the *DON* JONES INDEX…
		GAINS POSTED in GREEN LOSSES POSTED in RED 7/30/22... 14,923.20 7/23/22... 14,921.35
	6/27/13… 15,000.00
*(THE DOW* JONES INDEX: 7/23/22… 32,845.13; 7/23/22… 31,899,29; 6/27/13… 15,000.00)**

LESSON for July 30, 2022 – “CONTEMPLATING the CONTEMPTIBLE!”

As we posited last Lesson:

If one believes Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Ms), chair of the House Select Committee inquiring into the origin, process and implications of the Capitol... call it Riot, Insurrection, Tourist stroll, whatever... the Inquisition, which met again on Thursday evening (See NPR’s transcript as Attachment One), is concluded (at least until fall – perhaps nearer the midterm elections?). Prime Inquisitors... Jamie Schiff (D-NY/Ca) and, furthering the illusion of bipartisanship, Liz Cheney (R- Wy) would concur, as would the rest of the panel, its staff, most witnesses, most of the media and Don Jones.

Well, everybody was wrong. Rust (and the Inquisition) never sleeps. Those witnesses, who keep manifestating from out of dark corners and intoning grim recollections as might have derived from some political version of “Stranger Things” did so again.

New testimonifiers: Pence aides... Trump-era DHS officials Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli... have tattled on their boss’s boss, Djonald’s own cabinet of curiosities; some of whom are revealed as fiends and traitors who wanted to use the 25^th Amendment agin’ him with less than 2 weeks remaining of his term, (while Jared Kushner reiterated, at length, that he knew nothing).

Back to unfinished business – we’ve repeated the Thursday Inquisition’s hearing transcript for reference, also as a reconstituted Attachment One) and now this, also last from last week’s Lesson....

Left on the table were a couple more hole cards in the Inquisitory deck... the (still) missing Secret Service tweets and letters and smoke signals and the peregrinations of Steve Bannon, who was duly indicted, arrested, convicted and sentenced to two whole months for Contempt of Congress (or maybe more if additional charges can be found and appended - DJI). He has, of course, appealed – and probably hopes to stay out of jail until The Man is restored in 2024/5 and Steve-O gets another pardon to add to his collection. We’ll take them on next Lesson...

But wait! as the television pitchmen say... we delayed issuance of this Lesson because sources (probably including Cheney herself) have just raised the possibility of trooping back to the Inquisitory Chamber to deal with two more red (or dead) herrings over and above the above two: a subpoena to and testimony by (or another contemptible citation for) Mrs. Clarence Thomas, who apparently loosed her animal instincts to graze upon Mark’s meadow; and the newly exhumed prospect of an appearance by Donald Himself himself!

So maybe we will see each other in August.

Given the escalating torrent of accusations being directed at former President Trump, we’ll meet again – probably on some steamy, sunny day before the cooler weather sets in along with football season. Any day now, maybe even later today or Monday, Attorney General Merrick Garland (who holds a considerable grudge against Trump and, more or less, all Republicans for squeezing him out of his lifetime Supreme Court seat) will pull the pin on Djonald Unindicted and indict him on any of dozens of potential Federal grievances, to go along with his troubles in the New York and Georgia state courts. The only thing potentially holding Garland back would be the furor attached as it might impact the November midterm elections. But even these advocations of caution cannot be held back for long.

So let’s delve into the love song of D. Jonathan Trump with an old marriage homily, reversed to cover the latest developments...

SOMETHING NEW – Who hid the salami?

Text messages for acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli are missing for a key period leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The Department of Homeland Security notified the agency’s inspector general in late February that Wolf’s and Cuccinelli’s texts were lost in a “reset” of their government phones when they left their jobs in January 2021 in preparation for the new Biden administration, according to an internal record obtained by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a nonpartisan independent watchdog, shared with The Washington Post and reported upon by the perhaps appropriately named media outlet crooksandliars.com. (See Attachment Two).

DHS Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari “did not press the department leadership at that time to explain why they did not preserve these records, nor seek ways to recover the lost data, according to the four people briefed on the watchdog’s actions. Cuffari also failed to alert Congress to the potential destruction of government records.” Perhaps recognizing one of their own, crooksandliars called the IG “a reliable Trump lackey who helped cover up several stories that would make the Trump adminstration look bad. Correspondent Susie Madrak also termed Wolf Cucinelli are “weasels, so there you go.”

The news follows revelations that text messages of Secret Service agents who witnessed the events of January 6, firsthand — were deleted on January 27, 2021, in an agency-wide technology “migration” and have yet to be recovered. (CBS News, 7/28, Attachment Three)

Wolf and Cuccinelli denied allegations of wrongdoing, and DHS “has not responded to a request for comment,” according to CBS. But Nick Schwellenbach, POGO Senior Investigator who co-authored the report told CBS News that: "On its face, there's a Federal Records Act violation even if there was no malicious intent here whatsoever. And the Department of Homeland Security really needs to get its act together in terms of its compliance with the Federal Records Act."

“Where have I heard that one before?” mocked either Harriet Alexander or Natasha Anderson (or both) of the Daily Mail U.K. after learning, from America, that texts belonging to Donald Trump's former acting Homeland Security Secretary and his deputy sent around the time of January 6 riots were “lost in a reset”.

Perhaps embarrassed and seeking to atone for BoJo’s follies, the Brits have been following proceedings of the One Six Inquisitors with perhaps more interest than have the colonials – perhaps distracted by the day to day crisis of putting their bangers and mash on the table, or filling up their tanks with petrol.

Cuccinelli was in DC on January 6 2021, but Wolf, according to the Independent U.K. was in the Middle East “on an official visit.”

The destruction of the records was reported to Inspector General Cuffari in February of this year.

It is not clear why it took so long to inform the Inspector General of the breach of protocol. Four sources told the WashPost, which first reported the data deletion, that the Inspector General did not demand to know why the DHS had destroyed the documentation, and did not attempt to recover it.

The Inspector General also did not inform Congress of the destruction of the records.

'It is extremely troubling that the issue of deleted text messages related to the January 6 attack on the Capitol is not limited to the Secret Service, but also includes Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, who were running DHS at the time,' said Bennie Thompson, the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee as well as the Jan 6 select committee.

Wolf resigned five days after the attack on the Capitol, and cited 'recent events' as a reason, among others.

Cuccinelli remained until the handover.

Last week, the Secret Service confirmed that they too had deleted records - explaining in a letter to Congress that they were 'erased as part of a device-replacement program'.

The National Archives, which is in charge of government record-keeping, asked the Secret Service to investigate the possible erasure of the messages and report back within 30 days.

'Through several news sources, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has become aware of the potential unauthorized deletion of United States Secret Service (Secret Service) text messages,' Laurence Brewer, the chief record keeper for the US, said in a letter to the Department of Homeland Security.

