NEW YORK — He appears “selfish and self-serving,” according to one woman.

“The way he carries himself in public “leaves something to be desired,” observed another.

Another individual claimed that his “negative rhetoric and bias” are the most destructive.

Over the last week, Donald Trump has been forced to sit in a chilly New York courthouse and listen to a parade of possible jurors in his criminal hush money trial give their unvarnished opinions of him.

It’s been a striking difference for the former president and likely Republican nominee, who is used to spending his days in a cocoon of screaming crowds and frequent praise. Now a criminal defendant, Trump will spend the next few weeks exposed to severe constraints that limit his ability to control everything from what he can say to the temperature of the room.

“He’s the target of mockery. It is his nightmare. He is unable to control the script. He is unable to control the cinematography. He has no control over what others are saying about him. And the outcome may go in a way he does not desire,” said Tim O’Brien, a Trump biography and critic.

While Trump is occasionally confronted by protesters, he largely avoids criticism. After leaving the White House, Trump relocated to his Mar-a-Lago beachfront club in Palm Beach, Florida, where he is surrounded by devoted paid staff and dues-paying members who have paid tens of thousands of dollars to be near him.

Trump frequently visits his adjacent golf course, where he is “swarmed by people wanting to shake his hand, take pictures of him, and tell him how amazing he is,” according to Stephanie Grisham, a longtime adviser who parted with Trump following the Capitol storming on Jan. 6, 2021.

When he returns to Mar-a-Lago in the afternoon, members eating lunch on the patio frequently stand and applaud. He gets the same standing ovation at dinner, which frequently ends with Trump playing DJ on his iPad, blaring jams like “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” by James Brown.

Grisham, who spent extended amounts of time traveling with Trump and at Mar-a-Lago during his 2016 campaign and acting as White House press secretary, portrayed staff as perpetual cheerleaders who told Trump what he wanted to hear. To avert angry outbursts, they requested motorcade routes that bypassed protestors and left a stack of favorable press clips on the Oval Office’s Resolute Desk each morning.

Trump Forced To Listen Silently To People Insulting Him As He Trades A Cocoon Of Adulation For Court

Trump now faces a trial that could lead to felony convictions and prison time. And he’ll have to listen to more critics without the ability to respond verbally, which he enjoys doing.

Michael Cohen, his former lawyer and fixer, and Stormy Daniels, the porn actor who claims she had sex with Trump, are likely to testify at the trial. Both have criticized him in interviews, books, and on social media.

Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt stated that Trump demonstrated during his first week in court that “he will remain defiant in the face of this unprecedented political lawfare” and that “it is clear that his support from the American people will only grow as they watch Joe Biden, Alvin Bragg, and the Democrats putting on this bogus show trial six months before the election.”

New Yorkers who claimed they couldn’t view the issue objectively were excused during jury selection. However, one of the women who had the strongest opinions of him will be among those who decide his fate on 34 charges of fabricating business records.

“I don’t like his persona, or how he presents himself in public,” said the woman, who has resided in upper Manhattan for the past 15 years. The woman stated she disagreed with some of Trump’s policies, which she deemed “outrageous.”

“He just seems very selfish and self-serving, so I don’t really appreciate that in any public servant,” she added. She went on to say that while she doesn’t “know him as a person,” because of the way he “portrays himself in public, it just seems to me it is not my cup of tea.”

Trump’s legal team objected to her responses, but they had exhausted their legal options by the time she came up for selection.

Judge Juan Manuel Merchan has withheld the identities of prospective jurors due to safety concerns.

On Friday, one prospective juror, who claimed to have attended the 2017 Women’s March to oppose Trump’s inauguration, expressed concern about his influence on his base.

“I think his rhetoric at times enables people to feel as if they have permission to discriminate or act on their negative impulses,” she said, giving examples of people making homophobic or racist remarks. Nonetheless, she stated that she did not have strong feelings for the previous president and was unsure of his current policy beliefs.

Trump Forced To Listen Silently To People Insulting Him As He Trades A Cocoon Of Adulation For Court

Another individual said he grew up admiring the former president and business magnate’s real estate portfolio and fantasized of one day living in Trump Tower. However, he has grown to reject Trump’s “negative rhetoric and bias against people that he speaks about.”

