Tag Archives: news

And So It Goes

Today is Friday, October 10, 2025. One day after the monster-in-chief gave the go-ahead to indict a sitting attorney general in New York for absolutely nothing, that Attorney General, Letitia James, achieved the best single day of fundraising in a nearly 30-year political career. This stunning reality is covered in an online CNN article entitled “Letitia James sees a record fundraising surge and Democratic support after indictment.”

A source familiar with James’s political operation told CNN she brought in $567,000 from over 24,000 donors in the 24 hours after she was indicted yesterday afternoon on felony charges of bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution. A little reminder: this monster-in-chief was actually indicted some years back by this same attorney general for doing exactly the same thing. Sounds quite rich to me, don’t you think? Most of the same fundraising came in response to emails her political operation was sending out to capitalize on the news, though some donations came in on their own.

James’s prepared video response to the indictment drew 4.3 million views on X in that same 24 hours.

In the immediate aftermath of the announcement, national and New York Democrats rushed to support her, led by mayoralty candidate Zohran Mamdani, whom James has been helping both on the New York City mayoralty campaign and in gearing up for governing if he wins.

That same candidate for mayor, Zohran Mamdani, spoke in front of the same courthouse where Attorney General James was doing her job – indicting and thrusting the monster-in-chief in front of a jury that eventually ruled against him – and said, “This is a blatant miscarriage of justice; this is a shameless act of political retribution.”

If Mamdani wins the race, it is the avowed promise of the monster-in-chief to pull billions in funding from the nation’s largest city if the 33-year-old candidate is victorious, which seems to be the case. I forgot to mention that the current mayor Eric Adams dropped out of the race sometime last week, and I say, “Good riddance!” He is inextricably connected with the monster-in-chief and many staffers in his administration have been arrested and charged for financial crimes. This does not look good in a candidate for mayor, and he probably knew his chances of winning a second term slid into the toilet when the Dump administration dropped charges against him last year. I disliked him for this very reason and his about-face on removing Medicare from over 250,000 city retirees, which he initially said he wouldn’t but when he took office, he did an about-face and changed his mind to deciding to throw all of us in a Managed Care program that met with opposition for many years. This alone turned me on him, and this happened very early in his first – and only – term.

The other candidate for mayor, Andrew Cuomo, was a little reticent when it came to defending the attorney general in her upcoming legal case. It’s very apparent why this was so since it was James who led the investigation and release of a report into sexual misconduct allegations that ultimately resulted in Cuomo’s resignation as New York governor. So it doesn’t seem too farfetched if he is reticent in condemning these charges since James would be considered his opponent who drove him out of office in the first place.

Hours after Mamdani’s rally in Manhattan, Cuomo did issue a new statement calling for universal condemnation of politicizing the justice system. The statement now included a mention of James’s name, but said Cuomo too had been the victim of politically motivated investigations.

In the statement, Cuomo said, “The weaponization and politicization of the justice system is wrong no matter which side you are on – period.” Then he plays the poor victim, saying, “I know firsthand as the White House weaponized the DOJ against me when I was governor of New York and three other democratic states during the height of COVID and it’s wrong that it appears to be happening with AG James and Former FBI Director Comey – it is part of why people have lost faith in the Justice system, the cornerstone of our democracy.”

Mamdani said he had spoken to James shortly after the indictment became public to reassure her of the support she had.

“She told me, ‘Don’t worry about me,'” Mamdani said. He added, “That’s indicative of an attorney general who has spent all of her time worrying about the people of the state.”

Maybe then this monster-in-chief should be worried that James will emerge victorious after these baseless charges against her are either dismissed or she is declared innocent of all of the drummed-up charges against her. She’ll be more powerful after this, not less, and the little, fearful man sitting in the White House will appear ever more weakened altogether.

