02/20/26
Good morning! It’s Friday, February 20th.
Clean Our Your Bookcase Day
This… feels like a personal attack. I will not. I will add, in fact. More books always!
And now, the news.
Prince Andrew Arrested
-via ABC News, AP News, and NBC News
Starting with bombshell news out of the UK. On Thursday Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the artist formerly known as Prince Andrew but he lost the title when his close personal friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, and allegations of sexual assault of his own against Viginia Guiffre, came to light, was arrested.
Not for the stuff I just mentioned. No no no.
Suspicion of misconduct in public office.
He was arrested and then released as the investigation now continues.
The arrest happened on his birthday.
And you gotta go look at the picture of him in the car because he looks absurd. It’s so funny. He’s kind of leaning back and the flash gave him red eye and he looks shocked to finally be seeing consequences for at least some actions.
A delight!
It’s unclear what the misconduct specifically is, though I’m sure it’ll come to light soon.
It’s unclear whether this arrest and investigation are tied to the Epstein files. Could just be that this guy is just a bad dude all around.
What do those files say about this disgusting fraction of a human? Well, there’s one email in there where he’s asking Ghislaine Maxwell if she’s found any “new inappropriate friends” for him to have fun with.
He’s also accused of sexually assaulting Virginia Guiffre three separate times.
So he’s disgusting.
It has been nice, though, to watch that these Epstein files are career and reputation enders somewhere. In the UK, people are taking them seriously.
Meanwhile, here the president is the person literally named the most in the files and people pretending to be religious are like “I don’t even think file is a real word, how about that?”
Although, New Mexico’s attorney general Raúl Torrez announced on Thursday that, based on information in the files, he has reopened an investigation in Epstein’s former Zorro Ranch.
The original case was closed in 2019, at the request of federal prosecutors.
Epstein never faced charges in New Mexico, but he probably should have. And he’s not the only one. This could be huge.
Trump Poised to Strike Iran
-via AP News, CNN, and CBS News
And then the other big news story is that Trump is threatening Iran with “bad things” if they don’t make a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program.
In fact, sources have told CNN that, although he hasn’t made up his mind, Trump could decide to strike Iran as soon as this weekend.
Although Trump did tell reporters that he’s actually going to give the country 10-to-15 days to make a deal with the United States and Israel. That likely isn’t enough, and both sides have held indirect talks in the last few weeks and they’ve gone nowhere.
So now Trump’s talking about striking Iran, saying: “It’s proven to be, over the years, not easy to make a meaningful deal with Iran, and we have to make a meaningful deal. Otherwise, bad things happen.”
And where did he say this?
At the first meeting of his Board of Peace! Where he is the chair!
The chair of the board of peace, threatening violence.
Iran, for its part, is holding drills with Russia. Hey! That’s not a great combination!
It’s Friday – who knows what the weekend will bring. As of this recording, Trump hasn’t made a decision yet. Honestly, the way his mush brain works, it’ll be the loudest voice that he finds the most handsome that ends up being the deciding factor, but this is one of those stories that sounds scary but should be less scary and more just… hey, keep an eye on this.
Justice Department’s New Art
-via AP News
Yesterday I did a really long episode where I just rambled a lot about voting, so today’s episode is going to be a little shorter, but I can’t end without telling you this one thing…
You know how in every movie or TV show where the bad guy is the mayor of a big city, or something, at some point federal buildings start to have huge banners with their face on them?
And it’s almost a cliché but it’s like – okay well that’s how you know that Harvey Dent is a bad guy.
On Thursday, the Department of Justice hung up a huge banner of Trump, hanging from two different columns, with text saying “Make America Safe Again.”
Yeah, I have a great idea of how to do that. Start with… investigate the president that’s been accused of raping a child.
Again, this is literally the point in the movie where you the know the bad guy has gone full fascist.
It is such an embarrassing cliché. This is Pam Bondi’s life. This is her legacy. And you know what? I’m glad. I’m glad that it is because at least we will never let her forget. I can’t wait for the day when the glass shatters, and she realizes what she’s done, and she’s embarrassed. That’s going to be so fun because then, for the rest of her life, she will know that she protected men accused of raping children, including the president, who, in addition to being accused of those crimes, is also doing fascism and authoritarianism and all the isms and for the rest of her life she’ll know she was a part of that and it’ll keep her up at night and if she ever falls asleep sometimes she’ll wake up and be like “omg I can’t believe I did that!”
And every once in a while, not often, but every once in a while one of those 3 am wake ups will be remembering this banner here.
And I think that’s great.
The banner? Terrible.
The way she’ll feel about what she’s done for the rest of her life when she eventually wakes up?
Dope.
And that’s it. That’s the news.
I’m proud of… oh you know what? Yesterday’s episode is nearly thirty minutes BUT because it’s about voting and I didn’t use a script, you should know… it was originally more than an hour long. Yeah! So I’m proud of Adobe Premiere Pro for allowing me to edit it down.
Also books. And bookshelves.
But more than your full bookshelves. Because… something something something about you being a story that I never want to end… I’m proud of you!