The House voted 427 to one to order the release of the files kept by the Department of Justice on convicted sex-trafficker, well-known pedophile, and friend of Donald Trump and other powerful men, Jeffrey Epstein. It turns my stomach to write a sentence containing that vote count. Just two days ago, the vote on the discharge petition to force today’s vote was 218 to 217, with only four Republicans voting for the petition. That the rest of them, save for the execrable Clay Higgins, changed their vote after Trump essentially gave them permission, turns my stomach.

And the shit keeps flowing downhill, as usual. I picked up the New York Times at Walgreens, and my eye caught this headline – a subhed, actually: “Bondi rushes to investigate Democrats.”

This is just wrong on so many levels, it’s hard to know where to start. First, in my mind, is the normalization of this outrage by the Times in the manner the subhed is presented: flat, matter of fact, as if an Attorney General of the United States is ordered by the President of the United States to investigate members of a political party – and only members of that party – every day. This is not the way the system of law enforcement is supposed to work in this country. To my recollection, and I’ve been covering politics and government for a long, long time, this has never happened before.

Trump and his minions will say that it happened to him – that President Biden ordered the DOJ to investigate and prosecute Trump -- but it’s a lie. Trump was investigated for his theft of classified documents because the National Archives had repeatedly demanded that Trump return documents that he had taken from the White House. When several boxes of documents were finally presented by Trump’s team in January of 2022, months after they had been requested, the Archives discovered that they contained classified information and notified the DOJ in February. The DOJ ordered the FBI to investigate to see if other classified information had been taken from the White House and thus began what turned into the “classified documents case” that ended up being charged and prosecuted by Special Counsel Jack Smith.

The White House had nothing to do with this referral. President Biden was not even aware that this had taken place.

The Times story is accurate, in that it depicts Trump’s order to Bondi to investigate Democrats for their connections to Epstein as a tactic to distract from the DOJ documents, which are expected to show a close connection between Trump and Epstein. Such a connection has already been shown in the emails produced by the Epstein estate last week. The latest count of the number of times Trump’s name appears in the emails to and from Epstein is 2,020. You can be certain that was noticed by Trump and his people, and so the wheels of The Great Lie Machine were put in operation with the order to Bondi to investigate Democrats. The Times even came up with the number of minutes that transpire between Trump’s order to Bondi and her announcement that she had appointed the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York to head the investigation: 217 minutes.

So, all that is to the good. The Times is on the story of how Trump is “weaponizing” the DOJ, to use another word had not been in use to describe our system of law enforcement until Trump came along. But there is a way to take note of how unusual this is. The Times could have used the word “unprecedented” to describe Bondi’s “rush” to investigate Democrats on the orders of President Trump.

But come to think of it, so much has been unprecedented about Trump’s behavior since he took office in January of this year that the word has lost its meaning, and I guess you could make a case that the Times is justified, to some extent anyway, in dropping “unprecedented” from use in its headlines. There have been days, after all, that “unprecedented” would have appeared in every single headline in the New York Times in stories about Trump’s moves in office. His pardons of over 1,000 January 6 insurrectionists on the same day he ordered the closure of entire departments of the government by executive order come immediately to mind.

In yet another disgusting development, my colleague Nina Burleigh has done us the great favor of diving deeply enough into the Epstein emails that she has come up with a shit-spray of nuggets of exchanges between Epstein and Steve Bannon. The sickening details of the frat-boy back-and-forth between these two bottom-feeders are best read with one’s head close by the nearest toilet.

Burleigh reveals the, yes, stomach-turning fact that at the time Epstein was arrested in 2019, Bannon was in the process of making a documentary film about him.

Let us stop and consider that for a moment. Epstein had been convicted of the crime of “felony solicitation of a minor for prostitution” in Florida. At the time of his conviction, Julie K. Brown, an investigative reporter for the Miami Herald, wrote a series of articles that exposed the secret and extraordinarily corrupt plea deal Epstein had worked out with Trump’s DOJ to avoid federal prosecution. She identified 80 – eighty – of Epstein’s victims and proved beyond a shadow of doubt that in addition to his conviction for a sex crime, Epstein had for years been running an extensive sex ring, trafficking underage girls to wealthy and powerful men.

Bannon knew this, and still he was arranging to make a kiss-kiss-and-let’s-forget-the-details documentary about Epstein.

Bannon was all over Epstein with requests for money and jet-favors and business advice, but then, that’s in character for the man who was convicted of fleecing suckers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in a scam that involved promising to help Trump build his wall on the border with Mexico. The only thing that got built was additions to Bannon’s bank account. When he was arrested for the crime, he was on a billionaire’s mega-yacht off the coast of Connecticut.

Emails between the two reveal that Epstein provided his private jet for Bannon to fly all over the world for meetings with billionaire financiers including Qatari sheiks and a former Gulf prime minister. To describe the flavor of their emails as “locker room talk” insults both locker rooms and the act of talking. Here is just one nugget from Burleigh’s Substack, "American Freakshow."