Dump is the smallest of men who must be stewing in his own Adult Diapers after it was revealed today that he lost the Nobel Peace Prize. The award was given to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, a Latina and a woman, which should enrage the small, petty man in the White House to no end. She was given the prize “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” according to a statement from the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

Today Elliot and I performed a mitzvah by driving to Long Island to pay a visit to our friend “Joseph,” who is recovering at a rehabilitation center after having surgery for a broken hip sustained in a fall there. We spent less than a hour visiting him since we were parked by a one-hour parking stand. We spoke about our last trip with Joseph and he mentioned how he got into his current predicament. He was sitting in a wheelchair and seemed quite shvach, which is to be expected. He couldn’t tell us precisely when he might be discharged, but he did posit that it could be another four weeks or longer. So there will definitely be further visits with him in the near future.

Have a good weekend, everyone. Unfortunately, it might be quite a wet one this time.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Thursday, October 9, 2025. Today is another sad day of mourning in America, as the Orange Turd ratcheted up his campaign of terrorism against his political adversaries by now indicting New York Attorney General Letitia James on – forgive the pun – trumped-up charges, which should outrage every American again, as this is now the second person indicted under Dictator Don’s vengeance campaign. The first was former FBI Director James B. Comey the other day. This sad story is offered in a CNN online article by Kristen Holmes, Hannah Rabinowitz, and Kara Scannell entitled “Letitia James, the New York attorney general who defeated Trump in court, indicted by Justice Department.” The sorry details follow below.

Ms. James was indicted today in Alexandria, Virginia, allegedly on charges of mortgage fraud. She has been under investigation since May over a 2023 mortgage she took out to buy a home in Norfolk, Virginia.

The grand jury returned two felony charges: bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution. Her first court appearance is scheduled for October 24 in Norfolk.

Comey has already pleaded not guilty yesterday to allegedly making a false statement in a congressional proceeding. Naturally, this Orange Turd has others on his political “hit list,” and they include former Chump national security adviser John Bolton and California Democratic Senator Adam Schiff, plus others.

James herself had choice words for this pointless indictment: “These charges are baseless, and the president’s own public statements make clear that his only goal is political retribution at any cost.” She added, “The president’s actions are a grave violation of our Constitutional order and have drawn sharp criticism from members of both parties.”

As you must know, James’ relationship with the Orange Menace has been adversarial for years as she campaigned on promises to investigate Dictator Don and ultimately won a civil fraud case against the Manhattan real estate “mogul,” his adult sons, and his real estate business. A judge found them liable for fraud for inflating the value of their properties and ordered Dump to pay $355 million in penalties.

Unfortunately, a New York appeals court tossed the penalties (which I had forgotten) and Dump has appealed the verdict. So what the fuck is he still angry about? That a Black woman bested him in court? That’s the true reason.

During the 11-week trial, Dump’s anger toward James was very palpable. He railed against her in the courthouse hallways and from the witness stand. Drumpf testified as James sat across from him in the courtroom galley.

However, last month CNN reported that Justice Department prosecutors in Virginia, led at the time by Erik Seibert, interviewed dozens of witnesses and did not believe they gathered enough evidence to support criminal charges against James.

Get this? That prosecutor Erik Seibert resigned after he was pressured by the Orange Turd to bring charges against his political foe, Letitia James. He was then replaced by the most unqualified, incompetent former personal attorney of Dump, Lindsey Halligan, who was raked over the coals last night by Lawrence O’Donnell on his show for her glaring lack of knowledge regarding the law.

This idiot said in a statement, “No one is above the law [rich thing for her to say when she should really be looking in the direction of the person sitting in the White House]. The charges as alleged in this case represent intentional, criminal acts and tremendous breaches of the public’s trust.” She added, “The facts and the law in this case are clear, and we will continue following them to ensure that justice is served.” Pure bullshit, in my opinion.

As for those allegations, her lawyers provided a document to the Justice Department in April to push back on what they called “threadbare” charges.

They said that one document in the mortgage application “mistakenly” said the property would be James’s primary residence. But they submitted other documents to argue there was no fraud. James actually checked a box on her mortgage application that indicated the property would not be her primary residence. So these “allegations” seem just as false as the ones attributed to James Comey.

