Blue Horseshoe

The suppression of inconvenient truths about COVID on Twitter .....Pfizer and the White House engaged in behind-the-scenes efforts to pressure social media companies into censoring truthful information about COVID-19 and vaccines.....That’s the revelation now emerging from Twitter’s internal company communications, thrown open by new owner Elon Musk, as well as from the discovery process in a lawsuit filed against the Biden administration by the states of Missouri and Louisiana together with several individual plaintiffs..... White House director of digital media Rob Flaherty berated a Facebook executive in a March 14, 2021, email. “We are gravely concerned that your service is one of the top drivers of vaccine hesitancy — period,” Flaherty wrote. “We want to know that you’re trying, we want to know how we can help, and we want to know that you’re not playing a shell game.” Then, in a remark that had a distinctly gangster-like ring to it, Flaherty added, “This would all be a lot easier if you would just be straight with us.” In his March 14 email, Flaherty linked to a Washington Post article that cited Facebook’s own research on “the spread of ideas that contribute to vaccine hesitancy.” The Biden administration seemed to think Facebook was holding back some high-tech tool to control people’s words and thoughts. The subject line of Flaherty’s email was “You are hiding the ball.”....Under this government duress, Facebook promised policy changes. The executive wrote back to Flaherty a week later to say the company would be “removing vaccine misinformation” and also “reducing the virality of content discouraging vaccines that does not contain actionable misinformation.” Flaherty wrote again on April 9, demanding to know what the company was doing to ensure that it was not “making our country’s vaccine hesitancy problem worse.” The White House official warned the Facebook executive not to backslide on information-control efforts. “I want some assurances,” Flaherty wrote. “Understood,” the Facebook executive meekly responded.....Independent journalist Alex Berenson, who was banned from Twitter after he reported truthful information about the waning efficacy of the COVID vaccine — a vaccine that brought Pfizer nearly half of its $81 billion in sales in 2021 — was invited by Musk to search the company’s internal correspondence and report on what he found. He found that on Aug. 27, 2021, Scott Gottlieb “saw a tweet he didn’t like, a tweet that might hurt sales of Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine.”...The tweet came from Dr. Brett Giroir, who, like Gottlieb, is a former FDA commissioner. “It’s now clear #COVID19 natural immunity is superior to #vaccine immunity by A LOT,” Giroir wrote. “There’s no science justification for #vax proof if a person had prior infection.” Giroir called on the CDC director and the president to “follow the science.”....The post was not misinformation, and it didn’t violate Twitter’s terms of service. But Gottlieb immediately began pulling strings to get it censored.....Berenson reports that Gottlieb, who was paid $365,000 by Pfizer in 2021, emailed Twitter’s top Washington lobbyist, Todd O’Boyle, who was also Twitter’s liaison to the White House. “This is the kind of stuff that’s corrosive,” Gottlieb wrote, complaining that Giroir drew a “sweeping conclusion” from one study in Israel. He told O’Boyle the tweet “will end up going viral and driving news coverage.” .....O’Boyle used an internal communications channel at Twitter to rush Gottlieb’s email to the “Strategic Response” team, identifying Gottlieb as “the former FDA commissioner” without mentioning that he was also a highly paid board member at Pfizer. The Twitter team reviewed the tweet and found no violation of the company’s misinformation policy, but then slapped a “misleading” label on it anyway, sharply reducing its visibility......For the record, a significant number of extremely well qualified scientists and medical doctors disagreed with the government’s (and Pfizer’s) view that everyone should get a COVID vaccine.....Censorship prevented you from hearing that. Until now. https://www.ocregister.com/2023/01/15/twitter-files-shine-a-light-on-the-suppression-of-inconvenient-truths-about-covid/

