Not great for Trump
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) August 11, 2025 at 7:04 PM
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Interesting that she figured Biden operated just like Trump – but he didn't.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) August 11, 2025 at 9:48 AM
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CNN data guru Harry Enten calls the Epstein story a "nothingburger" because Google searches have fallen off in the past week, says Trump's approval rating is "pretty gosh-darn good" right now, and commends Trump for having "some of the best political instincts of any politician I‘ve seen."
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona.bsky.social) August 11, 2025 at 8:53 AM
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Crazy how the guy on the Epstein list is also the guy making sure you never see it.
— Adam Parkhomenko (@adamparkhomenko.bsky.social) August 10, 2025 at 6:31 PM
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“Speaking of crime in the DC area, President Trump, on May 15, 1994, you were on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane when it landed at Reagan National Airport. While you were on that plan did Jeffrey Epstein rape any children?”
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) August 11, 2025 at 2:06 PM
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— Mike Luckovich (@mluckovich.bsky.social) August 7, 2025 at 1:43 PM
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not that this will happen, but the republican party losing 53% of trump’s vote would put dem supermajorities in both the house and senate
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) August 9, 2025 at 7:05 PM
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The fact that Vance is on Sunday shows having to talk about Epstein at all feels like pretty bad news for them
— Laura Bassett (@lebassett.bsky.social) August 10, 2025 at 12:04 PM
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BARTIROMO: Give us some clarity on this meeting that reportedly happened about Epstein
VANCE: There was no meeting at my house
B: Was there a meeting at the WH?
V: We did meet at the WH but not at the time they said we were gonna meet and not about the subject they said we were gonna meet about— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) August 10, 2025 at 10:29 AM
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TRUMP, JD VANCE HAD A 25TH AMENDMENT MEETING ABOUT YOU.
— Rebecca Schoenkopf (@wonkette.bsky.social) August 10, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Rolling Stone, “Vance Tries to Convince Americans That Trump Wants ‘Full Transparency’ in Epstein Case”:
If you believe J.D. Vance, Donald Trump wants “full transparency” when it comes to the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case. Of course, if that were true, we’d know what the Epstein files say about the president and others who were close with the billionaire who trafficked underage girls.
Instead, the administration — through Vance — is trying to distract Americans from focusing on Trump’s relationship with Epstein and is instead pointing the finger at “left-wing politicians and left-wing billionaires.”…
Far from demanding “full transparency,” Trump and his administration have evaded calls to release the contents of the files. Although Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed that Epstein’s infamous client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review” in February of this year, last month, the DOJ released a memo stating that after an “exhaustive review,” officials decided there was no evidence of an “incriminating ‘client list.’”
Hence, the administration’s PR policy of distract and deflect…
Of course, one way to clear all this up would be for Trump’s administration to release the contents of the Epstein files with victims’ identification redacted. But the president might not want to do that, considering his own once close relationship with Epstein and reports that he is named multiple times in the files…
Americans thus far are mostly not fooled by the Trump administration’s ham-handed attempts to distract them from the issue. A recent UMass Amherst poll revealed that 70 percent of respondents believe Trump is not handling the Epstein case well, and 63 percent said that the Trump administration “is hiding important information” about the case.
the department of justice, for starters, knows. the FBI knows. if they had damning evidence on any democratic public figure or any dem-aligned billionaire, it'd already have been released in the most salacious way possible. this shit isn't unknowable, vance and trump just want you think it is.
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) August 10, 2025 at 12:55 PM
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There are no distractions. There is only the big picture. And every so-called distraction is part of that big picture.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) August 11, 2025 at 11:35 AM
Finally! I’ve Been Looking All Day for Good News, Somewhere, Anywhere, and Finally Found Some
Fair Economist
The “Epstein Island” bit is funny, but seriously I think it would be a good idea to stick “Epstein” on a blizzard of organization names “No More Epsteins”, etc.
mrmoshpotato
Fixed for accuracy.
Aussie Sheila
@mrmoshpotato:
If Vance gets the gop nom in 2027-28, I look forward to his evisceration at the hands of both the Dem nom and the maga faithful. Apart from trump himself I don’t think I have ever had more contempt for someone in as high a position in a nominally democratic polity as I have for Vance.
