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- Losing My Perspicacity, December 19, 2025
Losing My Perspicacity, December 19, 2025
Happy Epstein Files Release Day! (maybe)
Julie DiCaro
December 19, 2025
In partnership with
Good morning and Happy Friday! Thanks for starting your day with me.
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The Epstein Files are due to be released today; in fact, they may already be out by the time you wake up. Whether we’ll get the full, unredacted Epstein Files remains to be seen, as allegations that the Justice Department is playing hide-the-ball with Trump’s possible appearance in the files have been omnipresent. House Democrats say they expect the DOJ to comply with the deadline, but, frankly, they expect a lot of things they shouldn’t, like Speaker Mike Johnson keeping his word.
According to the bill that passed the House in November, the DOJ had 30 days to release the unredacted files, with exceptions for information like the names of the victims — even though many of the victims have come forward to say that they don’t care if their names are revealed. The fear, of course, is that the process of “redaction” is actually the DOJ scrubbing every mention of Donald Trump out of existence.
Speaking of the files, we’ve got another Epstein-related journalism scandal on our hands, this time involving NYT columnist David Brooks. If you’ll recall, on November 21 of this year, Brooks wrote a piece for the Times with the headline, “The Epstein Story? Count me out.” In the column, Brooks wrote this:
What I don’t understand is why some Democrats are hopping on this bandwagon. They may believe that the Epstein file release will somehow hurt Trump. But they are undermining public trust and sowing public cynicism in ways that make the entire progressive project impossible. They are contributing to a public atmosphere in which right-wing populism naturally thrives.
I have been especially startled to see Ro Khanna, a House Democrat and one of the most impressive politicians in America, use the phrase “the Epstein class” in his public statements. In an interview with my colleague David Leonhardt this week, Khanna explained that he had gotten the phrase from voters who asked him if he was on the side of “forgotten Americans” or “the Epstein class.”
***
The smart play, I’d say, is to rebut conspiracymongering, not abet it. When the giant issues like A.I. and Chinese dominance come crashing down on us, we will look back on the Epstein moment and ask: “What the hell were we thinking?”
The subtext of the entire piece is that only stupid conspiracy theorists care about Jeffrey Epstein, while the politically savvy intellectuals are too smart to care for such a tawdry story. Going public with not caring about a pedophile who palled around with the President of the United States is a choice that Brooks is free to make, but it seems that may not have been the driving force behind his column. Because House Democrats released more documents from their Epstein cache yesterday, and guess who showed up in them? You’ll never guess.
Yep, that’s David Brooks, up close and personal in photos three and four of the array.
Now, I have admittedly not worked for the NYT, but if I wrote a piece about how dumb everyone was for caring about a story, and then I turned up in the documents regarding said story, I would most likely be out of a job. However, the NYT was quick to release a statement on Brooks’ behalf:
This photo was taken at the 2011 Edge Billionaires’ Dinner, run by the Edge Foundation. As you can see on Edge’s site, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk (pre-plastic surgery), and Google founder Sergey Brin were also in attendance. While Epstein was present, he was not featured in any of the images, nor was his name mentioned in connection with the event. Funny, that.
However, it seems worth screaming from the rooftops that this was two years after Epstein had completed an 18-month sentence (he only served 13 months) for soliciting an underage prostitute. However, there was a lot more to the investigation into Epstein, as Julie K. Brown detailed in this excellent piece in the Miami Herald.
March: A 14-year-old girl and her parents report that Jeffrey Epstein molested her at a mansion in Palm Beach. She said a female acquaintance and classmate at Royal Palm Beach High School had taken her to the house to give him a massage in exchange for money.
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June: Epstein’s lawyers revisit plea negotiations, and on June 30, Epstein appears in a Palm Beach County courtroom. He pleads guilty to state charges: one count of solicitation of prostitution and one count of solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18. He is sentenced to 18 months in jail, followed by a year of community control or house arrest. He is adjudicated as a convicted sex offender who must register twice a year in Florida.
July: Epstein’s victims learn about his plea in state court after the fact. They file an emergency petition to force federal prosecutors to comply with the federal Crime Victims’ Rights Act, which mandates certain rights for crime victims, including the right to be informed about plea agreements and the right to appear at sentencing.
August: Epstein’s victims learn that he has already been sent to jail, and that the federal investigation is over. They seek to have his plea agreement unsealed, but federal prosecutors argue against releasing the agreement, commencing a yearlong court battle to learn the terms of Epstein’s plea bargain.
The bottom line is that a lot of shady wheeling and dealing went down with Epstein’s plea deal. And it was years after this that Brooks and company were hanging out with Epstein at a fancy event for billionaires. In 2011, Epstein was already a known sex offender. And according to a 2019 Buzzfeed story, the Edge Foundation shredded the guest list. Brooks has claimed he had never heard of Epstein until the Miami Herald exposé in 2019. That may be true, but this is now the second NYT staffer who has turned up in the Epstein files, apparently unbeknownst to their editors.
