Filibuster of Lies: Former President Donald Trump rolled over CNN host Kaitlan Collins last night in a live town hall with a Republican audience broadcast from New Hampshire. Trump repeated his claims of election fraud, economic perfection, and diplomatic brilliance, talking over Collins as she interjected with factual corrections.

  It was classic Trump given free use of a microphone, making false claims, and never admitting he’s wrong even while caught spouting fantasies. “We have problems like we’ve never had in the history of our country,” Trump declared. “Our country is being destroyed.”

  He is the leading Republican candidate for president in 2024.

  Collins kept her cool but never put a dent in the Trump shield of delusion.

  Trump praised January 6^th rioters and said he would pardon many of them. He said the security officer who shot rioter Ashli Babbitt was a “thug.” And only a day after losing E. Jean Carroll’s assault and defamation lawsuit, he mocked her once again, calling her a “wack  job.”

  He dodged a question about whether he would sign a federal abortion ban.

  Trump claimed to have built “hundreds of miles” of new border wall and when corrected by Collins that it was only 52 Trump said, “This is what she does.”

  The former president repeated his claim that the Ukraine war would never have happened if he was still in office. He didn’t say how he would have stopped it. 

  Asked whether he would continue giving weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, Trump went off about what a great relationship he has with Ukraine’s President Volodomyr Zelensky, mixing his answer with a complaint about his own impeachment, that “I was impeached by a crazy woman named Nancy Pelosi.” He said, “If I was president I would have that war settled in one day, 24 hours.” He didn’t say how.

  The audience frequently applauded, but it was not unanimous approval.

  Collins kept her cool throughout, but Trump just talked over her … over, and over. In a repeated round of questions about secret documents at Mar-a-Lago, Trump said, “Can I answer the question?” Collins said, “That’s why I asked it” and Trump replied, “You are a nasty person, I’ll tell you.”

  At the end, he refused to say whether he would accept the result of the 2024 election.

Liar Liar: The indictment against Long Island Rep. George Santos was unsealed yesterday, revealing seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives.

  House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who’s made no move to eject Santos from Congress for all his lies and deceptions, said he will not support Santos for re-election.

  Santos pleaded not guilty in federal court and told reporters it was a “witch hunt” and that he has “plenty of evidence” to prove his innocence.

  The charges involve, among other things, fraud related to Covid unemployment benefits and using campaign money for luxury clothing.   The indictment says Santos was employed and earning $120,000 a year with an investment firm while he was getting unemployment checks.

  The indictment accuses Santos of establishing a “fraudulent political contribution solicitation scheme,” setting up a company and soliciting contributions to it under the pretense that the money would benefit his political campaign.

  Santos won his seat in Congress with a resume of fabrications, including that he was Jewish, and held degrees from Baruch College and New York University.

Over the Border: The federal government and border states are braced for an influx of migrants from the south as the Trump era Title 42 immigration policy expires today. 

  “Our border is not open,” said Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary. He warned that thousands of migrants will be expelled. “Do not risk your life and your life savings only to be removed from the United States if — if and when — you arrive here,” Mayorkas said.

  They are expected to come by the thousands.

The War Room: Ukrainian troops have broken through Russian positions outside the destroyed eastern city of Bakhmut and pushed them back from a key position near a canal, according to commanders on both sides. The Ukrainians took roughly three square miles. 

The Obit Page: Heather Armstrong of the website Dooce, who was known as the queen of the mommy bloggers with her accounts of parenthood, marriage, and her harrowing struggles with depression, died a suicide Tuesday at her home in Salt Lake City. She was 47.

  Armstrong started her website in 2001 while working in tech, mining her work life for material. She was fired for something she wrote, spawning the internet term “dooced.” She later wrote that when she was fired by the boss who’d been fodder for material, “I had never felt like such a horrible human being, even though in my mind I thought that I was just being creative and funny.”

  She wrote about parenting, poop, vomit, washing machine repairs, and broken sewer pipes, just to name a few subjects. Her website ultimately attracted a peak of 8.5 million viewers and a pipeline of income. But she never conquered her chronic depression.

The Spin Rack: The Missouri legislature has passed a bill that would ban gender transition care for young people. They also passed a bill to ban transgender women and girls from competing on sports teams that align with their gender identity, rather than their sex at birth. Already this year, at least 13 Republican-controlled states have enacted laws or policies to ban or severely limit gender treatments. —  The FDA says that the benefits of an over-the-counter birth control pill Opill outweighs the risks, but it has yet to be approved. 

Below the Fold: New York City’s first coffee shop “Botbar” to be served by a robot barista is set to open in Greenpoint, Brooklyn in two weeks. The robot will be able to make 50 drinks an hour.

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