The pro-Trump (presumably pro-coverup) alternative narrative was provided by the right-wing Federalist Society (See Attachment Five), which called the real crime the suborning of truth, justice and the American Way by the inquisitors and... should he take the sort of action liberals expect of him, Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Despite an overwhelming number of voters who want the Department of Justice to intervene against all forms of political violence, Garland is picking and choosing which acts of intimidation will be prosecuted based on what might benefit the Democratic regime.

And the Federalistas aren’t blowing smokebubbles – they’ve cited actual polls!

Trotting out their usual roster of grievances, Federalist Jordan Boyd stirred into the missing mysterious tweetpot the Biden thugs’ war on schools, faith and schools of faith, assaults on pro-life Americans and their property the adventures of a pro-abortion fanatic whod shown up at Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s house to assassinate him.

Garland, now the arbiter of whether the missing documents, as many other provocations, bragged about watching Democrats’ Jan. 6 show-trial hearings and reassured the corrupt corporate media that his prosecutors were doing the same.

SOMETHING OLD... Martyring the Mob...

Meanwhile, the garbage disposal machinery keeps chug-chug-chug-a-lugging along like a can of beer within reach of Justice Kavanaugh’s reach; prosecutors tossing One Six insurrectionists... the violent, the true believers and the confused... down the chute and into the meatgrinder like so much poor quality offal, tallow and gristle after which the pulping gears groan and spit out their various prison terms like so much of that low quality dogfood and catfood that the advertisers of Blue Buffalo and/or Fancy Feast hold up as examples of unsavory, generic, poorly processed chow which inevitably leads to dull hair, cloudy eyes and a tendancy to bite or scratch the mailman.

“More than 840 people have been charged with federal crimes for their conduct at the Capitol on Jan. 6,” tabulated the Portland (Me) Press-Herald, adding that over 350 riot defendants have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury or a judge after trials.

“More than 220 of them have been sentenced, including approximately 100 who received a term of imprisonment.” (Attachment Six)

On Tuesday, Mark Ponder, a 56-year-old resident of Washington, DC, who said he “got caught up” in the chaos that erupted on January 6, 2021, and “didn’t mean for any of this to happen.” (Al Jazeera, Attachment Seven)

“I wasn’t thinking that day,” Ponder whined in the presence of US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, asking her for mercy before she sentenced him to five years and three months in prison.

That was three months longer than the prison sentence requested by prosecutors. And it is the same sentence that Chutkan gave Robert Palmer, a Florida man who also pleaded guilty to assaulting police at the Capitol. Defense attorney Joseph Conte had claimed Ponder was “caught up in the madness that was January 6.” And asked for a sentence below the guidelines range. Instead, Chutkan not only maxxed out, she added three months to the guideline recommendations.

More than 200 other Capitol riot defendants have been sentenced so far. None received a longer prison sentence than Ponder or Palmer so far, but prosecutors are seeking a 15-year prison sentence for Guy Reffitt, a Texas man who was convicted of storming the Capitol with a holstered handgun. US District Judge Dabney Friedrich is scheduled to sentence Reffitt next Monday.

Ponder was the 15th rioter that Chutkan... quickly earning a reputation as a hanging judge... sentenced to a prison term exceeding one year. Chutkan has consistently taken a hard line in punishing Capitol rioters. She has handed down terms of imprisonment to all 13 riot defendants who have come before her, matching or exceeding the Department of Justice’s sentencing recommendation in every case, according to an Associated Press review of court records.

Prosecutors had recommended a five-year prison sentence for the mope, who has been jailed since his arrest in March 2021. His lawyer called the accused a simple MAGAman who, unfortunately, painted a flagpole red, white and blue and used it to flail at police. “He did so with no intent to do anything but add his voice to the vocal protests over the injustice he perceived had happened in the election,” the lawyer added. “Unfortunately, he got caught up in the riotous atmosphere of the crowd and erroneously perceived the police as standing in the way of the crowd’s desire to protest the election results.”

(Perhaps also unfortunately, the judge and prosecutors had scrutinized his criminal record and noted that he had a conviction for bank robbery in 2008)

After his arrest, Ponder told FBI agents that he “typically supports police” but viewed the officers as “part of the problem” that day.

“At some point in time, the way this country is going, you gonna have to pick a side,” he said, according to prosecutors.

And now, back to the new business of the older deletions...

Yesterday’s edition of The Hill (Attachment Eight) declared that there are additional texts that cannot be accounted for among top Trump-era DHS officials Wolf and Cuccinelli, appearing to mark a second time that Inspector General Joseph Cuffari failed to follow protocols for alerting higher ups over serious mishandling of public records.

A call from Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) came just two weeks after a similar move from lawmakers on the House Homeland Security Committee and the House Oversight Committee asking Cuffari to step aside after he failed to notify Congress in a timely manner of what he called “erased” Secret Service text messages.

Cuffari told Congress about the issue this month, despite being alerted in December of last year that the text messages could not be accessed.

SOMETHING SECRET...

The committee investigating the January 6 attack says it will interview more former cabinet secretaries in August and September and is prepared to subpoena the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. (See below and Attachments 19 and 20)

The committee also wants to get to the bottom of missing Secret Service texts that may shed further light on Mr Trump's actions during the insurrection, particularly after earlier testimony about his confrontation with security as he tried to join supporters at the Capitol.

The Secret Service came under scrutiny after the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general launched an investigation into the agency over text messages deleted from Jan. 5-6, 2021.

The boys in black are facing harsh criticism over the deleted texts, with the National Archives saying the agency needs to conduct an internal investigation into the matter.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, said he doesn’t believe the Secret Service’s story regarding the deletion of text messages the panel subpoenaed. (“The Hill”, 7/26 – See Attachment Nine)

The committee asked the Secret Service to turn over text messages between agents from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, following a letter from a government watchdog saying the texts had been “erased” as part of a device replacement program.

The Secret Service response to the subpoena included just one text message, with the agency saying agents were advised to archive their texts before phones underwent a software migration.

“I don’t really buy that for one minute,” Raskin said on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” “For one thing, isn’t it a little odd that all of the texts would vanish for Jan. 6th and Jan. 5th? Of all the days, what an odd coincidence that is.”

Among those whose messages were missing was Robert Engel, the head of Trump’s security detail on Jan. 6 and the man who White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson said Trump “lunged” at when informed he would not be transported to the Capitol that day.

Three days later, while The Hill was reporting that Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) was calling on the Justice Department to intervene amid reports that a government watchdog at the Department of Homeland Security repeatedly failed to alert improper handling of government documents. (See Attachment Nine, 7/29)

At almost the same time, CNN reported that “a source” with knowledge of the Secret Service had identified “potential missing text messages on phones of 10 individuals.” (See Attachment Ten)

Said source said Secret Service searchers spent roughly eight hours last week searching for the notice, “but never found it.”

