The United States is now facing the greatest threat to our free way of life in our history. Even the US Civil War was not the danger that is Donald Trump. In the Civil War, the South wanted to separate from the rest of the Union. Today, Trump does not want to separate from the US, he seeks to destroy the fundamental functions and purpose of the US. He seeks to destroy the Constitution, replacing the Judiciary and Legislative Branches with puppets of the Executive. Plainly stated, Trump seeks to establish himself as a dictator . . . and as of May 2025, he may succeed.
Notice the Band-Aid and make-up on his right hand. Trump is in early stages of Alzheimer’s and he is receiving regular infusions of two drugs called donanemab and lecanemab which are given via intravenous infusion every 1-4 weeks for Alzheimer’s. The treatment requires regular monitoring with brain MRI scans to ensure the medication is not causing bleeds in the brain.
Meanwhile, here’s Pete Hegseth’s name tag. Look closely.
I guess they meant to say this:
This tired, demented, failed, bankrupt deeply-damaged man is so needy. He has to have references to him being president on his hat, on his shirt, and on a faux-gold-framed placard next to his overcooked cheeseburger he’s almost too-out-of-it to eat.
Birthday June 16, 1946 — he will be 80 years old in a few months, oldest serving President. When Joe Biden turned 80 and 81 in office, Republicans lost their minds — Biden was too old but Trump is just fine.
US negotiators are meeting in Geneva today with representatives from Ukraine and Europe in an emergency session brought on by our corrupt, madman leader’s outrageous threats this week to end all support for Ukraine by this Thursday (hey, why not? What about Friday?) if they don’t agree to a Russian crafted plan to end the conflict.
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Events are likely to over take this post today, but we learned a few things yesterday worth sharing……
First, this horribly corrupt and dangerous plan (see my post from yesterday for more) was forged in part here in the United States in late October by Special Envoy Witkoff, Jared Kushner and a Putin emissary Kirill Dmitriev (yes a sanctioned Russian was allowed to enter the US).
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It must be noted that Dmitiriev is a banker, not a diplomat, who runs one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, and that this new American-backed proposal has various provisions that would enrich American investors and Trump itself. So I can write here without hyberbole that Witkoff-Kushner-Trump (and Vance) are attempting to sell out Ukraine, Europe, and democracies throughout the world in part to enrich themselves.
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Second, Secretary of State Rubio, who is also the national security advisor to Trump, told alarmed Senators on a call yesterday that the plan was a Russian wish list not backed by the US. A few hours later he reversed course, and claimed that in fact it was an American plan not a Russian one. The lying, incompetence, confusion, recklessness, malevolence – it’s all jawdropping, and incredibly dangerous. Here’s how the NYT described these extraordinary turn of events:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday that the United States “authored” a 28-point peace plan to end the war in Ukraine, after a Republican senator asserted that Mr. Rubio had distanced himself from the proposal and called it a Russian initiative.
Mr. Rubio made the assertion on social media after Senator Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota, said Mr. Rubio had earlier on Saturday held a call with a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers attending a security conference in Canada. Mr. Rounds said that in the call, Mr. Rubio had suggested that it was a Russian proposal, not a U.S. plan.
“He made it very clear to us that we are the recipients of a proposal that was delivered to one of our representatives,” Mr. Rounds said Saturday at a news conference at the Halifax International Security Forum, speaking about Mr. Rubio. “It is not our recommendation. It is not our peace plan.”
Mr. Rounds said Mr. Rubio “made it clear that it was an opportunity to have received” the plan. “You now have one side being presented, and the opportunity for the other side to respond,” Mr. Rounds said. Some critics of the plan have said it would force Ukraine to make unreasonable concessions to Russia.
Tommy Pigott, a State Department spokesman, on Saturday denied an allegation that the plan was essentially a Russian wish list, saying that this was “blatantly false.”
