By Zakir Akmedov
The DOJ released a small portion of the Epstein files yesterday, with massive redactions. They seem to have tried to focus on Bill Clinton and conceal anything about Donald Trump. Democrats are angry, noting that the DOJ has broken federal law by holding back and selectively redacting the files that they released.
In this post, I will focus mostly on the Epstein files and reactions to the release. I also include stories on the Brown shooter and Trump’s insanity.
Sam Levine at The Guardian: Trickle release of Epstein files on a Friday signals move to bury Trump ties.
The justice department’s partial release of the Epstein files on Friday signaled how the agency is using a variety of tactics to try to bury and obfuscate Donald Trump’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein.
As the department raced towards a legally mandated Friday deadline to release its files, little emerged about what it planned to release. There never really seemed to be a doubt that the department would release the files late on Friday afternoon, deploying the well-worn Washington trick of burying unflattering news before a weekend.
Then, on Friday morning, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, went on Fox News to say that the department wouldn’t actually be releasing all of the files on Friday as required by the law. “I expect that we’re going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks, so today, several hundred thousand, and then over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more,” Blanche said on Fox News. “There’s a lot of eyes looking at these and we want to make sure that when we do produce the materials we are producing, that we are protecting every single victim.”
By the time the department eventually did release thousands of pages of materials on Friday evening – not the hundreds of thousands Blanche promised – many of the documents had been heavily or completely redacted. Other than a few pictures, the materials made no mention of Trump, even though attorney general Pam Bondi reportedly told Trump earlier this year his name was in the files.
The release underscores how the Trump administration is trying to balance both the demand to release the files – something encouraged in large part by the Maga base – while also obfuscating with a slow trickle of document dumps to prevent any embarrassment to Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years before they had a falling out. Blanche has said the department will continue to produce documents on a rolling basis in the coming weeks – a holiday period – a bet that Americans will simply tune out the story as it drags on.
Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who sponsored the law to release the files, was one of many members of Congress to express outrage. He said on Twitter that the release “grossly fails to comply” with the statute….
Trump is mostly missing from the release.
While Trump barely made an appearance in Friday’s release, Bill Clinton appears in several images. The Daily Wire, a Trump-friendly site, obtained a photo of Clinton and Epstein on Thursday, a day before the release. Photos of Clinton lounging in a pool and a hot tub were among those released on Friday. Justice department and White House spokespeople were quick to highlight the images on Twitter.
By Magdalena Lobao-Tello
“Beloved Democrat president. The black box is added to protect a victim,” Gates McGavick, a justice department spokesperson, posted alongside a photo of Clinton in what seems to be a hot tub with another person whose face is redacted. Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, posted another photo of Clinton with someone whose face is redacted and, quoting the song Jumpman by Drake and Future, wrote “them boys is up to something”.
Angel Ureña, a Clinton spokesperson, released a statement on Friday saying the Trump administration was using the former president to try to distract from Trump’s connection to Epstein.
“The White House hasn’t been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton. This is about what comes next, or from what they’ll try and hide forever,” he said. “So they can release as many 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton. Never has, never will be.”
Several other celebrities appeared in the images released on Friday, including Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, Richard Branson, Chris Tucker, David Copperfield and Kevin Spacey. Like Clinton, none has been accused of any crime in connection to Epstein. But their immediate appearance in the files benefits Trump, creating the impression that it was not unusual for famous men to hang out with Epstein.
Liz Crampton and Andrew Howard Politico: Epstein files put Bill Clinton under scrutiny – and the White House wants him there.
The Trump administration, initially wary over the Justice Department’s release of Jeffrey Epstein documents, pounced on go-to villain Bill Clinton’s appearance in Friday’s trove of pictures, emails and interviews.
“I wonder why the Biden DOJ refused to release the files…,” DOJ spokesperson Chad Gilmartin posted from his personal X account, alongside one partially-redacted photo of Clinton in a pool with an unidentified woman. Another swimming pool photo Gilmartin posted shows Clinton with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime co-conspirator who was convicted of sex trafficking charges in 2021….
Clinton has long been linked with Epstein, contributing to his status as MAGA’s favored boogeyman. Some high-profile members of the movement cited him in pushing for the release of the files, and continued that message after the DOJ made public a trove of documents from the government’s investigation into Epstein.
“Slick Willy! @BillClinton just chillin, without a care in the world. Little did he know…” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung posted to X.
“Here is Bill Clinton in a hot tub next to someone whose identity has been redacted. Per the Epstein Files Transparency Act, DOJ was specifically instructed only to redact the faces of victims and/or minors. Time for the media to start asking real questions,” White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson posted to her personal X account….
Clinton appears in photos posing with Epstein in coordinating shirts, interacting with a dancer, sitting with a redacted woman on his lap on what looks like an airplane and with someone who appears to be the late pop icon Michael Jackson. The music legend faced his own child sex abuse allegations as early as 1993, though he was never convicted of any crimes.
Edward Helmore at The Guardian: Bill Clinton says White House is using him as scapegoat after Epstein files release.
A spokesperson for Bill Clinton accused the White House late on Friday of using him as a scapegoat after pictures of the former president with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, as well as with a young woman in a pool, were included as part of congressionally ordered release of government files.
“The White House hasn’t been hiding these files for months only to dump them late on a Friday to protect Bill Clinton,” the spokesperson said in a statement on X.
“This is about shielding themselves from what comes next, or from what they’ll try and hide forever. So they can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton. Never has, never will be,” the statement added.
Lady sitting with Siamese, Sharyn Bursic
It continued: “Even Susie Wiles said Donald Trump was wrong about Bill Clinton,” it said, referring to comments made by White House chief of staff to Vanity Fair in which Wiles acknowledged that Clinton had not been on Epstein’s Caribbean island despite repeated claims by Trump to the contrary.
Clinton has long maintained that he cut ties with Epstein around 2005, before the disgraced financier plead guilty to solicitation of a minor in Florida.
In the statement, Clinton’s spokesperson Angel Ureña said: “There are two types of people here. The first group knew nothing and cut Epstein off before his crimes came to light. The second group continued relationships with him after. We’re in the first. No amount of stalling by people in the second group will change that. Everyone, especially MAGA, expects answers, not scapegoats.” [….]
Epstein visited the White House at least 17 times during the early years of Clinton’s presidency, according to White House visitor records cited in news reports. He later travelled with Epstein on the financier’s private jet in the years after he left office in 2001, including to Asia and Africa, on trips related the Clinton Global Initiative. Clinton has never been formally accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
Democrats were outraged. Zachary Schermele at USA Today: ‘Grossly fails.’ Lawmakers behind Epstein files’ release slam DOJ.
The Epstein files are out, and the lawmakers who forced their release are not satisfied.
High-profile Democrats are among the most enraged at the Justice Department’s decision to release hundreds of thousands of documents on a “rolling basis”about the late accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein .
“A fraction of the whole body of evidence,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York. To demonstrate his point, he highlighted how 119 pages of one document were entirely redacted.
“Simply releasing a mountain of blacked out pages violates the spirit of transparency and the letter of the law,” Schumer said in a statement. “We need answers as to why.”
Schumer wasn’t alone in his criticism. Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, the ranking member of House Oversight Committee, said on CNN that the Justice Department was “defying the Congress.”
The bipartisan authors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act – Reps. Ro Khanna, D-California, and Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky – also accused the Trump administration of failing to comply with their law, which nearly unanimously passed Congress in November.
“It is an incomplete release with too many redactions,” Khanna said in a social media post.
“Unfortunately, today’s document release … grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law,” Massie added.
The law required the Justice Department by Dec. 19 to fully disclose all information in its possession related to its investigations of the well-connected financier who died by suicide in a jail cell in 2019. DOJ under the law is also required to make the files publicly searchable, but basic searches of what DOJ called the “Epstein Library” show that even basic queries – such as for “Trump” or “Clinton” – come up blank.
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.
From her Substack: The Epstein Files: My observations. Nothing to See Here.
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/
The Boston Globe: Brown campus shooter harbored resentment from time as a PhD student in the early 2000s, friend says.
