"Quiet. Quiet, Piggy."

Of course it was rude. 

He is fighting. He is positioning himself. 

He shifted the argument battlefield to one that favors him.

Trump changed the subject from incriminating association with Jeffrey Epstein to whether he was being crude and sexist. 

Here is the exchange on Air Force One:

Reporter: What did Jeffrey Epstein mean in his emails when he said you knew about the girls?

Trump: I know nothing about that. They would have announced that a long time ago. It's really what did he mean when he spent all that time with Bill Clinton, with the president of Harvard, you know, that is Summers, Larry Summers, whatever his name is. And all the other people he spent time with. Jeffrey Epstein and I had a very bad relationship for many years. But he also saw strength because I was president. So he dictated a couple of memos to himself, give me a break. You've got to find out what did he know with respect to Bill Clinton, to the respect to the head of Harvard, with respect to all of those people that he knew, including JPMorgan, Chase.

Reporter: Sir, if there's nothing incriminating in the files, sir, why are you all acting---

Trump: Quiet. Quiet, piggy.

We see Trump using the classic mechanisms for escaping guilt. Denial. Distance. Blame others. Object to the inquiry. Any police interrogator would recognize these. 

Trump adds one. He attacks the person doing the questions. Trump is authentic in his frankness. Trump exercised masculine power. He put a female reporter in her place with an insult. His narcissism is so profound that he feels entitled to be unfiltered. It is part of his appeal to voters. He says what he thinks even when -- especially when -- it is cruel and crude. 

Trump is an old-school male chauvinist, and he doesn't mind revealing it. Women are primarily acted upon, not actors. Trump openly evaluates women on their sex appeal. Women have their uses and Trump employs them; they can be agents, assistants, bureaucrats, and functionaries. They are also decoration and flatterers. 

"Quiet, piggy" caught the attention of Democrats. Trump reveals something about American culture: We are amid a backlash to the feminism of the late 1960s and 1970s. A great many American voters either like Trump's retro style of masculinity, or at least tolerate it. Some consider it the natural order of biology and culture that women want protection and resources from men, an idea contradicted by "women's lib." Trump is the alpha male: big, rich, powerful, judgmental, and cruel. If this were solely a conceit of men, it wouldn't have worked to elect Trump. Democrats trying to make sense of this era need to keep reminding themselves that a majority of White women voted for Trump in all three elections.

That I find Trump's behavior disgusting does not mean that he is out of touch with the public. Many people are not disgusted by him, and they are shaping current political reality. Trump isn't "politically correct." He doesn't pull punches. That is part of Trump's appeal: Amid all the checks and balances and constraints and veto-spots in our political process, Trump isn't hobbled by rules of courtesy or respect for norms. A lot of people were seeking that in a leader. His crude directness means he is willing to cut through constraints and may be able to get things done.

After-publlcation addition: A comment from a Trump-supporter gives readers an example of why Trump can make comments like "Quiet, piggy:"

The media is slanted and biased, and they lie profusely, and they are hostile to conservatives, so if Trump has to play a little hard-ball and insult a reporter, then I see no problem with that. Turnabout is fair-play. The media plays dirty, and they get what they deserve, which is NO respect.

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Shame and Shamelessness

Larry Summers withdraws.

Donald Trump accuses.

Summers feels shame. Trump is shameless.

Larry Summers gave a statement to the Harvard student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson:

I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein.

Summers said he was withdrawing from public life by resigning from his various professional and philanthropic associations in order to "to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me."

Larry Summers is an economist. He is a professor at Harvard, teaching graduate students and two large undergraduate courses. He was former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration and the former director of the National Economic Council in the Obama administration. He was president of Harvard from 2001 to 2006.

University presidents raise money for their institutions from people who have money and are willing to donate it. Jeffrey Epstein did not attend Harvard, but he liked affiliation with Harvard. It is not a surprise that Larry Summers knew and spent time with Jeffrey Epstein. It was his job.

