NATIONAL RAVIOLI DAY UPDATES
it's Also International Day of Happiness - Same Difference if You're Talking Ravioli!
-First, a personal THANK YOU for getting my previous update well into triple-digits for the first time ever! It is appreciated and PLEASE keep spreading the word and making it worthy of attention! Let’s see how many people will enjoy!!!
-If you are not scrambling amongst alleged billionaire friends (“CALL ME BACK, ELON!”) or in-laws (“CALL ME BACK, JARED!”) or Russian oligarchs (“CALL ME BACK, MANAFORT – THAT’S WHY I HIRED YOU AGAIN!”), you are having a likely better day than Ex-President Trump (R-apist) LXXXVIII, who by all accounts and his own more-unhinged-than-normal social media posts continues to be unable to find $454M or so of cash to satisfy the judgment made against him by the State of New York and the waiting-to-start-seizin’-property Attorney General Tish James. As of this moment it does not appear he has the cash, and word is that even trying to sell various properties have the potential to expose any number of loans and liens and leverages that may already be on any or most (or all?) of Trump properties, so Monday awaits and the clock ticks …
-… and Trump’s other court proceedings plod on – and in a sane world, his filings would lead to a round of high-pitch sustained laughter at his team’s attempts to get out of his court proceedings. In the Supreme Court, Trump’s filings to attempt to secure The All Mighty Power To Do Everything He Wants With No Concerns For Punishment Whatsoever (paraphrased) leaned on loops of logic that contradicted arguments made earlier in the brief as well as taking the seminal Marbury v. Madison decision and literally trying to make it say the opposite of what it says. And in FL, watchers are really beginning to wonder why Special Prosecutor Jack Smith is not working overtime to finally take the classified documents case away from MAGA Trump Judge Aileen Cannon, who on Monday issued two rulings that observers noted would, if either were to be enacted, throw the entire case out for dubious-to-insanely-wrong legal logic. The cases – and the delays – continue …
-On top of all that, Trump’s performance in yesterday’s primaries continues to signal weaknesses within the MAGAGOP party vis a vis support for their nominee. In FL, KS, and OH, Nikki Haley continues to get double-digits and more despite her dropping out – and reports persist that funders of the Haley campaign are now starting to work with the Biden re-election campaign, revealing further cracks in that party’s foundation. There are also reports that the Trump small-donor funding machine that has always generated funds for him since 2015 is sputtering as well, being both smaller and simply not generating the donations it once did.
-There is even the report that the average polling nationally now has Biden in the lead for the first time since September (which explains the New York Times running a BOTHSIDER story about Democratic “protest voting” being larger than normal – and while in MI there are clear issues with a base upset about Biden’s support of Israel and Netanyahu, the fact is the Biden primary performance continues to be well in the 90% range, as an incumbent in a strong position and solid base backing should.
-Speaking of the primaries, with the Senate in play the nominees there will be important, and a wild and important November match-up was made yesterday in OH. There, three-term incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown – the lone Democrat in power in the red-trending state – will face a lulu of a red challenger in one Bernie Moreno.
-Moreno checks a number of boxes for the MAGAGOP: he is a hardcore abortion zealot who promises to vote for a full ban on the procedure nationally (despite the state of OH enshrining abortion rights in their constitution last year), a car dealership owner whose stores are mostly outside the state of OH and who admitted in a lawsuit that he destroyed documents in order to not pay overtime to his workers (while also being a proud opponent of any minimum wage whatsoever) and is a proud and loud LGBTQI bigot (who, of COURSE, denied a story that he had run an ad soliciting gay sex for himself, calling the ad a ‘prank’ run by an ‘intern’). Moreno did, of course, get the COMPLETE AND TOTAL ENDORSEMENT of Party Leader Trump, and it was at Moreno’s GOTV rally over the weekend that Trump unleased his now-notorious ‘bloodbath’ comment.
