Today is Thursday, April 18, 2024. It’a late here because I forgot to mention that I was going to attend Trivia Night at local restaurant Rove tonight at 7. This time we had different team members; the team members from two weeks ago decided to be by themselves for some inexplicable reason. So I was allied with former neighbor “April” and her boyfriend whose name I didn’t get because of the din in the background. We also didn’t do as well as we did two weeks ago when we came in second place, I believe. Tonight we snagged fourth place. The questions were more difficult, we thought. One question that completely floored us was delivered in the second round and it was: “What celebrity briefly worked as a lion tamer?” I told my colleagues to write down “Kirk Douglas” for no sane reason. The correct answer was Christopher Walken who worked as a trainee lion tamer for a traveling circus when he was 16 years old. Who knew?

The biggest news today was the development coming out of the Donald Duck trial proceeding in Manhattan criminal court in which the judge overseeing the trial, Juan Merchan, indicated that a full jury has been selected by the end of the day. Prosecutors did warn Merchan about how outrageous Chump has been violating the gag order imposed on him by the court. The prosecutors said that Herr Drumpf violated the gag order seven times. This information is culled from an online CNN article by Jeremy Herb, Lauren del Valle, and Kara Scannell entitled “Takeaways from the day a jury was selected to decide Donald Trump’s fate in the hush money trial.”

Today two of the seven initial jurors who were seated Tuesday were excused. Judge Merchan hopes to begin the trial on Monday with opening arguments to be heard.

By the end of the day, the jury in the very first criminal trial of a former president in U.S. history had been seated. Only five alternates are left to be selected tomorrow.

The seated jury includes seven men and five women. The new jurors empaneled today include an investment banker, a security engineer, a retired wealth manager, a speech therapist, and a physical therapist. Not many lightweights in this jury; everyone appears to be quite well educated and they all seem to have a brain, which could be bad for the former president.

One juror, No. 2, an oncology nurse and native New Yorker, came into the courtroom today and asked to be excused from serving because she had concerns that “aspects of my identity” have been made public after having friends, colleagues, and family conveying to her that she had been identified as a potential juror.

Merchan excused her without any objections. The judge then directed the media not to mention physical appearances that could identify jurors. He complained specifically that there were reports that one of the jurors who was selected had an Irish accent.

A second juror was also excused from the panel after prosecutors notified the court that during their research they found information about the juror showing that he was arrested in the 1990s for tearing down political advertisements.

To me, it’s quite amazing that the whole jury had been selected at the end of the day, which would not have been expected since there was no session yesterday. It’s entirely possible that the trial could start next Monday, on the eve of Passover, whatever that means.

It’s essential to know that the judge rejected Dump’s challenges to remove jurors for cause because they had expressed negative opinions about the former insurrectionist, telling Dump’s attorneys that not liking his persona, as one juror claimed, was not enough. What did Drumpf think here? That no one would have a negative opinion of him here in New York and that the ideal jury would be composed of only Dump supporters? According to the article, nearly 50 prospective jurors said they did not feel they could be fair and impartial and another nine said they had other conflicts like getting the hell out of that courtroom. I can’t imagine what these prospective jurors thought when they entered this courtroom and were confronted by the Orange Turd’s scowling face since they didn’t know what case they were being selected for. I’m sure that many visibly shuddered after seeing the former president’s visage. Right away, the first panel of 96 jurors had to say whether they thought they could be fair just minutes after walking into the courtroom and hearing the judge explain the case and the jury’s role.

Trump’s legal team ran out of peremptory challenges to remove a couple of jurors who voiced negative opinions of the former president and his politics. Once Trump’s attorneys and the district attorney’s office used up their ten peremptory strikes to remove jurors, things moved rather quickly.

Surprisingly, one woman who will decide Drumpf’s fate called him selfish and self-serving, two factual observations, in my mind. This juror, No. 11, was seated on the jury after Merchan denied Chump’s challenge to the juror for cause. Trump’s lawyers argued she should be dismissed because she said she does not like Chump’s “persona.” She said, “I don’t like his persona.” She continued, “I don’t like some of my coworkers, but I don’t try to sabotage their work.”

Even though this juror said she does not like Dump’s “persona,” Merchan kept her on the jury because she said she was certain that she could set that aside to be fair and impartial. Good luck with that, Juror No. 11!

One juror I’m apprehensive about is one who admitted following Dump on social media and has read quotes from his book, The Art of the Deal. This juror is an investment banker who has a master’s degree, thus he’s no mental lightweight. But he has said he follows Dump since he became president.

So here we are on Day 3 of the unprecedented Donald Duck criminal trial. It’s forecasted that the trial might go on for at least two months, with a possible verdict being delivered sometime in June – if there are no other bumps along the way, which seem more likely, given the terrible character of the defendant involved in this case.

Breaking news: Israel appeared to have retaliated for Iran’s strikes against the country. Let’s hope there is no further escalation of the conflict after this, even though Iran has threatened to strike back at Israel. This will undoubtedly be the top story tomorrow.

Stay safe and be well.