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. 

My take on the Georgia indictments

Fascinating. Nineteen people are indicted so this is a contrast to the federal charges where Trump was the only named defendant. There is a lot of common territory though because Trump's plans to get states to overturn their elections results happened in Georgia as one of the primary places. These indictments are state-level charges, not federal, because states (unsurprisingly) also have laws against election hijinks. Nineteen defendants, 41 counts, and an average of over 7 counts per defendant since many counts have multiple offenders listed. 

Some of the charges:

A Rico conspiracy to do a bunch of bad shit with many threads and tentacles. 

Solicitation of violation of oath by public officers - trying to get officials to do illegal or unethical shit. 

Impersonating a public official, forgery, false statements for pretending you're an elector when you're not. 

Perjury and false statements galore - to the GA legislature, to investigators, committees. I assume that the perjury charges are based on lying when under oath in a legal proceeding. 

Can the Rico charges stand? Can defendants be charged in Fulton county with offenses that occurred in Coffee County? Is it a criminal false statement to wrongly characterize action in a video, or just a mistake that isn't criminal? This applies to statements about video of counting from the State Farm Arena. However before the State department of GA clarified the actions shown in the video, it may reasonably have been misinterpreted. 

When does conferring with a witness cross the line to the criminal act of influencing witnesses? 

Some of the incidents: Lying about the State Farm Arena video. Lying about election workers. Harassing election workers. Pressuring election workers over their testimony. Falsely saying and signing documents as a presidential electors. Unsanctioned access to voting machines in Coffee County. Lying about what you were doing with those voting machines. Pressuring the secretary of state of GA to find 11780 votes. 

These are the most satisfying indictments yet because the major players will be having to answer for their acts, unless they decide not to mount a defense. It's less complicated when Trump is the sole defendant, but it's fully complete when his henchman are there too. It's also great that they all had to come in and get mug shots. 

Image: PBS

Extras. The report from the investigative grand jury. They were considering indicting Sen. Lindsay Graham too. 

Ukraine: Ambassadors and prosecutors

Poor Ukraine. It's not good to be Russia's neighbor. They steal elections, get ousted, then steal large amounts of territory. And you're a football between Russian and the US.

But I'll be focusing on how the US has manipulated Ukraine. Starting in 2016, it seems like the Hillary campaign went to the EU/US aligned government (the successor to the ousted Russian-aligned government) and got information that was harmful to Paul Manafort, the campaign chairman for Trump. They also helped with the Mueller investigation.

That's two strikes, especially if you're as vindictive as Trump is. However, Ukraine has lots of backers in Congress, and some in executive branch, but it seems like Trump was not going to be at all sympathetic. Trump did have the problem of looking too pro-Russian, and he figured a way to counter that. He'd give weapons to Ukraine, which is something Obama was very cautious about due to the unintended consequences of wars spreading and weapons being used in unforeseen ways.

So Trump gave Ukraine weapons, and got himself some talking points. He also got some things he didn't talk about. Ukraine stopped working with the Mueller team, shutting down all cooperation. This was back in April 2018.

The Poroshenko government starts playing nice with the Trump administration. But there's trouble in Ukraine, where corruption is rampant and unpopular. Poroshenko is voted out in April 2019, and a new government by a comedian is in. The Trump administration doesn't know if the new government will play ball the way the Poroshenko government learned to do,

Leaning on the New Government

So money stops flowing from the US to Ukraine as Trump waits to see how cooperative the new government will be. One thing Trump has on his wishlist is dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Giuliani will be the go-between and enforcer, making sure the dirty deed is getting done.

With this background, it's not hard to understand the phone call. Zelensky, the new Ukrainian president, is kissing up as hard as he can, It starts with Zelensky saying how Trump's surprise electoral win inspired his own win, and a mention of draining the swamp. Major sucking sounds from Zelensky, but what choice was he have? Zelensky is very eager to conduct whatever investigation Trump asks for, and even asks for additional information from the US that won't be helpful. Is that a coded way to ask Trump what he wants them to say?

On the other hand, he makes no promises about who his new chief prosecutor would be, even after Trump says that the last one was very good and very fair. When you read below about the chief prosecutors, you have to wonder if anyone fits that description.

