A bang or a whimper

 The disaster that began with "American Carnage" will soon end; the only question is how.  It's hard to look away from the multi-car pileup with decapitations that is Trumpism -- the members of Congress suiting up to do battle with democracy and the Constitution, the brazen gangster call to the Georgia secretary of state, and now the ten former Secretaries of Defense signing an unprecedented op-ed warning against "efforts to involve the US armed forces in resolving election disputes."  Yes, Ashton Carter and Dick Cheney were frightened enough to agree on something.  But look away we must for, as Coriolanus says, there is a world elsewhere.

South Korea got sucked into Trump's continuing sulk at Iran when the Revolutionary Guard seized a Korean tanker for "polluting the Persian Gulf with chemicals."  Actually Iran isn't that invested in environmentalism.  The real issue is South Korean banks refusing to release funds Iran is owed for oil because of the US sanctions, which were imposed when Iran resumed enriching uranium.  Which ensued after Trump abandoned the 2015 agreement because he hates Obama.  Which may or may not be the reason the Nimitz carrier group, headed home last Thursday, has turned around and steamed back to the Gulf on orders from the White House.  Which is probably unconnected to the sudden installation of Trump toadies at the DoD.  

So there's that.

Trump probably thinks some combination of finding one judge as insane as Lin Wood, martial law stemming from a "national emergency" and violence in DC from the Trumpanzees expected on Wednesday (Mayor Bowser has already requested the National Guard) will magically keep him out of reach of Letitia James and other prosecutors for four years.  But if he has to go, he probably wants to go out with a bang.  He has always been fixated on nuclear weapons, wondering why we have them if we don't use them.  He wanted to detonate them to break up hurricanes.  He's always been insane, losing the election only made it worse.  I hope Iran understands it's not weak to give a madman what he wants for a few more days.  I really do.  They say he'll head for Scotland on January 19 instead of staging a counter-inaugural somewhere.  I don't care where he goes but he can't stay here.