Sunday Long Read: Ace Adventure, Pet Detectives

This week's Sunday Long read comes to us from The Atavist Magazine, where writer Phil Hoad gives us the story of two amateur sleuths in south London who follow a trail of missing pets that starts to look more and more like the work of a serial killer. Warning: this gets gruesome from the get-go, so if true crime violence isn't your thing, you may want to skip SLR this week.

It was the body on the south London doorstep that got everyone’s attention. On the bright morning of September 23, 2015, a woman walked outside her home to find a cream-and-coffee-colored pelt, like a small furry Pierrot. It had dark forelegs, and its face was a smoky blot. It was a cat, slit throat to belly; its intestines were gone.

The woman rang the authorities, who came and disposed of the body. Three days later, she looked at a leaflet that had come through her mail slot, asking whether anyone had seen Ukiyo, a four-year-old ragdoll mix whose coat matched that of the dead cat. The woman broke the bad news to Ukiyo’s owner, Penny Beeson, who lived just down Dalmally Road, a nearly unbroken strip of poky, pebble-dashed row houses in the Addiscombe area of Croydon.

Beeson was inconsolable. “I shook for the whole day,” she later told The Independent.

“R.I.P ukiyo I feel devastated,” her son, Richard, posted on Facebook. “Hacked to death and left on someone’s doorstep. Some people are so sick!”

A few days later, Addiscombe’s letter boxes clacked again as another leaflet was delivered. This one warned that Ukiyo’s demise wasn’t an isolated incident—there had been a troubling spate of cat deaths in the area. The leaflet was printed by a local group called South Norwood Animal Rescue and Liberty, or SNARL.



Tony Jenkins, one of SNARL’s founders, had recently become his own master. At 51, with a reassuring, yeomanly face and a golden tinge at the very tip of his long, gray ponytail, Jenkins was laid off after 25 years working for a nearby government council. He hadn’t gotten along with his boss, so getting sacked came as something of a relief. With a year’s severance in his pocket, “I was enjoying my downtime,” Jenkins said. That included being with his girlfriend, a 44-year-old South African who went by the name Boudicca Rising, after the first-century Celtic warrior queen who fought the Romans to save the Britons. Among other things, Rising and Jenkins shared feelings of guardianship toward animals. Their homes at one point housed 34 cats, a dog, two gerbils, and a cockatoo between them. The couple had formed SNARL together.

Scanning Facebook one day in September 2015, about a week before Ukiyo was found dead, Jenkins stumbled upon a post from the nearby branch of the United Kingdom’s largest veterinarian chain, Vets4Pets, that described four gruesome local incidents in the past few weeks: a cat with its throat cut, one with a severed tail, another decapitated, and a fourth with a slashed stomach. Only the final cat had survived. Jenkins told Rising about the post. “That doesn’t sound right,” she said. “We need to do some digging.”

Digging was her forte. Always impeccably dressed, with an ornate gothic kick, and unfailingly in heels, Rising was a multitasking demon on a laptop. By day she worked for an office management company. By night she was part of the global alliance of animal rights activists. She was one of many people who used small details in online videos of a man torturing felines to identify the culprit, a Canadian man named Luka Magnotta. He was reported to police, who didn’t take the allegations seriously, and Magnotta went on to murder and chop up his lover in 2012—a crime recounted in the Netflix documentary Don’t F**k with Cats.

On the heels of Ukiyo’s death, Rising and Jenkins distributed SNARL’s leaflets throughout Addiscombe, warning of the threat to local felines. While to an uninterested eye some of the attacks might have appeared to be the indiscriminate cruelty of nature—the work of a hungry predator, say—SNARL believed they might be a series of linked and deliberate killings. Whether the crimes were perpetrated by an individual or a group SNARL wasn’t sure. It hoped the leaflets would help turn up more information.

SNARL soon had reports of more incidents in the area, for a total of seven: one cat missing, two with what SNARL subsequently described as “serious injuries,” and four dead. Rising said that vets who saw the deceased cats’ bodies told her the mutilations had been made with a knife. On September 29, SNARL sent out an alert on its Facebook page saying as much. The cats’ wounds, the group insisted, “could only have been inflicted by a human. Their bodies have been displayed in such a way as to cause maximum distress.”

That was SNARL’s official line. On Rising’s personal page she went further, emphasizing her belief that Addiscombe was dealing with a serial killer. “This is a psychopath,” she wrote.

What follows is a hell of a ride, and a test or morality for everyone who reads the tale, but it's a fine read.

Oh and be extra nice to your pets this week. 

Boris Finally Locks It Down

As COVID-19 rips through the European Union, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced a 30-day national lockdown starting on Thursday as UK total cases now top 1 million.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday announced a new month-long lockdown for England after being warned that without tough action a resurgent coronavirus outbreak will overwhelm hospitals in weeks.

On the day the U.K. passed 1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, Johnson made a sudden about-face and confirmed that stringent restrictions on business and daily life would begin Thursday and last until Dec. 2.

He said at a televised news conference that “no responsible prime minister” could ignore the grim figures.

“Unless we act, we could see deaths in this country running at several thousand a day,” said Johnson, who was hospitalized earlier this year for a serious case of COVID-19.

Under the new restrictions, bars and restaurants can only offer take-out, non-essential shops must close and people will only be able to leave home for a short list of reasons including exercise. Activities ranging from haircuts to foreign holidays must once again be put on hold.

Unlike during the U.K.’s first three-month lockdown earlier this year, schools, universities, construction sites and manufacturing businesses will stay open.

As in other European countries, virus cases in the U.K. began to climb after lockdown measures were eased in the summer and people began to return to workplaces, schools, universities and social life. The Office for National Statistics estimated Friday that 1 in 100 people in England, well over half a million, had the virus in the week to Oct. 23.

Johnson had hoped a set of regional restrictions introduced earlier in October would be enough to push numbers down. But government scientific advisers predict that on the outbreak’s current trajectory, demand for hospital beds will exceed capacity by the first week of December, even if temporary hospitals set up during the first peak of the virus are reopened.

The scientists warned COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths could soon surpass the levels seen at the outbreak’s spring peak, when daily deaths topped 1,000. The government’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, said the mortality rate had “potential to be twice as bad, if not more” than it was during the pandemic’s first European wave, if nothing was done.

As European countries such as France, Germany and Belgium in imposing a second lockdown amid surging caseloads, it looked inevitable that Johnson would have to follow.

