(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To The Last Post Of The Week By The Blog's Favourite Living Canadian)

Nobody knows anything.

That famous William Goldman line about Hollywood is even more applicable to our current state of political affairs. The evidence that this administration* is all crooks all the way down is as obvious as the Grand Canyon. That the president* is guilty of malfeasance in office while simultaneously gifting us all with unprecedented incompetence speaks louder than an air-raid siren.

But, still, we wonder when Robert Mueller will drop the big one, and, even if he does, will the president*'s hand-picked attorney general let us look at the damage? There are cases in Virginia and the southern district of New York, and even one in state court in Manhattan now, all of them featuring thieves and bounders associated with the 2016 Republican presidential campaign. And still, we don't know anything really, except that we know all we need to know.

Michael Cohen Yana Paskova Getty Images

It's time to push Congress. Hard. The moment Mueller drops his report, the congressional move to replace this bungler and grifter should begin in earnest and, if it doesn't, then we should howl loudly and constantly until it does. We are a free and self-governing people or we are not. The choice never has been starker than it is now. Next week is going to be an extended test of that proposition. Mueller may drop his report. Michael Cohen is going before Congress in public testimony. The entire administration*'s foul entrails will be draped on the trees lining the National Mall between the Capitol and the White House. We should walk slowly and look at every inch of them. If we're sickened by the stench, so much the better.

There are some amazing scams playing out in the laboratories of democracy that we missed during this week's semi-regular weekly survey. Take the shenanigans our pals at The Texas Tribune teased out about that state's attorney general, Ken Paxton, who is currently under only one indictment, and his wife, who is a state senator, and who is obviously devoted.



In what state Sen. Angela Paxton describes as an effort to safely expand Texas’ burgeoning financial tech industry, the freshman Republican from McKinney has filed a bill that would empower the office of her husband, Attorney General Ken Paxton, to exempt entrepreneurs from certain state regulations so they can market “innovative financial products or services.”

One of those exemptions would be working as an “investment adviser” without registering with the state board. Currently, doing so is a felony in Texas — one for which Ken Paxton was issued a civil penalty in 2014 and criminally charged in 2015.

Senate Bill 860, filed Friday, would create within the attorney general’s office a new program — what the bill calls a “regulatory sandbox” — that would allow approved individuals “limited access to the market … without obtaining a license, registration, or other regulatory authorization.” The bill, based on a 2018 Arizona law hailed as the first of its kind, aims to cut red tape for the growing financial tech sector, allowing businesses to market new products for up to two years and to as many as 10,000 customers with scant regulation.



A "regulatory sandbox"! Adorable! Make sure you buy Angela something nice for your anniversary, Ken.



Ken Paxton Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc Getty Images

But skeptics pointed to the bill’s optics problem: Ken Paxton, a statewide official accused of violating state securities law, would be empowered to decide who can skirt state securities law. And he’d get that power from a bill authored by his wife. Currently, Texas law requires investment advisers to register with the state. Failing to do so is a third-degree felony punishable by a sentence of two to 10 years.



Darn those skeptics. No respect for family values.

Then there's this jamoke down in Georgia, whom the Atlanta Journal-Constitution caught trying to build a legal empire within the state government.

So when another bruised and bloodied girlfriend told police he had flown into a rage and head-butted her and bit her finger at a camper park in Ellijay, Shell faced serious consequences. A grand jury charged him as a repeat offender, which could mean up to 20 years in prison for aggravated assault. Yet more than four years after his indictment, Shell remains a free man, the charges against him stymied. A big reason: He paid a large retainer fee to hire an attorney who is also one of Georgia’s most powerful lawmakers, state Speaker of the House David Ralston.

Just as Ralston has done for other clients charged with violent or heinous crimes, he used his elected position to delay hearings and court dates, preventing the case from moving forward in the Gilmer County justice system. “That’s why I gave him 20,000 bucks,” Shell told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “He’s worth every penny of it.”

Another satisfied customer.

David Ralston John Amis/AP/REX/Shutterstock

A joint investigation by the AJC and Channel 2 Action News found that Ralston appears to be misusing the power of his public office to benefit his private law practice. By doing no more than writing letters to judges declaring that court dates interfere with his lawmaking duties, he has been able to keep cases perpetually off the docket. But his tactics can thwart justice, harm crime victims and put the public at risk. Ralston has tied up cases for clients charged with child molestation, child cruelty, assault, terroristic threats, drunken driving and other crimes.

Often, he writes letters that stave off cases in bulk. That keeps his clients free on bond, while their chances of escaping harsh punishment get better with every passing year. “Please be advised that I am hereby requesting a continuance of these three cases from the criminal calendar call,” reads one of Ralston’s typical letters. “I hereby certify to the Court that my legislative duties and obligations will require that I be elsewhere on that date.” Under a state law dating back to 1905, judges and prosecutors must defer to the legislative schedule of any practicing attorney who serves in the General Assembly. Other attorney-lawmakers, though, are mainly relegated to claiming the exemption during the annual 40-day legislative sessions.

