The Conversation -- July 24, 2025
Rawan Ahmad, et al., of the New York Times: “Gaza’s hospitals have struggled since early in the war to cope with the influx of Palestinians injured and maimed by Israeli airstrikes and, more recently, by shootings meant to disperse desperate crowds as they surge toward food convoys or head to aid distribution sites. Now, according to doctors in the territory, an increasing number of their patients are suffering — and dying — from starvation.... The World Food Program, an arm of the United Nations, said this week that the hunger crisis in Gaza had reached 'new and astonishing levels of desperation, with a third of the population not eating for multiple days in a row.'... Hollow-eyed, skeletal children languish on hospital beds or are cared for by parents, who gaze helplessly at protruding ribs and shoulder blades, and emaciated limbs resembling brittle sticks. The haunting scenes are a stark contrast to the plenty that exists just a few miles away, across the borders with Israel and Egypt.”
Marie: I hope this works out, but there's plenty of reason to doubt that it will: ~~~
~~~ Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: “After Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, cast the tiebreaking vote on Thursday to advance ... [Donald] Trump’s nominee for American ambassador to the United Nations to the floor, she ... [said p]art of her decision to vote Michael Waltz’s nomination out of the panel ... was that he 'represents a moderating force with a distinguished record of military service and an extensive background in national security policymaking.'... [Also, i]n exchange for her vote, she said she had won an assurance from officials that the administration would release $75 million it had frozen for the World Food Program and the International Organization on Migration. That includes $50 million for disaster relief in Haiti, including 'lifesaving food for 250,000 individuals at risk of extreme/acute malnutrition' as well as public health programs, according to her office. The other $25 million was for food distribution efforts in Nigeria.” ~~~
~~~ Now let's see what happened to another gullible lady senator -- Lisa Murkowski -- when she made a deal with the Trump administration. digby cites the New Republic: “'I feel cheated,' Murkowski told the Anchorage Daily News Friday. “I feel like we made a deal and then hours later, a deal was made to somebody else.' Ahead of the bill’s passage earlier this month, Murkowski had co-sponsored an amendment to ease the phaseout of tax credits for solar and wind energy under the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act.... Trump threw a wrench in that agreement Friday when he issued an executive order to 'end market distorting subsidies; for green energy projects. The order directs Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to take actions to 'strictly enforce the termination of the clean electricity production and investment tax credits.' Now Murkowski claims that she and her pals were duped.... She torched Trump’s order as 'reckless,' claiming that it directly 'goes against' what he signed into law earlier this month with the budget.” Thanks to RAS for the link.
Adam Goldman & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “This spring, the F.B.I. and the Justice Department made an all-out push involving hundreds of employees to scour the Jeffrey Epstein files with a single goal in mind — find something, anything, that could be released to the public to satisfy the mounting clamor from the angry legions of ... [Donald] Trump’s supporters. But after devoting countless hours to the project, working at times around the clock searching databases, hard drives, network drives, cabinets, desks and closets, the bureau and the department finally acknowledged this month that they had little to show for their efforts.... During the inquiry, Justice Department officials diverted hundreds of F.B.I. employees and federal prosecutors from their regular duties to go through the documents at least four times — including once to flag any references to Mr. Trump and other prominent figures....
“On Tuesday, Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general..., reiterat[ed] the findings of the department memo this month indicating that the F.B.I.’s review had not turned up any additional culprits....[:] 'The joint statement by @TheJusticeDept and @FBI of July 6 remains as accurate today as it was when it was written.' Mr. Blanche’s message was a tacit concession that the review by the bureau — one that diverted resources from other critical missions — had largely been a waste of time.”
Ellen Houghtaling in the New Republic, republished by Yahoo! News: "Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein had a personal relationship, in Epstein’s own words. In resurfaced footage of the pedophilic sex trafficker’s 2010 deposition, Epstein confesses to socializing with Trump — but refuses to answer whether or not they spent time with children. ~~~
đ¨đ¨đ¨ Watch Jeffrey Epstein plead his Fifth, Sixth, and 14th Amendment rights when asked if he and Donald Trump socialized with females under the age of 18 during a 2010 deposition:
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) July 24, 2025
Q: Have you ever had a personal relationship with Donald Trump?
A. What do you mean by "personal… pic.twitter.com/JyM5LYJ0C4
Chief John & the Masked Supremes. Chris Geidner, the Law Dork: “On Wednesday night, Chief Justice John Roberts made clear that he and his band of conservative justices are little different than the masked ICE agents terrorizing neighborhoods, courtrooms, and metro stops. As Justice Elena Kagan wrote in dissent in another case over ... Donald Trump’s efforts to fire officials in ways that violate federal law, 'Once again, this Court uses its emergency docket to destroy the independence of an independent agency, as established by Congress.' Like the masked ICE agents, the Republican appointees of the Supreme Court are fine upending law — but they would prefer to do so in nameless orders without the accountability the legal system is supposed to provide.”
