Not one decent cell
But first -- the news. The US Navy has now killed approximately 75 individuals by blowing their small boats out of the water on the grounds that they might be drug smugglers and His Majesty's Government has had enough. The UK, which has intelligence sources all over the Caribbean and has long shared it so the US Coast Guard could interdict narcotraficantes, will no longer do so. Sources told CNN they do not want to be complicit in violations of international law.
Speaking of atrocities, Kamala Harris finally realized that the Biden administration was on the wrong side of history. In Seattle to promote her book, Harris said she "appreciates" pro-Palestinian demonstrators and "we should've spoken publicly about our criticism of the way Netanyahu and his government were executing this war...we had more leverage that we did not use."
Couple of related releases from the Gallup organization, which has been polling Americans since 1935: Forty percent of young women and nineteen percent of young men said they would like to leave the United States permanently, with women citing the Dobbs decision overturning Roe as an important factor.
A separate poll showed a 17 percent drop in the number of Americans who say religion is important to them, from 66 percent in 2015 to 49 percent. Apparently even men don't want to live in a Christofascist theocracy.
Remember Abu Mohammad al-Julani, veteran of al-Qaeda and al-Nusra, accused war criminal? He's all cleaned up and running Syria under the name Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa and Trump said it was "an honor" to welcome him to the remains of the White House. Dear Leader stayed awake and brought out his shit-eating grin for the occasion.
Al-Sharaa/al-Julani is open to building a Trump Tower in Damascus as well as giving the US access to Syrian oil and gas, but I'm sure that was not the reason. Trump also spritzed him with his eau de Trump the way salesclerks at Macys used to do until forced to stop, and gave him a bottle for his wife. Compare and contrast with the way Zelenskyy or Carney is treated.
It's completely typical of the way Trump's ICEstapo operate that Native Americans are disproportionately harassed and detained. They just don't look right (white), which is the only criterion. Yesterday Leticia Jacobo of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian community of Arizona was due to be released from Polk County jail in Iowa after booking on a suspended-license charge a month earlier, but the jail turned her over to ICE instead. Her mother, who had driven from Phoenix to pick her up, had to show documents proving that Leticia was born in Arizona. Meanwhile in Massachusetts the president of Boston University College Republicans finally got ICE to respond to his complaints about nine employees of a car wash where "American jobs are being given away to those with no right to be here." Except all nine were able to produce green cards when finally given access to the locker room, which happened after Rep. Ayanna Pressley got involved. Keep trying, Zac, you're bound to find an "illegal" eventually. It could be you!
I can't think of another figure in history as utterly lacking in human qualities as Donald J. Trump. I don't know much about Genghis Khan and nobody knows anything about Jack the Ripper, but most of history's "monsters" were in some way like us. Hitler loved dogs and music. Mao wrote poetry and wanted to be a teacher. Stalin seems to have been devastated by his first wife's suicide. It's not much but it's something.
And then there's Trump, arguably the most successful of nature's mistakes. (I always think of Bob Diamond in Defending Your Life explaining that after a point no one is "sent back" to try again: "Eventually the universe just throws you away.") So it was chilling to find someone almost as repellant agreeing with me. In a 2017 email to Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury Secretary, Jeffrey Epstein wrote, "recall ive told you -- i have met some very bad people -- none as bad as trump. not one decent cell in his body...so yes -- dangerous." Pedophile, money launderer, human trafficker, possible blackmailer, but not necessarily a bad judge of character. In fact, shrewdness about people is almost a requirement in that line of work.
Trump isn't going to like anything his pedo pal had to say in these emails, including one from 2011 addressed to "The Duke" (of York, presumably): "these stories are complete and utter fantasy, I don't know and have never met Al Gore, Clinton was never on the island." And this batch was released by the Republicans on the Oversight Committee.
The damage control bells rang through the night. Depressingly dumb Megyn Kelly ("Santa Claus is a white man!") sought to defuse the whole scandal by declaring that Epstein -- and presumably Trump et al. -- was not a pedophile because he abused girls over 15 who had been through puberty. She calls them "the barely legal type." Megyn, have you heard of statutory rape? ("Oh, no, President Trump would never harm a statue!")
Meanwhile the White House decided to move into the Situation Room, the center for international crises, the room where Obama and his main people watched SEAL Team Six deal with Osama Bin Laden. The room where phones and other recording devices are not allowed. There they brought Lauren Boebert and tried to persuade her to remove her name from the Massie discharge petition before Adelita Grijalva could take her seat. Mafia-like? Not at all. According to Karolyin' Leavitt this showed "the level of transparency, where we are willing to sit down with members of Congress and address their concerns," "we" being the attorney general, her deputy and the FBI director. Boebert preened, "I guess I'm pretty high profile" (with a son who's constantly in trouble with the cops in Colorado). But she refused. Nancy Mace only got a phone call -- I think they're a little afraid of her -- and had the same response. Interesting that no male Republicans were approached. So the petition is signed, sealed, delivered and all Johnson could do was delay the vote until next week.
The clock is ticking and I can't wait to find out what distraction they decide on. A D-Day-like invasion of Venezuela? The forces are in place. Another assassination attempt involving sharks with frickin' lasers on their heads? Could be. A resurgence of an old Matt Gaetz sex scandal? Any port in a storm.
"Trump to host Titanic-themed party at Mar a Lago" (Andy Borowitz)
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