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We begin with finger shadow talent found by @blankman.1982:
- driftglass flashes a terrific portrait of Donald Trump and Ghislaine Maxwell that wordlessly explains everything Trump does not want explained.
- Trump doesn’t seem to need any assistance making the Epstein horror any worse for himself.
But Tommy Christopher is willing to help anyway, with one brief interview clip after another as Trump exposes his creepier than creepy side, including several remarks over the years about his intimate yearning for his daughter.
- Dave Columbo deconstructs a now famous birthday card
- So Trump’s loyal, very loyal, Deputy Attorney General interviews Epstein pedo‑recruiter and babysitter Ghislaine Maxwell. Interviews her twice.
Now he’ll decide which information out of all she might provide will turn out to be credible and therefore fit for release.
As in:
They will publicly release all credible evidence about Epstein.tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors has a pretty good idea about what Todd Blanche defines as credible.
Did I mention very loyal?
- And, of course…
[Someone Waived Ghislaine Maxwell’s Sex Offender Status]
And so the next sordid chapter begins.
— burrland01.bsky.social (@burrland01.bsky.social) August 1, 2025 at 2:48 PM
- In Canadian satire, The Beaverton reveals what we all want to know: all 100 names Trump wants Ghislaine Maxwell to name as being on the Epstein List.
- Great sleuthing!
Scotties Playtime has found it! Among a host of memes, Scottie provides the list as described by Trump:
- At The Onion, a new revelation: Attorney General Pam Bondi previously informed Trump that his name was tattooed all over Epstein’s body.
- Right Wing Watch brings us Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, his own self, blaming Democrats for shutting down Congress over the Epstein files.
The logic seems to be that Johnson felt compelled to protect Republicans from the embarrassment, and the constituent anger, of having to vote to keep the Epstein files secret.
He would rather have just tabled the whole thing to prevent a vote, but Democrats just wouldn’t cooperate. (Heartless bastards!!)
So Democrats forced him to adjourn, dontcha see…
Key pretzel blame:
We’re not buying it and I’m not going to allow them to uh, ub drag the, the Congress into this. - If Max’s Dad is not the King of Rant, he is certainly a member of royalty. And he gets a lot of material in Trump’s fumbling, and Republicans’ bumbling, of the Epstein files.
My …um… insight:
One thought on Trump and the Epstein files.
We do know that
law enforcement,
the judicial system,
and common sense
all consider "Consciousness of Guilt" to be actual evidence of guilt.Admissible evidence.
Right?— burrland01.bsky.social (@burrland01.bsky.social) July 29, 2025 at 8:40 PM
- First it was Murdoch owned The Wall Street Journal then, in Scotland, a persistent journalist from Murdoch semi-owned Sky News.
Hackwhackers brings us 5 minutes of joyful, penetrating video while asking What’s going on with Murdoch’s media?.
- Shamelessly stolen from Earth-Bound Misfit.
Award winning Bluegrass duo Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer are joined by musicians and fans in a musical ode to the Trump‑hidden Epstein files: - Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger gets creative with numerical illustrations. He looks at the numbers as the public develops opinions on Trump and Epstein and… Holy Gazpacho!! Those numbers are just awful…
- From The Borowitz Report, Americans have turned away from naming a Kennedy Center opera house after Melania Trump, and now want the Center to be named after E. Jean Carroll.
- As Epstein’s ghost continues to haunt, News Corpse documents yet another sleepless night of hate posts from Trump on social media, including a demand for cancellation of more late‑night hosts who make fun of him and a semi‑order for the imprisonment of a dozen and more of his political enemies.
- In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Bruce takes a look at the MAGA desire to put Trump’s face on Mount Rushmore.
Warning: Bruce seems unconvinced. - M. Bouffant at Web of Evil finds a quote by the legendary H.L. Mencken 105 years ago that precisely predicted Donald Trump.
- Frances Langum brings us Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of Charlie Kirk’s podcast, to explain how to know who is a real American.
Key partial definition (At about 1:30):
I mean, just by stats, by history, yeah, white probably helps be an American.
But if you’re not white, don’t be antagonistic to those who are, and don’t be bitter about it. - PZ Myers does not hide his reaction as DHS does not hide their pictorial representation of an ideal America.
Key vision:
The Department of Homeland Security is now trying to brighten our mornings by posting their vision of America: small towns full of white people, with a church across the street from a little one room schoolhouse, and children gathering around the flagpole to pledge their allegiance.Key aggressive defense:
DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told the Post that the agency is highlighting artwork that celebrates America’s heritage and history.
