Hello Australia!! - Hurricane Harvey slams Texas and flood waters are rising - As his country faces natural disaster, Trump pulls some total d*ck moves - Yingluck has fled to... - And more in your CareerSpot Global News Briefs:

At least one person is dead after Hurricane Harvey hit the Gulf of Mexico coast of Texas.  The wind damage is bad enough - the category four cyclone did all of the expected things, snapping trees and power poles, tearing walls and roofs off of buildings, tossing cars and trucks around like toys, scattering debris all over.  But Harvey is an incredibly wet storm, and a lack of strong weather coming out of California means that the storm will stay there over Texas as long as five days; the landscape in southeastern Texas is wide and flat, and there is nowhere for flood water to go but the Gulf - slowly.  Oh, and the ground is saturated. 

Donald Trump said, "Good luck," to Texans before heading off to the presidential retreat at Camp David - And then came the ultimate Friday night news dump. 

First:  Under cover of a killer hurricane, the White House announced that Trump issued his first presidential pardon - to the notorious Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was found guilty of criminal contempt and facing jail time for showing "flagrant disregard" toward a court order ordering his agency to stop racially profiling Latinos.  Arpaio's jail - which he joyfully described as a concentration camp - was condemned by human rights groups for its shameless violations of civilized standards, unexplained and un-investigated inmate deaths, housing inmates in filthy outdoor tents in the baking desert, refusing to provide healthcare for diabetics and inmates with other urgent medical conditions, and once segregating Latino prisoners behind electrified wire.  Arpaio's crimes against humanity were listed in an epic Tweetstorm by the newspaper Phoenix New Times.

Although no-one ever did anything about Arpaio until the criminal case, a few Republicans and all Democrats condemned the S.O.B. and the pardon.  Of course, Republican criticism over the years had been much softer because that party had been cultivating far-right votes since 1968.  And that fact remains, Arpaio was allowed to do all this during two Democratic and one Republican presidency (by comparison, John F. Kennedy sent in the National guard to stop a racist governor from barring black kids from public school).  The mainstream conservative Arizona Republic newspaper blasted Trump for short-circuiting justice:  "By pardoning Arpaio, Trump made it clear that institutional racism is not just OK with him.  It is a goal," the editorial board wrote.  "The pardon was a sign of pure contempt for every American who believes in justice, human dignity, and the rule of law."

But the arrogance of a Trump pardon for such a vile individual sets up a potential constitutional crisis:  There are those who believe that Trump has violated the constitutional separation of powers between the co-equal branches of the US government (executive, legislative, judicial - now you know more about the US government than most Americans).  There was no trial error in Arpaio's case, and his conviction didn't violate any laws; therefore, some believe, Trump's pardon guts the Court's constitutional role of counter-balancing the power of the executive.  I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the wimpy Democratic party to challenge Trump on this, nor waiting on the Republican-controlled congress to impeach that creep.

But Trump wasn't done:  The Second offense was to signed a presidential memo directing the Pentagon to implement the ban on transgender individuals trying to enlist in the military.  The bullshyte excuse is to increase military "readiness", although that has already been discredited - Trump is just acting on hate and throwing more red meat to his dwindling base.  The order gave  Defense Secretary James "Mad Dog" Mattis wide discretion on determining if thousands of transgender troops already serving their country would be allowed to remain in the military.  There was plenty of condemnation for this disgrace, but the best came from US Navy veteran Jennifer Detlefsen, the daughter of Trump's Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke:  "This veteran says sit down and shut the f--k up, you know-nothing, never-served piece of s--t," she wrote, "This man is a disgrace. I've tried to keep politics out of my social media feed as much as possible, but this is inexcusable."

Third:  The White House jettisoned the controversial advisor Sebastian Gorka, whose purpose in the administration was never clear - not even to Trump.  The British-born Gorka was famous for declaring "the era of the pajama boy is over" and "the alpha males are back" in a sort of unrealistic, affected, pan-European not heard since since Madonna and actress Kathleen Turner moved to London and decided they were sophisticated Continentals.  Pajama-boy Gorka reportedly had his security clearance pulled by Chief of Staff John Kelly, and then decided it was time to bail.  Being a member of the alt-right, drama queen Gorka handed in a hysterical resignation letter in which he accused staffers of undermining Trump's agenda.  Nah, Trump's still a pile of crap, it's just that you were even more worthless.  Gorka allegedly overstated his qualifications and had links to a Hungarian neonazi group.

Moving along...

North Korea launched three missiles, but the tests apparently didn't go very well.  The most successful only flew a couple of hundreds of kilometers in a northeast direction before dropping into the sea.  North Korea had previously threatened US forces in Guam, but these missiles went into teh other direction.

Former Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra did flee the country before the verdict in her bullshyte corruption trial was read.  She's in Dubai, and will reportedly seek asylum in the UK.  Yingluck was deposed in the 2014 and was put on trial for her rice subsidy scheme that helped farmers in the country instead of the wealthy, conservative elites in Bangkok.

Spain's king and Prime Minister were part of an anti-terrorism march of 500,000 people in Barcelona.  Interestingly, most of marchers said "I'm not afraid" in the Catalan language favored by the local movement that wants to secede from Spain and leave the king and PM in the rear-view.  So that might have been uncomfortable.