Always more links of interest

 
DeSantis flubs his campaign launch in New Hampshire by scheduling an event opposite a major GOP women's event. 

The federal indictment against Trump for his part in Jan. 6 and trying to fraudulent overturn the election. 

I'll need to check back on this: a very strong El Nino is forming in the Pacific due to the high ocean temperatures. This has been a very strange weather year already and there may be more. 

Two articles on the GOP scorched earth plans for the federal government.  

Hezbollah might be getting advanced anti-aircraft missiles from Russia. 

Great Lincoln Project takedown of that quack RFK Jr. 

WaPo does a survey of AI (artificial intelligence) and finds that it is saturated in Western stereotypes. This isn't at all surprising. 

Info from 2016 unearthing past wrongs. The sugar industry bought and paid for a health study in 1967 that downplayed the negative effects of sugar in heart disease, and emphasized the role of fats. This was published as a scientific study, but it used value judgements and gray areas to support a bias. Scientific studies can be stilted. It's important to beware and be critical. 

Holding onto this link about Epstein: The 128-page report from the inspector general. I wanted to check in particular about the level of available video. Many camera feeds weren't being saved/stored, but some were. There was good video of access points to the units, and that video shows no people accessed the units. That means no assassin team. Scans of Epstein's address book. This is the most interesting page, perhaps his most important contacts, which are handwritten.

A listing of Trump PAC payments to lawyers. Probably not a complete listing either. 

Image: epsteinblackbook.com

Update 7/17/25. Parking links to more Epstein-related documents. Evidence list. Boastful memo from the Department of Justice about how thorough they will be.  

Update 7/24/25. A timeline of an Epstein investigation. An article about a story/narrative that Trump threw Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago. I've read several different versions of how the friendship ended, and I have to wonder what is the truth. 

Update 11/13/25. Former Harvard President Larry Summers and professor Dershowitz are exposed in Epstein emails. The Harvard Crimson has been doing the most complete coverage. Summers discussed trying to have an affair. Dershowitz tries to make distance but emails don't help him. His suggestions on how to discredit a witness is disgusting. 

Update 12/9/2025. More revelations from Epstein emails. Wexner really did leave a lot of financial management and allocation in Epstein's hands. To me that doesn't look like a blackmail situation but offloading a chore onto someone eager to do it. 

Update 12/20/2025. The Epstein files were due to be released yesterday, but only about 1% of the gigabytes have been released. Due to all the reporting, I'm going down a rabbit hole. Found this video from Wired about open source information about the tracked visitors to Epstein's island. No names but fascinating how the information was put together. A former girlfriend whom Epstein allowed Trump to grope on a visit. A feisty girl who was friends with Epstein until he was sleazy with her friend. The first person to report Epstein to the FBI, an artist he hired. Her suit against the US government for negligence over his threats to her for years. Her interview telling how Epstein called her in for a late meeting and Trump showed up in a creepy way. A suit from a 13-year-old girl picked up by Epstein and Maxwell at the famous Interlocken Arts camp, with another Trump connection. 

Epstein was also important in Jewish and Israeli charitable work centered around the wealthy Wexner family whose finances he managed. 

Email from US Assistant Attorney about Trump flying more often on the Lolita Express than previously known. The dishonest Department of Justice pretended in the X post that all the accusations against Trump are being found to be unfounded. Uh, no. A collection of many story of Trump being a sleaze in a similar mold to Epstein. 

Bombshells at the DNC

I don't subscribe to the belief that Clinton rigged the Democratic primary. Unless you stuff ballot boxes, bribe party reps at state conventions, or manage to disqualify your opponent or his supporters, it's hard to rig a democratic selection process. (I suppose if you own all the media, that might work too, but that doesn't pertain either.)

I'm not changing my mind due to the revelations from Donna Brazile. She's a party hack who's had various roles, including interim party chair after Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was forced to resign in disgrace.

