The vote was 427-1

This topic has been in the news all week, but only today have I caught up enough in my reading to discuss it. On Monday Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported:

President Donald Trump fired off an angry Truth Social post on Sunday in which he said Republicans should vote for the House bill that would force him to release the Epstein files, yet continued to maintain that the files are a "hoax"—his favorite term for an issue that makes him look bad.

This switch comes after months of pressuring Congressional Republicans to not release the files. I heard over the week several commentators ask why doesn’t the nasty guy just tell his Department of Justice to release the files? Does he want a way to record which Republicans voted for release so he knows who to target? Alex Samuels of Kos wonders why Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is trying to rebrand herself. She has been a stalwart MAGA flamethrower over the years she’s been in the House. Samuels provides many examples. But then she called for the Epstein file release and the nasty guy called her a traitor. Since then she has apologized for her previous nasty comments. She says she won’t use harsh language again now that she knows how damaging it can be. Samuels concluded:

Whether Greene is actually breaking from MAGA or simply navigating a particularly messy public rupture remains an open question. What’s clearer is that the man who once empowered her is now targeting her—and Greene is discovering that stepping away from Trumpism can be far more dangerous than embracing it.

Kos of Kos also looks at Greene’s change of heart and came to a different conclusion.

More importantly, we’re once again watching a conservative discover a moral principle only after it landed directly on her own head. This is the defining pattern of modern conservatism: Empathy arrives only when the pain becomes personal. ... In the end, Greene finally found the right answer: dial down the hate, tone down the threats, stop treating politics like a blood sport. But she arrived there due to the only reason her party’s movement ever changes—because it finally hurt her. Empathy wasn’t the revelation. Self-preservation was.

On Tuesday Singer reported:

The House on Tuesday finally voted to force President Donald Trump to release the Epstein files—the culmination of a monthslong effort by Democrats and a handful of Republican lawmakers who want the public to see the evidence the government had on now-deceased accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The vote was 427-1, with Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana voting against it, after Trump reluctantly dropped his opposition to the legislation and gave his blessing to his GOP minions to vote yes.

That tally means that Speaker Mike Johnson, after keeping the House closed for two months to prevent a vote, voted for it.

However, Johnson on Tuesday said that while he was going to vote for the bill, he is hopeful the Senate will amend the legislation that passes in order to allow the Trump administration to continue to hold back documents or evidence that would implicate anyone in Epstein's crimes.

This guy needs a spine transplant immediately! This Associated Press article posted on Kos is a good summary of where things stood as of late Tuesday afternoon. On Wednesday Singer reported the Senate passed the bill without revisions. I was a bit surprised that Singer didn’t mention how the Senate passed the bill. So I turned to NPR. Later Tuesday afternoon host Scott Detrow talked to reporter Claudia Grisales. Here’s a bit of what Grisales said:

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer got unanimous consent to pass the bill automatically after the House sends it over.

Which sounds like as soon as the House officially turned the bill over to the Senate they responded with “We declare it passed.” I don’t know exactly how that works but it means nobody in the Senate felt the bill had to go through committees, have hearings, have a chance to be amended, or even have a formal vote. Nobody wanted to hold it up. All of them wanted it out of the Senate’s hands as quickly as possible. And Johnson’s wish the Senate would save him from himself and from the nasty guy was ignored. On Wednesday Singer reported:

Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday refused to commit to releasing all of the Epstein files, giving a cagey answer that suggests it may be a long time before we ever see the documents related to the accused child sex trafficker.

An AP article posted on Wednesday evening reported the nasty guy has signed. The article also pointed out that he could have released the files months ago. And as he announced he had signed he blamed Democrats. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos included some late night commentary that explains the situation quite well:

"Donald Trump lost his months-long battle to stop the release of the Epstein files on Tuesday, when Congress passed a bill forcing the Justice Department to make them public. So now Trump's doing a 180: he says he'll sign the bill that forces him to release the files that he could've released on his own but wouldn't, thus requiring a bill to force him to do the thing he didn’t want to do, which he will now be forced to do because of the bill he was against that he will now sign." —Seth Meyers

I’ve seen lots of speculation on various ways Bondi could avoid releasing the files. One of them is withholding files (or certain files) because they are a part of an ongoing investigation. Conveniently, just before the nasty guy changed his mind on releasing the files he asked Bondi to investigate which Democrats are in the files. There are ways Bondi could comply with the law but still not release all the details. One that I heard was to hire a company that could scrub the document. I also heard that enough DoJ lawyers have seen the files they will know if something is missing. The victims, increasingly stepping forward, will also verify it’s all there. Bondi has 30 days from Wednesday. Keep your popcorn popping. The show isn’t over. I’ve heard the sentiment: I don’t care if Democrats are in the files. If they are, they should go down too. That’s quite the contrast to Republicans trying to protect themselves and each other. Democrat Sen. Chris Murphy said to CNN when he was asked if he was concerned if Democrats might be implicated in the files.