Growing up in Portugal, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente stood out for his intellectual potential. In high school, he traveled to national and international physics competitions. He later graduated from Portugal’s top university for science and engineering.
But when he moved to the United States in 2000 to pursue a doctorate in physics at Brown University, his colleagues experienced an ill-tempered young man who felt that even an American Ivy League college was no match for his own intellect. Neves Valente complained the classes were too easy and left the school months after enrolling, apparently with hard feelings.
“He could be kind and gentle, though he often became frustrated — sometimes angry — about courses, professors, and living conditions,” said Scott Watson, a Syracuse University physics professor who befriended Neves Valente at Brown.
After authorities linked him to the mass shooting on Brown’s campus and the killing of an MIT professor earlier this week, Neves Valente, 48, was found dead by suicide Thursday night. In the immediate aftermath, a fuller picture of the suspect emerged: of a brilliant student whose academic promise seemed to dissipate abruptly, an angry genius with long-simmering resentment, a loner who painstakingly planned and executed extraordinary violence.
His death ended a frantic manhunt that began following the Brown shooting Saturday afternoon, according to police. He entered a storage unit in southern New Hampshire about an hour after shooting the MIT professor Monday night, officials said; based on an autopsy, authorities believe he died on Tuesday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound….
Investigators are still trying to determine what motivated his homicidal rampage after he seemingly abandoned the ambitions of his youth, what pushed him to finally act upon old grudges.
She and her cats, by Madison Moore
What’s clear is that he took careful steps to hide his identity and evade detection both before and after the shootings. Authorities believe he acted alone. They said he had been canvassing Brown’s campus for weeks, targeting a building where he spent significant time as a student in the early 2000s….
Both natives of Portugal, Neves Valente and Loureiro attended university together in Lisbon, authorities said. They graduated from Instituto Superior Técnico, a premier science institution that’s part of the University of Lisbon. Loureiro went on to pursue a lauded career as a professor and fusion researcher, with stops at Princeton University and in Europe; he joined MIT in 2016. Colleagues from across the world overwhelmingly praised his accomplishments and character, but none reported knowing Neves Valente.
More from Scott Watson, Valente’s friend:
Watson, his former classmate, said the two became friends despite Neves Valente’s standoffish nature.
“During orientation he was sitting alone, and I walked up and said hello. He was terse at first, but we eventually broke the ice and became close,” Watson told the Globe in an e-mail Friday, describing himself as essentially Neves Valente’s only friend at the university.
Neves Valente was a brilliant student, but he could be frustrated by the curriculum at Brown, which he found underwhelming, Watson said.
“He was by far the best graduate student in our class. Through our conversations, he was already ready to graduate when he arrived,” Watson said. “I don’t like the word genius, but he was.”
The Boston Globe: How a single anonymous tipster cracked the Brown University shooting case.
Information from a tipster who had a strange encounter with another man on a sidewalk outside Brown University was key to police identifying the suspect they believe killed two students at the school and then two days later gunned down a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor.
Known only as “John” in a Providence police affidavit, the source is being hailed by investigators as the key figure who gave law enforcement the details needed to determine who was behind the Brown shooting, as well as the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who was shot in his Brookline home Monday.
Ever since a shooter unloaded more than 40 rounds inside a Brown engineering building, anxiety and frustration has plagued the Providence, Rhode Island, community as police appeared no closer to identifying the person.
Yet on the sixth day of the investigation, the case gathered steam, ending with police announcing late Thursday they had found the suspected gunman dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound….
“John” gave them the information they needed.
According to police, John had several encounters with 48-year-old Claudio Neves Valente before Saturday’s attack. As police posted images of a person of interest — now identified as Neves Valente — John began posting on the social media forum Reddit that he recognized the person and theorized that police should look into “possibly a rental” grey Nissan. Reddit users urged him to tell the FBI, and John said he did. The police affidavit said they learned about the tip on Dec. 16, three days after the shooting and a day after the tip line was created….
Up until that point, the police affidavit says officials had not connected a vehicle to the possible shooter.
That detail led them to get more video of a Nissan Sentra sedan with Florida plates and enabled Providence police officers to tap into a network of more than 70 street cameras operated around the city by surveillance company Flock Safety.
Bedtime Story, by Jeanette Lassen
The affidavit says John gave investigators additional critical details: he encountered Neves Valente in the bathroom of the engineering building just hours before the attack, where John noted the suspect’s clothing was “inappropriate and inadequate for the weather.”
John also bumped into Neves Valente outside, mere blocks from the building, where John watched Neves Valente “suddenly” turn around from the Nissan when he saw John. What ensued was then a “game of cat and mouse,” according to John’s testimony — where the two would encounter each other and Neves Valente would run away.
At one point, John says he yelled out “Your car is back there, why are you circling the block?”
“The Suspect responded, ‘I don’t know you from nobody,’ then Suspect repeatedly asked, ’Why are you harassing me?’” according to the affidavit.
John told police he eventually saw Neves Valente approach the Nissan sedan once more and decided to walk away.
I’ve quote a lot, because The Boston Globe doesn’t allow gift links or readers without subscriptions.
Jack Revell at The Daily Beast: https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-79-complains-the-fbi-made-a-mess-of-melanias-panties.
President Donald Trump raged at the FBI for making a “mess” of his wife Melania’s “panties” during a raid on their Mar-a-Lago estate.
In a rambling speech delivered at a rally in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, on Friday night, Trump went off on a wild tangent about federal law enforcement agents, revealing how they had disturbed the First Lady’s underwear drawer during their 2022 search of the Palm Beach, Florida, property.
Her Quiet Companion, by David Arstamyan
“They went into my wife’s closet. I’ll say this. Number one, it’s very bad, but it sounds a little strange. They looked at her drawers,” Trump told the crowd while both himself and the crowd laughed.
“You have drawers, and then you have drawers. They looked at both,” he continued, miming the difference between the storage item and the undergarment.
The unprompted revelation of intimate details did not stop there, however, with Trump going full disclosure on the way his third wife likes to store her underwear.
“She’s a very meticulous person… Everything is perfect. Her undergarments, sometimes referred to as panties, are folded perfect, wrapped, they’re like so perfect. I say, ‘That’s beautiful,’” Trump continued.
“You know, that’s the part of the world she came from. Everything was perfect, no problem. Fold, fold, fold. I think she steams them just to make sure.”
portrait by Gurutze Ramos
It’s finally starting to feel like Autumn here. Leaves are starting to change color and temperatures are dropping into the 50s and 60s. We’re expecting a Nor’easter over the long weekend, with rain, high winds, and coastal flooding.
I’m still having trouble dealing with the news; it has just gotten to be too painful watching Trump and his thugs destroy my country. But the horror continues, whether I’m paying attention or not. Of course, the top story is the effects of the government shutdown.
The promised layoffs and firings of government workers have begun.
This morning’s Boston Globe has a story on the effects here in the Boston area: Local federal workers say they’ve never seen a shutdown like this.
Beth Willwerth, a federal employee at the Andover IRS office, learned she had been furloughed 15 minutes before she spoke to the Globe on Friday.
Willwerth, who is also the chapter president of the National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 68,has been with the IRS since 2009. This is her fourth shutdown.
“This is far different than anything I have ever seen,” she said. “I have never seen anything like this in my 16 years here. I have never hugged so many people coming into my office crying.”
As the government shutdown entered its 11th day, with no sign of a deal in sight, government workers are seeing their paychecks shrink or cut entirely, learning they are newly furloughed, or facing layoffs, as President Trump had promised. They’re dipping into savings and taking side hustles to make ends meet. Federal workers tell the Globe it’s more than just about finances. They’ve never seen a shutdown this chaotic, or this seemingly vindictive.
Many are continuously, unpleasantly surprised by breaking developments, particularly news of an increasing number of federal workers getting fired. By Friday afternoon, federal health, homeland security, education, energy, and Treasury Department employees had been laid off.
Mere hours later, 98 field staff working at the Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity offices at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development across the nation had been notified they’d be laid off effective Dec. 9, a representative from local 3258 of the American Federation of Government Employees told the Globe. The office helps enforce the Fair Housing Act by investigating housing discrimination complaints and mediating cases.
