77 thoughts on “Sunday Serendipity”

  4. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/could-pam-bondi-have-prosecuted-jeffrey-epstein-when-she-was-floridas-top-legal-officer/

    When U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi was the chief legal officer for Florida, could she have prosecuted fellow resident Jeffrey Epstein for child sex crimes?
    Legally, yes, she could have, legal experts say. The bigger question, however, is whether she should have felt compelled to do so.
    […]
    Epstein was charged in 2006 by a Palm Beach County grand jury with a single count of solicitation of prostitution despite having heard from only two underage victims.
    Then-State Attorney Barry Krischer’s prosecutors had tanked their own case during the secret proceeding, telling the girls during questioning that they themselves were the criminals, the transcripts show. The Palm Beach Post fought in court for nearly five years to make the transcripts public. They were released in July 2024.
    Palm Beach police had found dozens of girls and young women who told similar stories of sexual abuse at Epstein’s island mansion. When then-Police Chief Michael Reiter saw that Krischer’s prosecution was not in line with the case his department had built, he sent his evidence to the feds. Had the charges reflected that evidence, Epstein would have faced decades in prison.
    In the end, Epstein pleaded guilty to only two prostitution-related felonies in 2008 in a “deal of the century” arranged by both Krischer and federal prosecutors. He was sentenced to 18 months in the county jail, of which he served 13. He was out in July 2009.
    […]
    Despite the fact that Epstein had already been convicted of Palm Beach County crimes, federal prosecutors in New York leveled sex trafficking charges against Epstein in July 2019. Epstein was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell less than a month after his arrest.
    Should Bondi have looked into Epstein’s crimes between the time of his jail release in 2009 and the filing of the criminal charges in 2019, when many have alleged that he sexually assaulted hundreds more?
    Not necessarily, says Robert Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeasten University.
    Unless someone brought it to Bondi, “there was no reason to start a new investigation,” he said, after one had already been concluded by both federal and state prosecutors.
    Some of the 2019 cases were also based in Florida. At least two Palm Beach County victims testified in the Ghislaine Maxwell case.
    “The federal government and the state government, of course, are two different political entities, and both have the power to try the same person for the same crime, using their respective laws,” Jarvis said. “Thus, Pam Bondi could have tried Epstein.”
    But would she?
    “I would not criticize her for not doing anything for what seem to be a case that had already been adjudicated and dealt with and punishment handed out,” Jarvis said.

    [This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Could Pam Bondi have prosecuted Jeffrey Epstein when she was Florida’s top legal officer?]

  5. jamie, thanks for posting this last thread. just had to hear another encore considering how relevant it still is but I hope he’ll update it for a more complete historical record.

    1,233,229 views Nov 14, 2017
    THE RANDY RAINBOW SHOW:
    “Those Were The Good Old Days”

  6. Yesterday’s Live Stream
    🥣 Summer Soup Was Served… But One of Them Fought Back
    We went live yesterday to taste-test some chilled summer soups, and let’s just say… the watermelon one passed.
    The potato one? Well—

    “I just threw everything in the blender… and that might’ve been a mistake.”

    Me and Jamie talked regret, redemption, and raw potatoes in brandy glasses.
    We laughed, we judged, we offered condolences to the Yukon Golds.
    🥄 Taste test + cooking confessions →
    📡 Livestream replay with Jamie:

    🆕 New full video: “I Thought It Was Gazpacho” →

  7. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/they-re-dodging-accountability-epstein-survivor-calls-for-release-of-files/

