That’s honestly so shocking I wonder what alterior motive he has.

Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna led the bipartisan effort to get EFTA I passed in 2025; in retaliation, Trump did everything in his power to get Massie primaried this year and succeeded, so now Massie is a lame duck with an even bigger grudge against Trump. Massie can do whatever he wants now, without fear of losing his already lost seat, until January when his replacement gets sworn in . . . IF Congress is allowed to come to work by Mike Johnson. Cue the long vacation.

Massie is also, depending on who you believe, also responsible for Mitch’s long unexplained absence: there are those who maintain the reason for absolute silence on McConnell’s absence is because had the Senate vacancy been confirmed, Massie – also from Kentucky, and also newly available because he’d recently lost his primary – would have grabbed it in a special election. (As McConnell declined to run for re-election, his seat will be filled in November’s regular election anyway.)

I’m not a fan of Republicans or Republican policies, but this is a rare one who is refusing to march in lockstep on the subject of Epstein. I don’t doubt he has a shitty record on unions and/or work reforms, all Rs do. But he’s one of only four Republicans with a spine who crossed the aisle to get EFTA I passed. This long Congressional break Massie is highlighting above, posted by OP, is a specific and direct result of Mike Johnson doing whatever he can to stop EFTA II from coming to a vote, not just run-of-the-mill Republican rich boy posturing.

He always does this bizarre renaming shit for a reason. It’s never random.

And while I’m open to hearing other reasons New Mexico in particular has raised his ire, I’m pretty sure this has to do with the Epstein files, and the New Mexico lawsuit taking place that alleges Todd Blanche’s DoJ is stonewalling NM’s attorney general from getting unredacted records that will allow New Mexico to thoroughly investigate Epstein’s ranch there, where Epstein’s acts against minors are known to have occurred.

New Mexico isn’t backing down. At the same time, Thomas Massie is forcing a discharge petition on passing EFTA II, which specifically gives states and state attorneys general legal right to access the completely unredacted records. The walls on his sexual crimes against children are closing in.

So he thinks this name change will shame them into submission, because it’s what would shame him. Dumb ass. Didn’t work for me; I just think he’s a freak that liked to rape and possibly kill children with his good buddy Epstein.

The reason Massie is calling this out is because he is getting the necessary signatures for a discharge petition (a process that allows a bill to get to the floor for a vote despite a Speaker’s blockade) going for the Epstein Files Transparency Act II, but Mike “I Protect Presidential Pedos” Johnson can’t actually let it come to the floor for a full vote because votes are public.

So Mike Johnson is keeping Congress out until the day after the midterms because he can’t let his delicate snowflakes go on record as either voting for EFTA II (which will make Trump very angry) or voting against it (which will make sentient beings with active consciences very angry).

It’s that simple. Yeah, Massie’s a Republican. But he’s literally trying to do the right thing here, and it’s working so well that Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, is choosing to fucking shut down Congress than let a vote on EFTA II come to the floor.

Yes. This shutdown of Congress really is all about protecting a pedo. This is not hyperbole. It is actually happening.

Yep. Massie is specifically calling this out because of the Epstein files: Johnson can’t let the house remain in session long enough for Massie to get a vote on EFTA II.

Huh, TIL. Thanks. Not even remotely surprised.

I’m watching the main one right now (your second link). Holy shit.

Am I the only one who thinks big tech won’t do jack shit other than nod and smile and install a user button that doesn’t actually change anything at all?

They are so NOT going to turn this off. This – the ability to manipulate users by controlling exactly what they see – is the sole reason they are in business. It gets them ad revenue, data to resell, and massive, uncontrollable political power.

And they’re just going to let a user turn that highly individualized control off and turn themselves into a less monetizable, more ad immune user one by one because some govt told them to? The same governments that have been telling them not to do this or that for decades now?

Lol, pull the other one.

No argument there. Those two were best friends for a long time, and Gates’ daughter is following in her daddy’s amoral footsteps. It’s not accidental Gates was friends with Epstein. They’re all alike.

Hate to break it to the noobs, but Ballmer has ALWAYS been an asshole, I mean like from the first day. He probably punched his mama in the face once he was out. That’s why Gates put him in charge, mistaking sheer arrogance (which he had) as managerial ability (which he absolutely did not have).

He’s been a brutal bastard for as long as he’s been in business, and had the authors talked to anyone that worked at Microsoft in the 90s they’d have known it. Instead, they write the entire article as though this is just recently happening, which is odd as fuck. It makes me wonder who they are trying to convince, and why.

It’s hard to blame acquired wealth when a motherfucker never had an ethic beyond bullying and “fuck you I got mine” anyway.

These modern-day robber barons and self-appointed kings will ignore a “refreshed” Constitution (that eliminates all our remaining rights and anything left stopping them in the courts) just as easily as they ignore this one.

“Refresh” is a nice word for “scrap democracy and install a permanent oligarchy” because those who want to change this Constitution will stop at nothing less.

There’s a reason the Constitution requires what it does to be changed, and it’s actually very easy to amend the Constitution when you have bipartisan support for something: we’ve been doing it all along.

So instead of tossing out the whole thing, ask yourself why proposed amendments – including one that was just overturned this week by the House to take the power of numbering SCOTUS justices away from Congress so that we remain at 19th century numbers – are being blocked right and left. Hint: it’s because they are generally unilateral shit, and an attempt to change the balance of power toward the executive, like this one.

TL;DR: Don’t fuck with the Constitution until you’ve dealt with the overwhelming corruption and lawlessness that is currently making a joke of this one.

For anyone interested, this is the full Meet the Press interview from today referenced by the locked article, and it’s fire. The election steal discussion starts at 3:20.

