The World Turns

You take a week off and the world turns.

South Korea has an attempted self-coup a.k.a. autogolpe, which failed within hours, probably irrevocably dooming the President's conservative leaning party. The attempt failed because in South Korea, even conservatives have some morals and respect the rule of law. Heads are starting to roll (figuratively) at high levels in the South Korean government, although the President has so far postponed an immediate impeachment or resignation. The brief and illegal imposition of martial law was trigged when the majority in parliament tried to impeach several corrupt prosecutors, challenged the President's personal scandals, and wouldn't agree to his budget proposals and the President wanted to shut down his legislative opposition. I fear that the U.S. will not perform as well in the near future when faced with a similar challenge. Republicans are spineless and no longer care about democracy or the rule of law.

In Syria, the thirteen year civil war has ended with the sudden collapse of the Assad regime, now that his two key sponsors, Russian and Iraq, are distracted, ending half a century of dictatorship. The U.S. continues to bomb ISIS forces in parts of Syria that neither the Assad regime, nor the main rebel groups, control.

Russia's economy is starting to seriously stumble two and three-quarters years after it restarted it war with Ukraine.

The Prime Minister of the Bahamas has rejected a request by President-elect and convicted felon awaiting sentencing, Donald Trump, to receive people he wants to deport from the U.S.

Trump has also admitted that his tariff plan will cause U.S. prices to surge, even though he was elected with a central campaign tenant of reducing inflation, and that he plans to carry out many baseless federal criminal prosecutions as a way of securing revenge against his enemies (something that President Biden could short circuit with preemptive pardons). 

Biden, of course, pardoned his son who was convicted of a federal charge, now that he is a lame duck, which is less honorable than trying to thwart Trump. If he has the guts he will commute the sentences of everyone on federal death row to life in prison, thwarting Trump's efforts to execute more people has he did in the final days of his first term. Of course, Trump won't officially be the President elect until the Presidential electors vote on December 17, 2024, although the outcome is a foregone conclusion.

Also, UnitedHealthcare's CEO was murdered in Manhattan. Murder is bad, but he surely deserved it. Behind every great fortune is a great crime.  Big health care companies murder people by spreadsheet every day.

Netflix has a new show called Jentry Chau vs. the Underworld described as follows:

But since Texas is basically hell already, and is already fully of creatures more terrifying than those in any myth, this appears to be basically an evil v. evil conflict, so it might not be all that interesting.