Jeffrey Epstein

The Hill - Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said after reviewing the unredacted Epstein files that the Justice Department (DOJ) appears to have flouted the law when concealing various names in documents.

Lawmakers on Monday were permitted for the first time to review the unredacted versions of all DOJ files related to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Several members of Congress had questioned whether the DOJ had fully complied with a law mandating the public release of the files, which allowed for only narrow redactions.

Raskin on Monday said that in addition to revealing the names of victims that were supposed to be shielded, the files released to the public appear to wrongly conceal those who spent time with Epstein “simply to spare them potential embarrassment, political sensitivity or disgrace of some kind.”

“I was able to determine, at least I believe, that there were tons of completely unnecessary redactions in addition to the failure to redact the names of victims, and so that’s troubling to us,” Raskin said.

“There’s no way you run a billion-dollar international child sex trafficking ring with just two people committing crimes, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. No way. It doesn’t work like that. So we need to figure out what other conspiracies were involved, what other co-conspirators were involved? And I really do believe that listening to the survivors is going to be our pathway through this nightmare.” 

\Headline USA - Convicted sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell helped fund the Clinton Global Initiative, seemingly contributing at least $1 million to the organization, according to the newly released “Epstein files”—the trove of documents released by the Justice Department. Indeed, an Oct. 7, 2004, email from former Clinton Foundation official Mary Morrison to Maxwell asks for a $1 million wire transfer.  “I told them to be expecting $l million USA dollars… and that it would be coming in the next few days,” Morrison, who was an executive assistant to former President Bill Clinton, said at the time.

About a week later, Epstein responded to the email with a message, likely to Maxwell: “Ask him to tell you why i million now and where will it be going.”It’s not clear what happened after that. However, the emails are the latest indication that Maxwell and Epstein indeed had a major role in the Clinton Foundation—the conduit allegedly used by Hillary Clinton to trade political favors for monetary donations.

The Green Dragon Tavern: Epstein file appearances:

Donald Trump: 38,000

Peter Attia: 1,700

Bill Clinton: 1,000

Ronald Lauder: 900

Prince Andrew: 850

Steve Tisch: 400

Elon Musk: 60

Bill Gates: 55

It's still our America

Sam Smith - One of the things that frustrates me every day, as I go through hundreds of news stories looking for some to cite in our blog, is the lack of tales about positive things going on out there. This is not a new experience. When I started a Capitol Hill neighborhood newspaper in the early 1960s I  felt the same way. Where is the good news?

But then I remember how I enjoyed living in DC despite the things like the 1968 riots or the fact that my city had the highest crime rate in the country.  

I came to believe that there were two 'hoods - an evil and damaging one I had to report and fight and one that was improving thanks to community action . Someone's house could be broken into several blocks away and it was disturbing but still didn't define the 'hood.

Which is one reason I think we can outlast the Trump experience. We can't just list his evils but must find ways to improve our nation as a whole. This isn't to say that….

[I had to stop writing this here because of a phone call about a plan to broadcast on PBS stations countrywide this spring a film from several years ago about DC self government efforts of which my wife and I were a part - a good example of how the local can take time away from the national]

This isn't to say that what Trump is up to hasn't been horrible but rather that even at his worse he doesn't get to define America unless we fall for him. 

It's still our America and while we have to keep reporting the latest evils of the Trump regime, it is also crucial that we view them as  illustrating the need to be as strong as we were, say, during the  end of slavery or the New Deal. The Trump evils are only part of the story. The right response is not just fear or surrender but strengthening the democratic and decent elements of our lives while getting the thugs taken away. It's still our America. 

Donald Trump

Stupid Trump stuff

NY Times - Trump administration officials have suggested that the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery create a section in the museum to display multiple images of the president in addition to his official portrait.

The concept initially came up during a Dec. 19 tour of the museum that included Abby Jones, the acting chief of protocol at the State Department, and the White House photographer, Daniel Torok, according to three people familiar with the discussions. They said the administration officials noted that the White House often received artworks of Mr. Trump created by Americans that could make for a display in a corner of the museum.

Ms. Jones is taking an increasing role in presenting the president’s viewpoint on what he sees as necessary changes in Smithsonian content.

Though the museum has displayed multiple depictions of other presidents, such as Washington, Lincoln and Kennedy, in what is known as the “America’s Presidents” exhibition, those images were typically placed after the men left office.

NY Times - The potential for a deal between Harvard University and the White House was thrown into doubt after President Trump unleashed a blistering attack on the Ivy League school in a series of late-night social media posts.