They have plans to steal the election. It’s a bag of dirty tricks. We made a list of over a hundred different ways that they are going to try to undermine the right to vote and try to steal the election.

He talks about some of these plans. It’s a very brief interview so it’s a superficial discussion, but the people saying “no one is doing anything” are very mistaken, going by what Rep. Raskin has to say.

Locked article, but offered a one-time “Claim my free post.” Tried that, it would not take a disposable email address. “Something’s wrong.” Instead it offered to send me a link so I said sure (same disposable address) and then it sent me a link to INSTALL THEIR APP and nothing else.

Shame, because it looks like a great article. And apparently people like the headline enough to upvote.

But I am not installing a data hoover to read it. Getting my data is the sole benefit to Substack of asking me to install an app to serve me content they are already delivering via web page. There is no other.

This Substack app model is not on you, OP, but it is on you to ensure that when you post content, people can actually read the content. If you want to share content you have to actually test access: go in via a different device or browser where you are not logged in and follow through the entire process you’re asking others to undertake. If they can’t get in through the front door you provide an archive link, or enough of the content where people get the gist (without copying the entire thing). It’s just basic posting courtesy.

Yeah, I’m kinda salty because Raskin is one of my favorite people in the world, and when he talks, it’s usually well worth hearing. For those of you with a subscription, enjoy whatever he said.

Regarding Leon Black, this is the headline The Intercept was referring to, where he violently raped an autistic 16 year old with “a rare form of Down syndrome that has left her ‘developmentally… about 12 years old.’” This is one of three similar physically brutal sexual assaults the article references.

I mention this because Black’s back in the news this week for the same Epstein-related shit: he had a date with the House Oversight Committee for September 3, 2026 to appear and produce his Epstein NDAs, and skipped out on both.

Having spent a lot of time in the files, I have formed the opinion that all of these people who continued friendships with Epstein post-conviction, or were themselves close friends of those who did, like Sinema to Black, are all just fucking amoral trash, not a lick of conscience among them.

The NC betrayal of affection law is entirely regressive. It’s a “let’s see you and them fight” divorce law in the same state that requires (or did at the time) you to be legally separated for a full year prior to divorce. Back when I was there in the 90s I had cheating friends caught up in it with great shock that it would ever be used against them – I guess cheaters are the same everywhere – but inasmuch as it has snagged Sinema and might be the sole form of redress for her actions that she ever faces, I can almost applaud it.

Yeah, he’s a piece of work. And thanks for the links: he has a long and deviant history of abominable behavior. The dude is horrific, literally the epitome of modern-day evil IMO, but he keeps getting a pass somehow because he keeps rich and powerful friends.

But specifically, what he has done to harass and re-victimize the survivors (Virginia Giuffre is not the only one by far; others have gone through this as well) is beyond our own imagination.

I have often wondered whether, had Virginia Giuffre not had to fight this asshole’s vindictive lawsuits, only to be dropped by her own lawyers in the middle of her own ongoing suits because her lawyers were also being sued by him, and then having to fight to get any lawyer at all to represent her, all the while being harassed throughout by various creeps and pervs and actual friends of Epstein (which never stopped) and having her name out front and center of the whole thing . . . had that not happened, would she still be with us? We’ll never know.

For myself, I post these things because people forget the survivors, and the media does not tell the truth of what they endure. So when he blew off his scheduled appointment with the House committee, I wanted to put out a reminder of why he’s invited to appear in the first place.

Of all the people I want to see pulled in before the House committee, and there are many, his name is at the top of the list.

Probably. See page 89, line 10 for one of the six times he abused her (I didn’t look past that point).

Lol wut? “My brain is not especially fucked enough right now so I’d like an extra special DOUBLE helping of corporate machine bullshit today, thank you!”

I think you should take that hit for the team, obviously. If you believe one is required.

This guy knows his fascists. Excellent summary.

This is an archive link to the above-linked New Yorker profile on Alan Dershowitz. There are known problems with the site but it has the content; use at your own discretion.

Massie’s doing this right now as a part of getting a discharge petition passed to circumvent Mike Johnson’s blockade on all things Epstein so that a vote on EFTA II can come to the floor. He also was very careful to do it from the House floor so that the naming itself would not get mired in retaliatory lawsuits.

The linked video in the article is to a short from C-SPAN that covers the minute Massie was allotted on the House floor to read his list of names, which the article does not actually repeat. It’s only a minute and ten seconds, but here’s the transcript:

Mr. Speaker, it’s been a year since the president signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and the government continues to withhold over three million files.

That’s why we’ve introduced the Epstein Files Transparency Act II, to bring the fight to the state courts, accountability to the Department of Justice, and closure for survivors.

We want perpetrators of these crimes to be investigated and prosecuted. Men like Jes Staley, Leon Black, Les Wexner, David Copperfield, Lapo Elkann, Tom Pritzker, Glenn Dubin, Frédéric Fekkai, Eduardo Teodorani, Jean-Luc Brunel, conveniently dead by suicide in prison, Daniel Siad, recently discovered dead in Paris, Ramsey Elkholy, and Prince Andrew who committed sex crimes in the United States, too, and women like Lesley Groff, not a victim, who conspired with Epstein to traffic other women.

Perhaps hearing these names will shame the Department of Justice into delivering justice. I yield back.

Not all the names were familiar to me so I looked them up, asking why these names in particular? Massie is indeed naming and shaming, and I think he picked these specific names for a reason, possibly because they are themselves credibly linked to many others. Note also how he calls out Lesley Groff as NOT being a victim, as she has claimed, but as an active participant in the trafficking.

These names are not all, by any stretch, but they are a great start.

EDITED TO ADD: Here’s a Yahoo article that goes into each of the named persons at greater length, for anyone interested.