 

Boris Johnson is finally doing the right thing.

 

There will be no lockdowns here in the US however. Trump will openly punish states that try it, and we've already had kidnap and assassination plots against Democratic governors, and there's always the Supreme Court to block them.

 

Expect another 100,000 deaths between now and Inauguration Day on Trump's butcher's bill.

Why Don't You Golf-Huck Yourself

Donald Trump is the most corrupt human being on earth, it's not even close at this point, he has suborned the most powerful political office in the most powerful nation on Earth into making him sweet sweet kickback dollars from the rest of the planet, and it's embarrassing at this point.

The American ambassador to Britain, Robert Wood Johnson IV, told multiple colleagues in February 2018 that President Trump had asked him to see if the British government could help steer the world-famous and lucrative British Open golf tournament to the Trump Turnberry resort in Scotland, according to three people with knowledge of the episode.
The ambassador’s deputy, Lewis A. Lukens, advised him not to do it, warning that it would be an unethical use of the presidency for private gain, these people said. But Mr. Johnson apparently felt pressured to try. A few weeks later, he raised the idea of Turnberry playing host to the Open with the secretary of state for Scotland, David Mundell.

In a brief interview last week, Mr. Mundell said it was “inappropriate” for him to discuss his dealings with Mr. Johnson and referred to a British government statement that said Mr. Johnson “made no request of Mr. Mundell regarding the British Open or any other sporting event.” The statement did not address whether the ambassador had broached the issue of Turnberry, which Mr. Trump bought in 2014, but none of the next four Opens are scheduled to be played there.

Still, the episode left Mr. Lukens and other diplomats deeply unsettled. Mr. Lukens, who served as the acting ambassador before Mr. Johnson arrived in November 2017, emailed officials at the State Department to tell them what had happened, colleagues said. A few months later, Mr. Johnson forced out Mr. Lukens, a career diplomat who had earlier served as ambassador to Senegal, shortly before his term was to end.

The White House declined to comment on Mr. Trump’s instructions to Mr. Johnson, as did the ambassador and the State Department.

Although Mr. Trump, as president, is exempt from a federal conflict of interest law that makes it a criminal offense to take part in “government matters that will affect your own personal financial interest,” the Constitution prohibits federal officials from accepting gifts, or “emoluments,” from foreign governments.

Experts on government ethics pointed to one potential violation of the emoluments clause that still may have been triggered by the president’s actions: The British or Scottish governments would most likely have to pay for security at the tournament, an event that would profit Mr. Trump.
It was not the first time the president tried to steer business to one of his properties. Last year, the White House chose the Trump National Doral resort in Miami as the site of a Group of 7 meeting. Mr. Trump backed off after it ignited a political storm, moving the meeting to Camp David before canceling it because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr. Trump also urged Vice President Mike Pence to stay at his family’s golf resort in Doonbeg, Ireland, last year during a visit, even though the vice president’s official business was on the other side of the country. That trip generated headlines for the golf club, but also controversy. And Mr. Trump has visited his family-owned golf courses more than 275 times since he took office, bringing reporters with him each time, ensuring that the resorts get ample news coverage.

The Trump International Hotel in Washington has done a brisk trade in guests, foreign and domestic, who are in town to lobby the federal government. Turnberry itself drew attention when the Pentagon acknowledged it had been sending troops to the resort while they were on overnight layovers at the nearby Glasgow Prestwick Airport.

It's just sad at this point, the sheer amount of Trump corruption, Republican corruption, billions and even trillions of dollars at this point, while the other 99% of us suffer.

Not only are they not hiding it, they're doing it in the open because they know everyone's so tired of it that they'll simply stop caring.

Boris And The Virus

As bad as things are in the US with Trump's ridiculous lack of response to COVID-19, it's far worse in the UK, where PM Boris Johnson's refusal to lock down the nation quickly enough is now responsible for 32,000 deaths in a country of 67 million, roughly .05% of the nation has died to it, with a third of a percent of the entire country infected, and that's just the confirmed cases.

The coronavirus lockdown will not end yet, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday, urging people to “stay alert” to the risks as he outlined plans to begin slowly easing measures that have closed much of the economy for seven weeks.

While his directions were for England, the government wants the United Kingdom’s other nations to take the same approach. But there were immediate divisions, with the leaders of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland saying they were sticking with the existing “stay-at-home” message.

In a televised address, Johnson announced a limited easing of restrictions, including allowing people to exercise outside more often and encouraging some people to return to work.
“This is not the time simply to end the lockdown,” he said. “Instead we are taking the first careful steps to modify our measures.”

The government has faced criticism over its handling of the pandemic and Johnson is wary of taking the brakes off too soon. Britain’s coronavirus death toll - 31,855 - is the second highest in the world, behind the United States.

With both the death rate and hospital admissions falling, it would be “madness” to allow a second spike in infections, he said.

But the decision to replace the government’s “stay-at-home” slogan, drummed into the public for weeks, was criticised by opposition parties who called the new “stay alert” message ambiguous.

Johnson said people should continue to work from home if they could, but those who cannot, such people working in construction and manufacturing, should be “actively encouraged to go to work”.
From Wednesday, people will be allowed to take unlimited amounts of outdoor exercise, he said, and can sit in the sun in their local park, drive to other destinations, and play sports with members of their own household.

Until now, people have been told only to exercise outdoors once a day and do so locally. Social distancing rules must still be obeyed, Johnson said, adding that fines would be increased for those who break them.

Johnson said he would set out further details to parliament on Monday, when a “roadmap” document will be published.

But opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer said Johnson had raised more questions than he had answered and there was now the prospect of different parts of the United Kingdom pulling in different directions.

“What the country wanted tonight was clarity and consensus, but we haven’t got either of those,” he said in a statement.

Only the dead get both clarity and consensus, it seems.

The death toll per capita is twice as high in the UK as it is here in the US, but it's nearly as bad as here if not even worse in Spain, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland and Sweden.  Johnson and Trump are far from alone in their failures.

Keep that in mind as they try to rewrite history in Europe, too.

Last Call For Labour Pains

Screaming anti-Semite and racist Jeremy Corbyn is finally out as UK Labour Party leader, and his reign entirely made it possible for Boris Johnson to take over in a massive Tory uprising that made Brexit a foregone conclusion and could keep conservatives in power for a very long time.  Now Corbyn's replacement, Sir Keir Starmer, is trying to pick up the pieces of the British Left.