    ‘They’re dodging accountability’: Epstein survivor calls for release of files
    Story by Amy Goodman, Democracy Now
    […]
    AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
    Missing in much of the MAGA frenzy over the Jeffrey Epstein files are the voices of survivors of the sexual abuse he perpetrated against them. Many, like our next guest, have joined the call for transparency and for the Trump administration to release the files as promised.
    [article continues with a long description of how one surviving victim came to be a victim]
    AMY GOODMAN: So, you have joined the call for the Epstein files to be released. Can you explain why you feel this is so important?
    TERESA HELM: Where I stand with all of this is in, you know, utter solidarity with survivors of this entire nightmare that’s just been ongoing for decades with these people that have gotten away with so much for so long, you know, whether it was a failure of the system back in the ’90s, whether failure of the system again in the early 2000s. There are so many women and, at the time, even, you know, children that have been harmed by these people.
    I really urge everyone to focus the — you know, the commitment, the intention, all this time, effort and energy onto bringing to light what needs to bring to light for these survivors and their healing, and less about political weaponization of anything, because at the end of the day, that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about people’s lives, and it should not be weaponized either way in any administration, no matter who’s in control at the time, who did what, when, who’s doing what now. Transparency is key, because we cannot move forward as a society and as a culture without these fundamental changes of — these fundamental changes of doing the right thing and holding people accountable, because we can’t continue to have systems of power that just get away, or people — whether it’s a system or a person, we cannot continue to have these people or systems continue to get away with anything that they can get away with, because they’re not — they’re skating through. They’re dodging accountability. There’s too much money involved, so, you know, people silenced through money.
    [continues]

  8. https://www.rawstory.com/dr-phil/

    Daytime talk show host Dr. Phil McGraw’s startup right-wing cable network is declaring bankruptcy — and he’s suing a prominent televangelist broadcast network he had partnered with to get it set up.

    According to Variety, “Merit Street filed for bankruptcy and the related lawsuit naming TBN as a defendant with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Northern District of Texas on Wednesday (July 2).

    The complaint alleges that TBN, which was Merit Street’s broadcast partner, reneged on its obligations and instead ‘abused its position as the controlling shareholder.’ As a result, Merit Street claims in the lawsuit, it was forced to ‘pay or incur obligations to third parties in excess of $100 million.'”

    According to the lawsuit, TBN was contractually responsible for handling distribution payments, but did not follow through with them, resulting in Merit Street losing its distribution. “As a result of TBN’s conduct, Merit Street has nowhere to send its broadcast signal and nowhere to air its programming no matter how great it may be,” said the lawsuit.

    The complaint also says that TBN “provided screens and teleprompters that blacked out during live shows, an incomplete control room operating out of a truck, an unusable cell phone app for viewers, and amateur video editing software.”

    *They grift their own.

  9. Remember way back when the speaker stated sfb ratings were ninety percent positive. It took some time, Friday, for the admin cult to catch up and tell stupid his ratings were ninety percent. That is what he has been spouting since Saturday. Nothing matters about America, only mangomoron’s narcissistic ego.

    One skinny foot, one enormous foot. Someday I will get to play on boats again.

  11. PatD
    Agree the Randy Rainbow needing an update. What I like even more for context is that it is the Devil’s Song from Damn Yankees.

  13. Today’s Trail Mix Livestream will be an one-on-one interview (no guest chat today):
    Why was the first federal Epstein case shelved? And how did the prosecutor in charge end up in Trump’s Cabinet instead of under investigation? We’re joined by a former federal prosecutor—an expert in how these cases move (or don’t). No conspiracy theories. Just a close look at the timeline, the decisions, and the careers that grew out of silence.

  14. jamie, spot on!
    another one he could parody is gwen verdon’s “whatever lola wants lola gets” with Dodo or putie as lola and certain GOPer congress critters as her/his victims. mike johnson comes to mind.

  16. Cleaning Out the Crisper Chicken

    Get a large bowl. Empty your favorite vinaigrette stye dressing (I like Newman’s Own Balsamic) into bowl. Throw in Chicken thighs and place in fridge to marinate over night.

    Preheat oven to 350. Line baking sheet pan with parchment paper and place marinated thighs in the center. Place in oven for 20 minutes.

