[NYPOST] A Black Lives Matter leader called out Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... ' anti-DOGE protests, calling the far-left demonstrators ''sore losers'' as they erupted into the streets to protest the Trump administration on President's Day.
BLM Inc. executive director Mark Fisher, who voted for Donald Trump ...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!... in 2024,
…when even BLM leaders are Trumpsters, what is left for the Democrats? Though to be fair, Mr. Fisher was stumping for Trump back in 2023…
joined ''FOX & Friends'' to discuss the movement and why he considers it a play from ''George Soros ...either Ernst Stavro Blofeld or Auric Goldfinger come true. Maybe both.... ' playbook.''
''These protests, they're all performative,'' Fisher told Lawrence Jones on Tuesday. ''In my state, in Rhode Island, it was maybe a dozen, a couple dozen people out— with some signs and stuff— it smells of the George Soros playbook.''
Don’t know what your former side calls it, Mr. Fisher, but we call astroturf.
''It's interesting to me, the day of the protest that was scheduled by online demonstrators for the fifth and the 17th, I think a couple of days before that, they had scheduled a protest for illegal immigration in several strategic cities across the country. So this is just them— being sore losers and sour grapes.''
The 5051 Movement
…short for "50 protests, 50 states, one day". A couple thousand people altogether turned out nationwide for the first protest, as far as I can tell. And the single photo at the link suggests they didn’t even get as many this time…
organized protests nationwide on Monday, calling out Elon Musk, his efforts through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and President Trump as they continue to cut down on government waste.
Ken Martin
Chuck Schumer
Hakeem Jeffries
Kris Mayes
Ro Khanna
Maxine Waters
Richard Blumenthal
Chris Murphy
Maxwell Frost
Brian Schatz
Jan Schakowsky
Angela Alsobrooks
Chris Van Hollen
Steny Hoyer
Jamie Raskin
Ayanna Pressley
Veronica Escobar
Melanie Stansbury
Jeff Merkley
Brendan Boyle
Greg Casar
Jasmine Crockett
Al Green
Bernie Sanders
Don Beyer
Mark Pocan
[PJMedia] A federal judge appointed by former President Barack Obama ruled that 14 Democratic state attorneys general had failed to prove that granting Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to federal data or firing federal employees had caused "imminent harm."
On February 12, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan refused to impose an immediate temporary restraining order that would have imposed wide-ranging restrictions on DOGE's investigations into government corruption.
Chutkan, who is not a known ally of President Donald Trump, was the same judge who previously oversaw the now-dismissed Jan. 6 criminal proceedings against him.
"Plaintiffs legitimately call into question what appears to be the unchecked authority of an unelected individual and an entity that was not created by Congress and over which it has no oversight," wrote Chutkan in her ruling.
"In these circumstances, it must be indisputable that this court acts within the bounds of its authority. Accordingly, it cannot issue a TRO, especially one as wide-ranging as Plaintiffs request, without clear evidence of imminent, irreparable harm to these Plaintiffs. The current record does not meet that standard," she continued.
However, Chutkan suggested in a footnote that the Justice Department may have stretched the truth a bit regarding DOGE’s authority over federal personnel issues.
“Defense counsel is reminded of their duty to make truthful representations to the court,” she wrote.
A coalition of 14 Democrat states, led by New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez, filed a lawsuit last week, accusing Musk's appointment to run DOGE unconstitutional, as he was not confirmed by the Senate. State attorneys general from Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington joined Torrez.
"There is no greater threat to democracy than the accumulation of state power in the hands of a single, unelected individual," complained Torrez.
The Democrat plaintiffs argued that Musk's appointment by President Trump to oversee DOGE as a private citizen represented an "unlawful delegation of executive power." They claimed that his presence in DOGE caused "widespread disruption" for government employees working for various federal departments and government contractors.
Despite her initial sympathy towards the plaintiffs, Chulkan noted that their initial arguments failed to adequately meet the high legal standard of "imminent harm" required for a temporary restraining order.
"The things I’m hearing are troubling indeed, but I have to have a record and findings of fact before I issue something," Chutkan said the day before her ruling.
Trump gave Musk a mandate to lead DOGE as a temporary agency that would reorganize the federal government by streamlining operations, terminating employees who have no useful roles, and slashing trillions in wasteful spending, but this quickly drew legal challenges from the Washington establishment.
DOGE has targeted critical data at the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Education, the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Energy, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Commerce.
