DL Open Thread: Monday, July 14, 2025

Why MAGAts ‘Think’ That DOJ Is Covering Up Epstein Files.  Hey, we think they’re hiding proof of Trump’s perfidy.  That’s not what ‘they’ think:

If you don’t know the fullness of this nonsense, the theory is that serial pedophile Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t just a singular asshole, he was really operating a ring where the girls were recruited and groomed by his girlfriend Ghislane Maxwell under the secret control of agents of the Deep State for use by the biggest movers and shakers in the world — from Bill Clinton, Tom Hanks and Bill Gates to Prince Andrew — who were then blackmailed by the Deep State intelligence community into doing their bidding. And In order to cover all this up, the Intel Community manipulated a guard or inmate in Federal Prison to quietly murder Epstein in his cell after he was arrested for sexual trafficking.

Two of the biggest purveyors of this dingbat MAGAspiracy were Kash Patel and Dan Bongino who are now the number #1 & #2 people at the FBI. They both had promised that they would “release the list” of Epstein clients but now that they are in the power seats and Pam Bondi stated that she had the Epstein list “sitting on my desk” they have instead claimed that Epstein really committed suicide and that there “is no client list.” 

Apparently, Bongino and Patel are massively upset with Bondi over all this and are both threatening to quit if Bondi isn’t fired.

Ginning up this nonsense perfectly suited Trump’s purpose in rousing his base–until it wasn’t.  Remember, kids, unlike Trump, these nutjobs are true believers.  And for those of you who (like me) just can’t get enough, some intriguing bread crumbs from Josh Marshall.

Immigrations Arrests Up, Deportations Way Down.  Not sure how Americans will respond to the new concentration camps they’re paying for while yet another of Trump’s pledges dies aborning:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents last month arrested the most people in at least five years, but deportations are still lagging far behind what President Donald Trump has promised — and even behind those in the Obama administration, according to data obtained by NBC News.

The discrepancy between arrests and deportations highlights the challenges the Trump administration faces to make good on Trump’s Inauguration Day vow to deport “millions and millions” of immigrants.

According to ICE data, its agents arrested roughly 30,000 immigrants last month, the most since monthly data was made publicly available in November 2020. But the number of immigrants deported in June — more than 18,000 — amounted to roughly half the number of arrests, according to internal figures obtained by NBC News.

The discrepancy during the second Trump administration can be explained, at least in part, by the number of immigrants being detained who are not immediately eligible for deportation. Immigration lawyers have told NBC News that many of their clients who have been arrested have pending asylum cases and orders from immigration judges temporarily blocking their deportation.

Since February, the Trump administration has averaged 14,700 deportations per month. That’s far below the monthly average of 36,000 in 2013, the year with the most deportations during the Obama administration. From February to April 2024, the Biden administration deported 12,660 immigrants on average, according to ICE data obtained by NBC News.

Gas Is Now ‘Green Fuel’, And Eligible For Clean Energy Tax Credits:

In Louisiana, natural gas—a planet-heating fossil fuel—is now, by law, considered “green energy” that can compete with solar and wind projects for clean energy funding. The law, signed by Republican Governor Jeff Landry last month, comes on the heels of similar bills passed in Ohio, Tennessee, and Indiana. What the bills have in common—besides an “updated definition” of a fossil fuel as a clean energy source—is language seemingly plucked straight from a right-wing think tank backed by oil and gas billionaire and activist Charles Koch.

Louisiana’s law was based on a template created by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative organization that brings legislators and corporate lobbyists together to draft bills “dedicated to the principles of limited government, free markets and federalism.” The law maintains that Louisiana, in order to minimize its reliance on “foreign adversary nations” for energy, must ensure that natural gas and nuclear power are eligible for “all state programs that fund ‘green energy’ or ‘clean energy’ initiatives.” 

Not sure that even Orwell could have thought this up.

For The Astronomers And Physicists Amongst Us–What Does This Merging Of Two Black Holes Mean To Us?  I honestly don’t know what a black hole is–I suppose I could use the intertubes:

The black holes, each more than 100 times the mass of the sun, began circling each other long ago and finally slammed together to form an even more massive black hole about 10bn light years from Earth.

Q: ‘Mom, are we really that insignificant?’

A: ‘Yes.’

The event is the most massive black hole merger ever recorded by gravitational wave detectors and has forced physicists to rethink their models of how the enormous objects form. The signal was recorded when it hit detectors on Earth sensitive enough to detect shudders in space-time thousands of times smaller than the width of a proton.

Wilmington City Council Promises Land Band Reforms.  Someone asked about Christian Willauer’s position on this, hence:

“A functioning Land Bank can really do good things for a community and can play a role, like a really effective role. But the Wilmington Land Bank has had a long history of not achieving those goals,” said Councilwoman Christian Willauer, who also served as the Land Bank’s executive director in 2017.

Wilmington City Council members have pulled back on calls to dissolve the agency in charge of redeveloping dilapidated city blocks, and instead have suggested transparency and leadership reforms.

The Wilmington Neighborhood Conservancy Land Bank, which was created by the city in 2015, has had a strained relationship with city officials for years following financial mismanagement, embezzlement by a former executive director, and ongoing transparency concerns.

In May, City Councilwoman Shané Darby proposed an ordinance that would have forced the Land Bank to dissolve within 60 days of the measure becoming law. The ordinance text claimed that the entity “has strayed from its initial goal” of purchasing and rehabbing vacant homes in the city and instead has become a “property shelter for developers.” 

During a council meeting on Thursday, Darby announced that she would place the measure on hold after other council members expressed that they could not support what they described as a “drastic” measure.

Still, despite opposition to the dissolution, almost all of the council said that the Land Bank’s operations are in need of significant improvements, and should be reformed.

There are several reasons to introduce legislation,  only one of which is to get the legislation passed.  In this case, Darby’s proposal has effectively become an action-forcing mechanism that even the most slothful of council members agree must be addressed.  Who knows, or cares, what Carney ‘thinks’?  In other words, Darby’s initiative has already proven successful.

What do you want to talk about?