Especially Tillis and Cornyn, who are not even running for re-election. Who knows what they are thinking. History will not be kind to them. They grandchilren will have to live in the same burning landscape as ours.
I'm less concerned with history and more concerned with the present and future. And who writes history anyway? The winners. And sane people who prize facts and decency are losing.
Why are they willing to destroy their political careers? Everyone of them will be up for election in the next 4 years, and we will remember their cowardice well beyond 2030. All for the president's vanity. That is the only purpose that confirmation of Mr Blanche serves.
I saw a report this morning that Tillis and Cornyn have a "deal" to vote to send the nomination of Blanche forward, but I have not found the details. Perhaps today's Coffee with the Contrarians will clarify what is going on. As for any "deal," when has Trump considered himself bound by any agreement?
I think the phony settlement in the SDFL case is the tip of a melting iceberg. The Epstein fact pattern has to be foremost. The meeting AT THE WHITE HOUSE in July, last year makes Blanche a possible PERP. At a minimum he's a material witness.
AI Overview
In July 2025, high-ranking White House aides held a tense, secret meeting in the Situation Room without President Trump to manage the fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein files scandal. Vice President JD Vance and top officials confronted a severe internal security crisis after realizing sensitive discussions had leaked.
According to reporting by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Blanche played a key protective role during a July 17, 2025, White House meeting aimed at managing political fallout from Epstein disclosures. Blanche proposed defensive measures to shield the president, including challenging the release of grand jury materials and maneuvering to mitigate political damage.
How about actual research instead of an AI source? The techies want us deep in AI because their eventual goal is to provide only information that THEY want the public to know. Hint: Zuckerberg has contracted with Newsmax in order to "teach" his AI with Newsmax's lies and misinformation.
Daniel, "fact pattern" is an interesting term. Does it describe more than just "the facts?" For example, if 'the facts' alone don't get the job done, can their pattern allow the inference of those whch are missing? I don't mean this to be silly.
Just math. Similar but not congruent. IMHO three basic levels: perps, pimps, and those who are accessories (before and after the fact) with perps and pimps. Includes conspirators and those who obstruct justice.
No kidding! Anyone who actually believes anything The Demented One has said, or even signed with blood, is beyond hope for anything but going to The Home. And that very definitely includes Donnie, baby.
That’s why I said “deal”. I have read the judge’s opinion, fraud on the court. And when is Blanche going to get hauled before the bar? As the judge suggested?
As Senator Cornyn pointed out to Blanche at a confirmation hearing, the "settlement" & tax immunity for Trump & Co addendum are binding contracts between Trump's DOJ & Trump. One side to a contract can't unilaterally rescind the contract. Blanche conceded that even if DOJ "rescinded" the "settlement", Trump could sue to enforce it.
Stone-cold fraud, extortion, corruption & weaponization of government against critics is the Trump brand. Susan Collins & other GOP members always bend a knee to their corrupt king.
If Trump’s corrupted DOJ can use fake evidence to frame any critic…
Trump admin's corruption & incompetence is beyond shocking.
"let’s not forget that nearly all other Republican senators have supported Blanche, demonstrating their own unfitness for office,......"
Exactly right! Cornyn and Tillis are no better than the entire lot of these traitors to America. OUT with them! They don't work for America, they work for Trump! Vote Blue! It's our ONLY hope to get our country back!
Now that this "deal" has transpired, are there any Republican senators left who will stand up to Trump and say NO to Blanche, because of his complicity in the Epstein cover-up? History will show this cover-up is bigger than Watergate, because while Watergate was strictly political, Epstein has victims who are everyday Americans who are being denied justice. We at least look forward to Blanche being prosecuted for violating the Epstein Transparency Act, once the Democrats are back in power.
Why? Because their constituents are MAGA and vote for Trump and his enablers no matter what. Root causes: racism, misogyny, anti-intellectualism. It's in plain sight.