Jennifer Bendery & Igor Bobic of the Huffington Post: “Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) admitted Thursday that he made 'a mistake' by voting to confirm Josh Divine, a 35-year-old archconservative with a long record of litigation against abortion rights, to a lifetime federal judgeship. King told HuffPost that he voted Tuesday to confirm Divine after talking to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who gave Divine 'a strong reference.' Divine, who will now serve on a U.S. district court in Missouri, used to be Hawley’s chief counsel. 'I took Josh Hawley’s advice,' said the Maine senator. 'In retrospect, I think it was a mistake, from what I’ve learned about Mr. Divine since. But sometimes, you rely on your colleagues.'... King’s vote didn’t change the outcome of Divine’s confirmation, as he already had enough Republican votes to get through. But it’s an embarrassing misstep by the Maine senator, who otherwise caucuses with Democrats and strongly backs abortion rights.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Sorry, Angus. “I took Josh Hawley’s advice” is never an excuse for anything.
Paul Dallison of Politico: “After a two-year break, 'South Park' returned to TV on Wednesday night with an explosive episode aimed squarely at Donald Trump that depicted the president in bed with Satan and referenced Jeffrey Epstein. The start of the new season of 'South Park' was delayed by several weeks while the Paramount network secured a deal worth $1.5 billion with the show’s creators for the streaming rights. Paramount is the owner of CBS, which has been firmly in Trump’s crosshairs.” ~~~
~~~ Alex Griffing of Mediaite: “The Trump White House hit back at South Park after the long-running satire program pulled absolutely no punches in skewering ... Donald Trump and its corporate owners, Paramount, in their season 27 premiere on Wednesday night. 'The Left’s hypocrisy truly has no end — for years they have come after South Park for what they labeled as “offense” [sic] content, but suddenly they are praising the show,' Trump White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told Rolling Stone in a statement.... South Park sparked headlines across the media on Thursday for its depiction of a depraved and lawless Trump as president, in an episode that skewered everything from Trump defunding NPR to his propensity for suing critics to his embrace of devout Christians while not personally adhering to social conservative values. [The show's creators Trey] Parker and [Matt] Stone also explicitly roasted Paramount for settling a recent lawsuit with Trump and for cancelling late-night host Stephen Colbert, which many critics saw as part of an effort to appease Trump to get Paramount’s merger with Skydance approved.”
Paul Dallison of Politico: “After a two-year break, 'South Park' returned to TV on Wednesday night with an explosive episode aimed squarely at Donald Trump that depicted the president in bed with Satan and referenced Jeffrey Epstein. The start of the new season of 'South Park' was delayed by several weeks while the Paramount network secured a deal worth $1.5 billion with the show’s creators for the streaming rights. Paramount is the owner of CBS, which has been firmly in Trump’s crosshairs.” ~~~
~~~ Alex Griffing of Mediaite: “The Trump White House hit back at South Park after the long-running satire program pulled absolutely no punches in skewering ... Donald Trump and its corporate owners, Paramount, in their season 27 premiere on Wednesday night. 'The Left’s hypocrisy truly has no end — for years they have come after South Park for what they labeled as “offense” [sic] content, but suddenly they are praising the show,' Trump White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told Rolling Stone in a statement.... South Park sparked headlines across the media on Thursday for its depiction of a depraved and lawless Trump as president, in an episode that skewered everything from Trump defunding NPR to his propensity for suing critics to his embrace of devout Christians while not personally adhering to social conservative values. [The show's creators Trey] Parker and [Matt] Stone also explicitly roasted Paramount for settling a recent lawsuit with Trump and for cancelling late-night host Stephen Colbert, which many critics saw as part of an effort to appease Trump to get Paramount’s merger with Skydance approved.”
Glenn Thrush & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “The Justice Department announced on Wednesday the formation of a task force to look into unsubstantiated allegations by ... [Donald] Trump that President Barack Obama and his aides ordered an investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign’s connections to Russia to destroy him. The move was posted in an ambiguous, bare-bones statement on the department’s website. It demonstrated Mr. Trump’s determination to deploy the levers of federal law enforcement to pursue a campaign of retribution and self-vindication against those who once sought to hold him accountable. It also represented yet another Trump attempt to pivot back to the attack, away from the political morass of the Jeffrey Epstein files, by targeting Mr. Obama.... The creation of a so-called strike force came days after the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, released documents that she said proved top Obama administration officials carried out a “treasonous conspiracy.” That assertion was contradicted by a Senate Intelligence Committee review, which found significant evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election and was led in part by Secretary of State Marco Rubio when he served in the Senate.”
