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Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Go Figure

Published by Tom Sullivan on February 9, 2026

Do they only see what they want to see?

Still image from The Sixth Sense.

Here’s a morning headline from the AP: FBI concluded Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t running a sex trafficking ring for powerful men, files show

A line from The Sixth Sense comes to mind: They only see what they want to see.

And that was?

The FBI pored over Jeffrey Epstein’s bank records and emails. It searched his homes. It spent years interviewing his victims and examining his connections to some of the world’s most influential people.

But while investigators collected ample proof that Epstein sexually abused underage girls, they found scant evidence the well-connected financier led a sex trafficking ring serving powerful men, an Associated Press review of internal Justice Department records shows.

Videos and photos seized from Epstein’s homes in New York, Florida and the Virgin Islands didn’t depict victims being abused or implicate anyone else in his crimes, a prosecutor wrote in one 2025 memo.

An examination of Epstein’s financial records, including payments he made to entities linked to influential figures in academia, finance and global diplomacy, found no connection to criminal activity, said another internal memo in 2019.

A lot of stories lacking enough evidence to support charges, records indicate. Including allegations by the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre. In lawsuits and interviews, Giuffre “accused Epstein of arranging for her to have sexual encounters with numerous men, including Britain’s former Prince Andrew.” But two other Epstein victims Giuffre named did not corroborate the “lent out” story, according to a 2019 internal prosecution memo.

No videos or photos showed Epstein victims being sexually abused, none showed any males with any of the nude females, and none contained evidence implicating anyone other than Epstein and Maxwell, then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey wrote in an email for FBI officials last year.

Had they existed, the government “would have pursued any leads they generated,” Comey wrote. “We did not, however, locate any such videos.”

Investigators who scoured Epstein’s bank records found payments to more than 25 women who appeared to be models — but no evidence that he was engaged in prostituting women to other men, prosecutors wrote.

Other women filed sexual misconduct lawsuits against an Epstein massage recipient. One was dismissed or withdrawn. (Was a quiet cash settlement involved?) Another is pending.

As we know from voter fraud allegations, lots of smoke does not necessarily mean a fire. But to my knowledge, no one has lost a royal title over voter fraud allegations or killed themselves over them. Several have in the Epstein case.

It is clearer than ever that Epstein class predators have powerful friends and enjoy a legal system built to insulate them from justice. Including Trump’s DOJ. Whom can you trust?

Bad Bunny Spikes The Football

Published by Tom Sullivan on February 9, 2026

Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin with the assist

“God bless America,” shouted superstar Bad Bunny in English to end his Puerto Rico-themed Super Bowl halftime show. Then he recited, south to north, the names of countries spread across North and South America.

Donald Trump believes they are his to dominate. But Bad Bunny told the stadium and over 120 million viewers globally, in song, dance and imagery, oh, hell no. Then he spiked a football reading, “Together, We Are America.” Behind and above him, a massive jumbotron displayed, in bold black and white, Bad Bunny’s message to the world.

Hollywood Reporter:

Lady Gaga made a surprise cameo, singing a Latin-inspired rendition of her and Bruno Mars’ song, “Die With a Smile.” She and Bad Bunny then went on to dance together at what appeared to be the wedding’s reception.

Ricky Martin later made a surprise appearance in the latter part of the show, before Bad Bunny ended his performance with his hit song “DtMF.”

The screens inside Levi’s Stadium also featured the message, “The only thing more powerful than hate is love” — something Bad Bunny has expressed before.

I admit it. I teared up.

Asawin Suebsaeng at Zeteo observes:

If anyone wants to argue Bad Bunny avoided partisan politics during the Super Bowl, he sort of did – on paper, with the thinnest veneer of plausible deniability. His message couldn’t have been clearer, and it joyfully spat in the face of what Donald Trump, JD Vance, Stephen Miller, and the rest of the gang running the federal government stand for. But if the NFL wants to pretend its halftime show didn’t have an inherently anti-Trump message to it, the Trump administration is already showing it’s not willing to give them a pass.

“The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence,” the literal US president whined on his social-media app Sunday night. “Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the USA, and all over the World.”

Yet Daily Beast reports that Bad Bunny’s performance played across several screens at Trump’s West Palm Beach Super Bowl party. Trump avoided attending the game in person, knowing he’d be loudly booed, live, in front of the entire planet. (And, yes, Donald Trump, charter member of the Epstein class, wants you to believe he cares about young children.)

Bad Bunny addressed the language question during a pre-game interview with a clever quip: “English is not my first language. But it’s okay, it’s not America’s first language either.” Forbes reports that it instantly went viral.

Former Trump Surgeon General Jerome Adams posted a little Super Bowl history lesson for anyone on X needing one, including his former boss.

