"A Man Named Burn Bag."

     It's called a Freudian slip. Others call it "an unforced error."

     Today at a bill-signing ceremony at the Oval Office (hereafter referred to as the scene of many, many crimes), Donald Trump was fielding questions from the press. One reporter asked him about Kash Patel claiming to have found burn bags containing files on the investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election. Trump responded by asking,

     "He said what?" The reporter restated his question.

     "Oh, burn bag. I thought you said appointed a man named Burn Bag." The bearded goon standing behind him laughed because dementia is so funny, after all. Then it really went off the rails.

    "Well, I want everything to be shown. You know, as long as it's fair and reasonable, I think it will be shown and it should be shown. And I think he feels that way, and I think [Attorney General Pam Bondi] feels that way. And if they can do that in a fair way, I think it's great. I think it's really great. The whole thing is a scam. It's a scam set up by the Democrats, and they love talking about it. 

     "You know, if they had anything, they would have done it the week before the election, because they were losing by a lot. If they had anything, they would have done it. They control the file. The Democrats controlled at Comey and all the sleaze bags, every one of them, that you read about all the time. But they control that file. So I would think that if they would have had something in the file, they would have released it about a week before the election. It’s got to be stuff that really doesn’t hurt people unfairly, because you have so many people involved." 

     It didn't take very long before those in attendance realized that he was in reality talking about the Epstein files 

     It's becoming more and more obvious that Trump is unraveling as this Epstein scandal is engulfing Washington DC like a dust storm in the 1930s Midwest. And every time the walls start closing in and when it looks as if comeuppance is at hand, Trump acts out the same exact way every time.

     We saw it when Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel to investigate that very same topic, Russia's meddling in the 2016 election. When Trump learned that Mueller was put on his trail, he reportedly said, "I'm fucked! I'm fucked!" We saw the same exact behavior when he learned of his two impeachments. We saw it several more times during his four indictments and trials last year, his four arrests, his New York civil trial on fraud charges, during the E. Jean Carroll rape trials. We saw the same thing when Jack Smith was tasked with prosecuting him on two fronts for inciting an insurrection at the Capitol and for stealing classified documents.

     His predictability is wearisome at this point. Like a broken record, he does and says the same things. He resorts to name-calling and insults, lies, makes counter claims without basis, he rages against those just for doing their jobs. One can smell the flop sweat against a high wind.

    Today was another example of that. Lies. Name-calling. And the subject was Russia's role in the 2016 election. Yet Epstein was never far from his mind. One wonders if Trump is visited by Epstein's ghost and the other dead principles when he's trying to sleep at night like something out of A Christmas Carol.

     This is how guilty men think. Trump knows what he's done over the course of his life. He knows he savagely raped Katie Johnson in Epstein's Manhattan townhouse in 1994. He knows he raped other underage females. But it's not guilt that keeps it in the front of his diseased mind because Donald Trump is a sociopath who's incapable of feeling guilt because he honestly feels he can do whatever he wants. The closest he can come to guilt is a vague awareness that others are coming to get him.

     And rich, privileged assholes like Trump are absolutely outraged when public servants tasked with enforcing the law try to take him to task for his countless crimes. Accountability is for other people, especially his perceived enemies.

     But he knows he's on that client list. Blanche and Bondi told him as much last May. He knows he's all over those 300,000 pages of the Epstein files. And if his name is on those files, there are pictures, there are videos. Jeffrey Epstein wasn't just a prolific pedophile- He was also the most successful and sophisticated blackmailer in US history. And a man doesn't amass a half a billion dollar fortune predicated on blackmail without the documentation to use as leverage.

      While writing my novel, The Final Bullet, earlier this year, I wrote a prologue detailing the real-life murder of Joseph Elwell in June, 1920. Elwell was a notorious womanizer and, in the final seconds of his life, Elwell's killer confronts him about raping his underage sister. And Elwell arrogantly says,

     “I remember her now. Yes, she resisted but not for long. And she put herself in that position. No one told her to get into my car, no one ordered her to come here. Women, and girls, often get themselves into… compromising positions and they only realize it when it’s too late. You’ll learn that yourself once you’re a little older.”

     Yes, I was thinking of Donald Trump and Katie Johnson the day I wrote that. Trump was my template for Elwell. In real life, JB Elwell was a cold-blooded sociopath who used and discarded women after he was done with them. One of his own friends even described him as cold-blooded" in his dealings with women. 

     And Trump looked at Katie Johnson and so many others as animals trapped for a canned hunt for rich white men like he and Epstein to do with as they pleased. But behind Katie Johnson's brutal and violent 1994 rape at the hands of Donald Trump, behind the obsession with taking her virginity was the darker, unspoken truth that the 13 year-old Johnson resembled his then 12-13 year-old daughter, Ivanka, who was born in 1981.

     One of the things that gives Trump plausible deniability aside from his rage-filled denunciations is our unwillingness to accept the fact that Donald Trump is one of the most evil monsters in human history. He's an animal, plain and simple. By her account, he raped Johnson and struck her across the face when she cried and worried about getting pregnant and screamed obscenities at her, threatening the lives of her family. When he raped E. Jean Carroll in that department store dressing room about a year or two later, he was in such an animalistic frenzy that he prematurely ejaculated all over her black dress.

     The son of a bitch knows what he did. He knows he broke laws but laws are for little people and Democrats, don't you know? But the awareness of his crimes is never far from his thoughts as is the fear of comeuppance.

     And Trump's unforced error today in the Oval Office is a vivid delineation of that.

Maxwell Smart?

 

     Ghislaine Maxwell is playing it smart. Even as Donald Trump is hemming and hawing about whether or not he'll give her a commutation or pardon (As he had before pardoning Roger Stone, Paul Manafort and others), one thing is clear- She's still very much in the running for either. 

     We'll likely never know what was discussed between Maxwell and Todd Blanche on July 24th and 25th (due to attorney-client privilege and the usual clannish Republican opacity) in Florida but, despite what her lawyer claimed, it's obvious that Maxwell didn't tell Blanche everything she knew and likely did not fully answer the questions during his fishing expedition. If she had, there's no way she'd be testifying before Congress.

     And perhaps the only thing keeping her alive right now is her caginess and that her sudden "suicide" would be a bit difficult to explain, given her recent media exposure and newfound relevance.

     But the timeline of this whole thing, going back to at least 2023, is one of the most damning things if you're Donald Trump.

     Let's go back to 2020, which was right after Maxwell was arrested in New Hampshire. Trump was asked what he thought about Maxwell's arrest and he infamously said, "I just wish her well, frankly," a very odd thing to say about an old friend who was just arrested on suspicion of sex trafficking children.

