Uprisings

 I may need another bookcase.

Julie K. Brown of the Miami Herald has been on the trail of Jeffrey Epstein for years.  Her new book Perversion of Justice details how the late procurer of underage girls for overprivileged men had a 2008 sex-trafficking case dropped after a Washington power-player used his influence with the Bush Justice Department.  And it was none other than Kenneth Starr -- former Trump lawyer, former president of Baylor University fired for covering up the sexual assault of at least seventeen women by football players, former moralizing scourge of Bill Clinton.  What a varied career.  What a sleazy hypocrite.

Trump's burial under the Biden landslide continues to fascinate the journalists he abused.  According to I Alone Can Fix It:  Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, Giuliani wasn't just drunk and manic on Election Night, he was completely unhinged.  "Giuliani's grand plan was to just say Trump won, state after state, based on nothing.  Stepien, Miller and Meadows thought his argument was both incoherent and irresponsible."  Ya think?  When Bill Stepien, Mark Meadows and Jason Miller are the wise heads in the room, it's time to put down the Old Grand Dad.  Yet Giuliani's strategy was the one Trump chose to follow to this day and hour, with no thought for consequences.  Who killed Ashli Babbitt?  You and your demented attorney, Big Liar.

Demented attorneys, I should say.  Judge Linda Parker lined up a bunch of 'em in her Detroit courtroom yesterday and reduced at least one to tears by repeatedly using the phrase "due diligence."  Apparently when you file a motion backed by an affidavit you're not supposed to just take the word of the guy in the MAGA hat who saw a plastic bag being removed from a truck and intuited that it was full of phony Biden ballots.  Who knew?  First high point:  Sidney Powell telling the judge defiantly, "We would file the same complaints again!"  (The Trump is strong in this one.)  Second high point:  Donald Campbell, attorney for Powell and Lin Wood, shouting, "I am not a potted plant!"  Third high point:  Judge Parker's unnamed court reporter -- I'm picturing a woman who looks like Margo Martindale or Octavia Spencer -- deciding she had HAD IT and would they stop talking over one another so she can create some coherent record of this mad tea party.  But Powell won the brass figlagee when she stood there and invoked Brown v. Topeka Board of Education to illustrate why you shouldn't be deterred just because previous decisions have gone against you.  The arc of crazy is long but it bends toward reinstatement.  (Even Margie Greene isn't selling that gadget anymore.)

Meanwhile, the Democratic members of the Texas legislature decided to flee the state or make a principled stand to prevent the enactment of even worse voter-restriction laws, your choice.  While Greg Abbott rages impotently about locking 'em up they're touring the scene of the January 6 crime and having tea with the Vice President.  The President, who is not Trump, is in Philadelphia giving a speech on this very issue as the Senate tries to pass For the People despite fifth-columnists Sinema and Manchin.

And while we obsess over piddling domestic problems like the scorched earth of the West and how to preserve democracy, the world is coming undone.  Cuba is in turmoil caused by economic pressures, some caused by the six decade US embargo that is making it impossible to obtain syringes for covid vaccine, among other items.  It is responding the way dictatorships always do, by locking up reporters and activists.  Expect things to get worse if some Floridians make good their threat to sail down with supplies and guns.  

Haiti's perpetual crisis got worse when President Jovenal Moise was assassinated last week.  The acting prime minister Claude Joseph has requested US and UN troops to put down the violence but many Haitians are apprehensive about this, especially since two of the suspected killers had US citizenship.  As Huck Finn would say, they been here before.

South Africa broke out in riots after former president Jacob Zuma was jailed for contempt of court, and more than seventy people have died.  Pay attention, because this could be our future.

I couldn't care less about footie but the way England fans behaved at Wembley makes me glad Italy won.  Before the match they tried to force their way in without tickets.   During play they threw firecrackers and invaded the field, and afterward they hurled racist abuse at three England players who missed penalty kicks.  Boris Johnson and his Home Secretary Priti Patel were shocked, shocked.  Apparently if you kick out foreigners and limit asylum seekers, it gives certain people the idea that racism is approved at the highest level.  You know, plebs.

The last Americans have yet to depart but Afghan "security" forces can't surrender fast enough to their new Taliban overlords.  Afghan women are drilling with guns, having decided the men are useless.  This hurts, but what were we supposed to do, invest more lives and more billions for another twenty years?  This is what comes of believing yourself the Exceptional Nation which will triumph where Britain and the USSR failed.  We learned nothing from Vietnam.  Maybe next time America brings freedom and democracy to Afghanistan, stop arming Pakistan first.  That's where the Taliban have been drilling and plotting all this time.  Our ally.

The Tampa Bay Lightning threw a boat parade to celebrate their championship (defeating the Montreal Canadiens) when a storm came up and in the confusion someone dented the Stanley Cup.  We may be at war with Canada.

I found this on Lisa Casey's wonderful blog AllHatNoCattle.  I checked.  It's true!