I try to put up a daily thank you, tribute and discussion of what we do here and why because I know that some of you only stop by sporadically and I want to make sure that everyone knows how grateful I am for your support. I very much appreciate your kindness and generosity.
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It’s Saturday so I wanted to extend a shout-out to my old friend and movie/culture critic, Dennis Hartley who does our Saturday Night at the Movies feature week in and week out. There was time when I was as up on all the latest films as he is but no more. I depend on him to let me know what’s happening — and also what older films I need to revisit. His personal site is https://denofcinema.com/ and it’s very well organized if you ever want to check out his lists or recommendations.
Dennis has an encyclopedic knowledge of film and music of the rock era and excellent taste. (He knows politics too…) And lately, the two of us often find ourselves texting back and forth about the latest sad departure of a beloved figure from our youth or an artist we both admire. I guess that starts to happen as you get older. Dennis’ tributes are often among the best I read anywhere — his piece about Rob Reiner was just beautiful. So I guess we can add a talent for writing obituaries to his other skills.
I’m so grateful to him for his contributions to this project and for being my friend for many decades. At this point in our lives the friendships that have stood the test of time are the most precious.
If you value what we do here and you’d like to keep us going for another year, I’d be very appreciative. It makes it possible to keep the lights on.
This photo, file 468, from the Epstein files that includes Donald Trump has apparently now been removed from the DOJ release.@AGPamBondi is this true? What else is being covered up? We need transparency for the American public. pic.twitter.com/3wYZAl2dse
The DOJ half assedly released just a few of the Epstein files yesterday even though the law required them to be fully released. There are pictures of Bill Clinton and some others but weirdly, no mention of Trump. I can’t tell you how shocked I am. (Not.)
The right’s obsession with this story has long been about exposing Bill Clinton and other Democrats, not Donald Trump who, for some reason, they believed was a peripheral character even though he and Epstein were best buddies for over a decade. It’s no surprise that the corrupt Trump Justice Department would go this way.
Other than Tom’s post below, the best rundown of this drop is, unsurprisingly, from Marcy Wheeler. She calls it a limited hangout which is the best way to see it. And those don’t really work. Politico compared it to the way Trump used the Wikileaks drops in 2016 against Hillary Clinton to create a “drip, drip, drip of bad news. Now he’s using it against himself.
For a second day in a row, a long-brewing internal fight among MAGA influencers spilled onto the stage of Turning Point USA’s first annual conference since the September slaying of Charlie Kirk, the organization’s co-founder.
Podcaster Ben Shapiro, speaking on the AmericaFest convention’s opening night Thursday, ripped into right-wing broadcasters Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Candace Owens and Megyn Kelly, as well as white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
“The conservative movement is also in danger from charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty,” Shapiro said. “Those of us with a microphone have a moral obligation to call that out by name.”
He condemned Carlson for hosting Fuentes — whom he called “a Hitler apologist, Nazi-loving, anti-American piece of refuse” — and Bannon for “maligning people that he disagrees with” by accusing them of “loyalty to a foreign country.”
Bannon fired back on Friday night from the same stage, accusing Shapiro of wanting to take over Turning Point USA and putting Israel’s interests ahead of the United States.
“Ben Shapiro is like a cancer, and that cancer spreads,” Bannon said to cheers from the crowd of thousands at the Phoenix Convention Center.
It’s actually much more dramatic than that. I collected some highlights that show it’s not just about Bannon and Shapiro. They are ALL at each others’ throats.
🚨BREAKING: Total Fail Opener at Amfest – $200 Million Grifted and Geofencing Tech Partners, and TPUSA can't figure out an iPad or teleprompter or written paper backup when Erika's laptop won't turn on. Erika blames "the enemy" for making her iPad not work and claims her "entire… https://t.co/fP6RjN5YKEpic.twitter.com/k8QMedTA1e
Here is Ben Shapiro's full speech at Turning Point USA's AmericaFest where he slams Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Steve Bannon, Alex Jones, and criticizes his friend Megyn Kelly.
Whether you agree with him or not, it's a must-watch…especially considering that… pic.twitter.com/fIHj4hxiL9
BANNON: @benshapiro is like a cancer, and that cancer spreads. It metastasizes. He tried to take over Breitbart and I ran him out. He tried to take over David Horowitz’s, his mentor. Mark my words, he’ll make a move on @tpusa. He’s always been envious of Charlie Kirk. pic.twitter.com/XAkGy8uovy
Fresh from his most recent visit to his beloved Qatar (where he bought a home), and right after Muslims murdered Americans in Syria and murdered Jews in Australia, Islam whore @TuckerCarlson yells at Americans to stop ‘attacking Americans because they’re Muslim’ to a silent crowd pic.twitter.com/FUNuAw7T9z
1. Ben Shapiro attacking Tucker and speaking at TPUSA Amfest.
2. The heavily redacted Epstein files being released, failure to release them all by today’s lawful deadline, and redacting “politically exposed individuals and government officials.”…
Tucker Carlson totally upstaged Ben Shapiro—very mature, well articulated response after Shapiro called for Tucker to be denounced on AmFest stage. Really poor use of his platform. That’s not what Charlie would’ve wanted. We’re better than this.pic.twitter.com/g0x7Edonnu
Vivek Ramaswamy says the idea of a “heritage American” is ridiculous, and implies that immigrants who just received their citizenship are just as American as Americans descended from the Colonial Era.