At other times, lawyers read aloud social media messages by prospective jurors mocking Trump and celebrating his defeats.

The judge dismissed one prospective juror, an older white lady, after Trump’s legal team discovered years-old social media remarks describing Trump as a “racist, sexist” narcissist.

One of Trump’s attorneys described the posts as “vitriolic.”

“She harbors a deep hatred for him,” the lawyer, Susan Necheles, stated. “She said that ‘I wouldn’t believe Donald Trump if his tongue were notarized'” and that he was “anathema” to all she had ever learned about love.

When confronted with the posts within the courtroom, the juror stated that she understood why they might be relevant to the defense, but her opinions had shifted. “Election policies can get pretty spicy and Mr. Trump can get pretty spicy,” she went on to say.

Merchan, the judge, also dismissed a man who in 2017 made a Facebook post praising the legal defeat of one of Donald Trump’s policies. “Get him out and lock him up!” the message stated in part.

The court regulations compel Trump to be present throughout the trial. He cannot storm out of the courtroom, as he did in a recent slander suit. He is also prohibited by a gag order from criticizing any of the jurors, including on his Truth Social page.

Merchan has already chastised him for speaking aloud and gesticulating when one juror was answering questions.

“I will not tolerate any jurors being intimidated in this courtroom,” added Merchan, who had previously warned Trump that he might face jail time for disrupting proceedings in court.

Trump’s judgments in court were not all negative, with a startling proportion of possible jurors stating that they had no strong feelings about one of the world’s most well-known and polarizing figures.

Trump Forced To Listen Silently To People Insulting Him As He Trades A Cocoon Of Adulation For Court

In fact, the process appeared to yield more supporters than one might expect in a borough where President Joe Biden received 87% of the vote in 2020.

One potential juror, who spoke glowingly of Trump on Thursday, said he was “impressed” by Trump’s successful business career.

“I mean, he was our president, which is pretty extraordinary. He is a businessman in New York. He has built his own path, and he has made history in terms of where he began and where he has progressed,” said the man, who saw his own story similarly.

On Tuesday, another man expressed remorse that he couldn’t balance the trial with his profession.

“Your Honor, as much as I would love to serve for New York and one of our great presidents, I could not give up my job for six-plus weeks,” he told the crowd.

Many claimed to have read his book, “The Art of the Deal.”

Even the woman who opposed his demeanor but ended up on the jury recognized his attraction to voters.

“His public demeanor can sometimes be questionable. At the same time, I can connect to occasionally being unvarnished,” she remarked. “I’ve seen him speak to many individuals in America. I believe there is something to be said about that.

SOURCE – (AP)

Dickey Betts, a guitarist and co-founder of the Allman Brothers Band, has died, according to a family statement released to CNN on Thursday by his longtime manager.

Betts was eighty.

Dickey Betts, Co-Founder Of The Allman Brothers Band, Dead At 80

“It is with profound sadness and heavy hearts that the Betts family announces the peaceful passing of Forrest Richard ‘Dickey’ Betts,” according to the statement. “The well-known performer, songwriter, bandleader, and family patriarch passed away this morning at his home in Osprey, Florida, with his family by his side. Dickey was larger than life, and his absence will be felt around the world. During this terrible time, the family requests prayers and respect for their privacy in the coming days. More information will be provided at the proper time.”

Betts’ manager, David Spero, told Rolling Stone that the guitarist had cancer and chronic obstructive lung disease.

Betts, who was born in West Palm Beach, Florida, grew up listening to bluegrass, country music, and, subsequently, rock & roll. Betts, bass guitarist Berry Oakley, drummers Butch Trucks and Jaimoe, and brothers Gregg and Duane Allman formed the Allman Brothers Band in 1969, and are credited with helping create the sound and genre of Southern rock in the 1960s and 1970s.

Betts composed and sung the band’s biggest song, “Ramblin’ Man.” Initially, he created the song with the intention of having another artist sing it.

“I was going to send ‘Ramblin’ Man’ to Johnny Cash,” Betts stated in 2020, later adding that he “thought it was a great song for him.”

