Tonight at the Academy Awards, host Conan O'Brien observed, "It's the first time since 2012, first time since 2012 that there are no British actors nominated for Best Actor or Best Actress. Yeah. British spokesperson said, 'Yeah, well at least we arrest our pedophiles.' So they've got that going for them."
The Epstein scandal is not going away.
Last week, in Stanley, New Mexico, officials began examining Epstein's former Zorro Ranch. It's now owned by Don Huffines. He's a Republican politician currently running for Texas comptroller whose his ads during the primary had to be altered because his voice was judged 'too femmy' and they eliminated his speaking from the latter ads to avoid alienating potential voters.
Jon Schuppe and David Ingram (NBC NEWS) report:
To girls without much money who needed help with college or a career, visiting Jeffrey Epstein’s 10,000-acre New Mexico ranch felt like being treated to an exclusive resort.
Flown in from around the country to the gated compound, they rode horses across a mesa dotted with ancient rock carvings. They posed for pictures at Epstein’s 26,700-square-foot mansion. They hiked, swam, shopped and watched movies.
Hanging out with a wealthy middle-aged man was weird, but Epstein made the girls feel special. He asked about their goals, offered advice and handed them cash. And then the trips turned dark.
Epstein touched their thighs, had them strip for a massage or attacked them with a sex toy, and the girls grew confused and frightened. Alone, far from home and surrounded by photographs of Epstein with celebrities and politicians — some of whom had visited the ranch — they believed there was nothing they could do to stop him.
One victim, 15 at the time, jumped on an ATV the day after Epstein assaulted her and went racing across the property with another young guest and crashed into a tree. “Don’t worry,” the other girl said, the victim later recalled. “No one gets in trouble for anything here.”
The victims eventually understood that Epstein had used money and power to exploit them for sex. Starting in 2006, they began to come forward — not just the girls, but women as well. At least 10 have alleged that starting in the mid-1990s, Epstein groomed or abused them at the ranch, according to an NBC News review of court testimony, lawsuits and other records. Half were teenagers when Epstein harmed them.
Yet to this day, no one has fully accounted for the crimes committed at Zorro Ranch, a failure that confounds victims, local officials and the public. Decades of missed chances allowed the ranch to escape scrutiny, prolonging its secrets and delaying justice for the girls Epstein brought there.
Saturday on MS NOW, Alex Witt reported on the investigation.
Edward Helmore (THE TIMES OF LONDON) adds:
FBI information released in January’s Epstein files by the US Department of Justice included an anonymous tip to Albuquerque radio host Eddy Aragon. “Somewhere in the hills outside the Zorro, two foreign girls were buried on orders of Jeffrey and Madam G,” the anonymous sender wrote, referring to Epstein’s co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.
“I don’t know if there are bodies buried out there, but good luck,” said Sean, a local whose stepfather had leased Epstein’s land for cattle until ordered off because the billionaire was concerned about them straying onto his private jet runway.
[. . .]
Several women have previously said that they were abused as teens or young adults at the property, including Jane, who testified at Maxwell’s sex-trafficking trial that she was escorted to see him at Zorro. “I just, as usual, felt, like, my heart sink into my stomach,” she said.
Another accuser, Annie Farmer, said she was ordered by Maxwell to perform a nude massage on Epstein at Zorro ranch when she was 16 years old. The late Virginia Giuffre said that Epstein trafficked her to have sex with high-profile men there.
Epstein's best friend Donald Chump continues to lose it in public. Robert Davis (RAW STORY) reports:
President Donald Trump raged in a rambling Truth Social post on Sunday that media outlets that write negative stories about the Iran war should be charged with treason.
Trump issued the threat in response to a report by The Wall Street Journal about five U.S. military refueling planes being hit by Iranian forces. The report said the planes were hit at a Saudi airbase. They were damaged, but not totally destroyed, according to the report.
In his post, Trump accused the Iranians of "feeding" the story to the U.S. press.
He is such an idiot. And no one, no country, took him up on yesterday's offer to join him in securing the Strait of Hormuz. He's feeling very alone. And he created this. He's the one who spent all of 2025 attacking our allies, talking about taking over Canada and Greenland and erupting when other countries said "no." He's the one who pushed all our allies away. And now he needs them because he and Netanyahu started this illegal war of choice and it's not playing out like Chump thought it would. It's actually costing a lot of lives -- including American lies. And Chump feels he can't pull out because he'll look like the idiot who started a war for nothing -- which is what he did, let's be clear.