Epstein donated $9.1 million to Harvard between 1998 and 2008 to support a variety of research and faculty activities, a period that overlaps with Summer's tenure as university president. Harvard accepted no gifts from Epstein following his conviction in 2008.

Harvard has attempted to disassociate from Epstein. In 2019 Harvard President Lawrence Bacow condemned Epstein’s crimes as “utterly abhorrent . . . repulsive and reprehensible,” and expressed "profound" regret about Harvard's past association with him. In 2020 Bacow issued an official report to the Harvard community reviewing the university's relationship with Epstein. The report noted that nearly all of Epstein's donations had been spent, primarily on a Program on Evolutionary Dynamics associated with the Psychology Department.  About $201,000 of his donations had not been spent as of 2020; Harvard donated that money to two organizations assisting trafficked young women. 

 

President Trump is using Larry Summers and Harvard as the "whatabout" distraction from his own association with Epstein. It is possible that there is evidence that Summers behaved criminally. Summers is in exactly the same position as Trump, except that Trump's association was far longer and had much closer involvement with young women. Trump also had a massage/spa. People have suspicions and questions. People wonder what each of them did and what evidence there is.

Trump sicced his Justice Department on Summers. There is craft in this. The optics are good for Trump. Trump is taking on symbols of elite privilege. Even better for Trump, the investigation into Summers can be the excuse for not opening up the Epstein files. It is perfect positioning for a Republican voter who gets news from Fox. Trump appears to want release of the Epstein files, but because Democrat Larry Summers is under investigation using material in those files, then the files that might reveal Trump's criminality cannot be released to the public. Clever.

Harvard and Trump are each playing the roles they are known to play. Harvard is associated with what may be a moral lapse, to which Harvard responds with conscientious remorse. Liberal guilt reflects Harvard's Puritan origins. It is the "woke" response, alert to error and privilege, and quick to look inward. 

Not Trump. Trump reflects a warrior ethic. He does not feel guilt or shame. HIs goal is triumph, not forgiveness. It is a moment in an endless war. Trump fights by deflecting a threat toward a rival center of power and prestige. If Harvard wants to project guilt, all the better for Trump. The public will not understand the details, but it will understand who appears to act ashamed and who appears to be proud.

I don't blame Summers for courting a donor to the university. If Summers committed crimes, I hope he is prosecuted. I have every belief that this Justice Department will look diligently for anything it can pin on Summers. I have every belief that the Justice Department will hide or ignore anything that implicates Trump. That world reflect the warrior ethic inside the Justice Department. Their goal isn't justice; it is victory for their team.

Harvard would be better off if Summers acted like a warrior here. It would be better if Summers angrily asserted that he did nothing whatsoever wrong, period, and that Donald Trump is a sociopath, an autocrat, a disgusting pedophile, and that he is furious that a pervert like Trump accuses others of committing the very crime he himself did. 

That would be a warrior culture response. 

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Switcheroo. Release the files!

Trump:

     ". . .  House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it's time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics . . . "

The GOP herd was about to stampede without him. He jumped in front to lead it where it wanted to go. 

Reporting from multiple sources says that in the event of a roll-call vote, some 50 to 100 Republicans would have joined Democrats in voting to release the files.

The Epstein files cover-up looked weird even to Republicans. My congressman, Cliff Bentz, a standard-issue Republican in a bright-red district, felt it necessary to tell me and other Rotary Club members that he opposed releasing the Epstein files so that Republicans could later do an even better job of releasing files.

The argument wasn't remotely plausible in light of Trump's condemning release of the files, calling the issue a hoax, and House Speaker Johnson so clearly following Trump's instruction to block release. The important takeaway from witnessing Bentz's speech is recognition that he felt it necessary to make a preposterous argument in public.

