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CW: casual discussion of fictional alien child/infant death and society around it
I've been thinking about flarians lately and have been considering whether they might have two sets of teeth, one in front and retractable within their gums, sharp and capable of cutting meat easily. The idea here is that on Earth, differentiated teeth evolved only in a few clades, and a lot of species on Earth have had to evolve fascinating adaptations to simulate what, for humans, is a normal thing. Some of those morphologies are really cool.
So like, retractable teeth.
One thing I like about this, though I'm having a hard time phrasing it well, is it's a detail where they can survive and even thrive even if some of the development goes wrong, or if they suffer a severe injury that causes the foremouth to no longer function properly. r-strategy childhoods can be rough, and sheer numbers is more important than getting all the details "right". While most flarian infants don't survive to sapience, and a serious injury or birth defect causing the loss of a foremouth or its incisors would be terrible for their survival odds, the simple fact is that some do survive, and once they reach shore, they're treated as precious as anybody.Flarian societies aren't all 100% so caring, of course, but the sheer likelihood of divergence from what's on-model for their body plan, due to genetic or congenital causes or due to the difficulties of infancy in the creches.
And some creches are protected more directly than others. Still, it's unusual for flarians to feel very strongly about the death of a few pre-sapient infants.Damage to the creches is another matter. Harming a defenseless sessile is considered appalling, at least for flarians with any reasonable sense of morality about the matter. (This can be twisted out of them, such as by greed or hate, but that still involves a lot of choices, just like in humans.) So it'd be more accurate to say it is regarded as genocidal.
#r-strategy-species #flarians #flarian #Not-A-Retread-this-time-but-original-to-this-blag #casual-speculative-bio #as-opposed-to-being-particularly-good-at-it-or-having-a-big-damn-background-in-it-like-some-of-those-badasses-like-Jay-Eaton #scifi #sci-fi #science-fiction -
CW: casual discussion of fictional alien child/infant death and society around it
I've been thinking about flarians lately and have been considering whether they might have two sets of teeth, one in front and retractable within their gums, sharp and capable of cutting meat easily. The idea here is that on Earth, differentiated teeth evolved only in a few clades, and a lot of species on Earth have had to evolve fascinating adaptations to simulate what, for humans, is a normal thing. Some of those morphologies are really cool.
So like, retractable teeth.
One thing I like about this, though I'm having a hard time phrasing it well, is it's a detail where they can survive and even thrive even if some of the development goes wrong, or if they suffer a severe injury that causes the foremouth to no longer function properly. r-strategy childhoods can be rough, and sheer numbers is more important than getting all the details "right". While most flarian infants don't survive to sapience, and a serious injury or birth defect causing the loss of a foremouth or its incisors would be terrible for their survival odds, the simple fact is that some do survive, and once they reach shore, they're treated as precious as anybody.Flarian societies aren't all 100% so caring, of course, but the sheer likelihood of divergence from what's on-model for their body plan, due to genetic or congenital causes or due to the difficulties of infancy in the creches.
And some creches are protected more directly than others. Still, it's unusual for flarians to feel very strongly about the death of a few pre-sapient infants.Damage to the creches is another matter. Harming a defenseless sessile is considered appalling, at least for flarians with any reasonable sense of morality about the matter. (This can be twisted out of them, such as by greed or hate, but that still involves a lot of choices, just like in humans.) So it'd be more accurate to say it is regarded as genocidal.
#r-strategy-species #flarians #flarian #Not-A-Retread-this-time-but-original-to-this-blag #casual-speculative-bio #as-opposed-to-being-particularly-good-at-it-or-having-a-big-damn-background-in-it-like-some-of-those-badasses-like-Jay-Eaton #scifi #sci-fi #science-fiction -
CW: casual discussion of fictional alien child/infant death and society around it
I've been thinking about flarians lately and have been considering whether they might have two sets of teeth, one in front and retractable within their gums, sharp and capable of cutting meat easily. The idea here is that on Earth, differentiated teeth evolved only in a few clades, and a lot of species on Earth have had to evolve fascinating adaptations to simulate what, for humans, is a normal thing. Some of those morphologies are really cool.
So like, retractable teeth.
One thing I like about this, though I'm having a hard time phrasing it well, is it's a detail where they can survive and even thrive even if some of the development goes wrong, or if they suffer a severe injury that causes the foremouth to no longer function properly. r-strategy childhoods can be rough, and sheer numbers is more important than getting all the details "right". While most flarian infants don't survive to sapience, and a serious injury or birth defect causing the loss of a foremouth or its incisors would be terrible for their survival odds, the simple fact is that some do survive, and once they reach shore, they're treated as precious as anybody.Flarian societies aren't all 100% so caring, of course, but the sheer likelihood of divergence from what's on-model for their body plan, due to genetic or congenital causes or due to the difficulties of infancy in the creches.
And some creches are protected more directly than others. Still, it's unusual for flarians to feel very strongly about the death of a few pre-sapient infants.Damage to the creches is another matter. Harming a defenseless sessile is considered appalling, at least for flarians with any reasonable sense of morality about the matter. (This can be twisted out of them, such as by greed or hate, but that still involves a lot of choices, just like in humans.) So it'd be more accurate to say it is regarded as genocidal.
#r-strategy-species #flarians #flarian #Not-A-Retread-this-time-but-original-to-this-blag #casual-speculative-bio #as-opposed-to-being-particularly-good-at-it-or-having-a-big-damn-background-in-it-like-some-of-those-badasses-like-Jay-Eaton #scifi #sci-fi #science-fiction -
I very much enjoyed this YA thriller set in Washington, D.C. involving a brilliant teenage girl. She has to figure out the trail of breadcrumbs that her dad left her. Review--> #Bookthreads #BookSky #BookBlogger #BookReview #ARC #NetGalley #Codebreaker #JayMartel #WednesdayBooks #YAThriller
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WWW 134 – Wöchentliche WordPress Weblinks
Die beste Art, in die Woche zu starten? Mit einem klaren Kopf, einem starken Kaffee oder Tee (manche bevorzugen auch Energy-Drinks) und der Lust, die Dinge Schritt für Schritt anzugehen.
Hier gibt es jedenfalls frisches Futter für deine WordPress-Projekte: Einige Weblinks, die uns diese Woche besonders inspiriert haben und die dir vielleicht auch neuen Ideen liefern, wie du deine Projekte voranbringst.
⭐️ dein Leo Skull Team
Microsoft integriert GitHub stärker in seine KI-Strategie
Nach fast vier Jahren an der Spitze tritt GitHub-CEO Thomas Dohmke jetzt zurück. Doch anstatt einen Nachfolger zu ernennen, wird GitHub künftig enger in Microsofts neuer „CoreAI“-Organisation eingebunden, die von Ex-Meta-Manager Jay Parikh geleitet wird. GitHubs Führungsteam berichtet fortan direkt an CoreAI, was das zuvor bestehende Maß an Autonomie (seit der Übernahme 2018) erheblich reduziert. Dohmke bleibt aber noch bis Ende 2025, um den Übergang zu begleiten.
Was das für die Zukunft von GitHub bedeutet? Mit Sicherheit mehr und neue KI-Tools für Entwickler*innen und eine engere Verzahnung der Plattform mit anderen Microsoft-Angeboten, während die noch verbliebene Eigenständigkeit wahrscheinlich weiter reduziert wird.
Bring mich hinWie KI-Zusammenfassungen das Web verändern
Die Web-Suche war schon immer essentiell für das offene Internet und für viele Sites eine unverzichtbare Traffic-Quelle. Aber in letzter Zeit hat sich hier einiges verändert. Nutzer*innen suchen zwar immer noch, aber sie klicken nicht mehr zur Quelle. Warum ist das so? KI-Zusammenfassungen bieten sofortige Antworten auf der Suchergebnisseite und ein Klick zu den eigentlichen Fundstellen wird unnötig.
Denn KI-generierte Übersichten und Zusammenfassungen nehmen den Platz ein, der früher denen gehörte, die Inhalte ihre Inhalte auf den ersten Plätzen der Fundstellen unterbringen konnten. Das Ergebnis ist ein starker Rückgang des Traffics auf den Websites. In folgendem Artikel gibt es einige Zahlen dazu, die erst einmal schockieren, aber auch Lösungsansätze, wie jeder damit umgehen kann, der eine Website besitzt.
Bring mich hinGutenberg-Migration: Ist es Zeit, den Page Builder zu wechseln?
Nicht nur, wenn du unzufrieden mit deinem aktuell eingesetzten Page Builder bist, kann eine Migration zu Gutenberg (dem WordPress-Block‑Editor) sinnvoll sein – muss es aber nicht. Im folgenden Artikel wird gezeigt, wann ein Umstieg am meisten bringt. Nämlich wenn er mit einem blockbasierten Redesign und einer Musterbibliothek kombiniert wird.
Bring mich hinFür Entwickler*innen: Wie bringe ich mein Plugin in das MainWP-Dashboard?
Marc Benzakein erklärt im folgenden Video das MainWP-Entwicklerprogramm, mit dem du deine WordPress-Plugins in das MainWP-Dashboard integrieren kannst. Egal, ob du ein Plugin für SEO, Backups, Verfügbarkeitsüberwachung oder etwas ganz Einzigartiges hast – das Team von MainWP unterstützt Entwickler*innen dabei, ihre Plugins in das WordPress-Management-Tool zu integrieren.
Im Rahmen des Programms bekommst du umfassende Dokumentationen, direkten Zugang zum Team über einen privaten Discord-Kanal und Werbung für dein Add-on über Videos, Newsletter und die sozialen Medien. Bei Interesse einfach mainwp.dev besuchen oder sende Marc direkt eine E-Mail, um loszulegen.
Bring mich hinSmart Creator Press
Smart Creator Press ist ein All-in-One-WordPress-Plugin, das Memberships, LMS (Lernplattformen), Funnels, Online-Kurse, digitalen Verkauf und mehr in einer einzigen Plattform vereint. Preislich geht es für das Basis-Paket mit den Core-Funktionen derzeit ab $149 pro Jahr los, wer das volle Paket (Elite) haben möchte, muss $229 pro Jahr investieren.
Bring mich hinHow Tos & Surveys
Vertikale Ausrichtung im Flexbox-Layout-System von Divi 5
Divi 5 integriert ein Flexbox-Layoutsystem in den visuellen Builder, das es ermöglicht, Inhalte vertikal exakt zu positionieren – ganz ohne CSS-Kenntnisse. Du kannst flexibel Sektionen, Zeilen, Spalten und Modulgruppen vertikal ausrichten, etwa zentrieren, am oberen oder unteren Rand anordnen oder gleichmäßig verteilen. Zusätzlich bietet Divi 5 responsive Optionen wie anpassbare Breakpoints und Design-Variablen, um Layouts auf verschiedenen Geräten konsistent und professionell zu gestalten.
Bring mich hin (*)Geschäfte legen am diesjährigen Black Friday besonderen Wert auf das Kundenerlebnis
Hier ist die zweite Ausgabe des jährlichen Black Friday Cyber Monday Trend Reports von WooCommerce. Wie bereits im letzten Jahr wurde im Juli 2025 eine umfassende Umfrage durchgeführt, um Strategien, Herausforderungen und Erwartungen für die bevorstehende Hochsaison bei Händlern und Agenturen zu ermitteln.
Die Ergebnisse zeigen, wie Unternehmen planen, von der Saison zu profitieren, und welche neuen Taktiken sie umsetzen wollen. Der folgende Beitrag ist eine Zusammenfassung der Ergebnisse des Berichts. Möglicherweise findest du hier noch Anregungen für deine eigene Black Friday/Cyber Monday Kampagne.
Bring mich hin8 leistungsstarke SEO-Strategien für Membership-Seiten im Zeitalter von KI
Der Erfolg einer Membership-Seite hängt nicht nur von gutem Content ab, sondern auch davon, dass man von den richtigen Menschen gefunden wird – dafür ist SEO entscheidend. Mit 68 % des Website-Traffics aus organischer und bezahlter Suche, ist SEO von herausragender Bedeutung. Der Leitfaden erklärt einfache KI-gestützte SEO-Strategien für Membership-Seiten – von Keyword-Recherche und Content-Planung über On-Page- und technische Optimierung bis hin zu lokalen Ansätzen. Durch die Kombination von klassischem SEO und KI-Insights soll sich die Sichtbarkeit deutlich steigern und dadurch mehr Mitglieder gewinnen lassen, damit man langfristig erfolgreich bleibt.
Bring mich hin (*)So spielst du ein Video beim Maus-Hover ab [Elementor-Tutorial]
Ein Video-on-Hover-Effekt in Elementor kann Websites interaktiver machen – ist aber auch Geschmackssache: Sobald Besucher*innen mit der Maus über ein Bild oder einen Bereich fahren, startet automatisch ein Video. So lassen sich Produkte, Portfolios oder Hintergründe dynamisch präsentieren und statische Designs in aufmerksamkeitsstarke, bewegte Elemente verwandeln.
Bring mich hinWP Astra: Neues Premium-Starter-Template für Bauunternehmen
Und ganz zum Schluss: Astra hat ein neues Premium-Starter-Template für Bauunternehmen veröffentlicht, ideal für Architekt*innen, Bauunternehmer*innen und Renovierungsspezialist*innen. Es liefert ein vollständig aufgebautes Website-Kit – inklusive Kontaktformular, realitätsnahen Beispielinhalten, Projektgalerien, Dienstleistungsseiten und Portfolio-Layouts. Damit kannst du in kürzester Zeit eine professionelle, responsive Website starten. Das Template ist per One‑Click importierbar und lässt sich einfach mit eigenem Branding anpassen. Perfekt für schnelle, hochwertige Web-Präsenz im Bauumfeld.
Bring mich hin (*)(*) Dies ist ein Affiliate-Link. Wenn Du über einen Affiliate-Link einkaufst, dann erhalten wir ein paar Prozent Provision – für Dich ändert sich aber nichts am Preis.
#Bloggen #Divi5 #Elementor #GitHub #Gutenberg #HowTo #MainWP #Plugins #SmartCreatorPress #UnlimitedElements #Websites #WooCommerce #WordPress #WPAstra
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WWW 134 – Wöchentliche WordPress Weblinks
Die beste Art, in die Woche zu starten? Mit einem klaren Kopf, einem starken Kaffee oder Tee (manche bevorzugen auch Energy-Drinks) und der Lust, die Dinge Schritt für Schritt anzugehen.
Hier gibt es jedenfalls frisches Futter für deine WordPress-Projekte: Einige Weblinks, die uns diese Woche besonders inspiriert haben und die dir vielleicht auch neuen Ideen liefern, wie du deine Projekte voranbringst.
⭐️ dein Leo Skull Team
Microsoft integriert GitHub stärker in seine KI-Strategie
Nach fast vier Jahren an der Spitze tritt GitHub-CEO Thomas Dohmke jetzt zurück. Doch anstatt einen Nachfolger zu ernennen, wird GitHub künftig enger in Microsofts neuer „CoreAI“-Organisation eingebunden, die von Ex-Meta-Manager Jay Parikh geleitet wird. GitHubs Führungsteam berichtet fortan direkt an CoreAI, was das zuvor bestehende Maß an Autonomie (seit der Übernahme 2018) erheblich reduziert. Dohmke bleibt aber noch bis Ende 2025, um den Übergang zu begleiten.
Was das für die Zukunft von GitHub bedeutet? Mit Sicherheit mehr und neue KI-Tools für Entwickler*innen und eine engere Verzahnung der Plattform mit anderen Microsoft-Angeboten, während die noch verbliebene Eigenständigkeit wahrscheinlich weiter reduziert wird.
Bring mich hinWie KI-Zusammenfassungen das Web verändern
Die Web-Suche war schon immer essentiell für das offene Internet und für viele Sites eine unverzichtbare Traffic-Quelle. Aber in letzter Zeit hat sich hier einiges verändert. Nutzer*innen suchen zwar immer noch, aber sie klicken nicht mehr zur Quelle. Warum ist das so? KI-Zusammenfassungen bieten sofortige Antworten auf der Suchergebnisseite und ein Klick zu den eigentlichen Fundstellen wird unnötig.
Denn KI-generierte Übersichten und Zusammenfassungen nehmen den Platz ein, der früher denen gehörte, die Inhalte ihre Inhalte auf den ersten Plätzen der Fundstellen unterbringen konnten. Das Ergebnis ist ein starker Rückgang des Traffics auf den Websites. In folgendem Artikel gibt es einige Zahlen dazu, die erst einmal schockieren, aber auch Lösungsansätze, wie jeder damit umgehen kann, der eine Website besitzt.
Bring mich hinGutenberg-Migration: Ist es Zeit, den Page Builder zu wechseln?
Nicht nur, wenn du unzufrieden mit deinem aktuell eingesetzten Page Builder bist, kann eine Migration zu Gutenberg (dem WordPress-Block‑Editor) sinnvoll sein – muss es aber nicht. Im folgenden Artikel wird gezeigt, wann ein Umstieg am meisten bringt. Nämlich wenn er mit einem blockbasierten Redesign und einer Musterbibliothek kombiniert wird.
Bring mich hinFür Entwickler*innen: Wie bringe ich mein Plugin in das MainWP-Dashboard?
Marc Benzakein erklärt im folgenden Video das MainWP-Entwicklerprogramm, mit dem du deine WordPress-Plugins in das MainWP-Dashboard integrieren kannst. Egal, ob du ein Plugin für SEO, Backups, Verfügbarkeitsüberwachung oder etwas ganz Einzigartiges hast – das Team von MainWP unterstützt Entwickler*innen dabei, ihre Plugins in das WordPress-Management-Tool zu integrieren.
Im Rahmen des Programms bekommst du umfassende Dokumentationen, direkten Zugang zum Team über einen privaten Discord-Kanal und Werbung für dein Add-on über Videos, Newsletter und die sozialen Medien. Bei Interesse einfach mainwp.dev besuchen oder sende Marc direkt eine E-Mail, um loszulegen.
Bring mich hinSmart Creator Press
Smart Creator Press ist ein All-in-One-WordPress-Plugin, das Memberships, LMS (Lernplattformen), Funnels, Online-Kurse, digitalen Verkauf und mehr in einer einzigen Plattform vereint. Preislich geht es für das Basis-Paket mit den Core-Funktionen derzeit ab $149 pro Jahr los, wer das volle Paket (Elite) haben möchte, muss $229 pro Jahr investieren.
Bring mich hinHow Tos & Surveys
Vertikale Ausrichtung im Flexbox-Layout-System von Divi 5
Divi 5 integriert ein Flexbox-Layoutsystem in den visuellen Builder, das es ermöglicht, Inhalte vertikal exakt zu positionieren – ganz ohne CSS-Kenntnisse. Du kannst flexibel Sektionen, Zeilen, Spalten und Modulgruppen vertikal ausrichten, etwa zentrieren, am oberen oder unteren Rand anordnen oder gleichmäßig verteilen. Zusätzlich bietet Divi 5 responsive Optionen wie anpassbare Breakpoints und Design-Variablen, um Layouts auf verschiedenen Geräten konsistent und professionell zu gestalten.
Bring mich hin (*)Geschäfte legen am diesjährigen Black Friday besonderen Wert auf das Kundenerlebnis
Hier ist die zweite Ausgabe des jährlichen Black Friday Cyber Monday Trend Reports von WooCommerce. Wie bereits im letzten Jahr wurde im Juli 2025 eine umfassende Umfrage durchgeführt, um Strategien, Herausforderungen und Erwartungen für die bevorstehende Hochsaison bei Händlern und Agenturen zu ermitteln.
Die Ergebnisse zeigen, wie Unternehmen planen, von der Saison zu profitieren, und welche neuen Taktiken sie umsetzen wollen. Der folgende Beitrag ist eine Zusammenfassung der Ergebnisse des Berichts. Möglicherweise findest du hier noch Anregungen für deine eigene Black Friday/Cyber Monday Kampagne.
Bring mich hin8 leistungsstarke SEO-Strategien für Membership-Seiten im Zeitalter von KI
Der Erfolg einer Membership-Seite hängt nicht nur von gutem Content ab, sondern auch davon, dass man von den richtigen Menschen gefunden wird – dafür ist SEO entscheidend. Mit 68 % des Website-Traffics aus organischer und bezahlter Suche, ist SEO von herausragender Bedeutung. Der Leitfaden erklärt einfache KI-gestützte SEO-Strategien für Membership-Seiten – von Keyword-Recherche und Content-Planung über On-Page- und technische Optimierung bis hin zu lokalen Ansätzen. Durch die Kombination von klassischem SEO und KI-Insights soll sich die Sichtbarkeit deutlich steigern und dadurch mehr Mitglieder gewinnen lassen, damit man langfristig erfolgreich bleibt.
Bring mich hin (*)So spielst du ein Video beim Maus-Hover ab [Elementor-Tutorial]
Ein Video-on-Hover-Effekt in Elementor kann Websites interaktiver machen – ist aber auch Geschmackssache: Sobald Besucher*innen mit der Maus über ein Bild oder einen Bereich fahren, startet automatisch ein Video. So lassen sich Produkte, Portfolios oder Hintergründe dynamisch präsentieren und statische Designs in aufmerksamkeitsstarke, bewegte Elemente verwandeln.
Bring mich hinWP Astra: Neues Premium-Starter-Template für Bauunternehmen
Und ganz zum Schluss: Astra hat ein neues Premium-Starter-Template für Bauunternehmen veröffentlicht, ideal für Architekt*innen, Bauunternehmer*innen und Renovierungsspezialist*innen. Es liefert ein vollständig aufgebautes Website-Kit – inklusive Kontaktformular, realitätsnahen Beispielinhalten, Projektgalerien, Dienstleistungsseiten und Portfolio-Layouts. Damit kannst du in kürzester Zeit eine professionelle, responsive Website starten. Das Template ist per One‑Click importierbar und lässt sich einfach mit eigenem Branding anpassen. Perfekt für schnelle, hochwertige Web-Präsenz im Bauumfeld.
Bring mich hin (*)(*) Dies ist ein Affiliate-Link. Wenn Du über einen Affiliate-Link einkaufst, dann erhalten wir ein paar Prozent Provision – für Dich ändert sich aber nichts am Preis.
#Bloggen #Divi5 #Elementor #GitHub #Gutenberg #HowTo #MainWP #Plugins #SmartCreatorPress #UnlimitedElements #Websites #WooCommerce #WordPress #WPAstra
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Jezebel: Sex. Celebrity. Politics. With Teeth: Jena Malone Reveals She Was Sexually Assaulted While Filming 'The Hunger Games' https://jezebel.com/jena-malone-reveals-she-was-sexually-assaulted-while-fi-1850174753 #Jezebel #thehungergames3amockingjaye28093part2 #englishlanguagefilms #thehungergames #humaninterest #creativeworks #johannamason #socialissues #jenamalone #imaxfilms #malone #films #jay
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Oskoreien – Hollow Fangs Review
By Owlswald
Atmosphere is a hallmark of great black metal, but for California’s Oskoreien it’s only half the story. Composer and multi-instrumentalist Jay Valena’s long-running black metal project serves as an auditory exploration of complex theoretical themes. 2010’s self-titled debut—an earlier EP version AMG Himself lauded—channeled the atmospheric and acoustic black textures of Ulver and Agalloch into a deep contemplation of a nihilistic existence. Six years later, concept album All Too Human found Valena honing his craft, elevating Oskoreien’s sound into a masterful post-black narrative. It unraveled the fallacy of free will through the chilling story of Charles Whitman.1 This bold, forward-thinking approach garnered significant acclaim and firmly positioned Oskoreien on the map. Valena now returns with Oskoreien’s third album, Hollow Fangs, another heavy dose of atmospheric, cerebral black metal after nine long years of silence. And this time, it’s plunging its teeth into the destructive currents of human consciousness and the accompanying anguish of finding meaning within a chaotic, deceptive world.
Hollow Fangs finds Oskoreien refining its sound into a powerful black metal fusion. Strengthened by the addition of guitarist Rashid Nadjib (Wovoka) and bassist Matthew Durkee,2 the trio skillfully marries the visceral force of groups like Spectral Wound with expansive post-black melodies, creating engaging black metal that feels both familiar and distinctly their own. Torrents of wild, tremolo-picked guitars interlock with vigorous blast beats, powering Hollow Fangs’ incisive bite. While recognizable black foundations provide a consistent anchor, Oskoreien employs unexpected deviations to forge rich, dynamic textures that guide the listener through distinct emotional arcs. Attention-grabbing riffs, including head-bobbing melodeath grooves (“Bernalillo Sunrise”), intricate thrash patterns (“Fragments”), and somber, doom-laden chords (“Psychoticism”), give way to waves of cascading, shoegaze-infused guitar leads (“Fragments,” “Bernalillo Sunrise”) that fuel emotional crescendos. Hollow Fang’s compositions smartly transcend their otherwise modest formulas, employing appealing harmonies and intelligent chord progressions to inject the album’s thirty-nine minutes with dynamism and profound emotional weight.
A defining characteristic of Oskoreien’s songwriting is the sophisticated interplay between tension and release, built by the guitars’ dissonant elements to underscore Hollow Fangs’ pervasive sense of turmoil and apprehension. Intense passages culminate in cathartic payoffs which expertly contrast intensity with emotional release and hope. Oskoreien’s poignant guitar melodies convey this. The chaotic and violent tremolo-fueled blast beats in “To Kiss the Viper’s Fang” give way to a somber, arpeggiated bridge with an almost acoustic feel, offering relief before re-engaging with another bout of powerful riffing. “Fragments” and “Prismatic Reason” immediately establish their dark and menacing atmospheres with arpeggiated, anxiety-ridden high guitar runs and washing distortion before transitioning to beautiful guitar leads that inject much-needed liberation and light. Even Durkee’s bass steps forward at times, adding another layer of depth as it ascends into higher registers—a playful counterpoint to Hollow Fang’s dissonant textures (“Fragments,” “Bernalillo Sunrise”).
Hollow Fangs’ production significantly bolsters the strength of Oskoreien’s compositions. Valena’s spectral rasps sound great, prominently featured in the guitar-dominant mix, which amplifies the album’s darker, unsettling moods. Although the programmed drums are largely generic and unexciting, their distinction in the mix is a notable step up. Durkee’s robust bass presence also materially contributes to the album’s expressive effect. Even so, Hollow Fangs still has room for growth. The album’s bookends, “Prismatic Reason” and “To Kiss the Viper’s Fang” feel a bit overlong, with “Prismatic Reason” also lacking the potency of the album’s other tracks. Furthermore, the payoff in the latter half of “Bernalillo Sunrise” lands somewhat flat despite its excellent, tension-building tom transition full of foreboding.
