Massie and Liberal Democrats with their attention-seeking, while the DOJ is fully supporting a more comprehensive file release effort from the Oversight Committee, would be viewed as a very hostile act to the administration.”

Massie also suggested that “Trump ‘may be covering for some rich and powerful people’ in Epstein files,” according to The Hill.

Courts rejected some of Trump’s fascist policies yesterday.

Charlie Savage at The New York Times: L.A. Ruling Complicates Trump’s Threats to Send Troops to More Cities.

A federal judge’s ruling that President Trump has been using troops illegally to perform law enforcement functions in Los Angeles will — if it stands — pose impediments to any plans Mr. Trump may have for sending the military into the streets of other cities, like Chicago.

Mr. Trump has made those threats in the context of his anti-crime operation in Washington, D.C., which has involved both civilian federal agents and National Guard troops under federal control. But because the District of Columbia is not a state, the federal government has greater latitude to use the Guard there.

The Posse Comitatus Act, enacted in 1878, makes it illegal to use federal troops for domestic policing under normal circumstances. So to keep from running afoul of that law, Mr. Trump would need a legal rationale for deploying troops to cities like Chicago.

Judge Charles Breyer

One potential model for Mr. Trump might be the reasoning his administration offered for sending troops to Los Angeles over the summer, ostensibly to protect federal agents and facilities. But on Tuesday, Judge Charles Breyer of the Federal District Court in San Francisco held that the administration has been using those troops too expansively.

The judge barred the federal government from using troops anywhere in California to engage in “arrests, apprehensions, searches, seizures, security patrols, traffic control, crowd control, riot control, evidence collection, interrogation, or acting as informants.” [….]

There are reasons for caution at this stage. An appeals court has already overturned an earlier decision by Judge Breyer, in which he tried to strike down Mr. Trump’s assertion of federal control of California National Guard troops over the objections of the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom.

But if other courts adopt Judge Breyer’s reasoning, it would limit Mr. Trump’s ability to use the operation in Los Angeles as a precedent to justify deploying federal troops into other cities to fight crime.

Devon Cole at CNN: Federal appeals court says Trump unlawfully invoked the Alien Enemies Act for deportations.

A divided federal appeals court on Tuesday said President Donald Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to rapidly deport alleged Venezuelan gang members is unlawful and blocked its use in several southern states, issuing another blow to Trump’s invocation of the 18th century law.

The Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals said in a 2-1 ruling that Trump cannot move forward with using the sweeping wartime authority for deportations in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. The president has not leaned on the 1798 law for removals since mid-March, when his invocation of it sparked the first in a series of legal challenges.

Tuesday’s ruling is notable because it’s likely the vehicle through which the issue will reach the Supreme Court for the justices to potentially review Trump’s use of the law in full.

The Fifth Circuit’s opinion, penned by Judge Leslie Southwick and joined by Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, concluded that a “predatory incursion” by members of the gang, Tren de Aragua, had not occurred, as Trump claimed as a reason for invoking the act.

“We conclude that the findings do not support that an invasion or a predatory incursion has occurred. We therefore conclude that petitioners are likely to prove that the AEA was improperly invoked,” Southwick wrote.

Lee Gelernt, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who represents Venezuelan detainees in north Texas who are challenging Trump’s effort to deport them under the Alien Enemies Act, said that the appeals court “correctly held that the administration’s unprecedented use of the Alien Enemies Act was unlawful because it violates Congress’ intent in passing the law.”

Cecilia Kang at The New York Times: Federal Appeals Court Reinstates an F.T.C. Commissioner Fired by Trump.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday reinstated a Democrat who was fired by President Trump from the Federal Trade Commission earlier this year, dealing a blow to Mr. Trump’s monthslong attempt to permanently remove her from the consumer protection and antitrust enforcement agency.

In a split 2-to-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said that the Trump administration’s attempt to block the commissioner, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, from resuming her role at the F.T.C. had “no prospect of success.” The court said that Mr. Trump had fired her without cause rather than on the required grounds of “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

Rebecca Kelly Slaughter

In March, Mr. Trump dismissed Ms. Slaughter and another Democrat, Alvaro Bedoya, in an attempt to assert control over agencies that regulate companies and workplaces. A letter to one of the commissioners, which was reviewed by The New York Times, said: “Your continued service on the F.T.C. is inconsistent with my administration’s priorities.”

Mr. Bedoya fought the dismissal but resigned in June, citing financial reasons. Ms. Slaughter pressed on with her suit to resume her role at the F.T.C., saying she was fired without cause, and in July a federal court ruled in her favor. The Trump administration filed for a stay of that decision with the appeals court, whose decision on Tuesday rejected its arguments.

Trump may have committed a war crime yesterday.

Jennifer Hansler at CNN: US military kills 11 in strike on alleged drug boat tied to Venezuelan cartel, Trump says.

The United States conducted a deadly military strike against an alleged drug boat tied to the cartel Tren de Aragua, President Donald Trump said Tuesday.

The US president said 11 people were killed in the strike in “international waters.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the “lethal strike” as taking place in the “southern Caribbean” against “a drug vessel which had departed from Venezuela.”

The use of military force against Latin American drug cartels represents a significant escalation by the Trump administration and could have serious implications for the region.

“Earlier this morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility. TDA is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

“Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!” he wrote.

Wednesday Reads

Posted: August 20, 2025 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: Andrew Bailey, Dan Bongino, DC food delivery drivers, DOJ, Ed Martin, Epstein Files, Fascist crackdown on Washington DC, Fascist secret police cars, ICE and the economy, Letitia James, Michael Wolff, National guard troops in Washington DC, Trump ignorance, Trump-Putin summit 2025, Vladimir Putin | 7 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

I’ve been surveying the day’s top news stories and my head is spinning. I don’t know what to focus on or where to begin, and there’s no way I can cover everything. There is too much happening, so I’ve just chosen the stories that interested me the most.

Trump’s fascist crackdown on Washington DC

The New York Times: National Guard Troops in Washington Stick to Tourist Areas.

The 800 National Guard troops sent into Washington last week will soon be augmented by hundreds more, as several states with Republican governors commit to supporting President Trump’s crackdown in the city.

But Army officials appear to be trying to keep the troops on the sidelines of the mission, despite the tough-on-crime image that Mr. Trump has sought to project.

The troops have joined an array of federal agents who appeared on city streets after Mr. Trump declared last week that the federal government was assuming law enforcement responsibility in the capital, which he has falsely claimed is essentially lawless.

The first wave of troops sent to the city all came from the D.C. National Guard, which the president can call out directly. National Guard troops from Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina and West Virginia will soon also be deployed, according to the governors of those states. National Guard officials said that there were 869 troops in Washington as of Monday night; the Republican-led states so far have pledged 1,000 more.

The Republican governors said they were providing the additional troops at the request of the Trump administration. Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio said that Army Secretary Dan Driscoll had asked for the extra troops. “When the secretary of the Army asks for backup support to our troops that are already deployed, yes, we will back up our troops,” Mr. DeWine told the Columbus Dispatch.

