The Common Ills: 2025

Wednesday, November 19, 2025

Wednesday, November 19, 2025. Tuesday was a historic day in the House and in the Senate.

Late yesterday afternoon, Katy Stech Ferek, Siobhan Hughes and Anvee Bhutani (WALL STREET JOURNAL) reported:

The House passed legislation Tuesday mandating the disclosures of a trove of government files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a milestone in a long-running fight that divided the Republican Party and President Trump’s MAGA movement.

The 427-1 vote came after a band of Republicans bucked party leaders and joined with Democrats to force the matter over the opposition of GOP leadership. The one lawmaker to vote against the measure was Rep. Clay Higgins (R., La.).

Here for the run down of the vote at THE NEW YORK TIMES. Clay Higgins, Republican known to Lake Charles residents as "Miss Higgins," voted against the measure. He mumbled something about three months ago one of his nuts climbed up his sack and it still hasn't descended back to normal. Five members of the House didn't vote -- 3 Dems, 2 Republicans -- presumably, they were attempting to help Miss Higgins find his missing nut. Some jokers insisted they'd seen in Mike Johnson's office or maybe his mouth but, to date, the testicle has not been discovered.

THE WSJ reporters also note:

Trump, in comments to reporters Tuesday, said he has “nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. I threw him out of my club many years ago because I thought he was a sick pervert, and I guess I turned out to be right.”

Really because an e-mail suggests Chump saw him years later -- Thanksgiving 2017. Claire Healy and Ana Claudia Chacin (MIAMI HERALD) note:

When Manhattan modeling management executive Faith Kates wrote to Epstein, asking where he was having Thanksgiving dinner in 2017, he answered “eva” – apparently referring to Epstein’s ex-girlfriend Eva Andersson-Dubin. Kates asked “who else is down there?” “david fizel. hanson. trump,” Epstein responds. Trump was in West Palm Beach for Thanksgiving and hosted a large public dinner at Mar-a-Lago. There is no indication that they met for Thanksgiving that year.

THE NEW REPUBLIC's Edith Olmsted noticed the e-mail as well:

Newly released emails suggest that President Donald Trump may have spent his first Thanksgiving in office accompanied by none other than Jeffrey Epstein.

Buried in a batch of thousands of documents released Wednesday by the GOP-led House Committee on Oversight and Reform, one email chain between Epstein and someone called “Faith Kates,” likely referring to the founder of NEXT Model Management, suggested that the convicted sex offender was still hanging out with Trump long after the president claims he cut ties.

[. . .]

That wasn’t the only message that suggested Trump and Epstein were still spending time together. In another email chain from December 2017, a guest of Epstein’s claimed they didn’t want to risk running into Trump at Epstein’s Paris apartment. In other emails sent just days after the presidential election, Epstein claimed he was headed for New York as “Trump gives many new things to do,” and later said he was visiting Trump Tower.

The president has long claimed that his friendship with Epstein ended before his Palm Beach neighbor was indicted for soliciting prostitution in 2006. But clearly, the two remained linked long afterward.

In an attempt to forestall the vote, Speaker of the Closet Mike Johnson sent the House home for weeks on an extended vacation and refused to swear in Adelita Grijalva for over fifty days. Yet today? Johnson voted for the measure. David Moye (HUFFINGTON POST) notes a reaction to that:

On Tuesday, the Louisiana Republican announced he would vote to release Department of Justice files related to the late sex offender.

Considering the decision came two days after he accused the Democrats of only using the scandal to bring down President Donald Trump, some people wondered the reason behind Johnson’s change of heart. The speaker previously shut down the House early and held off on swearing in a new member during the government shutdown as part of his effort to delay a vote.

Rep. Eric Swalwell had a theory that he offered on social media that was pretty vicious.

“Daddy gave you permission??” Swalwell asked.

Befor the vote on Tuesday, Epstein survivor and House Reps Ro Khanna (Democrat), Thomas Massie (Republican) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (Republican) held a press briefing.

US House Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene: I was called a traitor by a man that I fought for five, no, actually, six years, and I gave him my loyalty for free, I won my first election without his endorsement beating eight men in a primary, and I've never owed him anything, but I fought for him, for the policies and for America first, and he called me a traitor for standing with these women and refusing to take my name off the discharge petition. Let me tell you what a traitor is. A traitor is an American that serves foreign countries and themselves. A patriot is an American that serves the United States of America, and Americans like the women standing behind me. The only thing that will speak to the powerful, courageous women behind me is when action is actually taken to release these files and the American people won’t tolerate any other bulls**t.

After fighting and attacking and even getting Speaker of the Closet Mike Johnson to shutdown the House for a little over two months, Sunday night found Chump suddenly doing a turn around on the Epstein files. The snapshots this week have featured a number of thoughts on that from different people. Today, let's note US House Rep Ro Khanna who addressed this issue and many more with NYT's David Leonhardt in a recent podcast for the paper of record:

Leonhardt: Donald Trump reversed course on social media, where he makes many of his big announcements, on Sunday night. Where were you when you found out that he was reversing himself?

Khanna: As I was about to get to bed, my phone starts to blow up. Someone says: Donald Trump endorsed your bill. And I said: What do you mean? Because Thomas Massie and I, we’ve been working all weekend texting Republicans we knew, trying to get a veto-proof vote in the House.

Leonhardt: Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican, with whom you’ve been working very closely.