Brazile writes in overly dramatic prose about discovering the unsavory arrangement for sharing campaign and party money. Clinton gave money to the debt-ridden party in exchange for a high degree of control of the levers. This allowed her to tilt the debate schedule to her advantage, but I don't see any other major advantage that she had. I don't see evidence that this changed the eventual outcome of the primary.

It does show yet again Hillary's penchant for rigid control regardless of ethics, protocol, rules, transparency, or good judgment. Her basic drive is not for truth or honesty or the greater good, but for the maintenance of her own power as she conceives it. Again I'm relieved that she's not in the White House,.further tarnishing herself and other Dems by association.

I wish I had any hope for the Democrats to improve. Donna Brazile doesn't inspire confidence. I hated Wasserman-Schultz. I have no idea if there are any Dems I respect aside from Joe Biden, Howard Dean (maybe), and Deval Patrick. That's a pretty small number of people for a national party. But that's where I'm at with this excuse for a political party.

This country, which I've loved and respected, we may be on the skids to being a low-class country like Argentina. I hope it doesn't happen. I hope I see a turn-around before I die. I'm not hopeful though.

Image: thronesvideo.xyz

Short: Textbook example of secret campaign donors

Here's a great example of what they've gotten from the Citizens United decision. This Politico article shows how Joni Ernst, the newly elected senator from Iowa, got a huge helping hand from an organization called Trees of Liberty. You can easily skip the first portion of the article and scroll down to where they discuss Trees of Liberty.

The story is chilling. Trees of Liberty pretended to be a social welfare organization, but it spent most of its funds on advertising. It avoided being called out as a political organization by pulling "down the television ads just before the calendar reached the one-month election countdown."

The only good news is that Trees of Liberty is a 501c(4) organization, so those secret donors weren't able to deduct their contributions. That's not much consolation when a few fabulously rich people can flood our political system with money, and 'liberty' means their liberty to do so.

When the Tree of Liberty was a tree, not a slush fund.

Image: bostoniansociety.blogspot.com

Short: The Tea Party complains about intimidation

"Do as I say, not as I do" could be a motto of the Tea Party. They want to run roughshod over the Republican Party and they don't want any pushback as they do so. The executive director of the Senate Conservatives Fund complains how Tea Party candidates are now the targeted ones:

"It’s all meant to intimidate."

Poor baby! I didn't realize that when you scream "RINO!" and shut down government, that you're really just a two-year-old who must be coddled or your delicate feelings will be hurt. That same two-year-old (or maybe a different one) thinks he can simply order the establishment groups like the Chamber of Commerce to say out of the primaries. Sure, no money or support for establishment types in the primaries, while the Tea Party groups are free to campaign and spend as much as they want.

Maybe this person thinks his dream of a primary should just happen--a total capitulation to the Tea Party ideals. Wake up, kid. We're not in Kansas anymore. A primary is a contest of the fittest, just like the general election. Those are the cold, hard facts of politics. Get used to it.

Image: redicecreations.com

Short: Supreme Court Confidential

We probably don't acknowledge that we've never had an ideal Supreme Court, filled with wise jurists making just the right decisions with the precision of the ideal judge of all, God. And, of course, looking solemn in their robes. Somehow, the ideal survives, but I don't know how.

Will this news and speculation about Souter's unpublished critique damage the Court? Not more than what the Court inflicts on itself frequently.

The decision two years ago to dismantle limitations on some political advocacy (Citizens United) has had drastic effects, as did Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade. Much of what the opponents feared is coming to pass, but maybe that's what freedom of speech looks like. The Supremes' decision isn't the all-wise/all-fair settlement we might wish for. Instead, it seems like an imperfect attempt at wisdom.

I've been hoping for the former and getting the latter, and have been horribly disappointed. But, really, I should remember the the Churchill quote that "democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms" and apply it to the Supreme Court.

Bolstering the mythology

Photo credit: brookskraft.com