He has no electoral fear from Democrats. His only real electoral risk is in a Republican primary, from an even-more-MAGA candidate attacking him from the even-more-populist right. As an establishment stick-to-the-herd Republican, Bentz is one of Speaker Johnson's team members not signing a discharge petition to force a vote. This creates an opening for a candidate representing the populist conspiracy-oriented wing of the GOP, the segment that Trump aroused by telling them that Democrats were guilty of pedophilia and he would expose them. This segment did not suspect Trump as a prime predator until the Department of Justice's sudden announcement that the files were empty. Really? Why wasn't Trump exposing Democrats?  The conspiracy-oriented MAGA people had already committed themselves to moral disapproval of sex with teenagers, and now Trump acts guilty. They wanted transparency.

Bentz was offering a cover story to protect his right flank. Bentz's story: He is blocking release of the files because he wants the files released. He has it both ways. Elegant.

I received off-line criticism from Republican readers yesterday, complaining that yesterday's post described in unnecessary detail the behavior in the now-released emails. The criticism was useful because a common theme ran through it: denial. They weren't arguing that Trump isn't guilty. They are minimizing and discounting the evidence. Who knows what is true? The emails are just talk. It is all just rumor. It is speculation. It might be a hoax. It might be AI. Trump made a decision about believability. When people saw a mystery, they filled the void with answers and those answers raised new questions. Mystery was real.

"I see nothing. I hear nothing."

Evidence might not be real, and it might not register. Full disclosure is less dangerous than mystery. The mass of files is convenient for Trump. There will be convenient distractions that mention GOP enemies. Those will circulate as fast as did news of Bill Clinton's cigar some 27 years ago. There will be contradictions and errors. There is no evidence that cannot be discounted and ignored. Just don't believe it. "Who knows?" is a safe refuge amid unwelcome evidence. No one can make you believe what you don't want to believe.

Upton Sinclair observed: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” 

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Easy Sunday: Democrats imagine a frantic MAGA

Democrats are having fun, imagining that MAGA is going crazy over the Epstein revelations.

A short YouTube video is circulating. 

FYI: "Bubba" is a reference to an email to Jeffrey Epstein from his brother, suggesting that there is video evidence of Donald Trump performing oral sex on Bill Clinton. Jeffrey Epstein's brother has made a public statement to clarify. He says that the Bubba is not Bill Clinton, but he declined to say who Bubba is.

Democrats love this controversy. Yes, let's consider the question of exactly who the videotape might show Trump performing oral sex on, and whether Putin has a copy.

In the video, actress Caitlin Reilly depicts an imagined MAGA supporter frantic as Trump's various cover stories collapse.

https://youtube.com/shorts/897Fkimbu1w?si=4SKmw8zC9lNE1EJm

Democrats can enjoy the moment and watch Trump sink deeper into a tar pit of cover stories. But recognize four things:

     -- Republican voters in the Fox News silo know nothing about Epstein except that this is a Democratic hoax involving Bill Clinton and other Democrats.

     -- White House spokespeople say that the Epstein files absolve Trump. Trump did nothing whatsoever wrong. Period.

     -- Trump defenders and mitigators say the women were teenagers, not children. It isn't pedophilia.

     -- Republican voters do not care what Donald Trump did with young women that drifted through his life. They knew he was a very successful sexual adventurer/predator. They are OK with that. They are only against pedophilia if they think that a Democrat did it.

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Short and sweet this Saturday

Yale researchers created a new drug to stop aggressive skin cancer.

Health research and drug breakthoughs are political now.

Click here 

Cancer researchers at Yale developed a vaccine that attacks a form of aggressive skin cancer. It targets a protein essential to the tumor. It adds a signal that boosts the body's immune resopnse.

I didn't understand what the researchers did. I just skimmed past the explanation:

The mRNA vaccine directed the immune response to target viral large T antigen, a protein, and co-encoded interleukin-7 (IL-7), a molecule essential for the proliferation of immune cells, to enhance T cell responses, which led to increased immunity and a more durable anti-tumor response in Merkel cell carcinomas (MCC), often caused by a virus. The vaccine demonstrated potent effects in both animal models and patient samples and improved effectiveness when IL-7 was added.

