Posting since @musicologyduck.bsky.social had a thread on this (but didn't allow replies). The Times Union article is worth reading to see how Epstein blasted through defenses. The violinist had a protective mom; even the model who recruited her asked Epstein to keep it legit. He got her anyway. 2/

“The costs for defendants, even if ultimately exonerated, have been enormous, with many having their mugshots blasted by the government and some forced to languish in jail or have criminal charges hang over them for weeks and months.”

The President had literally months to prepare his response to the Supreme Court ruling, yet couldn't even stick with his decision on the s.122 (temporary) tariff from Friday to Saturday, raising it from 10% to 15%.

Leo leaning into hating on Vance could make him the most popular pope ever.

A brown shirt who got his degree from Liberty University who also happens to run the police department of Quakertown, Pennsylvania, choking out a kid in front of cameras is unseen levels of irony bsky.app/profile/poll...

More context about Quakertown: the Liberty Bell was temporarily stored during the Revolutionary War. It was also the site of a 1799 tax revolt and a hub in the Underground Railroad. It is currently represented by Brian Fitzpatrick, widely seen as one of the most vulnerable Republicans in Congress.

INBOX: the police chief of Quakertown, Pa., led a group of plainclothes officers to disrupt a peaceful high school student sidewalk protest yesterday. They threw an underage girl to the ground, choked her, and disconnected all calls to the detention center where she and others are currently held.

These are all adult cops escalating into violence against teenagers. Many of the students are now being held by the cops who assaulted them.

Critics of Maryland’s ban on participation in ICE’s 287(g) program say it will promote violent crime, but data shared by the state public defender’s office show that the majority of people ensnared by the program have not been convicted of any crime.

The Republican Political Party is weaponizing Ghislaine Maxwell against U.S. citizens to cover up crimes against children.

globalsouthperspectives.substack.com/p/sri-lankas... “The fact that Sri Lanka is deeper in debt after 60 years of IMF micromanagement has got to mean one of two things; either the IMF is incompetent, or it is engaging in intentional economic entrapment. I believe it is the latter.” ~ Fadhel Kaboub

A tariff “refund” mostly goes to whoever wrote the tariff check: the importer of record. That’s not the same person who paid more at the register. So refunds -- if they're offered -- might sound like consumer relief, but in reality, they're corporate windfalls.

Howard Lutnick continued his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein even AFTER Epstein was convicted of sex trafficking minors. Then, Lutnick lied about it. Why is he still in our government? He should be held accountable.

This 53 year old man who lived in my neighborhood w/no criminal record & who had been in the US for 30 years, was detained and thrown into a cold cell for days, caught pneumonia and COVID there and deported. He finally died. I am so angry. www.kptv.com/2026/02/21/n...

We are knowingly digging our own hole? Why? #climate #climatechange #climatecrisis 🧪 #PoliSky #EconSky

Next para: "A regime of secret policing has no place in our society. Here, the Government’s power is derived by the People, and the People must be able to identify the Government when it acts to infringe on their liberty."

If celebs need Go Fund Me drives to help their family after suffering catastrophic health crises, imagine what the average American must endure? We don't need to live like this... people.com/eric-dane-go...

I am never going to get over the fact thar so many Americans died that corpses stacked up in nursing homes and hospital morgues, that refrigerator trucks had to be brought in for the overflow, and that the big takeaway from Important Pundits is there should have been *less* mitigation.

One thing to understand is that jackasses like me graduated from law school basically believing that, while nothing like <all this> was realistic in our lifetimes, if it did happen, then our Supreme Court with all its flaws would respond roughly like this judge did, maybe 9-0.

As I keep saying, the Epstein story is an offshore finance story. And offshore finance is about elite impunity: insistence on their wealth and their persons being protected by the law, but never being subject to the law. It's the "Every man a King" fantasy made real. people.com/jeffrey-epst...

No! Journalism is better when it is backed by a platform that has no venture capitalists looking to make quick money. That is why Democracy Docket is built on its own tech stack with no corporate backers or private investors. It only relies on you. Sign up now. bit.ly/4qmEiFz

In all seriousness when I read this I first started to laugh and then a split-second later thought, you know, they actually may do this

Wow. What an incredible idea. We should write this system down on paper and call it, say, the Constitution

@repstansbury.bsky.social if those are valid, please compare them to these protection documents in the Epstein Estate release

I believe in giving credit where it’s due. Hang the entire Gorsuch concurrence in the Louvre. Master class in telling your colleagues they’ve lost their fucking minds.

