Week of Epstein Speaking Gravely from the Grave
Response gets dumb, Response gets dumber, What the hell!!

One tactic has been to get cuter than cute with sly shifting of attention from comprehensive files to limited testimony that has to be ruled private because it’s prohibited by Rule 6(e) of the judicial code.

Another has been to accuse former Democratic officials, including Obama, of high treason.

Key fumble:
Gabbard did not mention that these allegations were in fact identified in the report as material prepared by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Services.
 
Just to be clear: The director of national intelligence for the United States of America is making allegations against a former U.S. presidential candidate based on material from Russia’s intelligence services.

Key backfire:
This seems to be another unforced error, reminding Americans of another story the administration would prefer they forget, since opponents of Gabbard’s nomination for her post noted that she has a long history of repeating Russian propaganda.

The same analysis is now available in audio format, as Richardson narrates in podcast.

I happen to have a thought:

He turns to video journalist Stephen Findeisen to explain (and explain well) where the scandal now stands.

Key modesty:
Other lists like this exist but I wanted to give it my nerdy bulleted list spin.

News Corpse notices stuff. For example that Trump issues a series of posts, each more absurd than the last, in a transparent attempt to pay attention to anything (anything at all) except Epstein.
(Look, LOOK! Over THERE!!)

So he answers, he would NOT go as young as 12.

Well…
       …That’s reassuring!

Key intro:
Via Media Matters: MSNBC’s Chris Hayes highlights Fox News’ laughable attempt to distract from reports of Donald Trump’s involvement with Jeffrey Epstein.

Julian Sanchez, ponders the weird Trump theory:

And one more thing!

Okay, one more one more thing!

Now Trump’s Attorney General Bondi has ordered a Deputy AG to interview Epstein assistant Ghislane Maxwell, now serving infinity in federal prison for enticing young girls into Epstein captivity.

tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors smells a rat. Does anyone think she might want to reduce her endless sentence by saying whatever Trump is desperate for her to say?
(Now, let’s not always see the same hands!)

Michael J Scott has enough of an idea of how that interview went to project an imaginary, completely plausible, transcript.

Separately, Professor Scott draws on his substantial law enforcement experience to explain why Maxwell’s eventual testimony, and her life, may be limited.

Key simplicity (in headline form)
All A Pathetic Joke

Key advising of rights (by arresting agents)
You’ve got no rights.

Key sub-heading:
Chokeholds, stun guns and laughter

Key comment (during arrest)
You can smell that … $30,000 bonus.

Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit draws an obvious truth about one form of capitalism: bribery works.

So when Paramount decided to acquire minor competitor Skydance, Trump’s FTC could have done the public a solid by stating the obvious: that the merger violates antitrust laws.

But Paramount settled a bogus lawsuit by Trump against CBS, which they own, for a bunch of millions. Everyone old enough to like pizza knew Trump was gonna lose, so the settlement was a thinly disguised (wafer thin) bribe.

Enter late night host Stephen Colbert doing what he always does, speaking truth to power. He sandblasted the bribery.
Add to that the hatred Trump expresses toward Colbert.

Hackwhackers mourns the cancellation of Colbert and brings us this bit of Stephen cheer:

AND, before that, This:

By the by, Colbert is an entertainment powerhouse. He will perform in triumph in whatever new television home he chooses.

Key agree:
His remark on his “Eloquence Cam” speaks for tens of millions of us.

(And, hoe… … …boy!!)

Key Republican anger:
Rural Iowans aren’t buying what Jess Piper, a failed far-left Democrat candidate from Missouri, and the Iowa Democrat Party are selling. They will continue to reject their extreme liberal agenda time and time again.

Key motive:
Rural Republicans are scared of rural Democrats, and they don’t like folks like me poking my head into rural places to talk politics. They don’t want cheerleaders in red, rural towns and counties. They want rural progressives to feel alienated and disengaged. They want them to feel hopeless. Bleak.
 
I am chasing away the boogeyman at each stop.

Key Jesse response:
I may be a failed Missouri Democratic candidate, but I speak the truth and I am not scared of the fascist party trying to upend our country.
 
I don’t think they will win.
 
I see the truth in the heartland. I see the power in the people and the resolve to be better.

It seems several House Republicans objected to the cuts they were voting for.

Key home example of outrage (here in Missouri):
Josh Hawley, the Republican Senator from Missouri labelled the Medicaid cuts as morally wrong.

Then he voted for it.

@Silkgengar helpfully replays Hegseth’s original detailed angry denial overlapped with later admissions.

Seems his employer was horrified, Mr. Estelle lost his job as a result, and conservatives are outraged.

driftglass somehow manages to hold his grieving empathy in check.

Key point:
Silence doesn’t strengthen his voice. Why would others show courage if he’s floating above the muck?

Disaffected and it Feels So Good points out Van Orden’s well deserved reputation for departing from generally accepted norms when he drinks too much:

Key blunt truth:
Derrick Van Orden is a sloppy mean drunk. He’s one of those alcoholics that gets few drinks into his big belly and becomes angry, red-faced, and lashes out at everyone.

In this case, the good representative begins with a one word gleeful celebration of harm to any vulnerable folks he considers his lessers.

Then it gets worse.

Key spoiler (In Project 2025.):
…abortion pills pose the single greatest threat to unborn children in a post-Roe world” before calling for the next conservative administration’s Department of Justice to “announce its intent to enforce federal law against providers and distributors of such pills.

Key momentary delay:
The plan hasn’t materialized as quickly as I figured it would. I thought reviving Comstock was going to be one of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s first projects. Little did I know that kidnapping people off the streets and sending them to gulags in El Salvador or the alligator-infested swamps of Florida was going to become the Trump administration’s prime obsession.

Imani Gandy points to the July appointment of anti-abortion rights activist Josh Craddock to the Justice Department as a clue to renewed interest in restricting women.

Key headline:
If I Take A Bullet For My Child, How Will They Learn To Take Bullets Themselves?

Key verdict:
Ozzy wasn’t the greatest singer. He wasn’t the best frontman. But dammit he was entertaining as hell. But most of all he rocked for 76 years.

North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz urges us to be conscious of the important things that will not hit the headlines. Don’t miss your life.

Key answer:
I have had a few Evangelicals threaten to murder me. One man, an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) from Detroit — 2 hours from my home — threatened to slit my throat. Others have prayed imprecatory prayers, asking God to physically and permanently silence me. And then there are the threats made against my family, including my thirty-five-year-old daughter with Down syndrome.
 
I have received thousands of emails, comments, and social media messages from Evangelical Christians. The majority of them were argumentative, belligerent, and hostile.

Key counter example:
Today, I received a long email from a Mennonite man near Somerset, Ohio. This man was a teen back in the days when I pastored Somerset Baptist Church. I befriended some of the Mennonite men who lived nearby. I found the lot of them to be good people. This man’s email reflected that goodness. It was polite and informative, a reminder of the common connections we once had.

I have never read The Real War but, if these quotes are an indication, we would all be better served by scanning a few hundred greeting cards.

Key soporific examples:
Diplomacy often requires a delicate and intricate balancing of ambiguity and straight talk, the unpredictable and the very predictable.
…
When you talk to your adversaries you learn about them. When you talk to your friends you learn from them.

A somnolent collection of anodyne aphorisms.
(Oh come on! I looked it up, so can you!)

(Aw hell. A sleepy assortment of inoffensive and pointless truisms…
…Satisfied?)