Just last week, Mr. Trump privately told negotiators he was willing to drop his demand for a $200 million payment from Harvard to the government if that would secure an agreement to end his pressure campaign against the university, which he views as hostile to conservatives and his presidency.

After a report from The New York Times about the change of heart, Mr. Trump’s Truth Social posts at 11:20 p.m. on Monday and again on Tuesday — at 12:11 a.m. and 7:56 a.m. — made clear he had lost interest, at least for now, in such a compromise.

Instead of dropping the fine, Mr. Trump said he would demand $1 billion “in damages.” He threatened the school with a criminal investigation.

“This should be a Criminal, not Civil, event, and Harvard will have to live with the consequences of their wrongdoings,” Mr. Trump wrote. “In any event, this case will continue until justice is served.”

The sudden shift was characteristic of Mr. Trump’s vacillating demands during months spent trying to hammer out a Harvard deal, which remains a central plank of his broader push to alter the culture of a higher education system he had derided as a factory of “woke” ideology.

Miles Rapoport, the co-chairman of Crimson Courage, an alumni group that has urged Harvard to resist any deal that compromises its academic freedom, said Mr. Trump and his White House were “completely unreliable negotiating partners.”

“I hope this strengthens Harvard’s resolve to not make a deal with an administration that is so ready to go nuclear at any moment,” Mr. Rapoport said.

Americans on welfare

Melania Trump

The Guardian - Melania, Brett Ratner’s authorised documentary following the first lady in the 20 days preceding Donald Trump’s January 2025 inauguration, has dipped 67% in its second week of release in the US.

The film outpaced expectations over its first weekend, taking in $7.2m domestically and leading Amazon to expand their rollout from around 1,500 venues to just over 2,000. But indications are that appetite had already been sated, with Sunday projections standing at $2.3m, meaning a drop from No 3 to No 10 in the US box office charts.

Federal judge stops Trump fund cutback

Newsweek - A federal judge in New York has blocked President Donald Trump's administration from cutting funds to social service programs in five Democrat-led states.

The ruling came on Friday from U.S. District Judge Vernon Broderick, who sided with Minnesota, California, Illinois, New York and Colorado. The states were granted a motion for a preliminary injunction.

Collectively, these states receive more than $10 billion annually from federal programs that provide child care, nutrition, and family assistance. The funding cuts targeted three key programs: the Child Care and Development Fund, which helps pay for child care for about 1.3 million children from low-income families; Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which offers cash aid and job training; and the Social Services Block Grant, a smaller funding stream that supports local services.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had moved to freeze funding for the programs, citing “serious concerns about widespread fraud and misuse of taxpayer dollars in state-administered programs.” It argued the pause was necessary because they had “reason to believe” benefits were being granted to individuals living in the country illegally.

Polls

HeadlinesUSA - A majority of Americans say they prefer President Donald Trump’s approach to border security and immigration than they do former President Joe Biden’s, according to new polling data. The poll from Napolitan News Service found that 52% prefer Trump’s handling of the issues to 33% who prefer Biden’s. The remaining 15% said they were not sure.

Minnesota protest

Headline USA -  Several dozen protesters were arrested Saturday outside a federal building in Minneapolis after attacking police.  Scores of protesters gathered across the street from the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building around midday, throwing bottles and sex toys at a line of police guarding the property. The Hennepin County Sheriff’s office said that the arrests began after the crowd started throwing chunks of ice and some property was damaged. A deputy was hit in the head, and a squad vehicle’s windshield was smashed, the sheriff’s office said on its Facebook page.

Police declared the gathering unlawful and ordered protesters to leave. Many complied, the Star Tribune reported, but about 100 remained in a standoff with deputies, state troopers and state conservation officers.

How To Build a Real General Strike Against ICE

Most and least educated states

WalletHub - With people who have college degrees earning around $600 to $1,400 more per week than people with just a high school diploma, the personal-finance company WalletHub today released its report on 2026's Most & Least Educated States in America...
 
In order to determine the most educated states, WalletHub compared all 50 states across 18 metrics that examined the key factors of a well-educated population: educational attainment, school quality and achievement gaps between genders and races.
 

Most Educated States	Least Educated States
1. Massachusetts	41. Texas
2. Vermont	42. New Mexico
3. Maryland	43. Alabama
4. Connecticut	44. Kentucky
5. Colorado	45. Oklahoma
6. New Jersey	46. Nevada
7. Virginia	47. Arkansas
8. New Hampshire	48. Louisiana
9. Minnesota	49. Mississippi
10. Washington	50. West Virginia

 
Key Stats

• New Jersey has the highest school system rating, which is 24.3 times higher than in South Dakota and Maine, the states among the lowest.
   