“As Secretary Rubio and the entire Administration has consistently maintained, this plan was authored by the United States, with input from both the Russians and Ukrainians,” Mr. Pigott wrote on social media.
The plan, which was initially negotiated between the United States and Russia without direct Ukrainian involvement and has not officially been made public but has been widely leaked, would involve Ukraine ceding land it currently holds, limiting the size of its military and foregoing any attempt to join NATO. In the past, Ukraine has rejected these steps as a capitulation, and Ukraine’s allies have pushed back against the proposal.
Lots of reporting this morning that Vance is the lead in this traitorous new effort to appease Putin and throw Europe and Ukraine under the bus:
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And this from a top WSJ reporter:
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All of this is happening now in my view because Trump’s decline is accelerating, everyone knows it, and factions in the regime are starting to make power graps and go full on Game of Thrones on one another……..
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What is happening here is incredibly dangerous and not fucking OK. We need to hit the phones at 9am EST tomorrow and demand that our Congressional leaders fight this incredible, historic sell out of our national interests and appeasement of Putin.
Trump was rebuked a few weeks ago when the Senate voted three times to roll back his terrible tariffs. He was rebuked again, powerfully, in the 2025 elections. Last week Congress delivered one of the most aggressive legislative rebukes of a President in all of our history. And now we must rebuke him again for this outrageous “plan” and attempt to sell out Ukraine, Europe, and democracies all across the world, including our own.
We need to be loud — very, very loud.
Call Your Senators and Member Of The House And Demand They Act to save Ukraine and Our Republic
The past 48 hours make it clear: Trump is not simply incompetent. In fact, he is ignorant and incompetent; he’s a Mafia boss who attacks anyone who disagrees with him; he has the mental maturity of a 13-yr-old who takes delight in attacking people; he’s an 80-yr-old man in early stages of dementia; and — worst of all — he sees himself as a dictator in the mold of Putin or Hitler.
This post on Bluesky says it all:
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Here’s how the NYT described Trump’s calls for the hanging of Democratic lawmakers:
President Trump accused a group of Democratic lawmakers of sedition in an outburst on social media Thursday morning and said their behavior was “punishable by death.”
Their crime? Recording a video that reminded members of the military that they are not supposed to obey illegal orders.
“SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” Mr. Trump wrote in one post. He shared a different post, written by another person, that said: “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!”
The video that enraged the president had been put out online two days ago by six Democratic lawmakers, all of whom had served in either the military or intelligence community themselves.
Here’s the video from Senators Kelly and Slotkin, and House Members Crow, Deluzio, Goodlander and Houlihan, that reminded service members that it was their duty to refuse to follow illegal orders:
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We are also all less safe for Trump has formally sided with Russia against Ukraine and our former European allies. Watch this 4 minute video from Timothy Snyder for a terrific explanation of what our traitorous leader is attempting to do.
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Stories of Trump’s weakening are now everywhere in our discourse. Some examples:
As I wrote yesterday I think Republicans, and the Capital, are waking up to the gravity of the damage Trump has done and continues to do the country, his unprecedented corruption and venality, and to his extraordinary unpopularity and political decline. For Republicans keep seeing headlines like this:
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And as Rep. Robert Garcia explained to us yesterday the Epstein files are going to come out, one way or another, and this already devastating Trumpian scandal is almost certainly going to get much, much worse for Republicans. This morning, Rep. Garcia, the Ranking Member Of The House Oversight Committee, sent a letter to the Attorney General reminding her that the DOJ was legally obligated to turn over all the Epstein files and end their rancid cover up. From his release:
Today, Rep. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a letter to emphasize to Attorney General Bondi that the subpoena from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform requires the full, unredacted Epstein files to be turned over to the Committee, including any classified materials and information tied to ongoing investigations, while still protecting the identities of survivors and potential victims. The letter comes following a statement by Donald Trump that “the House Oversight Committee can have whatever they are legally entitled to,” and amid concerns that President Trump will exploit a provision of the recently-passed Epstein Files Transparency Act, which allows the DOJ to withhold information relevant to ongoing investigations. After Donald Trump failed to defeat the bill, he launched politically motivated investigations of political opponents.
