The Reality Drama Inside Trump's Justice Department Is Making 'Vanderpump Rules' Look Tame

(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To The Last Post Of The Week From The Blog's Favourite Living Canadian)

We all woke up on Friday and found that Tariff Guy was on the scene again, spewing threats and admonitions to all points of the compass. From Yahoo Finance:

Trump announced a 35% tariff on Canadian goods late Thursday on Truth Social, claiming Canada had "financially retaliated" to earlier duties. A White House official said, however, that many carveouts currently in place with US tariffs on Canadian goods would remain, such as oil and certain sector-specific duties...The fresh tariff salvos capped a week in which Trump sent a barrage of tariff letters to over 20 trade partners, setting levels of 20% to 40% — except for a 50% levy on goods from Brazil in a move that waded into the country's domestic politics.

It's that last bit that is the most interesting part of the news. As part of his most recent Adventure in Dick Swinging, the president is using the tariffs and other forms of economic pressure to get his allies in the Axis Of Corruption off the hook in their native lands. He threatened military aid to Israel if it didn't cease its prosecution of Bibi Netanyahu. And now, he's waving the Tariff Bomb over the head of the Brazilian judiciary if they don't end their prosecution of criminal ex-president Jair Bolsonaro.

None of that is legal, by the way, but since the president doesn't have the faintest clue how tariffs work anyway, what the hell? So far, Brazil has told the president to pound sand. Why do they laugh at his mighty sword?

The Epstein Files, which don't exist, except they probably do, apparently has thrown the various Brainiacs appointed to run federal law-enforcement into a severe brain-freeze. First, Attorney General Pam Bondi says the files are "on her desk." Then it is announced that there is no client list . At which, the MAGA cult, inside and outside government, goes completely bananas. Now it appears that the upper echelons of the FBI might come tumbling down. From CNN:

This comes after a heated confrontation with Attorney General Pam Bondi over the handling of the case earlier this week. The infighting over the case came to a head during a Wednesday meeting, which included Bongino, Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, the sources said. Bongino and Patel were confronted about whether they were behind a story that said the FBI wanted more information released but was ultimately stymied by the Department of Justice, they said.

The episode comes as many of President Donald Trump’s close advisers, both inside and outside of the White House, have grown increasingly frustrated with Bondi’s handling of the so-called Epstein files, following days of intense criticism from some of the president’s most devoted supporters. Multiple sources said Bongino did not come to work Friday, fueling speculation he had quit over the issue. One of those sources said that as of Friday afternoon he had not left his position. “The whole thing has been a complete mess and no one is happy,” a source briefed on the matter told CNN.

They have made such a hash out of this that their conclusion must be that the president’s name is all over the material. This will continue to be the case until these idiots stop talking about the Epstein Files in public. Right now, I wouldn't give you a nickel for Bondi's being in her job by Christmas.

Weekly WWOZ Pick To Click: "Bluette" by Dave Brubeck

Yeah, I still pretty much love New Orleans.

Weekly Visit To The Pathé Archive: Here, from 1925, is some coverage of the famous "monkey trial" in Dayton, Tennessee. I stopped by there during the 2020 primaries. They have a nice little museum and the courtroom in which the trial took place has been kept largely intact, and the neatest thing is that it's still a functioning courtroom. The tree under which H.L. Mencken sat in the shade is still there. History is so cool.

This week, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse delivered the 300th of his regularly scheduled “Time To Wake Up” speeches on the climate crisis. It represents an existential threat to Whitehouse's Rhode Island, a state which, like the human body, is 60 percent water. And Whitehouse went for broke, linking the climate crisis to his other bete noire—the capture of the government, and especially the courts, by an oligarchical class that would gladly let the planet burn if it could get a good price on the ashes.

It is entirely possible that history will show that the three most consequential disasters for America in our lifetimes were the capture of the Supreme Court by right-wing billionaires, the influx into our elections of floods of corrupting special-interest “dark money,” and the success of the fossil fuel climate-denial operation at blockading solutions to the fossil fuel emissions crisis.