“Inspector General Cuffari’s actions in this matter, which follow other troubling reports about his conduct as Inspector General, cast serious doubt on his independence and his ability to effectively conduct such an important investigation. In light of these serious failures, we request that Inspector General Cuffari step aside from the ongoing investigation into the Secret Service’s erasure of text messages,” House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) asserted.

CNN’s hydra-headed riot squad, led by one Whitney Wild, declared that, earlier this month, Secret Service officials told congressional committees that DHS Inspector Cuffari, the department's independent watchdog and he of the Wolf/Cuccinelli misfeasance (above) was aware that “texts had been erased in December 2021. But, sources told CNN, the Secret Service had notified Cuffari's office of missing text messages in May 2021, seven months earlier.”

The missing messages exploded into public view earlier this month when Cuffari sent a letter to congressional committees saying that Secret Service texts, like those of the DHS, “had been erased, kicking off the frantic set of events that now has sparked a criminal investigation and pointed demands for answers from Congress.

“The Secret Service now says the texts were lost as a result of a previously scheduled data migration of its agents' cell phones that began on January 27, 2021, exactly three weeks after the attack on the US Capitol. After the data migration was completed, in May 2021 the Secret Service told Cuffari's office that they tried to contact a cellular provider to retrieve the texts when they realized they were lost,” another source told CNN.

This source added that key Secret Service personnel didn't realize data was permanently lost until after the data migration was completed, and erroneously believed the data was backed up.

The Secret Service has said that it would "conduct a thorough legal review to ensure we are fully cooperative with all oversight efforts and that they do not conflict with each other," but the hidden messages remain hidden, as of this date.

SOMEONE COLD – Convicted, not Constricted...

Thankfully, no mystery... no mixed or missing messages here! Just good ol’ famous whiteboy favoritism,

On July 7^th, former Trump dogsbody, Breitbart boy and serial scammer Steven Bannon was convicted for refusing to co-operate with the congressional committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol.

Former federal prosecutor Mitchell Epner, now a partner at Rottenberg Lipman Rich PC, predicted Bannon “…is now facing a mandatory minimum of 30 days in jail. It will take 3 months to get to sentencing. The question is whether Judge Nichols will grant bail pending appeal. Absent bail, Bannon will have served his time long before an appeal could be briefed, let alone decided.”

For now, the cool customer in this cold case is at liberty on a no-bail understanding, probably streaming BTS and thumbing through old issues of “Spotlight” as opposed to cooling his heels in the cooler with MS-13, the Rollin’ Crips and Mister BTK. Sentencing has been slated for Oct. 21, 2022.

Danbury awaits.

The man once billed as the brains behind Mr Trump's 2016 presidential victory had been charged in November with two counts of contempt of Congress.

He had rebuffed subpoenas requesting his testimony as well as relevant documents about his involvement in efforts to challenge Mr Trump's 2020 presidential defeat and organise the protests that culminated in the violent attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021. (BBC, 7/7/22: Attachment Eleven)

Bannon was born in Norfolk, VA, graduated from Benedictine College Preparatory, a private, Catholic, military high school in Richmond, Virginia, in 1971, and then attended Virginia Tech, where he served as the president of the student government association. During the summers he worked at a local junk yard before joining the Navy,

Following his conviction on two charges of contempt of Congress (which emotion he probably would not have otherwise had difficulty expressing), Business Insider published a short biography dating from his service in the Navy to the present.

Bannon, the B.I. wrote, (See Attachment Twelve) sailed the seas for seven years, including as an officer, in the late '70s and '80s. He was deployed twice and spent a few years working at the Pentagon, an experience, B. I. opined: “that would later be cited when he was tapped for Trump's White House. Bannon would say his experiences in the Navy significantly informed his politics and foreign policy views.”

After his military service, Bannon worked in a number of roles, including as an investment banker, an executive for Biosphere (later a Pauly Shore movie) and an executive producer in the film and media industry before joining Breitbart News, the far-right media website founded by conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart in 2007. Bannon was a founding member of the board, served as executive chairman and, B.I. notes: “became the de facto face of Breitbart when its founder died in 2012.”

Bannon joined Trump's 2016 campaign two months before the election as his chief strategist and senior counsel and, after the election, was appointed as “chief strategist and special counselor.”

Despite victories like abruptly shutting down the US refugee program for 120 days and banning travelers from Muslim-majority countries, the President and Bannon fell out after only seven months... allegedly because Trump feared that his subordinate was “taking too much credit for the administration's work and possibly leaking to the press.” Fired, he returned to Breitbart, but was fired again in January, 2018 after allegedly being quoted in a book criticizing Trump and his adult children.

Migrating to the private sector, the ebullient Steve-O busied himself in assorted ventures of dubious and outright illegal intent. He toured Europe to speak at events with various far-right political parties there, in a bid to build a network of right-wing populist-nationalist parties aspiring to government.

He went to France and hobnobbed with Marine LePen. He went to Italy and joined a consortium to establish a right-wing academy on the site, associated with Dignitatis Humanae Institute, a right-wing Catholic organization, and funded by a British associate of Bannon's who solicited donations from assorted shady individuals in order to create a "gladiator school for culture warriors." However, in 2019, the group's rights to use the former monastery were revoked by the Italian government because it determined that the lessee Dignitatis Humanae Institute failed to meet several criteria to operate the monastery and failed in its obligation to pay a "concession fee" as well as maintenance and security expenses. He went to Brazil and cozied up to the Bolsonaros.

And he went to China... or, at least, cultivated the exiled Chinese mogul Guo Wengui who, according to an exposé in the liberal Mother Jones, “controls pro-Trump, Chinese-language media sites and nonprofits that spread various forms of far-right disinformation.” (See Attachment Thirteen)

Guo would help Steve go back to Trump with “explicit material” passed through Rudy Giuliani that, alleged Mother, included: “videos and pictures of Hunter Biden engaged in sexual encounters and using drugs on GTV, a since shuttered video-streaming site run by Guo,” which included “...images of Hunter Biden with underage Chinese girls” (doctored, said Democrats) and allegations that “the Chinese government had obtained the material and used it to blackmail Hunter and his father, Joe Biden.”

Another Hunter-hunting Chinese connection was one Wang Dinggang—who at the time was a Guo ally with a YouTube channel called Lude Media featured on GTV. (Wang also uses the name “Lude.”) In a September 24 broadcast of that program, Wang falsely claimed that Chinese sources had sent US officials “three hard disks” of material related to Hunter Biden.

Bannon’s minions in the machinations were two men who had worked with Bannon on his War Room podcast, Jack Maxey and Vish Burra. Maxey, who called Guo “a very bad actor” said Guo’s media company “took those images and injected images that were not in there and played a game,” while Burra, who left Bannon’s War Room in late 2020 told MoJo in an earlier interview that Bannon had instructed him: “It’s your job to get out all the sex pictures.” Burra said that with Bannon’s encouragement, he eventually shared the material with a Guo assistant via files with titles including “Salacious Pics Package.”

