Young girls were just the bait, extortion the payoff

In the comments of a pundit roundup for Daily Kos there is a discussion of the arrest of Andrew Mountbattan-Windsor (disgraced brother of King Charles of Britain). Commenter rugbymom wrote:

The charges against Andrew, from what I understand, don't have to do with having sex with underage girls -- but rather with giving Epstein access to highly classified information when Andrew served as a Trade Envoy for the UK government. The UK authorities and media have been far more attentive to what to me is the scariest (but also promising) aspect of the files: the possibility that the young girls were just the bait, and the money-laundering, political influence, insider information, espionage for Putin and others? was the real payoff. Oh, plus the blackmail and extortion opportunities. To me “Did Trump rape underage girls?” is the least important question. More pressing (and frankly more likely to result in charges?) is who else in the Administration, in Congress, possibly on the Court, was and remains part of a highly compromised circle that included foreign oligarchs, blackmail and extortion, etc. etc. And the UK authorities are looking hard at that, while our social media and even members of Congress are all focussed on “Did he Do It?” (even though he’s likely immune from being prosecuted while he's in office, is probably already incompetent to stand trial, and certainly will be by Jan. 2029).

Jen Fifield of ProPublica and Zach Despart of ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, in an article posted on Kos, wrote that the Department of Homeland Security released a tool called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE. It originally checked immigrants’ eligibility for public benefits but has been expanded under the nasty guy. It now collects confidential data from across the federal government and is promoted to give states a way to look for noncitizens in their voter rolls. The claim is that “millions” of noncitizens are voting. The first finding is that the people flagged as ineligible are actually quite eligible. The error rate is high and verifying their true status causes county election officials extra work. There is no guidance from DHS on procedures to deal with matches. One reason for the false positives is SAVE doesn’t know about immigrants who become citizens. The other finding is that across seven states with a combined 35 million registered voters, the system “identified roughly 4,200 people — about 0.01% of registered voters — as noncitizens.” That’s definitely not “millions.” Which means this is a great deal of effort expended to fix a non-problem, and that means the real goal is something else, such as casting doubt in the security of elections to give a reason to stop actual citizens from voting. Carrie Johnson and Tamara Keith of NPR discuss a particular case of the nasty guy abusing executive power.

The president wants the government he leads to pay him billions of dollars. Trump has filed multiple claims arguing he's been hurt by Justice Department investigations and the leak of his tax returns years ago. Now it's up to his own political appointees to determine whether to settle with their boss — and for how much taxpayer money. "There is a glaring conflict of interest with Trump being on both sides of the claim," said Edward Whelan, a former lawyer at the Justice Department and a political conservative who once clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia. "It is outrageous that he and those answering to him would be deciding how the government responds to these extravagant claims."

Even the nasty guy has said he “will negotiate with myself.” One of the cases for which he is seeking damages comes from when federal agents seized classified documents from his Mar-a-Lago estate. Even in the worst cases the Justice Department rarely pays out more than $10 million. So the nasty guy is asking for at least 100, maybe 1000, times the rare highest payouts. The nasty guy thinks accepting all this taxpayer money is just fine because he’ll give the money to charity. And I’ll believe that only if the charities publish acceptance letters.

But at a time when Americans say their top concern is the cost of living and making ends meet, the idea of the president receiving a massive windfall from the government he leads may not sit well with voters — even if it is donated to charity.

The nasty guy’s Board of Peace met for the first time. The primary topic was Gaza. Leila Fadel of NPR didn’t talk about what happened at the meeting (it was likely secret). However, she did talk to Aaron David Miller, who served more than 20 years at the State Department, advising on Arab-Israel peace negotiations. He’s now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. One good thing about the Board of Peace is that it is trying to internationalize this problem. Gaza cannot be resolved by Israel and the Palestinians. There are three main issues. Who will govern Gaza? The Palestinian movement is a mess. Who will provide security in Gaza? There’s little hope there. Who will pay for humanitarian assistance, current shelter, and reconstruction? Maybe the Board of Peace can help with that last one. Internationalize means being able to bring in the huge required resources. But if Israel and Hamas can’t align their visions of the future no outside pressure or assistance will help. The Board of Peace does have a huge problem in that there is no Palestinian representation. One reason why that is a problem is that Israel has stated their policy is annexation. Miller said:

In the end, you need leaders who are masters of their politics in Israel and Palestine and leaders who are willing to overlook those politics to a degree to try to address not only their own constituencies' needs but the needs of others. And we do not have those kinds of leaders in the region. And frankly, we don't have them in Washington either.