The number of laid-off field staff includes all 11 field staff from the Boston Regional HUD Office.
CNN: Trump administration lays off thousands of federal workers during government shutdown.
More than 4,000 federal employees receivedlayoff notices Friday as part of the Trump administration’s broad effort to reshape the government while it remains shutdown, according to a court filing Friday.
The filing provides greater insight into an announcement from President Donald Trump’s budget chief earlier in the day that the administration had begun government-wide reductions in force that had been anticipated since federal funding lapsed on October 1.
“The RIFs have begun,” Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought posted on X, without elaborating on how many federal workers had received RIF – or reduction in force – notices.
As of Friday evening, RIF notices had gone out to employees at the departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Homeland Security and Treasury, according to department spokespeople, union representatives and sources directly impacted.
Treasury and HHS saw the highest number of reductions, with more than 1,000 workers laid off at each department, according to the filing in a lawsuit brought by two federal employee unions seeking to stop the layoffs.
Also, the US Patent and Trademark Office, which is part of the Commerce Department, issued lapse-related RIF notices to employees last week, according to the filing. And the Environmental Protection Agency sent “intent to RIF” notices to 20 to 30 employees, though it hasn’t made a final decision on whether or when it would lay off those workers.
Other agencies are “actively considering” whether to conduct additional RIFs related to the shutdown, the filing said.
Trump said late Friday afternoon that he plans to fire “a lot” of federal workers in retaliation for the government shutdown, vowing to target those deemed to be aligned with the Democratic Party.
Read more at CNN.
The New York Times: Trump Administration Lays Off Dozens of C.D.C. Officials.
Dozens of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — including “disease detectives,” high-ranking scientists and the entire Washington office — were notified late Friday that they were losing their jobs as part of the Trump administration’s latest round of federal layoffs.
It was unclear on Friday how many C.D.C. workers were affected. But it was the latest blow to an agency that has been wracked by mass resignations, a shooting at its Atlanta headquarters in August and the firing of its director under pressure from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Portrait by Naomi Jenkin
Layoff notices landed in the email inboxes of C.D.C. employees shortly before 9 p.m. Eastern time on Friday, notifying employees that their duties had been deemed unnecessary or “virtually identical” to those being performed elsewhere in the agency. Scientists, including leaders, in offices addressing respiratory diseases, chronic diseases, injury prevention and global health were among those affected.
The staff of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the journal that reports on health trends and emerging infectious threats, was also laid off. The publication’s storied history includes a June 1981 report that five previously healthy gay men were treated for an unusual pneumonia — the first hint of the AIDS epidemic.
Roughly 70 Epidemic Intelligence Service officers — the so-called “disease detectives” who respond to outbreaks around the globe — received layoff notices, according to a person familiar with them. The service was spared during an earlier round of layoffs in February.
An officer at an American Federation of Government Employees local union representing C.D.C. employees said that the agency’s human resources staff, which had been furloughed as part of the government shutdown, had been called back to work to send out layoff notices to their colleagues.
Catie Edmonson at The New York Times (gift link): Trump’s Shutdown Layoffs Deepen Impasse, Angering Democrats.
In almost any other government shutdown, Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, both of Virginia, would probably top the list of Democrats most likely to try to find a quick off ramp.
They represent the state with the second-highest concentration of federal employees in the nation. Both have historically been eager to join the so-called bipartisan gangs of senators who try to negotiate their way through partisan gridlock.
Instead, the two have appeared remarkably dug in, even as President Trump and his top lieutenants have threatened to use the shutdown to drastically accelerate their campaign to reduce the size of the government. They say they are channeling federal workers who are furious at the White House’s ongoing assault on the bureaucracy and are urging their representatives in Congress to keep up the fight.
“I’ve heard that sentiment more loudly than I thought, because in Virginia, we have an awful lot at stake,” Mr. Kaine said in a recent interview. “We suffer more in a shutdown scenario than anybody else. But I think they feel like, ‘You’re threatening to hurt us. You’ve been hurting us since Jan. 20.’ In some ways, it’s kind of not a credible threat, because you’ll do it anyway, whatever happens.”
The dynamic has fueled Democrats’ resolve not to back down as the shutdown impasse drags into its second week. Democrats representing large populations of federal workers have for months heard from livid employees about the Department of Government Efficiency emails they received asking them to provide a list of accomplishments; the chaos and upheaval at their agencies; and the fears of retaliation.
A bit more:
Mr. Trump has stepped up the threats in recent days, saying that he would deny furloughed workers back pay earned during the shutdown, and promising that he would seize the opportunity to slash programs and projects Democrats care about.
So far that has only fueled Democrats’ outrage, strengthening their determination to continue demanding health care concessions as a condition of any deal to fund the government. But that determination will be tested in the days ahead.
Russell T. Vought, the White House budget director, announced on Friday that the administration was beginning another round of federal worker layoffs, fulfilling Mr. Trump’s threats. And many federal employees, including military personnel, are set to miss their first paycheck next week.
“To their credit, the White House has now for 10 days laid off doing anything in hopes that enough Senate Democrats would come to their senses and do the right thing and fund the government,” Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, said at a news conference on Friday, minutes before Mr. Vought’s announcement. “But now where we’re getting to is where people are going to start missing paychecks. This gets real.”
Democrats on Friday gave few indications that they would be swayed.
“This latest round of federal firings is not an unfortunate byproduct of the government shutdown, but a deliberate choice,” Mr. Warner wrote on social media. “Republicans are intentionally holding federal workers hostage to force through their agenda driving up health care costs for millions.”
Good! I hope the Democrats stay angry.
On the shutdown fight:
Republicans are beginning to realize that they are losing the shutdown PR war.
Nathaniel Weixel at The Hill: Republicans, playing defense on health care, uncertain of path forward.
Republicans are on the defensive as Democrats have successfully made the shutdown fight about health care.
Most Republicans said they don’t want to see insurance premiums spike, but neither are they willing to openly support the extension of the enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits Democrats are asking for.
Portrait by Rachel Stibbling
While the GOP has remained united in refusing to even entertain the idea of an extension in the context of ending the shutdown, Republicans don’t appear to have an alternate plan for what happens next….
Democrats are feeling increasingly emboldened about their position and have made it clear they do not intend to back off their health care funding demands. If Congress doesn’t act in the next three weeks, Americans across the country will see major increases in their insurance premiums when open enrollment begins in November.
While Republicans insist that Democrats vote to fund the government before any talks on health care begin, GOP leaders have been forced to engage on an issue that’s long been a political vulnerability for the party.
“They’re trying to make this about health care. It’s not. It’s about keeping Congress operating so we can get to health care. We always were going to. They’re lying to you,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters Thursday. “The health care issues were always going to be something discussed and deliberated and contemplated and debated in October and November.”
Congress has extended the enhanced subsidies twice, and Democrats insist they need to do so again, citing estimates that premiums for tens of millions of people will more than double next year.
I remember when pundits were claiming that health care was too boring an issue to get serious traction. It looks like they were wrong.
Mike Johnson is keeping the House shut down for the third week. I’m not sure if it’s because he’s afraid of a vote on releasing the Epstein files or that some of his members may want to work with Democrats to end the government shutdown. And now he’s attacking the upcoming No Kings demonstrations.
Politico: Johnson describes planned No Kings rally as ‘hate America,’ ‘pro-Hamas’ gathering.
Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday slammed the No Kings protest march scheduled to take place at the National Mall next week, describing the planned protest as the “hate America rally” that would draw “the pro-Hamas wing” and “the antifa people.” His characterizations, however, drew condemnation from some Democrats who defended the protest movement, whose first big demonstration was overwhelmingly peaceful.
“They’re all coming out,” Johnson said Friday in an interview on Fox News. “Some of the House Democrats are selling t-shirts for the event. And it’s being told to us that they won’t be able to reopen the government until after that rally because they can’t face their rabid base.”
Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), another senior House Republican, also criticized the planned demonstration and blamed it for prolonging the shutdown. Telling reporters Democrats had caved to the “terrorist wing of their party,” Emmer alluded to a “hate America rally in D.C. next week.”