Why would legacy media talk about it? They have been bought and brought into the Trump influence. The Fourth Estate lost its way when they ceased presenting the news as facts, replacing them with opinions, paid and otherwise.
Because they are getting everything they want, tax cuts for rich people, squashing government programs that help people, huge defense increases. All they have to do is stay in line with the dear leader, support voter suppression, and gerrymandering and they also get to keep their jobs. It's not about the rule of law or the Constitution.
They are proving the Constitution is a paper tiger. The system depended on norms and enough people doing the right thing. When the Supreme Court, Congress, and the Executive are all under control of one party, they can do anything they want. There are no consequences otherwise. Their voters are all on board to squash the woke Democrats.
This is the bitter truth. Why didn't we see it coming? because we were brought up on the story of "I cannot tell a lie, Father. I did it, with my little hatchet."
We need a microphone in the faces of the Republican women on the committee. Do they condone rape, child molestation, obstruction of justice, conspiracy.
Start with my senator, Ashley Moody, who was a prosecutor, a state judge, and our attorney general after Bondi. She's also a mother. Tried or convicted dozens of rapists. Know that consent is not a valid defense to statutory rape. She's running for reelection....
Another Floridian here. Alex Vindman -- yes, THAT Alex Vindman -- is challenging for Moody's Senate seat. He is a person of demonstrated integrity, but not the most charismatic campaigner in a mostly reddish state. We need to do what we can to see he gets in there.
There is so much to gnash our teeth over in this admirably clarifying piece that I hate to go off on something of a tangent (or is it???), but the phrase 'collateral damage' used to describe the women who were once horse-traded in a multi-tiered, international cabal of entitled, rampaging men just hit me right between the eyes. I mean, haven't we women been used and abused as 'collateral damage' in more ways than it bears thinking about? A question: which of these things is NOT collateral damage: being forced to bear an unwanted child, being trafficked as a sex or other kind of slave, being paid a fraction of the wages paid to men for doing identical or similar work, being told that you can't vote if you can't prove you are still you after (being force or encouraged go) taking your husband's name? Or how about being dismissed out of hand when you bring a man to court for forcing himself on you against your will? Or forced into retirement from the armed services when you have achieved high rank because of exemplary service. I. COULD. GO. ON.
All true, Leigh. Here's a parenthetic anecdote: returning to Paris thirty years later and updating my personal details, I caused them some concern by having a different surname. "We need to see your ex-husband's written consent to continue to use his name." I dashed home (I was in my lunch hour) and actually managed to find my divorce papers, and rushed back, explaining that in Australia there was no such legal requirement and I really was the same person. Same in Italy: officially, you keep your own surname after marriage.
Old habits die hard. Like being subject to and the legal property of a husband. Not that this is Trump's fault, but his entire administration seems more than a tad tainted with unearned but assumed privilege, not to mention a dollop of outright misogyny. Hmm. As women are over 50% of the population--and the majority of voters, it's hard for me to understand how the Orange Yugli Fruit managed to get himself elected. *sigh*
And even if Blanche formally kills the slush fund and the tax ‘shelter’ scheme, there’s nothing to prevent Trump with pulling another scam that Blanche will endorse. And he will. Cornyn and Tillis need to stand firm and deny Blanche the AG job. Even if Blanche continues as acting AG, at least they can say they did their job properly.
From the beginning of Tillis' sand Cornin's demand that Blanche declare in writing that the slush fund is dead before they would vote to asupport his nomination to to be our nation's Attorney General, I ept saying to my self and anyone who would listen,
That's all it's gonna take for approval? What about allt he other evidence of Blanche's sycophantic and immoral behavior as Trump's personal lawyer and the DOJ as trump's personal lawfirm? And the dismissive way he treated the victims when he met with them? Have these Republicans no shame?
To your question, if and when they confirm the nomination, they will also be confirming that collectively, they have no integrity, conscience, ethics, morals, or even good sense. It does not look as if they will remove their blinders.