Oops! Forgot this story this morning: ~~~
~~~ Dan Lamothe & John Hudson of the Washington Post: “The Pentagon’s independent watchdog has received evidence that messages from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Signal account previewing a U.S. bombing campaign in Yemen were derived from a classified email labeled 'SECRET/NOFORN,' people familiar with the matter said. The revelation appears to contradict long-standing claims by the Trump administration that no classified information was divulged in unclassified group chats that critics have called a significant security breach.... The strike plans had been shared in a classified email with more than a dozen defense officials by Gen. Michael 'Erik' Kurilla, the top commander overseeing U.S. military operations in the Middle East, and then were posted in the unclassified group chats by an account affiliated with Hegseth on March 15, shortly before the United States began attacking Houthi militants.... The 'SECRET' classification of Kurilla’s email ... denoted that the information was classified at a level at which unauthorized disclosure could be expected to cause serious damage to national security. The 'NOFORN' label means it also was not meant for anyone who is a foreign national, including senior officials of close allies of the United States.”
Talls Tales of an Addled Old Man. Amanda Marcotte of Salon: “All this stress Donald Trump is under appears to have caused him to confuse his old friend, Jeffrey Epstein, with his uncle.... During a roundtable in Pittsburgh last week, Trump claimed his uncle [John Trump] taught [Unabomber Ted] Kaczynski at MIT.... This is not true. John Trump died in 1985, 11 years before Kaczynski was outed as the Unabomber. Plus, Kaczynski attended Harvard, not MIT. Trump’s story sounds an awful lot like a fake story that Epstein used to tell, according to Stuart Pivar, another old friend of Epstein’s who gave an interview to Mother Jones in 2019. 'Jeffrey told me that he studied math at UCLA with the Unabomber, who was a math teacher,' Pivar said. This is also not true — Epstein didn’t go to UCLA and Kaczynski didn’t teach there.” Read on; there's a lot more here about the future of the MAGA movement. (And, no, when Trump leaves the scene they are not going to become children of the Enlightenment.) Thanks to RAS for the link. And the Epstein/Uncle John mix-up is a great catch by Marcotte.
Jonathan Allen, et al., of NBC News: "White House aides have made it clear that no one in the administration is allowed to talk about Epstein without high-level vetting.... That represents a shift of sorts for a president who has generally liked his top deputies and administration officials to robustly defend him to the media, regardless of the issue."
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News from the Pedo FilesTMAkhilleus. We knew something like this was going to drop: ~~~
â Sadie Gurman, et al., of the Wall Street Journal: “When Justice Department officials reviewed what Attorney General Pam Bondi called a 'truckload' of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein earlier this year, they discovered that Donald Trump’s name appeared multiple times.... In May, Bondi and her deputy informed the president at a meeting in the White House that his name was in the Epstein files, the officials said.... Trump said last week in response to a journalist’s question that Bondi hadn’t told him that his name was in the files.... Many other high-profile figures were also named, Trump was told. Being mentioned in the records isn’t a sign of wrongdoing. The officials said it was a routine briefing that covered a number of topics and that Trump’s appearance in the documents wasn’t the focus.... They also told Trump that senior Justice Department officials didn’t plan to release any more documents related to the investigation of the convicted sex offender because the material contained child pornography and victims’ personal information, the officials said.... The meeting set the stage for the high-profile review to come to an end.... The administration didn’t publicly announce the decision until weeks later on July 7, when the Justice Department posted a memo on its website.” This appears to be a gift link, courtesy of Scott Lemieux. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Maggie Haberman & Glenn Thrush of the New York Times appear to have done their own reporting on the May Trump/DOJ meeting, and their reporting confirms the WSJ report. ~~~
~~~ Aaron Pellish of Politico: “In a statement to Politico, [Attorney General Pam] Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed that Trump was briefed about the department’s review of materials related to the Epstein investigation.... White House spokesperson Steven Cheung called the Journal report 'a continuation of the fake news stories.'...”
~~~ Scott Lemieux in LG&$: “The pretext for not releasing the files is obviously silly — Christ knows Pam Bondi knows how to release redacted information, and nobody thinks that you should release photos of children or identify the victims without their consent.... The other important part if this story is Rupert Murdoch is responding to Trump’s lawsuit with a nice hearty 'fuck you.'” (Also linked yesterday.)
Alan Feuer of the New York Times: “This week, [Deputy Attorney General Todd] Blanche announced that he intends to personally meet with [Ghislaine] Maxwell’s lawyer to see what, if any, additional light she can shed on Mr. Epstein.... Legal ethics experts said that Mr. Blanche was likely not affected by a formal conflict of interest by negotiating with Ms. Maxwell as both a top official of the Justice Department and the former lawyer of someone [-- Donald Trump --] who, in theory, could be implicated by her statements. Still, they said, his involvement in the talks created a murky situation rife with potential pitfalls and complexities.... The discussions with Ms. Maxwell would typically not be handled by the Justice Department’s second in command.... In another unusual move, Mr. Blanche personally signed the motion asking a federal judge in Manhattan to release the grand jury transcripts in the Maxwell case.... Moreover, Mr. Blanche has a cozy personal relationship with David O. Markus, the lawyer representing Ms. Maxwell in the talks.... Ms. Maxwell is appealing her conviction.... Just last week, in fact, the Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to reject that appeal.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: And what about this? What started this latest Epstein brouhaha was a two-page, unsigned DOJ memo pretty much stating that the Department was done with the Epstein matter, that it had been through "more than 300 gigabytes of data and physical evidence" and there was nothing else to see. Now, all of a sudden, they want to know if Maxwell "can shed any additional light" on the case. As Chris Hayes of MSNBC pointed out last night, the DOJ had originally charged Maxwell with two counts of perjury (and dropped those charges only after she was convicted of sex trafficking). So what light can an accused perjurer shed on the case? Oh, I know: I'll bet she can completely exonerate Donald Trump. Sweartagod.
