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892 results for “Wingman”

lookitmychicken @[email protected] · 2023-01-04 · 23:43 UTC

Walk the Circle in the Other Direction
✍️ fic by #notevenyou
⭕ #MoDaoZuShi #TheUntamed
⭕ #LanWangji / #WeiWuxian
⭕ 32k, Explicit
⭕ Teen WWX's best friend LWJ is gay
⭕ As a straight ally, WWX is a fierce defender and wingman
:ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21785542
#FicRec #MDZSFicRec #MDZS #WangXianFicRec #WangXian #NSFW #ModernAU #Homophobia #CompHet #QueerAwakening #CollegeAU

#notevenyou #modaozushi #theuntamed #lanwangji #weiwuxian #ficrec
smxi @smxi · 2025-12-07 · 04:44 UTC

#Roy perched on his favorite high ledge taking a quick look back at me while staring out at the night on #Caturday evening after our walk. We went pretty far tonight, around a whole block.
How we started going for walks is a long story but suffice it to say he likes exploring and adventure with me as his wingman.
#Cats #CatsOfMastodon

#roy #caturday #cats #catsofmastodon
Panethos @[email protected] · 2026-03-30 · 09:00 UTC
America’s top drone development zones

The list provided identifies the top metropolitan areas across the United States where significant amounts of drone (civilian and military) research, development, and manufacturing are taking place. It also includes the headquarters locations for those entities. Despite often being associated with military use, drones can have many useful peacetime functions such as but not limited to: aerial inspections, aerial and thermal imagery, agricultural spray application, mapping/surveying, product delivery, site security, public safety, search & rescue (SAR), environmental monitoring, and disaster response/reconnaissance.
Autel Robotics thermal imaging search and rescue drone – Source: autelrobotics.com
The list does not distinguish between types or value of the drones produced, their raw numbers, nor the numbers employed by the industry. It only provides a list of organizations located there that are actively involved in drone research and development. To make the list as complete as possible, sources of counter/anti-drone product development are also included.
Northrup Grumman’s MQ-4C Triton Dron – Source: en.wikipedia.org
As can be seen by the list, there are a number of metropolitan areas that have become significant zones for drone development. Greater Washington, D.C. tends to be where many military drone manufacturers are headquartered in order to be close to the decision makers are located.
AeroVironmental Quantix drone – Source: thestreet.com
Separately, several long-standing military-focused cities have become drone nodes as well — San Diego, Hampton Roads, and Albuquerque-Santa Fe fall into this category. Then, there are the well-known high-technology hubs that have naturally morphed into drone development. These include Boston, Silicon Valley, the San Francisco Bay Area (which could easily be combined with Silicon Valley), Seattle, and Portland (OR).
Seattle, Los Angeles, and Wichita all fall into another category – aircraft manufacturing cities that have expanded into drone zones. Meanwhile the Houston, Huntsville, Orlando-Melbourne, Los Angeles, and El Paso-Las Cruces metropolitan areas fall into the outer space specialization grouping. Transitioning from either of these manufacturing ecosystems to drones would be a logical step.
And lastly, there are the unexpected notable drone zones — Reno, Detroit, and of all places, Grand Forks, North Dakota. Detroit is an historic hub for automation and engine technologies and its economy encompasses a surprising amount of defense industries, while the State of Nevada has been investing in ways to make the Reno-Sparks area a competitive player in the drone industry.
Source: Facebook.com
Grand Forks, North Dakota deserves significant accolades for its forward-thinking step of establishing the nation’s first drone research, development, and testing park (GrandSKY) at Grand Forks U.S. Air Force Base back in the mid-2010s. The extent of the drone zone in Grand Forks has led to the area being nicknamed “Silidrone Valley.”
More information on each of the drone zones is provided below. As always, any additions, suggestions, or corrections to the list are most welcome.
Peace!
_______
Definitions:
- EMI – Electromagnetic Interference
- SAR – Search and Rescue
- UAS – Unmanned/Uncrewed Aerial Systems
- UAV – Unmanned/Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles
- VTOL – Vertical Takeoff and Landing
_______
Albuquerque-Santa Fe, New Mexico
THOR high-power microwave directed energy weapon – Source: twz.com
- AeroVironmental (manufacturing) – Albuquerque
- COSMIAC at University of New Mexico (UNM)
- Kirtland U.S, Air Force Base/Air Force Research Laboratory and THOR counter-drone testing site – Albuquerque
- UAS Research at Sandia National Laboratories – Albuquerque
- Unmanned Systems of America – Albuquerque
- Verus Research – Albuquerque
_______
Boston Region
- Aerospec – Boston
- American Robotics – Waltham
- Ascent Aerosystems – Tewksbury/Wilmington
- Aura Intelligent Systems – Boston
- Autonodyne LLC – Boston
- Cleo Robotics – Boston
- Corvus Robotics – Boston
- GreenSight Agronomic – Boston
- Kostas Research Institute/Northeastern University Expeditionary Cyber and Unmanned Aerial System Research and Development Facility – Burlington
- GreenSight – Boston
- Parrot – Boston
- Small UAS Initiative at MIT – Cambridge
_______
Detroit-Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Advanced Aerial Innovation Region – Greater Detroit
- RedWire/Edge Autonomy (manufacturing) – Ann Arbor
- Skypersonic – Troy
- University of Michigan M-Air Initiative
- Vayu – Ann Arbor
_______
El Paso-Las Cruces, Texas/New Mexico
- Defense Department Counter Drone Laser Testing
- FAA New Mexico State University UAS Test Site – Las Cruces, NM
- Spaceport America drone testing – Truth or Consequences, NM
- UTEP Aerospace Research Center – El Paso, TX
- UTEP Drone Testing Centers – Fabens, TX and Tortilla, TX
- White Sands Missile Range, NM
Sources: faa.gov
_______
Grand Forks, North Dakota “Silidrone Valley”
Source: faa.gov
- FAA Northern Plains UAS Test Site
- General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (manufacturing)
- Grand Forks U.S. Air Force Base
- GrandSKY UAS Research and Development Park (see image below)
- Meadowlark Aircraft Company
- Mission Network Operation Center
- Raytheon (manufacturing)
- Statewide beyond visual line of site network (Vantis)
- The Hive UAS Tech Accelerator
- UAS pilot undergraduate program at the University of North Dakota (UND)
GrandSKY UAS Research and Development Park – Source: grandforks.af.mil
_______
Hampton Roads, Virginia
- Advanced Aircraft Company – Hampton
- AVID Aerospace – Yorktown
- DroneUp – Virginia Beach
- Hush Aerospace – Virginia Beach
- Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport drone runway
- NASA Langley Research Center – Hampton
- Unmanned Systems Research and Technology Center – Hampton
_______
Houston, Texas
- Horizon Aerobotics – Houston
- Hylio – Richmond
- Paladin Drones – Houston
- Trumbull Unmanned (HQ) – Houston
- Windhover Labs – Texas City
_______
Huntsville, Alabama
- FBI Drone Threat Training Center
- Huntsville UAS Vertical Research Center
- Microdrones (R & D and manufacturing)
- Performance Drone Works (HQ and manufacturing)
- Red Cat Holdings
- Redstone Arsenal
- SkyFire AI
- University of Alabama/Huntsville research labs
PDW C100 advanced mission capable drone – Source: pdw.ai
_______
Los Angeles Region “Space Beach”
- AeroVironment (manufacturing) – Simi Valley, Monrovia, and Moorpark
- Anduril Industries – Costa Mesa (HQ) and Long Beach (R & D/manufacturing)
- Anduril Industries (manufacturing) – San Juan Capistrano
- AuterionGS – Moorpark
- Dragonfly – Beverly Hills
- Fullerton College Drone Lab – Fullerton
- Lockheed Martin (manufacturing) – Palmdale
- NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory – Mojave Desert
- Neros Technologies – El Segundo and Torrance
- Northrup Grumman (manufacturing) – Palmdale
- Rhoman Aerospace – Los Angeles
- Rocket Lab – Long Beach
Auduril’s “Wingman” drone collaborative combat aircraft – Source: defensenews.com
_______
Orlando-Melbourne, Florida Region “Space Coast”
- AguaDrone Innovations – Vero Beach
- Censys Technologies – Daytona Beach
- Critical Frequency Design (HQ)- Melbourne
- Hoverfly Technologies – Sanford
- L3Harris Aerial – Casselberry
- L3Harris Technologies (HQ) – Melbourne
- Unusual Machines (HQ and Manufacturing)
_______
Phoenix, Arizona
- Airobotics – Scottsdale
- AIRO Group Holdings (manufacturing) – Phoenix
- Honeywell Aerospace – Phoenix
- Rapid Drone – Gold Canyon
- SpektreWorks – Phoenix
- ZenaDrone – Phoenix
_______
Portland-Vancouver, Oregon-Washington
- Composites Universal Group – Warren, OR
- Insitu/Boeing – Bingen, WA
- Sicdrone, Inc. – Scappoose, OR
- Teledyne Flir – Wilsonville, OR
_______
Reno-Sparks, Nevada
- Drone America – Reno
- FAA State of Nevada UAS Test Site
- Sierra Nevada Corporation – Sparks
- UNR’s Nevada Advanced Autonomous Systems Innovation Center – Reno
_______
San Diego, California
- Action Drone Inc. – San Diego
- Digital Force Technologies – San Diego
- General Atomics Aeronautical Systems – Poway
- Hitec Commercial Solutions – San Diego
- Inova Drone – San Diego
- Kratos Defense & Security (HQ)
- ModalAI – San Diego
- Northrup Grumman (development) – Rancho Bernardo
- Shield AI – San Diego
- University of California/San Diego DroneLab and Good DroneLab
- University of California/San Diego Aerodrome
_______
San Francisco Bay Area, California
- Door Dash (R & D) – San Francisco
- Drone Deploy – San Francisco
- Kazien.Aero – San Francisco
- Saildrone – Alameda
- Skydio – San Mateo
- Skyfront – Redwood City
- University of California Unmanned Lab – Berkeley
- UVify – San Francisco
- Vantage Robotics – San Leandro
- Zipline – San Francisco
Skydio EMI resistent inspection drone – Source: skydio.com
_______
Seattle-Tacoma, Washington
- Amazon Prime (R & D) – Seattle and Bellevue
- Autel Robotics
- Boeing (R & D)- Seattle
- BRINC Drones (HQ and manufacturing)- Seattle
- DroneSeed – Seattle
- Echodyne – Kirkland
- Freefly Systems – Woodinville
- LKD Aerospace – Snoqualmie
- RoboDub – Seattle
- Unearth – Seattle
- University of Washington Autonomous Flight Systems Lab – Seattle
- WiBotic – Seattle
_______
“Silicon Valley”, California
- Aero Systems West, San Martin
- Alphabet/Wing – Palo Alto
- Collins Aerospace Drone Testing – Hoillister
- Flyt Aerospace – San Jose
- Matternet – Mountain View
- NASA Ames Research Park/Labs – San Jose
- Parallel Flight – La Selva Beach
- Pyka – Palo Alto
_______
Washington, DC Region
- AeroVironment HQ – Arlington, VA
- Airgility – College Park, MD
- AIRO Group Holdings (USA HQ) – McLean, VA
- BAE Systems (HQ) – Falls Church, VA
- Boeing – Arlington, VA
- Centeye – Washington, D.C.
- Equinox Innovation Systems – Columbia, MD
- Lockheed Martin HQ – Bethesda, MD
- Northrup Grumman (HQ) – Falls Church, VA
- Robotic Research – Clarksburg, MD
- RTX (Raytheon) HQ – Arlington, VA
_______
Wichita, Kansas
AgEagle Drone – Source: Directindustry.com
- AgEagle – Wichita
- Quickstep Holdings – Wichita
- Saxon Unmanned, Inc. – McPherson
- Shocker Fly Lab at Wichita State University – Wichita – under development
SOURCES:
#agriculture #aviation #cities #civilian #design #drones #economicDevelopment #entrepreneurship #environment #geography #landUse #planning #rescue #research #spying #surveying #transportation #UAS #UAV #uncrewed #unmanned #war
#agriculture #aviation #cities #civilian #design #drones
Guillotine Jones, Flâneur @[email protected] · 2025-10-21 · 16:40 UTC

☕ What’s the Tea?
How is it that Trump -- who during the campaign for his second stint in the White House -- kept insisting that he knew nothing about Project 2025, is now trying to get his ‘Project 2025’ architect laid?
"By mid-2024, Donald Trump and Project 2025 architect Russell Vought were talking on the phone fairly regularly. But it often wasn’t about policy. Trump – when he had downtime from campaigning and plotting his fascist presidency – appeared preoccupied with getting the recently divorced Vought laid, two knowledgeable sources tell me. Trump spoke to Vought, a self-described Christian nationalist who’s now one of the president’s most hardline enforcers, about the 'gorgeous' and 'beautiful ladies' who roam Trump’s club, Mar-a-Lago, so often that it 'weirded out' some of his advisers, in one source’s words. Trump offered to be Vought’s wingman. And Trump spoke crudely of all the 'pussy' that Vought would surely get as the president’s favorite 'bachelor.' "
https://zeteo.com/p/trump-shits-on-america-a12
#USPolitics #Project2025 #RussellVought #Trump #Pussy #MarALago #GettingLaid

#uspolitics #project2025 #russellvought #trump #pussy #maralago
Sky Dancing @[email protected] · 2024-04-26 · 19:00 UTC

The Supreme Court hears arguments on Trump’s immunity claim, John Buss, @repeat1968.

Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I got the cutest picture of the granddaughters today. The girls were smiling and looking at each other with adoration. Both were pretty in pink. All I can think of is what kind of country they may inherit.
I watched and listened to trials and hearings that were so surreal that I was pretty sure we’d entered the Evil Spock Timeline. I remember when the Supreme Court protected everyone’s rights. Now, rights are confined to those who brought the men there and paid for their holidays. It was like watching a Skeleton Dance. Not one TV Lawyer could find anything constitutional about the show they put on yesterday. We all laughed at him when he said,‘ I Could … Shoot Somebody, And I Wouldn’t Lose Any Voters’ Evidently, he can do worse than that, and the Supreme Court would make up something to cover his farty, diapered ass.
This is a must-read from Slate: “The Last Thing This Supreme Court Could Do to Shock Us There will be no more self-soothing after this.” This is written by Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern.
For three long years, Supreme Court watchers mollified themselves (and others) with vague promises that when the rubber hit the road, even the ultraconservative Federalist Society justices of the Roberts court would put democracy before party whenever they were finally confronted with the legal effort to hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6. There were promising signs: They had, after all, refused to wade into the Trumpian efforts to set aside the election results in 2020. They had, after all, hewed to a kind of sanity in batting away Trumpist claims about presidential records (with the lone exception of Clarence Thomas, too long marinated in the Ginni-scented Kool-Aid to be capable of surprising us, but he was just one vote). We promised ourselves that there would be cool heads and grand bargains and that even though the court might sometimes help Trump in small ways, it would privilege the country in the end. We kept thinking that at least for Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts, the voice of reasoned never-Trumpers might still penetrate the Fox News fog. We told ourselves that at least six justices, and maybe even seven, of the most MAGA-friendly court in history would still want to ensure that this November’s elections would not be the last in history. Political hacks they may be, but they were not lawless ones.
For three long years, Supreme Court watchers mollified themselves (and others) with vague promises that when the rubber hit the road, even the ultraconservative Federalist Society justices of the Roberts court would put democracy before party whenever they were finally confronted with the legal effort to hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6. There were promising signs: They had, after all, refused to wade into the Trumpian efforts to set aside the election results in 2020. They had, after all, hewed to a kind of sanity in batting away Trumpist claims about presidential records (with the lone exception of Clarence Thomas, too long marinated in the Ginni-scented Kool-Aid to be capable of surprising us, but he was just one vote). We promised ourselves that there would be cool heads and grand bargains and that even though the court might sometimes help Trump in small ways, it would privilege the country in the end. We kept thinking that at least for Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts, the voice of reasoned never-Trumpers might still penetrate the Fox News fog. We told ourselves that at least six justices, and maybe even seven, of the most MAGA-friendly court in history would still want to ensure that this November’s elections would not be the last in history. Political hacks they may be, but they were not lawless ones.
On Thursday, during oral arguments in Trump v. United States, the Republican-appointed justices shattered those illusions. This was the case we had been waiting for, and all was made clear—brutally so. These justices donned the attitude of cynical partisans, repeatedly lending legitimacy to the former president’s outrageous claims of immunity from criminal prosecution. To at least five of the conservatives, the real threat to democracy wasn’t Trump’s attempt to overturn the election—but the Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute him for the act. These justices fear that it is Trump’s prosecution for election subversion that will “destabilize” democracy, requiring them to read a brand-new principle of presidential immunity into a Constitution that guarantees nothing of the sort. They evinced virtually no concern for our ability to continue holding free and fair elections that culminate in a peaceful transfer of power. They instead offered endless solicitude for the former president who fought that transfer of power.
However the court disposes of Trump v. U.S., the result will almost certainly be precisely what the former president craves: more delays, more hearings, more appeals—more of everything but justice. This was not a legitimate claim from the start, but a wild attempt by Trump’s attorneys to use his former role as chief executive of the United States to shield himself from the consequences of trying to turn the presidency into a dictatorship. After so much speculation that these reasonable, rational jurists would surely dispose of this ridiculous case quickly and easily, Thursday delivered a morass of bad-faith hand-wringing on the right about the apparently unbearable possibility that a president might no longer be allowed to wield his powers of office in pursuit of illegal ends. Just as bad, we heard a constant minimization of Jan. 6, for the second week in a row, as if the insurrection were ancient history, and history that has since been dramatically overblown, presumably for Democrats’ partisan aims.
All this with the husband of an insurrectionist sitting on the bench. I heard Nicole Wallace give the best explanation of anything I’ve heard on why these men act out their grievances in court decisions last night. Two of the guys that sit on the bench are sex pests and were publicly shown to be so. Alito is just perpetually mad at everything but mostly at being branded a bigot because he has issues with women and gay people. His hateful take on religion basically focuses on controlling the objects of his hatred. Protecting his religious practice means he should get away with whatever. Nicole Wallace argued that they love Trump because they are all angry and aggrieved. They identify with Trump because they feel they’re in a similar situation. Civil rights are all about not letting white boys be white boys. They all want absolute immunity. we have to rely on Amy and John to be reasonable. Amy’s line of questions actually gave me a bit of hope.
It’s a weird timeline for me to quote Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger. This is from the Bulwark. “ rump Melts Institutions, SCOTUS Edition. The Supreme Court’s no-win situation and the healthy liberalism we need.”
… reading the tea leaves of oral arguments is always an exercise in guesswork. Hopefully SCOTUS won’t be long in unveiling their opinion on the matter.
But one other thing is worth saying: It’s completely understandable that so many people’s first instinct was to roll their eyes at the Court’s apparent interest in using this case to trace out the complex contours of any newly explicit presidential right to official-act immunity—given the remarkable hubris of Trump’s bringing those arguments in the first place.
After all, here’s a guy who, during his second impeachment, explicitly arguedthat prosecuting an ex-president was the role of the criminal courts: “a president who left office is not in any way above the law,” his lawyers argued, “as the Constitution states he or she is like any other citizen and can be tried in a court of law.”
Now Trump articulates just the opposite position: No act that is “official” in form—which, his lawyers have had to admit during arguments, would include such acts as ordering the military to carry out a coup—can be criminally prosecuted after he leaves office unless he was first convicted in an impeachment trial for that conduct. How any president enjoying such expansive power could ever be impeached by a Congress he could apparently order murdered without consequence remains unclear.
It’s a ridiculous exercise, a transparent stalling tactic. For Team Trump, just getting the argument in front of SCOTUS was a victory in and of itself, further diminishing the odds of a jury getting to rule on Trump’s stolen-election charges before the November election. “Literally popping champagne right now,” one lawyer close to Trump told Rolling Stonewhen the court announced it would consider the immunity claim in February. This week, RS quoted another Trump source that it hardly matters what the court does now: “We already pulled off the heist.”
At the same time, no matter how transparent Trump’s run-out-the-clock motivations in bringing the petition to the Court, it’s true that the claims of presidential immunity at hand have never been litigated. The justices are highly unlikely to endorse Trump’s theory that every presidential act that is official “in form” is exempt from prosecution—but are some presidential acts immune? What is the line between a president acting in his capacity as president and acting in his capacity as a candidate or private citizen? And could it be true—as Trump’s lawyers have argued—that opening up too broad a swath of presidential actions to post-presidency prosecution could hamper a president’s ability to run the country effectively?
Evidently, Kavanaugh’s love of beer causes him to be delusional and totally out of it.