As for a stabilization force, as long as Hamas and Israel are still shooting at each other, in spite of a cease-fire, no party is going to put boots on the ground.

The failure of democracies to rein in corporations

To commemorate the death of Jesse Jackson Bishtoons highlighted a phrase of Jackson. Love the saying, not so much the caricature. Jackson said:

Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping them up.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York went to the Munich Security Conference and told the crowd:

I think one of the connections and relationships that is underdiscussed, particularly in the security space, is the fact that I believe we're seeing an economy … around the world—including in the United States—that extreme levels of income inequality lead to social instability and drives in a sense in authoritarianism, right-wing populism, and very dangerous domestic internal politics. And that is a direct outcome of not just income inequality, but the failure of democracies over decades to deliver. The failure to deliver higher wages, the failure to rein in corporations. There is a level of market concentration and corporate consolidation where a massive company can get so big that its consolidated power can rival that of nation states. Massive corporations that then begin to consume the public sector gobble up the spending. They start to call the shots, and we're starting to see this with some of the billionaire class throwing their weight around in domestic politics and in global politics as well.

Alix Breeden of Daily Kos reported that federal judge James Boasberg, who has been tussling with the nasty guy’s administration for many months ordered them to return some Venezuelan men who were wrongfully sent to prison in El Salvador without due process. However three of the men told Kos that they refuse to step foot in the US while the nasty guy is in office. They say they have no guarantees of being free while their cases are being heard. The risk of returning isn’t worth it. Two of the three said they would consider returning to the US when there is a change in president. The third said he would still be too afraid to come back. Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary, wrote in his Substack that according to the New York Times the Department of Homeland Security sent subpoenas to big tech companies demanding the names on accounts the criticize ICE to identify those who oppose what ICE and DHS are doing. Reich responded:

Hello? Kristi Noem? Robert Reich here. I hear you’re trying to find the names of people who are making negative comments on social media about ICE enforcement. Look no further. I’ve done it frequently. I’m still doing it. This note to you, which I’m posting on Substack, is another example.

Reich then listed several things ICE is doing – arrests without due process, inadequate care in detention camps, and much more – that are unconstitutional. Noem is defying court orders, also unconstitutional, as are those subpoenas. Noem seems to have forgotten that she is given power and being paid by the people of the United States and she swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. As was true for Reich. He did his duty. What the hell is she doing? In Monday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Jacqueline Alemany of MS Now

For now, Democrats are in the minority — limited to issuing strongly worded letters and exercising a mostly toothless investigative authority to rein in a president who has applied a maximalist approach to executive authority. But with increasingly rosy prospects for the party to win back the House in 2026, Democratic lawmakers are laying the groundwork for a sweeping expansion of oversight targeting the companies and CEOs who have done business with the Trump family, or sought favorable regulatory treatment, merger approval, or policy changes from the administration — from Paramount to Palantir. It is a strategy that Democrats believe could reshape corporate America’s relationship with Trump: By threatening future investigations into companies that curry favor with the administration, they hope to make CEOs think twice before opening their wallets or bending to presidential pressure.

In Tuesday’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted Heather Cox Richardson from her Letters from an American Substack discussing the latest potential nasty guy grift.

On February 13 and 14, President Donald J. Trump’s representatives filed three applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to trademark his name for future use on an airport. As trademark lawyer Josh Gerben of Gerben IP noted, the application also covers merchandise branded “President Donald J. Trump International Airport,” “Donald J. Trump International Airport,” and “DJT,” including “clothing, handbags, luggage, jewelry, watches, and tie clips.” Because of the trademark filing, Gerben notes, any airport adopting the Trump name would have to get a license to use the name, potentially paying a licensing fee. Gerben emphasizes that while it is common for public officials to have landmarks named after them, “never in the history of the United States” has “a sitting president’s private company…sought trademark rights” before such a naming.

In the comments paulpro posted a cartoon by Pedro Molina showing a man facing down ICE agents referring to what AG Pam Bondi said before Congress:

Papers? Oh, Bro! Haven’t you heard? We should all be focused on the Dow!

Parker Molloy tweeted a link to Sports Illustrated and wrote:

Sign of the times that there are multiple members of the Chicago Cubs who haven't been able to enter the U.S. because Trump's immigration crackdown has made getting visas impossible.

Herbilly posted a meme:

Let’s have illegal immigrants hunt down sex offenders for a chance at citizenship. We’ll call it “Aliens VS Predators.”