Maxey Maxey said, in the same interview, that he felt that, while Tucker Carlson was on board the S. S. Slander for the duration, Bannon’s promotion of Guo’s false claims about Hunter Biden had actually helped the Democratic challenger by distracting voters “from real information on the laptop related to Hunter’s foreign business dealings while his father was vice president.”

“We hammered this guy every day for 10 days with the worst pictures in the world, drug addict, taking money from CCP,” Bannon boasted during a Halloween, 2020 meeting, also leaked to MoJo by leakers unnamed.

“That’s why when people tell me, ‘Lude’s stuff’s getting crazy,’ I go, ‘Not crazy enough,'” Bannon said, drawing laughter from others in the meeting.

Bannon then went a step further, according to MoJo correspondent Dan Friedman: “He told Guo’s associates that the lies they generated had allowed Trump to pull close enough that Biden had little chance of scoring a blowout victory. That would help Trump deploy his “strategy” of alleging fraud and declaring victory on election night, even if he was trailing or the race was too close to call. The lies about Hunter Biden, that is, would help Trump lie about the election.

Overkill apparently killed the rat.

But perhaps most disturbing in hindsight is what Bannon concluded; win, lose or steal. Friedman concluded the article by exclaiming that Steve’s strategy, he’d added as the ghosts and goblins descended upon Team Trump, would likely result in political violence. “So my point is,” Bannon said, “any peaceful resolution of this [election] is probably gone.”

Bannon has worked with Guo since shortly after Bannon’s ouster from the White House in 2017. Axios reported that Guo paid Bannon “at least $1 million to help launch his media companies,” and Bannon later worked as a director of GTV while keeping his fingers busy massaging the innards of strange pies.

Bannon’s reach finally exceeded his grasp in August, 2020 when he and three others were charged in a plot, which prosecutors said intended to defraud donors out of $25 million in an online fundraising effort called "We Build the Wall" that would be earmarked for Trump's border wall. (B.I.) “However, in his last days in office Trump pardoned Bannon, granting him clemency from the money laundering and fraud charges (and d)espite their prior falling out, the two went on to make positive comments about each other.”

Free of entanglement with the law, he returned to his podcast War Room and expounded his opinions upon various things while inching back into the good graces of Djonald Un-Unforgiving.

Last September, the House committee investigating the Capitol riot issued subpoenas for a number of people close to Trump, including Bannon, whose lawyer sent a letter to the Inquisitors saying Bannon would not comply “and that he didn't need to because of Trump's right to executive privilege.”

In November, a federal grand jury indicted him on charges of contempt of Congress… specifically “2 U.S. Code § 192 - Refusal of witness to testify or produce papers” on charges of “refusing to appear for a deposition and failure to produce documents for the January 6 committee.”

Could Steve-O’s jolly, jaunty façade be starting to show cracks, the crackpots and wiseguys and other media sorts began wondering as July heat... dry and fiery in the West, but wet and humid, with chance of flooding in the nation’s capital... played its cruel games with vulnerable minds?

An assortment of Associated Press subscribers including, for example, a birdsnest of NBC affiliates, reported that Bannon, the former White House strategist and ally of Donald Trump who faces criminal charges after months of defying a congressional subpoena over the Capitol riot, has told the House committee investigating the attack that he is now willing to testify. “I expect that we will be hearing from him and there are many questions that we have for him,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif. She and other committee members said in television interviews Sunday they intend to have Bannon sit for a private interview, which they typically conduct in a deposition with sworn testimony.

The defense argued that Bannon’s testimony was protected by Trump’s claim of executive privilege. The committee contended such a claim was dubious because Trump had fired Bannon from the White House in 2017 and Bannon was thus a private citizen when he was consulting with the then-president in the run-up to the riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

“Still, in recent days, as the former president grew frustrated with what he decried as a one-sided presentation by the committee of seven Democrats and two Republicans, Trump said he would waive that privilege claim, according to a letter Saturday to Bannon’s lawyer.” (NBC News Eleven, Colorado Springs, July 10^th... Attachment Fourteen)

“If you reach an agreement on a time and place for your testimony, I will waive executive privilege for you, which allows for you to go in and testify truthfully and fairly, as per the request of the unselect committee of political thugs and hacks,” Trump wrote.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., suggested that Bannon “had a change of heart, and after watching, presumably, all of these people come forward, including Cassidy Hutchinson; he’s decided that he wants to come in, and if he wants to come in, I’m certain that the committee would be very interested in hearing from him.”

The Inquisitors kept praying while Bannon kept playing...

As his day of decision drew nearer, the accused again asked U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols to delay his upcoming trial on criminal contempt charges, this time citing repeated references to some of his past comments during a hearing Tuesday of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and casting inspersions and assinuations on the government as Nazi-ish.

Bannon’s lawyers also said in a court filing Wednesday the 13th that “the defense learned just today” that CNN would air a one-hour documentary on Bannon the following Sunday evening, the day before his trial for contempt of Congress was set to begin in Washington, D.C.

Defense attorneys said that both events created “the very serious risk of prejudice here” against Bannon among jurors to be selected for his trial on charges of willfully refusing to comply with subpoenas issued by the Jan. 6 House panel demanding documents and his testimony.

“There is just nothing magic about July 18th [the trial’s scheduled start date] that can possibly justify the risk to Mr. Bannon’s fundamental” constitutional rights to a fair trial, the lawyers wrote to Judge Carl Nichols of U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C..

They asked the judge to postpone the trial until after Oct. 15.

Nichols, on Monday the 11^th, had also rejected a prior bid by Bannon to postpone the contempt trial by three months after his lawyers argued that media coverage of the House hearings would harm his right to a fair trial. Bannon could not argue at trial that he failed to comply with the subpoena on the grounds of executive privilege, and barred him from calling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and members of the Jan. 6 panel as witnesses.

The lawyers contended that the judge’s rulings “effectively gutted much of Bannon’s potential defense,” and led one of them to complain in court: “What’s the point in going to trial here if there are no defenses?”

Bannon’s defense filing Wednesday also detailed the CNN special report scheduled to air Sunday, which is titled “Divided We Fall.”

“The Special Report on Mr. Bannon, broadcast on the eve of trial is being widely promoted with a trailer and special announcements by key CNN hosts,” the filing said.

Bannon’s lawyers also wrote: “The teaser uses the term ‘Master Plan’ to describe Mr. Bannon’s purported machinations, with clearly intentional reference to this well-known weighted term referring to history’s most diabolical plot.”

That sentence ends with a footnote to a description of a book titled, “Hitler’s Masterplan, 1933-1945,” which the publisher description said detailed “Hitler’s unrealised vision for a Europe dominated by the Third Reich.”

“The Special Report documentary, broadcast on this broadly disseminated network undoubtedly will be extraordinarily inflammatory and overwhelming prejudicial for a prospective juror, beginning service in this trial the following day.”

