№ 637.4: EXTRA! Borderline Personality Disorder

‘This is tough stuff’: Pence visits caged, unwashed, overcrowded migrants

• Men say they have been held for 40 days and want to brush teeth
• Vice-president claims migrants are ‘in good shape’
  

NORTHERN MEXICO — aka TEXAS (July 13)

Mike Pence says (densely) they're ‘in good shape’,
though a bit dirty and stinky.
(Latino illegals do not do afternoon tea.
They do not know from raising a pinky.)
Dems, he says, are solely to blame,
ignoring the facts. Still all the same,
although his reasoning is full of holes,
what does it matter? Illegals, we know, do not have souls
and they, therefore, can all be banished,
left, dirty, in cages to languish in Spanish.

St. Peter will someday say gleefully,
«¡Lo siento, Mikey, no perteneces aqui!»

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“Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the US.” — Porfirio Diaz (or not)

№ 637.3: EXTRA! More Time For Epstein

(with apologies to Alan Jay Lerner and Fredrick Loewe)

IN THE MALE ID (July 13)

Each time I think about the fate of Monsieur Jeffrey Epstein,
I recall the film Gigi and contemplate the headline:
“Thank Heaven For Little Girls.”
This is, I guess, what dear old Jeffrey thought.
“Thank heaven that little girls
can for some trifling sum
because I'm rich be bought.
Those little eyes so helpless and appealing
provide such pleasure, my wrinkles set them squealing.
Thank heaven for little girls.
Thank heaven for them all
and for prosecutors who,
for a fee, ignore what I do.”


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{updated 7/14/2019 4:53 pm]

№ 637.2: EXTRA! So It's Only A Crime If It's Printed?

Jeffrey Epstein: how US media – with one star exception – whitewashed the story

The Miami Herald exposed a vast criminal network and a government cover-up – but why the silence elsewhere?

HERE AND NOW (July 13)

Madison, sadly, could not foresee

what the country would turn out to be.

(Or did he?)

James makes no mention of prostitution

anywhere that I read in his Constitution.

(Why would he?)

He and his southern slave-owning cohorts

would never trifle with common town whores.

And to respect puritan New England bores,

they kept their activities entirely indoors,

observing completely, discreetly and privately

all of the trappings of upright society.

There was no prostitution. There was no fee.

They were “maintaining” their property.

Again, end of story, the moral of which

the only crime is not being rich.

Politicians, the press and billionaires:

one goes for the other, then they get theirs.

They, therefore, prefer keeping hands off

and we get this classic Mexican standoff.

By Martin SoulStealer - Flickr: Mexican Standoff, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27011723

№ 637.1: EXTRA! I Mean, It's Not Like He Were Some Illegal Immigrant Toddler

Epstein’s Lawyers Push for Home Detention in Manhattan Mansion

Attorneys seek to keep financier out of prison pending sex-trafficking trial, dismissing U.S. prosecutors’ flight-risk concerns

BUSINESS CASUAL (July 12)

The single thing Jeff Epstein most fears

is not being judged by a jury of “peers”.

A jury with Clinton or JFK

would likely let him just walk away.

A jury with Cosby, a jury with Woody

would ignore “did he”, and decide he could.

A jury make up of Weinstein's and Spacey's,

not low-pay immigrant salesgirls from Macy's.

His dream team attorneys, I hope, will at least

seat on the panel a pædophile priest.

When convicted, he'll appeal to Augustus

where he'll get his one shot at justice.

Jeff — baby, sweetheart — keep up your gumption.

A pardon from Donald is a safe assumption.

№ 637: The Basics

EVERYWHERE (July 11)

Political prisoners don't discuss physics.
Neither do hunter-gatherers.
When every day your life's on the line
you have no time for blatherers
debating reality, space, time and quanta.
Surviving the moment is all that you want.
You have no reason for discussing things
as esoteric as theories of strings.
Though strings may be fundamentally real,
in your day-by-day that is not how it feels.

№ 636: Nature Calls

Louisiana declares state of emergency as storm develops into hurricane

New Orleans is already experiencing flooding and Mississippi River is forecast to reach tops of levees by Friday

The latest dire forecasts come as the city was already reeling from flash flooding on Wednesday morning. Garbage containers tilted on their sides and pieces of wood floated down rain-swollen streets in a number of neighborhoods.

REALITY CHECK (July 10)

Yes it is pretty, but let us be clear:

New Orleans really shouldn't be there.

Like California, it is in the wrong place

and Mother Nature will, in time, erase it.

Nothing to do with music or sinning

or fruit or software, there is no winning

when people insist on trying to live

where they should not, something must give.

Be it the levee or the earth 'neath your feet,

if you fight Mother Nature, she will defeat you.

№ 635: The Way It Is

Acosta Defends Handling of Epstein Case as Democrats Call for His Resignation

Labor secretary comes under fire for role in plea deal with financier accused of sexual trafficking involving underage girls

THE WAY OF THE WORLD (July 9)

“Rulers” will always do as they please.

That's parcel and part of their glory.

Though their activities cause others unease. . .

Big deal. So what? End of story.

The rich and the famous are favored by God,

who, frankly, is like that Himself.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 
You cannot hoist them by their petard.

That is not good for your health.

If you try to apply workaday rules

to rulers and their lieutenants,

you'll find they have innumerable tools

to make things unpleasant for you and dependents.

Therefore you dare not do anything,

but hold your nose and kiss their ring.

🙈          🙉          🙊

Joseph Farris/New Yorker Cartoons

№ 634.1: EXTRA! Pleading The Trump Amendment — “When you’re a star, they let you do it.”

Kevin Spacey accuser denies deleting or altering texts about alleged assault

Man’s lawyer said they cannot find cellphone but recovered a copy of its contents that was backed up to a computer

Jeffrey Epstein charged with federal sex trafficking crimes

• Some victims were just 14 years old, prosecutors allege
• Billionaire sex offender pleads not guilty in New York court
  

WHERE THE RUBBER MEETS THE TOAD (July 8)

Actors and billionaires

are not without cares.

They're indicted for crimes –

it's a sign or the times.

“Envy and spite” invite the benighted

to persecute geniuses

whose overgrown penises,

give judges pause

and free them from laws

that constrain lesser folk

not in on the joke

who must learn to accept

one simple precept:

We're rich and famous

and, therefore, blameless.

№ 634: A Pollute To Us

Sargassum: The biggest seaweed bloom in the world
A floating mass of seaweed stretching from West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico is now the biggest seaweed bloom in the world, according to satellite observations.

IN A KINGDOM BUY THE SEA (July 8)

(with apologies to Mr. E. A. Poe)

Surely it was not that long ago
  when we could still see the sea.
A sea not drowning in weeds and pollution
  and shore-to-shore foul blooms of algae.
None of which, I hasten to add,
  can be laid at the feet Trump's presidency.

We were but children, what did we know
  of activities destroying the sea?
To us it was progress and profit and love
   of our inborn creative profligacy.
A love of “improving” and mountains moving
  and sending our trash out to sea.

And that is why in a year or so
  there may well be no more sea.
Just gobs of garbage — nature's and ours —
  stretching as far as your eye see.
And all the sea's creatures will need to expire
  unless they evolve to feed on the gyre
and find it nutritious, if not quite delicious.
  Life, at its best, is meretricious.

№ 633: Headlines

HERE AND NOW (July 7)

British ambassador calls Donald inept.

(Speak of a secret but poorly kept.)

UN declares climate outlook is bleak,

a brand new disaster at least once a week.

Iran's giving up on nuclear deal.

(Additional proof Trump's a schlemiel?)

Meanwhile at Brexit, could be Johnson's thing

is playing the part of Jacobin king.

Book: Trump calls AOC “Evita”.

(Who wudda guessed he knew from da theata?)

The people of Hong Kong it seems wish to die.

If so, Premier Xi will oblige. By-and-bye.

Our sperm counts are falling. This is a crisis.

Who can we blame? Latinos or ISIS?

Evangelicals continue their Trump adoration,

succumbing to his satyr's “salvation”.

Ex-GOPer toys with White House run,

calls for impeachment. Lordy, what fun!

Feds arrest billionaire. Under-age sex.

(Maybe he runs for president next?)

And though I confess I do not care much,

in “football” our women defeat the Dutch.