What all the spineless Republicans (including the extra-spineless Cornyn and Tillis) seem to be missing is that Blanche should have been a hard “no” on confirmation for agreeing to these corrupt deals in the first place. That’s all anyone should have needed to reject him for being a compromised Trump stooge unsuitable for ANY role at DOJ, much less running it.
We all must face the fact that since the inauguration of the POS POTUS on 01/20/2025, the Department of Justice has morphed into the Department of Injustice and has become his personal retribution machine with 115,000 employees paid for by you and me.
Hell, during numerous 2024 campaign rallies he promised that getting even with his "enemies" would be his top priority. Unfortunately, that was the only campaign promise he has actually kept.
Our former allies throughout the world must be shaking their collective heads and thinking "To what depths will American sink?"
Alas, with each day we continue to prove that for us, there is no bottom of the barrel.
I have long ago stopped using the quaint term "Republican" to describe the Party majority of Congress. It is now the Trump Party. It is no more Republican than the Democrats (or in the formers' name, "Dumocrats") are communist.
Tillis, Cornyn and the whole Trump Party own the Iran War, the COVID failure, January 6th, Epstein and the files, crypto corruption, and on and on. They probably think that because we voters have short memories (actually, we don't), we will forgive and forget by November 3rd.
Their platform -- glorification of their Great Leader -- is rancid and foul. It will take fifty years or more to rid the stink from our nostrils.
It isn't just Cornyn and Tillis who have disgraced themselves, it will be all Republican Senators who will vote to confirm the shameless, amoral bootlicker for Attorney General. That may well include my Pennsylvania Democrat US Senator that seems hell bent on working across the aisle when it comes to confirming totally unfit cabinet nominees. The GOP and Trump seem to be doing everything possible to piss off anyone that isn't MAGA to ensure certain defeat in November. Apparently, they are like the band on the Titanic and intend to play on so they can keep filling their pockets with our money and amplifying the fact that they have no shame or values as the Trump dingy sinks.
Should this wretched nomination actually make it out the door, the full Senate would have to vote on it. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins would both have to be suidically nuts-on-a-cracker to vote for it, given their own precarious positions. If he loses even one Republican -- that's it.
I don't see this moving forward, no matter what late-night 3am deal on Sunday was reached by anybody. The boat has too many holes to float.
Alas, I don't think this is true. I believe he can be confirmed on a simple majority vote. If so, then they can lose as many as four votes and vance would then break the tie.
And the USA slides further down the tubes ...
Why Repubican senators are willing to destroy their country? Are they concerned with their children and grandchildren? They have to live in America.
Especially Tillis and Cornyn, who are not even running for re-election. Who knows what they are thinking. History will not be kind to them. They grandchilren will have to live in the same burning landscape as ours.
I'm less concerned with history and more concerned with the present and future. And who writes history anyway? The winners. And sane people who prize facts and decency are losing.
Why are they willing to destroy their political careers? Everyone of them will be up for election in the next 4 years, and we will remember their cowardice well beyond 2030. All for the president's vanity. That is the only purpose that confirmation of Mr Blanche serves.
How much worse than a shithole can we get?
Sigh. Seems like it, but only 3 months till the midterm elections. & hopefully enough disgusted voters are paying attention.
exactly
I saw a report this morning that Tillis and Cornyn have a "deal" to vote to send the nomination of Blanche forward, but I have not found the details. Perhaps today's Coffee with the Contrarians will clarify what is going on. As for any "deal," when has Trump considered himself bound by any agreement?
I think the phony settlement in the SDFL case is the tip of a melting iceberg. The Epstein fact pattern has to be foremost. The meeting AT THE WHITE HOUSE in July, last year makes Blanche a possible PERP. At a minimum he's a material witness.
AI Overview
In July 2025, high-ranking White House aides held a tense, secret meeting in the Situation Room without President Trump to manage the fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein files scandal. Vice President JD Vance and top officials confronted a severe internal security crisis after realizing sensitive discussions had leaked.