The coast-to-coast protests went on almost entirely without incident, with one notable act of violence — when rally “peacekeepers” in Salt Lake City shot and killed a bystander because they believed another man with a gun was about to fire on the crowd.
The organizers of the upcoming rally largely brushed off House GOP leaders’ characterization. In a joint, unsigned statement, which they said they issued “after a few moments of laughter,” they pressured Johnson over the government shutdown.
“Speaker Johnson is running out of excuses for keeping the government shut down,” the No Kings coalition wrote. “Instead of reopening the government, preserving affordable healthcare, or lowering costs for working families, he’s attacking millions of Americans who are peacefully coming together to say that America belongs to its people, not to kings.”
Non-shutdown news and comment:
Trump and his puppet at the Department of Defense are allowing a foreign country to have a military base in the United States. WTF?!
CBS News: Hegseth announces Qatar will build air force facility at U.S. base in Idaho.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday announced a finalized agreement that will allow the Qatari Emiri Air Force to build a facility at the Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho.
The agreement, which Hegseth announced alongside Qatari Minister of Defense Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani at the Pentagon, will allow Qatari pilots to receive training alongside U.S. soldiers. There are no foreign military bases in the U.S., but some foreign militaries do maintain a presence for training. The Singaporean Air Force also has a presence at the Mountain Home base.
Hegseth said he is “proud that today we’re signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Emiri Air Force Facility at the Mountain Home Air Base in Idaho.”
“The location will host a contingent of Qatari F-15’s and pilots to enhance our combined training, increase lethality, interoperability, it’s just another example of our partnership,” Hegseth said. “And I hope you know, your excellency, that you can count on us.”
Later Friday, Hegseth clarified that Qatar would not have its own base in the U.S., writing on X: “The U.S. military has a long-standing partnership w/ Qatar, including today’s announced cooperation w/ F-15QA aircraft. However, to be clear, Qatar will not have their own base in the United States-nor anything like a base. We control the existing base, like we do with all partners.”
Whatever. It’s creepy, IMO.
The move is another demonstration of the Trump administration’s increasingly close relationship with Qatar.
President Trump signed an executive order last month “assuring the security of the state of Qatar,” following Israel’s decision to carry out a military strike in Qatar’s capital city of Doha, where the vast majority of Qataris live. “The United States shall regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty, or critical infrastructure of the State of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States,” the executive order reads.
I guess that’s what you get when you bribe the “president” with a free luxury plane and help him build a golf course in your country.
Here’s another strange story from The Daily Beast: Melania Has Been Secretly Working With Putin for Months.
First Lady Melania Trump made a rare formal announcement from the White House on Friday where she revealed that she has been engaged in secret talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The first lady said that due to ongoing efforts eight children separated during the war in Ukraine have now been reunited with their families, and she said the work continues.
Cornilis Visscher, The Large Cat, etching-and-engraving-circa-1657-145×188-mm-5_651360851dc7f-thumb-36144200_1695768710Cornelis-Visscher, The
Trump said that her dialogue with Putin has been ongoing since she sent him a letter in August. The president first revealed the letter she had written to the Russian leader on Truth Social, which was hand-delivered to Putin during his summit with Trump in Alaska.
“Since President Putin received my letter last August, he responded in writing, signaling a willingness to engage with me directly, and outlining details regarding the Ukrainian children residing in Russia,” the first lady said Friday.
“Since then, President Putin and I have had an open channel of communications regarding the welfare of these children,” she continued….
The first lady, who spends most of her time in New York, made her roughly five-minute speech from a podium at the White House before turning around and exiting the room without taking any questions.
Melania has been a quiet adviser to her husband on the war in Ukraine since he took office. The president has said on numerous occasions that the first lady has been quick to point out to her husband that Putin had not been negotiating with him in good faith as the war dragged on.
I hope this does some good, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
The New York Times has an interesting story critical of the Supreme Court by Mattathias Schwartz and Zach Montague: Federal Judges, Warning of ‘Judicial Crisis,’ Fault Supreme Court’s Emergency Orders.
More than three dozen federal judges have told The New York Times that the Supreme Court’s flurry of brief, opaque emergency orders in cases related to the Trump administration have left them confused about how to proceed in those matters and are hurting the judiciary’s image with the public.
At issue are the quick-turn orders the Supreme Court has issued dictating whether Trump administration policies should be left in place while they are litigated through the lower courts. That emergency docket, a growing part of the Supreme Court’s work in recent years, has taken on greater importance amid the flood of litigation challenging President Trump’s efforts to expand executive power.
While the orders are technically temporary, they have had broad practical affects, allowing the administration to deport tens of thousands of people, discharge transgender military service members, fire thousands of government workers and slash federal spending.
The striking and highly unusual critique of the nation’s highest court from lower court judges reveals the degree to which litigation over Mr. Trump’s agenda has created strains in the federal judicial system.
White Angora Cat by Jean-Jacques Bachelier, 1761
Sixty-five judges responded to a Times questionnaire sent to hundreds of federal judges across the country. Of those, 47 said the Supreme Court had been mishandling its emergency docket since Mr. Trump returned to office.
The judges responded to the questionnaire and spoke in interviews on the condition of anonymity so they could share their views candidly, as lower court judges are governed by a complex set of rules that include limitations on their public statements.
Of the judges who responded, 28 were nominated by Republican presidents, including 10 by Mr. Trump; 37 were nominated by Democrats. While those nominated by Democrats were more critical of the Supreme Court, judges nominated by presidents of both parties expressed concerns.
In interviews, federal judges called the Supreme Court’s emergency orders “mystical,” “overly blunt,” “incredibly demoralizing and troubling” and “a slap in the face to the district courts.” One judge compared their district’s current relationship with the Supreme Court to “a war zone.” Another said the courts were in the midst of a “judicial crisis.”
Trump is threatening China with insane tariffs again. Politico: Trump wanted a trade deal. Xi opened a new front instead.
Beijing shattered a fragile trade truce with Washington this week, announcing sweeping restrictions on exports that contain even trace amounts of Chinese rare earth.
An irate President Donald Trump is threatening to retaliate with 100 percent tariffs and new restrictions on exports of critical software — and said there’s “no reason” to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping later this month.
The rupture marks the sharpest escalation in tensions between Washington and Beijing since the two countries slapped triple-digit tariffs on each other this spring and threatens to derail months of quiet efforts to stabilize the relationship. It also underscores how delicate the two sides’ uneasy economic peace has been and raises fresh doubts about whether Trump, operating with a hollowed-out national security team and a fragmented China strategy, is prepared for Beijing’s latest power play.
It’s also the clearest test yet of Trump’s ability to translate his transactional approach to trade into a coherent China strategy — one that can withstand Beijing’s deliberate and long-term economic warfare. Most of China’s new restrictions will take effect Dec. 1, while the U.S.’s retaliatory measures are set to kick in Nov. 1.
“China’s actions are being viewed by the administration as a major escalation in U.S.-China trade tensions,” said Everett Eissenstat, deputy assistant to the president for international economic affairs and deputy director of the White House’s National Economic Council during Trump’s first term. “China is flexing its power and trying to show the world that it has the ability to act as a major choke point for global trade.”
China’s Ministry of Commerce on Thursday unveiled its most expansive rare earth export controls to date, allowing Beijing not only to restrict shipments of raw materials and magnets — as it has in the past — but also any devices that incorporate those elements. Because Chinese rare earths are embedded in everything from iPhones and electric vehicle motors to fighter-jet sensors, the rules effectively give Beijing potential veto power over vast swaths of global manufacturing.
One more from The Washington Post on Trump’s architectural plans: Trump eyes a triumphal arch to mark America’s 250th anniversary.
A bit more:
Construction of a triumphal arch to mark the nation’s 250th anniversary, which was first publicly suggested by art critic Catesby Leigh in an article last year, would represent the president’s most audacious effort to remake the landscape of D.C.