If the media needs a history lesson on the brave men and women who blazed the trails and forged this republic from the sweat of their brow, we are happy to send them a history textbook, she said in the statement to the Post. This administration is unapologetically proud of American history and American heritage. - In Disaffected and it Feels So Good ICE agents arrest protesters and find, when video shows officers just made up supposed offenses, charges don’t survive in court.
- Well, we shouldn’t skip over this, as ICE agents go international:
A Quebec fisherman who was fishing 15 kilometers north of the US border was essentially kidnapped by US Border Patrol, who capsized his boat and dragged him to an American prison cell.
In any normal time this'd be quite the international incident, y'know?
www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/art…
and Jason Linkins begins a dialogue with the inevitable path if we follow the law.
- Seems to fit, I suppose.
Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit has the reaction we should share as Trump and Rubio conduct diplomatic war on a sports team of kids (13‑16) trying to compete in an international baseball series that happens to be held this time around in the US.
Key award for bullying:
Denying visas to a team of Little-Leaguers is about as petty as it gets. - Journalist Arturo Dominguez brings a report from Human Rights Watch that details abusive treatment at three US concentration camps for immigrants. The details are bad, really bad.
- In Rural Missouri, Jess Piper writes movingly about her late father. He seems to have been a wonderful guy, rebellious, moral, with a deep sense of justice.
Right up until MAGA robbed him of everything she loved about him.
Key headline (that really says it)
He Made Me Who I Am and Then Forgot Who He Was - CalicoJack in The Psy of Life tackles the base that largely motivates the ongoing fascist threat to democracy and freedom.
How do we challenge the largely unconscious racism of white people?
- In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson reviews the brief public history of Project 2025, a plan to replace our democracy with strongman rule. The public hated it, candidate Trump denied knowledge of it, and President Trump is now following it.
Key announcement (Heritage Foundation’s Kevin Roberts):
“That Supreme Court ruling yesterday on immunity is vital, and it’s vital for a lot of reasons,” Roberts said, adding that the nation needs a strong leader because “the left has taken over our institutions.” “[W]e are in the process of the second American Revolution,” he said, “which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”The same analysis is now available in audio format, as Richardson narrates her podcast.
- In Missouri, we voters passed, and passed overwhelmingly, an abortion rights referendum that put the reproductive decision into the hands of the woman. The conservative legislature decided voters got it wrong and overturned our vote.
Legal expert Imani Gandy wrote an analysis that exposed the illegal overrule.
But it turns out there was part of her analysis that she now admits had it wrong.What the legislature passed was even worse than she thought.
- Dave Dubya explains what he sees as the important differences between liberals and conservatives. He’s accurate, and his comparison doesn’t make conservatives look really good.
- SilverAppleQueen has some thoughts on voting purists who voted against Harris largely because they thought her to be inadequate on Gaza.
- @Silkgengar brings us California Governor Gavin Newsom with a clear comparison of economic results produced by Democrats and Republicans:
- Sarah Cooper figures out how Trump figured out how tariffs are the answer to lobster trade deficits and pretty much everything else:
- Ant Farmer’s Almanac covers the controversy, as Trump says Biden was not an actual acting President, because he let his autopen do all the work.
We have a response. If indicted, Biden’s autopen will act as its own attorney.
- I may be projecting my own impatience. The discouragement with the Democratic Party, as expressed in opinion polls, is often ascribed to age. I don’t think that’s it.
Brian Beutler seems to have it about right. Democratic leadership needs to be replaced by those willing to fight for their constituents and for their principles.
Key stray:
…the preceding years the Democratic Party mistook “risk aversion” for “moderation” and populated the party with cowards.Key path forward:
The answer, I gather, is to recruit viable candidates (that is, people who aren’t hopelessly out of step with the prevailing cultures of their states) who are also of a fighting mindset. - Julian Sanchez seems alarmed, and maybe we should be as well.
We are seven months in, and the speed with which vital civic institutions are capitulating to authoritarian demands we once would have regarded as inconceivable in an established liberal democracy is jawdropping. I hadn't thought I was polyannaish about America, but it's really stunning.
— Julian Sanchez (@normative.bsky.social) July 25, 2025 at 5:26 PM
In the same week we have a storied news bureau agreeing to the installation of a government commissar and an Ivy league university taking dictation from the White House. A decade ago I'd have laughed out loud at the suggestion our core institutions could be this weak & unprincipled.
— Julian Sanchez (@normative.bsky.social) July 25, 2025 at 5:29 PM
This is some insane Soviet bullshit. The idea that any American news organization would agree to something like this is unconscionable. I don't know how any self-respecting journalist could work for an outlet that's doing this.
— Julian Sanchez (@normative.bsky.social) July 25, 2025 at 4:33 PM
- Juliet at Decoding Fox News compares what concerned most of America with how Fox devoted last week’s coverage. She finds very little overlap.