The Prosecutors

The two prosecutor to be aware of are Shokin and Lutsenko. Shokin was the corrupt prosecutor in 2016 whom Biden, the EU, and the IMF forced out. Supposedly he was investigating Hunter Biden at Burisma, a gas company, but most reports say that the investigation was not ongoing.

Lutsenko was a real piece of work. He was the chief prosecutor under Poroshenko, and he lost his job when Poroshenko lost reelection. (Hmmmm, lost reelection... that sounds good.) Lutsenko accused the US ambassador of giving him a list of people and companies who couldn't be investigated or charged. But it was all a lie. That gives a sense of the ethics of this guy. It seems possible to me that both Giuliani and Trump were pushing Zelensky to re-instate him. It's no wonder since he was probably playing ball with the Trump administration, taking their direction to stop cooperating with the Mueller investigation and who knows what else. He seems to have been a good toady (to Trump) who lost his job due to Ukrainian public dissatisfaction and 'voting the crooks out.'

The Ambassadors

The most important ambassador is Marie Yovanovitch. She is the one Trump mentioned disrespectfully. Lutsenko accused her of interfering and ordering him not to investigate people, and she was removed by Trump for not playing ball. She's a career diplomat, well versed in Slavic countries, and well respected by her colleagues according to reports. Perhaps she's too professional, especially when the prez wants his personal lawyer to tell a country that they should investigate his personal political rival. Basically, she was stabbed by Trump and his dog pack.

Other ambassadors. Volker    Volker resigned.
Sondland. More serious than Trump's usual backers.

What will the Ukrainian government do now that the pressure is no longer covert? It seems to me that the Ukrainians can make their own choices. They have enough supprt from Americans and in Congress that Trump can't put the screws on them again. Relations between the US and Ukraine will be closely scrutinized. Giuliani's travel will be closely scrutinized. Trump and Giuliani's plans - simply screwed. Such poetic justice in that.

Funny bits: President Zelensky has won a not-so-nice nickname in Ukraine: Monica Zelensky. Oooh, burn. But he's also helped shine a light on the cockroach named Trump.

Giuliani is spinning like mad. He's trying to indicate that he had State Department backing, but that doesn't help the State Department look good. It just shows how many people didn't feel they could push back from Trump's vendetta. However, Giuliani may have his own vendetta against Biden. For one thing, Biden landed a punch against Guiliani during Giuliani's campaign for president. 'Every sentence he says has a noun, a verb, and 9/11.' It was quite a takedown.

Recap: A who's who from CNN. A bunch of lies from an opinion writer at Fox, including the statement (as though it's fact) that Joe Biden received over $1 billion in bribes from China.

Five amigos

Image: dailymail.co.uk

Update 10/3/19. Texts among State Departnment personnel and others show that Ukraine was being squeezed, though they were careful not to put the most damning info into texts.

Update 10/23/19. Lots of state department folks are testifying in the House. The replacement for the ousted ambassador was particularly searing. Trump called the guy a 'never-Trumper' and doesn't want to hire anymore like him. Maybe he wants clear loyalty (echoes of what Comey reported). In another (unraveling) angle, Giuliani was working with some rather unsavory characters, and probably even more still to be uncovered and possibly indicted.

Update 10/24/19. More details. Trump wanted the Ukrainians to publicly announce investigations as a sign of their strong commitment. Plus this tidbit: two dozen House GOPers tried to storm a closed hearing, and complain about it being secret. But Trey Gowdy, a former House GOPer and future lawyer to Trump, is on video saying how open hearings are useless, while private hearings are effective.

Update 11/7/19. More about the feud between Giuliani and Biden. When it might have started--from a journalist who isn't exactly a friend of Giuliani. Giuliani insulting Biden in 2012. Biden's quips about Giuliani are lost, but there is a bit of context to help the imagination.

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

Horrendous media transgressions--not

I've read so many people claim that it was just terrible how the MSM favored Clinton, and flagrantly colluded with her campaign.

I'm not naive enough to claim that the MSM is fair and unbiased. I frequently see a liberal bias there. But I wondered about charges of collusion, with journalists breaking ethical rules to help Clinton. The only example I heard about before the election was Donna Brazile providing Hillary with a heads-up on one question at one campaign event. Yes, it was unethical, but there's no way it was a huge deal and a huge advantage.