Khanna: He has been an instrumental partner. So the underlying bill is my bill, but Thomas Massie has the discharge petition that would get the bill to a vote in the House. But Donald Trump saw that he was going to lose. I mean, this is the first time it has happened that probably almost a hundred Republicans would’ve voted for a Democratic bill, for the Khanna Epstein Files Transparency Act. And he was having Rasmussen, the Republican pollster, People’s Pundit, a Republican pollster, say: What are you doing, Donald Trump? You’ve forgotten the forgotten Americans you campaigned against. So I think he bowed to reality and now is endorsing our bill.

Leonhardt: And so just to walk people through what happened for those who haven’t been following this as closely as you have: You spent months scraping to get just enough Republicans to get their signatures on this petition that then forced the House leadership to hold a vote on a bill. The House leadership didn’t want to hold a vote on the bill. How many Republicans did you ultimately get to sign that petition?

Khanna: We got four.

Leonhardt: Four — all Democrats and four Republicans.

Khanna: All Democrats, four Republicans. I’ve been in Congress nine years. It was the most herculean effort to get that discharge petition through for a few reasons. You had a full-court press here by the White House and the speaker to make this not possible. You had the speaker adjourn Congress early in the summer, if you remember, trying to get the whole issue to go away. At the same time, you had the White House launch the most intense pressure campaign on Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace and Lauren Boebert, to get them to remove their names from this petition.

Leonhardt: And they are the three along with Massie. Those are the only four Republicans.

Khanna: They’re the only four. So with Massie, they came out right away: “We’re going to primary you. The president’s team is going to run the campaign against you.” Why? Yes, they didn’t like what Massie was doing, but they were also sending a signal to every other Republican in the caucus to not defy Donald Trump.

And Donald Trump then un-endorses Marjorie Taylor Greene. I mean, can you imagine this? He is treating Ghislaine Maxwell better than he is treating Marjorie Taylor Greene these days. Once Trump starts to un-endorse Marjorie Taylor Greene, we think, OK, people are going to have understandably cold feet. I mean, do you really want Donald Trump endorsing a primary challenger against you over this vote? And yet, Massie’s thought — and from the people I was talking to — that we thought that some Republicans would still defy him. And obviously that’s what Donald Trump calculated. Ultimately, it was a surrender to justice. But it shows that you can get Donald Trump to come to your side as opposed to having to cave to his side.

Things moved quickly yesterday. At one point in the afternoon, NYT posted Annie Karni's "House Is Expected to Vote on Tuesday to Release Epstein Files."

It was.

It did.

The surprise was what happened next.

Jordain Carney, Hailey Fuchs and Meredith Lee Hill (POLITICO) explain:

The Senate moved swiftly to approve legislation Tuesday forcing the Justice Department to release more information about the case it built against the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — acting hours after an overwhelming House vote to send the bill to the desk of President Donald Trump, who spent months trying to kill it.

The Senate acted by unanimous consent, which requires signoff from every senator but does not require them to take a roll call vote. Earlier in the day, the House passed the bill on a 427-1 vote.

Ben covers the developments this morning at MEIDASTOUCH NEWS.

And let's note some other coverage in the last 24 hours.

You can't talk Epstein without talking his partner in crime Ghislaine Maxwell. Erik Ortiz (NBC NEWS) reports:

A “whistleblower” who came forward to House Democrats alleging convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell received preferential treatment at a federal prison camp in Texas says she was not motivated by politics.

Instead, “this was about common human decency and doing what’s right for all inmates,” Noella Turnage, a nurse who worked at Federal Prison Camp Bryan since 2019 until she was fired last week, told NBC News on Monday.

She added that when even one inmate is wrongly retaliated against, “and influence gets another one protected, somebody had to say something.”

Maxwell’s time at FPC Bryan, an all-women’s minimum-security facility, has come under scrutiny since her transfer there in early August from a low-security prison in Tallahassee, Florida. Her relationship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has become a focal point as Democrats and some Republicans renew their push to compel the Justice Department to make all investigative files surrounding Epstein’s case public.

Turnage said she was not driven by public outrage surrounding Epstein, Maxwell or any other public figures, but acted because she felt “failed by the institution” when colleagues and others have spoken out about alleged leadership misconduct and retaliation.

Meanwhile Brian Bennett (TIME) observes:

Maxwell is serving 20 years in prison for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors over the course of a decade. Blanche interviewed Maxwell in Tallahassee, Fl., on July 24 and 25. Days after the interview, Maxwell was transferred from a low-security federal prison in Florida to an all-women minimum-security prison northeast of Houston called Federal Prison Camp Bryan. The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

I'd hoped to get some Justice Dept news in here today. There's not room. We will move over to the economy, however. Yes, Donald Cump continues to destroy the economy. Zoe Schneeweiss (BLOOMBERG NEWS) reports:

Initial applications for US jobless benefits totaled 232,000 in the week ended Oct. 18, according to the Labor Department website showing historical data for claims.

Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, came in at 1.957 million, up slightly from 1.947 million in the prior week. For initial claims, weekly data for the previous three weeks weren’t made available.

The department did not release its weekly jobless claims report during the government shutdown, which ended last week, but it has published data on its website through other channels.

Unadjusted state-level claims data were available for download throughout the shutdown. Economists have used those state figures along with pre-released seasonal adjustment factors to estimate weekly claims.