It's stories like this that make me wonder if bringing back the pillory isn't the best idea someone ever had. We have terrible stories about how the system grinds up poor and struggling defendants, and they are awful and they should be remedied immediately. But here we have a guy who's stringing victims along—and, you will note, victims of a certain kind of crime—just for a buck and because he can.

It looks like Speaker Ralston may have set off an insurrection in the Georgia House, however. His array of friends and supporters are enough to set a wharf rat off his feed. Again, from the J-C:



Former Govs. Roy Barnes and Nathan Deal both called The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in separate interviews to voice support for Ralston, who faces backlash after an investigation found he frequently delayed criminal court cases by claiming the dates interfered with his legislative duties. He later picked up two more endorsements: Gov. Brian Kemp’s office said he looks forward to continuing to work with Ralston. And Senate Pro Tem Butch Miller praised Ralston’s “diligence, perseverance and commitment.”



Leave it all up to the states. They're closest to the people they swindle.





Nick Cafardo Boston Globe Getty Images

Among my sportswriting brethren here in the Commonwealth (God save it!), none was more beloved than Nick Cafardo of The Boston Globe, who died suddenly on Wednesday at the age of 62.

Way back in 1986, when we all were following the doomed ship USS Buckner to its awful fate in Queens, we took advantage of a day off in Baltimore to drive up to Gettysburg and take the tour. On the way back, Nick got all pensive and said, "You know, that General Dan Sickles was the John McNamara of the Union Army." Time proved him correct that October. Rest in peace, my brother. May there be a bleacher beyond where the sun will shine on your face forever.

Weekly WWOZ Pick To Click: "Old Dog Blue" (Jim Jackson): Yeah, I pretty much love New Orleans.

Weekly Visit To The Pathe Archives: In anticipation of what promises to be the Infrastructure Week of all Infrastructure Weeks, here, from 1949, are some people doing repairs on the Eiffel Tower. You will note the lack of safety equipment and harnesses. Sort of like we all are every time Infrastructure Week comes around. History is so cool.

Robert Kraft Tim Bradbury Getty Images

Caution to all my sportswriting brethren and sistren, as the late Molly I. used to put it, sex slavery is not a big ha-ha hoot, and Bob Kraft could be in some serious trouble. Apparently, this was a massive human-trafficking operation covering most of Florida and it's not the kind of thing in which you want to find yourself entangled, even in a minor way. He might also want to tell the president* to stop helping because who knows, right? Is it irresponsible to speculate, as the Dolphin Queen once cautioned us, it would be irresponsible not to.

Hey, my favorite machine is still kicking ass. From Popular Mechanics:

Hippocamp marks the seventh inner moon. But Showalter and his colleagues weren't moon-hunting when they began to look at Hubble Space Telescope data about Neptune. Instead, they were trying to understand the interactions between the existing moons and a series of semi-rings called arcs, which were also discovered around Neptune in 1989.

"It was always in the back of our minds that there might be the possibility of discovering a small moon out around Neptune, but we didn’t expect to find one out in this location," Showalter says. It was found by taking Hubble data starting in 2004. When the images are distorted in a particular way, the points of light that represent small moons become more apparent—it's easier to follow their orbit by smudging an image to bias their brightness. There was one mysterious light source in there, unmistakably a moon, but smaller than anything else out there.

New Moon of Neptune is an album title just waiting to happen.

Is it a good day for dinosaur news, CNN? It's always a good day for dinosaur news!

The dinosaur fossil was found in Utah, where it lived 96 million years ago in a lush delta during the Cretaceous period. It's been named Moros intrepidus, which means "harbinger of doom." The dinosaur lived at the end of the allosaurs' reign at the top of the food chain and before Tyrannosaurus rex arrived. It's now the oldest tyrannosaur from the Cretaceous period found in North America. Medium-size tyrannosaur fossils have been found from the Jurassic period, about 150 million years ago. And then, about 81 million years ago during the Cretaceous, tyrannosaurs grew into giant predators and replaced allosaurs as the top of the food chain.

So what happened in between? Moros is helping researchers fill that 70 million-year gap, as well as provide a portrait of tyrannosaur lineage in North America. Moros links the earliest, smaller tyrannosaurs to Tyrannosaurus rex. Zanno and her team spent a decade searching for fossils from the Late Cretaceous period. They recovered teeth and a hind limb consisting of a femur, a tibia and parts of a foot belonging to Moros in the same area where Zanno found the fossil of a giant carnivorous carcharodontosaur. But Moros stood between 3 and 4 feet tall. The dinosaur they found was 7 years old when it died, a nearly full-grown adult that would have weighed around 172 pounds. The elongated leg and foot bones indicated that it would be a great runner.



Harbinger of Doom. Now that's a name for a critter that lived then to make us happy now.



The Committee had a collective inkling that this week's Top Commenter of the Week might just come in relation to Roger Stone's lachrymose appearance in federal court. The Committee, then, was primed and ready when Top Commenter William Smith checked in.



This guy's "momentary lapse of judgement" has lasted for fifty years. That may be a record.



While we check on that, enjoy these 71.65 Beckhams that are yours, my good man.

I'll be back on Monday for the start of what may be the greatest Infrastructure Week of all time. Be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake-line and, OK, make all the jokes you want.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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