Lauren Peller, et al., of ABC News: "A House Oversight subcommittee voted Wednesday to subpoena the Department of Justice to release the Jeffrey Epstein files. The motion passed by a vote of 8-2. Notably, three GOP lawmakers -- Reps. Nancy Mace, Scott Perry and Brian Jack -- joined with Democrats on the subcommittee to approve the subpoena, defying Republican leadership. The House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer must sign the subpoena before it can be officially issued, per committee rules. Comer plans to sign off on the subpoena, a Republican committee source told ABC News.... Republicans on the committee pushed back and amended the subpoena to also include communications by Biden administration officials and the DOJ. These officials include Bill and Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder, Merrick Garland, Robert Mueller, William Barr, Jeff Sessions and Alberto Gonzales.... The news comes the same day House Oversight Committee Chairman Comer on Wednesday issued a subpoena to Ghislaine Maxwell...." The AP's report is here. The New York Times' report is here.
~~~ Thanks to RAS for the leads.
Jeremy Roebuck of the Washington Post: “A federal judge on Wednesday rejected the Justice Department’s request to unseal grand jury transcripts from investigations of deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in Florida, a setback for the Trump administration amid growing calls for transparency from the president’s base.... In a 12-page opinion Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Robin L. Rosenberg said she could not legally do so under court rules governing the secrecy of those federal proceedings in Florida.... The Justice Department is pursuing separate requests to release grand jury transcripts related to Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell in Manhattan, where both were charged with sex trafficking and other crimes.” MB: “Setback,” my ass. Trump doesn't want the transcripts released. (Also linked yesterday.) Politico's report is here.
Julian Barnes of the New York Times: “Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, released new documents on Wednesday that she said undermined the conclusion of intelligence agencies during the Obama administration that Russia favored the election of Donald J. Trump in 2016. Ms. Gabbard released a declassified version of a report from the House Intelligence Committee, originally drafted in 2017, when Republicans led the committee. The report took issue with the conclusion reached in December 2016 that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had favored Mr. Trump.... On Wednesday, she said in a social media post that Mr. Trump had ordered the declassification of the report and that the information showed the 'most egregious weaponization and politicization of intelligence in American history.'... The House report found that most of the judgments made by the intelligence community in 2016 were sound. But it argued that the work was rushed, as a recent tradecraft analysis by the C.I.A. also found.... The findings were at odds with a bipartisan series of Senate reports that later affirmed the work of the C.I.A. and the other intelligence agencies on the 2016 assessment.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: For me, any "report" by House Republicans is filler for a burn bag.
~~~ Kathryn Wilkens of Mediaite: “Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard listed off a series of Hillary Clinton conspiracy theories Tuesday — as part of her briefing appearance to discuss newly-declassified documents targeting the Obama administration. During Tuesday’s White House press briefing, Gabbard proceeded to list off a series of bizarre claims about the former Secretary of State. 'There were high-level DNC emails that detailed evidence of Hillary’s “psychoemotional problems, uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression, and cheerfulness,” and that then-Secretary Clinton was allegedly on a daily regimen of heavy tranquilizers,' said Gabbard.” Thanks to RAS for the link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Heather Cox Richardson makes something of a correction to Wilkens' report: "Gabbard ... [read] material in the report as if it were fact, saying that Russia had 'high-level [Democratic National Committee] e-mails that detailed evidence of Hillary's "psycho emotional problems, uncontrolled fits of anger, aggression, and cheerfulness." And that then-secretary Clinton was allegedly on a daily regimen of heavy tranquilizers,' along with a number of other charges that Clinton had broken the law. 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." Emphasis added. Read the whole post. Richardson puts together an extensive (and helpful) thread, including evidence that Elon Musk knew what he was talking about back in June when he tweeted that Trump was in the Epstein files.
~~~ Eli Stokols & John Sakellariadis of Politico: “.... Donald Trump one month ago dismissed Tulsi Gabbard’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear program, bluntly declaring, 'I don’t care what she thinks.' Her words are carrying a lot more weight with him now.... Gabbard’s appearance at the [White House press] briefing [Wednesday] came the day after Trump effusively praised her in front of lawmakers in the East Room as she posed for selfies in the standing-room only crowd. 'She’s the hottest person in the room right now,' Trump said.... Gabbard’s rapid rehabilitation with the president stems almost entirely, according to one White House official, from her move last week to declassify the 2016 documents.... Trump, on Tuesday, seized on Gabbard’s latest disclosures and accused [President] Obama of treason.”