Trump has installed a stone patio in the White House Rose Garden, begun construction on a vast, new White House ballroom that would significantly change the footprint of the historic mansion, and pledged to clean up parks and streets across the nation’s capital. The president in August also signed an executive order titled “Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again,” which called for new federal buildings to be constructed in a “classical and traditional” style, in the spirit of the Capitol building or the White House, rather than the brutalist or modern styles that became widely used over the past half century.
“We want to see beautiful buildings,” Trump said in the Oval Office last month, touting his own expertise as a real estate tycoon. Administration officials have highlighted buildings such as the headquarters of the Departments of Energy, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development as eyesores that they would prefer to replace….
Triumphal arches were widely used by the Romans to commemorate victories. Those Roman arches inspired more recent structures in Europe, most notably the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, which was constructed in the first part of the 19th century. The models displayed in the Oval Office closely resemble those structures, inspiring some online commentators to joke that the new monument would be “the Arc de Trump.”
I guess the Trump arch will “celebrate” his planned victory over American democracy after 250 years?
That’s it for me today. Take care everyone!
Reading Woman Daydreaming, by Henri Matisse
Those of us who are hanging onto hope that U.S. democracy can still be saved must not only fight Republicans, but also powerful media organizations, especially The New York Times and The Washington Post.
If you follow social media, you’ve undoubtedly seen people mocking New York Times headlines that suggest any good news for Biden is actually negative–along the lines of “The economy is booming–why that’s bad for Biden.”
Despite the fact that news organizations will certainly be persecuted by a second Trump administration, it really appears that at least the wealthy people in charge want another Trump presidency because they believe it will help their bottom line. Working journalists are facing layoffs these days, so perhaps fear of losing their jobs makes them willing to do their bosses’ bidding.
Right now, as Trump faces a historic criminal trial, the Times and Washington Post continue to publish gossipy lightweight stories.
David Kurtz writes in the TPM Morning Memo about a piece in the NYT yesterday on Melania Trump: NYT Is Said To Have Learned Nothing From Its Trump I Coverage.
Yesterday’s NYT apologia for Melania Trump was laugh-out-loud funny, by which I mean so, so bad. Reminiscent of its much-mocked coverage of Javanka during Trump I, the piece had all the usual hallmarks of NYT toadyism.
Let’s start with the passive-voice headline: “Melania Trump Avoids the Courtroom, but Is Said to Share Her Husband’s Anger”
“Said to” is one of the great journalistic sophistries. It does so much apparent work with so little actual effort.
What is this awkward headline construction meant to convey? That despite all her heartache over the Stormy Daniels affair, Melania, too, is outraged (OUTRAGED!) over Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s wrongful criminal prosecution of her husband.
How does the NYT know this? So glad you asked!
Melania hasn’t said anything publicly about her supposed outrage. She hasn’t attended legal proceedings with Trump. She hasn’t been by his side at the trial.
But wait! She’s has purportedly spoken “in private” about her feelings.
It’s the classic dipsy-do of the Javanka coverage: Why take any risk of speaking publicly when you can launder it through the NYT. We are never so courageous as we are in our private musings.
But how is the NYT privy to Melania’s private thoughts and comments?
The sourcing: “according to several people familiar with her thinking.” Yes! Bravo! It’s self serving on top of self serving, with two degrees of separation to play it safe.
Why are these “people familiar” granted anonymity? Because they can’t speak publicly “out of fear of jeopardizing a personal relationship with the Trumps.” Perfect! These brave truth-tellers are risking so much – by which I mean, so little – to get their essential truths out into the public sphere.
Here’s the nugget of “reporting” around which the entire article is built:
But Mrs. Trump, the former first lady, shares his view that the trial itself is unfair, according to several people familiar with her thinking.
In private, she has called the proceedings “a disgrace” tantamount to election interference, according to a person with direct knowledge of her comments who could not speak publicly out of fear of jeopardizing a personal relationship with the Trumps.
The rest of the piece is a filament of speculation, pop psychology, knowing winks about cliched relationship tropes, and lazy stereotypes about wives and mothers – all in service of trying to wring a drop of compassion from readers for the private turmoil that comes with being married to DJT.
Read the rest at TPM. But really, who the hell cares what Melania thinks? As the back of her famous jacket read, “I really don’t care, do u?”
Albert Reuss 1889-1975, Woman Reading
Another lightweight story from yesterday’s New York Times by style critic Guy Trebay (at least, I guess it’s favorable to Biden): The Biden Guide to Dressing Younger.
Joe Biden is a dapper guy. He always has been. When he turned up decades ago for a first date with the woman who would become his wife and the country’s first lady, her gut reaction was, “This is never going to work, not in a million years.”
Dressed in a sports coat and loafers, Joe Biden was too dapper for someone who had previously gone out with men in T-shirts and clogs.
They worked it out. And the future president stuck to his style. It was one that sometimes skewed Gatsby, for which in 1974 Washingtonian magazine noted his penchant for pinstripe suits and tasseled loafers when citing him as one of the best dressed men in the Senate. It was one that was sometimes too high-toned for its setting. In 1979, Mr. Biden, then a second-term senator, exuded confidence in a “tailored suit and expensive tie” for a campus speech at the University of Alabama, The New Yorker later reported.
It was one that, on occasion, even threatened to upstage the boss. Yes, it must have been flattering to be praised by The Chicago Tribune as the “best-dressed guy” at Bill Clinton’s 2000 State of the Union address. Politically, however, it was not the best look.
Still, dapper cred has stood President Biden in good stead. When Donald J. Trump, now 77, derides his 81-year-old opponent as doddering Uncle Joe, he is missing a point any tailor would be happy to clarify. There is getting old, and there is looking old. To avoid having your clothes add unnecessary years, make style your friend.
“Joe Biden’s style is timeless and doesn’t have any expiration date,” the designer Todd Snyder said recently. If you think that is accidental, you are not paying attention.
Meanwhile, Trump is a dumpy old guy in baggy suits and extra long ties who claims Biden has dementia, an obvious projection.
A campaign story from Clive Wootson, Jr. at The Washington Post: Scranton vs. Mar-a-Lago: Biden turns sharply to populism.
SCRANTON — President Biden’s schedulers did not publicly announce his second stop Tuesday during his visit to his hometown, but it came as little surprise that he’d end up at the gray house with black shutters where he spent the earliest years of his life. He even nodded to the visit in a speech that mixed his biography with his thoughts on tax policy.
By Berthe Morisot, 1873
“Scranton is a place that climbs in your heart, and it never leaves,” Biden said. “For me it was 2446 North Washington Avenue.”
But the trip was about more than sentiment during the first day of Biden’s three-day swing through this pivotal battleground state. He leaned into populist anger against the rich and worries of a world weighted against the middle class as he sought to draw distinctions between himself and his likely Republican opponent in November, Donald Trump.
“All I knew about people like Trump is that they looked down on us,” Biden told the crowd in his childhood town, contrasting his upbringing with Trump’s frequent visits to his resort in Palm Beach, Fla. “They wouldn’t let us into their homes and their country clubs. When I look at the economy, I look at it through the eyes of Scranton, not through the eyes of Mar-a-Lago.”
Biden will further stress that contrast Wednesday when he travels to Pittsburgh to address the United Steelworkers and unveil a raft of new trade protections for the steel industry. The president will call for a tripling of the 7.5 percent tariff on Chinese steel imports, as well as increased pressure to prevent China from shipping steel to America through Mexican ports….
The actions are just the latest sign of the president’s determination to be seen as a defender of American workers like those in the steel industry, whose employees are spread across states in the industrial Midwest, the so-called “blue wall” that could decide Biden’s political fate in November.
In making the argument, he has leaned into his middle-class upbringing, including the years he spent in Scranton, which he portrays as a scrappy, working-class town. He argues that Trump, on the other hand, is a billionaire who lives in a gilded club in Florida and would bolster other billionaires, the very people who have had an unfair advantage for too long.
Again, I guess at least it’s favorable to Biden.
A serious piece from Mark Joseph Stern at Slate Magazine: Hundreds of Jan. 6 Prosecutions—Including Donald Trump’s—Are Suddenly in Peril at the Supreme Court.
