"We have to be vicious just like they are. It's the only thing they understand."

Said President Trump, about the murder of Iryna Zarutska on the train in Charlotte. Trump presents the problem of violence as straightforward, easy to solve quickly if we simply have the will to go hardcore into law and order, with none of the liberal complexity.

Meanwhile, over at The Washington Post, there's "Trump blames Democrats for Charlotte stabbing. Records complicate the story. The case has sharpened partisan divisions about an intractable root of crime: how to treat the seriously mentally ill who pose risks of violence."

Is it really so complicated and intractable? WaPo urges readers to see "nuances" — basically the failure to deal with mental illness.

"Liebich has vigorously resisted suggestions of taking this step to satirise the authorities, rather than out of a wish to live as a woman."

Link to the London Times.

It should be noted that "Alexander Dobrindt, the interior minister, said Liebich had 'abused' the new gender self-identification law and it needed to be tightened up."

"I sincerely apologise for causing trouble despite being a person of no importance."

Said Kim Keon-hee, quoted in "The fall of a first lady: limos and luxury to a cell with no bed/Kim Keon-hee — the dog-loving wife of Yoon Suk-yeol, the impeached ex-president of South Korea — is in prison on suspicion of corruption and election meddling" (London Times).

Critics have compared Kim to Lady Macbeth, Marie Antoinette and, for her extensive cosmetic surgery, Michael Jackson. She lent an aura of glamour to Yoon, 64, a solemn former prosecutor.... There are 16 criminal allegations against her including suspicions that an expressway road project was changed to end in an area where her family owns land in Yangpyeong, east of Seoul.... Her one-person cell has a small table that can be used as a desk and for eating meals and a floor mattress to sleep on, said one source.... She can be held for up to 20 days while an indictment is prepared, but is unlikely to be granted bail according to legal analysts....

"Those are crimes against the vulnerable, and you’re putting them with a puppy who is vulnerable."

"We do not allow anyone whose crime involves abuse towards minors or animals — including any crime of a sexual nature. That’s a hard policy we have, so she will not be able to.”

Said Paige Mazzoni, head of Canine Companions, quoted in "Ghislaine Maxwell barred from service dog training at cushy prison camp." (NBC News).

"To easy LoL."

From "10 New Orleans Inmates Escape Jail Through Cell Wall Where Toilet Was Removed/Three escapees had been captured by Friday night. The Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office said the inmates might have had help from jail workers" (NYT): "A civilian employee of the sheriff’s office who was the only person monitoring security systems in the part of the jail where the escape occurred had left his station at the time to get food...."

"Everybody, don't worry about it. Don't panic. You're gonna be on that island as a tourist for decades and decades to come."

"I mean, you gotta be kidding me. This is going nowhere. This is distraction day in the United States of America."

Says Gavin Newsom — yes, he still has a podcast — addressing Trump's plan/"plan" to turn Alcatraz back into a prison, in "And, This is Escape From Alcatraz" (Podscribe, transcript + audio).

"A million plus people, I think it's 1.2 million last year came to Alcatraz and the island. I think the Park service that runs it generates $60 million a year in revenue. Back to my Doge point, this would cost tens of millions of dollars. You have to bring people onto the island, the workforce and everything else. [Trump] specifically directed his Department of Justice and, and he directed Secretary Burgum to start to put together a plan of action on this. I mean, I pray that they're focused on other things and not focused on the folly of this latest distraction...."

"Migrants deported from the US, and even 'dangerous' American citizens convicted of heinous crimes could be headed to a notorious hellhole prison in El Salvador..."

"After a meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele in San Salvador on Monday, Rubio announced that the [Terrorism Confinement Center] could begin accepting inmates from the US.... The inmates are... crammed into their cells for 23.5 hours a day, with each cell holding 65 to 70 prisoners. Rival gang members are often kept in the same cells.... The mega-prison is capable of holding 40,000 people, with Bukele offering to fill some of the vacancies with criminal migrants and convicted US citizens, for a fee...."

From "Inside El Salvador’s mega-prison where president has offered to hold ‘dangerous’ US citizens and criminal migrants" (NY Post).

Here's some video of Rubio:

"That's an offer President Bukele made. Obviously, we'll have to study at our end. There are obviously legalities involved. We have a Constitution. We have all sorts of things. But it's a very generous offer. No one's ever made an offer like that, and to outsource at a fraction of the cost, at least some of the most dangerous and violent criminals that we have in the United States...."

"The Executive Order establishes Government-wide the biological reality of two sexes and clearly defines male and female."

