Today is Saturday, January 8, 2022. We marked the first day after this area’s first snowfall, which supposedly dumped a half-foot of snow in Central Park yesterday, according to an article in today’s Daily News and almost 10 inches of snow at LaGuardia Airport. This story was covered in an article entitled “Snow, shmow – we’re New Yorkers, we keep sledding,” by Tim Balk and Ryan Schwach. New York’s new mayor, Eric Adams, decided not to close schools because of the slightness of the “storm.” He said this on Friday: “We don’t have any more days to waste, and the long-term impact of leaving our children home is going to impact us for years to come.” Despite Adams’ vow to keep children in school, not every child made it to class, as illustrated by Chef Yamasaki’s second-grade daughter, Osata, who was home because of a virus outbreak in her class in Brooklyn. So this very involved parent worked with her daughter in making snow sculptures in Prospect Park.

The Buffalo-native governor, Kathy Hochul, scoffed at the magnitude of this snowfall by saying, “Is this called a snow storm?” at a news conference on Friday in Manhattan. Her voice more serious, Hochul then said, “I do commend New Yorkers for how you’ve managed this. We’re tough. We get through these things.”

Facing the first weather test of his young mayoralty, Adams visited a Sanitation Department garage on the Lower East Side before dawn [notice how this mayor can do things early in the morning as opposed to the last mayor] to cheer on workers who battled the elements to keep the city running.

Adams made his presence known by saying to the workers, “We’re here this morning to say thank you,” as Adams told crews of workers who were concluding and beginning 12-hour shifts. “Nothing stops New Yorkers,” Adams acknowledged.

The Sanitation Department was operating at a roughly 20% staffing deficit because of the continuing Omicron wave of cases engulfing municipal agencies. Commissioner Edward Grayson said his department deployed about 1,600 plows and attempted to overcome the worker shortage with aggressive pretreatment. Compared to last year, the city sent about 1,800 plows into service during storms at that period.

Another news story on my online SmartNews app attracted my attention and that is the announcement that a new group of 15 former Dumpf officials are planning to crisscross the country to speak out against him. This news was covered in an Independent news article by John Bowden entitled “New group of former Trump officials are planning to ‘travel the country’ speaking out against him.”

I’m happy to hear that at least some former Dumpf loyalists have now seen the light and are banding together to tell the nation how unfit he was as a president. This group’s avowed aim is stopping their old boss’s political career.

One of those former Dumpf officials is Stephanie Grisham, a former White House aide who served as the president’s press secretary, made the announcement on Thursday on CNN. The news comes on the one-year anniversary of that infamous day known as January 6.

Ms. Grisham said that she was “really excited” about the group coming together. She has become very vocal in her criticism of her former boss since leaving the White House. About the tour, Grisham said, “I myself am hoping to travel the country and talk to people who are believers, like I once was. And I want people to understand who he is. He cares about no one but himself.” Anyone could see this to be the truth about Dumpf but his innumerable supporters are still blind to this very apparent fact. Hell, Mary Trump assessed her uncle’s true character very well in her two books.

Grisham has also confirmed that she has been cooperating with the House Select committee investigating the January 6 riot. She added that the panel had shown particular interest in the organizing of a rally on the Ellipse, outside of the White House, where Dumpf addressed his loyalists minutes before the insurrection began. So far, the committee has subpoenaed numerous organizers of that rally and sought to grasp, among other questions, whether the organizers had connections to groups that were present during the riot and actively calling for or carrying out violent acts.

So let’s see if this anti-Dumpf tour convinces anybody about the true nature of the 45th president. I admire this group’s pluck in assuming this gargantuan task, but I seriously wonder if they will be able to sway Dumpf adherents to abandon their very own Jim Jones. I’m happy to hear that at least a few of Dumpf’s former associates are turning against him, but I doubt that the repugnican party will ever do this – until they lose election after election.

So it’s getting late here and I want to see if I can post this blog without any technical issues.

Let me wish everyone a good Sunday.

Stay safe and be well.