Blue Birthdays 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡

Epstein, Epstein, Epstein:  The infamous Jeffrey Epstein birthday book is now in public and as first reported by the Wall Street Journal it includes a graphic note from Trump. Despite Trump’s assertion that he doesn’t doodle, a lie which was quickly followed up by his admission that he does doodle but that his doodles only include buildings, his note to Epstein includes an outline of a naked female torso with some suggestive text.  Trump and his spokesperson, the duplicitous Karoline Leavitt, continue to assert that he didn’t write the note that he wrote. To bolster their claim, they both say that the first name only signature is “obviously” a forgery, insisting that Trump always signs his full name. Unfortunately for Trump, there are many examples of him signing missives with only his first name and most of them, including one he sent to MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, include the same ending flourish that is on the Epstein note. Trump hasn’t yet withdrawn his $10 billion lawsuit against WSJ publisher Dow Jones & Co., News Corp., Rupert Murdoch, and the two reporters responsible for first revealing what he calls the forged note but it’s likely he will at some point because discovery would be a disaster for him.  Maybe he’s waiting for a suitable diversion, something like a nuclear attack. Of course, his usual enablers, including Speaker Mike Johnson and a few right-wing press outlets are sticking with him, agreeing that if he said he didn’t write and sign the note, then he didn’t.  Over the weekend Johnson claimed that the only reason Trump was so intertwined in Epstein’s life is because he was working as an undercover agent for the FBI, a claim so absurd that even Leavitt denied it.  Johnson has retracted his ridiculous lie maybe because if Trump is a mole, he’s not working for the US. 

🎂 📕 Details: The contributions to the Epstein birthday book run the gamut from Bill Clinton’s rather benign birthday wish to some seriously icky sexually explicit notes, an indication that most of Epstein’s buddies knew all about his predilection for young girls and that some likely partook of his “offerings.”  One of those icky notes includes a picture of Epstein with two other men at Mar a Lago holding an oversized “novelty” check bearing a Trump signature, along with a note suggesting Epstein had “sold” Trump a “depreciated” woman for $22,500.  Depreciated in this context likely meaning a woman over the age of consent.  Though the check and the signature that accompany it are clearing false, they indicate that the Epstein’s friends were all in on the joke, the “joke” being Epstein and his pedophilia. Some joke.  The Epstein estate, the provider of the Epstein birthday book, plans to release more of its files soon. The Massie/Khanna discharge petition still hasn’t passed through the House but will soon be short only one vote since last night, as expected, Democrat James Walkinshaw won a special election for the seat that opened up following the death of Congressman Gerry Connolly. Another special election for a safe Democratic seat in Arizona takes place on September 23, after that the discharge petition is expected to have all the votes it needs for passage. Trump must be very concerned about what’s in the Epstein files.  Why else would he be lying so much and trying so hard to block them?  Earlier this week Trump told attendees at an event at Washington’s Museum of the Bible that statistics about how much his use of troops were reducing crime in DC would be better if only local officials would stop including domestic violence data because “incidents that take place in the home” such as a man’s “little fight with the wife” shouldn’t count.  During a 1990 divorce deposition Trump’s first wife Ivana, the one buried at his NJ golf club, accused him of rape, just one of those little fights that shouldn’t count? Is it a stretch to believe that Trump knew all about Epstein activities? During her interview with Deputy Attorney General Blanche, Ghislaine Maxwell noted that a few of Trump’s cabinet members were friends of Epstein’s, something that Blanche curiously did not follow-up on.  Moreover, the NY Times wrote this week about how various senior bankers at JP Morgan facilitated Epstein’s curious financial activities with one admitting that he also had sex with at least one of Epstein’s “girls.” To be clear, we haven’t seen any proof of Trump doing that, but his comments about domestic violence combined with all his denials and deception are hardly exonerating.    

Law and the Economy:  Trump notched a few legal victories this week.  By a vote of 6 to 3, the Supreme Court said that at least for now it’s fine for roving federal agents to conduct immigration stops using factors like race or language to identify individuals because if you speak Spanish or have brown skin, you are obviously guilty of something? Justice Kavanaugh seemed particularly unconcerned about the targeting, saying it was reasonable to briefly question people who meet multiple “common sense” criteria for possible illegal presence, including employment in day labor or construction, and limited English proficiency. The very white, privileged Kavanaugh seemed unconcerned that “briefly” sometimes means being tossed into jail here or abroad for a few days or weeks. Today’s NY Times reports that the same team who brought us Project 2025 want Chief Justice Roberts to step aside so that Kavanaugh can replace him as Chief.  Last night Roberts, who at least for now is still the Chief, said that it was okay for Trump to continue to freeze $5 billion that Congress had appropriated for foreign aid, at least for now.  The Court also announced that in response to the Trump administration’s request, they would soon take up his tariff appeal.  Though many pundits believe, and the tariff and appeals court have ruled, that most of Trump’s tariffs are illegal taxes, Trump appears to have SCOTUS in his pocket so who knows what they will decide. Maybe they will buy into Trump and Treasury Secretary Bessent’s arguments that tariffs imposed without Congressional approval are legal and that even if they aren’t, they should be left in place because rescinding them could cost Treasury bigly if they have to pay back what they’ve already collected.  The Justices have job security so they might not be all that concerned that the tariffs appear to be making the economy, which JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon warns is “weakening,” worse.  It doesn’t help that, as revealed by yesterday’s data revisions, the job situation is 911,000 people worse than what was previously reported. In other legal news, last night a federal judge in Washington DC, temporarily blocked Trump from firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.  Cook is the Governor that Trump wants ousted claiming she lied on her mortgage applications, the crime that’s only a crime when done by Democrats, and okay for Trump’s Cabinet members.  He wants her out so that he can exert control over Federal Reserve decision making, another one of those things that could add to economic uncertainty and translate into more woes.

Fog:  The Russians have been bombing the bejesus out of Ukraine and yesterday about 20 or so of the hundreds of drones that they used to attack Ukraine crossed into Poland’s airspace. Calling the invasion of their airspace, a provocation, Poland, with the help of some of our other NATO allies, shot down four of the Russian drones, an escalation of the conflict that Trump was going to end on day one of Trump 2.0. Also, yesterday in retaliation for an attack by Palestinian terrorists in Jerusalem that resulted in the killing of six Israelis and the wounding of dozens more, Israel led by the trigger-happy Bibi launched an attack against Hamas leadership.  That’s not unusual, the unusual part is that the targeted leadership was in Qatar. The Israelis said that they alerted the US in advance, but Trump denied that he knew about their plans. That Qatar is where many members of Hamas’ leadership reside is hardly a secret, but Israel actually attacking Qatar to takeout some of their leaders was a bit of a shocker, even for Trump who probably is now a bit worried that not only won’t he get his coveted Nobel Peace Prize but that the Qataris might ask for their plane back. None of this is good, peace is that much more elusive, and the hostages are still hostages.

#BringThemAllHomeNow