According to reporting by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, Blanche played a key protective role during a July 17, 2025, White House meeting aimed at managing political fallout from Epstein disclosures. Blanche proposed defensive measures to shield the president, including challenging the release of grand jury materials and maneuvering to mitigate political damage.
Obstruction? Conspiracy?
Haberman and Swan’s Regieme Change ought to be required reading for every American.
How about actual research instead of an AI source? The techies want us deep in AI because their eventual goal is to provide only information that THEY want the public to know. Hint: Zuckerberg has contracted with Newsmax in order to "teach" his AI with Newsmax's lies and misinformation.
You cannot avoid AI these days.
Every google search you do relies on AI summaries.
You can confirm their accuracy by clicking on the sources cited throughout the summary, but that's as good as it gets.
I do click to confirm, and sometimes reword my search if the results seem "tainted" in any way.
This is where we are.
"Every google search you do relies on AI summaries."
Not necessarily. Try this:
https://udm14.com/
Cool. Thanks for that! Sometimes it feels like our choices are constantly being reduced.
"Adding &udm=14 to a standard Google search query address bar switches the layout directly to Google's dedicated "Web" tab mode."
I shall try it!
On a recent Substack, I learned that -AI blocks AI results.
Aha. Thanks.
There's also No AI DuckDuckGo: https://noai.duckduckgo.com/?extensioninstalled=1
Same here. Is there anything I can click in order to correct AI when it says I'm wrong (but I have proof that I'm right?)
Get a life.
Daniel, "fact pattern" is an interesting term. Does it describe more than just "the facts?" For example, if 'the facts' alone don't get the job done, can their pattern allow the inference of those whch are missing? I don't mean this to be silly.
Just math. Similar but not congruent. IMHO three basic levels: perps, pimps, and those who are accessories (before and after the fact) with perps and pimps. Includes conspirators and those who obstruct justice.
No kidding! Anyone who actually believes anything The Demented One has said, or even signed with blood, is beyond hope for anything but going to The Home. And that very definitely includes Donnie, baby.
Yes, there is a deal, and I just read about it and Robert Hubbell’s column and McFarlane’s column.
It's just a political deal. There is no legal settlement because there was no case and there was never anything presented to a judge.
That’s why I said “deal”. I have read the judge’s opinion, fraud on the court. And when is Blanche going to get hauled before the bar? As the judge suggested?
It’s not signed by all parties according to Aaron Parnas, Esq. The IRS settlement has to be signed by all parties if modifications are made!
* The IRS settlement states
He doesn't understand "agreement". He uses the word "deal" for everything. Would you buy a used car from this man?
Wouldn’t buy anything from him! And I didn’t buy it either time he was running!
Blanche posted the latest deal on x.
As Senator Cornyn pointed out to Blanche at a confirmation hearing, the "settlement" & tax immunity for Trump & Co addendum are binding contracts between Trump's DOJ & Trump. One side to a contract can't unilaterally rescind the contract. Blanche conceded that even if DOJ "rescinded" the "settlement", Trump could sue to enforce it.
Stone-cold fraud, extortion, corruption & weaponization of government against critics is the Trump brand. Susan Collins & other GOP members always bend a knee to their corrupt king.
If Trump’s corrupted DOJ can use fake evidence to frame any critic…
Trump admin's corruption & incompetence is beyond shocking.
" One side to a contract can't unilaterally rescind the contract."
All I can say is that with Trump at the helm, "wanna bet?" The MOU was effectively a contract, and he didn't let it stand.
Trump doesn't really want an AG, he wants a consigliere... and for that assignment, Blanche seems well-qualified.
"let’s not forget that nearly all other Republican senators have supported Blanche, demonstrating their own unfitness for office,......"
Exactly right! Cornyn and Tillis are no better than the entire lot of these traitors to America. OUT with them! They don't work for America, they work for Trump! Vote Blue! It's our ONLY hope to get our country back!