Still, Hollow Fangs stands as unquestionable proof that Oskoreien is alive and well. While some tracks overstay their welcome and the album doesn’t quite take the same evolutionary leap forward as its predecessor, Hollow Fangs nevertheless delivers a hefty dose of quality black metal. The emphasis on dynamic songwriting—achieved through varied tempos, textures, and instrumental interplay—creates moments of crushing ferocity and vast melodic emotional depth, with soaring, triumphant melodies that counterbalance each other perfectly. Almost a decade between releases can rightfully derail bands, but Oskoreien has defied this trend, producing an aggressive yet appealing black metal album that offers fans plenty to sink their teeth into.
Rating: Very Good!
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Self-Released
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: July 18, 2025#2025 #35 #Agalloch #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #HollowFangs #Jul25 #MelodicBlackMetal #Oskoreien #Review #Reviews #SelfReleased #SpectralWound #Ulver
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Oskoreien – Hollow Fangs Review
By Owlswald
Atmosphere is a hallmark of great black metal, but for California’s Oskoreien it’s only half the story. Composer and multi-instrumentalist Jay Valena’s long-running black metal project serves as an auditory exploration of complex theoretical themes. 2010’s self-titled debut—an earlier EP version AMG Himself lauded—channeled the atmospheric and acoustic black textures of Ulver and Agalloch into a deep contemplation of a nihilistic existence. Six years later, concept album All Too Human found Valena honing his craft, elevating Oskoreien’s sound into a masterful post-black narrative. It unraveled the fallacy of free will through the chilling story of Charles Whitman.1 This bold, forward-thinking approach garnered significant acclaim and firmly positioned Oskoreien on the map. Valena now returns with Oskoreien’s third album, Hollow Fangs, another heavy dose of atmospheric, cerebral black metal after nine long years of silence. And this time, it’s plunging its teeth into the destructive currents of human consciousness and the accompanying anguish of finding meaning within a chaotic, deceptive world.
Hollow Fangs finds Oskoreien refining its sound into a powerful black metal fusion. Strengthened by the addition of guitarist Rashid Nadjib (Wovoka) and bassist Matthew Durkee,2 the trio skillfully marries the visceral force of groups like Spectral Wound with expansive post-black melodies, creating engaging black metal that feels both familiar and distinctly their own. Torrents of wild, tremolo-picked guitars interlock with vigorous blast beats, powering Hollow Fangs’ incisive bite. While recognizable black foundations provide a consistent anchor, Oskoreien employs unexpected deviations to forge rich, dynamic textures that guide the listener through distinct emotional arcs. Attention-grabbing riffs, including head-bobbing melodeath grooves (“Bernalillo Sunrise”), intricate thrash patterns (“Fragments”), and somber, doom-laden chords (“Psychoticism”), give way to waves of cascading, shoegaze-infused guitar leads (“Fragments,” “Bernalillo Sunrise”) that fuel emotional crescendos. Hollow Fang’s compositions smartly transcend their otherwise modest formulas, employing appealing harmonies and intelligent chord progressions to inject the album’s thirty-nine minutes with dynamism and profound emotional weight.
A defining characteristic of Oskoreien’s songwriting is the sophisticated interplay between tension and release, built by the guitars’ dissonant elements to underscore Hollow Fangs’ pervasive sense of turmoil and apprehension. Intense passages culminate in cathartic payoffs which expertly contrast intensity with emotional release and hope. Oskoreien’s poignant guitar melodies convey this. The chaotic and violent tremolo-fueled blast beats in “To Kiss the Viper’s Fang” give way to a somber, arpeggiated bridge with an almost acoustic feel, offering relief before re-engaging with another bout of powerful riffing. “Fragments” and “Prismatic Reason” immediately establish their dark and menacing atmospheres with arpeggiated, anxiety-ridden high guitar runs and washing distortion before transitioning to beautiful guitar leads that inject much-needed liberation and light. Even Durkee’s bass steps forward at times, adding another layer of depth as it ascends into higher registers—a playful counterpoint to Hollow Fang’s dissonant textures (“Fragments,” “Bernalillo Sunrise”).
Hollow Fangs’ production significantly bolsters the strength of Oskoreien’s compositions. Valena’s spectral rasps sound great, prominently featured in the guitar-dominant mix, which amplifies the album’s darker, unsettling moods. Although the programmed drums are largely generic and unexciting, their distinction in the mix is a notable step up. Durkee’s robust bass presence also materially contributes to the album’s expressive effect. Even so, Hollow Fangs still has room for growth. The album’s bookends, “Prismatic Reason” and “To Kiss the Viper’s Fang” feel a bit overlong, with “Prismatic Reason” also lacking the potency of the album’s other tracks. Furthermore, the payoff in the latter half of “Bernalillo Sunrise” lands somewhat flat despite its excellent, tension-building tom transition full of foreboding.
Still, Hollow Fangs stands as unquestionable proof that Oskoreien is alive and well. While some tracks overstay their welcome and the album doesn’t quite take the same evolutionary leap forward as its predecessor, Hollow Fangs nevertheless delivers a hefty dose of quality black metal. The emphasis on dynamic songwriting—achieved through varied tempos, textures, and instrumental interplay—creates moments of crushing ferocity and vast melodic emotional depth, with soaring, triumphant melodies that counterbalance each other perfectly. Almost a decade between releases can rightfully derail bands, but Oskoreien has defied this trend, producing an aggressive yet appealing black metal album that offers fans plenty to sink their teeth into.
Rating: Very Good!
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Self-Released
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: July 18, 2025#2025 #35 #Agalloch #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #HollowFangs #Jul25 #MelodicBlackMetal #Oskoreien #Review #Reviews #SelfReleased #SpectralWound #Ulver
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Oskoreien – Hollow Fangs Review
By Owlswald
Atmosphere is a hallmark of great black metal, but for California’s Oskoreien it’s only half the story. Composer and multi-instrumentalist Jay Valena’s long-running black metal project serves as an auditory exploration of complex theoretical themes. 2010’s self-titled debut—an earlier EP version AMG Himself lauded—channeled the atmospheric and acoustic black textures of Ulver and Agalloch into a deep contemplation of a nihilistic existence. Six years later, concept album All Too Human found Valena honing his craft, elevating Oskoreien’s sound into a masterful post-black narrative. It unraveled the fallacy of free will through the chilling story of Charles Whitman.1 This bold, forward-thinking approach garnered significant acclaim and firmly positioned Oskoreien on the map. Valena now returns with Oskoreien’s third album, Hollow Fangs, another heavy dose of atmospheric, cerebral black metal after nine long years of silence. And this time, it’s plunging its teeth into the destructive currents of human consciousness and the accompanying anguish of finding meaning within a chaotic, deceptive world.
Hollow Fangs finds Oskoreien refining its sound into a powerful black metal fusion. Strengthened by the addition of guitarist Rashid Nadjib (Wovoka) and bassist Matthew Durkee,2 the trio skillfully marries the visceral force of groups like Spectral Wound with expansive post-black melodies, creating engaging black metal that feels both familiar and distinctly their own. Torrents of wild, tremolo-picked guitars interlock with vigorous blast beats, powering Hollow Fangs’ incisive bite. While recognizable black foundations provide a consistent anchor, Oskoreien employs unexpected deviations to forge rich, dynamic textures that guide the listener through distinct emotional arcs. Attention-grabbing riffs, including head-bobbing melodeath grooves (“Bernalillo Sunrise”), intricate thrash patterns (“Fragments”), and somber, doom-laden chords (“Psychoticism”), give way to waves of cascading, shoegaze-infused guitar leads (“Fragments,” “Bernalillo Sunrise”) that fuel emotional crescendos. Hollow Fang’s compositions smartly transcend their otherwise modest formulas, employing appealing harmonies and intelligent chord progressions to inject the album’s thirty-nine minutes with dynamism and profound emotional weight.
A defining characteristic of Oskoreien’s songwriting is the sophisticated interplay between tension and release, built by the guitars’ dissonant elements to underscore Hollow Fangs’ pervasive sense of turmoil and apprehension. Intense passages culminate in cathartic payoffs which expertly contrast intensity with emotional release and hope. Oskoreien’s poignant guitar melodies convey this. The chaotic and violent tremolo-fueled blast beats in “To Kiss the Viper’s Fang” give way to a somber, arpeggiated bridge with an almost acoustic feel, offering relief before re-engaging with another bout of powerful riffing. “Fragments” and “Prismatic Reason” immediately establish their dark and menacing atmospheres with arpeggiated, anxiety-ridden high guitar runs and washing distortion before transitioning to beautiful guitar leads that inject much-needed liberation and light. Even Durkee’s bass steps forward at times, adding another layer of depth as it ascends into higher registers—a playful counterpoint to Hollow Fang’s dissonant textures (“Fragments,” “Bernalillo Sunrise”).
Hollow Fangs’ production significantly bolsters the strength of Oskoreien’s compositions. Valena’s spectral rasps sound great, prominently featured in the guitar-dominant mix, which amplifies the album’s darker, unsettling moods. Although the programmed drums are largely generic and unexciting, their distinction in the mix is a notable step up. Durkee’s robust bass presence also materially contributes to the album’s expressive effect. Even so, Hollow Fangs still has room for growth. The album’s bookends, “Prismatic Reason” and “To Kiss the Viper’s Fang” feel a bit overlong, with “Prismatic Reason” also lacking the potency of the album’s other tracks. Furthermore, the payoff in the latter half of “Bernalillo Sunrise” lands somewhat flat despite its excellent, tension-building tom transition full of foreboding.
Still, Hollow Fangs stands as unquestionable proof that Oskoreien is alive and well. While some tracks overstay their welcome and the album doesn’t quite take the same evolutionary leap forward as its predecessor, Hollow Fangs nevertheless delivers a hefty dose of quality black metal. The emphasis on dynamic songwriting—achieved through varied tempos, textures, and instrumental interplay—creates moments of crushing ferocity and vast melodic emotional depth, with soaring, triumphant melodies that counterbalance each other perfectly. Almost a decade between releases can rightfully derail bands, but Oskoreien has defied this trend, producing an aggressive yet appealing black metal album that offers fans plenty to sink their teeth into.
Rating: Very Good!
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Self-Released
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: July 18, 2025#2025 #35 #Agalloch #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #HollowFangs #Jul25 #MelodicBlackMetal #Oskoreien #Review #Reviews #SelfReleased #SpectralWound #Ulver
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Oskoreien – Hollow Fangs Review
By Owlswald
Atmosphere is a hallmark of great black metal, but for California’s Oskoreien it’s only half the story. Composer and multi-instrumentalist Jay Valena’s long-running black metal project serves as an auditory exploration of complex theoretical themes. 2010’s self-titled debut—an earlier EP version AMG Himself lauded—channeled the atmospheric and acoustic black textures of Ulver and Agalloch into a deep contemplation of a nihilistic existence. Six years later, concept album All Too Human found Valena honing his craft, elevating Oskoreien’s sound into a masterful post-black narrative. It unraveled the fallacy of free will through the chilling story of Charles Whitman.1 This bold, forward-thinking approach garnered significant acclaim and firmly positioned Oskoreien on the map. Valena now returns with Oskoreien’s third album, Hollow Fangs, another heavy dose of atmospheric, cerebral black metal after nine long years of silence. And this time, it’s plunging its teeth into the destructive currents of human consciousness and the accompanying anguish of finding meaning within a chaotic, deceptive world.
Hollow Fangs finds Oskoreien refining its sound into a powerful black metal fusion. Strengthened by the addition of guitarist Rashid Nadjib (Wovoka) and bassist Matthew Durkee,2 the trio skillfully marries the visceral force of groups like Spectral Wound with expansive post-black melodies, creating engaging black metal that feels both familiar and distinctly their own. Torrents of wild, tremolo-picked guitars interlock with vigorous blast beats, powering Hollow Fangs’ incisive bite. While recognizable black foundations provide a consistent anchor, Oskoreien employs unexpected deviations to forge rich, dynamic textures that guide the listener through distinct emotional arcs. Attention-grabbing riffs, including head-bobbing melodeath grooves (“Bernalillo Sunrise”), intricate thrash patterns (“Fragments”), and somber, doom-laden chords (“Psychoticism”), give way to waves of cascading, shoegaze-infused guitar leads (“Fragments,” “Bernalillo Sunrise”) that fuel emotional crescendos. Hollow Fang’s compositions smartly transcend their otherwise modest formulas, employing appealing harmonies and intelligent chord progressions to inject the album’s thirty-nine minutes with dynamism and profound emotional weight.
A defining characteristic of Oskoreien’s songwriting is the sophisticated interplay between tension and release, built by the guitars’ dissonant elements to underscore Hollow Fangs’ pervasive sense of turmoil and apprehension. Intense passages culminate in cathartic payoffs which expertly contrast intensity with emotional release and hope. Oskoreien’s poignant guitar melodies convey this. The chaotic and violent tremolo-fueled blast beats in “To Kiss the Viper’s Fang” give way to a somber, arpeggiated bridge with an almost acoustic feel, offering relief before re-engaging with another bout of powerful riffing. “Fragments” and “Prismatic Reason” immediately establish their dark and menacing atmospheres with arpeggiated, anxiety-ridden high guitar runs and washing distortion before transitioning to beautiful guitar leads that inject much-needed liberation and light. Even Durkee’s bass steps forward at times, adding another layer of depth as it ascends into higher registers—a playful counterpoint to Hollow Fang’s dissonant textures (“Fragments,” “Bernalillo Sunrise”).
Hollow Fangs’ production significantly bolsters the strength of Oskoreien’s compositions. Valena’s spectral rasps sound great, prominently featured in the guitar-dominant mix, which amplifies the album’s darker, unsettling moods. Although the programmed drums are largely generic and unexciting, their distinction in the mix is a notable step up. Durkee’s robust bass presence also materially contributes to the album’s expressive effect. Even so, Hollow Fangs still has room for growth. The album’s bookends, “Prismatic Reason” and “To Kiss the Viper’s Fang” feel a bit overlong, with “Prismatic Reason” also lacking the potency of the album’s other tracks. Furthermore, the payoff in the latter half of “Bernalillo Sunrise” lands somewhat flat despite its excellent, tension-building tom transition full of foreboding.
Still, Hollow Fangs stands as unquestionable proof that Oskoreien is alive and well. While some tracks overstay their welcome and the album doesn’t quite take the same evolutionary leap forward as its predecessor, Hollow Fangs nevertheless delivers a hefty dose of quality black metal. The emphasis on dynamic songwriting—achieved through varied tempos, textures, and instrumental interplay—creates moments of crushing ferocity and vast melodic emotional depth, with soaring, triumphant melodies that counterbalance each other perfectly. Almost a decade between releases can rightfully derail bands, but Oskoreien has defied this trend, producing an aggressive yet appealing black metal album that offers fans plenty to sink their teeth into.
Rating: Very Good!
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Self-Released
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: July 18, 2025#2025 #35 #Agalloch #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #HollowFangs #Jul25 #MelodicBlackMetal #Oskoreien #Review #Reviews #SelfReleased #SpectralWound #Ulver
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Oskoreien – Hollow Fangs Review
By Owlswald
Atmosphere is a hallmark of great black metal, but for California’s Oskoreien it’s only half the story. Composer and multi-instrumentalist Jay Valena’s long-running black metal project serves as an auditory exploration of complex theoretical themes. 2010’s self-titled debut—an earlier EP version AMG Himself lauded—channeled the atmospheric and acoustic black textures of Ulver and Agalloch into a deep contemplation of a nihilistic existence. Six years later, concept album All Too Human found Valena honing his craft, elevating Oskoreien’s sound into a masterful post-black narrative. It unraveled the fallacy of free will through the chilling story of Charles Whitman.1 This bold, forward-thinking approach garnered significant acclaim and firmly positioned Oskoreien on the map. Valena now returns with Oskoreien’s third album, Hollow Fangs, another heavy dose of atmospheric, cerebral black metal after nine long years of silence. And this time, it’s plunging its teeth into the destructive currents of human consciousness and the accompanying anguish of finding meaning within a chaotic, deceptive world.
Hollow Fangs finds Oskoreien refining its sound into a powerful black metal fusion. Strengthened by the addition of guitarist Rashid Nadjib (Wovoka) and bassist Matthew Durkee,2 the trio skillfully marries the visceral force of groups like Spectral Wound with expansive post-black melodies, creating engaging black metal that feels both familiar and distinctly their own. Torrents of wild, tremolo-picked guitars interlock with vigorous blast beats, powering Hollow Fangs’ incisive bite. While recognizable black foundations provide a consistent anchor, Oskoreien employs unexpected deviations to forge rich, dynamic textures that guide the listener through distinct emotional arcs. Attention-grabbing riffs, including head-bobbing melodeath grooves (“Bernalillo Sunrise”), intricate thrash patterns (“Fragments”), and somber, doom-laden chords (“Psychoticism”), give way to waves of cascading, shoegaze-infused guitar leads (“Fragments,” “Bernalillo Sunrise”) that fuel emotional crescendos. Hollow Fang’s compositions smartly transcend their otherwise modest formulas, employing appealing harmonies and intelligent chord progressions to inject the album’s thirty-nine minutes with dynamism and profound emotional weight.
A defining characteristic of Oskoreien’s songwriting is the sophisticated interplay between tension and release, built by the guitars’ dissonant elements to underscore Hollow Fangs’ pervasive sense of turmoil and apprehension. Intense passages culminate in cathartic payoffs which expertly contrast intensity with emotional release and hope. Oskoreien’s poignant guitar melodies convey this. The chaotic and violent tremolo-fueled blast beats in “To Kiss the Viper’s Fang” give way to a somber, arpeggiated bridge with an almost acoustic feel, offering relief before re-engaging with another bout of powerful riffing. “Fragments” and “Prismatic Reason” immediately establish their dark and menacing atmospheres with arpeggiated, anxiety-ridden high guitar runs and washing distortion before transitioning to beautiful guitar leads that inject much-needed liberation and light. Even Durkee’s bass steps forward at times, adding another layer of depth as it ascends into higher registers—a playful counterpoint to Hollow Fang’s dissonant textures (“Fragments,” “Bernalillo Sunrise”).
Hollow Fangs’ production significantly bolsters the strength of Oskoreien’s compositions. Valena’s spectral rasps sound great, prominently featured in the guitar-dominant mix, which amplifies the album’s darker, unsettling moods. Although the programmed drums are largely generic and unexciting, their distinction in the mix is a notable step up. Durkee’s robust bass presence also materially contributes to the album’s expressive effect. Even so, Hollow Fangs still has room for growth. The album’s bookends, “Prismatic Reason” and “To Kiss the Viper’s Fang” feel a bit overlong, with “Prismatic Reason” also lacking the potency of the album’s other tracks. Furthermore, the payoff in the latter half of “Bernalillo Sunrise” lands somewhat flat despite its excellent, tension-building tom transition full of foreboding.
Still, Hollow Fangs stands as unquestionable proof that Oskoreien is alive and well. While some tracks overstay their welcome and the album doesn’t quite take the same evolutionary leap forward as its predecessor, Hollow Fangs nevertheless delivers a hefty dose of quality black metal. The emphasis on dynamic songwriting—achieved through varied tempos, textures, and instrumental interplay—creates moments of crushing ferocity and vast melodic emotional depth, with soaring, triumphant melodies that counterbalance each other perfectly. Almost a decade between releases can rightfully derail bands, but Oskoreien has defied this trend, producing an aggressive yet appealing black metal album that offers fans plenty to sink their teeth into.
Rating: Very Good!
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Self-Released
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: July 18, 2025#2025 #35 #Agalloch #AmericanMetal #BlackMetal #HollowFangs #Jul25 #MelodicBlackMetal #Oskoreien #Review #Reviews #SelfReleased #SpectralWound #Ulver
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Afroman Sings “Because I Got High”
Listen to this track by herbally-refreshed rapper and singer Joseph Edgar Foreman, better known to the world as Afroman. It’s “Because I Got High”, his internationally charting hit that made a big splash in 2000. It also appears on the album of the same name, and his second release by then. The song would also appear on the 2001 compilation record of his independent releases The Good Times.
This monster hit song would eventually win Afroman his “one hit wonder” status, after its use on The Howard Stern Show boosted its popularity. The song later appeared in movie soundtracks of the era including Kevin Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Shia LeBeouf psychological thriller Disturbia, and teen heist comedy The Perfect Score. Even beyond its initial era of popularity in the early 2000s, Afroman’s song about weed endures today. Since its release, there have been parody versions, a holiday-themed take, and updated versions of the song to reflect issues including cannabis legalization and even inflation. The less said about the more recent Hunter Biden parody version, the better. But even so, this song still has legs.
It helps that “Because I Got High” is very relatable for many. The fact is this: a lot of people smoke up. According to the CDC, approximately 19% of Americans partook in cannabis at least once in 2021. That’s 52 million people. Cannabis use in the UK is proportionate, being the nation’s most commonly consumed Class B drug with users ranging from teens to seniors. There continue to be concerns around brain development in weed-smoking teens in particular as it affects memory, learning, coordination, and even mental health. These are serious health issues to consider, just as there is with many substances people ingest, legal or not.
When “Because I Got High” came out, and as appealing and funny as it was (and still is!), some perceived it as being dismissive of these serious issues at best and of being blatantly “pro-drugs” at worst. The song became fuel for conservative rhetoric around the dangers of reefer madness and its (spurious) connection to the deterioration of morality. As usual, talking about drugs in this reactionary way as a moral issue and not a health issue with serious social implications served as a very useful distraction to other pertinent political and economic issues that require solutions that go well beyond the prohibition of substances.
In fact, many of those issues are among the systemic root causes of drug abuse; social inequality, worker’s rights abuses, and racism, among many others. It is far easier to condemn the use of a substance and attribute it solely to individual moral weakness or self-indulgence than it is to address the systemic problems the drives up that use. That seems to be how things are in our society; preserving systems that benefit some and cause great harm to so many others is more important than protecting those people who are most negatively affected by those systems and structures.
Beyond how politically useful the controversy was to talk radio host blowhards and waning political figures desperate to keep their names in the press, the song’s origins had very little to do with making political statements around drug use. Purportedly, Afroman wrote his signature song in minutes, doing so initially as an inside joke with people he considered to be likeminded in their appreciation of recreational greenery. As he stated by August of 2001 in the pages of Time Magazine, no less:
“You know what, dude? I made this tape for all my homeboys. I didn’t think I’d be talking to TIME magazine. I’m a little worried about Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich. I don’t want to get anybody riled up. I just figured, since I’m a pothead, why can’t me and the other potheads have a little joke between ourselves.” (read the whole article)
Besides the dubious controversy it stirred up, “Because I Got High” is a very deftly constructed pop song, doing the thing it’s designed to do which is to get in your head and stay there. To start with, it’s got a powerful melodic hook. It’s sung very well in a kind of bleary-eyed and languid doo wop style which really stood out stylistically on the radio at the time. Importantly, it has a distinctive narrative structure in every verse that is very easy to follow; situation, to intention, to consequence, and all because of a habitual pattern that the narrator can’t seem to shake to any degree of success . Most damning of all, Afroman made it sound fun.
Listening closer, though, there is something lurking beneath the comedy that makes this song more than it seems. As much as he wrote it for a laugh to share with other potheads, Afroman also built something socially potent into “Because I Got High” along with his series of punchlines. This is a story about someone who didn’t clean up their room, failed an exam, and didn’t get laid because he got too baked to follow through. The only victim in these stories in the song is the narrator himself. Everyone can see the funny side there.
But another story found in the song is about someone who has lost his family due to drug use, ultimately causing him to become homeless and for his children to be without their father.
I messed up my entire life because I got high
I lost my kids and wife because I got high
Now I’m sleeping on the sidewalk and I know why (why, man?)‘Cause I got high, because I got high, because I got high …
~ “Because I Got High” by Afroman
This is in addition to the story about a man becoming a paraplegic after running from the police who take violent measures against him. This is a story that is all too real for many Black people, and also very much a story that resonated with the audience Afroman had primarily in mind when writing his novelty hit. At a certain point then, “Because I Got High” becomes something more than just a gimmicky hit single.
Is “Because I Got High” still a funny song? Yes. Is it also one that acknowledges that drugs can undo your life bit by bit if you’re not careful? Also, yes. Does it suggest to listeners that this story has bigger social implications beyond just individual bad habits and poor choices? You bet. It mixes the comedy with the cold reality of established social structures and tragic events that come of them.
This is why the impulse to laugh is so much the stronger. In fact, a lot of comedy works that way. The comedy is in place to help us process the tragedy. As we’ve known since the art of storytelling began, these two powerful and resonant narrative forces are linked. Maybe it was this level of nuance and thematic ambiguity instead of a clear cut “pro or anti” divide around the taboo subject of drugs that really riled people up at the time. This is a song that, with subtlety, reveals things about our society that people in power and those defending the status quo would rather not talk about.
His one-hit wonder status notwithstanding, Afroman’s more recent work also deals with some relatable themes between comedy and tragedy that touch on harmful social and political systems in Western society. This newer material is specifically themed around a baseless police raid at his home in 2022, with footage of the incident used in videos for the songs that appear on his Lemon Pound Cake album that same year. All told, Afroman took the fear and humiliation of a wrongful raid and made those responsible into a laughing stock.
Legal issues ensued afterwards with some of the officers in question naming themselves as injured parties. It goes to show that the pen is sometimes mightier than the dubiously-issued search warrant and badge, especially when that pen is wielded by someone who is too easily mistaken for just another slacker pothead.
You can read about the incident here on NPR.
Enjoy!
