Feliz Navidad 🤡 😱 ✡️🌻😱 🤡 🎅🎄 

The E Files: The drip, drip, plop of the Epstein files continues.  Though the first drop frontloaded pictures of former President Clinton, the focus is now more on Trump who is popping up more frequently.  Not so coincidentally, Trump who initially bashed Clinton is now saying that he feels sorry for him because just because someone is in the files doesn’t mean that they did anything wrong. For his part Clinton had his spokesperson release a statement saying bring it on, reveal everything in the files, hardly the response Trump wanted to hear but not surprising given that Chief of Staff Susie said that Clinton had nothing to worry about as opposed to Trump who shows up all over the place. That may have been her way of softening the public for Trump’s frequent appearances including that he was a frequent flyer on Epstein’s plane, odd given that Trump had previously posted on Truth Social that he’d never flown on Air Epstein.  Apparently, he flew often enough that an unnamed Assistant US Attorney from the Southern District of NY felt compelled to give main DOJ a heads up about it and that there are pictures to prove it. The SDNY also felt compelled to share a photo they found of Donny dearest with his good friend Ghislaine on Steve Bannon’s i-Phone.  The SDNY tripped over that photo while investigating Bannon’s Build the Wall fundraising grift. That’s Bannon who Trump pardoned and Ghislaine who he has had moved to a Club Med prison.  Trump has such nice friends. Mostly, we haven’t learned much more than that we already knew, specifically: that Epstein and Maxwell engaged in horrible activities; that they abused and trafficked girls; that lots of men, some prominent, joined in, or got cozy while soliciting funds for their research projects; that many of them knew about but turned a blind eye to Epstein and Maxwell’s proclivities and crimes; or all of the above.  That said, there were references to forced marriages and a few payoffs that I had previously missed. A few other interesting and sad tidbits: there are references to Mar a Lago parties some with prostitutes and subpoenas of Mar a Lago employment records; a 1996 report to the FBI by Maria Farmer, one of the victims, about Epstein’s despicable acts wasn’t followed up; and the DOJ has been so sloppy with its redacting that names of some victims including some who’d specifically requested not to be identified have been included while some redactions can be easily undone by cutting and pasting the redacted sections into new files.  There’s incompetence everywhere, while the redaction SNAFU is somewhat funny, the tolerance of sexual predation is disgusting and, in the case of the failure to act on the early complaint from Farmer, a grossly negligent act that paved the way for more victimization and abuse.  

Disarray on the Right:  More than a dozen Heritage Foundation staffers are leaving the uber conservative organization to join a nonprofit run by former Vice President Mike Pence. The exodus follows the drama at Heritage that began last month after the foundation's president, Kevin Roberts, defended Tucker Carlson's extremely friendly interview with white nationalist/Nazi sympathizer commentator Nick Fuentes. The Heritage Foundation was responsible for Project 2025 so it’s not like those departing and joining Pence are the nicest guys in town, it’s just that they find Roberts’ tolerance of Fuentes and anti-Semitism a step too far. Just a reminder, VP JD Vance isn’t all that disturbed by the hate mongers except maybe when they criticize his wife and even then, it takes him a while to react. The Heritage breakoff follows the fireworks displayed at the Turning Point USA meet-up (Turning Point is the organization founded by Charlie Kirk that is now led by his widow Erika). It appears that some on the right are having a hard time with those who tolerate and platform Carlson, Fuentes, and Candace Owens who in addition to hating all things Jewish and pushing really ugly anti-Semitic tropes is being sued for defamation by French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte over her claims that Brigitte was born male. It’s easy to dismiss Owen’s as a fringe nutcase but that would be shortsighted because she’s crazy as a fox and despite being a purveyor of hate and conspiracies, or maybe because of it,  has a huge following. Her eponymous podcast has millions of downloads and has achieved the number one spot globally for "Downloads & Views Per Episode."

More 💩 :  Trump who loves fossil fuels and hates windmills almost as much as he hates Democratic states has figured out a way to hurt Democrats and environmentally friendly energy projects.  This week he halted Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, the largest project of its kind in the US, as well as four other projects under construction off the East Coast in what is being called a devastating blow to the wind industry.  His action puts 17,000 mostly well-paying union jobs at risk.  So much for being the working person’s president, not that he ever was but lots of people thought that’s what they were voting for.  Keeping with the theme of the Trump-Kennedy Arts Center, the Trump Institute of Peace, Trump university, Trump casinos, Trump steaks and Trump airlines, Trump announced plans for the Navy to build 25 huge Trump class ships, golden ones with nuclear capabilities.  Military experts say that the bigly ships he envisions are relics of the past and are not what the Navy which does need more ships requires going forward.  At $5 billion apiece, they are hugely expensive and though he might manage to get one built before he leaves, the rest will probably never come to pass.  Also given that nothing he or the military builds ever comes in on budget, they’ll likely cost way more.  On the subject of wasting taxpayer money, FBI Director Kash Patel has had the FBI purchase a fleet of armored BMW vehicles. He asserts that they cost less than what he calls the usual “conspicuous” American cars that FBI Directors are typically driven in, but few are buying his assertion. Also, inconspicuous is not usually the term thought of when describing Patel.  One piece of good news, yesterday by a vote of 6 to 3 with Alito, Gorsuch, and Thomas dissenting the Supreme Court ruled that at least for now Trump can’t send federalized National Guard troops into Chicago.  Basically, they said that Trump failed to show that troops were really needed and absent a real need, troops aren’t supposed to be sent to domestic locations, especially over the objections of local officials. The SCOTUS decision probably pertains to the other cities Trump has tried to occupy except for Washington DC because of its unique status.    

Fog of War:  We continue to inch closer to war with Venezuela and are now infuriating Denmark.  Last week when Tucker Carlson said that he thought Trump had cleared the airways to announce something important like the seizure of Greenland rather than to make an anemic economic speech, he may have been onto something. While Trump hasn’t yet seized Greenland, he took the unusual step of appointing Jeff Landry whose day job is Governor of Louisiana, to be his special envoy to Greenland.  That’s not normal, Denmark isn’t happy.    

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays! 🎅🎄