United States | News & Politics

Reagan-appointed federal judge Mark Wolf has resigned from the bench in Massachusetts, and his explanation is blunt: he can no longer bear the ethical constraints that prevent judges from speaking out publicly while Trump dismantles the rule of law.

When a 16-year-old accused Russell Brand of rape, Kelly begged conservatives to condemn him. Now she's splitting hairs about men "into the barely legal type."

To make this massive data dump more accessible, COURIER has compiled the 20,000 documents from Epstein’s estate into an easily searchable repository via Google Pinpoint. Use the search tool here.

One reporter with whom Epstein connected frequently was Landon Thomas Jr., a financial journalist at the New York Times. Thomas exchanged dozens of emails with Epstein between 2015 and 2018, years after the financier’s conviction for soliciting a minor.

In the emails, Thomas tipped off Epstein about inquiries by other reporters and claimed to have vouched for Epstein, whom he said he called “one hell of a guy.” In one exchange, Thomas coached Epstein on how to repair his reputation.

The relationship was a two-way street. Epstein, who died in a Manhattan federal jail in 2019 awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking, was reportedly a valued source for Thomas. In the emails released Wednesday, one of the topics Epstein fed information to Thomas was about Donald Trump’s allegedly lecherous behavior. In the exchanges — through his trademark style of lowercase letters and abundant typos — Epstein alludes to Trump’s predilection for young women.

The convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein apparently served as a behind-the-scenes adviser to the former Trump official and Maga influencer Steve Bannon during an August 2018 media campaign to defend Trump and his agenda, and to promote Bannon’s media ventures.

Text messages released by the House oversight committee on Wednesday detail a six-day exchange between the men from 17 to 23 August, and show Epstein coaching Bannon on television appearances and political messaging.

One side of the conversation is sent from an iMessage account associated with an Epstein email address, and while the name of Epstein’s correspondent is redacted in the documents as released, contextual clues – including references to Fox News appearances, his August 2017 firing from the White House and his work on the documentary Trump @War – make it clear the other participant is Bannon.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been asking — repeatedly — where the promised Trump phone is, whether it exists, and what happened to all the money people have already paid for deposits. And I’m going to keep doing that every week for the foreseeable future.

Not everyone thinks I should. I’ve been told that covering Trump Mobile is “playing into his hands,” that “this obvious con [doesn’t need] any more publicity,” and that “we don’t need to read about it literally every week.” And those are just the nice messages — you don’t want to see some of the other ones.

Still, I think it’s a fair question. Why am I here week in, week out, writing about a phone that, as best as we can tell, doesn’t actually exist? Why didn’t we just call it bad and impossible and move on with our lives?

The short answer is: because it matters.

The long answer is: We can’t move on because this is still playing out, and it still needs reporting. If the T1 Phone 8002 would just arrive at buyers’ houses and turn out to be a real, probably quite bad, smartphone, that would be that. But no one has the phone yet. No one has even seen the phone yet. And Trump Mobile has gone suspiciously silent, with no updates in months to its website or social media profiles.

This also sits squarely in The Verge’s lane. You want us to stick to phones? This is it! It’s a phone — at least in name — and we want to know what’s going on with it.

In fact, it sits in the eye of a perfect storm of Verge-iness. It’s a phone, and we cover those. It’s probably vaporware, and we’re always happy to call out products that will never actually exist. It creates a pretty clear regulatory problem for the FCC, and we love pointing opportunities for Brendan Carr to be a dummy. And, yes, it’s about politics — The Verge covers that. Always has, always will.

But more than that, it’s something that’s worth calling out, and calling out often. In the grand scheme of the Donald Trump administration, a gold Android phone that won’t actually be made in the US is pretty small fry. But it’s emblematic of empty promises and naked grifts, of baseless claims that they don’t expect to ever be called out on. This is an administration presiding over one of the biggest tech industry booms (bubbles?) in decades, that had a tech bro as one of its chief advisers, and that welcomed half of Silicon Valley at the inauguration, and it doesn’t know that you can’t build $500 Android flagships in the United States?

Trump Mobile, for the third week in a row, did not respond to a request for comment.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/38786546

…

That included Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel, who Epstein sent an email to in 2014 saying “that was fun , see you in 3 weeks.”

Four years later, Epstein asked if Thiel was enjoying Los Angeles, and, after Thiel said he couldn’t complain, replied “Dec visit me Caribbean.” It’s unclear if Thiel ever responded. 

In emails with Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, an Emirati businessman, Epstein complimented Bannon, saying in 2018 that “We have become friends you will like him.”

“Trump doesn’t like him,” responded Sulayem.

A year earlier, Sulayem asked Epstein about an event where it appeared Trump would be in attendance, asking, “Do you think it will be possible to shake hand with trump.”

“Call to discuss,” Epstein wrote back.

…

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/41724942

Move cites NSPM-7, saying four European Antifa groups espoused "anti-Christianity," "anti-capitalism," and "anti-Americanism"

https://archive.ph/2KJDu

Katie Wilson, who narrowly defeated the incumbent, Bruce Harrell, emerged from the city’s left-wing activist class and brings with her little experience in governing.

In a state without an income tax, the mayor-elect has promised to pursue what she calls “progressive” new sources of revenue to pay for housing and other basic services, including potential local taxes on capital gains, digital advertising and buildings purposely left vacant. She has pledged to push a $1 billion bond to build more homes and new protections for renters, who make up 56 percent of the city.

“There was a time when we saw Seattle as kind of a laboratory for progressive policy,” Ms. Wilson said in an interview this fall. “And that time’s not now anymore. But why can’t it be?”

Yesterday, I pleaded not guilty to the charges that Trump’s DOJ has hit me with in federal court.

"DON'T BUY STARBUCKS," says Starbucks Workers United as it begins a national strike Thursday. The union says it's ready for the "biggest and longest" strike in company history as it demands fair pay and for the company to address union-busting complaints.

The URL parameter that the Minnesota Star Tribune uses to indicate something is a gift link is also used by common analytics platforms, so most lemmy instances remove it.

Access options:

• gift link, via shortener to keep Lemmy from mangling it
• archive.today — one of the charts is broken

Lawmakers warn of ‘information gap’ lets immigration agents sidestep states’ data safeguards

‘Unfortunately, we are now facing an emergency crisis that threatens our ability to continue this vital mission,’ the Wildwood Soup Kitchen wrote

You've gotta start somewhere...

Trump also addressed reports that demolition has not gone over well with a notable group: first ladies

This tracks.

The gutting of these rules coincides with a huge increase in hospitalizations and deaths from foodborne illnesses.

Voters ousted a mayor who oversaw a surge in encampment sweeps, and a Republican prosecutor who pursued punitive policies toward homeless people and drug users.

British billionaire Joe Lewis, whose family trust owns the Tottenham Hotspur soccer club, has been pardoned by President Donald Trump

A disturbing email released as part of the House Oversight Committee’s 20,000-page document dump on Wednesday revealed a chummy relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Tom Barrack, a private equity investor who currently serves as the U.S. ambassador to Turkey.

Republicans on the House committee made the Epstein-related files public after Democrats on the committee released a handful of damning emails between the late sex offender and journalist Michael Wolff earlier in the day.

In the emails, Epstein asserts that President Donald Trump not only knew about the parade of young and underage girls he sexually exploited but had once spent “hours” with one of them.

In March 2016, Epstein emailed Barrack: “send photos of you and child. — make me smile.”

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