After a decade in the political wasteland, members of Britain’s main opposition Labour Party have chosen a moderate, un-flashy lawyer as their new leader. Their hope is that turning the page on the socialist radical Jeremy Corbyn, who was resoundingly rejected by voters last year, will see them re-take power.

Keir Starmer, 57, offers dry competence and seriousness after a turbulent five years under the firebrand Corbyn. At a time when the U.K. is grappling with the global coronavirus crisis and its own exit from the European Union, a steady hand could prove popular.

“Maybe being boringly competent is a magical thing -- because we haven’t got many boringly competent politicians at the moment, particularly in government,” said Steven Fielding, a professor at Nottingham University and historian of the Labour party. “People just flock to him like a safety raft from a sinking ship.”

Starmer faces one urgent decision before he embarks on his long-term mission. First he must decide how far he should support Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s strategy for countering the pandemic and how stridently he should speak out against the government’s mistakes. There has been speculation that he could even join a government of national unity to see the country through the crisis, as happened in World War II.

In the years ahead, Starmer’s defining task will be to revive a battered opposition party, broken by its worst election defeat in 80 years, and then persuade Britain’s 47 million voters that he is the prime minister the country needs to put itself back together. 

Starmer was born in 1962 in south London to a nurse and a toolmaker. He was the first member of his family to go to an academically selective grammar school. After studying at the universities of Leeds and Oxford he began the 30-year campaigning career in human rights law that would set him up for front-line politics. 

He represented peace activists and environmental campaigners, and led a legal challenge against the sinking of an oil rig. 

Gavin Millar, a top lawyer who interviewed the young Starmer for a junior position in the late 80s, remembers him as “very radical” with strong views about the law. In a legal world of high intellects, Starmer’s first-rate brain stood out, but so too did his commitment to the protesters and activists fighting the powerful during Margaret Thatcher’s decade of Tory rule. 

The two shared an office, where Starmer, who loved indie-pop bands such as The Smiths, was known for working long hours. “I got a lot of two-in-the-morning emails from him,” Millar said.

Competency. What a concept.

Wish we had it here.

Last Call For Absolutely Tory Bull

UK Prime Minister called out the Labour party and forced new elections in order to complete Brexit, and that's exactly what the UK will get as the Tories ran rampant in Thursday's elections.

The Conservatives are set to win an overall majority of 86 in the general election, according to an exit poll for the BBC, ITV and Sky News.

The survey taken at UK polling stations suggests the Tories will get 368 MPs - 50 more than at the 2017 election - when all the results have been counted.

Labour would get 191, the Lib Dems 13, the Brexit Party none and the SNP 55.

The Green Party will still have one MP and Plaid Cymru will lose one seat for a total of three, the survey suggests.

The first general election results are due before midnight, with the final total expected to be known by Friday lunchtime.

In the exit poll, voters are asked to fill in a mock ballot paper as they leave the polling station indicating how they have just voted.

The exit poll was conducted by Ipsos Mori at 144 polling stations, with 22,790 interviews.

Exit polls have proved to be very accurate in recent years. In 2017 it correctly predicted a hung Parliament, with no overall winner, and in 2015 it predicted the Conservatives would be the largest party.

It's shaping up to be a bloodbath, even worse than when Theresa May won.

BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said if the exit poll figures are broadly correct then Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister Boris Johnson will get the backing he needs in Parliament to take the UK out of the EU next month.

It would be the biggest Conservative victory since 1987 and Labour's worst result since 1935, the poll suggests, with the party forecast to lose 71 seats.

But it will not become clear whether the exit poll is accurate until the results start rolling in during the early hours of Friday.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said the government will move quickly to "get Brexit done" before Christmas by introducing legislation in Parliament, if it is returned to power.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell told the BBC the exit poll was "extremely disappointing" for Labour if it was correct.

"I thought it would be closer. I think most people thought the polls were narrowing," he added.

If these results are anywhere close to accurate, the EU will be gutted.  Brexit will almost certainly happen before the end of the year, and you can kiss the National Health Service goodbye as well.

A brutal new era of British austerity is on tap, and when it becomes painfully clear that Johnson and his party have no idea how to manage the split from Brussels, it will be shockingly ugly.

And what of Labour and Jeremy Corbyn?

He's done.  He's resigning this week.  This is the equivalent of Tulsi Gabbard winning the Democratic nomination and getting utterly smashed in 2020, with Pelosi losing the House.  The United Kingdom will not stay united much longer, I fear.  Scotland all but voted to leave the UK today as well.

Stay tuned.

Trump's Constant Is Represented By The Poop Emote

Donald Trump continues to be awful in every possible way given any possible opportunity to be repugnant, like some sort of amoral version of Planck's constant or Avagadro's number.

While meeting with President Donald Trump, the parents of a British teenager who was killed in a traffic collision with the wife of a U.S. diplomat were offered money from the Treasury by the president, which they refused, according to The Guardian.

Harry Dunn, 19, was riding his motorcycle near the Royal Air Force base in Northamptonshire, England when he was involved in an accident with Anne Sacoolas. Dunn died of his injuries in the hospital while Sacoolas claimed diplomatic immunity and left the United Kingdom. Trump invited Dunn's parents, Tim Dunn and Charlotte Charles, to the White House to discuss the case.

Toward the end of the meeting, Trump intimated that he had Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin "standing by ready to write a check."

"It was almost as if he let it slip out," said family spokesman Radd Seiger. "When he said, 'We've got the driver here', he basically meant we're all going to have a big hug and a kiss and I'll get my Treasury guy to write a check. That's how it was. On the day it just didn't register with me, but the more I think about those words, the more shocking it is."

The asshole thinks the Treasury Secretary is his money guy, and that he can just write a check and make things go away, like he's Logan Roy from HBO's Succession.

Oh wait, that's what he actually did with Stormy Daniels.

Why is this man not in prison?

Lond-ain In The Membrane

It keeps getting worse for the Trump regime when it comes to pressuring foreign leaders for personal favors to help his political chances. It wasn't just the leaders of Australia and Ukraine that Donald Trump reached out to in order to get foreign intelligence to try to discredit Joe Biden and the Mueller investigation, but UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson as well.

President Trump called Boris Johnson to ask for help in discrediting Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, The Times of London reports. 

Trump is said to have called Johnson on July 26, two days after the prime minister took office, and reportedly asked Johnson for help in gathering evidence to undermine the investigation into his campaign’s links to Russia. 

