u/FuturePotential5474

US interest expense on the national debt hit a record $1.4 trillion over the last 12 months. If rates remain stable, interest payments are set to rise to $1.7 trillion by November 2028.

As a result, interest will surpass Social Security spending as the government's largest outlay for the first time.

https://bsky.app/profile/conscientiousice.bsky.social/post/3mtbthywlzs2v

It both fascinating and terrifying to see/hear/witness this.

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The average 30Y fixed mortgage rate rose +3 basis points last week, to 6.69%, the highest since July 2025.

This marks the 5th consecutive weekly increase, with rates up +71 basis points since the Iran War began in late-February.

This comes as the 10Y Treasury yield, which mortgage lenders use to price 30Y loans, has surged +70 basis points over the same period, driven by inflation concerns.

On a $500,000 mortgage, this increase translates to more than +$200 in additional monthly principal and interest payments compared to late February, when rates briefly fell below 6% for the first time since 2022.

The 30Y fixed mortgage rate could rise to 7% for the first time since January 2025 before year-end if current inflationary pressures persist.

Love my new putter! The 313 ZT by Detroit Putter Co.

Donald Trump has survived scandal after scandal through the same primitive strategy. Deny everything. Attack everyone. Call the evidence fake. Turn the investigation into a conspiracy against him. Demand loyalty from his followers, then wait for the truth to drown beneath rage, exhaustion and confusion.

That strategy is now being applied to the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Trump wants Americans to believe that the entire controversy is another Democratic hoax. That would be easier to swallow if the evidence had been manufactured by Democrats. It was not. Much of it came from Epstein’s estate, congressional investigators, federal prosecutors and Trump’s own Justice Department. The documents do not present one tidy confession that resolves every question. They reveal something more familiar and, politically, just as damning: Trump repeatedly minimized a relationship that was far more extensive than he admitted, made claims that were later contradicted by released records, resisted disclosure until Congress forced the issue and presided over a chaotic process that withheld sensitive records while exposing the identities of victims.

The facts are already ugly enough.

Trump and Epstein were not casual acquaintances who crossed paths once at a crowded event. NBC archive footage shows the two men laughing and socializing at a 1992 party at Mar-a-Lago. In a 2002 profile, Trump said he had known Epstein for fifteen years, called him a terrific guy and commented that Epstein liked beautiful women, including some “on the younger side.” Trump was not warning the public about a predator. He was praising a friend and joking approvingly about the very appetite that would later define Epstein’s crimes.

Then came the flight records.

In 2024, Trump declared that he had never been on Epstein’s plane. Records released by the Justice Department later showed that he had flown on it eight times during the 1990s. Ghislaine Maxwell, now serving twenty years for helping Epstein sexually exploit underage girls, was reportedly present on at least four of those flights. On one flight, the only listed passengers were Trump, Epstein and a twenty-year-old woman. The records do not accuse Trump of committing a crime aboard the aircraft, but they do prove that his public denial was false. He said he had never been on the plane. The records say he was on it repeatedly.

That should matter. A president who lies about how often he traveled with a notorious sexual predator does not earn the benefit of endless public amnesia. He earns greater scrutiny.

The released Epstein emails make the situation worse. In one message, Epstein wrote that Trump “knew about the girls.” In another, he said Trump had visited his house many times. In a 2011 exchange with Maxwell, Epstein called Trump “that dog that hasn’t barked” and wrote that Trump had spent hours at his house with one of Epstein’s victims. Other released correspondence included Epstein referring to a twenty-year-old girlfriend he had “given” to Trump and discussing photographs of Trump with women in bikinis in Epstein’s kitchen.

Those are Epstein’s statements, but they are not social media rumors invented by an anonymous account. They are statements contained within authentic records released through congressional investigation. They raise the obvious question Trump and his defenders refuse to answer: What exactly did Trump know, and why did Epstein believe that he knew it?

Trump’s answer has not been transparency. It has been to call the entire subject a hoax.

That word is doing enormous work. It attempts to transform documentary evidence into political persecution. It allows Trump’s followers to dismiss flight logs, photographs, video, emails and investigative records without examining any of them. This is how authoritarian politics operates. It does not always destroy evidence. Sometimes it simply trains millions of people to reject evidence whenever it threatens their leader.

The strange birthday letter makes that method even clearer. A 2003 birthday book assembled for Epstein contained a sexually suggestive message attributed to Trump. It described Epstein as a “pal,” referred to a “wonderful secret” and was placed inside the outline of a naked woman. Trump denied writing it and even said the card did not exist. Congress later obtained the birthday book from Epstein’s lawyers and released the page publicly. Trump can continue disputing whether he wrote it, but the object he said did not exist is now sitting in the public record.

Then there are the missing FBI interviews.

The Justice Department released records showing that the FBI interviewed an unidentified woman four times in 2019. She told agents that Epstein had abused her as a teenager and alleged that Epstein introduced her to Trump when she was between thirteen and fifteen. She further alleged that Trump attempted to force her into a sexual act. Initially, the department published only one interview summary. The remaining records appeared later, after the Justice Department admitted that fifteen documents had been incorrectly classified as duplicates and omitted from the release.

