Like Maria Said Paz

Friday, December 26, 2025

What the heck is AM GEM?

We watched some Christmas movies today. Our favorites. Which means DESK SET starring Katharine Hepburn and Spence Tracy and Joan Blondell. It's my favorite Hepburn and Tracy film -- there's no effort made to humiliate Kate at the end. We watched others.

But SINGLE ALL THE WAY?

I'm not insulting that movie, it's one of my favorites. The 2021 film stars Michael Urie and Philemon Chambers as friends and roommates. Michael goes home for the holidays -- his parents are Kathy Najimy and Barry Bostwick. His mom tries to fix him up with the great Luke MacFarlane but his dad thinks he and Philemon are a perfect fit and should be more than friends -- he tells Philemon that Kathy's his best friend. It's funny -- a lot of the hysterical comes from the wonderful Jennifer Coolidge.

But we're watching and a commercial comes on for AM GEM. What is that?

I have no idea but when the movie stars back up on NETFLIX, the AM GEM is frozen on the screen although we can hear the actors speaking their lines for the next scene and nothing takes the AM GEM off.

Which is too bad because SINGLE ALL THE WAY is a great movie. We also watched BROS -- Luke MacFarlane is in that as well. I'd forgotten how great that film is. Bobby and Aaron are a relatable love story and the film is funny as hell. One of the best films of the decade so far.

"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Wednesday, December 24, 2025. ICE prepares to ramp up for 2026, courts grow increasingly doubtful of statements made on behalf of ICE, the Supreme Court rebukes Chump, and much more.

Big news.

Ana Faguy (BBC NEWS) reports on the big story of the week:

The US Supreme Court has rejected the Trump administration's bid to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area, over the objections of local and state officials.

In an unsigned order, the top court said the president's ability to federalise the National Guard likely only applies in "exceptional" circumstances.

The National Guard consists of primarily state-based troops that typically respond to major issues like natural disasters or large protests.

The ruling marks a rare departure for the conservative-majority court which has largely sided with the Trump administration in recent months. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker called it "a big win for Illinois and American democracy".

I say the big story of the week. Under a Barack Obama presidency or a George HW Bush presidency, I could make that statement. With the Convicted Felon in the White House, I really can't. Yes, it's Wednesday, the middle of the week. Yes, tomorrow is Christmas and that should also mean it's less likely that big news is emerging. But we have an apparently dementia plagued crook -- a convicted on several felonies crook -- in the White House so who knows?

But this verdict is a big news.

First off, the verdict was not at all expected -- not from a Court whose image is they grant Chump everything he wants. As William Brangham (PBS NEWSHOUR) noted, "The court's conservative majority has frequently sided with the administration on previous tests of presidential power. " Leila Fadel (NPR's MORNING EDITION) pointed out earlier today, "It was an interim ruling, the sort of preliminary case in which the court majority has deferred to the Trump administration again and again. This time, the court said the president failed to cite any law that would justify using the Guard under federal control to enforce the law." :Second, it's news because it is based on and it backs the Constitution -- something that cannot be said of many of the Court's decisions in this decade. Third, it overturns a nightmare Chump has put into play. Fourth, it has impact beyond Illinois. Kate Riga (TAKING POINTS MEMO) explains, "The brief ruling radically changes the landscape for Trump’s Guard deployments, likely meaning the end of similar occupations in other blue cities. It also all but goads Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, something he’s been talking about doing since his first term."

How did it happen?

On yesterday's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, Kat Lonsdorf provided this walk through, "Yeah, so this case stems from back in September when President Trump federalized the National Guard against Illinois Governor JB Pritzker's wishes and sent them into Chicago for what Trump said was protection of federal immigration officers and facilities. Just a reminder, this all happened as the administration launched a new and increasingly aggressive immigration operation in the city. Two lower courts ruled against Trump's deployment of the Guard there, blocking troops from the streets. And in October, the administration issued an emergency appeal up to the Supreme Court." Alex Nguyen (MOTHER JONES) picks up the baton there, "In October, Trump called 300 members of the Illinois National Guard into federal service to protect federal agents enforcing immigration policies in Chicago under a federal law that allows the president to federalize members of the Guard if they are “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States” or if “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion.” He federalized members of the Texas National Guard the next day. The state of Illinois and the city of Chicago challenged the deployment in court, arguing that Trump abused that federal law to punish his political opponents." As for how the decision happened, Adam Liptak (NEW YORK TIMES) details one factor:

The Supreme Court’s refusal on Tuesday to let the Trump administration deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area was in large part the result of a friend-of-the-court brief submitted by a Georgetown University law professor named Martin S. Lederman.

The argument Professor Lederman set out, and the court’s embrace of it, could help shape future rulings on any further efforts by President Trump to use the military to carry out his orders inside the United States.

Professor Lederman’s brief said that the government had misunderstood a key phrase in the law it had relied on, which allows deployment of the National Guard if “the president is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”

The administration said “the regular forces” referred to civilian law enforcement like Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Professor Lederman argued that the great weight of historical evidence was to the contrary.