#2000sMusic #Afroman #noveltySongs #oneHitWonders #songsAboutDrugs
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""We talk about, you know, people down on the Downtown Lower East Side being the most vulnerable. Well, our 13-year olds and our 14-year olds are our most vulnerable because they will end up there."" #addictions #PoliceInaction
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/drug-dealer-teen-clients-vancouver-jay-1.7396385 -
Here’s what I read last month
86. Head First Go, Jay McGavren
87. The Rest is History, The Roman Conquest of Britain, Episodes 499-502
88. All Systems Red, Martha Wells
89. Artificial Condition, Martha Wells
90. Rogue Protocol, Martha Wells
91. Exit Strategy, Martha Wells
92. Network Effect, Martha Wells
93. Fugitive Telemetry, Martha Wells
94. System Collapse, Martha Wells
95. Grit, Angela Duckworth
96. The Art of Resilience, Ross Edgley
97. When the World Screamed, Arthur Conan Doyle
98. The Disintegration Machine, Arthur Conan Doyle
99. The Lost World, Arthur Conan Doyle
100. The Captain of the Polestar, Arthur Conan Doyle
101. Playing With Fire, Arthur Conan Doyle
102. How It Happened, Arthur Conan Doyle
103. One Crowded Hour, Arthur Conan Doyle
104. The Fall of Lord Barrymore, Arthur Conan Doyle
105. Dreams With Sharp Teeth, Harlan Ellison & Erik Nelson
106. A Rare Benedictine, Ellis Peters
107. A Morbid Taste for Bones, Ellis Peters
108. Once Corpse Too Many, Ellis Peters
109. Monk’s Hood, Ellis Peters
110. Saint Peter’s Fair, Ellis Peters
111. The Leper of Saint Giles, Ellis Peters
112. The Sealed Room, Arthur Conan Doyle
113. The Lost Special, Arthur Conan Doyle
114. The Sanctuary Sparrow, Ellis Peters
115. Github Actions in Action, Michael Kaufmann, Rob Bos & Marcel de Vries
116. Strange Beasts, Susan J. Morris
117. Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie
118. Powerful Command-Line Applications in Go, Ricardo Gerardi
119. Murder in Mesopotamia, Agatha Christie
120. The Devil’s Novice, Ellis Peters
121. Dead Man’s Ransom, Ellis Peters
122. The Pilgrim of Hate, Ellis PetersThe rest of this year’s list is here:
https://janusworx.com/reading/2024/ -
But....we was done for assault with a group of other lads and according to the news report was "smirking throughout the trial"
It's a shame he has gone missing in the wilderness but at the same time he was no saint. Just a stupid young man, of which there are many.I guess the lesson here is live your life so that if you go missing, people are not ambivalent towards you being found. 😞
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Angine de Poitrine Play “Fabienk”
Listen to this track by mysterious papier-mâché donning math rock geniuses Angine de Poitrine. It’s “Fabienk”, a cut from their second record straightforwardly titled Vol. II. That record and the band have been boosted into the stratosphere at the time of this writing, in large part thanks to a video feature courtesy of Seattle’s KEXP which captured the imaginations of music fans and musicians alike. The video of the two musicians with self-applied monikers of Khn (guitars, loops) and Klek (drums) Poitrine playing their music live in the studio is notable if only because it shows it’s possible to play music this complex between just two musicians. And what a joy it is to watch them do it as we try to figure out what the hell we’re hearing—and seeing!
Seeming to share a single musical brain between them by now, the duo have been playing music together since the dawn of their teenage years, and for two decades since. The Angine de Poitrine concept came out of a joke during their days playing live shows on the local scene in their native Quebec. With back to back sets booked at one point, they needed to break things up and add a bit of variety. Instead, they added A LOT of variety by becoming a whole new band with a very high concept approach to showmanship to match their idiosyncratic music.
The elaborate costumes and polka dot motifs arranged in equidistant and, on close examination, triangular arrangements, was only the start. There’s also the invented language of mewls, squeals, clicks, and drones, plus the sounds that seem to parody the wordless cadence of smalltown Québécois voices that are as much of a musical influence as anything else. This is not to forget the triangular hand gestures they make on stage, which they encourage—successfully!—the audience to emulate.
Then, there’s Khn’s double-necked guitar and bass hybrid constructed by local Quebec luthier Raphaël Le Breton. Based on Khn’s design, the instrument’s guitar and bass components are fretted to allow notes between the notes as they are usually measured in the Western chromatic scale. Angine de Poitrine have made the term microtonal into a household word by now by reminding music fans that there are more than just 12 notes to write songs around.
The style of the music can be comfortably defined as progressive rock, with King Crimson and Primus certainly being key influences one can hear right away. But James Brown is in there, too. So are any number of musical traditions of the Far East and Middle-East that draw upon a different set of notes and scales beyond traditional Western notation. The band blur the lines between melody, texture, and rhythm on this track particularly. There’s a definite emphasis on pure groove in places here to hook the ear and excite the feet, even if a lot of the tune is punctuated by odd and irregular phrasing and complex polyrhythms.
Angine de Poitrine playing at La Cartonnerie, Reims, France, 2026. image: ReimsCroixRougeThe microtonal set up and compositional mindset allows the band to pull from a broader spectrum of possibilities as applied to melody and riffs. This is not to mention the complex and irregular rhythms the two musicians work within, somehow turning complexity into accessibility even over the course of a single song. They do all this while being as weird as hell in the best possible sense.
Rock musicians being weird is nothing new. Since Screamin’ Jay Hawkins emerged from his coffin, Ziggy Stardust appeared on Top of the Pops to freak out/enthrall a nation, Parliament Funkadelic first landed the Mothership, and Peter Gabriel donned his Slipperman costume with Genesis, there have been plenty of rock acts who were willfully, wonderfully, and grandly weird. Angine de Poitrine come out of a proud tradition in that way. But this being the 2020s, there are a few important factors to consider that make the interest in this band so notable.
One of them is the time it took for the duo to become what they are. It seems like a simple thing. But when you jam with someone for two decades starting from your formative years as teenagers even before you make a record, the results speak for themselves. They can’t be exactly replicated, mass produced, or generated by AI. This is true even if no one ends up experiencing them beyond a local scene or even outside of a rehearsal space. Those results only come about based on the personalities, rapport, influences, developed skills, and ambitions of the people involved. These factors are entirely unpredictable. The trouble is, allowing for artist-driven processes and the time it takes to nurture them is the exact opposite of how the music industry operates today.
Music industry decision-makers in our era want an instant payoff controlled by them, not by the artists. They want something that provides the hallmarks of what they know will sell as a certainty. They don’t want to invest in anything mired in idiosyncrasies and unpredictable factors. They want faces they can sell, too, complete with racial and gender biases built right in. Papier-mâché masks and weird non-vocal squeals against microtonal music that doesn’t follow the standard four-to-the-floor beat and 4th-5th-minor fall-major lift chord structure isn’t what makes the cash register jingle—or so follows the received wisdom.
That essential factor of time over decades the two musicians took to create a whole universe of sound between them before they shared it with the world has very little to do with anyone’s standards or expectations outside of their own. And being from a place as far outside of any music industry bastion as it’s possible to be is another factor that undercuts expectations, and makes the success and attention Angine de Poitrine have achieved to be unlikely as measured by any conventional standard. This suggests that their talent, as extensive as it is, is not the deciding factor to the attention and interest that’s focused on them right now.
This suggests other interesting and significant factors besides. One is that the viral nature out of which their success germinated was largely reliant upon timing—a factor that no one can control. It makes you wonder how much talent we’ve missed over the years with so few channels to success, too many biased gatekeepers, and too many checkboxes to determine which musicians and writers should become visible enough to affect where music itself can go, and how music can evolve as a result. It turns out that music is a bigger beast than many pop and rock fans were led to believe, and its limitations have always been illusory.
Perhaps most significantly, the music of Angine de Poitrine suggests a simple but very powerful nugget of truth: weird is good. Weirdness challenges our expectations and conventions. It can alienate people. But it can also open up vistas of possibilities as to what we’re looking for in art of all kinds. Weirdess can be liberating in that way for musicians and listeners alike.
Angine de Poitrine are an active band today. You can learn as much about them as they’ll let you know at anginedepoitrine.com.
Watch the band play on KEXP, a performance that brought them all the attention.
To get deeper into why such weird music is not alienating, but extremely compelling instead, check out how the band’s use of loops and microtones plays a trick on our brains to get that effect, with this video from Oliver Gearing.
For more on the social implications the band have suggested, read this article by Scott Santens that posits, among other very good points, that Angine de Poitrine provide a template to an argument in favour of Universal Basic Income.
Enjoy!
#2020sMusic #AngineDePoitrine #ExperimentalMusic #experimentalRock #InstrumentalRock #progRock #progressiveRock -
Hello Worldcon Fan!
There is a lot of news to cover in this edition, so let’s get started!
Seattle Worldcon 2025 Announces the Best Poem Special Hugo Award!
Get ready to mark your nominating lists with your favorite speculative, science fiction, and fantasy poems from 2024. The Seattle Worldcon team will award a special Hugo Award for best poem in 2025 to honor the rich, vibrant poetry culture of Seattle. From having one of the only poetry-only bookstores to having its own Civic Poet, the Seattle poetry scene teems with activity.
For this special Hugo Award, nominate your favorite poem within the speculative, science fiction, and fantasy genres, published in 2024, that is at least three lines.
We look forward to seeing what poems resonate with the WSFS membership.
Look for more poetry-related announcements to come. And don’t hesitate to send us your ideas at Panel Suggestions.
Congratulations to the 2024 Hugo Award Winners
Best Novel
Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh (Tordotcom, Orbit UK)
Best Novella
Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher (Tor, Titan UK)
Best Novelette
“The Year Without Sunshine” by Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny Magazine, November-December 2023)
Best Short Story
“Better Living Through Algorithms” by Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld May 2023)
Best Series
Imperial Radch by Ann Leckie (Orbit US, Orbit UK)
Best Graphic Story or Comic
Saga, Vol. 11 written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Fiona Staples (Image Comics)
Best Related Work
A City on Mars by Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith (Penguin Press; Particular Books)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, screenplay by John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein and Michael Gilio, directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (Paramount Pictures)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
The Last of Us: “Long, Long Time”, written by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, directed by Peter Hoar (Naughty Dog / Sony Pictures)
Best Game or Interactive Work
Baldur’s Gate 3, produced by Larian Studios
Best Editor Short Form
Neil Clarke
Best Editor Long Form
Ruoxi Chen
Best Professional Artist
Rovina Cai
Best Semiprozine
Strange Horizons, by the Strange Horizons Editorial Collective
Best Fanzine
Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together, editors Roseanna Pendlebury, Arturo Serrano, Paul Weimer; senior editors Joe Sherry, Adri Joy, G. Brown, Vance Kotrla.
Best Fancast
Octothorpe, by John Coxon, Alison Scott, and Liz Batty
Best Fan Writer
Paul Weimer
Best Fan Artist
Laya Rose
Lodestar Award for Best YA Book
To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose (Del Rey)
Astounding Award for Best New Writer (sponsored by Dell Magazines)
Xiran Jay Zhao (eligibility extended at request of Dell Magazines)
Announcing the Community Fund for Seattle Worldcon 2025!
We are also happy to announce that we have been generously seeded with $30,000 from DisCon III to start a Community Fund for Seattle 2025. Our fund will have four focus areas: Pacific Northwest community members attending for the first time, LGBTQIA+ community members, BIPOC/AANHPI community members, and Global South community members. Applications for funds will open shortly and will be found on our website. We are also still gratefully accepting donations to increase our capacity, which can be made through our registration portal.
Come work with us!
Volunteer positions are currently available and many more will be opening up as the convention approaches. Let us know you are interested by filling out the volunteer form early! You can find it here on the website, and keep an eye on this page as more roles become available.
Seattle’s program will feature a lot of hands-on and interactive content. Want to be a panelist? Here’s the form: Panelists and Presenters. Have panel suggestions? Tell us: Panel Suggestions.
Creative people, it’s time to get started!
Seattle Worldcon 2025 is built from a community of readers, makers, and creators of all types. As such, we’ll have a great deal of hands-on programming and events – ways for you to participate, if you wish. Here are three opportunities to join in if you are interested in making things:
Group Costume Project: Want to be part of a group costume, but don’t have the connections to other costumers to make it happen? We’ve got you covered! We’ll announce a theme for the group costume after Worldcon in Glasgow. Just bring your own costume on the theme to Seattle, and be part of our group costume meetup. We’ll get a great group photo, and you’ll have a chance to connect with other costumers. Have a great idea for the theme? We want to know! Send suggestions to [email protected]. The theme should be broad enough for lots of interpretations, but specific enough to spark people’s creativity and create a fairly cohesive group. It should also be accessible to costumers of all skill levels. Let us know what you think!
Single Pattern Contest: Keep checking for the announcement of the Single Pattern Contest – we’ll choose a commercially available sewing pattern. You will make something cool using that pattern – let your creativity run wild! A team of judges will evaluate the entries. Winners will be announced publicly, and prizes will be given.
Props Contest: Show us your best atomic age, retro-futuristic prop! Whether it’s a ray gun, communicator, or other prop, we want to see what you can come up with to build yesterday’s future. A team of judges will evaluate the entries, and we’ll showcase them to the membership. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!
Thanks Glasgow!
The Glasgow Worldcon, Glasgow 2024: A Worldcon for Our Futures was stellar. We made new friends, stocked up on inspiration, and brought on a ton of new volunteers. We can’t wait to replay some of the panels and events we missed while having conversations and hosting parties. Thanks for the hospitality and another great Scottish Worldcon.
#CommunityFund #DisconIII #Glasgow2024 #GroupCostumeProject #HugoAwards #PropsContest #SeattleWorldcon2025 #SinglePatternContest
-
Hello Worldcon Fan!
There is a lot of news to cover in this edition, so let’s get started!
Seattle Worldcon 2025 Announces the Best Poem Special Hugo Award!
Get ready to mark your nominating lists with your favorite speculative, science fiction, and fantasy poems from 2024. The Seattle Worldcon team will award a special Hugo Award for best poem in 2025 to honor the rich, vibrant poetry culture of Seattle. From having one of the only poetry-only bookstores to having its own Civic Poet, the Seattle poetry scene teems with activity.
For this special Hugo Award, nominate your favorite poem within the speculative, science fiction, and fantasy genres, published in 2024, that is at least three lines.
We look forward to seeing what poems resonate with the WSFS membership.
Look for more poetry-related announcements to come. And don’t hesitate to send us your ideas at Panel Suggestions.
Congratulations to the 2024 Hugo Award Winners
Best Novel
Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh (Tordotcom, Orbit UK)
Best Novella
Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher (Tor, Titan UK)
Best Novelette
“The Year Without Sunshine” by Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny Magazine, November-December 2023)
Best Short Story
“Better Living Through Algorithms” by Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld May 2023)
Best Series
Imperial Radch by Ann Leckie (Orbit US, Orbit UK)
Best Graphic Story or Comic
Saga, Vol. 11 written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Fiona Staples (Image Comics)
Best Related Work
A City on Mars by Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith (Penguin Press; Particular Books)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, screenplay by John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein and Michael Gilio, directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (Paramount Pictures)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
The Last of Us: “Long, Long Time”, written by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, directed by Peter Hoar (Naughty Dog / Sony Pictures)
Best Game or Interactive Work
Baldur’s Gate 3, produced by Larian Studios
Best Editor Short Form
Neil Clarke
Best Editor Long Form
Ruoxi Chen
Best Professional Artist
Rovina Cai
Best Semiprozine
Strange Horizons, by the Strange Horizons Editorial Collective
Best Fanzine
Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together, editors Roseanna Pendlebury, Arturo Serrano, Paul Weimer; senior editors Joe Sherry, Adri Joy, G. Brown, Vance Kotrla.
Best Fancast
Octothorpe, by John Coxon, Alison Scott, and Liz Batty
Best Fan Writer
Paul Weimer
Best Fan Artist
Laya Rose
Lodestar Award for Best YA Book
To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose (Del Rey)
Astounding Award for Best New Writer (sponsored by Dell Magazines)
Xiran Jay Zhao (eligibility extended at request of Dell Magazines)
Announcing the Community Fund for Seattle Worldcon 2025!
We are also happy to announce that we have been generously seeded with $30,000 from DisCon III to start a Community Fund for Seattle 2025. Our fund will have four focus areas: Pacific Northwest community members attending for the first time, LGBTQIA+ community members, BIPOC/AANHPI community members, and Global South community members. Applications for funds will open shortly and will be found on our website. We are also still gratefully accepting donations to increase our capacity, which can be made through our registration portal.
Come work with us!
Volunteer positions are currently available and many more will be opening up as the convention approaches. Let us know you are interested by filling out the volunteer form early! You can find it here on the website, and keep an eye on this page as more roles become available.
Seattle’s program will feature a lot of hands-on and interactive content. Want to be a panelist? Here’s the form: Panelists and Presenters. Have panel suggestions? Tell us: Panel Suggestions.
Creative people, it’s time to get started!
Seattle Worldcon 2025 is built from a community of readers, makers, and creators of all types. As such, we’ll have a great deal of hands-on programming and events – ways for you to participate, if you wish. Here are three opportunities to join in if you are interested in making things:
Group Costume Project: Want to be part of a group costume, but don’t have the connections to other costumers to make it happen? We’ve got you covered! We’ll announce a theme for the group costume after Worldcon in Glasgow. Just bring your own costume on the theme to Seattle, and be part of our group costume meetup. We’ll get a great group photo, and you’ll have a chance to connect with other costumers. Have a great idea for the theme? We want to know! Send suggestions to [email protected]. The theme should be broad enough for lots of interpretations, but specific enough to spark people’s creativity and create a fairly cohesive group. It should also be accessible to costumers of all skill levels. Let us know what you think!
Single Pattern Contest: Keep checking for the announcement of the Single Pattern Contest – we’ll choose a commercially available sewing pattern. You will make something cool using that pattern – let your creativity run wild! A team of judges will evaluate the entries. Winners will be announced publicly, and prizes will be given.
Props Contest: Show us your best atomic age, retro-futuristic prop! Whether it’s a ray gun, communicator, or other prop, we want to see what you can come up with to build yesterday’s future. A team of judges will evaluate the entries, and we’ll showcase them to the membership. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!
Thanks Glasgow!
The Glasgow Worldcon, Glasgow 2024: A Worldcon for Our Futures was stellar. We made new friends, stocked up on inspiration, and brought on a ton of new volunteers. We can’t wait to replay some of the panels and events we missed while having conversations and hosting parties. Thanks for the hospitality and another great Scottish Worldcon.
#CommunityFund #DisconIII #Glasgow2024 #GroupCostumeProject #HugoAwards #PropsContest #SeattleWorldcon2025 #SinglePatternContest
-
Hello Worldcon Fan!
There is a lot of news to cover in this edition, so let’s get started!
Seattle Worldcon 2025 Announces the Best Poem Special Hugo Award!
Get ready to mark your nominating lists with your favorite speculative, science fiction, and fantasy poems from 2024. The Seattle Worldcon team will award a special Hugo Award for best poem in 2025 to honor the rich, vibrant poetry culture of Seattle. From having one of the only poetry-only bookstores to having its own Civic Poet, the Seattle poetry scene teems with activity.
For this special Hugo Award, nominate your favorite poem within the speculative, science fiction, and fantasy genres, published in 2024, that is at least three lines.
We look forward to seeing what poems resonate with the WSFS membership.
Look for more poetry-related announcements to come. And don’t hesitate to send us your ideas at Panel Suggestions.
Congratulations to the 2024 Hugo Award Winners
Best Novel
Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh (Tordotcom, Orbit UK)
Best Novella
Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher (Tor, Titan UK)
Best Novelette
“The Year Without Sunshine” by Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny Magazine, November-December 2023)
Best Short Story
“Better Living Through Algorithms” by Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld May 2023)
Best Series
Imperial Radch by Ann Leckie (Orbit US, Orbit UK)
Best Graphic Story or Comic
Saga, Vol. 11 written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Fiona Staples (Image Comics)
Best Related Work
A City on Mars by Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith (Penguin Press; Particular Books)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, screenplay by John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein and Michael Gilio, directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (Paramount Pictures)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
The Last of Us: “Long, Long Time”, written by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, directed by Peter Hoar (Naughty Dog / Sony Pictures)
Best Game or Interactive Work
Baldur’s Gate 3, produced by Larian Studios
Best Editor Short Form
Neil Clarke
Best Editor Long Form
Ruoxi Chen
Best Professional Artist
Rovina Cai
Best Semiprozine
Strange Horizons, by the Strange Horizons Editorial Collective
Best Fanzine
Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together, editors Roseanna Pendlebury, Arturo Serrano, Paul Weimer; senior editors Joe Sherry, Adri Joy, G. Brown, Vance Kotrla.
Best Fancast
Octothorpe, by John Coxon, Alison Scott, and Liz Batty
Best Fan Writer
Paul Weimer
Best Fan Artist
Laya Rose
Lodestar Award for Best YA Book
To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose (Del Rey)
Astounding Award for Best New Writer (sponsored by Dell Magazines)
Xiran Jay Zhao (eligibility extended at request of Dell Magazines)
Announcing the Community Fund for Seattle Worldcon 2025!
We are also happy to announce that we have been generously seeded with $30,000 from DisCon III to start a Community Fund for Seattle 2025. Our fund will have four focus areas: Pacific Northwest community members attending for the first time, LGBTQIA+ community members, BIPOC/AANHPI community members, and Global South community members. Applications for funds will open shortly and will be found on our website. We are also still gratefully accepting donations to increase our capacity, which can be made through our registration portal.
Come work with us!
Volunteer positions are currently available and many more will be opening up as the convention approaches. Let us know you are interested by filling out the volunteer form early! You can find it here on the website, and keep an eye on this page as more roles become available.
Seattle’s program will feature a lot of hands-on and interactive content. Want to be a panelist? Here’s the form: Panelists and Presenters. Have panel suggestions? Tell us: Panel Suggestions.
Creative people, it’s time to get started!
Seattle Worldcon 2025 is built from a community of readers, makers, and creators of all types. As such, we’ll have a great deal of hands-on programming and events – ways for you to participate, if you wish. Here are three opportunities to join in if you are interested in making things:
Group Costume Project: Want to be part of a group costume, but don’t have the connections to other costumers to make it happen? We’ve got you covered! We’ll announce a theme for the group costume after Worldcon in Glasgow. Just bring your own costume on the theme to Seattle, and be part of our group costume meetup. We’ll get a great group photo, and you’ll have a chance to connect with other costumers. Have a great idea for the theme? We want to know! Send suggestions to [email protected]. The theme should be broad enough for lots of interpretations, but specific enough to spark people’s creativity and create a fairly cohesive group. It should also be accessible to costumers of all skill levels. Let us know what you think!
Single Pattern Contest: Keep checking for the announcement of the Single Pattern Contest – we’ll choose a commercially available sewing pattern. You will make something cool using that pattern – let your creativity run wild! A team of judges will evaluate the entries. Winners will be announced publicly, and prizes will be given.
Props Contest: Show us your best atomic age, retro-futuristic prop! Whether it’s a ray gun, communicator, or other prop, we want to see what you can come up with to build yesterday’s future. A team of judges will evaluate the entries, and we’ll showcase them to the membership. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!
Thanks Glasgow!
The Glasgow Worldcon, Glasgow 2024: A Worldcon for Our Futures was stellar. We made new friends, stocked up on inspiration, and brought on a ton of new volunteers. We can’t wait to replay some of the panels and events we missed while having conversations and hosting parties. Thanks for the hospitality and another great Scottish Worldcon.
#CommunityFund #DisconIII #Glasgow2024 #GroupCostumeProject #HugoAwards #PropsContest #SeattleWorldcon2025 #SinglePatternContest
-
Hello Worldcon Fan!
There is a lot of news to cover in this edition, so let’s get started!
Seattle Worldcon 2025 Announces the Best Poem Special Hugo Award!
Get ready to mark your nominating lists with your favorite speculative, science fiction, and fantasy poems from 2024. The Seattle Worldcon team will award a special Hugo Award for best poem in 2025 to honor the rich, vibrant poetry culture of Seattle. From having one of the only poetry-only bookstores to having its own Civic Poet, the Seattle poetry scene teems with activity.
For this special Hugo Award, nominate your favorite poem within the speculative, science fiction, and fantasy genres, published in 2024, that is at least three lines.
We look forward to seeing what poems resonate with the WSFS membership.
Look for more poetry-related announcements to come. And don’t hesitate to send us your ideas at Panel Suggestions.
Congratulations to the 2024 Hugo Award Winners
Best Novel
Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh (Tordotcom, Orbit UK)
Best Novella
Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher (Tor, Titan UK)
Best Novelette
“The Year Without Sunshine” by Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny Magazine, November-December 2023)
Best Short Story
“Better Living Through Algorithms” by Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld May 2023)
Best Series
Imperial Radch by Ann Leckie (Orbit US, Orbit UK)
Best Graphic Story or Comic
Saga, Vol. 11 written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Fiona Staples (Image Comics)
Best Related Work
A City on Mars by Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith (Penguin Press; Particular Books)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, screenplay by John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein and Michael Gilio, directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (Paramount Pictures)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
The Last of Us: “Long, Long Time”, written by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, directed by Peter Hoar (Naughty Dog / Sony Pictures)
Best Game or Interactive Work
Baldur’s Gate 3, produced by Larian Studios
Best Editor Short Form
Neil Clarke
Best Editor Long Form
Ruoxi Chen
Best Professional Artist
Rovina Cai
Best Semiprozine
Strange Horizons, by the Strange Horizons Editorial Collective
Best Fanzine
Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together, editors Roseanna Pendlebury, Arturo Serrano, Paul Weimer; senior editors Joe Sherry, Adri Joy, G. Brown, Vance Kotrla.
Best Fancast
Octothorpe, by John Coxon, Alison Scott, and Liz Batty
Best Fan Writer
Paul Weimer
Best Fan Artist
Laya Rose
Lodestar Award for Best YA Book
To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose (Del Rey)
Astounding Award for Best New Writer (sponsored by Dell Magazines)
Xiran Jay Zhao (eligibility extended at request of Dell Magazines)
Announcing the Community Fund for Seattle Worldcon 2025!
We are also happy to announce that we have been generously seeded with $30,000 from DisCon III to start a Community Fund for Seattle 2025. Our fund will have four focus areas: Pacific Northwest community members attending for the first time, LGBTQIA+ community members, BIPOC/AANHPI community members, and Global South community members. Applications for funds will open shortly and will be found on our website. We are also still gratefully accepting donations to increase our capacity, which can be made through our registration portal.
Come work with us!
Volunteer positions are currently available and many more will be opening up as the convention approaches. Let us know you are interested by filling out the volunteer form early! You can find it here on the website, and keep an eye on this page as more roles become available.
Seattle’s program will feature a lot of hands-on and interactive content. Want to be a panelist? Here’s the form: Panelists and Presenters. Have panel suggestions? Tell us: Panel Suggestions.
Creative people, it’s time to get started!