"All radical gender ideology guidance, communication, policies, and forms are removed. Agencies will cease pretending that men can be women and women can be men when enforcing laws that protect against sex discrimination. 'Woman' means an 'adult human female.' The Executive Order directs that Government identification like passports and personnel records will reflect biological reality and not self-assessed gender identity. The Executive Order ends the practice of housing men in women’s prisons and taxpayer funded 'transition' for male prisoners. The Executive Order ends the forced recitation of 'preferred pronouns' and protects Americans’ First Amendment and statutory rights to recognize the biological and binary nature of sex. This includes protection in the workplace and in federal funded entities like schools.... This order is one of nearly 200 executive actions the White House is rolling out today. Among them: orders to declare a national emergency at the border; end all DEI programs across the federal government; withdrawal from the Paris climate accord; and a return-to-office directive for federal workers."

From "EXCLUSIVE: Trump’s Day One Executive Order on ‘Male and Female’/The White House strikes out at gender ideology and pronouns. Also: ends housing of biological men in women’s prisons; self-ID on passports; and more" (Free Press).

"Timmerman said he had sneaked into Syria from Lebanon on a 'religious pilgrimage' to Damascus. 'I heard the word of God,' he explained."

"He ended up in a prison in the Syrian capital known as the 'Palestinian Division,' and was held in a separate ward until Monday morning, a day after rebels took over the capital and freed thousands of inmates. 'It was a chaotic scene. I had my prison clothes on, and another prisoner was with me. I was walking to Jordan,' he said, stopping to rest every night in a farm. A local guard in Zahayabeh said he came across him in the morning. 'He didn’t speak much Arabic, so I took him home. He told me he wanted to go to bed. When he woke up, he asked for a fried egg and a boiled egg. I gave him both and some pickled eggplant too, and then I called you,' he said, turning to a member of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist rebel group that has taken over Damascus. 'And then, the media attacked.'"

From "US ‘pilgrim’ Travis Timmerman found after seven months in Syrian jail/The discovery of the American in Damascus raises hopes for the family of Austin Tice, the journalist who was kidnapped by Assad’s regime in Syria in 2012" (London Times).

"A federal judge overseeing New York City’s violent jails, including Rikers Island... found the city in contempt for failing to stem violence and excessive force at the facilities..."

"... and said she was learning [sic] toward taking control of them. The judge, Laura Taylor Swain, said in a 65-page opinion that the city and its Department of Correction had violated the constitutional rights of prisoners and staff members alike by exposing them to danger, and had intentionally ignored her orders....Judge Swain’s ruling came nearly a decade after the city’s jails fell under federal oversight in a settlement of a class-action lawsuit brought by prisoners and the Legal Aid Society.... In the past two years, at least 33 people have died in the jails or shortly after being released...."

The NYT reports.

"There are grates in one of the rooms of 4 North. They have little holes. If you lay down, you can look through the holes and talk to the women one floor down and see them."

Said Gene Borrello, "a former mob enforcer who spent time in the unit," quoted in "Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs housed in low-security jail dorm alongside Sam Bankman-Fried — where inmates can spy on female convicts: sources" (NY Post).

"As prisoners arrived, they were stripped, searched and deloused, a process overseen by Dr. Zimbardo, who played the role of prison superintendent."

"Initially there were a few giggles among the participants, but as the guards began enforcing rules, the mock prison began to feel very real. Though critics have accused Dr. Zimbardo of coaching the guards to act sadistic, he told the guards only to 'create feelings of boredom, frustration, fear and a "sense of powerlessness,"' according to a defense of the study on his website. They were, he said, given no 'formal or detailed instructions about how to be an effective guard.' Within a day, the guards had become abusive and were engaging in psychological torture: making the prisoners defecate in buckets, waking them up repeatedly through the night, forcing them to simulate sodomy. Several prisoners suffered emotional breakdowns. But Dr. Zimbardo kept the study going...."

From "Philip Zimbardo, 91, Whose Stanford Prison Experiment Studied Evil, Dies/ His provocative research made him a popular figure on campus. But his exploration of how good people can turn evil raised ethical questions" (NYT).

"I decided to record my feelings right away, because all year I had been training for situations like today, developing what I call my 'prison Zen.'"

"Whatever way you look at it, nine years, especially in 'strict' conditions, is an extremely long sentence. In Russia, the average punishment for murder is seven years. A prisoner sentenced to an extra term of nine years is going to be upset, to say the least. When I got back to the prison, everyone—who of course already knew about the sentence—furtively gave me a particular kind of look. How was I taking it? What was the expression on my face? It is, after all, intriguing to see someone’s reaction when they have just been told they will be serving the longest sentence of anyone in the entire prison complex. And that they are going to be sent somewhere especially grim and usually reserved for murderers. Nobody is going to come over and ask how I feel, but everyone is curious to see how this plays out. It’s an occasion when a person might hang themselves or slash their wrists. But I am completely fine. Even 'my' jailer said in the course of a really annoying full strip search, 'You don’t look to me to be all that upset.' I am really O.K. I am writing this not because I am willing myself to keep up a pretense of being carefree and blasé but because my prison Zen has kicked in...."

From "Alexei Navalny’s Prison Diaries/The Russian opposition leader’s account of his last years and his admonition to his country and the world" (The New Yorker).