The regular forces, he wrote, was the U.S. military. And, he added, “there is no basis for concluding that the president would be ‘unable’ to enforce such laws with the assistance of those forces if it were legal for him to direct such a deployment.”

Professor Lederman wrote his brief over a weekend. “I hesitate to acknowledge that,” he said on a podcast last month, “but it’s really true that I didn’t have like some great background knowledge in this statute.”

A veteran of the Office of Legal Counsel, the elite Justice Department unit that advises the executive branch on the law, Professor Lederman identified what he called a glaring flaw in the administration’s argument. “None of the parties were paying attention to it,” he said.

But the justices were.

NPR's journalists Kat Lonsdorf and Steve Inskeep addressed the verdict on MORNING EDITION:

INSKEEP: What did the decision say?

LONSDORF: So the court ruled 6-3 against Trump, which is rare. It's one of only a handful of times the conservative court has ruled against the president in the emergency docket this term. It was an unsigned opinion, and it was really technical, but basically, the court wrote that the president failed to explain why the situation in Chicago warranted an exception to what's called the Posse Comitatus Act. That's a law that prohibits using the military for domestic law enforcement.

Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissented, writing that they, quote, "strongly" disagreed with the way the court handled this case. They said the court should've remained focused on the narrow question in the administration's appeal, which they said was specifically around using troops to protect federal officers and facilities and not domestic law enforcement more generally.

INSKEEP: I guess we should remember the basic principle here is that federal troops shouldn't be used on civilians to enforce civilian laws except...

LONSDORF: Right.

INSKEEP: ...In certain cases. So how did this particular case end up before the court?

LONSDORF: Right, so this case stems from back in September when President Trump federalized the National Guard against Illinois Governor JB Pritzker's wishes and sent them into Chicago for what Trump said was protection of federal immigration officers and facilities. Remember, Steve, this all happened as the administration launched a new and increasingly aggressive immigration enforcement operation in the city and there were protests. But two lower courts blocked that deployment, so in October, the administration issued an emergency appeal up to the Supreme Court.

Also on MORNING EDITION today, Leila spoke with SCOTUSBLOG's Amy Howe regarding the decision:

HOWE: Not necessarily. You know, this case came to the court. The solicitor general, the government's top lawyer in the Supreme Court, was asking the justices to rule based on one question - whether the federal courts can decide whether the president can deploy the National Guard troops at all. And after a little bit, the Supreme Court asked the litigants on both sides for additional briefing on a question raised in a friend-of-the-court brief by a Georgetown law professor named Marty Lederman, who said, you don't need to get into really the question that the SG's office has asked you to decide. The real question at the center of this case is a technical question about whether or not the term, regular forces, in the statute on which the president relied refers to the regular forces of the U.S. military. And, you know, even if the president has the power to deploy, he said, the regular U.S. military forces to execute federal laws in Illinois, he hasn't tried to do that in this case. And so that's what they asked the litigants on both sides to brief, and that suggests that they were looking at this case skeptically.

FADEL: This ruling is part of the emergency docket. It's preliminary. It's temporary. But the justices did explain their reasoning. What do the opinion and the dissents tell us about the court's thinking on presidential authority here?

HOWE: So as Kat said, this was a rare loss. The justices had given the Trump administration another loss just a couple of days earlier on another temporary ruling. And the majority opinion didn't say a lot. But I think what this majority opinion and the decision signals is that the Supreme Court is certainly willing to give the president a lot of leeway, a lot of presidential power, but there are limits in how far they're going to let the Trump administration and the president go.

FADEL: How significant is the decision? I mean, we heard Kat say this isn't a precedent-making decision. Does it then have no impact on other cases involving the deployment of U.S. troops to U.S. cities where the governor doesn't ask for help?

HOWE: The cases that the Supreme Court decides on the emergency docket are sort of a weird animal because, on the one hand, they are preliminary, as Kat said, but they will still carry significant weight.

FADEL: OK.

HOWE: And we saw that over the summer when the Supreme Court decided a case involving the termination of National Institute of Health grants. And Justice Gorsuch's decision, joined by Justice Kavanaugh, actually chastised a lower-court judge for not following an earlier decision on the court's emergency docket. He said decisions by the Supreme Court on the emergency docket may not necessarily be conclusive on the merits, but they really do carry a lot of weight going forward. So I would expect that this would really carry a lot of weight in the litigation going forward, although not necessarily in the litigation regarding troops in the District of Columbia, where I live, because those are a slightly different animal.

FADEL: Would it have impact on the administration's decision-making right now? I mean, Trump said he'd like to send National Guard troops to San Francisco and other cities. Does this ruling stop him from ordering future guard deployments in these other cities or not?

HOWE: I think it's going to make it a lot more complicated because the Supreme Court, in ruling that the Trump administration hadn't shown that it was able to send the troops, in the case of Chicago, said that the president must determine that he's unable with the U.S. military to execute U.S. laws. And there really only are going to be exceptional circumstances in which he can legally call in the military to do so, so the Supreme Court is setting a really high bar.