The Justice Department has made the argument that DOGE staffers were "detailed" U.S. government employees who were entitled to access to government data under provisions of the Economy Act.
A lawyer with the DOJ, Harry Graver, explained to Chutkan during arguments that there are “very clear paper trails” for all the actions DOGE has taken and that there’s “not a single instance” of Musk misusing his presidential appointment as a non-federal employee to interfere with government operations.
“Nowhere have my friends offered a shroud to show that Elon Musk has any formal or actual authority to make any government decision,” Graver said.
“I think you stretch too far,” Chutkan responded, adding, “I disagree with you there.”
After the hearing, the DOJ released an official declaration clarifying that Musk was not a DOGE employee but was instead a senior adviser to President Trump.
Chutkan's decision is the latest blow to Democrat attempts to temporarily restrict DOGE's access to data on government employees in seven federal agencies. The lawsuit is one out of a dozen Democrat-led legal challenges filed across the country, in an attempt to block or restrict DOGE's operations.
Last Friday, U.S. District Judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee, also rejected a separate request to prevent Musk's team from accessing records of three government agencies, ruling that the plaintiffs "have not shown a substantial likelihood that [DOGE] is not an agency."
Another Obama appointee, U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss, ruled on Monday that he would not block DOGE from reviewing student borrowing data at the Department of Education.
[FoxNews] Martin O'Malley mocked Elon Musk claiming millions of people in the Social Security database are listed as over 100 years old
Former Social Security commissioner Martin O’Malley considered the suggestion that the agency is "rife with fraud" laughable on "CNN News Central" Tuesday.
O’Malley, who served as the Social Security Administration (SSA) commissioner under President Biden from 2023 to 2024, discussed the report that the acting SSA head Michelle King had quit her job after clashing with Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) over access to data.
"Elon Musk has claimed that SSA is rife with fraud, suggesting that benefits are being paid to dead people, that millions and millions of dollars are going to waste," CNN host Boris Sanchez said.
O’Malley began laughing at the accusation.
That kind of arrogant assitude is exactly why Donald Trump was elected, and why Elon Musk and the rest signed up to help him.
"You‘re laughing, but that is a concern that a lot of Americans have, is it not?" Sanchez asked as O’Malley continued laughing. "Is it a laughing matter?"
"Yeah," O’Malley answered, still laughing. "He has no idea what he's talking about. There is not like a zombie apocalypse of people, you know, cadavers running around with Social Security checks coming out of their pockets."
He then admitted that "it’s a big agency," so there are "outliers."
"It‘s 72.5 million people. Sometimes really desperate people will try to hide the fact that grandma died, so they get a couple more checks," O’Malley said.
He added, "More often, because of the checks we have in place where we interrupt payments of people over a certain age, especially if they stop receiving Medicare benefits… more usual is that we have to restore benefits when we erroneously cut them off, when somebody moves out of the country or something."
O’Malley criticized Musk for putting out claims that he "can never back up."
"Ask Elon Musk, show me the 12 people that are 150 years old. He can’t. Show me the 200 million that are still receiving checks. He can’t. These 19-year-old nitwits from DOGE that are violating the law and plucking people’s personal identifying information, they don’t know what they’re looking at," O’Malley said.
Musk has claimed that more than 20 million names listed in the Social Security database were over 100 years old, including more than 3.9 million in the 130-139 age range, more than 3.5 million in the 140-149 range and more than 1.3 million in the 150-159 range. He did not say how many were still receiving benefits.
#2
This guy needs to be pre-emptively jailed.
Its attitudes like his that are the root of corruption. Stunning arrogance, but I suspect this attitude IS the swamp.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
02/19/2025 3:54 Comments ||
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#3
Damn the typos, full speed ahead. I need coffee.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
02/19/2025 3:55 Comments ||
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#4
plucking people’s personal identifying information
As if the feds don't already have all that on virtually everyone in the USA.
#9
Laughing all the way to the overseas crypto account, methinks.
Posted by: Regular joe ||
02/19/2025 14:51 Comments ||
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#10
a 2023 report from the IG of the SSAdmin estimated about $71B in improper payments over, I think, a ten year period
of course this was an estimate
SSA began a claw back but only expects to recoup about $200M by 2026
There is probably far more fraud in the Medicaid program, especially since the Obamacare legislation. That will be a struggle to investigate as a lot of it involves a combination of upcoding, overdiagnosis and other measures.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
02/19/2025 16:55 Comments ||
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#11
Even CNN anchors understand the line item deduction from their paycheck for 'Social Security'.
