House going to adjourn until September! I mean, they were going to take August off anyway, but pretty sure they had stuff brewing before then.
They do really seem roiled.
Of course, even though it's based on experience, it's pretty revolting that the only way media can justify covering this is as long as paid-up right-wingers keep caring about it.
It's going to be generations before anyone in the Lester family can name a kid "Moe"again.
Meanwhile some DOJ DAG is going to meet with Ghislaine Maxwell. Totally innocent like.
Oh, not just any DAG, but someone who was Trump's defense attorney.
2: In defense of the media (I know, I know), they certainly tried to care about the Access Hollywood tape when the story broke, and it only made Trump's numbers go up. The problem with America is Americans.
Hard to keep track of all the different quasi-judicial things they're doing to hide the ball:
- Announcing intention to prosecute Obama for treason somehow on the whole matter
- The grand jury stuff previously mentioned (the judge is looking askance and has asked for more materials that will take at least another 2 weeks)
- Trying to strike a clemency deal with G. Maxwell so she implicates they people they want her to
- Releasing more MLK Jr. files
What am I missing?
Aliens. They're looking for aliens.
And according to a report made to Dick Durbin, the FBI put 1,000 personnel to review 100,000 Epstein-related records for two weeks a few months ago. And they didn't find anything to selectively release?
9 I can't believe the entire file hasn't leaked yet
WSJ: "Exclusive: The Justice Department told President Trump in May that his name is among many in the Epstein files."
I don't have a gift link but for you can put it into archive.is.
Subhed: "Bondi also told president at the meeting that Justice decided to not release more Jeffrey Epstein documents because of the presence of child pornography and the need to protect victims."
I'm somewhat relieved that WSJ published another investigative story about this. One of my fears was that they'd either drop it or start using the Trump-friendly frames that NYT seems to love ("Republicans unite around dislike of the WSJ story! Looks like the winning will resume!"), and then that would be another marker on the road to full authoritarianism.
They want Powell to stay. Trump won't drop that idea.
They want Powell to stay. Trump won't drop that idea.
Maybe they're pushing on Powell (I mentioned this earlier). Maybe they just have a newsroom that didn't stop doing what NYT or WaPo would have been doing 10 years ago.
Multiple Republicans joined Democrats on a committee vote which succeeded, to subpoena the files from DOJ.
President Vance, the first nutless tool in the White House.
This is one of the better pieces I've seend about the Epstein-Trump syndrome:
Is any of this a smoking gun? No. But a smoking gun has never been a requirement for conspiracy theories. In fact, it's the lack of a smoking gun, the lack of a satisfying narrative conclusion, that invites the speculation that transmutes into conspiracy. I'm not saying Trump writing this birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein, or his friendship with Epstein, is a conspiracy. I'm saying it's the stuff conspiracy feeds on, the stuff that QAnon and "they're eating the pets" and birtherism feeds on. Only, this time, Trump isn't tossing it scraps. He's on the menu.
It's only not going away because , uniquely, this is something that Trump is trying to cover up. He didn't try to cover up the fact that, for example, virtually his first act after being elected president was to be forced by a court to pay $25 million to people he had defrauded, so that story went away. $25 million is a lot of money! Fraud is bad! But because it was done in the open, it's fine.
I think that's what makes it so delightful. It's as if he suddenly has to convince the base that Hillary should not be locked up, that Biden is astute and young at heart, and that people of color are a vital part of the economic engine. Do go on, Mr. President.
Also I note that no one here has helped me land this Epstein-Barr joke yet. Degenerates.
I'm enjoying picturing a Trump rally where he's like, "Okay, here me out, next chant "Don't lock her up, don't lock her up, ready?"
It's interesting to consider what percentage of Trump voters would stick with him if the allegations were proved true. Probably quite a lot. (A related question: what percentage of R Kelly's Grammy nominations came after his 2002 prosecution for child abuse?)
25: All I have is Epstein-Barr Overdrive which is stupider reworking of an already stupid band name joke in ,i>High Fidelity and non-responsive to boot.
All I am left with are non to barely-applicable deep cuts. At a family thing there was a toast "to the children" and I added "but not the British children" to blank stares. My 3-yr. old granddaughter did subsequently like the video, however.
27: I think he could easily weasel his way out of it, except that he seems to have the yips on this topic.
Kiss of the Epstein-Barr Files.
Deadly Epstein-Barr Variant Found in NYC
Epstein and Barr go into a bar. Bartender says, "What is this, some kind of blog title joke?"
30: Yes, the rules are that he only needs to find one thing that "works" and he is out. NYT thought it was the media grievance thing, but I suspect it will in the end be some limited release/Maxwell statement that can be construed as showing him only tangentially involved (which is what we basically have now).
Epstein lawyer cacking (at 80) is a nice touch for the crazed Beautiful Mind wall-charters in the backrow.
Something something lowering the Epstein bar
|| This story is crazy and yet upon reflection shouldn't be surprising. I had the thought, "if my mother was 20 years younger".
The State Prosecutor's Office charged a 73-year-old woman from Tel Aviv on Thursday with planning to assassinate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
According to the indictment, the defendant contacted fellow protest activists last month and shared her intention to assassinate Netanyahu. One of them opposed the plan and asked her to wait a few days.
When they met again a few days later, she reportedly asked for his help in acquiring an rocket-propelled grenade launcher (RPG) to carry out the killing, as well as assistance gathering intelligence on Netanyahu's schedule. After realizing he could not dissuade her, the activist alerted security authorities through a lawyer.
During the investigation, the accused said she decided to "sacrifice" herself because she was "devastated by the state of the country, and my medical condition."
https://archive.ph/Tkgjk#selection-708.0-821.326 ||
I'd date the start of the current Epstein kerfluffle at July 7, when the DOJ announced the Epstein files would not be released. Certainly it began no later than July 8, when Trump interrupted Bondi to wonder why people were still talking about Epstein. That's more than two weeks ago. That's a heck of a run for a Trump scandal.
Suicidal assassination attempts on the corrupt and murderous head of government? More backing for my theory that 2025 is the year Israel normalises its relationship with its neighbours by becoming just like them.
Russia, Belarus, Slovakia... you know, fair enough.
OT because this is 40: abstract is definitely not surprising!
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/15534510802584368
Participants rated their opinion about the decriminalization of marijuana on a 1 to 9 scale and then discussed the issue in three-person groups. Group members who used more extreme ends of the scale to rate their opinion talked more and took more turns. Groups did polarize on their consensual opinion from the mean of individuals' pre-group opinions. Groups containing a more extreme member did not polarize more than groups not containing an extreme member. No differences in polarization were found between groups in which members were in consensus coming into the discussion and groups containing a minority and majority opinion.