I’ve seen pictures of this Lindsey Halligan who is the prosecutor in this case and she looks like the beauty queen contestant that she actually was before getting her law degree at the University of Phoenix. Actually, she didn’t go there. I was just teasing you. She has never prosecuted a case before getting this high-profile case, and James’s attorneys will shred her to pieces if it ever goes to trial. It will be a resounding humiliation for the man in the White House, that’s for sure!

These new developments in the politicization of the Justice Department will sadly continue until there is pushback against this bastard in the White House from members in Congress, and I still don’t see anything remotely approaching that kind of resistance. That is why we the people must resist this perverted regime – on the streets and in the courts.

If this is not an authoritarian regime operating in America at the moment, then I don’t know what else to call it!

In the meantime, Attorney General Pam Bondi and many others are protecting this pedophile in the White House, refusing to release the Epstein files. What is this House afraid of then?

Today I got my latest COVID booster at CVS around 2:45 p.m. So far, I have no side effects from the inoculation.

Also, our television guy “Ernest” returned for one last time to restore my streaming services to the Sony which took as long as 2 hours since I had to reregister for many of the services, and I had quite a few problems with inputting my data, including email and passwords for several of the apps. Ernest actually had to calm me down when the process didn’t work. Don’t you hate it when there is such an extra layer of security involved with getting anything these days? Like when you are told a code will be sent to your phone or email and you have to rush to get that code before it expires and before you have to do it again. I was losing the screen with the code and the screen where you had to register, so Ernest had to intervene and show me the proper way to do it. But now I believe I have all of the apps that existed on the set before. Ernest also helped Elliot erase over thousands of emails which he never deleted over an extended length of time. That took time also.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Friday, October 3, 2025. As the world wrestles with the scumbag known as Donald J. Dump’s declining health and mental acuity, one online article truly paints a very vulnerable despot on AlterNet by Lesley Abravanel entitled “‘Never seen the president this scared’: correspondent unmasks ‘maniacal’ Trump.”

That White House correspondent is seasoned journalist Brian Karem, who has covered president Donald Chump full-time since 2016, says in a piece for Salon that he’s “never seen the president this scared.”

Karem, who has covered every presidential administration since Ronald Reagan, “sued Donald Trump three times successfully to keep his press pass,” he says in his bio.

Though he had a front-row seat to “the carnage” of Dump’s first term, this time around, it’s different, Karem writes, noting Dump is playing the “victim.”

The president’s actions, Karem says, are “those of a despot trying to seize power.” The White House correspondent pointed to Dump’s demand for the military to use American cities as training grounds for the U.S. military and his proliferation of ICE agents who beat and detain American citizens.

Karem adds here, “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Trump’s dog of war, has instituted some of the most racist regulations seen in the military since it was integrated nearly 80 years ago.”

The seasoned pro sees a deeper reason for why Dump is acting more maniacal lately.

“He is the proverbial New York sewer rat, cornered and lashing out in a desperate attempt to survive. He also knows he is becoming more vulnerable. But it’s not just his own mortality, shrinking mental acuity and the Jeffrey Epstein case that is scaring him,” Karem states.

Karem feels what is setting Dictator Don off like “a wild animal with its leg caught in a trap” is his 2023 indictment on 37 felony counts stemming from a nonpartisan FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago that turned up classified documents. Remember that case, folks? I sure haven’t forgotten and neither has he!

Karem writes about the case, “He’s apparently still so worried about the case that he’s trying to put up costly roadblocks against someone who has only a chance of getting the information revealed.” Look, someone even revealed that horrible impending “Extreme” Court ruling knocking down Roe v. Wade in June 2022. So there’s someone out there with a vendetta against this subhuman who can do the same thing regarding his 2023 indictment.

Karem writes, “Trump’s fear is palpable, and like a New York sewer rat, that’s when he’s at his most dangerous.”

The White House correspondent further notes Dump has a “desire for total control before he loses all command of his mental and physical health.” Which couldn’t come any sooner in my opinion.