    Chop up on-hand vegies in about 1 1/2 in chunks or go shopping day before (Zucchini, mushrooms, yellow squash, red & green peppers, asparagus, brussels sprouts etc.). Dump in bowl of dressing and splash around thoroughly.
    Remove pan from oven and spoon vegies all over the pan and drizzle dressing over the whole mess but don’t overflow pan. Return to oven for another 20 min or until veggies tender.
    Place it all on serving dish and if desired top with pitted Greek olives and crumbled feta cheese.

  17. imagine the dem critters (next time one of those big uglies pass) standing up in house chambers singing in unison to their GOPer colleagues “whatever Trumpy wants, Trumpy gets… and, little men, Trumpy owns you”

  18. Another Shoe Drops

    Donald Trump once hosted a party with “young women” where the disgraced late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein “was the only other guest,” according to a report.

    The president is under pressure to release all files relating to the Epstein case, which he has so far refused to do despite a 2024 election promise.

    The anecdote was part of a New York Times piece on Saturday entitled “Inside the Long Friendship Between Trump and Epstein.”

    It states that “For nearly 15 years, the two men socialized together in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Fla., before a falling out that preceded Mr. Epstein’s first arrest.”

    The piece goes on to describe Trump hosting “a party at Mar-a-Lago for young women in a so-called calendar girl competition, Mr. Epstein was the only other guest.” More …

  20. Lady MawMaw is excited about this. She just wrote up this plan:
    COMING SOON: A Founding Recipe from Jamie Herself
    🍗 Cleaning Out the Crisper Chicken 🥕

    Jamie’s not just one of us — she built the trail. A founding TrailMixer from way back in 2005, and still out here reminding us that culinary genius often hides behind a half-used bottle of vinaigrette and a drawer full of guilt vegetables.

    Her signature move?
    Take marinated chicken thighs, dump in every vegetable that’s on the edge of a nervous breakdown, and bake it all into something that tastes like you meant to do it.

    Lazy? Yes.
    Delicious? Also yes.
    Gospel? Now it is.

    Coming soon to Lazy Man Cooks — with full credit and a standing ovation for Jamie, Crisper Queen and Patron Saint of Not Letting the Zucchini Win.

  22. Actual video of Sam the Sham playing “live” on TV. Very rare to see Sam and his band actually playing it.

  23. I love that the famous Sam the Sham Turban was just a ball cap turned backwards with a turban pin stuck onto the front.

    I guess everybody on earth by now knows the meaning of “L-7”.

  24. Ah!, Wooly Bully, One of those songs that just naturally get folks up on the dance floor. Back in my hard drinking days that was a good thing because in some of the places I hung out in, if folks weren’t dancing they would be fighting. Dancing is always a lot more fun.
    Jack

  25. Of course, after a couple of those, the band played a slow one where you could get your gal or somebody’s gal up on the dance floor and polish belt buckles.

  26. somebody’s gal

    That may be why the fight broke out, it is hard to remember on a Sunday morning. Nothing like church with a bad hangover.
    Jack

  27. Old Fats didn’t have a lot of “moves” but he had deep drawer full of “grooves”.

    This was a standard belly to belly back then.

  28. A hang over cure, put some sugar, cream, whisky (all the things my doctor frowns on) in a cup with the last of the morning coffee. Then dare the devil to come and take me. It helps even if you don’t have a hangover. It keeps the Devil away, or at least so far.
    Jack

  29. When I was in my teens we once did 7 nights a week from midnight to 6am in a cheesy little joint about 50 feet outside the main gate of a major naval shipyard. There were a lot of fights, both large and small. (A shot of whisky was 50 cents)
    The club owner, Tommy Holt, continuously prowled the room looking to interrupt any trouble which might be a’brewing.

    He told me the first night, “When a fight breaks out—turn on the house lights and play the fastest, loudest song you know.”
    Johnny B Goode became our fight song.