The number is still expected to grow. But the role of the additional troops appears vague, and the answers to even basic questions, including whether they will be armed, have shifted.

What is the purpose of this militarization of a city beyond Trump’s effort to distract from the Epstein story and his overall fascist dictatorship project?

“There is no justification for any deployment of Guard forces in D.C., let alone the deployment of hundreds of Guard forces from multiple states, which smacks of a military occupation of the district,” said Elizabeth Goitein, a senior director at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s law school.

“Local crime is a matter to be handled by local law enforcement,” she added.

Members of the National Guard stand near D.C.’s Union Station, within view of the U.S. Capitol.

The places where the troops have been deployed so far tell part of the story. Most have been seen near the National Mall, large monuments and other tourist-heavy areas.

Army officials said that more would be sent to 10 metro stations, most of which are also near tourist and entertainment sites. They include the Foggy Bottom, Smithsonian, Eastern Market and Waterfront stations.

Near the Washington Monument over the weekend, troops posed for photos with tourists. The National Guard presence, with desert sand-colored vehicles parked near the capital’s most visited tourists spots, is now showing up regularly on social media feeds in posts by visitors to Washington.

The rules of engagement for the troops, at the moment, remain limited to supporting, but not providing, law enforcement. That means that troops are not making arrests, though Army officials acknowledged that could change if Mr. Trump decides that he wants an even more forceful presence.

CNN: National Guard troops from GOP-led states begin arriving in DC as part of Trump’s crime crackdown.

West Virginia National Guard troops have begun to arrive in Washington, DC, to assist with President Donald Trump’s crime crackdown in the nation’s capital, a defense official told CNN on Tuesday.

The troops could begin assisting the DC National Guard operationally as soon as Wednesday after they have completed their in-processing, the defense official added.

Their arrival comes after the Republican governors of six states — West Virginia, South Carolina, Ohio, Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee — announced they will send guard members to Washington, DC.

The deployment of other states’ troops marks an escalation of Trump’s efforts to amass forces in the capital. The president previously announced that he was deploying DC National Guard troops to the city, surging federal agents into the streets, and federalizing DC’s police force. The president has repeatedly complained about rising crime in DC, but overall crime numbers are lower this year than in 2024.

Servicemembers from the West Virginia and South Carolina National Guards receive an orientation brief upon their arrival at the Washington, D.C. Armory, Aug. 19, 2025

The defense official said Tuesday that while there are roughly 2,400 personnel in the DC National Guard, assistance from other states was needed because of how many troops are either undergoing training elsewhere or are on leave.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said Monday he approved about 135 National Guard troops to DC, while Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves announced he would deploy approximately 200 members.

Tennessee will send roughly 160 guard members to the city this week following a request from the Trump administration, Gov. Bill Lee’s press secretary said in a Tuesday statement to CNN.

Over the weekend, West Virginia’s governor said his state was sending 300 to 400 National Guard troops to the nation’s capital. South Carolina authorized the deployment of 200 troops, and Ohio said it will send 150.

Federal officers assigned to DC are focusing on beating up food delivery people. NBC4 Washington DC: Detentions of D.C. delivery drivers leave immigrant communities on edge.

Washington, D.C., resident Tyler DeSue woke up tired and craving breakfast Saturday morning, so he did what many people in that situation would do: He used Uber Eats to put in an order for burritos.

When his driver took longer than usual, DeSue checked the app and noticed something seemed wrong — the delivery driver’s GPS location had stopped short of his address. He went outside to look for him.

“I stepped into the street, I looked down and see lights in the direction, like police lights, in the direction of where my driver was,” DeSue said in an interview. “It was my driver by himself and, like, nine different officers all wearing different uniforms. … Most of them had face coverings on.”

When DeSue went to investigate, the driver — whose name appeared on the food app as “Sidi” — was being questioned, first about his vehicle’s registration and then about his immigration status, he said.

“You’re gonna come with us, you’re gonna come with us today,” a masked agent can be heard telling Sidi in video that DeSue recorded and provided to NBC News.

“Can you tell me in Arabic, please?” Sidi says, adding that he did not understand what was being said and that he was nervous.

One of the agents, wearing a vest emblazoned “POLICE HSI” — short for Homeland Security Investigations, a part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement — replies that they do not have an Arabic translator. The men then cuff Sidi’s hands, waist and feet before they put him in an unmarked car. DeSue said he has since reported the incident to Uber.

There have been other such reports.

The incident is one of several arrests of delivery drivers recorded by eyewitnesses across the Washington area that have gone viral since the Trump administration took over law enforcement in the nation’s capital last week.

An Uber Eats delivery driver is arrested Saturday in Washington, D.C.Tyler DeSue

The videos, scattered across social media and shared among D.C. delivery driver chat groups, are having a chilling effect on the drivers themselves. Some of them have chosen to stop making deliveries in the city.

It has been “five days since working, looking at what to do. And, well, closed down here waiting for things to pass, because I don’t know what to do,” a D.C.-area delivery driver who did not want to be named told NBC News in a voice message in Spanish.

On Sunday afternoon, DeSue said, an area where 15 to 20 delivery drivers typically would be parked out front of his home looking at their phones for their next orders was an empty lot.

“I haven’t seen a driver anywhere in the last two days,” he said.

There’s more at the link.

Immigration, deportation, and ICE

Paul Krugman at Substack: ICEing the U.S. Economy. Mass deportations will hurt more than people realize.

Donald Trump has been able to convert Immigration and Customs Enforcement (and Customs and Border Protection, which is effectively part of the same operation) into a huge secret police force — because what are we supposed to call an organization whose masked agents, bearing no identification, simply grab people off the street? Who shoot at a family fleeing in their truck, after agents refused to identify themselves and smashed the car window, claiming – apparently falsely according to video footage – that the driver tried to harm them?

We’ve also seen both deportations to foreign gulags and the creation of a network of domestic detention centers — call it the ICE archipelago — that are overcrowded, filthy, and breeding grounds for disease. Last week a judge ordered that detainees at ICE’s Manhattan facility be given bedding mats rather than being forced to sleep on dirty concrete floors, have access to decent hygiene, and receive three meals a day. We’ll see whether this order is obeyed, but it gives you an idea of the conditions detainees are currently facing.

And the recently passed Big Beautiful Bill gives ICE $45 billion to expand its network of detention centers, making room for around 100,000 more detainees, plus $30 billion for arrest and deportation efforts, enough to hire around 10,000 more ICE agents.

I worry, as everyone should, about how a huge expansion of this deeply un-American organization may be used as a tool of presidential power and repression. Furthermore, give people power without accountability — and it’s hard to give a better example than masked, unidentified agents authorized to use force — and some of them will abuse their position. And given what ICE has already been doing, what kind of people do you think are likely to sign up as it massively expands?

