Trump Family Values: The Manhattan district attorney plans to present evidence to a grand jury that will have to decide whether to indict former president Donald Trump, other executives at his company, or even the Trump business itself, The Washington Post reports.

  This suggests that DA Cyrus Vance is well along in his investigation and has some goods to show the grand jury.

  One thing Vance has been looking at is whether Trump and his employees inflated the value of real estate in a way that defrauded banks and insurance companies, and if any tax benefits were obtained illegally through false asset valuation.

  Trump is facing two state investigations in New York, both stemming from the case of  Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and legal guard dog, who turned on Trump after pleading guilty to making payoffs on Trump’s behalf and lying to Congress.

 Vance’s criminal case began in 2018, after Cohen pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the hush-money payoffs made in the last days of the 2016 campaign to women who said they had affairs with Trump. Vance’s investigation expanded into wading through millions of pages  Trump’s tax records.

Viral News: The drug company Moderna says its Covid vaccine is  effective for 12 to 17 year-olds. Pfizer’s vaccine was previously approved for kids 12 to 15.

  Heading into the Memorial Day weekend, the Centers for Disease Control advises that people who have not been vaccinated are still in danger.

  “If you are vaccinated, you are protected, and you can enjoy your Memorial Day,” CDC Director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said at a White House news conference. “If you are not vaccinated,” she said, “our guidance has not changed for you, you remain at risk of infection. You still need to mask and take other precautions.”

  The pace of vaccinations is slowing, but as of yesterday, 50 percent of American residents 18 or older were reported to be fully vaccinated and more than 61 percent of adults have received at least one shot. 

Dumb and Dumberer: House Republican leaders took nearly a week to condemn Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s comparison of the pandemic mask requirement in Congress to Jews required to wear a yellow star during the holocaust.  Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy issued a statement — with no punishment for Greene — saying, “Marjorie is wrong, and her intentional decision to compare the horrors of the Holocaust with wearing masks is appalling.” 

  The Georgia congresswoman has previously claimed there’s no proof a hijacked jet hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that former President Barack Obama is a Muslim, and the Clintons were guilty of murder.Donald Trump loves her.

  Compare the Republican non-response on Greene to what they did when Rep. Liz Cheney denied Trump’s election lies. They removed her from her leadership position.

  Nonetheless, while keeping Greene in the fold, McCarthy had the nerve to write in his statement, “At a time when the Jewish people face increased violence and threats, anti-Semitism is on the rise in the Democrat Party and is completely ignored by Speaker Nancy Pelosi.”

Rosebud: Speaking of Greene and Trump, the former president issued a statement yesterday saying, “A new Ipsos/Reuters poll ‘Beliefs Among Republicans’ shows 53% believe Donald Trump is the true President (I always knew America was smart!). 2020 Election was tainted 56%. The Election was stolen (and Rigged!) 61%.”

Breathing Lessons: President Biden issued a plea for policing legislation yesterday after meeting privately at the White House with family members of George Floyd on the first anniversary of his murder at the hands of Minneapolis cops.  “We have to act. We face an inflection point,” the president said in a statement. Congress is considering a policing bill labelled with Floyd’s name. “The battle for the soul of America has been a constant push and pull between the American ideal that we’re all created equal and the harsh reality that racism has long torn us apart,” Biden said. “At our best, the American ideal wins out. It must again.”

Family Ties: Little publicized in the sports pages is that the brother of Olympic gold medal gymnast Simone Biles is facing a murder trial in Cleveland in the killing of three people at a New Year’s Eve party in 2018. 

  A mistrial was declared Monday in the case of Tevin Biles-Thomas, a member of the US Army, because members of the jury during deliberations were accidentally given documents they should not have seen. A new jury will be picked starting today.

  There was a fight involving a cousin who ended up dead, but Biles-Thomas’s lawyers have argued that he didn’t have a gun and there’s no physical evidence tying him to the killings. 

The Spin Rack: Troops are expected to be completely out of Afghanistan by mid-July, far ahead of the September 11 deadline set by President Biden. — Biden has replaced the four advisers appointed by Donald Trump to the federal panel that advises the government on architecture in Washington. Trump wanted all neo-classical buildings. — The 17-year cicadas have arrived on the front lawn of the East Coast and some publications are offering recipes for how to cook them. 

Goodbye Charlie: One of the most famous YouTube videos known as “Charlie Bit My Finger” is going away. That’s the one in which a little British boy named Harry has his baby brother on his lap and cries as little Charlie bites his finger. “Ouch, ouch, Charlie. Owwww !! Charlie! That really hurts!” And baby Charlie laughs.

  That video posted in 2007 has had 884,332,925 views as of yesterday when we last looked. But the Charlie video is expected to come down. The video has been sold for $760,999 as what’s become known as a “non-fungible token” — NFT. Basically, it’s been sold as a privately-owned piece of art. We assume both Harry and Charlie are now laughing.

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