Everything about that highly promoted New York Times “interview” with former Trump White House Chief of Staff John Kelly — a general, if you haven’t heard! — reeked of fakery. But a piece of audio from the recorded phone conversations between Kelly and the Times reporter that wasn’t released until two days after the article proves just how artificial it truly was.

The original article was published on Tuesday and included a mix of audio snippets and text quotes of Kelly, presumably offering his answers to questions that the reporter, Michael Schmidt, was asking. At the very bottom was a sound clip labeled, “Kelly on the Importance of Character Over Policy.”

“I’m not recommending anything to anybody,” Kelly is heard telling Schmidt. “I’m just saying — other than, that when you’re looking to vote for someone, regardless, you’ve got to, you’ve got to look at the character and all those kinds of things and then start looking at the individual’s policies.” (Must be nice to live so comfortably that you can afford to vote first and foremost based on whether someone seems pleasant enough rather than how that person’s decisions would literally change your life and your loved ones’ lives.)

In Thursday’s edition of the Times’ “The Daily” podcast, however, there’s a more extended version of that recording that precedes Kelly’s remarks. In that version, Schmidt says something first. “Is there anything else that we need to talk about or is this enough?” he says to Kelly. “I think it’s plenty,” Kelly replies.

On Wednesday, an Arizona judge dismissed the criminal case brought against a state resident who was arrested after criticizing her city government during a public meeting.

“The Defendant should not have faced criminal prosecution once for expressing her political views,” Justice of the Peace Gerald Williams wrote.

The entire saga began on Aug. 20, when resident Rebekah Massie spoke before the Surprise City Council during a public meeting. The Arizona mother was criticizing the conduct of the city attorney when she was abruptly cut off by Mayor Skip Hall, who accused her of “attacking” the city official “personally” and violating rules governing public meetings.

Massie claimed the rule was “unconstitutional” and that by limiting her testimony, the city was violating her First Amendment right to free speech. Following a short exchange of words, Hall called on a law enforcement official to have Massie removed from the meeting.

The Arizona mom was subsequently detained and charged with trespassing.

Writing on behalf of the Maricopa County Justice Courts, Williams dismissed the charge against Massie with prejudice, meaning the state cannot bring the case back to his court. The judge noted that “[n]o branch of any federal, state, or local government in this country should ever attempt to control the content of political speech,” and that, in Massie’s case, “the government did so in a manner that was objectively outrageous.”

“The Court agrees that she should never face criminal prosecution, for expressing her political views on that date at that time, again,” Williams wrote.

They’ve attacked him. They’ve impeached him. They’ve arrested him. They’ve desperately tried to imprison him. They unconstitutionally denied him access to the ballot. They’ve tried to kill him. 

Democrats have failed at every turn to get rid of Donald Trump. 

Now the self-proclaimed defenders of democracy and their corporate media allies are turning to the last vestige of hope for the desperate in an extremely tight presidential race: Lies. 

And name-calling. 

‘Do You Think Donald Trump Is a Fascist?’

Democrat presidential hopeful Kamala Harris opened Wednesday night’s CNN town hall with a long tirade in which she warned ostensibly undecided voters that Trump would be a dictator if given another term in the Oval Office. 

“Do you think Donald Trump is a fascist?” host Anderson Cooper asked the vice president in the opening moments of the latest long-form, packaged-as-news political ad for the Harris-Walz campaign. 

“Yes, I do. Yes, I do,” Harris answered as if reciting an unholy wedding vow. 

Of course she does. The “Trump is Hitler” narrative is Harris’ — and the left’s — closing argument in a Reader’s Digest presidential campaign for the Democrats. It must be noted that Harris’ abridged quest began with the Democrats’ bloodless coup that removed the demented Democrat president of the United States from his run for a second term. 

In an act of corporate media collusion so transparent it burns the eyes, the shameless Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief at The Atlantic, published the hit piece earlier this week that Harris and her