Lol. They say Trump, Bondi, Patel etc needs to answer questions. That never, ever works because the wingnuts will never, ever be satisfied. Welcome to the Clinton Rules, Donald.
CNN went to the Turning Point Conference and asked the super MAGA cultists about all this. It’s not pretty.
On the main stage at the Student Action Summit on Friday night, Megyn Kelly, a high-profile conservative commentator and Trump supporter, asked crowd a simple question: Bondi or Bongino? “Bongino!” the crowd screamed in unison Friday night.
“It’s 7,000 to 0,” responded Charlie Kirk, prominent conservative activist and the head of Turning Points USA, who was the master of ceremonies for the weekend.
[…]
“Epstein is a key that picks the lock on so many things, not just individuals, but also institutions, intelligence institutions, foreign governments and who was working with him on our intelligence apparatus and in our government,” Steve Bannon, a vocal Trump supporter, told a crowd at the summit.
Bannon said he is advocating for the Trump administration to appoint a special counsel to handle the matter. “I support Pam as AG but think a Special Counsel has to be named to take the Epstein case over; however audience sentiment during our live shows at the conference are running 100% against Bondi remaining as AG — never seen anything like it,” he told NBC News in a statement.
Other prominent MAGA world influencers also continued to hammer the issue Saturday afternoon, even as the White House was trying to project unity.“I will not rest until we go full Jan. 6 committee on the Epstein Files. Every single client involved should have an FBI agent at their door going after them the same way they went after the Jan. 6ers,” Jack Posobiec, a vocal Trump supporter, told the conference Saturday afternoon. “That’s how we should go after everyone on the Epstein client list.”
They especially didn’t like this:
Here are just the first few comments:
I have never seen ANY criticism of Trump on his Truth Social posts before. This is a MAGA earthquake.
Check out Trump-bro Benny Thompson who was just last week with the president at that Florida concentration camp grand opening:
Benny Johnson: "So President Trump has acknowledged that the Epstein files exist…and that there is something there. He says they were written, however, written by his enemies and therefore will not be released. What?" pic.twitter.com/JmOINCQ7fu
— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) July 13, 2025
Live by the bullshit conspiracy theories, die by the bullshit conspiracy theories.
Update —
Aaand cue the oldest conspiracy theory in the book:
Tucker Carlson 10 minute speech on Epstein working for Israel.
On Trump… “It’s not adequate to say, anyone who asks them is somehow desecrating the memory of little girls who died in Texas. I don’t care who gives that answer… that is not acceptable.”, referring to Trump’s reaction to being asked about Epstein.
On Israel… I think the real answer is Jeffrey Epstein was working on behalf of Israeli Intel services. The Mossad.
That’s not the usual way laws have been made in America but since the president has been given total immunity and has proved that he will use his plenary power to pardon any of his henchmen and accomplices, there’s really no reason that he can’t just make a declaration like this. The federal government is now overriding state laws and officials on his orders and he’s using troops to occupy cities. What’s to stop him from ordering people to be shot on sight?
Back in March, we brought you the crazy story of Sarah Inama, a history teacher in Idaho who decorated her sixth-grade classroom with inspirational posters. Inama displayed signs with messages such as “In This Room, Everyone Is Welcome, Important, Accepted, Respected, Encouraged, Valued, Equal,” along with an even more straightforward one showing children’s raised hands with the tagline “Everyone Is Welcome Here.”
The posters showcased motivational messages simply meant to tell students: Whoever you are, you belong here. It is the type of poster that a lot of us probably saw growing up in classrooms. And it really shouldn’t be controversial, but it was.
Inama told a local news station that after meeting with administration officials, she went back to her classroom, put the signs back up and emailed her school’s principal “and said, ‘I just … I don’t agree. I don’t agree that this is a personal opinion. I feel like this is the basis of public education.’”
Ultimately, Inama ended up resigning in May. And on July 1, a new law went into effect in Idaho that prohibits flags or banners depicting political viewpoints from being displayed in public K-12 classrooms.
The state’s attorney general, former Republican Rep. Raúl Labrador, put out guidance for enforcement of the new law, writing that the Idaho Department of Education “must consider whether the displayed flag or banner illustrates or shows someone’s opinion, emotions, beliefs, or thoughts regarding politics, economics, society, faith, or religion.”