Kavanaugh: President Ford's pardon of Nixon, very controversial in the moment…. Now looked upon as one of the better decisions in presidential history I think by most people. pic.twitter.com/YaB0Px4v25
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 25, 2024

One last SCOTUS send-up and I’m changing the topic. This is from Adam Sewer writing for The New Republic. ” The Trumpification of the Supreme Court. The conservative justices have shown they are ready to sacrifice any law or principle to save the former president.”
The notion that Donald Trump’s supporters believe that he should be able to overthrow the government and get away with it sounds like hyperbole, an absurd and uncharitable caricature of conservative thought. Except that is exactly what Trump’s attorney D. John Sauer argued before the Supreme Court yesterday, taking the position that former presidents have “absolute immunity” for so-called official acts they take in office.
“How about if a president orders the military to stage a coup?” Justice Elena Kagan asked Sauer. “I think it would depend on the circumstances whether it was an official act,” Sauer said after a brief exchange. “If it were an official act … he would have to be impeached and convicted.”
“That sure sounds bad, doesn’t it?” Kagan replied later.
The Democratic appointees on the bench sought to illustrate the inherent absurdity of this argument with other scenarios as well—Kagan got Sauer to admit that the president could share nuclear secrets, while Justice Sonia Sotomayor presented a scenario in which a president orders the military to assassinate a political rival. Sauer said that might qualify as an official act too. It was the only way to maintain the logic of his argument, which is that Trump is above the law
This Mike Luchovich cartoon is brutal and true. shift to the other SCOTUS shit show this week. N has “Takeaways from the Supreme Court’s oral arguments over emergency abortions.” Again, thank goodness my youngest daughter is in Denver, or who knows what her outcome may have been. Dr Daughter is getting more colleagues in Washington State because of Idaho. P gnant women are gestational containers there. Th s analysis is provided by Tierney Sneed and John Fritze.
In a Supreme Court hearing on the Biden administration’s challenge to aspects of Idaho’s strict abortion ban, US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar sought to appeal to conservative justices who just two years ago ruled that states should have the ability to prohibit the procedure.
The dispute, stemming from the Justice Department’s marquee response to the high court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022, turns on whether federal mandates for hospital emergency room care override abortion bans that do not exempt situations where a woman’s health is in danger but her life is not yet threatened.
To prevail, the Biden administration will need the votes of two members of the court’s conservative bloc, and with Justice Brett Kavanaugh signaling sympathies toward Idaho, the case will likely come down to the votes of Chief Justice John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett. The two justices had tough questions for both sides of the case.
The court’s far-right wing, perhaps in an attempt to keep those two justices on their side, framed the case as a federal overreach into state power. The court’s liberals, meanwhile, focused on the grisly details of medical emergencies faced by pregnant woman that were not covered by the limited life-of-the-woman exemption in Idaho’s ban.
Follow the link to the list of take-aways. While that craziness was going on in the District, we continued to be treated to the life and times of Tabloid targets and publishers. Every time I tune into anything dealing with Trump, I feel like someone slipped me the brown acid. H can one malevolent man be so universally dangerous and disruptive? Especially one so incredibly stupid! C we have a debate on who is more genuinely evil? A to or Trump? Thomas is a stooge. Kavanaugh is a wingman. Gorsuch certainly is in the running for evil, but not the way Alito does it. Robarts is out of his league and likely to go down in shame as history judges him the least effective Chief Justice ever
So, back to Pecker and the man who has to pay for sex coming and going. There’s been a whole of objecting accompanied by “sustained.”

recross: Trump cares about his family and so was worried about these types of stories, right?
objection
sustained
End of Pecker testimony
— Harry Litman (@harrylitman) April 26, 2024

JUST NOW: During his cross of Pecker, Trump's defense attorney, Emil Bove, has been repeatedly referring to Trump as "President Trump" when referencing periods of time when Trump was not in office.
The DA's office keeps objecting and Judge Merchan keeps sustaining those…
— Katie Phang (@KatiePhang) April 26, 2024

The prosecution needs to build a bridge for the jury into Trump's mind that establishes his intent
Pecker was a great witness for just that

I discussed that & what to expect when the next witness takes the stand @CNN @questCNN @OmarJimenez pic.twitter.com/ozKxHydNHS
— Norm Eisen (#TryingTrump out now!) (@NormEisen) April 26, 2024

More will be coming once the print journalists get their stories in. I wish I could be Pollyanna and play the glad game, but I can only come up with the bad news. We get to see this continually, which is also the thing I’m glad about. I m feel like a total masochist every time I turn the TV on or read a magazine article, but just think how awful it would be if we didn’t know about this. I’m not sure what will become of Donald, but I’m certain that we still have time to make certain he doesn’t get back into the White House. We have time to stop the MAGAdons that want to clone that agenda into every state and the U.S. Congress. We’ll see and read nothing else but propaganda if we don’t stop them now.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Guess who John Prine wrote this about?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/04/26/funereal-friday-reads-life-as-a-dank-meme/
#PresidentialImmunity_ #Repeat1968 #EmergencyPregnancyHealthCare #JohnBuss #SCOTUS #TheCaravanOfFools #TheEvilTwinsDonaldAndAlito

#presidentialimmunity_ #repeat1968 #emergencypregnancyhealthcare #johnbuss #scotus #thecaravanoffools
Beko Pharm @[email protected] · 2022-03-02 · 19:33 UTC
The last update has been a while. I focused my attention to the MFDs (Multi-function display). This part didn’t get much attention yet and I was caught between the difficult choice to learn yet another fancy framework, like Raylib, that would do OpenGL ES 2.0 without X11 on the Raspberry – or just throw the might of my CoffeeLake at it and go with ReactJS since most of the data was already available via NodeRED anyway. Also… ARWES is just so cool 🤩
I went with ReactJS and ARWES again, simply because I have some experience in this by know thanks to my Streaming Overlay I wrote with it. Hobbling it up to NodeRED was just a matter of installing SocketIO to transport the messages. It’s all a very hacky mess but it gets the job done.
Video demonstration of my simulated cockpit made from cardboard on a budget mainly used to play Elite Dangerous in early 2022. This is work in progress.
While seeking through the available data I noticed that I don’t get velocity values from Elite. That’s not so important in space but _kinda_ interesting for me in planetary flight to satisfy the flight sim gamer in me as well. I noticed tho that I do get timestamped latitude, longitude and altitude values so shouldn’t it be possible to “simply” calculate this, right? Right?
This was when I dived into the rabbit hole of calculating velocity and heading on planetary objects using a spherical coordinate system and while I didn’t nail it exactly how Elite does it the result is close enough. The game provides the required data to go crazy here – most important the radius of the current object. In _theory_ I could start writing some primitive AFS (Auto Flight System) routines now, which I’m totally going to explore at some point in the future just because 🤓
Checking my maths – yes, altitude is added to the mix so velocity is mostly correct as long as no rapid course changes are made
After spending way too much time with this and the Pythagorean theorem (Yes mum, a game made me do maths. MATHS! 🤯) I settled with some calculations and data for my current ship to the right and targeted ship data on the left. This is sort of tricky because many game events update different parts of the data so timestamps have to be kept in mind and a game specific parsing strategy is required. See the last part of the demonstration video to get an idea how this looks.
Improving situational awareness by putting the video feed of wingman / gunner on the central MFD.
Another point to tick off my list was getting the head tracking to work in Elite (again). Now this is very Linux PC specific so you may tune out on this paragraph. On Linux PC I’d usually compile Opentrack with the Wine Glue, patch in my appdata dir for Proton and hope that it’s still ABI compliant to Just work™. Alas recent Proton is sandboxed within pressure vessel and the usual approach of memory mapping is simply no longer working, if I got the gist of this right.
So my _current_ strategy is to download and drop the Windows build of Opentrack into the game folder and chain-load the EXE with the game where the Opentrack EXE would listen on UDP while my native Opentrack BIN would send via UDP. A task not made easy with Proton but it is possible. The following snippet may give you some pointers:
```
#!/bin/bashexport STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH=/games/steam/steamapps/compatdata/359320export STEAM_COMPAT_CLIENT_INSTALL_PATH="$HOME/.steam/steam"python3 /games/steam/steamapps/common/Proton\ -\ Experimental/proton run opentrack.exe
```
Why running Opentrack twice? The native build performs a lot better with my webcam and every frame really count here. Reading data via UDP is not much of a burden for Proton. This also saves me the trouble of fiddling with Wine Glue, a painful compile process nobody should endure involving installation of many many additional 32bit libraries. Hilarious but it works.
This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
#arwes #diy #elitedangerous #elitedangerousodyssey #gamingonlinux #headtracker #linuxgaming #nodered #opentrack #raspberrypi #simpit
https://beko.famkos.net/2022/03/02/primary-buffer-panel-march-update/
#arwes #diy #elitedangerous #elitedangerousodyssey #gamingonlinux #headtracker
Play Comics @[email protected] · 2024-02-26 · 07:15 UTC
Attention all Gundam fanatics and mech maniacs! Today we’re blasting off into the cosmos with Mobile Suit Gundam Zeonic Front for the PlayStation 2!
Joining us is none other than Scott Wachter from the wildly popular podcast The Recap From Mercury. Scott’s expertise lies in overanalyzing obtuse science fiction plots, so he’s the perfect wingman to navigate the tangled narrative threads of the One Year War.
Will the valiant Federation pilots emerge victorious against the dastardly Zeon forces? Can any of us mere mortals comprehend the sheer scale of these titanic mech battles? And is Scott prepared to have his mind blown by the sheer excess of beam spam?
Strap in tight and get ready for rocket-powered robot rampage as we go full psyco gundam on Zeonic Front! The battlefield drama awaits…just try not to get caught in the crossfire. Over and out, soldiers!
Learn such things as:
- Is everyone in the wrong uniform really a bad guy?
- How can a simple TV programming snafu change the course of a generation?
- Do we need more games where you play as the villains?
- And so much more!
You can find Scott on Twitter @fs_wachter, Bluesky @fs-scott.bsky.social, and on his own Gundam specific podcast The Recap From Mercury.
If you want to be a guest on the show please check out the Be a A Guest on the Show page and let me know what you’re interested in.
If you want to help support the show check out the Play Comics Patreon page or head over to the Support page if you want to go another route. You can also check out the Play Comics Merch Store.
Play Comics is part of the Gonna Geek Network, which is a wonderful collection of geeky podcasts. Be sure to check out the other shows on Gonna Geek if you need more of a nerd fix.
You can find Play Comics @playcomics.bsky.social on Bluesky, @playcomicscast on Twitter and in the Play Comics Podcast Fan Group on Facebook.
A big thanks to Film Rage and Bring Your Own Mech for the promos today.
Intro/Outro Music by Best Day, who controls his Mechs with an Atari Jaguar controller.
https://playcomics.com/mobile-suit-gundam-zeonic-front-with-scott-wachter-recap-from-mercury/
#ASCIIMediaWorks #BClub #Bandai #ComicBomBom #ComicWalker #CPOManning #DelRayBooks #DengekiComics #Egmont #EnsCharlotteHepner #EnsNikkiRoberto #Gakken #JitsugyoNoNihonSha #KadokawaShoten #Kodansha #LCDRGarretSchmitzer #LtLouRoher #LtRenchef #LtSandra #LtSophieFran #MCPOMattAustin #MEDIACOMIX #MediaWorks #Migaki #MixxEntertainment #PlayStation2 #POLeeSwaggard #ScottWachter #Shogakukan #Tokyopop #VerticalInc #Viz
#asciimediaworks #bclub #bandai #comicbombom #comicwalker #cpomanning
demi7en 🎗🇪🇺 @[email protected] · 2025-03-07 · 19:04 UTC

@Lazarou A few considerations: 1) The F-35 is currently a "force multiplier" with various electronic capabilities Europe can't replace or reproduce in the next few years even with the best effort, on top of current cutting-edge low-observable design. Having F-35s in the mix together with European air superiority fighters (Eurofighter Typhoon, Rafale etc.) is really, really helpful.
The latest F-35 Block 4 / TR-3 (still awaiting clearance, essentially software certification) will enhance those electronic capabilities further.
2) Customers can buy localized "server/mainframe" capability essentially removing the need to depend on the USA for that service. If the USA cut off access to e.g. the constantly updated "threat libraries", Europe could do their best to manage their own sharing.
3) Europe simply can't depend on the USA acting in Europe's best interests for the foreseeable future. Building more Typhoons and Rafales and perhaps increasing investment in their further development is a rational option and IMO should be done in any case (esp. the latter; see #5b below).
4) Invest in European manufacturing (i.e. orders) of locally designed missiles (consumables) such as the Meteor and Mica.
New options:
5a) Invest in European twin-seaters and speed up the development of the "unmanned wingman" type aircraft to take responsibility of the frontline stealth/low-observability (LO) missions (South Koreans are also developing these).
5b) Join forces with South Korean (ROK) KAI and licence/collaborate/fast-track the fully 'LO' next versions of the already flight-cerfified KF-21, except replacing its GE F414 engines with roughly similar European engines used in the Typhoon and Rafale (both of which are slightly slimmer and longer, requiring tweaks to the airframe). ROK ought to be interested in a dependable alternative source for engines too.
Europe could be churning out Korean-European 5th gen fighters with no dependency on the USA within two years. Some argue that stealth/LO designs will become moot with advancements in radar and AI tech, but they will always have advantage over non-stealth designs.
#EuropeanDefence #SouthKorea #KF21 #F35 #Typhoon #Rafale #Gripen

#5b #europeandefence #southkorea #kf21 #f35 #typhoon
:rss: 電撃ホビーウェブ @[email protected] · 2025-06-25 · 08:05 UTC

「1/12可動フィギュアシリーズウイングマン」のカプセルトイ版とボックストイ版を比較レビュー！高い可動性でポーズは自由自在、カプセルトイ版は3種集めればデルタエンドの再現も！
https://hobby.dengeki.com/reviews/2623670/
#hobby_dengeki #カプセルトイ #スケール #ヒーロー_メカフィギュア #フィギュア #プラモデル #スタジオソータ #ウイングマン #ウィングマン #wingman #桂正和 #ボックストイ #可動フィギュア #可動式フィギュア #アクションフィギュア #ドラマ #漫画 #マンガ #週刊少年ジャンプ #ジャンプ #ガチャ #ガチャガチャ #ガシャポン #ガチャポン #新作 #新商品 #新製品 #グッズ

#hobby_dengeki #カプセルトイ #スケール #ヒーロー_メカフィギュア #フィギュア #プラモデル
Lumlux Art @[email protected] · 2024-12-02 · 08:46 UTC

#Apps, #Bumble, #CoffeeMeetsBagel, #Dating, #DatingApps, #eHarmony, #Fairytrail, #Grindr, #Happn, #Her, #Hinge, #Match, #MeetMindful, #OkCupid, #Onlinedating, #POF, #Raya, #Tinder, #Wingman
https://lumlux-art.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-online-dating-and-dating-apps/

#apps #bumble #coffeemeetsbagel #dating #datingapps #eharmony
Sky Dancing @[email protected] · 2025-07-19 · 16:34 UTC

Lazy Caturday Reads: Is the Epstein Scandal Doing Real Damage to Trump?
Good Morning!!