Meanwhile, while all of this is going on, Vice President JD Vance, nicknamed the “Maybelline Mascara Man” by a staffer from Forest Hills Indivisible, is waiting eagerly in the wings, having proven he “is capable of pinch hitting for the sultan of political swat.”

According to a source close to Dictator Don, “there is a growing fear that someone in his own inner-circle may whisper the words ’25th Amendment,’ end the Dump presidency, and usher in the ‘The Age of Ultron’ – I mean Vance. That, more than anything else, has Puff Donny scared,” Karem posits. This is not so infeasible since a good swath of the American public is now disliking Republicans more than Democrats for the government shutdown and if things get worse, which they certainly will, someone could come out of the shadows and more than whisper the 25th Amendment, they could shout it. And we are then stuck with the Maybelline Mascara Man until 2028. Which could be worse than having buffoonish Demented Don until that time, but I don’t think so. Vance will not have the almost slavish support of MAGA like this clown did.

You must love MSNBC news host Lawrence O’Donnell who is the lone man of outrage when it comes to criticizing Demented Don’s lack of mental acuity. He consistently goes on the warpath against the legacy press for its lack of outrage over what he calls Dictator Don’s “publicly flaring madness” this week.

In another online article this time for MediaITE, Tommy Christopher writes “MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Rages At Press ‘Sleeping’ Through Trump’s ‘Publicly Flaring Madness.'”

If you ever watch O’Donnell, you know he calls Demented Don the stupidest president every chance he gets. He has consistently called out Trump’s growing incapacity, growing to a crescendo this week amid a series of escalating stumbles, a speech to military leaders that was cringeworthy, and social media antics around the government shutdown.

On Wednesday’s edition of MSNBC’s The Last Word, the host trained his journalistic eye on The New York Times over an editorial that insufficiently assessed Dump’s “insanity” and a Washington press corps that is “sleeping” through Little Donnie’s “madness.”

O’Donnell made light of The Times’ characterization of Dump’s “bombastic tweets” immediately following the government shutdown which this pathological liar blamed on the Democrats and which he threatened to fire thousands of federal workers if Democrats did not provide the votes to keep the government open. He felt these tweets were not just “bombastic,” they were really insane.

Then O’Donnell provided a video clip of Rep. Madeline Dean (D-PA) confronting the lapdog of Dump, House Speaker MAGA Johnson, about how unhinged and unwell the damn president is. Then the following fucking admission was made by this false Christian in the House Speakership when he said, “A lot on your side, too.” Here is the Speaker actually admitting that the Supreme Leader is indeed unwell, and all he can muster as a response to Dean’s accurate characterization of Donnie being unwell is that people on the Democratic side are unwell too. Fuck, who was he referring to here? .She should have pressed him on that weak and childish response. But she didn’t; however, we did get an admission of truth from the creepy House Speaker right here.

With this admission, O’Donnell called MAGA Johnson a “coward” and that “he has taken an oath of cowardice to Donald Trump.” Pretty strong words, you would say. O’Donnell added, “He’s not the Speaker of the House. He’s the Speaker of Trump in the House.” So true! It’s the entire repugnican party right now.

Then the veteran MSNBC host ridiculed the liberal newspaper for not stating the obvious about the president – that he’s losing it.

O’Donnell then mocked Vance and the White House for making the government shutdown funny, which will definitely not work in middle America. He talks about a video regarding a sombrero which I haven’t seen, but if the fucking White House released it with Vance’s imprimatur, then it is childish and stupid. This you would never see from any serious administration if the government ever shut down, but this is a very different White House. This is an insane White House and an abnormal one in every fucking way!

O’Donnell ends by scorching the Washington press corps for regarding the crisis at the White House as “business as usual.” He adds, “They have internalized Trump madness in their coverage. They have lost their ability to react to it, but their outrage will be fully revived if a Democratic candidate for president, or if a Democratic president ever says a single negative thing about any kind of American voters, ever, anywhere.” Ain’t that the truth! And Mr. O’Donnell shined a bright light on it on his show Wednesday night.