Federal Judge Nichols had, earlier in the week, rejected an earlier bid by Bannon’s lawyers to delay his trial, which was scheduled to start Monday the 18th with jury selection. He deliberated for all of one day before rejecting the motion to delay his trial until at least mid-October... making a similar ruling Thursday, turning aside concerns from Bannon’s lawyers about the CNN report set to air on the eve of trial and added to his grief at being lumped in with the Nazis, the surfacing of what his lawyers said were prejudicial comments made during a hearing this week by the House committee investigating the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“I am cognizant of current concerns about publicity and bias and whether we can seat a jury that is going to be appropriate and fair, but as I said before, I believe the appropriate course is to go through the voir dire process,” Nichols said, referring to the questioning of individual jurors before they are selected. “And I have every intention of getting a jury that is appropriate, fair and unbiased.”

“We’re still going to be at trial on Monday,” Nichols ruled. (See Attachments Fifteen, A and B)

TRIAL and METAMORPHOSIS

The federal criminal trial thus began on Monday, July 18^th, to determine whether Bannon broke the law by refusing to comply with a subpoena for documents and testimony by the panel investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

Bannon, whom Trump fired from the White House in August of 2017, has emerged as a powerful conservative voice since leaving the White House, and his podcast, War Room, has become a must-stop for those on the political right. He has used it to stoke baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and began outlining how Trump could try to overturn the elections starting in September 2020.

The committee said in its contempt report that Bannon appeared to have “some foreknowledge” of what would happen on 6 January, according to the liberal Guardian U.K. (See Attachment Sixteen) It has also said that Bannon and Trump spoke twice on 5 January. “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow,” Bannon said on a podcast after the first call. “It’s all converging and now we’re on the point of attack tomorrow.”

The trial was hardly Scopesian or Socratesian in either implications nor duration, nor even rivaling the Amber Heard/Johnny Depp litigatory lowlights. It lasted only four days including a jury deliberation period of three hours.

In closing arguments Friday morning, both sides had re-emphasized their primary positions from the trial. The prosecution maintained that Bannon “willfully ignored clear and explicit deadlines”, while the defense claimed Bannon believed those deadlines were flexible and subject to negotiation.

Bannon’s attorney, Evan Corcoran, told jurors Friday in his closing arguments that those deadlines were mere “placeholders” while lawyers on each side negotiated terms.

The defense rested its case on Thursday without calling any witnesses after the prosecution rested on Wednesday, having called two witnesses over two days… FBI special agent Stephen Hart and Kristin Amerling, a senior committee staff member. She testified on Wednesday that Bannon disregarded the subpoena’s two deadlines, sought no extensions and offered an invalid rationale for his defiance.

Fox News offered up the “revelation” that Amerling was in the same book club with Molly Gaston, one of the prosecutors in the case, “So you’re in a book club with the prosecutor in this case?” asked Bannon lawyer M. Evan Corcoran. “We are,” replied Amerling. Gotcha!

But not really. The purported conflict of interest failed to prevent the jury from throwing the book at Steve.

Bannon spoke only once in court throughout the trial. He said: “Yes, your honor,” when the judge asked if he agreed not to testify.

Assistant US attorney Amanda Vaughn said in her closing statement: “The defense wants to make this hard, difficult and confusing. This is not difficult. This is not hard. There were only two witnesses because it’s as simple as it seems.”

Before the sun would set that afternoon, Bannon had been convicted – a victory for the House January 6 select committee that referred him for criminal prosecution as it continues to investigate the former president’s role in the Capitol attack in 2021. (Huffington Post, See Attachment Seventeen)

The jury in federal court took less than three hours to return its verdict and found the culprit guilty on two contempt charges stemming from his refusal to comply last year with a subpoena in the congressional investigation seeking documents and testimony.

Bannon, 68, reportedly smiled in court when the verdict was read. Outside court he said: “We may have lost a battle here today but we haven’t lost the war.”

Corcoran argued the committee “rushed to judgment” because it “wanted to make an example of Steve Bannon”.

Bannon, the GUK predicted, will almost certainly appeal the conviction after DC district court judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, indicated that he considered the controlling case law that obliged him to exclude the main defense arguments, in a series of pre-trial rulings devastating to Bannon, was bad law.

The guilty party (who remains free without even posting bail - the better to cook up more midterm mischief), reportedly smiled in court when the verdict was read. Outside court he said: “We may have lost a battle here today but we haven’t lost the war.”

"I support Trump and the Constitution and if they want to put me in jail for that, so be it," Bannon told Fox News.

On Monday, it was back to work for the peripatetic perpetrator; Bannon vowing to “go medieval” on his enemies and returned to his call for “shock troops” to “immediately” seize control of the nation, as he had a month before the 2020 election, when he expected Trump to win reelection — or seize control of the vote results. “Pre-trained teams” need to be “ready to jump into federal agencies,” Bannon told NBC News.

Fresh from his double contempt of Congress conviction linked to his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, the no-bail wonder is now calling on “4,000 shock troops” to “deconstruct” the federal government “brick by brick.”

He wants to see people “stepping forward, say[ing], ’Hey, I want to be one of those 4,000 shock troops,” Bannon said on his “War Room” podcast Monday. “This is taking on and defeating and deconstructing the administrative state,” he added.

“Shock troops” are assault forces that lead an attack.

“Suck on it,” said Bannon. “We’re destroying this illegitimate regime.”

Steve-O might be a little bit ebullient... 4,000 shock troops is only a fraction of the size of the insurrectionist One Six mob, but they melted away like snowflakes once authority reasserted itself... and his patron has more or less demolished any potentiality that military officials like Gen. Milley would join in the coup to take America back again. Instead, if the 4,000 did engage in armed conflict with the military, they would likely be machinegunned like Chinese protesters in Tiananmen Square or, speaking of medievalty, the hapless believers of the Children’s Crusade, ordered onto boats that did not take them to war and glory Jerusalem but, rather, sold them into slavery... rather as Mad Vlad Putin is doing with his kidnapped Ukrainian toddlers.

The Huffington Post, either believing the boast or playing along with the joke, said that “Bannon’s incendiary comments evoked his ominous call the day before the U.S. Capitol riot, when he told supporters of then-President Donald Trump on his podcast: “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. We’re on ... the point of attack ... strap in.” (Attachment Seventeen, Huffington Post)

Bloomberg opinion columnist Jonathan Bernstein wrote Monday that “contempt for the rule of law” appeared to be a key qualification for workers in Trump’s future world in office, to fulfill his aim to “blow up the Constitution.”

GINNI THOMAS

Following Bannon’s conviction, the House January 6 committee floated a proposal to subpoena Ginni Thomas, the wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, if she will not testify voluntarily about her involvement in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

The news from panel member Liz Cheney came two days after Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon was convicted of criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with the committee. He faces time in jail.