"It wasn’t until I was incarcerated that I got into makeup.... I’ve been in here for 28 years, so I’ve tried it all: using the string of a tampon to pluck, thread, and arch my eyebrows..."

"... because I couldn’t afford tweezers; using immersion heaters to melt down black checkers from the game board, let it dry, and make mascara... getting body soap a little wet to make hair gel for my edges, which dries white eventually; shaving down water color paints and colored chalk from art class to make eyeshadow; using that same paint as nail polish..."/"The... homemade makeup I’ve used is colored pencil eye shadow. I put a few drops of water in a lid from a jar of hair grease, dip the pencil in the water, then scrub it around until it becomes soft. Then I can just paint it onto my eyelids as desired. This could also be done with either graphite pencils or colored pencils. Occasionally I’ve painted my lips with M&Ms, licking the candy and rubbing it over my lips to color them. Long ago a friend of mine also taught me how to mix lotion, baby powder, and a few grains of freeze-dried coffee to make a foundation that was surprisingly good...."

From "Fighting for Beauty Behind Prison Walls/For incarcerated women, access to makeup can mean access to their authentic selves. So why is it often denied?" (NY Magazine).

"Russia freed wrongly convicted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich as part of the largest and most complex East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War..."

"... in which he and more than a dozen others jailed by the Kremlin were exchanged for Russians held in the U.S. and Europe, including a convicted murderer. Gershkovich and other Americans left Russian aircraft moments ago at an airport in Turkey’s capital, Ankara. Russia had kept the 32-year-old behind bars for more than a year on a false allegation of espionage. It sentenced him in a hurried and secret three-day trial to 16 years in a high-security penal colony. Moscow also released former Marine Paul Whelan, journalist Alsu Kurmasheva and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a British-Russian dissident and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, sentenced to 25 years in prison on treason-related charges. Russia also released a number of political dissidents. The sweeping deal involved 24 prisoners and at least six countries, and came together after months of negotiations at the highest levels of governments in the U.S., Russia and Germany, whose prisoner, Russian hit man Vadim Krasikov, emerged as the linchpin to the arrangement."

The Wall Street Journal reports (with no pay wall).

The New York Times seems to think Burgum's the one.

There's this in the center of the front page of the website:

   

The Biden "Tall Tales" story is in my screenshot because it's so absurd. The effort to make Biden's stumbling and lying lovable. Look, they even juxtaposed pandas...

Anyway, it's a friendly welcome to Burgum. The first article begins:

"This is all so unbelievable. It seems like a big joke. But the damage being done to America is a tragedy."

Writes Juan Williams in "Get ready to see Trump go to jail" (The Hill).

Nice use of the passive voice! Who's doing the damaging??!!

"Biden and his supporters are intent on making Trump the Nelson Mandela of America."

Said Trump pollster John McLaughlin, quoted in "How 'The Nelson Mandela of America' Is Making Bank Off of His Criminal Trial/'I’m catching up on my fucking sleep ’cause I’m bored,' Trump told one source" (The Bulwark).

Wow, that caught my eye, and not just because "I’m catching up on my fucking sleep ’cause I’m bored" is hilarious. Just this morning — and before reading that — I was saying, in conversation, that if Trump goes to jail the Trump movement will gain energy and "He'll become Nelson Mandela."

"Inmates in New York are suing to be allowed to see the solar eclipse."

WaPo reports.

The six plaintiffs in the class-action suit filed Friday, who are Christian, Muslim, Santerian and atheist, are... arguing it has religious significance. Some said it is critical to their practice of their faith — because the Bible describes the sun going dark during the crucifixion of Jesus Christ; because Muslims perform a special prayer upon the eclipse; and because it is important in the Santeria faith to make a spiritual offering.

“Watching the eclipse with the people I know here is a way for me to feel closer to God,” wrote Travis Hudson, a Protestant Baptist....

"Our former president WANTS to wear the orange jumpsuit. He's just taunting them now, asking for it. Can this be seen as anything but contemptuous behavior?"

Writes mezzrow in the comments to the first post of the day, which is about Trump's saying things like "This is a disgrace to our Legal System/Judge Merchan should be immediately sanctioned and recused."

Trump wants a prison sentence? I don't believe that. I think he's fighting hard, in his own stubbornly perverse, insubordinate, rebellious way.

But if he gets what mezzrow thinks he wants, and if he's also elected President, how would that work? I recommend house arrest in the White House.

You may not remember, but back in 2009, I recommended that the President of the United States stay in the White House and not travel: "Let the President stay in the White House — or, at most, retreat to Camp David." I was thinking of the expense and carbon footprint of Presidential travel and all of the security needs and risk as well as the world's extreme dependence on the U.S. President to be constantly on the job to deal with emergencies. 

So it would set a good example for President Trump to serve his term under house arrest. And let the rest of the U.S. Presidents voluntarily confine themselves to the White House. If any personal appearances are truly needed, they can be virtual....