That call also was one day after Trump spoke to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in the phone call that sparked the impeachment proceedings against him. Trump also contacted the Australian prime minister for help with an investigation into the origins of the Mueller inquiry.

The Times reports Attorney General William Barr arrived in London days after Trump’s call with Johnson to attend a meeting of the so-called Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance. Barr reportedly told British officials that he suspected the information that led to the Mueller investigation came from British agencies.

And again, this only happened two months ago, and directly after the now infamous July 25 Ukraine call that set off this landmine.  That also means Trump has contacted two of the other Five Eyes intelligence allies, the other two being New Zealand and Canada. 

Trump probably has a pretty dim view of Jacinda Ardern and Justin Trudeau, who are far more liberal than the rest of the Five Eyes countries, so it's entirely possible he didn't contact either.

Still, it means he's using Bill Barr as his personal legal investigator to try to discredit an investigation by Barr's own Justice Department, and that's nowhere near kosher.

Boris Bad Enough Versus The Law

As I said two weeks ago, UK PM Boris Johnson is in perilous legal trouble, facing a smackdown from Scotland's Supreme Court.  Now Britain's Supreme Court has laid down a similar unanimous ruling that Johnson's move to suspend Parliament in order to keep his political opponents from taking any action to oust him before next month's Brexit deadline was unlawful.

Britain’s highest court dealt a serious blow Tuesday to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, ruling that his controversial decision to suspend Parliament was unlawful, in a landmark judgment that will have immediate implications for Britain’s departure from the European Union.

In one of the most high-profile cases to come before Britain’s Supreme Court, the 11 judges ruled unanimously that Johnson had attempted to stymie Parliament at a crucial moment in British history.

The court ruled that Johnson’s decision to ask Queen Elizabeth II to suspend Parliament frustrated the ability of lawmakers to do the business of democracy, including debating Johnson’s plans for leaving the E.U. The new prime minister has vowed that the departure, known as Brexit, will occur — “do or die” — by the end of October.

The court’s judgment was a brutal one for the embattled prime minister. The justices asserted that his move to suspend Parliament was a political maneuver and strongly suggested that he might have misled the queen.

Johnson said he will not resign.

Brenda Hale, president of the Supreme Court, eviscerated the government’s case.

Sitting in the high court, avoiding legal language and speaking clearly to the country, Hale said that Johnson’s decision to suspend Parliament “was unlawful because it had the effect of frustrating or preventing the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions without reasonable justification.”

The court unanimously found that Johnson’s suspension was “void and of no effect,” meaning, essentially, that Parliament has not been suspended.

John Bercow, the flamboyant speaker of the House of Commons, called the high court’s decision “unambiguous” and “unqualified” and said Parliament would resume its duties Wednesday morning.

Lawmakers in the House of Commons will be allowed to ask “urgent questions” of Johnson’s ministers and take part in “emergency debates” Wednesday, Bercow said, foreshadowing a freewheeling session for the chamber to press the government on all fronts.

Some lawmakers were already discussing a no-confidence measure against Johnson in Parliament, where the prime minister already has lost his majority.

“This is an absolutely momentous decision,” said Joanna Cherry, a Scottish politician who helped to launch the case in the Scottish courts.

This could very well be the week where lawmakers in both the UK and the US decide it's time for their respective country's leaders to go.

Stay tuned.

Boris Bad Enough Versus Scotland

I'm going to say that the government of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is rapidly approaching the "no longer a going concern" stage of the game.

A panel of three Scottish judges ruled Wednesday morning that Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend Parliament was illegal, escalating an already passionate debate over whether the British prime minister respects the rule of law and throwing into even greater doubt his plans for Brexit.

The ruling does not mean Parliament will immediately come back into session. But it does give the prime minister’s opponents hope ahead of an expected Supreme Court hearing next week. Some even raised the prospect that Johnson will have to resign if he loses that case.

The Scottish judges ruled that the government had been misleading — including, perhaps, to the queen — about its real reasons for the five-week suspension and that the move was “unlawful because it had the purpose of stymying Parliament.”

The Supreme Court case will be heard on Tuesday after the prime minister’s office said it would appeal the Scottish ruling. “We are disappointed by today’s decision,” Downing Street said. A government spokesperson later ruled out recalling Parliament at least until the Supreme Court has a chance to weigh in.

Wednesday’s ruling contradicts two other judgments. Courts in England and Wales had ruled that Johnson’s move was legal. Another Scottish judge, meanwhile, had decided the courts did not have the authority to interfere in the suspension.

Scotland has a separate legal system from England and Wales; the Supreme Court, which is based in London, rules on matters relating to both jurisdictions.

Johnson critics celebrated Wednesday’s decision saying they had been “vindicated.”

“You cannot break the law with impunity, Boris Johnson,” Joanna Cherry, one of more than 70 lawmakers who brought the case in Scotland, told reporters outside the court in Edinburgh. “The rule of law will be upheld by Scotland’s courts, and I hope also the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.”

Next week's court ruling I should imagine will be rather important.  Meanwhile, the "no-deal Brexit" that Johnson insists he will follow through with will be, by his government's own estimations, an absolute disaster of biblical proportions, as the government has now released the text of Operation Yellowhammer, the contingency plans for the end of next month if there's no Brexit deal.

The plans confirm the leaks about Yellowhammer from a few weeks ago.

A government document from Aug. 1 leaked to the Sunday Times laid out projections of how the U.K. would fare if it exits the European Union without a deal on Oct. 31. The forecasts, compiled by the Cabinet Office under the ominous, James Bond–esque title “Operation Yellowhammer,” include shortages of fresh foods, medicines, and months of delays at British ports lasting up to six months. It also predicted the establishment of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic—a key sticking point in the negotiations—and widespread protests. A government source told the Times, “These are likely, basic, reasonable scenarios — not the worst case.”

It's not the worst case.

The worst case scenario, you know, the one with martial law and anarchy, is supposedly covered underneath "Operation Black Swan".

As bad as things are here stateside, the UK is in mortal peril.

And Boris Bad Enough is in charge.

Boris Bad Enough Versus Moose And Squirrel

As I hinted at yesterday, UK Emergency Inflatable Prime Minister Boris Johnson isn't very good at his job, and completely unfathomable, totally unexpected things like "somebody called his stupid Brexit bluff" have happened.  Beeb Politics editor Laura Kuenssberg:

Conservative MP Phillip Lee has defected to the Liberal Democrats ahead of a showdown between Boris Johnson and Tory rebels over Brexit.