Today I resumed my usual eating schedule by going out for breakfast and drinking several cups of coffee. I’m amazed over how easily I can give up caffeine these days without experiencing any ill side effects. When I was younger, I had to wean myself off caffeine by drinking decaffeinated coffee a day or two before fasting. Now I can have one last cup of coffee on Wednesday evening and then just give up drinking the elixir for over 25 hours. And I thought it would be harder as I aged, but it isn’t. That’s good for me, I guess.

Tomorrow I might not be writing my blog since I could be traveling into the city with Elliot to first buy tickets for a New York Philharmonic concert on October 30 that showcases Alfred Hitchcock’s groundbreaking Psycho with the terrifying Bernard Hermann score being played by the world-famous orchestra on stage. I thought this seemed like a cool thing to do before Halloween. And for those who know about the genesis of this 1960 shocker, Netflix is now playing a series on the original inspiration for the film, Ed Gein. He served as the inspiration for Robert Bloch’s treatment of the gothic story in his book by the same name which was optioned by Sir Alfred Hitchcock who was looking for another property to put on the big screen. If I can, I would like to see the Netflix series if I can stomach it. What Gein did to his victims in rural La Crosse County, Wisconsin, never got on the screen in Psycho. I can’t repeat what he did then – it’s too horrible to imagine. Just watch the series and see for yourself and see why Gein was declared insane and remanded to a mental institution for the rest of his life. He died at the age of 77 at that mental institution in 1984.

And we might do something else afterward like see a film. I don’t know which yet.

Have a good weekend then.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Monday, September 29, 2025. Back to a repeated yet necessary topic of discussion here, which is the delusional commander in chief who is collapsing in inchoate dementia right in front of America these days. An online opinion by former Secretary of Labor under former President Bill Clinton, Robert Reich, appears in Raw Story today entitled “This tipping point will bring Trump’s reign crashing down -and it’s close” outlines the insane things this pretender to the throne has done in just the last week.

Reich revels over the gigantic audience that watched Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue last week after he was reinstated to ABC by Disney. Apparently, over 6 million people watched Kimmel’s return to late-night television, whereas another 26 million watched it on social media, including YouTube. Kimmel’s ratings that night were a direct affront to the president’s false proclamation that his ratings were much lower than that.

Also, Dump’s dictatorial narcissism revealed itself nearly as dramatically in the criminal indictment of former FBI director James Comey, which comes directly after Chump fired the U.S. attorney who refused to indict him.

That dictatorial narcissism was evident in his directive to the drunkard Pete Hegseth, the new “Secretary of War,” to use “full force, if necessary” to “protect War [sic] ravaged Portland, Oregon” and any “ICE Facilities under siege from attack from Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.” All of this is pure bullshit, folks. This is pure fantasy arising from the warped mind of Dictator Don. There is no concerted effort from Antifa to sow violence in Portland, Oregon. It’s another distraction from not releasing the Epstein files.

There was also his crazy speech to the United Nations telling delegates that their nations are “going to hell.” What a surefire way to win allies, you must say. Then there is his much-ballyhooed press conference with quack Dr. Oz and brain-worm HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in which it was announced that Tylenol is the cause of childhood autism, even though there is no damn scientific proof of this. As a result, the makers of Tylenol should sue the hell out of Dump’s government as a result of this massive smear.

Because of these measures, Dump’s approval ratings continue to drop precipitously.

Reich writes, “Voters are turning against him and his Republican Party.”

Amidst all of this chaos brought on by Dump and his stupid minions, a government shutdown is looming. This time I support Democrats not playing hardball with their fascist colleagues since these ugly repugnicans refuse to agree to extending Affordable Care Act subsidies which are now set to expire at the end of the year and to cause 24 million people to lose coverage or pay skyrocketing premiums. Therefore, there can be no compromise with these cruel members in Congress, folks. We will have to sustain some hardship now in order to show Dump and his useless cabinet that we are not capitulating – like we always sadly do at the final hour.