The article's footnote made the point that breakthroughs of this kind happen because institutions bring together the smartest and best-trained people in the world with funding from the richest country in the world. Together they do something very, very good: stop cancer.

It is the most obvious thing in the world to me: Funding the right people to cure cancer is the job of a country with a constitution that begins saying it seeks to promote the general welfare. 

President Trump is cutting this kind of funding at Yale and other research universities to make the point that his government opposes elite institutions that stand as alternative sources of credibility to Trump.  There is craft involved in attacking institutions at a point of greatest strength. After all, who could oppose cancer research? Isn't that the strongest case for the value of elite institutions? The strategy is the same as the Swift Boat attack on candidate John Kerry, winner of medals for bravery and three Purple Hearts. If one undermines an opponent's presumed strength, one undermines their legitimacy in all arenas. If the government can question cancer research then surely Yale's departments of literature and philosophy are worthless.

Trump is sending a message of domination. He is showing that he and his MAGA majority can push universities around. Cancer breakthroughs will not be discovered by people posting "just try this simple trick" on X and TikTok. They will be discovered by elite researchers in elite institutions doing meticulous work. And taxpayers will help pay for it.

Here is the footnote to the article:

The research reported in this news article was supported by National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute grant K08CA245112, the Yale SPORE in Skin Cancer NCI grants P50CA121974, the NCI grant R37CA279822 and Yale University. 

Trump's political games can hasten the death of someone you love.

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Epstein: Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip

A "modified limited hangout" didn't work during Watergate.

Trump is using it with his Jeffrey Epstein mess.

I think it will work for Trump.

House Oversight Committee releases documents

Those of us who followed the news in 1973 and 1974 know the phrase "limited hangout." Sometimes there is a "modified limited hangout."

Often the first strategy in a scandal is for the target to deny everything. But as new facts get put into the public record it can be impossible to stick to denial. The situation then requires a cover story to account for the inconvenient known facts.  Revealing the truth is the "hangout."  

The first hangout wasn't the whole story in the Watergate matter. The whole truth was that Nixon was part of the coverup. The Nixon people attempted a limited hangout. But as yet more information leaked out it became a modified limited hangout. For a year or two in the mid-1970s, everybody in America knew the phrase "modified limited hangout." The phrase drew chuckles.

True? Half-true? Daily drips needed to be verified

We are watching the evolution of a new limited hangout in the matter of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. The question isn't what Trump knew and when he knew it -- the Nixon question. The question is whether Trump performed transgressive sexual acts with very young girls, and whether Epstein made videotapes to document it. Trump and MAGA allies have been stewing about pedophile rings for a decade, looking for it in all the wrong places. It turns out that Trump has some explaining to do. He is stonewalling (another term from the Watergate era.)  Stonewalling means not coming clean.

Wednesday the House Oversight Committee released emails between Ghislaine Maxwell (Gmax1) and Jeffrey Epstein (jeevaction) reporting that Trump had, indeed, spent private "hours" with a woman described as "Victim." That contradicts Trump's denials and claims of ignorance. 

We also learned that Epstein wrote his biographer, Michael Wolff, saying that Trump is lying about asking Epstein to resign from Mar-a-Lago country club and when Trump claimed that he knew nothing about Epstein's girls. 

I think Trump's support would continue even if the worst rumored and suspected activity took place and could be documented. Republican voters don't care. They know that he is a playboy with Hugh Hefner tastes and exhaustive sexual experience with young models and entertainers. There is almost no mention of Epstein in conservative media, and when the subject is unavoidable, it is described as a Democratic hoax. Even if videotapes of Trump doing something illegal exist, they won't be shown. And if shown, they won't be believed. Artificial intelligence is the new alibi: you can't believe your eyes anymore.

