Friday, November 14, 2025
1851 "Moby-Dick" by Herman Melville was first published in the US
1965 The Battle of Ia Drang began
2018 UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s cabinet approved the draft plan for the country's exit from the European Union (Brexit)
In bed at 10 p.m. after schadenfreude viewing of MSNBC programs focused on the Trump-Epstein relationship, up at 5:10. Glucose at 146. 40°, high of 58°. Cloudy day.
Meds, etc. Morning meds at 8 a.m. T/c with VA pharmacist specialist re Kevzara at 10 a.m., 30 minutes. Discouraging info re increase immunosuppression from meds and from polymyalgia rheumatica.
Will Trump engage in a military strike on Venezuela to divert attention from Epstein? My bet: yes. I doubt that he'll land the Marines, either amphibiously or from the air. I doubt that we have the logistical resources available for an amphibious landing, and I doubt that he wants to have "boots on the ground" where men can get killed, but he likes 'clean' airstrikes, as in Iran. It gives him bragging rights without friendly casualties to deal with - sympathy calls to grieving parents, spouses, children, et al. And, most of all, it diverts headlines and lead stories away from his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein
Murder on the high seas. There is a story in this morning's NY Times about the family of Alejandro Carranza, a Colombian fisherman killed on September 15th by a US military force in the Caribbean. So far, 20 U.S. strikes have killed at least 80 people in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific. The Colombian government says Carranza was a fisherman engaged in fishing when the US killed him. Trump says he was a "narco-terrorist" engaging in drug trafficking. Colombia's president, Gustavo Petro, in a news conference last month, said Mr. Carranza was from a traditional fishing family, but “may have been involved very intermittently’’ with drugs. His family, and other fishermen from his village, say he was engaged in fishing when he was killed. We will probably never know whether he was transporting drugs when he was summarily executed in his fishing boat. Many legal experts in the United States and elsewhere say the US strikes violate international law because those killed, even if they had been suspected of committing any crimes, did not present an immediate threat to the US or its citizens or military. Trump claimed that the strike that killed Carranza, a Colombian from a fishing village on Colombia's Caribbean coastline, targetted "confirmed narco-terrorists from Venezuela." The leader of the local fishermen's association in Carranza's village says it is now tuna fishing season, one of the most lucrative, but local fishermen are afraid to fish, fearful of being blown out of the water by the US.
Another article in this morning's Times is headlined "Memo Blessing Boat Strikes Is Said to Rely on Trump’s Claims About Cartels." It's written by Charlie Savage and Julian E. Barnes. Excerpts:
A secret Justice Department memo blessing President Trump’s boat strikes as lawful hangs on the idea that the United States and its allies are legally in a state of armed conflict with drug cartels, a premise that derives heavily from assertions that the White House itself has put forward, according to people who have read it.
The memo from the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which is said to be more than 40 pages long, signed off on a military campaign that has now killed 80 people in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. It said such extrajudicial killings of people suspected of running drugs were lawful as a matter of Mr. Trump’s wartime powers.
In reaching that conclusion, the memo contradicts a broad range of critics, who have rejected the idea that there is any armed conflict and have accused Mr. Trump of illegally ordering the military to commit murders.
The administration has insisted that Mr. Trump has the authority to lawfully order the strikes under the laws of war, but it has provided scant public details about its legal analysis to buttress that conclusion. The accounts of the memo offer a window into how executive branch lawyers signed off on Mr. Trump’s desired course of action, including appearing to have accepted at face value the White House’s version of reality.
The Trump administration has insisted that its boat strikes are lawful. In September, it told Congress that Mr. Trump had “determined” that the United States was in a noninternational armed conflict, meaning in a war against a nonstate actor, like drug cartels, and that the people it was killing aboard the boats were “combatants.”Outside specialists in laws governing lethal force have widely criticized that argument, and the administration has not offered a detailed public explanation of the legal analysis supporting its assertion. The omissions have included how it bridged the conceptual gap between drug trafficking and associated crimes, as serious as they are, and the kind of armed attacks that is necessary to create a state of war.
Urban Dictionary, www.urbandictionary.com › define "Piss on my foot and tell me it's raining: · To tell a fabrication in such a way as to be ridiculously transparent; misleading; doing one thing, and purposely mislabeling it; bold face liar.
Sean Wilentz on the Trump-Epstien affair. On the podcast "Legal AF"/Meidastouch, the Court of History, with Sidney Blumenthal, 11/12/25.
Blumenthal: Sean, I wonder what you think of the historical significance... of this entire episode and the relationship of Trump and Epstein. There have been many scandals in the past and cover-ups. And how important is this in crystallizing our understanding of Donald Trump?
Wilentz: Yeah, I mean, you want to compare this to Warren G. Harding's affairs. You even want to compare this to John F. Kennedy, about his sexual goings on? This is different. This is not like that or even Bill Clinton with Monica Lewinsky. This is nothing on that order. This is about a whole world. You understand? It goes back to the 1980s, the 1990s. It even goes back to the 70s of the Studio 54 world. This is the whole background of this guy. This is not a guy who likes to, you know, have affairs. This is not a guy who's sneaking people into the White House. This is a guy who comes out of an entire culture, an entire world which is based upon this kind of degradation, this kind of sexual degradation, because that's what it's about. It's not about sex. It's about degradation fundamentally, it seems to me This is on a scale . . . it's not even a matter of scale. It's in a different universe as far as the sexual scandals around the presidency are concerned. So I think we have to take it seriously. I mean as MichaelWolff was saying, these are things that would have disqualified anybody from becoming president, but it's more serious than that because it indicts our entire culture, our entire world, the entire politics we are living in right now. It's not that he is worse or better or what have you than others. No, it's that we have elected, we have put into power a culture, a world, a class if you will, of people for whom this is . . . it's sadistic, it is degraded, and it runs the country and indeed I think it runs the world right now, or it's on the brink of running the world because I think you see these kind of characters elsewhere. This is not simply an American phenomenon. So this is why it's so alarming to me is that it goes well beyond . . . it's as if we had this monstrous world that existed that we managed to keep contained, you know, and that has nothing to do with you know, Warren Harding or JFK. No, this is different. And it's always been there. And it's actually - I don't usually use these terms - it is evil. It's an evil world. And it's always been there, but now it's controlling the world or it's on the brink of controlling the world. And that's the way I see this whole Epstein thing. It's not just a scandal. It is a scandal to be sure, but it's indicative of something that's much larger than that, which is that a kind of literally a social evil You talk about pathology or sociopathology, whatever, this is different than that. That has always been there., and that is now coming out. And, by the way, it also attracts the sort of political equivalents to this. You know, there's kind of a Nick Fuentes side to all of this. It all kind of conjoins in a way because it is based on a kind of degradation of humanity. That is what this is about to me and historically and it's why it is so alarming. I mean, I like to listen to all of the details. I want to hear all about the emails and stuff, but to me is stepping back from it all. It's of world historic, what should we say? I mean, it's maybe you could go back to classical times and see something like this, the complete collapse of a civilization. That is what I think we are on the brink of and it's not just frightening. It's beyond that. It almost brings me to tears actually to think about it too long because of these peopleare that way. I don't know if that answers your question.
My FB post re the above:
I have wondered for some time now, at least since 2015, whether I am a political catastrophist or apochalyptist, ranting that the election of Donald Trump signaled a political turn of events more dire than, and different in kind from, any American political event in my long lifetime. Perhaps I am, and indeed, I hope I am, i.e., I hope that we Americans will survive Trump’s second term and return to some pre-Trumpian normalcy once we have been chastened by the excesses of Trump’s second regime. Today, however, I watched the LegalAF podcast on YouTube with Sidney Blumenthal and Princeton historian Sean Wilentz interviewing journalist Michael Wolff about the relationship between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. What most caught my attention were the concluding words of Professor Wilentz, who shares my fears about what Trump’s accession to power signifies, and how his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is also radically different from prior political sex scandals. I copied some of his thoughts:
"No, this is different. And it's always been there. And it's actually - I don't usually use these terms - it is evil. It's an evil world. And it's always been there, but now it's controlling the world or it's on the brink of controlling the world. And that's the way I see this whole Epstein thing. It's not just a scandal. It is a scandal to be sure, but it's indicative of something that's much larger than that ... a kind of literally a social evil . You talk about pathology or sociopathology, whatever, this is different than that. . . . And, by the way, it also attracts the sort of political equivalents to this. You know, there's kind of a Nick Fuentes side to all of this. It all kind of conjoins in a way because it is based on a kind of degradation of humanity. That is what this is about, to me and historically, and it's why it is so alarming. . . Maybe you could go back to classical times and see something like this, the complete collapse of a civilization. That is what I think we are on the brink of, and it's not just frightening. It's beyond that. It almost brings me to tears, actually, to think about it too long . . ."
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