Cat reading news, Deven Rex

Well, it’s been quite a week. It’s been Jeffrey Epstein all the time. For the first time, it seems that a scandal is actually sticking to Trump, although he could still escape, as he usually does. He does seem uniquely panicked though. Yesterday, he sued the Wall Street Journal for publishing a suggestive message he reportedly sent to Epstein for his 50th birthday.
From Ron Filipkowski’s summary of yesterday’s politics news at Meidas:
… WSJ poured more gas on Trump’s raging Epstein inferno with a new story about a birthday card that he sent to the child trafficker and rapist in 2003. The story said Ghislaine Maxwell asked friends of Epstein to submit cards to compile as a special gift for this 50th birthday, and Trump sent one is as one of his closest friends.
… “The letter bearing Trump’s name, which was reviewed by the Journal, is bawdy—like others in the album. It contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly ‘Donald’ below her waist, mimicking pubic hair.”
… Inside the outline of the naked woman was a typewritten note styled as an imaginary conversation between Trump and Epstein, written in the third person.
“Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything,” the note began.
Donald: Yes, there is, but I won’t tell you what it is.
Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I also know what it is.
Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey: Yes, we do, come to think of it.
Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?
Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you.
Donald: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.
… When asked about the letter and picture prior to publishing, Trump naturally denied everything to the Journal: “This is not me. This is a fake thing. It’s a fake Wall Street Journal story. I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women. It’s not my language. It’s not my words. I’m gonna sue WSJ just like I sued everyone else.”
… The WSJ, other media sources, and social media users then posted online several drawings that Trump made at various times on different occasions to refute Trump’s claim.
Flipkowski included several of Trump’s drawings in his post.
Tyler Pager at The New York Times on Trump’s claim he never draws pictures: Trump Says He Doesn’t ‘Draw Pictures.’ But Many of His Sketches Sold at Auction.

President Trump mounted a vigorous rebuttal on Thursday night to a report in The Wall Street Journal that he sent a birthday greeting with a sexually suggestive drawing to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003.
His alibi: “I don’t draw pictures,” he wrote on Truth Social.
But a review of the president’s past reveals that, for years, Mr. Trump was a high-profile doodler — or at least suggested he was. In the early 2000s, he regularly donated drawings to charities in New York. The drawings, many of which appear to be done with a thick, black-marker and prominently feature his signature are not dissimilar to how The Journal describes the birthday note he sent Mr. Epstein.
“It takes me a few minutes to draw something, in my case, it’s usually a building or a cityscape of skyscrapers, and then sign my name, but it raises thousands of dollars to help the hungry in New York through the Capuchin Food Pantries Ministry,” he wrote in his 2008 book, “Trump Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges Into Success.”
After Mr. Trump was elected president, some of the drawings he signed were auctioned off for thousands of dollars — even as he wrote in his book that “art may not be my strong point.”

This is from historian Heather Cox Richardson’s recap of the day at Letters from an American:
Now we know why President Donald J. Trump earlier this week began saying nonsensically that Democrats he dislikes wrote the Epstein files. Apparently, Trump was trying to get out in front of the story Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo broke last night in the Wall Street Journal, reporting that Trump contributed what the newspaper called a “bawdy” letter to a leather-bound album compiled by Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell in 2003 for Epstein’s 50th birthday….

Sisters, by Elisheva Nesis

When the FBI raided Epstein’s mansion in Manhattan in 2019, they seized piles of evidence, including stacks of compact disks bearing the labels “Young [Name] + [Name],” suggesting he had kept video evidence of men sexually assaulting underage girls.
Within hours of the discovery of Epstein’s body in his prison cell in 2019, Trump was retweeting a conspiracy theory alleging that former president Bill Clinton was involved in his death. Trump and his loyalists pushed the idea that Epstein was trafficking girls to powerful Democratic politicians and Hollywood actors, an accusation that dovetailed with the QAnon conspiracy theory claiming that Trump was secretly leading the fight against such a cabal. Trump fed the idea that if reelected, he would release the information he claimed was being withheld as part of a coverup.
In fact, the politician most closely associated with Epstein was Trump himself. In 2002, Trump told New York Magazine: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it—Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
And yet Trump supporters overlooked Trump’s long friendship with Epstein until billionaire Elon Musk resurrected the story that Trump might be implicated in the records of the Epstein investigation. On June 5, in the midst of a fight with Trump, Musk posted on social media: “Time to drop the really big bomb: [Trump] is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”
Read the rest at the link. Richardson provides an excellent summary of the history of the Jeffrey Epstein case.
Dan Mangan at CNBC: Trump sues Murdoch for $10 billion over WSJ story on Epstein birthday letter.
President Donald Trump on Friday followed through on his threat to sue media mogul Rupert Murdoch after his Wall Street Journal published an article saying that Trump sent his then-friend Jeffrey Epstein a “bawdy” letter for Epstein’s 50th birthday.
Trump, who angrily denies writing the letter, is seeking damages of no less than $10 billion in the lawsuit alleging defamation.
Named as defendants in the suit in federal court in the Southern District of Florida are Murdoch, his company News Corp and its CEO Robert Thomson, the Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones & Co., and the two reporters who wrote the article published Thursday evening.
A Dow Jones spokesperson sent the following statement to CNBC: “We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”
The suit comes as Trump faces growing pressure to have the Justice Department release its investigative files about Epstein, who killed himself in August 2019 after being arrested on federal child sex trafficking charges.
The Journal’s article said that the letter purportedly written by Trump to Epstein in 2003 was among documents reviewed by criminal investigators who ultimately built criminal cases against Epstein and his convicted procurer, Ghislaine Maxwell, who reportedly solicited the letter from the president.
For the first time, Trump’s base is questioning his excuses, although some of his followers are defending him against the Wall Street Journal revelations, according to Axios.
David Smith at The Guardian: ‘The ghost of Epstein is haunting Trump’s presidency’: inside the ‘Maga’ revolt.
I feel so betrayed and so angry. This is not what I voted for.” “This cemented permanent deep state power.” “I’m concerned about being able to trust Donald Trump to keep his word.” “What about justice for these young ladies who were trafficked? What about their justice? Don’t they deserve justice?”

Yoga with my cat, Sharyn Bursic

These were MAGAjust a few of the calls that besieged conservative radio hosts across the US this week. The president’s ardent supporters spent the past decade fulminating over various foes, from Barack Obama and the deep state to undocumented immigrants and transgender children. Now they have a new target: Donald Trump himself.
The “Make America Great Again” (Maga) base is in revolt as never before. The trigger was Trump’s broken promise to publicly release details about Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier and convicted sex offender, who was facing federal charges of sex-trafficking minors when he died in jail in 2019.
Spurred by the president and his allies, Trump’s movement has long latched on to the Epstein scandal, claiming the existence of a secret client list and that he was murdered in his cell as part of a cover-up. But last week the justice department and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced there was no evidence that the disgraced financier kept such a list or was blackmailing powerful figures.
Far from closing the case, the memo deepened supporters’ obsession and sense of grievance. A movement defined by the view that elites rig the system against them felt cheated. Trump made efforts to douse the flames with ever-shifting explanations, excuses and distractions but merely poured fuel on the fire.
To some, his erratic and evasive behaviour implies a guilty secret. It also evokes a line from President John F Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address: “Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.” Having spent years embracing QAnon-tinged propaganda that casts him as the only saviour who can demolish the “deep state”, Trump is now seen as co-opted by its corrupt bureaucracy.
Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman who ran against Trump for president in 2020, said: “I talk to the base every day and nothing animates the base more than the deep state. This Epstein thing was Trump’s promise. This was going to finally expose the deep state. Now Trump says nothing there? It ain’t going to stand.”
More on the MAGA complaints:
When he was running for president, Trump said he would release files related to the case. But a bundle put out in February contained little new information. Then in June the spotlight turned back on the president when his former adviser Elon Musk claimed – in a now-deleted X post – that Trump is “in the Epstein files”.
Just a month later, a memo from the justice department and FBI said the Epstein files did not contain evidence that would justify further investigation. An almost 11-hour video published to dispel theories Epstein was murdered showed a section of the New York prison on the night Epstein died but appeared to be missing a minute of footage.
The Maga faithful erupted in fury. Media personality Tucker Carlson, activist Laura Loomer and Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon claim the government’s handling of the case lacks transparency. The far-right commentator Jack Posobiec said he would not rest “until we go full Jan 6 committee on the Jeffrey Epstein files”.
Baffled, flailing and unusually out of step, Trump used his Truth Social platform to call supporters off the Epstein trail amid reports of infighting between the attorney general, Pam Bondi, and the FBI deputy director, Dan Bongino, over the issue.
There’s much more at The Guardian. This is an excellent summary of the Epstein case and recent events.
Last night, a stunning story broke about efforts in the DOJ to find out how often Trump was mentioned in the Epstein files. Nnamdi Egwuonwu at NBC News: FBI personnel were told to flag Epstein files mentioning Trump, Senate Democrat says.
Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., pressed Justice Department leadership about their handling of files related to the federal investigation into the late Jeffrey Epstein, including reports that FBI personnel were instructed to “flag” any records that mentioned President Donald Trump.

Mr. Angel, sir, Some Other Dude Done It, Elishiva Nesis

In a series of oversight letters written to Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, Durbin questioned Bondi about “contradictions” in her public statements on the case, Patel about reports that he was “pressured” by Bondi to place 1,000 personnel on 24-hour shifts to mine roughly 100,000 Epstein-related records and Bongino about reported disputes among Trump officials about “the lack of transparency” in their handling of the high-profile case.
In the letters sent Friday, Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked each of the Trump administration officials to respond to informationreceived by his office that suggested FBI personnel were specifically instructed to “flag” any records mentioning Trump.
“My office was told that these personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned…. Why were personnel told to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned,” Durbin asked Bondi, Patel and Bongino in separate letters. “What happened to the records mentioning President Trump once they were flagged?”
A Durbin aide told NBC News that the senator’s office received that information from a protected FBI whistleblower disclosure.
The FBI declined NBC News’ request for comment on Durbin’s letters.
One thousand agents were required to find all the Trump mentions? Good grief!

Durbin, like many of Trump’s supporters over the past week, asked the attorney general to reconcile her earlier public declarations with her department’s finding that “no further disclosures” are warranted in the case and that a review of records “revealed no incriminating client list.”
“Why did you publicly claim on February 21 that the client list was ‘sitting on my desk right now to review?'” Durbin asked Bondi. “If it was not a client list, what was ‘sitting on your desk’ at that moment?”
Bongino and Patel have also faced backlash online. Both of them previously promoted conspiracy theories that suggested the Epstein case was part of a government cover-up to protect powerful political players involved in a child abuse ring.
Patel, in the only post he’s made to his personal social media account since the Justice Department memo was released, said “the conspiracy theories just aren’t true” and “never have been.” Durbin, aiming to call attention to Patel’s past suggestions of a cover-up, asked the FBI director to detail the conspiracy theories he was referring to in his post.
“What are the conspiracy theories you are referring to in your July 12 tweet that ‘were never true?’ If there are more than one, please explain each in detail,” the senator wrote to Patel.
Read more at the link.
I’m glad Durbin is asking questions, and he’s not the only Democratic Senator who is looking into the Epstein mess. Matthew Goldstein at The New York Times (gift link): In Epstein Case, Follow the Money, Democratic Senator Says.
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee, has been digging into Mr. Epstein’s financial network for the past three years. Some members of his staff have viewed confidential files that shed light on the immense sums of money that, they say, Mr. Epstein moved through the banking system to fuel his vast sex-trafficking network.
In particular, filings by four big banks flagged more than $1.5 billion in transactions — including thousands of wire transfers for the purchase and sale of artwork for rich friends, fees paid to Mr. Epstein by wealthy individuals, and payments to numerous women, the senator’s office found. The filings came after Mr. Epstein was arrested in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges.

Catriona Millar

Large money transfers to individuals, foreign countries or obscure companies are the kind of things banks are supposed to be examining as potentially suspicious. Some of the Epstein money transfers disclosed in a report from JPMorgan Chase involved accounts at two Russian banks before those institutions were subject to U.S. sanctions. A few transactions red-flagged were for as much as $100 million.
Mr. Wyden said his investigation into Mr. Epstein’s finances had taken on new urgency now that the Trump administration was balking at releasing any of the information seized by the F.B.I. from Mr. Epstein’s homes or information collected from the nation’s banks. Like many Republicans on the far right, Mr. Wyden and a growing number of Democrats believe there are more details about Mr. Epstein that the federal government needs to reveal.
“We felt from the beginning this was a follow-the-money case,” Mr. Wyden said in an interview. “This horrific sex-trafficking operation cost Epstein a lot of money, and he had to get that money from somewhere.”
The bank records reviewed by Mr. Wyden’s staff — called suspicious activity reports or SARs — are meant to be an early warning system for law enforcement about signs of illegal activity. As dictated by federal law, the reports are so confidential that banks can’t even acknowledge filing them, and people who have seen the documents are under great constraint as to what they can say about them.
Members of Mr. Wyden’s staff provided an overview of the banks’ reports to The New York Times based on their review of the filings.
There’s much more detail in the story. You can use the above gift link to read the whole thing if you’re interested.
An interesting piece by Emell Derra Adolphus at The Daily Beast: Epstein’s Ex Reveals What Pedo Said About His ‘Bro’ Trump.
An ex-girlfriend of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein characterized his relationship with President Donald Trump as “very close and up to no good.”
“They were best friends,” Stacey Williams, who says she dated Epstein for “about four or five months,” told CNN’s Brianna Keilar. “The only friend he would mention every time we saw each other or every time we had a phone conversation was Donald.”

Trump has gone to great pains to distance himself from Epstein; Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned alleged mastermind behind Epstein’s sexual offenses; and tales of sordid parties and predatory escapades on Epstein’s private island.

But Williams cast doubt on Trump’s attempts to distance himself from the disgraced financier.
“That was his bro, that was his wingman,” said Williams, 57, a former model who alleged that Trump groped her in 1993, the Guardian reported. Williams even said she met Epstein at a Christmas party that Trump threw at the Plaza Hotel in 1992….
Williams said during the Friday interview that Epstein would “share a lot of anecdotes” about his time with Trump. She added, “I have plenty of anecdotes. And yeah, they were they were very close and they were up to no good.”
More Epstein stories

USA Today: Could Pam Bondi have prosecuted Jeffrey Epstein when she was Florida’s top legal officer?
NBC News: ‘Let me see the videotapes’: Mark Epstein wants Steve Bannon’s 15 hours of unseen footage of his brother. Bannon said he plans to release his documentary about Jeffrey Epstein “early next year.”
NBC News: Trump frustrated at having to take the heat for Pam Bondi’s handling of the Epstein files.
Aaron Blake at CNN: 5 big questions about Trump’s ties to Epstein.

Bohemia El Gato, by Luis Garces

Other Interesting News Stories
The New York Times: Why Are More Than 100 People Still Missing in Texas, 2 Weeks After the Floods?
ABC Eyewitness News 7: 30 injured after car plows through crowd in East Hollywood, driver is pulled from vehicle and shot.
The Washington Post: U.S.-Venezuela prisoner swap frees Americans for migrants in El Salvador.
The New York Times: Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Hits Senior Care Work Force.
CBS News: Trump’s immigration crackdown causing labor shortages to California’s construction industry, builder says: “They’re hiding.”
The Hill: Indiana’s Camp Atterbury to be used to house detained migrants.
The New York Times: Lawmakers Question Whether CBS Canceled Colbert’s Show for Political Reasons.
That’s it for me. What’s on your mind today?

#DonaldTrump #EpsteinFiles #FBI #GhislaineMaxwell #JeffreyEpstein #MAGABase #PamBpndi #SenDickDurbin #SenRonWyden #sexualAbuseOfChildren #StaceyWilliams

#donaldtrump #epsteinfiles #fbi #ghislainemaxwell #jeffreyepstein #magabase
Sky Dancing @[email protected] · 2025-07-19 · 16:34 UTC

Lazy Caturday Reads: Is the Epstein Scandal Doing Real Damage to Trump?
Good Morning!!

Cat reading news, Deven Rex

Well, it’s been quite a week. It’s been Jeffrey Epstein all the time. For the first time, it seems that a scandal is actually sticking to Trump, although he could still escape, as he usually does. He does seem uniquely panicked though. Yesterday, he sued the Wall Street Journal for publishing a suggestive message he reportedly sent to Epstein for his 50th birthday.
From Ron Filipkowski’s summary of yesterday’s politics news at Meidas:
… WSJ poured more gas on Trump’s raging Epstein inferno with a new story about a birthday card that he sent to the child trafficker and rapist in 2003. The story said Ghislaine Maxwell asked friends of Epstein to submit cards to compile as a special gift for this 50th birthday, and Trump sent one is as one of his closest friends.
… “The letter bearing Trump’s name, which was reviewed by the Journal, is bawdy—like others in the album. It contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly ‘Donald’ below her waist, mimicking pubic hair.”
… Inside the outline of the naked woman was a typewritten note styled as an imaginary conversation between Trump and Epstein, written in the third person.
“Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything,” the note began.
Donald: Yes, there is, but I won’t tell you what it is.
Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I also know what it is.
Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey: Yes, we do, come to think of it.
Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?
Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you.
Donald: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.
… When asked about the letter and picture prior to publishing, Trump naturally denied everything to the Journal: “This is not me. This is a fake thing. It’s a fake Wall Street Journal story. I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women. It’s not my language. It’s not my words. I’m gonna sue WSJ just like I sued everyone else.”
… The WSJ, other media sources, and social media users then posted online several drawings that Trump made at various times on different occasions to refute Trump’s claim.
Flipkowski included several of Trump’s drawings in his post.
Tyler Pager at The New York Times on Trump’s claim he never draws pictures: Trump Says He Doesn’t ‘Draw Pictures.’ But Many of His Sketches Sold at Auction.