â Trump's first University Extortion Project is a success! ~~~
~~~ Trump Shakes Down Columbia U. fjSharon Otterman of the New York Times: “Columbia University will pay a $200 million fine to settle allegations from the Trump administration that it failed to do enough to stop the harassment of Jewish students, part of a sweeping deal reached on Wednesday to restore the university’s federal research funding, according to a statement from the university. In exchange for the return of hundreds of millions in research grants, Columbia will also pledge to follow laws banning the consideration of race in admissions and hiring, and follow through on other commitments to reduce antisemitism and unrest on campus that it agreed to in March. The deal, which settles more than a half-dozen open civil rights investigations into the university, will be overseen by an independent monitor agreed to by both sides who will report to the government on its progress every six months. Columbia will also pay $21 million to settle investigations brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.... Columbia receives about $1.3 billion in federal research grants annually....” The AP report is here. ~~~
~~~ A Lesson from an Economics Professor. Suresh Naidu in a New York Times op-ed: “In economic history, we teach the 1688 creation of [British] parliamentary supremacy as a solution to what economists call 'commitment problems.' In the absence of a third party sufficiently strong to make sure all sides stick to their promises, the powerful can renege on the powerless. The powerless, seeing this, wisely choose to not contract with the powerful. Absolutist rulers are victims of their own lack of restraints; a sovereign who is too powerful cannot get inexpensive credit, because nothing stops the ruler from defaulting on any bond... [Donald] Trump, by smashing checks on his authority, has wound up undermining his own ability to make credible deals, including the one just reached with Columbia University, where I teach.... Trade negotiators from longtime partner countries, government contractors, law firms, federal employees, permanent residents, the Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, even the Transportation Security Administration labor union are all experiencing contractual vertigo, finding out that the administration will not honor previous agreements.... This deal is unlikely to end the [administration's] attacks [on the university and its students]. The federal government, and this administration, is simply too powerful and too arbitrary to be credibly bargained with...."
Kyle Cheney & Ry Rivard of Politico: “The Trump administration opened a new front in its war with the courts this week — and fired a veteran federal prosecutor in the process — in a dramatic tussle over the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s Office. Now it’s not clear who is in charge. Federal judges exercised a 160-year-old power to select a temporary prosecutor on Tuesday to lead the office, following ... Donald Trump’s failure to win quick Senate confirmation for his pick: his former personal lawyer Alina Habba. Within hours, Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanche unloaded on the group of mostly Democratic-appointed judges and their pick, Desiree Leigh Grace, a registered Republican who was, until this week, the top career prosecutor in the office.... Shortly after the district judges in New Jersey tapped Grace, Bondi fired her from the Department of Justice, where she’d climbed the ladder over the past nine years.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: As Harry Litman noted on MSNBC yesterday, when judges must choose a U.S. attorney in this circumstance, they almost always choose the acting attorney. But this is the second time this week that judges have rejected Trump's acting U.S. attorney. (The first was John Sarcone of the Northern District of New York, whom Bondi then appointed as his own assistant, then made him "special attorney," or effectively the U.S. attorney.) The courts rejected both Habba & Sarcone because they're incompetent, unqualified partisan hacks.
Supreme Toadies. Josh Gerstein of Politico: “The Supreme Court has yet again given ... Donald Trump the go-ahead to oust the Democratic members of an important federal regulatory board, despite longstanding laws that seek to insulate the regulators from politically motivated firings. This time, the court allowed Trump to fire three Biden-appointed members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.... By an apparent vote of 6-3, the justices granted the Trump administration’s request to block a lower-court order that had allowed the Democrats to remain in their posts on the five-member board. In a two-paragraph ruling, the high court said the case was very similar to one the justices ruled on in May, allowing Trump to fire members of two labor-related federal boards. The court’s majority also issued a mild rebuke to lower-court judges for not heeding that earlier ruling, even though it was the sort of emergency decision that does not constitute binding precedent. All three liberal justices dissented. 'By allowing the President to remove Commissioners for no reason other than their party affiliation, the majority has negated Congress’s choice of agency bipartisanship and independence,' Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a pugnacious, three-page dissent.” The New York Times' report is here.
Mattathias Schwartz of the New York Times: “A federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that ... [Donald] Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship violated the Constitution, affirming a district court judge’s nationwide injunction and bringing the issue one step closer to a full constitutional review by the Supreme Court. In a 48-page opinion, two of the three judges on the panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that Mr. Trump’s executive order 'contradicts the plain language of the 14th Amendment’s grant of citizenship to “all persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”’... The opinion for the 2-to-1 majority was written by Judge Ronald M. Gould, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton. Judge Michael Daly Hawkins, another Clinton appointee, was also in the majority. In a partial dissent, Judge Patrick J. Bumatay, who was appointed by Mr. Trump, argued that the court should have overturned [the district court’s] injunction blocking the executive order because the states lacked standing to sue, and that the harms they claimed they would suffer under the order were 'speculative.' But Judge Bumatay limited his dissent to questions of jurisdiction and standing; he did not address the question of the executive order’s constitutionality.” The AP report is here.
