"HE'S IN THE FILES" Trump Epstein Scandal Is Getting Crazier, Chronic Venous Insufficiency
PDS Published 07/17/2025
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The Justice Department just fired Maurene Comey, a federal prosecutor in Manhattan who:
1. Just happens to be the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey.
And 2. Prosecuted cases against Diddy, and another dude you’ve maybe heard of named Jeffrey Epstein.
So yeah, just another “nothing to see here” moment from the Trump administration as the backlash to its handling of the Epstein case is only getting louder.
As for why Maurene Comey was ousted, well, the reason for her dismissal was not made clear, but she reportedly learned of her firing via a letter that cited article 2 of the constitution, which outlines the powers of the president.[]
Sources also telling CNN that her being a Comey was untenable under this administration given the beef between Trump and her dad. []
Right, Trump fired James Comey in 2017 amid an investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Russia.
So this is a real “like father, like daughter” kind of moment here.
And people on the MAGA right had been calling for her removal for some time now because of her father, with the FBI even recently launching an investigation into James Comey.
Trump has also tried to place blame on him amid the Epstein fallout, claiming he, Obama, Biden, and others wrote the Epstein files that people have been demanding.[]
Though, that finger pointing has done little to satisfy his MAGA base.
As for what Maurene’s role in prosecuting Epstein was, well, she was one of the Manhattan prosecutors who charged him back in 2019 for sex trafficking, though he died in prison while awaiting trial.[]
She also prosecuted Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison, though Maxwell is appealing that.
And because that case has an appeal, last year Maurene Comey did ask a judge to decline the public release of Epstein-related records, arguing it could interfere with a possible retrial.[]
And like I mentioned, that was not the only high-profile case she was involved in, as she also was a lead prosecutor in the Diddy case, which ended in him getting convicted of smaller charges, but acquitted on the more serious ones, which was kind of seen as a defeat.[]
But still, at least prior to the Trump administration, firing prosecutors in her position was a pretty rare move. []
So you have the New York Times noting that Maureen’s firing:
“raises the possibility that Ms. Comey is being set up as a scapegoat as the administration fights to move past the scandal.”
For her part, while Comey has not publicly addressed her firing, Politico did obtain the letter she sent her colleagues addressing the news, which said:[]
“Yesterday was unexpectedly my last day in the office.”
“Every person lucky enough to work in this office constantly hears four words to describe our ethos: Without Fear or Favor. Do the right thing, the right way, for the right reasons without fear of retribution and without favor to the powerful.”
“We have entered a new phase where ‘without fear’ may be the challenge. If a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain. Do not let that happen. Fear is the tool of a tyrant, wielded to suppress independent thought. Instead of fear, let this moment fuel the fire that already burns at the heart of this place. A fire of righteous indignation at abuses of power. Of commitment to seek justice for victims. Of dedication to truth above all else.”
And you so with all this, you have had plenty of people questioning the Trump Administration's decision here, thinking it just makes them look more guilty, with the likes of Senator Adam Schiff saying on MSNBC:
“Either she was fired because she's James Comey's daughter, which would be totally inappropriate and a wrongful termination, or she was fired because she was prosecuting Epstein and his accomplices. And why would they fire her over that? And why would they fire her now?” (0:39-0:56)
“None of it has a good or innocent explanation to it, which is why they’re continuing to flounder over this.” (1:00-1:07)
Hasan Piker also tweeting:
“every step the trump administration has taken on the epstein issue so far makes them look MORE suspicious.”[]
This also comes as Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s former chief of staff, just did an interview with Aljazeera where he was asked if Trump was withholding information because he is in the files, and there said:
“No, absolutely not. Well, he’s in the files. A lot of people are in the files. If there was something that was particularly damning about DT, it would have been released by the Biden administration…not if it was damning about Bill Clinton as well.” (0:24-0:36)
“They would have at least released that part. My guess is, and it’s an educated guess, is that it is particularly damning to very important people on both sides of the political aisle, which is why Trump doesn’t want to release it and why Biden didn’t want to release it either. If it was just about Trump, it would have come out.” (0:40-0:53)
“I imagine Donald Trump's name is in the file someplace. There are photographs of them together.” (2:02-2:07)
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And his comments are just some of the latest that either implicate or put pressure on the Trump administration to release more information.
