I mean, they needed some kind of pivot to explain why votes to release Epstein files seem to be voted against by Republicans but not so much Democrats. Without making it look like the GOP is afraid of what's in there, of course.
Background: Early in World War II, Look published a two-page spread showing how Superman would end the war. A copy found its way to Das Schwarze Korps,the weekly newspaper of the SS. It naturally was not pleased. The fact that Superman’s originators were Jewish provided opportunity for particular enthusiasm in the Nazi attack. Thanks to Ilpo Lagerstedt from Helsinki, who sent me the photocopy of the article.
The source: Das schwarze Korps, 25 April 1940, p. 8.
Jerry Siegel Attacks!
Once there was a man who was so strong that he could stop a speeding locomotive with his ring finger, but he didn’t do it.
—Folk tale from Des Moines, Iowa, USA
Siegellack stinks! [Literally “Sealing wax stinks,” but also a pun on Siegel’s name]
—Proverb from Massachusetts
Jerry Siegel, an intellectually and physically circumcised chap who has his headquarters in New York, is the inventor of a colorful figure with an impressive appearance, a powerful body, and a red swim suit who enjoys the ability to fly through the ether.
The inventive Israelite named this pleasant guy with an overdeveloped body and underdeveloped mind “Superman.” He advertised widely Superman’s sense of justice, well-suited for imitation by the American youth.
As you can see, there is nothing the Sadducees won’t do for money!
Jerry looked about the world and saw things happening in the distance, some of which alarmed him. He heard of Germany’s reawakening, of Italy’s revival, in short of a resurgence of the manly virtues of Rome and Greece. “That’s fine,” thought Jerry, and decided to import the idea of manly virtue and spread them among young Americans. Thus was born this “Superman.” On this page we present you with several particularly unusual examples of his activities. We see Superman, lacking all strategic sense and tactical ability, storming the West Wall in shorts. We see several German soldiers in a bunker, who in order to receive the American guest have borrowed old uniforms from a military museum. Their faces express at once both desperation and cheerfulness. We see this bicepped wonder in a rather odd pose, bending the barrels of Krupp guns like spaghetti. “Concrete can’t stop me,” he shouts in another picture as he knocks the tops off pill boxes like overripe tomatoes. His true strength only shows itself in flight, however. He leaps into the air to tear the propeller from a passing German airplane. As we can see from the next frame, however, Superman has apparently made a mistake, since he seems to have encountered a Yid pilot. No German would say what the pilot says: “Himmel! Vos is diss?” The American answer “Well, here it is” seems to us not quite right. The right response would be something like “Laff if ya likes, I’m Simple Simon!” [The best I can do at translating “Se wern lachen, jach bin der klaine Moritz!”].
A triumphant final frame shows Superman, the conquerer of death, dropping in at the headquarters of the chatterboxes at the League of Nations in Geneva. Although the rules of the establishment probably prohibit people in bathing suits from participating in their deliberations, Superman ignores them as well as the other laws of physics, logic, and life in general. He brings with him the evil German enemy along with Soviet Russia.
Well, we really ought to ignore these fantasies of Jerry Israel Siegel, but there is a catch. The daring deeds of Superman are those of a Colorado beetle. He works in the dark, in incomprehensible ways. He cries “Strength! Courage! Justice!” to the noble yearnings of American children. Instead of using the chance to encourage really useful virtues, he sows hate, suspicion, evil, laziness, and criminality in their young hearts.
Jerry Siegellack stinks. Woe to the American youth, who must live in such a poisoned atmosphere and don’t even notice the poison they swallow daily.
en.wikipedia.org
The FBI's Jeffrey Epstein Prison Video Had Nearly 3 Minutes Cut Out
Metadata from the “raw” Epstein prison video shows approximately 2 minutes and 53 seconds were removed from one of two stitched-together clips. The cut starts right at the “missing minute.”
Photograph: Rick Friedman/Getty Images
Newly uncovered metadata reveals that nearly three minutes of footage were cut from what the US Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation described as “full raw” surveillance video from the only functioning camera near Jeffrey Epstein’s prison cell the night before he was found dead. The video was released last week as part of the Trump administration’s commitment to fully investigate Epstein’s 2019 death but instead has raised new questions about how the footage was edited and assembled.
WIRED previously reported that the video had been stitched together in Adobe Premiere Pro from two video files, contradicting the Justice Department’s claim that it was “raw” footage. Now, further analysis shows that one of the source clips was approximately 2 minutes and 53 seconds longer than the segment included in the final video, indicating that footage appears to have been trimmed before release. It’s unclear what, if anything, the minutes cut from the first clip showed.