“Short notice for jet charter,” Jeff texted Steve in November 2018. “But can for tomorrow morning to Paris lunch in Paris then fly you to wherever”. Bannon replied, “What a life.” and “u r a pretty good asst.” Epstein responded, “Massages. Not included”.

Epstein and Bannon took to referring to one another as “brother,” a rather dated form of hip-speak commonly used by stiff-backed squares thinking they are getting down with the dudes, if you catch my drift. The diminutive for “brother,” “bro,” isn’t found in the emails uncovered by Burleigh, but among the 20,000-some that were produced last week, I can guarantee you “bro” is in there somewhere.

Disgusting references to women pepper the emails throughout. Listen to this, from Burleigh’s Substack: “How was Paris fashion week,” Steve inquired in Spring 2018. “There’s nothing left in my testicles but a speck of dust .. and a puff of air,” Jeff replied. “Im putting up a poster of you in my apartment,” Steve wrote back.

You ask yourself how much lower could scum like Bannon go in his quest to become one of this country’s most repellent public characters, and then you discover that the last email message Epstein sent was from Teterboro Airport on July 6, 2019, as FBI agents closed in on his jet to arrest him for sex trafficking minors. They had been discussing the documentary film that Bannon had been working on, and the message Epstein sent was to, you guessed it, his “brother,” Steve Bannon. Here it is in its entirety:

“All cancelled.”

If only these assholes could be cancelled, every one of them, forever. But they are still here among us, living it up in spas for the super-rich like Palm Beach and on ranches in Montana and New Mexico, at the tops of Manhattan skyscrapers, flying hither and yon on their Gulfstream jets that cost in the tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars.

It was learned today that Larry Summers, about whose alleged contrition over his Epstein connections I wrote last night, will continue to teach five classes at Harvard on the subject of economics, because of course Summers was such an economic genius that he frequently went to Jeffrey Epstein for investment advice. We should have known that was coming. Summers is a member of the club. Harvard is the club. The way the club has always worked is to close ranks around even the worst of its members in their time of need, especially when they are men.

This is hard to say, but the problems we have in this country are deeper than the organized sexual abuse of minors. We know that some of these masters of the universe have indeed been involved with the likes of Jeffrey Epstein and taken part in sexual abuse of minors. They have also taken their money and donated it to a political party that has the single aim of undermining our democratic system and denying ordinary citizens the right to vote because of the color of their skin or their ethnicity or even their gender. And far, far too many of them are bent in their determination to control the lives of women.

Epstein and Trump and the wriggling, oily likes of Steve Bannon are part of a deeper rot in the soul of this nation. Money is at the heart of it. The more money these monsters accumulate, the worse things get for the rest of us. It is no coincidence that when we speak of the “powerful men” who were befriended by Epstein and along with him took advantage of underage girls – we may learn that underage boys were abused as well – we are speaking of men who shared secrets not only about sex but about how to make themselves and each other even more wealthy.

It turns my stomach to say this, but we have not yet seen the bottom into which these wicked creatures have led us. Not even close.

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How much additional money is the US government raising with its tariffs? Jay Shambaugh offers some useful perspective in “Tariffs are a particularly bad way to raise revenue” (Brookings Institutions, November 5, 2025).

This figure shows tariff revenues as a share of GDP in the US and the OECD countries (that is, mainly high-income countries) since 2005. As you can see, average pre-Trump tariff revenues for these countries were around 0.2% of GDP. The US level bumped up a bit in the first Trump administration, but since has skyrocketed: the final US data point is monthly data for August 2025.

Total US federal revenue in the last 50-60 years has been about 16-18% of GDP. Against that base, an increase of 1% of GDP is notable.

How does the new US level of tariffs rank internationally? Shambaugh offers this useful figure. The US level in 2022 and in August 2025 are shown in yellow. The green bars show higher income developed economies, while the blue bars show lower-income deveoping countries. Low-income countries tend to have higher tariff revenues as a share of GDP for several reasons. One is that trade is often a higher share of their total economy, so a given level of tariffs brings in more money: this can be especially true for small island economies. Also, developing countries often have a larger part of their economy in the “informal” sector, which is administratively difficult to tax. By contrast, taxing what comes over the border is comparatively easy. Shambaugh writes: “At 1.2 percent of GDP, the U.S. would be joining countries like Zambia and Tunisia, and closing in on Sierra Leone (though well below the small island states like Vanuatu).”

Much of Shambaugh’s essay explains why tariffs are bad for consumers, bad for multinationals, and bad for economic growth, and for those who are not already bored and exhausted by my own attempts to explain these reasons, I commend his explanation to you. I’ll just add that if this particular federal tax increase is the only political acceptable one for the current configuration of US politics, then it would probably be prudent to commit the additional revenue to lower budget deficits over time (and to offset part of the reduction in federal revenues from the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” signed into law in July 2025), rather than treating it as “free” for the spending.