  30. I always like to hang out on Patsi’s facebook, because every once in a while I’d make some fool comment (if you can imagine that) and somebody would reply “but what about this song?” I’d go,”hell yeah! I polished a bunch of belt buckles to that one”, the reply “well I wrote it”
    Jack

  31. I’ve hung out in some rough bars but not that rough. Where I hung out we were mostly neighbors and family. Although one of the nastiest bar fights I ever saw was between 2 brothers. Couldn’t break them up and between the 2 of them they about tore the place up.
    Jack

  33. Thank you for your serendipity and reminiscences, Jack. It was great to see you “on tv” this week. Your heirloom tomato is star quality.

  37. Love Centrsl City. I once won a night’s stay at the hotel there. Don’t remember the name but a great place.
    Gotta admnt my favorite version of “Summertime” is Leontyne Price.

  38. Summertime is one of those songs that sound good no matter who sings it. I don’t think I’ve heard a bad version of it.
    Jack

  39. Then there are tunes called Summertime but they aren’t Summertime. There is only one Summertime, these folks need to get a new name for their song. It ain’t bad but it ain’t Summertime.

  43. Ha! Rodger Miller, summertime on speed.
    for some reason I think that needs to be listen to on an eight track while driving down the road in your Dodge 440 V8.
    Jack

  46. https://www.thedailybeast.com/jeffrey-epsteins-secret-deal-with-maga-mastermind-peter-thiel-nets-estate-130m/

    Republican megadonor Peter Thiel’s firm struck an investment deal with Jeffrey Epstein that has netted the accused sex trafficker’s estate $130 million, making it its largest remaining asset.

    The Daily Beast uncovered emails that showed Thiel and Epstein were scheduled to have multiple meetings in 2014, including a dinner between the two men and Woody Allen.

    Those trafficked or abused by Epstein are unlikely to be given any additional money from the Valar Ventures investment, The Times reports.

    Rather, the money is “more likely” to be distributed to one of Epstein’s ex-girlfriends, along with “two of his long-term advisers, who have been named the beneficiaries of his estate,” according to The Times.

  47. https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/as-trump-downplays-epstein-wyden-unveils-details-of-treasurys-undisclosed-epstein-file

    As Trump Downplays Epstein, Wyden Unveils Details of Treasury’s Undisclosed Epstein File

    Somewhere in the Treasury Department, locked away in a cabinet drawer, is a big Epstein file that’s full of actionable information — “follow the money” details about his financing and operations that await investigation.

    Last year, the Biden administration allowed Finance Committee investigators to look at portions of the file in person over at the Treasury building.

    Here is some of what it says.

    Treasury’s Epstein file details 4,725 wire transfers adding up to nearly $1.1 billion flowing in and out of just ONE of Epstein’s bank accounts. If you ask me, that’s 4,725 potential lines of investigation right there.

    Hundreds of millions more flowed through other accounts — that’s even more to investigate.

    The file shows Epstein used multiple Russian banks, which are now under sanctions, to process payments related to sex trafficking. A lot of the women and girls he targeted came from Russia, Belarus, Turkey and Turkmenistan.

    When the Trump administration came in with a whole lot of fanfare about transparency and openness, I decided to put it to the test. I wrote to Attorney General Bondi, Treasury Secretary Bessent and FBI Director Patel seeking that they produce the Epstein file to the Finance Committee for further review. In fact, I have made that request multiple times. The Trump commitment to transparency didn’t really mean a whole lot after all, because they refused.

    Here’s what a Treasury official wrote back to me:

    “…The Department of the Treasury has previously made documents available relating to this matter in response to your inquiries. Accordingly, we understand that you have the information you seek from the Treasury related to this request. We thank you for your attention to this important issue.”

    For anybody who’s unfamiliar with how these discussions usually go, that’s basically just Washington lingo for “go pound sand.”

    The idea that there’s nothing more to investigate when it comes to Epstein’s sex trafficking operation is just ridiculous. Pam Bondi was the attorney general in the state of Florida, where a lot of Epstein’s crimes were committed. She ought to know better.

