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Update (1756ET): What were you expecting? 

The 'long awaited' Epstein files were released a few hours ago by the DOJ, as required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act. 

TL;DR - A solid collection of new pictures and files with massive redactions throughout, and no bombshells yet.

Click into Nick Monroe's thread of interesting shit if you're curious:

UGH fine. I have the day off from work so I might as well take the time to look at whatever Epstein files drop today.

(*And if I get the hankering for it, I'll look over the other recent stuff that came out already.) https://t.co/vEbIblfHRK

— Nick Monroe (@lobsterlooker) December 19, 2025

A few items we also noticed which might be in Nick's thread;

Bill Clinton:

Trading station or CCTV monitoring station?

Recording and networking equipment:

Closer shot of hard drives and other recovered media:

David Copperfield making Ghislaine's tits disappear:

Oh:

Honeypot of the year shirt?

And yet...

*  *  *

The Department of Justice will miss today's deadline to release the 'full' Epstein files to Congress as required under new legislation Trump signed into law last month. 

Instead, the Justice Department will release "several hundred thousand" documents today, "and then over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more," Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told Fox News, citing the need to redact any names or identifying information about witnesses.

"So today is the 30 days when I expect that we’re going to release several hundred thousand documents today. And those documents will come in in all different forms, photographs and other materials associated with, with all of the investigations into, into Mr. Epstein," Blanche said.

"What we’re doing is we are looking at every single piece of paper that we are going to produce, making sure that every victim, their name, their identity, their story, to the extent it needs to be protected, is completely protected. And so I expect that we’re going to release more documents over the next couple of weeks. So today, several hundred thousand and then over the next couple weeks, I expect several hundred thousand more."

U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche: “Today is the 30 days and I expect we're going to release several hundred thousand [Epstein]documents today, and those documents will come in all different forms — photographs and other materials… just so everybody appreciates —… pic.twitter.com/JM22FXELTx

— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) December 19, 2025

Rep Thomas Massie, who was part of a bipartisan duo that pushed to force a vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, reminded everyone that today's the day for all records to be released.

pic.twitter.com/GjZIlCAUyJ

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) December 19, 2025

On Thursday Massie made a video about today's deadline, making it clear that there is no ambiguity within the law. 

"This is a very unique situation. … This is a case where the president who appointed the attorney general and for whom the attorney general works has signed the law and the ink is not even dry yet on his signature on this law," Massie said, adding "There’s nothing subject to interpretation."

Our Epstein Files Transparency Act is now law. It establishes a December 19 deadline for the Attorney General to release the Epstein files.

In this video, I’ll tell you what to expect in advance of tomorrow's statutory disclosure deadline. pic.twitter.com/7aD7q1kyLC

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) December 18, 2025

Meanwhile, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee continue to release new batches of Epstein photos.

#EpsteinFiles ?? pic.twitter.com/N6sCs5nLta

— swanaamdhanya (@swanaamdhaanya) December 19, 2025

"Oversight Democrats will continue to release photographs and documents from the Epstein estate to provide transparency for the American people," Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) said in a statement. " As we approach the deadline for the Epstein Files Transparency Act, these new images raise more questions about what exactly the Department of Justice has in its possession. We must end this White House cover-up, and the DOJ must release the Epstein files now."

The photos show several images where women's body parts have quotes from the book "Lolita" written on them. 

"She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock," one quote reads. 

As ABC News notes further:

There are several images of passports and ID cards for women from Ukraine, the Russian Federation, South Africa, Italy, the Czech Republic and Lithuania. All identifying information has been redacted from the photos. After Epstein's 2006 arrest and jail sentence in Florida for solicitation of a minor, he was alleged to have turned his focus to recruiting young women from Eastern European countries.

A screenshot released Thursday of a text message chat -- whose participants are not revealed -- seems to involve a discussion about recruiting an 18-year-old woman to meet Epstein.

"I will send u girls now," the message says.  "Maybe someone will be good for J?"