     A couple of days later, during a coronavirus briefing, Maxwell's name suddenly popped up and trump asked, "She say anything about me?" Which is something an innocent man would totally say.

     A little over a year later, on September 4, 2021, then Senate candidate JD Vance said on Twitter, "Remember when we learned that our wealthiest and most powerful people were connected to a guy who ran a literal child sex trafficking ring? And then that guy died mysteriously in a jail? And now we just don't talk about it."

     Two years later, podcaster and future Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino said, "Listen, that Jeffrey Epstein story is a big deal. Please do not let that story go. Keep your eye on this... [W]hat the hell are they hiding with Jeffrey Epstein?” without specifying, of course, who “they” were. Shortly before joining the Trump administration, he added, “Who’s on those tapes? Who’s in those black books? Why have they been hiding it?”

     (Bonus: Just a couple of days ago, Bongino posted a series of very cryptic and ominous tweets as if he suddenly found his inner human.)

     In December that year, future FBI Director Kash Patel told right wing podcaster Bennie Johnson when asked why the government was blocking the Epstein client list, "Simple, because of who’s on that list — Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are.”

     Last year on the campaign trail,  Trump said he'd declassify the Epstein files then added, "It’d be interesting to find out what happened there, because that was a weird situation and the cameras didn’t happen to be working, etc., etc. But yeah, I’d go a long way toward that one.”

     On a podcast last year, VP candidate JD Vance simply said, "We need to release the Epstein list."

     February this year, John Roberts of Fox asked Pam Bondi whether the DOJ would release the Epstein client list and Bondi said, "It’s sitting on my desk right now to review. That’s been a directive by President Trump. I’m reviewing that.”

     (Then, on July 7th, the DOJ said on their website that there was no Epstein client list.)

     On another right wing podcast last month,  Kash Patel said, "I’ve said it, Bongino has said it. We’ve reviewed all the information, and the American public is going to get as much as we can release … We’re going to give you every single thing we have and can.”

     So, Trump had his base primed and foaming at the mouth over a client list that was guaranteed to take down the whole Democrat Party and their sex trafficking empire, without once remembering they were conned over Pizzagate. And Trump now looks more like a juvenile delinquent playing with matches who's now alarmed that the house caught on fire and is now denying that there ever was a fire and that it was all the fault of the Democrats and "stupid Republicans".

      As I've stated before, these idiots who are all now high-ranking officials of this administration plainly had no idea who was on the list and never once suspected their Dear Leader could ever be on it. Then they got their hands on that client list and haven't shut their eyes since. Let's resume the timeline, in more granular detail::

      On July 17th, the Wall Street Journal published a bombshell article stating that Trump had written a letter to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday that was framed by a doodle of a naked woman and wishing that "every day (would be) a wonderful secret". Typically, Trump responded by suing the paper and Rupert Murdoch, forgetting once again that in every trial, there's a phase called "discovery".

      Later that evening, Trump ordered Bondi to seek the court's permission to release the grand jury testimony while he almost surely knew that the grand jury testimony contained only a small sliver of the information contained in the files and that judges very rarely unseal grand jury testimony. (Less than a week later, the court denied her petition.)

     On the 22nd, the day before the court said no, Mike Johnson sent House members home for an early recess, thereby kicking the can down the road for an inevitable showdown over the Epstein files.

     The next day, in a giant Fuck You to Johnson, a GOP-dominated House Oversight subcommittee voted 8-2 to subpoena the Justice Department to release the Epstein files.

     Also that day, the NY Times revealed that Blanche and Bondi briefed Trump last May that his name was on the Epstein files, which he's still lying about to this day. 

     Starting the next day, Trump's "former" defense attorney Todd Blanche, who moonlights as the number two guy at Justice, started a two day-long fishing expedition at a Jacksonville prison in which he questioned the aforementioned Ghislaine Maxwell, the woman who knows where all the bodies are buried (perhaps literally) in advance of her Congressional testimony.

      He also announced that all investigations into people beyond Epstein and Maxwell were closed, which leads one to wonder why, if that was true, he interviewed Maxwell in the first place?

     That same day, as Trump was taking off for Scotland and told the press when asked if he'd consider pardoning Maxwell, “I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I haven’t thought about." When he landed he said, “I’m focused on making deals. I’m not focused on conspiracy theories.”

     This, coming from the fool who gleefully fanned the flames of conspiracy theories.

     And, finally, today it came out that Maxwell is demanding immunity for testifying before Congress because she eventually came to the conclusion that she can't incriminate anyone else without also incriminating herself. So, who will she incriminate that she hasn't already?

     I don't want to engage in risky speculation but I have a feeling it's a fat orange guy who cheats at golf and is screaming the loudest about the Epstein files.

Three's the Charm

 

     There's a near universal failing in the media and social media, and I include myself in with this group, who are giddily writing about the Epstein files and Donald Trump's connection to them. And the failing is that too many are absorbed with the coverup, the bombshell revelations to come (and they will come). But precious few of us (Julie K. Brown of the Miami Herald being a major exception) are actually thinking of the countless victims of Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Donald Trump.

     We only think of Katie Johnson, who at 13 wasn't even the youngest of Trump's and Epstein's victims, except in relation to her court statements from years ago and how they could still theoretically hurt Trump. Johnson had tried to sue Trump twice. The first was tossed on procedural grounds, the second dropped by Johnson herself when she began getting death threats just before the election in 2016.

     Out of all the scandals that popped up around Trump's campaign like poisonous mushrooms, the Access Hollywood tape, the $25,000,000 Trump University fraud settlement, and everything else, Johnson's lawsuit made the smallest blip. It mattered the least. It should have mattered the most.

 

 

 

     Johnson's testimony was horrifying, to say the least. Even in the dispassionate legal language of the court in Riverside, California, one is still struck by the animalistic, savage, sociopathic cruelty visited upon Johnson by Trump and Epstein.

     Several long moments have gone by since I wrote that last paragraph, even though I've read these words several times over the years (they don't even include the part where Trump threatened hers and her family's lives if she said anything.). It's not often that I'm stunned, especially after reading years-old revelations, and left speechless. Even the most powerful and sincere empathy only takes one so far. No one knows what Johnson went through emotionally during those sexual assaults and rapes except Johnson herself and others who'd been similarly degraded.

     But a careful parsing of the three paragraphs I'd reproduced above from publicly available sources shows that during those rapes, there were at least three children in Epstein's townhouse. There was Johnson, a 12 year-old named Maria (who has seemingly disappeared from the face of the earth) and another unnamed 13 year-old girl.

