The City That Doesn't Sleep ❤️💩✡️🌻✡️🌻✡️ 💩❤️

A Woman of Principle: Danielle Sassoon, who until yesterday was the Acting US Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) is eight months pregnant but has more cojones than most of those in and around Washington.  Yesterday, Sassoon, a conservative Republican, Federalist Society member, Harvard College and Yale Law School graduate and former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia offered up her resignation, saying that she couldn’t comply with an order to seek a dismissal of the charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams who’d been indicted for accepting bribes and for campaign finance violations because he was guilty as sin and because her office was about to seek a superseding indictment, charging him with destroying and instructing others to destroy evidence and for providing false information to the FBI.  She added that she knew a quid pro quo when she saw one and that it was clear that she was being asked to have the charges against Adams dropped because he had promised to “cooperate” with Trump’s migrant deportation plans, even the ones that violate New York law. To no one’s surprise, Emil Bove, who before becoming the acting Deputy Attorney General was one of Trump’s personal lawyers, accepted Sassoon’s resignation while denying that the quid pro quo existed even though everyone knows it does. Bove then reassigned the task of getting the charges against Adams dismissed to the Justice Department’s Public Corruption Unit.  Upon receiving that assignment, John Keller, the acting head of the unit, and Kevin Driscoll another senior prosecutor said hell no and resigned too.  So far three additional prosecutors from the Corruption Unit have resigned with reports that at least one more who was in labor planning to follow suit. Not to be outdone, Bove, with the blessing of Attorney General Pam Bondi, has put two other SDNY prosecutors on leave pending an investigation of them and of Sassoon, because nothing says corruption and retribution better than going after the prosecutors instead of the “alleged” criminal. For his part, Mayor Adams ramped up his cooperation with Trump’s INS officials yesterday because a quid pro quo, acknowledged or not, is after all a quid pro quo. Back in September, when Mayor Adams was originally indicted, NY Governor Kathy Hochul who has the power to remove him, opted to leave him in place, instead pushing him to rid his administration of a number of his corrupt officials/cronies.  Last night on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show Hochul more than hinted that she is now considering removing him from office. Hochul also made it clear that she has no plans to cooperate with Louisiana’s prosecution of a NYS doctor who prescribed mifepristone to a Louisiana woman seeking reproductive care.  That case, together with another one from Texas, is likely to make it to the Supreme Court because The Handmaid’s Tale gave up being fiction long ago.  As to the not so principled Attorney General Pam Bondi, on Wednesday, she took to her podium to announce that she had filed charges against Governor Hochul and NYS Attorney General Letitia James.  Though she made it sound like she was about to arrest the two, she is not.  She hasn’t filed any charges, rather she’s pursuing a civil case against New York’s Green Light law, which was signed into law while Andrew Cuomo who is reportedly considering a run for Mayor of NY this year and who is way ahead in the polls, was Governor. The law allows the Department of Motor Vehicles to issue a driver’s license regardless of citizenship or legal status.  New York, a helluva a town.

Confirmations:  RFK Jr, the vaccine skeptic who thinks that too much emphasis is put on controlling infectious diseases is now the Secretary of Health and Human Services. He was confirmed on a party line vote with only one Republican, polio survivor, Mitch McConnell voting against his confirmation.  After the vote Trump suggested that McConnell hadn’t really had polio because of course he’d say that. Tulsi Gabbard is now the Director of National Intelligence.  She too was confirmed on a party line vote with only McConnell, who could have rid us of Trump had he done his job during the January 6 related impeachment trial, voting against her.  During yesterday’s hearings for her nomination to serve as the Secretary of the Department of Education, World Wrestling Entertainment’s Linda McMahon said that she didn’t know if African American studies would be allowed going forward because maybe if we ignore Black people, they’ll go away altogether?  Anyway, her testimony may be academic because Trump and his boss Elon plan to eliminate the Department of Education and have already started firing people there.  Imagine contributing bigly bucks to an indicted felon, only to be awarded a cabinet position for a department that may not exist by the time you make it through the gnarly confirmation process. When asked about where the Department’s functions, to the extent any remain, will go, McMahon said that they would mostly go back to Health and Human Services, where they resided back before 1979.  So, RFK Jr, the brain worm infected former heroin addict who doesn’t believe in viruses will soon be responsible for education too?  Fun.  Next up, serial liar and Russian tool,  Kash Patel, whose nomination has made it out the Senate Judiciary Committee.

2026 Senate Races:  Minnesota’s Tina Smith who first became Senator when former Senator Al Franken was forced out of office for what now, and even then, seemed like crass behavior more than anything else, announced yesterday that she like Michigan Democrat Gary Peters, will not be seeking reelection in 2026.  Expect a slew of characters, including Governor Tim Walz, Lt Governor Peggy Flanagan, Attorney General Keith Ellison and maybe even Congresswoman Ilhan Olmer, to consider competing for the slot.  Republican podcaster Royce White who lost badly to Amy Klobuchar in 2024 has already thrown his hat into the ring.  Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer has asked all his up for reelection members who plan not to run to let him know sooner rather than later so Dems can get their ducks in order. All eyes are now focused on New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen who has not yet announced her plans.

Fog:  Trump who held one of his now daily deranged pressers yesterday reports that he’s spoken with his buddy Vladimir Putin and that they’re planning to “resolve” that whole Ukraine war thing, possibly during a meeting in Saudi Arabia.  He went on to say that since Russia has lost lots of troops fighting to seize the parts of Ukraine it invaded, they should get to keep those parts and maybe some more.  Ukraine’s Zelenskyy would like to weigh in on that, he also wants a seat at the table as do all those countries in Europe who used to be US allies. By the way inflation is ticking back up but Trump, who this time did not have Lil X by his side picking his nose or telling him to “shush up,” says that the inflation increase is Biden’s fault, not his and so what if his new order to evaluate imposing retaliatory tariffs makes things cost more.  His message to the country, suck it up.  Moving to the Middle East, the WSJ reports that Israel has been dusting off its on again off again plans to attack Iran’s nuclear sites. Oy.  And Hamas has agreed to go forward with this weekend’s planned release of three Israeli hostages, announcing that the three will include Russian Israeli Alexander Troufanov, Argentinian Israeli Yair Horn, and US Israeli Sagui Dekel-Chen.  Lastly, Marc Fogel the US teacher who is now free from Russian captivity was released in exchange for Russian cybercrime kingpin Alexander Vinnik because while Vlad and Trump are close, Vlad gives nothing away for free.      

#BringThemAllHomeNow