Bannon, Arrest, Yacht, Wall, Fraud 

A Perfect Score:  Joe Biden stuck the landing last night, delivering the speech of his life time, a pretty good performance for the guy that Trump, his family and the RNC continue to insist is sleepy and/or suffering from advanced dementia. Trump couldn’t have been pleased with all those Fox pundits who complimented Biden’s performance which likely explains why he assured Sean Hannity last night that he’ll be sending lots of sheriffs, law enforcement officers and US Attorneys to polling places far and wide, and by far and wide think key swing districts, to “prevent” voter fraud on election day and yes that’s as alarming as it sounds. Getting back to the Democratic convention, in addition to Biden’s acceptance speech, last night’s festivities included a wide cast: many of the other candidates who competed against Biden in the primary, some more John Legend, and Sarah Cooper, the comedienne who has grown famous with her spot-on Trump lip syncs.  She mocked Trump’s anti mail-in voting shtick while repeating the message that voting is the only way out of this mess. The night’s most heartwarming award went to 13-year old Brayden Harrington who described how Biden, a fellow stutterer, gave him encouragement and advice on how to overcome his speech impediment.  Can anyone imagine Trump, who gleefully makes fun of the disabled or even his daughter in law, Lara, who mocked Biden’s stutter on live TV earlier this year ever doing that?  Bonus points to Biden for including his whole family, not just the adorably relatable granddaughters but also his much attacked son Hunter who appeared with his sister Ashley alongside some heart wrenching film clips of their departed brother Beau.  And you have to hand it to Mike Bloomberg for trashing Trump with his blunt question “Would you rehire, or work for, someone who ran your business into the ground?  Senator/disabled veteran Tammy Duckworth didn’t mince words either, the coiner of Trump’s Cadet Bones Spurs nickname said we “have a coward in chief who won't stand up to Vladimir Putin, read his daily intelligence briefings or even publicly admonish adversaries for reportedly putting bounties on our troops heads," a sentiment that 70 former Republican security officials including former FBI Head William Webster, CIA Director Michael Hayden and Defense Secretary/Senator Chuck Hegel agree with; they published a letter yesterday saying that they’ll be voting for Joe.  Then there’s California’s Governor Gavin Newsom who facetimed in from the California fire zone, reminding everyone about the effects of global warming after Trump once again threatened to withhold disaster aid while blaming the Governor’s inadequate “sweeping” for the fires rampaging through his state.  The virtual convention ended with some fireworks and a clip of the appropriately face masked Joe and Jill Biden heading out into the night.      

Another Plot Twist:  Next week we get the Republican Convention.  Their speaker list is still in flux, Senate Majority Leader McConnell who early yesterday said he’d be too busy traveling Kentucky to appear has now found some time in his schedule and will be delivering some taped remarks.  Maybe he’s filling the Tuesday night slot that had originally been allocated to Steve Bannon, Trump’s one time strategist who was arrested yesterday for defrauding contributors to the “We Build the Wall Campaign,” a go fund me type organization that raised around $30 million to help build Trump’s Mexico wall. Though Bannon and his We Build the Wall cronies repeatedly promised that 100% of the funds raised would go to wall building, they diverted millions to each other to pay for things like fancy boats, plastic surgery and personal expenses.  Not only does the Federal indictment document the illegal payments but it also provides names and account numbers, text exchanges and proof that Bannon and company knew they were being investigated because someone at one of the banks gave them a heads up. Because you can’t make this stuff up, anti-immigrant, America first Bannon was hauled off of a Chinese billionaire’s yacht by the Postal Inspection Service under the direction of Acting US Attorney Audrey Strauss from the Southern District of New York.  Strauss is the interim replacement for Geoffrey Berman, the US Attorney that Trump and his Attorney General/toady Bill Barr fired not too long ago in what was likely an attempt to avoid just this kind of thing.  As expected Trump distanced himself from both Bannon and the project, saying that the whole situation was sad, that he never talks with Bannon anymore and that he always thought that the We Build the Wall Campaign was questionable. Of course there are lots of pictures that indicate otherwise, including a few of Don Jr with two members of the We Build the Wall team at the Mexico border and a few others of We Build the Wall members at the White House. By the way in addition to Bannon the We Build the Wall board includes Education Secretary Betsy DeVos brother/soldier for hire Erik Prince, former baseball player/sports commentator/white supremacist Curt Schilling, and one time head of Trump’s election fraud commission Kris Kobach. There’s a good chance that Bannon who, after posting $5 million in bail and handing over his passport, dismissed the charges as just another attempt by those nefarious anti-wall forces to disrupt wall construction, may conclude that turning on one or more of his partners and/or a Trump or two is a better option than spending years in prison. Then again, its fair to assume that a pardon could be in the offing especially if he’s really got dirt on Don or Don Jr. 

Et Cetera:  A Federal judge struck down Trump’s request to block the release of his financials to Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance.  Of course, Trump’s lawyers followed up by requesting a stay so though those financials are getting closer, Vance will still have to wait.  Virus guru Tony Fauci had vocal cord surgery yesterday.  It turns out that his increasingly raspy voice was due to further aggravation of a polyp that had been detected a while back, one that he’d put off treating in order to work on the virus fight.  Unfortunately as a result of the surgery he will be out of commission for a bit which may mean that truth will be in even shorter supply.  As to truth, those hospital statistics that were previously collected and reported on by the CDC but then were mysteriously moved to HHS, yesterday it was reported that the responsibility for them is being moved back to the CDC because HHS was finding the data collection and by collection think manipulation too challenging. On the USPS front, the stories about late deliveries of medicines and even one about thousands of baby chicks shipped to US farmers dying en route to their destinations continue to mount, nevertheless Postmaster General DeJoy says that he’s not going to reinstate any discontinued services or replace any dismantled equipment, he’s just not going to make things worse in the run up to the election.  He also says that all bets are off after November because then he does plan to move forward with making the USPS more efficient, and by efficient he means charge more for mail and slow down service to far away destinations like rural parts of the country, Alaska, Hawaii and inner cities.  

Get out your bingo card, it’s Friday things always happen on Friday and Rudy says he’s got something to announce soon.  Or then again not.