     Johnson then filed a second lawsuit, this time in New York, months later. That was proceeding apace until just before the 2016 election when she abruptly dropped the charges. Her attorney said it was because she'd been receiving death threats. The rapes of Katie Johnson occurred during a four month-long period in the second half of 1994. Let's fast-forward to 2008.

      Jeffrey Epstein had been brought up on a vast raft of federal charges alleging sexual abuse of more minors in Florida. Then US Attorney Alex Acosta did something that still makes attorneys shake their heads to this day- He began acting like Epstein's attorney and crafted a sweetheart deal whereby Epstein only had to plead guilty to two state charges of solicitation of a prostitute. He was given 18 months (but only served 13 months in the sheriff's stockade) and was allowed to go home for up to 12 hours a day under a "work release" program.

     Acosta's office never contacted the plaintiffs or their attorneys and was allowed to legally and retroactively designate Epstein's then underage victims as "prostitutes". Needless to say, they were all outraged. When Julie K. Brown broke the story years later in the Miami Herald, it was enough to topple Acosta from his post as US Labor Secretary. Pam Bondi, then the Florida AG, chose not to pursue charges against Epstein, just like she chose not to pursue charges against Trump University, especially after receiving a $25,000 bribe from Trump himself.

     But keep in mind, this was 2008. This was seven years before Trump came down that escalator and began his shit show of a political career. No one was actively protecting Trump. It wasn't even about protecting Epstein himself. It was about protecting a rotten, corrupt system that's been shielding pedophiles like him. It's a system that went back before even former Boston Mayor Andrew Peters and revelations after her murder in 1931 that he'd repeatedly raped Starr Faithfull over a century ago starting when she was 11 years-old. (Unlike Epstein, Peters never saw the inside of a courtroom).

     Let's fast-forward another 17 years to the present day.

     Pam Bondi is now US Attorney General.  Unlike in Florida in 2008, Bondi can't seem to escape Epstein's zombie. After proclaiming last February that the Epstein client list was on her desk, she then said two weeks ago that there was no such client list, after all, and that no evidence exists that Epstein was murdered in his cell (despite missing security footage and reports of shrieking coming from Epstein's cell the morning of his "suicide").

     And, as I write this, the Number Two guy at the Justice Department Todd Blanche, Trump's former attorney, is interviewing Ghislaine Maxwell at a Florida prison, obviously to see what she knows and what she intends to do with it. James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, had just subpoenaed her and, like Blanche, also wants to know what she knows in advance of her compelled testimony.

     All this is unprecedented and reeks to high heaven even to those of us who aren't legal experts. The Deputy Attorney General, Trump's former attorney, is interviewing a convicted sex trafficker in advance of her Congressional testimony.

     By now, long, long before now, people had stopped thinking of the emotional toll this has taken on the victims. Former Mar a Lago employee Virginia Giuffre, who was sex trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell to Prince Andrew, committed suicide last April (or that's what we're told) and she may not be the only victim of Trump and Epstein to lose her life. Not enough people are actually thinking, really thinking, of the countless women whose lives are ruined forever by Trump, Epstein and Maxwell, lying like forgotten, broken pawns on a vast chessboard.

      Even though he didn't live long enough to be convicted for it, Epstein ran a global sex trafficking empire. Of that, there isn't a doubt. And yet, the media are still refusing to connect the dots lest they be perceived as partisan. But that same media have been slavering after another Watergate since 1974 and they keep whiffing. It's not as if the scandals aren't there. But the corporate media keep screwing the pooch and are giving Trump cover (No one wants to be the next ABC or CBS). Even CNN once shut down a Democratic congressman who tried to connect those dots and the host shut him down, interjecting, "There's no evidence!"

     They're actively protecting a system that gives plausible deniability and a presumption of innocence to some of the most prolific and shameless criminals in world history while their victims are allowed to be retroactively branded as prostitutes. And when you have a client list and 300,000 pages pertaining to the most prolific child molester in US if not world history, and that it and those files contain the names of future and past presidents, royalty and captains of industry, in short, the names of hundreds of the most powerful men on the planet, there's more than just the mere potential for abuse and corruption.

    We haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg. 

    And I think now would be the perfect time for Katie Johnson to launch a third and final lawsuit. And, Katie, if you're reading this, I ask you to look into your soul and do the right thing at the right time.

I Wasn't Briefed on Them But They're Boring

 

     I've already written about this today in the post you see below but this video of CNN's Erin Burnett is too good not to write about today.

     It's a super cut that starts with Trump brazenly lying about being briefed on the Epstein files by Pam Bondi last May. Trump was asked last July 15 about whether or not he was briefed by the DOJ and he said NO. Thanks to the Wall Street Journal today, we now know that was a lie. According to the WSJ, Trump was assured that it was based on "unfounded hearsay", although I fail to see how being on Epstein's client list could bring about anything good. They also hastened to reassure him that just because he showed up in the Epstein files, it was wasn't proof that he did anything while no doubt Trump was remembering forcibly diddling 13 year-old girls at Epstein's Manhattan townhouse and elsewhere.

     But that was just the first part of Burnett's super cut. She went on to play clips of JD Vance back in October 2024, calling for the release of the Epstein files. You saw and heard Pam Bondi last year calling for the release of the Epstein files. You heard Kash Patel calling for the release of the Epstein files. And you heard Trump himself say last year that he would declassify and release the Epstein files.

    Then Burnett played clips of Trump now calling the Epstein scandal "a hoax", that they were "boring but sordid" and that no one would possibly be interested in them (How would he know if they were boring or not unless he was made familiar with them?). And, oh yeah. they were created by Comey and Obama.

     Of course, what all these people have in common is that they're all now high-ranking officials of the administration who are all now suspiciously singing a different tune.

     So, what's changed? Well, obviously, Bondi, Vance and Patel, back in 2023 and 2024, didn't have access to the Epstein files so they simply didn't know what or who was in them. But Trump certainly did. How could he not? Of all four, he's the only holdover from the last Trump administration. Plus he was buddies with Epstein going back to the 80s. He may have incipient dementia but even he remembers what he did with Epstein all over the world. And no matter how far his dementia progresses, one thing will never change- His automatic and manic desire to protect himself at all costs.

      So when you consider Republicans dragging their feet regarding the release of the Epstein files, Bondi now saying there was no client list even though she'd said last February that she had it on her desk, and Trump acting like a scared, guilty man and snapping at even his base and other Republicans while telling them to stop talking about Epstein, only one scenario would explain all those things- His name being in those 100,000 files for the worst reasons one can imagine.