The seasonally-adjusted initial claims figure was accessed through an online database, and the recently posted figure is roughly in line with prior estimates.

This as MONEY TALK NEWS notes, "American families will pay an average of $2,700 more annually due to President Trump's new tariff policies. Research shows consumers have different tolerance levels for price increases depending on the product category and how businesses explain the hikes." And Trevor Jennewine (THE MOTLEY FOOL) explains:

The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX: ^GSPC) stumbled out of the gate in November, historically the strongest month of the year for the U.S. stock market. The index has declined 1.5% month to date as investors have received bad news about the economy and become increasingly concerned by elevated valuations, particularly where artificial intelligence stocks are concerned.

Indeed, the S&P 500 recently flashed a warning signal seen just once in the last 25 years. Here's what you should know.

President Trump has argued tariffs are necessary to bring manufacturing activity back to the U.S. However, the most recent ISM Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) -- which measures the health of the manufacturing sector by tracking orders, production, employment, deliveries, and inventory -- shows that manufacturing activity has fallen in eight consecutive months.

Of course, all bad economic news isn't sad. J oe Light (BARRON'S) reports:

Trump Media & Technology Group, the social media and crypto company, is trading at all-time lows as Bitcoin and other tokens keep plunging.

The stock, known by its ticker DJT, was down 0.9% at $10.76 in afternoon trading Tuesday. Earlier, it hit an intraday low of $10.32—the lowest price since DJT’s predecessor company announced in October 2021 it had entered a merger agreement to take Trump’s social networking company public.

President Donald Trump indirectly owns nearly 115 million shares of DJT that are held in a revocable trust in the name of son Don Jr. The son sits on the Trump Media’s board. The holdings make the Trump family the company’s largest shareholder.

DJT stock has fallen nearly 70% this year and 34.6% in the past month.

The little con artist can afford to pay E Jean Carroll because he doesn't have the cash on hand and probably never will. He wanted to make a little money on bonds but Ja'han Jones (MS NOW) explains that required breaking rules and ethical guidelines:

Trump — who waged a yearslong conspiracy-driven campaign against former President Joe Biden, accusing him of using the presidency to enrich himself and his family — claimed prior to his inauguration that his business ventures would be controlled by his children when he returned to the White House. The White House did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment on Saturday. The administration has said before that Trump has continued to file mandatory disclosures about his investments but that neither he nor his family has a role in running the portfolio, which is managed by a third-party financial institution.

But the suggestion that the president is staying out of his family’s business affairs has been contradicted by Trump Organization statements to foreign governments and by Eric Trump himself.

The timeline for these investments (late August into early October) shows Trump, through his private investments, positioned to profit from decisions in his role as president, all while his administration was contributing to unemployment through government layoffs and federal cuts and fueling an affordability crisis via the president’s ongoing tariffs.

Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:

McMahon previously admitted to Warren that she did not have the authority to dismantle the Department of Education

Washington, D.C. - Today, in reaction to news that Secretary McMahon plans to further dismantle the Department of Education by moving multiple parts of the agency to other federal departments, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released the following statement:

“The Trump administration is waging an illegal assault on public school kids. Instead of working to lower costs for Americans, the Trump administration is hellbent on punishing underserved students.

“Linda McMahon is a liar who knows she doesn’t have the power to single-handedly dismantle the Department of Education – she admitted that to me herself. Only Congress has the authority to close the Education Department, and I will not let that happen on my watch.”

Senator Warren has led the fight to make our higher education system more affordable, cancel student loan debt, and hold student loan servicers accountable for incompetence and malfeasance. She launched the Save Our Schools campaign in a coordinated effort to fight back against President Trump’s attempts to abolish the Department of Education:

On November 17, 2025, Senator Warren led over 40 of her colleagues in a letter urging Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent to immediately end any plans to sell or transfer the federal student loan portfolio to the private market.
On November 10, 2025, Senator Warren led her colleagues in a letter urging the Trump administration to use the IRS’s existing legal authorities to stop the looming “tax bomb” facing borrowers who obtain income-driven repayment (IDR) discharges of their student loan debt.
On October 15, 2025, Senator Warren and Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) led 70 members of Congress in a letter calling on the Trump administration to address the ongoing and unprecedented wave of student loan delinquencies and defaults, which threatens the financial stability of millions of people and could have disastrous effects on the American economy.
On September 19, 2025, following a push by Senator Warren and nine other senators, the Acting Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education agreed to open an investigation into DOGE’s infiltration of internal systems, including the scope of its access to sensitive student loan borrower information and its impact on borrowers’ rights and privacy.
On August 26, 2025, Senator Warren led colleagues in sending a follow-up letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon condemning the Department of Education for deliberately hiding the “Submit a Complaint” button on the Office of Federal Student Aid’s website, firing employees responsible for providing customer service to borrowers and families and misleading Congress about the scope of these firings.
On August 7, 2025, Senator Warren publicly released Secretary of Education Linda McMahon’s response to the senator’s 60+ questions and pressed for additional information. Senator Warren announced that she would refer certain matters where the Department has proved uncooperative to the Government Accountability Office and the Education Department’s Inspector General.
On August 4, 2025, Senator Warren led eight Senators in pressing major private student loan lenders on their plans to serve the incoming surge of borrowers who will be pushed to the industry because of Republicans’ recently passed “Big, Beautiful Bill.”
On July 17, 2025, Senator Warren released a new 23-page report, “Education At Risk: Frontline Impacts of Trump’s War on Students,” highlighting warnings from 11 major national education and civil rights organizations on the impact of the Trump Administration’s dismantling of the Department of Education (ED), slashing support to millions of American students, primary and secondary school teachers, administrators, parents, and student loan borrowers.
On July 15, 2025, Senators Warren and Sanders, along with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, sent a letter to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, urging her to reverse the interest hike on student loan borrowers in the SAVE forbearance.
On July 14, 2025, Senator Warren joined a letter to the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, and Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, demanding that the Department of Education stop blocking nearly $7 billion in funds for K-12 schools, including for afterschool programs.
On July 3, 2025, Senator Warren led her colleagues in submitting an amicus brief for NAACP v. US, arguing to the United States District Court District of Maryland that President Trump’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education violate separation of powers and lack constitutional authority.
On June 10, 2025, Senator Warren met with Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and delivered over 1,000 letters to McMahon that the senator had received from people in all 50 states who were worried about the Secretary’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Education.
On June 9, 2025, Senator Warren led her colleagues in pushing the Acting Inspector General of the Department of Education to open an investigation into new information obtained by her office, revealing that DOGE may have gained access to two FSA internal systems, in addition to sensitive borrower data.
On May 20, 2025, Senator Warren and 27 other senators pushed for full funding for the Office of Federal Student Aid.
On May 14, 2025, Senator Warren led a Senate forum entitled “Stealing the American Dream: How Trump and Republicans Are Raising Education Costs for Families,” highlighting the consequences of Secretary Linda McMahon’s reckless dismantling of the Department of Education and President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” for working- and middle-class students and borrowers.
On May 13, 2025, Senator Warren agreed to meet with Education Secretary Linda McMahon and promised to bring questions and stories from Americans across the country to highlight how the Trump administration’s attacks on education are hurting American families.
On May 6, 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren highlighted the consequences of President Trump and Secretary Linda McMahon’s reckless dismantling of the Department of Education for American families in a Senate forum.
On April 24, 2025, Senator Warren launched a new investigation into the harms of President Trump’s attacks on the Department of Education, seeking information on the impact of the Trump administration’s actions from the members of twelve leading organizations representing schools, parents, teachers, students, borrowers, and researchers.
On April 10, 2025, following a request led by Senator Warren, the Department of Education’s Acting Inspector General agreed to open an investigation into the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education.
On April 2, 2025, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Mazie Hirono, along with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, sent a letter to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon regarding the Department of Government Efficiency’s proposed plan to replace the Department of Education’s federal student aid call centers with generative artificial intelligence chatbots.

###

The following sites updated:

NPR Topics: Home Page Top Stories

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The Snapshot

Tuesday, November 18, 2025. Today, the House is scheduled to vote on releasing the Epstein files, Donald continues his war on immigrants, an ICE-er gets arrested, the editorial board of THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVERS serves up a must-read piece, Chump's war on the economy has driven a family out of the family business -- a family trade that had lasted since the late 1800s prior to Chump 'helping' the economy, and much more.

As we all know, Donald Chump is now claiming he wants the Epstein files released. Meredith Lee Hill (POLITICO) reports:

President Donald Trump's call for House Republicans to support releasing Jeffrey Epstein-related documents was a stunning capitulation after a months-long campaign to block the vote.

It was also a specific defeat for Trump at the hands of a despised GOP opponent: Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky.

“He got tired of me winning,” Massie said of Trump’s U-turn in an interview Monday morning.

Insisting “I DON’T CARE!” in a late-night Truth Social post, Trump was bowing to the inevitable — a broad House Republican mutiny on a vote that was only scheduled because Massie forced it. It was the result of Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) launching a discharge petition aimed at sidestepping senior GOP leaders who desperately wanted to avoid bringing the issue to the House floor.

The campaign to avoid the vote got remarkably ugly in the days before Trump finally conceded, with the president personally attacking Massie for recently remarrying after the sudden death last summer of his wife of more than 30 years.

Chump's a liar. If he wanted the files released, they'd be released. Luke Broadwater (NEW YORK TIMES) points out Chump doesn't need the House of Representatives to vote on the issue today, he can release the files without a vote:

Facing intense political pressure, President Trump has reversed his position on whether he supports a congressional measure that would compel the Justice Department to release more materials from the investigation into the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

On Monday, Mr. Trump said he would sign the bill if it reached his desk.

But Mr. Trump’s sudden reversal raises a question: If the president agrees that more investigative materials in the Epstein case should be released, why is he waiting for the passage of the so-called discharge petition to do so? Why doesn’t he immediately order Attorney General Pam Bondi to make the documents public?

The fact is that if Mr. Trump chooses to, he can indeed order more files released — with or without legislation — much as he did in other cases of intense public interest, including the killings of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President John F. Kennedy.

In the end, he was forced to change his public statements because ha had lost and by lying and pretending he wants the Epstein files released, he hopes to look like less of a loser. Not possible. Annie Karni and Tyler Pager (NEW YORK TIMES) offer a reminder on his previous stands:

President Trump denounced calls for the release of the Epstein files as a Democratic hoax. He dispatched aides to warn Republicans that backing it would be seen as a “hostile act.” He placed personal calls to those who dared to do so, and even dispatched his attorney general and F.B.I. director to meet with one in the White House Situation Room in efforts to get her to flip.