Lab Leak Fight Casts Chill Over Virology Research .....Questions about whether Covid leaked from a Chinese laboratory have cast a chill over American virus research, drying up funding for scientists who collect or alter dangerous pathogens and intensifying a debate over those practices.....The pullback has transformed one of the most highly charged fields of medical science. While some believe such experiments could fend off the next pandemic, others worry that they are more likely to start one. At Pennsylvania State University, a proposal to infect ferrets with a mutant bird flu virus passed the federal government’s most rigorous biosafety review only to be rebuffed by the National Institutes of Health. Troy Sutton, the scientist behind the studies, said that health officials referred to the public controversy over the lab leak theory in advising him to pursue different experiments.....In Washington, international development officials pulled the plug this summer on a $125 million program to collect animal viruses on several continents after two senior Republican senators demanded that they end the project. And elsewhere in the United States, nearly two dozen virologists, some of whom spoke anonymously for fear of jeopardizing funding or career prospects, described a professionwide retreat from sensitive experiments. Some said that they had stopped proposing such work because research plans were languishing in long and opaque government reviews. One virologist said that university administrators had asked him to remove his name from a study done with colleagues in China. “The next flu pandemic is brewing in nature, but we have very little means of stopping it, very little means of identifying what the most dangerous viruses are,” said Dr. Sutton, the Penn State virologist. “This freight train is coming, and we need to do anything we can do to get ahead of that.”....To critics, the studies became a byword for reckless experiments that risked kindling horrific outbreaks for only modest scientific knowledge. Lab leaks were responsible for the last cases of smallpox, in 1978, and for infections among scientists in Asia with an earlier coronavirus, SARS-CoV-1, in 2003 and 2004. .....Inside the N.I.H., the political feud took a toll, raising the cost to the agency of becoming embroiled in additional controversies. A flurry of Congressional requests soon piled up, as did more public records requests than usual.....The scrutiny seemed to make government scientists skittish. Dr. Sutton said his primary contact at the N.I.H. told him by phone in the summer of 2020 that the agency would not fund his ferret transmission studies and encouraged him to find other ways of studying the virus.....“They just said, ‘You know, there’s a lot of controversy about this kind of work in the news right now,’” Dr. Sutton recalled. “They weren’t comfortable funding it......” https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/science/covid-lab-leak-research.html

Trump sees ‘political advantage’ in floating pardons for Jan. 6 defendants: Haberman New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman suggested Tuesday that former President Trump sees a “political advantage” in floating pardons for those convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.....Following Tuesday’s sentencing of former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio to 22 years in prison over the Jan. 6 riot, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked Haberman whether “the fact that domestic terror is now a part of this” would change Trump’s mind about potential pardons. “I don’t think it’s going to stop Trump from saying what he has been saying,” Haberman said. “He’s been fundraising to try to help some of the defendants in Jan. 6-related cases. I don’t think that this will have him adjust anything.” ....“I’m sure his lawyers would like it if he would adjust some of what he’s saying and doing,” she added. “But I don’t think for what he is saying himself — he sees political advantage in continuing to say that he might pardon people. He thinks that it rallies his supporters.” Tarrio was convicted of seditious conspiracy and other serious felonies in May for spearheading a plot to block the Jan. 6 certification of the 2020 election....His 22-year sentence is the longest handed down in connection with the Jan. 6 riot. https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4189132-trump-sees-political-advantage-in-floating-pardons-for-jan-6-defendants-haberman/

She's a pure grifter. However that doesn't mean she's always wrong. She's the black female version of Charlie Kirk ( Effective, somewhat, in situations that are short intense arguments against zealots but generally weak everywhere else like interviewing skills, critical thought, practical political analysis, etc, etc) She chose Conservativism because it was the easiest pathway to conflict ( to raise her personal brand) and there was almost no competition for "space" in the general political pundit world for her role ( good looking, young, would do legwork and research, would prepare, aggressive, etc, etc) If the Daily Wire had a better option than her, they'd probably release her after her next contract expired. She can't hold audience capture. She can only generate an ancillary audience to the rest of The Daily Wire's brand. They already have to do a massive number of cross overs with Brett Cooper to try to help generate some numbers for her. Put it this way, if there was more money and "personal branding" opportunity in being a hard radical leftist, she'd be that instead. Her BLM documentary was mostly deficient from a media perspective. She just didn't understand the base points to engage a national audience ( not like "What Is A Woman?") and she couldn't secure the level of contacts/insider information needed to justify a full documentary. Media wise, she's just not very skilled and not getting better. If she was an NFL player, she'd be Mark Sanchez. Except as a backup QB on the 1995 Dallas Cowboys roster. Her strength is not in studio and doing sit down interviews. Her podcast isn't very good, she can only get guests within the DW "sphere", and her studio show is entirely predictable. She's like Tim Pool in that she needs to be out in the field and playing to her one major "pull" - Which is engaging in conflict with those who are ideologically opposed to her position. I said "position" and not "values" because she's a grifter. She's in it only for the money, power and a soft job, not because she's really aligned to her "views" To her credit, she's gotten an endless number of death threats and has kept going. Lots of fringe radicals want to kill her, her white husband ( which is another source of conflict in some arenas) and her kids. But lots of pundits on the Daily Wire are perpetual targets. A lot of people would have given up considering that, but she's still there. Which speaks more to her greed than her resolve. But there is some resolve there. She only does one or two specific things well and she generally puts herself in a position NOT to do them. That makes her less and less valuable. However the Daily Wire can't let her go and she knows it. She's the only major black pundit they have. The rest is heavily stocked with white heterosexual males. That doesn't quite balance out for them. The easing point for Owens is if she could be funny. If she had even a shred of basic charisma ( she doesn't), then it would help her platform immeasurably. Angry and pretty is just boring. However angry, pretty and funny has a bit of a rough edged charm to it. In effect, she should be searching out how to be more like Alan Rickman from Die Hard. He was untrustworthy and greedy, but he was funny and realistic. He was never boring. Owens attempting to wash over her grifter tone is not effective. She tries very hard to play it as if she's a straight shooter and it doesn't come off as genuine. ( Whereas Brett Cooper's "persona" on the DW is an entire fabrication built to generate an audience, but she does it so much better. Owens is bad at being "bad", but also bad at playing "good". Just like you wouldn't want Mark Sanchez being your starting QB1 for the 95 Cowboys ) But that's a restriction of the Daily Wire brand - They want you straight edge, married, with kids, Christian and only controversial within a very narrow set of parameters.

Black diners average 10.9% to 14.7% of the bill, and white diners average 16.6% to 19.4%, depending on the study. The server’s race didn’t matter.....Black subjects are also more likely than whites to say they never tip servers (6% versus 2%, in one study) and to leave tips as flat-dollar amounts instead of percentages of the bill (50.7% versus 19.4%, in one study).... https://ecommons.cornell.edu/items/fb91573a-c579-4062-967c-1f291a8714d3/full https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-mar-26-tr-insider26-story.html

Race Differences in Restaurant Tipping: A Literature Review and Discussion of Practical Implications African Americans are widely perceived within the restaurant industry as poor tippers. A recent survey of more than a thousand servers from across the United States found that more than 65 percent rated African Americans as “below average tippers” (McCall and Lynn 2009, see also Brewster 2012). These perceptions have important consequences for black consumers and restaurant servers as well as managers and executives in the restaurant industry. ....a Cornell University associate professor says: Research indicates that African Americans, on average, leave smaller tips for servers than whites do and that they’re more likely to leave nothing.....Expecting skimpy gratuities, waiters resist serving African Americans, or they provide poorer service, which discourages blacks from patronizing table-service restaurants. Low tips also make it hard for restaurants in black neighborhoods to attract and retain staff, causing turnover and decreasing profits.....“It’s a problem the industry knows about,” says Lynn, who is white. “But the big players with money are afraid to address the issue. They’re afraid of being labeled racist.” But even when black and white customers are in the same socioeconomic class or rate the quality of service equally, he says, several studies by himself and others found that they tip differently. Black diners average 10.9% to 14.7% of the bill, and white diners average 16.6% to 19.4%, depending on the study. The server’s race didn’t matter.....Black subjects are also more likely than whites to say they never tip servers (6% versus 2%, in one study) and to leave tips as flat-dollar amounts instead of percentages of the bill (50.7% versus 19.4%, in one study).... https://ecommons.cornell.edu/items/fb91573a-c579-4062-967c-1f291a8714d3/full https://ecommons.cornell.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/c4ded1f5-049c-4a1d-9c9c-3cba71030e6c/content https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-mar-26-tr-insider26-story.html

But you've got all those treasure chests in storage from being Egyptian royalty, shouldn't a large tip be a pittance for someone of your legacy and historical stature?

‘You didn’t pay me. You paid the delivery app’: Delivery driver takes items back after not receiving tip on $400 order In a video posted...., a delivery driver and a couple engage in a tense exchange over a tip—or lack thereof—for a sizable $400 grocery order. The driver, clearly frustrated, argues for the importance of tipping, especially given the effort she put into the delivery. The customers, on the other hand, stand firm on the principle that tipping is optional....."You should see how much work this was and why I should be getting a tip because of how much work this was,” the worker says. “No, you don’t deserve a tip,” one of the customers says. “You’re crushing the ramen noodles for one.”....The delivery driver says that it doesn’t matter what state the ramen noodles are in because she’s returning all of the items. “They’re not for you anymore,” she says as she attempts to load her car back up with the items. “I had to pack all of this in my car and bring it to you guys and unpack it. You didn’t pay me. You paid the delivery app.”.....The customer argues that she paid for the food and accuses the driver of stealing the food. The delivery driver says, “You guys can get your refund, and another delivery driver can deal with you guys.” The argument goes on for several minutes and ends with the driver continuing to load the groceries in her car and the other customer promising that he is “going to report this.” The customers also speculate that the driver is “probably going to keep this for herself.”.....This debate is nothing new, and there have been many individuals on both sides of the issue who’ve shared their own views on social media. One DoorDash customer explained why they never give drivers gratuities. Another delivery driver chronicled how frustrating it was to not receive a tip despite going above and beyond for their customers. The American service industry is a gamble. Workers often accept lower hourly wages with the hope of making more through tips. Sometimes, this pays off handsomely, with generous customers leaving substantial tips for minimal work. Other times, as the video shows, workers can put in a significant effort and walk away with nothing. Perhaps this roll of the dice is why the service industry is reportedly in the top industries with too many job openings in the United States, meaning, perhaps workers are becoming fed up with this and want more stability. In addition, it was reported this year by Insider that Instacart dropped the hourly wage from $7 to $4, which means drivers and more dependent than ever on tipping.... https://www.dailydot.com/news/delivery-driver-takes-groceries-back-no-tip/ **** The above is very likely staged in some fashion. However that it is entirely plausible in today's "tipping" culture should be food for thought.

There was a place and time when American society had a culture where "eating out" was really only for special occasions or business for the average person. I'm sure everyone knows at least one person who buys Starbucks every day. Or maybe more than once a day. Add it up. Over a month. A year. Ten years. That really adds up. Same with eating out. Now different people are in different financial positions. Some people can get Starbucks and eat out everyday and it doesn't hurt their overall bottom line for their wants/needs financially. But the average American is generally not in that situation. For those who don't vibe with the current tipping culture or changes to it, then maybe that's a "soft exit" for those folks to just stop eating out or eat out extremely infrequently. Tipping is, for the most part, discretionary. You don't know what people will give and how often, so it's not reliable. People have the right to not vibe with it or where it's headed. Those folks are probably better off finding a different situation ( doing more take out or eating places where tipping is not culturally expected) or just not eating out at all. However I don't agree with seeing videos and accounts of people at their jobs arguing or refusing the service because of a "tip" or what they perceive is not the "right tip" This is one of those social/cultural issues where both sides are better off avoiding each other once it's clear some are going to always disagree on it.

Migrant surge makes U.S. housing crisis worse ....A surge in new migrants is colliding with the U.S.' housing crisis, and even putting a minor dent in the shelter problem is costing state and local governments millions. Why it matters: Cities simply don't have enough affordable homes, enough shelters or enough money to help everyone who needs it, straining scarce resources and leaving thousands of people out on the street. The big picture: Soaring housing costs and the end of some pandemic-era safety nets have fueled an affordable housing shortage, causing homelessness to rise in many cities. Homelessness in the U.S. had a record spike from 2022 to 2023, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Now, state and local officials are also scrambling to house thousands of migrants arriving from the border. What they're saying: "We need more units. We need to confront the broader housing crisis," New York City Comptroller Brad Lander tells Axios in an interview......"If we can help folks that have been in shelter a long time get housing subsidies, and if we can help asylum seekers get work authorizations ... they won't be competing for the same units," he adds. Zoom in: New York City is legally required to provide shelter to anyone who requests it. The city was caring for nearly 60,000 migrants and asylum seekers at the beginning of September, according to the comptroller's office....Migrants accounted for more than half of the city's shelter population, according to a report released this month....It just announced a lease of a World War II-era airfield as an emergency shelter site.....Chicago homeless advocates estimate the city has more than 68,000 unhoused people, in addition to nearly 9,500 migrants. City officials tell Axios they expect migrant support efforts to cost more than a quarter of a billion dollars this year. Local advocates say that's more than they've ever seen deployed toward the local homeless population...."Chicago's severely underfunded homelessness system has led to fighting for scarce resources," the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless says in a statement released to Axios.....Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey estimated the state is spending $45 million monthly to shelter unhoused people and migrants. Some efforts to increase housing — including zoning changes to build lower-cost suburban units — have failed in New York and Colorado amid local pushback. Officials in suburban Boston cities say they were caught off guard by the state's decision to place migrants in their communities and have asked for more funding and transparency. What we're watching: It could get worse. Border cities have long had systems to handle migrant influxes — but even they have been overwhelmed and expect it to happen again. https://www.axios.com/2023/09/23/housing-crisis-migrant-immigrants-homeless

‘A very unique battle’: How geography could shape Israel’s expected ground offensive in Gaza ...... one military geography specialist outlined to CNBC how the physical features of the Gaza Strip could influence any fighting.....Francis Galgano, an associate professor at the Department of Geography and the Environment at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, described Gaza as an essentially flat, “heavily urbanized” and “heavily tunneled” coastal enclave, similar in size to the city of Philadelphia.... “The geography of this is that [Israeli forces are] going to cut Gaza off from the rest of the country and then they are going to move into Gaza City and then you’re in urban warfare,” said Galgano, who retired from the U.S. Army in 2007 as a lieutenant colonel after 27 years of service in tank and cavalry units..... “operational environment” for Israeli forces in Gaza would be crowded city streets, tall buildings, basements and a network of underground tunnels in what is already a “very compressed geographic area.”......“...... it becomes a war of the geologist. Geologic information becomes essential because you’re trying to figure out rock formations,” Galgano said......“Where are the tunnels? How do we locate them? Using ground penetrating radar and what can we do to destroy them rather than necessarily sending soldiers in......” “..... this intersection of geology and warfare so I think that will be really a key to this whole thing. It is probably where they have got most of their hostages hidden, it’s where their supplies are hidden, their command posts will be hidden under there,” Galgano said..... 155 people are being held hostage by Hamas since the Oct. 7......“There’s a lot of discontinuities underground, you’ve got layers of shale and sandstone ... These are all different layers of different densities and they either enhance or degrade ground penetrating radar or other remote sensing systems that you’d want to use to detect them,” he continued......“It really is a cat-and-mouse game,” Galgano said. “The Israeli’s know the geology of the area and in the end, it is a finite border and there are only so many places that are really prime real estate for tunneling. So, I think ultimately the Israelis will get this under control but it’s going to take an effort....” https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/16/israel-hamas-war-how-geography-could-shape-a-ground-incursion-in-gaza.html

California Senate race will prove whether Democrats care about diversity Do California Democrats believe that representation matters, or do they just pretend to? We’re about to get our answer. The death on Sept. 29 of longtime Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein opens up a racial and gender quagmire that is sure to bedevil Democrats for many months to come. Early this month, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) appointed Laphonza Butler, a Black lesbian and president of Emily’s List, to the Senate at least until the upcoming special election (November 2024) to fill the remainder of Feinstein’s term. But that hardly settles the question of who Feinstein’s long-term successor will be. Two prominent Democratic members of Congress — Reps. Katie Porter and Adam Schiff — had already launched candidacies for Feinstein’s seat in anticipation of her retirement. Rep. Barbara Lee joined the race shortly after Feinstein officially announced her retirement......Time and again, it has been shown that Black women are the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. Democrats across the country agree that Black women are badly underrepresented in our nation’s leadership. Schiff and Porter are White; Lee is a Black woman. The right course is clear, isn’t it? It would be, anyway, if the participants had the courage and principles to follow it: Schiff and Porter should step aside and reembrace their vital leadership roles in the House. And the rest of the state’s Democratic leaders should walk their talk and throw their clout behind Lee’s bid for the state’s full six-year seat in the Senate.....Why is electing a Black woman to the Senate in California a moral imperative?....Consider the numbers: Before becoming vice president in 2021, Kamala D. Harris was just the second Black woman ever to serve in the Senate, after Sen. Carol Moseley Braun (D-Ill.) in the 1990s. With Butler’s appointment, that’s three Black women in more than two centuries. California’s Democratic leaders have an opportunity to do more than pay lip service to their rhetoric around diversity. It wouldn’t hurt to remind them that Harris gave up one of California’s seats to serve the country. They need to know, and show, that forcing genuine equality isn’t easy or comfortable. It requires hard decisions, especially for White people who might have to disappoint their friends or sacrifice their egos and ambitions for the sake of the larger cause. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/10/16/california-newsom-senator-laphonza-butler/

Trump Vows To Stay In Race Even If Convicted Of Crimes: ‘I’ll Never Leave’ ....Former President Donald Trump vowed over the weekend that he will “never” drop out of the 2024 presidential race even if he is convicted on any of the criminal charges that he faces in multiple investigations.....Trump’s remarks come after a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida returned a 49-page indictment against the former president, charging him with 37 criminal counts, with 31 of those being the willful retention of national defense information. Other counts include conspiracy to obstruct justice, corruptly concealing documents or records, and making false statements. “I’ll never leave,” Trump told POLITICO in an interview. “Look, if I would have left, I would have left prior to the original race in 2016. That was a rough one. In theory that was not doable.” Trump said that he believes he will not be convicted and does not plan on taking a plea deal, but seemed to believe that he might get a deal “where they pay me some damages.”....No trial date has been set, but the case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who Trump appointed to the Southern District of Florida bench in 2020. Trump is scheduled to appear before Cannon on Tuesday....Special Counsel Jack Smith said during a press conference on Friday that the former president will get “a speedy trial on this matter, consistent with the public interest and the rights of the accused.” .....Even with a speedy trial, Trump’s unprecedented legal challenges are sure to affect his bid for another term in the White House. He also faces a trial in New York, where the Manhattan district attorney has secured an indictment against him for allegedly falsifying business records. He also faces a separate federal criminal investigation from Smith over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and he faces a criminal investigation in Georgia over the same matter..... https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-vows-to-stay-in-race-even-if-convicted-of-crimes-ill-never-leave Trump vows to stay in the race even if convicted ....Trump is not legally prohibited from running for president from prison or as a convicted felon. But such a bid would nevertheless provide a massive stress test for the country’s political and legal systems....The former president leveled harsh criticisms at special counsel Jack Smith and argued that the case against him was politically motivated and flimsy. “These are thugs and degenerates who are after me,” he said.... Trump predicted he would not be convicted and said he did not anticipate taking a plea deal, though he left open the possibility of doing so “where they pay me some damages.” He sidestepped the possibility that he would pardon himself should he win the presidency in 2024. “I don’t think I’ll ever have to,” Trump said. “I didn’t do anything wrong.” While Trump said campaign fundraising had skyrocketed since the indictment was issued, he conceded it was an unwelcome development..... “Nobody wants to be indicted,” said Trump. “I don’t care that my poll numbers went up by a lot. I don’t want to be indicted. I’ve never been indicted. I went through my whole life, now I get indicted every two months. It’s been political.” He repeatedly invoked the Presidential Records Act to assert he’d done nothing wrong, a vigorously disputed interpretation of law that Trump has offered before....Trump’s remarks came as he flew between speeches to Republicans in Georgia and North Carolina. The trip came one day after Smith unsealed a 37-count indictment against Trump, including accusations of violating the Espionage Act, retention of classified documents and obstruction of justice. Trump is set to appear in court Tuesday in Miami. Trump’s personal valet, Waltine Nauta, was also charged. Nauta was seen traveling with Trump on Saturday, and the aide followed Trump out of his SUV upon arriving at the Newark, N.J., Airport en route to Georgia.... https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/10/trump-vows-to-stay-in-the-race-even-if-convicted ***** I'll use this thread to cover more of the legal issues surrounding the current Trump indictment and subsequent trial.