Will the Supreme Court jeopardize the prosecution of more than 350 defendants involved with Jan. 6, including Donald Trump, by gutting the federal statute that prohibits their unlawful conduct? Maybe so. Tuesday’s oral arguments in Fischer v. United States were rough sledding for the government, as the conservative justices lined up to thwap Joe Biden’s Department of Justice for allegedly overreaching in its pursuit of Jan. 6 convictions. Six members of the court took turns wringing their hands over the application of a criminal obstruction law to the rioters, fretting that they faced overly harsh penalties for participating in the violent attack. Unmentioned but lurking in the background was Trump himself, who can wriggle out of two major charges against him with a favorable decision in this case.
There are, no doubt, too many criminal laws whose vague wording gives prosecutors near-limitless leeway to threaten citizens with decades in prison. But this isn’t one of them. Congress wrote a perfectly legible law and the overwhelming majority of judges have had no trouble applying it. It would be all too telling if the Supreme Court decides to pretend the statute is somehow too sweeping or jumbled to use as a tool of accountability for Jan. 6.
Start with the obstruction law itself, known as Section 1552(c), which Congress enacted to close loopholes that Enron exploited to impede probes into its misconduct. The provision is remarkably straightforward—a far cry from the ambiguous, sloppy, or muddled laws that typically flummox the judiciary. It’s a mainstay of the Department of Justice’s “Capitol siege” prosecutions, deployed in about a quarter of all cases. Overall, 350 people face charges under this statute, Trump among them, and the DOJ has used it to secure the convictions of about 150 rioters. It targets anyone who “corruptly … obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so.” And it clarifies that an official proceeding includes “a proceeding before the Congress.”
A Woman Reading, by Pablo Picasso, 1920
The government argues that some rioters attempted to “obstruct” an “official proceeding” by halting the count of electoral votes through “corrupt” means. That includes Joseph Fischer, the defendant in the current case. Fischer, who served as a police officer before Jan. 6, allegedly texted that the protest “might get violent”; that “they should storm the capital and drag all the democrates [sic] into the street and have a mob trial”; and that protesters should “take democratic congress to the gallows,” because they “can’t vote if they can’t breathe..lol.” Video evidence shows Fischer assaulting multiple police officers on the afternoon of Jan. 6 after breaching the Capitol.
Would anyone seriously argue that this person did not attempt to corruptly obstruct an official proceeding? For a time, it seemed not: 14 of the 15 federal judges—all but Judge Carl Nichols in this case—considering the charge in various Jan. 6 cases agreed that it applied to violent rioters bent on stopping the electoral count. So did every judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit except one, Judge Gregory Katsas. Both Nichols and Katsas were appointed by Trump. Their crusade to kneecap the law caught SCOTUS’ attention, and the court decided to intervene despite overwhelming consensus among lower court judges. The Supreme Court’s decision will have major implications for Trump: Two of the four charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith in the former president’s Jan. 6 prosecution revolve around this offense. A ruling that eviscerates the obstruction law would arguably cut out the heart of the indictment.
Stern writes that at least three justices–Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito appear likely to do that. Read the rest at Slate.
Catherine Belton at The Washington Post: Secret Russian foreign policy document urges action to weaken the U.S.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry has been drawing up plans to try to weaken its Western adversaries, including the United States, and leverage the Ukraine war to forge a global order free from what it sees as American dominance, according to a secret Foreign Ministry document.
In a classified addendum to Russia’s official — and public — “Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation,” the ministry calls for an “offensive information campaign” and other measures spanning “the military-political, economic and trade and informational psychological spheres” against a “coalition of unfriendly countries” led by the United States.
“We need to continue adjusting our approach to relations with unfriendly states,” states the 2023 document, which was provided to The Washington Post by a European intelligence service. “It’s important to create a mechanism for finding the vulnerable points of their external and internal policies with the aim of developing practical steps to weaken Russia’s opponents.”
The document for the first time provides official confirmation and codification of what many in the Moscow elite say has become a hybrid war against the West. Russia is seeking to subvert Western support for Ukraine and disrupt the domestic politics of the United States and European countries, through propaganda campaigns supporting isolationist and extremist policies, according to Kremlin documents previously reported on by The Post. It is also seeking to refashion geopolitics, drawing closer to China, Iran and North Korea in an attempt to shift the current balance of power.
Using much tougher and blunter language than the public foreign policy document, the secret addendum, dated April 11, 2023, claims that the United States is leading a coalition of “unfriendly countries” aimed at weakening Russia because Moscow is “a threat to Western global hegemony.” The document says the outcome of Russia’s war in Ukraine will “to a great degree determine the outlines of the future world order,” a clear indication that Moscow sees the result of its invasion as inextricably bound with its ability — and that of other authoritarian nations — to impose its will globally.
Albert Reuss, Lady Reading a Book
The Russians have clearly succeeded in subverting much of the Republican Party. Right now, far right Republicans are talking about getting rid of House Speaker Mike Johnson because he appears to be trying to pass some military aid for Ukraine.
The Washington Post: Momentum builds to oust Johnson from House speakership.
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s job is in serious jeopardy as two far-right lawmakers are threatening to oust him after the embattled Republican leader proposed a complex plan intended to fund key foreign allies during wartime.
It’s difficult to believe, but today is kind of slow news day, compared to most of the days we’ve lived through in the past four years. Naturally, what news there is today is mostly awful.
The story getting the most attention right now is the bomb blast in Nashville. Here’s the latest:
ABC News: Human remains found at site of ‘intentional’ Nashville RV explosion: Sources.
A parked recreational vehicle exploded in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, on Christmas morning, in what Nashville police believe was an “intentional act.”
Nashville police officers were first called to a report of shots fired, police said. There was no evidence of shots fired, but “there were announcements coming” from an RV saying a potential bomb would detonate within 15 minutes, police said.
The recording only began playing a short time after police reported to the scene, a law enforcement official told ABC News.
Officers were working to evacuate nearby buildings when, around 6:30 a.m., the RV exploded, blowing out the windows of nearby buildings.
Human remains have been found at the scene of the explosion in downtown Nashville, multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News.
The remains have not been identified and it’s unclear whether they’re identifiable.
“We found tissue that we believe could be human remains,” Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake said at a press conference Friday evening. “We’ll have that examined and we’ll be able to tell you from that point.”
Nashville Tennessean: Exclusive: Nashville explosion witness remembers chilling warning from the RV: ‘A bomb is in this vehicle‘
A woman’s voice warned downtown residents to evacuate before the Christmas morning explosion that rocked Nashville, according to witness who described hearing the chilling message before fleeing with her family.
Betsy Williams, who owns the Melting Pot building on Second Avenue, lived in a loft apartment on the third floor of the building near the center of the blast.
Williams said she left the area after she heard the recording play a countdown to the explosion.
At least three people were injured in the explosion, according to authorities. A police officer in the area, who was responding to reports of suspicious activity in the area, was knocked to the ground by the blast.
Police said the explosion came from an RV that was parked on Second Avenue, in the midst of a business and entertainment district. Police spokesman Don Aaron confirmed the warning came from the RV.
AP: Downtown Nashville explosion knocks communications offline.
The blast sent black smoke and flames billowing from the heart of downtown Nashville’s tourist scene, an area packed with honky-tonks, restaurants and shops. Buildings shook and windows shattered streets away from the explosion near a building owned by AT&T that lies one block from the company’s office tower, a landmark in downtown.
“We do not know if that was a coincidence, or if that was the intention,” police spokesman Don Aaron said. He said earlier that some people were taken to the department’s central precinct for questioning but declined to give details.
AT&T said the affected building is the central office of a telephone exchange, with network equipment in it. The blast interrupted service, but the company declined to say how widespread outages were.
The AT&T outages site showed service issues in middle Tennessee and Kentucky. Several police agencies reported that their 911 systems were down because of the outage, including Knox County, home to Knoxville about 180 miles (290 kilometers) east of Nashville.
AT&T said that it was bringing in portable cell sites and was working with law enforcement to get access to make repairs to its equipment. The company noted that “power is essential to restoring” service.