The post US Tariff Revenues in Perspective first appeared on Conversable Economist.

He’s going to lose the Epstein file vote in the House tomorrow. He knows it. Everybody knows it. That’s why he “flipped” last night, as the mainstream media is reporting it, telling House Republicans that they can essentially vote their conscience.

I know…I know…the idea of “Trump” and “Republicans” and “conscience” in the same sentence is so foreign and out of whack, it feels like we’re having some kind of slimy bad dream.

Nevertheless, there it is: evidence that for the first time since he lost the vote in the election of 2020, Trump is weak. When it comes to his connection to the Abominable Pedophile Man, Jeffrey Epstein, none of his tricks are working. Marjorie Taylor Greene went off the reservation, and Trump issued a lengthy excommunication from MAGA on Truth Social, withdrawing his endorsement and giving her a new nickname, “Wacky Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown (Remember, Green turns to Brown where there is ROT involved!).” Trump has always been the master of the snappy put-down nickname, so it’s even more evidence of weakness when he feels the need to explain the genesis of what he says he’s going to call Greene from now on.

Trump’s weakness popped out of the closet last week when he lost the vote on the discharge petition. He had threatened the four Republicans who said they would vote for the petition, beginning with Kentucky Congressman Tom Massie, who along with Ro Khanna of California authored the discharge. He called for Massie’s ouster from Congress, threatened to run a primary challenger against him, and even attacked him for his remarriage last week after the death of his wife in June of 2024. “Boy, that was quick!” wrote the thrice-married and multi-philandering Trump on Truth Social, opening the door for Massie’s quick retort on “This Week with Jonathan Karl” yesterday: “Dogs don’t bark at parked cars and we are winning. I am not tired of winning yet,” Massie said Sunday.

Trump and Republicans lost bigly on November 4 in Virginia and New Jersey and in the California vote to allow redistricting. That was another blow to his power. He looked weak. He was weak. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was still refusing to swear in Adelita Grijalva, the 218^th vote for discharge, when the drop of the Epstein emails hit last week. As reporters worked their way through nearly 23,000 emails to and from Epstein, Trump’s name popped up more than anyone had expected. I haven’t seen the latest count, but the last time I checked, CBC was reporting that Trump’s name appears more than 1,500 times in the emails, more than the name of any other person, and there are a lot of names of powerful people in there.

By the end of last week, it was clear. Not only had Trump and Epstein been “best friends” for some 15 years, they stayed in touch even after Epstein was convicted on state charges of soliciting prostitution in Florida, where they lived down the street from each other in Palm Beach.

Rumors and supposition were confirmed in black and white text. Trump was very, very close to a known pedophile. MAGA has been obsessed with pedophile conspiracies for years now. It was inevitable that the email evidence would make Trump look even weaker, and he did.

Now we’re told that perhaps as many as 100 House Republicans will vote tomorrow to force release of the Epstein files by the DOJ. Majority Leader Thune has promised a vote in the Senate, and there are reports that Republican Senators will join their House colleagues and vote for the files to be released. By day’s end, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he would sign the bill to release the files, adding a classic Trumpian caveat: “Sure I would. Let the Senate look at it. Let anyone look at it, but don’t talk about it too much.” He couldn’t stop himself: Epstein is “a Democrat problem. The Democrats were Epstein’s friends, all of them. And it’s a hoax. The whole thing is a hoax.”

When the man opens his mouth, and croaks the word “hoax,” you know he’s in trouble. Repeated meetings between his campaign and Russia in 2016 were a “hoax.” The 2020 election he lost was a “hoax.” The Access Hollywood tape, on which he admitted to grabbing women “by the pussy” was a “hoax.” He even denied the voice on the tape was his. Remember?

What is Trump going to do when he loses the vote tomorrow? He can’t primary 100 House Republicans. He can’t primary however many Republicans vote to release the files in the Senate. There will just be too many of them. To use the word that defined Democrats only a week ago, Trump “caved.” He is now for the thing he said he was against, and of course, as President, he could order their release at any moment, even tonight, before he loses the vote.

Ever since Trump won election last November, the conventional wisdom has been that he “rules” the Republican Party. He has “remade the party in his image,” the pundits like to say. There are even commentators who say that the Republican Party has ceased to exist as we have known it. It’s now the Trump Party. Trump’s rule is so absolute that no Republican has dared to defy him.

Until they didn’t. Only four Republicans voted for the discharge petition. Four. That’s all it took for Trump’s grip on the party to break.

Deny, deny, deny. That’s what Trump is going to do now. First, he’ll have his DOJ come up with a zillion ways to deny the release of hundreds, if not thousands, of pages of Epstein files. Trump has already called for the DOJ to investigate Democrats he says were associates of Epstein. Bondi will say that they can’t release some of the documents “because of ongoing investigations.” Then they’ll come up with redactions of names and places and crimes because they have to “protect the victims.” These are victims who weren’t protected when Epstein was first charged with state crimes in 2007. They weren’t protected from adult men on the Epstein business jet flying to his island in the Caribbean. They weren’t protected by Donald Trump when Trump himself “knew about the girls,” as Epstein admitted in one of the emails. They weren’t protected when adult men were sexually assaulting them as teenagers.