The liberal Guardian U.K. also reported that the second Republican on the committee, Adam Kinzinger, said: “You can’t ignore a congressional subpoena or you’ll pay the price,” a warning he said applied to “any future witnesses too”. (See Attachment Nineteen)

And their little dogs, too! - DJI

According to GUK, Thomas corresponded with Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, and John Eastman, a law professor who shaped the congressional side of a push that culminated in the deadly Capitol attack. “She also corresponded with Arizona Republicans about attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory there.”

USA Today reported that Cheney had told Jake Tapper of CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that: "The committee is engaged with her counsel, we certainly hope that she will agree to come in voluntarily, but the committee is fully prepared to contemplate a subpoena." Against the possibility that the voluble Ms. Thomas might flee the country, hide in Mexico or Belarus or under her husband’s SCOTUS robes, the mused: "If she does not, I hope it doesn't get to that. I hope she will come in voluntarily." (See Attachment Twenty)

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the committee's chair, said in June that Thomas would be pursued for testimony about her scheming with Meadows and Eastman and attendance at Trump's "Stop the Steal" rally on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021.

And Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., also a member of the committee, backed up Cheney's statements on CBS News' "Face the Nation" on Sunday.

"If she has relevant information or investigation, we hope she comes in voluntarily, but if she doesn't then we should give that serious consideration," Schiff said of Thomas. "And, yes, I think those that we decide have important enough information should be subpoenaed."

There has been no indication that her husband Clarence... he of the proposals to ban contraception, overturn gay marriage, criminalize gay sex or overturn other longstanding “settled precedents” of the law (but not, at least in his own SCOTUS briefings, interracial marriage)... is under investigation by the Inquisition.

MISTER TRUMP’S WILD RIDE...

The January 6 hearings may be on hiatus until September but, up from Down Under, ABC.net (Australia) reported that their hiatus “hasn't stopped committee members from continuing to reveal more material on former US president Donald Trump's role in the Capitol riots.

The Aussies channeled reports from the American broadcasters that Elaine Luria, a Democrat and member of the January 6 committee, had posted to Twitter a three-minute video which included testimony from White House aides discussing Mr Trump's speech on January 7. (See Attachment Twenty One)

In her tweet, Ms Luria wrote: "It took more than 24 hours for President Trump to address the nation again after his Rose Garden video on January 6th in which he affectionately told his followers to go home in peace. There were more things he was unwilling to say."

Among the Luria leaks were allegations that Donald Trump had crossed out sentences that distanced him from the rioters who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021...

He crossed out lines that said: "I want to be very clear: You do not represent me. You do not represent our movement."

But he left in: "You do not represent our country."

In the original line, "I am outraged and sickened by the violence, lawlessness and mayhem," the word "sickened" is crossed out.

The line, "You belong in jail," was replaced with: "You will pay."

This part of the speech was entirely crossed out in black pen:

"I am directing the Department of Justice to ensure all lawbreakers are prosecuted to the full extent of the law. We must send a clear message — not with mercy but with JUSTICE. Legal consequences must be swift and firm."

Also included were verifications of Daddy’s handwriting from Trump’s daughter Ivanka and testimony from witness Cassidy Hutchinson, who said the scramble to get Mr Trump to speak again on January 7 was partly because of "large concern" within the White House that some of his cabinet officials might try to invoke the constitutional process of the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.

Yesterday, those treacherous officials were revealed to be Trump's former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, sources and former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe. Given the classified nature of Ratcliffe's former role, there are unique issues the two sides have to work out.

The committee is also scrutinizing former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Thursday.

The video also included testimony from John McEntee, then the director of the White House presidential personnel office and one of Mr Trump's closest aides at the time, and Pat Cipollone, the former top White House lawyer.

Mr McEntee said in the video that Jared Kushner asked him to "nudge this along" to make sure Mr Trump delivered the speech, and confirmed the former US president was reluctant to do so.

Pat Cipollone, the former top White House lawyer, also said he believes Mr Trump should have forcefully laid out the consequences for the rioters.

"In my view, he needed to express very clearly" that the rioters "should be prosecuted, and should be arrested."

Jared was recorded saying he had “spoken with other aides and they were trying to put remarks together for the president.”

When the committee asks him why his father-in-law crossed out specific lines, he responded, twice: "I don't know."

In response to other questions, he reiterated that old Kastanie (chestnut) from Sgt. Shulz of that strange old Nazi concentration camp comedy “Hogan’s Heroes”:

N Ø I know nothing

THE MIKE and DJONALD SHOW

There have been many great comedic duos in the history of American (and even world) culture... film, audio recordings, stand-up, even advertising... Abbott and Costello, Pat and Mike, Tom and Jerry...

Most are intentional – they perform for the masses and are rewarded with money, fame, respect. But now and again a solo or group performer pleases, enlightens and sometimes informs the mob (and some others, usually deliberately, scare them into shitting their pants). Most of these garner none of the above – ridicule and deprivation will be their lot.

But, undeterred by precedent, both Trump and America’s new unhung hero, the former VP Pence took to the proving grounds of Arizona to promote their (rival) candidates for Tuesday’s primary election for Governor.

Former television anchor Kari Lake, has embraced Trump’s election lies along with his combative approach to his political enemies and the media, according to U.S. News. “No one understands better than Kari how to fight back against the fake news media and the radical left,” Trump said Friday evening during his own rally in Prescott Valley, one of the most conservative areas of Arizona.

Pence, who added his name to a growing list of GOP establishment figures endorsing housing developer Karrin Taylor Robson, offered only an oblique critique of the Republicans still pushing the lie that Trump lost because of fraud.

If you elect Robson, Pence said, “you can send a deafening message heard all across America that the Republican Party is the party of the future.”

Polls show Lake with a substantial lead for the primary, but presumed Democratic candidate Katie Hobbs leads both in the November race to replace retiring Gov. Ducey.

Ol’ 45 then continued his rally-rama, speaking in Wisconsin, and in Washington D.C. where the former President said that convicted drug dealers should be sentenced to death at a rally on Tuesday, his first appearance in Washington, D.C. since his departure from the White House. Trump (falsely, according to the liberal Truthout) “claimed that the implementation of such a policy would act as a deterrent, and would result in a decrease of drug-related crimes in the U.S. “If you look at countries throughout the world, the ones that don’t have a drug problem are ones that institute a very quick trial death penalty sentence for drug dealers,” he said.

(Sorry, Britney… best remain in Russia!)

But another rally in Greensboro, NC was postponed due to the ongoing legal maneuverings in New York and Georgia.

Djonald UnGrounded finally closed down the week by flying back down to Florida to engage in a war of words with Governor Ron deSantis, viewed as a potential obstacle to his 2024 restoration.

We have a better idea of what Trump and his minions were doing on the One Six, but the question remains... why? Did he have a master plan that went terribly, tragically awry – or was it all a calculated step in his dream to regain the throne in 2024 (after securing both houses of Congress in November).

