Merrick Garland
Merrick Garland

Nearly half of America wants Donald Trump charged with a crime connected to the Jan. 6 assault on the US Capitol, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released June 30.

Forty-eight percent of respondents want the former president indicted, while 31 percent don't. Twenty percent have no opinion.

The bad news for Trump: the poll was conducted before the bombshell testimony of ex-White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. That urge to indict has dramatically grown after Hutchinson testified that Trump wanted to join the rabble trashing the Capitol and supported hanging vice president Pence.

The poll results also show that a solid 58 percent of Americans blame Trump for the uprising.

And where is attorney general Merrick Garland?

The New York Times on June 30 reported that federal prosecutors were “astonished” by the compelling testimony of Hutchinson at the Jan. 6 Congressional committee hearings.

That doesn’t bode well for the sleuths at the Justice Dept., which is conducting its own probe on the  Capitol riot.

Committee members claim that Garland has not moved fast enough to follow their investigative leads. 

You would think that Garland, who was denied his dream job by former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Republican party, would be gung-ho to pursue Trump.

Cautious Merrick reportedly wants to build an airtight case against the president, fearing the damage to the country if Trump eludes jail time.

Time is running out, Merrick, as the midterm elections loom.

And speaking of running out of time. The AP-NORC poll shows that America is done with Trump. 

As Congresswoman Liz Cheney so eloquently put it during her speech at the Reagan Library.

“No party, and no people, and no nation can defend and perpetuate a constitutional Republic if they accept a leader who's gone to war with the rule of law, with the democratic process, or with the peaceful transition of power, with the Constitution itself.”

The ball is in your court, Ron DeSantis. Make your move. 

The fading and shameless Trump says the Florida governor could be his VP pick. 

Why would the 43-year-old DeSantis saddle up with a surefire loser?

Cutting off dictators….The Human Rights Foundation and the Life+Liberty Indexes has launched the Defund Dictators Tool.

DDT focuses on emerging markets exchange traded funds that invest some of their assets in dictatorial regimes such as Russia, China and Saudi Arabia.

“Investors from free countries should be well informed of the human rights situation in the countries they seek to invest in and always consider democracies as the safer, more ethical choice,” said HRF’s senior policy officer Alvaro Piaggio.

You don't want to invest in a fund that helps bankroll Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Do you?

Are you looking for a new gig? Do you want to meet people from all walks of life and live out new adventures while earning a competitive pay and building a rewarding career? 

Uncle Sam may want you but the hotel industry really wants wants you.

The American Hotel and Lodging Assn. has stepped up its “A Place to Stay” recruitment campaign to fill some of more than 130K openings in the hospitality industry.

Ninety-seven percent of AHLA members are short of staff. Nearly half (49 percent) severely so.

The Place to Stay effort pitches “the opportunity to craft lifelong memories with guests who will also welcome you into their lives in many special ways.” 

The Assn. needs to tone down its campaign a bit. The post-COVID world of airport chaos, cancelled flights and high gas prices, combined with staff shortages, makes many of those hotel guests downright surly.

New hotel staffers may be in for some very unpleasant experiences.