Nick Fuentes on Donald Trump’s latest speech and the reality of an administration that delivers nothing.
“Trump is unpopular with his own base because of the exit of Marjorie Taylor Greene, the handling of the Epstein files, the post about Rob Reiner, the lack of an end to the… pic.twitter.com/r8D2JII6vD
She really looked at the camera and screamed: “Your people… contract lords” “I’m off the mother-effing plantation” “F**K YOU Ben Shapiro and the midget horse you rode in on”
Only cowards take to the national stage or X to attack their “friends” without so much as a phone call to discuss it. And also didn’t tag me bc she is afraid. 🤣🤣🤣 https://t.co/EkRLnKgJQr
“If this is what the MAGA movement and the political movement on the right becomes, I am not interested, nor will I seek to be involved in any way with whatever that is.”
Spy magazine co-founder Kurt Anderson, former host of the radio program Studio 360, offers the mainstream press what seems like sound advice for a blindfolded nation riding the slippery slope to kleptocracy:
Serious question/suggestion. The press (and normal people) routinely refer to the billionaire allies of Russia’s corrupt autocratic president as oligarchs. Shouldn’t the U.S. press routinely also call the politically influential billionaire media allies of the would-be autocratic U.S. president—Musk, Bezos, Ellison—oligarchs?
If you are particularly disheartened by yesterday’s non-rollout of the Epstein files and need a healing belly-laugh, behold this brilliant takedown of PR firms from Spy (April 1992): Bunny Burgers. A SPECIAL, INANELY ELABORATE SPY EASTER PRANK
Epstein files release images via US Justice Department, presented by The Guardian.
The first Donald Trump presidency brought us the Trump University settlement, then a massive New York Times expose on the Trump Organization’s years of tax evasion, then the forced shutdown of the Trump Foundation, then his first impeachment over Ukraine, then the botched response to the COVID pandemic (aside from Operation Warp Speed). After Trump lost reelection in 2020 to Joe Biden came his well-documented, criminal efforts to overturn the election and a second impeachment: this one over inciting a violent insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. Then came multiple federal felony indictments for the insurrection and for his removing and concealing classified documents. Then came his May 2024 conviction in New York on 34 felony counts for falsifying business records and a Supreme Court decision a month later granting the president absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions “within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority.”
Americans reelected Trump president in November 2024. The indictments were dropped.
Just so we are up to speed.
Simmering below the surface was financier and former Trump pal Jeffrey Epstein’s 2008 non-prosecution agreement in Florida for solicitation of prostitution and one count of solicitation of prostitution from a minor, and then his arrest in 2019 for child-sex trafficking. Epstein died in prison awaiting trial. His partner in perversion, Ghislaine Maxwell, was convicted and sentenced four years ago to 20 years in federal prison. Trump ran in 2024, in part, on promising his pedophile-conspiracy-obsessed MAGA base that he would release immediately all the Epstein investigation files. Epstein survivors mounted a vigorous public lobbying effort to demand he follow through. In the end, that took an act of Congress.
After twelve months of delay, after twelve months of Trump 2.0 cabinet sycophants like AG Pam Bondi prostrating themselves before such a man and snarling through non-responsive answers to oversight committee questions, Trump and his Department of Justice were forced by law and an overwhelming vote in Congress to release the Epstein files in full by Dec. 19. They released only about ten percent of them on Friday. Surprise.
What did you expect? Former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori cautioned Politico readers on Friday to temper their expectations:
Needless to say, we should not expect the Trump administration to prominently produce this information given their handling of all this to date — as well as Bondi’s own, over-the-top personal and political dedication to Trump. For all we know, they may never produce it — or at least not all of it. (Yes, the law mandates this disclosure, but there are plenty of laws that the Trump administration has simply decided to ignore.)
If material pertaining to Trump is not produced early, there is reason to believe that the Trump administration is engaged in a (continuing) cover-up of information that would be harmful to the president. That is reason alone to be cautious about jumping to conclusions about other political and media figures.
The Associated Press reported last night on the heavily redacted document release:
But it was clear soon after the release that it would fall far short of those expectations. The partial release angered Democrats who accused the Trump administration of trying to hide information. The Justice Department said it would continue releasing documents in the weeks ahead.