Unfortunately for Brooks, photos of him with his wife also started popping up online yesterday, and that didn’t help matters at all. For the record, Brooks’ wife, though 32 when they married, is reportedly 24 years younger than he is. In hindsight, allowing a columnist whose wife looks like an extra on Hannah Montana to write a column downplaying a sexual predator who preys on teen girls was not a great call.
But nothing bad ever happens to the media elite, or at least not to their jobs. I don’t expect Brooks to miss any time as a result of his brief, though notable, appearance in the Epstein files.
In other news yesterday: Trump tries to rename The Kennedy Center after himself; May the odds be ever in your favor; RFK Jr. turns his sights on trans kids; and The High Note.
Here we go.
No, it’s not The Trump-Kennedy Center, you dolt
I can’t with these people.
I have a feeling that everyone involved was “informed” of this decision the moment Trump came up with it, which I assume was shortly after reading the reviews of his “Grandpa Simpson yells at cloud” speech from Wednesday night. It turns out that, while the Kennedy Center Board may have indeed voted on the name change, the idea came from Trump, and the voting was…guaranteed to come out in Trump’s favor.
The White House claims the vote to rename the Kennedy Center was “unanimous.” That is false. I was muted on the call and denied the opportunity to speak or register my opposition. That is not consensus. That is censorship.
— Rep. Joyce Beatty (@repbeatty.bsky.social)2025-12-18T19:42:48.150Z
Trump appointed himself Chairman of the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees in February, removing several members and appointing his minions in their places. But all that aside, in 1964, Congress posthumously named the Kennedy Center in honor of the assassinated John F. Kennedy. As the name was established by statute, a name change would also require congressional approval.
The performing arts center is, by law, designated the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts — it was built to be a living memorial to the slain 35th president — and it has been generally understood that the power to change the name lies with Congress.
“We never considered or were permitted to name any part of the building for another human being because it was the official memorial for President Kennedy,” said Michael Kaiser, who was the Kennedy Center’s president from 2001 to 2014.
Members of the Kennedy family reacted with outrage to the name change.
Except for one member of the Kennedy family, I’m sure — one who has possibly driven around with a dead whale strapped to the roof of his car.
Panem now, Panem forever!
Welcome to the First Annual Hunger Games Patriot Games!
Trump announces an "unprecedented four-day athletic event" with "one young man and one young woman from each state and territory"
— FactPost (@factpostnews.bsky.social)2025-12-18T16:20:15.619521147Z
May the odds be ever in your favor! I have no idea what else to possibly say. We are all in hell.
RFK turns his attention to brutalizing trans kids
I wrote on Bluesky on Wednesday that asking older Americans to educate themselves about anything around gender or the trans community is endlessly depressing, and I stand by that statement. Going after the most marginalized amongst us, with the full force of the United States Government, is nothing more than state-sponsored bullying.
Health officials from the Trump administration announced several moves Thursday that will have the effect of essentially banning gender-affirming care for transgender young people, even in states where it is still legal.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz, who leads Medicaid and Medicare, announced the measures in a press conference at the headquarters of the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C.
"So-called gender affirming care has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people," Kennedy said. "This is not medicine. It is malpractice."
The American Academy of Pediatrics pushed back strongly against HHS's actions.
"These policies and proposals misconstrue the current medical consensus and fail to reflect the realities of pediatric care and the needs of children and families," said AAP President Dr. Susan J. Kressly.
This comes just one day after House Republicans passed a bill that the ACLU called “the most extreme anti-trans legislation” to ever be before Congress. The GOP bill, sponsored by Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), aims to put doctors who provide gender-affirming care to kids in prison for 10 years.
To be clear: The leaders of the anti-trans movement within the US government are a conspiracy theorist who thinks “Jewish space lasers” are to blame for forest fires and a brainworm-addled nepo baby who spends his time sucking at pullups, toting around dead animals, and imbibing beef tallow.
According to this NIH study, 82 percent of trans individuals have thought about ending their own lives, and 40 percent have attempted it. Perhaps we should be going out of our way to make the lives of trans people, and especially trans kids, easier, rather than harder.
The High Note
Each Day, I do my best to leave you with a smile on your face, a song in your heart, and the will to fight another day.
This will be the last LMP until after the Christmas Holiday. I have family arriving from out of town this weekend, and, to be honest, this year has done a number on my mental health. So a little bit of self-care is in order. LMP will return before the New Year, and in 2026 I'll be working on a bunch of new features for paid subscribers that I’ve been thinking about for a while.
Before I leave you, I wanted to share this hilarious piece from the Wall Street Journal that proves my assertion that AI doesn’t work.
And finally, my favorite Christmas song, no thanks to the Kelce brothers’ attempt to co-opt it.
Hey, survive and advance out there today, kids. Don’t let the bastards get you down. Whatever you celebrate this holiday season — and even if you don’t celebrate at all — I’m wishing you and yours a very happy New Year. May 2026 be kinder to all of us, and may we be kinder to each other.
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