• Massachusetts has the highest share of bachelor’s degree holders aged 25 and older, which is two times higher than in West Virginia, the state with the lowest.
   
• Maine has the lowest racial gap in educational attainment, with the share of black people aged 25 and older holding a bachelor’s degree at 30.3 percent compared to 22.5 percent for their white counterparts, a difference of 7.8 percent favoring black people.

The full report 

Private School Gets Pricy

Bloomberg - The top private schools in New York City plan to charge more than $70,000 this year for tuition, an amount exceeding that of many elite colleges.

The Spence School, The Dalton School and The Nightingale-Bamford School on the Upper East Side are among at least seven where fees now exceed that threshold, according to school disclosures and Bloomberg reporting.

Prices have risen dramatically in the past decade, up from a median of $39,900 in 2014. 

Schools largely explain the increases by pointing to rising expenditures and the escalating costs of living in New York, which requires higher salaries to retain top teachers and staff.

Homeland Security faces possible shut down

Roll Call  - Another week, another appropriations deadline for lawmakers on Capitol Hill.  While 11 of the 12 annual spending bills have become law for fiscal 2026, the Homeland Security Department’s funding will expire on Friday.

With no signs of tangible progress in negotiations over changes to immigration enforcement policies, the main question may be whether House members and senators can muster the votes needed for another short-term funding extension just for DHS.

Both chambers of Congress are expected to be on recess next week for Presidents Day. The holiday weekend overlaps with the annual Munich Security Conference, which runs Feb. 13-15 and typically attracts a large congressional delegation.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., who is not traveling to Munich this week, suggested the Senate may need to be in session if the Homeland Security funding is not resolved.

Word

Just saying

Via Just saying

Least religious states

States with 25% or more of their population "unaffiliated" with religion - Vintage Maps

Word

It looks as if our national sport is not playing at all but watching. We have become not a nation of athletes but spectators. The result is visible in the physical condition of our people. Mind & body must develop in harmonious proportion to produce a creative intelligence. - JFK

Which political party has done the best at providing employment

Polls

Newsweek - The latest ActiVote poll, released February 1 and based on a sample of 490 registered voters surveyed between January 1 and January 31 with a margin of error of 4.4 percent, shows Trump at 56 percent approval and 44 percent disapproval among Hispanic respondents.

Just two months earlier, ActiVote found almost the opposite sentiment. Its November poll, conducted between October 1 and October 31 among 574 registered voters with a margin of error of 4.1 percent, measured Trump at 47 percent approval and 51 percent disapproval.

Study Finds   Half of Americans are struggling to pay monthly bills on time, with an equal number finding it difficult to afford basic necessities like groceries

Tax refunds have become survival money rather than bonus money, with 73% saying they need their refund more than ever and only 14% planning to spend it on anything fun

38% of Americans have been forced to move due to costs, with younger generations hit hardest; half of Gen Z relocated because they couldn’t afford where they lived

Most Americans have given up on their ideal location, with 64% of Gen Z believing they’ll never be able to afford living where they want to live

Weather

NJ.Com - A rare extreme cold warning has been issued for New Jersey with up to 60 mph gusts dropping wind chills tonight to as low as 20 degrees below zero.

“The combination of very cold air temperatures and strong winds will lead to very dangerous wind chills,” the National Weather Service said early Saturday. “An extreme cold warning is in effect for the entire area until noon Sunday.”

Immigration

The Guardian - Attorneys for the Trump administration are aiming to deport Liam Conejo Ramos, the five-year-old boy whose photograph in a bunny hat in snowy Minneapolis circulated globally after his detention last month by federal officials during the aggressive anti-immigration crackdown there. 

The child, Liam, returned home to Minnesota earlier this week after being taken into custody alongside his father last month and transferred to a notorious family detention facility in Texas.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on Friday it is seeking a deportation order for the Ecuadorian boy.

MS NOW -- A recent independent analysis found that the number of children detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement has skyrocketed, from an average of 25 per day at the end of Joe Biden’s term to about 170 per day in Trump’s second term — and as many as 400 on some days, write Kay Guerrero and Jacob Soboroff. At the end of January, one of those children was 2-year-old Chloe Tipan Villacis, who was swept up during a raid in Minneapolis, spent 27 hours in federal custody and was flown to Texas with her father until ICE released her after a federal judge’s order. Read more.