I've heard the DOGE Team called many nasty things, but "nit-wits" isn't one of them. Bold move.
Good. Another Biden-[Harris] administration item put to bed.
[NYPOST] A federal appeals court delivered a crushing blow Tuesday to a more than $475 billion student debt cancellation program begun by former President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. Joe's wife and daughter weren't killed by a drunk driver. He didn't graduate with three or even two degrees, wasn't in the top half of his law class, and his daddy didn't come home from a hard day's work in the mines and play football with the guys. The NAACP hasn't endorsed him every time he's run.... , ordering the underlying regulation be blocked in its entirety.
The Eighth US Circuit Court of Appeals had partially blocked the loan forgiveness effort last year — but a three-judge panel at the St. Louis-based court issued a final judgment to a lower court prohibiting any part of the initiative from taking effect.
Judge L. Steven Grasz in a 25-page opinion ruled that Biden's Education Secretary, Miguel Cardona, had ''gone well beyond'' his constitutional authority in creating the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan.
''Rather than implying by omission or other ambiguities, Congress has spoken clearly when creating a repayment plan with loan forgiveness or otherwise authorizing it — explicitly stating the Secretary should cancel, discharge, repay, or assume the remaining unpaid balance,'' Grasz wrote, finding ''no comparable language'' in the SAVE Plan.
In 2023, the Penn Wharton Budget Model estimated the so-called ''repayment plan,'' which Grasz said allowed for student debt to be ''largely forgiven rather than repaid, would cost taxpayers $475 billion over the next decade.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey noted in a statement that the ruling has no active impact beyond blocking future presidents from attempting Biden's maneuver.
"Though Joe Biden is out of office, this precedent is imperative to ensuring a President cannot force working Americans to foot the bill for someone else's Ivy League debt," Bailey said in a statement.
The Supreme Court of the United States denied the Biden administration’s request to lift a block on the SAVE plan last year. A federal appeals court in Missouri had earlier blocked the entire SAVE program from being enforced while litigation over the merits continues in the lower courts. The Department of Justice, which is part of the Biden administration, most recently asked the high court for emergency relief.
The Biden administration argued the court went too far when it issued a nationwide injunction, which effectively put a temporary freeze on the SAVE plan.
"Our Administration will continue to aggressively defend the SAVE Plan – which has helped over 8 million borrowers access lower monthly payments, including 4.5 million borrowers who have had a zero dollar payment each month," a White House spokesperson told Fox News Digital at the time. "And, we won’t stop fighting against Republican elected officials’ efforts to raise costs on millions of their own constituents’ student loan payments."
Biden introduced SAVE after the Supreme Court struck down his initial student loan forgiveness plan. The White House said that the SAVE plan could lower borrowers' monthly payments to zero dollars, reduce monthly costs in half and save those who make payments at least $1,000 yearly. Additionally, borrowers with an original balance of $12,000 or less will receive forgiveness of any remaining balance after making 10 years of payments.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2025 00:00 ||
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Link ||
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#1
A moron with a college degree is a lot more dangerous than an ordinary moron.
[NYPOST] Andrew Sonny Cuomo lost his bid to unravel the state's ethics commission Tuesday — in a huge blow to the former governor that allows the watchdog to reopen its probe into his $5 million pandemic book deal.
New York's highest court ruled for the state in a split 4-3 decision, finding that the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government is ''not unconstitutional in every conceivable application,'' as Cuomo had argued.
The three-term Democrat — who is widely believed to be mounting a run for New York City mayor — had been fighting for nearly two years to unravel COELIG, which ordered Cuomo to fork over proceeds of his COVID-era memoir.
Two lower courts sided with Cuomo.
But the Court of Appeals upheld COELIG — clearing the way for it to resume its investigation into the former governor.
''Neither the Legislature nor the Executive Branch has undue influence over the Commission, a structural characteristic lawfully chosen to ensure the integrity of the Commissioners and to instill public faith in government,'' Judge Jenny Rivera wrote in the majority opinion joined by the rest of the court's more liberal-leaning judges.
[ZeroHedge] The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Monday revealed its finding that $4.7 trillion in disbursements by the US Treasury are "almost impossible" to trace, thanks to a rampant disregard for the basic accounting practice of using of tracking codes when dishing out money.
