Today is Saturday, February 17, 2024. A day after the repugnican frontrunner was dealt a severe financial blow by a New York judge who ordered the second Teflon Don (mafia boss John Gotti was the first individual to carry the title) and his companies to pay a steep fine of nearly $355 million in his New York civil fraud trial, Donald Duck unveiled his own brand of sneakers at Sneaker Con in Philadelphia. I kid you not! This truly happened. This unbelievable bit of hucksterism by the ultimate con man appears in a CNN online article by Kate Sullivan entitled “Trump launches sneaker line a day after judge’s order to pay nearly $355 million.” When you thought this Don couldn’t go any lower, he does!

At the sneaker convention, the sexual predator showed off his particular brand of flashy sneakers which is listed for a golden sum of $399 and its named the “NEVER SURRENDER HIGH-TOP SNEAKER” [his caps, not mine!] on the website. The Golden Idol placed a pair of gold sneakers on the podium as he spoke.

This bizarre turn of events for the former president who will be facing another jury soon in a criminal trial in “the city that never sleeps” told his dimwitted supporters that he was talking about launching his own sneaker line for 12 or 13 years and then made this assertion that just goes to the depraved heart of his egomaniacal character: “I think it’s going to be a big success.” Oh, like Trump Shuttle Inc., launched by the former president in 1989, which defaulted on its loans in 1990 and ceased to exist by 1992; Trump University, founded by the Don in 2005, that ceased operations in 2011 amid lawsuits and investigations regarding the business’s practices; Trump Vodka, a brand of vodka produced by Drinks Americas under license from the Trump Organization, which was introduced in 2005 and discontinued in 2011; Trump Steaks, a brand of steak and other meats founded by Chump in 2007 and discontinued sales two months after its launch. You can say that Trump Steaks fizzled like so many other products Dump launched and we haven’t even mentioned his casinos that also went belly-up. Oh, and this guy still thinks it’s going to be a big hit – with whom? Do you honestly think his troop of lower- middle-class and non-college-educated fans can easily give up $399 for a pair of gold sneakers. I seriously would doubt that! They have more important things to surrender their hard-earned cash to and a pair of flashy sneakers ain’t one of them.

For those of you masochists among us, the former president is also selling two versions of sneakers that have “T” (maybe it should really stand for “Turd,” not “Trump”!) and “45” on the sides for $199, according to the website.

A Biden campaign spokesperson, Michael Tyler, appropriately slammed Dump’s absurd appearance at Sneaker Con (maybe the convention was really a “Con Man Con” instead!), saying, “Donald Trump showing up to hawk bootleg Off-Whites is the closest he’ll get to any Air Force Ones ever again for the rest of his life.” Here Tyler referred to popular sneakers from brands Off-White and Nike.

Following his appearance at Sneaker Con, Trump is expected to head to Michigan to address supporters for the first time since the rulings in the separate New York cases thrust into the spotlight the legal peril he faces on multiple fronts.”

Drumpf’s visit to Michigan is timed for 10 days before the state holds its Republican primary. The Wolverine State is the final February contest before the GOP-nominating fight expands to more than two dozen states in March.

As I said yesterday in this space, the fact that a former president hasn’t said anything about the death of prominent opposition leader Alexey Navalny since the devastating news was relayed around the world just shows where his true allegiances lie: with that of Vladimir Putin and his autocratic cronies. And today, he went to a sneaker convention and said nothing there either. Disgusting!

The death of this fearlessly courageous foe of Putin puts a new spotlight on the key dividing line between Herr Trumpf and Biden. An online CNN article by Kevin Liptak throws that spotlight into stark relief. This further amplifies another reason as to why Dump can never get that close to the White House ever again. We all know that Dump will never oppose Putin on anything, while there is no question that Biden will pull no punches in calling a murderer a murderer, as he did yesterday in calling Putin out for the death of his political rival.

“Make no mistake: Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death. Putin is responsible. What has happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin’s brutality. Nobody should be fooled,” declared President Biden from the Roosevelt Room of the White House yesterday. Very strong words coming from a supposedly “weak” president.

As I’ve pointed out, Drumpf has said nothing directly about the Russian opposition leader and his sudden death. What he did do was post more than 20 times on Truth Social about his criminal cases, his election poll numbers (all a lie, as usual), immigrants in the United States, his GOP presidential rival, Nikki Haley (at least he got the name right this time and didn’t call her “Nancy Pelosi”), the Teamsters Labor Union, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s testimony in Georgia. Did you see anything about Alexey Navalny’s death in all of his ridiculous postings?

It is unfathomable that this country is now at a crossroads when pushing back on Russia’s aggression in the world because we have a political party under the yolk of its Golden Idol that doesn’t recognize this aggression anymore and even has adopted a conciliatory approach to Putin and his autocratic state. Witness the recent interview that ex-Fox “News” host “Fucker” Carlson conducted with Putin only last week (which I had no intention of watching because it’s Carlson doing the supposed interviewing). In this propaganda piece for Putin, Carlson traitorously proclaimed how much nicer and cleaner Moscow was than any American city. You know what Carlson can do with that announcement: go live in Russia. Dump, by the way, has mused about selecting Carlson as his running mate. Yeah, two white guys illustrating the diversity in this country!

Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley assailed Trump for saying that he would “encourage” Russia in recent statements to invade other nations and called the comments “so disturbing.”

Talking to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on The Source, Haley said, “That means Donald Trump is siding with a thug who kills his political opponents” after confiding that Putin is “absolutely” directly responsible for Navalny’s death. She continued the attack against Dump, saying, “He’s siding with someone who has made no bones about wanting to destroy America. He’s siding with someone who arrests American journalists and holds them hostage. And he’s siding with the dictator, instead of siding with our allies who stood with us at 9/11.” Go give it to him, Nikki!

President Biden was aghast over Drumpf’s appalling remark, condemning it as “dumb” (we all know Trump is dumb!) and “un-American” in a speech from the White House on Tuesday.

And just yesterday, the Biden campaign unveiled a new digital ad blasting Trump’s comment. In the hard-hitting ad, a narrator says “Every president since Truman has been a rock-solid supporter of NATO,” as images of Chump with Putin flash across the screen. “Trump wants to walk away from NATO. He’s even given Putin and Russia the green light to attack America’s allies,” the narrator adds.

The spot featuring Drumpf and his pal Putin is set to run through Super Tuesday targeting voters in the battleground states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The campaign said it was looking to reach more than 2.5 million Americans who identify as Estonian, Finnish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, and Polish – all NATO countries bordering Russia. This ad should make these voters worry about a Drumpf second term.

I encourage everyone to watch CNN’s two-hour documentary on Navalny simply entitled Navalny. I guarantee that it will bring tears to your eyes. I’m taping it tonight.

Tomorrow Elliot and I are seeing a play at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre called A Prayer for the French Republic. I thought I had bought tickets for the 7 o’clock performance, but I didn’t. The tickets are for 2. Boy, am I glad I checked them then. The play examines antisemitism in France in one family over several generations. It has created a buzz on Broadway and I bought these tickets a while back. I hope to be here then, even though we are going to catch a bite after the play, which runs a mere three hours.

If I’m not here, have a good Sunday and see you on Monday.

Stay safe and be well.