Compared with these issues, concerns about the economic impact of mass deportations are definitely second-tier. But they’re still important, and a subject I know something about. So the rest of this post will be devoted to how the Trump administration is about to ICE the economy.

A bit more:

First things first: Trump officials and some of their allies have been touting numbers that appear to show 2 million native-born Americans gaining jobs over the past year. But this claim is, as Jed Kolko of the Peterson Institute says, a “multiple-count data felony.” Read Kolko for the details showing that this is a statistical artifact, not something that really happened. No, the native-born adult population didn’t suddenly jump by 4 million in a single year.

What will actually happen is a large decline in America’s foreign-born labor force. When Stephen Miller began promising to deport 3,000 immigrants a day, many people dismissed this as an idle boast. It’s true that we can’t possibly deport people anywhere near that rapidly while obeying the law and following due process. And your point is? [….]

We don’t know how many workers will eventually be incarcerated and deported. But undocumented immigrants make up around 5 percent of the U.S. work force. It seems plausible that a significant fraction of those workers will be pushed out, along with a number of legal workers snatched up based, as Trump’s border czar has said, on their physical appearance.

Losing large numbers of workers sounds as if it will be bad for the U.S. economy. In fact, it will be worse than you may think.

The reason is that immigrant workers aren’t spread evenly across the economy. They’re strongly concentrated in certain industries and occupations, where they constitute a large share, sometimes a majority, of the work force. As a result, the Trump administration’s latter-day Edict of Expulsion will be far more disruptive to the economy than the aggregate number of workers deported might suggest.

Read the rest at the link.

Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark: Fascist Secret Police Cars.

ICE has some new cars. They are cartoonishly fascist….

What is the purpose of these vehicles?

ICE has been performing its snatch-and-grab operations largely with unmarked vehicles. ICE officers in the wild seem to eschew any sort of identification: No badges, no uniforms. Most of the time they go to great lengths to conceal their identities, wearing mask, balaclavas, and ballcaps.

Fascist ICE trucks

Are these new vehicles meant for new kinds of operations, as ICE expands to a size commensurate with its funding?

Also: What is the use-case for an ICE pickup truck? Park Rangers and firefighters can use pickup trucks to haul large loads of gear. Why would ICE need pickup trucks in its fleet?

Next, let’s look at the design. You will notice that ICE employs the slogan “Defend the Homeland.” This slogan is emblazoned in multiple spots: On side panels and on hoods. On the Mustang variant—because apparently ICE operational requirements also necessitate a two-door sports coupe—the slogan appears to be plastered on the spoiler.

It is an odd slogan for a law enforcement organization. For starters, it’s not a statement of principle, like common police tag lines: “Protect and Serve,” or “Duty, Honor, Community,” or “Service Before Self.” It’s a command: DEFEND THE HOMELAND.1

This command implies a threat. The “homeland” is under assault, right now, and must be defended from some unnamed enemy. I cannot think of any LEO that uses the specter of an enemy as part of its self-projection.

Then there’s the word “homeland.” Not “America,” or “the United States.”

The Mustang variant

America and the United States are places that anyone might join, or become a part of. But the homeland is about blood and soil. It’s the patrimony of the true volk.

Finally: “Defending the homeland” isn’t even ILstice Department weaponization chief, called for the resignation of New York Attorney General Letitia James and posed for photos outside of her Brooklyn home last week – all as he is conducting investigations into her conduct.

His investigation of James, whose office brought civil fraud charges against Trump, his adult sons, and the Trump Organization resulting in a half-billion-dollar judgment last year, is one of several the Justice Department has launched into the president’s perceived enemies.

But since beginning of the investigation into James, Martin has taken several unusual steps that fall outside the norms of prosecutorial conduct. He sent a letter to James’ attorney Abbe Lowell on August 12 suggesting New York’s top law enforcement officer resign, he appeared outside of James’ home with a colleague trailed by a photographer for the New York Post, and appeared on Fox News pledging to take an expansive look into all of James’ conduct.

In video obtained by CNN, Martin can be seen posing for photos outside of James’ home.

“This is a criminal investigation, not social media,” said Elie Honig, CNN’s senior legal analyst. “A stunt like that might get clicks, but it’s patently inappropriate for a prosecutor to do and it certainly will give James and her attorney a basis to oppose any indictment, to argue it was prejudicial to the jury pool and that an indictment was brought in bad faith.”

The conduct is “outside the bounds of DOJ and ethics rules,” Lowell said in a response to Martin.

Justice Department policy generally prohibits discussing criminal investigations publicly, and attorneys are not supposed to pursue investigations for political means or to go on fishing expeditions.

Jah’han Jones at MSNBC: Trump’s ‘weaponization’ chief seems to admit to punitive fishing expeditions.

Ed Martin is going fishing. On Sunday, the lawyer and Donald Trump loyalist tapped to lead a Justice Department “weaponization” group that’s targeting the president’s perceived enemies vowed to rummage around in the lives of New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., in search of what he says could be potential fraud — or … something.

Ed Martin

During his 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly targeted people who had been investigated or opposed him with thinly veiled threats of legal prosecution. Now, Martin, in his capacity as head of the so-called Weaponization Working Group at the Department of Justice, has been tasked with putting those prosecutions into action. The list of targets includes James, who led a successful mortgage fraud case against the Trump organization that resulted in a judgment of hundreds of millions of dollars; and Schiff, who served on the House Jan. 6 select committee that documented Trump’s role in fomenting insurrection in 2021.

Officials at DOJ are investigating both Schiff and James of mortgage fraud; both deny any wrongdoing and accuse the administration of political retribution. Martin, a former “Stop the Steal” organizer and attorney for Jan. 6 insurrectionists, has been assigned to oversee the cases. He’s previously said his group would be used to “shame” people it can’t charge with crimes.

In comments to Fox News this Sunday, Martin suggested his group intends to use its powers to poke around in other parts of James’ and Schiff’s lives in search of things unrelated to the mortgage allegations.

He said, “We’re gonna go to the very bottom of the facts, and if somebody did something wrong, we’re not only gonna hold them accountable, we’re also gonna look at everything else that they’ve been doing. Because when you’re a liar, you lie not just on one thing. When you’re a cheater, you cheat not just on one thing. When you’re doing corruption, you generally don’t just do it on one thing.”

The Independent: Bongino to work alongside ‘co-deputy director’ of FBI after sparring with administration over Epstein files.

The FBI has moved to appoint Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey as its new “co-deputy director,” meaning its current deputy, Dan Bongino, will be expected to share his duties in the role in the future.

The appointment was made by Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel and comes after Bongino, 50, a former Secret Service agent and podcaster, reportedly clashed with Bondi over the administration’s failure to release the Jeffrey Epstein files last month.

“I am proud to announce I have accepted the role of Co-Deputy Director of the FBI,” Bailey wrote in a brief post on X. “I extend my thanks to President Donald Trump and AG Bondi for the opportunity to serve in the mission to Make America Safe Again. I will protect America and uphold the Constitution.”

