Patrick Fessenbecker
Teaching writing and ethics to engineers, writing a book on George Eliot.
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- It’s not a norm when one group no longer cares about it. No amount of wanting one‘s principles to be norms makes them so: I can’t make a norm against swearing by not swearing myself, I can only make myself look fastidious.
- Man, for the most part I like the Josh Marshall podcast, but sometimes Kate just says something that’s so online lefty brained that I almost unsubscribe. Today’s was the conviction that the Epstein Files, released pursuant to a 2025 statute, should simply have been leaked by Biden’s DoJ.
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View full threadThat's on me not speaking precisely enough. The thought I'm reaching for is something like: a party that was really ready to go would have had investigative committees ready to go on everything, alongside and in parallel with DoJ, on Day 1.
- Mainly the delays are DoJ's fault, but you could also make the case Congress shouldn't have waited until July to get going.
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- You may not be persuaded by the reporting that it took the Jan 6 committee to spur the DoJ into acting in earnest; I am. www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...
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- I want to be scrupulously fair in suggesting the Dems should have done something they didn't (because, as you accurately note, so much of this website isn't). But this seems akin to the Jan 6 committee, another weapon seized too late, and which certainly seemed powerful when it was used.
- im telling you we could get medicare for all in exchange for putting his face on mt rushmore
- BREAKING 🚨 🚨 🚨 Trump promises Schumer funding for NY tunnel project if Penn Station and Dulles Airport are renamed after him The startling offer, which was described by two people familiar with the conversation, was swiftly rejected by Schumer. www.cnn.com/2026/02/05/p...
- Honestly it's a shock we've gotten through this long without TrumpCare insurance cards of some sort.
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- I very much might still be wrong here, but I think a House committee could still have gotten the documents. The 5th doesn't extend to documentary evidence in a Congressional inquiry, apparently, and the relevant subpoena would presumably have been to the Epstein estate, not DoJ.
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- Not to make anybody lawsplain—someone can direct me to read something if they want—but I don't see why the appeals process would prevent Congress from subpoenaing anything they wanted to. While they couldn't compel Maxwell to testify, if I understand this and Braswell they could still get the emails
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- What are the implications of that? I'm missing something.
- So I hadn't thought about this angle, but of course you're right. Isn't the conclusion of that logic that Congress should have convened a special committee and held hearings? Sure, DoJ couldn't have leaked it, but weren't there other tools available to the Dems to publish the information?