But the conspiracy segment of Republicans remains, and Democrats can keep plinking away, hoping to embarrass Trump, a man who cannot be embarrassed.  It is fun for Democrats, but it doesn't move the needle on Trump's support. Trump is shameless. Let people guess, wonder, assume the worst. Trump doesn't care. His base doesn't care. They like that he is deporting people and reversing DEI and making liberals angry. 

Trump is not going away.

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Should SNAP benefits be restricted to healthy, unprocessed food?

Surprise, Surprise.

It is possible to have a sensible, informative comment thread in a political blog.

The issue: Should SNAP pay for junk food?

Jane Collins is a college classmate. She did not pursue a career that generated big money. She has first-personexperience with some of the nutrition programs in today's news. She shares her thoughts on a blog headlined "Calm down. Connect online. Rethink everything": https://alicet4.com/

Joe Yetter is a retired army physician. Like Jane, he reads this blog. He was a Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress in my rural, bright red district.

Comment by Jane Collins: 

Let people make their own decisions.

One food program threatened by the shutdown was WIC, for Women, Infants, and Children. I received those benefits for a while when our kids were small. The program covers healthy options like fruits, vegetables, milk, eggs, and cereal. It also provides nutrition information to young mothers, including guidance about learning to cook. It's an excellent program. 

But the problem with limiting the main food program, SNAP, to nutritious food is that poor people would not be allowed to eat like the rest of America. When your kids have to wear second-hand clothes and never get new toys, at least you should be able to treat them to something sweet once in a while. 

Most poor parents work. Many have long commutes. They depend on processed food to save time. Canned and boxed foods are also usually cheaper than fresh, and don't go bad so quickly.

In America, families are ashamed when they can't provide their kids with the things they want. SNAP benefits are not generous. Sometimes the only meat you can afford is hotdogs. Are hotdogs junk food? Who gets to decide? Poverty limits choices in housing, education, and so much else. At least let poor people make their own decisions about feeding their families.  

Response, by Joe Yetter, M.D.

Jane, you've made the same argument to me that lots of other folk I admire and respect have made: that by limiting SNAP to nutritious food, we'd be saying (in your words),"they are not allowed to eat like the rest of America."

I disagree. I think we'd be saying: "We will pay for food that is good for you and your children. We are not going to use taxpayer money to purchase dental cavities and cardiovascular disease. You remain free to buy unhealthful food, but we will not pay for it." I'd like also for both of us to acknowledge that funds are fungible, and if we buy a buck's worth of healthful food for somebody, we may also free up a buck that can buy soda pop and potato chips for them. For me, that's a negative outcome; for those on the other side, it may be a positive. In any event, it does promote their freedom to choose.

Jane Collins' response to Joe:

Don't shame people for being poor.

I didn't buy sugary snacks or soda for my kids when we got food stamps. I also cooked from scratch, since I was a stay-at-home mother at the time, 20 miles from the nearest grocery store. Our meals were boring (turns out my husband is a much better cook) but healthy. We had a big garden for fresh vegetables and herbs, not something available to urban poor people. I canned, dried, and pickled, skills I learned from my husband's grandmother. But we were living in rural Kentucky. I saw what other people bought. My kids didn't miss what they had never had, what other kids would have, I think. 

Thank goodness (and Democrats) there are debit cards instead of stamps now. People would often be poor-shamed at checkout for whatever other people judged they should not buy with "our money" (though poor people do pay state and local taxes), including fresh fruit. Note that rich people also feed their kids crap and nobody seems to be shaming them. Americans are sold terrible foods from birth, on every medium. It isn't only poor people who have bought into this corporate propaganda, or who have never learned to cook. 

I should also note that despite working full-time for most of our adult lives, my husband and I now live on Social Security. We qualify for only $20 a month in food stamps, but we appreciate what we get. Every little bit helps. 

 

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