That's not just a musical interlude. Country music artist Frank Ray is in the news for speaking out. Yesterday on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, Rose Gilbert reported:

GILBERT: Ray is Mexican American and has spoken publicly about the challenges immigrants face, including in his 2023 song, "Jesus At The Taco Truck."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JESUS AT THE TACO TRUCK")

RAY: (Singing) I met Jesus at the taco truck.

GILBERT: But this time, it's personal. On Thanksgiving Day, Ray woke up to a panicked call from his sister. Her husband, a Mexican national named Juan Nevarez, had been stopped by border patrol at the airport.

RAY: She's in tears. She's like, they just detained Juan at the El Paso airport, saying that his work visa no longer gives him legal status in the United States.

GILBERT: Nevarez has a five-year work permit, which he renewed just this spring. Still, he was detained and taken to an ICE processing facility in Otero County, New Mexico. That's where he's being held now, waiting for a hearing that will decide if he can stay in America with his wife and four children, all of whom are U.S. citizens.

ALYSSA NEVAREZ: We don't understand why this happened.

GILBERT: That's Alyssa Nevarez. She and Juan have been married since 2007. They grew up in neighboring border towns - one in Mexico, the other in the United States. Nevarez crossed the southern border illegally several times. And because those are still on his record, they've not applied for a green card.

NEVAREZ: He has that authorization to be here, to work, to provide for his family, you know? Why did they do this?

Why?

No answer to that. But we do know why Juan and Alyssa's lives are being destroyed, like so many others across the country -- this once great country. It's a two-word answer: Donald Chump. Our modern day Hitler will be remembered historically but it will be for all the wrong reasons. nd his children and their children will live with the shame that the Chump name will bring them.

Jacob Crosse (WSWS) reports:

The US government has offered imprisoned Dallas resident Yaa’kub Ira Vijandre $3,000 to leave the country, a move that decisively exposes the fraudulent character of the Trump administration’s claim that he is a “terrorist.”

[. . .]

Vijandre was not an “illegal alien” when ICE abducted him in October, just as he was not a “terrorist” when the government revoked his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) protections in December. He entered the United States as a 14-year-old child and lived in the US without documentation for over two decades. His DACA status was terminated only after federal agents targeted his social media posts opposing genocide and prison abuse.

Responding to an immigration judge who accused him of “endorsing or espousing terrorist activity,” in an interview with The Guardian earlier this month from inside the Folkston detention center, Vijandre said, “I never expected anything like that … being accused of ‘glorifying terrorism;’ they attacked my religion, my faith.”

He described degrading and abusive conditions inside the ICE facility. He said guards treated detainees “like animals” and recounted being denied basic human needs. While visiting the detention center’s library, Vijandre said he asked a guard for permission to use the bathroom. The guard responded by instructing the Filipino American photojournalist to “just piss on yourself.”

The stories pile up of the way Chump is destroying so many lives. Dan Gooding (NEWSWEEK) reports:

A disabled U.S. veteran was reunited with his family on Monday after spending four months in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention in Washington state.

Green-card holder Muhammad Zahid Chaudhry, originally from Pakistan, had been held at the Tacoma Processing Center since he went for a citizenship interview in August. On Monday, U.S. District Judge David G. Estudillo ordered his release and barred ICE from detaining him again until his case is fully heard in court.

“I am a patriotic American solider. I thought that it would never happen, that this kind of erroneous thing, that four months, two days in this kind of detention, would never happen, should never happen to any disabled decorated American veteran,” Chaudry told KCPQ in Tacoma outside the detention center.

I'm thrilled Muhammad is free and thankful for justices like Estudillo. But let's not pretend for one moment that Muhammad's life wasn't destroyed with four months of being held, four months away from his friends and family. Kidnapped and imprisoned. Lives are being destroyed. Where's Chump's payout on that? I mean try to overthrow our democracy on January 6th and Chump's leaving you pardons and payouts and probably chocolates on your pillow too. But what about what he owes -- what we as a country -- owe these people we are wrongly imprisoning, these people we are kidnapping off the streets? What do you think your life would e like if you had been kidnapped and imprisoned? Let's say you were lucky enough to be released, what would you life be like after that? How safe do you now feel on the streets of your own country?

And what about the trauma being inflicted as a result of what's taking place? Especially if you are an immigrant or could be racially profiled as possibly one? Billy Witz and Kevin Williams (NEW YORK TIMES) note today, "Naturalized citizens in Ohio’s capital, Columbus, have taken to carrying passports with them. Businesses and nonprofits that serve immigrants around the city are delivering goods to customers who are afraid to venture outside their homes. Churches in immigrant neighborhoods are all but empty." How do you get over that trauma?