Bongino responded to a journalist’s post about the appointment by writing simply, “Welcome,” accompanied by three Stars and Stripes emojis.

Explaining the decision, Patel told The Daily Beast that the FBI “will always bring the greatest talent this country has to offer in order to accomplish the goals set forth when an overwhelming majority of American people elected President Donald J Trump again.

You have to wonder why Bongino hasn’t resigned. Maybe this is a step toward pushing him out.

The Epstein case caused controversy in early July after the FBI and Justice Department put out a statement saying that the late pedophile and sex trafficker left behind no “client list” among his possessions and died by suicide in a New York City jail cell in August 2019.

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino will find himself sharing his official duties after Missouri Attorney General Andrew Mitchell was hired by the Trump administration

The assessment started a civil war among Trump’s MAGA movement, many of whose members had long been encouraged to suspect foul play in Epstein’s death and had hoped to see influential people brought to justice over their alleged involvement in the disgraced financier’s crimes.

The controversy raged for more than a month, with the president himself repeatedly urged to release all federal files on Epstein and to explain his past friendship with the disgraced financier, a cause of apparent frustration to him….

Even before the contested verdict on Epstein was published, Patel and Bongino, both of whom had stoked conspiracy theories on conservative media before joining the Trump administration, had drawn fire for attempting to pour cold water on the case during a May interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures.

The Epstein story is not going away, and now supposedly the DOJ will begin releasing the Epstein files to the House Oversight Committee on Friday.

CNN: House panel to make Epstein files public after redactions to protect victim identities.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform intends to make public some files it subpoenaed related to the Jeffrey Epstein case, though it will first redact them to shield victims’ IDs and other sensitive matters, a committee spokesperson said Tuesday.

The panel is expected to start receiving materials from the Justice Department on Friday, though it appears the public release will come some time after that. The spokesperson said the committee would work with the Justice Department on the process.

“The Committee intends to make the records public after thorough review to ensure all victims’ identification and child sexual abuse material are redacted. The Committee will also consult with the DOJ to ensure any documents released do not negatively impact ongoing criminal cases and investigations,” the spokesperson said.

Democrats on the committee complained that Comer was slow walking the release of the material by allowing the Justice Department to miss the Tuesday deadline that had been set by the panel and instead turn over the materials to the committee gradually over time starting Friday. They said DOJ had already been directed by the House subpoena to redact material related to victims’ identities and child sexual abuse – questioning the need for further delay to do so.

“Releasing the Epstein files in batches just continues this White House cover-up. The American people will not accept anything short of the full, unredacted Epstein files,” said Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the panel. “In a bipartisan vote, the Committee demanded complete compliance with our subpoena. Handpicked, partial productions are wholly insufficient and potentially misleading, especially after Attorney General Bondi bragged about having the entirety of the Epstein files on her desk mere months ago.”

I hope this will really happen, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

Trump and Putin

This post is already too long, but I couldn’t resist including this story from The Daily Beast: Trump’s Jaw-Dropping Ignorance Exposed During Putin Meet: Author.

Donald Trump displayed a stunning ignorance of the Cold War during last week’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to his biographer.

Author Michael Wolff told the Daily Beast podcast Inside Trump’s Head on Tuesday that, in the president’s telling of the decades-long 20th century engagement, “it would appear that the U.S. and USSR are on the same side.”

Michael Wolff

Wolff, who said his sources are “twice removed” from the principals, said Trump began the meeting with “a combination of flattery” and “a combination of things that he’s just pulled out of somewhere…observations, it’s both inconsequential and incoherent.”

When either Special Envoy Steve Witkoff or Secretary of State Marco Rubio interrupted him to lay out an agenda, Wolff said, Trump just talked over them.

“Again, we’re nowhere in this meeting. We’re probably now, you know, 20 minutes in. Nothing is clear about what anyone is doing there except that Putin is totally impassive,” he said.

When Putin did speak, Wolff said, he gave a “history lesson” about ”why [Russia] should conquer Ukraine.”

And a bit more:

“Trump, not to be outdone, as this is relayed to me, goes into his own history lesson, and this is a history of the Cold War,” he said. “And as this is described to me, in Trump’s history of the Cold War, it would appear that the U.S. and USSR are on the same side.” [….]

Trump, who has been attacking “woke” history museums for not talking about “the future,” then seemed to go along with Putin’s statement resisting a ceasefire, Wolff said.

“And Trump seems to accept this and seems to agree with this,” according to the author. “Yes, let’s just move on to the peace.”

Witkoff and Rubio, meanwhile, are “basically helpless.”

“They sit there occasionally trying to interject, but you can’t really interject because Trump just talks all the time,” he continued.

“And this is then to… Putin’s advantage, because rather than any discussion of the details of what might happen here, what territory—what are you going to give for that, what are the trade offs—I mean, that level of detail Trump is not interested in, probably not capable of following the logical sequences that would be necessary there.”

What’s important to Trump, Wolff said, “is to keep talking” and “to have people listen to him.”

Those are the stories that interested me today. There’s much more happening. What’s on your mind?

Wednesday Reads: How Many Ways Can Trump Fail to Distract from The Epstein Files?

Posted: August 13, 2025 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: 2001, Big Balls Corsitine, Bureau of Labor Statistics, DC Home Rule Act, DC National Guard, Donald Trump, EJ Antoni, Epstein Files, fascism, January 5, Michael Wolff, Smithsonian Museums, Trump tries to distract from Epstein files, virtual meeting on Ukraine, Vladimir Putin | 4 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

Trump’s efforts to distract from his close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein are doomed to failure.

It’s just another day under the rule of fascist dictator wannabe Trump. All I can say is whatever is in the Epstein files about Trump must be really damaging, because every day he dreams up one or two new distractions.

Raw Story: ‘I need a big thing!’ Trump said to be considering major betrayal as Epstein distraction.

President Donald Trump has reportedly been frantically calling aides and allies seeking a “big thing” to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, and he’s purportedly considering a major geopolitical move to turn the page politically.

Trump biographer Michael Wolff told The Daily Beast’s new podcast “Inside Trump’s Head” that the president has been making “relentless” phone calls demanding ideas to get him past questions about his longtime relationships with the late sex offender and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.

“Let me go back about a week or so, or 10 days, when Trump started to say to everyone who would listen — and everyone listens to Donald Trump — to staffers and on the phone calls, the relentless phone calls that he’s constantly making, he said, ‘I need a big thing, I need a big thing,'” Wolff told the podcast. ”What’s the ‘big thing?’ And everyone understood that this was code for I need a distraction from Epstein. What’s the thing that will move us beyond that?”

Trump considered turning New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani into a MAGA villain and reportedly called his chief rival Andrew Cuomo to discuss the plan, but Wolff said that option “didn’t get that traction,” so he next moved on to deploying soldiers and federal law enforcement in Washington, D.C., before landing on something else to distract his base.

“That is what he got to,” Wolff said. “‘I’m going to have to do Ukraine.’”

