Buttermilk Sky

 Some things you may have missed: As predicted,  Peter Mandelson  is no longer UK ambassador to the US.  Keir Starmer said he was unaware of the details of Mandelson's friendship with Jeffrey Epstein when he appointed him.  Mandelson is gay, raising more questions about the hospitality on Epstein Island. Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting a coup, but don't worry -- little Marco is on it: So is Lisa Simpson: For Brazilians, on the other hand, carnival came early: Right-wing members of the  European Union Parliament  tried to hold a minute of silence for Charlie Kirk and were overruled by President Roberta Metsola.  They will probably try again next month. Despite describing it as "accurate and in accordance with all NSA policy, directives and guidance,"  Tulsi Gabbard  ordered the report on the Venezuela drone strike removed from all files.  Presumably it contradicted lies told by Trump and Hegseth. In re...

 "Vice president J.D. Vance cancelled plans to attend the 9/11 memorial ceremony in New York City and will travel to Utah instead to visit with the family of conservative activist Charlie Kirk."  (Washington Post)  The fascist's corpse will be flown to Arizona on Air Force 2, unless Trump orders a state funeral in Washington. A still unknown shooter has dumped this distraction/provocation into Trump's spongy lap and he's not letting it go.  Kirk will get the wholly devalued Medal of Freedom at the same ceremony as Rudolph Giuliani.  Trump ordered flags to half-staff, as he grudgingly did when Jimmy Carter died.  The MAGA hive didn't need any hints:   Anna Paulina Luna Livia Plurabelle  is already demanding a Kirk statue for the Capitol Rotunda and the party line is that he was killed by "hateful rhetoric from the left."  Deputy Secretary of State  Christopher Landau  calls for the instant deportation of "foreigners" (legal or o...

  When the prime minister tells his parliament that  Poland  is "the closest we have been to open conflict than at any time since World War II," you expect the response of the American president to be something other than "Here we go!"   Seven drones and an unidentified object struck Poland during the nightly Russian blitz of Ukraine, causing the temporary closure of four airports.  "What's with Russia violating Poland's airspace with drones?" a confused Trump wrote.  This is not the way a leader behaves when he wants to talk peace, as Putin probably assured him in Anchorage.  How's a guy to nail down that Nobel when the war is escalating and expanding?  And Poland belongs to NATO, which means he might be expected to do something about it.  Where's that list of extra sanctions? It's not the first incursion.  Ten days ago the plane carrying EU Commissioner  Ursula von der Leyen  had its navigation system disrupted by a cybe...

  No head.  No arms.  What sort of men see women this way? This sort. The woman's face is redacted.  The three smiling Mar a Lago men  are the proprietor, an unidentified member and the late Jeffrey Epstein, who writes, "Even though I handled the deal I didn't get any of the money or the girl!"  The giant golf tournament check is a nice touch, a reference to their second-favorite sport. Is anybody doing journalism anymore but the Wall Street Journal?  Backed up by top-drawer legal advice and Murdoch money, they seem to like their chances.  We'll see if they stay committed now that  Lachlan Murdoch  has won the titanic struggle to keep News Corporation the "protector of the conservative voice in the English-speaking world," which is an amusingly tall order.   I hope you're not eating, because today's  Guardian  has a selection of birthday book pages which may cause reflux unless you're a MAGA, a pervert or both.  ...

 Trump demands that Arthur Ashe Stadium be renamed for Bill Tilden instead of "woke DEI" player.  No, but it's one of the few complaints he didn't air after being booed at the US Tennis final.  He was there at the invitation of Jean-Frederic Dufour, CEO of Rolex, who may have an interest in rolling back tariffs on Switzerland, where his already overpriced wrist adornments are made.  Among the people who paid their way in, most booed loudly at the first glimpse of orange, but broadcasters had been ordered to censor these disloyal subjects, so they did.   ("What's that smell?"  "Quiet, you'll wake him up.") Trump neither likes nor understands tennis.  What he enjoys is making other people wait while he waddles to his box, especially people like Stephen Colbert and Bruce Springsteen.  Tom Hanks was not there, so his abuse came separately: Don't be surprised if he campaigns to have Hanks's Oscars retracted and given to Scott Baio instea...