The accusation has not resulted in a criminal conviction, but the government’s mishandling of the records is not an allegation. It happened. Records involving a sitting president disappeared from the initial publication and reappeared only after the department was challenged about their absence.

That is exactly why the public cannot simply accept Trump’s demand that everyone move on.

The administration boasts that it released nearly 3.5 million pages, along with more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images. Volume, however, is not the same as transparency. Dumping millions of poorly organized pages into the public domain can conceal almost as effectively as refusing to release them. Important documents can be buried among duplicates, unrelated submissions and mountains of searchable debris. The Justice Department itself acknowledged that the collection contained false public submissions, while its inspector general opened an investigation into how records were identified, redacted, withheld and released.

Former Attorney General Pam Bondi later refused to answer congressional questions about whether Trump knew of Epstein’s crimes or directed the redaction of documents involving himself. According to Democratic lawmakers present, a Justice Department attorney intervened and instructed her not to answer questions about Trump. Bondi acknowledged redaction errors and said she had delegated responsibility for the release to Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal criminal defense lawyer. Trump had resisted releasing the files until shortly before Congress overwhelmingly passed a law requiring disclosure.

This is not what confidence looks like. It is what institutional self-protection looks like.

The government was apparently unable to protect Epstein’s victims with the same energy. Reuters found at least 177 women whose personal information appeared unredacted in the Justice Department’s releases. Some survivors were subjected to threats, harassment and intimidation after their names, addresses, photographs or other information appeared in the documents. While powerful men received lawyers, public-relations campaigns and government officials carefully explaining what could not be disclosed, survivors were exposed to online mobs.

That may be the clearest symbol of the entire scandal. The machinery of government exposed the vulnerable while remaining cautious around the powerful.

New Mexico’s attorney general has also accused the Justice Department of hindering a reopened investigation into alleged abuse at Epstein’s former Zorro Ranch by failing to provide the unredacted records needed to identify victims, witnesses and possible co-conspirators. Trump, meanwhile, has suggested that the country should move on from the Epstein investigation.

Move on from what?

Move on from the girls who were abused?

Move on from the powerful people who passed through Epstein’s world?

Move on from the missing interviews, false denials and unexplained redactions?

Move on because continued investigation has become politically uncomfortable for Donald Trump?

This is the central fraud behind Trump’s performance. He built political power by presenting himself as the enemy of corrupt elites. Yet when the Epstein records began creating serious questions about him and the people around him, he behaved exactly like the corrupt ruling class he claimed he would destroy. He resisted disclosure. He attacked the investigation. He blamed his political opponents. He encouraged scrutiny of other powerful men while treating scrutiny of himself as treason.

The same man who taught his followers that Epstein represented a hidden conspiracy among the elite now tells those followers to stop asking questions once the records point toward his own social circle.

That is not populism. It is a cult of personal immunity.

Trump’s defenders will continue demanding a single document containing a complete confession before admitting that anything matters. That is a dishonest standard they apply to no one else. Public corruption is rarely revealed by one perfect piece of evidence. It emerges through contradictions, concealed relationships, changing stories, missing records, institutional interference and the persistent question of why the powerful are working so hard to prevent scrutiny.

No released document has yet established a final criminal case against Trump for participating in Epstein’s trafficking operation. But the political case is devastating. Trump associated with Epstein for years. He praised him publicly. He socialized with him on camera. He flew on his aircraft repeatedly and later denied ever doing so. Epstein wrote that Trump knew about the girls. A birthday message Trump said did not exist was produced by Epstein’s estate. FBI interview summaries containing allegations against Trump were left out of the original release. His administration resisted disclosure, mishandled redactions, exposed victims and blocked questions about whether the president influenced the process.

That is not exoneration. It is a mountain of unanswered questions surrounding a man who believes accountability is something that happens only to his enemies.

This is also why calling Trump’s politics fascistic is not empty name-calling. Fascism is not merely shouting, uniforms or military parades. It is the conversion of government into an extension of one leader’s ego. It is loyalty placed above truth. It is law enforcement directed outward toward enemies and turned inward as a shield around the ruler. It is the constant declaration that any evidence against the leader must be fake because the leader, by definition, can never be guilty.

Trump does not need every American to believe his explanation. He only needs enough people to become exhausted, confused or afraid of the truth. He needs every document to become a partisan argument, every victim to become a suspected liar and every investigation to become another episode in the endless television show of Donald Trump.

We should refuse that performance.

The Epstein files are not a Democratic hoax. They are an incomplete record of how wealth and political power protected a predator for decades. They also document Donald Trump’s proximity to that world, his lies about that proximity and his administration’s failure to deliver the transparency it promised.

The public does not owe Trump silence. The survivors do not owe him closure. Investigators do not owe him a convenient ending.

Release every lawful record. Explain every omission. Follow every credible lead. Protect the victims instead of the politicians.

Then let the truth, rather than Donald Trump, decide when this story is over.

If you want to see the other sides demented perspective, go check out
r/conservatives