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted Shawn Ryan, a podcaster on the right, after Bondi sat in front of a House Committee and made that comment about the Dow. Bill has a very good reason for quoting someone on the right. Ryan said:

What you should be talking about is how you are going to investigate and prosecute any pedophiles that are running around on Epstein Island that you’re affiliated with. But we didn’t talk about that, did we? Oh, and what’s the excuse? What was the excuse? “If we prosecute everybody the whole system would go down.” Well, you know what that sounds like? That sounds like how Trump ran his campaign: “Let’s drain the swamp.” Doesn’t that sound a lot like draining the swamp? It actually is drain the swamps served up to you on a f---ing silver platter but you’re not gonna take it, are you? You’re gonna protect pedophiles! You’re going to protect pedophiles rather than go after them and hope that everybody’s happy that the Dow hit 50,000. Are you f---ing out of your mind?!”

The whole system would go down? The system of men who think they’re so far above the rules that they can abuse girls? Sounds like a goal worth working toward. In an LGBTQ Update for Kos Clio2 wrote of many topics. Here are a few of them:

If I have this right, the proposed federal "SAVE Act" (Republicans have a way with Newspeak!) currently before Congress would require proof of citizenship and ID matching one's birth certificate to register to vote, disqualifying not only trans people who have changed their documents, but a great many others--such as adoptees, and married women who took their husband's name. Voter fraud is, of course, minuscule, and this would amount to theft of people's votes. Reportedly Sen. Collins, however, has gotten over her usual fit of the vapors, making this a squeaker. :-/

Then Clio2 got into discussing bans on transgender care, both in the US and in Britain. And in Britain the efforts include closing a clinic treating trans children, and requiring schools ban social transition, including “using a different name, pronoun or haircut” and outing trans youth. There is also a book urging parents not to support their trans kids. And a tweet from Sara Hummingbird:

Policies based on lies is killing kids. "Good Law Project can confirm that in 2021-2022 suicides of trans children in England surged to 22, a marked increase from 5 and 4 the previous two years" It takes years for this data to be available there will be more. All these kids had the right to life.

A series of tweets by Toby Buckle (I’m not sure of the order):

one of the things i got from diving into the weeds of this debate for my reporting on it was just how small the core 'gender critical' team is almost all (anti-trans) reporting cites/ quotes the same half-dozen people the idea that this was a popular backlash to a socially dominant 'woke' worldview, pushing pronouns down all of our thoughts is absurd a decade ago most brits did not hold well defined views on this, there was a bi-partisan consensus for tolerance basically, we've utterly erased the rights & healthcare access of a vulnerable minority because a very small group (of apparently very well-connected) of people became fanatical about it & the (also very small) group who decide press coverage decided they needed relentless coverage a stat i always cite is the number of anti-trans articles in the press went from 60 in a year, to 7,500

DixTheory added, based on data from Parliament Committees.

Chart showing the frequency of trans-related articles by month in the UK press from 2012 to 2022. The count remains below 50 per 30 days until 2015, rising to 400 per 30 days by 2021, then peaking over 1,000 in 2022.

Clio2 tweeted a link to an article in The Pink News with the title and subtitle:

Publicly funded gender-affirming care is great for the economy A new study in Australia has found that increasing public funding gender-affirming care could save the government millions.

On a different topic Kat Tenbarge tweeted:

When a sitting representative refers to the Super Bowl halftime show as “pornography,” people should use that to reflect on how they and other representatives are simultaneously working to ban, censor, and restrict “pornography” and what that actually means And we don’t have to guess what they mean, because we can read Project 2025 ourselves and see that “pornography” is shorthand for LGBTQ people existing publicly. That’s what they’re working to ban, censor, and restrict online under the guise of “protecting” kids from porn And we also already know that these efforts have been in motion for years, and that sex workers, LGBTQ people, feminists, educators, and anyone who talks about bodies, women, and gender/sexuality is already being censored online and offline

TC added:

Yes, they've signalled using "pornography" the way Putin's Russia uses the term "hooligan"