And make no mistake, this illegal operation is about inflicting trauma and terror. Tom Latchem (DAILY BEAST) notes, "Leaked internal chats show President Donald Trump’s team ordering ICE officials to 'flood the airwaves' with 'propaganda' videos of migrants being chased, shackled, and mocked—regardless of their veracity."

And the plan for 2026 is not to stop this illegal program but instead to expand it. This was addressed in two segments of MORNING EDITION today. First:

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

The Trump administration says it wants to accelerate efforts to take away the citizenships of some naturalized Americans. As NPR's Lilly Quiroz reports, it's part of the administration's efforts to remove immigrants - Americans, in this case - they say should not be in the U.S.

LILLY QUIROZ, BYLINE: In a document circulated recently to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Department, the administration says it wants to denaturalize 100 to 200 people per month in 2026. It also says USCIS should work with the Department of Justice to meet that quota. NPR hasn't seen the document, which was first obtained by The New York Times. USCIS spokesman Matthew J. Tragesser told NPR that the goal is to prioritize the denaturalization of people who have been found lying or misrepresenting themselves in the naturalization process. Now, the Trump administration wanting to denaturalize people is not new. Establishing a quota is. Elizabeth Taufa is with the San Francisco-based Immigrant Legal Resource Center. She says denaturalization has historically been used in rare cases.

ELIZABETH TAUFA: The traditional example was, like, Nazis who had lied about their Nazi membership and come to the United States and assumed a different identity. And later on, it was found out that they were war criminals, and so they were denaturalized as a result of that.

Second:

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

We've called up Mariam Masumi Daud, who is an attorney who specializes in immigration law. She's based in Northern Virginia. Good morning.

MARIAM MASUMI DAUD: Good morning.

INSKEEP: Well, what do you think about the idea of a quota?

MASUMI DAUD: I think a quota is something that's going to have a chilling effect, especially on eligible immigrants who may want to apply for citizenship. This really pulls away USCIS agency resources from its core functions. Giving this as a priority to the Immigration Service will essentially cause individuals to not only not apply for citizenship, but create backlogs for other types of immigration cases that people may want to pursue. And citizenship is something that's really supposed to be secure. And a policy that emphasizes denaturalization by having quotas and having this high volume really risks creating more of a two-tier system of citizenship, where naturalized Americans might feel...

INSKEEP: Yeah.

MASUMI DAUD: ...Conditionally American, and that's a problem.

INSKEEP: I do want to put this in the perspective of the numbers, however. There are tens of millions of Americans who are naturalized citizens. I just was looking it up. In fiscal 2024, 800,000 people were naturalized. And this quota would be between 1,200 and 2,400 people a year - a tiny fraction of the number of people who are actually out there as citizens, right?

MASUMI DAUD: It is a tiny number. But again, I think the problem here is that it's going to create fear in a lot of people. So although, you know, the numbers here are very small, the broader implications are that individuals will really feel anxiety and unsafe about whether or not their citizenship is going to be intact. And I think that's really the big problem here.

INSKEEP: When you have worked denaturalization cases in the past - defending someone, I presume - what sorts of violations or alleged violations have there been?

MASUMI DAUD: Those have involved cases where there have been serious problems with respect to an individual's identity and very strong allegations regarding fraud. And so as someone who has seen individuals go through the denaturalization process, I want to stress that it is traditionally something that's used in rare cases and in extreme situations. It is not something that has been meant to be used in a sweeping way. And that's where this policy becomes very concerning because when there are quotas given, that's where there is a concern for an abuse of the policy.

We have got to stand as a nation and oppose the illegal actions of ICE. They run into people's cars and then lie that the car was surging towards them. They break into homes, they break into cars. They kidnap. They beat up women in the halls of our courtrooms. They're now invading in use bathrooms -- Malcolm Ferguson (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes, "A bunch of masked male Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in tactical gear broke into the women’s bathroom of Cato nutrition bar factory in New York, even forcing a stall open while a woman in there used the toilet. They can be heard telling her to pull her pants up." They threaten, they bully, they assault -- and on this one, I'm just talking about what they do to witnesses, not what they do to suspected immigrants. Chump has created a Gestapo force that he presides over. Remember that when the human rights lawsuits start coming in.

Lawsuits? We've noted since the start of the year that ICE is forever lying and lying to the press, lying to the courts, lying to the American people. Back in October, Ava and I noted:

They terrorize pregnant women. They terrorize the challenged and/or disabled. Who is safe on the streets of America when ICE is let loose? Children? They're tear gassing children. When they're not zip-tying them.

And there is no oversight.

They're a department of liars led by the lying Homeland Secuirty Secretary Kristi Noem.

ICE rammed a car in Chicago -- ran into it -- and they lied in statements and false charges insisting that Dayanne Figueroa, a US citizen, ran into them:

Footage obtained by Newsweek appears to show armed federal agents detaining Figueroa, dragging her by the legs to remove her from her vehicle. Some agents brandish guns, and bystanders can be heard shouting, “You hit her,” as the situation unfolds.

Additional video obtained by Figueroa’s family from another witness provides a different angle of the encounter. The bystander who is filming tells federal agents: “You hit her. We all saw it.”