Wolff claims the president will pull the U.S. out of any involvement in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which Trump believes will appease the isolationist MAGA base, after he meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week in Alaska.

“He’s going to sacrifice Ukraine for Epstein,” Wolff said. “Essentially, this is, in his mind, a trade. It is the MAGA people who have pressed this Epstein issue constantly. I mean, they’re the threat.”

Wolff doesn’t think that will work either.

The National Guard began to show up on the DC streets yesterday.

Lisa Needham at Public Notice: Trump’s brownshirts deploy in DC.

On Monday, Trump dropped two executive orders, two fact sheets, and two “articles” (who knew that the White House issues articles?) about his decision to federalize the DC police and deploy the National Guard. Then, he held a bonkers press conference where he gave Attorney General Pam Bondi control of the DC police “as of this moment,” at which point Bondi took the podium to declare that “crime in DC is ending and ending today.”

It’s important to be precise about what’s happening in DC and why. As Chris Geidner explains at Law Dork, calling this a “takeover” of DC itself or the DC police is inaccurate.

DC’s Home Rule Act has a provision that lets the president direct the mayor to provide District police force service for federal purposes if he deems it necessary and determines an emergency exists. He can do that for 48 hours without informing Congress. Once he informs Congress, he gets 30 days. Past that, Congress needs to enact a joint resolution to extend it.

In theory, the legislative branch should act as a check on a lawless president. But given that the GOP majorities in both the House and Senate have willfully abdicated their responsibility to do so, there’s no reason to think lawmakers won’t let Trump’s brownshirts occupy DC as long as he wants.

There are no real impediments to the president calling up the DC National Guard. Unlike state National Guards, which are under the control of state governors, DC’s Guard is commanded by the president. Further, the position of the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel is that the DC National Guard can be used for federal work without being federalized, unlike state National Guards. This means it can be used for law enforcement purposes without running afoul of the Posse Comitatus Act, which otherwise prohibits the use of federal troops for civilian enforcement efforts.

National Guard troops arriving in DC yesterday

So, the DC Home Rule Act, combined with the structure of its National Guard, gives the president a perfectly legal and relatively friction-free way to make local police do his bidding and to have the National Guard roam the streets.

At the moment, there’s a pretense that the DC National Guard will not be performing law enforcement duties. Instead, they have the authority to detain people temporarily until federal agents arrive. But as any first-year law student can tell you, if someone cloaked in the authority of the government has the power to detain you, they are engaged in law enforcement duties. It doesn’t matter that they eventually hand you off to someone else with the proper authority to detain you.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth must be so hyped for this. He can pretend he’s a five-star general in charge of a vast array of troops rather than a doofus civilian whose main achievement currently consists of posting misogynist and eugenicist garbage on his social media accounts — well, and sharing classified military plans in the group chat. He’s pretty good at that. But now, Hegseth gets to do Fox hits and bray about how the DC Guard “will be strong, they will be tough and they will stand with their law enforcement partners.”

Lazy Caturday Reads: Is the Epstein Scandal Doing Real Damage to Trump?

Posted: July 19, 2025 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: Donald Trump, Epstein Files, FBI, Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein, MAGA base, Pam Bpndi, Sen. Dick Durbin, Sen. Ron Wyden, sexual abuse of children, Stacey Williams | 13 Comments

Good Morning!!

Cat reading news, Deven Rex

Well, it’s been quite a week. It’s been Jeffrey Epstein all the time. For the first time, it seems that a scandal is actually sticking to Trump, although he could still escape, as he usually does. He does seem uniquely panicked though. Yesterday, he sued the Wall Street Journal for publishing a suggestive message he reportedly sent to Epstein for his 50th birthday.

From Ron Filipkowski’s summary of yesterday’s politics news at Meidas:

… WSJ poured more gas on Trump’s raging Epstein inferno with a new story about a birthday card that he sent to the child trafficker and rapist in 2003. The story said Ghislaine Maxwell asked friends of Epstein to submit cards to compile as a special gift for this 50th birthday, and Trump sent one is as one of his closest friends.

… “The letter bearing Trump’s name, which was reviewed by the Journal, is bawdy—like others in the album. It contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly ‘Donald’ below her waist, mimicking pubic hair.”

… Inside the outline of the naked woman was a typewritten note styled as an imaginary conversation between Trump and Epstein, written in the third person.

“Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything,” the note began.

Donald: Yes, there is, but I won’t tell you what it is.

Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I also know what it is.

Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey: Yes, we do, come to think of it.

Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?

Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you.

Donald: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.

… When asked about the letter and picture prior to publishing, Trump naturally denied everything to the Journal: “This is not me. This is a fake thing. It’s a fake Wall Street Journal story. I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women. It’s not my language. It’s not my words. I’m gonna sue WSJ just like I sued everyone else.”

… The WSJ, other media sources, and social media users then posted online several drawings that Trump made at various times on different occasions to refute Trump’s claim.

Flipkowski included several of Trump’s drawings in his post.

Tyler Pager at The New York Times on Trump’s claim he never draws pictures: Trump Says He Doesn’t ‘Draw Pictures.’ But Many of His Sketches Sold at Auction.

President Trump mounted a vigorous rebuttal on Thursday night to a report in The Wall Street Journal that he sent a birthday greeting with a sexually suggestive drawing to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003.

His alibi: “I don’t draw pictures,” he wrote on Truth Social.

But a review of the president’s past reveals that, for years, Mr. Trump was a high-profile doodler — or at least suggested he was. In the early 2000s, he regularly donated drawings to charities in New York. The drawings, many of which appear to be done with a thick, black-marker and prominently feature his signature are not dissimilar to how The Journal describes the birthday note he sent Mr. Epstein.

“It takes me a few minutes to draw something, in my case, it’s usually a building or a cityscape of skyscrapers, and then sign my name, but it raises thousands of dollars to help the hungry in New York through the Capuchin Food Pantries Ministry,” he wrote in his 2008 book, “Trump Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges Into Success.”

After Mr. Trump was elected president, some of the drawings he signed were auctioned off for thousands of dollars — even as he wrote in his book that “art may not be my strong point.”

This is from historian Heather Cox Richardson’s recap of the day at Letters from an American:

Now we know why President Donald J. Trump earlier this week began saying nonsensically that Democrats he dislikes wrote the Epstein files. Apparently, Trump was trying to get out in front of the story Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo broke last night in the Wall Street Journal, reporting that Trump contributed what the newspaper called a “bawdy” letter to a leather-bound album compiled by Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell in 2003 for Epstein’s 50th birthday….

Sisters, by Elisheva Nesis

When the FBI raided Epstein’s mansion in Manhattan in 2019, they seized piles of evidence, including stacks of compact disks bearing the labels “Young [Name] + [Name],” suggesting he had kept video evidence of men sexually assaulting underage girls.