So what? I mean, yeah, I'm sure that there are Democrats in those files, there are Republicans in those files, there are, you know, Wall Street executives who have no political affiliation. What we want is to understand who was involved in this. I mean, I don't think the president's so selfless that he was, you know, stopping the release of these files for so long because he was protecting his friends. I just think it stands to reason that he's very much connected to this scandal, and we may or may not know the extent of that, because it could be that the president is going to try to find a way to redact any information connected to him from those files, but to me, it just doesn't matter—the political affiliation. The law’s the law. They need to release the files.

Oliver Willis of Kos reported:

During a NewsNation segment on Monday, Mark Epstein said that his brother, Jeffrey Epstein, “had dirt” on President Donald Trump, alleging that the FBI is involved in a cover-up. During disgraced former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo’s show, Mark discussed the controversy surrounding his brother. “He didn’t tell me what he knew, but Jeffrey definitely had dirt on Trump,” he said. “You could see in the emails, Trump could deny it all he wants, but it’s pretty clear everything Trump says is a lie.”

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet from Mychael Schnell:

A House vibe check from @SpeakerJohnson: "I would like us to get back to normal Congress, it’s just no one knows what that looks like anymore." "There’s never a dull moment around here, is there." And members have only been back for 2 weeks since the shutdown...

Ben Jacobs responded:

This is actually an understated issue with Congress. There are less than 30 members who have served in a Congress that passed all 12 appropriations bills on time and a vast majority (including Mike Johnson!) have no experience of the House before Trump.

Jonathan Larson of Blue Amp wrote about a complicated scenario involving far right Venezuelan expatriates and Sidney Powell, the “Kraken” of the 2020 Big Lie. I think this complication comes down to these people feeding info to the nasty guy, info that has been refuted by intelligence agencies. The info is what is pushing the nasty guy towards war with Venezuela. The funding of these expatriates is also looking mighty sketchy. In the comments are several interesting memes most posted by exlrrp. The first few are based on two senators, one of them Mark Kelly, reminding soldiers they have a duty to ignore illegal orders. In response the nasty guy called for their arrest and execution. Mark Kelly is a former Navy combat pilot ant astronaut.

[Press secretary Karoline] Leavitt: They are encouraging service members not to follow lawful orders! Reporter: They’re talking about illegal orders. Leavitt: They’re suggesting the president has given illegal orders, which he has not. Every single order given is lawful.

Greg Sargent responded:

Keep doing this Dems. Make the White House keep denying that Trump is giving the military illegal orders. Force a big debate over it. Because there are strong grounds for believing that Trump *actually is* giving illegal orders, particularly with the boat bombings.

ChrisTheBarMan added:

Using the military to police U.S. cities? Not legal... Using the military to commit murder by destroying boats in international waters? Not legal... These are just two examples of illegal orders.

A meme from The Resistance:

Dear MAGA, please help us make sense of something: Why would Trump and his administration object to soldiers being reminded by lawmakers “not to obey ILLEGAL orders” ... unless Trump and members of his regime plan on issuing illegal orders to them? And why would he call for their arrest and execution?

Heard on Fox News:

Stephen Miller: It is insurrection, plainly, directly without question... These lawmakers should honestly resign in disgrace, and never return to public office again, for even daring to think, let alone say these words and say them proudly.

A response from Melanie D’arrigo:

If Republicans are upset that Democrats are telling the military to refuse illegal orders, then Republicans are admitting that they are asking the military to break the law. Republicans are telling on themselves.

Skyleigh Uhrich added:

This is the law. Passed down from our Founding Fathers, to ensure our military upholds its oath to the Constitution – not a king. You should buff up on the Uniformed Code of Military Justice Stephen. It’s a soldier’s duty to disobey an unlawful order.

A meme from Josh Rogin (yeah, I’m quoting him):

Trump spends two days with a dictator who kills all political dissidents and suddenly suggests he can do the same thing.

In honor of Transgender Day of Remembrance (which was yesterday) Liberal Jane posted a few memes. One of them:

Trans people are not the reason your life sucks.

And toonerman posted a cartoon of the result of a young Michelangelo building a snowman. It’s a nice takeoff on his creation of Adam.