    I don’t know what’s going on with Trump, or why he wants this matter to go away. It’s not going to happen. We’re talking about real evil done to women and girls by Jeffrey Epstein. Nobody gets to sweep this under the rug.

    *Smells like blackmail and/or money laundering. Prior link state $130 million was the largest remaining in the Epstein estate.

    BB – Do you think there’s any way someone can hack & track tRUMPsky’s crypto crap?

  48. I assume all of the govt’s epstein files are considered to be fed records and are protected by fed records act.
    also presume that if tinkered with or destroyed it would be in violation of said law. but would anyone in doj dare to investigate and prosecute he who ordered their alteration or destruction?

    wonder if those records will also be preserved at Harvard’s Innovation Lab
    https://lil.law.harvard.edu/blog/2025/01/30/preserving-public-u-s-federal-data/
    excerpt from that site:

    In recent months the Harvard Law School Library Innovation Lab has created a data vault to download, sign as authentic, and make available copies of public government data that is most valuable to researchers, scholars, civil society and the public at large across every field. To begin, we have collected major portions of the datasets tracked by data.gov, federal Github repositories, and PubMed.

    The Harvard Law School Library has collected government records and made them available to patrons for centuries, and this continues that work.

    We know from our web archiving project, Perma.cc, which preserves millions of links used by courts and law journals, that government documents often change or go away. And we know from our Caselaw Access Project, which produced free and open copies of nearly all US case law from the inception of each state and Federal court, that collecting government documents in new forms can open up new kinds of research and exploration.

    don’t forget that Dodo has in the past torn up and flushed down what may have been gov’t docs

  49. i’m celebrating summer with the 120 sunflowers i grew 😊

    …loathing magas simultaneously! 🥳

  50. Umpteen zillion years ago, I got to see Miller and his band in a small club in San Jose. Put on a great show with a small, personal audience. Great evening.

  51. He let Epstein off the hook. Trump gave him a promotion.
    We spoke with a former federal prosecutor who’s been watching this case—and this system—for years. Not a rant. Not a reaction. A Trail Mix Live interview.

  52. Fun bars I have been in, title of a book my children and grandchildren will never see. One favorite was out in California oil fields, off Brown Material Road in Lost Hills. Nice heavy door, you pull it hard. Inside you can see benches around the walls and seats only against the walls. Up at the far end was the service, the menu was on the wall, all in Spanish. You order and pay, shuffle along to the next window to pickup your order. No matter what I ordered I always ended up with the hotest of the hot.

    Pick out a table and slide in. The tables and benches are bolted to the floor, a rather big clue to how much fun there is later on. While eating you enjoy the ambiance of the place, a okay place to eat, no rumours of anyone getting sick. The door looks odd, and that is confirmed when you leave. It has a lot of knife marks in it.

    I decided to not stop in after work for a beer or two.

  54. nothing I have posted about Maga people on this forum is as offensive as the bumper stickers they put on their cars just saying

  55. If someone is handing around the original version of the birthday letters book, there comes the question of what else do they have? Films? Pictures? Interviews with the children that are contemporary with the events? That is probably rolling around inside the empty skull of the child rapist.

  56. Kamala could have been out in the mix this entire time presenting herself as the voice of reason, it’s kind of like two opportunities she’s blown

    Gavin it is, i guess 🤷‍♂️

  58. A relatively uneventful day on the Tour. Pogagcar’s teammate Tim Wellens won the stage and the top riders remained in the same order and gaps as before. Fun fact – Pogacar leads on time in the event going into the second rest day and sits second in Points and King of the Mountain competitions by relatively narrow margins.

    Poobah, I lazied the hell out of some boneless pork short ribs and a half chicken today. Bought a jar of all purpose seasoning at the farmer’s market, coated all the protein with it, Grilled them on the Ninja with the smoke feature, and damn were the ribs good – and they only took half an hour to cook with the grill set to Low. Cranked it to Medium when I pulled the pork off and the chicken looks phenomenal. Most of the work was turning the meat over halfway through. If you’re lazy like me, this little Ninja outdoor Grill/smoker is just the ticket.

