☕️ BURNING ☙ Monday, April 22, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

History-making Trump trial begins; Speaker Johnson's political career self-destructs; Russia moves faster, threatens Ukraine's 2nd-biggest city; covid coordinator kicks bucket; fiery good news; more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Monday! And we have a record-shattering Monday roundup: historic Trump trial begins in Manhattan as the Nation’s first criminal prosecution of a President gets underway; Speaker Johnson’s career goes up in flames more intense than after a Russian hypersonic missile blows up more U.S.-supplied weapons;  Russia ramps up the Proxy War, apparently as a direct result of anticipating more U.S.-supplied weapons, and moves toward Ukraine’s second-biggest city;  another healthy young covid coordinator dies mysteriously over the weekend; and the most encouraging story so far this year.

🗞💬 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 💬🗞

🔥🔥 The Associated Press reported a world-changing story this morning headlined, “Prosecutors to make history with opening statements in hush money case against Trump.” And so, it begins.

Calumnous corporate media is roundly referring to this case as the “hush money” trial, which is confusing almost everybody, since none of the counts pleaded against the President were on account of any kind of payoff. Trump never bribed anybody or “paid off” anybody. In the transactions involved in the case, Trump is ‘accused’ of legally buying — through a lawyer — common law copyrights (story rights) and non-disclosure contracts.

Even if true, both purchases are utterly unremarkable. Similar transactions happen every single day all over the country, if not the entire world.

Cretinous reporters call it “hush money” though, because they are sprinting far afield toward the reason Trump allegedly bought the stories from three women, to “stop them” from selling those stories to the tabloids. But Trump didn’t stop them, or hush them up, he had to pay them. The women could care less who paid them, since their motive was to make money, and they were richly successful.

None of corporate media’s halfwitted reporters are the least bit concerned whether any of those salacious stories Trump bought were actually true or made-up. Since the ‘Stormy Daniels’ (Stephanie Clifford) story broke years ago, journalists been unable (or unwilling) to confirm Stephanie’s account of the alleged 2006 relationship, and Trump has consistently denied the affair. For whatever it’s worth, Stephanie broke her NDA, and appears to have sold the story to media anyway, collecting handsomely from all parties.

Even though nitwit District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s morbidly obese case includes thirty-four criminal counts, the case is just about whether Trump’s notations on 11 checks written to his lawyer were properly characterized as legal expenses. That is all this criminal prosecution of a former President and current candidate is about.

Curiously, or even uniquely, the jury of Manhattanites includes a sales professional, a software engineer, a security engineer, a teacher, a speech therapist, an investment banker, a retired wealth manager, and multiple lawyers. Lawyers are not usually picked for juries. The concern is that a juror-lawyer (in this case, lawyers) would dominate the jury pool, since all the other jurors would defer to the lawyer’s opinion about everything.

Especially fast-talking Manhattan lawyers.

The untelevised trial begins this morning with opening statements to the jury. They call it an opening statement because lawyers aren’t supposed to make any argument. Arguments often slip through anyway, but the court usually does its best to keep them out. Instead of arguing the case, lawyers for each side are only supposed to describe for the jury what facts will be presented during the trial. A traditional prosecutor’s opening might include things like, “you’ll hear from Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, who will testify that Trump told him to ‘sweep these inconvenient stories under his toupee.’”

Then Trump’s lawyers make their opening statement and might say something like, “The evidence will show Michael Cohen has been convicted twice of perjury and also believes that the Moon is really a hollow alien airship.”

I don’t need to remind you guys, but this historic trial is utterly unprecedented. Woke activists shopped the case to any number of prosecutors, including Bragg, who initially turned it down as being too farfetched. But Bragg later changed his mind, for some reason.

Regardless, America’s Justice System is making history this week. Bad history. Stay tuned.

🔥 The New York Post ran a story yesterday headlined, “MTG lashes out after Ukraine aid bill passes, demands Speaker Mike Johnson’s resignation: ‘Complete betrayal’.”

This weekend, Speaker Mike Johnson delivered a Masterclass on how to burn a budding political career to the ground in only 72 hours. The word “rage” barely describes how the Republican base feels about Johnson’s U-turn on Ukraine aid, which was approved on Saturday in the House with 100% democrat support, and will be approved tomorrow in the democrat-controlled Senate. Then it will be signed into law ten seconds later by a very lifelike, rubber-coated, Joe Biden animatronic robot with the extra mumbling package.

Yesterday, irate Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), vowed on Fox News Sunday that “Mike Johnson’s speakership is over.” She is correct. Absent a miracle, sooner or later, Johnson is finished. Democrats might help Johnson cling on to the Speakership for a while pursuant to some hideous backroom political scheme, which will only make Johnson look even more corrupt. But the Johnson clock is ticking.

Inexplicably, President Trump has failed to mention Speaker Johnson at all in his most recent Truth Social posts, even ones about Ukraine aid. Instead, he’s complained only about the U.S. having to shoulder the whole burden — and oddly recently remarked that “everyone agrees … Ukrainian survival is … important to us”:

Prior to this post, Trump has consistently and opposed Ukraine aid, and usually in capital letters. It’s a mystery what turned Trump around. Could it have had something to do with Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Cameron’s personal visit to Mar-a-Lago last week? After all, Trump’s most popular book is titled “The Art of the Deal.” Now, I’m sure it didn’t probably happen this way, but the timing is highly suggestive, and it’s still a fun thought experiment: what could Cameron have possibly offered Trump to get him (and Speaker Johnson by proxy) on board for more Ukraine support?

Like wretched fentanyl junkies swaying incoherently on the streets of Philadelphia, America sways in the grip of a Ukraine addiction. Or more accurately, America’s security state sways incoherently under its Ukraine addiction. Over the weekend, watching the unfolding drama in the House of Representatives, foreign commenters observed that Ukraine appears to be the Biden Administration’s most important political issue.

Ukraine, which first burst onto the national scene after Trump requested an investigation and got impeached for his trouble, does seem to be driving everything else right now.

🚀🚀 Unlike the rest of us, Russia appeared utterly unfazed by the news of the approved Ukraine aid package.  Business Insider ran a narrative-crafting story yesterday headlined, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov signals Putin's plan to seize Kharkiv and create a 'sanitary zone’. The way you know corporate media journalists are lying is because their digital lips are moving.

Kharkiv oil refinery goes up in fiery smoke

As the headline stated, with 1.5 million residents, Kharkiv is Ukraine’s second-largest city, after its capital Kiev. Unlike Kiev, Kharkiv is home to mostly Russian-speaking citizens. Business Insider’s article was partially consistent with the warbloggers, who all reported Russia accelerated attacks in multiple areas along the eastern front, including the invasion-preparing infrastructure attacks on Kharkiv, which is Ukraine’s version of Chicago or Detroit:

Until just recently, most of the discussion around a potential attack on Kharkiv focused on the question of whether Ukraine could possibly survive as an independent country without the city — a city you probably never heard of. If Kiev is the country’s head, Kharkiv is the arms and legs of Ukraine’s manufacturing industry. Ukraine can survive the loss of Kharkiv, but only as a quadriplegic.

Here’s Business Insider’s big lie, using another one of the media’s favorite narrative tricks:

Putin has wanted to take Kharkiv since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

The lie they want us to believe is that the Kharkiv siege is nothing new, and therefore insignificant. In fact, Ukraine has courageously stopped Russia from collecting the city for years! But read skeptically. First, if Kharkiv is in fact the plum of Putin’s eye, and always has been, why are we only hearing about it now? Second, Business Insider’s claim that Putin always wanted Kharkiv was an unsourced assertion. The source for that outsized claim was only BI’s reporter.

Russia has surely followed the U.S. debate over Ukraine aid more closely than anyone. I’m no military strategist, but it isn’t hard to imagine that Russia will now push even harder to quickly maximize its gains before new weapons arrive. The doomed Ukrainians will be the collateral damage of America’s Ukraine addiction.

💉💉 Local La Voce de New York ran a story yesterday headlined, Mayor Adams Announces Death of Deputy Director Pedro Frisneda. On Saturday, NYC Mayor Eric Adams announced the sudden, unexpected, and mysterious kicking-of-the-bucket of the City’s former covid coordinator and current Deputy Director.

Specifically, Deputy Director Frisneda published covid health information, safety measures, and vaccines propaganda specifically for the City’s Spanish-speaking community.  According to La Voce, “during his time at the Health Department, he frequently spent weekends and evenings supporting vaccination clinics."

No information was provided about the cause of Pedro’s sudden death. And never will be.

🔥🔥 Be encouraged! Local WRAL news ran an inspiring story yesterday headlined, “Good Samaritans save driver from burning car in Minnesota.”

CLIP: Regular Americans heroically work together to rescue driver (0:44).

Around 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, along I-94 near St. Paul, a Honda pickup drifted to the right, left the road crashing into a light pole and guardrail. A fire quickly started under the truck, and then lots of other commuters pulled over and tried to remove the stunned driver before he got burned alive.

The trouble was that the highway guardrail blocked the driver-side door. The bystanders — all strangers to each other — bravely worked together as the flames grew higher and stronger, scorching them and pushing them back, but they persisted in trying to bend the guardrails and get the door open before it was too late.

"He was awake," Kadir Tolla said. "He was saying pull me out, pull me out, pull me out." Mr. Tolla explained he leapt to help because it could have happened to anyone. "That could be me one day," Tolla told FOX9. "What would happen if I was in that situation and my life was in the hands of strangers that I don't even know?”

The regular Americans, all shapes, ages, colors, and sizes, did not stop to worry about their own risk, not their physical risk or their legal risk either. They didn’t stand around waiting for the government. They selflessly sprang into action.

Finally a highway worker braved the heat and dramatically broke out the driver’s side window. Working together, the citizens quickly evacuated the diver to safety just as the truck was fully consumed in a fiery furnace.

The driver, attorney Sam Orbich, survived. Over the weekend Sam issued a statement thanking his rescuers: “My family and I are incredibly grateful for these heroes. I sincerely thank everyone, including Kadir, Tessa, those who hammered at my car door amid the flames, and Minnesota’s FIRST Highway Helpers. I look forward to thanking them all in person.”

If the video clip doesn’t make you choke up a little, you might have spike protein in your heart muscle. Watch it and be encouraged. No matter how hard the selfish elites try to destroy America, our can-do culture survives.

Have a magnificent Monday! Coffee & Covid will return with a fiery new roundup tomorrow morning.

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