  "Someday -- and that day may never come -- I'll call upon you to do a service for me, but until that day, accept this justice as a gift..." For  Rod Blagojevich  that day came last Thursday, when he was dispatched to Fox News to attack J.B. Pritzker for giving "sanctuary to thousands of criminals who come to America illegally, drug dealers and gang bangers, human traffickers and cold-blooded killers..." etc., etc.  The Trump-pardoned felon pronounced Chicago "the murder capital of the United States for thirteen straight years" without explaining why he did so little to stop it.  We are supposed to assume that every violent crime the city has seen since Capone left was the work of "illegals" and that Chicago is lucky it managed to hang on until the ICEstapo could ride to the rescue.  Good boy, Rod.   They haven't ridden yet, though.  Pritzker's "Do not come to Chicago" seems to have made Trump hesitate.  He and Mayor Brando...

 When we left Jeanine Pirro she was complaining about the "politicized" grand jurors who refused to rubberstamp any of her revenge indictments of people who stood up to the occupiers of the District of Columbia.  Yesterday Magistrate Judge  Zia M. Faruqui  had had enough, accusing her and the Bondi Department of creating a "Constitutional crisis" and wasting everyone's time, overcharging felonies while people sat in jail, only to have the top charges dismissed and others rejected by the grand jurors.  But it looked so easy on Law & Order ! Meanwhile, this startling post appeared on Xitter: Operation Epstein Distraction has now taken to interdicting Haitians in the territorial waters of either Haiti or Cuba and escorting them home "with swift, lethal precision," whatever that means, to ensure the border security of...someone.  Very enlightening, if a little out of the US Coast Guard's usual bailiwick.  Still, it could have been worse.  Six year...

 It seems as if everybody's quiz category is The Bleeding Obvious, as John Cleese would say.  Why is it being reported as NEWS? Mitch McConnell  is not the dumbest member of his party by far, but when did he become an oracle?  Does it just come with being 83?  He gave an interview to the Lexington Herald-Leader yesterday and pronounced this "the most dangerous period since before World War II.  There's certain similarities right now to the '30s."  Similarities, you say?  Political violence, the erosion of civil liberties, the mainstreaming of racism and misogyny?  Not exactly.  McConnell pointed to "the Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930, widely believed...to have taken the Depression worldwide."  In other words, tariffs as a tool of isolationism, i.e., "America First."  That's why "North Korea, China, Russia, Iran and Iran's proxies" hate us.  He's not happy about the war in Ukraine because "we need to avoid the headline at th...

  Really, I should just send y'all over to  All Hat No Cattle.   Best memes in town, and Lisa is holding a fundraiser.  Be generous. On Monday we were trying to guess why a task force was steaming in the direction of Venezuela.  They are claiming eleven people killed in a boat headed for Trinidad.  The victory was praised by the prime minister of  Trinidad and Tobago,  Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who urged the US to "kill them all violently" for the suffering they have caused her country.  Trump announced that they were members of Tren de Aragua because he can just tell.  Other regional leaders hinted that a little prior notice would be welcome before any further violent killing in case it's just some fishermen. Polish president  Karol Nawrocki  visited the White House and received the traditional welcome, a flyover by military jets -- I'm sorry?  It's not traditional, even for Netanyahu?  Apparently it wasn't so much a w...

  An apology:  The Buttermilk Sky Organization was inaccurate in describing US Attorney Jeanine Pirro's success rate in carrying out her role in the illegal and unnecessary military occupation of Washington, DC.  We gave her record of indictments as 0-3 when it should have been 0-6. The grand jury "elites" handed her another loss today in refusing to agree that  Nathalie Rose Jones  of Indiana threatened Trump's life when she called him a "Nazi" and a "terrorist" in an interview with the FBI.  Before that there were Sean "Sandwich" Dunn and Alvin Summers, accused of assaulting a federal officer.  And three separate attempts to indict Sidney Lori Reid, who scuffled with an FBI agent.  Reid's charges were downgraded to a misdemeanor.  Talking trash about The Leader as Jones did is technically still protected free speech, not unlike posting a depiction of President Biden bound and gagged in the back of a truck.  This administration is al...