Buttermilk Sky

  Unreported by our Epstein-obsessed media Russia's war on Ukraine continues.  While Trump cuddled with Jamal Khashoggi's murderer, Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in Madrid, viewing "Guernica" with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.  Picasso's response to fascist aggression in 1937 never seems to become less relevant, unfortunately.  On Sunday saboteurs destroyed a rail line in  Poland  which leads to the Ukrainian border and attempted to blow up a train.  This follows months of drone incursions into other NATO countries including Germany and Denmark.   Trump doesn't like NATO because he thinks they should pay him like the craven universities, media and tech companies, and everyone in search of a government contract.  But he loves  Saudi Arabia  and has formally designated it a "major non-NATO ally."  They shower him with gifts, they're investing (according to him) a trillion dollars in the US (out of a GNP of $1.1 trillion), they ste...

  If Dear Leader doesn't like being asked about Epstein, he's not going to want this cover framed on his desk.  His now infamous response to  Catherine Lucey  of Bloomberg News ("Quiet, quiet, piggy") was anticipated by New York magazine.  Here is Ms. Lucey: Just his type, you might think.  But Trump doesn't like any journalists, only MAGA propagandists.  Here he is with our great ally (he's buying  F-35s from us!)  Prince Mohammed bin Salman: The prince doesn't look embarrassed at all, but you know how solicitous Trump is of rich, corrupt tyrants, even when they don't wear Brooks Brothers suits.  "Things happen."  One day you're ordered to the Saudi embassy to sort out a passport problem, next you're being dismembered and buried in the garden.  Allegedly.  C'est la vie.  Jamal Khashoggi held US citizenship, too, but things happen. Something something bedfellows, how does it go?  First MTG and AOC bonded over the...

  Mental health relies, at the very least, on being able to believe in verifiable reality.  The internet gets a lot of blame for spreading conspiracy theories, satires and sheer gibberish that people find difficult to research, but you could say the same thing about the printing press or the invention of writing itself.  It gets worse when governments, with their overwhelming reach and power, all but absolute in too many places, get involved in the manure spreading.   One of the most prolific is  J.D. Vance,  who didn't even sweat when he rolled out his explanation for high housing prices last month:  "We brought in millions of illegal immigrants to compete with Americans for scarce homes."  If that sounds familiar, it's because he just changed a few words from the chronic right-wing complaint about "illegal immigrants" taking jobs from Americans -- jobs construction firms and farmers found impossible to fill after the ICEstapo roundups began...

 "The news goes on for twenty-four hours a day," Charles Foster Kane had to remind his editor Mr. Carter.  So here I am, working on a Saturday.  No overtime. First, a couple of items I want to share with those who don't scroll through the comments at JoeMyGod: Justin, you rule. That's right -- if not for the Arabs you would have to take the VI train to get to XXXIV Street. Escorting  J.D. Vance  around the country has become a hazardous job.  Last month his motorcade to Camp Pendleton was hit by falling shrapnel after a shell detonated prematurely.  Friday night he was being driven to a private fundraiser in  Tennessee  when a state trooper on a motorcycle crashed into a Maryville police officer.  Both required hospitalization.   Trump never pays attention to his daily briefings but somebody told him that Britain is no longer sharing intelligence with the US about activities in the Caribbean.  He responded in his usual mea...

 If there is anyone left in the government doing actual science, they need to look into the possibility of a major Upsidasium leak.  Each day seems to turn the last on its head. Only last Tuesday the  National Catholic Reporter  was lamenting the "close and deeply disappointing" election of Archbishop Paul Coakley as president of the US bishops' conference, describing him as affable, well-liked and probably not someone to stand up to Trumpism.  Today, presumably with Coakley's blessing, the conference issued a "special pastoral message"  condemning  the regime's abuse of immigrants.  This time the vote was close to unanimous. When Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York, MAGA's demented response could not be measured even on the Fujita tornado scale.  Sharia law was the least of the catastrophes predicted for the Rotten Apple.  I think Sean Hannity wet his pants on the air.  Ten days later the votes have been counted in  S...

Thank heaven for independent bookstores.  Just in time for Epstein email season "The Secret Handshake" has reappeared in front of Busboys & Poets in Washington's U Street Corridor, where the Park Service can't remove or try to destroy it.  Not legally, anyway.   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-Palest...

 No, I'm not crying.  Take those onions out of here. A 70-degree day, the man said.  It must have been significantly colder across the river in Arlington, because Trump was dressed like snow was predicted. No wonder his office is so hot that people pass out. I'm not sure why anybody has to make a speech on Veterans Day.  I watched the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph in London and marveled at its dignity.  After the march past of veterans and military, at precisely 11 am a bugler played "The Last Post" followed by two minutes of silence.  True silence -- no sound but a couple of toddlers in the crowd.  Then the king and the prime minister laid their wreaths and it was over.  What is there to say?  People don't want to hear boasts about  veterans  even if they're true, which they aren't.  They want to be left alone to remember the dead.  It's in the name. There are 364 days left for the Felon in Chief to fill the ...