Now, if you’re thinking, “Oh, that’s pretty general.” No, Labrador’s guidance specifically references Inama and the phrase “All Are Welcome Here.”
“These signs are part of an ideological/social movement which started in the Twin Cities, Minnesota following the 2016 election of Donald Trump,” it reads.
Just to fact-check the attorney general, the signs he’s referencing did start at a Twin Cities high school. But that was only after someone sprayed racist graffiti on the school on the heels of Trump’s 2016 win. That incident spurred a group of local mothers to make the sign and reassure the kids that everyone is welcome.
So, when you hear Republicans talking about fighting the “woke” culture, keep an eye on what they decide to cancel because it “might offend someone,” and then ask yourself: Who exactly is it that is offended by such a sign?
A reminder that the next big protest action against our budding fascist regime is this coming Thursday (Axios):
Tens of thousands of people are expected to protest the Trump administration again on Thursday, the fifth anniversary of the death of civil rights leader and former congressman John Lewis.
Why it matters: Lewis was one of the most vocal critics of President Trump during his first administration. Trump’s 2017 inauguration was the first that Lewis missed during his three-decade tenure in Congress.
By the numbers: 56,000 people RSVP’d for more than 1,500 events across the country as of Friday, organizers said.
Good Trouble Lives On is a national day of nonviolent action to respond to the attacks posed on our civil and human rights by the Trump administration and to remind them that in America, the power lies with the people.
On July 17, the anniversary of Congressman John Lewis’s passing, we’re taking action across the country to defend our democracy and carry forward his legacy of Good Trouble.
From voter suppression bills like the SAVE Act to the criminalization of protest, the Trump administration is launching a full-scale attack on our civil and human rights. But we know the truth: in America, the power lies with the people, and we’re rising to prove it.
This is more than a protest; it’s a moral reckoning. A continuation of the movement Lewis helped lead, and a new front in the struggle for freedom.
Protest start times seem to run anywhere from late afternoon to early evening. Find one near you here.
Look, it will be hard for working people to manage this schedule on a weekday. I don’t expect the numbers to compare to the June 14 No Kings rallies. But it’s important to maintain the pressure. Trump is already under plenty.
The latest civil war within the Trump administration broke out after the Justice Department and the FBI announced earlier this week that they had found no evidence to suggest convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was in possession of a list of powerful clients or was murdered in jail. Epstein’s death by suicide in August 2019 has become the subject of several conspiracy theories in the intervening years.
Among those who previously pushed Epstein conspiracy theories was current FBI director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, who raised his theories on his podcast. Both changed their tune once they entered the Trump administration.
The MAGA fury over the Trump administration’s non-release of the rumored/reported Jeffrey Epstein “client list” as his base seriously peeved. And the Epstein pal whose name everyone expected to feature prominently in the document dump can’t stop throwing figurative lighter fluid on the swirling conspiracy theories. Now, it seems, MAGA types have moved to literal lighter fluid.
BREAKING: MAGA is now burning MAGA hats after Trump’s Epstein response today.
Trump tried on Saturday to distract MAGAs by threatening to strip comedian Rosie O’Donnell of her citizenship. He figured reigniting “a decades-long feud” with O’Donnell would, like tossing a steak to a Rottweiler, get his cult to turn away from Epstein.
There is less there than meets the sensationalism. “There is no evidence the footage was deceptively manipulated, but ambiguities around how the video was processed may further fuel conspiracy theories about Epstein’s death,” reads the subhead. The ambiguities may simply have resulted from processing the original video for public release. But the questions will be more appealing to conspiracists than a Rosie steak.
The administration’s own goal on the Epstein story has (to mix metaphors) cut Trump over the eye. His staff is in turmoil over the Department of Justice’s “nothing to see here” public statements. Time to work the eye.
BREAKING: US Senator Jon ossoff just unloaded on Trump over the Epstein scandal.“Did anyone really think the sexual predator president who used to party with Jeffrey Epstein was going to release the Epstein files?”