Mind you, it's not as if such a federal tracking system wasn't already in place -- it simply went casually unused for all sorts of payouts adding up to an almost unfathomable $4.7 trillion. Without Treasury Access Symbol (TAS) identification codes associated with those payouts, there's little hope in figuring out where all that money went.
"In the Federal Government, the TAS field was optional for ~$4.7 Trillion in payments and was often left blank, making traceability almost impossible," DOGE announced via its X account. Thanks to DOGE, those "optional" days are over. "As of Saturday, this is now a required field, increasing insight into where money is actually going," DOGE added.
Musk celebrated the move. "Major improvement in Treasury payment integrity going live!" he tweeted. "This was a combined effort of DOGE, USTreasury and FederalReserve. Nice work by all."
DOGE's scrutiny of various government agencies is eliciting high-pitched shrieks from nearly every leftist in America, from establishment politicians who don't want the curtain that hides their hijinks and grifting torn down, to your liberal sister-in-law who thinks the government has an endless supply of money and that it spends it all virtuously.
#6
"As of Saturday, (the TAS code) is now a required field"
This is a basic part of setting up an accounting system database. So basic it is almost certainly a deliberate omission, as if the system was set up for fraud from the get-go.
Blair's Law refers to the on-going process by which the world's multiple idiocies combine to become one giant, useless force. Right now, we are hearing howls and screeches around the world as well as here at home. I gotta ask: Are there any idiocies we were *not* funding? Beak-wetting on a global scale.
[NYPOST] We're looking in vain for any sign at all of New York Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... ' supposed newfound moderation as the establishment rushes to defenestrate Mayor Eric Adams ...Hizonner da Mare of Noo Yawk. As a Manchurian candidate, Hizonner was all in favor of law and order and that kind of stuff. Once in office, a bunch of his friends found cushy jobs with the city, the windows kept getting broken, and Soros-funded DA Alvin Bragg remained right where he was. Most people comfort themselves with the thought that he's not Bill di Blasio but that's pretty small comfort with kids who actually go to school getting bumped off while standing in front of them. But he's a Dem, so the rubes will vote for him next election too, so he's what they deserve... He's the democratically elected, Democratic mayor whose only evident sin is wanting to . . . work lawfully with the feds to expel violent mostly peaceful illegal-migrant criminals.
That course has 80-20 support with the general public, but infuriates the progressive elite.
And so a pack of politicians descended Tuesday on Gov. Kathy Hochul's office to tell her to neuter him — remove him from office, or impose some other dirty deal that would, say, force him to drop his re-election run.
With not a ''moderate'' voice raised in protest.
Hochul is at least playing along with the lynch mob, droning that four aides quitting somehow ''raises serious questions about the long-term future of this mayoral administration.''
Hizzoner recently mentioned that he could become interested in switching parties, which would be a very interesting development for deep blue NYC…
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2025 01:15 ||
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[NYPOST] President Trump on Tuesday announced that he instructed the Justice Department to terminate all US attorneys appointed under the Biden administration — claiming the federal agency has been ''politicized like never before.''
Trump, 78, who has repeatedly argued former President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. You're a lyin' dog-faced pony soldier... ''weaponized'' the DOJ to bring federal charges against him, said his latest slew of firings will restore confidence in the justice system.
''Over the past four years, the Department of Justice has been politicized like never before,'' the commander in chief wrote in a Truth Social post.
''Therefore, I have instructed the termination of ALL remaining ''Biden Era'' U.S. Attorneys. We must ''clean house'' IMMEDIATELY, and restore confidence. America's Golden Age must have a fair Justice System — THAT BEGINS TODAY!''
The announcement comes one week after the White House issued termination notices to multiple federal prosecutors appointed by the Biden Administration.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2025 00:00 ||
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[11127 views]
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#1
Standard Operating Procedure. When Obama took office he terminated the Bush DA who was investigating Gov. Bill Richardson in a pay-to-play scheme in New Mexico.
Posted by: Bob Dribble8742 ||
02/19/2025 4:37 Comments ||
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[NYPOST] The Federal Reserve's shift to a more ''inclusive'' employment policy in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement may have kept it from curbing inflation, several top economists suggested.
Central bankers had long been wary of both high jobless rates and particularly low ones — raising rates when unemployment was unusually low to curb the risk of inflation.
But in 2020, after Saint George Floyd ...The patron saint of Minneapolis... 's death, the Fed employed a sharp policy pivot to focus on a ''broad-based and inclusive'' employment goal, effectively ending those precautionary measures around low unemployment.