     With a scandal of this magnitude, anything and everything else is a distraction. And Trump has nothing to protect him any more except Republican delays, distractions and shiny objects. Here's the problem:

     In a recent poll, among the major issues such as immigration, the economy, etc, Trump is underwater in every category. And, as regards the release of the Epstein files, Trump is at -37%. As mentally impaired as they generally are, even MAGA voters are starting to see that they were sold a rotten bill of goods. It's worse than bait and switch. They were promised the Epstein files and now they're not getting anything but snarls and insults. They may be stupid but they're not accepting any substitutes nor should they.

     This dumpster fire of an administration has been mired in scandals from day one. Signalgate, Iran, the illegal immigration roundups, violating posse comitatus. But the Epstein scandal is the only one that promises any staying power and the only one that has a chance of bringing down the fat man. If the Democrats want to be taken seriously, they need to keep their feet on the pedal and force the release of these files, in their entirety.

Survivor

 

     The Epstein Files story is like watching Survivor in reverse. Only, instead of getting voted off the island, several people could find themselves retroactively back on it. The island to which I'm referring, of course, is Epstein's pedophile paradise in, ironically, the Virgin Islands off the coast of St. Thomas.

     There's a lot happening today with the Epstein/Maxwell/Trump saga, so let's dive in, shall we?

     Perhaps the biggest development is James Comer subpoenaing Ghislaine Maxwell. This isn't as exciting as it sounds. Number one, Comer already decided that the testimony would he held in the prison and, number two, it would be a closed door hearing. In other words, the usual Republican opacity and obsession with controlling the narrative.

     Then there's Thomas Massie.

     Last week, Massie introduced a measure on the House floor that's called a "discharge petition". A discharge petition essentially forces a vote on a particular bill. This means Mike Johnson can't just arbitrarily refuse to give it a vote on the floor. He's trying to delay the inevitable by allowing the House to adjourn for its summer break. But when the House returns in September, Massie's measure will have fully matured after the seven day wait time and he'll be able to get the necessary 218 votes needed to compel the DOJ to turn over the Epstein files.

     But as anyone who knows the first thing about Massie knows, he's no liberal superhero. He's recklessly demanding transparency in this case because, number one, he's too stupid to even suspect that Trump's name is all over those 300,000 pages for the worst reasons and, number two, he's concerned Democrats will take back the House after MAGA voters sit out the midterms.

     It makes me think of future Senator Fred Thompson during the Watergate hearings in 1974 when he demanded the release of the Watergate tapes. Because, he, too, never thought they would ever implicate Nixon. Instead the tapes hastened his downfall two months later. Nixon even privately called him, "dumb as Hell."

     Fred Thompson was one of those useful idiots that we're seeing now with certain House Republicans who are demanding to see the Epstein files.

     Then, during a hearing of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Federal Law Enforcement where the agenda was undocumented and unaccompanied migrant children, Rep. Summer Lee of PA introduced a measure to subpoena the Epstein files from the DOJ. The hearing erupted in chaos and Chairman Clay Higgins abruptly gaveled the hearing to a close. (The Democrats got the subpoena).

     Then, as if that wasn't enough, the Wall Street Journal, not exactly a liberal bastion, released another bombshell report revealing that Bondi's DOJ informed Trump last May that his name was all over the Epstein files, hastening to add that lots of other names were on it. Of course, Trump doesn't care about the other names. His name is the only one he cares about.

     Taking down the Clintons wouldn't be worth it if it means going down with them.

     Drip, drip, drip. Watch this space. 

Anatomy of a Coverup

 

"According to information my office received, Attorney General Bondi then pressured the FBI to put approximately 1,000 personnel in its Information Management Division (IMD), including the Record/Information Dissemination Section (RIDS), which handles all requests submitted by the public under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Privacy Act, on 24-hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in order to produce more documents that could then be released on an arbitrarily short deadline. This effort, which reportedly took place from March 14 through the end of March, was haphazardly supplemented by hundreds of FBI New York Field Office personnel, many of whom lacked the expertise to identify statutorily-protected information regarding child victims and child witnesses or properly handle FOIA requests.

 

My office was told that these personnel were instructed to "flag" any records in which President Trump was mentioned." Senator Dick Durbin (IL) to Pam Bondi, July 18, 2025

 

     After Watergate, as if one needs a blueprint for what a high-level political coverup looks like, I give you the Epstein files.

     It's a scandal that's reached such proportions that TV and print journalists have had to review their old Journalism 101 notes from college in order to remember how to be journalists. It's fractured MAGA World, perhaps irreparably. Some MAGA figures have actually called for Pam Bnndi to resign, especially after announcing last week that there was no Epstein client list, after all, and that she didn't want to talk about it any more. Suddenly, there was no there there.

     Seriously, all this scandal needs is a Rolling Stone cover photo by Annie Liebovitz showing Pam Bondi flushing pieces of paper down the same toilet at Mar a Lago where Trump stored those stolen classified documents. Or maybe Trump can license his name and likeness to his own brand of paper shredders (Made in China and not subject to tariffs, of course).

      Allison Gill, more famously known online by the handle Mueller, She Wrote, has been all over this. In a post a couple of days ago, Gill went into exhaustive detail about the contents in Durbin's letter to Bondi. This is what Gill had written:

     "First, approximately 1,000 personnel in the Information Management Division (IMD) and the FBI New York Field Office were assigned to this task, confirming the whistleblower account made to Senator Durbin’s office. I can also confirm that a log exists tracking the mentions of Donald Trump in the files, and that there were approximately 100,000 files containing roughly 300,000 pages. Individual analysts were told to flag mentions of Trump by document and page number by logging them in an Excel spreadsheet, then they’d hand in their spreadsheet at the end of their (sometimes 24 or even 48-hour) shift. But it’s important to note that the agents were not told to flag Trump until later in a process that began mid-March."

      Yes, you read that right. The "Attorney General" of the US, who apparently is still working off a $25,000 bribe from Trump to drop the Trump University case when she was Florida's AG, is abusing her authority by ordering 1000 DOJ employees, and the NY FBI field office, to cherry pick Trump's name out of the Epstein files and then to stovepipe the results directly to her office.

     Actually, I should be referring to this coverup in the past tense because this all had silently happened last March before Trump was back in office for two months. And who among us thinks that Blondi is smart enough to have committed this skullduggery on her own initiative? Who among us thinks it's impossible that this directive would've come directly from the Oval Office?

     And why would Bondi do this unless she was absolutely sure Trump's name would be all over the 300,000 pages of the Epstein files?