The file dump — dominated by photographs, but also including call logs, court records and other documents, many with redactions — comes after politicians and the public waged a massive campaign for transparency about the government’s investigations into the wealthy financier.
President Donald Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years before the two had a falling-out, tried for months to keep the records sealed. Though he hasn’t been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, he has argued there is nothing to see in the files and the public should focus on other issues.
Bondi was AWOL on Friday with a medical appointment. She sent former Trump attorney and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche (he who cut the non-prosecution deal with Epstein) to announce on Fox News that the Friday release would be only several hundred thousand files, with more to be rolled out later, perhaps by year’s end. Just in time to be obscured from view by holiday vacations and festivities.
And Epstein’s victims?
“America is getting a look tonight into how we have all felt for years,” a disappointed Sharlene Rochard told Sarah Fitzpatrick of The Atlantic:
Sharlene Rochard first met Epstein in New York in the mid-1990s, when she was still a teenager. She told me that she has taken additional security precautions in and around her home in recent days, not knowing what would be released or whether she would be mentioned. She and other victims had asked the DOJ for advance notice and preparation for what was coming, she said, so that they didn’t find out what was in the files on television or social media. But she didn’t get that.
Nor did the country get full compliance from the criminal-in-chief and his accomplices.
“We’re exploring all options—including impeachment,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said. “They’re delusional if they think this is going to go away.”
Elise Stefanik is suspending her gubernatorial campaign, and won’t seek reelection to a sixth term in Congress.
The North Country Republican said the challenge of unseating Gov. Kathy Hochul had been difficult from the start but became harder when Republican Bruce Blakeman, the county executive of Nassau County, announced his candidacy earlier this month, setting up a primary that many in the GOP had hoped to avoid.
“After a great deal of reflection and discussions with my family, it’s just not the right political time,” Stefanik said in an interview Friday morning, a few hours before she posted her decision on X. “Part of our assumption was there would be no primary, and while we would overwhelmingly have won that primary, it’s a challenge in a state like New York — even in a perfect political year.”
And for Republicans, 2026 seems unlikely to be anything close to perfect.
Election results last month suggest that the Democratic electorate is energized and motivated, a problem for any Republican seeking to win in New York. President Donald J. Trump’s sagging approval rating also won’t help
Stefanik also said it would be difficult to run in New York while serving in Congress, but she emphasized that her decision was more than a political calculation. She wants to spend more time with her 4-year-old son.
Sure, ok. The fact is that despite her completely turning herself inside out for him, Trump treated her like shit, just as he does all women in one way or another. Like Marge, the veil has fallen from her eyes — these people have no respect for her and she has no future in politics.
ROBERTS: If you cut something by 100%, the cost goes down to 0. If you cut it by 600%, the drug companies are actually paying you to take their product. So it raises the question — how much of last night's speech was hyperbole?
ROBERTS: If you cut something by 100%, the cost goes down to 0. If you cut it by 600%, the drug companies are actually paying you to take their product. So it raises the question — how much of last night’s speech was hyperbole?
LUTNICK: No. What he’s saying is if a drug was $100 and you bring the drug down to $13, if you’re looking at it from $13, it’s down 7 times
ROBERTS: It’s not a 600% cut
LUTNICK: But it’s 700% higher price before. It’s down 700% now. So $13 would have to go up 700% to get back to the old one. So it all depends on when you look at it.
Maybe the average Fox viewers will see that and say, “sure, that makes sense.” Others just think “oh that’s just Trump he’s exaggerating for effect.” But the rest of the world is alarmed that Trump quite obviously doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Today he had the Pharma executives at the White House to lick his boots.
jesus — they're forcing the pharma CEOs to go to the podium and kiss Trump's ass pic.twitter.com/g82JdBKTf9
LOL — Trump announces that his new healthcare plan, which he says was inspired by watching the pharma CEOs kiss his ass, is simply asking the healthcare companies to lower their prices pic.twitter.com/unfANSQVW7
I’m sure that’s going to work. If the king proclaims that they must lower their costs so they will lower their costs. He’s just that powerful.
I wonder how many people in this country now see this un-American, monarchical behavior as normal? I have to assume that to anyone under the age of 25 and many under 30, this is politics as usual. And after a decade of this lunacy, it is. A president demanding to be worshiped like a god by everyone in his presence, blathering incoherently and routinely treating his constituents like dirt is all they’ve ever known. The collective memory of how presidents are supposed to behave in office — have always behaved until 2016 — is fading fast. It leaves the door open for all kinds of transgressive behavior from leaders going forward.