Interestingly, in the world's most buried lede - the NY Times admits that there's no evidence that Donald Trump participated in Epstein's sex trafficking. 

Kind of "burying the lede" here pic.twitter.com/jhgR1nmtPo

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) December 18, 2025

 

Authored by Mike McDaniel via American Thinker,

The attacks at Bondi Beach, Australia and at Brown University remind us western democracies remain uniquely vulnerable to terrorist attacks, even terrorists armed with common firearms rather than the automatic weapons employed in the Middle East and other hot spots. 

In Australia at least 16, aged 10-87, were killed and some 40 were wounded at a “Chanukah by the Sea” celebration. Yes, the victims were largely Jews, and amazingly, the police think [admit] it was terrorism.  

In this case, the two killers were apparently not “known wolves.”

Naveed Akram, 24, and his 50-year-old father, Sajid, allegedly stormed the family-friendly Chanukah by the Sea event armed with shotguns and a bolt-action rifle…

Akram was disarmed by a bystander and eventually critically wounded by police during the 20-minute attack, while Sajid was killed.

At Brown University, during final exams, a man dressed in black entered a lecture hall,  “yelled something” and opened fire, apparently with a handgun. Two were killed and nine were wounded.  A “person of interest” was detained but was apparently released and the actual killer remains at large. As this is written, there is no apparent motive.

What both attacks have in common is that once they began, the victims were sitting ducks. Gun laws and regulations assured the killers their victims would be unarmed.

Australia doesn’t absolutely ban private ownership of guns, but is an anti-liberty/gun paradise that recognizes no right to self-defense. Citizens may own a narrow range of guns, but restrictions are sufficient to make Australia the envy of American gun grabbers. The entire nation is essentially a gun-free zone. With nearly all of what anti-liberty/gun cracktivists say is necessary to ensure absolute public safety, the Bondi Beach massacre should not have been possible. The Premier of New South Wales, therefore, wants even more gun control:  

NEW: Chris Minns, the Premier of New South Wales, is calling for stronger gun-control measures in the wake of the deadly attack at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, which left 15 victims dead.

“It means introducing a bill to parliament to — I mean, to be really blunt — make it… pic.twitter.com/26WQz63Ssg

— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 15, 2025

The “horrifying weapons that have no practical use in our community” were a shotgun and bolt action rifle.

At Brown, the gun was reportedly a handgun, not an “assault weapon.” Rhode Island, which recently passed a ban on many types of semiautomatic firearms, does not ban most guns outright and does grudgingly issue concealed carry permits, but has magazine restrictions and a seven day waiting period for gun purchases.  Unsurprisingly, Brown prohibits all firearms on campus.  

By the rhetoric of anti-liberty/gun cracktivists, the Bondi Beach and Brown attacks should have been impossible. Both are magical gun-free zones expressing the good intentions of the morally and intellectually superior. Good intentions, however, inevitably fall prey to reality.  Between 1950 and 2024, 92% of American mass attacks occurred in gun-free zones.   

But aren’t mass shooting deaths higher in gun-crazy America than anyplace else?  Not quite.  From 2009 to 2015, America was #11 in the world.  The most dangerous county? Norway. Even France and Belgium were more dangerous.

In 2015, the Texas Legislature allowed concealed handguns on college campuses. A professor who was about to retire resigned in protest, and students affixed colorful dildos to their backpacks in another act of protest whose connection to guns remains mysterious. With all those dildos, one was bound to go off?  Just as anti-liberty/gun cracktivists wailed when concealed carry laws swept the nation, there would be blood running in the streets and classrooms and gunfights would be as common as sunshine.

None of that came to pass. Americans taking the time and effort to obtain concealed carry licenses are uncommonly law-abiding. The same has been true in the 29 “constitutional carry” states that require no vetting or permit for concealed carry.

But won’t the police protect us? Not here—consider Uvalde--or in Australia:

To be fair, the police did eventually shoot both attackers and stop the attack, but by the time they managed that the damage had been done. At Brown, the only factor limiting damage was the killer’s lack of marksmanship and eventual decision to quit shooting.