In the end, none of it worked. And on Sunday night, Mr. Trump did something he has rarely been forced to do: He caved in the face of pressure from his party and called on House Republicans to go ahead and back a bill that would order his Justice Department to release all of its investigative files on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

By Monday, he was saying, “Sure,” he would sign the legislation he has spent months trying to kill.

It’s not clear that doing so would have any concrete impact; Mr. Trump could have ordered the release of the files without an act of Congress, and has not. And it remains to be seen whether his Justice Department will ultimately release the files.

But his reversal has opened the floodgates of Republican backing for the bill, which is expected to come to a vote in the House as early as Tuesday and appears likely to pass unanimously. It has also raised questions about Mr. Trump’s ability to impose his will on Republicans and the nation, suggesting a slip in his iron grip on his party amid his falling polling numbers, rising prices and rifts within his political coalition.

David Kurtz (TALKING POINTS MEMO) notes:

Poised to lose a House vote this week calling for the Justice Department to release its Jeffrey Epstein files, President Trump snookered a good chunk of political media by declaring in a social media post last evening that the House should vote to release the files.

Knowing he’s going to lose the vote — and knowing that the vote itself won’t be enough to pry the files loose unless the Senate agrees and he doesn’t veto it — Trump tried to redefine the setback by withdrawing his opposition to the vote, but not actually releasing the Epstein files.

But who in the world would be fooled by this?

The whole reason the House is voting is because the Trump DOJ — run out of the White House — won’t cough up the files. That is to say: Trump won’t release the files.

It’s not an about-face or a reversal. It’s a sham.

Trump’s inane new position — that he wants House Republicans to vote to demand that he release the Epstein files that he refuses to release — comes after the president on Friday ordered the Justice Department to re-investigate everyone’s contacts with Jeffrey Epstein except his own.

Who knows what tricks the con artist Chump has up his sleeves but right now it looks good for the survivors. They are supposed to appear outside the Capitol later today with Massie and US House Reps Ro Khanna and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

MS NOW's Jen Psaki, over the weekend, caught one of the lies Ghislaine Maxwell told Deputy AG Todd Blanche during the two days of questioning -- Ghislaine lied that the photo taken of her with King Charles' brother Andrew and Epstein survivor Virginia Giuffre was a fake photo. It wasn't real. It never happened. In the e-mails, Epstein talks about taking the photo himself. Ghislaine lied. Cameron Adams (DAILY BEAST) catches another lie:

However, last week’s trove of Epstein emails highlighted contradictions from what the prisoner told Blanche, including Maxwell’s claim to have never seen Trump at Epstein’s home.

In one of the emails sent in 2011, Epstein told Maxwell had “spent hours at my house” with the late Virginia Giuffre.

That led to a feud between George Conway and Blanche on X last week.

Conway wrote, “Blanche’s questioning of Ghislaine Maxwell was either (a) completely incompetent; or (b) intentionally crafted not to elicit facts incriminating Trump.

“Either way, he is not fit to serve as Deputy Attorney General of the United States,” he added.

Donald Chump will be gone soon -- three years or so he'll be kicked out of the White House -- and he'll be gone soon from this earth because the diuretics and the heart medication just isn't working -- and can't with his obesity. Until he leaves, he's bound and determined to destroy as much of our great country as he can. Sabrina Haake (SALON) notes:

On Nov. 10, the Trump administration submitted supplemental arguments to the Supreme Court claiming that no court — including the Supreme Court itself — can question the president’s ability to deploy military troops against U.S. cities.

“The President’s determination to call up the National Guard is a core exercise of his power as Commander in Chief over military affairs, based on an explicit delegation from Congress,” Trump’s lawyers wrote. “That determination is not judicially reviewable at all; at minimum, it is entitled to extremely deferential review, under which (Trump’s deployment) should be upheld.”

Claiming that Trump called up the National Guard in Chicago “in light of the violent, organized resistance” faced by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, the attorneys insisted his decision is not subject to judicial review under Martin v. Mott, a nearly 200-year-old case that stemmed from the War of 1812. In 1827, the court ruled that military subordinates could not make their “own determination whether an imminent threat of invasion existed.” Although the ruling is often incorrectly cited by the Trump administration, it did not prohibit or even discuss judicial review of military deployments — foreign, domestic or otherwise.

Most Americans have a strong moral resistance to military intrusion into civilian affairs. According to public polling, a bipartisan majority opposes sending military troops into U.S. cities in the absence of a foreign threat.

That resistance is rooted in tradition dating back to the American Revolution. After living under the tyranny of King George III, whose hated armed troops ate their food and slept in quarters the colonists were forced to provide under the Quartering Act of 1765, the drafters of the Constitution held a widespread fear of a national standing army, which they believed posed a threat to individual liberty and the sovereignty of the separate states. Because of that distrust, the founders carefully apportioned responsibility over the “militia” — today’s National Guard — between the federal government and the states.

The Constitution grants Congress, not the president, the power to deploy the National Guard “to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” That foundational constitutional authority in turn supports Title 10 USC 12406, which allows a president to call up the militia — but only under specific, statutorily defined circumstances. It also supports the Posse Comitatus Act, which forbids the use of any part of the federal armed forces to execute laws, except where “expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress,” reflecting “the deeply rooted and ancient opposition in this country to the extension of military control over civilians.”

