Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

I rag on the elite institutions in our country all the time because they’ve shown that they are cowards and sellouts. Law firms, universities, corporations etc. have (with some notable exceptions) demonstrated that they have no civic responsibility or even any sophisticated instinct for self-preservation in the face of Trump’s petty and puerile demands. But according to James Fallows there is on sector that is not kow-towing and they are powerful and wealthy in their own right: foundations. He discusses this in the podcast below:

This first podcast is about an under-publicized and perhaps unexpected source of civic strength. These are America’s philanthropic institutions—including the legacies of great wealth accumulated from the Rockefeller or Ford eras onward, which are now applied to challenges in the US and around the world…

Toward the end of making their collective courage less quiet and more contagious, I recently had a podcast discussion with one of the most outspoken of their leaders. This is John Palfrey, now in his seventh year as president of the MacArthur Foundation, based in Chicago.

MacArthur is best known for its “genius” fellowships, but it is active in many other realms, in the US and around the world. Its total assets are just under $10 billion. Before coming to MacArthur, Palfrey had directed the Berkman Center on the Internet and Society at Harvard, been a tenured professor at Harvard Law School, and led Phillips Andover Academy.

This year, Palfrey has been prominent in the philanthropic world for his exhortations that institutions need to “Unite in Advance”—and that they should use their money right now, on an emergency basis, to defend the values that shore up democracy. You can read more about his efforts and messages here, here, here, and here. Those rainy day funds? The rain is pouring down.

Because Palfrey presents his case so clearly, I hope you’ll listen to the full 30-minute podcast discussion, below. His answers are precise, and he clearly extends the lessons from his powerful and privileged sector of American society to the obligations of citizenship for all of us, in emergency times.

As I’ve written many times, the late Jane Goodall had an answer for audiences around the world, especially children, who learned about society’s problems and asked, But what can I do? She would reply: Do what you can. Where you are. When you are able.

John Palfrey closes this discussion on a similar note. In the final two minutes of the recording below, he says that he ends this tumultuous year asking himself, Am I fully doing what is mine to do?

Whatever is in our control, are we doing it, to preserve this American Republic, particularly as we go into our 250th year?

I think there are going to be so many opportunities for every American to stand up and do something that represents the history and the community that we believe in.

And I think only by doing that are we going to be able to restore the fabric of this incredible, incredible American Republic.

It’s really interesting. Give it a listen if you have the chance.

Yep. We’re all in this together. And I think it’s already making and difference and the energy will only grow in the next year.

Happy Hollandaise everyone!

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.

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.

cheers,

digby

Happy Hollandaise, everyone.

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.

Schmaht as whips.

Happy Hollandaise everyone!

Oh my:

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.

At the core of his argument is a case that Owens has peddled conspiracy theories, without objection from Kelly and other prominent conservatives, about Kirk’s assassination. Those theories include suggestions that foreign governments — including Israel’s — and employees of Turning Point USA could have been involved. Prosecutors in Utah have charged Tyler Robinson, 22, in the killing and are seeking the death penalty. He has yet to enter a plea.

“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.

Yeah…

Happy Hollandaise!

All of you oligarchs bound to lose

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?

Anderson, author of “Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America,” founded Spy in 1988 with Graydon Carter, the originator of “short-fingered vulgarian” as shorthand (pun intended) for Donald Trump.

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

Happy Hollandaise, everyone.

A career criminal heads this administration

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.”

Fitzpatrick offers more survivor response here.

Happy Hollandaise, everyone.

A Christmas present for the rescue pups:

Something for the kitties too:

Hugs to all of your furry friends this holiday season. They make everything liveable.

Happy Hollandaise, everyone.

Another rising star quits politics.

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.

To be a MAGA heroine, you have to look like this:

Happy Hollandaise, everyone!

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… pic.twitter.com/VrVXKlwG7T

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 18, 2025

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.

And he announces his new healthcare plan:

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.

You think he wouldn’t?

Happy Hollandaise…