It was a freak show, and analogous to something. But he couldn't yet put his finger on it.

  The main witness on Day 2 of the Ray trial was Santos Rosario. He was one of three children of a Dominican travel agent in The Bronx, and was going to Sarah Lawrence College in upscale Bronxville. But soon he was in the spell of Larry Ray, with his tales of Mikhail Gorbachev and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

  In one video the prosecution played for the jury, but did not make available to the Press on USAfx, at least not yet, Santos Rosario was slapping himself hard in the face, both sides, ostensibly to make his sister stop talking. But the sister just continued to sit on the couch. A TV sit-com, seemingly That 70s Show, played on wall TV in the background.

   It was depressing, that a person could be made to do this, or did this. Why didn't he just leave the apartment? The jurors must be asking themselves that, too. But what was the analogy to?

   Certainly not to Ukraine. They were not just taking it. Zelenskyy was calling out Putin for war crimes, in videos from the government compound in Kiev. Why didn't the Russians just bomb it, as they were elsewhere in Ukraine? Did the country still have air defenses?

And why did the US turn down Poland's offer of the double-switch of MIGs for other used jets, and supply the Ukrainians. Supposedly to avoid escalating. But wouldn't that happen anyway, if Putin tried to move beyond Ukraine?

  Meanwhile the UN kept lying, doubling down on denying that the Department of Global Communications under Melissa Fleming had ordered UN staff not to use the word "war." But Kurt had it in black and white, and published it. He emailed the question to Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric. Nothing.

They thought they could just double down. And maybe they'd get away with it, as they had with killing 10,000 people in Haiti with cholera they brought. Laughing all the way to the bank, now in Lisbon. #TheManyWeaselsOfWallStreet.