President Trump mounted a vigorous rebuttal on Thursday night to a report in The Wall Street Journal that he sent a birthday greeting with a sexually suggestive drawing to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003.
His alibi: “I don’t draw pictures,” he wrote on Truth Social.
But a review of the president’s past reveals that, for years, Mr. Trump was a high-profile doodler — or at least suggested he was. In the early 2000s, he regularly donated drawings to charities in New York. The drawings, many of which appear to be done with a thick, black-marker and prominently feature his signature are not dissimilar to how The Journal describes the birthday note he sent Mr. Epstein.
“It takes me a few minutes to draw something, in my case, it’s usually a building or a cityscape of skyscrapers, and then sign my name, but it raises thousands of dollars to help the hungry in New York through the Capuchin Food Pantries Ministry,” he wrote in his 2008 book, “Trump Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges Into Success.”
After Mr. Trump was elected president, some of the drawings he signed were auctioned off for thousands of dollars — even as he wrote in his book that “art may not be my strong point.”

This is from historian Heather Cox Richardson’s recap of the day at Letters from an American:
Now we know why President Donald J. Trump earlier this week began saying nonsensically that Democrats he dislikes wrote the Epstein files. Apparently, Trump was trying to get out in front of the story Khadeeja Safdar and Joe Palazzolo broke last night in the Wall Street Journal, reporting that Trump contributed what the newspaper called a “bawdy” letter to a leather-bound album compiled by Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell in 2003 for Epstein’s 50th birthday….

Sisters, by Elisheva Nesis

When the FBI raided Epstein’s mansion in Manhattan in 2019, they seized piles of evidence, including stacks of compact disks bearing the labels “Young [Name] + [Name],” suggesting he had kept video evidence of men sexually assaulting underage girls.
Within hours of the discovery of Epstein’s body in his prison cell in 2019, Trump was retweeting a conspiracy theory alleging that former president Bill Clinton was involved in his death. Trump and his loyalists pushed the idea that Epstein was trafficking girls to powerful Democratic politicians and Hollywood actors, an accusation that dovetailed with the QAnon conspiracy theory claiming that Trump was secretly leading the fight against such a cabal. Trump fed the idea that if reelected, he would release the information he claimed was being withheld as part of a coverup.
In fact, the politician most closely associated with Epstein was Trump himself. In 2002, Trump told New York Magazine: “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it—Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
And yet Trump supporters overlooked Trump’s long friendship with Epstein until billionaire Elon Musk resurrected the story that Trump might be implicated in the records of the Epstein investigation. On June 5, in the midst of a fight with Trump, Musk posted on social media: “Time to drop the really big bomb: [Trump] is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”
Read the rest at the link. Richardson provides an excellent summary of the history of the Jeffrey Epstein case.
Dan Mangan at CNBC: Trump sues Murdoch for $10 billion over WSJ story on Epstein birthday letter.
President Donald Trump on Friday followed through on his threat to sue media mogul Rupert Murdoch after his Wall Street Journal published an article saying that Trump sent his then-friend Jeffrey Epstein a “bawdy” letter for Epstein’s 50th birthday.
Trump, who angrily denies writing the letter, is seeking damages of no less than $10 billion in the lawsuit alleging defamation.
Named as defendants in the suit in federal court in the Southern District of Florida are Murdoch, his company News Corp and its CEO Robert Thomson, the Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones & Co., and the two reporters who wrote the article published Thursday evening.
A Dow Jones spokesperson sent the following statement to CNBC: “We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”
The suit comes as Trump faces growing pressure to have the Justice Department release its investigative files about Epstein, who killed himself in August 2019 after being arrested on federal child sex trafficking charges.
The Journal’s article said that the letter purportedly written by Trump to Epstein in 2003 was among documents reviewed by criminal investigators who ultimately built criminal cases against Epstein and his convicted procurer, Ghislaine Maxwell, who reportedly solicited the letter from the president.
For the first time, Trump’s base is questioning his excuses, although some of his followers are defending him against the Wall Street Journal revelations, according to Axios.
David Smith at The Guardian: ‘The ghost of Epstein is haunting Trump’s presidency’: inside the ‘Maga’ revolt.
I feel so betrayed and so angry. This is not what I voted for.” “This cemented permanent deep state power.” “I’m concerned about being able to trust Donald Trump to keep his word.” “What about justice for these young ladies who were trafficked? What about their justice? Don’t they deserve justice?”

Yoga with my cat, Sharyn Bursic

These were MAGAjust a few of the calls that besieged conservative radio hosts across the US this week. The president’s ardent supporters spent the past decade fulminating over various foes, from Barack Obama and the deep state to undocumented immigrants and transgender children. Now they have a new target: Donald Trump himself.
The “Make America Great Again” (Maga) base is in revolt as never before. The trigger was Trump’s broken promise to publicly release details about Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier and convicted sex offender, who was facing federal charges of sex-trafficking minors when he died in jail in 2019.
Spurred by the president and his allies, Trump’s movement has long latched on to the Epstein scandal, claiming the existence of a secret client list and that he was murdered in his cell as part of a cover-up. But last week the justice department and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced there was no evidence that the disgraced financier kept such a list or was blackmailing powerful figures.
Far from closing the case, the memo deepened supporters’ obsession and sense of grievance. A movement defined by the view that elites rig the system against them felt cheated. Trump made efforts to douse the flames with ever-shifting explanations, excuses and distractions but merely poured fuel on the fire.
To some, his erratic and evasive behaviour implies a guilty secret. It also evokes a line from President John F Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address: “Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.” Having spent years embracing QAnon-tinged propaganda that casts him as the only saviour who can demolish the “deep state”, Trump is now seen as co-opted by its corrupt bureaucracy.
Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman who ran against Trump for president in 2020, said: “I talk to the base every day and nothing animates the base more than the deep state. This Epstein thing was Trump’s promise. This was going to finally expose the deep state. Now Trump says nothing there? It ain’t going to stand.”
More on the MAGA complaints:
When he was running for president, Trump said he would release files related to the case. But a bundle put out in February contained little new information. Then in June the spotlight turned back on the president when his former adviser Elon Musk claimed – in a now-deleted X post – that Trump is “in the Epstein files”.
Just a month later, a memo from the justice department and FBI said the Epstein files did not contain evidence that would justify further investigation. An almost 11-hour video published to dispel theories Epstein was murdered showed a section of the New York prison on the night Epstein died but appeared to be missing a minute of footage.
The Maga faithful erupted in fury. Media personality Tucker Carlson, activist Laura Loomer and Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon claim the government’s handling of the case lacks transparency. The far-right commentator Jack Posobiec said he would not rest “until we go full Jan 6 committee on the Jeffrey Epstein files”.
Baffled, flailing and unusually out of step, Trump used his Truth Social platform to call supporters off the Epstein trail amid reports of infighting between the attorney general, Pam Bondi, and the FBI deputy director, Dan Bongino, over the issue.
There’s much more at The Guardian. This is an excellent summary of the Epstein case and recent events.
Last night, a stunning story broke about efforts in the DOJ to find out how often Trump was mentioned in the Epstein files. Nnamdi Egwuonwu at NBC News: FBI personnel were told to flag Epstein files mentioning Trump, Senate Democrat says.
Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., pressed Justice Department leadership about their handling of files related to the federal investigation into the late Jeffrey Epstein, including reports that FBI personnel were instructed to “flag” any records that mentioned President Donald Trump.

Mr. Angel, sir, Some Other Dude Done It, Elishiva Nesis

In a series of oversight letters written to Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, Durbin questioned Bondi about “contradictions” in her public statements on the case, Patel about reports that he was “pressured” by Bondi to place 1,000 personnel on 24-hour shifts to mine roughly 100,000 Epstein-related records and Bongino about reported disputes among Trump officials about “the lack of transparency” in their handling of the high-profile case.
In the letters sent Friday, Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked each of the Trump administration officials to respond to informationreceived by his office that suggested FBI personnel were specifically instructed to “flag” any records mentioning Trump.
“My office was told that these personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned…. Why were personnel told to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned,” Durbin asked Bondi, Patel and Bongino in separate letters. “What happened to the records mentioning President Trump once they were flagged?”
A Durbin aide told NBC News that the senator’s office received that information from a protected FBI whistleblower disclosure.
The FBI declined NBC News’ request for comment on Durbin’s letters.
One thousand agents were required to find all the Trump mentions? Good grief!

Durbin, like many of Trump’s supporters over the past week, asked the attorney general to reconcile her earlier public declarations with her department’s finding that “no further disclosures” are warranted in the case and that a review of records “revealed no incriminating client list.”
“Why did you publicly claim on February 21 that the client list was ‘sitting on my desk right now to review?'” Durbin asked Bondi. “If it was not a client list, what was ‘sitting on your desk’ at that moment?”
Bongino and Patel have also faced backlash online. Both of them previously promoted conspiracy theories that suggested the Epstein case was part of a government cover-up to protect powerful political players involved in a child abuse ring.
Patel, in the only post he’s made to his personal social media account since the Justice Department memo was released, said “the conspiracy theories just aren’t true” and “never have been.” Durbin, aiming to call attention to Patel’s past suggestions of a cover-up, asked the FBI director to detail the conspiracy theories he was referring to in his post.
“What are the conspiracy theories you are referring to in your July 12 tweet that ‘were never true?’ If there are more than one, please explain each in detail,” the senator wrote to Patel.
Read more at the link.
I’m glad Durbin is asking questions, and he’s not the only Democratic Senator who is looking into the Epstein mess. Matthew Goldstein at The New York Times (gift link): In Epstein Case, Follow the Money, Democratic Senator Says.
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the powerful Senate Finance Committee, has been digging into Mr. Epstein’s financial network for the past three years. Some members of his staff have viewed confidential files that shed light on the immense sums of money that, they say, Mr. Epstein moved through the banking system to fuel his vast sex-trafficking network.
In particular, filings by four big banks flagged more than $1.5 billion in transactions — including thousands of wire transfers for the purchase and sale of artwork for rich friends, fees paid to Mr. Epstein by wealthy individuals, and payments to numerous women, the senator’s office found. The filings came after Mr. Epstein was arrested in 2019 on federal sex trafficking charges.

Catriona Millar

Large money transfers to individuals, foreign countries or obscure companies are the kind of things banks are supposed to be examining as potentially suspicious. Some of the Epstein money transfers disclosed in a report from JPMorgan Chase involved accounts at two Russian banks before those institutions were subject to U.S. sanctions. A few transactions red-flagged were for as much as $100 million.
Mr. Wyden said his investigation into Mr. Epstein’s finances had taken on new urgency now that the Trump administration was balking at releasing any of the information seized by the F.B.I. from Mr. Epstein’s homes or information collected from the nation’s banks. Like many Republicans on the far right, Mr. Wyden and a growing number of Democrats believe there are more details about Mr. Epstein that the federal government needs to reveal.
“We felt from the beginning this was a follow-the-money case,” Mr. Wyden said in an interview. “This horrific sex-trafficking operation cost Epstein a lot of money, and he had to get that money from somewhere.”
The bank records reviewed by Mr. Wyden’s staff — called suspicious activity reports or SARs — are meant to be an early warning system for law enforcement about signs of illegal activity. As dictated by federal law, the reports are so confidential that banks can’t even acknowledge filing them, and people who have seen the documents are under great constraint as to what they can say about them.
Members of Mr. Wyden’s staff provided an overview of the banks’ reports to The New York Times based on their review of the filings.
There’s much more detail in the story. You can use the above gift link to read the whole thing if you’re interested.
An interesting piece by Emell Derra Adolphus at The Daily Beast: Epstein’s Ex Reveals What Pedo Said About His ‘Bro’ Trump.
An ex-girlfriend of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein characterized his relationship with President Donald Trump as “very close and up to no good.”
“They were best friends,” Stacey Williams, who says she dated Epstein for “about four or five months,” told CNN’s Brianna Keilar. “The only friend he would mention every time we saw each other or every time we had a phone conversation was Donald.”

Trump has gone to great pains to distance himself from Epstein; Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned alleged mastermind behind Epstein’s sexual offenses; and tales of sordid parties and predatory escapades on Epstein’s private island.

But Williams cast doubt on Trump’s attempts to distance himself from the disgraced financier.
“That was his bro, that was his wingman,” said Williams, 57, a former model who alleged that Trump groped her in 1993, the Guardian reported. Williams even said she met Epstein at a Christmas party that Trump threw at the Plaza Hotel in 1992….
Williams said during the Friday interview that Epstein would “share a lot of anecdotes” about his time with Trump. She added, “I have plenty of anecdotes. And yeah, they were they were very close and they were up to no good.”
More Epstein stories

USA Today: Could Pam Bondi have prosecuted Jeffrey Epstein when she was Florida’s top legal officer?
NBC News: ‘Let me see the videotapes’: Mark Epstein wants Steve Bannon’s 15 hours of unseen footage of his brother. Bannon said he plans to release his documentary about Jeffrey Epstein “early next year.”
NBC News: Trump frustrated at having to take the heat for Pam Bondi’s handling of the Epstein files.
Aaron Blake at CNN: 5 big questions about Trump’s ties to Epstein.

Bohemia El Gato, by Luis Garces

Other Interesting News Stories
The New York Times: Why Are More Than 100 People Still Missing in Texas, 2 Weeks After the Floods?
ABC Eyewitness News 7: 30 injured after car plows through crowd in East Hollywood, driver is pulled from vehicle and shot.
The Washington Post: U.S.-Venezuela prisoner swap frees Americans for migrants in El Salvador.
The New York Times: Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Hits Senior Care Work Force.
CBS News: Trump’s immigration crackdown causing labor shortages to California’s construction industry, builder says: “They’re hiding.”
The Hill: Indiana’s Camp Atterbury to be used to house detained migrants.
The New York Times: Lawmakers Question Whether CBS Canceled Colbert’s Show for Political Reasons.
That’s it for me. What’s on your mind today?

#DonaldTrump #EpsteinFiles #FBI #GhislaineMaxwell #JeffreyEpstein #MAGABase #PamBpndi #SenDickDurbin #SenRonWyden #sexualAbuseOfChildren #StaceyWilliams

#staceywilliams #sexualabuseofchildren #senronwyden #sendickdurbin #pambpndi #magabase
silmeth 🇺🇦 @[email protected] · 2024-04-15 · 10:14 UTC

Back around 2001 I got a PC racing wheel for Christmas. It was laying idle in the attic at my father’s place for over 20 years.
Recently I remembered it, happened to be visiting my father – found it. The old Logitech Wingman Formula Force GP still works quite well!
Plug&Play on Linux.
Got some new achievements in #DirtRally. :)
The game’s ~9 yo, the wheel ~23 years… does this count as #retroGaming?