The nearly three-minute discrepancy may be related to the widely reported one-minute gap—between 11:58:58 pm and 12:00:00 am—that attorney general Pam Bondi has attributed to a nightly system reset. The metadata confirms that the first video file, which showed footage from August 9, 2019, continued for several minutes beyond what appears in the final version of the video and was trimmed to the 11:58:58 pm mark, right before the jump to midnight. The cut to the first clip doesn’t necessarily mean that there is additional time unaccounted for—the second clip picks up at midnight, which suggests the two would overlap—nor does it prove that the missing minute was cut from the video.
The footage was released at a moment of political tension. Trump allies had spent months speculating about the disclosure of explosive new evidence about Epstein’s death. But last week, the DOJ and FBI issued a memo stating that no “incriminating ‘client list’” exists and reaffirmed the government’s long-standing conclusion that Epstein—whom the US government accused of committing conspiracy to sex traffic minors and sex trafficking minors—died by suicide. That announcement triggered immediate backlash from pro-Trump influencers and media figures, who essentially accused the administration of a cover-up.
In response to detailed questions about how the video was assembled, WIRED sent a request for comment to the Department of Justice at 7:40 am on Tuesday morning. Just two minutes later, Natalie Baldassarre, a public affairs officer for the DOJ, replied tersely: “Refer you to the FBI.” The FBI declined WIRED’s request for comment.
On Friday, WIRED published an analysis of metadata embedded in the video, confirmed by independent video forensics experts, which indicates that the file was assembled from at least two source clips, saved multiple times, exported, and then uploaded to the DOJ’s website, where it was presented as “raw” footage.
WIRED’s initial analysis found that those saves took place over a 23-minute span; however, further analysis of additional metadata shows the file was actually edited and saved several times over a period of more than three and a half hours on May 23, 2025. Specifically, the file was created at 4:48 pm and last modified at 8:16 pm ET that day. The metadata also references “MJCOLE~1,” which is likely a shortened version of a longer username. While it likely begins with “MJCOLE,” the full name cannot be determined from the metadata alone.
Both analyses found that the two clips, labeled “2025-05-22 16-35-21.mp4” and “2025-05-22 21-12-48.mp4,” were stitched together. The first clip is 4 hours, 19 minutes, and 16 seconds long, but only the first 4 hours, 16 minutes, and 23.368 seconds appears in the published version, meaning nearly 2 minutes and 53 seconds were cut from the end. According to the metadata, the cut occurs just at 11:58:58 pm. The cut is milliseconds before the one-minute recording gap that Bondi said was caused by a quirk of the surveillance system. The second clip, “2025-05-22 21-12-48.mp4,” picks up immediately afterward, continuing the footage from 12:00:00 am until 6:40:00 am.
The analysis was first provided to WIRED by a researcher who requested anonymity for privacy reasons. WIRED reviewed its findings with two independent video forensics experts, each with over 15 years of experience in Premiere and video production, who confirmed that the edit occurred just before the missing minute mark and that approximately three minutes of footage were cut from the original clip.
The FBI released both “raw” and enhanced versions of the video. Both versions include internal comment markers, annotations typically used in editing software to flag moments of interest. The enhanced version, which the FBI referred to as Video 2, contains 15 such markers that apparently correspond to visible movement near “46 door” at New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC). This door is near the cell block where Epstein was being held while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. These markers appear to have been left by analysts during their review, but they do not include the original comment text.
According to a 2023 report by the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), only two cameras in the vicinity of the Special Housing Unit (SHU), the area of the MCC where Epstein was held, were filming and recording at the time of his death. According to the report, the camera that recorded the footage the DOJ released July 7 captured video of a large portion of the SHU common area and parts of the stairways leading to various “tiers,” one of which housed Epstein’s cell.
The OIG report notes that the MCC’s surveillance system was outdated at the time of Epstein’s death, “had not been properly maintained,” and that the DVR hard drives that stored the video files “frequently malfunctioned and needed to be replaced.”
Both the 2023 OIG report and the DOJ-FBI memo published last week state that anyone entering or attempting to access the tier containing Epstein’s cell from the SHU common area on August 9 or 10, 2019, would have been visible on that camera. However, Epstein’s cell door itself was not within the camera’s field of view. The stairway leading to the tier where he was held was also partially obstructed and difficult to see clearly on the video. (A second camera, which covered the “ninth-floor fire exit and two of the floor’s four elevators,” was also filming at the time, according to the OIG report.)
Amid backlash from supporters and critics alike, President Donald Trump defended Bondi on Saturday, saying she was doing a “fantastic job.”
“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!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening. We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and ‘selfish people’ are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein.”
The sudden change in aspect ratio in the allegedly raw video during the "system reset" stands out even more. Like, those are definitely not unmodified video from the same camera, even before you start looking at things like metadata that makes things even more suspect.