Key concerns of Americans:
the ever-worsening humanitarian and hunger crisis in Gaza, massive heat waves across the globe and Trump’s attempts to distance himself from Jeffrey Epstein.Fox coverage:
The new fake Obama Russiagate scandal has a bit of everything – a director of national intelligence who is desperate to keep her job, the deep state, Barack Hussein Obama, Hillary Clinton, FISA warrants, declassified memos, dirty dossiers, Hunter Biden’s laptop, Jim Comey, election interference, the complicit mainstream Marxist media and a slew of intelligence community officials who were hellbent on stopping Donald J. Trump’s presidency.
The only thing the latest invented scandal lacks is any basis in reality.The audio version contains much more, narrated by Juliet herself! Worth any small number of seconds of random sampling for those who hesitate at the investment of an hour.
- Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson watches as bunch‑o‑billionaires finance a patriotic alternative to Hollywood. James is having none of it.
After preparing us with a list of movie classics and how each would fare with the group’s jingo‑exuberance, he looks at films offered as models for the new creative patriotism. Then he goes into deconstruct mode on the whole idea.
Key goal:
…hoping for more movies that are “scrappy, swaggering, gun-slinging, and with a zeal for liberty,” and insulting to China. President Donald Trump won’t allow the president of Taiwan to stopover in New York City on his way to South America, but another Rambo movie with Chinese villains is what America needs?Key alternative (as in – how about?):
How about we hope for more movies that are just good films? If the movies criticize America, fine. We’re a big country. We can take it. It’s that freedom to criticize our government that makes our country great. - North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz warns that, after Trump has left and MAGA goes under the rock from whence it came, America will still never again be what it has been.
But he promises We can still be beautiful.
Key vision:
This will be true here, as well.
America will not always be where it is today.
It will not be in such cruel and violent hands. - Our own Missouri Senator Josh Hawley explains that, if a majority of voters turn away from conservative Evangelicals like himself, he and others would be justified in overthrowing democracy by force.
Michael J Scott points out what should be obvious. Such violence is dangerous, against our founders, against our traditions, against our laws.
Key advocacy (Hawley, July 9, 2025):
If authorities break the terms of God’s delegation of governance and assault the people’s freedoms, then the people have a right to defend themselves, even to rebel.Key objection:
This is the dangerous language of religious fanaticism, the kind that justifies rebellion, violence, and the dismantling of democracy in the name of God. Hawley and his allies are not merely appealing to voters of faith; they are promoting a dangerous ideology that seeks to replace the U.S. Constitution with their interpretation of biblical law. It is a movement intent on turning America into a theocracy, with policies dictated by a narrow and extremist version of Christianity. - The Propaganda Professor has a winner for his weekly Bubblegum Crucifix Award, as Braeden Sorbo, in garbled non-standard English seems to say that voting should be allowed only for married Christian men.
An alternate translation is that the votes of married Christian men should count more than other votes.
OR, the most bizarre, that 16 year olds should be allowed to vote, but only if they are married Christian men.
- Perhaps it’s some sort of self-targeting. I usually enjoy a tightly reasoned attack on my beliefs.
Infidel753 makes the case that you can’t trust memes expressing unverified views, even clever memes created with wit and style.
He offers examples. He begins with his own counterattack on an attack on diversity in films. He goes on to attack creationism, religion in general, JFK, and kindness toward abusers.
- Nojo remembers the great Tom Lehrer, with references in comments to two of many great satiric songs.
- Marc Abrahams takes a break from The Journal of Improbable Research to bring us a few brilliant examples of the late Tom Lehrer.
- In Happiness Between Tails da-AL, with a few delightful photos from Norway, comes back to her frustrations in marketing her works of fiction, encouraged by an insightful video from Lisa Oliver, a fellow novelist on, step-by-step, how to market fiction.
da-AL’s guest blogger this week is Aithal, whose story of overcoming provides additional inspiration.
It’s a lot packed into a brief post worth a click.
- In Nan’s Notebook, she continues her recovery from a serious shoulder injury after a hard fall.
I can say with confidence that encouragement can help, so how about a click and a few words?
I offered my own comment based on parallel experience.
Here’s hoping for her complete recovery.
- From The Moderate Voice, David Robertson has a fun time playing around with, then revealing and reporting, a scammer operating on social media.
- @whiskeywhistle98 devotes summer to her family:
- Clickbait satirist Reductress posts a helpful questionnaire to determine whether you are a hypochondriac or Oh God, is it the one time it’s for real?
For political and social insight, we climb the mountain to our Cyber‑Wisdom sources:
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