So how bad was all the other collusion? Did it amount to an unfair advantage?

Finally, I found a list. From Breitbart:

WIKILEAKS REVEALS LONG LIST OF MEDIA CANOODLING WITH HILLARY CLINTON

It lists nine incidents, including the leak of the question. It includes of couple of instances when a reporter emailed ad ideas to the campaign or its advertising agency.

Really, all of NINE instances.

This is pigeon feed next to the bias of the MSM, and next to the bias of the conservative media. It's so incredibly ironic that Breitbart thinks this is horrible, while their lack of critique of Trump's numerous insults, ludicrous boasts, history of cons and bankruptcy is not an issue of ethics.

If we're going to talk about unethical and biased behavior by the media, let's talk about what really happens on practically a daily basis. Let's not pretend a list that doesn't even reach a couple dozen cases makes an ant's worth of difference compared to the daily skewed news of hundreds of media outlets.

Free from bias, free from ethics

Image: breitbart.com

Extras. Here's a list of damaging info about the DNC related to Bernie Sanders. It may be a partial list because document dumps were ongoing. Again, mostly small stuff, nothing like stuffing the ballot box, buying votes, or violently assaulting opponents.

Last output of crazy: Daddy, they're being mean

How can I describe the thin-skinned egotistical asshole that we currently have as president? Maybe the best thing is just to let him out himself with the bizarre things he does.

Now, an adult knows that there are ups and downs in business. An intelligent, honest, non-corrupt president knows not to interfere to help the business dealings of friends, families, donors, and supporters. But Trump isn't intelligent, honest, or free from corruption. So he tweets this when his daughter's fashion line is dropped by a major retailer:

Image: enidnews.com

The idiocy and corruption doesn't stop with Trump, however. Kellyanne Conway told viewers to go out and buy Ivanka Trump merchandise. But it turns out (reasonably) that federal employees aren't supposed to plug commercial enterprises while on the job. That applies when the commercial enterprise is owned by the prez's dear daughter. Imagine that: you aren't even supposed to use all that power to enrich yourself and your family. Who designs these rules?

And what does the pro-Trump, fake news purveyor Breitbart do? A huge article about how the retailer is going to suffer, but how Ivanka Trump is a trooper and will just be stronger. It reads like a bad People magazine article. Barf!

So far Nordstrom's stock took a brief loss and then bounced back. A more important question is whether the asshole president will take a well-deserved hit for this. He truly doesn't seem to understand what his job is now. It sure as hell isn't promoting his businesses or his friends' businesses. A mountain of shame on him and his idiotic supporters.

Rant on our horrific choices

How crappy are the political conditions in the US that our choices are Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump?

In one corner, we have battered Hillary Clinton. She and Bill wanted both money and political power, and they've cut lots of corners to get the money. While there are innumerable false complaints about them, there is plenty slime that they created and sticks to them. Here are some: Vince Foster (FALSE), cattle futures (LIKELY), monetarily motivated pardons (LIKELY), rapes by Bill (HYPED by GOP operatives), State Department favors in exchange for Clinton charity donations (SERIOUS AND PLAUSIBLE).

In the other corner, we have Donald Trump, a modern-day ringmaster with a circus of his own follies. One of his follies is starting to believe his own hype. He's said he's the only one who can fix the problems in the US, the Mideast, and probably the world. Who actually believes that kind of talk? Too many Americans, for one. Maybe half of Trump's supporters believe he has something special. Maybe the other half hope and pray that he'll bring some change to the constipated, blocked, inefficient government we now have. Yes, they hope Trump is the enema that the US needs.

What's especially sad is that these two were picked in competitive primaries. That means the other choices were too weak, too unpopular, or too weird to be chosen. Or perhaps our parties and our politics are frightening away the better candidates, or suppressing them, muzzling them, or turning them into cookie cutter clones.

I hope sometime in the next 10 years to have a candidate I really respect. At the rate we're going, that isn't going to happen, and the US will continue its slow slide down the tubes into mediocrity.

Complete Trump enema kit, backed by Trump University

Image: enemakit.com