Seattle Worldcon 2025 is built from a community of readers, makers, and creators of all types. As such, we’ll have a great deal of hands-on programming and events – ways for you to participate, if you wish. Here are three opportunities to join in if you are interested in making things:
Group Costume Project: Want to be part of a group costume, but don’t have the connections to other costumers to make it happen? We’ve got you covered! We’ll announce a theme for the group costume after Worldcon in Glasgow. Just bring your own costume on the theme to Seattle, and be part of our group costume meetup. We’ll get a great group photo, and you’ll have a chance to connect with other costumers. Have a great idea for the theme? We want to know! Send suggestions to [email protected]. The theme should be broad enough for lots of interpretations, but specific enough to spark people’s creativity and create a fairly cohesive group. It should also be accessible to costumers of all skill levels. Let us know what you think!
Single Pattern Contest: Keep checking for the announcement of the Single Pattern Contest – we’ll choose a commercially available sewing pattern. You will make something cool using that pattern – let your creativity run wild! A team of judges will evaluate the entries. Winners will be announced publicly, and prizes will be given.
Props Contest: Show us your best atomic age, retro-futuristic prop! Whether it’s a ray gun, communicator, or other prop, we want to see what you can come up with to build yesterday’s future. A team of judges will evaluate the entries, and we’ll showcase them to the membership. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!
Thanks Glasgow!
The Glasgow Worldcon, Glasgow 2024: A Worldcon for Our Futures was stellar. We made new friends, stocked up on inspiration, and brought on a ton of new volunteers. We can’t wait to replay some of the panels and events we missed while having conversations and hosting parties. Thanks for the hospitality and another great Scottish Worldcon.
#CommunityFund #DisconIII #Glasgow2024 #GroupCostumeProject #HugoAwards #PropsContest #SeattleWorldcon2025 #SinglePatternContest
-
Hello Worldcon Fan!
There is a lot of news to cover in this edition, so let’s get started!
Seattle Worldcon 2025 Announces the Best Poem Special Hugo Award!
Get ready to mark your nominating lists with your favorite speculative, science fiction, and fantasy poems from 2024. The Seattle Worldcon team will award a special Hugo Award for best poem in 2025 to honor the rich, vibrant poetry culture of Seattle. From having one of the only poetry-only bookstores to having its own Civic Poet, the Seattle poetry scene teems with activity.
For this special Hugo Award, nominate your favorite poem within the speculative, science fiction, and fantasy genres, published in 2024, that is at least three lines.
We look forward to seeing what poems resonate with the WSFS membership.
Look for more poetry-related announcements to come. And don’t hesitate to send us your ideas at Panel Suggestions.
Congratulations to the 2024 Hugo Award Winners
Best Novel
Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh (Tordotcom, Orbit UK)
Best Novella
Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher (Tor, Titan UK)
Best Novelette
“The Year Without Sunshine” by Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny Magazine, November-December 2023)
Best Short Story
“Better Living Through Algorithms” by Naomi Kritzer (Clarkesworld May 2023)
Best Series
Imperial Radch by Ann Leckie (Orbit US, Orbit UK)
Best Graphic Story or Comic
Saga, Vol. 11 written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Fiona Staples (Image Comics)
Best Related Work
A City on Mars by Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith (Penguin Press; Particular Books)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, screenplay by John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein and Michael Gilio, directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (Paramount Pictures)
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
The Last of Us: “Long, Long Time”, written by Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, directed by Peter Hoar (Naughty Dog / Sony Pictures)
Best Game or Interactive Work
Baldur’s Gate 3, produced by Larian Studios
Best Editor Short Form
Neil Clarke
Best Editor Long Form
Ruoxi Chen
Best Professional Artist
Rovina Cai
Best Semiprozine
Strange Horizons, by the Strange Horizons Editorial Collective
Best Fanzine
Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together, editors Roseanna Pendlebury, Arturo Serrano, Paul Weimer; senior editors Joe Sherry, Adri Joy, G. Brown, Vance Kotrla.
Best Fancast
Octothorpe, by John Coxon, Alison Scott, and Liz Batty
Best Fan Writer
Paul Weimer
Best Fan Artist
Laya Rose
Lodestar Award for Best YA Book
To Shape a Dragon’s Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose (Del Rey)
Astounding Award for Best New Writer (sponsored by Dell Magazines)
Xiran Jay Zhao (eligibility extended at request of Dell Magazines)
Announcing the Community Fund for Seattle Worldcon 2025!
We are also happy to announce that we have been generously seeded with $30,000 from DisCon III to start a Community Fund for Seattle 2025. Our fund will have four focus areas: Pacific Northwest community members attending for the first time, LGBTQIA+ community members, BIPOC/AANHPI community members, and Global South community members. Applications for funds will open shortly and will be found on our website. We are also still gratefully accepting donations to increase our capacity, which can be made through our registration portal.
Come work with us!
Volunteer positions are currently available and many more will be opening up as the convention approaches. Let us know you are interested by filling out the volunteer form early! You can find it here on the website, and keep an eye on this page as more roles become available.
Seattle’s program will feature a lot of hands-on and interactive content. Want to be a panelist? Here’s the form: Panelists and Presenters. Have panel suggestions? Tell us: Panel Suggestions.
Creative people, it’s time to get started!
Seattle Worldcon 2025 is built from a community of readers, makers, and creators of all types. As such, we’ll have a great deal of hands-on programming and events – ways for you to participate, if you wish. Here are three opportunities to join in if you are interested in making things:
Group Costume Project: Want to be part of a group costume, but don’t have the connections to other costumers to make it happen? We’ve got you covered! We’ll announce a theme for the group costume after Worldcon in Glasgow. Just bring your own costume on the theme to Seattle, and be part of our group costume meetup. We’ll get a great group photo, and you’ll have a chance to connect with other costumers. Have a great idea for the theme? We want to know! Send suggestions to [email protected]. The theme should be broad enough for lots of interpretations, but specific enough to spark people’s creativity and create a fairly cohesive group. It should also be accessible to costumers of all skill levels. Let us know what you think!
Single Pattern Contest: Keep checking for the announcement of the Single Pattern Contest – we’ll choose a commercially available sewing pattern. You will make something cool using that pattern – let your creativity run wild! A team of judges will evaluate the entries. Winners will be announced publicly, and prizes will be given.
Props Contest: Show us your best atomic age, retro-futuristic prop! Whether it’s a ray gun, communicator, or other prop, we want to see what you can come up with to build yesterday’s future. A team of judges will evaluate the entries, and we’ll showcase them to the membership. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!
Thanks Glasgow!
The Glasgow Worldcon, Glasgow 2024: A Worldcon for Our Futures was stellar. We made new friends, stocked up on inspiration, and brought on a ton of new volunteers. We can’t wait to replay some of the panels and events we missed while having conversations and hosting parties. Thanks for the hospitality and another great Scottish Worldcon.
#CommunityFund #DisconIII #Glasgow2024 #GroupCostumeProject #HugoAwards #PropsContest #SeattleWorldcon2025 #SinglePatternContest
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Wednesday Reads
Good Afternoon!!
I was going to write about how the Democrats actually won the government shutdown. But bigger news has broken. I’ll get to the shutdown story after that and then some news about Kash Patel, Trump’s incompetent FBI director.
It looks like the Epstein shit is about to hit the fan.
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
James Hill, Lauren Peller, Katherine Faulders, and Jay O’Brien ABC News: House Democrats release new Epstein emails referencing Trump.
Sex offender Jeffrey Epstein referred to Donald Trump as the “dog that hasn’t barked” and told his former companion Ghislaine Maxwell that an alleged victim had “spent hours at my house” with Trump, according to email correspondence released Wednesday by Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
“I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump,” Epstein wrote in a typo-riddled message to Maxwell in April 2011. “[Victim] spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned.”
“I have been thinking about that … ” Maxwell replied.
That email exchange — which came just weeks after a British newspaper published a series of stories about Epstein, Maxwell and their powerful associates — was one of three released by the Democrats from a batch of more than 23,000 documents the committee recently received from the Epstein Estate in response to a subpoena.
The other messages are between Epstein and author Michael Wolff.
“I hear CNN planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you–either on air or in scrum afterwards,” Wolff wrote to Epstein in December 2015, six months after Trump had officially entered the race for the White House.
“Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever,” Epstein wrote, “Of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop” [….]
Wolff in a phone interview on Wednesday said of the 2015 exchange that he couldn’t remember “the specific emails or the context, but I was in an in-depth conversation with Epstein at that time about his relationship with Donald Trump. So I think this reflects that.”
“I was trying at that time to get Epstein to talk about his relationship with Trump, and actually, he proved to be an enormously valuable source to me,” Wolff said. “Part of the context of this is that I was pushing Epstein at that point to go public with what he knew about Trump.”
You can read the original emails along with more context at the ABC link.
A bit more from the emails from Hailey Fuchs at Politico: Jeffrey Epstein, in newly released email, says Trump ‘knew about the girls.’
Also in the emails released by Oversight Democrats Wednesday, Wolff wrote in a 2015 message to Epstein that he heard Trump – then a presidential candidate – would be asked by CNN about the convicted sex offender. Epstein asked Wolff what he thought an ideal response from Trump would be.
Michael Wolff
“I think you should let him hang himself,” Wolff responded. If [Trump] says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency.
“You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you,” Wolff continued, “or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt.”
Wolff added that Trump could potentially praise Epstein when asked. Wolff’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The materials were received by the House Oversight Committee last Thursday, meaning the move by Democrats to release the materials was likely timed to coincide with the House’s return from a lengthy recess to vote Wednesday evening on ending the prolonged government shutdown.
Michael Gold at The New York Times (gift link): Epstein Alleged in Emails That Trump Knew of His Conduct.
House Democrats on Wednesday released emails in which Jeffrey Epstein wrote that President Trump had “spent hours at my house” with one of Mr. Epstein’s victims, among other messages that suggested that the convicted sex offender believed Mr. Trump knew more about his abuse than he has acknowledged….
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA)
…Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said the emails, which they selected from thousands of pages of documents received by their panel, raised new questions about the relationship between the two men. In one of the messages, Mr. Epstein flatly asserted that Mr. Trump “knew about the girls,” many of whom were later found by investigators to have been underage. In another, Mr. Epstein pondered how to address questions from the news media about their relationship as Mr. Trump was becoming a national political figure….
“These latest emails and correspondence raise glaring questions about what else the White House is hiding and the nature of the relationship between Epstein and the president,” Representative Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said in a statement.
The three separate email exchanges released on Wednesday were all from after Mr. Epstein’s 2008 plea deal in Florida on state charges of soliciting prostitution, in which federal prosecutors agreed not to pursue charges. They came years after Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein had a reported falling out in the early 2000s.
See the ABC story above for descriptions of the emails.
House Democrats, citing an unnamed whistle-blower, said this week that Ms. Maxwell was preparing to formally ask Mr. Trump to commute her federal prison sentence.
The emails were provided to the Oversight Committee along with a larger tranche of documents from Mr. Epstein’s estate that the panel requested as part of its investigation into Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence on sex-trafficking charges.
Republicans argued that Democrats omitted context from the emails they released.
Republicans on the Oversight Committee accused Democrats of politicizing the investigation. “Democrats continue to carelessly cherry-pick documents to generate clickbait that is not grounded in the facts,” a committee spokeswoman said. “The Epstein Estate has produced over 20,000 pages of documents on Thursday, yet Democrats are once again intentionally withholding records that name Democrat officials.”
The Republicans also identified the victim whose name was redacted in the emails as Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in April. Ms. Giuffre had said that Ms. Maxwell recruited her into Mr. Epstein’s sex ring while she was working at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Palm Beach, as a teenager.
In a 2016 deposition for a civil case, Ms. Giuffre was asked if she believed Mr. Trump had witnessed the sexual abuse of minors in Mr. Epstein’s home. “I don’t think Donald Trump participated in anything,” she said.
“I never saw or witnessed Donald Trump participate in those acts, but was he in the house of Jeffrey Epstein,” Ms. Giuffre added. “I’ve heard he has been, but I haven’t seen him myself so I don’t know.”
Use the gift link to read the whole article.
This afternoon at 4:00, Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) will finally be sworn in. She will then sign the discharge petition to require the DOJ to release all of the Epstein files.
Kaanita Iyer at CNN: Rep.-elect Grijalva says she plans to confront Johnson at long-delayed swearing-in ceremony.
Arizona Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, who is set to be sworn in on Wednesday, said she will confront House Speaker Mike Johnson after waiting nearly 50 days to be seated as a member of Congress.
“I won’t be able to like sort of move on if I don’t address it personally and we’ll see what kind of reaction he has,” Grijalva, a Democrat, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source” Tuesday.
Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.)
“I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to say,” Grijalva added but said she will stress that Johnson refusing to swear her in for over a month is “undemocratic.”
“It’s unconstitutional. It’s illegal. Should never happen — this kind of obstruction cannot happen again,” Grijalva said.
Grijalva won a special election on September 23 to replace her father, longtime Rep. Raúl Grijalva, who died in March.
The House has been out of session since September 19 and Johnson refused to swear in Grijalva in the chamber’s absence amid the government shutdown.
One more on the Epstein story from Meredith Lee Hill, Hailey Fuchs and Nicholas Wu at Politico: Here’s how the House battle over the Epstein files will play out
The monthslong bipartisan effort to sidestep Speaker Mike Johnson and force the release of all Justice Department files on the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein is kicking into high gear this week, setting up a December floor battle that President Donald Trump has sought to avoid….
The process of doing so will begin around 4 p.m., when Johnson swears in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva right before the House votes to end the government shutdown — ending a 50-day wait following the Arizona Democrat’s election. Shortly afterward, Grijalva says she will affix the 218th and final signature to the discharge petition led by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to force a vote on the full release of DOJ’s Epstein files.
That in itself will be the culmination of months of drama that blew up into a full crisis for Johnson this summer, with a GOP mutiny grinding the floor to a halt and forcing leaders to send the House home early for August recess. The uproar over a possible Epstein cover-up faded but never disappeared entirely.The completion of the discharge petition, a rarely used mechanism to sidestep the majority party leadership, will trigger a countdown for the bill to hit the House floor. It will still take seven legislative days for the petition to ripen, after which Johnson will have two legislative days to schedule a vote. Senior Republican and Democratic aides estimate a floor vote will come the first week of December, after the Thanksgiving recess.
The discharge petition tees up a “rule,” a procedural measure setting the terms of debate for the Epstein bill’s consideration on the House floor. This gives the effort’s leaders greater control over the bill, which will still require Senate approval if it passes the House.
Senate Republican leaders haven’t publicly committed to bringing up the Epstein measure if the House passes it. Republicans expect it will die in the Senate, but not before a contentious House fight.
Could Johnson stop the petition from getting a vote in the House?
While Johnson has options to short-circuit the effort before it gets to the floor, he said in an interview last month he would not seek to do so. Republicans on the Rules Committee have also warned Johnson they will not help him kill the bill in the panel, and he’s in turn privately assured some of them the Epstein measure will get floor consideration if the petition reaches 218 signatures.
At that point, the speaker can only defeat it if he siphons away enough Republican votes — a tall order in a majority where Johnson has only a two-vote margin after Grijalva is sworn in. GOP leaders don’t plan to formally whip against the Epstein vote when it gets to the floor, according to three people granted anonymity to describe internal deliberations.
“I’m certain the House vote will succeed,” Massie said in an interview. “Some Republican members who are not signers of the petition have told me they will vote for the measure when the vote is called. I suspect there will be many more.”
Read about which members might end up voting for the release of the files at the link.
Next, did the Democrats really lose the shutdown?
Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark: Give Chuck a Break. It Could Have Been Worse.
Like Dr. Strange, I have seen all six possible endgames from the shutdown fight and I’m here to tell you that yes, Democrats could have done better. They probably should have done better. But they exit this event in a stronger position than they entered. And also: They could have done much worse.
We’re going to rank the shutdown endgames from best to worst and then I’m going to make the case simultaneously that (a) Democrats played their hand poorly from the start, but that (b) they were ultimately bailed out by Trump’s obsession with dominance, and (c) we ought to appreciate the bad stuff that didn’t happen here.
You’ll need to go to the link to read the possible endgames; I can’t copy that much from the post. But here’s the final argument:
Here’s what Democrats should have said from the start:
- Republicans control the White House, the House, and the Senate. They have the votes to pass this budget any time they want. They do not need a single Democratic vote.
- All Republicans have to do is repeal the filibuster.
- If Republicans are so inept that they can’t find the votes to repeal the filibuster or to pass their legislation, then they should feel free to come to the minority and ask for help.
- But the Democrats have no offer. The voters gave Republicans unified control of government. If Republicans are incapable of governing, voters deserve to see that.
The problem isn’t that Democrats caved on the shutdown. Just objectively speaking, they emerge from this fight in a slightly better position than they entered it.
- They prolonged the longest government shutdown in history.
- This shutdown damaged Trump politically. (Just look at the polling.
- They centered health care costs as a major issue for 2026.
- The fake concession they got from Senate Republicans—a meaningless future vote on extending the ACA subsidies—will (a) put Republican senators on the spot and (b) create a point of vulnerability for House Republicans when they refuse to take up the bill.
- They avoided the worst-case outcome. Which is not nothing.
Please read the whole thing at The Bulwark link.
Annie Karni at The New York Times: What if Democrats’ Big Shutdown Loss Turns Out to Be a Win?
At first blush, the deal that paved the way to end the government shutdown this week looked exactly like the kind of feeble outcome many Democrats have come to expect from their leaders in Washington.
After waging a 40-day fight to protect Americans’ access to health care — one they framed as existential — their side folded after eight defectors struck a deal that would allow President Trump and Republicans to reopen the government this week without doing anything about health coverage or costs, enraging all corners of the party.
But even some of the Democrats most outraged by the outcome are not so certain that their party’s aborted fight was all for naught.
They assert that in hammering away at the extension of health care subsidies that are slated to expire at the end of next month, they managed to thrust Mr. Trump and Republicans onto the defensive, elevating a political issue that has long been a major weakness for them….
It may turn out that the long-term outcome of the longest government shutdown in history will be a grand-scale political and policy defeat for Democrats. The head-scratching end to a fight they were not willing to see through to victory deflated the party and deepened long-simmering divisions ahead of next year’s critical midterm elections. But in the shorter term, there could be benefits.
Senate Democrats believe that they held together long enough for Mr. Trump to reveal a new level of callousness in his refusal to fund food stamps for 42 million Americans who rely on the nation’s largest anti-hunger program. And they believe all of that helped contribute to a mini-blue wave last week, one that could continue if Democrats can keep the right issues at the forefront.
In my opinion, the shutdown fight demonstrated to many voters who don’t usually pay attention to politics that Trump doesn’t care one bit about their concerns.
Kash Patel’s Reign at the FBI
The Wall Street Journal has a piece by Sadie Gurman, Aruna Viswanatha, Josh Dawsey, and Jack Gillum about Trump’s FBI director: Kash Patel’s ‘Effin Wild’ Ride as FBI Director.
On Halloween morning, FBI Director Kash Patel had a big announcement to make: “The FBI thwarted a potential terrorist attack,” he said in a 7:32 a.m. social-media post that referenced arrests in Michigan.
There was one problem: No criminal charges had yet been filed and local police weren’t aware of the details. Two friends of the alleged terrorists in New Jersey and Washington state caught wind of the arrests and moved up plans to leave the country, according to court documents and law-enforcement officials familiar with the investigation.
Justice Department leaders complained to the White House about Patel’s premature post, saying it had disrupted the investigation, administration officials said.
In his nine months on the job, Patel has drawn flak from his bosses in the Justice Department and from his underlings at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he has fired dozens of agents deemed hostile to Donald Trump or to conservative ideals.
But the Halloween announcement wasn’t the biggest controversy to envelop the director that week. Patel hit the news for taking an FBI plane to attend a wrestling event where his girlfriend, a country western singer, performed, and then to her home in Nashville. A former FBI agent, Kyle Seraphin, publicized the trip and called the taxpayer funded travel in the middle of a shutdown “pathetic.”
After that, Patel visited a Texas hunting resort called the Boondoggle Ranch, according to flight records and people familiar with the trip, which hasn’t been previously reported.
Patel’s travel has frustrated both Justice Department officials, who complained to the White House about it, and the White House itself, which had told cabinet officials months ago in writing to limit their travel, particularly if it was overseas or unrelated to Trump’s agenda, according to an administration official. Details about Patel’s trips to visit his girlfriend and an August trip to Scotland have been passed around the White House in recent days, officials said.
The FBI director is required by law to take the bureau’s private plane instead of commercial flights in order to have access to secure communications. If the travel is personal, the director is required to reimburse the government for the cost of a commercial flight—typically far less than the actual costs of private-jet use.
A bit more:
Last month, Patel gave Trump an unusual public presentation in the Oval Office, where he credited the president for the bureau’s successes on everything from drug seizures to the arrests of several most-wanted fugitives.
“We are absolutely crushing violent crime like never before and defending this homeland, sir,” Patel said, gesturing toward large poster boards showing a surge in arrests this summer.
Patel’s presence at the bureau has been something of a culture shock for a buttoned-up workforce, used to wearing suits and ties. Instead, Patel has appeared at events in hooded sweatshirts, jeans or hunting vests, and often speaks colloquially, calling agents “cops,” and telling podcaster Joe Rogan that the job of FBI director was “effin wild.”
He has also handed out an oversize commemorative coin to colleagues resembling the logo of the Marvel “Punisher” character, who came to embody a general distrust of the U.S. justice system. The coin also has a large number nine on it, in a reference to himself as the FBI’s ninth director.
Patel’s supporters say he is trying to present himself as down-to-earth and accessible to the workforce. He “wants the Bureau to get back to focusing on field and agent work vs. an elitist D.C. culture,” FBI spokesman Ben Williamson said. The FBI declined to discuss Patel’s plane travel, citing safety concerns. Justice Department and FBI representatives said the two agencies closely coordinated plans for the terrorism operation in advance.
The story is behind a paywall, but I was able to get through by clicking the link at Memeorandum.
The New York Times (gift link): F.B.I. Director Is Said to Have Made a Pledge to Head of MI5, Then Broken It.
At a secret gathering in May, south of London, the head of Britain’s domestic security service asked Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, for help.
British security officials rely on the bureau for high-tech surveillance tools — the kind they might need to monitor a new embassy that China wants to build near the Tower of London. The head of MI5, Ken McCallum, asked Mr. Patel to protect the job of an F.B.I. agent based in London who dealt with that technology, according to several current and former U.S. officials with knowledge of the episode.
Kash Patel and girlfriend Alexis Wilkins
Mr. Patel agreed to find funding to keep the posting, the officials said. But the job had already been slated to disappear as the White House moved to slash the F.B.I. budget. The agent moved to a different job back in the United States, saving the F.B.I. money but leaving MI5 officials incredulous.
It was a jarring introduction to Mr. Patel’s leadership style for British officials. They had long forged personal ties with their U.S. counterparts, as well as with three other close allies, in an intelligence partnership known as the Five Eyes.
The relationships among the organizations matter because many top national security officials view trust and reliability as paramount to sharing critical information with allies — vital for communication between agency directors, and hard to restore once lost.
On the same day in 1946 that Winston Churchill delivered his Iron Curtain speech in the United States, Britain and the United States secretly signed the pact that formed the basis for their intelligence alliance. It was an outgrowth of their collaboration during World War II. The partnership expanded during the advent of the Cold War to include other countries — Australia, Canada and New Zealand — earning it the name Five Eyes.
All rely heavily on American intelligence to help keep their countries safe. Though the F.B.I. is a criminal investigation agency, it is also a major part of the Western intelligence-gathering community. Alongside other U.S. agencies like the C.I.A., the F.B.I. has offices in embassies around the globe.
Mr. Patel’s inexperience, his dismissals of top F.B.I. officials and his shift of bureau resources from thwarting spies and terrorism have heightened concerns among the other Five Eyes nations that the bureau is adrift, according to the former U.S. officials and other people familiar with allies’ reactions to the bureau changes.
Five Eyes officials have watched with alarm as Mr. Patel has fired agents who investigated President Trump and invoked his powers to investigate the president’s perceived enemies. The officials and others spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
Use the gift article to read the rest.
A few more interesting stories:
The Guardian: UK pauses intelligence-sharing with US on suspected drug vessels in Caribbean.
The Guardian: Venezuelans sent by Trump to El Salvador endured systematic torture, report finds.
The New Republic: Damning Video Shows DHS Agents Pepper-Spray a Baby.
Politico Magazine: ‘He’s Actually Weakening the Economy’: Why Trump’s Strategy May Fail. A top economist says Trump is doing industrial policy all wrong.
NBC News: Trump’s Pentagon name change could cost up to $2 billion.
Those are my recommended reads for today. What’s on your mind?
#ChuckSchumer #DonaldTrump #EpsteinFiles #FBI #GhislaineMaxwell #governmentShutdown2025 #JeffreyEpstein #KashPatel #MichaelWolff #RepAdelitaGrijalva #RepRobertGarcia
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Wednesday Reads
Good Afternoon!!
I was going to write about how the Democrats actually won the government shutdown. But bigger news has broken. I’ll get to the shutdown story after that and then some news about Kash Patel, Trump’s incompetent FBI director.
It looks like the Epstein shit is about to hit the fan.
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell
James Hill, Lauren Peller, Katherine Faulders, and Jay O’Brien ABC News: House Democrats release new Epstein emails referencing Trump.
Sex offender Jeffrey Epstein referred to Donald Trump as the “dog that hasn’t barked” and told his former companion Ghislaine Maxwell that an alleged victim had “spent hours at my house” with Trump, according to email correspondence released Wednesday by Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
“I want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump,” Epstein wrote in a typo-riddled message to Maxwell in April 2011. “[Victim] spent hours at my house with him ,, he has never once been mentioned.”
“I have been thinking about that … ” Maxwell replied.
That email exchange — which came just weeks after a British newspaper published a series of stories about Epstein, Maxwell and their powerful associates — was one of three released by the Democrats from a batch of more than 23,000 documents the committee recently received from the Epstein Estate in response to a subpoena.
The other messages are between Epstein and author Michael Wolff.
“I hear CNN planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you–either on air or in scrum afterwards,” Wolff wrote to Epstein in December 2015, six months after Trump had officially entered the race for the White House.
“Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever,” Epstein wrote, “Of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop” [….]
Wolff in a phone interview on Wednesday said of the 2015 exchange that he couldn’t remember “the specific emails or the context, but I was in an in-depth conversation with Epstein at that time about his relationship with Donald Trump. So I think this reflects that.”
“I was trying at that time to get Epstein to talk about his relationship with Trump, and actually, he proved to be an enormously valuable source to me,” Wolff said. “Part of the context of this is that I was pushing Epstein at that point to go public with what he knew about Trump.”
You can read the original emails along with more context at the ABC link.