Dr Lee, the MP for Bracknell, took his seat on the opposition benches as the PM addressed the Commons.

His defection means Boris Johnson no longer has a working majority.

MPs hoping to pass legislation to block no deal have cleared the first hurdle after Speaker John Bercow granted them an emergency debate.

That debate could last up to three hours, followed by a vote. If the MPs win the vote - defeating the government - they will be able to take control of Commons business on Wednesday.

That will give them the chance to introduce a cross-party bill which would force the prime minister to ask for Brexit to be delayed until 31 January, unless MPs approve a new deal, or vote in favour of a no-deal exit, by 19 October.

It seems right now - although there is still some arm twisting going on behind the scenes - that the government is set to lose the vote.

We are finding ourselves in the middle of a full-throttle confrontation between a Parliament that does not want to allow the country to leave the EU without a deal and a prime minister who secured his place in power promising he would always keep that as an option.

Both of them cannot be the victors here.

And they are both determined to win.

This is essentially the US equivalent of Donald Trump saying "If any Republican in the House votes for this Obamacare slash expanded debt ceiling legislation I'll kick them out of the party" in order to allow the GOP to destroy America's credit rating and economy...

...but also the same week there's an upcoming vote for Speaker of the House, and that vote whip count finds Republican Kevin McCarthy would win by one vote and then less than 24 hours later...

...not only does that Obamacare vote happen, the Republican switches to the Dems and votes to make Nancy Pelosi speaker.

The Earth would crack open and swallow up Capitol Hill.

This basically happened in Parliament just now.

Enjoy!

A Different Kind Of Labour Day

Apparently the future of the United Kingdom as a going concern, as they say, comes down to a classic conundrum: who is the bigger idiot, Boris Johnson, or Jeremy Corbyn?

Boris Johnson is considering seeking an early general election if MPs wanting to block a no-deal Brexit defeat the government this week.
The BBC understands "live discussions" are going on in No 10 about asking Parliament to approve a snap poll.

Political editor Laura Kuenssberg said it could happen as soon as Wednesday but no final decision had been taken.

Mr Johnson is due to make a statement in Downing Street at about 1800 BST setting out the choices facing MPs.

Tory ex-ministers are joining forces with Labour to stop the UK leaving the EU on 31 October without a deal.

Amid mounting speculation about an election, Mr Johnson is due to hold an unscheduled cabinet meeting at 17.00 BST and will also speak to the wider Conservative parliamentary party later.

The prime minister has said the UK must leave the EU on 31 October, with or without a deal, prompting a number of MPs to unite across party lines to try to prevent the UK leaving without an agreement.

They are expected to put forward legislation on Tuesday to stop no deal under "SO24" or Standing Order 24 - the rule allowing MPs to ask for a debate on a "specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration".

Sources have told the BBC the bill would force the prime minister to seek a three-month extension until 31 January if no withdrawal deal has been passed by 19 October - the day after the next EU leaders' summit.

Tory rebels - who include former ministers and prominent backbenchers - have been warned that those who support the legislation face being expelled from the party and deselected.

But leading figures, including ex-Justice Secretary David Gauke, have insisted that despite the threat, they will press ahead and - in their words - put the "national interest" ahead of their own.

Fellow rebel and former Chancellor Philip Hammond has written to Mr Johnson to ask for details about the state of negotiations with the EU and what alternatives to the Irish backstop - the major sticking point in the talks - his government has put forward.

A No 10 spokesman said it was treating this week's Brexit votes as an issue of confidence - those traditionally trigger a general election if the government loses.

Now, there's no way a snap election can happen before the Halloween deadline for Brexit, Johnson knows this, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn knows this, British voters know this.  But by making everything about Corbyn, arguably the only person in British politics more hated than Boris Johnson right now, Johnson figures everyone will fall in line, including his own party.

It's a pretty classic move, make everyone focus on the "real enemy" so you can consolidate power among your allies.  Johnson is betting everyone in his party will fall in line now. Thing is, this is Boris Johnson trying this, and he's not that bright to begin with.  The problem is if Johnson's threats to expel any Tories who oppose him actually manages to alienate even one or two of his party and they test that bluff, his entire government collapses.

Now, best case scenario, Johnson's arrogance backfires spectacularly and forms a coalition government called "Boris Johnson Is A Stupid Wanker And We're Putting A Stop To This Brexit Thing Until We Can Get This All Ironed Out" and the UK works out a real government without the Damocles effect of Brexit hanging over everyone, and we get on with things.

Ideally, this new coalition government would form around a Labour party leader who isn't raging anti-Semite asshole Jeremy Corbyn, either, and then everybody wins because the next PM isn't Johnson and isn't Corbyn, and there's no Brexit.

On the other hand, Johnson could actually try to call for snap elections before the Brexit deadline and the whole thing blows up.

Enjoy!

Boris Versus The Clock

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson yesterday asked the Queen to suspend Parliament for five out of the nine weeks left between now and the October 31 deadline for a Brexit deal, and the Queen has agreed.  Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn is furious, calling the move a "coup" and saying Johnson will face a vote of no-confidence before the suspension starts.

Parliament will be suspended just days after MPs return to work in September - and only a few weeks before the Brexit deadline.
Boris Johnson said a Queen's Speech would take place after the suspension, on 14 October, to outline his "very exciting agenda".

But it means the time MPs have to pass laws to stop a no-deal Brexit on 31 October would be cut.

House of Commons Speaker John Bercow said it was a "constitutional outrage".

The Speaker, who does not traditionally comment on political announcements, continued: "However it is dressed up, it is blindingly obvious that the purpose of [suspending Parliament] now would be to stop [MPs] debating Brexit and performing its duty in shaping a course for the country."

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: "Suspending Parliament is not acceptable, it is not on. What the prime minister is doing is a smash and grab on our democracy to force through a no deal," he said.

He said when MPs return to the Commons next Tuesday, "the first thing we'll do is attempt legislation to prevent what [the PM] is doing", followed by a vote of no confidence "at some point".

And this is apparently only the beginning of Johnson's bag of dirty tricks to run out the Brexit clock and force a worst-case disaster scenario which would of course require emergency powers for his office to be granted in order to steer the country through the mess.