It’s Airborne

Published by digby on February 8, 2026

It’s become a global symbol: “a militia that kills” (Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala’s quote), “not welcome” (Lombardy Governor), with protests involving stones, flares, and water cannons right outside the Olympic Village.

In Italy, ICE is seen as the export of the worst of American policy – racism, excessive force, warrantless deportations. The protests started back in January, ramped up before the opening, and now form the backdrop to the entire Games: anti-Americanism + climate + housing + gentrification.

Good.

San Francisco Isn’t A Shithole?

Published by digby on February 8, 2026

Imagine that

I just love this. All these right wingers have been fed a bunch of propaganda and they are stunned when they find out that liberals aren’t actually living in Mad Max Thunderdome:

To right-wing influencers and conservative media outlets, San Francisco is a wasteland where the once-glimmering downtown mall is dead, the sidewalks are filled with homeless encampments and drug users are shooting up in the streets. To San Franciscans and civic leaders, however, that caricature has never been accurate. And certainly not after a recent A.I. boom downtown and the redoubling of efforts to improve the quality of life.

San Francisco still has its share of down-and-out areas. And the city has not fully recovered its pre-Covid workweek energy. But local champions have insisted that much of the place remains vibrant, and that a sun-splashed walk along the Embarcadero and a Mission-style burrito can make anyone feel better about the city.

The arrival of the Super Bowl this week in the Bay Area has given San Francisco its biggest opportunity since the pandemic to change hearts and minds. And, in a polarized nation in which many Americans seem incapable of moving off deep-seated beliefs, some visitors said they had been wrong about San Francisco after actually seeing it in person.

“What we thought we were walking into here was, uh, a dump,” Pat McAfee, the ESPN host who caters to a young, male audience, said during the first national broadcast of The Pat McAfee Show from San Francisco. “It’s not at all. It was a beautiful walk this morning.”

On social media, posts about the city’s parks and sandwich shops from journalists covering the Super Bowl have often outpaced commentary about the game itself. A stretch of February sun and 70-degree weather has helped the cause, especially as the rest of the country was recovering from snowstorms.

Among the first-time visitors this week to San Francisco was Brayden Landis, 21, a sports management student at York College in Pennsylvania, who was in the Bay Area as part of a class trip. The city had been an immediate shock to the senses, Mr. Landis said. On his first day in town, he passed out from heat exhaustion. He was struck by the city’s contrasts.

Toward the ocean, the lush expanse of Golden Gate Park greets visitors with scents of eucalyptus and morning dew. Elsewhere in the city, there are alleys where pedestrians have to avoid needles and feces. “To me, the city was known for homelessness, fog and hippies,” he said. “But the stereotypes melted away. You see the city for what it really is, good and bad, pretty quickly. I think it’s my favorite city I’ve ever been to.”

Could it possibly be that the right wing media is lying?

Who Hates America?

Published by digby on February 8, 2026

This is what Hess actually said:

“It brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now. there’s obviously a lot going on that I’m not the biggest fan of and I think a lot of people aren’t. Just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the US.”

Interesting that Trump knew he wasn’t talking about the “immigrant invasion” or the protesters against ICE, which is how you could interpret that comment if you wanted to. He knows that most people oppose him and hate his policies. It’s obvious.

By the way, here are some other quotes from Donald Trump himself, the most America hating president the country has ever had the misfortune to put into office:

“The sinister forces trying to kill America have done everything they can to stop me, to silence you, and to turn this nation into a socialist dumping ground for criminals, junkies, Marxists, thugs, radicals, and dangerous refugees that no other country wants.”

“The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country… Open Borders, Rigged Elections, and Grossly Unfair Courtroom Decisions are DESTROYING AMERICA. WE ARE A NATION IN DECLINE, A FAILING NATION!”

“The idea of American Greatness, of our country as the leader of the free and unfree world, has vanished … I couldn’t stand to see what was happening to our great country. This mess calls for leadership in the worst way.”

“Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system flush with cash but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.”

“Our roads and bridges are falling apart, our airports are in third-world condition.”

“The world is laughing at us!”

That’s just a very small set of examples of the grotesque insults Trump commonly applies to the country he leads. It’s intrinsic to his central message Make America Great Again which clearly says that it isn’t great now.

No one hates America more than Donald Trump.

Update— Oh shut up:

The Year In Racism

Published by digby on February 8, 2026

Sen. Tim Scott said that the post of the Obamas as apes is the e most racist thing the White House has done raising the question of what were the other most racist things they’ve done? The Bulwark helpfully compiled a top ten list:

10. Vice President JD Vance saying it’s “totally reasonable and acceptable” for Americans to not want to live next to people who speak a different language or come from “a totally different culture.”

If you’ve ever looked at the deed to homes built before the civil rights revolution you will see that it used to be common for there to be  discriminatory restrictive covenants that created all-white neighborhoods for the delicate Americans who “reasonably” didn’t want to live around people of color. That’s what he was endorsing.