A bit more from the emails from Hailey Fuchs at Politico: Jeffrey Epstein, in newly released email, says Trump ‘knew about the girls.’
Also in the emails released by Oversight Democrats Wednesday, Wolff wrote in a 2015 message to Epstein that he heard Trump – then a presidential candidate – would be asked by CNN about the convicted sex offender. Epstein asked Wolff what he thought an ideal response from Trump would be.
Michael Wolff
“I think you should let him hang himself,” Wolff responded. If [Trump] says he hasn’t been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency.
“You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you,” Wolff continued, “or, if it really looks like he could win, you could save him, generating a debt.”
Wolff added that Trump could potentially praise Epstein when asked. Wolff’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The materials were received by the House Oversight Committee last Thursday, meaning the move by Democrats to release the materials was likely timed to coincide with the House’s return from a lengthy recess to vote Wednesday evening on ending the prolonged government shutdown.
Michael Gold at The New York Times (gift link): Epstein Alleged in Emails That Trump Knew of His Conduct.
House Democrats on Wednesday released emails in which Jeffrey Epstein wrote that President Trump had “spent hours at my house” with one of Mr. Epstein’s victims, among other messages that suggested that the convicted sex offender believed Mr. Trump knew more about his abuse than he has acknowledged….
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA)
…Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said the emails, which they selected from thousands of pages of documents received by their panel, raised new questions about the relationship between the two men. In one of the messages, Mr. Epstein flatly asserted that Mr. Trump “knew about the girls,” many of whom were later found by investigators to have been underage. In another, Mr. Epstein pondered how to address questions from the news media about their relationship as Mr. Trump was becoming a national political figure….
“These latest emails and correspondence raise glaring questions about what else the White House is hiding and the nature of the relationship between Epstein and the president,” Representative Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said in a statement.
The three separate email exchanges released on Wednesday were all from after Mr. Epstein’s 2008 plea deal in Florida on state charges of soliciting prostitution, in which federal prosecutors agreed not to pursue charges. They came years after Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein had a reported falling out in the early 2000s.
See the ABC story above for descriptions of the emails.
House Democrats, citing an unnamed whistle-blower, said this week that Ms. Maxwell was preparing to formally ask Mr. Trump to commute her federal prison sentence.
The emails were provided to the Oversight Committee along with a larger tranche of documents from Mr. Epstein’s estate that the panel requested as part of its investigation into Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence on sex-trafficking charges.
Republicans argued that Democrats omitted context from the emails they released.
Republicans on the Oversight Committee accused Democrats of politicizing the investigation. “Democrats continue to carelessly cherry-pick documents to generate clickbait that is not grounded in the facts,” a committee spokeswoman said. “The Epstein Estate has produced over 20,000 pages of documents on Thursday, yet Democrats are once again intentionally withholding records that name Democrat officials.”
The Republicans also identified the victim whose name was redacted in the emails as Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide in April. Ms. Giuffre had said that Ms. Maxwell recruited her into Mr. Epstein’s sex ring while she was working at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Palm Beach, as a teenager.
In a 2016 deposition for a civil case, Ms. Giuffre was asked if she believed Mr. Trump had witnessed the sexual abuse of minors in Mr. Epstein’s home. “I don’t think Donald Trump participated in anything,” she said.
“I never saw or witnessed Donald Trump participate in those acts, but was he in the house of Jeffrey Epstein,” Ms. Giuffre added. “I’ve heard he has been, but I haven’t seen him myself so I don’t know.”
Use the gift link to read the whole article.
This afternoon at 4:00, Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) will finally be sworn in. She will then sign the discharge petition to require the DOJ to release all of the Epstein files.
Kaanita Iyer at CNN: Rep.-elect Grijalva says she plans to confront Johnson at long-delayed swearing-in ceremony.
Arizona Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva, who is set to be sworn in on Wednesday, said she will confront House Speaker Mike Johnson after waiting nearly 50 days to be seated as a member of Congress.
“I won’t be able to like sort of move on if I don’t address it personally and we’ll see what kind of reaction he has,” Grijalva, a Democrat, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source” Tuesday.
Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.)
“I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to say,” Grijalva added but said she will stress that Johnson refusing to swear her in for over a month is “undemocratic.”
“It’s unconstitutional. It’s illegal. Should never happen — this kind of obstruction cannot happen again,” Grijalva said.
Grijalva won a special election on September 23 to replace her father, longtime Rep. Raúl Grijalva, who died in March.
The House has been out of session since September 19 and Johnson refused to swear in Grijalva in the chamber’s absence amid the government shutdown.
One more on the Epstein story from Meredith Lee Hill, Hailey Fuchs and Nicholas Wu at Politico: Here’s how the House battle over the Epstein files will play out
The monthslong bipartisan effort to sidestep Speaker Mike Johnson and force the release of all Justice Department files on the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein is kicking into high gear this week, setting up a December floor battle that President Donald Trump has sought to avoid….
The process of doing so will begin around 4 p.m., when Johnson swears in Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva right before the House votes to end the government shutdown — ending a 50-day wait following the Arizona Democrat’s election. Shortly afterward, Grijalva says she will affix the 218th and final signature to the discharge petition led by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to force a vote on the full release of DOJ’s Epstein files.
That in itself will be the culmination of months of drama that blew up into a full crisis for Johnson this summer, with a GOP mutiny grinding the floor to a halt and forcing leaders to send the House home early for August recess. The uproar over a possible Epstein cover-up faded but never disappeared entirely.The completion of the discharge petition, a rarely used mechanism to sidestep the majority party leadership, will trigger a countdown for the bill to hit the House floor. It will still take seven legislative days for the petition to ripen, after which Johnson will have two legislative days to schedule a vote. Senior Republican and Democratic aides estimate a floor vote will come the first week of December, after the Thanksgiving recess.
The discharge petition tees up a “rule,” a procedural measure setting the terms of debate for the Epstein bill’s consideration on the House floor. This gives the effort’s leaders greater control over the bill, which will still require Senate approval if it passes the House.
Senate Republican leaders haven’t publicly committed to bringing up the Epstein measure if the House passes it. Republicans expect it will die in the Senate, but not before a contentious House fight.
Could Johnson stop the petition from getting a vote in the House?
While Johnson has options to short-circuit the effort before it gets to the floor, he said in an interview last month he would not seek to do so. Republicans on the Rules Committee have also warned Johnson they will not help him kill the bill in the panel, and he’s in turn privately assured some of them the Epstein measure will get floor consideration if the petition reaches 218 signatures.
At that point, the speaker can only defeat it if he siphons away enough Republican votes — a tall order in a majority where Johnson has only a two-vote margin after Grijalva is sworn in. GOP leaders don’t plan to formally whip against the Epstein vote when it gets to the floor, according to three people granted anonymity to describe internal deliberations.
“I’m certain the House vote will succeed,” Massie said in an interview. “Some Republican members who are not signers of the petition have told me they will vote for the measure when the vote is called. I suspect there will be many more.”
Read about which members might end up voting for the release of the files at the link.
Next, did the Democrats really lose the shutdown?
Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark: Give Chuck a Break. It Could Have Been Worse.
Like Dr. Strange, I have seen all six possible endgames from the shutdown fight and I’m here to tell you that yes, Democrats could have done better. They probably should have done better. But they exit this event in a stronger position than they entered. And also: They could have done much worse.
We’re going to rank the shutdown endgames from best to worst and then I’m going to make the case simultaneously that (a) Democrats played their hand poorly from the start, but that (b) they were ultimately bailed out by Trump’s obsession with dominance, and (c) we ought to appreciate the bad stuff that didn’t happen here.
You’ll need to go to the link to read the possible endgames; I can’t copy that much from the post. But here’s the final argument:
Here’s what Democrats should have said from the start:
- Republicans control the White House, the House, and the Senate. They have the votes to pass this budget any time they want. They do not need a single Democratic vote.
- All Republicans have to do is repeal the filibuster.
- If Republicans are so inept that they can’t find the votes to repeal the filibuster or to pass their legislation, then they should feel free to come to the minority and ask for help.
- But the Democrats have no offer. The voters gave Republicans unified control of government. If Republicans are incapable of governing, voters deserve to see that.
The problem isn’t that Democrats caved on the shutdown. Just objectively speaking, they emerge from this fight in a slightly better position than they entered it.
- They prolonged the longest government shutdown in history.
- This shutdown damaged Trump politically. (Just look at the polling.
- They centered health care costs as a major issue for 2026.
- The fake concession they got from Senate Republicans—a meaningless future vote on extending the ACA subsidies—will (a) put Republican senators on the spot and (b) create a point of vulnerability for House Republicans when they refuse to take up the bill.
- They avoided the worst-case outcome. Which is not nothing.
Please read the whole thing at The Bulwark link.
Annie Karni at The New York Times: What if Democrats’ Big Shutdown Loss Turns Out to Be a Win?
At first blush, the deal that paved the way to end the government shutdown this week looked exactly like the kind of feeble outcome many Democrats have come to expect from their leaders in Washington.
After waging a 40-day fight to protect Americans’ access to health care — one they framed as existential — their side folded after eight defectors struck a deal that would allow President Trump and Republicans to reopen the government this week without doing anything about health coverage or costs, enraging all corners of the party.
But even some of the Democrats most outraged by the outcome are not so certain that their party’s aborted fight was all for naught.
They assert that in hammering away at the extension of health care subsidies that are slated to expire at the end of next month, they managed to thrust Mr. Trump and Republicans onto the defensive, elevating a political issue that has long been a major weakness for them….
It may turn out that the long-term outcome of the longest government shutdown in history will be a grand-scale political and policy defeat for Democrats. The head-scratching end to a fight they were not willing to see through to victory deflated the party and deepened long-simmering divisions ahead of next year’s critical midterm elections. But in the shorter term, there could be benefits.
Senate Democrats believe that they held together long enough for Mr. Trump to reveal a new level of callousness in his refusal to fund food stamps for 42 million Americans who rely on the nation’s largest anti-hunger program. And they believe all of that helped contribute to a mini-blue wave last week, one that could continue if Democrats can keep the right issues at the forefront.
In my opinion, the shutdown fight demonstrated to many voters who don’t usually pay attention to politics that Trump doesn’t care one bit about their concerns.
Kash Patel’s Reign at the FBI
The Wall Street Journal has a piece by Sadie Gurman, Aruna Viswanatha, Josh Dawsey, and Jack Gillum about Trump’s FBI director: Kash Patel’s ‘Effin Wild’ Ride as FBI Director.
On Halloween morning, FBI Director Kash Patel had a big announcement to make: “The FBI thwarted a potential terrorist attack,” he said in a 7:32 a.m. social-media post that referenced arrests in Michigan.
There was one problem: No criminal charges had yet been filed and local police weren’t aware of the details. Two friends of the alleged terrorists in New Jersey and Washington state caught wind of the arrests and moved up plans to leave the country, according to court documents and law-enforcement officials familiar with the investigation.
Justice Department leaders complained to the White House about Patel’s premature post, saying it had disrupted the investigation, administration officials said.
In his nine months on the job, Patel has drawn flak from his bosses in the Justice Department and from his underlings at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where he has fired dozens of agents deemed hostile to Donald Trump or to conservative ideals.
But the Halloween announcement wasn’t the biggest controversy to envelop the director that week. Patel hit the news for taking an FBI plane to attend a wrestling event where his girlfriend, a country western singer, performed, and then to her home in Nashville. A former FBI agent, Kyle Seraphin, publicized the trip and called the taxpayer funded travel in the middle of a shutdown “pathetic.”
After that, Patel visited a Texas hunting resort called the Boondoggle Ranch, according to flight records and people familiar with the trip, which hasn’t been previously reported.
Patel’s travel has frustrated both Justice Department officials, who complained to the White House about it, and the White House itself, which had told cabinet officials months ago in writing to limit their travel, particularly if it was overseas or unrelated to Trump’s agenda, according to an administration official. Details about Patel’s trips to visit his girlfriend and an August trip to Scotland have been passed around the White House in recent days, officials said.
The FBI director is required by law to take the bureau’s private plane instead of commercial flights in order to have access to secure communications. If the travel is personal, the director is required to reimburse the government for the cost of a commercial flight—typically far less than the actual costs of private-jet use.
A bit more:
Last month, Patel gave Trump an unusual public presentation in the Oval Office, where he credited the president for the bureau’s successes on everything from drug seizures to the arrests of several most-wanted fugitives.
“We are absolutely crushing violent crime like never before and defending this homeland, sir,” Patel said, gesturing toward large poster boards showing a surge in arrests this summer.
Patel’s presence at the bureau has been something of a culture shock for a buttoned-up workforce, used to wearing suits and ties. Instead, Patel has appeared at events in hooded sweatshirts, jeans or hunting vests, and often speaks colloquially, calling agents “cops,” and telling podcaster Joe Rogan that the job of FBI director was “effin wild.”
He has also handed out an oversize commemorative coin to colleagues resembling the logo of the Marvel “Punisher” character, who came to embody a general distrust of the U.S. justice system. The coin also has a large number nine on it, in a reference to himself as the FBI’s ninth director.
Patel’s supporters say he is trying to present himself as down-to-earth and accessible to the workforce. He “wants the Bureau to get back to focusing on field and agent work vs. an elitist D.C. culture,” FBI spokesman Ben Williamson said. The FBI declined to discuss Patel’s plane travel, citing safety concerns. Justice Department and FBI representatives said the two agencies closely coordinated plans for the terrorism operation in advance.
The story is behind a paywall, but I was able to get through by clicking the link at Memeorandum.
The New York Times (gift link): F.B.I. Director Is Said to Have Made a Pledge to Head of MI5, Then Broken It.
At a secret gathering in May, south of London, the head of Britain’s domestic security service asked Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, for help.
British security officials rely on the bureau for high-tech surveillance tools — the kind they might need to monitor a new embassy that China wants to build near the Tower of London. The head of MI5, Ken McCallum, asked Mr. Patel to protect the job of an F.B.I. agent based in London who dealt with that technology, according to several current and former U.S. officials with knowledge of the episode.
Kash Patel and girlfriend Alexis Wilkins
Mr. Patel agreed to find funding to keep the posting, the officials said. But the job had already been slated to disappear as the White House moved to slash the F.B.I. budget. The agent moved to a different job back in the United States, saving the F.B.I. money but leaving MI5 officials incredulous.
It was a jarring introduction to Mr. Patel’s leadership style for British officials. They had long forged personal ties with their U.S. counterparts, as well as with three other close allies, in an intelligence partnership known as the Five Eyes.
The relationships among the organizations matter because many top national security officials view trust and reliability as paramount to sharing critical information with allies — vital for communication between agency directors, and hard to restore once lost.
On the same day in 1946 that Winston Churchill delivered his Iron Curtain speech in the United States, Britain and the United States secretly signed the pact that formed the basis for their intelligence alliance. It was an outgrowth of their collaboration during World War II. The partnership expanded during the advent of the Cold War to include other countries — Australia, Canada and New Zealand — earning it the name Five Eyes.
All rely heavily on American intelligence to help keep their countries safe. Though the F.B.I. is a criminal investigation agency, it is also a major part of the Western intelligence-gathering community. Alongside other U.S. agencies like the C.I.A., the F.B.I. has offices in embassies around the globe.
Mr. Patel’s inexperience, his dismissals of top F.B.I. officials and his shift of bureau resources from thwarting spies and terrorism have heightened concerns among the other Five Eyes nations that the bureau is adrift, according to the former U.S. officials and other people familiar with allies’ reactions to the bureau changes.
Five Eyes officials have watched with alarm as Mr. Patel has fired agents who investigated President Trump and invoked his powers to investigate the president’s perceived enemies. The officials and others spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
Use the gift article to read the rest.
A few more interesting stories:
The Guardian: UK pauses intelligence-sharing with US on suspected drug vessels in Caribbean.
The Guardian: Venezuelans sent by Trump to El Salvador endured systematic torture, report finds.
The New Republic: Damning Video Shows DHS Agents Pepper-Spray a Baby.
Politico Magazine: ‘He’s Actually Weakening the Economy’: Why Trump’s Strategy May Fail. A top economist says Trump is doing industrial policy all wrong.
NBC News: Trump’s Pentagon name change could cost up to $2 billion.
Those are my recommended reads for today. What’s on your mind?
#ChuckSchumer #DonaldTrump #EpsteinFiles #FBI #GhislaineMaxwell #governmentShutdown2025 #JeffreyEpstein #KashPatel #MichaelWolff #RepAdelitaGrijalva #RepRobertGarcia
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Marvelous Market: Best New Comics April 15
Supergirl Saturday is this week
If you normally buy your comics on Wednesday, you might want to plan on also dropping my on Saturday. Check if your comic book shop is doing something fun, having sales, or giving away anything for Supergirl Day this Saturday.
Hello and welcome to the Marvelous Market, my weekly guide for anyone interested in going to a comic book store today. In addition to a full list of new # 1s and new volume 1s, I’ll be giving you my top 4 recommendations in 4 categories. Like Houston legend Mike Jones rapped, “We’re still tippin’ on four-fours.” I’m going to give you the top four new comics, top four ongoing comics, the top four graphic novels, and the top 4 preorders.
The work going into this curation is made possible by readers like you. For less than the cost of a cup of coffee a month, you can help make this work possible.
New Issue # 1s
FIREBORN # 1
SOLICIT COPY:
A new series set in the world of LOST FANTASY!
Aaron Hillburg was just another rich-kid failson — ghosting his responsibilities, hopping rooftops, and hating his billionaire father in peace… until a mysterious floating dragon egg bonds to him and ignites a hidden lineage of ancient magic inside his body.
Now every violent outlaw wizard, biker cultist, and supernatural warlord between New York City and The World Beneath is hunting him — and they’ll burn the world down to pry the egg from his corpse.
A high octane fusion of fantasy and superheroes perfect for fans of Invincible, How To Train Your Dragon and Absolute Batman.
THE HAB # 1
SOLICIT COPY:
Eisner-nominated writer Joshua Dysart (UNKNOWN SOLDIER) combines his powers with world-renowned comic artist David Lapham (STRAY BULLETS), comic book legend Bill Sienkiewicz (NEW MUTANTS), and award-winning colorists Bill Crabtree (INVINCIBLE) and Matt Hollingsworth (BATMAN) to present a groundbreaking horror tour-de-force.Mercurial billionaire Tuttle Barrows prepared for everything—even the end of the world. Years ago he wielded his immense power and fortune to build a massive sealed habitat atop a once protected ancient freshwater glacial cave. Now, as the world outside unravels, Barrows, his family, and a handpicked inner circle retreat to their final sanctuary—a place built to outlast civilization itself.But something was already there. Beneath layers of ice, in the ancient freshwater vault, a long-dormant danger lurks. While hallucinations twist their reality and violence spreads like a fever they must descend deeper or risk their last refuge becoming a tomb.
STAR TREK: STARFLEET ACADEMY – LOST CONTACT # 1
SOLICIT COPY:
Caleb, Genesis, Jay-Den, Kyle, and Tarima are all students of Starfleet Academy, the illustrious school responsible for the Federation’s best. One day, they dream to serve as great leaders on board ships of their own, to study the cultural intricacies of sentient life amongst the Galaxy, or to go where no person has explored before. But today, their mission is simply to execute a survey simulation on a lifeless, low-oxygen planet. Or at least, it seems simple… until a huge storm cuts off their contact with their teachers aboard the Athena… and something impossible appears: an alien. Now, they’ll have to work together and use everything they’ve learned in class about first contact to make it off the planet alive!
SUPERGIRL: THE WORLD – SUPERGIRL DAY SPECIAL EDITION # 1
SOLICIT COPY:
Celebrate Superman Day with a globe-spanning spotlight on the Last Daughter of Krypton!
Supergirl has always fought to live up to the legacy of her cousin — but finding her place on her adopted world hasn’t always been easy. Now, Kara Zor-El sets out on a journey across Earth itself, embracing its wonders, cultures, challenges, and people… all while saving lives the only way Supergirl can.
This Superman Day Special Edition offers an inspiring first look at the upcoming original graphic novel Supergirl: The World — a sweeping, heartfelt celebration of the Maiden of Might. Across 15 countries, creators from around the globe come together to tell stories that reveal why Supergirl remains one of the most uplifting and powerful heroes in the DC Universe.
Featuring two short stories from the graphic novel, this special edition invites readers to witness Kara’s compassion, courage, and hope as she discovers the extraordinary world she now calls home.
A perfect entry point for new readers and a must-have for Supergirl fans — only available for Superman Day!
Ongoing Series
ABSOLUTE BATMAN # 19
SOLICIT COPY:
Poison Ivy proved to be just one of the many horrors within the bowels of the ARK M facility, and as Joker sets his sights on Absolute Batman, he decides to enlist the help of one of the center’s most terrifying doctors, Dr. Jonathan Crane. While Bruce Wayne tries to align himself with Barbara Gordon, there’s more than one alliance formed in this issue. New debuts, new villains, new arc starts here.
G. I. JOE # 21
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STORM SHADOW AND SCARLETT RETURN! The Arashikage and Cobra have met once before… prepare for ROUND TWO! Will G.I. Joe be forced to put a stop to it?
GHOST PEPPER # 10
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It’s all been leading to this — Ash vs Bataar! As Loloi and her team risk it all to save their world, nothing has prepared them for the devastating consequences!
ULTIMATE WOLVERINE # 16
SOLICIT COPY:
YEAR TWO OF THE ULTIMATE UNIVERSE NEARS ITS END IN THE FINAL ISSUE OF ULTIMATE WOLVERINE!
Wolverine and Phoenix track Magik right into the demonic dimension of Limbo for an epic, devastating showdown! To escape Illyana’s realm of dark magic, a final sacrifice must be made, one that will lead directly into ULTIMATE ENDGAME #5!
Trade Paperbacks, Hardcovers, and OGNs
ADVENTURE TIME Oni Compact Comics Edition: Princess Power!!! TP
SOLICIT COPY:
Back off, Ice King! These princesses are out to chew bubblegum and kick butt—and they’re all out of bubblegum…
Whether it’s defeating Magic Man at Princess High Tea (back off with your dumb irony and words and junk, Magic Man!), celebrating birthdays in the FIRST PERSON (ooooo), discovering the whereabouts of Lumpy Space Princess’s missing star (y’all better have flippin’ good alibis, OK?), crowning the Best Princess Ever (who will take home the coveted Betamax 3000 Tiara Buffer?!), or overseeing a phantasmagoric* (*phantasmagoric: dreamy, weird, changing, shifting) hot air balloon race, these princess-focused adventures pack a most mathematical punch!
Princess Bubblegum, LSP, Turtle Princess, Muscle Princess, Hot Dog Princess—the list goes on! All these princesses and more grace the pages of this specially curated Adventure Time collection, featuring issues #15, 20, 35, and 62–69 of the original comics run with stories written by Ryan North (The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl), Mariko Tamaki (Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me), and Delilah S. Dawson (Star Wars: Phasma), and drawn by Shelli Paroline & Braden Lamb (Midas) and Ian McGinty (Bee and PuppyCat)!
BATMAN: GOTHAM BY GASLIGHT – THE KRYPTONIAN AGE
SOLICIT COPY:
The year is 1893, and Gotham City has flourished under the eye of the Batman. But despite the gaudy new light bulbs and the gaudier nouveau riche, the shadows are also growing deadlier new threats. The Batman will find himself challenged by the mysterious Catwoman and the even more enigmatic Talia al Ghul. And what cosmic treasure from beyond the stars waits for all of them outside the confines of Gotham City? The new era of Elseworlds kicks off with the return of the crown jewel, the gothic world originated by Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola. Superstar duo Andy Diggle ( Action Comics , Poison Ivy ) and Leandro Fernández ( Batman , Birds of Prey ) breathe new life into the legend of Gotham City and its dark guardian. This isn’t the Gilded Age; this is the Kryptonian Age! Collects issues #1-6.
THE COMPLETE 2000 AD BY ALAN MOORE vol. 1: Future Shocks & Other Stories HC
SOLICIT COPY:
Alan Moore is a legendary comics writer credited with transforming the medium and how it was seen through his seminal works such as V For Vendetta, From Hell and, of course, Watchmen.
But, before any of that, he cut his teeth at 2000 AD, the “galaxy’s greatest comic”. It was there that Moore honed his craft in preparation for the accolades that would follow.
This first volume in a new series collecting all of Alan Moore’s work for 2000 AD, brings together all of his Future Shocks as well as a host of other one-off stories.
Moore is a master of the short-format story and this collection doubles as the perfect guide for how to write comics to a page limit.
Includes the story “A Holiday In Hell” which has never been reprinted in English since its first publication in 1980.
Moore’s stories are complemented by the works of a string of legendary artists including Dave Gibbons (Watchmen), Ian Gibson (The Ballad of Halo Jones), Eric Bradbury (Rogue Trooper), Bryan Talbot (Grandville), Steve Dillon (Preacher), Brett Ewins (Bad Company) and more.
RUN TP
SOLICIT COPY:
First you march, then you run.
This follow-up to the #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novel series March is the continuation of the life story of John Lewis and the struggles seen across the United States after the Selma voting rights campaign.
To many, the civil rights movement was capped with the signing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. All too often, the depiction of history ends with a great victory. But John Lewis knew that victories are just the beginning.
John Lewis was one of the preeminent figures of the movement, leading sit-in protests and fighting segregation on interstate busways as an original Freedom Rider. He became chairman of SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and was the youngest speaker at the March on Washington. He helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Summer and the ensuing delegate challenge at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. And he co-led the march from Selma to Montgomery on what became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
In Run, John Lewis and longtime collaborator Andrew Aydin reteam with Nate Powell—the award-winning illustrator of the March trilogy—and are joined by L. Fury, making an astonishing graphic novel debut, to tell this often-overlooked chapter of civil rights history.
Preorders on Final Order Cutoff
BEN TEN # 1
SOLICIT COPY:
Summertime is here and blockbuster movies are already starting to heat up movie theater screens all over the globe! Of course, Archie and his extended group of friends are going to get in on the action! First, the Superteens and the Power Pets take on some souped up zoo animals in an all-out brawl! But who’s the evil mastermind behind all the chaos? Then, Veronica Lodge and Ginger Lopez battle it out to be the next best fashion critic! Inspired by upcoming movies like : Masters of the Universe, The Mandalorian and Grogu, and The Devil Wears Prada 2, plus plenty more homages to notable movies throughout Archie’s history, you’ll want to make sure you’ve got extra popcorn before diving into this fun-filled issue!
ESCAPE vol. 1 TP
SOLICIT COPY:
SHOT DOWN. HUNTED. OUT OF TIME.
