Something Smells 🌴 ✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 🌴

🦃 🦃 🦃: It’s hard to get into the head of politicians and it’s not clear we’d want to if we could but it’s particularly ironic that NYC voters who’ve had Trump’s number for years are now living with the consequences of having voted in Eric Adams as Mayor. For those unfamiliar with the vagaries of New York politics, Adams was selected as the Democratic candidate for mayor through ranked choice voting that resulted in him beating out a slew of other candidates, some competent, many less so. He then went on to win the general election garnering 67% of the vote against Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, who had promised to bring his fifteen cats with him to Gracie Mansion and who was the least serious and competent candidate that the Republicans could dredge up. At the time that Adams won the race a number of pundits, noting his predilection for rule breaking and living on the edge, predicted that he’d be indicted before the end of his term.  Sadly, even though he’s been okay as mayor, they were right.  Adams was indicted yesterday for accepting $100,000 in Turkish Air tickets, upgrades, and fancy hotel accommodations; advancing the approval of the Turkish Consulate’s new building despite its many concerning fire code violations; soliciting and accepting illegal foreign campaign contributions and then bundling them in a manner that allowed his campaign to receive $10 million in matching funds; and playing cute with his phones.  The NY Times and many, mostly Democratic, politicians have called for Adams to resign, Governor Hochul who has the power to remove him is giving him a few days to “think” about doing the right thing before she invokes her power.  The Trump universe, including the Murdoch owned NY Post, is defending Adams, asserting that he has been targeted by the “Biden” Justice Department for his Trump friendly comments on “illegal migrants.” Maybe that’s because of Trump’s strange history with Turkey, it’s alleged that he too engaged in some hinky business with Turkish types which resulted in him receiving about $10 million in illegal campaign donations.  He wasn’t prosecuted likely because his AG, William Barr, made the problem go away.  For the record, though I voted for Adams because Sliwa wasn’t a viable option, my first “ranked” choice had been Former NY Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia.  We really could use her now because something smells really bad.

Presidential Politics:  Meantime, back on the campaign trail, Kamala Harris has added details to her economic plan, one that focuses on building up the middle class. During a presentation to the Economic Club of Pittsburgh, “Komrade” Kamala sounded an awful lot like a reasonable middle of the road capitalist who actually understood her subject matter especially in comparison to Trump whose answer to everything is more and higher tariffs, whose solution to the lack of affordable housing is to deport ten million “illegal” migrants, whose speeches are dominated by xenophobic rants and who keeps on promising whack a mole tax cuts targeted to lure swing state union workers, cuts that he has no intention of delivering.  He also never mentions that his tax giveaways will be funded through drastic cuts in government programs including health care along the lines of those called for in the extreme Project 25 plan that he keeps trying to distance himself from.  As to racist rants, Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins gets this week’s Razzie for a social media post that slimed Haitians calling them all “vudu “practicing, pet eating thugs” who “better get their ass out of our country.”  Facing boatloads of criticism Higgins took his post down but then promised to post even worse slurs because he can.  Fellow Louisianian, Speaker Mike Johnson defended Higgins, calling him a dear, principled friend, adding that they’d prayed together so now everything is okay. Higgins counts the KKK’s David Duke among his besties, was forced to resign from his police job for publicly calling Black suspects animals and is a supporter of the Three Percenters white supremacist militia group, but all’s good because he's Speaker Johnson’s “dear, principled friend” and they pray. 

Endorsements:  After Kamala delivered her Pittsburgh economic speech, Mark Cuban formally endorsed her, joining 88 other business leaders including James Murdoch, not to be confused with his father or brother Lachlan who remain firmly in Trump’s camp. Yesterday, retired US Army General Stanley McChrystal said that he’d already cast his vote for Harris, because to him despite his more conservative views, what matters is character and Kamala Harris has the “strength, temperament and the values to serve as Commander in Chief.’’  He noted that when she sits down with leaders like Ukraine’s Zelenskyy and expresses her support for NATO she is working in our national interest, unlike the other guy running.  Though he didn’t explicitly mention Trump’s affinity for Russia and all things Vlad it was clear he had that in mind.  Yesterday, Trump whose plans to meet with Zelenskyy are back on, he’d canceled them to express  faux outrage over Zelenskyy’s trip to a Pennsylvania munitions factory where the Ukrainian leader had thanked workers, repeated that the war wouldn’t have happened if he’d been in charge and would end immediately because he’ll find a solution satisfactory to Vlad, one that likely would involve Russia keeping all the land it has grabbed plus a little more for good measure. Earlier this week Trump, repeating a version of history that Vlad must have fed him during one of what Trump called their “many” calls, pointed out, erroneously, that Russia has never lost a war so won’t lose the one with Ukraine. Russia has lost wars against Poland, Japan, and Afghanistan to name a few but as former chief of staff John Kelly once said, Trump isn’t even clear about who was on which side during the World Wars, so his knowledge of history is sketchy and that’s probably being kind.      

🎻 🎻 🎻:  Right wing media outlet Newsmax has settled with election machine company Smartmatic over the lies they pushed about the company’s machines flipping votes blue after the 2020 election meaning that they’ve handed over lots of money to avoid a public defamation trial.  The amount has not been disclosed but Fox is next in the hopper so there could be another settlement unless Fox decides to go to trial.  Rudy Giuliani who earlier lost his New York legal license has been officially disbarred in Washington DC. And lastly, Wired reports that John McEntee has being accused of sending a series of teen girls, all 18-years-old, creepy messages through the Peter Thiel funded, for Republicans only, dating site “The Right Stuff,” offering to pay for them to “visit” him in California.  McEntee who founded the site, was Trump’s body man before he was fired by then Chief of Staff Kelly, something to do with failing his security review due to his gambling debts.  After Trump axed Kelly, he rehired McEntee, putting him in charge of White House personnel, a post that he is expected to have again if Trump returns to the White House because only the best?      

#BringThemAllHomeAliveNow