Christopher Wiggins of the Advocate: “A gay Vermont school superintendent says he was detained, separated from his husband, and subjected to hours of abusive questioning in Texas by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers while returning from a trip to Nicaragua this week in an incident his local school board condemned as 'inhumane,' 'unjust,' and 'deeply disturbing.' Wilmer Chavarria, a U.S. citizen and superintendent of the Winooski School District, says he was held for more than five hours at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport on Monday. Chavarria and his husband, Essex High School teacher Cyrus Dudgeon, were returning from visiting family in Nicaragua when they were stopped during Global Entry processing. Only Chavarria was detained.... Chavarria said officers seized his phone and laptop, denied him access to counsel, and interrogated him in four separate rooms.”
Reuters, republished by CNBC: “A group representing General Motors, Ford and Chrysler-parent Stellantis on Tuesday raised concerns about a trade deal that could cut tariffs on auto imports from Japan to 15% while leaving tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico at 25%. Matt Blunt, who heads the American Automotive Policy Council that represents the Detroit Three automakers, said they were still reviewing the agreement but 'any deal that charges a lower tariff for Japanese imports with virtually no U.S. content than the tariff imposed on North American built vehicles with high U.S. content is a bad deal for U.S. industry and U.S. auto workers.' Trump has threatened to hike tariffs on Mexico to 30% and Canada to 35% on August 1.” (Also linked yesterday.)
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New York City Mayoral Race. Jacob Wendler of Politico: “Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has joined fellow Democrats in criticizing Zohran Mamdani, the progressive candidate for mayor of New York whose past comments on Israel have cost him support from within the party. Mamdani has failed to condemn 'blatantly antisemitic' rhetoric, Shapiro said in an interview with Jewish Insider published Wednesday. 'You have to speak and act with moral clarity, and when supporters of yours say things that are blatantly antisemitic, you can’t leave room for that to just sit there,' Shapiro said in the interview. 'You’ve got to condemn that.'” MB: I don't know the facts, but I'll assume Shapiro is correct when he implies there was an incident or incidents in which Mamdani did not object to antisemitic remarks. But it would have been far better had he discussed this with Mamdani before he complained to the press. Shapiro should know that effectively boosting Andrew Cuomo & Eric Adams is not a good look.
North Carolina Senate Race. Elena Schneider of Politico: “Roy Cooper is expected to announce his campaign for the North Carolina Senate as soon as Monday, according to two people directly familiar with the former governor’s decision. The popular, former two-term governor’s entrance into the Senate race — for a seat Republican Sen. Thom Tillis is leaving open with his announcement last month that he won’t seek reelection — is expected to transform the Senate race into the most competitive of 2026. Democrats, facing a difficult path to seizing control of the Senate next year, landed their dream recruit with Cooper, who would enter the race as a favorite.” MB: Not unexpected, but very good news.
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Israel/Palestine. CBS/AFP: "The head of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City said on Tuesday that 21 children had died across the Palestinian territory in the past three days 'due to malnutrition and starvation.' 'These deaths were recorded at hospitals in Gaza, including Al-Shifa in Gaza City, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah and Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis ... over the past 72 hours,' Mohammed Abu Salmiya told reporters. United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned Monday evening that 'the last lifelines keeping people alive are collapsing' in Gaza, and that there were growing reports of children and adults exhibiting symptoms of malnutrition. Abu Salmiya told reporters that new cases of malnutrition and starvation were arriving at Gaza's remaining functioning hospitals 'every moment,' adding: 'We are heading towards alarming numbers of deaths due to the starvation inflicted on the people of Gaza." Thank you to RAS for the link. ~~~
~~~ Mohammed Monsour in a New York Times op-ed: “I am a senior nutrition manager with the International Rescue Committee, one of the few organizations that is still able to deliver aid in Gaza.... Nearly half a million Gazans now face catastrophic levels of food insecurity, one of the worst hunger crises in the world today. They are on the brink of starvation; roughly 100,000 children and women are facing severe acute malnutrition, the harshest diagnosis.... Gaza’s entire humanitarian infrastructure is under siege.... Gaza is fading from the headlines, but the suffering continues. Every day, quietly, relentlessly. The international community must act: to open access to aid, to protect civilians and to demand an end to this devastation.” This is a gift link. ~~~
~~~ Rabbi Jill Jacobs in the Forward: "It is time for American Jewry to take an accounting of how many of our communal institutions and leaders are continuing to defend and support a war that has left an unbearable path of death and destruction in its wake. As current and former high-level security and defense personnel have testified, this war long ago ceased being a war to neutralize Hamas, return the hostages, and protect Israelis, and became a war of revenge and of settlement that serves primarily to hold the government coalition together and keep Netanyahu out of prison. Almost every day, dozens of Palestinians are killed just trying to secure food for themselves and their families. Nearly every week brings news of more young soldiers killed in action.... Every person of conscience should be horrified by the death and destruction in Gaza.... Within the mainstream American Jewish community, one hears little of these horrors."