Set in a brutal, fully painted world of anthropomorphic animals — equal parts Inglourious Basterds and Watership Down — ESCAPE is a gritty, bullet-riddled journey through war’s scorched aftermath. It’s about the violence we inflict, the souls we try to save, and the courage it takes to crawl out of fire.
From the creative team of New York Times bestselling author RICK REMENDER (DEADLY CLASS, Uncanny X-Force) and powerhouse DANIEL ACUÑA (Captain America, Black Panther) — the duo behind Marvel’s Uncanny Avengers — comes a savage, full-throttle wartime thriller where survival isn’t given… it’s taken.
Milton Shaw is a battle-hardened bomber pilot, flying missions over a war-torn world ruled by a ruthless empire. But when his plane is shot out of the sky, Milton wakes up behind enemy lines — in the smoldering ruins of a city he helped burn. And in less than 24 hours, his own side is dropping the big one to finish the job.
Now, injured, unarmed, and being hunted through enemy streets, Milton’s only shot at escape comes from the unlikeliest place: a grieving father and his son — civilians shattered by the same fascist regime that rules this land with an iron claw. Enemies by blood. Allies by circumstance. Together, they’ll have to fight their way out before the bomb drops and erases everything… and everyone.
Collects ESCAPE #1-6.
STAR TREK: CELEBRATIONS 2026 # 1
SOLICIT COPY:
You are cordially invited to the party that is this year’s Star Trek: Celebrations anthology! This one-shot features the universe’s queer characters in tales of love and triumph, exemplifying Gene Roddenberry’s mission for us all to one day celebrate infinite diversity in infinite combinations.
Our cast of all LGBTQIA+ creators — including Meghan Fitzmartin, Ben Kahn, Jamila Rowser, and more (!) — are serving up the fun with stories like a botanical adventure with Sulu and Ben, a bar brawl bash with Mariner and Jennifer, and a nostalgic holodeck date gone wrong with Seven and Raffi, so don’t miss out on this talent-packed extravaganza.
THE ULTIMATES # 24
SOLICIT COPY:
YEAR TWO OF THE ULTIMATE UNIVERSE NEARS ITS END IN THE FINAL ISSUE OF ULTIMATES!
She-Hulk and her remaining teammates confront the villainous Hulk in a brutal, all-or-nothing battle on Gamma Island!
What did I miss?
If there are some great comics, collected or in single issues, that you think I should be reading, tell me about them! And if you do try out any of these series, let me know how you liked them, or didn’t. This is a safe space for haters. If you enjoy this service, please share this article on social media or tell someone that you know reads comics about it.
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Marvelous Market: Best New Comics April 15
Supergirl Saturday is this week
If you normally buy your comics on Wednesday, you might want to plan on also dropping my on Saturday. Check if your comic book shop is doing something fun, having sales, or giving away anything for Supergirl Day this Saturday.
Hello and welcome to the Marvelous Market, my weekly guide for anyone interested in going to a comic book store today. In addition to a full list of new # 1s and new volume 1s, I’ll be giving you my top 4 recommendations in 4 categories. Like Houston legend Mike Jones rapped, “We’re still tippin’ on four-fours.” I’m going to give you the top four new comics, top four ongoing comics, the top four graphic novels, and the top 4 preorders.
The work going into this curation is made possible by readers like you. For less than the cost of a cup of coffee a month, you can help make this work possible.
New Issue # 1s
FIREBORN # 1
SOLICIT COPY:
A new series set in the world of LOST FANTASY!
Aaron Hillburg was just another rich-kid failson — ghosting his responsibilities, hopping rooftops, and hating his billionaire father in peace… until a mysterious floating dragon egg bonds to him and ignites a hidden lineage of ancient magic inside his body.
Now every violent outlaw wizard, biker cultist, and supernatural warlord between New York City and The World Beneath is hunting him — and they’ll burn the world down to pry the egg from his corpse.
A high octane fusion of fantasy and superheroes perfect for fans of Invincible, How To Train Your Dragon and Absolute Batman.
THE HAB # 1
SOLICIT COPY:
Eisner-nominated writer Joshua Dysart (UNKNOWN SOLDIER) combines his powers with world-renowned comic artist David Lapham (STRAY BULLETS), comic book legend Bill Sienkiewicz (NEW MUTANTS), and award-winning colorists Bill Crabtree (INVINCIBLE) and Matt Hollingsworth (BATMAN) to present a groundbreaking horror tour-de-force.Mercurial billionaire Tuttle Barrows prepared for everything—even the end of the world. Years ago he wielded his immense power and fortune to build a massive sealed habitat atop a once protected ancient freshwater glacial cave. Now, as the world outside unravels, Barrows, his family, and a handpicked inner circle retreat to their final sanctuary—a place built to outlast civilization itself.But something was already there. Beneath layers of ice, in the ancient freshwater vault, a long-dormant danger lurks. While hallucinations twist their reality and violence spreads like a fever they must descend deeper or risk their last refuge becoming a tomb.
STAR TREK: STARFLEET ACADEMY – LOST CONTACT # 1
SOLICIT COPY:
Caleb, Genesis, Jay-Den, Kyle, and Tarima are all students of Starfleet Academy, the illustrious school responsible for the Federation’s best. One day, they dream to serve as great leaders on board ships of their own, to study the cultural intricacies of sentient life amongst the Galaxy, or to go where no person has explored before. But today, their mission is simply to execute a survey simulation on a lifeless, low-oxygen planet. Or at least, it seems simple… until a huge storm cuts off their contact with their teachers aboard the Athena… and something impossible appears: an alien. Now, they’ll have to work together and use everything they’ve learned in class about first contact to make it off the planet alive!
SUPERGIRL: THE WORLD – SUPERGIRL DAY SPECIAL EDITION # 1
SOLICIT COPY:
Celebrate Superman Day with a globe-spanning spotlight on the Last Daughter of Krypton!
Supergirl has always fought to live up to the legacy of her cousin — but finding her place on her adopted world hasn’t always been easy. Now, Kara Zor-El sets out on a journey across Earth itself, embracing its wonders, cultures, challenges, and people… all while saving lives the only way Supergirl can.
This Superman Day Special Edition offers an inspiring first look at the upcoming original graphic novel Supergirl: The World — a sweeping, heartfelt celebration of the Maiden of Might. Across 15 countries, creators from around the globe come together to tell stories that reveal why Supergirl remains one of the most uplifting and powerful heroes in the DC Universe.
Featuring two short stories from the graphic novel, this special edition invites readers to witness Kara’s compassion, courage, and hope as she discovers the extraordinary world she now calls home.
A perfect entry point for new readers and a must-have for Supergirl fans — only available for Superman Day!
Ongoing Series
ABSOLUTE BATMAN # 19
SOLICIT COPY:
Poison Ivy proved to be just one of the many horrors within the bowels of the ARK M facility, and as Joker sets his sights on Absolute Batman, he decides to enlist the help of one of the center’s most terrifying doctors, Dr. Jonathan Crane. While Bruce Wayne tries to align himself with Barbara Gordon, there’s more than one alliance formed in this issue. New debuts, new villains, new arc starts here.
G. I. JOE # 21
SOLICIT COPY:
STORM SHADOW AND SCARLETT RETURN! The Arashikage and Cobra have met once before… prepare for ROUND TWO! Will G.I. Joe be forced to put a stop to it?
GHOST PEPPER # 10
SOLICIT COPY:
It’s all been leading to this — Ash vs Bataar! As Loloi and her team risk it all to save their world, nothing has prepared them for the devastating consequences!
ULTIMATE WOLVERINE # 16
SOLICIT COPY:
YEAR TWO OF THE ULTIMATE UNIVERSE NEARS ITS END IN THE FINAL ISSUE OF ULTIMATE WOLVERINE!
Wolverine and Phoenix track Magik right into the demonic dimension of Limbo for an epic, devastating showdown! To escape Illyana’s realm of dark magic, a final sacrifice must be made, one that will lead directly into ULTIMATE ENDGAME #5!
Trade Paperbacks, Hardcovers, and OGNs
ADVENTURE TIME Oni Compact Comics Edition: Princess Power!!! TP
SOLICIT COPY:
Back off, Ice King! These princesses are out to chew bubblegum and kick butt—and they’re all out of bubblegum…
Whether it’s defeating Magic Man at Princess High Tea (back off with your dumb irony and words and junk, Magic Man!), celebrating birthdays in the FIRST PERSON (ooooo), discovering the whereabouts of Lumpy Space Princess’s missing star (y’all better have flippin’ good alibis, OK?), crowning the Best Princess Ever (who will take home the coveted Betamax 3000 Tiara Buffer?!), or overseeing a phantasmagoric* (*phantasmagoric: dreamy, weird, changing, shifting) hot air balloon race, these princess-focused adventures pack a most mathematical punch!
Princess Bubblegum, LSP, Turtle Princess, Muscle Princess, Hot Dog Princess—the list goes on! All these princesses and more grace the pages of this specially curated Adventure Time collection, featuring issues #15, 20, 35, and 62–69 of the original comics run with stories written by Ryan North (The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl), Mariko Tamaki (Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me), and Delilah S. Dawson (Star Wars: Phasma), and drawn by Shelli Paroline & Braden Lamb (Midas) and Ian McGinty (Bee and PuppyCat)!
BATMAN: GOTHAM BY GASLIGHT – THE KRYPTONIAN AGE
SOLICIT COPY:
The year is 1893, and Gotham City has flourished under the eye of the Batman. But despite the gaudy new light bulbs and the gaudier nouveau riche, the shadows are also growing deadlier new threats. The Batman will find himself challenged by the mysterious Catwoman and the even more enigmatic Talia al Ghul. And what cosmic treasure from beyond the stars waits for all of them outside the confines of Gotham City? The new era of Elseworlds kicks off with the return of the crown jewel, the gothic world originated by Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola. Superstar duo Andy Diggle ( Action Comics , Poison Ivy ) and Leandro Fernández ( Batman , Birds of Prey ) breathe new life into the legend of Gotham City and its dark guardian. This isn’t the Gilded Age; this is the Kryptonian Age! Collects issues #1-6.
THE COMPLETE 2000 AD BY ALAN MOORE vol. 1: Future Shocks & Other Stories HC
SOLICIT COPY:
Alan Moore is a legendary comics writer credited with transforming the medium and how it was seen through his seminal works such as V For Vendetta, From Hell and, of course, Watchmen.
But, before any of that, he cut his teeth at 2000 AD, the “galaxy’s greatest comic”. It was there that Moore honed his craft in preparation for the accolades that would follow.
This first volume in a new series collecting all of Alan Moore’s work for 2000 AD, brings together all of his Future Shocks as well as a host of other one-off stories.
Moore is a master of the short-format story and this collection doubles as the perfect guide for how to write comics to a page limit.
Includes the story “A Holiday In Hell” which has never been reprinted in English since its first publication in 1980.
Moore’s stories are complemented by the works of a string of legendary artists including Dave Gibbons (Watchmen), Ian Gibson (The Ballad of Halo Jones), Eric Bradbury (Rogue Trooper), Bryan Talbot (Grandville), Steve Dillon (Preacher), Brett Ewins (Bad Company) and more.
RUN TP
SOLICIT COPY:
First you march, then you run.
This follow-up to the #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novel series March is the continuation of the life story of John Lewis and the struggles seen across the United States after the Selma voting rights campaign.
To many, the civil rights movement was capped with the signing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. All too often, the depiction of history ends with a great victory. But John Lewis knew that victories are just the beginning.
John Lewis was one of the preeminent figures of the movement, leading sit-in protests and fighting segregation on interstate busways as an original Freedom Rider. He became chairman of SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and was the youngest speaker at the March on Washington. He helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Summer and the ensuing delegate challenge at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. And he co-led the march from Selma to Montgomery on what became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
In Run, John Lewis and longtime collaborator Andrew Aydin reteam with Nate Powell—the award-winning illustrator of the March trilogy—and are joined by L. Fury, making an astonishing graphic novel debut, to tell this often-overlooked chapter of civil rights history.
Preorders on Final Order Cutoff
BEN TEN # 1
SOLICIT COPY:
Summertime is here and blockbuster movies are already starting to heat up movie theater screens all over the globe! Of course, Archie and his extended group of friends are going to get in on the action! First, the Superteens and the Power Pets take on some souped up zoo animals in an all-out brawl! But who’s the evil mastermind behind all the chaos? Then, Veronica Lodge and Ginger Lopez battle it out to be the next best fashion critic! Inspired by upcoming movies like : Masters of the Universe, The Mandalorian and Grogu, and The Devil Wears Prada 2, plus plenty more homages to notable movies throughout Archie’s history, you’ll want to make sure you’ve got extra popcorn before diving into this fun-filled issue!
ESCAPE vol. 1 TP
SOLICIT COPY:
SHOT DOWN. HUNTED. OUT OF TIME.
Set in a brutal, fully painted world of anthropomorphic animals — equal parts Inglourious Basterds and Watership Down — ESCAPE is a gritty, bullet-riddled journey through war’s scorched aftermath. It’s about the violence we inflict, the souls we try to save, and the courage it takes to crawl out of fire.
From the creative team of New York Times bestselling author RICK REMENDER (DEADLY CLASS, Uncanny X-Force) and powerhouse DANIEL ACUÑA (Captain America, Black Panther) — the duo behind Marvel’s Uncanny Avengers — comes a savage, full-throttle wartime thriller where survival isn’t given… it’s taken.
Milton Shaw is a battle-hardened bomber pilot, flying missions over a war-torn world ruled by a ruthless empire. But when his plane is shot out of the sky, Milton wakes up behind enemy lines — in the smoldering ruins of a city he helped burn. And in less than 24 hours, his own side is dropping the big one to finish the job.
Now, injured, unarmed, and being hunted through enemy streets, Milton’s only shot at escape comes from the unlikeliest place: a grieving father and his son — civilians shattered by the same fascist regime that rules this land with an iron claw. Enemies by blood. Allies by circumstance. Together, they’ll have to fight their way out before the bomb drops and erases everything… and everyone.
Collects ESCAPE #1-6.
STAR TREK: CELEBRATIONS 2026 # 1
SOLICIT COPY:
You are cordially invited to the party that is this year’s Star Trek: Celebrations anthology! This one-shot features the universe’s queer characters in tales of love and triumph, exemplifying Gene Roddenberry’s mission for us all to one day celebrate infinite diversity in infinite combinations.
Our cast of all LGBTQIA+ creators — including Meghan Fitzmartin, Ben Kahn, Jamila Rowser, and more (!) — are serving up the fun with stories like a botanical adventure with Sulu and Ben, a bar brawl bash with Mariner and Jennifer, and a nostalgic holodeck date gone wrong with Seven and Raffi, so don’t miss out on this talent-packed extravaganza.
THE ULTIMATES # 24
SOLICIT COPY:
YEAR TWO OF THE ULTIMATE UNIVERSE NEARS ITS END IN THE FINAL ISSUE OF ULTIMATES!
She-Hulk and her remaining teammates confront the villainous Hulk in a brutal, all-or-nothing battle on Gamma Island!
What did I miss?
If there are some great comics, collected or in single issues, that you think I should be reading, tell me about them! And if you do try out any of these series, let me know how you liked them, or didn’t. This is a safe space for haters. If you enjoy this service, please share this article on social media or tell someone that you know reads comics about it.
Divining Comics is brought to you by generous support from the “Best Friends of Divining Comics,” Alex Seubert.
Divining Comics is also brought to you by the support of the “Friends of Divining Comics,” Comic Book Herald.
If you would like to add your name to the list of friends, best friends, or best friends forever, support this work for less than the cost of one cup of coffee a month at patreon.com/diviningcomics. You can also leave a one-time tip/buy my zines at ko-fi.com/spikestonehand. Or, if you can’t afford to support me financially at this time, simply follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky and share my posts there.
#art #books #ComicBooks #comics #DC #dcComics #marvel #marvelComics #MarvelousMarket #NewComicDay -
Marvelous Market: Best New Comics April 15
Supergirl Saturday is this week
If you normally buy your comics on Wednesday, you might want to plan on also dropping my on Saturday. Check if your comic book shop is doing something fun, having sales, or giving away anything for Supergirl Day this Saturday.
Hello and welcome to the Marvelous Market, my weekly guide for anyone interested in going to a comic book store today. In addition to a full list of new # 1s and new volume 1s, I’ll be giving you my top 4 recommendations in 4 categories. Like Houston legend Mike Jones rapped, “We’re still tippin’ on four-fours.” I’m going to give you the top four new comics, top four ongoing comics, the top four graphic novels, and the top 4 preorders.
The work going into this curation is made possible by readers like you. For less than the cost of a cup of coffee a month, you can help make this work possible.
New Issue # 1s
FIREBORN # 1
SOLICIT COPY:
A new series set in the world of LOST FANTASY!
Aaron Hillburg was just another rich-kid failson — ghosting his responsibilities, hopping rooftops, and hating his billionaire father in peace… until a mysterious floating dragon egg bonds to him and ignites a hidden lineage of ancient magic inside his body.
Now every violent outlaw wizard, biker cultist, and supernatural warlord between New York City and The World Beneath is hunting him — and they’ll burn the world down to pry the egg from his corpse.
A high octane fusion of fantasy and superheroes perfect for fans of Invincible, How To Train Your Dragon and Absolute Batman.
THE HAB # 1
SOLICIT COPY:
Eisner-nominated writer Joshua Dysart (UNKNOWN SOLDIER) combines his powers with world-renowned comic artist David Lapham (STRAY BULLETS), comic book legend Bill Sienkiewicz (NEW MUTANTS), and award-winning colorists Bill Crabtree (INVINCIBLE) and Matt Hollingsworth (BATMAN) to present a groundbreaking horror tour-de-force.Mercurial billionaire Tuttle Barrows prepared for everything—even the end of the world. Years ago he wielded his immense power and fortune to build a massive sealed habitat atop a once protected ancient freshwater glacial cave. Now, as the world outside unravels, Barrows, his family, and a handpicked inner circle retreat to their final sanctuary—a place built to outlast civilization itself.But something was already there. Beneath layers of ice, in the ancient freshwater vault, a long-dormant danger lurks. While hallucinations twist their reality and violence spreads like a fever they must descend deeper or risk their last refuge becoming a tomb.
STAR TREK: STARFLEET ACADEMY – LOST CONTACT # 1
SOLICIT COPY:
Caleb, Genesis, Jay-Den, Kyle, and Tarima are all students of Starfleet Academy, the illustrious school responsible for the Federation’s best. One day, they dream to serve as great leaders on board ships of their own, to study the cultural intricacies of sentient life amongst the Galaxy, or to go where no person has explored before. But today, their mission is simply to execute a survey simulation on a lifeless, low-oxygen planet. Or at least, it seems simple… until a huge storm cuts off their contact with their teachers aboard the Athena… and something impossible appears: an alien. Now, they’ll have to work together and use everything they’ve learned in class about first contact to make it off the planet alive!
SUPERGIRL: THE WORLD – SUPERGIRL DAY SPECIAL EDITION # 1
SOLICIT COPY:
Celebrate Superman Day with a globe-spanning spotlight on the Last Daughter of Krypton!
Supergirl has always fought to live up to the legacy of her cousin — but finding her place on her adopted world hasn’t always been easy. Now, Kara Zor-El sets out on a journey across Earth itself, embracing its wonders, cultures, challenges, and people… all while saving lives the only way Supergirl can.
This Superman Day Special Edition offers an inspiring first look at the upcoming original graphic novel Supergirl: The World — a sweeping, heartfelt celebration of the Maiden of Might. Across 15 countries, creators from around the globe come together to tell stories that reveal why Supergirl remains one of the most uplifting and powerful heroes in the DC Universe.
Featuring two short stories from the graphic novel, this special edition invites readers to witness Kara’s compassion, courage, and hope as she discovers the extraordinary world she now calls home.
A perfect entry point for new readers and a must-have for Supergirl fans — only available for Superman Day!
Ongoing Series
ABSOLUTE BATMAN # 19
SOLICIT COPY:
Poison Ivy proved to be just one of the many horrors within the bowels of the ARK M facility, and as Joker sets his sights on Absolute Batman, he decides to enlist the help of one of the center’s most terrifying doctors, Dr. Jonathan Crane. While Bruce Wayne tries to align himself with Barbara Gordon, there’s more than one alliance formed in this issue. New debuts, new villains, new arc starts here.
G. I. JOE # 21
SOLICIT COPY:
STORM SHADOW AND SCARLETT RETURN! The Arashikage and Cobra have met once before… prepare for ROUND TWO! Will G.I. Joe be forced to put a stop to it?
GHOST PEPPER # 10
SOLICIT COPY:
It’s all been leading to this — Ash vs Bataar! As Loloi and her team risk it all to save their world, nothing has prepared them for the devastating consequences!
ULTIMATE WOLVERINE # 16
SOLICIT COPY:
YEAR TWO OF THE ULTIMATE UNIVERSE NEARS ITS END IN THE FINAL ISSUE OF ULTIMATE WOLVERINE!
Wolverine and Phoenix track Magik right into the demonic dimension of Limbo for an epic, devastating showdown! To escape Illyana’s realm of dark magic, a final sacrifice must be made, one that will lead directly into ULTIMATE ENDGAME #5!
Trade Paperbacks, Hardcovers, and OGNs
ADVENTURE TIME Oni Compact Comics Edition: Princess Power!!! TP
SOLICIT COPY:
Back off, Ice King! These princesses are out to chew bubblegum and kick butt—and they’re all out of bubblegum…
Whether it’s defeating Magic Man at Princess High Tea (back off with your dumb irony and words and junk, Magic Man!), celebrating birthdays in the FIRST PERSON (ooooo), discovering the whereabouts of Lumpy Space Princess’s missing star (y’all better have flippin’ good alibis, OK?), crowning the Best Princess Ever (who will take home the coveted Betamax 3000 Tiara Buffer?!), or overseeing a phantasmagoric* (*phantasmagoric: dreamy, weird, changing, shifting) hot air balloon race, these princess-focused adventures pack a most mathematical punch!
Princess Bubblegum, LSP, Turtle Princess, Muscle Princess, Hot Dog Princess—the list goes on! All these princesses and more grace the pages of this specially curated Adventure Time collection, featuring issues #15, 20, 35, and 62–69 of the original comics run with stories written by Ryan North (The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl), Mariko Tamaki (Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me), and Delilah S. Dawson (Star Wars: Phasma), and drawn by Shelli Paroline & Braden Lamb (Midas) and Ian McGinty (Bee and PuppyCat)!
BATMAN: GOTHAM BY GASLIGHT – THE KRYPTONIAN AGE
SOLICIT COPY:
The year is 1893, and Gotham City has flourished under the eye of the Batman. But despite the gaudy new light bulbs and the gaudier nouveau riche, the shadows are also growing deadlier new threats. The Batman will find himself challenged by the mysterious Catwoman and the even more enigmatic Talia al Ghul. And what cosmic treasure from beyond the stars waits for all of them outside the confines of Gotham City? The new era of Elseworlds kicks off with the return of the crown jewel, the gothic world originated by Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola. Superstar duo Andy Diggle ( Action Comics , Poison Ivy ) and Leandro Fernández ( Batman , Birds of Prey ) breathe new life into the legend of Gotham City and its dark guardian. This isn’t the Gilded Age; this is the Kryptonian Age! Collects issues #1-6.
THE COMPLETE 2000 AD BY ALAN MOORE vol. 1: Future Shocks & Other Stories HC
SOLICIT COPY:
Alan Moore is a legendary comics writer credited with transforming the medium and how it was seen through his seminal works such as V For Vendetta, From Hell and, of course, Watchmen.
But, before any of that, he cut his teeth at 2000 AD, the “galaxy’s greatest comic”. It was there that Moore honed his craft in preparation for the accolades that would follow.
This first volume in a new series collecting all of Alan Moore’s work for 2000 AD, brings together all of his Future Shocks as well as a host of other one-off stories.
Moore is a master of the short-format story and this collection doubles as the perfect guide for how to write comics to a page limit.
Includes the story “A Holiday In Hell” which has never been reprinted in English since its first publication in 1980.
Moore’s stories are complemented by the works of a string of legendary artists including Dave Gibbons (Watchmen), Ian Gibson (The Ballad of Halo Jones), Eric Bradbury (Rogue Trooper), Bryan Talbot (Grandville), Steve Dillon (Preacher), Brett Ewins (Bad Company) and more.
RUN TP
SOLICIT COPY:
First you march, then you run.
This follow-up to the #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novel series March is the continuation of the life story of John Lewis and the struggles seen across the United States after the Selma voting rights campaign.
To many, the civil rights movement was capped with the signing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. All too often, the depiction of history ends with a great victory. But John Lewis knew that victories are just the beginning.
John Lewis was one of the preeminent figures of the movement, leading sit-in protests and fighting segregation on interstate busways as an original Freedom Rider. He became chairman of SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and was the youngest speaker at the March on Washington. He helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Summer and the ensuing delegate challenge at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. And he co-led the march from Selma to Montgomery on what became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
In Run, John Lewis and longtime collaborator Andrew Aydin reteam with Nate Powell—the award-winning illustrator of the March trilogy—and are joined by L. Fury, making an astonishing graphic novel debut, to tell this often-overlooked chapter of civil rights history.
Preorders on Final Order Cutoff
BEN TEN # 1
SOLICIT COPY:
Summertime is here and blockbuster movies are already starting to heat up movie theater screens all over the globe! Of course, Archie and his extended group of friends are going to get in on the action! First, the Superteens and the Power Pets take on some souped up zoo animals in an all-out brawl! But who’s the evil mastermind behind all the chaos? Then, Veronica Lodge and Ginger Lopez battle it out to be the next best fashion critic! Inspired by upcoming movies like : Masters of the Universe, The Mandalorian and Grogu, and The Devil Wears Prada 2, plus plenty more homages to notable movies throughout Archie’s history, you’ll want to make sure you’ve got extra popcorn before diving into this fun-filled issue!
ESCAPE vol. 1 TP
SOLICIT COPY:
SHOT DOWN. HUNTED. OUT OF TIME.
Set in a brutal, fully painted world of anthropomorphic animals — equal parts Inglourious Basterds and Watership Down — ESCAPE is a gritty, bullet-riddled journey through war’s scorched aftermath. It’s about the violence we inflict, the souls we try to save, and the courage it takes to crawl out of fire.
From the creative team of New York Times bestselling author RICK REMENDER (DEADLY CLASS, Uncanny X-Force) and powerhouse DANIEL ACUÑA (Captain America, Black Panther) — the duo behind Marvel’s Uncanny Avengers — comes a savage, full-throttle wartime thriller where survival isn’t given… it’s taken.