Within hours of the discovery of Epstein’s body in his prison cell in 2019, Trump was retweeting a conspiracy theory alleging that former president Bill Clinton was involved in his death. Trump and his loyalists pushed the idea that Epstein was trafficking girls to powerful Democratic politicians and Hollywood actors, an accusation that dovetailed with the QAnon conspiracy theory claiming that Trump was secretly leading the fight against such a cabal. Trump fed the idea that if reelected, he would release the information he claimed was being withheld as part of a coverup.

In fact, the politician most closely associated with Epstein was Trump himself. In 2002, Trump told New York Magazine: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it—Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”

And yet Trump supporters overlooked Trump’s long friendship with Epstein until billionaire Elon Musk resurrected the story that Trump might be implicated in the records of the Epstein investigation. On June 5, in the midst of a fight with Trump, Musk posted on social media: “Time to drop the really big bomb: [Trump] is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”

Read the rest at the link. Richardson provides an excellent summary of the history of the Jeffrey Epstein case.

Dan Mangan at CNBC: Trump sues Murdoch for $10 billion over WSJ story on Epstein birthday letter.

President Donald Trump on Friday followed through on his threat to sue media mogul Rupert Murdoch after his Wall Street Journal published an article saying that Trump sent his then-friend Jeffrey Epstein a “bawdy” letter for Epstein’s 50th birthday.

Trump, who angrily denies writing the letter, is seeking damages of no less than $10 billion in the lawsuit alleging defamation.

Named as defendants in the suit in federal court in the Southern District of Florida are Murdoch, his company News Corp and its CEO Robert Thomson, the Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones & Co., and the two reporters who wrote the article published Thursday evening.

A Dow Jones spokesperson sent the following statement to CNBC: “We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”

The suit comes as Trump faces growing pressure to have the Justice Department release its investigative files about Epstein, who killed himself in August 2019 after being arrested on federal child sex trafficking charges.

The Journal’s article said that the letter purportedly written by Trump to Epstein in 2003 was among documents reviewed by criminal investigators who ultimately built criminal cases against Epstein and his convicted procurer, Ghislaine Maxwell, who reportedly solicited the letter from the president.

For the first time, Trump’s base is questioning his excuses, although some of his followers are defending him against the Wall Street Journal revelations, according to Axios.

David Smith at The Guardian: ‘The ghost of Epstein is haunting Trump’s presidency’: inside the ‘Maga’ revolt.

I feel so betrayed and so angry. This is not what I voted for.” “This cemented permanent deep state power.” “I’m concerned about being able to trust Donald Trump to keep his word.” “What about justice for these young ladies who were trafficked? What about their justice? Don’t they deserve justice?”

Yoga with my cat, Sharyn Bursic

These were MAGAjust a few of the calls that besieged conservative radio hosts across the US this week. The president’s ardent supporters spent the past decade fulminating over various foes, from Barack Obama and the deep state to undocumented immigrants and transgender children. Now they have a new target: Donald Trump himself.

The “Make America Great Again” (Maga) base is in revolt as never before. The trigger was Trump’s broken promise to publicly release details about Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier and convicted sex offender, who was facing federal charges of sex-trafficking minors when he died in jail in 2019.

Spurred by the president and his allies, Trump’s movement has long latched on to the Epstein scandal, claiming the existence of a secret client list and that he was murdered in his cell as part of a cover-up. But last week the justice department and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced there was no evidence that the disgraced financier kept such a list or was blackmailing powerful figures.

Far from closing the case, the memo deepened supporters’ obsession and sense of grievance. A movement defined by the view that elites rig the system against them felt cheated. Trump made efforts to douse the flames with ever-shifting explanations, excuses and distractions but merely poured fuel on the fire.

To some, his erratic and evasive behaviour implies a guilty secret. It also evokes a line from President John F Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address: “Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.” Having spent years embracing QAnon-tinged propaganda that casts him as the only saviour who can demolish the “deep state”, Trump is now seen as co-opted by its corrupt bureaucracy.

Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman who ran against Trump for president in 2020, said: “I talk to the base every day and nothing animates the base more than the deep state. This Epstein thing was Trump’s promise. This was going to finally expose the deep state. Now Trump says nothing there? It ain’t going to stand.”

Finally Friday Reads: Chicks coming Home to Roost

Posted: July 18, 2025 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: #FARTUS, #We are so Fucked, 2025 What Fresh Hell?, Abusive Relationships, child sexual abuse, impeach trump, kakistocracy | Tags: #TrumpCult, Epstein Files, Trump adjudicated Rapist, Trump coup attempts, Trump hebephile, Trump in girl's dressing room | 5 Comments

“Come on, he picked it up at Walgreens.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Sex Trafficker Jeffrey Epstein may be dead and gone, but the damage he and his buddies have done to the lives of teenage girls will never be undone. I can only imagine their suffering as the news cycle reminds them of a life they try daily to forget and move beyond. This is the reason everyone should honestly put them first in the search for justice for those men who joined Epstein in stealing their youth. More stories of the exploitation of these girls are reaching front pages.

Today, in People Magazine, we learn that an “Ex-Casino Boss Claims Trump and ‘Best Friend’ Jeffrey Epstein Were Once Caught Bringing Underage Girls to Casino Floor. A former executive at Trump’s Atlantic City casino told CNN that the duo brought three girls to the gambling floor who were not yet 21. The White House is calling his story “fabricated.” I’m enjoying the turning of the screw as many of the MAGA faithful burn their red hats in effigy. I just hope that support is available as the victims of their abhorrent crimes relive spiritual murder.

A former employee of Donald Trump claimed in a new interview that the president and Jeffrey Epstein were once caught bringing girls into Trump’s casino who were not old enough to gamble. The White House denies the allegations.

Jack O’Donnell, who oversaw the Atlantic City Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino for four years in the 1980s, spoke with CNN’s Erin Burnett on Wednesday, July 16, about the president’s friendship with the late billionaire, who later became a convicted sex offender.

“In my mind, [Epstein] was his best friend, you know, [throughout] the time I was there for four years,” O’Donnell said in the interview, noting that the pair “frequently” came to Trump’s casino together.

One alleged instance stood out to the former casino boss. He claimed that one night in the late 1980s, Trump and Epstein visited Trump Plaza with three women and brought them onto the casino floor despite them being under 21.

O’Donnell said he found out about the incident the following day, when state casino commission inspectors were waiting for him in his office. An inspector, it seems, had identified one of the girls with Trump and Epstein as “the No. 3-ranked tennis player in the world.”

“This [inspector] happened to be a tennis fan and he said, ‘Jack, I know she’s 19 years old,’ ” O’Donnell said. “They had determined that the women that they brought down were underage to be in the casino.”

In the state of New Jersey, it is illegal for anyone under 21 to gamble on a casino floor. Despite the law, O’Donnell claims the commission gave Trump a “break” for the incident, but told him to warn the future president about the potential consequences.

“I had to call them and say, ‘They’re giving you a break this time, but if this happens again, the fine is going to be substantial and it’s going to be on your head,’ ” he claimed.