Right, Senators from both sides of the aisle are making moves here, with Republican Thom Tillis going on a radio show to join the chorus of people calling for the files to be released.
And then this morning, Democrats Chris Van Hollen and Dick Durbin sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi asking for the files to be released, claiming:
“We must ensure that the American people can have confidence in a justice system that operates without secrecy or undue influence.”[]
Because there, it is worth noting that a Reuters poll just found that 69% of Americans believe the government is hiding details about Epstein’s clients, with that including 62% of Republicans.[]
And Elon Musk touched on that during a posting spree last night where he called Trump’s actions a “cover up,” demanded more documents be made public, asked Grok about details of the case, and wrote things like: [][][]
“Over 1000 confirmed young victims is a shockingly large and tragic number! In order for the government to confirm that the girls were victimized, they would have had to name or at least describe who raped them. This would necessarily mean that the government MUST have the list of rapists aka “the Epstein client list” in their possession right fucking now.”[]
This clip of JD Vance on Theo Vonn’s podcast is also getting a lot of traction, as in it, Vance says:
“Release the list!...[laughter]...seriously, we need to release the Epstein list, that is an important thing.” (0:00-0:07)
And among those resharing it was Theo Von himself, who posted it alongside the caption “Yeah, what changed?”[]
So we are just at a point where it seems that every single hour, a new person is knocking on the Epstein door hoping it’ll finally open up.
But we will have to see where else this goes, and what would finally be the straw that breaks the camel’s back here, right, will anything get the Trump administration to budge?
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If y’all have seen any photos of Donald Trump going around the past few days, you may have noticed something strange.
Namely a pair of oddly swollen ankles and two noticably bruised hands. [Image and image]
Which led some people to speculate about whether the king was about to drop dead, and you saw a few already starting to reach for the champagne. [Post]
But it looks like that reaction was probably premature, because the White House press secretary came out and offered a less sensational explanation today.
With her reading from a doctor’s note that apparently blamed the swollen ankles on a condition called chronic venous insufficiency. [Lead B roll into clip]
Clip, 00:42 - 00:49]
Right, basically it’s when the veins in your legs struggle to pump blood back up to the heart.
And then, as for the bruising on his hands, the White House chalked that up to a lot of handshaking and aspirin.
[Clip, 01:39 - 01:46]
So y’all can put your champagne away for now, or if you’re a Republican, let out a deep sigh of relief.
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Senate approves Trump’s demands to rescind $9 billion in federal funding for foreign aid, PBS, and NPR
Senate Republicans just voted to surrender their own power to Trump.
Right, early this morning, the Senate narrowly passed a bill that would rescind $9 billion in funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting that Congress itself approved in a bipartisan agreement just a few months ago.
With this coming at the request of President Trump, who went through the formal process of submitting what’s known as a rescissions bill to claw back funds that Congress had already greenlit.
And I really can’t emphasize enough how incredibly significant this is.
Right, rescissions bills are INCREDIBLY rare and usually unsuccessful because Congress does not want to give up its power over federal spending.
In fact, this is the first time in DECADES that this has happened.
Which is why you have experts saying this just shows how willing Republicans are to bend to Trump's will as he works to exert control over federal spending — even if it means giving up their own Constitutional powers.
And to further underscore how controversial this process is, we saw two Republicans — Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski — joining Democrats to vote against the bill, which ultimately passed 51-48.
With Murkowski urging Congress to assert its Constitutional authorities over federal spending.
Additionally, both Murkowski and Collins argued that the Trump administration had failed to provide enough information about exactly which programs would be impacted by the cuts in the legislation.
And, very notably here, that was also echoed by several other members, including Senators Thom Tillis, Mitch McConnell, and Roger Wicker.
With Tillis even going as far as to say:
“If we find out that some of these programs that we’ve communicated should be out of bounds — that advisers to the president decide they are going to cut anyway, then there will be a reckoning for that.”
