How to Round Up a Whirlwind

A loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires. Stay til the end for shirtless Kid Rock pics

A funny thing happened as I was putting this week’s post together: overwhelm. Do I write about Epstein, ICE, climate, billionaires, psychedelics? I outlined out half a dozen possible posts.

And then I realized that is the post. That sense of a dozen swirling crises; as if there were twelve small notes written to oneself, items on a to-do list in a dream, constantly fragmenting and rearranging themselves.

That was several crises ago; it was posted before the latest saber-rattling near Iran, the DHS shutdown (only, not ICE, because that’s funded separately), and twenty more OMGs from the Epstein dump. Here’s the song:

So, as I am sometimes wont to provide, here’s a listicle. To put things in order. To provide a concise precis of this moment. To survey the fragments.

1. The Billionaire Politic

Paul Krugman just did a great piece on billionaire spending and influence in American politics, which, as you may have noticed, has reached new heights of spending and new extremes of ideology. It’s not only money — it’s also control of information. Larry Ellison may now take over CNN as well as CBS, Jeff Bezos has purged the Washington Post of many of its best journalists, and Elon Musk has created the largest pro-white-supremacy platform in the history of the world. (If you haven’t checked on Elon lately, he posted about race almost every single day last month.)

A recent example? As many of you know, last week, CBS nixed an interview by Stephen Colbert with Texas Senate candidate James Talerico, under pressure from the FCC, led by political appointee Brendan Carr. (I love CBS’s official line, which was that the FCC merely “provided advice on the law” — right, just like a bully provides “protection services” to wimpy junior high kids.) This has been good for Talerico (5.3 million views, $ 2.5 million raised) who is beloved by many Democrats (and me) but not nationally known. But the censorship is chilling nonetheless. Here’s Colbert:

This move is, once again, straight out of the Orban playbook for authoritarianism. Hold elections, but make it impossible for opposition figures to campaign effectively — and then audit the results if they win nonetheless. Of all the stories I’m worried about, I’m most worried that the 2026 election will not be fair: that media will be weaponized, that ICE will be weaponized, and that votes will be thrown out by state or local election officials.

2. The Billionaire Erotic (a/k/a Epstein Depredations)

Since my summary of Epstein files revelations, much more has come to light.

First, conspiratorial thinking is now taking over parts of the online world, both right and left — which is fair enough, since there really are conspiracies out there and the Epstein Files prove it. But things have gotten weird, in a bad way. Antisemitic speculation is metastasizing, connecting a handful of isolated dots together. Fantastical hyperbole is becoming commonplace (e.g. claims that Epstein & Co. didn’t just traffic girls and women for sex, but engaged in cannibalism — all based on a single statement by one non-credible source to the FBI.) And commentators have moved from the possibly-true fact that Epstein may have helped initiate the launch of /pol/, the 4Chan channel that launched QAnon, Pizzagate, Gamergate, and much of the other right-wing conspiratorial insanity, to a much wider conspiracy theory that he’s behind the entire culture wars.

Yep, it’s a conspiracy theory about conspiracy theories. I actually did have this on my 2026 bingo card, and here it is. But it’s bad:

And Yet, there have also been some real zingers to emerge in the last couple of weeks:

• Here’s a really strong, disturbing summary of the evidence in the latest files release that Donald Trump committed sex crimes during his years of friendship with Epstein.

• Steve Bannon sought Epstein’s help in taking down Pope Francis. Michelangelo Signorile did a great deep dive into this, especially the anti-gay parts. Also, Bannon-Epstein-Bolsonaro.

• The FBI’s “prominent names” list:

  

  Meanwhile, here’s a good summary of the suspicious circumstances around Epstein’s death:

  But, hey, it’s all in good fun, right? So says Fox News, where Greg Gutfeld called Epstein a “sex rabbi.” What a POS.

3. ICE Horrors Continue Unabated

Check out Don Moynihan’s excellent analysis from last month of “life under a clicktatorship” where, as Ryan Broderick put it on Panic World recently, for ICE, we’re all just content. As in, the whole thing is, in part, a photo op, designed to generate rage-bait for the MAGA base. Speaking of which, here is a good summary of the white supremacist imagery and slogans in ICE/DHS social media posts:

Wired also did some amazing work tracking ICE’s expansion across the United States. Please rewatch Star Wars Episode Two if you need a refresher on how this works.

And as you’re probably aware, the administration is now targeting ICE protesters and even people (like me) who have posted comments critical of ICE online. The UnPopulist did a sobering review of these anti-democratic actions here

Finally, with the ICE operations in Minnesota winding down, it’s now time to survey all the glorious progress that has been made:

Great.

4. Lawfare is Working

Did you know that over 600 lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration’s assault on the rule of law and the constitutional order? The Times did a great analysis of this, and of their track record, which is mixed but actually pretty strong. Here’s Chris Geidner (no pollyanna!) on three strong opinions that came down from the DC Circuit last week. Please also check out Chris’s reporting on the astonishing statements made in a Minnesota court by a lawyer in the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Please also read up on the equally astonishing non-indictment handed down by a DC grand jury against Democratic lawmakers that Trump (and his latest right-wing-media-trained lapdog, Jeanine Pirro) had sought to intimidate. Speaking as a sometimes-law-professor here, this almost never happens; it’s huge. As the Times coverage puts it, “Time and again, prosecutors have been caught between the president’s insistence that they undertake weak or baseless cases and the necessity of having to go to court to push those cases past the justice system’s institutional guardrails.”

It’s not all good news in the courts, but I would say that on balance, it mostly is. The wheels of justice grind too slowly to stop every unconstitutional and destructive act of this administration, but I remain cautiously, moderately optimistic that the judiciary will stop many of the worst. Nate Silver posted a similar take on America’s democratic resilience here.

5. How Are You Doing?

Meanwhile, I’ve been talking a lot about how to stay afloat right now. Here are two conversations I had with the folks at 10% with Dan Harris, where I’ve been teaching this month:

There are no seat cushions you can use as flotation advices. There aren’t oxygen masks you can put on first, before helping your kids. There are only practices of momentary buoyancy, momentary air.

6. Finally, this happened

But I’ll end on a lighter note. This week, RFK and Kid Rock posted an unlikely and weirdly homoerotic joint workout video, complete with drippy-liquid-style font on the phrase “whole milk.”

Best summary I’ve seen? My Facebook friend Chris Papadapoulos called it “Cokeback Mountain.”

See you next week.