9. Greg Bovino, then-commander-at-large of the U.S. Border Patrol, saying his agents choose the people to arrest based partly on “how they look.”

8. Rallying around a DOGE staffer fired for racist posts.

There’s been a pattern in this administration: White man makes racist comments → loses his job → Trump finds out and rehires him. In this case, it was Marko Elez, a then-25-year-old DOGE employee who said in social media posts “you could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” that he would like to “normalize Indian hate,” that he “was racist before it was cool,” and that he “just want[s] a eugenic immigration policy.” Elezesigned after the bigotry came to light in February 2025. But Trump, Vance, and DOGEmeister Elon Musk jumped to Elez’s defense and hired him back.

7. Vance dismissing outrage at a Young Republicans group chat in which participants called black people monkeys and “watermelon people.”

Vance called the outcry “BS” and “pearl clutching.”

6. Trump cutting admissions for refugees from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, but making an exception for white Afrikaners from South Africa.

Speaks for itself.

5. Trump nominating Paul Ingrassia to lead the Office of Special Counsel.

Follow these steps and see if you can spot the racism:

  1. Trump chose Ingrassia, who had been working as a White House staffer, to head a key watchdog agency despite lacking relevant experience.
  2. Politico published texts from Ingrassia saying Martin Luther King Jr. Day should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell” and that he has “a Nazi streak.”
  3. Senators spoke out against Ingrassia and said his nomination wouldn’t pass.
  4. Trump pulled the nomination—but rather than toss Ingrassia aside, Trump made him the deputy general counsel at the General Services Administration, a job that does not require Senate confirmation. (As of this writing, he has been bumped up to the role of acting general counsel.)

4. Trump sharing a video of Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero while an AI-generated Chuck Schumer talks about illegal immigrants voting.

3. Trump disparaging Ilhan Omar and Somali Americans.

2. Trump blaming Reagan National Airport plane crash on DEI hiring standards.

It’s worth noting that when asked how he could conclude, even before an investigation took place, that DEI hiring practices caused the crash, Trump said: “Because I have common sense.” (Talk about baseless claims.)

1. Trump sharing a video depicting the Obamas as apes.

The post was eventually taken down, but Trump did not apologize, and insists he has no reason to do so: “No,” he told reporters on Air Force One, “I didn’t make a mistake.”

He doesn’t believe he made a mistake. It’s called common sense.

It’s interesting that some of the most racist statements in this term have come from JD Vance rather than Trump. He thinks because he’s married to a woman of Indian background that he can say anything and no one will be able to point out his racism. It’s the old, “some of my best friends are…” dodge but it only makes you feel sorry for the people of color to whom they’re related.

Vance is going to have a rude awakening about this. There is a strong strain of anti-Indian sentiment on the MAGA right as Vivek Ramaswamy is finding out in Ohio. And it will catch up to Vance as well. All the crude bigoted sentiments in the world won’t make up for Usha.

I’m a little bit surprised that none of Stephen Miller’s bleats made the list. But I suppose that since everything he says is racist it would have been impossible to decide.

Bad Bunny’s America

Published by digby on February 8, 2026

A statistic that may surprise you:

The United States is considered the second-largest Spanish-speaking country in the world, trailing only Mexico. With over 60 million people speaking Spanish (including native, second-language, and bilingual speakers), the U.S. has surpassed countries like Colombia and Spain. Projections suggest the U.S. could become the largest by 2060.

Spanish is the second most spoken language in the world after Mandarin and before English.

The provincial MAGA weirdos are barking up the wrong tree. The Spanish language is as American as apple pie and breakfast burritos.

It Will Never Be Enough

Published by digby on February 8, 2026

It gets worse:

Trump administration officials have suggested that the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery create a section in the museum to display multiple images of the president in addition to his official portrait.

The concept initially came up during a Dec. 19 tour of the museum that included Abby Jones, the acting chief of protocol at the State Department, and the White House photographer, Daniel Torok, according to three people familiar with the discussions. They said the administration officials noted that the White House often received artworks of Mr. Trump created by Americans that could make for a display in a corner of the museum.

I have a sickening feeling that if we are to survive this, the Democrats will chicken out of purging the country of all this Trump hagiography including the ballroom, the naming of institutions, the ugly gilt all of it. They won’t want to agitate the cult and that will make them more angry than anything else we could do.

But the country will have to purge itself of all this at some point. Maybe they could keep one exhibit at the Smithsonian about the dark time when America inexplicably fell under the spell of a tyrannical nutcase and almost destroyed itself.

Trumpism’s Primal Scream

Published by Tom Sullivan on February 8, 2026

Irritable mental gestures

Not exactly the spirit of the Declaration, is it?