And adding: “I suspect we’re going to find out there are some things we’re going to regret, some second- and third-order effects, and I suspect that when we do, we’ll have to come back and fix it.”
But, of course, all three Senators voted for the measure anyway, despite seemingly admitting that they don’t know what the bill will actually do.
And that just further emphasizes how much power Trump wields over his party.
Right, not only will Republicans give up their power of the purse for him, they’ll do so without even knowing how exactly he’s going to use that power.
Now, that said, while many of the details are unclear, we do know the broad strokes of what this rescissions bill will do.
Right, the vast majority of the money it will claw back — about $8 billion — was previously allocated to fund foreign aid programs that the Trump administration has said are wasteful.
With The New York Times reporting that, quote:
“The vote codified a number of executive actions the administration advanced earlier this year to gut foreign aid programs, many first undertaken by DOGE.”
With that including many of the programs that were previously administered by USAID before Trump and Elon Musk effectively eliminated the agency.
Like emergency and disaster relief, food aid, public health, and much, much more
Though, notably here, it’s been reported that certain food and global health programs were spared from the cuts.
With Republicans stripping the bill of a request Trump made to cut $400 million to the global AIDS fighting program, PEPFAR, which is estimated to have saved 26 million lives since George W. Bush started it in 2003.
Right, so those were the bulk of the cuts, but the remaining $1.1 billion in funds the Senate voted to rescind was allocated to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — or CPB — which funds NPR and PBS.
With Trump and his Republican allies arguing that the public broadcasters spread woke propaganda and are biased against conservatives.
And, like the foreign aid cuts, the slashing of public media just codifies executive actions Trump has already taken.
Right, the president has long railed against these broadcasters, signing an executive order back in May directing the CPB to end federal funding for NPR and PBS.
But, and with all that, we’ve seen Democrats condemning the rescissions bill and hitting back with many same arguments they’ve been making against these cuts for months.
Right, that slashing foreign aid will result in the loss of millions of lives and weaken American soft power around the globe.
And claiming that the cuts to public broadcasting will disproportionately hurt local public radio stations rather than NPR and PBS.
Right, those two broadcasters actually just receive a small percentage of their funding from the federal government.
But many local stations get half their budgets from the CPB, and these cuts could pose an existential threat to many rural stations and risk shutting them down entirely.
And experts say that in addition to providing important news and educational services, those broadcasters are also vital during emergencies and natural disasters, providing essential, life-saving information.
So, with that, you have Democrats saying that these cuts will totally destroy many vital services that don’t even cost the government that much money in the grand scheme of things.
Right, arguing that this is an absolutely tiny portion of the $6.8 trillion federal budget.
With many accusing Republicans of giving up Congress’s constitutional powers to Trump just so they can cut a microscopic amount of spending mere weeks after passing the Big, Beautiful Bill — which is expected to add $4 TRILLION to federal deficits.
Right, and on that note, we’ve also seen a lot of Democrats saying that this move undermines Democracy.
Arguing that Democrats and Republicans agreed to a bipartisan budget bill this spring to fund the government — a move that required 60 votes in the Senate.
But now, Republicans are using a tactic that just requires 50 votes in the upper chamber to totally undermine that bipartisan agreement.
With Senator Chris Murphy hitting on that and adding:
But, as far as what happens next, this bill is now headed to House, which has to pass it by Friday under the rules that govern rescissions.
But they are widely expected to pass the measure in time.
Leak shows American strikes destroyed just one Iranian facility, contradicting Trump’s claims
This new leak totally exposes Trump’s lies.
Right, Trump has repeatedly claimed that the strikes that the U.S. launched against three Iranian nuclear sites last month had absolutely destroyed the country’s nuclear program:
But according to NBC News, a new intel assessment found that the U.S. strikes only actually destroyed one of the sites, but, per five sources familiar with the assessment:
“the two others were not as badly damaged and may have been degraded only to a point where nuclear enrichment could resume in the next several months if Iran wants it to.”
And even for that one site that was significantly damaged, it only reportedly set back work by about two years.
Right, the U.S. strikes were specifically targeted to hit three enrichment sites in Iran: Fordo (For-doh), Natanz (Nah-tahns), and Isfahan (Iss-fah-hahn).