Headline USA -   The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has sided with two immigrants who were held in detention for extended periods without being given the opportunity to appear before a judge to request their release on bond. The Monday decision involved Adolph Michelin and Adewumi Abioye, who both challenged their detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as unconstitutional.

Abioye, a Nigerian citizen, came to the United States on a tourist visa in 2018. After completing a prison sentence for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, ICE detained him in May 2022. He remained locked up for more than 16 months without a hearing to determine whether he could be released on bond. In October 2023, Abioye filed a legal petition arguing that holding him for so long without a hearing violated his constitutional right to due process under the Fifth Amendment.

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania agreed with Abioye and ordered that he receive a bond hearing. Following that hearing, he was released in December 2023 after posting a $5,000 bond. Abioye then requested that the government pay his legal bills under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), a law that allows people to recover attorneys’ fees when the government’s position in a case was not reasonably justified. The District Court granted his request, awarding him $18,224.58.

.... Michelin’s case followed a similar path. The Jamaican citizen was taken into ICE custody in January 2022 and spent more than a year detained without a bond hearing. He filed his own legal challenge in early 2023, and the District Court ordered his release on a $10,000 bond. Like Abioye, Michelin sought payment of his legal expenses under the EAJA and was awarded $15,841.60.

 The New Republic - We're now learning that this year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to retrofit around two dozen vast new facilities. In keeping with Trump-Miller's visions, ICE vows to detain an additional 80,000 people in them. Some will reportedly hold up to 10,000 detainees apiece. In other words, the Trump-Miller threat to create a system of new detention camps is just getting underway in earnest.

To put a ghoulish twist on the oft-discussed ideal of bureaucratic "capacity," this will allow Trump and Miller to imprison and then deport vastly more people a whole lot faster. Right now, more than 70,000 migrants are languishing in detention-a record-but the administration is running out of space. Add another 80,000 beds, and it would supercharge expulsion capacity.

Yet these detention dreams are hitting stiff opposition. ICE wants to buy a warehouse in Virginia's Hanover County, which went for Trump by 26 points in 2024 and combines rural territory with Richmond's northern suburbs. Residents recently turned out in force and angrily condemned the proposed sale, with local reports suggesting only a "handful" backed it. The GOP-heavy Board of Supervisors opposed the transaction. The warehouse owner canceled the sale.

....The pushback has come together surprisingly quickly. What explains this? A bizarrely overlooked finding in a recent Pew Research poll sheds some light: It finds that a huge majority of Americans oppose mass immigrant detention. The wording is critical here:

Do you favor or oppose keeping large numbers of immigrants in detention centers while their cases are decided?

Favor: 35 percent

Oppose: 64 percent

Donald Trump

President Trump refused to apologize for posting a racist video depicting the Obamas as apes. 

Deleting black history

Axios - America's 250th anniversary is colliding with a renewed battle over Black history, as the White House moves to smooth over and narrow how race and equity are discussed, Axios' Delano Massey writes.

• Federal agencies and cultural institutions have deleted or revised Black history content in response to President Trump's anti-DEI mandate, which the administration says restores neutrality.

The National Park Service recently removed or revised dozens of signs and displays related to the mistreatment of Native Americans and slavery — including a Philadelphia exhibit on the enslaved people George Washington held at the President's House.

• One report found that more than 6,700 federal datasets involving minority groups have been deleted, on topics including maternal mortality, sickle cell disease and environmental exposure in historically redlined neighborhoods.

How old is too old for a 30-year mortgage?

NPR STORY 

Drugs

NPR - Federal law distinguishes hemp from marijuana based on THC levels, even though the plants are more similar than not. Now, a new federal law aims to sharply limit the amount of THC in final products rather than focusing on the plants these products come from. The new rules, scheduled to go into effect in November, would close a 2018 Farm Bill loophole that allowed for some hemp-derived THC products. Critics warn that the restrictions could devastate CBD businesses and THC-beverage makers.

Many TrumpRx drugs are cheaper elsewhere

Axios - More than half of the drugs listed on the new TrumpRx website have cheaper generic versions available elsewhere, Axios' Maya Goldman reports.

• Pristiq, a Pfizer antidepressant, costs about $200 with a TrumpRx coupon for a 30-day supply.
• But a comparable generic goes for less than $30 on GoodRx and for just $16.65 on Mark Cuban's CostPlusDrugs.