“You guys are f*****g scumbags, f*****g Nazis. They hit her car. You guys hit her, and you f*****g know it,” the bystander is heard saying.

“As agents were departing, the driver, a U.S. citizen, struck an unmarked government vehicle,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Newsweek.

Tricia, like Kristi, is a repeat offender when it comes to lying to the American people. Nicole Charky-Chami (RAW STORY) notes:

A senior ICE official is under fire after publicly sharing a 13-year-old child's information — and an expert warns it "could lead to serious consequences."

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, 31, who is the most senior public affairs official under Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, revealed the identity, alleged criminal history and a photo of the child detained by ICE, The Daily Beast reported Monday.

McLaughlin is accused of sharing children's information not just once, but multiple times.

Her social media post and the DHS actions “could lead to serious consequences inside the government, such as an Inspector General investigation, disciplinary action, or even congressional scrutiny," Los Angeles-based criminal defense attorney Arash Hashemi told The Beast.

Public anger was rising after a Brazilian-born seventh-grader in Massachusetts was reportedly taken by federal agents to a juvenile detention center more than 500 miles away from his family.

In an attempt to stop the public criticism, McLaughlin and DHS tried to use social media.

"They claimed that the boy had an 'extensive rap sheet,' while listing some of his apparent past offenses. They also stated—falsely, it transpired—that he had been in possession of a firearm," The Beast reports.

It's illegal for DHS or law enforcement to share a child's information.

And here's where the media keeps failing us. Homeland Security officials have been caught in one lie after another. It's so bad that judges can't really take their claims seriously at this point. But the media too often repeats claims regarding ICE without noting the long pattern of lies from them this year.

We were all taught about the little boy who cried wolf. You don't lie because you'll be known as a liar and the time will come when you need to be believed but you're known as a liar.

A lesson we're taught as children is too much for ICE and the officials over ICE to grasp. That might be shocking if we hadn't already addressed the relaxed 'standards' when it comes to hiring ICE agents.

The courts have grown increasingly tired of the lies and they are treating ICE reps and attorneys like anyone else who is caught lying while appearing before them. Tom Latchem (DAILY BEAST) reports:

A Trump-appointed federal judge has accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement of brazenly lying in court filings and defying court orders in a lawsuit over conditions in a federal detention facility.

U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown, who was commissioned to the Eastern District of New York in December 2019 during Donald Trump’s first term, is threatening the federal agency with contempt after ICE refused to provide photographs of a holding cell used for unlawful, days-long detention—and made claims to the court he said were “evasive and demonstrably false.”

Brown issued a 24-page order on Dec. 18 describing the hold-room at the federal courthouse in Central Islip as “putrid and cramped.”

The following sites update

Saturday, December 20, 2025

Chump's attacks on the homeless

Supposedly, we are in the season of holiday cheer and peace and love. You can't tell that by looking at the Convicted Felon who's now attempting to kick homess people out of housing. Jennifer Ludden (NPR) reports:

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development cannot impose dramatically different conditions for homelessness programs for now, according to an oral ruling Friday by U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy in Rhode Island.

McElroy granted a preliminary injunction to a group of states, cities and nonprofits who said a last minute overhaul of how to spend $4 billion on homelessness programs was unlawful. She also agreed with their argument that it likely would push many people back onto the streets in the middle of winter, causing irreparable harm.

"Continuity of housing and stability for vulnerable populations is clearly in the public interest," said McElroy, ordering HUD to maintain its previous funding formula.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement the order "means that more than 170,000 people – families, seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities – have respite from the government's assault."

Chump is pure evil. He's Uriah Heep, Scrooge and Madam Defarge combined. He is a nightmare but, the things about nightmares, eventually people wake up.

"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Friday, December 19, 2025. As the release of the Epstein documents finally is upon us Republicans in Congress scurry off like roaches.

MS NOW's Ali Vitali notes this morning, "And today is the deadline for the Justice Dept to release its files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein."

Jeffrey Epstein was a “terrific guy” and “a lot of fun to be with.” He and Donald J. Trump also had “no formal relationship.” They went to a lot of the same parties. But they “did not socialize together.” They were never really friends, just business acquaintances. Or “there was no relationship” at all. “I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.”

For nearly a quarter-century, Mr. Trump and his representatives have offered shifting, often contradictory accounts of his relationship with Mr. Epstein, one sporadically captured by society photographers and in news clips before they fell out sometime in the mid-2000s. Closely scrutinized since Mr. Epstein died in a Manhattan jail cell during Mr. Trump’s first term, their friendship — and questions about what the president knew of Mr. Epstein’s abuses — now threatens to consume his second one.

The controversy has shaken Mr. Trump’s iron hold on his base like no other. Loyal supporters have demanded to know why the administration has not moved more quickly to unearth the convicted sex offender’s remaining secrets. In November, after resisting months of pressure to release more Epstein-related documents held by the federal government — and facing an almost unheard-of revolt among Republican lawmakers — Mr. Trump reversed himself, signing legislation that requires their release beginning this week.