With sources saying that For-doh was the site that was the most heavily damaged, which is significant because that has long been seen as a key part of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
And that’s also why the administration has been focusing so much of its public messaging on the success of the bombing in this particular facility, while often neglecting to dive into explicit details on the others.
But the new intel report allegedly shows that U.S. officials knew well before the airstrikes that Iran had structures and enriched uranium at both Nah-tahns and Iss-fah-hahn that were so deep underground they were likely beyond the reach of “bunker buster” bombs.
Bombs that notably were used at For-doh and Na-tahns but not at Iss-fah-hahn, where the U.S. deployed smaller bombs to hit surface targets.
But despite that, Trump allegedly rejected a more comprehensive plan that would have done a lot more damage.
Right, according to sources, the head of U.S. Central Command had developed a plan to go “all-in” on striking Iran and “truly decimate” the country’s nuclear capabilities.
And under that plan, the U.S. would have hit three more nuclear sites with repeated strikes that would last for several weeks while also targeting more of Iran’s air defense and ballistic missile capabilities.
But Trump allegedly decided against that course of action because it went against his vow to avoid conflicts abroad and because it could have caused a higher number of casualties on both sides.
With one source even explicitly telling NBC:
“We were willing to go all the way in our options, but the president did not want to.”
But despite all that, Trump and other administration officials have continuously insisted that the U.S. did lasting damage to Iran’s nuclear capabilities — and they reiterated those claims in response to this new report.
With a White House spokesperson claiming again in a statement to NBC that the attacks “totally obliterated Iran’s nuclear capabilities.”
And that was also echoed by the chief Pentagon spokesman, who said the three nuclear sites “were completely and totally obliterated. There is no doubt about that,” and adding:
“The credibility of the Fake News Media is similar to that of the current state of the Iranian nuclear facilities: destroyed, in the dirt, and will take years to recover.”
Now, notably, NBC did mention that both U.S. and Israeli sources have reportedly said that even if the capabilities weren’t fully destroyed, the strikes still effectively stopped the nuclear program because Iran knows it will face more strikes if it revives its work.
Additionally, the outlet also clarified that this new assessment is just “a snapshot of the damage” from an intelligence-gathering process that is expected to take months, so it is subject to change, but the outlet also added:
“if the early findings about the damage inflicted to Iran’s nuclear program hold up as more intelligence comes in, the United States could find itself back in a conflict there.”
Noting that the U.S. and Israeli governments have been discussing whether to conduct additional strikes on the two less-damaged sites if Iran doesn’t agree to start negotiations on a nuclear deal or if there are signs they are trying to rebuild.
But that’s where we are for now with this one, and of course, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens from here and how the situation develops.
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First, they came for Social Security, then they came for Medicaid, now they’re coming for your home.
Donald Trump’s proposed budget for the Department of Housing and Urban Development would impose a two-year time-limit on public housing and rental assistance.
Meaning if you’re on Section 8, or you live in housing that’s subsidized by HUD, you would have two years to either get yourself out or get kicked out. [Image]
Now currently, we know very little about how this would be implemented, how it would be enforced, when the clock starts and how the exemptions would be defined.
Speaking of which, the elderly and the disabled would be exempted, according to sources. [Quote, find “elderly”]
But still, there are millions of people who, until now, believed they could stay in their homes as long as they were poor enough to qualify.
And now we’ve got some idea of just how many might be impacted, thanks to this new report from New York University that was obtained by the Associated Press.
With it estimating that if families were cut off after two years, 1.4 million households could lose their vouchers and public housing subsidies. [Quote, find “1.4”]
And without assistance, many of those people would no longer be able to pay their rent, so they’d be evicted. [Same quote]
With the report noting that this would largely punish families with children who are working but earning far below their area’s median income. [Image and Quote same link, find “punish”]
Now advocates of time limits argue that, far from impoverishing people, this would encourage them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and become self-sufficient.
But the NYU report counters that time limits are largely untested, and most housing authorities to try it have abandoned it. [Quote same link, find “untested”]
Plus critics argue that housing isn’t something you get as a reward for working; it’s the source of stability you need to start working in the first place.