Ed Kilgore of New York Magazine asked, then answered: What exactly did Trump hope to gain from the capitol riot? (See Attachment Twenty Three)

Even those who believe Djonald Unhinged is... well... unhinged cannot accuse him of stupidity. Going into January 6^th, he knew that Mike Pence would not overturn the voters’ verdict, and that the mob might delay the inevitable for a while, but that the tallymen “would soon resume (as they also did, that very evening).”

“That leaves two possibilities,” Kilgore deduced, “both of them damning: (1) Trump planned to use the violence to assert some sort of emergency powers that would have more definitively halted the congressional proceedings and/or kept him in office past January 20, or (2) Trump simply incited violence for the sheer disruptive hell of it without a scintilla of a strategy.”

It would be good to know for the record, though, asked Kilgore, “if in that crucial moment when his supporters were sacking the Capitol, Trump was seeking something other than chaos.”

President Joe, like the shingles or plague, probably doesn’t care what the Donald wants.

Continuing on medieval themes and memes... perhaps a consequence of the recent SCOTUS overturning of Roe v. Wade, Biden parlayed a little of the la Français in a report by the Agence France Presse of July 25, 2022.

President Joe slammed his predecessor Donald Trump Monday for watching his supporters riot for hours on January 6 while police at the US Capitol suffered through a "medieval hell."

"Brave law enforcement officers were subject to the medieval hell for three hours, dripping in blood, surrounded by carnage, face to face with the crazed mob that believed the lies of the defeated president," Biden told the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives Conference.

"The police were heroes that day. Donald Trump lacked the courage to act," Biden said, adding: "You can't be pro-insurrection and pro-cop. You can't be pro-insurrection and pro-democracy. You can't be pro-insurrection and pro-American."

And then he got it. (The plague, not the translation)

Again!

JULY 23rd – JULY 29th, 2022

Saturday, July 23rd, 2022

Dow: 31,899.29

With great events, often precipitated by small minds, coming to an end... the One Six Inquisition (perhaps), the war in Ukraine, the plague, stagflation... the perennials are back in the saddle. And Mother Nature is back in the house (and the House of Congress, where a climate change corrective bill narrowly passed, and seems doomed in the Senate. Despite coast to coast calamities...

Running West to East, we begin with the drought – a thousand year drought by most estimates, although some ramp it up to twelve hundred years. And with drought comes record temperatures and wildfires. While the Pacific Coastal and desert interior states bake, the East, less familiar with the triple digits, broils. And in the great Midwest between, storms, tornadoes and flooding bedevils the flyover states.

Also back at their rightful seat at the newsfeeds are plague (President Joe gets it), the Ukraine war and inflation. Dr. Fauci says Biden’s out of danger, then warns that “we have to start taking monkeypox seriously” (as it spreads among gay men like AIDS used to). Russia bombs the port of Odessa, essentially killing the deal to allow grain shipments to pass through to relieve starving Africans. And inflation prompts The Boss (Springsteen) to sell concert tickets for up to $5,000.

Sunday, July 17th, 2022

Also not going away, gun violence perpetrated by the young, the hopeless and the balls-to-the-wall crazies. A Brooklyn bishop and his congregation are robbed by masked gunmen at Sunday Mass. Active shooters strike a L.A. car show, plug a 14 year old girl in Philly and a cop in Rochester.

Al Gore returns from wherever his been hiding to plug a book and tell Don Jones that he was right all along, and that Americans were fools for not believing him. And then he calls our atmosphere “an (inconvenient) open sewer.” Multiple heat-related deaths strike sweltering Americans and the World Food Program calls 820M “food insecure”.

At least there are plenty of distractions. ComiCon, back from plague hiatus, previews the new Black Panther movie. Thor hammered by “Nope” at the box office and the MLB Hall of Fame inducts Big Papi, with six others.

And it’s National Tequila Day.

Monday, July 18th, 2022

Dow: 31,990.04

It’s National Wine and Cheese Day. Both may be more expensive tomorrow due to what economist Kenneth Simonson calls “corporate pessimism”. FedSec Yellin, however, still spouting optimism.

Russia rattles an increasingly rusty sabre – foreign minister Lavrov calls for “regime change” in Ukraine, President Z. being “anti-people” and “anti-historical” amidst allegations that Putin has kidnapped 10,000 children and shipped them off to Siberia (or to name-your-pedophile). (Can’t somebody just nuke these parasites? – DJI)

Poseidon, like Gaia, is angry. Sharks swarm Rockaway Beach, and Cape Cod. An angry whale smacks down a fishing boat, angry seals are chasing swimmers and 17 migrants drown when their boat capsizes amidst the Bahamas.

On the merrier side (betwixt Long Island and Massachusetts), Joni Mitchell returns to Newport’s folk festival 53 years after her debt performance. Her opening act – Paul Simon.

Tuesday, July 26th, 2022

Dow: 31,763.21

Yosemite Sam is angry too as wildfire burn there rises from 15,000 to 17,000 acres, lifting clouds of toxic smoke that spread from San Francisco north to Oregon. Lakes Mead and Great Salt down to lowest levels in decades, lake and riverbottoms revealing long buried corpses and the Rio Grande is down to a trickle that migrants can walk across.

Texas-style Trouble in Dallas... grass fires burning out of control edge closer and closer to the city where a madwoman with a gun (she was not supposed to have due to frequent criminal and mental health incident) shoots up the airport. (No casualties except the perp, shot by police.)

WalMart stock drifts down as merch stock soars for lack of customers with lack of money. A TV economist tells Americans battered by inflation to sell their blood.

Wednesday, July 27th, 2022

Dow: 32,187.59

It’s National Scotch Day!

Pour one for the moneylenders and credit card sharks celebrating the Fed’s 0.75% hike in interest rates that will slow inflation by squeezing Don Jones’ discretionary income.

Pour one for the real sharks – a documentarian who lost an arm and a leg says that they are “persecuted” (like Djonald Disrespected) and need sensitive and caring humans to... all join in on the old platitude... “give a voice to the voiceless.”

Pour another for Joe Manchin, who pivots and cuts a deal with President Joe on health, taxes and climate change (perhaps induced by record W. Va flooding).

And a tepid, bitter tumbler of tonic for the W.H.O. which declares that the only way to beat the monkeypox is for people to stop having sex.

Thursday, July 28th, 2022

Dow: 32,529.63

It’s National Water Park Day. Too much water across the Midwest, where 8 die in the historic flooding occurring in Kentucky; too little in Califonia and Texas and, now, the Northwest... usually cool as London in the summer is behaving as if it were... London in 2022.

President Joe is pronounced cured and out of quarantine, ready to rassle with Russia and China, with whose Dictator Xi he holds a two hour phone conversation more or less divided between threats and deals. Now, NoKo feels ignored, tries to gain more attention by escalating nuclear threats.