“But everyone liked the song. Even my father enjoyed the song before we recorded it or anything. And I’m thinking I’ll email this to Johnny Cash and see if he wants to perform it,” he added. “The producer (Johnny Sandlin) mentioned that we needed another song for the record and asked if I had any. I explained, ‘Well, I got one, but I was going to send it to Nashville for Cash to record.’ He said, ‘Let’s hear it. And then, ‘No! We gotta do it.'”

Betts also wrote the popular Allman Brothers songs “Blue Sky” and “Jessica.”

Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident in 1971, and Oakley died in a motorcycle crash the following year. Betts and Gregg Allman became the band’s leaders, but creative disputes and substance misuse prompted the group to split up and reform several times.

Dickey Betts, Co-Founder Of The Allman Brothers Band, Dead At 80

Cameron Crowe, then 16, followed the Allman Brothers Band on tour in 1973 for a Rolling Stone cover story that would later serve as the basis for Crowe’s Oscar-winning 2000 film “Almost Famous.” In 2017, Crowe described Billy Crudup’s key rock star character as “a tribute” to Betts.

In an email to CNN later that day, Crowe referred to Betts as “a guitarist for the ages, the musical glue that held together The Allman Brothers Band for many years.”

“Dickey’s quiet warmth, and his timeless contribution to American music was a big inspiration for our film,” said the writer-director.

Betts quit the Allman Brothers Band in a widely publicized separation in 2000. While the band continued to tour for nearly 15 years and issued one more studio album, Betts performed with his Great Southern ensemble, which included his son Duane, and released another studio album of new songs. Betts retired in 2014.

Also on Friday, the Allman Brothers Band issued an official statement, stating that Betts’ “extraordinary guitar playing alongside guitarist Duane Allman created a unique dual guitar signature sound that became the signature sound of the genre known as Southern Rock.”

Dickey Betts, Co-Founder Of The Allman Brothers Band, Dead At 80

“He was passionate in life, be it music, songwriting, fishing, hunting, boating, golf, karate or boxing,” the statement went on to say. “Dickey was all in on and excelled at anything that caught his attention.”

When asked what he enjoyed most about music, Betts told the Sarasota Herald Tribune in 2020 that it was the impact it had on his listeners.

“I like the crowds mainly, and what the music did for them,” he went on to say. “They enjoyed the music more than I did. I just love how the crowd can drift off into another universe during a concert.”

SOURCE – (CNN)

NEW YORK — Could there be a Taylor Swift new album release without any added surprises?

No.

On Friday, the pop star released her 11th album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” which is an amalgamation of her previous work and reflects the artist who, at the height of her powers, has spent the last few years re-recording her life’s work and touring it, filtered through synth-pop anthems, breakup ballads, provocative and matured considerations.

Taylor Swift Drops 15 New Songs On Double Album, ‘The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology’

But it was midnight. At 2 a.m. Eastern, she released “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology,” which included 15 new songs.

“I’d written so much tortured poetry in the past 2 years and wanted to share it all with you, so here’s the second installment,” Swift wrote in an Instagram caption. “And now the story isn’t mine anymore… it’s all yours.”

Taylor Swift Drops 15 New Songs On Double Album, ‘The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology’

The songs are a natural continuation of the first half of the album, with many returning to her “evermore” and “folklore” style, aided by her partner Aaron Dessner.

Swift has surprised her fans before, and she has surely done so with a surprise album release. A few months after “folklore” was released in 2020, she revealed that “evermore” will be available at midnight on the same day. Speaking of midnight, she released a “3am” edition of “Midnights” with seven new tracks in 2022, just a few hours after the original release.

Taylor Swift’s album “The Tortured Poets Department” is now available.

Taylor Swift Drops 15 New Songs On Double Album, ‘The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology’

Music Writer Maria Sherman describes it as “an amalgamation of an artist who has spent the last few years re-recording her life’s work and touring its material, filtered through synth-pop anthems, breakup ballads, provocative and matured subject matter.”

Swift revealed a surprise two hours after the album’s release: 15 more tracks.

Swift’s first original album since her record-breaking Eras Tour debuted last year.

SOURCE – (AP)