     To show you how incredibly rushed and sloppy this coverup had been conducted, the DOJ even hastily cobbled together training videos for the 1000 DOJ employees (working 24 or even 48 hour shifts, turning the DOJ's Information Management Division's, or IMD, office into a boiler room operation), they had put the videos on an unsecured server. The Epstein files also met a similar fate, meaning the entire IMD office, including those not given the necessary security clearances and weren't part of the cheery picking process, theoretically could have had access to it.

     And then, to go beyond Allison Gill's post, there's Todd Blanche's public announcement that he was going to interview Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein's madame in his sex trafficking ring (something that took Trump by surprise when he was asked about it today). In case you've been, understandably, living under a rock since January 20th, Blanche is the Deputy Attorney General and Trump's former and current fixer (representing Trump in the Manhattan fraud case). He was also jailbird Paul Manafort's former lawyer, showing what a totally competent attorney he's been.

     For a high-ranking DOJ official to personally interview a convicted felon post-trial is extraordinary in itself, especially as there's every possibility that Maxwell could be compelled to testify before Congress in exchange for immunity. With congressional testimony very much on the table, what Blanche is essentially doing is engaging in witness tampering. Who among us thinks this isn't being done at the behest of someone who nervously asked after Maxwell's arrest almost exactly five years ago, "Did she say anything about me?" and said over and over again, "I wish her well."

     To say the least, this puts House Republicans in a ticklish position. Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, of all people, filed a legislative measure to compel the DOJ to turn over the Epstein files. This gave the Rules Committee the dry heaves and they adjourned yesterday rather than vote on it, which essentially paralyzed the House. It's obvious the Republicans will try to kick the can down the road as far as they can at least until after the House returns from its summer vacation.

     People, this is not like Watergate, which was the very delineation of a conspiracy. Not only is this much worse but a conspiracy is defined as a secret agenda carried out by a limited number of individuals. This coverup involves much of the Justice Department at the highest levels as well as the White House and the US House of Representatives.

      And let's not forget what Watergate taught us- That the coverup is always worse than the original crime.

Stick a Pin in Bluesky. It's Dead

 

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." -William Gibson, Neuromancer

     I joined Bluesky February last year with the intention of transitioning from Elmo's blue bird. I'd heard good things about it, about how it promised to be a liberal haven (ironically sneered at by right wingers about it being a "liberal echo chamber"). Then Donald Trump stole the 2024 election as he had the 2016 election. Outrage was swift. 

     The day after election night last year I lost at least 500 followers on Twitter. The exodus continued for weeks thereafter. I reached a peak of just 4100 followers on Twitter and now, even with new followers, I'm down to 3374. It had appeared as if the liberal accounts were neatly transitioning from the blue bird to the blue butterfly.

     But then, after Bluesky hit 21,000,000 users by the end of November last year, I noticed a dropoff in activity and engagement. Right after election night, people put me on what were known as "starter packs", lists of people on Bluesky that others were invited to follow. When I followed these people, they immediately followed me back, often within seconds.

     Then I noticed the starter packs dried up. My posts were no longer getting engagements.  Likes, reposts, dried up to literally nothing. Engagement on the site had flatlined.

     So I went to Elmo's Grok 3 to ask about Bluesky's numbers just to ensure that I wasn't imagining things.

     I wasn't. 

     Grok gave me results from sites such as Backlinko and other companies that track social media data and traffic. And the results were to say the least, dispiriting and depressing. According to a July 17 post on Backlinko, between November 5th, election day, and November 6th, Bluesky's growth had exploded by 13%. The company's executives bragged that they'd topped 21,000,000 before December 2024. But since then, there's been a steady decline.

    DAUs, or Daily Active Users, now number 4.1 million. But the alarming statistic is that only 11% of Bluesky's users post daily. After hitting 30,000,000 users in January, they've only added 6,000,000 more. So I wasn't imagining things. If you use social media as much as I have since 2009, you just develop a sense about these things.

     And, as anyone who's used social media for a New York minute can tell you, it doesn't matter how many users you have. It's about engagement. Lack of engagement is a lack of life. And if people don't receive the engagement they expect, then they'll use it less and less before they just stop posting entirely.

     Bluesky's 35.9 million users may sound impressive until you compare it to Twitter's 600,000,000 users (although countless millions are obviously bots, which Elmo now suddenly doesn't seem to care about), Tiktok's 1.5 billion and Facebook's 3 billion (although many of those accounts are hacked, spoofed or dead accounts). Even Facebook's Threads (which had its own sugar rush years ago before flatlining) and its 275,000,000 users makes Bluesky look sick by comparison.

     Even if the rosiest projections hold true (and they probably won't considering the fast-waning interest in Bluesky) and they hit 53,000,000 users by December, they'll still pale in comparison to the larger social media sites out there.

     In a way, it was inevitable. Bluesky never did get away from the impression that it was a pale clone of Twitter. It took them months to activate Twitter hashtags, which made it look more like a Twitter clone than ever, and it took executives months before they could even emulate Twitter's features, such as posting pictures, videos and gifs. Since there are no ads, they're still operating on a revenue-free model, which will further hasten its obsolescence. After years, they still don't offer analytics, which is key to tracking personal engagement as well as on a macro scale.

     In a nutshell, this means that Bluesky is destined to become the next Friendster or Myspace. I'd decided today to stop using it entirely. If people aren't paying attention to you, then it subverts the very idea of social media. You're basically yelling in a tomb or down an empty well.

     But, while I never once thought Bluesky would be the last hope for the future of America and the progressive movement, it nonetheless serves as a synecdoche for the progressive movement as a whole well beyond Bluesky.

     It's all about staying power, the desire for growth and a sustained commitment to liberal ideals. It's about a lack of heart. Yes, we made a good pretense of supporting each other in the first few weeks after Election Day but then the entire domain flatlined. Those supportive accounts proved to worse than fair weather friends.

     So, a thinking person has to ask, "Where goes Bluesky, so goes the 2026 midterms?" It has to be asked.

      We've been hearing about this "blue tsunami" that will sweep Republicans out of power at least in the House. And, historically, over the last four decades or so, the administration's party loses at least one chamber in the next midterms. Considering the razor-thin majority that Republicans nervously eye in the House and the three seats Republicans have in the Senate, it's easy to be optimistic about the Democratic Party's chances November next year.

     The problem is, the Democratic Party hasn't given its voters any reason to believe they'll do anything meaningful with a majority in either chamber. They've yet to tell those voters why they should give them that majority. It's always risky to see a correlation between voter engagement and social media engagement, But the overall impression I'm getting is that we're beaten, deflated and we're acting like it.