The Federal Aviation Administration temporarily halted flights out of Nashville International Airport because of telecommunications issues associated with the explosion. Later Friday, the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority said most flights were resuming but advised passengers to check with their airline for updates due to possible delays.
The FBI will be taking the lead in the investigation, agency spokesman Joel Siskovic said. Federal investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were also on the scene. The FBI is the primary law enforcement agency responsible for investigating federal crimes, such as explosives violations and acts of terrorism.
Trump is busy shirking his responsibilities, playing golf and tweeting as Americans die or go hungry and jobless, while facing evictions.
The New York Times: Unemployment Aid Set to Lapse Saturday as Trump’s Plans for Relief Bill Remain Unclear.
Expanded unemployment benefits were set to lapse for millions of struggling Americans on Saturday, a day after President Trump expressed more criticism of a $900 billion pandemic relief bill that was awaiting his signature and would extend them.
The sprawling economic relief package that Congress passed with overwhelming bipartisan support would extend the amount of time that people can collect unemployment benefits until March and revive supplemental unemployment benefits for millions of Americans at $300 a week on top of the usual state benefit.
If Mr. Trump signs the bill on Saturday, states will still need time to reprogram their computer systems to account for the new law, according to Michele Evermore of the National Employment Law Project, but unemployed workers would still be able to claim the benefits.
Further delays could prove more costly. States cannot pay out benefits for weeks that begin before the bill is signed, meaning that if the president does not sign the bill by Saturday, benefits will not restart until the first week of January. But they will still end in mid-March, effectively trimming the extension to 10 weeks from 11.
Mr. Trump blindsided lawmakers on Tuesday when he hinted he may veto the measure, which he decided at the last minute was unsatisfactory. The most pressing issue prompted by the president’s delay was the fate of unemployment benefits. At least a temporary lapse in those benefits is now inevitable.
The country is also facing a looming government shutdown on Tuesday and the expiration of a moratorium on evictions at the end of the year because of the president’s refusal to sign the bill.
Here’s what Trump is stewing about at the moment. Raw Story: Trump buried for whining Melania didn’t get enough fashion magazine covers — as he sits on COVID aid bill.
With all that is going on in the U.S. during Christmas week — COVID-19 infections on the rise, a desperately needed COVID-related aid package being held hostage by the president, extended unemployment insurance about to run out, families facing evictions — Donald Trump took time out from his busy holiday vacation at Mar-a-Lago to complain that his wife Melania didn’t get fashion magazine cover stories he feels she deserves.
Linking to a tweet from right-wing Breitbart, that read, “The elitist snobs in the fashion press have kept the most elegant First Lady in American history off the covers of their magazines for 4 consecutive years,” the preside t added “The greatest of all time” by which he presumably meant the first lady, before adding the requisite “Fake news!”
Commenters who were already criticizing the president for two days of golfing while they hunker down in their homes over fears of the spreading pandemic, piled on the president for his bizarre sense of priorities.
Maybe it’s because Melania is ugly inside and out? Click the link to read sample tweets.
Trump is also planning to try to pardon himself and push for inappropriate investigations, according to The Guardian:
William Barr’s abrupt move to leave his post as attorney general this week has spurred fears among Department of Justice veterans that Donald Trump will put new pressures on Barr’s successor to do him big and potentially risky political and legal favors.
Former justice department officials say they are worried Trump will lean on Barr’s less experienced successor, the acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, to push policies which Trump has suggested he backs, including naming special counsels to investigate President-elect Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and using the DoJ to investigate Trump’s baseless charges of widespread election fraud.
Critics also fear Rosen could face pressure from Trump to help obtain a legal opinion that would allow Trump to pardon himself by reversing a justice department opinion that dates back to the Nixon era and bars a presidential self-pardon. Such a move would probably trigger widespread outrage.
Mounting concerns that Trump will try to squeeze favors from Rosen, who became Barr’s deputy AG in early 2019 without previous DoJ experience, stem partly from Trump’s post-election anger at Barr, despite being arguably his strongest cabinet ally in the run-up to the November election.
And what if Trump tries to stay in the White House after Biden’s inauguration? Eric Lutz at Vanity Fair: No One Knows How to Get Trump to Leave the White House in January.
Donald Trump was soundly defeated by Joe Biden, his efforts to overturn the results have been wildly unsuccessful, and the electoral college has made his loss official. In two weeks, lawmakers will meet to certify Biden’s win—and a longshot challenge Trump’s allies in the House are planning is unlikely to stop the inevitable. Constitutionally and legally, Trump will have no constitutional or legal claim to the White House.
But what if, after all that, he just…refuses to leave? What if he refuses to pack his shit and go back to Mar-a-Lago? What if he chains himself to the Resolute Desk? That prospect may sound comically outlandish, and is indeed unlikely to come to pass. But it’s hardly as far-fetched as it might seem, as Trump refuses to concede and continues to insist he won last month’s election in a “landslide.” In fact, he has actually raised the idea with aides recently, as CNN reported. And while few advisers think he’ll actually go through with it, no one really knows what would happen if he does try to overstay his welcome.
According to the Daily Beast on Wednesday, the Secret Service isn’t so sure what it would do, either. One former agent suggested he’d get dragged out like any other civilian would be if they were in the Oval Office unauthorized. “I guess by law he would be a trespasser,” the former agent told the outlet. “We’d have to escort him out.” But the Secret Service and the military may be reluctant to take part in what would be such a dramatic scene, and could take more subtle action, like pressing his inner circle or Republican officials and family members to make him leave. “The Service and the military would just not want to get involved,” another former official said. “It’s not our role.” It could also simply do the equivalent of changing the locks: “When the staff leaves on January 19, don’t let them back into the complex the next day,” an ex-agent said. “He can’t do anything without his staff.”
Again, this is all (thankfully) hypothetical at this point, and the chances of it becoming more than that are still likely remote. But it’s hard to avoid engaging with the prospect as Trump goes to greater and greater lengths in his effort to remain in power, even though a record number of American voters told him to get lost and the electoral college formalized his loss. “It’s scary,” an administration official told CNN.
More at the link.
A few more reads to check out:
Ed Pilkington at The Guardian: How real is the threat of prosecution for Donald Trump post-presidency?
The Daily Beast: Three Paths This Coronavirus Nightmare Could Take.
Los Angeles Times: L.A. County hospitals running dangerously low on oxygen, supplies as ER units are overwhelmed.
The New York Times: One Vaccine Side Effect: Global Economic Inequality.
The New York Times: A ‘Great Cultural Depression’ Looms for Legions of Unemployed Performers
That’s all I have for you today. I hope you had a nice, relaxing day yesterday. Take care and stay safe!
Turn in the Road, by Paul Cezanne
The election has been over for weeks, but Trump is determined to continue making our lives miserable until the bitter end. He plans to troll Biden’s inauguration, and begin running for president again as soon as he leaves the White House. We may not be rid of him until the day he dies.
I have been having trouble sleeping again, despite feeling exhausted. I’m tense much of the time, worried about what is going to happen next. I think it’s likely that millions of Americans are going to be suffering from PTSD for some time after the years of abuse we have suffered at Trump’s hands. Even formerly loyal Republicans are getting sick of his whining.
Talking Points Memo: AZ’s GOP Gov Appears To Get A Call From Trump As Biden’s Win Becomes Official In The State.
President Trump, who still refuses to concede to President-elect Joe Biden despite how his legal battles contesting the legitimacy of the election process have fallen flat, appeared to call up Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) as the governor certified the battleground state’s election results on Monday.
Arizona’s certification of its election results on Monday handed the state’s 11 electoral votes to Biden and cemented the swearing-in of Senator-elect Mark Kelly, a Democrat who defeated Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ), this week.
Ducey, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich and Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Brutinel (all of whom are Republican) witnessed secretary of state Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, certify the state’s election results as required by state law….
Last July, Ducey told reporters that he changed his ringtone to “Hail to the Chief” to alert him when the White House is calling.
Resnik noted that specific ringtone was heard while Ducey was in the middle of certifying the state’s results. The Arizona governor appeared to silence the call.
