Today is Wednesday, April 26, 2023. I’m back after being with my son for an eye procedure in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which went not as well as predicted. Suffice it to say, the physician with the Retina Specialists of Michigan, a Dr. Southway,” came into the examining room pretty late. I think my son and I waited almost 90 minutes before we were first seen by this doctor. When the procedure got under way, my son commented that he was feeling queasy. Thus Dr. Southway had to stop the procedure to wait until my son recovered. However, after drinking some water and waiting for his color to return, the doctor did not resume the laser procedure. She also took his blood pressure and it was a little low. So that was that! The medical procedure was assessed to be ninety percent finished, so it wasn’t only less than half completed. So there was something to be happy about in this visit to an eye center on Tuesday, April 25. It is now up to “Joshua” to either reschedule the procedure or to leave it alone. Dr. Southway did say that patients live their lives without undergoing the procedure and that this condition doesn’t necessarily result in retinal detachment. So it behooves Joshua for him to monitor his eyesight from now on and to seek medical intervention if something awry occurs. Anyway, I was there to offer parental support and I believe I succeeded at doing just that.

In the wake of my trip, I missed two big stories: the firing of that cockroach “Fucker” Carlson from Fox News on Monday, the 24th of April, and the beginning of the civil rape trial of former president Donald Dumpf on Tuesday, April 15. In the former, here we have a media star making oodles of moolah who thought his star was bigger than the executives who owned him at Fox News. Rumors have been swirling around the real reasons for Fox firing their star anchorman. An online analysis by Zachary B. Wolf tackles the reasons as to why the network terminated Carlson’s contract so suddenly. The analysis is entitled “Fox News’ conservative politics are much larger than Tucker Carlson.”

There is the little matter of a $787.5 million lawsuit won by Dominion Voting Systems just last week against the conservative media behemoth, and it could be connected to the one person, Carlson, who publicly pushed false conspiracy theories that got the network into trouble in the first place. Second, there were text messages that were released as part of the lawsuit brought by the voting company that unmasked Carlson as a hypocrite and being part of the Donald Dumpf hating elite he publicly criticized when he was playing the role of anchorman on television.

Another explanation proffered by Wolf is another lawsuit that was brought by a former producer who alleges a toxic workplace environment at Carlson’s show. Maybe this was the straw that broke the camel’s back in Fox News’ perspective.

One other scenario is the unfettered access to Capitol Hill security footage of the January 6 insurrection that was given to Carlson by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and how the Richie Rich host abused it. Carlson used the tapes to create a false impression of January 6, 2021, and this drew criticism even from notable Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

In my view, I’m glad the bastard is off the network. Here was someone earning as much as $20 million a year and he was a clear danger to democracy, no bones about it. During the pandemic, he mainlined conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 vaccine that could have led to many deaths in red state America, especially among the Fox News viewership.

What is intriguing about Carlson’s ouster from the conservative media linchpin is whether or not he will continue to carry the torch for the same audience without the backing of a TV show or whether he will shift his perspective once more since he has been one of those rare anchors who now has been on all three major cable news networks – CNN, MSNBC, and Fox. If you ask me, I don’t really care what happens to this puffed-up bully on the airwaves. I’m glad he’s been brought down a notch by his employer.

The second big story involves the civil battery and defamation trial for columnist E. Jean Carroll against former commander in “grief” Dumpf that began yesterday.

Today Carroll took the stand and began her deposition with these forceful words, “I’m here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen. He lied and shattered my reputation, and I’m here to get my life back,” Carroll told jurors within minutes of taking the stand.

In today’s late edition of the Daily News, this startling story takes shape by Molly Crane-Newman in an article entitled “Writer tells jury in lawsuit trial: ‘Donald Trump raped me.'”

The former Elle advice columnist spoke about the sexual encounter she had with the vulgar ex-president in Manhattan department store Bergdorf Goodman in the spring of 1996. The encounter begins innocently enough when the future presidential candidate asked her to choose lingerie for a girlfriend. It soon devolves into forcible rape when the hulking The Apprentice star thrusts Carroll into the dressing room and shoves the writer against the wall, shoving her so hard that her head banged. Soon Dumpf pulled down Carroll’s tights and took advantage of her. Of course, this serial womanizer denies everything, taking to Truth Social to call the case a “made-up SCAM.” He’s the scam, actually.

The judge in the blockbuster case, Lewis Kaplan, has urged both parties to refrain from making statements that could lead to violence or civil unrest, and stopped short of reprimanding Dumpf’s legal team for the ex-president’s “entirely inappropriate” comments. Their client, the former insurrectionist of a president, cannot shut his foul mouth from commenting on these proceedings and it should get him gagged by this judge before the trial ends. Whenever he spews his coarse comments, it can cause real harm to those involved in the case. Dumpf’s own lawyer, Joe Tacopina, has admitted as much that he has no control over his loose cannon of a client, saying he would talk to the demagogue and “to the degree I have the ability to”[meaning he has none with regard to this bombastic client] will ask him to refrain from further commentary. Which really should be translated into I don’t have much control over this fucking windbag.

Maybe this case will end in Dumpf now being deemed a rapist as well as a twice-impeached president. Let’s see if that helps his presidential prospects for 2024.

The fact that Dumpf didn’t even bother to attend the trial is somewhat of an admission of guilt, in my view. He would never be a credible witness anyway since he can’t tell the truth under the threat of perjury, even.

Stay tuned for more developments from both of these significant stories.

Stay safe and be well.