  59. Let’s talk about how Melania came here on an Epstein visa. Their origin story seems to be through a sex trafficker. Meet cute? Not so much.

  60. https://nypost.com/2025/07/19/us-news/ghislaine-maxwell-believes-president-trump-will-save-her/

    “Before, she would tell everybody that she was waiting for Donald Trump to be reelected and become president, that things were going to be different then.

    “Max was quite confident that things were going to change with her case.

    “Freedom is 100% her focus,” the source added. “She says, ‘I will not be here in 20 years.’”

    Maxwell continues to speak to her lawyers by phone every day — and is seen constantly scribbling in her journal, according to the jailhouse source.

    “She documents absolutely everything, and she carries it with her,” the source said.

    “I don’t know if she’s going to use the journal for something someday or if she’s going to get out and write a book.

    *If there’s a book, she shouldn’t get a dime. She procured children and young women; she’s a sex trafficker.

    Oddly, she never speaks about her late pedophile paramour.

    “She never mentions Epstein inside,” the source said. “She mentioned to people, though . . . how she was at Chelsea Clinton’s wedding.”

    One Christmas, inmates reportedly created a song mocking her compulsive “documenting” habits and frequent complaints about staff and conditions.

    “She’s no wallflower,” the source said. “If someone came for her, she would go right back at them.

    “There have been no discussions or consideration of a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, and there never will be,” a senior White House official told The Post.

  61. Jealous of your smoker pog. Major trade-off with city living. 35 restaurants within walking distance but a billowing smoker can get you arrested, or at least lots of side-eye from the neighbors

  62. We passed through Nederland today and stopped to visit the subject of this week’s On the Road by Steve Hartman. ❤️

  65. i’m certainly not going to discourage anybody from discussing the most damaging scandal yet to Trump but whether I like it or not, he is Teflon, if Epstein brings him down I’ll believe it when I see it

    I am no more enthused about a JD presidency 😭

  66. Poobah, as grills with smoke options go, it leaves a light footprint. Its smoking feature uses about 1/4 cup of pellets. Things got settings that are very versatile – Grill, smoke Bake, airfry, all can be used with smoke. Adds a subtle taste. Does a marvelous job with salmon. It’s so damn easy my grill is getting jealous.

  67. “Craig tries to eat healthy” could be a lighthearted, fun video series to contrast the other content

    like you eating the most vegan rabbit food, that would be fun

    maybe a vegan lurker could give you a recipe a week. Yeah you vegan lurker. Musk already has all your data, let’s get some of those vegan recipes

    and no, this is not a transparent, thinly-veiled attempt to get you to eat healthier, it’s for fun!

    (you’re in a great city for it)

    hey, I know at least half of you fine people grew up half-vegan when it was called “not being able to afford meat every night”

    Peanut butter and jelly is vegan!

  70. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/maga-ai-bot-network-divided-trump-epstein-backlash-rcna219167

    A previously unreported network of hundreds of accounts on X is using artificial intelligence to automatically reply to conservatives with positive messages about people in the Trump administration, researchers say.

    But with the MAGA movement split over the administration’s handling of files involving deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the accounts’ messaging has broken, offering contradictory statements on the issue and revealing the AI-fueled nature of the accounts.

    The network, tracked for NBC News by both the social media analytics company Alethea and researchers at Clemson University, consists of more than 400 identified bot accounts, though the number could be far larger, the researchers say. Its accounts offer consistent praise for key Trump figures, particularly support for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

    All were created, seemingly in batches, around three specific days last year. They frequently punctuate their posts with hashtags, often ones that are irrelevant to the conversation. They post almost exclusively by replying to other users, often to people who pay X for verification and by repeating similarly worded sentiments over and over in short succession. At times, they will respond to someone’s post by repeating it back to them verbatim.