An idiot who barely made it through college, Chump's never grasped the law. The law, for Chump, is nothing but something you can break with a bribe or a crooked attorney. He has no respect for the law and no respect for the United States.

He's currently attacking North Carolina. You have to wonder how Governor Greg Asshole plans to respond when Texans are soon up in arms. And they will be. Texas shares a border with Mexico. There's no way Chump's plan doesn't involve invading Texas in the near future as well.

On MEIDASTOUCH NEWS this morning, Ben addresses the assault on North Carolina.

He also notes Latino voters.

Kamala Harris only got 2% more support from Latinao voters in November.

B-b-b-but how could that be?

Whores and whoring. It was covered in real time here. And certainly left and 'left' media outlets like DEMOCRACY NOW! covered it, right?

Wrong. We covered it in real tim. We covered in the end of the year piece. Ava and I covered it at the start of the year in "Media: How Amy Goodman harmed immigrants and helped elect Chump" at THIRD. Find me, please, the episode in the summer or fall of 2024 where Goody Whore addressed the consequences of Chump's war on immigrants.

I'm not a genius. But somehow I could see South Africa on the streets of the United States. Somehow I could see the racial profiling that Chump's plan would result in. I could see all innocents swept up into it. Which is why I wrote about it and spoke about it before the election.

Goody was too busy carrying out the DSA's grudge f**k of Kamala to do her job. So instead she gave us one segment after another saying Kamala was just as bad as Chump on immigration or even worse.

The damage these people did to our country will never be forgotten. And as they try to shove Graham Platner down people's throats, they should stop a moment, these liars like David Sirota and grasp that they don't have the suck with us that they think they do.

The other issue to note not in Ben's segment is: Kiss Latino voters goodbye.

That's what the GOP better be prepared to do. This has impacted too many Latinos in the US -- including Latino citizens. How does the GOP ever again think they can stand before Latino voters and make a claim and be believed. Chump's war on immigrants is a war on all Latinos. Citizens or not. And the hatred the GOP has for Latinos -- all Latinos -- has been made clear. It's as though they want to push all Latinos out of the Republican tent.

Chump's actions will influence elections for the immediate future. And pasty White faced Republicans holding office? You better grasp that George P Bush and others with Latino roots? GOP is going to have to back them like crazy now -- at your expense -- because they can't afford to lose Latino voters forever and they've got to do something to try to win them back.

As we await that, the editorial board of THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER weighs in:

Not long from now - maybe even a few weeks - Donald Trump's Border Patrol surge will roll out of Charlotte to take its terror to another city. It will leave behind destroyed lives and fractured communities, but it will have accomplished very little that meaningfully addresses our nation's immigration issues. We suspect that never was really the goal.

What is? Perhaps the president is still hoping immigration can bring him a political win as his approval numbers head lower than even his worst first term levels. Maybe he's hoping for a distraction from the relentless drip of Jeffrey Epstein and economic headlines.

None of which is happening. None of which will likely happen. Not because of Charlotte.

In fact, just two days in, Operation Charlotte's Web already has failed.

With every unnecessarily smashed window, every sneer at due process, every federal agent's smirk at those who are horrified by it all, Donald Trump continues to lose. He loses because this immigration enforcement surge is not really about immigration. If the president really wanted to solve our nation's border issues, he would work toward broader solutions instead of rounding up whomever he can to hit a big number to show Americans.

It is a fiery editorial, a needed one and one you really should read in full. The American people are sick of this and ICE is not above the law no matter what Pam da Bimbo Bondi says, no matter what Corrupt Kristi Noem says and no matter what Chubby Chump The Convicted Felon says. One of Chump's gestapo just found that out the hard way. Will Neal (DAILY BEAST) reports:

Police have arrested a man believed to be working as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent after he allegedly brandished a gun at a 17-year-old boy.

Footage of the Nov. 10 incident, obtained by local outlet KTLA 5, shows the man approaching an SUV on a dark street with his sidearm drawn and pointed toward the window.

“Freeze, police,” the man in the video says. “Put the car in f---ing park. Get out of the car. Turn it off, get out. You’re speeding in the f---ing neighborhood. Come over here, sit down, get your a-- down. You have a driver’s license?”

Cops in Riverside, southern California, have since identified the suspect as 45-year-old Gerardo Rodriguez, a resident on the street who also displayed a badge toward the minor before getting him to step out of the car.

The teen is understood to have complied with demands from Rodriguez, who eventually released him to his parents. Authorities say Rodriguez has now been booked for assault with a deadly weapon, child endangerment, and assault by a public officer.

Remember, these are the goons who pepper sprayed a one-year-old infant. Americans grow ever more appalled and, no, Noem, that expensive propaganda is not working -- no matter how many sweetheart deals you slide over to your friends.

While Chump and Kristi try to hoodwink the nation with lies, the American people respond with reality. Last night on MS NOW, Rachel Maddow detailed how Americans were training and arming themselves with information to be able to support one another in the midst of these very un-American raids.

Gregory Bovino is leading the assault on Charlotte. NEWSWEEK's Billal Rahman provides some context:

Bovino also has ties to the region, having grown up in western North Carolina, attended Watauga High School, and later earned degrees from Western Carolina University and Appalachian State University.

