Free Cosby? 

Theater of the Absurd:  Yesterday, a judge in California denied Britney Spears’ request that her father be removed as her co-conservator, bad news for the sometimes erratic pop star who shaved her head and got married impulsively in Las Vegas but has never been convicted or even accused of any crimes.  Bill Cosby who admitted in a civil case to dosing women with quaaludes to in order to have nonconsensual sex with them, evidence that was used against him in his criminal trial, had a far better day.  Cosby was released from jail after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his sexual assault conviction over a technicality, ruling that due to a “non-prosecution agreement” with a previous prosecutor that had “induced” him to cooperate in a related case he should not have been charged in the first place. Perhaps because who really cares about the fifty women he drugged and then assaulted the court also ruled that he could not be retried.  To be clear, the court didn’t say that Cosby wasn’t a despicable sexual predator, they just decided that his quaalude admission shouldn’t have been used against him. It should surprise no one that the previous prosecutor who agreed to that “non-prosecution agreement” because he didn’t think he could get a criminal conviction was Bruce Castor, the much ridiculed lawyer who defended the Former Guy in his second impeachment trial, the defense that a below average monkey could have won given that no one ever expected enough Republican Senators would vote to convict.  Taking a page from the FG’s playbook,  Cosby who never showed any remorse for his actions, flashed a victory sign as he returned to his suburban Philadelphia home. His TV wife, Phylicia Rashad, stepped into a huge pile of sh-t when she celebrated his release by tweeting “FINALLY!!!! A terrible wrong is being righted - a miscarriage of justice is corrected!" Though Rashad tried to walk back her tweet with a subsequent one that affirmed her support for victims of sexual abuse, it can’t easily be forgotten which explains why Howard University where Rashad serves as Dean released a statement that her initial tweet “lacked sensitivity towards survivors of sexual assault.”  You think?    

Indictment Day: In other legal news, late yesterday several media outlets reported that the Manhattan District Attorney and the New York Attorney General obtained indictments against the Trump Organization and its CFO Allen Weisselberg.  Those indictments which  relate to unreported compensation, things like free luxury apartments, tuition and the like, are expected to be unsealed in court this afternoon at 2 PM.  To be clear, assuming the reports are correct, neither the FG nor any of his family members were indicted, at least so far.  The widely held view is that Weisselberg who is scheduled to show up in court today was indicted because he refused to play ball with prosecutors who still hope to pressure him into cooperating.  Today’s charges are probably just the prosecutor’s opening barrage because if they don’t have more, the FG could emerge relatively unscathed, maybe even more empowered, from what he is continues to call just more of that witch hunt being waged against him by various and sundry disgruntled Democrats from the woefully inept state and city that can’t even conduct elections.  He does have a point about NYC and it’s Board of Elections which yesterday released corrected preliminary results of the city’s Mayoralty contest.  Unlike the first report, this one does not include any test ballots but like the previous one it shows Eric Adams in the lead by about 2 points with Kathryn Garcia in second place. Over 120,000 absentee ballots have not yet been counted, their inclusion could upturn the results in more ways than one.  Not only is it possible that Garcia could overtake Adams, emerging as the next Mayor but it’s also possible, though unlikely, that Maya Wiley who Garcia barely edged out for second place after the ranked choice voting was computed could emerge on top.  Stay posted.

Politics Unusual:  Yesterday the House voted to create a select committee to investigate the January 6^th insurrection.  Only two Republicans, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger crossed the aisle to  join with the Democrats to create the committee.  It’s not clear yet if Speaker Pelosi will ask either of them to sit on the committee but if she does Kinzinger appears interested in doing so.  For her part Cheney released a statement saying that she would have much preferred a bipartisan commission but with that choice no longer on the table she felt she had to vote for the select committee because insurrections can’t be ignored.  She pointed out that 34 of her Republican House colleagues had also voted for the bipartisan commission, her way of noting how they had all skulked away for this vote.  One of those skulkers, GOP Leader Qevin McCarthy did do something yesterday.  He tasked Trump acolyte Congressman Devin Nunes with looking into Tucker Carlson’s assertions that he is being stalked by the NSA because when Tucker speaks Qevin jumps, high.  And isn’t it more important to make Tucker happy than to get to the bottom of the insurrerction?  That’s the attack that came so close to doing away with VP Pence that it’s reported that one of his protectors shot insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt while she was trying to break in to the Capitol.