BuzzFeed News has learned that in the last few days, Johnson’s senior team — led by his chief of staff Dominic Cummings and director of legislative affairs Nikki da Costa — has explored a number of increasingly controversial proposals it could deploy depending on the success of rebel attempts to thwart Brexit. The ideas under consideration include the following:

• Attempting to disrupt a Commons debate on Northern Ireland power-sharing due on Sept. 9, a day which could be used by rebels to attempt to delay Brexit. It is described by Johnson allies as a “time bomb” set for them in the final weeks of Theresa May’s premiership.
• Determining whether Johnson would be breaking the law by ignoring any successful rebel legislation or refusing to resign in the event he lost a vote of no confidence.
• Using a variety of mechanisms, including a potential budget, to create new Commons debates and further reduce time for rebels to act.
• Using the prorogation of Parliament to “kill the bill” by rebel MPs and force them to table it again after the Queen’s Speech on Oct. 14.
• Creating new bank holidays to prevent the House of Commons from being recalled during the prorogation period.
• Filibustering any bill by rebel MPs attempting to force Johnson to delay Brexit when it reaches the House of Lords.
• Ennobling new pro-Brexit peers as a last resort to kill any such bill in the Lords.
• Exploring what the consequences would be if Johnson advised the Queen not to give royal assent to any legislation passed by Parliament delaying Brexit.

The measures were devised by the prime minister’s senior aides who have spent the summer in their Downing Street bunker war-gaming how to respond to potential parliamentary manoeuvres by MPs determined to block no deal. The rebels, by contrast, spent the August holidays debating whether they would back Ken Clarke as a potential caretaker prime minister in an unlikely government of national unity.

Number 10's prorogation plan was ready to go and be put into action on Tuesday evening, just hours after Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn agreed to a pact with the so-called Remainer “rebel alliance” seeking to prevent a no-deal Brexit.

Downing Street’s official line is that it is not preventing MPs from debating Brexit policy, that it is routine for a new administration to hold a Queen’s Speech and for Parliament to be prorogued in the run-up, and that MPs will have sufficient time to scrutinise plans before and after the Commons is suspended.

But privately, Johnson allies admit their principal aim in the next two months is to reduce the number of days when MPs can act to stop no deal, in order to give the government the best-possible negotiating hand ahead of the European Council on Oct. 17, where it hopes to strike a new Brexit deal with the EU.

“Every sitting day, there is a risk of something going wrong,” a government source said.

One senior Brexiteer equated Downing Street’s strategy to a football team wasting time at the end of a match. “We are into the final 10 minutes, and we are holding the ball by the corner flag,” they said.

The European Union has made it painfully clear that Johnson's not going to get another extension or a better deal on October 17, but apparently his plan is "If the United Kingdom is literally on fire, the EU will give in."

So at this point the UK is barrelling down the "worst-case scenario" path at record speed, and the crash could leave the country unable to function come November.  At that point, I'd expect emergency powers to come into play, and at that point, the UK ceases to be a Western Democracy and becomes something I'd expect Donald Trump would very much like to see here in the States 15 months from now.

Here there be dragons, guys.  Big ones.

The Drums Of War, Con't

The military situation in the Strait of Hormuz just got significantly worse this week as Iran upped the stakes in retaliation for US sanctions by seizing a British oil tanker.

Britain on Saturday threatened Iran with “serious consequences” for seizing a British-owned oil tanker the previous evening as the government warned ships to avoid the crucial shipping lanes of the Strait of Hormuz.

The British government said in a statement after an emergency meeting that it had “advised U.K. shipping to stay out of the area for an interim period.”

The crisis has caught Britain at a singularly vulnerable moment. Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to resign on Wednesday. A leadership contest within the governing Conservative Party to determine her successor has all but paralyzed the government. And now the uncertainty about Britain’s internal direction is compounding the problem of forming a response to Iran’s seizure of the tanker.

The British defense minister, Penny Mordaunt, said in a television interview on Saturday that the ship had been intercepted in Omani, not Iranian, waters and called the seizure “a hostile act.” By Saturday afternoon, Britain had summoned the Iranian ambassador to register its protest, and a second emergency cabinet meeting was set to begin.

The capture of the tanker — two weeks after British forces impounded an Iranian tanker near Gibraltar — sharply escalates a crisis between Iran and the West after three months of rising tensions that last month brought the United States within minutes of a military strike against targets in Iran. A fifth of the world’s crude oil supply is shipped from the Persian Gulf through the narrow Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Iran, and oil prices spiked sharply on Friday even before the British warning.

But the next moves in the showdown over the tanker are likely to turn on the outcome of the British leadership contest, and the favorite, Boris Johnson, a flamboyant former mayor of London and former foreign minister, is famously unpredictable.

In other words, the odds of a joint US/UK operation against Tehran with the newly minted PM at the helm wanting to show strength (and Donald Trump definitely wanting to bury the Mueller testimony scheduled for this week on Capitol Hill) are significant.

I don't know for sure how this will shake out, but we already know Trump tried to attack Iran once and stood down for whatever reason.  A second such fake-out won't be in the cards, and when Trump does pull the trigger, all bets are off.

Bangers And Mashed

Sir Kim Darroch, the UK Ambassador to the US, has quit his post after diplomatic cables were leaked over the weekend showing he considered the Trump regime to be "inept".

Kim Darroch submitted his resignation on Wednesday as Britain’s ambassador to the United States, following the leak of his candid observations about the Trump administration and the subsequent fierce criticism of him and the British government from President Trump.

“Since the leak of official documents from this embassy there has been a great deal of speculation surrounding my position and the duration of my remaining term as ambassador,” Mr. Darroch said in his resignation letter. “I want to put an end to that speculation. The current situation is making it impossible for me to carry out my role as I would like.”
“Although my posting is not due to end until the end of this year, I believe in the current circumstances the responsible course is to allow the appointment of a new ambassador,” Mr. Darroch wrote.

On Monday, Mr. Trump said the White House would no longer deal with Mr. Darroch after the leak of confidential emails written by the ambassador that had described the Trump administration as “clumsy and inept.”
Mr. Trump also accused Prime Minister Theresa May of ignoring his advice and mismanaging Britain’s tortured efforts to leave the European Union, a departure now delayed at least until the end of October. As for Mr. Darroch, the president described him as “wacky,” a “very stupid guy,” and a “pompous fool.”

The dispute has cast a shadow over ties between London and Washington and has taken center stage in the contest to succeed Mrs. May as prime minister.