Mr. Epstein had a talent for acquiring powerful friends, some of whom have become ensnared in the continuing scrutiny of his crimes. For months, Mr. Trump has labored furiously to shift himself out of the frame, dismissing questions about his relationship with Mr. Epstein as a “Democrat hoax” and imploring his supporters to ignore the matter entirely. An examination of their history by The New York Times has found no evidence implicating Mr. Trump in Mr. Epstein’s abuse and trafficking of minors.

Beginning in the late 1980s, the two men forged a bond intense enough to leave others who knew them with the impression that they were each other’s closest friend, The Times found. Mr. Epstein was then a little-known financier who cultivated mystery around the scope and source of his self-made wealth. Mr. Trump, six years older, was a real estate scion who relished publicity and exaggerated his successes. Neither man drank or did drugs. They pursued women in a game of ego and dominance. Female bodies were currency.

Over nearly two decades, as Mr. Trump cut a swath through the party circuits of New York and Florida, Mr. Epstein was perhaps his most reliable wingman. During the 1990s and early 2000s, they prowled Mr. Epstein’s Manhattan mansion and Mr. Trump’s Plaza Hotel, at least one of Mr. Trump’s Atlantic City casinos and both their Palm Beach homes. They visited each other’s offices and spoke often by phone, according to other former Epstein employees and women who spent time in his homes.

At THE NEW REPUBLIC, Hafiz Rashid covers another photo release:

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released new photos from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate Thursday, and in some of them, handwritten lines from the book Lolita are visible on the bodies of unidentified girls or women.

One of the photos shows “Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth” written on someone’s collarbone, above her chest. A passage on a foot reads, “She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock.” “She was Lola in slacks” is visible on another person’s body, and a message written on someone’s neck reads, “She was Dolly at school.” And visible, written vertically along a person’s back, is the line, “She was Delores on the dotted line.”

The photos were released through a Dropbox account, and nothing in the upload indicates who the photos are of or when they were taken. Lolita, written in 1955 by Vladimir Nabakov, is about a professor who kidnaps and sexually abuses a 12-year-old girl, which seems on the nose for a convicted sex offender and trafficker like Epstein.

Also covering the photos is THE NEWSHOUR's Liz Landers:

Around 70 photographs come from Epstein’s computer and email accounts, and shed more light on his lifestyle and social circles. The photographs, among 95,000 handed over by Epstein’s estate last week, were provided to the committee without context.

One image shows former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates standing next to a woman, whose face is redacted. Another shows Noam Chomsky seated next to Epstein on a plane. Several images show a social gathering over a meal and several faces of powerful or public figures, including Epstein. A separate image that appears to be from the same room shows Google co-founder Sergey Brin and New York Times columnist David Brooks, who is a regular contributor to the PBS News Hour. The photos are undated.

A New York Times spokesperson said in a statement, “As a journalist, David Brooks regularly attends events to speak with noted and important business leaders to inform his columns, which is exactly what happened at this 2011 event. Mr. Brooks had no contact with him before or after this single attendance at a widely-attended dinner.”

This photo release is the latest from Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, not from the Justice Dept. Why are they releasing this? Is it helpful? Those are the sort of questions we got yesterday when we were speaking.

Is it helpful?

I don't know that yesterday's release of photos was? There's enough to cover and curate from the last release. And to do a release before the Justice Dept does their own seems a bit of a distraction and possibly overwhelming the news cycle.

But there's a possibility that the Committee members are signaling to the Justice Dept what they have access to. Pam Bondi asks, for example, "Do we have to release this?" An underling replies, "They've probably got it already AG Bimbo, they've released photos and documents in the surrounding timeline."

Something like that would be a good reason for yesterday's release.

Otherwise, you risk overwhelming people with information.

It gets to be too much to process.

Bondi's madly censoring documents as we speak -- refer to this video.

..

Which is why, if Bondi had a brain, she'd be releasing everything. A massive data dump would overwhelm outlets and commentators. A selective trickle only allows them to focus more sharply on what is released.

Robert Tait (GUARDIAN) explains:

After months of delay and stalling, the Trump administration is legally obliged to publish a massive archive of documents that could shine fresh light on Epstein’s misdeeds and his connections with key public figures, including Donald Trump himself.

Under the terms of the Epstein Files Transparency Act – passed by Congress in November following months of resistance from the White House – Pam Bondi, the attorney general, must release by midnight on Friday “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials” linked to Epstein, his jailed associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, and individuals named in connection with his criminal activities.

Stephen Fowler (NPR's MORNING EDITION) adds:

More specifically, the law targets the release of information about individuals affiliated with Epstein's criminal activities, any decisions not to charge Epstein and his associates and "entities (corporate, nonprofit, academic, or governmental) with known or alleged ties to Epstein's trafficking or financial networks."