#retrogaming #dirtrally
🍂 w i l l o w 🍂 @[email protected] · 2022-12-21 · 04:38 UTC

me and a buddy came up with a fake anime/manga about a salaryman who wants a girlfriend, but every woman he tries to date ends up wanting to be friends instead-- so he ends up with all of these cool new buddies but he still wishes that he could get a girlfriend
meanwhile his friend is the ultimate wingman and secretly "disposes of" anyone who's interested in salaryman's current crush
it's a comedy full of romance tropes :)
#DigitalArt #MastoArt #Art #knife #willowboneOCs

#willowboneocs #knife #art #mastoart #digitalart
📚 Aevisia @[email protected] · 2024-12-16 · 15:30 UTC

Holly is a hospice nurse caring for her grandmother, when she comes across an accidental note on her car that was meant for someone else. The man leaves another note apologizing for his embarrassing blunder, which then leads to a continuous exchange of notes between the two. This book is a mixture of humor and heart felt moments. A quick sweet read.
https://library.thecozy.cat/blog/worst-wingman-ever-by-abby-jimenez-book-review/
@bookstodon #bookstodon #books #abbyjimenez #romancebooks #shortstories #bookstagram #booktok

#bookstodon #books #abbyjimenez #romancebooks #shortstories #bookstagram
Tom Rocket's 🚀 @[email protected] · 2026-04-06 · 08:32 UTC

CW: NSFW / Erwachseneninhalt

Most people scroll right past this one. 😈 FFuck Force Premium — a poppers that doesn't ask nicely. Small bottle, merciless kick, built for the moments when fist sessions get serious. Your uncompromising wingman at €7.57 — and somehow still flying under everyone's radar. The crew knows. Now you do too. 🔥 #TomRockets #Poppers #GayLife
➡️ https://tomrockets.com/en/p/ffuck-force-premium-104518

#tomrockets #poppers #gaylife
Nemes Content @[email protected] · 2025-05-12 · 18:42 UTC

I'm also trying affiliate links this time around for some equipment that I use, I don't know how these work so lets see what happens:
Stone Age Gamer Affiliate
https://stoneagegamer.com?afmc=ft
YPbPr Component Cable for PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 - HD Retrovision
https://stoneagegamer.com/ypbpr-component-cable-for-playstation-2-and-playstation-3-hd-retrovision.html?afmc=ft
Wingman XE 2 for PlayStation and Nintendo Switch - Brook
https://stoneagegamer.com/wingman-xe-2-for-playstation-and-nintendo-switch-brook.html?afmc=ft
#nemescontent #shorts #tiktoks #ps2 #youtube

#nemescontent #shorts #tiktoks #ps2 #youtube
Tom MacInnes @[email protected] · 2022-08-02 · 10:09 UTC

Great songs that mention great Canadian Places.
Actor Jason Alexander as George Costanza, wannabe latex salesman on the TV show, Seinfeld.
I hope that you are familiar with the classic TV comedy, Seinfeld. I have always held the genre of comedy in high regard because it isn’t easy to explore the dark, shadowy aspects of our character or of the society in which we live, all the while mining that material for laughs. But good comedic writing shines a light on many social truths. The writers who worked on Seinfeld were masters of their domain, as the joke goes. Their show that was billed as being about nothing was actually laden with insight. For example, one of the running gags that existed all throughout the first five or six seasons of this series involved lead character, Jerry Seinfeld’s wingman, George Constanza. George’s backstory was that he had all the time in the world to hang out with Jerry because he was unemployed and still living in his childhood home with his parents. The joke revealed itself in George’s constant attempts to disguise his predicament by inventing prestigious careers that he pretended to be enjoying such as an architect (he claimed to have built the Guggenheim Museum), a Marine Biologist (he actually ended up being called on his claims and was forced to help a beached whale in one episode), and even a latex salesman (who, at his lowest point, found himself face down on the floor of Jerry’s apartment, his pants down around his ankles). The point being made about George all throughout those early seasons was that his worth as a man was measured by society in terms of how successful his career was. It wasn’t until he found a real job with the New York Yankees that he was shown greater respect by the writers of the show. That we all laughed along with George’s plight says a lot about who we are as a society. The writers of Seinfeld correctly guessed that most of us are quick to judge others and apply value judgements based on superficial reasons. They held that mirror up to our faces each week. We reveled in our ignorance and happily laughed along.
However, the grain of truth that Seinfeld exposed is very real. All throughout my life I have seen the effects of those value judgements being cast in real time. Growing up on the east coast of Canada as I did during the collapse of the cod fishery, I saw and heard many stories of strong, proud men who suddenly found themselves without any means of making a living and providing for their families. This turn in circumstances stung those men and their families. Many of these men proved to be their own worst critics and deemed themselves to be failures because they measured their own worth in terms of being providers for their family. Without a way of earning income, these men felt lost and adrift. Many turned to alcohol, or else lapsed into depression. The stresses felt within families was immense. Some of these men were offered chances to enter training programmes that could possibly lead to alternative forms of employment better suited for newer age economies. But, for many, a life spent working with their hands was what they missed and what they felt most competent in doing, so they sought opportunities for that elsewhere in Canada. For many on the east coast, those hands-on opportunities came in the form of work in the oil and gas fields of Alberta. For those who measured their worth in terms of toil and sweat, migrating to Alberta came naturally. Good wages and jobs a-plenty waited in Alberta. All a man had to do was make the journey. I know from many firsthand experiences being on airplanes heading to and from Cape Breton, that two-thirds to three-quarters of the passengers were men seeking personal valuation in the form of a paycheque earned from putting in a day’s hard work in Alberta.
Gordie Johnson and Big Sugar.
Gordie Johnson is the lead singer and guitarist for the Canadian band, Big Sugar. While he was born in Ontario, Johnson’s family lived for a while in Medicine Hat, Alberta. Medicine Hat is home to one of the world’s biggest deposits of natural gas. It also lays claim to being the sunniest place in Canada, too. Because he lived there, Johnson was well aware of the draw that the Oil and Gas industry held for many men who made their living by working with their hands. He was keenly aware of the transient nature of a large segment of Medicine Hat’s population and that many of those who worked the gas wells came from Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. When Johnson grew up and began his own career as a musician, first as a backing player for singer Molly Johnson and then for the collective known as Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, he got to travel across this land for himself. As a member of Big Sugar, Johnson carved out a reputation for himself as being one of Canada’s preeminent blues-based rockers. Big Sugar have been a band for over three decades now and have had many hits along the way. However, they have never occupied the same rarefied air as fellow Canadian music superstars such as Bryan Adams, Shania Twain or modern stars, Arcade Fire. Instead, Big Sugar have made much of their success by relentlessly touring. They are the name band who will come to your small town. They have become known for playing at local festivals all across Canada. You might just find Big Sugar performing at your town’s watering hole of note, too. It was while playing local gigs in Newfoundland that Johnson got to hear the origin stories of those men who left Newfoundland to work in the gas fields of Medicine Hat when he was a teenager. Johnson saw value in the story of the desire of these men who wanted to provide for their families so badly that they would leave the only home they ever knew to travel thousands of kilometres away, to what they viewed as a better world in Alberta. So, he drew upon his experiences as a citizen of Medicine Hat, as well as a musical citizen of Canada, and he wrote the song, “All Hell For a Basement”.
Medicine Hat, Alberta: “All Hell For a Basement”
“All Hell For a Basement” is a phrase that was used to describe Medicine Hat by none other than famous writer, Rudyard Kipling. The story is that at one time in his career, Kipling found himself on a bit of a promotional tour across the northern US. He was in a town close to the Canada/U.S border when he was made aware of a place in Canada called Medicine Hat. Kipling was curious as to what a place called Medicine Hat would look like so he asked to be taken there. When Kipling arrived in Medicine Hat, he was given the VIP treatment which involved the lighting of a gas well on fire for his entertainment. Needless to say, the intensity of the roaring flames made an impression on Kipling, which caused him to utter the famous description that Medicine Hat had “all Hell for a basement”. Citizens of the town wore this description as a badge of honour. There is even a huge mural in Medicine Hat that depicts Kipling’s visit over a century ago.
Gordie Johnson grew up in the shadow of this mural, and as a citizen of Medicine Hat, was well aware of Kipling’s famous phrase. So, Johnson wrote about it in a song that has become an anthem for working men everywhere, but especially the working men of the Alberta Oil and Gas industry. “All Hell For a Basement” describes the circumstances that many men found themselves in when their resource-based industries collapsed and they no longer had the means to provide for their families.
“I am a working man.
But I ain’t worked for a while.
Like some old tin can
From the bottom of the pile
From the bottom of the pile.
I have lost my way
But I hear tell
Of a Heaven in Alberta
Where they’ve got all Hell for a Basement.”
Not surprisingly, “All Hell For a Basement” resonates well with the types of audiences who go to legion halls and local pubs for a cold beer after a hard day in the hot sun. It isn’t so much a song that celebrates dangerous labour as it is a song that seeks to understand and find worth in those whose journey it depicts. It is a perfect song to be performed in a blues-rock style. While not Big Sugar’s biggest selling hit, “All Hell For a Basement” is certainly their most popular.
At its core, comedy isn’t funny. But it often speaks the truth about our world. In Canada, there is a certain segment of the population who identify themselves as being working class people. These people know how hard they work each day for their pay. They are a brother and sisterhood of labourers whose sweat and blood often serve as the glue that binds our country together. However, the history of labour in this country is one that often places workers at the mercy of forces beyond their control, such as natural disasters born of Climate Change, policy failures such as those seen in the collapse of the cod stocks in Atlantic Canada, or else the motives of those seen as the “elites in their ivory towers” for whom the value of labour and labourers only matters in how it affects a financial balance sheet. For those workers who cut their teeth in the cod fishery, only to have it fail, and now to have these same workers in Alberta hear that the Oil and Gas industry needs phasing out because of Climate Change, well, that seems like an attack on the core of their being. It should come as no surprise that there is such a groundswell of opposition in Alberta to the policies of the Federal Government in Ottawa. Of course, there are those who seek to capitalize on this sentiment for political reasons. But, deep down, in community halls and at county fairs and local legions all across the country, there exists a group of people who define their worth based upon the labour they provide and they feel threatened and disrespected. Thus, when Gordie Johnson sings “All Hell For a Basement”, those same people feel seen. This is how a song becomes an anthem.
The link to the video for the song “All Hell For a Basement” by Big Sugar can be found here. ***Lyrics video can be found here.
The link to the official website for Big Sugar can be found here.
The link to the official website for Medicine Hat, Alberta can be found here.
***As always, all original content contained in this post remains the sole property of the author. No portion of this post can be reblogged, copied or shared without the express written consent of the author. ©2022 tommacinneswriter.com
https://tommacinneswriter.com/2022/08/02/all-hell-for-a-basement-by-big-sugar-song-10-250-the-great-canadian-road-trip/
#AllHellForABasement #BigSugar #GordJohnson #MedicineHat #RudyardKipling #TheGreatCanadianRoadTrip

#allhellforabasement #bigsugar #gordjohnson #medicinehat #rudyardkipling #thegreatcanadianroadtrip
🍂 w i l l o w 🍂 @[email protected] · 2022-12-21 · 04:38 UTC

me and a buddy came up with a fake anime/manga about a salaryman who wants a girlfriend, but every woman he tries to date ends up wanting to be friends instead-- so he ends up with all of these cool new buddies but he still wishes that he could get a girlfriend
meanwhile his friend is the ultimate wingman and secretly "disposes of" anyone who's interested in salaryman's current crush
it's a comedy full of romance tropes :)
#DigitalArt #MastoArt #Art #knife #willowboneOCs

#willowboneocs #knife #art #mastoart #digitalart
🍂 w i l l o w 🍂 @[email protected] · 2022-12-21 · 04:38 UTC

me and a buddy came up with a fake anime/manga about a salaryman who wants a girlfriend, but every woman he tries to date ends up wanting to be friends instead-- so he ends up with all of these cool new buddies but he still wishes that he could get a girlfriend
meanwhile his friend is the ultimate wingman and secretly "disposes of" anyone who's interested in salaryman's current crush
it's a comedy full of romance tropes :)
#DigitalArt #MastoArt #Art #knife #willowboneOCs

#digitalart #mastoart #art #knife #willowboneocs
🍂 w i l l o w 🍂 @[email protected] · 2022-12-21 · 04:38 UTC

me and a buddy came up with a fake anime/manga about a salaryman who wants a girlfriend, but every woman he tries to date ends up wanting to be friends instead-- so he ends up with all of these cool new buddies but he still wishes that he could get a girlfriend
meanwhile his friend is the ultimate wingman and secretly "disposes of" anyone who's interested in salaryman's current crush
it's a comedy full of romance tropes :)
#DigitalArt #MastoArt #Art #knife #willowboneOCs

#willowboneocs #knife #art #mastoart #digitalart
Analyst207 @[email protected] · 2026-05-08 · 01:09 UTC

US Air Force F-15E Pays Tribute to F-111's Libya Raid Heritage
A specially painted F-15E Strike Eagle, paying tribute to the F-111's legendary Libya raid heritage, took to the skies for its first flight in a bold new camouflage scheme, hauling eight inert 500-pound laser-guided bombs. The striking jet, accompanied by a wingman, roared through the iconic Mach Loop before dropping its payload at the Holbeach…
https://osintsights.com/us-air-force-f-15e-pays-tribute-to-f-111s-libya-raid-heritage?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social
#UsAirForce #F15eStrikeEagle #Gbu12 #RafLakenheath #MachLoop

#usairforce #f15estrikeeagle #gbu12 #raflakenheath #machloop
The Daily Edge @[email protected] · 2022-12-28 · 22:38 UTC

Convicted sex trafficker #JoelGreenberg sent #Venmo payments of hundreds and even thousands of dollars to women titled 'ice cream', "salad," "a**."
Payments were sent to 12 females under the description "school."
His partner in crime #MattGaetz, who Venmo'd cash to Greenberg using the "love hotel" emoji, is still at large. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9475229/Matt-Gaetzs-wingman-Joel-Greenberg-150-Venmo-payments-women-using-lipstick-kiss-emoji.html

#joelgreenberg #venmo #mattgaetz
Angry Metal Guy @[email protected] · 2024-02-28 · 12:24 UTC

Útgarðar – Fire Smoked Upon the Wolf’s Back Review
By Dear Hollow
Norse mythology pervading black metal is nothing new. Due to the style’s Scandinavian origins, it would not surprise me to see Lucifer and Odin taking swigs of Christian blood together in a burning Waffle House in like Tromsø, for instance. Norse Paganism has always been the wingman for anti-Christianity under Metallum’s profile lyrical themes, so the slaughter of Ymir and the rise of Yggdrasil across the yawning void Ginnungagap, the rivalry of Loki and Thor, and the fierce matchups of Ragnarök have long captured the imaginations of the western world. In this way, Útgarðar offers little new, as you’ll find the nine worlds, the great frost-giant Ymir, the trolls, and the formidable ferocity of the wolves Fenrir, Sköll, and Hati all play a part. A tangible thread of storytelling courses through the thirty-two minutes of debut Fire Smoked Upon the Wolf’s Back.
You may recognize Útgarðar’s two members, as American instrumentalist Niðafjöll (Nathan Verschoor) is known for his work with recent Uada, Veiled, and Altars of the Moon, while Swedish vocalist/guitarist Seiðr (Andreas Westholm) features a storied discography with acts like Blackest, Seid, and Serpent Omega. Both members offer a distinctly down-tuned sound, heavier guitar tone, and more “deathened” snarls adding to the rotten sound, but Fire Smoked Upon the Wolf’s Back is black metal through and through: Útgarðar offers their caustic and vicious interpretation of unholy trinity of blastbeats, shrieks, and tremolo. Refusing to settle into monotony, the duo manages a ritualistic flare and doomed atmosphere that makes it hard to shake, as the frost of the Scandinavian pines and the solemnity of the setting sun are felt in every movement.
Útgarðar utilizes a powerful and simple approach, balancing memorable melody, caustic blackened attacks, and ritualistic doom – tied together into dynamic songwriting. While intro “The Pyres of Utgard” offer the former two in a vicious track whose only reprieve is the haunting clean vocals buried behind slower passages, “Ymir Awakens” and “Trolls of Muspel Trolls of Frost” are clear centerpieces, brimming with tension between its ambient lulls, vicious tremolo, and doom weight – even the ambient passages feature subtle percussion injecting a fire throughout. This continues into the more subdued closers, “Fire Smoked Upon the Wolf’s Back” and “Under Soil,” in which ritualistic atmosphere takes front and center, such as in the pulsing percussion and shamanistic chants of the title track or the rotten ambient sprawl of the album closer. While balance is a clear priority for Útgarðar, each cut features a distinct melodic motif that adds to the memorability of the album, as the cleans of the title track or the guitar/vocal melodies of “Under Soil” elevate an otherwise despondent set of tracks.
There are no directly negative tracks within Fire Smoked Upon the Wolf’s Back, and largely Útgarðar’s only sin is its inconsistent mood. The contrast between the fiery second-wave of “The Pyres of Utgard” and the shamanistic despair of “Under Soil” is stark. While the best-of-both-worlds “Ymir Awakens” and “Trolls of Muspel Trolls of Frost” smoothen this transition in what would be an album-long dynamic, they settle neatly into three separate approaches instead. The highlights are so because of their haunting blend of energy and atmosphere, while the closing tracks dispel with much of the energy while the opener foregoes atmosphere. In a way, the album then feels like a Viking Venn diagram, with the centerpieces constituting the near-perfect overlap.
That’s not to say that Útgarðar shoots themselves in the foot, because I haven’t quite experienced the haunting and evocative quality of Asatro-themed black metal that actually feels authentic and organic the way Fire Smoked Upon the Wolf’s Back does. It plays it relatively safe in terms of the second wave, but its infusion of doom filth and ritualistic primacy simply adds up to this: a damn good black metal album. While moods are disparate, you won’t care because every one of them is accomplished with rotten grit and otherworldly darkness undergirded by tense Norseman violence. Furious black metal, ritualistic menace, and mammoth weight have a weapon in this particular Ragnarök, and you’ll be glad to die by Odin’s side for Útgarðar.

Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: ATMF Records
Website: facebook.com/Útgarðar
Releases Worldwide: February 23rd, 2024
#2024 #35 #AltarsOfTheMoon #ATMFRecords #BlackMetal #BlackenedDoomMetal #Blackest #Feb24 #FireSmokedUponTheWolfSBack #InternationalMetal #Review #Reviews #Seid #SerpentOmega #Uada #Útgarðar #Veiled

#veiled #utgardar #uada #serpentomega #seid #reviews
DrWeb @[email protected] · 2025-12-19 · 04:41 UTC

‘Don’s Best Friend’: How Epstein and Trump Bonded Over the Pursuit of Women – The New York Times

‘Don’s Best Friend’: How Epstein and Trump Bonded Over the Pursuit of Women
The president has tried to minimize their friendship, but documents and interviews reveal an intense and complicated relationship. Chasing women was a game of ego and dominance. Female bodies were currency.
Listen to this article · 36:57 min Learn more
By Nicholas Confessore and Julie Tate
The Times interviewed more than 30 former employees of Jeffrey Epstein, victims of his abuse and others who crossed paths with Mr. Epstein and President Trump. The Times also obtained new documents that illuminate their relationship.
Dec. 18, 2025, Updated 1:39 p.m. ET
Jeffrey Epstein was a “terrific guy” and “a lot of fun to be with.” He and Donald J. Trump also had “no formal relationship.” They went to a lot of the same parties. But they “did not socialize together.” They were never really friends, just business acquaintances. Or “there was no relationship” at all. “I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.”
For nearly a quarter-century, Mr. Trump and his representatives have offered shifting, often contradictory accounts of his relationship with Mr. Epstein, one sporadically captured by society photographers and in news clips before they fell out sometime in the mid-2000s. Closely scrutinized since Mr. Epstein died in a Manhattan jail cell during Mr. Trump’s first term, their friendship — and questions about what the president knew of Mr. Epstein’s abuses — now threatens to consume his second one.
The controversy has shaken Mr. Trump’s iron hold on his base like no other. Loyal supporters have demanded to know why the administration has not moved more quickly to unearth the convicted sex offender’s remaining secrets. In November, after resisting months of pressure to release more Epstein-related documents held by the federal government — and facing an almost unheard-of revolt among Republican lawmakers — Mr. Trump reversed himself, signing legislation that requires their release beginning this week.
Mr. Epstein had a talent for acquiring powerful friends, some of whom have become ensnared in the continuing scrutiny of his crimes. For months, Mr. Trump has labored furiously to shift himself out of the frame, dismissing questions about his relationship with Mr. Epstein as a “Democrat hoax” and imploring his supporters to ignore the matter entirely. An examination of their history by The New York Times has found no evidence implicating Mr. Trump in Mr. Epstein’s abuse and trafficking of minors.
But the two men’s relationship was both far closer and far more complex than the president now admits.
Beginning in the late 1980s, the two men forged a bond intense enough to leave others who knew them with the impression that they were each other’s closest friend, The Times found. Mr. Epstein was then a little-known financier who cultivated mystery around the scope and source of his self-made wealth. Mr. Trump, six years older, was a real estate scion who relished publicity and exaggerated his successes. Neither man drank or did drugs. They pursued women in a game of ego and dominance. Female bodies were currency.
Over nearly two decades, as Mr. Trump cut a swath through the party circuits of New York and Florida, Mr. Epstein was perhaps his most reliable wingman. During the 1990s and early 2000s, they prowled Mr. Epstein’s Manhattan mansion and Mr. Trump’s Plaza Hotel, at least one of Mr. Trump’s Atlantic City casinos and both their Palm Beach homes. They visited each other’s offices and spoke often by phone, according to other former Epstein employees and women who spent time in his homes.
With other men, Mr. Epstein might discuss tax shelters, international affairs or neuroscience. With Mr. Trump, he talked about sex.
“I just think it was trophy hunting,” Stacey Williams, who rose to fame as a star of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions during the 1990s, said in an interview with The Times. In social media posts and interviews with news outlets in recent years, Ms. Williams has described how Mr. Trump groped her in 1993 at Trump Tower while Mr. Epstein — whom she was then dating — watched. “I think Jeffrey liked that he had this Sports Illustrated model who had this name, and that Trump was pursuing me,” she said. Mr. Trump has denied her account.
…
To shed light on their friendship, The Times interviewed more than 30 former Epstein employees, victims of his abuse and others who crossed paths with the two men over the years. The Times also obtained new documents that illuminate their relationship and scoured court documents and other public records.
Many of the people interviewed by The Times asked to share their stories anonymously, saying they feared for their safety at the hands of supporters of Mr. Trump, a president who has deployed the might of the federal government to target and punish his political opponents. Some Epstein victims have already received death threats for demanding a full accounting of the government’s investigations, according to a statement released by more than two dozen of them last month.
Mr. Trump, his children Eric and Ivanka, and Mr. Epstein in 1993, attending the opening of the Harley-Davidson Cafe in Manhattan. Credit… Dafydd Jones
Over the years, Mr. Epstein or his partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, introduced at least six women who have accused them of grooming or abuse to Mr. Trump, according to interviews, court testimony and other records. One was a minor at the time. None have accused Mr. Trump himself of inappropriate behavior.
One of the women, who has never before spoken publicly about the experience, told The Times that Mr. Epstein had coerced her into attending four parties at Mr. Epstein’s home. Mr. Trump attended all four, the woman said. At two of them, she said, Mr. Epstein directed her to have sex with other male guests.
In an email among those released by Congress in November, Mr. Epstein boasted that he “gave” Mr. Trump a 20-year-old woman whom Mr. Epstein dated in the 1990s. During a flight together in the early 1990s, Mr. Trump came on to another Epstein employee traveling with them, telling her that he could have anyone he wanted, according to a different Epstein worker who learned of the incident. A separate Epstein employee from that era recalled that Mr. Trump would occasionally send over modeling cards for Mr. Epstein to peruse, like a menu.
Mr. Epstein, who claimed he required three orgasms a day, exploited or abused hundreds of women and girls before dying in what was ruled a suicide. Mr. Trump does not stand accused of sexually abusing a minor. But over the course of his friendship with Mr. Epstein and beyond, he left a trail of alleged abuse and assault, many details of which began to surface publicly during his successful 2016 presidential campaign.
Close to 20 women have publicly accused Mr. Trump of groping, forcibly kissing or sexually assaulting them — behavior that he once bragged he could get away with because of his celebrity but later denied ever engaging in. In 2023, the writer E. Jean Carroll won a $5 million civil judgment against Mr. Trump for sexual abuse and defamation.
In response to a detailed list of questions from The Times, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, issued a statement: “This fake news story, which is not worth the paper it’s printed on, is just another stale regurgitation of decades-old false allegations against President Trump. The truth will remain the same no matter how many times The New York Times tries to change it. President Trump did nothing wrong, and he kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago for being a creep.”
A copy of “Trump: The Art of the Comeback” that was inscribed by the future president to Mr. Epstein in 1997. Credit… Alessandra Montalto / The New York Times
It is unclear what new information may emerge under the new law passed by Congress. The statute allows the Trump administration to withhold records that identify victims, including images of child sexual abuse, or documents that are otherwise classified. His appointees can also hold back records that could jeopardize an active federal investigation — such as a new inquiry ordered by Mr. Trump into Democrats associated with Mr. Epstein. In a statement in late November, a group of Epstein accusers wrote, “Other than redacting victim names, we want all the files disclosed.”
Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: ‘Don’s Best Friend’: How Epstein and Trump Bonded Over the Pursuit of Women – The New York Times
Tags: Bonded, Don's Best Friend, Epstein Files, Female Bodies, Friendship, Jeffrey Epstein, Pursuit of Women, Relationship, The New York Times
#Bonded #DonSBestFriend #EpsteinFiles #FemaleBodies #Friendship #JeffreyEpstein #PursuitOfWomen #Relationship #TheNewYorkTimes

#bonded #donsbestfriend #epsteinfiles #femalebodies #friendship #jeffreyepstein
DrWeb @[email protected] · 2025-12-19 · 04:41 UTC

‘Don’s Best Friend’: How Epstein and Trump Bonded Over the Pursuit of Women – The New York Times

‘Don’s Best Friend’: How Epstein and Trump Bonded Over the Pursuit of Women
The president has tried to minimize their friendship, but documents and interviews reveal an intense and complicated relationship. Chasing women was a game of ego and dominance. Female bodies were currency.
Listen to this article · 36:57 min Learn more
By Nicholas Confessore and Julie Tate
The Times interviewed more than 30 former employees of Jeffrey Epstein, victims of his abuse and others who crossed paths with Mr. Epstein and President Trump. The Times also obtained new documents that illuminate their relationship.
Dec. 18, 2025, Updated 1:39 p.m. ET
Jeffrey Epstein was a “terrific guy” and “a lot of fun to be with.” He and Donald J. Trump also had “no formal relationship.” They went to a lot of the same parties. But they “did not socialize together.” They were never really friends, just business acquaintances. Or “there was no relationship” at all. “I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.”
For nearly a quarter-century, Mr. Trump and his representatives have offered shifting, often contradictory accounts of his relationship with Mr. Epstein, one sporadically captured by society photographers and in news clips before they fell out sometime in the mid-2000s. Closely scrutinized since Mr. Epstein died in a Manhattan jail cell during Mr. Trump’s first term, their friendship — and questions about what the president knew of Mr. Epstein’s abuses — now threatens to consume his second one.
The controversy has shaken Mr. Trump’s iron hold on his base like no other. Loyal supporters have demanded to know why the administration has not moved more quickly to unearth the convicted sex offender’s remaining secrets. In November, after resisting months of pressure to release more Epstein-related documents held by the federal government — and facing an almost unheard-of revolt among Republican lawmakers — Mr. Trump reversed himself, signing legislation that requires their release beginning this week.
Mr. Epstein had a talent for acquiring powerful friends, some of whom have become ensnared in the continuing scrutiny of his crimes. For months, Mr. Trump has labored furiously to shift himself out of the frame, dismissing questions about his relationship with Mr. Epstein as a “Democrat hoax” and imploring his supporters to ignore the matter entirely. An examination of their history by The New York Times has found no evidence implicating Mr. Trump in Mr. Epstein’s abuse and trafficking of minors.
But the two men’s relationship was both far closer and far more complex than the president now admits.
Beginning in the late 1980s, the two men forged a bond intense enough to leave others who knew them with the impression that they were each other’s closest friend, The Times found. Mr. Epstein was then a little-known financier who cultivated mystery around the scope and source of his self-made wealth. Mr. Trump, six years older, was a real estate scion who relished publicity and exaggerated his successes. Neither man drank or did drugs. They pursued women in a game of ego and dominance. Female bodies were currency.
Over nearly two decades, as Mr. Trump cut a swath through the party circuits of New York and Florida, Mr. Epstein was perhaps his most reliable wingman. During the 1990s and early 2000s, they prowled Mr. Epstein’s Manhattan mansion and Mr. Trump’s Plaza Hotel, at least one of Mr. Trump’s Atlantic City casinos and both their Palm Beach homes. They visited each other’s offices and spoke often by phone, according to other former Epstein employees and women who spent time in his homes.
With other men, Mr. Epstein might discuss tax shelters, international affairs or neuroscience. With Mr. Trump, he talked about sex.
“I just think it was trophy hunting,” Stacey Williams, who rose to fame as a star of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions during the 1990s, said in an interview with The Times. In social media posts and interviews with news outlets in recent years, Ms. Williams has described how Mr. Trump groped her in 1993 at Trump Tower while Mr. Epstein — whom she was then dating — watched. “I think Jeffrey liked that he had this Sports Illustrated model who had this name, and that Trump was pursuing me,” she said. Mr. Trump has denied her account.
…
To shed light on their friendship, The Times interviewed more than 30 former Epstein employees, victims of his abuse and others who crossed paths with the two men over the years. The Times also obtained new documents that illuminate their relationship and scoured court documents and other public records.
Many of the people interviewed by The Times asked to share their stories anonymously, saying they feared for their safety at the hands of supporters of Mr. Trump, a president who has deployed the might of the federal government to target and punish his political opponents. Some Epstein victims have already received death threats for demanding a full accounting of the government’s investigations, according to a statement released by more than two dozen of them last month.
Mr. Trump, his children Eric and Ivanka, and Mr. Epstein in 1993, attending the opening of the Harley-Davidson Cafe in Manhattan. Credit… Dafydd Jones
Over the years, Mr. Epstein or his partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, introduced at least six women who have accused them of grooming or abuse to Mr. Trump, according to interviews, court testimony and other records. One was a minor at the time. None have accused Mr. Trump himself of inappropriate behavior.
One of the women, who has never before spoken publicly about the experience, told The Times that Mr. Epstein had coerced her into attending four parties at Mr. Epstein’s home. Mr. Trump attended all four, the woman said. At two of them, she said, Mr. Epstein directed her to have sex with other male guests.
In an email among those released by Congress in November, Mr. Epstein boasted that he “gave” Mr. Trump a 20-year-old woman whom Mr. Epstein dated in the 1990s. During a flight together in the early 1990s, Mr. Trump came on to another Epstein employee traveling with them, telling her that he could have anyone he wanted, according to a different Epstein worker who learned of the incident. A separate Epstein employee from that era recalled that Mr. Trump would occasionally send over modeling cards for Mr. Epstein to peruse, like a menu.
Mr. Epstein, who claimed he required three orgasms a day, exploited or abused hundreds of women and girls before dying in what was ruled a suicide. Mr. Trump does not stand accused of sexually abusing a minor. But over the course of his friendship with Mr. Epstein and beyond, he left a trail of alleged abuse and assault, many details of which began to surface publicly during his successful 2016 presidential campaign.
Close to 20 women have publicly accused Mr. Trump of groping, forcibly kissing or sexually assaulting them — behavior that he once bragged he could get away with because of his celebrity but later denied ever engaging in. In 2023, the writer E. Jean Carroll won a $5 million civil judgment against Mr. Trump for sexual abuse and defamation.
In response to a detailed list of questions from The Times, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, issued a statement: “This fake news story, which is not worth the paper it’s printed on, is just another stale regurgitation of decades-old false allegations against President Trump. The truth will remain the same no matter how many times The New York Times tries to change it. President Trump did nothing wrong, and he kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago for being a creep.”
A copy of “Trump: The Art of the Comeback” that was inscribed by the future president to Mr. Epstein in 1997. Credit… Alessandra Montalto / The New York Times
It is unclear what new information may emerge under the new law passed by Congress. The statute allows the Trump administration to withhold records that identify victims, including images of child sexual abuse, or documents that are otherwise classified. His appointees can also hold back records that could jeopardize an active federal investigation — such as a new inquiry ordered by Mr. Trump into Democrats associated with Mr. Epstein. In a statement in late November, a group of Epstein accusers wrote, “Other than redacting victim names, we want all the files disclosed.”
Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: ‘Don’s Best Friend’: How Epstein and Trump Bonded Over the Pursuit of Women – The New York Times
Tags: Bonded, Don's Best Friend, Epstein Files, Female Bodies, Friendship, Jeffrey Epstein, Pursuit of Women, Relationship, The New York Times
#Bonded #DonSBestFriend #EpsteinFiles #FemaleBodies #Friendship #JeffreyEpstein #PursuitOfWomen #Relationship #TheNewYorkTimes

#bonded #donsbestfriend #epsteinfiles #femalebodies #friendship #jeffreyepstein
DrWeb @[email protected] · 2025-12-19 · 04:41 UTC

‘Don’s Best Friend’: How Epstein and Trump Bonded Over the Pursuit of Women – The New York Times

‘Don’s Best Friend’: How Epstein and Trump Bonded Over the Pursuit of Women
The president has tried to minimize their friendship, but documents and interviews reveal an intense and complicated relationship. Chasing women was a game of ego and dominance. Female bodies were currency.
Listen to this article · 36:57 min Learn more
By Nicholas Confessore and Julie Tate
The Times interviewed more than 30 former employees of Jeffrey Epstein, victims of his abuse and others who crossed paths with Mr. Epstein and President Trump. The Times also obtained new documents that illuminate their relationship.
Dec. 18, 2025, Updated 1:39 p.m. ET
Jeffrey Epstein was a “terrific guy” and “a lot of fun to be with.” He and Donald J. Trump also had “no formal relationship.” They went to a lot of the same parties. But they “did not socialize together.” They were never really friends, just business acquaintances. Or “there was no relationship” at all. “I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.”
For nearly a quarter-century, Mr. Trump and his representatives have offered shifting, often contradictory accounts of his relationship with Mr. Epstein, one sporadically captured by society photographers and in news clips before they fell out sometime in the mid-2000s. Closely scrutinized since Mr. Epstein died in a Manhattan jail cell during Mr. Trump’s first term, their friendship — and questions about what the president knew of Mr. Epstein’s abuses — now threatens to consume his second one.
The controversy has shaken Mr. Trump’s iron hold on his base like no other. Loyal supporters have demanded to know why the administration has not moved more quickly to unearth the convicted sex offender’s remaining secrets. In November, after resisting months of pressure to release more Epstein-related documents held by the federal government — and facing an almost unheard-of revolt among Republican lawmakers — Mr. Trump reversed himself, signing legislation that requires their release beginning this week.
Mr. Epstein had a talent for acquiring powerful friends, some of whom have become ensnared in the continuing scrutiny of his crimes. For months, Mr. Trump has labored furiously to shift himself out of the frame, dismissing questions about his relationship with Mr. Epstein as a “Democrat hoax” and imploring his supporters to ignore the matter entirely. An examination of their history by The New York Times has found no evidence implicating Mr. Trump in Mr. Epstein’s abuse and trafficking of minors.
But the two men’s relationship was both far closer and far more complex than the president now admits.
Beginning in the late 1980s, the two men forged a bond intense enough to leave others who knew them with the impression that they were each other’s closest friend, The Times found. Mr. Epstein was then a little-known financier who cultivated mystery around the scope and source of his self-made wealth. Mr. Trump, six years older, was a real estate scion who relished publicity and exaggerated his successes. Neither man drank or did drugs. They pursued women in a game of ego and dominance. Female bodies were currency.
Over nearly two decades, as Mr. Trump cut a swath through the party circuits of New York and Florida, Mr. Epstein was perhaps his most reliable wingman. During the 1990s and early 2000s, they prowled Mr. Epstein’s Manhattan mansion and Mr. Trump’s Plaza Hotel, at least one of Mr. Trump’s Atlantic City casinos and both their Palm Beach homes. They visited each other’s offices and spoke often by phone, according to other former Epstein employees and women who spent time in his homes.
With other men, Mr. Epstein might discuss tax shelters, international affairs or neuroscience. With Mr. Trump, he talked about sex.
“I just think it was trophy hunting,” Stacey Williams, who rose to fame as a star of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions during the 1990s, said in an interview with The Times. In social media posts and interviews with news outlets in recent years, Ms. Williams has described how Mr. Trump groped her in 1993 at Trump Tower while Mr. Epstein — whom she was then dating — watched. “I think Jeffrey liked that he had this Sports Illustrated model who had this name, and that Trump was pursuing me,” she said. Mr. Trump has denied her account.
…
To shed light on their friendship, The Times interviewed more than 30 former Epstein employees, victims of his abuse and others who crossed paths with the two men over the years. The Times also obtained new documents that illuminate their relationship and scoured court documents and other public records.
Many of the people interviewed by The Times asked to share their stories anonymously, saying they feared for their safety at the hands of supporters of Mr. Trump, a president who has deployed the might of the federal government to target and punish his political opponents. Some Epstein victims have already received death threats for demanding a full accounting of the government’s investigations, according to a statement released by more than two dozen of them last month.
Mr. Trump, his children Eric and Ivanka, and Mr. Epstein in 1993, attending the opening of the Harley-Davidson Cafe in Manhattan. Credit… Dafydd Jones
Over the years, Mr. Epstein or his partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, introduced at least six women who have accused them of grooming or abuse to Mr. Trump, according to interviews, court testimony and other records. One was a minor at the time. None have accused Mr. Trump himself of inappropriate behavior.
One of the women, who has never before spoken publicly about the experience, told The Times that Mr. Epstein had coerced her into attending four parties at Mr. Epstein’s home. Mr. Trump attended all four, the woman said. At two of them, she said, Mr. Epstein directed her to have sex with other male guests.
In an email among those released by Congress in November, Mr. Epstein boasted that he “gave” Mr. Trump a 20-year-old woman whom Mr. Epstein dated in the 1990s. During a flight together in the early 1990s, Mr. Trump came on to another Epstein employee traveling with them, telling her that he could have anyone he wanted, according to a different Epstein worker who learned of the incident. A separate Epstein employee from that era recalled that Mr. Trump would occasionally send over modeling cards for Mr. Epstein to peruse, like a menu.
Mr. Epstein, who claimed he required three orgasms a day, exploited or abused hundreds of women and girls before dying in what was ruled a suicide. Mr. Trump does not stand accused of sexually abusing a minor. But over the course of his friendship with Mr. Epstein and beyond, he left a trail of alleged abuse and assault, many details of which began to surface publicly during his successful 2016 presidential campaign.
Close to 20 women have publicly accused Mr. Trump of groping, forcibly kissing or sexually assaulting them — behavior that he once bragged he could get away with because of his celebrity but later denied ever engaging in. In 2023, the writer E. Jean Carroll won a $5 million civil judgment against Mr. Trump for sexual abuse and defamation.
In response to a detailed list of questions from The Times, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, issued a statement: “This fake news story, which is not worth the paper it’s printed on, is just another stale regurgitation of decades-old false allegations against President Trump. The truth will remain the same no matter how many times The New York Times tries to change it. President Trump did nothing wrong, and he kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago for being a creep.”
A copy of “Trump: The Art of the Comeback” that was inscribed by the future president to Mr. Epstein in 1997. Credit… Alessandra Montalto / The New York Times
It is unclear what new information may emerge under the new law passed by Congress. The statute allows the Trump administration to withhold records that identify victims, including images of child sexual abuse, or documents that are otherwise classified. His appointees can also hold back records that could jeopardize an active federal investigation — such as a new inquiry ordered by Mr. Trump into Democrats associated with Mr. Epstein. In a statement in late November, a group of Epstein accusers wrote, “Other than redacting victim names, we want all the files disclosed.”
Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: ‘Don’s Best Friend’: How Epstein and Trump Bonded Over the Pursuit of Women – The New York Times
#Bonded #DonSBestFriend #EpsteinFiles #FemaleBodies #Friendship #JeffreyEpstein #PursuitOfWomen #Relationship #TheNewYorkTimes