     And the Democratic Party isn't giving people any reason get excited about them and that's because the party is taking them and their votes for granted. Between the Old Guard New York Democrats refusing to endorse Mamdani for New York City mayor and the disaster of the DNC kicking out David Hogg as DNC Vice Chairman, they're leaving a sour taste in the mouths of voters. Take a look at the New York City Democratic mayoral primary results:

      Zohran Mamdani got only 469,602 on primary night last month. Granted, far fewer voters come out for a primary than they do in general elections but you would still expect a popular candidate like Mamdani to get a hell of a lot more votes than he'd gotten in a city of nearly 10,000,000 people. And the only reason he won the mayoral Democratic primary was because of the city's ranked choice voting because he fell far short of the 50% on the first ballot to get the nomination.

     Incidentally, the breakdown of registered voters in New York City as if November last year is thus:

• Democratic Party: Approximately 3.4 million registered voters
• Republican Party: Approximately 573,644 registered voters
• Non-affiliated (Independents): Approximately 1,155,323 registered voters

      Out of 3.4 million Democratic voters, plus well over 1.1 million more unaffiliated voters, Mamdani still only got fewer than half a million to vote for him in the most populous city in the nation. I'd say that's a serious enthusiasm gap, especially in a blue city that historically has been renowned for its political engagement.

      In terms of social media engagement and political activity, the old show business bromide holds true: "Give the people what they want and they'll come out for it." And, there's the unspoken followup: If you don't give them what they want, they won't turn out. And in the progressive movement right now, there's a quiet, unarticulated defeatism that makes it a lot easier to drift into the shadows than it is to stay in the fight.

     In other words, we're giving the right wing exactly what they've been aiming for since forever-That nothing we do will make a difference. That's it's always easier to give up and just hope for a better outcome that isn't on the horizon.

"There's a Sucker Born Every Minute."

     There's a story about PT Barnum that changes in its iterations depending on the source but I'll relate my favorite version. It was said that one of his most infamous swindles was selling tickets to view one of the most amazing things ever seen. The unwary victims, of course, were never told what this thing was but they happily paid their nickels and dimes just to see what it was. Fraudsters such as Barnum have known for centuries that human curiosity is one of the most powerful and lucrative things to leverage into money.

     They were then told to walk through a long series of halls seemingly leading to nowhere until they finally got to the terminus: An empty room with a single light containing nothing but a box. And when they opened the box, it turned out to be completely empty.

     If there was a moral or a point that Barnum wished to impart aside from lining his pockets it's that it's the journey that matters, not the destination. Or maybe that's what Barnum told himself as he happily took their hard-earned nickels and dimes to the bank.

     If this story's more than apocryphal, then it would've been Barnum's masterpiece of fraud. With just the power of suggestion, the lure of a promise of something extraordinary and very little overhead expenses, Barnum took in who knows how much money selling people something that didn't exist. Barnum's very name is synonymous with trickery and swindles like this, which is perhaps an unfair and absolute tarring and feathering. 

     Barnum was also a local politician, serving two terms as a Republican in the CT House of Representatives, in which  he advocated for the ratification of the 13th amendment that outlawed slavery. He also served one term as the mayor of Bridgeport, CT in which he worked to improve the water supply, bring gas lighting to streets and enforce liquor and prostitution laws. After his term, he also helped found Bridgeport Hospital and became its first president.

     So, PT Barnum was not a man whose entire life was dedicated to fraud and chicanery. Unlike latter day Republicans, Barnum worked to make life better for the citizens.

     The Jeffrey Epstein client list is the empty box. Donald Trump's army of 77,000,000 dupes paid handsomely through campaign contributions to be led down dark hallways promising transparency and something... extraordinary. Then months later, they found nothing but that empty box.

     Unlike many of Barnum''s victims, who probably sheepishly laughed at being taken in by such a palpable ruse, MAGAworld isn't amused nor should they be. They were promised a bill of goods only to be told that they won't arrive,after all, and we don't want to talk about it, anymore. And it's fracturing MAGAworld neatly down the middle. 

     Lauren Boebert is calling for a Special Counsel (although her choice, comically, enough, is accused pedophile Matt Gaetz). A week ago, Steve Bannon called for the same thing and even warned House Republicans that they could lose up to 40 seats in next year's midterms if the files aren't released. Even reliable ventriloquist dummy Mike Johnson is criticizing from Trump's lap how the administration is handling it. Dan Bongino is ready to resign from the FBI over it and, if he does so, he'll automatically be the highest-ranking official to resign over the Epstein files and at how poorly-handled the matter has been.

 

     And Donald Trump, the guy who's screaming for everyone to stop talking about the Epstein client list, seems to be the one talking the most about the Epstein client list. And Trump, whose name is obviously all over the client list, the Lolita Express's flight logs and Epstein's phone records, is still fanning the flames of conspiracy theories whether he knows it or not.

     Trump's exposed but that's not to say he's not getting any cover. Yesterday, House Republicans shot down Ro Khanna's bill (Co-sponsored by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie) that would've forced the DOJ to turn over the Epstein files. So the call for transparency is, at least technically, bipartisan.

     The Epstein files, this zombie scandal that never dies, isn't just the one that could take Trump down forever. It's the thread that, if forcefully pulled, could undermine his credibility regarding everything. As if it wasn't already obvious, virtually all of Trump's campaign promises have remained unfulfilled after six months. 

     The biggest deportation effort in history hasn't materialized, although over 100,000 migrants have been arrested, detained and deported. The wall still isn't built, inflation's gone up partly as a result of his batshit tariff policies and manufacturing jobs aren't coming back. The list goes on.

      But, stupid and gullible as Trump voters generally are, they're already wondering what else he's lied about, even if they still don't know why. They still can't bring themselves to believe that Trump is, like Barnum, a carnival barker and huckster who only looks at the bottom 90% as if they're marks (which they've unfailingly proven to be). And the minute they stop heeling to, he snarls at them and lets his true colors show. 

      Because loyalty to Trump, and it's always unilateral, is everything. And, when he loses that, he panics. Since Trump and Putin are on the outs these days, maybe Putin's spies will somehow get their hands on the Epstein client list and skillfully leak it to a liberal publication just to let him know who's still calling the shots.

     So, Russia, if you're listening... 

The 8000 Lb Elephant That No One Sees

 

      I think we can safely and comfortably assume that there isn't a single person in the MAGAverse anywhere on the planet that's ever considered for a nanosecond that Donald Trump's filthy name is all over the Epstein client list. The release of the Epstein client list has been the Holy Grail, the Atlantis, the golden Joseph Smith Mormon Bible that no one's ever seen but that they knew existed. And when that cherished document finally came out, all their fever dreams about the Democrats, especially the Clintons, would finally be confirmed and they could finally march down the path of world domination that would start with Comet Ping Pong Pizza and its secret basement that would...