    The bots have posted support for conservative figures since 2024, including supporting Trump and other Republicans on the ballot in the lead-up to the election, and then afterward posting that they were excited for Trump to take office.

    It’s only since earlier this month, when Attorney General Pam Bondi announced she would not release additional Epstein files, that the accounts’ messaging has become so split, with some accounts telling different users opposite opinions almost concurrently.

    Since then, it has since told multiple people on X that they should engage in full revolt against the Trump administration.

    “Retweet if you believe that Trump & his cronies are lying to the public and treating us like we’re stupid. We won’t be fooled by their games,” it posted Friday.

  71. I’ve been over Maureen since Kavanaugh, but I’ll take all her shots at Dodo. Better late than never.

    People often become what they scorn. Donald Trump has become the deep state.

    He is the keeper of the secrets. He is the one stealing away people’s liberties. He is the one weaponizing government and protecting the ruling class.

    With ICE and DOGE, Trump deputized wolf packs to root around in Americans’ personal information. He got Republicans to give Stephen Miller his own army. Trump manipulates government to hurt his perceived enemies. He obscures rather than reveals, pushing aside reporters who ask penetrating questions in favor of Pravda-like partisans who take his side.

    Trump’s supporters thought he would shed light on shady elites protecting their own money and power. Now MAGA is reckoning with the fact that Trump is the shady elite, shielding information about Jeffrey Epstein.

    “So the guy who spent his lifetime saying the deep state hides things from you and represses you is now saying ‘We’ve got nothing to hide, trust me,’” said the Trump biographer Tim O’Brien. “And the people who follow him don’t. They think he’s just as bad as the people he criticized before he became president.”
    It’s mythic, being devoured by the forces you unleashed. Trump has trafficked in conspiracy theories since the despicable “birther” one about Barack Obama. Now that whirlpool of dark innuendo has sucked him down. He can no longer control the Epstein conspiracy madness inflamed by his top officials.

    Trump always reminded me of Lonesome Rhodes, the charismatic, populist entertainer whose “candid” patter with plain folks garners him enormous power in Elia Kazan’s 1957 movie “A Face in the Crowd.”

    At the finale, Andy Griffith’s Rhodes — engorged by flattery and riches — has a narcissistic explosion. Not realizing the woman he betrayed flipped on his microphone, he calls his loyal fans “morons,” “miserable slobs” and “trained seals.”

    “I can take chicken fertilizer and sell it to ’em for caviar,” he crows, grinning.

    Trump’s Truth Social posts backing up Pam Bondi’s claim that the Epstein files were much ado about nothing showed that same brutal disregard for his devout fans. They had taken him seriously? What fools!

    He tried to subdue his MAGAcolytes — his “boys” and “gals” — by ordering them not to “waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.” He said that those who are focused on the “Jeffrey Epstein hoax” are “selfish people,” “PAST supporters” and “weaklings” who had been “conned by the Lunatic Left.”
    If his fans couldn’t focus on how great he was, better than “perhaps any President in our Country’s history,” Trump pouted in a post, “I don’t want their support anymore!”

    One “gal,” a Texan named Rosie, said she was brokenhearted. She replied on Truth Social that she has four daughters and “can’t even begin to comprehend the flipped narrative that ‘it was so long ago’ ‘why are we still talking about this’ and ‘nobody should care.’ These victims were some ones daughters, sisters, nieces, granddaughter. Someone’s child. Please reconsider, sir.”

    He’s lost some of his base’s trust by refusing to deliver the goods, or to acknowledge that he used people like Kash Patel and Dan Bongino to whip up the frenzy against the pedophile who gave rides to Trump and Bill Clinton on his plane dubbed by some the Lolita Express.

    Trump bonded with Epstein years ago, although it’s not clear if Trump knew the extent of Epstein’s predations. He told New York magazine in 2002 that Epstein “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

    This week was the first time Trump had such a dramatic rift with his supporters, who are often compared to a cult.
    Trump, who rose to power with the help of Fox News, threatened Emma Tucker, the editor of Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, trying to stop its story about a bawdy letter and drawing he allegedly contributed to a 50th birthday book that Ghislaine Maxwell compiled for Epstein.