-Expect the self-funding Moreno and the progressive hero Brown to battle in what will be one of the ugliest and wackiest races coming up …
-Oh, boy – apparently Hick Javert Wannabe Rep. James Comer (HunteR!, KY) just won’t let go of Hunter Biden or his need to be publicly humiliated trying and failing hilariously to put a glove on Hunter or his dad, as yet another Hunter Biden hearing is now taking place as this update is being assembled. Amongst Comer’s witnesses are a long-ago discredited Hunter associate with the funny ha-ha name of Tony Bobulinski and another pro-Comer witness currently residing in jail. Democrats, again proving they now know how to put on a show in a way that runs rings around the people putting the show on, has already featured Rep. Jamie Raskin running a picture of Boblinski listening to a previous hearing with special guest Kid Rock, Rep. Jared Moskowitz appearing at the hearing wearing a Vladimir Putin mask, and a Democratic witness list consisting of former Rudy Giuiani corrupt Ukrainian contact Lev Parnas. In short, a total clown show as usual …
-While we all were sleeping, the 2024 Major League Baseball season began! After a bomb scare at the stadium where the game was played, the Los Angeles Moneybags – er, Dodgers – scored t four runs in the 8th inning to continue their dominance over the San Diego Padres 5-2 in a game played in Seoul, South Korea. Expect this season to be full of questions as to whether Shohei Otani and the Dodgers will be able to buy Series ring with a $317M payroll, as well as substories involving efforts to build new stadia in Chicago and Las Vegas, potential expansion (Nashville, Salt Lake City, Portland and Charlotte being the favorites), and the rumblings of yet another labor dispute that could lead to yet another work stoppage in 2026. Until then, and mostly starting next weekend, PLAY BALL!
-And in Spy Movie Franchise News, if reports are to be believed, we have a new James Bond – and that new Bond is reportedly Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who cut his teeth for the job by starring in a pair of Marvel superhero franchises as Quicksilver (in AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON) and KICK-ASS (as, well, Kick-Ass), as well as the 2014 GODZILLA and the Christopher Nolan time-bender TENET. Johnson would become Bond Number Seven - and yes I can name the others by memory: Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, Daniel Craig, and Aaron-Taylor Johnson (I don’t count all the Bonds in CASINO ROYALE, fun as that would be)! Dah-dah – DAH-DAAAAA- Da-DAAAA …de DAA DAA … Da da da DAAA … Da DA da DAAAA!
-(Bongo roll …)
-On this date in 1965, federal troops were sent to AL to allow a civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery to proceed. On this date in 1969, John Lennon married Yoko Ono. On this date in 1987, AZT became the first FDA-approved drug to be used to treat AIDS. On this date in 1995, a terrorist nerve gas attack in the subways of Tokyo killed 12 and injured thousands of commuters. On this date in 1999, two aviators began the first-ever nonstop trip around the world by balloon – and ended it successfully a day later. And on this date in 2016, Barack Obama became the first American President to visit Cuba since 1928.
-Debuts on this date: United Dutch India Company (1602), UNCLE TOM’S CABIN (1852), the Republican Party (1854).
-Happy Birthday to Ovid, Henrik Ibsen, Sergei Rachmaninoff, B.F. Skinner, Ozzie Nelson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Jack Barry, Marian McPartland, Carl Reiner, Ray Goulding, Fred Rogers, Hal Linden, Willie Brown, Ted Bessell, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Vaughn Meader, Jerry Reed, Pat Corrales, Paul Junger Witt, Pat Riley, Carl Palmer, Bobby Orr, Tom Towles, William Hurt, Jimmie Vaughan, Spike Lee, Theresa Russell, Holly Hunter, David Thewlis, Kathy Ireland, Toure, Alexander Kapranos, Jane March, Chester Bennington, Jamal Crawford, and Barron Trump.
-Rest in Peace/Rest in Power to C. Wright Mills, Brendan Behan, Chet Huntley, Gil Evans, and Kenny Rogers
-Feed the Worms: Watergate felon John Ehrlichman and dog-fighting turd Marcus Vick entered Earth on this date.