Read the rest here...

Update (1700ET): Just hours after officially repealing sanctions on the country, the US military began a large-scale attack against Islamic State targets in Syria as the Trump admin retaliated for the death of three Americans last week.

The Wall Street Journal reports that a U.S. military official said Friday that dozens of targets were being struck by U.S. F-15 and A-10 warplanes, Apache attack helicopters and Himars rockets.

The operation is being dubbed “Hawkeye Strike” in honor of the Iowa National Guard soldiers who were killed and wounded in an ambush the Trump administration has blamed on ISIS.

The gunman that ambushed the Americans was killed in the attack.

But President Trump on Sunday vowed to take military action against the group.

“There will be a lot of damage done to the people that did it. They got the person, the individual person, but there will be big damage done,” Trump said at the time.

Syrian authorities last week blamed the ambush on a member of Syria’s security forces who they said was set to be fired for holding extremist views.

*  *  *

Syria is celebrating after President Trump signed a law on Thursday officially repealing the brutal economic sanctions imposed on the country under legislation known as the Caesar Act, which was designed to topple the government of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

The sanctions have for many years effectively strangled millions of innocent people, and even impacted access to medicines, hospital equipment, fuel, and unleashed runaway inflation - sending prices for basic staples like eggs and meat soaring.

Sanctions have been on Syria going all the way back to the 1970s, with more piled on over the decades, especially after 2011, and then the most far-reaching, the Caesar sanctions, took effect in 2019 at a time that Assad was winning the war.

Coupled with the sanctions was a long-running CIA and Gulf-spearheaded proxy war, which flooded jihadist groups with weapons and cash - all for the sake of eventually installing a more pliant client ruler.

Now, one year after Washington accomplished its regime change, and with Bashar al-Assad in Moscow, has Washington chosen to remove the sanctions.

As Beirut-based The Cradle observes, "Trump removed the sanctions in an effort to help Syria’s new government, led by former Al-Qaeda commander Ahmad al-Sharaa, to attract foreign investment, foster economic growth, and rebuild infrastructure after 14 years of war."

Some Congressional leaders are still calling for strict monitoring of the new Sharaa regime's behavior, especially following prior months of massacres of Syrian Alawites, Christians, and Druze:

More than 100 House Republicans are demanding increased oversight of Syria as the U.S. prepares to repeal longstanding sanctions against the country.

Reps. Josh Brecheen, R-Okla., and Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., are leading 134 fellow GOP lawmakers in calling for guarantees that the Syrian government will adhere to terms in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that set the stage for repealing those sanctions, while warning the U.S. needs to be prepared to reverse that if Syria falters on its progress.

"Many Members of Congress, committed to seeking peace, prosperity, and tolerance for religious minorities in the region, worked with the Trump Administration and House leadership to secure assurances that snapback conditions regarding the repeal of Syrian sanctions would be enforced if Syria does not comply with the terms highlighted in the repeal language," their joint statement read. 

Already, American and Gulf countries have signed deals with the new rulers in Damascus for oil and gas exploration, as well as rebuilding port infrastructure.

Syria’s Al-Sharaa THANKS Trump as country marks first day ‘FREE OF SANCTIONS’ pic.twitter.com/0nYNYkYnqX

— RT (@RT_com) December 19, 2025

"Lifting the sanctions was the frontrunner in our mission to revive Syria’s economy," Abdulkader Husrieh, Syria’s central bank governor, said Friday in reaction to the news. "What has happened is nothing short of a miracle."

President Donald Trump announced on Dec. 18 that an athletic contest and a UFC fight will occur next year in honor of America’s 250th birthday.

The “Patriot Games” will span four days, featuring high school athletes - a male and a female from each state and territory, the president said.

He did not go into details as to what would be played or where.

Trump said that the men and women will compete separately.

“I promise there will be no men playing in women’s sports. You’re not going to see that. You'll see everything but that.”