Since it’s now officially summer, I thought it would be a good excuse to curate a list of my top 10 seasonal favorites; movies that I think capture the essence of these “lazy, hazy, crazy” days…infused with the sights, the sounds, the smells, of summer. So, here you go…as per usual, in alphabetical order:
Jazz on a Summer’s Day– Bert Stern’s groundbreaking documentary about the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival is not so much a “concert film” as it is a fascinating and colorful time capsule of late 50s American life. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of gorgeously filmed numbers spotlighting the artistry of Thelonius Monk, Anita O’Day, Dinah Washington, Louis Armstrong, etc. and the performances are outstanding.
The effect is like “being there” in 1958 Newport on a languid summer’s day. If you’ve ever attended an outdoor music festival, you know half the fun is people-watching, and Stern obliges. Stern breaks with film making conventions of the era; this is the genesis of the cinema verite music documentary, which wouldn’t come to full flower until a decade later with films like Don’t Look Back, Monterey Pop, Woodstock and Gimme Shelter.
Last Summer– This underrated 1969 gem is from the husband-and-wife film making team of director Frank Perry and writer Eleanor Perry (who adapted from Evan Hunter’s novel). On the surface, it’s a character study about three friends on the cusp of adulthood (Bruce Davison, Barbara Hershey and Richard Thomas) who develop a Jules and Jim-style relationship during an idyllic summer vacation on Fire Island. When a socially awkward stranger (Catherine Burns) bumbles into this simmering cauldron of raging hormones and burgeoning sexuality, it blows the lid off the pressure cooker, leading to unexpected twists. Think Summer of ’42 meets Lord of the Flies; I’ll leave it there. Beautifully acted and directed. In 2022, Davison and Thomas appeared in Season 4 of the Netflix series Ozark (although they didn’t share any scenes).
Mid-August Lunch– This slice-of-life charmer from Italy, set during the mid-August Italian public holiday known as Ferragosto, was written and directed by Gianni Di Gregorio (who also co-scripted the 2009 gangster drama Gomorra).
Di Gregorio casts himself as Giovanni, an easy-going middle-aged bachelor living in Rome with his elderly mother. He doesn’t work, because as he tells a friend, taking care of mama is his “job”.
One day, his landlord drops in. He wants to take a weekend excursion with his mistress and asks for a “small” favor. In exchange for forgiveness on back rent, he requests Giovanni take a house guest for the weekend-his elderly mother. Giovanni agrees, but is chagrined when the landlord turns up with two little old ladies (he hadn’t mentioned his aunt). Soon after, Giovanni’s doctor makes a house call; in lieu of a service charge he asks Giovanni if he doesn’t mind taking on his dear old mama as well (Ferragosto is a popular “getaway” holiday in Italy).
It’s the small moments that make this film such a delight. Giovanni reading Dumas aloud to his mother, until she quietly nods off in her chair. Two friends, sitting in the midday sun, enjoying white wine and watching the world go by. In a scene that reminded me of a classic sequence in Fellini’s Roma, Giovanni and his pal glide us through the streets of Rome on a sunny motorcycle ride. This mid-August lunch might offer you a limited menu, but you’ll find every morsel worth savoring.
Mommy is at the Hairdresser’s- Set at the beginning of an idyllic Quebec summer, circa 1966, Lea Pool’s beautifully photographed drama centers around the suburban Gauvin family. A teenager (Marianne Fortier) and her little brothers are thrilled that school’s out for summer. Their loving parents appear to be the ideal couple; Mom (Celine Bonnier) is a TV journalist and Dad (Laurent Lucas) is a medical microbiologist. A marital infidelity precipitates a separation, leaving the kids in the care of their well-meaning but now titular father, and young Elise finds herself the de facto head of the family. This is a perfect film about an imperfect family; a bittersweet paean to the endless summers of childhood lost.
Smiles of a Summer Night– “Lighthearted romp” and “Ingmar Bergman” are not normally synonymous, but it applies to this wise, drolly amusing morality tale from the director whose name is synonymous with somber dramas. Bergman regular Gunnar Bjornstrand heads a fine ensemble, as an amorous middle-aged attorney with a young wife (whose “virtue” remains intact) and a free-spirited mistress, who juggles a few lovers herself. As you may guess, this leads to amusing complications.
