DL Open Thread: Thursday, December 25, 2025

Happy holidays, everybody!  And/or to the discerning few who read DL on what is traditionally our slowest day of the year.

As always, My Christmas Gift To You, my 50 Fave Tunes of the Year, begins tomorrow. 10 tunes each day. No exchanges, no returns.

Let’s see if I can conjure up some stuff worth reading…

Oops, We Discovered Another Million Epstein Documents.  Check back with us in, oh, December of 2028:

The Justice Department said on Wednesday that it had discovered over a million more documents potentially related to the investigation of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — increasing the amount previously known and lengthening the time it will take to release the material.

To date, the department has released about 130,000 pages of information, some of it redacted, to comply with a law passed by Congress requiring the disclosure of most of the material about Mr. Epstein. Under the law, the administration may withhold records that identify victims or information that would “jeopardize an active federal investigation.”

The law gave the Justice Department a deadline of last Friday to release the files, and a batch of about 100,000 pages was released that day. But over the weekend, the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, said that about a million pages of information were being reviewed, and that the full release would take a few more weeks.

You all see how this ends, right?  Trump or, more likely, Vance, pardons all the criminal co-conspirators on their way out of office.

A GREAT Year–For While-Collar Criminals.  Many of whom, thanks to Trump, are no longer white collar criminals:

Trump’s preferred tool for aiding white-collar criminals is simple: the pardon. Where previous presidents deployed that power sparingly, often at the end of their terms, Trump has wielded it promiscuously – issuing clemency even when it results in something completely anathema to his administration’s stated goals.

Take Trump’s supposed focus on combating narco-traffickers. Trump has been explicit about wanting to control the influx of narcotics and fentanyl into the US from South America – and is close to waging war on Venezuela despite the fact that it is not among the primary direct traffickers of cocaine to the US. At the same time, Trump has pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez, the former Honduran president.

Hernandez may not appear as a typical white-collar criminal, given that he was a head of state. But just look at what he was accused of, and who he used his legal, financial and political power to aid. In 2024, Hernández was convicted by a US jury of an extraordinary catalogue of crimes, including conspiring to import roughly 400 tonnes of cocaine into the United States. As the US attorney general said at the time, Hernández stood “at the centre of one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world”, entwining his finances with the cartels and transforming Honduras into a key transit hub for narcotics bound for American streets and, in the process, one of the most dangerous countries on Earth.

His guilty verdict and 45-year sentence were among the most spectacular blows against these drug-smuggling networks over the past decade and a far more meaningful interception against narco-trafficking rings than anything Trump could hope to gain from war in Venezuela. It was also a stark illustration of how white-collar crime is anything but victimless: a mechanism through which narco-states are built, violence is normalised and entire societies are destabilised.

Trump announced in early December that Hernandez was “treated very harshly and unfairly” and would walk free. Hernandez spent months lobbying Trump acolytes and conservative media personalities, pitching himself as a pro-Trump “ally on migration and security” and casting himself as a victim of political revenge by the Biden administration that he said had also been used to target Trump. The play worked. And it would not be the last time.

One by one, white-collar criminals have marched to the White House, bleating their fealty to Trump – and watching their prison sentences evaporate as a result.

We understand it:  Trump sees himself as an unfairly-convicted white-collar criminal.  These are his peeps.  The only people for whom Trump displays empathy.

ACLU Of Delaware Challenges High Fees For FOIA Requests.  They do, indeed, seem excessive:

The ACLU of Delaware has filed a complaint in Superior Court, accusing three public school districts of charging excessive fees to fulfill public records requests, potentially violating the state’s Freedom of Information Act.

On Dec. 22, the civil rights organization said it took legal action after receiving unusually high fee estimates in response to FOIA requests sent to all Delaware school districts. The requests sought updated information on English and Multi Language Learner programs across the state.

Under Delaware’s FOIA statute, public agencies are required to “make every effort to ensure that administrative fees are minimized” when responding to records requests. The law is intended to guarantee access to public information without financial barriers.

According to the ACLU of Delaware, most districts responded to the requests with no charges, consistent with their handling of similar requests in previous years. However, three districts: Cape Henlopen, Christina and Woodbridge quoted fees of approximately $3,438, $1,934 and $2,000, respectively.

Time for a strong nominee for Bureaucratic Gobbledygook Statement of the Year:

However, in an email attached as “Exhibit A” to the complaint, the Cape Henlopen School District’s Assistant Superintendent LouAnn Hudson said that the pricing differences vary by school district based on staffing and access.

“It is important to know that each district uses different systems and processes. Regarding costs and fees, be aware that each district is staffed differently, and its employees have different training, passwords, abilities, and access,” said Hudson. “Therefore, any variances in substantive responses or fee estimates among the districts should not be construed against any district or districts. Also, be aware that Infinite Campus is now state-wide this year. Thus, responses you receive this year may differ from the similar requests submitted last year.”

I can’t improve upon that.  Pure unadulterated bullshit from arguably the wealthiest school district in the state.

What, if anything, do you want to talk about?