As Jackson Richman reports for The Epoch Times, the UFC fight will be at the White House on June 14, 2026.

“It'll be the greatest champion fighters in the world all fighting that same night,” said Trump, noting that UFC CEO and President Dana White will be the host.

“And it’s going to be something special.”

Trump is a huge UFC fan and is a close friend of White.

He has been to numerous events, including one after winning the 2024 election.

The South Lawn at the White House will be the venue for the fight.

The Ellipse, across from the White House, might have jumbo screens for more people to watch.

The competitors have not been announced.

A press conference and the fighters’ weigh-ins will be at the Lincoln Memorial.

Other events to celebrate the 250th milestone include a state fair on the National Mall, a Memorial Day parade, and a national prayer event to “rededicate our country as One Nation Under God,” Trump said.

“We’re not changing that. A lot of people would like to see it. It'll never happen,” he said.

Trump also announced a Fourth of July celebration called a “Salute to America” consisting of a presidential address, military flyover, and fireworks.

Additionally, the Washington Monument will be lit every night through Jan. 5.

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Over the last couple of years, inflation alarmists such as Paul Tudor Jones, James Grant, and Jeff Gundlach have all said that inflation is returning with force. In different ways, they each stated that they would not own Treasury bonds due to the expectation that inflation would rise as the dollar declined due to the ongoing deficits. They have all argued, in some form or another, that ballooning deficits, tariffs, and the “dollar debasement” would drive inflation much higher, with yields of 6% or more on the 10-year Treasury as inevitable.

As Jeff Gundlach noted in June of this year, a “reckoning is coming” for U.S. debt, and yields on long-term bonds could continue to rise as the economy weakens. Paul Tudor Jones said in October 2024 that “all roads lead to inflation.” Lastly, in June 2024, James Grant stated that “persistent inflation” is the new norm.

However, while these are brilliant, well-regarded gentlemen, the forecasts have not panned out, at least so far, as they believed, because they ignored the structural weight of the “3-Ds” (Debt, Deficits, and Demographics) on economic growth, which drives inflation.

Of course, it hasn’t been just these three gentlemen discussing higher inflation and higher interest rates. Inflation alarmists have filled media headlines over the last few years, making a myriad of claims, but they have misunderstood what drives inflation in a consumer-driven economy. Furthermore, they misjudged the nature of money creation in a debt-saturated system.

Veil Of Money

Let’s start by understanding the basics of money supply. The media often states that the Government is “printing money,” which will lead to inflation. The reasoning is sound on the surface; if a government prints more dollars, each of those dollars has less value, in theory. However, that view misses two crucial points. First, as discussed in “Money Printing,” the government does not “print money.”

“Modern economies operate under an endogenous money system, meaning banks create money in response to economic activity. As the Bank of England explained in its 2014 paper “Money creation in the modern economy,” it is not central banks that directly dictate broad money growth, but rather commercial banks extending credit when they see viable opportunities. Put simply: loans create deposits.“

Re-read that last bolded sentence, which is the most critical point. The U.S. does not “print” money. All money is lent into existence, as we continued explaining in that post.

“This means that the growth of the money supply closely follows the economy’s growth. When businesses expand, hire, and invest, banks extend more credit, and the money supply grows. Conversely, when the economy slows and loan demand weakens, money supply growth contracts, regardless of how much the Federal Reserve expands its balance sheet. We saw this after 2008: despite unprecedented quantitative easing, money growth and inflation remained subdued because banks hoarded reserves instead of lending.

 It’s easy to point to M2 charts and scream “debasement. “ However, the money supply must grow as the economy grows. If it doesn’t, deflationary risks emerge. Therefore, the key is whether money creation exceeds economic growth in a sustained way. Since 1959, the money supply has grown in alignment with economic growth.”

A better way to assess this is by comparing M2 to GDP. Historically, the two have tracked closely. Even during the COVID-19 shock, M2 as a percentage of GDP remained below 100%, indicating that money supply growth was broadly aligned with economic output. Today, that ratio is falling, not rising.