O’Donnell also claimed to have told Trump that continuing to hang out with Epstein and underage women was “not gonna look good.”

“I did tell him in that conversation, ‘I don’t think you should be hanging out with this guy, just so you know, and you certainly shouldn’t be doing that in Atlantic City,’ ” he said.

When asked on Thursday about O’Donnell’s CNN interview, the White House passionately denied his claims.

“Jack O’Donnell is a stone cold loser who is a liar and fraud,” White House communications director Steven Cheung told PEOPLE in a statement. “This is completely fabricated story from his warped imagination as he suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his pea-sized brain.”

The repetitive use of the same old explanations has certainly become insufficient. Trump is the forever victim. We knew of his proclivities a long time ago. He even bought a teen beauty pageant to gain access to the dressing room of the contestants. But her emails. This is the PolitiFact take on the case from back in the day.

As waves of allegations of Donald Trump’s inappropriate behavior toward females swept over the presidential campaign, reaction from around the country was swift.

During an Oct. 12, 2016, meeting with the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., commented on one of the latest revelations, saying:

“I was just reading on the way over here this morning on how Trump would walk into the (Miss) Teen USA dressing room, all these 15- and 16-year-olds completely naked, just walk right in on them. Man, is that the image we want of the president of the United States? It’s just disturbing to think that he could get away with all this stuff.”

So, did Trump “walk right in on” naked 15- and 16-year-old contestants in their dressing room?

The implication is that the alleged incident, back when the Republican nominee owned the pageant, wasn’t a mistake.

We’re not going to rate this on our Truth-O-Meter, since some of the key sources are anonymous. But we’ll lay out what we do know about the allegation.

The nightmare of every woman, mother, and grandmother is that their young girl will fall under the power structure set up by these men to hide their proclivities. Hebephiles are omnipresent in places that give them access to prepubescent children. There is not a day that goes by where we learn some minister or priest is abusing an adolescent or young child. One of the most amazing things I’ve seen is this year’s book and appearances written by E Jean. Carroll. Just a week ago, a Judge ruled on Trump’s latest court attempt to overturn the verdict in her case. You would have to be deliberately blind to not see Yam Tits as a sexual predator. This is from The Hill.

The mandate reaffirms the 90-day clock for Trump to appeal the case to the Supreme Court after the court last month rejected Trump’s bid to overturn the verdict.

A three-judge panel on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the verdict late last year, keeping intact Carroll’s $5 million judgment over claims Trump sexually abused her at a New York City department store in the mid-1990s. He denies her allegations.

Thursday’s mandate was issued after the full 2nd Circuit last month rejected Trump’s bid to overturn the three-judge panel’s ruling.

“Thursday, July 10th, 2025 So long, Old Man! The United States Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit, bids thee farewell,” Carroll wrote in a social media post celebrating the mandate.

A White House spokesperson described Carroll’s case as “liberal lawfare” in a statement sent to CNBC.

Breaking news: “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert will end in May 2026, CBS said in a statement.The announcement came days after Colbert spoke out against the $16 million paid earlier this month by Paramount, the parent company of CBS News.

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost.com) 2025-07-18T00:39:53.282Z

You have to wonder about Paramount’s decision to end the successful run of Steven Colbert’s show. Colbert was undoubtedly the best Trump detractor on TV. The timing is definitely suspicious, and Yam Tits immediately celebrated the news on his propaganda social media site, Truth Social. This is from the Washington Post.

“The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert will end in May 2026at the conclusion of its current broadcast season, CBS announced Thursday in a statement. It called the cancellation “purely a financial decision.”

“It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount,” the network said, describing it as an “agonizing decision.” Colbert took over as host, executive producer and writer of the show in 2015.

Colbert told the audience at a Thursday taping that he found out about the cancellation the previous night. “I share your feelings,” he said, when the crowd booed after his announcement.

He said it was the end of “The Late Show,” not just his stint at its helm. “I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away,” Colbert said. He added that he was “extraordinarily, deeply grateful to the 200 people who work here.”

CBS staffers were caught off guard by the announcement. “We are flabbergasted,” said one staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment.

The announcement came days after Colbert spoke out against the decision earlier this month by Paramount, the parent company of CBS News, to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump during last year’s presidential campaign.

We may never know for certain what role that lawsuit and the settlement played in that decision, but I have my suspicions. So does Senator Elizabeth Warren.

CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump – a deal that looks like bribery.America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.

President Trump said Friday morning that he was thrilled by the news that CBS is canceling the decade-running “Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

“I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired,” the president wrote in a post on Truth Social. “His talent was even less than his ratings.”

Meanwhile, the Republican attack on children continues with a new trick to pull back funding for NPTV and NPR. Rural communities receive vital weather warnings from the stations, as it is the only provider of that information in the many middle-of-nowhere places in this country. It’s truly fitting that PBS News writes its own obituary. The Senate caved shortly after. “House gives final approval to Trump’s $9 billion cut to public broadcasting and foreign aid.”

The cancellation of $1.1 billion for the CPB represents the full amount it is due to receive during the next two budget years.

The White House says the public media system is politically biased and an unnecessary expense.

The corporation distributes more than two-thirds of the money to more than 1,500 locally operated public television and radio stations, with much of the remainder assigned to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service to support national programming.

Democrats were unsuccessful in restoring the funding in the Senate.

Lawmakers with large rural constituencies voiced particular concern about what the cuts to public broadcasting could mean for some local public stations in their state.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the stations are “not just your news — it is your tsunami alert, it is your landslide alert, it is your volcano alert.”

As the Senate debated the bill Tuesday, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck off the remote Alaska Peninsula, triggering tsunami warnings on local public broadcasting stations that advised people to get to higher ground.

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said he secured a deal from the White House that some money administered by the Interior Department would be repurposed to subsidize Native American public radio stations in about a dozen states.

But Kate Riley, president and CEO of America’s Public Television Stations, a network of locally owned and operated stations, said that deal was “at best a short-term, half-measure that will still result in cuts and reduced service at the stations it purports to save.”

You may recall that early in this blog’s history, I was commuting about an hour to a university across the lake. NPR was my companion on the long commute. I can attest that there was a good part of the drive where my cellphone did not work, and that the only radio station I could get in the swamps along I-55 was NPR. I’d start with the local in New Orleans, and everything would drop until I got the NPR station from Baton Rouge. I can only imagine what the hinterlands are like up North in places like Montana and Wyoming. We’re definitely in the fascist country of Trumpistan now. Lisa Murkowski complained about the funds cut to NPR and voted against it. This is from UPI. “Coming PBS, NPR cuts already hurting many stations.”

The public stations already have received funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to get them through September. Once that money runs out, more than 100 PBS and NPR stations are at risk of closing. The cuts will hit especially hard in rural areas.

