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Good Morning Blue Team!
Never give up hope! After months of refusal to bring a bill to the House of Representatives floor to provide addition funding for Ukraine in its ongoing defensive battle with the Russian invaders, Speaker Johnson screwed up enough courage to breach the MAGA extremists and presented a $60+ Billion dollar aide package for Ukraine. The bill passed 311 for and 112 against. All 112 votes "against" were Republican votes. 101 Republicans showed the fortitude to do something that was absolutely necessary to prevent Putin from further incursions into other countries. This battle will either be fought and won in Ukraine or Europe, and the USA will find themselves defending the borders of NATO allies. It's about time.
The House approved three other bills providing support for Israel and Taiwan; to approve sanctions on Iran, and seize Russian assets; and to require Chinese owners to sell TikTok in order to market in this country. All were a show of bipartisan support.
The week will be even more historic. The "hush-money" trial of a former President of our country has begun after a jury was seated last week. Opening statements are being heard this morning. It is must see TV. It is rumored that the first witness for the prosecution will be the former National Enquirer publisher, David Pecker (appropriately named). He will disclose the "catch and kill" scheme to intercept and bury negative stories about the former President during the 2016 election cycle. The evidence purportedly will show how the former President used his financial power to pull the wool over the eyes of the American public. While many of us were not fooled, unfortunately many were, and many still are.
The hush money trial is not about the legality of paying off someone who might make public unfavorable stories about a person. It is about the illegality of writing off those payments as legal expenses, thereby committing another form of fraud. It is further about committing this fraud in order to interfere with the Presidential election. The jury will be asked to determine whether the former President intentionally wrongly accounted for the payments and whether he intended to do so to prevent negative information about him being made public.
Keep in mind that this is a criminal trial and will require proof beyond a reasonable doubt and the concurrence of the full jury. It will not be a slam-dunk for the prosecution, but as I said, the outing of the evidence will be extremely informative about the character of the man, irrespective of the jury's verdict.
Have the popcorn ready!
Stand Up! Push Back! Vote!
Dennis
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