He’s execrable. Simply vomitus.
sab
@Aussie Sheila: Ohioan here. I thought so too, years ago. But then we elected him as our Senator. Creepy slimy liar but we voted for him.
I do love the ” JD Vance ate my cat” signs at protests.
My city has a lot of Nepali and Congoese refugee immigrants that have done wonders in revitalizing neighborhoods. Same as the Haitians in Springfield on the other end of Ohio. And Vance attacks them all
ETA Not merely attacks, but slanders them. And unfortunatley those slanders seem to have resonance with voters.
mrmoshpotato
@Aussie Sheila:
Nominating for the rotating tag.
Aussie Sheila
@mrmoshpotato:
It’s Latin, but the medicinal kind, probably not the real deal. 🤓🤓
Six years wasted learning it hasn’t made me any more fluent. OTOH, it’s made learning other related languages a lot easier.
So there’s that.
Ramona
Jeez Louise! I knew from the Netflix doc that Maxwell was a piece of work but if this Daily Mail source is telling the truth then I could never have estimated just how much of a conniving piece of work she is!
Aussie Sheila
@sab:
I wouldn’t give up if I were you. In places unused to high levels of immigration it sometimes takes a while. Community support and publicity about the people who make such contributions to a place or community often work wonders.
Except for fuckwits of course.
Geminid
There is so much bad news coming out the Middle East I thought I’d share a couple positive stories I saw in Rudaw English. That’s a good new site published in Erbil, which is the capital of the Kurdish Regional Government of northern Iraq.
The first one:
Erbil’s Parks Engineering Department is carrying out the project in coordination with the United Nations Development Progamme.
Parks Engineering head Sarwar Waisi told Rudaw:
Waisi said the first round of planting would include plent of olive and pistachio trees.
Tony Jay
@Ramona:
Robert Maxwell’s daughter.
I guess you could say that the body didn’t drop far from the yacht with that one.
Aussie Sheila
@Geminid:
That is good news indeed. I am travelling to Turkey early next month which is by now a truncated version of my plans a decade ago. At that time I wanted to go to Syria and Jordan and then Turkey. Family demands delayed a lot of it, but mainly it was the general clusterfuck in the area. I am optimistic that Syria will be safe to visit in the next couple of years.
Here’s hoping.
Aussie Sheila
@Tony Jay:
Indeed! Her father was an absolute crim. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
prostratedragon
“Oh Lord, Things Are Getting Crazy Up In Here,” Taj Mahal (Except I’m for seeking a win)
Ramona
Ramona
@Tony Jay: A ship off the old block!
Geminid
@Geminid: The second story concerns the peace process that is ending the 41 year year-long war between the Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The war began in 1984 and has claimed over 40,000 lives of both combatants and civilians.
PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan kicked of the process with a letter written last December from the Turkish island of Imrali, where he has been imprisoned since 1999.
Now, National Assembly deputies from the major Turkish parties– including the DEM Party which Ocalan controls– are drafting legislation including constitutional amendments that will codify agreements regarding Kurdish rights, and will also allow repatriation of PKK fighters and sympathizers living abroad.
If successful, this will be one of the region’s most significant developments this decade, if not this century. It hasn’t generated much news outside of Turkiye though, which may illustrate a sad truth: conflict resolution doesn’t get nearly the attention that conflict does.
This a big deal in Erbil though; the semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government is the the closest Kurdish people have come to self-rule in the modern era, and the long war to the north has affected the KRG in many ways. So last month Rudaw English iinterviewed DEM Party spokesman Asegul Dogan. She was both upbeat and sad:
Aussie Sheila
@Geminid:
That is good news. A little among the clusterfuck, but a lot for the people concerned. I know the the PKK has its own issues, but peace between Türkiye and the PKK would be a significant lessening of awfulness.
Geminid
@Aussie Sheila: My friend Joanie plans to travel to Turkiye this Fall. It sounds like fascinating place to visit.
I understand that Turkish people are very hospitable, even to Americans despite plenty of animosity towards our governments. They’ve had assholes of one one type or another running their governments since the Second World War, so they may be sympathetic on that score.