Trump will deny all of it. He has denied that he wrote and drew the nude figure of a female body on his “Christmas card” to Epstein that was revealed a couple of months ago, even after the entire booklet was later produced. (Trump’s billion-dollar lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal for its story about his drawing and “poem” is still active.) Trump has denied that he assaulted E. Jean Carroll, even after not one, but two civil juries found that he did, and a judge, from the bench, defined his assault as rape, even though in terms of New York State law, he did not penetrate her vagina with his penis. Trump has denied that he assaulted any of the twenty-five women who came forth in 2016 and told of his sexual harassment and assault over many years.

Deny, deny, deny. That was the lesson his mentor Roy Cohn taught him. Cohn, who spent his lifetime in the closet, denied that he was gay on his deathbed when he was dying of AIDS, even while requesting that hustlers be brought to him in the hospital. That’s the level of absolute denial Trump has always aspired to and has practiced every day of his natural born life.

No matter what the Epstein files say about Trump when they finally trickle out of the DOJ in reluctant dribs and drabs and leaks, Trump will deny that any of it is true. Girls? What girls? He didn’t do it. He didn’t know about it. Practically the only thing he won’t be able to deny is knowing Jeffrey Epstein because of the photographs of them together. I wouldn’t put that past him, though. He has denied ever knowing E. Jean Carroll, and there is at least one photograph of them together.

What Donald Trump will not be able to deny is losing the House vote tomorrow and the Senate vote when it occurs. He will lose those votes because his connection to Epstein has made him weak. He will deny that he is weak, but that’s the danger all autocrats face in the end. When you have to deny that you’re weak, everybody already knows it, and they will treat you accordingly.

He’s down, he’s not out, but man, is it going to be fun watching him squirm.

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The Opinionated Ogre is a Stay-at-Home parent first, foul-mouthed hater of fascist Republicans second. He’s been making the most horrible people in the country miserable for 15 years and the hate he feels for American Nazis is eternal and without limits. He plans to stop torturing right-wing trash the day the last fascist dies. So, you know, never. Please help support this potty-mouthed newsletter for just $5/month or $50/year (Almost 17% less!)

Hey, pedo! Leave them kids alone!

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Trigger warning: This article contains deeply misogynistic posts by a piece of shit pedophile.

There are two kinds of pedophiles. I’ve talked about this before. There is the kind who suffers from a sickness they cannot control. They are compelled to do what they do because of mental illness or deep trauma (or both) and, frequently, loathe themselves. I honestly feel bad for them because what could be worse than knowing you’re sick and still not being able to stop yourself from feeling impulses you’re fully aware are vile?

But then there’s the other kind of pedophile. The kind that doesn’t see what they’re doing as wrong. In fact, they think they’re the hero of the story, battling against evil forces conspiring against them.

In reality, they’re degenerates who just want to fuck little girls.

Are they compelled by mental illness or deep trauma? No. They’re motivated by something far more banal: Misogyny.

Allow me to introduce you to one such creature: Robert. He’s very impressed with himself.

He’s a very popular blogger and author, you see. Are you impressed by his 17 million visitors?

By way of comparison, in the two years my newsletter has been in existence, my articles have been read about 4.3 million times. That sounds impressive, but I will be the first to point out that it is not. When my girls point at the number of subscribers I have and tell me I’m famous, I laugh and tell them I barely rank as “mini-famous” and I’ve had an article of mine pop up on the Rachel Maddow Show for 5 seconds of screen time.1

This is not to humble-brag (ok, a teeny tiny bit), but to establish a baseline for how…not impressive Robert is despite his clear belief he is VERY impressive. Beyond highbrow, indeed.

So…why am I picking on Robert? One of my readers pointed him out to me, and in light of the ongoing national conversation about whether or not 15-year-old girls are fuckable or “barely legal,”2 he seems like a perfect example of everything wrong with these twisted assholes. Robert will, of course, disagree. But he wants to fuck children. His opinion is invalid.

Robert, for his part, fancies himself a “progressive.” He hates Trump. He’s pro-democracy! He hates Israel (I’m sure that won’t end up being an issue).3 He’s anti-fascism!

He also hates women. Like, really, truly deeply hates women. And he wants to fuck little girls.

One cannot shake the feeling that these two things are linked. Hmmmmmm…

Let’s start off with a softball. Let’s take a look at how Robert, the progressive, talks about the underage girl Matt Gaetz paid to have sex with. It’s…a lot:

I really need to remind you that Robert fancies himself a progressive. He’s a “good guy.” But women? They’re thieving whores and they’re everywhere! Why Robert felt the need to call this girl a whore/slut 5 different times in a single post escapes me, but I’m sure it was for very high-brow reasons. Beyond high-brow, even!