During a TV debate Tuesday night, Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary and favorite to succeed Mrs. May, refused several opportunities to say that he would keep Mr. Darroch in his post until a scheduled departure date in January. He also declined to criticize Mr. Trump and played down the rift.

His comments probably made Mr. Darroch’s position untenable, given that Mr. Johnson is the clear front-runner in the contest and is likely to become prime minister later this month.

By contrast, the rival candidate, Jeremy Hunt, the current foreign secretary, described Mr. Trump’s comments as “unacceptable” and said that he would keep Mr. Darroch in his job.

I absolutely believe Boris Johnson's allies leaked those cables to the British press.  Johnson's not only measuring the drapes at 10 Downing Street, he's already cleaning house of anyone who could cause problems between himself and Dear Leader Trump.   Johnson says he'll hunt down whoever the leakers were, but I believe that about as far as Theresa May can throw me.

The good news is that Brexit will eventually finish off Johnson's career as well as May's, and maybe our friends across the pond can get it together.

Alas, we're still stuck with the Orange Imbecile.

It's All About Revenge Now, Con't

At the behest of Dear Leader, Attorney General Bill Barr continues his quest to find reasons to punish those who dared to investigate Donald Trump, and while Trump was in the UK last month, he had his goons grill British agent Christopher Steele over his now infamous dossier last month for a 16-hour London session, but Steele apparently remained as cool as a North Sea spring.

Christopher Steele, the former British spy behind the infamous “dossier” on President Donald Trump’s ties to Russia, was interviewed for 16 hours in June by the Justice Department’s internal watchdog, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The interview is part of an ongoing investigation that the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, has been conducting for the past year. Specifically, Horowitz has been examining the FBI’s efforts to surveil a one-time Trump campaign adviser based in part on information from Steele, an ex-British MI6 agent who had worked with the bureau as a confidential source since 2010.

Horowitz’s team has been intensely focused on gauging Steele’s credibility as a source for the bureau. But Steele was initially reluctant to speak with the American investigators because of the potential impropriety of his involvement in an internal DOJ probe as a foreign national and retired British intelligence agent.

Steele’s allies have also repeatedly noted that the dossier was not the original basis for the FBI’s probe into Trump and Russia.

The extensive, two-day interview took place in London while Trump was in Britain for a state visit, the sources said, and delved into Steele’s extensive work on Russian interference efforts globally, his intelligence-collection methods and his findings about Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who the FBI ultimately surveilled. The FBI’s decision to seek a surveillance warrant against Page — a warrant they applied for and obtained after Page had already left the campaign — is the chief focus of the probe by Horowitz.

The interview was contentious at first, the sources added, but investigators ultimately found Steele’s testimony credible and even surprising. The takeaway has irked some U.S. officials interviewed as part of the probe — they argue that it shouldn’t have taken a foreign national to convince the inspector general that the FBI acted properly in 2016. Steele’s American lawyer was present for the conversation.

Oops.  It's almost like unlike the Barr DoJ, Steele and the FBI are career professionals instead of flunkies and idiots. Steele not only survived, he actually convinced the agents interrogating him that he was right about Trump.

No wonder we didn't hear about this when it happened.

It didn't fit the narrative.

Last Call For The Bad Sons

The Trump crime family doesn't pay their bills.  Dear old Dad doesn't, so why does anyone think Eric and Don Junior would ever pick up the tab?

THEY ENJOYED a warm welcome during their tour around the pubs of Doonbeg, but Eric and Donald Trump Jr may have forgotten one important detail from their epic bar crawl – the bill.

Donald Trump’s sons poses for pictures and pulled pints during a memorable night for the Co Clare town that left more than a few with sore heads the next day.

Caroline Kennedy, the owner of Igoe bar and restaurant, was full of praise of Eric and Donald Jr.

She told the Irish Mirror: "They were so lovely and down to earth and gave a great hello to everyone. I said, ‘Come on lads you have to come in and pull a drink’ so they did."

"They were so nice, they came into the restaurant and the local priest Fr Haugh presented them with a picture of the two castles of Doonbeg.

"They thanked everyone for their support and for coming out to meet them and said there was a drink for everyone in the house and it was their small gesture."

Unfortunately, when it came time to footing the bill, things hit a slight snag with neither of the brothers carrying any cash. 

Kennedy isn’t worried though, having been assured the hefty bar bill would be paid for.

"I don’t think we’ve to worry about getting paid for that," she said.

"I don’t think they carry cash. We were told it’d be all sorted later so there’s no problem.

Sure they will.

If this isn't a perfect metaphor for the Trump crime family so far, I don't know what is.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

So it turns out that Russian hackers hit voter registration systems in all 50 states during the 2016 campaign and not just the 21 states previously disclosed.  Surprise!

A joint intelligence bulletin (JIB) has been issued by the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation to state and local authorities regarding Russian hacking activities during the 2016 presidential election. While the bulletin contains no new technical information, it is the first official report to confirm that the Russian reconnaissance and hacking efforts in advance of the election went well beyond the 21 states confirmed in previous reports.

As reported by the intelligence newsletter OODA Loop, the JIB stated that, while the FBI and DHS "previously observed suspicious or malicious cyber activity against government networks in 21 states that we assessed was a Russian campaign seeking vulnerabilities and access to election infrastructure," new information obtained by the agencies "indicates that Russian government cyber actors engaged in research on—as well as direct visits to—election websites and networks in the majority of US states." While not providing specific details, the bulletin continued, "The FBI and DHS assess that Russian government cyber actors probably conducted research and reconnaissance against all US states’ election networks leading up to the 2016 Presidential elections."

DHS-FBI JIBs are unclassified documents, but they're usually marked "FOUO" (for official use only) and are shared through the DHS' state and major metropolitan Fusion Centers with state and local authorities. The details within the report are mostly well-known. "The information contained in this bulletin is consistent with what we have said publicly and what we have briefed to election officials on multiple occasions," a DHS spokesperson told Ars. "We assume the Russian government researched and in some cases targeted election infrastructure in all 50 states in an attempt to sow discord and influence the 2016 election."