Thanks so much for your support this year. I know there are a lot of claims on people who follow political news and it’s a special burden on those who really would like to just pull the covers over their heads (as I do pretty much every morning.) It’s been a very tough year and I understand if you just don’t have anything left to give. This site will always be free to read and without ads so I hope if you’ve decided to spend your money on sites that require a sub, that you’ll keep stopping by over here anyway.
It’s been a long year, full of horrors and barbarities. But we are 25% through the second Trump administration and I believe the next year is going to be different.
Last December we were all shell shocked and reeling from the election and it has taken months for many of us to snap out of it. I suspect many people found that their mental health and sense of well being was much better if they simply stopped paying close attention to politics. At various holiday gatherings I’ve attended so far this year, it’s been clear that a lot of us just don’t want to hear about it. And interestingly, that includes Trump people as well which I didn’t expect. Many Americans have lost the desire to deeply engage on a daily basis and networks are seeing that in ratings, newspapers are getting lower circulation and I’m seeing it in traffic and financial response. It’s understandable.
However, that doesn’t mean people are disengaged altogether. It’s just that they know their minds and don’t need to wallow in it. Progressives, mainstream Democrats and Independents alike are protesting and voting in large numbers and they are coming out in their neighborhoods to support their immigrant neighbors. The numbers tell the story.
They don’t need a lot of analysis or discussion to tell them that they are economically stressed or that the federal government is assaulting our democracy and setting the constitution on fire. And most don’t need to know what specific crimes Trump and his henchmen are perpetrating every day to know that we are in an existential crisis which must be repudiated at the ballot box.
But I think it is still important that some of us are dedicated to documenting the atrocities so that we can keep track of what needs to be done if we ever expect to make this country function under the constitution again. That’s what we try to do here, as best we can. It’s not comprehensive by any means but we are pretty good at trainspotting (and trainwreck watching.) With at least seven posts a day, seven days a week, we attempt to at least touch on the highlights and give you an easy way to check what’s happening without having to immerse yourself in hours of podcast interviews or several different newspapers and dozens of substacks.
If that service is valuable to you and you have the means and desire to help support that work I’d be so grateful for your support. This is the time of year that I pass the hat, and if you have been meaning to throw a few coins our way, you can do so below or over on the snail mail address on the left. And thank you so much for stopping by to read what we post and share it with others from time to time. It means the world.
The United States hasn’t yet declared war on Venezuela—but it’s getting closer. This week, U.S. President Donald Trump issued a blockade on sanctioned ships in and out of Venezuela ports, a decision that led authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro to order his navy to escort other ships in the Caribbean. With a massive U.S. Navy presence nearby, it’s not difficult to imagine an unintended escalation.
What does the White House actually want in Venezuela? What could a war look like? And were Maduro to magically agree to leave the scene, what happens next? James Story, a former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela under both the Trump and Biden administrations, puts the likelihood of U.S. military action in Venezuela at 80 percent. Speaking on FP Live, he said this past week’s blockade “increases the odds of a mistake being made by either side.”
Story has gamed out a range of scenarios for U.S. involvement in Venezuela. What keeps him up at night? “What has kept me up at night, even when I ran counternarcotics in Colombia between 2010 and ’13 and for the Western Hemisphere from 2013 to ’15, is that the 5,000 man-portable shoulder fire and anti-aircraft missiles in the country could fall into the wrong hands and be utilized against commercial aviation. That’s something that really worries me.”
There are dozens of similar scenarios that could spark a shooting war.
Radio transmissions reviewed by CNN show that the pilots of a private jet narrowly avoided a collision with a United States Air Force refueling tanker near Venezuela on Saturday – one day after a similar incident nearby.
The pilots of a Falcon 900EX business jet flying from Aruba to Miami reported the near collision to air traffic controllers in Curaçao shortly after the incident Saturday afternoon, according to audio captured by LiveATC.net.
“They were really close,” one of the pilots told controllers of the encounter at approximately 26,000 feet. “We were climbing right into him,” the unidentified pilot said. “It was big, maybe a 777 or a (767).”
The incident marks the second reported near-collision near Venezuela in two days. On Friday, the pilots of JetBlue flight 1112 from Curaçao to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport radioed controllers that they were forced to abruptly stop their climb after a US Air Force aerial refueling tanker crossed directly in front of their flight path with its position-reporting transponder turned off.
I doubt very seriously that the Trump administration has taken into consideration any potential for mistakes or overreach because they are convinced that all Trump has to do is make threats and swing his stick around and Maduro will abdicate. Maybe that will work. But what comes next is a real conundrum. Let’s just say that they all aren’t going to greet America with flowers and tell them “welcome to our oil fields!”
This is a bubbling crisis that should have all of us very worried. Trump can’t find Venezuela on a map and Hegseth is champing at the bit to go to war. With Trump getting more and more desperate to change the subject I think there’s a very good chance that this is going to happen.