And if anything, they say housing subsidies need to expand, not contract.
Right, because experts estimate that just 1 in 4 low-income households eligible for rental assistance actually get it. [Quote same link, find “1 in 4”]
And of course, the United States is currently at the height of an affordable housing crisis; right, homelessness is through the roof. [Headline and headline]
Now to be clear, the time limit is only in Trump’s proposed budget; that doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to happen.
But there’s no doubt that his administration’s trying to do it, and it’s obviously consistent with the work requirement approach to Medicaid.
Links:
https://apnews.com/article/hud-section-8-vouchers-trump-budget-cuts-1e1896d3e1335ec7552bf3faf5edcefa
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Diet or exercise?
That’s a question health experts trying to solve the obesity epidemic have debated furiously for decades.
Because for a long time, the prevailing wisdom has acknowledged that of course, both are important. [Left B roll 02:41 and right B roll 04:13]
Right, dieting decreases the calories you consume, exercising increases the calories you burn, and if you burn more than you consume, then you lose weight. [Same B roll]
But experts have disagreed about which one plays a bigger role, and this new, groundbreaking study points overwhelmingly in one direction. [Study]
With it comparing more than 4,000 adults from 34 populations across six continents and a wide range of lifestyles and economies. [Quote, find “4,213” and B roll 00:36]
From business executives in the United States and Europe to subsistence farmers in Asia to hunter-gatherers in Africa.
And the study’s 80+ authors analyzed the data from all those people’s pee, which allowed them to precisely measure each person’s body fat, metabolism and energy expenditure.
And of course, people in wealthier countries have more body fat — no surprise there.
But heavier people tend to burn more calories by default, since bigger bodies just have more cells doing more work.
So the researchers controlled for body size to isolate the variable they’re interested in: physical activity.
Right, because if you have any common sense, you would expect that these Hadza [Hod-zuh] hunter-gatherers in Tanzania [Pronounce 00:15] burn more calories through their activity than your average American desk worker. [B roll, 00:06]
But when the data came back, the results were shocking.
Across all the populations studied, regardless of lifestyle, location, economic status, they burned pretty much the same number of calories. [Quote, find “quite similar”]
I mean, there was a little difference, but only enough to explain roughly a tenth of the difference in body fat and BMI between groups. [Quote, find “one-tenth”]
Otherwise they were remarkably similar.
And in case you’re wondering, no, Americans aren’t secretly doing push-ups under their desk, and herder-farmers are not way lazier than they seem.
Right, those people in less developed countries do move around more; they are more active.
It just turns out that physical activity may not matter very much for the number of calories you burn, at least according to this study.
And as for why that is, a senior author offers up one theory to explain it known as the constrained total energy expenditure model. [B roll, 02:05]
With the name kind of explaining itself; right, the idea is that your body constrains your total energy expenditure, or the total calories burned, within a narrow range.
So if you work out really hard, you do burn calories, but in theory your body compensates by slowing down or shutting off other biological activities. [B roll, 02:13]
Which would mean if you’re trying to lose weight, exercising more is not the best way to do it. [B roll, 00:02 - 00:05]
In fact, the study’s authors write, “Our analyses suggest that increased energy intake [that is, eating more food] has been roughly 10 times more important than declining total energy expenditure [that is, exercising less] in driving the modern obesity crisis.” [Quote]
But it’s not just about how much you eat; it’s what kind of food you’re eating that matters too. [B roll]
With the study finding that ultraprocessed foods in particular correlate strongly with high body fat. [Quote, find “strong correlation”]
This likely because (1) their hyperpalatability, energy density, nutrient composition, and appearance encourage overconsumption, [Quote, find “hyperpalatability” and B roll, 02:36]
And (2) food processing has been shown to increase the percentage of calories that are absorbed into the body rather than excreted. [Same quote and same B roll]
But wait! Before you go cancelling your gym membership, let me be clear: exercise is still important. [B roll, 03:55]
Because even if it doesn’t do that much for weight loss, it still does a bunch of other stuff.
And of course, keeping your weight within healthy bounds is only one part of being an overall healthy person.