Raw Story:‘It’s over’: Joe Biden’s win is certified in all key states — and Donald Trump can’t handle the truth.
Since Nov. 7, the result of the 2020 presidential race has been clear: Joe Biden has defeated President Donald Trump by a substantial enough margin that the outcome has never really been in doubt by serious observers. But on Monday, the results met a new official threshold as Arizona and Wisconsin became the final decisive swing states to certify their votes.
“All six key states have now certified their election results with Joe Biden as the winner,” said attorney Marc Elias, who has been involved in key election law cases for the Democratic Party. “Trump and his allies remain 1-39 in court.”
In addition to the newly certified swing states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, and Georgia have also certified Biden as the winner. Georgia is still undergoing a recount, but it is not expected to affect the result, especially since the state has already conducted an audit of the ballots, carried out by hand, that affirmed a margin for Biden of more than 12,000 votes. Trump also funded recounts of two counties in Wisconsin, which likewise reaffirmed Biden’s win. Certifications are also being carried out in swing states Trump won and states where the presidential election outcome was never really in doubt.
Road in a Forest, by Claude Monet
Eugene Robinson at The Washington Post: Trump is an ego monster. Republicans, don’t let him consume you.
Maybe it’s not pure, unadulterated cynicism. Maybe soon-to-be-former President Trump is having a genuine existential crisis. I’d feel sorry for the friends and family who have to be around him right now, if they weren’t such sycophants and grifters. It must be a bumpy ride.
In his desperation to avoid being forever labeled a loser, Trump is pursuing a futile course of action that only causes him to lose to President-elect Joe Biden again and again. Trump was declared the loser slightly after Election Day; he loses repeatedly and decisively in court; he loses in recounts and then demands re-recounts, which he will also lose. So much losing!
With Trump, it’s generally wise to assume the basest motives. Maybe he is actually trying to bully Republicans into nullifying the election and helping him stage what would amount to an authoritarian coup d’etat. Maybe he is spitefully trying to make life as difficult as possible for the new administration by delegitimizing Biden’s victory in the eyes of many voters. Maybe he is reinforcing his cult-leader control over his followers in what amounts to a massive act of hostage-taking, hoping to use them as human shields against potential criminal investigations or prosecutions — or as sources of ongoing profit.
But perhaps, on some level, Trump simply cannot accept that in an election that saw Republicans do well overall — gaining seats in the House, retaining control of statehouses, winning Senate seats that polls indicated they would almost surely lose — the man at the top of the ticket got creamed by more than 6 million votes.
“So I led this great charge, and I’m the only one that lost?” Trump tweeted Sunday. “No, it doesn’t work that way. This was a massive fraud, a RIGGED ELECTION!”
But yes, it does work that way. And no, of course the election wasn’t rigged. What happened was that voters turned out in record numbers for the specific purpose of kicking Trump out of the White House. It was a massive act of rejection, a clear message sent by more than 80 million of Trump’s fellow citizens: Go away.
But it looks like he will never go away until he either dies or his dementia advances to the point where he can no longer tweet or call in to right wing TV and radio.
Road at St Paul (Var) 1922 Felix Vallotton
Trump may actually want to overturn the election, but he’s also using his ridiculous legal “strategy” to wring more money from his cult followers.
The New York Times: Trump Raises $170 Million as He Denies His Loss and Eyes the Future.
President Trump has raised about $170 million since Election Day as his campaign operation has continued to aggressively solicit donations with hyped-up appeals that have funded his fruitless attempts to overturn the election and that have seeded his post-presidential political ambitions, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The money, much of which was raised in the first week after the election, according to the person, has arrived as Mr. Trump has made false claims about fraud and sought to undermine public confidence in the legitimacy of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.
Instead of slowing down after the election, Mr. Trump’s campaign has ratcheted up its volume of email solicitations for cash, telling supporters that money was needed for an “Election Defense Fund.”
In reality, the fine print shows that the first 75 percent of every contribution currently goes to a new political action committee that Mr. Trump set up in mid-November, Save America, which can be used to fund his political activities going forward, including staff and travel. The other 25 percent of each donation is directed to the Republican National Committee.
A donor has to give $5,000 to Mr. Trump’s new PAC before any funds go to his recount account.
Still, the Trump campaign continues to urgently ask for cash. On Monday, Mr. Trump signed a campaign email that breathlessly told supporters that the end of November — nearly four weeks after Election Day — represented “our most IMPORTANT deadline EVER.”
More details at the NYT link.
Meanwhile, Trump’s “legal team” and his media sycophants are becoming more and more unhinged.
Tim Miller at The Bulwark: Trump Lawyer: Former DHS Senior Official Should Be Executed.
On Monday President Trump’s campaign lawyer and former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova said that fired Trump cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs should be executed for saying that the election was the “most secure in United States history.”
Country Road, 1890, by Vincent van Gogh
DiGenova, appearing on the Howie Carr show, which simulcasts on Newsmax, took aim at Krebs as an aside during a wheels-off segment full of false claims about how the United States election had been rigged.
“Anybody who thinks that this election went well, like that idiot Krebs who used to be the head of cybersecurity [for Trump]. That guy is a class A moron. He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot,” diGenova said.
This is not just a random Parler troll trying to get attention. This is an attorney speaking on behalf of the President of the United States’ re-election campaign. And while it may read like a macabre joke, the direct nature of diGenova’s comments make it impossible to interpret as anything other than a real wish/threat against a public servant for offering truthful testimony.
Joe diGenova should get a visit from the FBI.
And then there’s Lou Dobbs, suggesting on live TV that Trump must take “drastic action.” Media Matters: Lou Dobbs calls on Trump to take “drastic action” over non-existent election fraud.
LOU DOBBS (HOST): And as I said at the outset of the broadcast, Sidney, this is no longer about just voter fraud or electoral fraud. This is something much bigger. And this president has to take, I believe, drastic action, dramatic action to make certain that the integrity of this election is understood or lack of it, the crimes that have been committed against him and the American people. And if the Justice Department doesn’t want to do it, if the FBI cannot do it, then we have to find other resources within the federal government. We’ve got to rise above this because the nation itself — this is an assault on the core of a democracy, any democracy. Our ability to cast a secret ballot. Your thoughts, Sidney, as we wrap up here.
SIDNEY POWELL: That’s exactly right, Lou. It affects the bedrock of our democratic republic. It can’t be allowed to stand and, frankly, I’m about to think the entire FBI and the entire Department of Justice need to be hosed out with Chlorox and fire hoses.
As Trump whines about losing the election, his trophy wife has been busy doing something she hates: choosing ugly “decorations” for the White House for Christmas.
NBC News: Melania Trump unveils Christmas decorations for final holiday season in White House.
First lady Melania Trump on Monday morning revealed this year’s White House Christmas decorations and theme: “America the Beautiful.” The unveiling comes less than two months after secret recordings from June 2018 were aired by CNN, in which she complained about preparing for the holidays at the White House.
The first lady announced the decorations on Twitter with a 1-minute video showcasing the festive halls and rooms of the White House. The White House also issued the video and a press release about the reveal on Monday.
“During this special time of the year, I am delighted to share ‘America the Beautiful’ and pay tribute to the majesty of our great Nation,” the first lady tweeted. “Together, we celebrate this land we are all proud to call home.” [….]
This year’s decorations may just be the most anticipated of the Trump presidency, following the public release in October of the first lady’s expletive-filled 2018 complaints about planning for the holiday at the White House.
“I’m working … my a** off on the Christmas stuff, that you know, who gives a f*** about the Christmas stuff and decorations?” She said in the leaked audio that was secretly recorded by Trump’s former senior adviser and friend Stephanie Winston Wolkoff. “But I need to do it, right?”
Monica Hesse at The Washington Post: Everything we needed to know about Melania Trump is in those bewildering Christmas decorations.
I can’t wait to get rid of this trailer trash family. They remind me of the Beverly Hillbillies.
That’s all I have for you today. I know I skipped the really serious stories, but I’m reaching the limit of how much horror I can handle first thing in the morning.
Take care Sky Dancers! We will get through this together some how some way.
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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.
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