America’s GDP pronounced down 0.9%, making for a mathematical instance of recession (two straight quarters of GDP losses). But politicians... especially bipartisan incumbents... are loathe to use the “R” word, so most pivot to rasslin’ for credit for the booming jobs rate and rising Dow.

Friday, July 29th, 2022

Dow: 32,845.13

And it’s National Lipstick Day. The WHO escalates its monkeypox warning: No More Kissing! as terror monkeys maddened (by climate change, say liberal) invade Japanese cities.

While President Joe is alternately warning and flattering China’s Xi, Speaker Pelosi declares her intent to visit Taiwan, which act the Red Army declares “a provocation. TV Col. Ganyard says that Xi is lobbying to be named President-for-Life and wants to appear strong and virile. Russia counterproposes adding a known anti-American terrorist to their want list for Britney Griner and, now, Paul Whelan (but not Marc Fogel, serving 14 years for possession of pot).

Record temperaturs across the Northwest include Redding, CA (114°) and Spokane, WA (111°).

Kentucky rain has now killed 15... wait. 16... and more forecast for West Virginia (where flooding is perhaps the deciding factor in Sen. Joe Manchin’s pivot to support of Biden’s climate change funding.

A week full of bad national and international news – war, famine, floods, fires, economic collapse, volcanoes, earthquakes, sharks and monkeypox – is almost evenly evened out by a sharp rise in the Dow to benefit the rich. Revolution, anyone?

THE DON JONES INDEX

CHART of CATEGORIES w/VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000

(REFLECTING… approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013)

See a further explanation of categories here…

ECONOMIC INDICES (60%)

CATEGORY

VALUE

BASE

RESULTS

SCORE

OUR SOURCES and COMMENTS

INCOME

(24%)

6/17/13 & 1/1/22

LAST

CHANGE

NEXT

7/23/22

7/30/22

SOURCE

Wages (hrly. per cap)

1350 points

7/23/22

+0.44%

8/22

1,375.62

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/wages 27.45

Median Inc. (yearly)

600

7/23/22

+0.03%

8/6/22

602.96

603.14

http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 35,952

Unempl. (BLS – in mi)

600

4/22

+5.56%

8/22

633.36

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000/ 3.6% nc

Official (DC – in mi)

300

7/23/22

-0.19%

8/6/22

302.32

302.88

http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 5,886

Unofficl. (DC – in mi)

300

7/23/22

-0.11%

8/6/22

309.85

310.19

http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 10,917

Workforce Particip.

Number

Percent

300

7/23/22

-0.024% -0.007%

8/6/22

300.67

300.69

In 158,713 Out 99,332 337 Total: 258,050

http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 61.50

WP % (ycharts)*

150

6/18/22

-0.16%

7/23/22

150.00

https://ycharts.com/indicators/labor_force_participation_rate 62.20

OUTGO

15%

Total Inflation

1050

8/22

+1.3%

8/6/22

1010.64

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +1.3

Food

300

8/22

+1.0%

8/6/22

289.34

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +1.0

Gasoline

300

8/22

+11.2%

8/6/22

221.46

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +11.2

Medical Costs

300

8/22

+0.7%

8/6/22

293.45

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.7

Shelter

300

8/22

+0.6%

8/6/22

293.46

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm +0.6

WEALTH

Dow Jones Index

300

7/23/22

+2.97%

8/6/22

265.75

273.63

https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/index/ 32,845.13

Home (Sales)

(Valuation)

150

7/23/22

-3.57% +2.06%

8/6/22

163.99

318.93

163.99

318.93

https://www.nar.realtor/research-and-statistics

Sales (M): 5.12 Valuations (K): 416.0

Debt (Personal)

300

7/23/22

+0.14%

8/6/22

292.66

292.26

http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 70,388

NATIONAL

(10%)

Revenue (trilns.)

300

7/23/22

+0.20%

8/6/22

322.26

322.92

debtclock.org/ 4,407

Expenditures (tr.)

300

7/23/22

+1.43%

8/6/22

322.66

327.27

debtclock.org/ 6,012

National Debt tr.)

450

7/23/22

+0.06%

8/6/22

444.33

444.06

http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 30,615

Aggregate Debt (tr.)

450

7/23/22

-0.18%

8/6/22

440.86

440.07

http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 91,725

GLOBAL

(5%)

Foreign Debt (tr.)

300

7/23/22

-0.12%

8/6/22

319.82

319.44

http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 7,550

Exports (in billions)

150

7/23/22

+1.31%

8/22

160.88

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/index.html 255.9

Imports (bl.)

150

7/23/22

+0.59%

8/22

153.54

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/index.html 341.4

Trade Deficit (bl.)

150

7/23/22

-1.87%

8/22

196.23

https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/index.html 85.5

ACTS of MAN

12%

World Affairs

450

7/23/22

-0.2 %

8/6/22

471.76

470.82

Pope Francis takes his Apology Tour to Canada, where he begs forgiveness from Native Canadians – not granted. The World Food Program states that 820 millions worldwide are facing “food insecurity” (i.e. “starvation”) Many believe ê

Terrorism

300

7/23/22

-0.5%

8/6/22

292.27

290.81

Russian promises to allow Ukrainian grain to leave the Black Sea and go to starving Africans – exposed as false when they bomb port facilities. Instead, Putin promises regime change, grins at massacres of Uke POWs, kidnaps thousands of children shipped off to Siberia (or NAMBLing oligarchs). A Hawaiian couple exposed as spies by photos in their KGB uniforms.

Politics

450

7/23/22

8/6/22

462.28

Trump/Pence proxy war in Arizona’s Republican Gubernatorial primary and in mighty speeches before mindless worshippers. Neo-Nazis and drag queens battle in Boston. Annual baseball game between Dems and ‘Pubs returns to Washington... this year the G.O.P. wins, 10-0.

Economics

450

7/23/22

-0.3%

8/6/22

437.96

436.65

Fed Chair Powell raises interest rates; he and SecTreas Yellin scoff at prospect of recession. And snicker, even as second quarter GDP falls by 0.9%. Former Rep. Steven Buyer (R-Il) charged with Insider buying and selling. TVconomist advises struggling Americans to sell their blood.

Crime

150

7/23/22

-0.3%

8/6/22

290.81

289.94

The week in gun violence begins with 4 murdered at campground in Iowa, 4 more children in Alaska, 14 year old girl shot in Philly, cop killed in Rochester, 2 shot at L.A. car show. Armed robbers invade Brooklyn church during Sunday Mass.

ACTS of GOD

(6%)

Environment/Weather

450

7/23/22

-0.4%

8/6/22

443.73

441.96

Big Heat bakes more or less everywhere but the Midwest... which is flooding. Drying up lakes reveal bounty of mob corpses. Toxic smoke blankets West. Al Gore calls our atmosphere an “open sewer” and reminds us that he told us so.

Disasters