For example, a magnitude 7.3 earthquake hit off the coast of Alaska on Wednesday. Public media helped broadcast a tsunami alert, said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

“Their response to today’s earthquake is a perfect example of the incredible public service these stations provide,” Murkowski said Wednesday on X. “They deliver local news, weather updates, and, yes, emergency alerts that save human lives.”

Murkowski was one of two Republican senators who voted against the bill.

The effects of the cutting off of funding could be even wider-reaching than expected, observers said.

“Failing stations will create a cascade effect in this highly connected and interdependent system, impacting content producers and leading to the potential collapse of additional distressed stations in other areas of the country,” Tim Isgitt, CEO of advisory firm Public Media Company, told The New York Times.

An analysis by non-profit Public Media Company identified 78 public radio organizations and 37 TV organizations that will likely close. They rely on funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for about 30% of their budgets.

“I think unfortunately this is cutting off their constituents’ noses to spite NPR’s face,” NPR CEO Katherine Maher said Wednesday on CNN. “It doesn’t help anyone to take this funding away.”

PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger said in a statement that the cuts “will be especially devastating to smaller stations and those serving large rural areas.”

Here’s some interesting analysis of the week’s events from TPM. “Nearly All The Trump II Depredations Run Through DOJ.”

The Trump Justice Department continues to be ground zero of his second term. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the impact of a White House-run DOJ dwarfs most other Trump II depredations precisely because it allows space for them continue unchecked. A totally compromised DOJ eliminates accountability for breaking the law in the criminal sense and for the mass lawlessness in non-criminal contexts.

I offer that as an introduction to the series of news items below that either directly involve malfeasance under Attorney General Pam Bondi or are a byproduct of DOJ bad acts. As the Jeffrey Epstein matter threatens to consume the Trump White House, remember that it, too, is an outgrowth of trying to abuse and misuse the powers of the Justice Department. It just happened to backfire.

Fired DOJ prosecutor Maurene Comey sent this note to her former colleagues in the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office.

Comey’s firing by Main Justice blindsided acting U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton, who was reduced to “just a paper-pusher,” in the words of one observer.

Trump is starting a new initiative to put more political appointees into federal jobs. This is from GovExec.com. “Trump creates ‘Schedule G’ to add more political appointees to agencies’ top ranks. The new, non-career employees will serve in policy-making roles and add “horsepower” to carrying out the administration’s agenda, White House says.” Why aren’t folks screaming Communism at this attempt to stack the federal government with idiots? It sure sounds like a command and control model of government, ala the Soviet Union, to me.

President Trump created another new category of federal employee on Thursday evening, issuing an executive order to expand the number of political appointees who do not require Senate confirmation and will serve in policy-making or policy-advocating roles.

While presidents can already tap an uncapped number of appointees to serve in Schedule C positions, Trump noted those individuals serve in more narrow confidential or policy-determining roles. The new positions will therefore fill a gap that currently exists in federal appointments, the White House said.

The order is the latest in Trump’s effort to establish a tighter grip on the executive branch and its actions. He has already created Schedule Policy/Career, formerly known as Schedule F, which is similarly defined to Schedule G but reserved for career civil servants. Agencies are in the process of determining who qualifies for conversion to Schedule Policy/Career and those employees will become easier to fire for any reason.

“President Trump believes creating non-career Schedule G positions will enhance government efficiency and accountability and improve services provided to taxpayers by increasing the horsepower for agency implementation of administration policy,” the White House said in a fact sheet accompanying the order.

Appointments to Schedule G positions are expected to lapse at the end of a presidential administration. The roles are particularly aimed at the Veterans Affairs Department and will go to applicants who prove to be suitable supporters of the president’s agenda. Agencies cannot take into consideration an applicant’s political affiliation.

“Schedule G employees will be hired to help faithfully implement the President’s policy agenda,” the White House said.

It boasted that Schedule G’s creation is just the latest effort to deliver “on his promise to dismantle the deep state and reclaim our government from Washington corruption.”

Trump tasked the Office of Personnel Management with establishing regulations to implement Schedule G. In April, OPM issued guidance that encouraged agencies to consider offering the maximum salary of $195,200 to attract Schedule C employees. It is not immediately clear if that pay cap will apply to Schedule G appointees. OPM’s guidance also removed career human resources staff from the process of vetting Schedule C appointees, onboarding them and setting their pay.

Don Moynihan, a professor at University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy, said the executive order was the president’s latest effort to strip career experts of influence within federal agencies.

The order “opens space at top ranks of government for Trump loyalists as policymakers, with no limit on hires,” Moynihan said, adding it “continues [a] pattern of politicization.”

This frightening analysis from David R. Lurie–writing at Public Notice--is not going to let your meals settle gently today. “The emerging coup. Lawless authoritarian regimes don’t give up power willingly.”

Six months into the second Trump administration, two things are becoming clear: First, the president remains a nearly entirely non-strategic actor, motivated only by an abiding desire to accumulate ever greater power, adulation, and wealth. And second, he’s fundamentally changing the nature of the United States in ways that threaten to bring an end to the nation’s 249 year old status as the world’s leading democracy.

Despite Trump’s consistently haphazard “governance” style, it’s becoming easy to foresee how his regime could effectively void our democracy. The now fully MAGA-fied GOP is increasingly likely to lose the next presidential electionafter incurring bracing losses in the midterms and other intervening state races. And as the nation learned before and following the 2020 election, Trumpists are more than willing to use force and other extra-legal actions to attempt to cling to power.

For Trump and his cronies, the prospect of losing power — or even sharing it with Democrats in the event control of the House shifts in 2026 — could prove to be catastrophic because of their reasonable fear of being held accountable for criminality that dwarfs Trump’s first term. And unlike January 2021 — when the Big Lie scheme failed — Trump and his cohorts will have new tools to carry out a coup, including a massive federal police force with a proven willingness to engage in systemic illegality.

Trump’s brownshirts

From its outset, Trump 2.0 has been grounded on systemic illegality and unilateral executive actions, a course of (mis)conduct the administration has succeeded in pursuing because of pliant GOP majorities in Congress the Supreme Court. It’s all but certain that the administration’s authoritarian conduct will grow in scope and intensity over the succeeding months, in no small part because the GOP reconciliation bill will hand over a staggering $170 billion to the Department of Homeland Security.

The bill includes nearly $30 billion in new “enforcement” funds. DHS boasts that it is already the largest federal law enforcement agency, with over 80,000 officers spread across nine organizations. But DHS says it plans to use the new funding to quickly hire 10,000 more more ICE thugs. And in recent months, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has systematically dismantled DHS’s oversight offices, thereby paving the way for a lot of corner cutting.

My daily mantras these days are ‘We are so fucked’ and ‘Why doesn’t he just die?’ I have to pull myself back to my normal meditation routines. At least it hasn’t impacted my exercise schedules, where I actually am encouraged to focus on my abdomen.

So, this is “all I can stands and I can’t stands no more.” Funny, how my kindergarten cartoon hero seems more necessary given we have Orange Bluto for FARTUS.

What’s on your Reading, Blogging, and Action list today?

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