Leave Us to Our Free Election (Pericles, Prince of Tyre: II,iv)

Now, THIS is what a Presidential election year's final stretch should look like: dead even for the average of all polls as of yesterday (according to Projects 538). 

For this last week of campaigning the public opinion pollsters will turn honest, since it is only their last pre-election poll that they'll be judged by. Before then, we should treat polls as efforts to shape opinion. At least, the free kind of polls that get publicly reported. The good poll results that you have to pay for are presumably closer to reality all along.

I'm probably in a small minority here, but I do love it when, as the days tick down, desperation strikes and pressure reveals character. Were it up to me, every year would be election year. 

  

As The Trumpening Gets Closer, Hillary Sees Hitler Yet Again

Hillary's latest all-my-enemies-are-Hitler screed is so profoundly boring because she, like most other U.S. politicians for the last eight decades, has been seeing Hitler wherever she looks. 

The WaPo ran a nice piece ten years ago about some of those prior occasions. 

That guy has been everywhere some actual or would-be President has wanted to see him: in Russia, Iraq (on multiple occasions), Serbia, Syria, Vietnam, even Nicaragua. It's a regular Where's Waldo? for lazy pols and voters who lack any real historical appreciation. 

Honestly, she ought to try seeing some other looming figure of all-encompassing evil now and then, just for a change of pace. 

And her Madison-Square-Garden-as-Hitler's-playground is an even more ridiculous stretch. MSG has held every type of political event you can imagine including Democrat and Republican nominating conventions. 

If you want to hate on MSG do it because Billy Joel played 150 concerts there. But give the Hitler fantasies a rest. 

Harry Dunn Sequel Review: Slow Pacing, Terrible PR, Doom Production

He may look dumb but that's just a disguise 

He's a mastermind in the ways of espionage 

Ballad of the Uneasy Rider - Charlie Daniels (1973) 

Well, what do you know? The extradition came off at long last, so our International Man of Mystery may actually appear in a UK court someday. 

Yet, the UK tabloid reaction to this stunning advance of Justice has so far been oddly subdued, it seems to me. No national celebration either, such as attended every bit of the original Harry Dunn production. 

  

The Daily Mirror had as much detail as any, here, and at least one quote I haven't seen elsewhere. 

Both public and press seem fundamentally bored with our Agent Double O Aspergers, despite how the tabloid build-up of this case featured endless repetition of the terms 'intelligence soldier,' secret services, Official Secrets Act, SAS, and much more of an equally lurid appeal.  

Have the West Mercia Police lost all appreciation of the desperado they have taken in? I hope they're keeping him under constant observation in their most Mission Impossible type escape-proof cell, because I shudder to think what capabilities an 'intelligence solider' from the Texas National Guard could bring to bear on a rinky-dink police lock-up. (Check out the original movie in the Rambo franchise if you want details.)  

By the way, how unusual is it for the U.S. to agree to the extradition of a citizen to the UK for criminal prosecution? Not unusual in the least, it turns out. In fact, with the sole exception of the immune diplomat in the Harry Dunn case, the U.S. has approved every single extradition request from the UK. 

You can find this statement in the record of a question period in Parliament from 2020: 

"Since the [current extradition] treaty came into force [in 2007], the United States has never refused to extradite somebody sought by the U.K." 

That sounds definitive. So then, you might wonder, why does the Dunn family's spokesman and brain trust keep saying the opposite? From the Daily Mirror's story:

He said: “We all know America is highly reluctant to extradite nationals and we have had to move heaven and Earth to make that happen. It is a minor miracle to see the defendant back in our jurisdiction.” 

That's easy. Because telling self-aggrandizing lies is what he does. Expect plenty more.

Another quote from the Daily Mirror, this one from a prosecutor in the case, is just as self-aggrandizing if not exactly a lie.    

Prosecutor Kate Leonard said: “We worked closely with the US to ensure our extradition request was expedited.”

Really? Lets look at the timeline of key events. The crash occurred in July, 2023. The American driver skipped a UK court appearance and became a fugitive in December 2023. He was taken into custody in the U.S. on an extradition warrant in July 2024, and a leisurely ten weeks after that, in October 2024, he was picked up by West Mercia Police and returned to the U.K. His next court appearance is scheduled for November 2024. 

She calls that "expedited?" Hey, I work for a government too, but that is some slow-rolled process.

 

Frankly it's getting to be a struggle to maintain my interest in this one. Here's hoping our Texas National Guardsman will break bad and shake things up in that lazy low drive land.