    “I’m gonna sue The Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else,” he said in a call Tuesday with The Journal. (He filed the suit on Friday.) He denied that he ever drew an outline of a naked woman with his name scribbled in a salacious spot, along with writing an insinuating wish to Epstein that “every day be another wonderful secret.” (What had to be kept secret, Donald?)

    “I don’t draw pictures,” he wrote on Truth Social, denouncing the “FAKE letter” in the “Fake Story.”

    But Trump’s lies — like the one about his uncle at M.I.T. and the Unabomber — are falling apart almost instantaneously. It immediately came out that he was a “high-profile doodler,” as Tyler Pager put it in The Times, and that he donated drawings to charity in the early 2000s.

    On Thursday, Trump posted that he had asked Bondi to produce “any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval.” But judges usually keep such testimony secret. It was hilarious to see Trump hiding behind the judiciary he’s tried to sideline.

    The president, hoping to redirect the ire of the base back to its favorite chew toy, the mainstream media, posted that The Journal is a “Disgusting and Filthy Rag.”

    Natalie Winters, a reporter for Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, told Bannon that the Journal story made her feel “gaslit” by the administration. “I thought the D.O.J. had nothing related to Epstein,” she said. “Well, this story sort of contradicts that. So why don’t we release it? It’s maddening.”

    Twisting conspiracy theories into a Gordian knot of hate, Trump is claiming some Epstein files were “made up” by Barack Obama, James Comey, “Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration” and “Crooked Hillary.”

    It’s tough to blame the deep state when you are the deep state.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/19/opinion/trump-maga-epstein-deep-state.html?

  72. bId – question about tracking cryptocrap transactions. By design blockchain is supposed to be difficult to break. It is used for things like inventory tracking or parts tracking in assembly so there are no mixups. Its use in cryptocrap is to ensure that the first in make the most tokens, and at the end they get to “sell” the most tokens.
    I am sure some really smart people have found ways to hack in to some level. The design is to reduce the possibility of getting much information.

  74. From Axios Denver and as mentioned recently by BiD:

    The U.S. Department of Justice is asking numerous states for voter data, including an unprecedented trove of documents from Colorado.

    Why it matters: Alarm bells are ringing for election officials who fear the information could be misused to cast doubt on the integrity of U.S. elections.

    Driving the news: The DOJ has asked for copies of voter rolls from at least nine states, the Washington Post scooped.

    Meanwhile, separately, a political consultant named Jeff Small — claiming to act on behalf of the White House — has contacted “more than half a dozen” Republican county clerks in Colorado, per the Post, asking if the federal government or a third party could physically inspect their election equipment.
    Small is the former chief of staff to Colorado U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Windsor).
    What they’re saying: All clerks whom Small contacted reportedly rejected his request. “To me, it felt like they were wanting to intervene before 2026,” Fremont County Republican clerk Justin Grantham told the Post.

    Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, told the Denver Post the data request was unusually extensive and unique to Colorado — noting that, to her knowledge, no other Republican clerks in any other blue states had been contacted for such sweeping access.

    https://www.axios.com/local/denver/2025/07/17/justice-department-voter-data-colorado?

  75. The other side: In a statement to the Denver Post on Wednesday, Small said he was simply connecting federal officials with clerks at the request of people involved in a presidential executive order on election security.

    He said he wasn’t paid and called the outreach voluntary — motivated by what he called Griswold’s “security debacles.”
    The big picture: The Justice Department has requested voter lists from a mix of Republican- and Democratic-controlled states, including Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, per the Post.

  76. BB – Based on the number of articles referencing how to get back stolen crypto, I’d say it happens with some frequency. I’d just like to see which foreign countries are foolish enough to buy Adolf’s crypto crap to get a favor from him.

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