He did it to help out Netanyahu and to help out himself -- to get people focusing on something other than his dead friend Jeffrey Epstein and the way Chump's ruined the economy.
He didn't listen to military advisors who warned him about the Strait of Hormuz or anything else. All that's gone wrong was predicted but Chump ignored the military and focused on the yes-men and yes-women that make up his administrations.
They're the one who flatter and lie to him daily. They're the ones who lie and agree with him that the polling is wrong and he's beloved across the land. They kiss his ass daily. And they enable this demented man in his crimes against the Constitution and against our democracy.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Adam Schiff's office:
Schiff: “Let’s think about what is being lost right now, and that is all of these billions, this $11 billion just within the first few days. That’s money that could have gone into new hospitals and new schools. It could have gone into health care for people. It could have gone into meeting the needs of the American people.”
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined NBC’s Meet the Press with Kristen Welker to call out the burden that Trump’s Iran War is putting on American families and U.S. servicemembers, including how the affordability crisis has been exacerbated by the ongoing chaos in the Strait of Hormuz.
In addition, Schiff highlighted the threats created to Americans when we ease sanctions on Russia, an actor that is reportedly providing material supporting the Iranian regime’s continued attack on the United States.
Schiff also discussed the continued shutdown of key Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agencies, which Senate Republicans refused to reopen this week without adding additional funding for immigration enforcement agencies ICE and Border Patrol and zero reforms.
View the full interview here.
Key Excerpts:
On the President’s shifting timeline for the end of the Iran War:
[…] There are no guarantees in war, it may very well have been that when they began this war, they expected it to be over very quickly. That they thought it would be like Venezuela, except Iran isn’t like Venezuela. You can’t simply pick the number two Mullah to replace the number one Mullah and expect things to be any different. So, the bottom line is they don’t really know when this war is going to end, and I hope and pray that it does end very soon.
On the president’s broken promise to not start new wars:
I certainly concur that Iran is a terrible actor. That it engages in state sponsored terrorism, but let’s remember, we had a nuclear agreement with Iran that put serious constraints on the Iranian nuclear program, and Donald Trump tore up that agreement. And when you do that, when you essentially say, diplomacy is not the way to resolve this. Then that leaves war, and that’s what we are capturing now. But the president promised us he wouldn’t engage in this, and there was nothing imminent about the threat from Iran.
On the U.S. easing sanctions on Russia:
I think this is a terrible decision, but it is one of the things that comes about as a result of the unpredictability of war. We are now giving Russia, essentially $140 million a day by releasing Russia from these sanctions. $140 million a day when Russia is providing intelligence to Iran to better attack and kill American troops.
And you’re darn right when you ask the Secretary about this. It is rewarding Russia, and it is punishing Ukraine. And for the president, when he is criticized about lifting the sanctions on Russia to somehow turn around and blame Zelensky, blame Ukraine. No, Russia is the problem here, and we are enriching our adversary Russia at Ukraine’s expense.
On his potential vote on a supplemental funding bill for the Defense Department:
[…] Let’s think about what is being lost right now, and that is all of these billions, this $11 billion just within the first few days. That’s money that could have gone into new hospitals and new schools. It could have gone into health care for people. It could have gone into meeting the needs of the American people. A hospital costs about $100 million that means that if we’re spending a billion a day in Iran, we’re effectively dropping 10 hospitals a day on Iran. And destroying the potential we would have had to make that kind of investment in our country. That’s money we’re never going to get back. So, the Pentagon doesn’t need more money right now for this war.
On the continued shutdown of key DHS agencies:
[…] We offered vote after vote, resolution after resolution, even as recently as this week to reopen those agencies to fund them. And the Republicans voted it down. We said, let’s wall off ICE funding. Let’s fund these other agencies that protect the country and the Republicans, one after another, voted them down. Voted down funding TSA, voted down funding the Coast Guard, voted down funding FEMA. So, Republicans are controlling both Houses and the presidency. They can’t very well blame the minority party for their own inability to govern, particularly when they’re voting down democratic motions to reopen these agencies.
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Kat's "Kat's Korner: Harry Style and Jill Scott come out swinging" went up earlier today and the following sites updated:
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In Front of Trump's Nose13 hours ago
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Idiot of the Week1 day ago
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Where Chump has led us2 days ago
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BATMAN2 days ago
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