In fact, DHS Assistant Secretary Jeanette Manfra told the Senate Homeland Security Committee in April of 2018 that Russia had likely at least performed reconnaissance on election infrastructure in all 50 states. The bulletin raises the confidence in that estimate, however, saying:

Russian cyber actors in the summer of 2016 conducted online research and reconnaissance to identify vulnerable databases, usernames, and passwords in webpages of a broader number of state and local websites than previously identified, bringing the number of states known to be researched by Russian actors to greater than 40. Despite gaps in our data where some states appear to be untouched by Russian activities, we have moderate confidence that Russian actors likely conducted at least reconnaissance against all US states based on the methodical nature of their research. This newly available information corroborates our previous assessment and enhances our understanding of the scale and scope of Russian operations to understand and exploit state and local election networks.

Please keep in mind the Trump regime has done everything possible to weaken US defenses against Russian hacking, including shutting down defense efforts at both the Pentagon and in the White House since taking office.

And if you don't think current Russian efforts to hack state voter registration rolls in order to help Trump purge Democrats aren't already underway right now, you've not been paying attention.

And speaking of Russian efforts to undermine the 2016 election, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange finally got tossed from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London into the waiting arms of UK police and Justice Department espionage charges.

The dramatic expulsion follows a year of ratcheting tension between Assange and his Ecuadorian hosts, culminating in Wikileaks publicizing a leak of hundreds of thousands of hacked emails mysteriously stolen from the inboxes of Ecuador’s president and first lady. It was this last move that finally set Ecuador’s government firmly against Assange, who was by then already being treated less like a political refugee than an inmate—albeit one who was free to leave at any time.

“The patience of Ecuador has reached its limit on the behavior of Mr. Assange,” said Ecuador’s president Lenín Moreno on Thursday.
Assange, who has an outstanding warrant for jumping bail in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, was taken into custody after officers were invited inside by embassy officials. It’s a relatively minor charge, but Assange’s imminent freedom is far from assured.

British police confirmed a few hours after the initial arrest that Assange was arrested for a second time on behalf of U.S. authorities on an extradition warrant. The U.K. government didn't reveal much, only saying Assange is “accused in the United States of America of computer related offences.”

CNN reported that the U.S. Justice Department will soon announce charges against Assange and the cause for the extradition request.

Federal prosecutors in Alexandria, Virginia, have been working to build a case against the Australian cypherpunk for nearly a decade, and a paperwork error last year revealed they have a sealed criminal complaint at the ready in anticipation of this moment.

That complaint was unsealed today as domestic political pressure on President Moreno from an exposed Chinese corruption deal (lot of those going around) made Assange an albatross around his neck, and weight was finally too much for him to bear.  In fact, Moreno blames WikiLeaks for the documents that Moreno's opponents magically seemed to get their hands on.

Assange is facing conspiracy charges for working with convicted whistleblower Chelsea Manning.  What Assange isn't facing is charges of publishing classified material.  It seems Bill Barr isn't willing to go that far on carrying out Trump's media "enemies of the people" plan quite yet.

For now.  Let's remember that WikiLeaks helped Trump and Roger Stone leak the Russian-provided hacked Podesta DNC memos in 2016.  It's perfectly understandable that they want to toss Assange in a hole before he can bury Trump in one.

Last Call For Mind The Brexit Gap, Lads

Meanwhile in Britain, the government of PM Theresa May is at a breaking point as a massive protest against Brexit took place Saturday, that had by some estimates one million or more participating.  When 2% of the population shows up in the streets, your government doesn't have long.

Hundreds of thousands of people opposed to Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union marched through central London on Saturday to demand a new referendum as the deepening Brexit crisis risked sinking Prime Minister Theresa May’s premiership.
After three years of tortuous debate, it is still uncertain how, when or even if Brexit will happen as May tries to plot a way out of the gravest political crisis in at least a generation.

Marchers set off in central London with banners proclaiming “the best deal is no Brexit” and “we demand a People’s Vote” in what organisers said was more than one million people strong and the biggest anti-Brexit protest yet.

“I would feel differently if this was a well-managed process and the government was taking sensible decisions. But it is complete chaos,” Gareth Rae, 59, who travelled from Bristol to attend the demonstration, told Reuters.

“The country will be divided whatever happens and it is worse to be divided on a lie.”

While the country and its politicians are divided over Brexit, most agree it is the most important strategic decision the United Kingdom has faced since World War Two.

Thousands of pro-EU protesters gathered for the “Put it to the people march” at Marble Arch on the edge of Hyde Park around midday, before marching through the landmarks Picadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square and past the prime minister’s office in Downing Street to finish outside parliament.

March organisers estimated that more than one million people turned out for the march, exceeding a similar rally held in October, when supporters said about 700,000 people turned up.

It was not possible to independently verify the figure, although a Reuters reporter said the march was so busy that some of the crowd had to be diverted off the main route. Police declined to give an estimate on the number of protesters.

The one million estimate would make it London’s second biggest demonstration after a rally against the Iraq War in February 2003, which organisers said close to 2 million people attended.

Tony Blair was able to survive for a while, but May is in a much worse starting position.  "Precarious" doesn't begin to describe it.

French Toast For Breakfast

Despite Russia's best efforts to destabilize the French government in the same way it has the US and UK, the Yellow Vest protests in Paris are now running out of steam and popularity as finally people are realizing they're being played by Putin.

France’s “yellow vest” protests are part of a humanist movement aimed at improving the lives of everyone in the country, one demonstrator said on Saturday, defending those who took to the streets for the 14th weekend in a row.

A poll this week showed dwindling support for the demonstrations, named for motorists’ high-visibility jackets, which began in November over fuel taxes and morphed into a more general revolt against politicians and a government they see as out of touch.

More than half of those surveyed said they wanted the occasionally violent protests to end.

“I can understand that some people have had enough, but we’re not doing this just for us,” said Madeleine, a 33-year old unemployed protester. “It’s a very humanist movement and we’re doing this for everyone. So if right now they’re fed up, then too bad for them.”

There has been infighting between leaders of the grassroots movement, although some have outlined plans to extend the weekly protests to Sunday.

The number of protesters have fallen from highs of over 300,000 nationwide in November to around 50,000 last week, according to government estimates.

French interior ministry said around 10,200 protesters took part in demonstrations across the country by 1300 GMT on Saturday, including 3,000 in the capital, compared with 4,000 in Paris last week.

The Macron government will survive, I can't say the same for the May government in the UK or the Trump regime here, but hopefully this is a turning point.  A destabilized Europe with a crumbling European Union is exactly what Putin wants in order to rebuild the old Soviet Bloc states and rise as the next superpower.  After all, he's already got the Crimea in his pocket and the world did nothing.

More efforts will be coming.