Milton Shaw is a battle-hardened bomber pilot, flying missions over a war-torn world ruled by a ruthless empire. But when his plane is shot out of the sky, Milton wakes up behind enemy lines — in the smoldering ruins of a city he helped burn. And in less than 24 hours, his own side is dropping the big one to finish the job.
Now, injured, unarmed, and being hunted through enemy streets, Milton’s only shot at escape comes from the unlikeliest place: a grieving father and his son — civilians shattered by the same fascist regime that rules this land with an iron claw. Enemies by blood. Allies by circumstance. Together, they’ll have to fight their way out before the bomb drops and erases everything… and everyone.
Collects ESCAPE #1-6.
STAR TREK: CELEBRATIONS 2026 # 1
SOLICIT COPY:
You are cordially invited to the party that is this year’s Star Trek: Celebrations anthology! This one-shot features the universe’s queer characters in tales of love and triumph, exemplifying Gene Roddenberry’s mission for us all to one day celebrate infinite diversity in infinite combinations.
Our cast of all LGBTQIA+ creators — including Meghan Fitzmartin, Ben Kahn, Jamila Rowser, and more (!) — are serving up the fun with stories like a botanical adventure with Sulu and Ben, a bar brawl bash with Mariner and Jennifer, and a nostalgic holodeck date gone wrong with Seven and Raffi, so don’t miss out on this talent-packed extravaganza.
THE ULTIMATES # 24
SOLICIT COPY:
YEAR TWO OF THE ULTIMATE UNIVERSE NEARS ITS END IN THE FINAL ISSUE OF ULTIMATES!
She-Hulk and her remaining teammates confront the villainous Hulk in a brutal, all-or-nothing battle on Gamma Island!
What did I miss?
If there are some great comics, collected or in single issues, that you think I should be reading, tell me about them! And if you do try out any of these series, let me know how you liked them, or didn’t. This is a safe space for haters. If you enjoy this service, please share this article on social media or tell someone that you know reads comics about it.
Divining Comics is brought to you by generous support from the “Best Friends of Divining Comics,” Alex Seubert.
Divining Comics is also brought to you by the support of the “Friends of Divining Comics,” Comic Book Herald.
If you would like to add your name to the list of friends, best friends, or best friends forever, support this work for less than the cost of one cup of coffee a month at patreon.com/diviningcomics. You can also leave a one-time tip/buy my zines at ko-fi.com/spikestonehand. Or, if you can’t afford to support me financially at this time, simply follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky and share my posts there.
#art #books #ComicBooks #comics #DC #dcComics #marvel #marvelComics #MarvelousMarket #NewComicDay -
Lazy Caturday Reads: Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, and More News
Good Afternoon!!
Elizabeth Taylor with her Siamese cat, 1956, photo by Sanford Roth
Epstein, Epstein, Epstein. He’s everywhere in the news. We still haven’t seen the DOJ Epstein files, but we’re already learning more about Epstein’s relationship to Trump from the recently released text messages. We don’t know yet how bad it will get when the files are released, but the extent to which Trump is publicly panicking suggests it will be very bad for him.
In Trump’s latest effort to control the Epstein story, he ordered Attorney General Bondi to investigate Democrats who had connections to the child sex trafficker.
Acceding to President Donald Trump’s demands, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday that she has ordered a top federal prosecutor to investigate sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Trump political foes, including former President Bill Clinton.
Bondi posted on X that she was assigning Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to lead the probe, capping an eventful week in which congressional Republicans released nearly 23,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate and House Democrats seized on emails mentioning Trump.
Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years, didn’t explain what supposed crimes he wanted the Justice Department to investigate. None of the men he mentioned in a social media post demanding the probe has been accused of sexual misconduct by any of Epstein’s victims.
Hours before Bondi’s announcement, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he would ask her, the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Clinton and others, including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and LinkedIn founder and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman.
Trump, calling the matter “the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans,” said the investigation should also include financial giant JPMorgan Chase, which provided banking services to Epstein, and “many other people and institutions.”
There’s no evidence that any of the people Trump is targeting were involved in sexual abuse or sex trafficking.
A JPMorgan Chase spokesperson, Patricia Wexler, said the company regretted associating with Epstein “but did not help him commit his heinous acts.”
“The government had damning information about his crimes and failed to share it with us or other banks,” she said. The company agreed previously to pay millions of dollars to Epstein’s victims, who had sued arguing that the bank ignored red flags about criminal activity.
Clinton has acknowledged traveling on Epstein’s private jet but has said through a spokesperson that he had no knowledge of the late financier’s crimes. He also has never been accused of misconduct by Epstein’s known victims.
Clinton’s deputy chief of staff Angel Ureña posted on X Friday: “These emails prove Bill Clinton did nothing and knew nothing. The rest is noise meant to distract from election losses, backfiring shutdowns, and who knows what else.” [….]
Summers and Hoffman had nothing to do with either case, but both were friendly with Epstein and exchanged emails with him. Those messages were among the documents released this week, along with other correspondence Epstein had with friends and business associates in the years before his death.
Nothing in the messages suggested any wrongdoing on the men’s part, other than associating with someone who had been accused of sex crimes against children.
At Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson writes:
In a transparent attempt to distract from the many times his own name appears in the documents from the Epstein estate members of the House Oversight Committee released Wednesday, President Donald J. Trump asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Democrats whose names appeared in the documents. He singled out former president Bill Clinton, former treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers, and Reid Hoffman, who founded LinkedIn and who is a Democratic donor.
Marlon Brando and cat
Although the attorney general is the nation’s chief law enforcement officer and is supposed to be nonpartisan in protecting the rule of law, Bondi responded that the Department of Justice “will pursue this with urgency and integrity.” Maegan Vazquez and Shayna Jacobs of the Washington Post note that reporters have already covered the relationship of Epstein with Clinton, Summers, and Hoffman for years, and that in July, Justice Department officials said an examination of the FBI files relating to Epstein—a different cache than Wednesday’s—“did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”
Meidas Touch noted: “In normal times, it would be a major scandal for the President to direct his AG to criminally investigate his political opponents to deflect from his own involvement in a major scandal—and for the AG to immediately announce she is doing it. The Epstein scandal and cover up just got even bigger.”
This scandal truly has Trump flailing. I hope this will be the one that really brings him down, but he somehow seems to wriggle out of every scandal. But he certainly is terrified of the Epstein files being released.
Politico: House plans to vote Tuesday on releasing Epstein files.
House Republican leaders are planning to hold a vote Tuesday on legislation to force the release of federal files related to Jeffrey Epstein, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss internal plans ahead of a public announcement.
The tentative scheduling decision follows a successful effort by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to sidestep Speaker Mike Johnson and force a floor vote on their bipartisan bill to compel the Justice Department to release all of its records related to the late convicted sex offender.
President Donald Trump has made repeated attempts to kill the effort, which continued in a series of Truth Social posts Friday. But Johnson said Wednesday he intends to move quickly to hold the vote and put the matter to bed.
Under the current GOP plan, the House Rules Committee would approve a procedural measure Monday night to advance eight bills for floor consideration, including language to tee up the Epstein legislation. If that measure is approved on the floor, likely early Tuesday afternoon, debate and a final vote on the Epstein bill could immediately follow. GOP leaders are considering whether to postpone the Epstein vote until Tuesday evening….
The four Republicans who signed on to the discharge petition forcing the vote — Massie, plus Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina — are likely to examine Johnson’s moves very closely. They could together block any procedural measure that would undercut the Epstein legislation, postpone it or otherwise alter it.
One more story on the Epstein texts from Jason Wilson at The Guardian: Steve Bannon advised Jeffrey Epstein for years on how to rehab his reputation, texts show.
Hundreds of texts over almost a year show Maga influencer Steve Bannon and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein workshopping legal and media strategies to protect Epstein from the legal and publicity quagmire that enveloped him in the last year of his life.
The texts, released by the House oversight committee on Wednesday, show that as early as June 2018, the pair were devising responses to the gathering storm of public outrage about Epstein’s criminal history, his favorable treatment by the justice system, and his friendships with powerful figures in business, politics and academia.
Bannon conspiratorially described the renewed scrutiny of Epstein as a “sophisticated op”, and over time he counseled Epstein in his adversarial responses to media outlets, the justice system and his victims.
All the while, both men were also strategizing how best to promote Bannon’s rightwing populist agenda, and the political fortunes of its standard bearer, Donald Trump.
In all of Epstein’s messages, the identity of his correspondent is redacted. But Bannon’s identity in the threads cited in this reporting is clear from contextual clues including his documented activities at the time, details of his business and media pursuits, and other disclosures. In one document, the sender’s phone number is not redacted – and it is the same number linked to Bannon in a legal case against Trump adviser Roger Stone.
Read the rest at The Guardian.
Trump is also beginning to panic about the economy and the negative effects of his insane tariffs.
David J. Lynch at The Washington Post: Trump goes on defense over tariffs as prices on everyday items keep rising.
President Donald Trump’s bid Friday to sootheconsumers by dropping tariffs on a wide array of groceries, including coffee, beef, bananas and tomatoes — contradicting his repeated claims that the levies were not affecting retail prices — shows he is on the defensive over his signature policy initiative.
Public opposition, eroding support on Capitol Hill and a potentially lethal challenge before the Supreme Court have Trump scrambling to defend his economic strategy even as the administration notches diplomatic agreements that are cementing its high-tariff approach to rebalancing global trade.
Sophia Loren with her cat, 1959
Public opinion is the immediate worry, following recent Democratic electoral victories in Virginia and New Jersey that were fueled by Americans’ ire over the cost of living. By a nearly 2-to-1 margin, registered voters disapproved of the president’s tariffs in a recent Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, a finding that has been consistent all year and could imperil Republican candidates in next year’s congressional elections.
The president on Friday issued an executive order rolling back import taxes on many foods, his most significant retreat on the emergency tariffs he imposed in April, which were billed at the time as loophole-free. In September, the White House had signaled that some products that are not generally produced in the United States could be spared tariffs once nations where they originate reached trade deals with the United States. But Friday’s exemptions apply to products from any nation, even those that have not agreed on trade terms.
“They know that they shouldn’t have imposed a lot of these tariffs and that they’re hurting affordability for consumers. Now they’re looking for a way to justify lowering them. And that’s fine. But did we really need to go through all this in the first place?” said Christopher Padilla, senior adviser to the Brunswick Group and a former trade official in the George W. Bush administration….
This week’s tariff cuts appear aimed at responding to public concern over high prices. Inflation overall is running at an annual rate of 3 percent, above the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target for price stability but well down from the mid-2022 peak of 9.1 percent.
Prices on many everyday items, however, continue to soar. Through September, the most recent data available, coffee prices were up 19 percent over the previous 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bananas were up 7 percent.
Elizabeth Buchwald at CNN: Trump’s latest tariff TACO probably won’t make your life more affordable.
Americans could soon see some goods get cheaper after President Donald Trump exempted certain agricultural imports from a set of tariffs on Friday. But any price drops likely won’t be enough to make life feel more affordable any time soon.
The executive order exempted products like coffee, beef and some fruit from Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs, which began rolling out in April.
The new exemptions are part of what traders have dubbed TACO, or Trump Always Chickens Out, to describe times when the president backs off a policy after unintended consequences pop up. In the case of tariffs, Trump has already reversed a number of his measures, a sign that the administration is reshaping his signature economic tool.
The latest TACO comes after voters, worried about affordability, gave Republicans a drubbing in recent off-year elections.
Why this likely won’t help consumers much:
Nevertheless, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the new exemptions generally won’t help improve affordability.
“It depends on what the importers do with the tariff,” he said in a CNBC interview on Friday. “So when you look at the overall price trend, it hasn’t been because of tariffs. It’s been because of these other events going on and just supply and demand.”
Steve Martin and cat
But in cases where tariffs have been passed along to consumers, prices could drop, Greer said.
One potential example: bananas. American consumers are paying about 8% more for bananas than before Trump’s second term began.
The US largely imports bananas from South American countries. With bananas exempt from “reciprocal” tariffs that started at 10%, prices could go back to where they were earlier this year, said Sarah House, senior economist at Wells Fargo. But it’s unlikely to be something most consumers notice unless they’re buying bananas often, she added.
But not everyone is convinced it will even do that much.
“It is not clear that lowering tariffs will lower prices — it depends on what retailers think they can get away with. The import price of bananas has fallen since tariffs were imposed, but the US consumer price has risen,” Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS global wealth management, said in a note last week. (The United States tracks import prices before accounting for tariffs. In some cases, import prices have fallen as exporters lower what they charge as a way to share in the tariff expense importers pay.)
More analysis at the CNN link.
Another flop: Trump’s soybean deal with China may have just been a mirage. AP: USDA data casts doubt on China’s soybean purchase promises touted by Trump.
New data the Agriculture Department released Friday created serious doubts about whether China will really buy millions of bushels of American soybeans like the Trump administration touted last month after a high-stakes meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
The USDA report released after the government reopened showed only two Chinese purchases of American soybeans since the summit in South Korea that totaled 332,000 metric tons. That’s well short of the 12 million metric tons that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said China agreed to purchase by January and nowhere near the 25 million metric tons she said they would buy in each of the next three years.
American farmers were hopeful that their biggest customer would resume buying their crops. But CoBank’s Tanner Ehmke, who is its lead economist for grains and oilseed, said there isn’t much incentive for China to buy from America right now because they have plenty of soybeans on hand that they have bought from Brazil and other South American countries this year, and the remaining tariffs ensure that U.S. soybeans remain more expensive than Brazilian beans.
“We are still not even close to what has been advertised from the U.S. in terms of what the agreement would have been,” Ehmke said.
Beijing has yet to confirm any detailed soybean purchase agreement but only that the two sides have reached “consensus” on expanding trade in farm products. Ehmke said that even if China did promise to buy American soybeans it may have only agreed to buy them if the price was attractive.
Will Trump try to distract from the Epstein files and his failures on the economy by taking use to war with Venezuela?
David E. Sanger, Eric Schmit, tTyler Pager, and Zolan Kanno-Youngs at The New York Times (gift link): Trump Escalates Pressure on Venezuela, but Endgame Is Unclear.
The Trump administration is rapidly escalating its pressure campaign against Venezuela, with America’s largest aircraft carrier, the Ford, about to take up a position within striking distance of the country, even as President Trump’s aides provide conflicting accounts of what, exactly, they are seeking to achieve.
Mr. Trump held back-to-back days of meetings at the White House over the past two days, reviewing military options, including the use of Special Operations forces and direct action inside Venezuela.
Marlyn Monroe with her cat
It is still not clear whether Mr. Trump has made a decision about what kind of action to authorize, if any. On Friday, he told reporters on Air Force One that “I sort of made up my mind.” “I can’t tell you what it is,” he said, “but we made a lot of progress with Venezuela in terms of stopping drugs from pouring in.”
It is possible Mr. Trump is relying on the arrival of so much firepower to intimidate the government of Nicolás Maduro, who the United States and many of its allies say is not Venezuela’s legitimate president. Mr. Maduro has put his forces on high alert, leaving the two countries with their weapons cocked and ready for war.
There were signs that the administration was moving into a new and more aggressive posture. Shortly after a meeting on Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on social media that the mission in the Caribbean now had a name — “Southern Spear.” He described its goal in expansive terms, saying the operation “removes narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere.”
“The Western Hemisphere is America’s neighborhood,” he wrote, “and we will protect it.” With the arrival of the Ford and three accompanying missile-firing Navy destroyers, there are now 15,000 troops in the region, more than there have been at any time in decades.
The only thing missing is a strategic explanation from the Trump administration that would clarify why the United States is amassing such a large force. Mr. Hegseth’s posting on X was only the latest in a series of statements from administration officials that, at best, are in tension with one another. Some are outright contradictory.
Mr. Trump has been the most consistent, saying it is all about drugs. But that would not explain why the Ford was rushed from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Caribbean region, adding to an American force that has now reached 15,000 soldiers and sailors, to attack small boats that until early September had been intercepted by the Coast Guard. Nor would it explain why Colombia or Mexico — Mexico being the main conduit for fentanyl — are not in the Navy’s sights.
Dan Lamothe, Tara Copp, Michael Birnbaum, and Noah Robertson: Trump weighs Venezuela strikes as U.S. forces prepare for attack order.
President Donald Trump said Friday night that he has “sort of made up my mind” about how he will proceed with the possibility of military action in Venezuela, following a second consecutive day of deliberations at the White House that included top national security advisers.
Trump’s vague remarks aboard Air Force One were delivered as he traveled for the weekend to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and included no additional new details. The comments came as U.S. forces in the region awaited possible attack orders and after days of high-level discussions about whether — and how — to strike in Venezuela, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter is highly sensitive. Joining Trump in deliberations Friday were Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, these people said.
Robert Redford with his cat
Earlier in the day, an administration official said “a host of options” had been presented to the president. Trump is “very good at maintaining strategic ambiguity, and something he does very well is he does not dictate or broadcast to our adversaries what he wants to do next,” the official said.
Any strike on Venezuelan territory would upend the president’s frequent promises of avoiding new conflicts and betray promises made to Congress in recent weeks that no active preparations were underway for such an attack. It also would further complicate U.S. cooperation with other Latin American countries, and deepen suspicions — there and in Washington — over whether Trump’s endgame is the forced removal of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, whom Trump has accused of sending drugs and violent criminals to the United States.
Maduro, a socialist strongman, came to power in Caracas in 2013 and increasingly has become a fixation for Trump.
In August, U.S. officials increased the reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction from $25 million to $50 million, citing alleged ties to drug cartels and U.S. beliefs dating back to the Biden administration that he lost Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election and refused to step down.
“The United States is very plugged into what’s going on in Venezuela, the chatter among Maduro’s people and the highest levels of his regime,” the administration official said. “Maduro is very scared, and he should be scared. The president has options on the table that are very bad for Maduro and his illegitimate regime. … We view this regime as illegitimate, and it’s not serving the Western Hemisphere well.”
President Donald Trump has said he believes Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s days are numbered, and that land strikes inside Venezuela are possible.
Experts say that the US doesn’t currently have the military assets in place to launch a largescale operation to remove Maduro from power, though Trump has approved covert action within Venezuela, CNN has reported.
Bette Davis with cat
But if Trump did order strikes inside Venezuela aimed at ousting Maduro, he could face serious challenges with fractured opposition elements and a military poised for insurgency, according to experts, as well as political backlash at home for a president who promised to avoid costly entanglements overseas.
CNN reported that Trump received a briefing earlier this week to review updated options for military action inside Venezuela, a concept the White House has been weighing. The administration had not made a decision on whether to launch strikes, CNN reported, though the US military has moved more than a dozen warships and 15,000 troops into the region as part of what the Pentagon branded Operation Southern Spear in an announcement Thursday.
The concentration of military assets and threats of further attacks beyond the ongoing drug boat campaign have served to increase pressure on Maduro, with administration officials saying he needs to leave office while arguing that he’s closely tied to the Tren de Aragua gang and leading drug trafficking efforts.
But if Maduro does flee Venezuela or is killed out in a targeted strike, experts worry about a military takeover of the country or the boosting of another dictator similar to Maduro.
Read the rest at CNN.
Those are my recommended reads. I’ll add a few more links in the comment thread. What stories are you interested in today?
#BillClinton #catArt #caturday #ChinaSoybeanPurchases #DonaldTrump #EpsteinFiles #JeffreyEpstein #LarrySummers #NicolasMaduro #PamBondi #ReidHoffman #SteveBannon #TACOTrump #TrumpTariffs #Venezuela
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Lazy Caturday Reads: Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, and More News
Good Afternoon!!
Elizabeth Taylor with her Siamese cat, 1956, photo by Sanford Roth
Epstein, Epstein, Epstein. He’s everywhere in the news. We still haven’t seen the DOJ Epstein files, but we’re already learning more about Epstein’s relationship to Trump from the recently released text messages. We don’t know yet how bad it will get when the files are released, but the extent to which Trump is publicly panicking suggests it will be very bad for him.
In Trump’s latest effort to control the Epstein story, he ordered Attorney General Bondi to investigate Democrats who had connections to the child sex trafficker.
Acceding to President Donald Trump’s demands, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday that she has ordered a top federal prosecutor to investigate sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Trump political foes, including former President Bill Clinton.
Bondi posted on X that she was assigning Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to lead the probe, capping an eventful week in which congressional Republicans released nearly 23,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate and House Democrats seized on emails mentioning Trump.
Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years, didn’t explain what supposed crimes he wanted the Justice Department to investigate. None of the men he mentioned in a social media post demanding the probe has been accused of sexual misconduct by any of Epstein’s victims.
Hours before Bondi’s announcement, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he would ask her, the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Clinton and others, including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and LinkedIn founder and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman.
Trump, calling the matter “the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans,” said the investigation should also include financial giant JPMorgan Chase, which provided banking services to Epstein, and “many other people and institutions.”
There’s no evidence that any of the people Trump is targeting were involved in sexual abuse or sex trafficking.
A JPMorgan Chase spokesperson, Patricia Wexler, said the company regretted associating with Epstein “but did not help him commit his heinous acts.”
“The government had damning information about his crimes and failed to share it with us or other banks,” she said. The company agreed previously to pay millions of dollars to Epstein’s victims, who had sued arguing that the bank ignored red flags about criminal activity.
Clinton has acknowledged traveling on Epstein’s private jet but has said through a spokesperson that he had no knowledge of the late financier’s crimes. He also has never been accused of misconduct by Epstein’s known victims.
Clinton’s deputy chief of staff Angel Ureña posted on X Friday: “These emails prove Bill Clinton did nothing and knew nothing. The rest is noise meant to distract from election losses, backfiring shutdowns, and who knows what else.” [….]
Summers and Hoffman had nothing to do with either case, but both were friendly with Epstein and exchanged emails with him. Those messages were among the documents released this week, along with other correspondence Epstein had with friends and business associates in the years before his death.
Nothing in the messages suggested any wrongdoing on the men’s part, other than associating with someone who had been accused of sex crimes against children.
At Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson writes:
In a transparent attempt to distract from the many times his own name appears in the documents from the Epstein estate members of the House Oversight Committee released Wednesday, President Donald J. Trump asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Democrats whose names appeared in the documents. He singled out former president Bill Clinton, former treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers, and Reid Hoffman, who founded LinkedIn and who is a Democratic donor.
Marlon Brando and cat
Although the attorney general is the nation’s chief law enforcement officer and is supposed to be nonpartisan in protecting the rule of law, Bondi responded that the Department of Justice “will pursue this with urgency and integrity.” Maegan Vazquez and Shayna Jacobs of the Washington Post note that reporters have already covered the relationship of Epstein with Clinton, Summers, and Hoffman for years, and that in July, Justice Department officials said an examination of the FBI files relating to Epstein—a different cache than Wednesday’s—“did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”
Meidas Touch noted: “In normal times, it would be a major scandal for the President to direct his AG to criminally investigate his political opponents to deflect from his own involvement in a major scandal—and for the AG to immediately announce she is doing it. The Epstein scandal and cover up just got even bigger.”
This scandal truly has Trump flailing. I hope this will be the one that really brings him down, but he somehow seems to wriggle out of every scandal. But he certainly is terrified of the Epstein files being released.
Politico: House plans to vote Tuesday on releasing Epstein files.
House Republican leaders are planning to hold a vote Tuesday on legislation to force the release of federal files related to Jeffrey Epstein, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss internal plans ahead of a public announcement.
The tentative scheduling decision follows a successful effort by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to sidestep Speaker Mike Johnson and force a floor vote on their bipartisan bill to compel the Justice Department to release all of its records related to the late convicted sex offender.
President Donald Trump has made repeated attempts to kill the effort, which continued in a series of Truth Social posts Friday. But Johnson said Wednesday he intends to move quickly to hold the vote and put the matter to bed.
Under the current GOP plan, the House Rules Committee would approve a procedural measure Monday night to advance eight bills for floor consideration, including language to tee up the Epstein legislation. If that measure is approved on the floor, likely early Tuesday afternoon, debate and a final vote on the Epstein bill could immediately follow. GOP leaders are considering whether to postpone the Epstein vote until Tuesday evening….
The four Republicans who signed on to the discharge petition forcing the vote — Massie, plus Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina — are likely to examine Johnson’s moves very closely. They could together block any procedural measure that would undercut the Epstein legislation, postpone it or otherwise alter it.
One more story on the Epstein texts from Jason Wilson at The Guardian: Steve Bannon advised Jeffrey Epstein for years on how to rehab his reputation, texts show.
Hundreds of texts over almost a year show Maga influencer Steve Bannon and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein workshopping legal and media strategies to protect Epstein from the legal and publicity quagmire that enveloped him in the last year of his life.
The texts, released by the House oversight committee on Wednesday, show that as early as June 2018, the pair were devising responses to the gathering storm of public outrage about Epstein’s criminal history, his favorable treatment by the justice system, and his friendships with powerful figures in business, politics and academia.
Bannon conspiratorially described the renewed scrutiny of Epstein as a “sophisticated op”, and over time he counseled Epstein in his adversarial responses to media outlets, the justice system and his victims.
All the while, both men were also strategizing how best to promote Bannon’s rightwing populist agenda, and the political fortunes of its standard bearer, Donald Trump.
In all of Epstein’s messages, the identity of his correspondent is redacted. But Bannon’s identity in the threads cited in this reporting is clear from contextual clues including his documented activities at the time, details of his business and media pursuits, and other disclosures. In one document, the sender’s phone number is not redacted – and it is the same number linked to Bannon in a legal case against Trump adviser Roger Stone.
Read the rest at The Guardian.
Trump is also beginning to panic about the economy and the negative effects of his insane tariffs.
David J. Lynch at The Washington Post: Trump goes on defense over tariffs as prices on everyday items keep rising.
President Donald Trump’s bid Friday to sootheconsumers by dropping tariffs on a wide array of groceries, including coffee, beef, bananas and tomatoes — contradicting his repeated claims that the levies were not affecting retail prices — shows he is on the defensive over his signature policy initiative.
Public opposition, eroding support on Capitol Hill and a potentially lethal challenge before the Supreme Court have Trump scrambling to defend his economic strategy even as the administration notches diplomatic agreements that are cementing its high-tariff approach to rebalancing global trade.
Sophia Loren with her cat, 1959
Public opinion is the immediate worry, following recent Democratic electoral victories in Virginia and New Jersey that were fueled by Americans’ ire over the cost of living. By a nearly 2-to-1 margin, registered voters disapproved of the president’s tariffs in a recent Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, a finding that has been consistent all year and could imperil Republican candidates in next year’s congressional elections.