     What was that? There's no Epstein client list? There's no video evidence proving that Hillary Clinton sneaked into Jeffrey Epstein's cell and throttled him with umbilical cords of unborn fetuses harvested from Planned Parenthood?

     At a Cabinet meeting last Tuesday, someone asked Pam Bondi about that and Trump jumped in, flying into a rage, calling Epstein a "creep" (the only honest thing he's ever said in four and a half years in the White House although some people need reminding that Trump was BFFs with that aforementioned creep for at least 15 years). 

     MAGAworld lost its collective shit. And, more often than not, they prefaced their objections with, "I love you, Mr. President but..." Here's a sample. 

     

     Meanwhile, Lev Parnass, always a questionable source of news on anything considering his past with Trump, said on his Substack that his sources are telling him Trump is pacing back and forth, screaming and calling these MAGA morons "ungrateful" and "fools". I dunno, guys, but that sounds like someone grasping at straws at the edge of a cliff. This is the same Trump who lost his shit when he found out that Robert Mueller had been appointed by Jeff Sessions to investigate Trump over his collusion with Russia in 2016.

     This is the same Trump who was tried in civil court for fraud and who was tried in a criminal court over his rape of E. Jean Carroll. This is the same Trump who kept asking when Ghislaine Maxwell was sent away for 20 years, "Did she say anything about me?"

     You know, the same Ghislaine Maxwell that he's now considering pardoning.

     Trump always acts the same way every time, as do guilty people the world over act when they feel the walls closing in. They lash out, claim they're being persecuted, that it's all political, a "witch hunt." This is especially true of career criminals like the guy you love who's even now calling you names.

     OK, assuming that Trump's name isn't all over the non-existent Epstein list like "Smith" in a hot bed motel's register, then try to explain to us why he ordered Bondi to ditch the investigation, including insulting your collective intelligence by claiming the Epstein client list never existed, after all? Who is Trump protecting, if not himself? The Clintons? Prince Andrew?

     Guys, I know you're mostly mentally deficient (some of you, after all, voted for a career criminal three times) but come on. Are you all so stupid that you don't know a guilty person when you see one? Is it really so inconceivable that a guy who swaddled himself with pedophiles for decades, who once ogled a small girl going up an escalator and said, "I'll be dating her in 10 years" could himself be a pedophile?

     How do you think Jeffrey Epstein amassed a fortune of half a billion dollars? Blackmail. And he and Trump probably went their separate ways after Epstein made his move and said, "Pay up, Donald, or else." Epstein was the most successful blackmailer who ever lived as well as the most successful and prolific pedophile.

      When Trump promised on the campaign trail that he'd release the Epstein client list, he was cynically pandering to your hunger for that particular piece of red meat but also because he simply hadn't seen it. Neither had Pam Bondi. Then it wound up on her desk, as she said last February. She looked through it and said "Oh shit, I can't ever let this get out." Her office released a bunch of documents to only right wing influencers who looked it over and said, "There's nothing new here."

     And they were right. And they had every right to be angry.

     That was Bondi's attempt at Phase One.

     There would be no Phase Two.

     Guys, you were sold a rotten bill of goods. That's the long and the short of it. The magic beans he sold you won't grow a beanstalk into the heavens. It'll produce a ladder that goes straight to Hell and like the fucking idiots you are, you will happily climb down that ladder straight to the 9th circle because you still believe it'll lead you to the Clintons. You're just starting to wake up but you're still very much in the grip of that fever dream.

     You've all been had.  And he doesn't care. He's calling you names and telling you to shut the fuck up because he doesn't need you or your votes any more. He's mad because you're keeping the Epstein files in the public eye. Yes, for the first time ever, you morons are on the right side of history, albeit for the wrong reasons. So, please, you useful idiots, keep doing exactly what you're doing. The fat man's ready to fall off the edge of that cliff, his pudgy arms wind-milling. 

     One more push is all it will take.

OK, There's No Epstein Client List. You Happy?

 (By Cyril Blubberpuss, Conservative-American)

I've just gotten a letter from President Trump. Reading it was quite an experience, to say the least, and I won't reveal the juicier contents so liberal pinheads don't make hay out of it. But the president's main concern was the Jeffrey Epstein client list that Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel now say no longer exists.

     The president, I hate to say, has my family and me in a compromised position. Rather than gas on, let me just give you the opening paragraph of the president's letter:

    "Dear Cyril: This is your president. ME!!!! You owe me a favor for giving you the honor of attending my inauguration (sorry for putting you behind that statue) and I'm here to collect on that favor. I need you to tell people the Epstein client list doesn't exist and never did! Don't think it's been lost on me that you've distanced yourself from my brilliant administration since that air collision over DC last winter. This is not the time to be a pussy, Cyril!!! You know what's on that Epstein client list! And if I go down, others will go down with me, if you know what I mean!!!"

     The president's subtlety, as always, was unmistakable. I was conflicted, to say the least. While I never saw the client list, myself, I know some of the names that were on it. While Epstein was infamous for cavorting with girls about four or five years below the age of consent and with those who also preferred that age range, Epstein also had friends and acquaintances whose tastes were more... exotic.

 

    While I'm not going to name names, of course, let's just say my baby brother, Cecil, accidentally found himself on Epstein's private jet in 2005 that was dubbed the Lolita Express (which the president later honored by using on the campaign trail last year). This was purely an accident after Cecil dispatched one of our limousines to Epstein's jet at Kennedy International that was bound for Epstein's island. All Cecil wanted to do was go sightseeing! He's always been interested in travel, especially to countries that just happen to not have an extradition treaty with the US.

     The fact that Cecil spoke glowingly about the 13 year-old cabana boys and massage therapists that Epstein more or less employed should not be misinterpreted as anything untoward. In fact, after just one weekend at Epstein's island, Jeffrey forbade him from ever going back, so it's not as if he and Epstein had a lengthy relationship like the one between the president and Epstein. Pretty soon, we started getting invoices from Epstein demanding certain amounts to be paid, which I interpreted as travel and accommodation expenses. (One of them came with a rather racy picture of Cecil in his tightie whities chasing after one of the boys in a spirited game of Hide and Seek, with a caption below reading, "GET IT?")