I hear they don’t like Russians though.
Aussie Sheila
@Geminid:
I understand why Turkish democrats dislike Americans. However they like Australians. Check out Ataturk’s paen to Australian parents who lost their sons at Gallipoli. This has been recently called into question, however it is still potent here, because so many Australians still regard the Gallipoli campaign as a Churchill clusterfuck.
My maternal grandfather was an ANZAC at Gallipoli. He also was a contractor in WW2 his company ‘conscripted’ by our government to repair US Navy ships coming in from the Pacific for repair. Rightly so, in case you were wondering.
He had nothing but praise for the courage of the Turks, and thought of them as ‘brothers who had to fight for their land.’.
Australians generally have nothing but good ‘vibes’ towards Türkiye, even if most of them can hardly explain why!
Aussie Sheila
@Aussie Sheila:
Oh and ‘the deep state’ owes its phrasing to Turkish democrats who fought US fuckery in the 1960s. It actually existed there. Unlike the fever dreams of the fuckwits currently in charge of the US government.
Geminid
I wouldn’t call this Times of Israel story from a couple days ago *good* news exactly. It’s more like good news about bad news, the bad news being last Thursdays decision by Israel’s cabinet to widen the ground war in Gaza.
It seems that IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Hayom is in no hurry:
This illustrates one of the many differences between the Israeli and US systems that I do not fully understand. There is a division of authority between the “political echelon”– the Prime Minister and his Cabinet–and state institutions such as the IDF. The Cabinet ordered this offensive Thursday and outlined the policy goals. But it’s up to General Hayom and his staff to determine the ways and means, and they are taking their time about it.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
I’m amazed at how often people of the Maxwell/Vance/Trump psychological makeup fail to understand that other people actually have a moral code that makes them not behave like they’re in a crab bucket. Based on that report on Maxwell, it appears that she just assumed that Biden was like her, Epstein, and Trump, and got caught off-guard by the shocking fact that no, Biden wasn’t the sort of person who’d give a get-out-of-jail-free card to a child abuser just to get some leverage on his political opponent.
As for Vance, he’s basically been riding Trump’s coat-tails while thinking he managed it through his own awesomeness. He doesn’t have Trump’s evil charisma.
And the speculation about Trump losing 53% of Republicans? True, it’s not likely, but it gets me wondering how small a slice can be taken out of his coalition of evil before the GOP sinks faster than the Lusitania (which sank a hell of a lot faster than the Titanic)? Can he afford to lose thirty percent? Twenty-five? Twenty? Just how narrow are his margins?
Aussie Sheila
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
Ask not how many fuckwits trump can lose, ask how many Vance can capture? . The gop is fucked imo in 2028. Vance is a wet sock and there’s nobody else who could plausibly lead that rat king to an electoral victory.
Tony Jay
@Geminid:
We’ve just got back from Turkey (I’m old fashioned!) and can report that the Turks were uniformly lovely. The bazaar and restaurant hustle can be a bit in your face, but a smile and a “Hayir” solves most issues. Even random guys on the metro were happy to spend 15 mins helping confused Brits navigate the system, and if you use the odd Turkish phrase they welcome you like family.
And where we were on the south was ALL Russians, apart from the one Ukranian vehicle in the car park. You can really see where all that stolen oligarch money has been invested in bricks and mortar. Everything was “[email protected].” and all the menus were Turkish and Russian, though everyone communicated in English because who the hell speaks Russian anyway?
Aziz, light!
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: When Obama won in 2008, there were voices here crowing about the collapse and imminent death of the Republican Party. Years later the recurring buzz was that rising numbers of Latino voters would surely usher in the demise of the GOP in another cycle or two. In recent years many Democrats were confident that the youngest generation of voters, liberated from racism and misogyny, would shun Republican candidates en masse.
I flavor my skepticism with a half cup of salt. The nation has never been anything but split down the middle, however you define it.
Geminid
@Aussie Sheila: The costly failure of the Gallipoli campaign cast its shadow over an crucial decision made by the British seven years later. In 1922, after General Kemal’s troops threw a 120,000-man Greek army back from Ankara and then literally ran them into the Aegean Sea, the British had to decide whether to defend the area granted them and the French under the Treathy of Sievres. That included Constantinople and the all-important Turkish Straits.