The files include "more than 300 gigabytes of data and physical evidence" in the FBI's custody and internal Justice Department records from criminal cases against Epstein. Some files include photos and videos of Epstein's accusers, including minors, and other depictions of abuse that will be withheld.

The text of the law that passed Congress with near-unanimous support also reads that "no record shall be withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary."

Ahead of the release, Congressional Republicans tended to scatter like roaches. One who didn't is US House Rep ThomasMassie.

Complicating matters is Epstein's partner in crime Ghislaine Maxwell who is still alive and is desperate for attention.

Michael R. Sisak and Larry Neumeister (AP) report:

Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend and longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell asked a federal judge on Wednesday to set aside her sex trafficking conviction and free her from a 20-year prison sentence, saying “substantial new evidence” has emerged proving that constitutional violations spoiled her trial.

Maxwell maintained in a habeas petition she has promised to file since August that information that would have resulted in her exoneration at her 2021 trial was withheld and false testimony was presented to the jury.

She said the cumulative effect of the constitutional violations resulted in a “complete miscarriage of justice.”

Robert Alexander (NEWSWEEK) adds:

Maxwell’s filing comes at a politically sensitive moment, as the Justice Department faces a congressional deadline to release records related to federal investigations into Epstein.

Courts in New York and Florida have recently authorized the unsealing of some grand jury materials connected to those cases, increasing public scrutiny of how prosecutors handled evidence over many years.

[. . .]

Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking and related offenses for helping her former partner, Jeffrey Epstein, recruit, groom and transport underage girls for sexual abuse between the mid-1990s and early 2000s.

The filing marks Maxwell’s latest attempt to overturn a sentence that has already survived multiple appeals.

Maxwell, who is representing herself, argues that the evidence now available demonstrates that “no reasonable juror would have convicted her,” citing alleged juror misconduct, undisclosed government materials, and contradictions in witness testimony that she says were not fully explored at trial.

Maxwell who is representing herself?

On those grounds alone it should be denied. She's been on trial, she's been convicted. With legal help multiple appeals have been filed. She comes from money and her trashy family still has money. So if this was important to her -- this countless appeal -- she should spring for an attorney. Our overtaxed legal system doesn't have time to humor rich people who are too cheap to pay for their constant appeals.

And that's before you look at the items she's listed which supposedly count as 'new evidence,' sorry, most of that will be tossed right out of court. And should be. Then she should be told that she has exhausted the system and wasted the court's time. If she wanted to talk, she should have taken the stand at her trial. She's trash, she's garbage and she's a criminal who has been convicted for her crimes and keeps trying to find a loophole. She had her day in court. 20 years was a generous sentence for her crimes. She's now blackmailed her way into a cushy Club Fed prison. Rules have been repeatedly broken to make her more comfortable. It's time for her to shut up and stop adding stress to an already clogged court system.

You're a pedophile, Ghislaine. The only thing that can maybe change that is a time machine that lets you go back and alter your evil ways.

You granted no appeal from any of the girls and women you tried to destroy so have a lot of nerve pretending yet again that you're the injured party.

If videos aren't showing above, I'm sorry. I dictate the snapshot but I have gone in and done ten minutes of HTML work trying to get them to work. I don't know what's going on there. It looks like, and I could be wrong, whatever's effecting it is not impacting GOOGLECHROME browser.

Okay, let's note this from Senator Patty Murray's office:

***LETTER HERE***

Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, joined Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Subcommittee on Fisheries, Water, and Wildlife, and 18 of their Senate colleagues in a letter urging the Trump administration to immediately address and reverse the staffing crisis at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which has lost the capacity to properly manage most of America’s wildlife refuges — putting in jeopardy the ability to protect endangered wildlife species under the Service’s care.

In their letter to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum and FWS Director Brian Nesvik, the Senators highlight the direct impacts cuts in staffing are having on the 573 national wildlife refuges across the country — with almost 60 percent of them lacking the resources and staff needed to fulfill their missions.

“Americans of all backgrounds love their public lands, and protecting wildlife refuges is a bipartisan cause that brings together environmentalists, sportsmen, and all who enjoy the outdoor recreation opportunities provided by America’s National Wildlife Refuge System. The Refuge System is the only federal network of public lands that is primarily dedicated to the conservation, management, and restoration of fish, wildlife, and plant species and their habitats,” the senators wrote.

The senators also emphasized that operating with few or no employees has also hurt disaster resilience because FWS employees carry out projects to control flooding and prevent catastrophic wildfires. “This downward trend did not begin under the Trump administration. Yet the current administration has not only shown an unwillingness to address the problem—it has made the situation far worse. The President’s Fiscal Year 26 budget request slashed funding for FWS’s overall Resource Management account, which included a proposed 22 percent cut to the National Wildlife Refuge System. Moreover, the administration has indicated that it is planning more firings for public land agencies,” the senators continued. “The consequences of slashing the FWS workforce are already being felt across the nation. The collapse of staffing capacity within the Refuge System leaves refuges open to damage, vandalism, flooding, fire, and loss of protection and conservation measures for threatened and endangered wildlife species who rely on these refuges for survival. FWS staffing losses also hurt resilience because FWS employees carry out projects to control flooding and prevent catastrophic wildfires.”