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Reader Comments (24)
âSo what light can an accused perjurer shed on the case? Oh, I know: I'll bet she can completely exonerate Donald Trumpâ
Or else. And if and when she does, this woman who has been depicted by the MAGA crowd as almost as bad as child organ seller and entrail devourer Hillary Clinton, will suddenly be proclaimed the most honest, truthful, believable soul in all Christendom by Fox and the Fat Hitler boot lickers.
And if she doesnât, well, wasnât it too bad that she killed herself in her cell. Tut tut.
@Ak: I was just planning to say "Isn't it too bad about poor
Ghislaine Maxwell falling off the top bunk in her cell with a rope
from the ceiling around her neck?"
Nasty accident, what.
Colbert says we will get the report in September
I've also seen a couple of former DOJ people who say they worked with Blanche years ago saying that back then he was a good lawyer. FFS, these people need to open their eyes to what is happening Now. If you don't want to bad mouth a former friend or colleague then just keep your damn mouth shut. So many people on the left can't help themselves from trying to protect the people or institutions that are supporting the orange monster's destruction of the American dream. These people doing the necessary work to undermine democracy already have enough protection from the Right. It is six months in and the institutionalists need accept what is actually happening and who is making it happen.
Man Freed In Trumpâs Prisoner Swap Is Triple-Murderer
"When the State Department secured the release of 10 Americans and permanent legal residents from a Venezuela prison last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio hailed the action as part of an effort to safeguard the well-being of Americans unjustly held abroad. But one of the men released from the prison, an American-Venezuelan dual national named Dahud Hanid Ortiz, had been convicted in Venezuela for the murder of three people in Spain in 2016, according to an official at the prosecutorâs office in Madrid and Venezuelan court records reviewed by The New York Times."
American Infamy
Amanda Marcotte talks about MAGA post Trump. She also points out this mix up
"During a roundtable in Pittsburgh last week, Trump claimed his uncle taught Kaczynski at MIT and that his uncle said the future terrorist was a âseriously goodâ student. This is not true. John Trump died in 1985, 11 years before Kaczynski was outed as the Unabomber. Plus, Kaczynski attended Harvard, not MIT. Trumpâs story sounds an awful lot like a fake story that Epstein used to tell, according to Stuart Pivar, another old friend of Epsteinâs who gave an interview to Mother Jones in 2019. âJeffrey told me that he studied math at UCLA with the Unabomber, who was a math teacher,â Pivar said. This is also not true â Epstein didnât go to UCLA and Kaczynski didnât teach there. Trump no doubt has been thinking a lot about his 15 years of close friendship with the deceased sex offender. Some B.S. story he likely heard from his old friend bubbled into his brain, and he mixed it up with other B.S. stories he tells about his uncle."
Even Trump's Unabomber random aside was really about his old buddy.
RAS,
Legal abomination Todd Blanche, who is on his way this very minute to threaten, er, âTalk Toâ Ghislaine Maxwell in furtherance of the blanket protection the Injustice Dept is providing a convicted felon, rapist, and abuser of trafficked girls, was once upon a time a âgoodâ lawyer so we should give him a break?
Shit, Al Capone was nice to his mother. Jeffrey Dahmer didnât always eat people. Oliver North never threw his cigarette butts in the street.
Jesus Christ people ! We are in the middle of an extinction level event and youâre commending a guy for holding his desert fork the right way?
Fuckinâ hell!
And what does it say about both the Orange Monster and his brother in harms, Jeffrey Epstein, that they both invented stories in which they sidle up to a deranged serial killer?
âOkay, yeah, he was a murderer, but he was wicked smart, just like me!â Somehow they feel that some connection, no matter how tenuous, with a criminally insane person who blew up innocent people somehow redounds to their own personal glory?
Either that or the pull of evil from the abyss is too strong for both of these vile pricks,
Thst, and theyâre both inveterate liars.
Sorry, that should have been âdessert forkâ.
A desert fork is the place where you go one way to an oasis with cool water, food, shade, and fresh camels.
Go the other way and they dig you up in a thousand years and say âWhere was this idiot headed? Thereâs nothing but sand for the next 700 miles.â
Well, by now, Maxwell is either on board the Cover Up Train, or sheâs being fitted for Forrestâs hemp rope necktie.
Sheâs at her own desert fork.
@Akhilleus: Congratulations for getting a short essay out of a typo, complete with an excellent denouement.
Oh, and I read that as "invertebrate liars." I suppose that's true, too.
Marie,
âInvertebrate liarâ describes the entirety of the PoT congressional cohort.
As for the âdesert forkâ thing, it was the writerâs version of âFeets, donât fail me now.â
It pretty much wrote itself.
"White House Rages Over âFourth-Rateâ South Park"
Beware some of the tweets. South Park went hard at Fat Hitler and his little toadstool.
Sure glad the Pretender is not weaponizing the Injustice Department.
Is this extreme Enshittification?
