Insurrection News: Right wing influencer and podcast host Steve Bannon, who faces trial for refusing to testify before the House January 6^th investigating committee, has relented and agreed to talk.

  They’ll have to make sense out of the testimony of a man who’s crazy.

  Bannon did a reverse after receiving a letter from former President Donald Trump saying he waives executive privilege over Bannon’s testimony. In the letter obtained by CNN, Trump says, “I watched how unfairly you and others have been treated, having to spend vast amounts of money on legal fees, and all of the trauma you must be going through for the love of your Country, and out of respect for the Office of the President.” 

  Bannon is charged with two counts of criminal contempt of Congress. He  has claimed executive privilege under Trump’s wing, but federal prosecutors say Bannon left The White House years before the January 6^th insurrection and can’t claim privilege.

  Meanwhile, former White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who initially refused to talk, invoked executive privilege to some of the questions posed to him Friday before the January 6^th committee. 

  The committee spokesman said Cipollone’s testimony demonstrated “Donald Trump’s supreme dereliction of duty,” and that, “The testimony also corroborated key elements of Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony.”

Actual Loser: Never giving up his lost cause, Trump has called on the Republican speaker of the assembly in the Wisconsin Legislature to nullify the state’s 2020 electoral votes and declare him the winner of the presidential race in that state.

  This came after the Wisconsin Supreme Court restricted the number of absentee ballot boxes used in future elections and Trump claims that means the absentee boxes used in 2020 were illegal.  He said on his Truth Social website that he is the “actual winner (by a lot!)” 

  Trump and his allies have claimed that absentee drop boxes were the tools of massive election fraud, but they have produced no evidence of that.

  The first of a three-part documentary aired on Discovery+ last night, featuring some previously unseen video but not dropping any bombshells. Trump clings to The Big Lie that he won the election and none of his adult children wanted to talk about what happened on January 6^th.

Unpopular: Most Democrats don’t want Joe Biden to run for a second term in the presidency, according to a NY New York Times/Siena College poll. Sixty-four percent of Democrats say they want someone else to be their candidate in 2024.

  Biden’s popularity has been dragged down by racing inflation even while the economy is a job hunter’s paradise. But, according to the poll, more than three-quarters of registered voters see the United States moving in the wrong direction, with Biden taking the blame.

The War Zone: Russian air strikes early today killed 21 people and injured at least 28, officials in eastern regions said. Two dozen people remained trapped under the rubble of a high-rise apartment building in a village in the Donetsk province of eastern Ukraine.

  Russian President Volodomyr Zelensky vowed to retaliate while Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told Britain’s Times newspaper that 

Ukraine is readying a force of 1 million troops armed with Western weapons to attempt retaking southern territory. 

  The Russians are pushing further west after taking Luhansk province and imposing political changes as they go. The Russian-backed occupation in eastern Ukraine has declared that Kharkiv Oblast is an “inalienable part of Russian land,” indicating that the Kremlin likely intends to annex part or all of that area. An “oblast” is an administrative region, like a county in the US.

  The Russian occupation government in Kharkiv Oblast unveiled a new flag for the region featuring the Russian imperial double-headed eagle and symbols from the 18th century Kharkiv coat of arms. The Russian occupation government said the new flag is a “symbol of the historical roots of Kharkiv Oblast as an inalienable part of Russian land.” 

At the Net: Novak Djokovic came back yesterday after losing the first set against Australia’s Nick Kyrgios to win his fourth consecutive men’s singles title at Wimbledon, his 7^th overall.

  On Saturday Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan won the women’s final, her first Grand Slam title.

The Obit Page:

The Spin Rack: The historic Veranda House hotel on Nantucket Island off the coast of Massachusetts was destroyed by fire. The 338-year-old hotel was renovated in 2020. — The beach at Lake of Three Fires State Park in Iowa is closed after a swimmer there contracted a rare brain-eating amoeba. — Wildfire in Yosemite National Park is threating the giant Sequoia trees, some of the oldest living trees in the world.

Kremlinology: News reports say that the girlfriend of Russian President Vladimir Putin is pregnant despite already having four children with the war-making 69-year-old dictator. Putin has two other daughters with an ex-wife and is reputed to also have a “secret daughter” with a former lover. Putin doesn’t know when to stop invading. 

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