One step forward

"I'm floored, with a capital F," said defense attorney Laura Hogue after the jury brought in three "guilty as hell" verdicts for the murderers of Ahmaud Arbery.  You and me both, counselor.  Maybe it wasn't a good idea to mention the victim's "dirty toenails" in your summation.  Maybe your co-counsel should not have reminded the jury of this country's grim history with the word "lynching."  Maybe it wouldn't have mattered.  There was video.  There was audio, with one defendant yelling "n-----" over the dying man.  It's 2021, not 1921.  At least there will be no photo-op with Trump, who won't be able to complain that the killers "should never have been put through a trial."   

Of course, that was the view of prosecutors, who passed the buck for over two months before having these three arrested.  Even then they had to bring in a judge, Timothy Walmsley, from Savannah, who took no shit from the defense.  (Yeah, he's a Republican.)  But it's over.  Let's go home and eat too much and recover from this ordeal.  Not relax; you can never relax.  There is only sometimes.

In Syracuse, New York, another overturned conviction.  Anthony Broadwater, now 61, was convicted by "junk science" and exonerated by DNA in the rape of Alice Sebold.  She wrote about her assault in several books including the fictional The Lovely Bones, but she failed to pick Broadwater out of a lineup.  Nevertheless, he served sixteen years.  "I'm so elated, the cold can't even keep me cold," he said today.  Broadwater left prison in 1999 but a rape conviction and the sex-offenders registry have blighted his life, leading even to a decision not to have children.  Maybe Sebold would like to write a book about that.

One more legal story and I'm done:  A team of attorneys for four would-be entrepreneurs got permission from a federal judge to see outtakes from Celebrity Apprentice which MGM has been guarding like the Norden bombsight.   It's not that important why these contestants think they were defrauded by another Trump enterprise (get in line).  More to the point, what is so toxic that MGM won't let anybody see discarded footage from an old TV show?  Could it contain Trump's Face In the Crowd moment?  The Trumpanzees have a lot more invested in him that Lonesome Rhodes's fans ever did, so I'm not hopeful.  Might be fun, though.

I'm not at all happy about DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), where NASA has sent a rocket to crash into the asteroid Dimorphos.  It poses no threat to Earth, they just want to see if they can change the orbit of a big space rock in case they ever need to do it.  I guess they've all seen Armageddon.  Now they need to see The Day the Earth Caught Fire.   Oh, too late.   

Several examples of wasted space are fighting over Kyle Rittenhouse, the new poster boy for armed fascism.  At least three have offered him Congressional intern jobs as a reward for getting away with murder.  Whose invitation was the most disgusting?  If you said Ptomaine Lauren you wouldn't be wrong.  The clever Coloradan "challenged" Madison Cawthorn to a sprint, winner gets the dear boy.  Wasn't that hilarious?  If it were anyone but the Hitler fanboy I would be angry.  As it is, well, scorpions in a bottle.

Over on the Senate side Rafael Cruz thought it was funny that Gavin Newsom is spending Thanksgiving in Mexico.  It isn't, and only an idiot would keep reminding everyone why Texans still call him "Fled."  You can't bring the funny if the tank is empty.

Happy Last Thursday in November, y'all.