File 468 didn’t delete itself
If we as a society could just start treating sexual abuse victims with respect and kindness, there’d be no justification for redactions and the whole truth could come out.
Sadly, not gonna happen.
Nixon was forced to resign because of deleting just under 19 minutes of audio tape. Meanwhile Droopy Don is engaging in a cover up that dwarfs that, and the GOP (and much of the media) is letting him get away with it.
Fox news was created to prevent another Watergate by being a right wing mouthpiece capable of muddying waters, distracting through misdirection, outright lying, and pushing right wing talking points.
Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon though, so that means that Watergate is okay to replicate, right?
And biden drug his feet on prosecuting trump after jan 6th. It’s bullshit.
Not just letting him- HELPING him.
Fox News was created on the premise of prevenr9ng what happened to Nixon from happening again.
Yup. Depending on what you believe, there were still going to be 15 Senators that were going to vote for acquittal. And that’s at the very end of things. I’m not sure, but I bet those were all Republicans.
Republicans were seething over Nixon’s resignation for decades after. Those that were around back then probably still are.
Glad I’m not the only one who gets those random num9 from phone typing.😉
Kinda believe
The media will, as usual, let them slide.
The dumb part of this story is not that they’re trying to cover it up
The dumb part is that America just accepts it all as a cover up and won’t bother doing anything about it.
If any other president before had done any of this … the country would have erupted … but the US has become so complacent and apathetic to this orange menace that it’s become an authoritarian nation not ruled by force but by the adject stupidity and complacency of the entire country.
I think that the country is getting to a boiling point. 2026 is going to be an interesting year.
I’m so fucking fed up with the victim blaming.
I wish people understood how vast and separated the United States is. Even within cities. Getting an uprising here would be a monumental task. It’s hopeless. We’re done.
I am working on moving to my girlfriend’s hometown in Mexico. I’m over caring.
I’m working on my exit strategy as well. While I agree that things in the U.S. are going to get much worse, everything is cyclical and there will be a time in the distant future when the U.S. gets its shit together again. The sad irony is that all of this is self-inflicted. None of this had to happen. All of the suffering so far, and the mass suffering that is going to occur as a consequence of a world superpower going rogue and then collapsing could have been avoided.
I’m a GenXer, and I feel fortunate to have been born and lived during what is now looking like “peak America”. I’ve known nothing but peace and prosperity. Sure, there have been “wars” and “recessions” in my lifetime, but they have been relatively minor and not had a major impact on my life. The changes being wrought now by corrupt leadership supported by ignorant and malevolent people are destroying the very foundations of what made the U.S. great, and will inevitably result in the collapse of the greatest superpower the planet has seen so far. It’s heartbreaking.
I’m a X-Millennial cusp, landing on the X side of the fence. It is so wild to think about how insanely great the late 80s to late 90s were. Incidentally, I think 9/11 is when the switch flipped. I remember yelling about how the Patriot Act would end us.
It seems that it did.
Even w/o 9/11 I think the cons would have eventually taken us here. Having a total piece of shit like Donvict in office and doing awful things is the culmination of decades of their extremist activism.
Incidentally, I think 9/11 is when the switch flipped.
Also X-Millenial cusper. 9/11 probably eould not have happened if the Brook Brothers’ riot had not been allowed to stop ballot counting and the subsequent SCOTUS ruling handed the presidency to Bush.
We never got Gore as a president but we’ve had gore to spare since George HW Bush took office.
I’m even more inclined to say this goes back to the Business Plot and Prescott Bush. Prescott’s son, George Bush, would become head of the CIA before he was Ronald Reagan’s vice president.
It likely goes even further back than that; the Bush and Walker families have had Nazi ties for generations. Timeline of Treason: The Bush Family Connections To The Nazis
Explain what people are supposed to do. The largest US protest in history happened during the No Kings protest in October. Until the stock market crashes and everyone is fucked don’t expect people to violently rise up against him.
The stock market is gonna be fucked real soon
Everyone gets all bent out of shape when I say this, but those kinds of “yell at concrete buildings” protests are absolutely worthless when the government doesn’t give a shit about what you think.