At the end of the day, when every dollar of the massive slush fund of taxpayer money Republicans appropriated to DHS in 2025 is audited, we will find it to be the largest govt fraud scandal in history. In addition to ICE reforms, it will more than justify this shutdown.

This tariff ruling is causing considerable confusion. But one thing is clear. 100% of any tariff refunds will be paid to corporations that passed on increased costs to consumers. We paid the tariffs. They will get the refund. Prices won't come back down. The people will get screwed yet again.

Even some of the SAVE America Act’s cosponsors are misguided about the bill’s identification requirements for registration, mistakenly believing a state driver’s license compliant with the 2005 REAL ID Act would be sufficient. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

Please call your congressperson and ask them if they know it’s actually their job to stop billions of taxpayer dollars from being funneled into make-believe boards of peace …and to stop the president from unilaterally declaring war …and to demand compliance with the Epstein files Transparency Act

The next Dem president should do to the IRS what Trump did to ICE. 10x their enforcement budget, arm them to the teeth, and have them repel from Blackhawk helicopters into boardrooms, country clubs and owner’s boxes to shake these goblins by their ankles until every last penny falls out.

I guess we weren't clear when we told the DOJ to release ALL of the Epstein files. So, let's try this again:

Oh? people.com/jeffrey-epst...

It is so offensive what ICE is doing around America. We need to tear down the agency and replace it.

Think of how bad things must be for a Supreme Court Justice to feel he has to explain why it's a good idea to have laws enacted by legislators instead of decreed by wannabe dictators

People broke this story? The magazine that regularly features Miss Piggy on the cover? GET READY TO ACCEPT YOUR PULITZER, PEOPLE MAGAZINE!!! people.com/jeffrey-epst...

Newsom: And I think there’s going to be a hell of a State of the Union. I imagine that could mean more forays overseas — watch what happens with Iran. But this weakness is on display. World leaders have finally figured it out and the American people are seeing it, too.

WSJ EDITORIAL BOARD: “.. his rant in response to his tariff defeat at the Court was arguably the worst moment of his Presidency. .. “.. The fault doesn’t lie with the Justices but with his own tariff obsessions.” www.wsj.com/opinion/dona...

Dear Kristi Noem: you’re tracking down ICE critics? I’m one of them https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/19/kristi-noem-ice-google-meta

"Why aren't reporters asking whether the president has the legal right to launch another Middle Eastern war?" From my Zeteo piece/newsletter today: zeteo.com/p/an-illegal...

Warrant Officers are usually tech specialists of some sort. (whole reason for the class of ranks), they can easily make more money in the civilian job market. This will quickly gut internal military technical capacity, everything from mechanics to pilots.

I know a LOT happened today but this seems like something cooked up in a lab to sow dissent among the ranks. And a hell of a thing for vets in Congress to burrow in on.

Hope is not a promise. It is not a guarantee of success. It is the courage to act in the face of uncertainty. And right now, in this fragile moment for our democracy, it is the most important responsibility we share. www.democracydocket.com/opinion/what...

i've decided not to listen to the audio of a teacher reporting a kindergartender because frankly I don't want to become the person that that event would turn me into. but one thing I hope we are collectively coming to grips with is what it meant that we have lived among such people this whole time

Newsom: His imperial presidency is about to come to an end. This is the last gasp of a desperate man. That was advanced today rhetorically — and then substantively — with his effort to impose a global 10% tax, another regressive tax on working people and small businesses across this country

The first step to dealing with Trumpism is to ignore everything they say and only watch what they do.

Incredible opinion. It holds that the common ICE tactic of jumping out of an unidentified rental vehicle and seizing suspected noncitizens while masked violates the Fourth Amendment because the *manner* of the seizure is incompatible with a free society governed by the rule of law.

This case is insane: ICE shot and killed a citizen last March then *hid it for a year.* The young man they killed had no criminal history. All we know about shooting is from internal ICE docs. We don't know officers' names. We don't have footage. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/20/u...

Newsom: He’s a weak president — and that weakness is now on display globally. The only card he had left was these tariffs. His entire economic policy has been mass deportations — and that’s beginning to unravel. His broader economic policies have obviously been aided and embedded in these tariffs

An ICE agent shot and killed Ruben Ray Martinez, a US citizen and San Antonio resident, in March 2025. Then ICE and the Texas Department of Public Safety covered it up. He was 23 years old. I am calling for a full investigation into this shooting, including why there was an 8-month cover up.