      So, the president has us over a barrel, so to speak. So, the Epstein client list doesn't exist. Epstein didn't kill himself even though he had compromising information on some of the most powerful men in the world and it was within the best interests of those dozens of powerful men to ensure that Epstein never opened his big mouth. And there is nothing at all suspicious about the president seriously mulling over a pardon of Ghislaine Maxwell. There, Mr. President. Are you happy?

     However, Mr. President, it's up to you and your people to explain away this photograph. And, don't forget, my brother knows all about the cargo hold on the Lolita Express that Epstein had converted into a dungeon.

Leave Pam Bondi Alone!

 (By President Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America)

My fellow patriots! I, your favorite president, the greatest of all time, ME! Have a message for you.

     Leave Pam Blondi alone! She and Kash say there's no Epstein client list, I believe them, that settles it! In fact there's no evidence that Epstein even existed. Those fake news pictures supposed to be of Epstein and me were actually me and Michael Cohen. That's right! Michael looks like Epstein, a LOT! Or he would if Epstein existed. Which he didn't!

     I know Pam and I once promised that the client list would be revealed  Pam even said last February that she had it on her desk to review. But we were misinformed and whoever misinformed us will be dealt with harshly! And there were no flight logs or phone records. There is no client list, no thumb drives, hard drives and CDs that they had to use a saw to get out of the fictional Epstein's safe.

     And if such a client list existed, it doesn't do any good to look back. Pam understands this. That $25,000 I gave her 12 years ago to drop that Trump University witch hunt goes a long way still, further proof that inflation doesn't exist under my administration! So leave her alone! The woman's earning her money!

      And if Epstein existed, he most certainly killed himself! Pay no attention to the fact that the missing 60 seconds of security footage took place at exactly the same time Epstein died and was heard screaming from his cell. Again, it doesn't pay to look backward. We should be looking forward, like our great success in Kerrville, Texas (and when we find the rest of the bodies, rest assured I'll blame every one of them on Sleepy Joe Biden!).

     Again, there is no client list! It's fake news like the Russia, Russia, Russia witch hunt. (On a totally unrelated note, how come the White House toilets still don't flush well?). So cut the shit, you MAGA morons! Stop booing me and yelling there's a coverup. Stop hating 'Trump". I am the Trump! I deserve better! And it's not as if I need your votes any more.

     One more time, there is no Epstein client list just like there never was a Steele dossier. I know you all wanted to believe such a list existed. I know how you feel. I wanted to believe the laptop from Hell existed just like I wanted to believe I actually won the 2020 election. (Sleepy Joe got 81,000,000 votes? Really? No, I got 81,000,000 votes, if not more! And you expect me to believe he won the state of his birth?!).

     And fuck Rosie O'Donnell! By the time I get done with her, she'll be giving hand jobs in Dublin for trolley fare!

     So leave Pam Bondi alone! It's election interference and libel and slander!!! Thank you for not paying attention to this matter!

(Donald John Trump is the 45th and 47th president of the United States who's also a 34 time convicted felon, adjudicated rapist and beloved of other wealthy convicted and suspected pedophiles.)

The Good News is...

      ...no one's talking about the failed bomb attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, any more.

      The problem is, with Trump, when a horrible news item gets pushed off the front pages, another, often worse one, takes its place. Or, in this case, two.

      Let's start with the flash floods in south central Texas that have killed over 100 people, with about 170 still missing. Earlier today, Trump sat next to Greg Abbott and held a press conference. A reporter from a local CBS affiliate asked Trump, "Several families we've heard from are obviously upset because they say that those warnings, those alerts, didn't go out in time. And they also say that people could have been saved. What do you say to those families?"

     Typically,  he went on the offensive, insulting the reporter and refused to answer the question. This is what he said:

      "Only a bad person would ask a question like that, to be honest with you. I don't know who you are, but only a very evil person would ask a question like that. I think this has been heroism. This has been incredible, really, the job you've all done, it's easy to sit back and say, oh, what could have happened here? There? You know, maybe we could have done something differently. This was a thing that has never happened before, and nobody's ever seen anything — I've never seen anything like this."

     Except that the same thing happened just 38 years ago in the same exact spot in 1987, which has long been known as "Flash Flood Alley." The fact is, there's plenty of blame to go around, starting with Trump himself for ordering the Defense Department to stop sharing crucial weather data and axing 560 jobs from the National Weather Service just before the July 4th flood. In fact, the San Antonio and San Angelo NWS offices were completely vacant when the flood hit.

      In fact, as of last February, 1300 layoffs at the NOAA were announced back when DOGE was still a thing. 

     Of course, Trump doesn't want to talk about that because he's a guy who's genetically incapable of accepting blame for a Goddamned thing. And when someone in the media asks him a pointed question, his default response is to attack the reporter.because he loses his shit when he's caught with his pants down, which seems to be always.

     The other news item is Pam Bondi's amazing announcement that the Epstein client list never existed, after all, and that there's no evidence that Epstein didn't commit suicide (despite the fact there's a missing minute in the video security footage that just coincidentally happened to be around the time Epstein died).

     This set off a firestorm on both sides of the ideological divide. Liberals were outraged because it became obvious that Bondi was covering for Trump because his name was obviously all over that list. MAGAts lost their minds because they saw it as proof that Bondi was covering for the Clintons and other Democrats that MAGA World has been conditioned to hate, despite the fact that Bondi has never expressed any support or sympathy for the Clintons or any Democrat.

      This touched off a dumpster fire in the Department of Justice where's it's been reported that FBI Deputy Director Danny Bongos had a screaming match with Bondi over the suddenly disappeared Epstein client list. That and the internal belief that Bongino leaked sensitive information abut the Epstein list (although there's no evidence he did any such thing) led Bongino to leave DC and take the rest of the day off so could decide whether or not he wants to resign.

     The flash flood and the names of the victims will, sadly, fade from the headlines but the Epstein case is still so radioactive that it's proven to be one of those zombie news stories that never dies. MAGAts are outraged that Bondi deep-sixed the Epstein list list because it denies them the chance to go after Democrats. But what these MAGA morons don't realize is that Bondi, and Kash Patel, did so because Trump's name was all over it. They refuse to even entertain the possibility that their boy Donne is himself a pedophile and one who was compromised by his own friend.

     Let's face it, Trump was a friend of Epstein for at least 15 years. We know he was on the Lolita Express at least seven times (Trump even used it on the campaign trail when his private jet was down for repairs). 

     And, when Bondi was asked about the client list, Trump wouldn't let her answer and instead said, "Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years. Are people still talking about this guy? This creep? That is unbelievable." Well, yeah. People will still talk about Epstein and his list as long as the questions aren't being answered and if the Attorney General is engaging in spoliation on an Olympian level.

      I can't wait to see what breaks next week.