#thenewyorktimes #relationship #pursuitofwomen #jeffreyepstein #friendship #femalebodies
DrWeb @[email protected] · 2025-12-19 · 04:41 UTC

‘Don’s Best Friend’: How Epstein and Trump Bonded Over the Pursuit of Women – The New York Times

‘Don’s Best Friend’: How Epstein and Trump Bonded Over the Pursuit of Women
The president has tried to minimize their friendship, but documents and interviews reveal an intense and complicated relationship. Chasing women was a game of ego and dominance. Female bodies were currency.
Listen to this article · 36:57 min Learn more
By Nicholas Confessore and Julie Tate
The Times interviewed more than 30 former employees of Jeffrey Epstein, victims of his abuse and others who crossed paths with Mr. Epstein and President Trump. The Times also obtained new documents that illuminate their relationship.
Dec. 18, 2025, Updated 1:39 p.m. ET
Jeffrey Epstein was a “terrific guy” and “a lot of fun to be with.” He and Donald J. Trump also had “no formal relationship.” They went to a lot of the same parties. But they “did not socialize together.” They were never really friends, just business acquaintances. Or “there was no relationship” at all. “I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.”
For nearly a quarter-century, Mr. Trump and his representatives have offered shifting, often contradictory accounts of his relationship with Mr. Epstein, one sporadically captured by society photographers and in news clips before they fell out sometime in the mid-2000s. Closely scrutinized since Mr. Epstein died in a Manhattan jail cell during Mr. Trump’s first term, their friendship — and questions about what the president knew of Mr. Epstein’s abuses — now threatens to consume his second one.
The controversy has shaken Mr. Trump’s iron hold on his base like no other. Loyal supporters have demanded to know why the administration has not moved more quickly to unearth the convicted sex offender’s remaining secrets. In November, after resisting months of pressure to release more Epstein-related documents held by the federal government — and facing an almost unheard-of revolt among Republican lawmakers — Mr. Trump reversed himself, signing legislation that requires their release beginning this week.
Mr. Epstein had a talent for acquiring powerful friends, some of whom have become ensnared in the continuing scrutiny of his crimes. For months, Mr. Trump has labored furiously to shift himself out of the frame, dismissing questions about his relationship with Mr. Epstein as a “Democrat hoax” and imploring his supporters to ignore the matter entirely. An examination of their history by The New York Times has found no evidence implicating Mr. Trump in Mr. Epstein’s abuse and trafficking of minors.
But the two men’s relationship was both far closer and far more complex than the president now admits.
Beginning in the late 1980s, the two men forged a bond intense enough to leave others who knew them with the impression that they were each other’s closest friend, The Times found. Mr. Epstein was then a little-known financier who cultivated mystery around the scope and source of his self-made wealth. Mr. Trump, six years older, was a real estate scion who relished publicity and exaggerated his successes. Neither man drank or did drugs. They pursued women in a game of ego and dominance. Female bodies were currency.
Over nearly two decades, as Mr. Trump cut a swath through the party circuits of New York and Florida, Mr. Epstein was perhaps his most reliable wingman. During the 1990s and early 2000s, they prowled Mr. Epstein’s Manhattan mansion and Mr. Trump’s Plaza Hotel, at least one of Mr. Trump’s Atlantic City casinos and both their Palm Beach homes. They visited each other’s offices and spoke often by phone, according to other former Epstein employees and women who spent time in his homes.
With other men, Mr. Epstein might discuss tax shelters, international affairs or neuroscience. With Mr. Trump, he talked about sex.
“I just think it was trophy hunting,” Stacey Williams, who rose to fame as a star of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions during the 1990s, said in an interview with The Times. In social media posts and interviews with news outlets in recent years, Ms. Williams has described how Mr. Trump groped her in 1993 at Trump Tower while Mr. Epstein — whom she was then dating — watched. “I think Jeffrey liked that he had this Sports Illustrated model who had this name, and that Trump was pursuing me,” she said. Mr. Trump has denied her account.
…
To shed light on their friendship, The Times interviewed more than 30 former Epstein employees, victims of his abuse and others who crossed paths with the two men over the years. The Times also obtained new documents that illuminate their relationship and scoured court documents and other public records.
Many of the people interviewed by The Times asked to share their stories anonymously, saying they feared for their safety at the hands of supporters of Mr. Trump, a president who has deployed the might of the federal government to target and punish his political opponents. Some Epstein victims have already received death threats for demanding a full accounting of the government’s investigations, according to a statement released by more than two dozen of them last month.
Mr. Trump, his children Eric and Ivanka, and Mr. Epstein in 1993, attending the opening of the Harley-Davidson Cafe in Manhattan. Credit… Dafydd Jones
Over the years, Mr. Epstein or his partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, introduced at least six women who have accused them of grooming or abuse to Mr. Trump, according to interviews, court testimony and other records. One was a minor at the time. None have accused Mr. Trump himself of inappropriate behavior.
One of the women, who has never before spoken publicly about the experience, told The Times that Mr. Epstein had coerced her into attending four parties at Mr. Epstein’s home. Mr. Trump attended all four, the woman said. At two of them, she said, Mr. Epstein directed her to have sex with other male guests.
In an email among those released by Congress in November, Mr. Epstein boasted that he “gave” Mr. Trump a 20-year-old woman whom Mr. Epstein dated in the 1990s. During a flight together in the early 1990s, Mr. Trump came on to another Epstein employee traveling with them, telling her that he could have anyone he wanted, according to a different Epstein worker who learned of the incident. A separate Epstein employee from that era recalled that Mr. Trump would occasionally send over modeling cards for Mr. Epstein to peruse, like a menu.
Mr. Epstein, who claimed he required three orgasms a day, exploited or abused hundreds of women and girls before dying in what was ruled a suicide. Mr. Trump does not stand accused of sexually abusing a minor. But over the course of his friendship with Mr. Epstein and beyond, he left a trail of alleged abuse and assault, many details of which began to surface publicly during his successful 2016 presidential campaign.
Close to 20 women have publicly accused Mr. Trump of groping, forcibly kissing or sexually assaulting them — behavior that he once bragged he could get away with because of his celebrity but later denied ever engaging in. In 2023, the writer E. Jean Carroll won a $5 million civil judgment against Mr. Trump for sexual abuse and defamation.
In response to a detailed list of questions from The Times, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, issued a statement: “This fake news story, which is not worth the paper it’s printed on, is just another stale regurgitation of decades-old false allegations against President Trump. The truth will remain the same no matter how many times The New York Times tries to change it. President Trump did nothing wrong, and he kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago for being a creep.”
A copy of “Trump: The Art of the Comeback” that was inscribed by the future president to Mr. Epstein in 1997. Credit… Alessandra Montalto / The New York Times
It is unclear what new information may emerge under the new law passed by Congress. The statute allows the Trump administration to withhold records that identify victims, including images of child sexual abuse, or documents that are otherwise classified. His appointees can also hold back records that could jeopardize an active federal investigation — such as a new inquiry ordered by Mr. Trump into Democrats associated with Mr. Epstein. In a statement in late November, a group of Epstein accusers wrote, “Other than redacting victim names, we want all the files disclosed.”
Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: ‘Don’s Best Friend’: How Epstein and Trump Bonded Over the Pursuit of Women – The New York Times
#Bonded #DonSBestFriend #EpsteinFiles #FemaleBodies #Friendship #JeffreyEpstein #PursuitOfWomen #Relationship #TheNewYorkTimes

#bonded #donsbestfriend #epsteinfiles #femalebodies #friendship #jeffreyepstein
Sky Dancing @[email protected] · 2024-04-26 · 19:00 UTC

The Supreme Court hears arguments on Trump’s immunity claim, John Buss, @repeat1968.

Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I got the cutest picture of the granddaughters today. The girls were smiling and looking at each other with adoration. Both were pretty in pink. All I can think of is what kind of country they may inherit.
I watched and listened to trials and hearings that were so surreal that I was pretty sure we’d entered the Evil Spock Timeline. I remember when the Supreme Court protected everyone’s rights. Now, rights are confined to those who brought the men there and paid for their holidays. It was like watching a Skeleton Dance. Not one TV Lawyer could find anything constitutional about the show they put on yesterday. We all laughed at him when he said,‘ I Could … Shoot Somebody, And I Wouldn’t Lose Any Voters’ Evidently, he can do worse than that, and the Supreme Court would make up something to cover his farty, diapered ass.
This is a must-read from Slate: “The Last Thing This Supreme Court Could Do to Shock Us There will be no more self-soothing after this.” This is written by Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern.
For three long years, Supreme Court watchers mollified themselves (and others) with vague promises that when the rubber hit the road, even the ultraconservative Federalist Society justices of the Roberts court would put democracy before party whenever they were finally confronted with the legal effort to hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6. There were promising signs: They had, after all, refused to wade into the Trumpian efforts to set aside the election results in 2020. They had, after all, hewed to a kind of sanity in batting away Trumpist claims about presidential records (with the lone exception of Clarence Thomas, too long marinated in the Ginni-scented Kool-Aid to be capable of surprising us, but he was just one vote). We promised ourselves that there would be cool heads and grand bargains and that even though the court might sometimes help Trump in small ways, it would privilege the country in the end. We kept thinking that at least for Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts, the voice of reasoned never-Trumpers might still penetrate the Fox News fog. We told ourselves that at least six justices, and maybe even seven, of the most MAGA-friendly court in history would still want to ensure that this November’s elections would not be the last in history. Political hacks they may be, but they were not lawless ones.
For three long years, Supreme Court watchers mollified themselves (and others) with vague promises that when the rubber hit the road, even the ultraconservative Federalist Society justices of the Roberts court would put democracy before party whenever they were finally confronted with the legal effort to hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6. There were promising signs: They had, after all, refused to wade into the Trumpian efforts to set aside the election results in 2020. They had, after all, hewed to a kind of sanity in batting away Trumpist claims about presidential records (with the lone exception of Clarence Thomas, too long marinated in the Ginni-scented Kool-Aid to be capable of surprising us, but he was just one vote). We promised ourselves that there would be cool heads and grand bargains and that even though the court might sometimes help Trump in small ways, it would privilege the country in the end. We kept thinking that at least for Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts, the voice of reasoned never-Trumpers might still penetrate the Fox News fog. We told ourselves that at least six justices, and maybe even seven, of the most MAGA-friendly court in history would still want to ensure that this November’s elections would not be the last in history. Political hacks they may be, but they were not lawless ones.
On Thursday, during oral arguments in Trump v. United States, the Republican-appointed justices shattered those illusions. This was the case we had been waiting for, and all was made clear—brutally so. These justices donned the attitude of cynical partisans, repeatedly lending legitimacy to the former president’s outrageous claims of immunity from criminal prosecution. To at least five of the conservatives, the real threat to democracy wasn’t Trump’s attempt to overturn the election—but the Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute him for the act. These justices fear that it is Trump’s prosecution for election subversion that will “destabilize” democracy, requiring them to read a brand-new principle of presidential immunity into a Constitution that guarantees nothing of the sort. They evinced virtually no concern for our ability to continue holding free and fair elections that culminate in a peaceful transfer of power. They instead offered endless solicitude for the former president who fought that transfer of power.
However the court disposes of Trump v. U.S., the result will almost certainly be precisely what the former president craves: more delays, more hearings, more appeals—more of everything but justice. This was not a legitimate claim from the start, but a wild attempt by Trump’s attorneys to use his former role as chief executive of the United States to shield himself from the consequences of trying to turn the presidency into a dictatorship. After so much speculation that these reasonable, rational jurists would surely dispose of this ridiculous case quickly and easily, Thursday delivered a morass of bad-faith hand-wringing on the right about the apparently unbearable possibility that a president might no longer be allowed to wield his powers of office in pursuit of illegal ends. Just as bad, we heard a constant minimization of Jan. 6, for the second week in a row, as if the insurrection were ancient history, and history that has since been dramatically overblown, presumably for Democrats’ partisan aims.
All this with the husband of an insurrectionist sitting on the bench. I heard Nicole Wallace give the best explanation of anything I’ve heard on why these men act out their grievances in court decisions last night. Two of the guys that sit on the bench are sex pests and were publicly shown to be so. Alito is just perpetually mad at everything but mostly at being branded a bigot because he has issues with women and gay people. His hateful take on religion basically focuses on controlling the objects of his hatred. Protecting his religious practice means he should get away with whatever. Nicole Wallace argued that they love Trump because they are all angry and aggrieved. They identify with Trump because they feel they’re in a similar situation. Civil rights are all about not letting white boys be white boys. They all want absolute immunity. We have to rely on Amy and John to be reasonable. Amy’s line of questions actually gave me a bit of hope.
It’s a weird timeline for me to quote Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger. This is from the Bulwark. “ Trump Melts Institutions, SCOTUS Edition. The Supreme Court’s no-win situation and the healthy liberalism we need.”
… reading the tea leaves of oral arguments is always an exercise in guesswork. Hopefully SCOTUS won’t be long in unveiling their opinion on the matter.
But one other thing is worth saying: It’s completely understandable that so many people’s first instinct was to roll their eyes at the Court’s apparent interest in using this case to trace out the complex contours of any newly explicit presidential right to official-act immunity—given the remarkable hubris of Trump’s bringing those arguments in the first place.
After all, here’s a guy who, during his second impeachment, explicitly arguedthat prosecuting an ex-president was the role of the criminal courts: “a president who left office is not in any way above the law,” his lawyers argued, “as the Constitution states he or she is like any other citizen and can be tried in a court of law.”
Now Trump articulates just the opposite position: No act that is “official” in form—which, his lawyers have had to admit during arguments, would include such acts as ordering the military to carry out a coup—can be criminally prosecuted after he leaves office unless he was first convicted in an impeachment trial for that conduct. How any president enjoying such expansive power could ever be impeached by a Congress he could apparently order murdered without consequence remains unclear.
It’s a ridiculous exercise, a transparent stalling tactic. For Team Trump, just getting the argument in front of SCOTUS was a victory in and of itself, further diminishing the odds of a jury getting to rule on Trump’s stolen-election charges before the November election. “Literally popping champagne right now,” one lawyer close to Trump told Rolling Stonewhen the court announced it would consider the immunity claim in February. This week, RS quoted another Trump source that it hardly matters what the court does now: “We already pulled off the heist.”
At the same time, no matter how transparent Trump’s run-out-the-clock motivations in bringing the petition to the Court, it’s true that the claims of presidential immunity at hand have never been litigated. The justices are highly unlikely to endorse Trump’s theory that every presidential act that is official “in form” is exempt from prosecution—but are some presidential acts immune? What is the line between a president acting in his capacity as president and acting in his capacity as a candidate or private citizen? And could it be true—as Trump’s lawyers have argued—that opening up too broad a swath of presidential actions to post-presidency prosecution could hamper a president’s ability to run the country effectively?
Evidently, Kavanaugh’s love of beer causes him to be delusional and totally out of it.