“Despite signing the Epstein Files Transparency Act, it’s crystal clear that Donald Trump and Pam Bondi may use language in the law to slow or stop release of the files by launching a new bogus Epstein investigation. The Oversight Committee subpoena does not allow the Administration to hold back the Epstein files for any reason. Oversight Democrats will continue to apply pressure and make it clear there is no justification for any cover up,” said Ranking Member Robert Garcia.
Republicans are waking up to how bad this really all is; how it is likely to get worse, much more worse; and how hard – if not impossible – it will be to run with Trump in 2026. For Trump is the worst President in our history. He has done enormous harm to the country. He is cartoonishly corrupt and lawless. The Epstein scandal is shaping up to be the most consequential in our history. He tore down the East Wing of the White House to build himself a gilded ballroom for fuck’s sake. I am sure talk of jettisoning him will grow. But as the stories of his selling out of Ukraine, his threats to hang lawmakers, and illegally invade another country also tell us he is not just a lame duck, a failure, and a fuck up, he is also desperate and dangerous, an out of control sundowning madman of the world’s most powerful nation.
In light of current events, I’ve been reading up the “ancient” history of Trump’s involvement with modeling—and especially the use of foreign/undocumented/younger women and girls in the industry during the twenty-teens. The article “Modeling was just the machine. Epstein was just the middleman” (7/2025) details exactly how the modeling world created a cover for sex crimes:
In the late 20th century, John Casablancas (founder of Elite Model Management) built the original model: turn teenage girls into glamorized assets. Jean-Luc Brunel took it international, founding MC2 and receiving at least $1 million from Jeffrey Epstein to expand operations. Paolo Zampolli cornered the visa angle, using U.S. immigration loopholes to bring in young foreign models — often from Eastern Europe and South America — under false pretenses.
Then came Mister Donald Trump.
(I’ve argued elsewhere that Hugh Hefner actually developed the original model for targeting low-income, young and otherwise vulnerable girls for jobs for which they were paid very little—but let’s be honest, older/more powerful men have been exploiting young women and girls for centuries.)
This circle of five men illustrates a toxic pattern of using and abusing young women and girls. And some of them are still with us. Let’s take a look:
1) John Casablancas ran Elite Model Management and was intimately involved with Trump’s modeling agency. They both enjoyed parties with younger women on display. Oh, and the Guardian also reports that:
The stories we have heard suggest that Casablancas, and some of the men in his orbit, used the contest to engage in sexual relationships with vulnerable young models. Some of these allegations amount to sexual harassment, abuse or exploitation of teenage girls; others are more accurately described as rape.
Here’s a story written in August 2017 on our own Daily Kos about her personal experience as a teenage model for Casablancas:
“I Was a Child Model for Trump’s Buddy Casablancas and it wasn’t Pretty”
As they say, “You’re known by the company you keep,” and Donald Trump has kept company with — to use his words — some “bad hombres,” and John Casablancas was one of the worst. At age thirteen, I joined John Casablancas/Elite (“JCE”) in a small-ish market and started modeling bathing suits and lingerie.
Casablancas died, tragically, free in Brazil in 2013 at age 70.
2) Jean-Luc Brunel ran MC2 Model Management, “with financing by Jeffrey Epstein.” He was arrested in 2020 for sex trafficking crimes including funneling girls across the ocean to Epstein:
In 2015, Virginia Giuffre, an American campaigner for justice for victims of sex trafficking who founded the NGO Victims Refuse Silence, accused Brunel of supplying girls to Epstein, claiming the latter had bragged to her that he had slept with more than 1,000 “of Brunel’s girls”.
. . .
The Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed that that Brunel was detained on 16 December as part of an investigation into “rapes, sexual assaults, the rape and sexual assault of a minor aged 15, the rape and sexual assault of a minor over 15 years, sexual harassment, association with criminals and the trafficking and exploitation of minors”.
He has also surfaced in the recently released batch of emails, some in connection with Trump (one of them was even featured on The Daily Show this Monday).
On Feb 19, 2022 the BBC reported Brunel was found hanging dead in his cell, an apparent suicide.
3) We know all about Jeffrey Epstein. He was also found hanging dead in his jail cell, a few years earlier on August 10, 2019, an apparent suicide.
Just one other thing, let us not forget that in the latest email dump Epstein writes,
I have met some very bad people ,, none as bad as trump. not one decent cell in his body
4) Paolo Zampolli founded ID Modeling Management in the mid 1990’s. As you might recall from the introductory link, he “cornered the visa angle, using U.S. immigration loopholes to bring in young foreign models — often from Eastern Europe and South America — under false pretenses”.
A former Kossack, SwedishJewFish (”Rebecca”) wrote the following in 2016:
You know what is interesting? The whole narrative that Bill [Clinton] was somehow complicit can be traced, directly, to an extortion scheme perpetrated by none other than Paolo Zampolli-the “modeling agent” (coughpimpcough) who worked with and then for Trump and introduced him to Melania.
Based on early statements from Melania, Zampolli appears to have been the one to have introduced her to Donald. But guess what he is doing now? He works in the State Department as the “US Special Representative for Global Partnerships”! He flies around the world doing shady stuff on behalf of “the country.” And surprise surprise, he also seems to be the one whose idea it was to turn Gaza into some glitzy resort (because you know, Gaza is OUR country—!):
Way back when I first met Zampolli, in 2016, to hear his thoughts about the Trump campaign, he told me about his idea to convert Gaza into a Mediterranean Riviera with high-rises and shopping malls. Or as he explains it now, “Let’s make it like Dubai, but with no golden faucets.”
5) And then there’s Trump.
In 1999, Donald Trump launched Trump Model Management. His agency followed the exact same pattern: bring girls in on tourist or “extraordinary talent” visas, overcrowd them in overpriced apartments, charge them for every service, and send them to work illegally while racking up debt they could never repay. Former models from his agency say they were instructed to lie to customs and start working immediately upon arrival.
This wasn’t theory. It was documented. The visas were real. The labor was real. THE FRAUD WAS REAL.
From Glamour, 2016:
None of the former Trump models had anything positive to say about their time at the agency.
Said Blais of one event, for which she was hired by another Trump endeavor—Trump Vodka—to serve as “eye candy,” “I knew that I was a model and there was objectification in the job, but this was another level.”
“Honestly, they are the most crooked agency I’ve ever worked for,” she said, summing up her experience. “And I’ve worked for quite a few.”
SwedishJewFish, wrote an article for the Daily Beast which is behind a paywall but which she quoted extensively in this diary:
Furthermore,
The attraction for the men “was young girls assuming they’d get somewhere” by joining the party, the photographer says, “Of course, it never happens.”
[…]
The girls were as young as 15, he says, and “over their heads, they had no idea, and they ended up in situations. There were always dramas because the men threw money and drugs at them to keep them enticed. It’s based on power and dominating girls who can’t push back and can be discarded. There’s always someone to pick them back up. Nobody wants to call home and say ‘Help me.’”
Trump would “go from room to room,” said the photographer, who added that “I was there to party myself. It was guys with younger girls, sex, a lot of sex, a lot of cocaine, top-shelf liquor” but no smoking. Trump didn’t approve of cigarettes.
So to recap: of these five men, three are dead, one works for the State Department, and one is the President of the United States.
Will we see the full content of the “Epstein Files”? I don’t know, and perhaps we’ll never know. But this is the world Trump has been a part of his entire life. Nothing would surprise me anymore.
