Law, Power, and Justice

Monday 8 December 2025

        It’s 8 AM and I’ve already taken two oxycodone.  How I could have done something so terrible to my one unreplaced shoulder during the night is beyond me.  But there you have it.  The pain is terrible.  The cats have already been out and are back inside, harassed by the Morning Mexies (the name the cats use for the largely Mexican lawn service next door) drizzling rain, and the cold.  The squirrel circus outside my bedroom window has already started, perhaps to get as much food as they can before it really starts to rain. 

        The murder of the Venezuelan (and possibly Colombian) boatmen is still the only news coverage available.  They focus on one story and beat it to death.  I am beginning to feel like the videos of the boat strikes are snuff videos.  I cannot even count or estimate how many times I have seen them.  I saw nothing, nothing on the attempt to strike Zelensky’s plane as it landed in Dublin, or on the pull back of some of the sanctions on Russia last week.  MSNBC (now MS Now) is showing reruns of weekly shows over the weekend.  If we lose MSNBC, we will have no TV news worth watching.  It’s barely worth watching now. 

        The dreadful Mika is on her own this morning.  When this happens, she usually takes the opportunity to go on and on and rant, doing a pitiful imitation of what Joe Scarborough has become.  They are a strange pair, those two.  I am convinced that Joe is experiencing early onset dementia, a great situation for one of the most powerful anchors on the network.  I can’t decide whether the dreadful Mike pities him, hates him, or is consumed with the idiotic notion that she is going to soon take over the show.  She worked hard enough for it.  Fucking Joe Scarborough (and worse putting up with him) is quite a price to pay for a daily news program on a failing network.  But there you have it.

        Jonathan Lemire has evidently written an article in the Atlantic about the video of the double strike attack on the two men. 

3:00 PM

        Well, great, it appears that the Supreme Court is going to hand over even more power to Trump.  We need to move.  Both Mike and I have been looking at places to rent in Mexico.  This current set of decisions may just break my heart.  I haven’t been able to read an entire Supreme Court decision since the McDonald (2016) decision.  

        After the EU announced it would be enforcing the Digital Services Act’s provisions on deceptive practices and transparency, the reaction from Washington has been stunning.  The EU decision has been deemed a form of censorship (J. D. Vance).  Marco Rubio said it was an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments.” 

Dave Keating (12/8/25 Substack) maintains that the attack from Washinton and Silicon Valley is “coordinated” and that it has one goal: “destroy the European Union.”  Keating calls the new US national Security Assessment just released by Washington, “shocking.”  It “attacks Europe and calls for regime change against sitting governments and support for far-right MAGA-aligned challengers.”  Elon Musk declared: “the EU should be abolished.”  Then, a post was issued from the US Deputy Secretary of State, Christopher Laundau, in which he threatened to withdraw the US military protectorate over Europe unless Europeans change their policies to be favorable to Washington.

J. D. Vance posted on X earlier this year that Europe could not continue to look to the US for protection while at the same time they “affirmatively undermine the security of the US…”  Joe Lonsdale, the founder of Palantir warned: “We want good allies…But continue and you will be alone, invaded then destroyed.”

These are not new ideas.  As Keatiing notes Vance told European leaders the same thing to their faces in Munich ten months ago.  They just didn’t want to listen.  “They have been in denial,” writes Keating.  “How many times do Europeans have to be slapped across the face and humiliated by Trump before they might start to think about standing up for themselves?”

Keating attempts to answer this question in a book being released tomorrow: The Owned Continent, “which looks at the connection between American cultural dominance and European choices this year to accept diktats from Trump.”  According to Keating, Europeans have one choice.  ‘If Europeans fail to stand up now for European’s’ sovereign right to determine their own laws, the EU will collapse and the..”patriotic parties” praised by the US…in the NSS…will take power and turn each of these European nation states into American or Russian vassals. The European Union is the only tool that can let Europeans avoid this fate.  If Europeans throw that tool away now, they are consigning themselves to the dustbin of history.”

        I will be ordering Keating’s book even though it terrifies me.  There is an excerpt posted later today.

        Well, depressing as it is, this overcast, dreary day is coming to a close.  I have a cat customer, lobbying for a treat and supper even though it’s an hour before suppertime.  Our outdoor feral, Willa, hasn’t come in four days.  We are worried about her, but she doesn’t like the rain. 

        We’re going to settle in for black bean soup, tortillas, wine and the cable news shows.