''It was no longer good enough to hit employment targets in the aggregate. Rather, targets had to be hit on an 'inclusive' basis that included all groups,'' Kenin Spivak, chief executive and chairman at SMI Group, told The Post.
''The Fed failed to raise interest rates when it should have done so, leading to the sustained inflation experienced during the Biden administration, and from which we are still slowly recovering,'' he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/19/2025 00:00 ||
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[NYPOST] Democratic strategist James Carville suggested the tide is turning in the country and advised Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... to ''play possum'' while it does. Good advice, that.
Carville appeared on MSNBC's ''The Beat with Ari Melber'' where the two discussed protests taking place throughout the nation against President Trump and his mass firings of federal employees.
Heartened by these demonstrations, Carville said the best thing for Democrats to do in response is ''nothing.''
''So the question is, how should Democratic politicians respond to this? And what I think they should do is what we call in rural America play possum. Just let it go,'' Carville said.
He continued, ''Don't get in the way of it. Or as we like to say, don't just stand there, do nothing. Let this germinate. We don't need to get in front of it. This freight train is moving. Let's just get out of the way. And then we're going to have time. In the immortal words of Dalton in 'Roadhouse,' 'Be nice until it's time not to be nice.' And that time is coming shortly.''
Being not nice would be unwise, given how many former Democrats voted for The Donald and their local Republican candidates last November. Unless the Democratic Party masochistically wants to lose even more than they did in the last round.
#6
Two protests are not nationwide you idiots. I think that is best for you to sit down and shut the fuck up. Every time the left opens its mouth the public remembers what a bunch of radical morons you all are.
#8
So I went to Bobby's link and saw a bunch of Democrat apparatchiks carrying signs with some of the most inane slogans anybody can imagine.
Hands off my right
Or
When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace again.
Or
Defend Democracy
Or
Beware the Hair
OK, those are very nice sentiments. But, specifically, what are they protesting? Do they think Trump loves power more than Obama? How can they quantify such a thing? I don't get it.
And don't get me started again on foreign flags. Nothing triggers me more than foreigners coming into this country and trying to tell us what to do.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/19/2025 12:06 Comments ||
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#9
Lots of nice protest photos at The Atlantic.
Most of the photos are narrowly shot to hide how small the crowds are — a few hundred to a few thousand at best, it seems to me. And most of the crowds appear to be entirely white — not exactly a broad slice of America.
Preciesly the opposite of the crowds they used to whip up, back when USAID was handing out money freely and racism was a word to cow the normies with.
[NYPOST] Liberal HBO host John Oliver lamented the state of America on ''The Late Show,'' but insisted he would be ''going down with the Titanic'' rather than fleeing back to the U.K.
The host of HBO political commentary and comedy show ''Last Week Tonight'' told CBS's Stephen Colbert Monday night that he recently became a U.S. citizen and would stay in America despite suggesting it's a sinking ship under the Trump administration.
''Oh, no, I'm sticking it out. I'm going down with the Titanic,'' Oliver said to Colbert.
The two comedians reminisced about Oliver's previous appearances on the show, including his last one, which was the night before Election Day 2024. Both mentioned the horror they felt anticipating Trump's victory.
''Cards on the table, by the way,'' Colbert said, ''I don't remember anything we talked about because I don't think I was listening to a word you said.''
Oliver chimed in, stating, ''Yes, you definitely did have a haunted expression, like you've seen the ghost that would be visiting us in twenty-four hours' time.''
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...every time you hear the phrase 
...46th president of the U.S. Joe's wife and daughter weren't killed by a drunk driver. He didn't graduate with three or even two degrees, wasn't in the top half of his law class, and his daddy didn't come home from a hard day's work in the mines and play football with the guys. The NAACP hasn't endorsed him every time he's run....
...Hizonner da Mare of Noo Yawk. As a Manchurian candidate, Hizonner was all in favor of law and order and that kind of stuff. Once in office, a bunch of his friends found cushy jobs with the city, the windows kept getting broken, and Soros-funded DA Alvin Bragg remained right where he was. Most people comfort themselves with the thought that he's not Bill di Blasio but that's pretty small comfort with kids who actually go to school getting bumped off while standing in front of them. But he's a Dem, so the rubes will vote for him next election too, so he's what they deserve...
...46th president of the U.S. 
...The patron saint of Minneapolis...
[NYPOST] Liberal HBO host 