Like 1897 rumors of Mark Twain’s death, an assessment of conservatism’s poor health in America was “greatly exaggerated” when in 1950 Lionel Trilling wrote:

In the United States at this time liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition. For it is the plain fact that nowadays there are no conservative or reactionary ideas in general circulation. This does not mean, of course, that there is no impulse to conservatism or to reaction. Such impulses are certainly very strong, perhaps even stronger than most of us know. But the conservative impulse and the reactionary impulse do not, with some isolated and some ecclesiastical exceptions, express themselves in ideas but only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.

Trilling wrote that years prior to Brown v. Board, the Montgomery bus boycott, the March on Washington, the Civil Rights Act, Bloody Sunday, and passage of the Voting Rights Act. Post-war cultural rejection of 100 years of Jim Crow injected a shot of adrenaline into the conservative impulses Trilling considered largely out of circulation mid-century.

Trumpism’s primal scream is certainly more reactionary than Trilling could have anticipated, as Andrew O’Hehir writes at Salon:

MAGA envisions undoing nearly all of modern history and returning to some primal, purified state of nature, or rather a meme version thereof: The 1950s and the antebellum South and the American frontier and medieval feudalism and the Neanderthal fireside — everything, everywhere, all at once.

Trumpism is a movement Trilling would still recognize as one that expresses itself “only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.” Memes and AI slop, in current parlance. Or in mass deportations and state-sanctioned street violence and murder. If those “gestures” appear garbled, it is because the “the high priests of MAGA ideology,” Stephen Miller and Russ Vought, are not driven not by coherent ideas. What drives them is visceral rage at cultural change that fails to center men as base as themselves. And by the congenital insecurity of Donald Trump himself.

Admittedly, even the most articulate MAGA ideologues — not that there are many — haven’t gone that far. But that’s where the collective brotastic idiocies of Peter Thiel and Jordan Peterson and Curtis Yarvin and Andrew Tate and Pete Hegseth and whomever else all converge: Somewhere in the recent or distant or mythical past, everything totally ruled and “we” (a term of art, I hasten to add) never felt bad about any of it. Guys were guys and women were hot and there was lots of feasting and stuff. There was no wokeness, no political correctness, no gender-neutral bathrooms. Nobody used pronouns or talked about inequality or intersectionality or was gay (except sometimes in the locker room) or tried to make us ashamed for being awesome.

If that sounds like a 1997 frat party elevated to political abstraction, fair enough. MAGA’s explicit promise is to reassert white supremacy — along with its inescapable corollaries, male dominance and mandatory heterosexuality — while cleansing it of all guilt, all self-doubt, all uncertainty. History’s newsreels will run backward such that the crimes of colonialism, imperialism, slavery and so forth either never happened or were never crimes. (Your mileage may vary.)

A nihilistic impulse to tear down modernity drives them. Perhaps not coincidentally, The Washington Post this morning describes a strain of violent extremism characterized by nihilism, “an online revival of the philosophical stance that arose in the 19th century to deny the existence of moral truths and meaning in the universe.” Miller, Vought, et al. approve that message. They find meaning only in the power to dominate others. Might makes right is not much of philosophy but, for MAGA and its antecedent movements, a powerful one.

Their effort to undo modernity is as doomed to fail as uninventing the light bulb, the airplane, or the computer. But not before MAGA does consequential damage, O’Hehir argues:

In its most distilled form, MAGA ideology promises to salve that unease and heal the fissure, transporting its believers into an AI-slop alternate universe where the heart of darkness has been whitewashed and no one remembers slavery or imperialism or misogyny or thinks any of that was a problem. That’s a lot more ambitious than simply undoing the major political and social reforms of the last century. It’s more like transforming human consciousness, and the fact that it can’t be done doesn’t mean it won’t be massively destructive.

Stephen Miller, as it happens, has an extensive history of public comments that echo white nationalist talking points about the historical errors of “the West,” which has engaged in “self-punishment” by opening its borders to “reverse colonization” and becoming “the first and only civilization to import a foreign labor class that is granted full political rights.” (That the “foreign labor class” in question included Miller’s great-grandparents goes unmentioned.) He would presumably say that he just wants to purge “the West” of its toxic self-doubt. Or to put it another way, he wants to destroy Western civilization in order to save it.

For white Christian patriarchy, that’s the bottom line, with all the irritable mental gestures that attend it.

We Are Underreacting

Published by Tom Sullivan on February 8, 2026

Breath, center, stand strong

Image (I assume) by Heather Hogsed.

I assume the image above is AI, but it wouldn’t be the first time the Fine Arts has used it marquee to send a message. The 1940s theater in downtown Asheville has an interesting history you can read here. It’s hardly unique as such theaters go, but it’s ours.

Thanks to Andrew Aydin for reposting on Threads where I spotted it.