TRIALS AND TARADIDDLES OF DONALD TRUMP

A D.C. Federal appeals court of three judges unanimously today ruled that Donald Trump can face trial on charges that he plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and that he is not immune to prosecution. Yes, all women: Judges J. Michelle Childs, Florence Pan and Karen Henderson. Want to read what they said? HERE. This was largely expected, and now will go to the Supreme Court. It will either accept the judgement of this appeals court, or themselves later decide on the matter.

If the Supreme Court delays any ruling until after the 5November2024 presidential election, and Donald Trump wins re-election, he could pardon himself of everything, or arrange for his Department of Justice to ignore prosecution. My sense is that our Supreme Court surely must be concerned about Trump destroying democracy for the nation if he again becomes president, so they will either accept the court ruling or in a timely manner, probably by this summer, itself make a judgement to deny immunity.

The Jack Smith trial with Judge Tanya Chutkan, plus the Georgia RICO case, are the only two truly important ones of real significance, and one of them will no doubt proceed within the next month or two. I suspect that the Georgia version will occur first, and this one will be beamed on national television. I still remember 51 years ago watching the Watergate hearings. The Trump trial will be riveting.

Once the Fani Willis brouhaha is settled, and this could be very soon, then it looks like the Georgia case will proceed first. Trump's chances here look dim, as all of the defendants so far have agreed to plea deals. Especially fatal for him are these, which occurred this past October:

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) late this week secured plea deals from Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, the highest-profile defendants to flip so far in the sprawling racketeering case. Both agreed to testify truthfully against their co-defendants, including Trump.

However, there is that Fani Willis and Nathan Wade matter that could delay things for a while. Georgia Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee has set a February 15 hearing on this matter. All this uncertainty could well move the venue to another Georgia county more MAGA-ish. Such are the trials, tribulations and taradiddles of Donald Trump.

And in case you were wondering, from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, TARADDIDLE:

A statement known by its maker to be untrue and made in order to deceive.

To the left is an artwork by Cara De Angelis entitled, Donald Trump with a Crown of Roadkill. You can purchase a print from Saatchi Art for $120.

I'll end with a witty op-ed piece by Maureen Dowd from the New York Times. If you can't get through there, try the Irish Times. In short:

Inside Donald Trump's not-so-Swift brain.
Yes, Taylor Swift is melanged with Trump throughout.
For example:

‘Taylor more popular than me? Wrong! My movement is so much bigger and more fanatical than her movement.’

“I like Taylor Swift. I do. She’s made a career of revenge, which gets my Complete and Total Endorsement. She’s beautiful, just my type, unlike that wack job E Jean Carroll and her sick lawyer, Roberta Kaplan.

“I’ll tell you what: The idea that Taylor Swift is more popular than me is a joke. Her fans are 13 years old. They can’t even vote.

“Taylor is being treated like an American icon, but I’m the American icon. I’m trying to save America by destroying democracy, the NFL and Taylor Swift. I know it might seem crazy to attack the things that bind America. But I alone can fix it.

“And Taylor should not have been Time magazine’s Person of the Year. I should have been on the cover. I am the greatest phenomenon in history! And it should still be Man of the Year. What’s with ‘Person’?

Goes on and on. Read the op-ed yourself.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicious and troublesome. This strain has also been spreading in

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for several months. This is caused by stress more than anythi

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These are held every five years, and there have only been

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