Who was the magistrate in the E Jean trial who ridiculed Blanche (and found Trump guilty? )
Lewis Kaplan?
I don’t know…..but I know he/she is right!
Now that this "deal" has transpired, are there any Republican senators left who will stand up to Trump and say NO to Blanche, because of his complicity in the Epstein cover-up? History will show this cover-up is bigger than Watergate, because while Watergate was strictly political, Epstein has victims who are everyday Americans who are being denied justice. We at least look forward to Blanche being prosecuted for violating the Epstein Transparency Act, once the Democrats are back in power.
In short, NO. There is no Republican Party. There is only Donald Trump and MAGA.
I don't want to read about what Democrats "should do". I want to know WHY the GOP has been so thoroughly corrupted.
Why? Because their constituents are MAGA and vote for Trump and his enablers no matter what. Root causes: racism, misogyny, anti-intellectualism. It's in plain sight.
You're right. And no one in the legacy media wants to talk about that.
Why would legacy media talk about it? They have been bought and brought into the Trump influence. The Fourth Estate lost its way when they ceased presenting the news as facts, replacing them with opinions, paid and otherwise.
Because they are getting everything they want, tax cuts for rich people, squashing government programs that help people, huge defense increases. All they have to do is stay in line with the dear leader, support voter suppression, and gerrymandering and they also get to keep their jobs. It's not about the rule of law or the Constitution.
They are proving the Constitution is a paper tiger. The system depended on norms and enough people doing the right thing. When the Supreme Court, Congress, and the Executive are all under control of one party, they can do anything they want. There are no consequences otherwise. Their voters are all on board to squash the woke Democrats.
This is the bitter truth. Why didn't we see it coming? because we were brought up on the story of "I cannot tell a lie, Father. I did it, with my little hatchet."
We need a microphone in the faces of the Republican women on the committee. Do they condone rape, child molestation, obstruction of justice, conspiracy.
Start with my senator, Ashley Moody, who was a prosecutor, a state judge, and our attorney general after Bondi. She's also a mother. Tried or convicted dozens of rapists. Know that consent is not a valid defense to statutory rape. She's running for reelection....
Another Floridian here. Alex Vindman -- yes, THAT Alex Vindman -- is challenging for Moody's Senate seat. He is a person of demonstrated integrity, but not the most charismatic campaigner in a mostly reddish state. We need to do what we can to see he gets in there.
There is so much to gnash our teeth over in this admirably clarifying piece that I hate to go off on something of a tangent (or is it???), but the phrase 'collateral damage' used to describe the women who were once horse-traded in a multi-tiered, international cabal of entitled, rampaging men just hit me right between the eyes. I mean, haven't we women been used and abused as 'collateral damage' in more ways than it bears thinking about? A question: which of these things is NOT collateral damage: being forced to bear an unwanted child, being trafficked as a sex or other kind of slave, being paid a fraction of the wages paid to men for doing identical or similar work, being told that you can't vote if you can't prove you are still you after (being force or encouraged go) taking your husband's name? Or how about being dismissed out of hand when you bring a man to court for forcing himself on you against your will? Or forced into retirement from the armed services when you have achieved high rank because of exemplary service. I. COULD. GO. ON.
All true, Leigh. Here's a parenthetic anecdote: returning to Paris thirty years later and updating my personal details, I caused them some concern by having a different surname. "We need to see your ex-husband's written consent to continue to use his name." I dashed home (I was in my lunch hour) and actually managed to find my divorce papers, and rushed back, explaining that in Australia there was no such legal requirement and I really was the same person. Same in Italy: officially, you keep your own surname after marriage.