In addition to Senators Murray and Schiff, the letter was signed by U.S. Senators Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Chris Coons (D-DE), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Edward Markey (D-MA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Peter Welch (D-VT), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Ron Wyden (D-OR).

Senator Murray is a leading voice pushing back against the Trump administration’s attacks on federal agencies. In February, she released a fact sheet on how staffing cuts at federal agencies under the Trump administration would jeopardize critical functions of agencies, including the 2,300 employees laid off at the Department of the Interior and FWS at the beginning of this year. She and U.S. Representative Rick Larsen (D, WA-02) led the Washington Democratic Congressional delegation in a letter to Department of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in August, urging him to reverse the Trump administration’s disastrous decision to eliminate funding for Regional Fisheries Enhancement Groups (RFEGs), a blow to widely supported salmon recovery and habitat restoration efforts that also impacted FWS staffing. As Vice Chair of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Murray has consistently fought to secure funding for fish and wildlife conservation projects in Washington state and across the country.

The lawmakers’ full letter is available HERE and below:

Dear Secretary Burgum and Director Nesvik:

We write to sound the alarm on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) staffing crisis, which is causing particular harm to the National Wildlife Refuge System. A startling amount of staff and expertise needed to manage the Refuge System and protect America’s wildlife have been lost due to the administration’s firings, early retirement programs, and other efforts to push staff out of FWS. The agency is losing the capacity to manage America’s wildlife refuges and struggling to even keep them open. We ask that you provide Congress with your plan to address FWS’s staffing crisis and immediately act to ensure that FWS and the Refuge System have the staff and resources needed to guarantee a safe, quality experience for visitors to the Refuge System and to protect the invaluable wildlife species under the agency’s care.

Americans of all backgrounds love their public lands, and protecting wildlife refuges is a bipartisan cause that brings together environmentalists, sportsmen, and all who enjoy the outdoor recreation opportunities provided by America’s National Wildlife Refuge System. The Refuge System is the only federal network of public lands that is primarily dedicated to the conservation, management, and restoration of fish, wildlife, and plant species and their habitats. There are 573 national wildlife refuges across the country, with a footprint in every state. The Refuge System also utilizes a unique conservation approach through community-based initiatives that provide recreational and sporting opportunities and other localized needs. According to FWS, wildlife refuge recreation generates $3.2 billion in local economic activity each year. Every dollar that is invested in the Refuge System generates $3.12 in U.S. economic activity, a tremendous return on investment for the American taxpayer.

However, according to recently released internal agency documents, almost 60 percent of the nation’s wildlife refuges lack the resources and staff needed to fulfill their missions. FWS has experienced a staggering 29 percent loss of employees who work for the Refuge System. This downward trend did not begin under the Trump administration. Yet the current administration has not only shown an unwillingness to address the problem—it has made the situation far worse. The President’s Fiscal Year 26 budget request slashed funding for FWS’s overall Resource Management account, which included a proposed 22 percent cut to the National Wildlife Refuge System. Moreover, the administration has indicated that it is planning more firings for public land agencies.

Staffing reductions have negatively impacted national wildlife refuges across the country, forcing multiple wildlife refuges to operate with few or no employees. FWS’s internal estimates indicate that 9 percent of wildlife refuges are now classified as “shuttered.” It appears that FWS has abandoned these refuges, as there may not be a single employee on the ground to manage the refuge.

The consequences of slashing the FWS workforce are already being felt across the nation. The collapse of staffing capacity within the Refuge System leaves refuges open to damage, vandalism, flooding, fire, and loss of protection and conservation measures for threatened and endangered wildlife species who rely on these refuges for survival. FWS staffing losses also hurt resilience because FWS employees carry out projects to control flooding and prevent catastrophic wildfires.

It has also become more difficult for the agency to meet deadlines to list species as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act, an already challenging but essential obligation. This delay in work pushes endangered species closer to extinction and prevents infrastructure projects from moving forward, as they may encounter difficulties with acquiring needed permits amid such regulatory uncertainty.

Considering the alarming scale of FWS’s staffing crisis, we request answers to the following by January 2, 2026:

1. Will you commit to reversing the staffing losses at FWS? What is your plan to address FWS’s debilitating loss in capacity?

2. Has the Administration considered the impact of decimating the FWS workforce on the economics of gateway communities?

3. Does the Administration still plan on moving forward with firing more FWS employees, even as those firings are being stopped by federal courts?

4. How is FWS planning to meet deadlines to list species as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act?

Protecting natural resources for Americans has always been a bipartisan effort and it is important that FWS has the workforce required to meet its core mandates. Thank you, and we look forward to your response.

Sincerely, 

###

And let's note this from THE BLACK COMMENTATOR:

The Black Commentator

Issue #1068

is now Online

December 18, 2025