 26 of the 43 drugs listed on TrumpRx at launch have generic alternatives, per Anna Kaltenboeck, a drug pricing expert.

A White House spokesperson tells Axios cheaper alternatives may exist for some products, but the site's value lies in providing the lowest-cost option for branded products.

George Mitchell & the Epstein scandal

WMTW  - Former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, of Maine, has resigned from the scholarship institute that bears his name.  Mitchell, 92, has said one of his proudest accomplishments in life was the creation of the Mitchell Institute on Washington Avenue in Portland.

For several decades, the Mitchell Institute has given at least one student from every public high school in Maine a $10,000 scholarship.

The Mitchell Institute Executive Committee said Thursday that Mitchell tendered his resignation from his role as honorary chair of the organization.

"We also agree that this is an appropriate time to initiate a thoughtful, responsible process to consider a potential name change," the committee said in a statement.

Mitchell served as a United States senator from 1980 to 1995 and is well known for his diplomacy. He is credited with successfully brokering a peace deal in Northern Ireland in 1998, effectively ending decades of conflict.

This past weekend, the U.S.-Ireland Alliance voted to remove Mitchell's name from its scholarship. In addition, Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, decided to remove a bust of Mitchell from its campus.

These actions were taken after Mitchell's name appeared more than 300 times in the latest release of documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

One document in particular details an encounter Mitchell allegedly had with a girl. According to the documents, the girl expressed being scared and reported having to leave for school.

An FBI document dated December 2020 focused on that girl, whose name is redacted. The female described having sex multiple times with Mitchell after Epstein arranged for her to travel to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., according to the documents.

The girl claimed, Mitchell asked for oral sex and sex, so she complied. According to the documents, the girl, "did what she was told."

Mitchell's spokesperson responded to the allegations with a written statement that read: "Senator Mitchell reiterates unequivocally that he never met, spoke with, or had any contact ... with any underage women."

"Senator Mitchell profoundly regrets ever having known Jeffrey Epstein and condemns, without reservation, the horrific harm Epstein inflicted on so many women," Mitchell's spokesperson went on to say in the statement.

Donald Trump

MS NOW - It is standard fare for autocratic leaders to erase boundaries between themselves and the state. Turkmenistan’s late strongman leader Saparmurat Niyazov made his birthday a national holiday, which involved over-the-top celebrations of him, including military parades and a declaration by his ministers that he was a prophet from God. In North Korea’s totalitarian state, cultish praise and ubiquitous imagery of the country’s leaders are an essential part of the government’s social structures designed to induce the public to submit before its authoritarian leader. The effect of these social rituals is to make a leader appear invincible, untouchable. 

As The Boston Globe pointed out in December in its analysis of Trump’s renaming obsession, strongmen across history often compelled their subjects or allies to participate in the spectacle of renaming:

Allies of Rome’s Julius Caesar, Germany’s Adolf Hitler, the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, North Korea’s Kim Il Sung, India’s Narendra Modi, and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan named sports stadiums, cities, roads, schools, and other public buildings after them.

The Obama video is nothing new for Trump

Arwa Mahdawi, The Guardian - He has called Somali immigrants “garbage”, talked about “shithole countries”, and described Covid-19 as the “kung flu”. He launched his 2016 presidential campaign by calling Mexican immigrants drug dealers, criminals and rapists. He repeatedly questioned Obama’s birth certificate.

Trump & Cronies’ Top 10 Corruption Scandals

Private Prison Companies and Executives Have Donated Millions to Members of Congress

In These Times - Leading for-profit prison companies donated about half a million dollars to Republican members of Congress currently in office, and $57,000 to Democratic congressmembers, from 2021 through 2025, according to an investigation by The Appeal. Executives at these firms have also donated millions of dollars to candidates, political parties, and political action committees (PACs). 

Trump and the media

The Guardian - Jeff Bezos’s continued decimation of the Washington Post this week was just the latest example of billionaire media ownership endangering America’s free press – at the moment our country needs it most.

Mere days after Amazon premiered its $75m Melania Trump documentary, its CEO – worth around $250bn – laid off 300 Post reporters, including the journalist tasked with scrutinizing Amazon itself.

Of course, it’s not just the Post. CBS. Fox News. ABC. The LA Times. All owned or controlled by billionaires who have cozied up to this president.

And don’t forget the tech CEOs whose black-box algorithms control which news stories tens of millions of Americans even see. Apple, Facebook, TikTok, Google – all run or owned by ultra-rich men who have kissed Trump’s ring.