So Friday was the deadline that the Epstein Files Transparency Act set for DoJ to release everything it had on the Jeffrey Epstein case, except for material that would identify his victims. Guess what? It didn’t. None of the files that mention Trump were released, and Deputy AG (and former Trump personal lawyer) Todd Blanche kicked the can a bit further down the road by promising the rest of the files in “a couple of weeks”.
I mean, the EFTA is just a law, and when has the Trump DoJ cared about the law? Expect Blanche’s couple of weeks to become a month or more. And when that excuse runs thin, DoJ can start exploiting apparent loopholes in the EFTA and litigating its interpretations up through the courts. Whatever Trump is hiding can stay hidden for quite a while yet.
But that’s not the main thing I’m writing about this week, because from Tuesday to Thursday we saw a remarkable display of pathos by the President of the United States. His sick sad response to the Rob Reiner murder came on Tuesday. Wednesday we learned about the ridiculous “walk of fame” he has installed on the White House collonade: cast-in-brass plaques about Trump and all his predecessors, interpreting American presidential history through the lens of Trump’s ego. (Ronald Reagan was a fan of Trump. Andrew Jackson was treated unfairly by the press of his day, but not as badly as Trump has been.)
Wednesday night he demanded (and got) free air time from the major networks to make the most trivial national address in American history: Thanks to him, the economy is doing great, and the fact that it’s not doing great is Joe Biden’s fault. Thursday, his puppet board put his name on the Kennedy Center.
Once, this kind of nonsense would have angered me. But now I just feel sad for him, and embarrassed for my country. Every time he tries to aggrandize himself, he gets a little smaller. As soon as he’s gone, we’re all going to forget him as quickly as we can. That realization is driving him to ever more extreme aggrandizement, which shrinks him all the more.
So this week’s featured post calls out the theme: “Three days in the life of a pathetic man”. It should be out shortly.
The Epstein files will be covered in the weekly summary. Also the moves towards war against Venezuela, the Bondi Beach shooting, the Brown/MIT murders, Susan Wiles’ unfortunate Vanity Fair interviews, Bari Weiss’ continuing efforts to turn CBS into Fox News, and a few other things, closing with a new Randy Rainbow song. I’ll try to get it out by noon.
The Weekly Sift 