Kavanaugh: President Ford's pardon of Nixon, very controversial in the moment…. Now looked upon as one of the better decisions in presidential history I think by most people. pic.twitter.com/YaB0Px4v25
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 25, 2024

One last SCOTUS send-up and I’m changing the topic. This is from Adam Sewer, who is writing for The New Republic. ” The Trumpification of the Supreme Court. The conservative justices have shown they are ready to sacrifice any law or principle to save the former president.”
The notion that Donald Trump’s supporters believe that he should be able to overthrow the government and get away with it sounds like hyperbole, an absurd and uncharitable caricature of conservative thought. Except that is exactly what Trump’s attorney D. John Sauer argued before the Supreme Court yesterday, taking the position that former presidents have “absolute immunity” for so-called official acts they take in office.
“How about if a president orders the military to stage a coup?” Justice Elena Kagan asked Sauer. “I think it would depend on the circumstances whether it was an official act,” Sauer said after a brief exchange. “If it were an official act … he would have to be impeached and convicted.”
“That sure sounds bad, doesn’t it?” Kagan replied later.
The Democratic appointees on the bench sought to illustrate the inherent absurdity of this argument with other scenarios as well—Kagan got Sauer to admit that the president could share nuclear secrets, while Justice Sonia Sotomayor presented a scenario in which a president orders the military to assassinate a political rival. Sauer said that might qualify as an official act too. It was the only way to maintain the logic of his argument, which is that Trump is above the law
This Mike Luchovich cartoon is brutal and true. I am shifting to the other SCOTUS shit show this week. CNN has “Takeaways from the Supreme Court’s oral arguments over emergency abortions.” Again, thank goodness my youngest daughter is in Denver. Who knows what her outcome may have been? Dr. Daughter is getting more colleagues in Washington State because of Idaho. Pregnant women are gestational containers there. This analysis was provided by Tierney Sneed and John Fritze.
In a Supreme Court hearing on the Biden administration’s challenge to aspects of Idaho’s strict abortion ban, US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar sought to appeal to conservative justices who just two years ago ruled that states should have the ability to prohibit the procedure.
The dispute, stemming from the Justice Department’s marquee response to the high court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022, turns on whether federal mandates for hospital emergency room care override abortion bans that do not exempt situations where a woman’s health is in danger but her life is not yet threatened.
To prevail, the Biden administration will need the votes of two members of the court’s conservative bloc, and with Justice Brett Kavanaugh signaling sympathies toward Idaho, the case will likely come down to the votes of Chief Justice John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett. The two justices had tough questions for both sides of the case.
The court’s far-right wing, perhaps in an attempt to keep those two justices on their side, framed the case as a federal overreach into state power. The court’s liberals, meanwhile, focused on the grisly details of medical emergencies faced by pregnant woman that were not covered by the limited life-of-the-woman exemption in Idaho’s ban.
Follow the link to the list of take-aways. While that craziness was going on in the District, we continued to be treated to the life and times of Tabloid targets and publishers. Every time I tune into anything dealing with Trump, I feel like someone slipped me the brown acid. How can one malevolent man be so universally dangerous and disruptive? Especially one so incredibly stupid! Can we have a debate on who is more genuinely evil? A to or Trump? Thomas is a stooge. Kavanaugh is a wingman. Gorsuch certainly is in the running for evil, but not the way Alito does it. Robarts is out of his league and likely to go down in shame as history judges him the least effective Chief Justice ever
So, back to Pecker and the man who has to pay for sex coming and going. There’s been a whole of objecting accompanied by “sustained.”

recross: Trump cares about his family and so was worried about these types of stories, right?
objection
sustained
End of Pecker testimony
— Harry Litman (@harrylitman) April 26, 2024

JUST NOW: During his cross of Pecker, Trump's defense attorney, Emil Bove, has been repeatedly referring to Trump as "President Trump" when referencing periods of time when Trump was not in office.
The DA's office keeps objecting and Judge Merchan keeps sustaining those…
— Katie Phang (@KatiePhang) April 26, 2024

The prosecution needs to build a bridge for the jury into Trump's mind that establishes his intent
Pecker was a great witness for just that

I discussed that & what to expect when the next witness takes the stand @CNN @questCNN @OmarJimenez pic.twitter.com/ozKxHydNHS
— Norm Eisen (#TryingTrump out now!) (@NormEisen) April 26, 2024

More will be coming once the print journalists get their stories in. I wish I could be Pollyanna and play the glad game, but I can only come up with the bad news. We get to see this continually, which is also the thing I’m glad about. I m feel like a total masochist every time I turn the TV on or read a magazine article, but just think how awful it would be if we didn’t know about this. I’m not sure what will become of Donald, but I’m certain that we still have time to make certain he doesn’t get back into the White House. We have time to stop the MAGAdons that want to clone that agenda into every state and the U.S. Congress. We’ll see and read nothing else but propaganda if we don’t stop them now.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Guess who John Prine wrote this about?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/04/26/funereal-friday-reads-life-as-a-dank-meme/
#PresidentialImmunity_ #Repeat1968 #EmergencyPregnancyHealthCare #JohnBuss #SCOTUS #TheCaravanOfFools #TheEvilTwinsDonaldAndAlito

#presidentialimmunity_ #repeat1968 #emergencypregnancyhealthcare #johnbuss #scotus #thecaravanoffools
Sky Dancing @[email protected] · 2024-04-26 · 19:00 UTC

The Supreme Court hears arguments on Trump’s immunity claim, John Buss, @repeat1968.

Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I got the cutest picture of the granddaughters today. The girls were smiling and looking at each other with adoration. Both were pretty in pink. All I can think of is what kind of country they may inherit.
I watched and listened to trials and hearings that were so surreal that I was pretty sure we’d entered the Evil Spock Timeline. I remember when the Supreme Court protected everyone’s rights. Now, rights are confined to those who brought the men there and paid for their holidays. It was like watching a Skeleton Dance. Not one TV Lawyer could find anything constitutional about the show they put on yesterday. We all laughed at him when he said,‘ I Could … Shoot Somebody, And I Wouldn’t Lose Any Voters’ Evidently, he can do worse than that, and the Supreme Court would make up something to cover his farty, diapered ass.
This is a must-read from Slate: “The Last Thing This Supreme Court Could Do to Shock Us There will be no more self-soothing after this.” This is written by Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern.
For three long years, Supreme Court watchers mollified themselves (and others) with vague promises that when the rubber hit the road, even the ultraconservative Federalist Society justices of the Roberts court would put democracy before party whenever they were finally confronted with the legal effort to hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6. There were promising signs: They had, after all, refused to wade into the Trumpian efforts to set aside the election results in 2020. They had, after all, hewed to a kind of sanity in batting away Trumpist claims about presidential records (with the lone exception of Clarence Thomas, too long marinated in the Ginni-scented Kool-Aid to be capable of surprising us, but he was just one vote). We promised ourselves that there would be cool heads and grand bargains and that even though the court might sometimes help Trump in small ways, it would privilege the country in the end. We kept thinking that at least for Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts, the voice of reasoned never-Trumpers might still penetrate the Fox News fog. We told ourselves that at least six justices, and maybe even seven, of the most MAGA-friendly court in history would still want to ensure that this November’s elections would not be the last in history. Political hacks they may be, but they were not lawless ones.
For three long years, Supreme Court watchers mollified themselves (and others) with vague promises that when the rubber hit the road, even the ultraconservative Federalist Society justices of the Roberts court would put democracy before party whenever they were finally confronted with the legal effort to hold Donald Trump accountable for Jan. 6. There were promising signs: They had, after all, refused to wade into the Trumpian efforts to set aside the election results in 2020. They had, after all, hewed to a kind of sanity in batting away Trumpist claims about presidential records (with the lone exception of Clarence Thomas, too long marinated in the Ginni-scented Kool-Aid to be capable of surprising us, but he was just one vote). We promised ourselves that there would be cool heads and grand bargains and that even though the court might sometimes help Trump in small ways, it would privilege the country in the end. We kept thinking that at least for Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts, the voice of reasoned never-Trumpers might still penetrate the Fox News fog. We told ourselves that at least six justices, and maybe even seven, of the most MAGA-friendly court in history would still want to ensure that this November’s elections would not be the last in history. Political hacks they may be, but they were not lawless ones.
On Thursday, during oral arguments in Trump v. United States, the Republican-appointed justices shattered those illusions. This was the case we had been waiting for, and all was made clear—brutally so. These justices donned the attitude of cynical partisans, repeatedly lending legitimacy to the former president’s outrageous claims of immunity from criminal prosecution. To at least five of the conservatives, the real threat to democracy wasn’t Trump’s attempt to overturn the election—but the Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute him for the act. These justices fear that it is Trump’s prosecution for election subversion that will “destabilize” democracy, requiring them to read a brand-new principle of presidential immunity into a Constitution that guarantees nothing of the sort. They evinced virtually no concern for our ability to continue holding free and fair elections that culminate in a peaceful transfer of power. They instead offered endless solicitude for the former president who fought that transfer of power.
However the court disposes of Trump v. U.S., the result will almost certainly be precisely what the former president craves: more delays, more hearings, more appeals—more of everything but justice. This was not a legitimate claim from the start, but a wild attempt by Trump’s attorneys to use his former role as chief executive of the United States to shield himself from the consequences of trying to turn the presidency into a dictatorship. After so much speculation that these reasonable, rational jurists would surely dispose of this ridiculous case quickly and easily, Thursday delivered a morass of bad-faith hand-wringing on the right about the apparently unbearable possibility that a president might no longer be allowed to wield his powers of office in pursuit of illegal ends. Just as bad, we heard a constant minimization of Jan. 6, for the second week in a row, as if the insurrection were ancient history, and history that has since been dramatically overblown, presumably for Democrats’ partisan aims.
All this with the husband of an insurrectionist sitting on the bench. I heard Nicole Wallace give the best explanation of anything I’ve heard on why these men act out their grievances in court decisions last night. Two of the guys that sit on the bench are sex pests and were publicly shown to be so. Alito is just perpetually mad at everything but mostly at being branded a bigot because he has issues with women and gay people. His hateful take on religion basically focuses on controlling the objects of his hatred. Protecting his religious practice means he should get away with whatever. Nicole Wallace argued that they love Trump because they are all angry and aggrieved. They identify with Trump because they feel they’re in a similar situation. Civil rights are all about not letting white boys be white boys. They all want absolute immunity. we have to rely on Amy and John to be reasonable. Amy’s line of questions actually gave me a bit of hope.
It’s a weird timeline for me to quote Bill Kristol and Andrew Egger. This is from the Bulwark. “ rump Melts Institutions, SCOTUS Edition. The Supreme Court’s no-win situation and the healthy liberalism we need.”
… reading the tea leaves of oral arguments is always an exercise in guesswork. Hopefully SCOTUS won’t be long in unveiling their opinion on the matter.
But one other thing is worth saying: It’s completely understandable that so many people’s first instinct was to roll their eyes at the Court’s apparent interest in using this case to trace out the complex contours of any newly explicit presidential right to official-act immunity—given the remarkable hubris of Trump’s bringing those arguments in the first place.
After all, here’s a guy who, during his second impeachment, explicitly arguedthat prosecuting an ex-president was the role of the criminal courts: “a president who left office is not in any way above the law,” his lawyers argued, “as the Constitution states he or she is like any other citizen and can be tried in a court of law.”
Now Trump articulates just the opposite position: No act that is “official” in form—which, his lawyers have had to admit during arguments, would include such acts as ordering the military to carry out a coup—can be criminally prosecuted after he leaves office unless he was first convicted in an impeachment trial for that conduct. How any president enjoying such expansive power could ever be impeached by a Congress he could apparently order murdered without consequence remains unclear.
It’s a ridiculous exercise, a transparent stalling tactic. For Team Trump, just getting the argument in front of SCOTUS was a victory in and of itself, further diminishing the odds of a jury getting to rule on Trump’s stolen-election charges before the November election. “Literally popping champagne right now,” one lawyer close to Trump told Rolling Stonewhen the court announced it would consider the immunity claim in February. This week, RS quoted another Trump source that it hardly matters what the court does now: “We already pulled off the heist.”
At the same time, no matter how transparent Trump’s run-out-the-clock motivations in bringing the petition to the Court, it’s true that the claims of presidential immunity at hand have never been litigated. The justices are highly unlikely to endorse Trump’s theory that every presidential act that is official “in form” is exempt from prosecution—but are some presidential acts immune? What is the line between a president acting in his capacity as president and acting in his capacity as a candidate or private citizen? And could it be true—as Trump’s lawyers have argued—that opening up too broad a swath of presidential actions to post-presidency prosecution could hamper a president’s ability to run the country effectively?
Evidently, Kavanaugh’s love of beer causes him to be delusional and totally out of it.

Kavanaugh: President Ford's pardon of Nixon, very controversial in the moment…. Now looked upon as one of the better decisions in presidential history I think by most people. pic.twitter.com/YaB0Px4v25
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 25, 2024

One last SCOTUS send-up and I’m changing the topic. This is from Adam Sewer writing for The New Republic. ” The Trumpification of the Supreme Court. The conservative justices have shown they are ready to sacrifice any law or principle to save the former president.”
The notion that Donald Trump’s supporters believe that he should be able to overthrow the government and get away with it sounds like hyperbole, an absurd and uncharitable caricature of conservative thought. Except that is exactly what Trump’s attorney D. John Sauer argued before the Supreme Court yesterday, taking the position that former presidents have “absolute immunity” for so-called official acts they take in office.
“How about if a president orders the military to stage a coup?” Justice Elena Kagan asked Sauer. “I think it would depend on the circumstances whether it was an official act,” Sauer said after a brief exchange. “If it were an official act … he would have to be impeached and convicted.”
“That sure sounds bad, doesn’t it?” Kagan replied later.
The Democratic appointees on the bench sought to illustrate the inherent absurdity of this argument with other scenarios as well—Kagan got Sauer to admit that the president could share nuclear secrets, while Justice Sonia Sotomayor presented a scenario in which a president orders the military to assassinate a political rival. Sauer said that might qualify as an official act too. It was the only way to maintain the logic of his argument, which is that Trump is above the law
This Mike Luchovich cartoon is brutal and true. shift to the other SCOTUS shit show this week. N has “Takeaways from the Supreme Court’s oral arguments over emergency abortions.” Again, thank goodness my youngest daughter is in Denver, or who knows what her outcome may have been. Dr Daughter is getting more colleagues in Washington State because of Idaho. P gnant women are gestational containers there. Th s analysis is provided by Tierney Sneed and John Fritze.
In a Supreme Court hearing on the Biden administration’s challenge to aspects of Idaho’s strict abortion ban, US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar sought to appeal to conservative justices who just two years ago ruled that states should have the ability to prohibit the procedure.
The dispute, stemming from the Justice Department’s marquee response to the high court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022, turns on whether federal mandates for hospital emergency room care override abortion bans that do not exempt situations where a woman’s health is in danger but her life is not yet threatened.
To prevail, the Biden administration will need the votes of two members of the court’s conservative bloc, and with Justice Brett Kavanaugh signaling sympathies toward Idaho, the case will likely come down to the votes of Chief Justice John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett. The two justices had tough questions for both sides of the case.
The court’s far-right wing, perhaps in an attempt to keep those two justices on their side, framed the case as a federal overreach into state power. The court’s liberals, meanwhile, focused on the grisly details of medical emergencies faced by pregnant woman that were not covered by the limited life-of-the-woman exemption in Idaho’s ban.
Follow the link to the list of take-aways. While that craziness was going on in the District, we continued to be treated to the life and times of Tabloid targets and publishers. Every time I tune into anything dealing with Trump, I feel like someone slipped me the brown acid. H can one malevolent man be so universally dangerous and disruptive? Especially one so incredibly stupid! C we have a debate on who is more genuinely evil? A to or Trump? Thomas is a stooge. Kavanaugh is a wingman. Gorsuch certainly is in the running for evil, but not the way Alito does it. Robarts is out of his league and likely to go down in shame as history judges him the least effective Chief Justice ever
So, back to Pecker and the man who has to pay for sex coming and going. There’s been a whole of objecting accompanied by “sustained.”

recross: Trump cares about his family and so was worried about these types of stories, right?
objection
sustained
End of Pecker testimony
— Harry Litman (@harrylitman) April 26, 2024

JUST NOW: During his cross of Pecker, Trump's defense attorney, Emil Bove, has been repeatedly referring to Trump as "President Trump" when referencing periods of time when Trump was not in office.
The DA's office keeps objecting and Judge Merchan keeps sustaining those…
— Katie Phang (@KatiePhang) April 26, 2024

The prosecution needs to build a bridge for the jury into Trump's mind that establishes his intent
Pecker was a great witness for just that

I discussed that & what to expect when the next witness takes the stand @CNN @questCNN @OmarJimenez pic.twitter.com/ozKxHydNHS
— Norm Eisen (#TryingTrump out now!) (@NormEisen) April 26, 2024

More will be coming once the print journalists get their stories in. I wish I could be Pollyanna and play the glad game, but I can only come up with the bad news. We get to see this continually, which is also the thing I’m glad about. I m feel like a total masochist every time I turn the TV on or read a magazine article, but just think how awful it would be if we didn’t know about this. I’m not sure what will become of Donald, but I’m certain that we still have time to make certain he doesn’t get back into the White House. We have time to stop the MAGAdons that want to clone that agenda into every state and the U.S. Congress. We’ll see and read nothing else but propaganda if we don’t stop them now.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Guess who John Prine wrote this about?
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/04/26/funereal-friday-reads-life-as-a-dank-meme/
#PresidentialImmunity_ #Repeat1968 #EmergencyPregnancyHealthCare #JohnBuss #SCOTUS #TheCaravanOfFools #TheEvilTwinsDonaldAndAlito

#presidentialimmunity_ #repeat1968 #emergencypregnancyhealthcare #johnbuss #scotus #thecaravanoffools