But hey, this was a marginal case, right? She was 17…she lied about her age…you can go either way here.4 Let’s take a look at Robert’s deep thoughts about child molestation and feminism:

Have you ever noticed according to feminists, females never do anything? All actions they experience are things that happen to them, in many cases against their will, although they cheerfully went along at them at the time. We hear words like Stockholming and grooming but ultimately your life and decisions are your own fault and responsibility. You can’t go around yelling that people are brainwashing you all the time, but this is the feminist position.

Oh boo hoo! I was groomed! I was Stockholmed! It’s not my fault I got myself into so many bad situations.

Sigh. Poor women. Always crying. Boo hoo.

That’s an odd take. I’ve spoken to plenty of feminists and read plenty of stuff they’ve written over the last 15 years and I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything remotely like this. It reads exactly, and I do mean EXACTLY, like the right’s caricature of feminism.

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Here are more deep thoughts from a different article:

This very angry woman got molested at a very early age and is traumatized by it. But I think she enjoys wallowing in her trauma rather then getting better. I’ve noticed this with many women harmed from molestation. They seem to wear their trauma as some sort of a badge, and have no interest in getting better. This way they get to be victims and we know how much women love to be victims.

When one is dealing with a rampant misogynist who does not consider sexual assault to be “assault,” there are a few key tells to look for. They’re not subtle. One, women are always to blame. Two, men are the victims. Three, well, see if you can spot it:

Typically these women fly into wild rages if you tell them that many women were not harmed by getting molested or they liked it or they got over it with time.

“Were not harmed or they liked it or they got over it with time.”

Yeah…rapists and pedophiles will frequently justify their actions as not being harmful. After all, how can it be a crime if there is no victim? If no one was harmed? Hell, what is the slut-whore ENJOYED, huh?! Is it a crime if she liked it?! Well?! WELL?!

It gets worse:

I have met a lot of women and even a girl or two who got molested and told me that they liked it.

Narrator’s Voice: Robert did not, in fact, meet these women, and no girls ever told him they enjoyed being molested.

Somehow, this absolute piece of shit makes it EVEN WORSE. Same article. It’s like he just decided to go all in on “Is fondling children really that bad?!” with zero self-awareness:

Actually child molestation is not traumatizing when it happens. This is a myth. Trauma only occurs in 10% of the cases. The child mostly thinks it was weird and feels confused. This is because kids don’t know what sex is. And many of them regard it as so insignificant that they simply forget about it! That’s where all the recovered memories are coming from.

The trauma occurs later when they realize what happened and experience guilt and shame.

I’m not a psychologist but this seems like the definition of trauma. You don’t have to understand what is happening or why for the damage to occur. Later, when you are old enough to process the events, you can heal but the damage is there whether you are aware of it or not. I do believe Robert might be a fucking imbecile or suffering from motivated reasoning.

“If I can convince myself that molesting underage girls doesn’t leave any damage, then is it really a crime? If teen girls kind of enjoy being sexually assaulted, then why is that bad? It’s not! And if it is, they’re a theiving whore, anyway! They’re everywhere, you know.”

Here’s the chef’s kiss:

Many adult woman victims of child molestation feel terrible and guilty because they liked it. Hey, sex feels good and little girls have a responsive clitoris and can have orgasms, oddly enough. So they liked it? So what? Who cares? All this woman’s attitude is doing is making victims worse. Way to go idiots.

Got that? Little girls enjoy sex and feel bad about it later. The victim blaming is impressive in its self-justification. Exactly how MANY little girls has this creepy fuck molested?

“If women didn’t get upset about me fucking them as children, it wouldn’t be a crime!”

That’s quite the hot take for a guy who swears he isn’t a pedophile. Oh wait, yes he fucking is:

One feels like that last line about statutory rape laws is more to keep the FBI from searching his computer for the inevitable 500 gigs of CSAM than because he actually believes in it. It’s not like 15-year-old girls having sex with men is inherently harmful, right? It’s historical!

I promise you, if I spent another 15 minutes preusing this creep’s page, I would find multiple references to how it’s biological, too. “Nature intended women to procreate at puberty bla bla fucking bla.”

OK, so we’ve established that Robert is a dangerous misogynist who should not be allowed within one hundred yards of a school. How does a man who fancies himself a “progressive” end up sounding identical to an incel on Reddit?

It’s not that complicated. Somewhere along the line, Robert was rejected by one too many women. Or he found himself and his vaunted intellect pushed aside and ignored by the dreaded feminists. He was a popular blogger once, you know! He could have been like this since high school and people got tired of it. Who knows?

It doesn’t matter what his lame villain origin story is. Like so much of the right, Robert is consumed by a hatred of women. They don’t respect him. They don’t revere him. They certainly don’t FEAR him and that is just intolerable. Those sluts should know their place! And that place is subordinate to Robert!

