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.

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 a...

OSAKA EXPO: Day One

Well, the day finally came for us to go to the Osaka Expo. We were told ahead of time that the long walks would be fearful, giant lines will need to be tolerated just to get into the Expo, with those ocean breezes, it would really be cold, and so forth. Maybe it was pure luck, but we avoided all the above warnings We had a grand day, and are looking forward to Sunday, our second day at the Expo. So come along for an enjoyable ride. Our hotel is adjacent to the Tennoji Station, a very large one with several lines. We upgraded our Suica card and caught the Misosuji red line towards Umeda. Transferred to the Chuo green line at the Hommachi Station. This Osaka Metro train took us to the Yumeshima Station at the Expo site. It was a very large mob leaving the train and heading to the entrance. Took only a few minutes to get to the entrance. This mob was multiplied by at least a factor of ten of those already waiting to enter. However...

WHY YOU SHOULD CONVERT TO A JAPANESE HIGH TECH TOILET

Did you know that Oktoberfest in Germany is mostly in September? The very first day of Oktoberfest 2021 was supposed to be today, September 18, extending into October 3. Well, as in 2020, Oktoberfest was cancelled. So why is it called by that month when it is held mostly in September? The first celebration in 1810 was in October. Did you also know that Oktoberfest is held only in Munich? These days seven million drink more than a liter ( about three typical cans ) of beer each, costing around $11. Except for my wife and I when we followed the crowd to board the S-Bahn to the fairgrounds near Old Town. It was drizzling a bit. We bought a large pretzel outside of a typical barn where beer is served. We did not know that you needed to get this inside the hall. So no one came to serve us beer. After a while we decided to have lunch, and the restaurant we settled on only served wine. Thus, we might have been the ...

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