And since you can't tell legals from illegals by sight alone, hey, maybe just stay away from brown people, right? Isolate them, don't interact with them, lest you share their fate.
look sometimes you just need the kind of tax advice only an international sex trafficker of minors with ties to mossad and CIA can give, all for the measly price of a few billion dollars, ok?Jeffrey Epstein’s Friends Sent Him Bawdy Letters for a 50th Birthday Album. One Was From Donald Trump.
The leather-bound book was compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell. The president says the letter ‘is a fake thing.’
President Trump with Jeffrey Epstein at Mar-a-Lago in 1997. Photo: Davidoff Studios/Getty Images
By
July 17, 2025 6:45 pm ET
It was Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday, and Ghislaine Maxwell was preparing a special gift to mark the occasion. She turned to Epstein’s family and friends. One of them was Donald Trump.
Maxwell collected letters from Trump and dozens of Epstein’s other associates for a 2003 birthday album, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Pages from the leather-bound album—assembled before Epstein was first arrested in 2006—are among the documents examined by Justice Department officials who investigated Epstein and Maxwell years ago, according to people who have reviewed the pages. It’s unclear if any of the pages are part of the Trump administration’s recent review.
The president’s past relationship with Epstein is at a sensitive moment. The Justice Department documents, the so-called Epstein files, and who or what is in them are at the center of a storm consuming the Trump administration. On Wednesday, after angry comments about how the files are a hoax created by Democrats, President Trump lashed out at his own supporters for refusing to let the matter go.
The letter bearing Trump’s name, which was reviewed by the Journal, is bawdy—like others in the album. It contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand-drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman’s breasts, and the future president’s signature is a squiggly “Donald” below her waist, mimicking pubic hair.
The letter concludes: “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”
In an interview with the Journal on Tuesday evening, Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the picture. “This is not me. This is a fake thing. It’s a fake Wall Street Journal story,” he said.
“I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women,” he said. “It’s not my language. It’s not my words.”
He told the Journal he was preparing to file a lawsuit if it published an article. “I’m gonna sue The Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else,” he said.
Allegations that Epstein had been sexually abusing girls became public in 2006 and he was arrested that year. Epstein died in 2019 in jail after he was arrested a second time and charged with sex trafficking conspiracy.
Justice Department officials didn’t respond to requests for comment or address questions about whether the Trump page and other pages of the birthday album were part of the agency’s recent documents review. The FBI declined to comment.
The existence of the album and the contents of the birthday letters haven’t previously been reported.
The album had poems, photos and greetings from businesspeople, academics, Epstein’s former girlfriends and childhood pals, according to the documents reviewed by the Journal and people familiar with them.
Among those who submitted letters were billionaire Leslie Wexner and attorney Alan Dershowitz. The album also contained a letter from a now-deceased Harvard economist, one of Epstein’s report cards from Mark Twain junior high school in Brooklyn and a note from a former assistant that included an acrostic with Epstein’s name: “Jeffrey, oh Jeffrey!/ Everyone loves you!/ Fun in the sun!/ Fun just for fun!/ Remember…don’t forget me soon!/ Epstein…you rock!/ You are the best!”
Epstein was Wexner’s money manager at the time. The longtime leader of Victoria’s Secret wrote a short message that said: “I wanted to get you what you want… so here it is….”
After the text was a line drawing of what appeared to be a woman’s breasts.
Wexner declined to comment through a spokesman. Wexner’s spokesman previously told the Journal that the retail mogul “severed all ties with Epstein in 2007 and never spoke with him again.”
Dershowitz’s letter included a mock-up of a “Vanity Unfair” magazine cover with mock headlines such as “Who was Jack the Ripper? Was it Jeffrey Epstein?” He joked that he had convinced the magazine to change the focus of an article from Epstein to Bill Clinton.
Dershowitz, who represented Epstein after his first arrest, said, “It’s been a long time and I don’t recall the content of what I may have written.”
The book was put together by a New York City bookbinder, Herbert Weitz, according to people who were involved in the process. Weitz, who died in 2020, listed Epstein as a client on his website in 2003.
It isn’t clear how the letter with Trump’s signature was prepared. Inside the outline of the naked woman was a typewritten note styled as an imaginary conversation between Trump and Epstein, written in the third person.
“Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything,” the note began.
Donald: Yes, there is, but I won’t tell you what it is.
Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I also know what it is.
Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey: Yes, we do, come to think of it.
Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?
Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you.
Trump: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.
President Trump at the White House on Wednesday.
‘Jeffrey enjoys his social life’
When he turned 50, Epstein was already wealthy from managing Wexner’s fortune and was socializing with Trump, Clinton and other powerful people at his Manhattan townhouse, Palm Beach, Fla., home and private Caribbean island.
