🤖 Mitch's newsletter
Heather Cox Richardson: The US DEA was running an investigation of Jeffrey Epstein and fourteen other people for drug trafficking, prostitution and money laundering. It started in 2010 under Obama. The task force running the investigation was dismantled under Trump.
“The basic question here is whether a bunch of rich pedophiles and Epstein accomplices are going to face any consequences for their crimes,” [Sen. Ron] Wyden said, “and Scott Bessent is doing his best to make sure they won’t. My head just about exploded when I heard Bessent say it wasn’t his department’s job to investigate these Epstein bank records…. From the beginning, my view has been that following the money is the key to identifying Epstein’s clients as well as the henchmen and banks that enabled his sex trafficking network. It’s past time for Bessent to quit running interference for pedophiles and give us the Epstein files he’s sitting on.”
A private post by a friend, shared with his permission:
Another stupid fucking war in the Middle East.
Just say no. No more wars in the Middle East, ever, for any reason. Stay the hell away from that black hole. Over the course of my life the amount of blood and treasure we have poured into this black hole is staggering, and for what. What’s it good for? Absolutely nothing.
I especially resent the USA becoming Netanyahu’s bitch. Bibi has wanted to drag the USA into war with Iran for a very long time. He finally found a sucker to buy into that. A divorce from Israel cannot come soon enough. I am done with them. Israel is a liability. Get it off the national balance sheet, please. What is the USA getting out of this relationship? More wars? Hard pass.
There is nothing in the Middle East worth the bones of a single American GI, to paraphrase Bismarck.
The only regime change I am interested in is here in the USA.
Maybe this war helps that along, so there is that. Trump’s casus belli? Because fuck you, that’s why. The public was not prepped for this. It is of course a massively illegal power grab, but that is par for the course for Trump.
I very much doubt this helps the GOP in the midterms. Especially the higher oil prices.
I would have phrased the comments about Israel less harshly. As an American Jew of a certain generation I feel a strong bond to Israel, and over the course of my lifetime I have had many positive and warm interactions with Israelis — as recently as last week.
But Israel has gone to a dark place since 2023, perhaps much longer than that, and as an American I say we need to stop letting them drag us behind them.
Elsewhere, a friend praised the TV series “Monsieur Spade.” I replied:
I loved “Monsieur Spade.” It has flaws that would have made another series unwatchable, but in this case the show’s many strong virtues made the flaws inconsequential. It hits the notes of noir hard, but it has characteristics that make it definitely not noir.
The showrunner for “Monsieur Spade” is Scott Frank, who was also behind “The Queen’s Gambit,” “Department Q” and “Godless.”
Because he’s a behind-the-scenes guy, I did not become aware of him until last year, when he did one or two interviews. But his IMDB page shows he was behind some of my all-time favorite movies and TV shows.
Posted privately by a friend, shared with his permission:
Lost in the Trump regime’s ongoing disinformation campaign is the fact that not one member of the Trump family has served in the military.
Ever.
And I suspect no one in his administration has a child who is in harm’s way. This is also true of all the chicken hawks cheering them on. It’s always someone else’s family who will pay the Butcher’s Bill.
Overheard: Operation Epstein Fury.
On the Democratic Party Style:
I don’t think I’ve ever encountered, outside academia, people with such a bottomless appetite for mountainous piles of meaningless, unnecessary, empty words and phrases, each genetically engineered, in whole or in part, to make any sentient being stop paying attention. Reading this speech, that is the only conclusion I can come to: that the sole purpose of this speech is to make people stop paying attention.
Cory Doctorow: Democrats should create a “Nuremberg Caucus” to investigate MAGA crimes and restore the damage Trump and his enablers have done to America.