GO SKATEBOARDING DAY UPDATES
A Cool Thing To Do On the Summer Solstice!
-The political and legal worlds continue to reel in slack-jawed amazement at the job Fox News' Bret Baier did in leaving Twice-Indicted Ex-President (TIEP) Trump a reeling, slack-jawed mess in a two-part interview. Part One on Monday saw Trump continue to defend his actions in the classified documents case, causing more would-be lawyers to flee after once again admitting he certainly did keep those documents and certainly did not return them - because alternately in his belief that the Presidential Records Act means they are his records forever, his insistence that he was SOOOO busy he simply could not search through all those boxes to find the documents the Feds wanted back, and most amazingly because of his assertion that the bankers boxes not only contained those documents, but also lots and lots of shirts and pants and other clothing in the boxes! (Oh, and he again insisted he won the 2020 Presidential election "by a LAHT!" (he did not - Trump was defeated soundly by Joe Biden in 2020 in one of the cleanest elections in American history.)
-As if that wasn't enough, in yesterday's segment he praised the campaign of "Democratic" candidate "JFK Jr." (presumably he meant Robert - as in "RRRRR-FK, Jr."), hemmed and hawed about the COVID vaccine he took but cannot advocate because his base believes it's poison, and in an exchange in which he was told a woman he pardoned on a drug charge would have been executed under one of his new 'proposals' he would theoretically enact in a theoretical second Trump term, responded with - and I quote directly - "WHAAA?!" and "AAAAAAAHHHH" and "No. No. No. Under my, oh, under that? Uh ...."
-Ah well, while the rest of the country sifts through the ashes of those interviews, Rolling Stone reported there was ONE person who thought the interview went just swimmingly, showing a tough Trump giving as good as he got and looking strong while doing it ... and if you guessed that the ONE person we are talking about is TIEP Trump, what do you want - a cookie? Of COURSE Trump would say that! Haven't you been watching?!
-Meanwhile, the rest of the GOP has been having a collective meltdown over the plea deal reached between the DoJ and the GOP's Most Evilest Person Ever Anywhere Ever: Hunter Biden. As Republicans decried what they saw as a super-lenient deal, other observers noted that not many people have charges of not filing taxes and trying to purchase a weapon while being an addict as worthy of a five-YEAR investigation, much less get the kind of sentence Hunter got - that, in fact, the case showed Biden was actually given MORE scrutiny than other Presidential children with drug issues - ALLEGEDLY. Besides, those same folks note, why not take it up with the prosecutor - a Trump appointee who repeatedly reported he got zero pressure from any of his bosses as his investigation concluded. And, as Ann Coulter (of all people) observed, why hate on Hunter when he (a) has attorneys that are (b) competent and (c) he listens to them?
-Burrrnnnnn...
-No worries, though, because today's UltraMAGA House docket is full today! It starts with testimony from Special Prosecutor John Durham to explain why his investigations into the FBI investigation into Trump during the 2016 election yielded a handful of indictments and zero convictions, the second attempt in a week to censure Rep. Adam Schiff for Schiff daring to speak truth to power in leading the first Trump impeachment, and a motion by Rep. Lauren Boebert (N-R-A, CO) to impeach President Biden for apparently not being TIEP Trump - or something ... (no word on whether the Boebs will actually be present for the vote). Your tax dollars at work!
-Speaking of working dollars, yet another Supreme Court ethics issue has arisen, as ProPublica reports Justice Sam "I Killed Roe" Alito was treated to a $100,000 fishing trip in 2008 courtesy of Paul Singer, a billionaire who, in what Alito sees as a total coincidence, received a favorable vote in a SCOTUS case Alito heard in 2014 that ultimately netted Singer $2.4 billion. Alito was alerted to the story and wrote a pre-emptive op-ed in the Wall Street Journal to try to insulate him, but it is yet another chip out of people trusting the Court on anything - as public trust in the Court is at an all-time lower and getting lower.
-Oh, and FUN FACT to end today's update: Paul Singer was a long-time financial supporter of the Washington Times - the same Republican company who, in an effort to support their preferred 2016 Presidential candidate, Jeb! Bush, paid for oppo research into TIEP Trump from the company Fusion GPS, which created the now-infamous Steele Dossier that Trump and the GOP now use as proof that the FBI needs to be defunded. Oh, the tangled webs we weave ...
-On this date in 1788, the Constitution was ratified. On this date in 1893, the first Ferris wheel debuted at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. (You're welcome, world!) On this date in 1945, the U.S. defeated Japan in the battle of Okinawa in what became the last major battle of World War II. On this date in 1964, the terrorist Ku Klux Klan murdered three civil rights activists - James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner - working to register voters in Philadelphia, MS. On this date in 1975, JAWS was released. And on this date in 1997, the WNBA started play.
-Happy Birthday to Reinhold Niebuhr, Al Hirschfeld, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jane Russell, Judy Holliday, Carl Stokes, Lalo Schifrin, Bernie Kopell, Ron Ely, Mariette Hartley, Joe Flaherty, Ray Davies, Tony Scott, Meredith Baxter-Birney and Michael Gross (they're the same age!), Joey Kramer, Nils Lofgren, Benazir Bhutto, Rick Sutcliffe, Berkeley Breathed, Kip Winger, Lana Wachowski, Derrick Coleman, Jim Breuer, Alisyn Camerota, Frank Vogel, Juliette Lewis, Chris Pratt, Richard Jefferson, Brandon Flowers, Prince William, Lana Del Rey, Michelle Wolf and Scotttie Scheffler. (Busy!)
-Rest in Peace/Rest in Power to Niccolo Machiavelli, Santa Anna, Maureen Connolly, Frank Leahy, Al Campanis, Carroll O'Connor, John Lee Hooker, Leon Uris, Bob Evans, Charles Krauthammer, and James Rado.
-Feed the Worms: Proto-MAGAt Dana Rohrabacher entered Earth on this date.
-Gretchen Carlson, Mancow Muller, Jussie Smollett and Edward Snowden were born on this date. You decide if they get a Happy Birthday or if they Feeds the Worms.