SCREAMS ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️🌻

Fog:  At least for today I am not going to weigh in on Biden’s threats to hold up some military aid to Israel over Rafah. Instead, I encourage everyone to watch Screams before Silence, the documentary about the horrendous, unimaginably grotesque sexual crimes and mutilations committed by Hamas on October 7.  Based on their experiences, the released hostages report that some of those attacks continue to this day. The film is riveting and nightmare inducing. The evidence provided is fully documented, believable, previously unimaginable, and well beyond disgusting.  The must watch documentary is available on YouTube. Every college student, especially those who have aligned themselves with Hamas should see it, but sadly most of them won’t, however, you can and should. Don’t turn your eyes away because facts matter, and these facts go far to explaining why Israel is so determined to rid Gaza of Hamas and why Hamas keeps holding up the release of more hostages.

Trump Trial:  Yesterday’s testimony included a continuation of the cross examination of Stormy Daniels, testimony from two Trump staffers, and a few motions from defense counsel.  During the Stormy cross examination, defense counsel Susan Necheles attempted to “slut” sham Daniels, to convince jurors that she was nothing more than another Trump-hater and a money-grubbing woman of ill repute who should not be believed. Necheles also tried to point out inconsistencies between Stormy’s testimony and some of the plethora of interviews she’s given to various news outlets over the past few years.  Tried is the operative word here because Stormy quite effectively turned the table on Necheles.  It turned out that the full text of the alleged inconsistencies cited revealed that they were either taken out of context, incomplete, or didn’t contain the words that Necheles attributed to Stormy.  The problem for Trump’s defense counsel is that contrary to the evidence, Trump continues to insist that Stormy is lying about their sexual encounter and it’s doubtful at this point that anyone not high on the Trump Jello buys that the two didn’t have that encounter. In addition, trying to shame Stormy over her chosen profession furthers the argument that Trump’s concern about voters learning about his porn star sexcapade, ongoing interaction, and the “casting couch” dangling of a Celebrity Apprentice appearance, would hurt his election prospects. Stormy’s no angel but she doesn’t claim to be one.  If Trump was so concerned that sleeping with a porn star was a bad look, he should have kept his pants zipped.  Actions have consequences, maybe even for him. 

Checkmate: Following Stormy, prosecutors called Rebecca Manochio who was a junior bookkeeper at the Trump Organization reporting to Allen Weisselberg and former Whtie House aide/gatekeeper Madeleine Westerhout to the stand.  Westerhout who lost her job at the White House after leaking that Trump didn’t like being photographed with daughter Tiffany because she wasn’t Ivanka svelte is now back in Trump’s good graces and clearly back on the Trump Jello.  Like Hope Hicks she shed a few tears on the stand but between those droplets, testified that Trump worked really hard, crafted his own tweets and that she scheduled a White House meeting between Michael Cohen and Trump.  It’s expected that Cohen will testify that the hush money scheme was discussed at that meeting. She also said that Trump and Melania were the perfect couple and that as far as she could tell, the infamous Access Hollywood tape release had no impact on their relationship, which if true speaks volumes about the nature of their relationship and/or the terms of Melania’s post-nup.  Manochio testified that the Michael Cohen invoices, and related unsigned checks, were federal expressed from New York to Trump, sometimes via bodyguard Keith Schiller’s Washington home, nothing but everything fishy about that. After Trump signed them, they were sent back to New York where they then made their way to Michael Cohen’s bank account. After the day’s testimony ended, Trump’s lawyers again asked Judge Merchan to declare a mistrial over Stormy’s “prejudicial” sex and condom testimony and requested that Trump’s gag order be loosened so that he could publicly attack her for her “false” testimony. Merchan denied both requests while also pointing out that if they didn’t like Stormy’s graphic testimony, they had themselves to blame, first because they’d left themselves open to the nature of her testimony by denying the relationship in their opening remarks and then by failing to object when given the chance.  Defense counsel’s third planned request, to bar the testimony of playmate Karen McDougal, became unnecessary after prosecutors said that they have no plans to call her to the stand. Of course, if Trump wants to refute Stormy’s testimony, he could testify but we all know that’s not going to happen so with the gag order remaining in place, Trump surrogate du jure Florida Senator Rick Scott stood in for him, verbally attacking Stormy outside the court room.  He’s not on the VP short list, but he's angling for something.

House of Cards:  Margie Q finally went through with her threat, calling for a motion to vacate in an attempt to boot Speaker Mike Johnson. By a vote of 359 to 42 her gambit went down in flames but only because Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the House shadow Speaker, threw a boatload of Democratic votes Johnson’s way.  To be clear, Jeffries doesn’t agree with Johnson on much, if anything, but he trusts him more than he trusted Kevin McCarthy which speaks volumes about McCarthy.  Having your Speakership depend on the support of the opposing party is not a good thing and renders Johnson fairly impotent.  He may make it to the end of the term, but he probably won’t be his party’s leader beyond that, especially if Jim “Gym” Jordan has a say.  Gymbo has been raising money for and making nice to lots and lots of House Republicans, an indication that he’s gunning for the leadership spot next term.  In other Republican news, son Barron has been selected to serve as one of Florida’s delegates at the upcoming Republican National Convention. Expect a slew of Barron jokes because he now no longer falls into the protected child category.  Also, lots of jokes about that other nepo baby RFK Jr.  Apparently, he has a worm hole in his brain, maybe caused by eating undercooked pork or maybe a byproduct of steroids and/or heroin?   He’s also been hospitalized four times for his atrial fibrillation but nothing to worry about as he assures us that despite the memory lapses he’s suffered as a result of the worm hole and the heart thing, he’s the healthy one because he’s only 70 and has a great tan.

#BringThemAllHomeNow