The president on Friday issued an executive order rolling back import taxes on many foods, his most significant retreat on the emergency tariffs he imposed in April, which were billed at the time as loophole-free. In September, the White House had signaled that some products that are not generally produced in the United States could be spared tariffs once nations where they originate reached trade deals with the United States. But Friday’s exemptions apply to products from any nation, even those that have not agreed on trade terms.
“They know that they shouldn’t have imposed a lot of these tariffs and that they’re hurting affordability for consumers. Now they’re looking for a way to justify lowering them. And that’s fine. But did we really need to go through all this in the first place?” said Christopher Padilla, senior adviser to the Brunswick Group and a former trade official in the George W. Bush administration….
This week’s tariff cuts appear aimed at responding to public concern over high prices. Inflation overall is running at an annual rate of 3 percent, above the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target for price stability but well down from the mid-2022 peak of 9.1 percent.
Prices on many everyday items, however, continue to soar. Through September, the most recent data available, coffee prices were up 19 percent over the previous 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bananas were up 7 percent.
Elizabeth Buchwald at CNN: Trump’s latest tariff TACO probably won’t make your life more affordable.
Americans could soon see some goods get cheaper after President Donald Trump exempted certain agricultural imports from a set of tariffs on Friday. But any price drops likely won’t be enough to make life feel more affordable any time soon.
The executive order exempted products like coffee, beef and some fruit from Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs, which began rolling out in April.
The new exemptions are part of what traders have dubbed TACO, or Trump Always Chickens Out, to describe times when the president backs off a policy after unintended consequences pop up. In the case of tariffs, Trump has already reversed a number of his measures, a sign that the administration is reshaping his signature economic tool.
The latest TACO comes after voters, worried about affordability, gave Republicans a drubbing in recent off-year elections.
Why this likely won’t help consumers much:
Nevertheless, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the new exemptions generally won’t help improve affordability.
“It depends on what the importers do with the tariff,” he said in a CNBC interview on Friday. “So when you look at the overall price trend, it hasn’t been because of tariffs. It’s been because of these other events going on and just supply and demand.”
Steve Martin and cat
But in cases where tariffs have been passed along to consumers, prices could drop, Greer said.
One potential example: bananas. American consumers are paying about 8% more for bananas than before Trump’s second term began.
The US largely imports bananas from South American countries. With bananas exempt from “reciprocal” tariffs that started at 10%, prices could go back to where they were earlier this year, said Sarah House, senior economist at Wells Fargo. But it’s unlikely to be something most consumers notice unless they’re buying bananas often, she added.
But not everyone is convinced it will even do that much.
“It is not clear that lowering tariffs will lower prices — it depends on what retailers think they can get away with. The import price of bananas has fallen since tariffs were imposed, but the US consumer price has risen,” Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS global wealth management, said in a note last week. (The United States tracks import prices before accounting for tariffs. In some cases, import prices have fallen as exporters lower what they charge as a way to share in the tariff expense importers pay.)
More analysis at the CNN link.
Another flop: Trump’s soybean deal with China may have just been a mirage. AP: USDA data casts doubt on China’s soybean purchase promises touted by Trump.
New data the Agriculture Department released Friday created serious doubts about whether China will really buy millions of bushels of American soybeans like the Trump administration touted last month after a high-stakes meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
The USDA report released after the government reopened showed only two Chinese purchases of American soybeans since the summit in South Korea that totaled 332,000 metric tons. That’s well short of the 12 million metric tons that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said China agreed to purchase by January and nowhere near the 25 million metric tons she said they would buy in each of the next three years.
American farmers were hopeful that their biggest customer would resume buying their crops. But CoBank’s Tanner Ehmke, who is its lead economist for grains and oilseed, said there isn’t much incentive for China to buy from America right now because they have plenty of soybeans on hand that they have bought from Brazil and other South American countries this year, and the remaining tariffs ensure that U.S. soybeans remain more expensive than Brazilian beans.
“We are still not even close to what has been advertised from the U.S. in terms of what the agreement would have been,” Ehmke said.
Beijing has yet to confirm any detailed soybean purchase agreement but only that the two sides have reached “consensus” on expanding trade in farm products. Ehmke said that even if China did promise to buy American soybeans it may have only agreed to buy them if the price was attractive.
Will Trump try to distract from the Epstein files and his failures on the economy by taking us to war with Venezuela?
David E. Sanger, Eric Schmit, Tyler Pager, and Zolan Kanno-Youngs at The New York Times (gift link): Trump Escalates Pressure on Venezuela, but Endgame Is Unclear.
The Trump administration is rapidly escalating its pressure campaign against Venezuela, with America’s largest aircraft carrier, the Ford, about to take up a position within striking distance of the country, even as President Trump’s aides provide conflicting accounts of what, exactly, they are seeking to achieve.
Mr. Trump held back-to-back days of meetings at the White House over the past two days, reviewing military options, including the use of Special Operations forces and direct action inside Venezuela.
Marlyn Monroe with her cat
It is still not clear whether Mr. Trump has made a decision about what kind of action to authorize, if any. On Friday, he told reporters on Air Force One that “I sort of made up my mind.” “I can’t tell you what it is,” he said, “but we made a lot of progress with Venezuela in terms of stopping drugs from pouring in.”
It is possible Mr. Trump is relying on the arrival of so much firepower to intimidate the government of Nicolás Maduro, who the United States and many of its allies say is not Venezuela’s legitimate president. Mr. Maduro has put his forces on high alert, leaving the two countries with their weapons cocked and ready for war.
There were signs that the administration was moving into a new and more aggressive posture. Shortly after a meeting on Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on social media that the mission in the Caribbean now had a name — “Southern Spear.” He described its goal in expansive terms, saying the operation “removes narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere.”
“The Western Hemisphere is America’s neighborhood,” he wrote, “and we will protect it.” With the arrival of the Ford and three accompanying missile-firing Navy destroyers, there are now 15,000 troops in the region, more than there have been at any time in decades.
The only thing missing is a strategic explanation from the Trump administration that would clarify why the United States is amassing such a large force. Mr. Hegseth’s posting on X was only the latest in a series of statements from administration officials that, at best, are in tension with one another. Some are outright contradictory.
Mr. Trump has been the most consistent, saying it is all about drugs. But that would not explain why the Ford was rushed from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Caribbean region, adding to an American force that has now reached 15,000 soldiers and sailors, to attack small boats that until early September had been intercepted by the Coast Guard. Nor would it explain why Colombia or Mexico — Mexico being the main conduit for fentanyl — are not in the Navy’s sights.
Dan Lamothe, Tara Copp, Michael Birnbaum, and Noah Robertson: Trump weighs Venezuela strikes as U.S. forces prepare for attack order.
President Donald Trump said Friday night that he has “sort of made up my mind” about how he will proceed with the possibility of military action in Venezuela, following a second consecutive day of deliberations at the White House that included top national security advisers.
Trump’s vague remarks aboard Air Force One were delivered as he traveled for the weekend to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and included no additional new details. The comments came as U.S. forces in the region awaited possible attack orders and after days of high-level discussions about whether — and how — to strike in Venezuela, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter is highly sensitive. Joining Trump in deliberations Friday were Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, these people said.
Robert Redford with his cat
Earlier in the day, an administration official said “a host of options” had been presented to the president. Trump is “very good at maintaining strategic ambiguity, and something he does very well is he does not dictate or broadcast to our adversaries what he wants to do next,” the official said.
Any strike on Venezuelan territory would upend the president’s frequent promises of avoiding new conflicts and betray promises made to Congress in recent weeks that no active preparations were underway for such an attack. It also would further complicate U.S. cooperation with other Latin American countries, and deepen suspicions — there and in Washington — over whether Trump’s endgame is the forced removal of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, whom Trump has accused of sending drugs and violent criminals to the United States.
Maduro, a socialist strongman, came to power in Caracas in 2013 and increasingly has become a fixation for Trump.
In August, U.S. officials increased the reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction from $25 million to $50 million, citing alleged ties to drug cartels and U.S. beliefs dating back to the Biden administration that he lost Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election and refused to step down.
“The United States is very plugged into what’s going on in Venezuela, the chatter among Maduro’s people and the highest levels of his regime,” the administration official said. “Maduro is very scared, and he should be scared. The president has options on the table that are very bad for Maduro and his illegitimate regime. … We view this regime as illegitimate, and it’s not serving the Western Hemisphere well.”
President Donald Trump has said he believes Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s days are numbered, and that land strikes inside Venezuela are possible.
Experts say that the US doesn’t currently have the military assets in place to launch a largescale operation to remove Maduro from power, though Trump has approved covert action within Venezuela, CNN has reported.
Bette Davis with cat
But if Trump did order strikes inside Venezuela aimed at ousting Maduro, he could face serious challenges with fractured opposition elements and a military poised for insurgency, according to experts, as well as political backlash at home for a president who promised to avoid costly entanglements overseas.
CNN reported that Trump received a briefing earlier this week to review updated options for military action inside Venezuela, a concept the White House has been weighing. The administration had not made a decision on whether to launch strikes, CNN reported, though the US military has moved more than a dozen warships and 15,000 troops into the region as part of what the Pentagon branded Operation Southern Spear in an announcement Thursday.
The concentration of military assets and threats of further attacks beyond the ongoing drug boat campaign have served to increase pressure on Maduro, with administration officials saying he needs to leave office while arguing that he’s closely tied to the Tren de Aragua gang and leading drug trafficking efforts.
But if Maduro does flee Venezuela or is killed out in a targeted strike, experts worry about a military takeover of the country or the boosting of another dictator similar to Maduro.
Read the rest at CNN.
Those are my recommended reads. I’ll add a few more links in the comment thread. What stories are you interested in today?
#BillClinton #catArt #caturday #ChinaSoybeanPurchases #DonaldTrump #EpsteinFiles #JeffreyEpstein #LarrySummers #NicolasMaduro #PamBondi #ReidHoffman #SteveBannon #TACOTrump #TrumpTariffs #Venezuela
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Lazy Caturday Reads: Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, and More News
Good Afternoon!!
Elizabeth Taylor with her Siamese cat, 1956, photo by Sanford Roth
Epstein, Epstein, Epstein. He’s everywhere in the news. We still haven’t seen the DOJ Epstein files, but we’re already learning more about Epstein’s relationship to Trump from the recently released text messages. We don’t know yet how bad it will get when the files are released, but the extent to which Trump is publicly panicking suggests it will be very bad for him.
In Trump’s latest effort to control the Epstein story, he ordered Attorney General Bondi to investigate Democrats who had connections to the child sex trafficker.
Acceding to President Donald Trump’s demands, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday that she has ordered a top federal prosecutor to investigate sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Trump political foes, including former President Bill Clinton.
Bondi posted on X that she was assigning Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to lead the probe, capping an eventful week in which congressional Republicans released nearly 23,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate and House Democrats seized on emails mentioning Trump.
Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years, didn’t explain what supposed crimes he wanted the Justice Department to investigate. None of the men he mentioned in a social media post demanding the probe has been accused of sexual misconduct by any of Epstein’s victims.
Hours before Bondi’s announcement, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he would ask her, the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Clinton and others, including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and LinkedIn founder and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman.
Trump, calling the matter “the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans,” said the investigation should also include financial giant JPMorgan Chase, which provided banking services to Epstein, and “many other people and institutions.”
There’s no evidence that any of the people Trump is targeting were involved in sexual abuse or sex trafficking.
A JPMorgan Chase spokesperson, Patricia Wexler, said the company regretted associating with Epstein “but did not help him commit his heinous acts.”
“The government had damning information about his crimes and failed to share it with us or other banks,” she said. The company agreed previously to pay millions of dollars to Epstein’s victims, who had sued arguing that the bank ignored red flags about criminal activity.
Clinton has acknowledged traveling on Epstein’s private jet but has said through a spokesperson that he had no knowledge of the late financier’s crimes. He also has never been accused of misconduct by Epstein’s known victims.
Clinton’s deputy chief of staff Angel Ureña posted on X Friday: “These emails prove Bill Clinton did nothing and knew nothing. The rest is noise meant to distract from election losses, backfiring shutdowns, and who knows what else.” [….]
Summers and Hoffman had nothing to do with either case, but both were friendly with Epstein and exchanged emails with him. Those messages were among the documents released this week, along with other correspondence Epstein had with friends and business associates in the years before his death.
Nothing in the messages suggested any wrongdoing on the men’s part, other than associating with someone who had been accused of sex crimes against children.
At Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson writes:
In a transparent attempt to distract from the many times his own name appears in the documents from the Epstein estate members of the House Oversight Committee released Wednesday, President Donald J. Trump asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Democrats whose names appeared in the documents. He singled out former president Bill Clinton, former treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers, and Reid Hoffman, who founded LinkedIn and who is a Democratic donor.
Marlon Brando and cat
Although the attorney general is the nation’s chief law enforcement officer and is supposed to be nonpartisan in protecting the rule of law, Bondi responded that the Department of Justice “will pursue this with urgency and integrity.” Maegan Vazquez and Shayna Jacobs of the Washington Post note that reporters have already covered the relationship of Epstein with Clinton, Summers, and Hoffman for years, and that in July, Justice Department officials said an examination of the FBI files relating to Epstein—a different cache than Wednesday’s—“did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”
Meidas Touch noted: “In normal times, it would be a major scandal for the President to direct his AG to criminally investigate his political opponents to deflect from his own involvement in a major scandal—and for the AG to immediately announce she is doing it. The Epstein scandal and cover up just got even bigger.”
This scandal truly has Trump flailing. I hope this will be the one that really brings him down, but he somehow seems to wriggle out of every scandal. But he certainly is terrified of the Epstein files being released.
Politico: House plans to vote Tuesday on releasing Epstein files.
House Republican leaders are planning to hold a vote Tuesday on legislation to force the release of federal files related to Jeffrey Epstein, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss internal plans ahead of a public announcement.
The tentative scheduling decision follows a successful effort by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to sidestep Speaker Mike Johnson and force a floor vote on their bipartisan bill to compel the Justice Department to release all of its records related to the late convicted sex offender.
President Donald Trump has made repeated attempts to kill the effort, which continued in a series of Truth Social posts Friday. But Johnson said Wednesday he intends to move quickly to hold the vote and put the matter to bed.
Under the current GOP plan, the House Rules Committee would approve a procedural measure Monday night to advance eight bills for floor consideration, including language to tee up the Epstein legislation. If that measure is approved on the floor, likely early Tuesday afternoon, debate and a final vote on the Epstein bill could immediately follow. GOP leaders are considering whether to postpone the Epstein vote until Tuesday evening….
The four Republicans who signed on to the discharge petition forcing the vote — Massie, plus Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina — are likely to examine Johnson’s moves very closely. They could together block any procedural measure that would undercut the Epstein legislation, postpone it or otherwise alter it.
One more story on the Epstein texts from Jason Wilson at The Guardian: Steve Bannon advised Jeffrey Epstein for years on how to rehab his reputation, texts show.
Hundreds of texts over almost a year show Maga influencer Steve Bannon and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein workshopping legal and media strategies to protect Epstein from the legal and publicity quagmire that enveloped him in the last year of his life.
The texts, released by the House oversight committee on Wednesday, show that as early as June 2018, the pair were devising responses to the gathering storm of public outrage about Epstein’s criminal history, his favorable treatment by the justice system, and his friendships with powerful figures in business, politics and academia.
Bannon conspiratorially described the renewed scrutiny of Epstein as a “sophisticated op”, and over time he counseled Epstein in his adversarial responses to media outlets, the justice system and his victims.
All the while, both men were also strategizing how best to promote Bannon’s rightwing populist agenda, and the political fortunes of its standard bearer, Donald Trump.
In all of Epstein’s messages, the identity of his correspondent is redacted. But Bannon’s identity in the threads cited in this reporting is clear from contextual clues including his documented activities at the time, details of his business and media pursuits, and other disclosures. In one document, the sender’s phone number is not redacted – and it is the same number linked to Bannon in a legal case against Trump adviser Roger Stone.
Read the rest at The Guardian.
Trump is also beginning to panic about the economy and the negative effects of his insane tariffs.
David J. Lynch at The Washington Post: Trump goes on defense over tariffs as prices on everyday items keep rising.
President Donald Trump’s bid Friday to sootheconsumers by dropping tariffs on a wide array of groceries, including coffee, beef, bananas and tomatoes — contradicting his repeated claims that the levies were not affecting retail prices — shows he is on the defensive over his signature policy initiative.
Public opposition, eroding support on Capitol Hill and a potentially lethal challenge before the Supreme Court have Trump scrambling to defend his economic strategy even as the administration notches diplomatic agreements that are cementing its high-tariff approach to rebalancing global trade.
Sophia Loren with her cat, 1959
Public opinion is the immediate worry, following recent Democratic electoral victories in Virginia and New Jersey that were fueled by Americans’ ire over the cost of living. By a nearly 2-to-1 margin, registered voters disapproved of the president’s tariffs in a recent Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, a finding that has been consistent all year and could imperil Republican candidates in next year’s congressional elections.
The president on Friday issued an executive order rolling back import taxes on many foods, his most significant retreat on the emergency tariffs he imposed in April, which were billed at the time as loophole-free. In September, the White House had signaled that some products that are not generally produced in the United States could be spared tariffs once nations where they originate reached trade deals with the United States. But Friday’s exemptions apply to products from any nation, even those that have not agreed on trade terms.
“They know that they shouldn’t have imposed a lot of these tariffs and that they’re hurting affordability for consumers. Now they’re looking for a way to justify lowering them. And that’s fine. But did we really need to go through all this in the first place?” said Christopher Padilla, senior adviser to the Brunswick Group and a former trade official in the George W. Bush administration….
This week’s tariff cuts appear aimed at responding to public concern over high prices. Inflation overall is running at an annual rate of 3 percent, above the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target for price stability but well down from the mid-2022 peak of 9.1 percent.
Prices on many everyday items, however, continue to soar. Through September, the most recent data available, coffee prices were up 19 percent over the previous 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bananas were up 7 percent.
Elizabeth Buchwald at CNN: Trump’s latest tariff TACO probably won’t make your life more affordable.
Americans could soon see some goods get cheaper after President Donald Trump exempted certain agricultural imports from a set of tariffs on Friday. But any price drops likely won’t be enough to make life feel more affordable any time soon.
The executive order exempted products like coffee, beef and some fruit from Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs, which began rolling out in April.
The new exemptions are part of what traders have dubbed TACO, or Trump Always Chickens Out, to describe times when the president backs off a policy after unintended consequences pop up. In the case of tariffs, Trump has already reversed a number of his measures, a sign that the administration is reshaping his signature economic tool.
The latest TACO comes after voters, worried about affordability, gave Republicans a drubbing in recent off-year elections.
Why this likely won’t help consumers much:
Nevertheless, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the new exemptions generally won’t help improve affordability.
“It depends on what the importers do with the tariff,” he said in a CNBC interview on Friday. “So when you look at the overall price trend, it hasn’t been because of tariffs. It’s been because of these other events going on and just supply and demand.”
Steve Martin and cat
But in cases where tariffs have been passed along to consumers, prices could drop, Greer said.
One potential example: bananas. American consumers are paying about 8% more for bananas than before Trump’s second term began.
The US largely imports bananas from South American countries. With bananas exempt from “reciprocal” tariffs that started at 10%, prices could go back to where they were earlier this year, said Sarah House, senior economist at Wells Fargo. But it’s unlikely to be something most consumers notice unless they’re buying bananas often, she added.
But not everyone is convinced it will even do that much.
“It is not clear that lowering tariffs will lower prices — it depends on what retailers think they can get away with. The import price of bananas has fallen since tariffs were imposed, but the US consumer price has risen,” Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS global wealth management, said in a note last week. (The United States tracks import prices before accounting for tariffs. In some cases, import prices have fallen as exporters lower what they charge as a way to share in the tariff expense importers pay.)
More analysis at the CNN link.
Another flop: Trump’s soybean deal with China may have just been a mirage. AP: USDA data casts doubt on China’s soybean purchase promises touted by Trump.
New data the Agriculture Department released Friday created serious doubts about whether China will really buy millions of bushels of American soybeans like the Trump administration touted last month after a high-stakes meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
The USDA report released after the government reopened showed only two Chinese purchases of American soybeans since the summit in South Korea that totaled 332,000 metric tons. That’s well short of the 12 million metric tons that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said China agreed to purchase by January and nowhere near the 25 million metric tons she said they would buy in each of the next three years.
American farmers were hopeful that their biggest customer would resume buying their crops. But CoBank’s Tanner Ehmke, who is its lead economist for grains and oilseed, said there isn’t much incentive for China to buy from America right now because they have plenty of soybeans on hand that they have bought from Brazil and other South American countries this year, and the remaining tariffs ensure that U.S. soybeans remain more expensive than Brazilian beans.
“We are still not even close to what has been advertised from the U.S. in terms of what the agreement would have been,” Ehmke said.
Beijing has yet to confirm any detailed soybean purchase agreement but only that the two sides have reached “consensus” on expanding trade in farm products. Ehmke said that even if China did promise to buy American soybeans it may have only agreed to buy them if the price was attractive.
Will Trump try to distract from the Epstein files and his failures on the economy by taking use to war with Venezuela?
David E. Sanger, Eric Schmit, tTyler Pager, and Zolan Kanno-Youngs at The New York Times (gift link): Trump Escalates Pressure on Venezuela, but Endgame Is Unclear.
The Trump administration is rapidly escalating its pressure campaign against Venezuela, with America’s largest aircraft carrier, the Ford, about to take up a position within striking distance of the country, even as President Trump’s aides provide conflicting accounts of what, exactly, they are seeking to achieve.
Mr. Trump held back-to-back days of meetings at the White House over the past two days, reviewing military options, including the use of Special Operations forces and direct action inside Venezuela.
Marlyn Monroe with her cat
It is still not clear whether Mr. Trump has made a decision about what kind of action to authorize, if any. On Friday, he told reporters on Air Force One that “I sort of made up my mind.” “I can’t tell you what it is,” he said, “but we made a lot of progress with Venezuela in terms of stopping drugs from pouring in.”
It is possible Mr. Trump is relying on the arrival of so much firepower to intimidate the government of Nicolás Maduro, who the United States and many of its allies say is not Venezuela’s legitimate president. Mr. Maduro has put his forces on high alert, leaving the two countries with their weapons cocked and ready for war.
There were signs that the administration was moving into a new and more aggressive posture. Shortly after a meeting on Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on social media that the mission in the Caribbean now had a name — “Southern Spear.” He described its goal in expansive terms, saying the operation “removes narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere.”
“The Western Hemisphere is America’s neighborhood,” he wrote, “and we will protect it.” With the arrival of the Ford and three accompanying missile-firing Navy destroyers, there are now 15,000 troops in the region, more than there have been at any time in decades.
The only thing missing is a strategic explanation from the Trump administration that would clarify why the United States is amassing such a large force. Mr. Hegseth’s posting on X was only the latest in a series of statements from administration officials that, at best, are in tension with one another. Some are outright contradictory.
Mr. Trump has been the most consistent, saying it is all about drugs. But that would not explain why the Ford was rushed from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Caribbean region, adding to an American force that has now reached 15,000 soldiers and sailors, to attack small boats that until early September had been intercepted by the Coast Guard. Nor would it explain why Colombia or Mexico — Mexico being the main conduit for fentanyl — are not in the Navy’s sights.
Dan Lamothe, Tara Copp, Michael Birnbaum, and Noah Robertson: Trump weighs Venezuela strikes as U.S. forces prepare for attack order.
President Donald Trump said Friday night that he has “sort of made up my mind” about how he will proceed with the possibility of military action in Venezuela, following a second consecutive day of deliberations at the White House that included top national security advisers.
Trump’s vague remarks aboard Air Force One were delivered as he traveled for the weekend to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and included no additional new details. The comments came as U.S. forces in the region awaited possible attack orders and after days of high-level discussions about whether — and how — to strike in Venezuela, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter is highly sensitive. Joining Trump in deliberations Friday were Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, these people said.
Robert Redford with his cat
Earlier in the day, an administration official said “a host of options” had been presented to the president. Trump is “very good at maintaining strategic ambiguity, and something he does very well is he does not dictate or broadcast to our adversaries what he wants to do next,” the official said.
Any strike on Venezuelan territory would upend the president’s frequent promises of avoiding new conflicts and betray promises made to Congress in recent weeks that no active preparations were underway for such an attack. It also would further complicate U.S. cooperation with other Latin American countries, and deepen suspicions — there and in Washington — over whether Trump’s endgame is the forced removal of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, whom Trump has accused of sending drugs and violent criminals to the United States.
Maduro, a socialist strongman, came to power in Caracas in 2013 and increasingly has become a fixation for Trump.
In August, U.S. officials increased the reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction from $25 million to $50 million, citing alleged ties to drug cartels and U.S. beliefs dating back to the Biden administration that he lost Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election and refused to step down.
“The United States is very plugged into what’s going on in Venezuela, the chatter among Maduro’s people and the highest levels of his regime,” the administration official said. “Maduro is very scared, and he should be scared. The president has options on the table that are very bad for Maduro and his illegitimate regime. … We view this regime as illegitimate, and it’s not serving the Western Hemisphere well.”
President Donald Trump has said he believes Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s days are numbered, and that land strikes inside Venezuela are possible.
Experts say that the US doesn’t currently have the military assets in place to launch a largescale operation to remove Maduro from power, though Trump has approved covert action within Venezuela, CNN has reported.
Bette Davis with cat
But if Trump did order strikes inside Venezuela aimed at ousting Maduro, he could face serious challenges with fractured opposition elements and a military poised for insurgency, according to experts, as well as political backlash at home for a president who promised to avoid costly entanglements overseas.
CNN reported that Trump received a briefing earlier this week to review updated options for military action inside Venezuela, a concept the White House has been weighing. The administration had not made a decision on whether to launch strikes, CNN reported, though the US military has moved more than a dozen warships and 15,000 troops into the region as part of what the Pentagon branded Operation Southern Spear in an announcement Thursday.
The concentration of military assets and threats of further attacks beyond the ongoing drug boat campaign have served to increase pressure on Maduro, with administration officials saying he needs to leave office while arguing that he’s closely tied to the Tren de Aragua gang and leading drug trafficking efforts.
But if Maduro does flee Venezuela or is killed out in a targeted strike, experts worry about a military takeover of the country or the boosting of another dictator similar to Maduro.
Read the rest at CNN.
Those are my recommended reads. I’ll add a few more links in the comment thread. What stories are you interested in today?
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