Geo-strategically, this was perhaps the most important position in the Mediterranean Basin. It was the keystone of two successive empires– the Eastern Roman and Ottoman. The British had coveted it for a century.
Gladstone and Churchill advocated fighting for Constantinople and the Straits, but the Tories decided otherwise and rolled Gladstone out his position as Prime Minister. One reason: on the first day of landings at Gallipoli, it was General Kemal’s prompt and tenacious defense of the British landing zones that determined the course of the campaign.
British and Commonwealth troops tried for six bloody months to break out of those beacheads, but never could. So seven years later, when they had the opportunity to fight Kemal and the Turks again, the British decided that they’d had enough of General Kemal’s company.
Aussie Sheila
@Geminid:
I didn’t know that later history but it makes sense. Australians of my grandparents generation have nothing but contempt for Churchill. I know this may befuddle USains, but he is no hero here at all.
Curtin the AUS PM at the time is the hero here. Churchill is almost universally reviled.
Aussie Sheila
@Geminid:
youtube.com/watch?v=5FCNg2O_Ivs&list=RD5FCNg2O_Ivs&start_radio=1
Geminid
@Aussie Sheila: I only learned about the Turkish War of Independene two years ago. It was one of two major wars fought in the early 1920s, the other being the war between Poland and the USSR. They both were overshadowed by the First World War.
Aussie Sheila
@Geminid:
The Turkish war for national liberation was something I learned very early, when I was in primary school. Ataturk was then a kind of ‘kindred’ national hero. For reasons explained above.
Professor Bigfoot
@sab: White voters. ;)
Betty
@Ramona: The survivors, especially Maria Farmer, consider Maxwell to be a monster and the most effective part of the scheme. Worse than Epstein.
Elma
@Aussie Sheila: When I was in Australia a few years ago, we went to the War Memorial in Melbourne. It was on November 11th, and there were two groups of Rotarians holding a memorial ceremony there. One group was the local club, hosting a group of visiting Turkish Rotarians. They talked about unity; they played both national anthems; they laid wreaths together. I was astonished.
Matt McIrvin
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
I think you have to ask what his goals are, and how rigged the elections are.
I mean, Trump cannot constitutionally be reelected at this point. And the Republican Party is all about Trump. Either he’s already a lame duck regardless of what happens, or the Constitution and the law are dead, in which case anything can happen. I think a North Korea-style endless totalitarian state is a possibility. The Army burning down the country and killing most of the population of the United States is a possibility. Opinion polls don’t necessarily matter under those circumstances.
Geminid
@Aussie Sheila: Kemal Ataturk was a great General. What made him a great Statesman was his decision to forgo further conquests.
There was strong pan-Turkic movement in the early years of the Republic. Its adherents wanted Turkey to conquer northern Syria, and northern Iraq, including oil-rich Kirkuk. Turkey could have, but Kemal knew that prolonged warfare would stymie his goal of bringing Turkey and its people into the Twenteth Century.
Turkey had a long way to go. In 1920, Anatolia’s literacy rate was 7 percent, and that was among men. Only 4 out of 1000 women could read and write. Most folks had only a first name.
So Kemal supressed the pan-Turkist movement and focused the Republic’s resources and energy on modernization. His policy was “Peace at Home, Peace in the World,” and “No Problems with our Neighbors.”
Kemal’s first years of reforms included secularizing the country by cutting religious authority down to size, as well as instituting a Roman-based alphabet. The funds and property taken from religious establishments helped build public schools.
Kemal capped a decade of fundamental reform in 1934, when women were empowered to vote and serve in the National Assembly. Kemal believed that no modern nation could thrive with half its population remaining second class citizens.
montanareddog
@Geminid: Lloyd George, not Gladstone. The latter was long dead by 1922.
Aussie Sheila
@Elma:
Yes, Kemal Ataturk and the Turkish people are greatly admired here, and there are strong links between the AIF and the Turkish armed forces.
Bear in mind Australia joined WW1 because of its position in the British Empire. The war quickly became unpopular and two attempts to introduce conscription by referendum failed. Thanks largely to the labour movement at the time. The fucker who introduced the referendums was a Labor rat named Billy Hughes.