A spokesman for Clinton referred to a 2019 statement that former President Clinton had cut off ties more than a decade before Epstein’s second arrest and didn’t know about Epstein’s alleged crimes.
Epstein and Trump spent time together in the 1990s and early 2000s and were photographed at social events, including with Maxwell and Melania Trump. A 1992 tape from the NBC archives shows Trump partying with Epstein at his Mar-a-Lago estate; Trump is seen pulling a woman toward him and patting her behind.
Trump, along with others including Clinton, also appeared several times on flight logs for Epstein’s private jet.
A 2002 New York magazine profile of Epstein quoted Trump. “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump said. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it—Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
Both men said that they subsequently had a falling-out. Trump has said their friendship ended before Epstein pleaded guilty to procuring a minor for prostitution in 2008, served time in a Florida jail and registered as a sex offender.
When Epstein was arrested again in 2019, Trump said he hadn’t talked to Epstein for about 15 years. “I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him,” Trump said in the Oval Office at that time. “I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.”
Trump’s spokeswoman told the Journal in 2023 that Trump had banned Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago club at some point in the past, without elaborating.
Maxwell, a British socialite, was convicted in 2021 of helping Epstein’s sex-trafficking and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Maxwell didn’t respond to a letter requesting an interview sent to her in prison. Arthur Aidala, an attorney representing Maxwell in her appeal, said, “At this point, she is focused on her case before the Supreme Court of the United States.”
The FBI’s Epstein files
Epstein’s associations with Trump and many powerful people have been well documented. There remain questions about what the FBI possesses about Epstein and his well-connected friends. In 2019, the FBI confiscated evidence from Epstein’s properties in the U.S. Virgin Islands and New York.
Earlier Tuesday, after the Journal sought comment from the president about the letter, Trump told reporters at the White House that he believed some Epstein files were “made up” by former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden and former FBI Director James Comey.
He said that releasing any more Epstein files would be up to Attorney General Pam Bondi. “Whatever she thinks is credible, she should release,” Trump said.
Allegations that bureaucrats covered up Epstein’s connections with participants in his trafficking scheme were fanned by people now in top roles in the Trump administration, including FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino.
In June 2024, Trump was asked in a Fox News interview whether he would release the Epstein case files. The Republican presidential candidate initially responded, “Yeah, I would.” But he also expressed some reservations. “You don’t want to affect people’s lives if it’s phony stuff in there, because it’s a lot of phony stuff with that whole world. But I think I would.”
Soon after she was confirmed as attorney general, Bondi said she was preparing to release new Epstein files. In late February, Bondi announced the release of “Phase 1” of the documents. But the material contained few new revelations, drawing criticism from right-wing influencers.
Attorney General Pam Bondi released documents on the Epstein case in February. Above, conservative influencers at the White House with the documents.
Bondi initially blamed the FBI’s New York office for withholding information and promised to release the remaining documents after redacting the victim’s names. Patel also said, “There will be no coverups, no missing documents and no stone left unturned.” They tasked hundreds of FBI employees to review the materials and prepare them for release.
The issue took on new life in June when Elon Musk, amid a public feud with Trump, alleged that the FBI was withholding documents from the Epstein case because Trump was in the files.
“The truth will come out,” Musk wrote on X on June 5. He later deleted the message and said he regretted some of his comments.
On July 7, the Justice Department backtracked on Bondi’s pledge to release more Epstein files. The Justice Department said that after an “exhaustive review” it had found no “incriminating client list” or additional documents that warrant public disclosure.
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee demanded this week that Republican Chairman Jim Jordan hold hearings on the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files and, if necessary, subpoena Bondi, Patel and Bongino.
At a cabinet meeting on July 8, Trump criticized a reporter for asking about Epstein. “Are people still talking about this guy, this creep?” Trump said. “That is unbelievable. Do you want to waste the time?”
That same day, Musk wrote on X: “How can people be expected to have faith in Trump if he won’t release the Epstein files?”
www.usatoday.com
The hilarious part is where they allege that nobody would volunteer so much time for a cause and therefore he has to be considered as "getting paid".
There wasn't a cluster. The fact that the military saw it is even more noteworthy because you have healthy people in the military vs the general population (where all the cases may be associated with a specific pre-existing condition).
Certain subgroups do get more overall harms from the vaccine than infection. There are risk benefit analyses out there demonstrating that. The fact that the flu is more dangerous to kids than covid shows kids' lives shouldn't have been interrupted at all. If you think (and society in fact does think this) the flu is not high enough risk to interrupt kids' lives or force a flu shot, then covid is definitely not high enough risk to do that either. Also, most kids already had had covid before their vaccine was approved so there was literally no benefit that vaccine was giving them and only possible harms.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
