Hi everyone!
Fresh off defending a California cannabis farm that uses child labor, Governor Gavin Newsom took aim at VP JD Vance and his family, who were visiting Disneyland. In response to a video of the Vance family at the happiest place on earth, Newsom said "Hope you enjoy your family time, JD Vance. The families you're tearing apart certainly won't."
"Had a great time, thanks," Vance said. While Vance was at Disneyland, about 150 protesters were outside the gates of the park to yell at Vance about illegal immigration, which the protesters were in favor of. Protesters showed up at the Vance's hotel, too. Newsom ended up looking pretty silly, especially when people started posting the family separation policies his state put into place where the state can legally remove a child from a family that doesn't allow the child to undergo a sex change. The state will then sex change the child without parental approval. And they're still doing it despite the White House orders banning it.
Everyone in the MAGA world is still big mad about the whole Epstein thing. On Friday night in Tampa at Turning Point USA's Student Action Summit, Megyn Kelly summed up the frustration pretty well. Was Pam Bondi lying when she said she had the Epstein documents on her desk, including the client list, or is she lying now when she says there is no client list and nothing to release? People feel like they were promised something and that the promise has now been shattered.
There's one person who could cut through the fray and give the information that people want and that's Epstein gal pal Ghislaine Maxwell who is currently 63-years-old and rotting away behind bars for a 20-year sentence. She wants a new trial and the government is seeking to block it. Lawyer to the stars Allan Dershowitz said she should have a new trial because she, too, was "in part" a victim of Epstein, for whom she was convicted of procuring under age girls. Per sources (per The Daily Mail) Maxwell is willing to talk to Congress. Maybe she'd do that in exchange for a new trial. Or maybe the GOP thinks they've got their scalp and they want to make sure they keep it.
Either way, this story isn't going anywhere even though Epstein has been dead since 2019. Trump, however, really, really wants it to go away. He put out a post on Truth Social saying "What’s going on with my 'boys' and, in some cases, 'gals?' They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB!" It struck exactly the wrong tone.
At Turning Point, however, Epstein was on everyone's minds. It wasn't just Megyn Kelly and Charlie Kirk who talked about it a bunch but Steve Bannon, Jack Posobiec, Tucker Carlson, and still others who brought up the whole Epstein thing as basically a Trump betrayal. Even Elmo got in on the action. Me, personally, I'm done with Epstein. But what bothers me are broken promises.
Dem Rep Ro Khanna is bringing a resolution to release all the files, but the main goal for the Dems here is to see which GOP will vote in favor of the resolution and against Trump. It's an attempt to split MAGA.
The New York Times released an interview with Biden to defend his staff's apparent indiscriminate use of the autopen. The big takeaway was that there's no real evidence that Biden authorized the last-minute pardons that were signed via autopen with his signature. Biden didn't sign off on the final clemency list and also the staff made changes to approved documents and then had them signed by an autopen anyway. The Times writes "Mr. Biden did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people, he and aides confirmed." Instead, he signed off on "standards" that were then applied to names he did not specifically authorize.
To be quite honest, I'm sort of bored with all of these scandals from the past taking bites out of the usefulness of the present, which is already crazy enough without incessant recriminations. I know everyone is all about accountability, but when new administrations rapaciously go after past administrations it just seems like a waste of the American people's time and money, and if there's one thing I can't stand wasting above all else it's time, money is a close second.
Andrew Cuomo may be wasting both, however, as he's said he's going to stay in the New York City mayoral race as an independent. This means the same vote will be split between him, Eric Adams, and GOP candidate Curtis Sliwa. Cuomo proposed that two of them drop out and support whoever is doing best in the polls closest to the general just to block Zohran Mamdani. Sliwa is pretty recalcitrant and said Cuomo should just drop out right now. Egos upon egos and I'd rather have an Eggo. Looks like NYC will end up with a commie mayor.
A French judge has ruled that all Palestinians currently living in Gaza are eligible for asylum in France, claiming that the military actions in that region meet the threshold for "persecution" under the 1951 Geneva Convention. I don't know how no one is asking why Jordan, Egypt, and other Arab states completely refuse to take in Palestinian refugees, or why the UN considers Palestinians who are generations removed from Israel and Gaza to still be refugees.
“France is already grappling with internal instability, with growing tensions in many immigrant-heavy suburbs,” said secular activist Henda Ayari. “Now it opens its doors unconditionally to people from a region where terrorist groups operate openly, and where some welcomed the massacres of October 7.”