Now, it’s too late for adult women to be cowed into submission. They’ve been tainted by the evils of feminism. They can think for themselves. What a fucking nightmare! But teens? 15? 16? They’re far easier to subdue and control. I’ve been writing about this for quite some time:

If you can redefine who is a child, then you can redefine who is an adult and then you can trap little girls as sex slaves under your thumb for life. Because that’s really what this is about: Putting women in social and financial chains just like the good ol’ days. Back when they had to settle for any man with a pulse and a job to survive. Back before feminism demanded more than a life of servitude and male gratification. Back before men had to do anything other than show up to land a wife.

So let’s stop calling 14 and 15-year-olds “children” because that’s inconvenient. They’re women, darn it! And they should be allowed to be the sex slave, “life partner” of upstanding men just like Robert.

But they ARE children. I run a D&D campaign for five 15-year-old girls, one of whom is my daughter. We’ve been playing for two years, so I’ve spent hours upon hours with these girls since they were 13. They are completely comfortable around me, having conversations in front of me and with me that they would rather drink bleach before having with their parents.

I love these girls. They’re smart. They’re funny. They’re completely insane and do shit in D&D I never even contemplated when I was playing in high school, lo those many decades ago.

I am telling you this because I can say, definitively, they are not, in any universe, mature enough to date an adult. They are not adults. They are children. Even the ones who have dated/are currently dating are still children. To sit in a room with these girls and consider them as potential romantic partners for an adult, much less a sexual partner, is demented.

Robert asks, more than once, in his rantings, if feminists have ever spoken to a teen girl. It is clear from his creepy, fetishized writing that Robert has not spoken to a teen girl in decades, if ever. If he had, he would know that everything he is saying is not based in reality, but a warped sexual fantasy that exists only in his head.

Fortunately for all of us, Robert is about as well-known as the lecher standing on the corner, leering at little girls, and has about as much influence. He’s not even mini-famous. He’s just a good example of how a burning hatred of women can and will lead you to the darkest of places; a dynamic we are currently seeing played out on the American right as pedophilia consumes it, the natural endpoint of decades of rampant misogyny.

These are sick and broken people, and they need to be stuffed back into the dark hole they crawled out of.

I hope you feel better informed about the world and ready to kick fascists in the teeth to protect it. This newsletter exists because of you, so please consider becoming a supporting subscriber today for only $5 a month or just $50 a year (a 17% discount!). Thank you for everything!

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The Blue Wave is here! No matter what a handful of scumbag Democrats try to do to dissuade us, it cannot be stopped. There are 350 days until the most important midterm election in American history. The regime is afraid, and they should be. We are legion, and they are weak. Stay strong. You are never alone.

Here is an ugly truth: practically every man, woman, and child in this country has either been a victim of sexual abuse or knows someone who has suffered abuse. That’s the one big reason the Epstein story has such staying power. Everyone knows how prevalent the sexual abuse of children is, and this time, a story has come along that promises to expose that fact by tying the abuse to prominent men in politics, business, and academia.

It is truly hard to contemplate how huge the incidence of sexual abuse is. We got a glimpse during the “me too” movement, when women were encouraged to raise their hands and say that it happened to them and to name those who were guilty. But it was only a glimpse.

I remember when I first became aware of how many sex criminals are out there. It was in the early 2000’s. We had just moved into a house in the Hollywood Hills above Sunset and Vine when the state of California passed a law making maps available that showed where people who were registered sex offenders lived.

Think of that for a minute. I just wrote the words, “registered sex offenders.” This was a new phenomenon, that those convicted of sex crimes could not only be sentenced to prison, but required to register with the state as a sex offender once out of prison, a label that we were assured at the time would stick with them for life.

You could log onto a website run by the state and type in your zip code, and a map would appear of your area showing the street address of every sex offender in the zip code. You could zoom in to show your specific neighborhood, which I immediately did. We lived just above Franklin Avenue to the west of Beechwood Canyon. There were lots of apartment buildings along Franklin and on the streets leading up into the hills.

The map of sex offenders in our neighborhood was dense with red dots, not only at addresses that were apartment buildings, but further up in the Hollywood Hills where I knew that the apartment buildings thinned out to be replaced by single family homes. I sat there for a time and counted the red dots. There were hundreds in the specific area where I had walked my daughter when she was in a stroller and where I took my son on walks with his scooter. Hundreds. In buildings I had passed and still passed with my kids every day.

Who knew? I certainly didn’t. I’m sure court records were available that showed every conviction of a sex criminal in Los Angeles County and the city of Los Angeles, but you’d have to go down to the courthouse and search through file cabinets containing paper files of the cases, and the addresses shown would likely be those of the criminals at the time of their conviction, not their addresses after they had served their sentences and were out on parole, and especially not after they had served their time on parole and were free, effectively speaking, of the court system and law enforcement supervision.

I was shocked. There were a dozen or more convicted sex offenders within 200 yards of our house, and within a quarter mile, there were several hundred more. The maps did not specify who the offender had committed a crime against, whether it was an adult male or female or a child. But there it was, up there on the internet, all the evidence anyone needed that sex crime was so rampant that when plotted on a map, and you zoomed out, it turned whole neighborhoods bright red.

