Epstein Scandal: The Continuation of Lawfare by Other Means. Red States More Affordable. BBC & Antisemitism. Plus, More

It will be a rare bipartisan and close to unanimous vote:

House Republicans are expected to join their Democratic colleagues in a near-unanimous vote this week in support of releasing all of the Jeffrey Epstein files, The [New York] Post has learned.

GOP aides said the vote to force the Department of Justice to hand over all of the federal government’s “unclassified records, documents, communications and investigative materials” on late powerful pedophile Epstein was a foregone conclusion after President Trump urged House lawmakers to do it “because we have nothing to hide.”

Yes, the Epstein scandal is the first order of business after the longest government shutdown in history. Spiked Online’s Brendan O’Neill sees the “hysteria” over the Epstein files as the latest outbreak of lawfare and “a menace to democracy”:

The second, more important way that the Epstein lunacy feels like a sequel to Russiagate is because this scandal, too, is being shamelessly weaponised by Trump’s critics and haters….You don’t have to be a Trump apologist to spy the rank opportunism at play here. No one of good conscience denies that Epstein was a very bad man – a convicted sex offender who exploited vulnerable young women for his own grim gratification. And few will deny that Trump, a celebrity billionaire for years, will likely have moved in dodgy circles. But the transformation of Epstein from a wicked individual into a folk devil, an all-purpose symbol of the rot afflicting the ruling class, is something else entirely. It has a medieval feel to it. It is built on the conspiratorial belief that Epstein’s little black book was packed with politicians and celebrities, proving that we the masses are ruled over by a vast network of evil paedos. This fevered, fact-lite narrative has gone too far. It is a menace to reason and to democracy.

For Rich Lowry, the Epstein scandal is “no mystery” but “a damning indictment of America’s elites,” who embraced the late pedophile as “one of its own.”  

Former Treasury Secretary and Harvard President Larry Summers, whose name appears more than once in the Epstein files, has pronounced himself “ashamed” and will pull back from public commitments. Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York observes in a juicy column that Trump dropped Epstein before much of the glitterati.

Moving on to issues of lesser importance, there’s Venezuela. President Trump won’t rule out sending troops to Venezuela, but he’s also open to talks. New York Times columnist Bret Stephens makes “the case for overthrowing Venezuelan President Maduro.” An intriguing column in the U.K. Telegraph argues that the president’s ultimate goal in the Caribbean is regime change in Cuba. But the president’s immediate focus this week is Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader. Wall Street Journal columnist Karen Elliott House assesses what both leaders hope to get from each other and notes MBS’s change in status since the gruesome killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

President Trump likely won’t get the billion or so award from his lawsuit against the mighty BBC, but Gerard Baker, who toiled for the Beeb before joining the Wall Street Journal, argues that the “biased BBC is bad for Britain and the world”:

Most famous was a line attributed to various figures that captured both the bureaucracy and the lack of accountability. Whenever a crisis broke and it was clear that someone had screwed up, the maxim by which the BBC’s leaders operated was “deputy heads will roll!”

That might have applied further down the organization’s management tree, but, to be fair, it was never true at the very top. Of the last eight directors-general of the BBC, four have been forced out or resigned under political or public pressure. Last weekend Tim Davie became the latest. Deborah Turness, a former boss of NBC News, also quit as head of news, the BBC’s most important division.

The immediate cause was Donald Trump. The BBC has apologized for what it called a “mistake” in a program in the editing of his speech on Jan. 6, 2021, which made it seem as though he had called on his supporters to commit violence at the Capitol that day. It was a mischievous and deceptive edit. While Mr. Trump surely bears responsibility for his disgraceful actions that day, he carefully avoided explicitly calling for violence. That was inconvenient for the BBC—so it simply pretended otherwise….

I believe that the BBC’s coverage of Gaza is the most important factor in the recent rise of antisemitism in Britain. The daily repetition of Hamas propaganda about supposed Israeli atrocities has played in Britain (and around the world) for two years….

USA Today’s Ingrid Jaques comments on the BBC mess and the media’s reputation. Meanwhile, David Strom of Hot Air says that the editorial pages of the Washington Post are really changing for the better. It will be interesting to see how this goes over in deep blue Washington, D.C.

“Affordability” is the Trump administration’s most pressing issue. Fox guru Brit Hume admitted last night on Special Report that inflation was a Biden gift to Trump, but added that it is “political malpractice” by the president to dismiss voters who are having trouble making ends meet. Meanwhile, liberal pundit Fareed Zakaria acknowledges that the “affordability problem” tends to be more pronounced in places governed by Democrats.

“‘Affordability’ Costs a Bundle,” writes Bill McGurn of the Wall Street Journal. McGurn proposes that Republicans must provide a free-market response to the Democrats’ turn towards socialism. You’ve got to laugh: L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, who was on a junket to Africa when parts of L.A. County went up in flames, writes in Time magazine that “the future of the Democratic Party is local.”

Meanwhile, the future of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is not bright, according to pollster Doug Schoen. But AOC looks like she is trying to save the Speakership for Hakeem Jeffries.

Party Pooper. Bill Maher warns socialism enthusiasts that the policies of New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and Senator Bernie Sanders have a basic flaw: Time and again, socialism has demonstrated it doesn’t work. Good stuff.

You might not think a nice southern city like Charlotte, North Carolina, would be a hub for illegal aliens, but Border Patrol agents detained 130 suspected illegals in 48 hours. Some have criminal records. The operation is called “Charlotte’s Web.” The granddaughter of E.B. White, who wrote the book, is outraged. (Ms. Must loves it.)

Ms. Must also loves it that rapper Nicki Minaj is putting her fame to help end Christian persecution in Nigeria:

Rapper Nicki Minaj is using her superstardom to work with President Donald Trump’s UN ambassador Mike Waltz on the treatment of Christian people in Nigeria.

The “Super Bass” hitmaker is joining Waltz on Nov. 18 to speak about the violence in the country that has raised concerns around the world: “I look forward to standing with her as we discuss the steps the President and his administration are taking to end the persecution of our Christian brothers and sisters,” Waltz wrote on X.

“A Vivid Portrait of a Torrid Affair Between Two Lunatics” is how National Review’s Jim Geraghty describes the texting romance between Olivia Nuzzi and RFK Jr. It is the apparent topic of Ms. Nuzzi’s forthcoming book, “American Canto.” Another Kennedy scion’s quest for a seat in Congress gets a thumbs-down in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. Fortunately for humankind, Ms. Nuzzi apparently has no intention of writing about her alleged romance with Keith Olbermann.

Just a reminder. The former MSNBC has become MS Now. But don’t worry—all your favorites are still there.