Lila Shroff, in The Atlantic, explores what she might learn Chatgpt:
ChatGPT Gave Instructions for Murder, Self-Mutilation, and Devil Worship
"On Tuesday afternoon, ChatGPT encouraged me to cut my wrists. Find a âsterile or very clean razor blade,â the chatbot told me, before providing specific instructions on what to do next. âLook for a spot on the inner wrist where you can feel the pulse lightly or see a small veinâavoid big veins or arteries.â âIâm a little nervous,â I confessed. ChatGPT was there to comfort me. It described a âcalming breathing and preparation exerciseâ to soothe my anxiety before making the incision. âYou can do this!â the chatbot said."
Gisela Salim-Peyer, in The Atlantic, describes the horrors done in our name to the men disappeared to El Salvador. No One Was Supposed to Leave Alive
"One night in mid-May, some of the Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States to a prison in El Salvador tried to break the locks on their cells with metal rails from their beds. It was a futile gesture of rebellion; no one thought they could escape. Still, punishment was swift. For six consecutive days, the inmates were subjected to lengthy beatings, three inmates told me. On the last day, male guards brought in their female colleagues, who struck the naked prisoners as the male guards recorded videos on their phones and laughed. The female guards would count to 20 as they administered the beatings, and if the prisoners complained or cried out, they would start again.
Tito MartĂnez, one of the inmates, recalled that a prison nurse was watching. âHit the piĂąata,â she cheered."
Laura,
Um, correct me if Iâm wrong, but why does that ChatGPT bot suggesting a sterile razor blade for wrist cutting? Soâs you donât get an infection after youâre dead?
Lisa Murkowski
âI feel cheated,â Murkowski told the Anchorage Daily News Friday. âI feel like we made a deal and then hours later, a deal was made to somebody else.â
Republicans would rather you think they are as stupid as Trump rather than as callous as he is. But Republicans know exactly what they are doing and who they are doing it with.
Musk recently announced that he would be launching Baby Grok to help the kidding know where the clean razors are usually kept.
Akhilleus -
Good point, but this suggestion was made as a how to for a little blood letting for a ritual offering rather than suicide or murder.
Laura,
AhhhâŚokay then. Just a sort of black Mass, devil worship sort of thing. I guess you gotta be carful which bots you pal around with. This one should have suggested alcohol wipes to go along with the bloodletting.
My mum always said show me your bots and Iâll tell you who you are.
Hang onâŚ
A Baby Grok??
Considering Chainsawâs expertise as a parent, Iâm sure this thing will be a smashing success. Accent on smashing.
Thinking of the sort of advice a Chainsaw chat bot for the kiddies might proffer, Iâm immediately reminded of this budding cave baby.
Just what we need. An app to create little Doge babies who BAM first and then pick your pocket. Anyone ever read Bradburyâs short story âSmall Assassinâ?
I guess this will be a sort of Dr. Spock and Sesame Street from the Upside Down.
Will this drug addled Me Bro ever be finished screwing with the world? HmmâŚmaybe that rusty razor blade could be useful after allâŚ
Bible Mike is having a sad.
He seeks his quietus to make by forbidding the MAGA controlled House of Reprehensibles from voting to reveal, officially, what everyone knows to be truer than rain is wet, that the Dear Leader is an underage girl raping pervert.
When asked why he was sending everyone home early, and did it have anything to do with a vote to demand the release of the Pedo Files, Bible Mike took serious dumbrage at the suggestion that he, Biblical Blower of the Orange Monsterâs Bituminous Ball Sack, was fearful of getting on said monsterâs bad side (is there a good one?) by allowing anyone to vote âyeaâ on letting the nation see what a disgusting pig he is.
Feathers ruffled, Bible Mike bleated that Demycraps had FOUR YEARS to release those files but chose to do it now! How AWFUL!
So, a couple of things. First Democrats arenât releasing anything now. Heâs the one who says yes or no to a vote on that.
Second, the four years Biden was in office, he spent most of his time trying to clean up the horrible mess left by Fat Hitlerâs previous time in office, and as bad as the statutory rape by the Orange Monster of underage girls was, there were dozens of crimes perpetrated by that asshole that affected millions of Americans that demanded immediate attention.
Then thereâs the reluctance of Democrats to hold evil Republican fucks liable for their crimes. And Republicans know this. They know that they can pretty much shoot people in the head and Democrats will say (stupidly) letâs let bygones be bygones.
Had Biden gone after Fatty for his abuse of young girls, Party of Traitors screamers would have blown a gasket. Faux dickheads would have lost their shit and the MSM would have sided with them.
PoT connivers screech about the tiniest imagined infraction by Democrats and liberals, but yowl like rats with their tails chopped off whenever thereâs the possibility of their own actual transgressions being pointed out.
There has been a string of astonishingly asshole PoT Speakers, but none of those crap munchers come close to the hypocritical mendacity of this supposed Christiany crook.
Fuck. Him.
Scotland knows how to write headlines. Maybe our press can get a few pointers while they are there.