Love in all its guises is represented by a bevy of richly drawn characters, who converge in a third act set on a sultry summer’s eve at a country estate (the inspiration for Woody Allen’s A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy). Fast-paced, literate, and sensuous, it has a muted cry here and a whisper there of that patented Bergman “darkness”, but compared to most of his oeuvre, this one is a veritable screwball comedy.
Stand By Me– Director Rob Reiner was on a roll in the mid-to late 80s, delivering five exceptional films, book-ended by This is Spinal Tap in 1984 and When Harry Met Sally in 1989. This 1986 dramedy was in the middle of the cycle. Based on a Stephen King novella (adapted by Raynold Gideon and Bruce A. Evans) it’s a bittersweet “end of summer” tale about four pals (Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman and Jerry O’Connell) who embark on a search for the body of a missing teenager, during the course of which they learn hard life lessons. Reiner coaxes extraordinary performances from the young leads, and Richard Dreyfus provides the narration.
Summer Wars– Don’t be misled by the cartoon title of Mamoru Hosoda’s eye-popping movie-this could be the Gone with the Wind of Japanese anime. OK…that’s a tad hyperbolic. But it does have drama, romance, comedy, and war-centering around a summer gathering at a bucolic family estate. Tokyo Story meets War Games? At any rate, it’s one of the finer animes of recent years. While some narrative devices in Satoko Ohuder’s screenplay will feel familiar to anime fans (particularly the “cyber-punk” elements), it’s the humanist touches and subtle social observations (reminiscent of Yasujiro Ozu’s films) that makes it unique and worthwhile.
A Summer’s Tale– It’s nearly 8 minutes into Eric Rohmer’s romantic comedy before anyone utters a word; and it’s a man calling a waitress over to order a chocolate crepe. But not to worry, because things are about to get much more interesting.
In fact, our young man, an introverted maths grad named Gaspar (Melvil Poupaud), who is killing time in sunny Dinard until his “sort of” girlfriend arrives to join him on summer holiday, will soon find himself in a dizzying girl whirl. It begins when he meets bubbly and outgoing Margo (Amanda Langlet) an ethnologist major who is spending her summer break waitressing at her aunt’s seaside creperie. Margo is also (sort of) spoken for, with a boyfriend (currently overseas). A friendship blooms. But will they stay “just friends”?
Originally released in France in 1996, this film (which didn’t make its official U.S. debut until 2014) rates among the late director’s best work (strongly recalling Pauline at the Beach, which starred a then teenage Langlet, who is wonderful here as the charming Margo).
In a way, this is a textbook “Rohmer film”, which I define as “a movie where the characters spend more screen time dissecting the complexities of male-female relationships than actually experiencing them”. Don’t despair; it won’t (as Gene Hackman’s character in Night Moves states regarding a Rohmer film) be akin to “watching paint dry”. Even a neophyte will glean the director’s ongoing influence (particularly if you’ve seen Once,When Harry Met Sally, or Richard Linklater’s “Before” trilogy).
Tempest– “Show me the magic.” Nothing says “idyllic” like a Mediterranean getaway, which provides the backdrop for Paul Mazursky’s seriocomic 1982 update of Shakespeare’s classic play.
His Prospero is a harried Manhattan architect (John Cassavetes) who spontaneously quits his firm, abandons his wife (Gena Rowlands), packs up his teen daughter (Molly Ringwald) and retreats to a Greek island for an open-ended sabbatical. He soon adds a young lover (Susan Sarandon) and a Man Friday (Raul Julia) to his entourage. But will this idyll inevitably be steamrolled by the adage: “Wherever you go…there you are”?
The pacing lags a little bit on occasion, but superb performances, gorgeous scenery and bits of inspired lunacy (like a choreographed number featuring Julia and his sheep dancing to “New York, New York”) make up for it.
3 Women– If Robert Altman’s haunting 1977 character study plays like a languid, sun-baked California fever dream…it’s because it was (the late director claimed that the story came to him in his sleep). What ended up on the screen not only represents Altman’s best, but one of the best American art films of the 1970s.