The reality is that the growth rates of M2 highly correlate with the state of the economy.

This brings us to the “Veil of Money” theory, which posits that money serves as a neutral medium of exchange, affecting only the nominal price level, but not the underlying fundamental economic factors, such as output, employment, and the allocation of resources. In this view, money overlays the real economy like a veil, and to understand economic activity, one must “pierce the monetary veil.”

During the pandemic, the money supply spiked. But that’s not the whole story. Bank reserves ballooned, yet lending barely moved. Consumer demand rose temporarily due to direct payments, rather than a structural shift in consumption. Once those payments stopped and the economy reopened, that demand faded, supply increased, and inflation started to recede. In other words, the increase in the money supply did not alter the real economy; in fact, it may have worsened it.

As such, the problem for the inflation alarmists is that inflation occurs only when demand exceeds supply. In a service-based, aging economy that’s already over-leveraged, such a demand surge rarely occurs sustainably.

While the inflation surge of 2021 and 2022 was real, it wasn’t systemic. It was the result of excessive government interventions in concert with global supply shocks. That combination created a short-term explosion in prices. But it was never sustainable.

The 3 D’s: Debt, Deficits, Demographics

To understand why inflation alarmists have been incorrect, at least so far, you have to understand the “3Ds”: Debt, Deficits, and Demographics.

Let’s return to the basics of “inflation,” which is simply the function of “supply and demand.” Nothing more. Nothing less. As we noted previously:

“Inflation is the rise in prices due to supply and demand imbalances. Rising wages and consumer demand for products and services that grow faster than the available supply create higher prices (aka inflation). The following economic illustration is taught in every ‘Econ 101’ class. Unsurprisingly, inflation is the consequence if supply is restricted and demand increases via monetary interventions.”

With this concept in mind, let’s start with the debt. Currently, total U.S. debt, comprising government, corporate, and household debt, stands at record levels. As shown below, when that debt, as a percentage of GDP, grows, it slows economic activity as increased interest payments consume income, thereby limiting consumption and investment.

What the inflation alarmists miss is that every dollar borrowed must be repaid with future income. As more income is allocated to servicing debt, less is available for spending, which reduces demand in the economy and, as shown, leads to lower inflation. That’s why high debt is deflationary, not inflationary. Such is also why expectations of yields hitting 6% or more remain unfounded, as an economy that is dependent on debt to function can’t support higher rates.

The second “D”, deficits, are also problematic to the inflation alarmists’ view. Annual deficits are now routine. The government borrows to fund everything from defense to entitlements to foreign aid, with the Congressional Budget Office projecting trillion-dollar deficits for the next decade. As the deficit grows, more money is diverted from productive investments into debt service, which again negatively impacts economic activity. As shown, when the deficit is reduced, it is because economic activity has increased, resulting in higher revenue for the government and potentially leading to inflationary pressures.

The long-term consequence of persistent deficits is low growth as more debt is needed to generate less output. That dynamic has played out in Japan, Europe, and now the U.S. However, ironically, while everyone hopes for lower inflation, which is economically repressive, we should be discussing how to increase inflation through stronger economic growth.

Lastly, the most overlooked driver of disinflation is the decline of demographics in the U.S. The population is aging, and the U.S. workforce growth rate is falling. Immigration has slowed. Birth rates are down. Fewer workers and more retirees result in lower production and consumption. Older people spend less. They don’t buy homes, take out loans, and live on fixed incomes, which translates to lower economic velocity.

At the same time, entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare are proliferating, absorbing an increasing share of the federal budget. That adds to debt, increasing deficits, which feeds into economic retardation.

Put all three together, high debt, chronic deficits, and an aging population, and you get structural stagnation, keeping inflation low, capping long-term rates, and reducing economic prosperity.