The National Institutes of Health have reported that between 15 and 38 percent of adults were sexually abused as children, with women being more likely than men to have suffered abuse. One in four women were abused as children; one in five men suffered childhood abuse. Those are official statistics that come from cases either self-reported or logged by doctors and hospitals. We know, because we are human and we understand other human beings, that people don’t like to admit that they were abused, so the real statistics are very likely much higher than those officially reported. Over the years I have been on this earth, which are quite a few, half the women I have known well enough to talk about such things have told me they were sexually abused by their father, a family member, or an adult official at a school, summer camp, day care or other such facility.

Half.

I’m just one person, and I went decades before the subject was even broached between me and the women I have known.

This is the dirty huge secret behind life in these United States. We are a nation that has tolerated child sexual abuse for the entirety of our history. We have learned that abuse of children has gone on in the Catholic Church for decades, if not hundreds of years. We have learned recently that the same sort of sexual abuse of children, both boys and girls, has been tolerated by organized Protestant churches for what has likely been the same amount of time. Catholic dioceses across the country and at least one national organization, the Boy Scouts, have had to declare bankruptcy to deal with the massive number of judgements for tolerating and covering up abuse over the years. The Boy Scouts is still in court fighting the release of files that would expose abuse during years not covered by settlements in cases against the organization. One case against the Boy Scouts revealed the existence of a “perversion file” of names of volunteers banned from service by the organization. The same lawsuit forced the release of 20,000 pages of files on more than 1,200 cases of child sexual abuse that covered just one 20-year period, 1965 to 1985. The Catholic Church seems to announce another new settlement with victims almost daily.

It sometimes seems that every day, another case of childhood sexual abuse by a church leader is exposed. Last October, the leader of one of this country’s largest mega-churches, Gateway Church in Texas, pleaded guilty to abusing a 12-year-old girl in Oklahoma in the 1980’s. He was given a 10-year sentence, but required to serve only six months in jail. He was also required to pay $250,000 in “restitution” and was required to register as a sex offender.

The sick reality is that almost weekly, you can read of a slap-on-the-wrist sentence handed out to a man who has abused a child somewhere in America. Everyone who reads such a story knows what happened. The guy who was sentenced went to school with the judge or played golf with him at a country club they both belonged to, or served on the board of a local corporation together.

The key words here are “everyone knows what happened.”

People are sick of knowing what happened when rules and norms and laws are bent in favor of powerful people, usually men, who have sexually abused children. The same leniency has happened again and again and again. What has been the result? The statistics outlined above that show one in four women have been sexually abused as children. That statistic hasn’t changed in years. It remains the same, because the men who are the offenders have either gotten away with it, or when caught, have been treated so leniently that they keep offending.

Look at what the Catholic Church did when a priest was reported to have abused a child. They moved the offending priest to another parish in another state, or they sent him for “rehabilitation” at some facility run by the church that was set up specifically to treat priests who sexually abused children.

It’s a closed loop, whether it is within the Catholic Church or the Baptist Church or the Boy Scouts. Make a list. Slap him – it’s always a “him” – on the wrist and cover it up.

The problem the system has had with the Epstein case is that he got away with it so long, and he involved so many prominent men, and they abused such a large number of underage girls, that they can’t cover it up anymore. He got caught in Florida and received an incredibly light punishment from the state and was allowed to go free in a deal with federal prosecutors. Then he got caught by the Southern District in New York, and he was charged and jailed, and he either committed suicide or he was murdered, far more likely given the history of child sexual abuse involving powerful men.

Because criminal investigations produce records of searches and interviews and monetary transactions and other forms of evidence, there is much that has been covered up, and much to be revealed, should the House vote next week to force the release of Department of Justice files on Epstein and his crimes. Because we have electronic communication such as text messages, email, and other kinds of information sharing, there is other evidence that is coming from the Epstein estate by Congressional subpoena. Because there are victims of Epstein’s crimes who are still alive, there is much, much more information that may come out, because they are willing to talk, and there are news outlets willing to give them airtime and space for their voices to be heard.

The dirty big secret that is keeping Donald Trump and other powerful men awake at night is that this time, the story is not going away, and the reason it’s not going away is that nearly everyone has enough knowledge of childhood sexual abuse in their own lives and in the lives of family members and people they know that practically the entire country, including MAGA people and members of Congress themselves know that the stories surrounding Epstein and Trump and other powerful men are true.

That’s the danger to Trump and others. This story is too big and too familiar to cover up. The same thing has happened to too many people. When you see statistics revealing that 70 percent of Americans want the Epstein files to be released, you’re looking at a statistic that contains the huge percentage of Americans who have themselves suffered sexual abuse as children.

It was reported that the name, Donald Trump, appears more times than any other name in the emails and text messages that were released the other day in the 23,000-page drop. He is afraid of the Epstein files because he knows that his name and very likely his image is in them just as frequently, if not more.

