Rachel Maddow can now be called executive producer, for she last night showed her first documentary film,   From Russia with Lev .  The   follow-on program provided further details .  If you missed it, quickly record a replay, today, Saturday, 2PM, MSNBC.  This film should not be confused with a   2016 religious book with the same title . Think back to those days when Donald Trump was president, and he tried to extort new president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, leading to Trump's impeachment.  He was trying to taint Joe Biden through his son Hunter to eliminate Joe from running against him in 2020. If you read through the entirety of a lengthy  Wikipedia  treatment of this  Trump-Ukraine scandal , light mention is made of Lev Parnas ( left of Trump ) and Igor Fruman ( extreme left ) as associates of Rudy Giuliani.  Well, the documentary is all about the role of Parnas.  How the story went is in part shocking, yet revealing, about the do...

On the  covid front , South Korea, with 161,355 new cases this week, and the USA, with 79,513, had 87% of all new cases in the world this week.  However, many countries have stopped reporting. The good news is that S.Korea's weekly death rated dropped 38% and the USA 58% this past week. The USA led in most new deaths this past week with 171, Brazil #2 and S. Korea #3.  These three countries accounted for 73% of all world deaths. Only 116 days to Christmas.  You can already buy a few gifts of topical moment.  One thing about Donald Trump is that you can purchase all kinds of stuff featuring him.  As for example:      2.  The big seller, however, is his  mug shot mug .  Soon after his booking, just on Saturday, August 26, sold more than $4 million worth.  Want one?  You have a choice from  Amazon.com .  Only $17. Joe Biden articles can also be bought.  Only $16 for his Cup O' Joe. It gets cheaper with Rud...

According to the Bangkok Pos t today, two luxury nightclubs in town, Krystal and Emerald, are the epicenters of new COVID-19 outbreaks: Thailand went for months without a confirmed case of local transmission, but the epidemic has now radiated from luxury nightclubs that cater to powerful and wealthy men to the warrens of slums that hug Bangkok’s highways and railroad tracks. In these cramped quarters, social distancing is impossible. Infections have also spread to prisons, construction camps and factories. Among the newly infected from those nightclubs, an ambassador, government minister, police in the area and, of course, the women who worked there. When I traveled to Thailand in February of 2020, they were #2 to China in number of cases.  Over the next few months they fell to #120.   Yesterday, with 2817 new cases and 36 deaths, they rose to #80 in total cases. However, their deaths/million is 170, while that of the USA is 1840. Hawaii at 355 deaths/million is lowest o...