Border Patrol agents under his command have been facing increased scrutiny over heavy-handed tactics, deploying tear gas, and excessive use of force.

As of 2023, roughly 17.9 percent of Charlotte’s population, or about 159,000 residents, were born outside the United States, according to Data USA.

WIKIPEDIA notes:

The following month, Ellis extended her temporary restraining order against ICE's use of tear gas and pepper balls, stating that Bovino had lied under oath about threats posed by protesters and reporters.[21]

In November 2025, the Project on Government Oversight released a report analyzing federal data from fiscal years 2022–2025, finding that under Bovino's leadership Border Patrol agents used force disproportionately to the number of assaults they faced.[22]

What did Bovino accomplish? Nothing worth praising. Sophia Tareen, Brian Witte and Maryclaire Dale (LOS ANGELES TIMES) report:

After a surge in Border Patrol activity in North Carolina's largest city over the weekend, including dozens of arrests, Gov. Josh Stein said the effort is “stoking fear," not making Charlotte safer.

The Trump administration has made the Democratic city of about 950,000 people its latest target for an immigration enforcement surge it says will combat crime, despite fierce objections from local leaders and downtrending crime rates. Charlotte residents reported encounters with federal immigration agents near churches, apartment complexes and stores.

Dan Hennessy of Arcadia writes to the editors of THE LOS ANGELES TIMES:

Immigration agents aggressively detained a day-care worker, Diana Santillana Galeano, at her workplace with small children present (“Chicago day-care worker detained by immigration agents released after community support,” Nov. 13). Couldn’t they have waited until she was home? Might they have given her time to prepare for her arrest and separation from her family? She was treated like a dangerous criminal, "the worst of the worst” as President Trump declares.

Americans are largely people who value fairness, and this kind of unnecessarily violent arrest is simply not fair. Even if someone supports a general immigration sweep, it should be handled humanely and fairly, and people should be treated with basic human dignity.

Unfortunately, this particular arrest is not a one-off exception to the general policy. The newsworthy raid on the apartment building in Chicago, which the federal government justified by calling it a raid on Tren de Aragua, may have netted a couple of gang members. But it also disrupted the lives of everyone in the building.

Santillana Galeano was legally working and was eventually released, as multiple inappropriately arrested people have been. This kind of generally intrusive and unfair process is simply not American.

Rudro Chakrabarti (MONEY WISE) has a story of a business closed after generations in the same family:

Wilson Jones stands in what used to be the heart of his family's lumber empire — the Mackeys Ferry Sawmill in North Carolina.

But instead of the familiar roar of saws cutting through Southern pine, there's only silence.

"I've grown all my life in the lumber business," the 60-something mill owner tells Bloomberg (1), his voice heavy with emotion. "And to hear nature at a sawmill, I think for any lumberman is not natural. I don't wanna be overly dramatic, but in a way it's as unnerving as watching a loved one take their final breath."

Jones is the fifth generation in his family to run a lumber business — and the first to close a mill. The culprit? President Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs, announced April 2, 2025, which promised to bring manufacturing jobs roaring back to America.

"When I say Liberation Day, I cannot put enough snark and sarcasm in my voice because we weren't liberated," Wilson says. "Liberation Day, it did, at the time, it had damn near liberated me from our business."

The Jones family's story isn't unique. It's playing out in factories, mills and plants across America. Since President Trump's April tariff announcement, overall manufacturing employment has declined by 42,000, while job openings and hires have fallen by 76,000 and 18,000, respectively according to the Center for American Progress (2). Manufacturing hiring plunged in May to the weakest rate since 2016 under President Barack Obama (3).

The situation hasn't improved in recent months. Manufacturing jobs are down by 78,000 since the start of 2025, with the sector losing another 3,000 jobs in October alone according to an ADP report (4). Despite job openings in the sector increasing to 462,000 in July — up from 393,000 in June — actual hiring has declined 5% year-over-year according to iCIMS data (5).

Wilson Jones' Mackey's Ferry Sawmill had been "the largest private employer in Washington County" and the family "are sixth-generation lumberman, carrying on the legacy that their great-great grandfather, William Sawyer Jones, began." He blames Chump's tariffs (and is right to) and he tells CAROLINA JOURNAL's Katherine Zehnder, "I'm not talking about money, because I can think any independent lumberman would tell you that they are not in this industry to make money. They're in it because they love it. It's taken 38 years of my time, effort, and life inside and outside from me. It's taken a business that I enjoyed -- and I do love the industry -- from me.”

The family business since the end of the 1800s, destroyed in less than one year by Donald Chump's ignorance and ineptitude.

There's a lot more left to cover but the snapshot's already running long. Maybe we can address the Justice Dept tomorrow. At any rate, let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:

Bicameral letter warns that “sale would be a giveaway to wealthy insiders at the expense of working-class borrowers and taxpayers.”

“Time and again, the Trump Administration has put the interests of well-connected, wealthy insiders ahead of working families.”

Text of Letter (PDF)

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, along with Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), led 41 of their colleagues in a letter urging Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent to immediately end any plans to sell or transfer the federal student loan portfolio to the private market.

“Let’s be clear: This sale would be a giveaway to wealthy insiders at the expense of working-class borrowers and taxpayers,” wrote the lawmakers. “It threatens the loss of borrowers’ legally guaranteed protections, and the sale would likely be illegal if the debt is sold at a loss for taxpayers.”

