DELAY AND APPEAL: The judge in Donald Trump’s New York criminal fraud case delayed the September 18^th sentencing until after election day leaving the country in suspense as to whether he would send the former president to prison.

  “This is not a decision this court makes lightly but it is the decision which in this court’s view, best advances the interests of justice,” Judge Juan Merchan wrote in his four-page decision, also saying that “this matter is one that stands alone, in a unique place in this nation’s history.”

  Trump was convicted of 34 counts of fraud to cover payments to porn star Stormy Daniels for her silence about a sexual fling. At the extreme, Trump could be sent away for four years.

  Following an appearance in a different court yesterday, Trump spent 45 minutes in the lobby of Trump Tower railing about the $83 million civil defamation and sexual abuse judgement against him in the case of writer E. Jean Carroll.

  Trump said, “This is a disgraceful case and disgraceful in particular because it’s about a former president of the United States who is now leading in. the polls to be the president again.” He is not leading in the polls, but that’s another matter.

  Trump and his lawyers were in federal court to appeal the judgement. He repeated his claim that Carroll is “a woman I have never met, don’t know, I have no idea who she is.” He said, “It was a setup, a rigged deal” and that, “We had an extremely hostile judge, appointed by Clinton, very good friends of Clinton.” 

IT’S POLITICAL: Former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, a staunch Republican and pillar of the party joined his daughter Liz in announcing that he would vote for Kamala Harris because he thinks Donald Trump is a grave danger to the country. 

  The 83-year-old Cheney said in a statement, “In our nation’s 248 year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump” and that, “he can never be trusted with power again.”

  Once considered by Democrats to be such a Republican force of darkness, Cheney was nicknamed “Darth Vader” after the evil Star Wars character. 

  Cheney’s daughter, a former member of Congress, who lost her seat because she voted to impeach Trump after the January 6^th insurrection, announced her support for Harris on Thursday. Both Cheneys turned on Trump after his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

  On the other side, Trump yesterday got the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police. The cops support a convicted felon. 

THE SHOOTING GALLERY: The Georgia judge in the case of the Apalachee High School shooting told accused shooter Colt Gray that he is not eligible for the death penalty because of his age but could spend the rest of his life in prison. So far, authorities say the 14-year-old boy will be tried as an adult.

  The boy’s father, Colin Gray, who had given his son the AR-15 rifle used in the shooting but was not involved in the shooting himself, could be sentenced to 30 years in prison if convicted on charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter.

HATE: A 20-year-old Pakistani citizen was arrested in Quebec this week and accused of plotting to kill “as many Jewish civilians as possible” in New York City on the first anniversary of the October 7th Hamas attacks on Israelis.

  Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, who lived in Canada, attempted to cross the border with plans of going to New York where he intended to support the Islamic State by conducting a mass shooting at a Jewish center in Brooklyn. The Justice filing quotes Khan writing to an associate that, “New York is perfect to target jews. We could rack up easily a lot of jews.”

  The Justice Department said FBI agents in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles started monitoring Khan’s electronic communications last November.

DENIAL: Conservative podcaster and fired Fox News star Tucker Carlson is under fire for hosting a Holocaust revisionist who says that millions of victims in concentration camps “ended up dead” only because the Nazis did not have enough resources to care for them and that Winston Churchill, not Adolf Hitler, was the “chief villain” of World War II. Carlson introduced Darryl Cooper as “the most important popular historian working in the United States today.”

  The video podcast has been viewed more than 30 million times.

  Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance is set to appear with Carlson on September 21^st in Hershey, Pennsylvania. He said yesterday that the Holocaust was “a tragedy” and “The best way to ensure that doesn’t happen is to push back and debate against bad ideas.” As Holocaust denial is merely a debatable bad idea.

THE OBIT PAGE: Brazilian musician Sérgio Mendes, who broke out with the bossa nova in the 1960s and had a huge hit in “Mas Que Nada” with his band Brazil ’66, died of long Covid in Los Angeles at age 83. You’d know the song if we could play it for you.

THE SPIN RACK: A 26-year-old Turkish-American woman was shot dead by the Israeli military as she took part in a protest against illegal Israeli settlements in the city of Nablus in the West Bank. The IDF says its investigating. — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was granted his requests to have his name removed from the ballot in swing states Michigan and North Carolina. That might help Donald Trump. — Boeing’s Starliner capsule returned to Earth overnight without the two astronauts it carried to the International Space Station because it had some technical issues.

BELOW THE FOLD: Anna “Delvey” Sorokin, who spent two years in prison for financial crimes and is under house arrest facing deportation to Russia, will be wearing an ankle bracelet performing in the new season of “Dancing with the Stars.” She has nice ankles.

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