It is not known if Trump will survive the release of the Epstein files when it happens, but it is likely that taking a shower in his own lies will not wash the dirt off him this time. The Republican Party will be dirtied right along with him. It is not hard at all to say that Donald Trump’s long friendship with and personal business connections to the known pedophile Jeffrey Epstein is the crime of the century.

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A Call to the Supreme Court Justices

I remember walking into the welfare office in Detroit with my mother, clutching her hand, embarrassed as we re-certified her food stamps. The line was long, quiet, but tense. I spotted someone I knew from the neighborhood and whispered, “Do you know that guy?” My mother looked at me and said, “Do you know what he’s doing here? The same thing we are trying to get help.” That moment stayed with me as a lesson in humility, survival, and the quiet dignity of people struggling to make it through hard times.

Years later, I was a single father, homeless, struggling to keep my daughter fed. Addiction had been a part of my life. Some nights we slept in shelters, others on borrowed floors, and sometimes just in the back of a bus. I skipped my own meals so she could eat. Every SNAP benefit we received was a lifeline. Food stamps weren’t a handout; they were survival.

“Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the LORD will deliver him in time of trouble.” – Psalm 41:1 KJV

“Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered.” – Proverbs 21:13 KJV

Helping the poor isn’t charity — it’s a moral duty. When SNAP benefits are paused, millions of children, working parents, and homeless Americans go hungry.

The 2025 government shutdown threatened SNAP payments for 42 million Americans, including 13 million children. Families across the country were suddenly unsure whether they could put food on the table for Thanksgiving. The Trump administration initially announced that SNAP benefits would not be available in November. After two judges ruled that benefits could not be skipped entirely, the administration said it would use an emergency reserve fund of $4.6 billion to provide partial payments. In a Supreme Court filing, the administration argued that “there is no ready mechanism for the government to recover those funds” that have already been distributed.

But partial payments were not enough. A Rhode Island judge ruled that the emergency reserve fund could not fully meet families’ needs and ordered additional funds be used to ensure full monthly payments. The administration immediately appealed, asking a higher court to suspend the ruling requiring it to spend more than the funds available in the contingency fund. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, acting as Circuit Justice, issued a temporary hold late Friday, pausing the additional payments once again.

“There is only one thing worse than going to bed hungry, and that’s waking up on an empty stomach.”

Supreme Court Justices are sworn to “administer justice without respect to persons, and to do equal right to the poor and to the rich.” That oath is not symbolic; it carries real consequences for millions of Americans waiting for a meal. SNAP is not a political bargaining chip; it is a lifeline.

Recently, I’ve seen the panic firsthand. Grocery stores and corner markets were packed, lines stretching down aisles as families rushed to buy essentials. Even small reductions in benefits ripple through local economies. Corner stores, farmers, delivery drivers, and local service providers all feel the impact. Food banks reported record demand. Families were terrified the benefits they received might be clawed back.

Communities are stepping up like never before. Churches, volunteers, and neighbors are giving more than ever. Inspired by this, I started #LetsAllFeedEachOther, a call for neighbors to help neighbors, especially during the holiday season. SNAP benefits aren’t just food; they circulate through communities, supporting small businesses, farmers, distributors, and even local service employees. When benefits are paused or threatened, these local economies take a hit.

With Thanksgiving approaching, SNAP benefits are more than numbers; they are hope. They let families gather, share a meal, and breathe for at least one day. One day, you’re at church picking up a box of donated food; the next, you’re at a state office praying your EBT card still works. This isn’t just poverty, it’s policy failure.

Families deserve to sit at the table without fear. Children deserve to go to bed full. Parents deserve to provide. Communities deserve stability. SNAP benefits create an economic foundation, sustaining jobs and livelihoods across the country. Pausing them steals hope, nourishment, and dignity.

Some may say, “It’s just politics,” but this is about human survival. Families and children cannot wait while courts and administrations debate funding formulas. Hunger is immediate. The consequences of withholding benefits are widespread: local stores lose revenue, farmers receive fewer orders, delivery networks reduce hours, and employees across these sectors face uncertainty. Even multinational corporations feel the ripples when consumer spending drops.

How the Pause Finally Happened

After weeks of fear and uncertainty, here’s what changed:

• The government shutdown ended.
• Congress passed a funding bill fully financing SNAP through the fiscal year.
• With the shutdown over, the administration told the Supreme Court the emergency was resolved.
• The Court’s temporary hold became moot.
• Full SNAP payments were restored nationwide.

It wasn’t a heroic ruling — It was the reopening of the government that finally took the paws off our Thanksgiving turkey.

“FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IS NOT JUST IMPORTANT TO DEMOCRACY, IT IS DEMOCRACY.” – Walter Cronkite. CLICK HERE to donate in support of our free and independent voice.

The post Thank You for Taking Your (Pause) Off Our Thanksgiving Turkey appeared first on DCReport.org.