I’d just like to take a moment and recognize the contribution of the morally deficient, anti-vax cons. Through their tireless efforts, COVID-19 has managed to rampage, mutate and rampage again, and mutate yet again, rampage to follow. The anti-vaxxers will stick to their stubborn, selfish, wrongheaded, and anti-social refusal – again – and COVID-19 will be off and running – again. This time in the guise of Omicron.

We, the responsible people, will have to wear our masks even longer. The economy will suffer another setback. The medical system will be overworked even longer. More people will die. And none of it would have been possible if not for the unflagging narcissism of the few, the inconsiderate, the malevolent…

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Speaking of self-centered jerks, Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial is starting. If you’re somehow unaware, Maxwell is accused of helping groom the underage women Jeffery Epstein and his powerful associates abused. Apparently, she even participated in the abuse from time to time. The judge, Alison Nathan, is taking a firm hold of the trial. She’s claiming she doesn’t want the trial to become a surrogate for the trial Epstein would have received had he not suspiciously turned up dead in his maximum security prison cell.

Do you remember the DVDs? According to the New York Times, during a search of Epstein’s properties, authorities discovered a cache of DVDs labeled with the names of who was on it. They were labeled like: [underage girl]+[abuser]. Epstein’s houses were apparently extensively wired to record activities, particularly in the bedrooms and bathrooms. I suspect this whole thing will be handled as a sex-trafficking case and it should. But it seems to me it’s a blackmail scheme in the end. The girls were just the bait. Since the original announcement of the existence of said DVDs we haven’t heard much more about them. I wonder if we’ll hear anything about them during the trial.

These are some rich and powerful men caught up in this scam. They’ll use their wealth and power to protect themselves. My guess is, we’ll never hear anything about the DVDs or any mention of the men on them. Because the trial will work so hard to protect the men, it will be easier to defend Maxwell. Her defense team is trying to pretend Maxwell is only being prosecuted as a proxy to Epstein. I think Maxwell was fully in on the scheme. This should be an interesting trial, assuming it’s allowed to play out properly.

But trials playing out properly is not necessarily a given in this once-great nation…

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One that did, eventually, was the murder trial for a black man who was murdered for jogging while black. I was a little surprised to find that the original prosecutor in the Ahmaud Arbery murder, Jackie Johnson, declined to prosecute. Apparently, she knew and had worked with one of the killers, Greg McMichael. She has now been indicted for misconduct. She claims she was lied to by the investigating officers. I can’t see how she can be charged if she acted on incorrect information she had but they HAVE charged her so…I’d guess they have some evidence she knew Arbery was not out committing crimes. That was just her cover story to protect her good ol’ boy, racist friend. Might that make her an accessory after the fact?

The jury didn’t take long to find the defendants guilty. Apparently, the evidence was overwhelming. That’s going to hurt Johnson’s case. She might have had more wiggle room if there had been difficulty coming to conclusions but there wasn’t. If it was so obvious to the jury, why wasn’t it obvious to the prosecutor? She saw what she wanted to see and refused to look at things she didn’t want to see.

She almost got away with it, too. Or rather, helped the McMichael’s and William “Roddie” Bryan Jr get away with it. Apparently, after the shooting, rumors started flying, locally, about the shooters. The three thought they could quell the rumors by making available a video shot by Bryan – you know, to “document” how awesome they were in their conduct. Leave it to a dumbass racists to provide the detailed evidence against themselves. The video showed the opposite of awesome conduct and once it became available, there was a public outcry that the prosecutor had declined to prosecute. The Governor of Georgia had to get involved to make sure a trial even took place.

It seems Johnson, Greg and Travis McMichael and William Bryan Jr all agreed that Arbery was probably guilty of something being all covered with that black skin as he was. Then, as the trial progressed, one of the defense attorneys suggested the jury was racially biased. Eleven white people and one African-American and STILL the guy suggested the jury was racially biased.

The killers have all said they plan to appeal their outcome. They seem truly confused. All they did was see a black man, kill him, then come up with a cover story that didn’t hold water under investigation. My guess is, Mr. Arbery would have preferred a different outcome as well – only…there’s no way to “appeal” being murdered…