Epstein's Birthday Book

Plus: Zoomer values, leftist naivete, prayer outlawed in parts of Australia, and more...

The drawing that definitely doesn't exist appears to exist: For Jeffrey Epstein's 50th birthday, famous figures wrote him naughty poems and drew him dirty pictures; the House Oversight Committee released the book yesterday after it subpoenaed Epstein's estate.

It features, as you might expect, a cartoon of Epstein lounging in a beach chair getting a massage from four topless women; drawings of zebras and lions humping; a poem commenting with surprise that, at age 50, Epstein "has avoided the penitentiary"; another alluding to when he discovered the "Maxwell teen-age daughter" in the '70s (referring to Ghislaine Maxwell); one submission by Bill Clinton lauding Epstein's "childlike curiosity"; and another about pulling down a woman's pants to grope her and discovering some other man's hand already there.

"Most notably, the book contains the now well-publicized poem to Mr. Epstein that bears Donald J. Trump's name," reports The New York Times. "It is framed by a silhouette drawing of naked women and includes what appears to be Mr. Trump's signature. Elsewhere there is an oversized check that purports to be Mr. Epstein jokingly selling a 'fully depreciated' woman to Mr. Trump for $22,500." Trump has in recent months denied the existence of such an image and instructed his press secretary to do the same; now the image (including the "Donald" signature in the place of pubic hair) is widely available, and has been analyzed by The Wall Street Journal, compared with other letters Trump sent from around that same time (2003).

For what it's worth, I don't think any of this is airtight evidence that Trump and Co. knew the extent of Epstein's purported crimes, or the specific involvement of underage girls; but it does seem likely that all his buddies knew he was a lecherous mofo and found it pretty funny, which is not a good look if you're the sitting president of the United States of America. (Then again, nobody really voted for Trump due to his upstanding morals; the vulgarity—aesthetic and moral and everything in between—was always baked in. A feature for some voters, more than a bug.)

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Checking in on the Zoomers:

Our NBC News Decision Desk poll asked Gen Z adults (18-29 years old) what they consider important to a successful life. The combination of gender and politics produced two very different sets of priorities: pic.twitter.com/xvm0t4IKaT

— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) September 8, 2025

"This data is really interesting," writes venture capitalist Katherine Boyle on X, "because it shows that marriage is not viewed as very high status or must-have among Gen Z women, even among Trump-voters. It's clear Harris-supporting women do not prioritize children. Trump-supporting women want them, but not at the expense of their financial independence because the husband is less important, crucial or likely to be in the picture. Children and marriage are becoming high status and aspirational for men and less so for women, even on the right. Sadly it shows the earnings and employment decline of men over the last 30 years, and that women planning for a family expect financial independence to be a core ingredient to having kids, no matter their political affiliation."

The findings most striking to me were that Harris-voting women rank "having emotional stability" as their third-highest priority, which seems like an outgrowth of therapy culture (and something that becomes totally wrecked when one is pregnant/has young children, in my experience); "having enough money to do the things you want" and "achieving financial independence"—sort of two ways to say the same thing—rank extremely highly for both types of voters and both genders; "having children" ranks really low on the list for both male and female Harris voters; "owning your own home" ranks really high on the list for both male and female Trump voters. There are two cultural scripts that appear to have led to defeatism for the younger generation: 1) That children are rather expensive, and that financial security is a really important prerequisite to having them; and 2) that owning your own home is the pathway to great stability and wealth-building. Both ideas contain grains of truth (your experience of parenthood will be harder and worse if you're destitute; accruing equity and not being subject to the whims of anyone else can allow you to live in one place for longer, to improve it over time, etc.) but are overstated. Children don't need to be as expensive as upper-middle-class parents make them; home-ownership isn't the only way to steadily build wealth over time.

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Scenes from New York: From the piece excerpted below, these chunks on Zohran Mamdani stand out.

Everything @micsolana writes here is true: The socialists are lying, and trying to get respectable cover for their terrible ideas.

"At least Zohran is good on housing" -- No, he's not. Seriously, don't fall for this. pic.twitter.com/gBD7Z3T4gA

— Liz Wolfe (@LizWolfeReason) September 9, 2025

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QUICK HITS

• "Provided that the purpose of the Abundance movement is earnestly to galvanize the left under the banner of Abundance, which it will then produce, the project is obviously doomed to fail," writes my friend Mike Solana in The Atlantic. "Partly this is because of structural issues innate to our political system, and partly this is because large swaths of the left, which Abundance Dems need to win elections, are actively and often publicly fantasizing about sending Abundance Dems to the guillotine…As America's political right embraces economic populism, appealing to voters who care about issues like the affordability of groceries and housing, along with crime and immigration, it's not yet clear what the Democratic Party of 2028 will look like, or who will be its leader. What is clear, however, is that centrists and elitists in the party will need to tap into the left's own growing populist wing to win, and everyone seems to understand that a game like that, with a group of people who genuinely want violence, requires… delicacy, let's say."
• "American high-school seniors' scores on major math and reading tests fell to their lowest levels on record, according to results released Tuesday by the U.S. Education Department," reports The Wall Street Journal. "Twelfth-graders' average math score was the worst since the current test began in 2005, and reading was below any point since that assessment started in 1992. The share of 12th-graders who were proficient slid by 2 percentage points between 2019 and 2024—to 35% in reading and 22% in math."
• One-third of high-level jobs at the Bureau of Labor Statistics are vacant.
• This does everyone a disservice:

1/ After Jordan Neely randomly punched a 67-year-old woman in the face, which led to one of his three dozen or so arrests, several for assault, he spent 15 months in jail, max. Then The Helpers arrived(!), leading to "a carefully planned strategy between the city and his lawyers… pic.twitter.com/a05jB0BtGH

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) September 8, 2025

• Prayer for conversion—specifically from gay to straight, or transgender to not—is now considered illegal in New South Wales, Australia, punishable by up to five years in prison, per the Conversion Practices Ban Act of 2024. But the law, which prohibits praying with or over a person with the intention of changing or suppressing their sexual orientation or gender identity (even if they have consented to it), sets a disturbing precedent, infringing on the rights of the faithful. Full, shocking exchange here over the law and how it can be enforced:

????????New South Wales Attorney General Michael Daley explicitly says that some Christian prayers are against the law and illegal, and those found engaging in 'unlawful' prayers could face five years in prison.

See the story at https://t.co/m9uOp0q9IH pic.twitter.com/64ZmW9Yj5v

— Protestia (@Protestia) September 8, 2025