What the Market Is Telling You

The bond market isn’t stupid. When inflation spiked, yields rose, briefly. But as soon as growth slowed and fiscal drag returned, yields fell. Long-term expectations remain subdued, with the 10-year breakeven inflation rate still near 2.3 percent. The Fed’s own projections indicate that inflation will return to target over time. As shown, the spike in the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, the trimmed mean PCE inflation rate, has returned to the bond market’s view of inflation. While the Fed took a lot of heat for saying inflation would be “transient,” ultimately, they were correct.

If inflation were going to stay hot, you’d see it in long-dated yields and in the breakeven rates. However, for now, at least, you don’t. That’s because markets understand what Wall Street celebrities don’t: structural forces matter more than temporary shocks.

If you’re expecting another surge in inflation, you’re betting against demographics, debt dynamics, and deficit math. That’s probably going to be a bad bet.

Here’s what you should prepare for instead:

• Inflation will remain volatile but is expected to trend lower.

• Long-term yields will stay capped by debt service constraints.

• Growth will slow as the stimulus fade continues.

• The Fed will pivot again — not toward more hikes, but to rate cuts and balance sheet expansion.

Does this mean we won’t ever see another rise in inflationary pressures? No. In fact, we should be hopeful for such due to economic growth that leads to broader economic prosperity.

However, the calls for runaway inflation and 6 percent interest rates are primarily a misunderstanding of the world in which we live. We are not in a 1970s cycle, but rather in a debt cycle where every dollar of growth incurs more debt, and every attempt to tighten policy leads to deflationary pressures.

That’s not a theory. It’s what the data shows. And until something changes in the structure of our economy, it’s what you should expect.

Under Armour founder and CEO Kevin Plank, along with Goldman Sachs, is stepping away from further development of Baltimore Peninsula, formerly known as Port Covington, a 235-acre mixed-use waterfront redevelopment project in South Baltimore. Originally pitched as a 14-million-square-foot mini-city anchored by a new UA headquarters, a new report says less than 10% of the planned project has been built.

Representatives for Plank's real estate development company, Sagamore Ventures, and its equity partner, Goldman Sachs, told the local paper, The Baltimore Banner, that they will remain owners of the current Baltimore Peninsula development but will exit the rest of the project, much of which remains underdeveloped.

"Baltimore Peninsula is becoming a dynamic, connected community that adds real momentum to South Baltimore and serves as a source of pride for Under Armour and the city," Plank told the outlet.

The UA CEO said he wants to "remain focused on leading UA's comeback" and will let others "take the lead in carrying forward the next chapters of Baltimore Peninsula's development."

Kevin Plank exiting future development at Baltimore Peninsula.

Read more: https://t.co/aXJy5c0JOc pic.twitter.com/KyIKi9ICtx

— The Baltimore Banner (@BaltimoreBanner) December 18, 2025

The decision to withdraw from the rest of the project apparently hinged on a $66 million land loan that came due this past fall. Instead of paying the full amount, Plank and Goldman negotiated with Bank OZK, which would take over the project and be responsible for future development.

Plank and UA made massive bets on the mini-city, situated in the heart of crime-ridden Baltimore City, a metro area that has experienced one of the largest population exoduses in generations...

Much of the exodus has been driven by disastrous one-party Democratic rule, particularly failed social and criminal justice reforms. The result was a spike in violent crime after the 2015 riots, and people either fled the struggling state or moved to surrounding counties.

Perhaps one direct consequence of the failures at City Hall is that crime and chaos hindered Plank's mini-city from ever gaining traction. After all, the city once pitched Amazon on moving its second headquarters to the metro area, but seriously, why would any rational management team put white-collar workers in harm's way when parts of Baltimore still resemble war zones?

But it wasn't just Baltimore City's horrendous leadership of Democratic kings... The UA brand has lost traction with consumers, and its stock has imploded as the company works on a turnaround plan.

Meanwhile, Plank has been offloading real estate assets in the area, or at least attempting to, such as an $18.5 million, 500-acre racehorse farm, Sagamore Farm, just north of the city.

The reason Plank and Goldman are likely stepping away from further development of the mini-city is simple: it has been called a "billion-dollar ghost town."