Each of these disasters was a victory — for the insidious political forces behind the Court’s capture, behind the corrupting dark money operation, and behind the climate denial fraud. Remember, those disasters didn’t “happen,” they were done. Much of the work done by those insidious political forces was covert and clandestine; but there were plenty of signals of what was going on, to anyone paying attention. If you paid attention to the Court capture scheme and the dark-money operation and the climate fraud, you’d quickly notice the overlap of the shadowy political forces behind all three. You’d notice the common thread: fossil fuel.

Think of all three special-interest campaigns as a single covert operation — a covert op run against America by forces within our country; an enemy within, of creepy billionaires, fossil fuel interests, and far-right foundations, determined to impose on the country a blighted and unpopular vision that they could never achieve democratically.

Whitehouse's crusades belong together. The pathetic response of the United States to the climate crisis is directly the result of our money-drenched political system and the courts have opened the doors to all sorts of plutocratic vandalism. That nobody seems willing to follow his call to arms—and after the 300th take, too—is more than just a shame. It's a suicide note.

Discovery Corner: Hey, look what we found! From Smithsonian:

Now, for the first time, researchers from the University of Houston have unearthed a royal tomb in Caracol. It belonged to the city’s first known ruler, Te K’ab Chaak. Te K’ab Chaak founded the royal dynasty of Caracol, which is the largest Maya archaeological site in Belize, according to a statement from the university. His tomb was filled with riches: tubes of carved bone, jadeite jewelry and a mask, shells, and 11 pottery vessels.

“They’ve found a very early ruler, so that’s very important, and he’s claimed to be the founder of a dynasty,” Gary Feinman, an archaeologist at the Field Museum of Chicago who wasn't involved in the research, tells the New York Times’ Alan Yuhas. “That’s a major find.” Arlen Chase and Diane Chase, a husband-and-wife duo who are both archaeologists at the University of Houston, have been leading research at Caracol for more than 40 years. This year, they were focused on the relationship between the ancient city and Teotihuacán, located northeast of what is now Mexico City.

Forty years. I can only imagine what the first moment of discovery/revelation must have been for the Chases.

Hey, KUSA, is it a good day for dinosaur news? It's always a good day for dinosaur news!

A team of researchers at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science recently discovered a nearly 70 million-year-old dinosaur fossil under the museum’s parking lot in City Park. According to the museum, the partial-bone fossil was found 763 feet below the surface and has been identified as the deepest and oldest dinosaur fossil ever found within city limits. The bone has since been identified as a vertebra of an herbivorous dinosaur found in Late Cretaceous rocks dating back approximately 67.5 million years.

How great is this? Under the parking lot of the museum? Like poor Richard III? Classic. This is a brand-new example of how the way a dino lived then can make us happy now.

I’ll be back on Monday for whatever fresh hell awaits. Be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake-line and wear the damn masks, and take the damn shots, especially the boosters and the New One. In your spare time, spare a thought for everyone touched by the flooding in Texas, and in North Carolina. and by earthquakes in Myanmar and Thailand, and by the tornadoes throughout the Southeast, and for everyone touched by floods in Kentucky and in West Virginia, and Nigeria, and by the crash in Washington, and by the measles outbreak in the Southwest, and in the wildfire zone around Dallas, and in the fire zones in Los Angeles and in Canada, and for all the folks in Ukraine, who stubbornly fight on, and all the folks in Gaza, and all the people in New Orleans, Las Vegas, Nashville, and Queens, who were visited by the Crazy before the year had hardly begun, and the folks in Dallas and Tallahassee, who were visited by the Crazy this week. And the people in drought-stricken north Alabama. And the folks caught in floods and tornadoes in Nebraska, and in Missouri. And the folks caught in "historic floods" in Kentucky. And in Oklahoma. And the folks in L.A., now fighting floods and mudslides exacerbated by the recent wildfires. And the folks in the wildfire zones in Pennsylvania, and in Minnesota. And the folks in Lahaina, who are still rebuilding. And the victims of the nightclub collapse in the Dominican Republic. (Hang in there, Pedro.) And all the folks we regularly cited here in the year gone by, and especially for our fellow citizens in the LGBTQ+ community, who deserve so much better from their country than they’ve been getting. And for all of us, who will be getting exactly what we deserve.