Safety regulations by AI

Yes, I’ve been watching team, dance, and men’s figure skating all this past week. Tonight starts pairs, followed by women’s this week. I’ve been enjoying it very much. I’m thinking about how to portray the stats from the men’s long program results in which the fifth place guy (Mikail Shaidrov of Kazakhstan) ended up in first place (yes, his long program was flawless and beautiful), the second place guy (Yuma Kagiyama of Japan) bobbled a bit to keep second place, the ninth place guy (Shun Sato of Japan) ended up in third, and the first place guy (Ilia Malinin of the US, known as the Quad God) took eighth, well off the medals. I watched Malinin’s performance and his many stumbles and quad jumps that weren’t four rotations. Perhaps calling him the Quad God (he even wore a t-shirt with that on it) was too much stress. When watching these performances I wonder would they be more or less beautiful if the skaters did it because they loved what they do and the joy they give viewers and didn’t get scored or ranked? Back towards the end of January Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Daily Kos included a five minute video of Rachel Maddow discussing the protests of the ICE operations in Minneapolis. This was shortly after Alex Pretti was murdered. Her main idea is this: The people who are against democracy and in favor of the nasty guy as dictator believe they will win with intimidation, with guns, and through war. The people who believe in saving democracy, who declare “No Kings,” will win through flexing democracy, through speech, protest, and political power. A week ago Alexander Shur and the staff of Votebeat in an article posted on Kos discussed the nasty guy’s call to Republicans to “nationalize the voting” and “take over the voting in at least 15 places.” Thankfully, there are some Republicans who are pushing back, including from Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

Election officials say the lesson of 2020 was not that the system is invulnerable, but that it can be strained in ways that cause lasting damage long before courts step in. While it’s unclear whether Trump’s latest demands — and possible future actions— would lead to the same level of disruption, legal experts say some of the backstops that ultimately stopped him last time are now weaker, leaving election officials to absorb even more pressure.

Some election officials are stressing transparency, showing in real time the rules are being followed exactly. But that doesn’t help with the skeptic that say, “I don’t believe you.” Also, they recognize the assault is coming to more than the local jurisdiction. Another danger this year is the “charlatans” who created a business model of spreading conspiracy theories for profit. Election officials are also dealing with death threats. They’ve had to enhance security, yet turnover has increased dramatically. Members of the administration that pushed back against the claims of fraud in 2020 are not there this time. Courts are a great line of defense and have already halted many of the nasty guy’s election policies. But court challenges take time and “untold damage” can happen to public trust and public officials before their ruling. That gap is the current risk.

“It’s up to us to choose to believe him or not,” [said Justin Levitt, an election law professor at Loyola Marymount University]. Obedience in advance isn’t required, and treating Trump’s claims as commands would grant him authority he does not have, Levitt said, adding, “We have agency in this.”

Also towards the end of January (yeah, this is a chance to get browser tabs that have sat for a while) Lisa Needham of Kos reported that the Department of Transportation updated safety regulations by letting an AI write them. That should be good enough.

While [DOT’s top lawyer Gregory] Zerzan might just want “good enough,” most people actually do want the perfect rule when it comes to transportation safety. Regrettably, as ProPublica described, Zerzan “appeared interested mainly in the quantity of regulations that AI could produce, not their quality.” ... This is, to be blunt, terrifying. It’s not just the blind faith that somehow Google’s glorified chatbot is more knowledgeable than an entire agency of specialized experts, but also that complex safety regulations can just be generated in seconds.

This isn’t just DOT and Zerzan. The nasty guy, after firing a lot of employees, has talked about AI replacing everything. Nothing will go wrong! Especially if it is Musk’s Grok AI. A month ago Oliver Willis of Kos wrote that the nasty guy has been talking about America First. But the country that benefits the most from his policies is not the US, but China. China may have started surging ahead before the nasty guy took office, but he has made America’s competitive advantage worse and has paid more attention to is ballroom than doing anything about China. Also from a month ago is a cartoon from Clay Jones. About that time the nasty guy had commented that the only this that would constrain him is his own morality. So Jones reviews his morality: He was pals with Epstein (details still TBD), stole from a fake charity, grifted students through his fake university, weaponized the DoJ against his enemies, and monetized the Oval Office. Yeah, we understand his morality and how little that would deter him from anything. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Carron J. Phillips of The Contrarian on Substack discussing the nasty guy’s racist posts about the Obamas.

Too often, the oppressed are asked to address their oppression, instead of the oppressed hearing from those who have the privilege of being unscathed. We see this a lot when it comes to activism in sports, which is why it was so refreshing to see a bevy of white American athletes being asked about the state of America during the Winter Olympics.

Those white American athletes declaring their opposition to the nasty guy’s policies are really annoying conservatives. Which is good. In the comments paulpro posted a meme:

Two things Republicans hate: 1. Being called racist. 2. Black people.