The women are Millie (Shelly Duvall), a chatty physical therapist, considered a needy bore by everyone except her childlike roommate/co-worker Pinky (Sissy Spacek), who worships the ground she walks on, and enigmatic Willie (Janice Rule), a pregnant artist who only paints anthropomorphic lizard figures (empty swimming pools as her canvas). As the three personas slowly merge (bolstered by fearless performances from the three leads), there’s little doubt that Millie, Pinky and Willie hail from the land of Wynken, Blynken and Nod.
The most illiterate imbecile to ever sit in the Oval Office is dictating the policies and curriculum of the nation’s most prestigious universities —- and making them pay for the privilege:
Columbia University has discussed paying roughly $200 million as part of a deal with the Trump administration to settle allegations of civil-rights violations, according to people familiar with the matter.
Part of the money would be paid to the government, people familiar with the matter said. White House officials said the deal also includes payments to individual students and professors whose rights allegedly have been violated.
The deal goes beyond antisemitism and addresses administration concerns about what it views as racial preferences on campus, one of the White House officials said. The Trump administration envisions the deal having a lasting impact on Columbia’s campus culture, the official said.
The deal also includes provisions that the administration says will promote merit-based admission and hiring, as well as transparency about foreign gifts, the official said.
Harvard leaders have discussed creating a program that people briefed on the talks described as a center for conservative scholarship, possibly modeled on Stanford’s Hoover Institution, as the school fights the Trump administration’s accusations that it is too liberal…
A spokesman for Harvard said an initiative under discussion “will ensure exposure to the broadest ranges of perspectives on issues, and will not be partisan, but rather will model the use of evidence-based, rigorous logic and a willingness to engage with opposing views.” He added that the school has been accelerating efforts to set up the initiative, which would “promote and support viewpoint diversity.”
So “viewpoint diversity” is good now? Good to know. I’m sure the pro-Palestinian students will be relieved to hear it.
This makes me feel as sick as anything else we’ve seen during this most misbegotten sx months of American history since the civil war. The willingness of these prized bastions of intellectual freedom to bend to the whims and fascist agendas of a cretin and his henchmen is massively depressing.
For those getting caught up: After being frustrated by the increase in the federal budget deficit that Republicans have caused with their “One Big Beautiful Bill,” the richest man in the world last week declared independence from the two-party system. He ran an insta-poll on Twitter to assess support for a new political party, which received 80% of votes, and subsequently announced he was forming one. He calls it the “America Party.”
According to Musk’s social media posts, the movement will draw support from people who want to shrink government spending, are disillusioned with the two-party system, and think the Democrats are too ”woke.” Musk has taken increasingly strong stances against Donald Trump in recent weeks, making opposition to the president — or even soft support, relative to Musk’s — another cornerstone of the party agenda.
Musk appears to be serious about making the America Party work. In recent days, he has sought the advice of Andrew Yang, founder of the pro-electoral reform Forward Party (as of 2025, it has won one state legislative race) and the right-wing thinker Curtis Yarvin (here’s a Guardian interview from before he got a rebrand for the NYT). Yarvin is famous for saying U.S. democracy needs to be overthrown via violent coup and replaced with a so-called “corporate monarchy.” Strange bedfellows. Yang and Yarvin.
Alright, but is this really going anywhere? What is the constituency for (1) cutting spending, (2) opposing Trump, (3) liking Musk, and (4) otherwise being centrist?
I would think that an huge appetite for space travel, ketamine, Naziism and impregnating random women would be on the list too but Morris wanted to keep it simple:
That leaves Musk with a whopping 0.75% of the American public, which corresponds to just 36 out of 4,855 registered voters who took the ANES in 2024.
That’s the coalition for a party that is (a) generally anti-spending, (b) not the Democratic or Republican Party, (c) anti-Trump, and (d) pro-Musk.
Nobody is building a successful third party with less than 1% of voters. Musk will need to make serious inroads with Americans to make it work. He is starting from the absolute bottom.
In a polarized electorate he could still be a spoiler, of course. The Green Party could give him some pointers. They’ve already spoiled two elections for the Democrats. But I have no assurance that his project would do the same for the Republicans. The right has shown little appetite for this in the past. If anything Musk’s party could end up appealing to more disaffected Democrats who loathe and despise their own party. That’s kind of how we roll. But it still wouldn’t be enough to win anything unless enabling Republicans is the real goal.