So the study’s authors note, “Daily physical activity has a broad range of well-documented health benefits, from reducing all-cause and cardiovascular mortality to improving mental health, and is an essential component of a healthy lifestyle.” [Quote]
In fact, they guess that those benefits of exercise actually come from not burning calories.
Right, because the adjustments your body makes to cancel out the calorie burn, such as reducing inflammation and stress reactivity, may be a big part of why exercise is so good for us. [Quote, find “reactivity”]
So for you as an individual, do with this information what you will, but from a research and public policy perspective, the next steps are clear.
First, we need to identify precisely what makes food in the developed world so bad, then we need to figure out how to mitigate that bad shit while preserving the good shit.
Because as the study notes, despite its negative impact on obesity, the modern global food system has a lot of benefits we probably wanna keep. [Quote, find “not all impacts”]
Like for example, making food taste good, making food last long, making food affordable, and making food accessible to nearly every population on Earth.
But of course, fixing the global food system is way, way, way easier said than done.
So for now, we’ll probably just let obesity keep killing over four million people each year. [Quote, find “4 million”]
Links:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2025/07/16/obesity-cause-diet-exercise/
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This pianist woke up paralyzed one morning, and now, his fight for a solution could revolutionize music for disabled people.
Right, this is Ricardo Baldini and he’s been playing piano his entire life.
He started playing at 5 years old and he says he remembers learning how to read music before words. []
With Ricardo saying,
“Music has been with me all my life. I grew up with it. I was always practicing… It’s just a way for me to connect to these great human beings of the past.” []
“I like to say that music is my first language.”
He grew up to be a concert pianist in Italy before moving to Edmonton in Canada to continue performing and begin teaching.
But in 2019, everything changed - he woke up one morning suddenly paralyzed and unable to move his legs.
With Ricardo describing the injury as, quote,
“Bleeding inside my spinal cord that caused my spinal cord to stop working, so emergency surgery that night and from that day, I’m in a chair.” []
But being paralyzed wasn’t going to keep him from performing - he worked to recover enough core strength to play again.
Except not being able to move his legs meant that he couldn’t use the foot pedals - which are used to change the piano’s resonance while playing. []
With Ricardo saying,
“For classical music, which is what I do, 80 percent of the music requires the damper pedal, the right pedal of the piano, and obviously I couldn’t use it. So I was really sad and it was just suddenly limiting all my functions.” []
He hunted for something, anything that could help him press the pedals without the use of his legs but nothing worked the way he needed it.
And so he designed a new tool himself with an engineer friend from Edmonton - a device that allows you to activate the pedal through a mouth splinter. [B Roll 0:03-0:30]
So Ricardo can just bite down to change the piano’s resonance instead of using the pedals - saying,
“It’s a huge win for music, and it’s a huge win for accessibility music and equality of opportunity. (Now), people with disabilities have the potential for performing on stage and on a professional level, which is something that has never been done before.” []
They named the device “Resonate” and using it, Ricadro was recently able to perform with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.
He played in three concert performances for Anime in Concert over two days - saying,
“It’s been a dream come true for me to be able to perform with a full symphony orchestra on stage after my injury in my wheelchair. I had an incredible feeling. It went really well.
“The audience responded not as at a classical concert where the audience is more composed, which made the energy coming from the audience amazing.” []
But Resonate isn’t exclusive to Ricardo - he’s reportedly received inquiries from all over the world from people like him and others with disabilities interested in learning the piano. []
In fact, they’ve already done presales and are moving into the manufacturing phase for the first production run.
With Ricardo saying,
“The stories that come with each individual are so unique and it really warms my heart every time, because I understand … when I first got injured and looked out there, and there was nothing that would have helped me to go back and play the piano, and nobody was doing it, it really crushed me.” []
And they’re taking this little piece of hope beyond just piano - reportedly planning on adapting the design for other instruments like drums and even things outside the music space like sewing machines and pottery wheels. []
So Ricardo, you are absolutely our BAMF of the Day for not only overcoming this insane obstacle but for making the solution available to other people - even outside your space.
Keep doing what you’re doing, dude.
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