Today is Saturday, August 2, 2025. Even though the Jeffrey Epstein imbroglio seems to have consumed Capitol Hill over the last month, an online article in CNN reports on what truly concerns Americans now since Congress has taken an unworthy month off for the rest of the summer, and it ain’t this matter. The article is entitled “Epstein files controversy consuming Capitol Hill has fueled less fire at first lawmaker town halls of summer recess,” and it’s by Eric Bradner.

As the subject of the Epstein files has resulted in driving a wedge between Republicans and Democrats who have finally taken the offensive in pressing Donald Chump’s Justice Department to release more investigative material on the issue, lawmakers are not hearing much about Epstein at public town hall meetings they’ve hosted so far.

The debate that’s dominated Washington in recent weeks didn’t come up at all in some town halls Republican and Democratic House members have held – including a raucous event Thursday hosted by Wisconsin GOP Rep. Bryan Steil and two more mild-mannered affairs held by Wyoming repugnican Rep. Harriet Hageman. During others, it’s been the topic of just one or two questions.

“In Wisconsin, on Thursday, Rep. Mark Pocan – a Democrat who hosted a town hall in Prairie du Chien, in neighboring Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden’s district – brought up Epstein himself, as part of a response to a question about whether Trump might declare martial law and cancel elections.” Which is what I fear the most since this bastard must know that his terrible policies will shrink the GOP’s stronghold on the House in 2026, so why should he allow fair and equitable elections to proceed if he knows he can get away with terminating them altogether, thus leaving the House in republican’s hands for another two years? Before anyone can do anything to stop him, the elections will be history by then.

For his part, Pocan kept his comments focused largely on the GOP tax and spending bill that Dump signed into law on July Fourth – repeatedly warning that cuts to Medicaid could gut Wisconsin’s public health insurance programs and force the state to spend tax dollars filling gaps left by the federal government.

The Democratic congressman said afterward that’s why he mostly avoided talking about Epstein.

“I keep it to economics. I’m an economic, progressive populist. I think that’s how most people make decisions when they go to elections. That’s how Donald Trump won the election. That’s why Donald Trump’s doing poor in the polls,” he said.

At the town hall, one of those people who did bring up the Epstein matter was 38-year-old stay-at-home mother, Krista Brown, who said she has bigger concerns than Epstein – such as whether steep cuts in staffing at the Department of Education will delay action on a Title IX complaint she’d submitted on behalf of her children or whether National Weather Service offices will be staffed, two significant issues worthy of concern.

As for what concerns her, Brown said, “When you live rural, you care about who’s going to plow your goddamn roads – when it’s going to get plowed, if the buses can get through, how cold it is, if the weather’s going to be reported. That’s what matters. And the rest is just going to float away, because pretty soon it’s going to get so hard in real life that there’s not even going to be time to talk about that.”

The relative lack of focus on Epstein at town halls reflects the broader priorities of Americans. A recent CNN poll conducted by SSRS found that the economy and immigration-related concerns are the issues Americans most important. The poll also found increased Democratic attention to government spending, concerns about separation of powers and the rule of law, and Chump himself.

Even if Epstein isn’t Americans’ top priority, half of respondents said they are dissatisfied with the amount of information released about the Epstein case after the Justice Department released a memo saying there is no evidence the convicted sex offender kept a so-called client list or was murdered. People are not that stupid when it is so clear that Dump is hiding something in this case. That includes 56 percent of Democrats., 52 percent of Independents, and 40 percent of Republicans.

Despite what most Americans think about the Epstein matter, Democrats have sought to force the issue most recently, using an arcane procedural tool to try to force the Justice Department to release all the files related to the odious Epstein, including video, video, and any other relevant documents.

As fucking expected, Trumpicans are now eager to stay away from the topic of Epstein since it’s now perceived as their Achilles’ heel. This issue provoked MAGA Johnson, the Speaker of the House, to even cut short legislative business, sending his cowed members home earlier than expected so as to avoid being forced to hold votes on releasing Epstein-related files. As if this issue will go away by the fall; Democrats should force the matter to rise from the dead when the House returns from its superfluous recess.

At a telephone town hall last week, Republican Rep. William Timmons of South Carolina fielded questions from callers, where one person shared his “outrage” over the Epstein files – asking why the House adjourned “when this hasn’t been dealt with.”

The caller continued, “If there’s a group of pedophiles out there who are just getting away with it, this is an outrage, and I don’t care who they are. I don’t care if they’re the president of the United States.”

Timmons responded that “there is evil in this world, and we have to protect the innocent, so we need to get to the bottom of it.” Then he devolved into the cult of Chump, saying, “The president and the attorney general are doing the work necessary to release all of the information,” which is fucking further than the truth than anyone could believe. Then he continued his groveling before the Supreme Leader, saying, “The Republican Congress should not be attacking the president.” And why fucking not if he’s withholding evidence from the American people?

Well, there you have it, this president is held in contempt by a wide margin of the American populace just seven months into his second term, and it can’t go well for him as he plows on in enacting his very unpopular agenda.

In the meantime, this 79-year-old baby just fired the person who leads the office of labor statistics just for the sole reason that she stated that the jobs outlook was quite dismal right now under Dump’s leadership. Dump stupidly believes that by firing the person who just told the truth will make the truth disappear. It won’t, crybaby! He also evinced his childish persona by telling Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to “go to hell” because he couldn’t get his fucking way with his horrible nominees to be confirmed in the Senate. How this man is president is beyond me!

On a nicer note, Elliot and I took in the lovely weather today by motoring to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and having brunch at Juliette, on Bedford Avenue, and then taking in a thought-provoking jewel of a horror film at the Williamsburg Cinemas called, simply, Together.

This is the debut feature from writer-director Michael Shanks who casts real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie as Tim and Millie, a thirtyish couple who give up their Brooklyn home to move upstate so that Millie could pursue a position at an elementary school. It is Franco as Tim who is floundering as a 35-year-old struggling musician, while Millie is the more poised and confident partner. At the beginning of the film, Tim and Millie throw a farewell party in their city apartment, and it is here that Millie gets on one knee and proposes to Tim, which actually results in flustering him in front of their friends. Thus it’s Tim who is more nervous and unsure of himself, and Franco conveys this indecisiveness very well.

When the couple finally move to their new home nestled in a secluded area of upstate, with nature surrounding them, they take a walk one day and get drenched in a rainstorm. It’s when they fall into a hole in the ground and come across a chasm with a pool of water that things take on a menacing turn. The couple see what looks like monstrously destroyed pews and bells in the cave before they drink the water in the pool after depleting their water supply. That’s when the word togetherness takes on a horrific meaning in more ways than one.

The film becomes a metaphor eventually of the kind of codependency many couples prescribe to in long-term relationships. We learn that Tim and Millie know each other a decade and they’re still not married. In a incisive review of this movie by David Crow for Den of Geek, Crow writes, “Tim and Millie are beyond just the monotony of life’s daily indignities and rigmaroles; theirs is an unhealthy marriage, if in name only (he never proposed and flinches when she does at the start of the movie).”

I found this film quite satisfying as a horror film but also as an examination of how a couple truly interacts with one another, and the fact that this is a real-life couple just enhances the whole experience. Go see it and see if you won’t want to be bonded together to your loved one like the couple in Shanks’ film.

Have a good Sunday.

And so it went!