Old habits die hard. Like being subject to and the legal property of a husband. Not that this is Trump's fault, but his entire administration seems more than a tad tainted with unearned but assumed privilege, not to mention a dollop of outright misogyny. Hmm. As women are over 50% of the population--and the majority of voters, it's hard for me to understand how the Orange Yugli Fruit managed to get himself elected. *sigh*
And even if Blanche formally kills the slush fund and the tax ‘shelter’ scheme, there’s nothing to prevent Trump with pulling another scam that Blanche will endorse. And he will. Cornyn and Tillis need to stand firm and deny Blanche the AG job. Even if Blanche continues as acting AG, at least they can say they did their job properly.
From the beginning of Tillis' sand Cornin's demand that Blanche declare in writing that the slush fund is dead before they would vote to asupport his nomination to to be our nation's Attorney General, I ept saying to my self and anyone who would listen,
That's all it's gonna take for approval? What about allt he other evidence of Blanche's sycophantic and immoral behavior as Trump's personal lawyer and the DOJ as trump's personal lawfirm? And the dismissive way he treated the victims when he met with them? Have these Republicans no shame?
To your question, if and when they confirm the nomination, they will also be confirming that collectively, they have no integrity, conscience, ethics, morals, or even good sense. It does not look as if they will remove their blinders.
I don't belueve they have blinderson. I think the see clearly but rather don't have the moral chops to vote no.
I can see that too, though the blinders refer to the collective view of the malfeasances that Blanche has already effected.
"Shame? What's that?", said the GOP.
What all the spineless Republicans (including the extra-spineless Cornyn and Tillis) seem to be missing is that Blanche should have been a hard “no” on confirmation for agreeing to these corrupt deals in the first place. That’s all anyone should have needed to reject him for being a compromised Trump stooge unsuitable for ANY role at DOJ, much less running it.
We all must face the fact that since the inauguration of the POS POTUS on 01/20/2025, the Department of Justice has morphed into the Department of Injustice and has become his personal retribution machine with 115,000 employees paid for by you and me.
Hell, during numerous 2024 campaign rallies he promised that getting even with his "enemies" would be his top priority. Unfortunately, that was the only campaign promise he has actually kept.
Our former allies throughout the world must be shaking their collective heads and thinking "To what depths will American sink?"
Alas, with each day we continue to prove that for us, there is no bottom of the barrel.
I have long ago stopped using the quaint term "Republican" to describe the Party majority of Congress. It is now the Trump Party. It is no more Republican than the Democrats (or in the formers' name, "Dumocrats") are communist.
Tillis, Cornyn and the whole Trump Party own the Iran War, the COVID failure, January 6th, Epstein and the files, crypto corruption, and on and on. They probably think that because we voters have short memories (actually, we don't), we will forgive and forget by November 3rd.
Their platform -- glorification of their Great Leader -- is rancid and foul. It will take fifty years or more to rid the stink from our nostrils.
Do I hear any advance on fifty years?
Another day of boiling MAGA frogs in the pot.
It isn't just Cornyn and Tillis who have disgraced themselves, it will be all Republican Senators who will vote to confirm the shameless, amoral bootlicker for Attorney General. That may well include my Pennsylvania Democrat US Senator that seems hell bent on working across the aisle when it comes to confirming totally unfit cabinet nominees. The GOP and Trump seem to be doing everything possible to piss off anyone that isn't MAGA to ensure certain defeat in November. Apparently, they are like the band on the Titanic and intend to play on so they can keep filling their pockets with our money and amplifying the fact that they have no shame or values as the Trump dingy sinks.
The Lost Continent of America?
Amen. “Have you no decency, sir(s)?”
Should this wretched nomination actually make it out the door, the full Senate would have to vote on it. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins would both have to be suidically nuts-on-a-cracker to vote for it, given their own precarious positions. If he loses even one Republican -- that's it.
I don't see this moving forward, no matter what late-night 3am deal on Sunday was reached by anybody. The boat has too many holes to float.
Alas, I don't think this is true. I believe he can be confirmed on a simple majority vote. If so, then they can lose as many as four votes and vance would then break the tie.
I got it.....Sad.