The only thing that will get anyone to do anything is threatening wealth. We need a general strike, and not this “oh how does 2028 sound” b.s strikes people are planning… We need one immediately, not planned for years and years ahead…
Yeah I was listening to a smart sounding guy on a podcast, an expert on authoritarian regime changes. He was saying change can only really happen when the oligarchs become dissatisfied.
The stench on dear leader needs to become so bad that the oligarchs start to actually hurt.
The tariffs might have reduced their profits to some extent, but they probably consider it to be temporary, and effecting everyone more or less equally. They’re happy to weather that storm because they’re not losing position on the wealthy and powerful ladder, and in the long run they’ll get some carve outs and hand outs if they haven’t already.
You’ll notice though, in April when the tarriff “war” was really getting going, someone had a word to Trump and said enough is enough and he had to step back.
Smart podcast guy said it didn’t take much of the population to hurt oligarchs. As in a dedicated change in behavior from as few as 3% of the population could make a difference. The thing is I don’t really believe Americans have that in them. For example, you need 3% of people who regularly use facebook and buy things from Amazon to stop doing those things permanently.
The protests in May were like: “do your shopping on Tuesday and Thursday but not Wednesday, unless you really need something and then it’s ok. This will really communicate our general feeling of discontent to people working at the checkout.”
I just looked it up and the guy was Dr. Jack Goldstone on ologies podcast: https://www.alieward.com/ologies/revolutionology
Everyone seems to forget that sociopolitical change requires multiple fronts.
Protests are absofuckinglutely required even if they don’t appear to enact change directly or immediately. They serve multiple purposes in a comprehensive strategy that is built on coalition and education.
They simply aren’t big enough yet. Start there.
Absolutely agreed re: your points but I’d argue some of it IS working.
How many GOP members have broken with trump recently? And House leadership? How many folks are actually not even running for office next year because they can see the writing on the wall?
It’s not nearly enough based on what he’s done and what he wants to do, absolutely. But for someone as recently as early this year appeared to have an iron lock on his party approaching lame duck status nearly a year ahead of time and before any votes have been counted in the midterms IS progress.
Perhaps, but this kind of progress seems insignificant compared to the progress they’re making in establishing authoritarian rule.
No disagreement from me but the wheels of justice are slow and unrelenting.
Trump can plead with the American people to wait a little longer for relief to show up. I’d argue wait a little longer until it doesn’t / is underwhelming.
Nah. The wheels of justice have been running in reverse for the last year.
I thought we were making progress in early 2024, but the wheels of justice just fell off. There’s no justice.
A general strike without planning will just kill people, because most people don’t have the resources to get by for very long.
Those strikers won’t just sit idly at home. They’ll be discovering community and solidarity.
What’s the plan for when everyone runs out of food in a couple weeks? Mass looting of grocery stores?
The community could pull in surrounding farmers. By redirecting labor away from power structures towards mutual aid, communities could make the needed food products.
When the No Kings protest happens every single day, things will change. Until then, it’s an inconvenience to be waited out, nothing more.
There’s a small group of committed people in my small town who protest every week, but we’re a long way from getting something of the scale of the No Kings protests.
The rich got pretty antsy when everyone just stayed home during covid.
Yep. And all the trumpets, who were mostly not essential workers, parroted all of their talking points.
It’s too bad deprogramming takes so long and so much energy. Imagine if we could win them over back to reality.
I mean, government websites now need to be opened in Tor Browser.
I mean doesn’t that break the law?
Everything had to be released, I’m pretty sure at the very least, unreleasing what was already released is pretty black & white
lol “law”
A) thats why Impeachment proceedings have been filed against Bondi
B) the law didn’t include any actual penalties or enforcement clauses
It was mostly black, to be fair!
…I’ll get my coat
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
The photo in question if you’d like to make some copies before they’re gone https://epstein-files-browser.vercel.app/?celebrity=Donald+Trump&file=VOL00001%2FIMAGES%2F0001%2FEFTA00000468.pdf
People on mastodon are posting that it’s gone now. From the official posting/archive.
Of all the things to freak out over, a photo of Trump on a desk is not one of them. No one, but even Trump denies that they were good friends at one point.
There’s either something more incriminating in here that they are afraid will get found out, or they are just that panicky that they needed to pull it just in case.
