Today is Thursday, August 18, 2022. Wyomingites really got themselves a loopy member of the House after this candidate ousted longterm representative Liz Cheney for the cardinal sin of telling the truth. Harriet Hageman who overwhelmingly triumphed over Cheney in the Republican primary on Tuesday has recently repeated a talking point popular with QAnon conspiracy theorists who are convinced that elite, Satanic liberal pedophiles run the world and Dumpf is or was fighting a secret war against them. Isn’t this pure bullshit?

The clear mistake that Wyoming voters made in their hasty rejection of Cheney who, even though she is a conservative’s conservative, has never spouted the nonsense that her successor has in an appearance on Steve Bannon’s show last week, which was covered in an online article for The Daily Dot by Claire Goforth entitled “Republican who ousted Liz Cheney immediately pivots to QAnon conspiracies.” The unfitness of Cheney’s successor is clearly evident in the comments she made to the former Dumpf strategist’s show last week in which she made this ridiculous statement: “Joe Biden is the largest or the most destructive human trafficker in our history.” Hageman here was basically accusing the President of being complicit in human trafficking related to border crossings. Only those people wearing a QAnon cap would believe this bullshit.

As you might be aware, QAnon followers are obsessed with human trafficking, a fixation that has led some to even travel to the United States-Mexico border to “rescue” migrants they believe to be child sex trafficking victims. What they are mostly concerned with is probably just sex and this focus on migrants who might be sex trafficking victims is just a huge distraction from that preoccupation.

What was stunning about Hageman’s comments here is that they went viral. As of this writing, it has 2.7 million views. Imagine so many gullible, misguided people hearing this blather from a newly minted House member who believes this gibberish. Democracy is certainly in danger if people continue voting into office these mental midgets!

One sane Twitter user wrote this about Hageman’s drivel: “This is so unbelievingly sad and frightening at the same time!” Another pointed a finger at stupid Wyomingites who voted this idiot into office for two years, by saying, “Wyoming, you done it now.” This country is getting stupider and stupider, I’m afraid, as witnessed by the type of people we vote into office without properly vetting them. Let’s hope Hageman fades into the House chamber without doing too much damage until the next election.

The news seems to be getting worse and worse for the ex-president and it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy like Dumpf when Allen Weisselberg, the former chief financial officer (CFO) of the Trump Organization, pleaded guilty today to his role in a 15-year-long tax fraud scheme. This breaking news is reported in an online CNN article by Kara Scannell entitled “Former CFO of Trump Organization pleads guilty for his role in tax fraud scheme and agrees to testify against company.” As part of the deal Weisselberg struck with the authorities, he has agreed to testify against former president Dumpf’s real estate company at trial, which is slated for sometime in October. Don’t you think this would cause increased agita in the bowels of the former demagogue? This could have corrosive effects on the ex-president’s business organization, to say the least.

Weisselberg was in court today and pleaded guilty to 15 felonies and admitted he failed to pay taxes on $1.7 million in income, including luxury perks, such as rent and utilities for a Manhattan apartment, leases for a pair of Mercedes-Benz cars, and private school tuition for his grandchildren.

As part of the deal, the former CFO will pay nearly $2 million in back taxes, interest, and penalties and waive any right to appeal.

Judge Juan Merchan directed this to the defendant if he does not truly cooperate with the prosecution at trial at a later date: “I would be at liberty to impose any lawful sentence which in your case includes imprisonment from 5 to 15 years.”

The deal puts the fiercely loyal accountant to Dumpf at odds with the Trump Organization, where he worked for 40 years, in which his testimony could realistically damage the company, if it goes to trial on related tax charges as scheduled in October. The trial, I’m learning, is curiously scheduled for October 24 – just days before the midterm. Hopefully a tsunami of incriminating revelations will be revealed during this trial, thus torpedoing any chances of a repugnican victory on November 8, my birthday.

So far, this loyal foot soldier to a horribly corrupt and Machiavellian individual has maintained his undying loyalty to him without implicating him in these fraudulent schemes. What will Weisselberg do when the trial date approaches and he has to tell the truth about his dealings with the Dumpf Organization? If he seems to be lying or perjuring himself, he will be receiving a much harsher sentence. Would you shield an individual like Dumpf if you’re a 75-year-old man facing a much longer prison sentence than five months? Hell no, the answer should be. The guilty plea, by the way, comes two months before this loyal employee was set to go to trial and one week after a New York state judge denied Weisselberg’s motion to dismiss the indictment.

This last setback comes during a dramatic legal period for Dumpf who, last week at a deposition in the New York attorney general’s civil investigation, asserted his Fifth Amendment right and declined to answer hundreds of questions about the Trump Organization’s financial statements.

“That came two days after the FBI executed a search warrant on Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, as part of a criminal investigation into the handling of presidential records, including classified documents.”

Can we dare to hope that there will finally be some accountability for this former liar-in-chief?

It’s getting late here. Not much done today other than treating Elliot to breakfast at the North Shore Diner, on Northern Boulevard. However, when we got home, I went to the gym for the first time in over two months. It was not crowded at all. Was that due to COVID fear or, now, monkeypox fear? With respect to the latter, I half-heartedly tried to schedule an appointment to take the monkeypox vaccine after calling the pharmacy in Brooklyn where Elliot and I took our COVID inoculations in 2021. The man who answered the phone mentioned that I should call 311, and when I did, I was directed to a website. I went so far as typing my ZIP code and getting to a page where three appointments were available in various parts of Queens. However, all three appointments were scheduled within a half-hour or an hour on the same day, today, which made it impossible to get to the sites on time. When I did this a second time, no appointments came up at all. This is what I was expecting anyway, as the situation with this virus mirrors the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, when demand far outstripped supply. Let’s hope this situation improves sooner than later.

Stay safe and be well.