According to a report last month, the Trump Administration is exploring options to sell the federal government’s $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio to financial firms and other private companies.

This move could illegally strip student loan borrowers of key protections, including income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, Public Student Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), disability and death discharges, and relief for those defrauded by predatory schools.

Such a sale would likely be illegal as well if the portfolio were sold at a loss. In 2019, the Trump Administration explored selling the student loan portfolio but abandoned the idea after consultants determined that the portfolio was “worth far less than government accountants had projected.”

Additionally, the sale of federal loans would be a massive giveaway to private lenders that have been shown to exploit private borrowers. Though private loans only account for 8% of student debt, they account for 40% of student loan-related complaints submitted to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“The Trump Administration should immediately stop any plans to sell or transfer responsibility of the student debt portfolio to the private, often predatory, market,” the lawmakers concluded. “The Department of Education’s role in providing financial aid to America’s students is clear, and the Department should not take any action that would enrich the wealthy and well-connected at the expense of working-class borrowers and taxpayers.”

The lawmakers requested more information as to the potential privatization of the federal student loan portfolio by December 1, 2025.

On November 10, 2025, Senator Warren led her colleagues in a letter urging the Trump administration to use the IRS’s existing legal authorities to stop the looming “tax bomb” facing borrowers who obtain income-driven repayment (IDR) discharges of their student loan debt.
On October 15, 2025, Senator Warren and Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) led 70 members of Congress in a letter calling on the Trump administration to address the ongoing and unprecedented wave of student loan delinquencies and defaults, which threatens the financial stability of millions of people and could have disastrous effects on the American economy.
On September 19, 2025, following a push by Senator Warren and nine other senators, the Acting Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Education agreed to open an investigation into DOGE’s infiltration of internal systems, including the scope of its access to sensitive student loan borrower information and its impact on borrowers’ rights and privacy.
On August 26, 2025, Senator Warren led colleagues in sending a follow-up letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon condemning the Department of Education for deliberately hiding the “Submit a Complaint” button on the Office of Federal Student Aid’s website, firing employees responsible for providing customer service to borrowers and families, and misleading Congress about the scope of these firings.
On August 7, 2025, Senator Warren publicly released Secretary of Education Linda McMahon’s response to the senator’s 60+ questions and pressed for additional information. Senator Warren announced that she would refer certain matters where the Department has proved uncooperative to the Government Accountability Office and the Education Department’s Inspector General.
On August 4, 2025, Senator Warren led eight Senators in pressing major private student loan lenders on their plans to serve the incoming surge of borrowers who will be pushed to the industry because of Republicans’ recently passed “Big, Beautiful Bill.”
On July 17, 2025, Senator Warren released a new 23-page report, “Education At Risk: Frontline Impacts of Trump’s War on Students,” highlighting warnings from 11 major national education and civil rights organizations on the impact of the Trump Administration’s dismantling of the Department of Education (ED), slashing support to millions of American students, primary and secondary school teachers, administrators, parents, and student loan borrowers.
On July 15, 2025, Senators Warren and Sanders, along with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, sent a letter to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, urging her to reverse the interest hike on student loan borrowers in the SAVE forbearance.
On July 14, 2025, Senator Warren joined a letter to the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, and Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, demanding that the Department of Education stop blocking nearly $7 billion in funds for K-12 schools, including for afterschool programs.
On July 3, 2025, Senator Warren led her colleagues in submitting an amicus brief for NAACP v. US, arguing to the United States District Court District of Maryland that President Trump’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education violate separation of powers and lack constitutional authority.
On June 10, 2025, Senator Warren met with Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and delivered over 1,000 letters to McMahon that the senator had received from people in all 50 states who were worried about the Secretary’s efforts to dismantle the Department of Education.
On June 9, 2025, Senator Warren led her colleagues in pushing the Acting Inspector General of the Department of Education to open an investigation into new information obtained by her office, revealing that DOGE may have gained access to two FSA internal systems, in addition to sensitive borrower data.
On May 20, 2025, Senator Warren and 27 other senators pushed for full funding for the Office of Federal Student Aid.
On May 14, 2025, Senator Warren led a Senate forum entitled “Stealing the American Dream: How Trump and Republicans Are Raising Education Costs for Families,” highlighting the consequences of Secretary Linda McMahon’s reckless dismantling of the Department of Education and President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” for working- and middle-class students and borrowers.
On May 13, 2025, Senator Warren agreed to meet with Education Secretary Linda McMahon and promised to bring questions and stories from Americans across the country to highlight how the Trump administration’s attacks on education are hurting American families.
On May 6, 2025, Senator Elizabeth Warren highlighted the consequences of President Trump and Secretary Linda McMahon’s reckless dismantling of the Department of Education for American families in a Senate forum.
On April 24, 2025, Senator Warren launched a new investigation into the harms of President Trump’s attacks on the Department of Education, seeking information on the impact of the Trump administration’s actions from the members of twelve leading organizations representing schools, parents, teachers, students, borrowers, and researchers.
On April 10, 2025, following a request led by Senator Warren, the Department of Education’s Acting Inspector General agreed to open an investigation into the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the Department of Education.
On April 2, 2025, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Mazie Hirono, along with Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, sent a letter to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon regarding the Department of Government Efficiency’s proposed plan to replace the Department of Education’s federal student aid call centers with generative artificial intelligence chatbots.

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The following sites updated: