Things are slightly improved for my ex-husband. The rehab hospital found a medical problem that had escaped detection by the regular hospital, which I find interesting. My ex has started PT and OT and all the T’s.
I’m planning to go over there in the afternoon, observe, and annoy them by asking too many questions and making a few suggestions.
(1) Columbia has settled a lawsuit by janitors who had been trapped by pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the university. Columbia has had to pay several times for its failure to restrain the anti-Israeli mob.
(2) Israel may annex parts of Gaza:
Within 48 hours, Jerusalem is expected to make a critical decision: if Hamxs refuses to release the hostages, Israel may move to formally annex parts of Gaza.
Unlike military withdrawals, which can be executed at any time, annexation is a near-permanent step. Under Israeli law, reversing annexation isn’t simple, it requires either a supermajority of 80 Knesset members or a national referendum.
I’m not sure how likely that is. But Israel is stalemated regarding the hostages; Hamas wants victory as the price for releasing them, and Israel is understandably unwilling to pay that price. Hamas knew the hostages were worth their weight in gold and then some; that’s why they took them in the first place.
(3) Democrats are slow-walking Senate confirmation of Trump’s nominees, even non-controversial ones. Thune has a plan to expedite matters, but it doesn’t sound very effective to me: “We’re just gonna grind it out and wear ’em [Senate Democrats] down.”
(4) Pollsters and Trump – something fishy?
(5) Bondi files complaint against Judge Boasberg for misconduct:
Today at my direction, @TheJusticeDept filed a misconduct complaint against U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg for making improper public comments about President Trump and his Administration.
These comments have undermined the integrity of the judiciary …
I think the public’s perception of the “integrity of the judiciary” has been doing down, down, downhill in recent years. Boasberg is part of it, but there are plenty of others.
Four are dead, including the shooter who committed suicide. One of the dead is a New York City policeman.
The killer fits the profile of quite a few recent mass killers in that he appears to have been mentally ill, with a history that indicates as much:
An NYPD officer and three other people were shot and killed by a crazed gunman who stormed a swanky Midtown skyscraper early Monday evening and later turned the gun on himself, officials said.
The 27-year-old maniac, identified as Shane Tamura [of Nevada], barged into the 44-story building — which houses Blackstone and the NFL headquarters — armed with a rifle and opened fire at around 6:30 p.m. during the evening rush. …
Mayor Adams said the gunman intended to target the NFL’s headquarters, however he took the wrong elevator to the incorrect floor.
So in addition to everything else, Tamura drove a very long distance and ended up going to a place other than his intended target, and did not even hit people connected with the NFL. He never played pro football but apparently and bizarrely blamed the NFL for giving him some sort of brain damage (CTE) from playing the sport, which he did in high school.
To top it all off, CNN anchor Erin Burnett reported the shooter as being “possibly white.” He clearly was not white, even “possibly.” He appears to have been of mixed race, most likely black and Asian.
RIP to the dead.
The hospital discharged my ex-husband yesterday to a rehab hospital, although the infection isn’t eradicated and he’s still mega-week and somewhat confused. Seems to me the infection is the priority and until that gets better he won’t be able to cooperate with rehab. I hope I’m being too pessimistic, but I guess I’ll find out. I’m planning to go over there this afternoon.
Thanks again for your prayers and good wishes.
Tom Lehrer has died at the age of 97. I’ve written about Lehrer before; you can find many of those posts here.
I was raised on Lehrer from early childhood, which is a bit weird since many of his songs (most of his songs, actually) were pretty warped. I loved them. I think I still know every word of every song, many of which are satiric masterpieces.
He was a decent piano player, too.
Oh, and a math professor at several then-prestigious institutions.
My family were early adopters of Tom Lehrer’s oeuvre because a family friend had been his college roommate. That’s how I came by his records at such a young age, before he was famous. It’s hard to choose a Lehrer song for this post because I have so very many favorites, but I’ll go with this for the humor:
And this very dark one for the fabulous run of rhymes that goes from 0:35 to 1:10:
And of course, this homage to Gilbert and Sullivan and the Periodic Table:
I could just keep going, but I’ll stop here.
Trump says it’s great:
“It’s a very powerful deal, it’s a very big deal, it’s the biggest of all the deals,” Trump said Sunday alongside von der Leyen [of the EU].
The agreement imposes a flat 15% tariff on most European imports to the U.S., including automobiles—significantly lower than the 30% Trump had previously threatened, but still far tougher than the 10% baseline the EU hoped for. In return, the EU will buy $750 billion in American energy and invest an additional $600 billion into the U.S. economy.
“We are agreeing that the tariff straight across for automobiles and everything else will be a straight-across tariff of 15%,” Trump said. …
“It is about rebalancing,” von der Leyen said as she sat next to Trump. “You can call it fairness, you can call it rebalancing. We have a surplus and the United States has a deficit, and we have to rebalance it.”
Sounds good to me. But how does CNN Business spin it? With this headline: “Trump’s EU deal averts disaster. But few are cheering.” The NY Times has this more interesting take of very reluctant semi-praise: “For Trump, E.U. Trade Deal was Badly Needed: After a lot of big talk on trade, the Trump administration needed a big win. It appears to have just gotten one.” Here’s another CNN approach: “Trump lands another big win with EU trade deal, but he can’t dodge the Epstein saga.”
He can’t dodge it if CNN has anything to say about it.
The NY Post, as you might expect, has a more enthusiastic attitude as reflected in this headline: “Eu-reka! Trump strikes ‘biggest deal ever made’ with EU as prez announces Europeans will invest trillions in US, pay tariffs.”
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
The story on my ex’s medical travails isn’t good, unfortunately. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but the basic situation is that he currently has delirium, presumably caused by an infection that so far has been resistant to antibiotic treatment. I’m very much hoping that they will find something that will zap the bug sufficiently to bring him back from the brink of whatever is going on with him. He’s very miserable, and as far as I’m concerned it’s been a nightmare to see him this way. He’s had a number of medical troubles in recent years, but they’ve mostly been nasty but not too nasty. This present situation is far more difficult.
I very much appreciate your prayers and good wishes.
He’s not a young man but until the last few years he was very active and still quite athletic. Parkinson’s has been part of the picture starting about five years ago, and he seems to have dropped off a cliff with that recently, too.
We separated twenty-five years ago, and so you might imagine it took us a while to become friends again. But we’ve been friends again for at least fifteen years, he’s the father of my child and the grandfather of my grandchildren, and what’s happening now is very difficult.
It’s especially difficult, of course, having lost Gerard two and a half years ago. I know this is part of getting older, but I was hoping to stave it off for many more years. I’m trying to be optimistic because I know it’s possible that some sort of treatment will help, but this is definitely a low time for me. I think blogging is helpful, because (except for posts like this) it gets my mind onto other things.
Wish I had better news. I hope that soon I will.
Light posting because I’ve been dealing with my ex-husband’s health crisis today. Distressing.
UPDATE 11:30 PM: I’m home now, he’s being admitted, so we’ll see how it goes. Thanks for the well wishes and prayers.
I’ve seen many comments around the blogosphere to the effect of this: “Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of trafficking. So of course other clients were serviced in addition to Epstein.”
However, that’s a misunderstanding of the case. As I read it, as far as I can tell, the only client involved in the verdict was Epstein himself.
Here’s the legal document:
Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that GHISLANE MAXWELL was sentenced today in Manhattan federal court by United States Circuit Judge Alison J. Nathan to 240 months in prison for her role in a scheme to sexual exploit and abuse multiple minor girls with Jeffrey Epstein over the course of a decade. MAXWELL was previously found guilty on December 29, 2021, following a one-month jury trial, of conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors to participate in illegal sex acts, transporting a minor to participate in illegal sex acts, sex trafficking conspiracy, and sex trafficking of a minor. …
In the later phase, from approximately 2001 until at least approximately 2004, MAXWELL and Epstein enticed and recruited, and caused to be enticed and recruited, minor girls to visit Epstein’s Palm Beach Residence to engage in sex acts with Epstein, after which Epstein, MAXWELL, or another employee of Epstein’s would give the victims hundreds of dollars in cash. MAXWELL and Epstein encouraged one or more of those victims to travel with Epstein with the intention that the victim engage in sex acts with Epstein. Moreover, and in order to maintain and increase his supply of victims, MAXWELL and Epstein also paid certain victims to recruit additional girls to be similarly abused by Epstein. In this way, MAXWELL and Epstein created a network of underage victims for Epstein to sexually exploit.
You’ll find more at the link, but it’s all in that vein: Epstein, Epstein, Epstein.
The evidence against “clients” other than Epstein rests on the testimony of 2 women, one a proven liar (Giuffre), who sued in civil court to get lots of money mostly through settlements (like the one with Prince Andrew). Alan Dershowitz – who was one of the accused – fought back and won. I’ve written about this several times on the blog – for example, see these posts.
Now, it’s certainly possible there were such other clients, but I’ve seen no convincing evidence of it. Maxwell was convicted of trafficking, procuring girls who traveled across state lines to have sex with Epstein, not with anyone else. Maxwell is apparently giving testimony in connection with a Congressional investigation, and it’s certainly possible she will talk about other clients. If she does, it will be the equivalent of a jailhouse snitch trying to curry favors – unless, of course, she can come up with evidence other than her own statements. I would never say never about the existence of other clients. But I would have to see something fairly convincing and so far there’s been nothing of the sort.