@geminid
Yes, I am familiar with the early history of modern Turkey. I learned it at school. I think looking back, countries like Turkey, Australia and Ireland and no doubt others, can count their particular versions of national liberation to WW1, in all the historically disparate ways that event made the modern world.
Another Scott
@Aziz, light!: Salt is a necessary nutrient, but too much is deadly.
Something something after they have exhausted all the alternatives.
We make a piece of the future every day, but it’s a slog. It will continue to be a slog.
The only way out is through.
Hang in there.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Geminid
@montanareddog: Thank you for the correction. It was Lloyd George who wanted to defend Constantinople and the Straits.
Uncle Cosmo
@mrmoshpotato: For once, Mister Pottymouth, we are of like mind. (Stopped clock, twice daily , whatever…:^D)
Geminid
@Aussie Sheila: The “Kannakale” question affected Canada’s relationship with Great Britain. When the possibilty of going to war against Kemal’s army arose, Canada’s parliament passed a resolution stating that it would no longer supply troops to the Crown on demand.
Uncle Cosmo
He’s the degenerate product of umpteen (de)generations spawned by the isn’t-it-sad-when-cousins-marry region of the Untied States wot sold (whatever’s left of) his soul to a ghoul. (Two ghouls if you count Orangecandyass.) Wotjaspeck?
Uncle Cosmo
Or the road apple didn’t fall far from the horse’s arse. (Britishism just 4U, TJ.)
Geminid
@Geminid: One of the funnier incidents from this period is the story of the Carrington Cup.
Lord Carrington commanded British forces based in Constantinople. When it was decided to withdraw them, Lord Carrington decided that a victory on the playing field would have to compensate.
So Carrington issued a challenge: a picked group of British football players would play a picked group of Turkish players, with the prize being an elaborate trophy he commissioned: the Carrington Cup. He assembled the best players from each of the several regiments in his command, plus a ringer– an English pro who happened to be there at the time.
The Fenerbahce Football Club answered the challenge: they would play Carrington’s allstars straight up, with their regular side. They put their faith in teamwork, not stars.
The Carrington Cup now resides in a place of honor at FenerbahceFC headquarters.
mrmoshpotato
@Uncle Cosmo: Ah yes. I remember why I pied you now. 🖕
Paul in KY
@Ramona: She’s going to lie her ass off in order to try and get out of the clink.
Paul in KY
@prostratedragon: It just seems like a parody of what having Nazi-lovers in power would be like. The Bismarck was a fine looking ship, but operated for our hated enemies. Our Missouri class battleships look just as nice.
Paul in KY
@Geminid: I sure hope that story is true and that the Kurds can have peace and a bunch of self-autonomy. Thanks for the update!
Paul in KY
@Aussie Sheila: It was Churchill’s clusterfuck. Aided also by the boobs there in charge of the operation.
Paul in KY
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: If she had really good dirt that would have sent the SS Trump to the bottom of the sea, then it should have been explored, IMO.
A) Get her out of jail & no TFG being President again forever.
B) Let her rot in jail and we get another dose of TFG.
I would choose ‘A’, for the benefit of mankind.
Paul in KY
@Tony Jay: Glad you and the family had a great vacay! Won’t be long till the season starts. Best wishes to Liverpool! I expect them to take it again.
Paul in KY
@Geminid: As it should, since the whupping there was comprehensive.
Uncle Cosmo
@mrmoshpotato: IOW you remember that you’re a foulmouthed fucking imbecile with nothing better to post than inarticulate obscenities? How nice. More jackals should remind you of that – maybe you can clean up your act yet.
Tony Jay
@Paul in KY:
Four days to go and still time for a new centre forward and centre back. I expect those positions to be filled before we take on Bournemouth, and however the season goes I intend to enjoy every minute.
And if we keep form and take title 21, I’ll enjoy it to excess!
Paul in KY
@Tony Jay: We’ll try to make a fight of it. Just hope Pep has tweaked his strategery a bit so if one particular dude goes down it doesn’t scupper the whole attack/defense/every-damn-thing.
Also maybe Haaland will finally get clinical…