That Otto Warmbier autopsy report will be quite the news item when it finally comes out. Apparently there was no evidence of botulism, and if there was any evidence of beatings or abuse of any sort, it’s likely to show up in the autopsy report. I’m surprised the North Koreans released him when he was so close to death. They’d rendered him brain dead already, you think they could have buried him somewhere and then executed the grave diggers, like were done to the hundreds who built Genghis Khan’s tomb, and then the guy who designed it. (Risky business, Mongol tomb building). But a nation that executes its prisoners by anti aircraft guns, mortars, rocket grenades and flamethrower probably doesn’t think much about autopsies. Instead they let Trump (or was it Dennis Rodman?) bring the still breathing body home to his parents to die among friends, family, and world class pathologists. The bizarre botulism explanation isn’t holding up (where do the North Koreans get these ideas? Quincy?) and if the kid’s sad corpse reveals any signs of the abuse that killed him–and it almost surely will–then we suddenly have ourselves a big giant foreign policy catastrophe on our hands. Let loose the pups of war, the curs upon the land. Fortunately, Defense Secretary Mattis (the one member of the Administration who didn’t kiss Trump’s ass in that kowtowing excuse of a cabinet meeting last week) just laid out in some detail how awful a war with North Korea would be to members of Congress.  Among other things, he said, you can kiss Seoul goodbye. Did the president hear the same information? Or more importantly, are there Trump properties in Seoul within range of Kim Jong-un’s guns? (Actually, there are.) Meanwhile, friends and family of Otto Warmbier watch as his body is lowered into the earth. His part in all this is all over, even as the plot thickens. It’s an incredibly sad story with a finish right out of old time radio. How will it end? Only the Shadow knows.

Apparently the Donald Trump statue, where the Washington Monument is now, will be even bigger, the biggest ever.