The former labor secretary doesn’t know exactly when there will come a tipping point when elected repugnicans will actually rebel against him or when his dementia will become so apparent that he’s forced to resign or when much of the country rises up against his dictatorship that he’s impeached and convicted of high crimes – which I find more unreasonable as time wears on, but you never know the fury of the American electorate when they realize they’ve been conned all these many years by a consummate charlatan. Reich believes that that point is coming ever closer, though.

In conclusion, Reich believes that the nation’s activism is working and believes “the slumbering giant of America” will be reawakening soon. He feels it’s about to stand and is angry. “Soon he will roar.”

Tomorrow Elliot and I are having dinner with my Manhattan cousins, “Rivka” and “Dillon.” We’re meeting them at 7 at a restaurant on 79th Street, so I doubt I’ll be writing this blog since we usually spend a good three hours or more chatting up a storm. I haven’t seen them in several months, not since they went to Mexico in late August. We haven’t seen them since July, I believe.

I just remembered: Wednesday marks Yom Kippur Eve, so I won’t be here either. I’m traveling to Jersey City to participate in evening services at Elliot’s late aunt’s synagogue on John F. Kennedy Boulevard. We won’t drive; it’s easier to take mass transit. This is the first time I won’t be attending Kol Nidre services at the Jacob Javits Center. Oh well, life is change! Something we should all embrace.

So have a good Tuesday and a good holiday for those who observe. Also, have an easy fast for those who fast during this holiday.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Sunday, September 21, 2025, one day before the official start of autumn. For those of you who are interested – and I know most of you aren’t – today marked the funeral and public memorial marking the canonization of far-right activist Charlie Kirk in Glendale, Arizona. The doddering president has been shown delivering remarks on the occasion of this spectacle, but I generally had no intention of listening to him. I’m more interested in an online article from Ok! by its staff entitled “Donald Trump Falls Asleep at Charlie Kirk’s Funeral and Memorial Service as Health Concerns Mount: Photo.”

The article mentions that the president was seen dozing off during the service in Arizona. After Kirk was shot and killed on September 10, Dump shared the news on “Truth” Social. I won’t repeat what the most un-Christian commander in chief posted on his media platform about how wonderful the late Kirk was.

Now it has been reported that the killer of Kirk, Tyler Robinson, often clashed with his father over their opposing views, his mother said. When Charlie’s Utah Valley University event came up, Tyler reportedly called it “stupid” and said Kirk “spreads too much hate.”

In the meantime, this is hardly the first time Dump was caught taking forty winks. Recently, the former reality star was observed napping during the U.S. Open finals, sparking a new round of questions about his condition.

Two clinical psychologists – John Gartner and Harry Segal – now claim the signs point to something more serious, with Chump showing physical and linguistic symptoms of “early dementia.” And who recalls that it was discovered that former President Ronald Reagan was suffering from the same ailment during his second term? And that his “Just say, no” wife, Nancy Reagan, was actually running the country for him? I wonder who is doing it in the case of this loathsome individual; it’s certainly not Melanoma, his wife. It’s probably Stephen Miller, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff who is as just as loathsome as his boss.

And who can forget the many times Chump was caught dozing during his one criminal trial conducted here in New York? Back in July, cameras caught him struggling to stay awake as his team rolled out a new health-tracking system at the White House. Later that month, critics nicknamed him “Sleepy Don” after he seemed ready to nod off during an energy and AI summit in Pittsburgh.

ll I have to say about this matter is how the media would pounce on former President Joe Biden if he had ever done the same thing as Chump in public, no less. This guy appears to be suffering, actually, from early onset dementia in real time and our legacy news outlets somehow are shying away from reporting on it! This is not good for America.

Well, that wraps it up for me for the next three days. Tomorrow night marks the start of Rosh Hashanah and we’re either hosting our friend “Patricia” here at our apartment – only if the elevator is restored to its former glory during the day – or we’re going to Patricia’s place, toting all the food that Elliot prepared for the occasion.

On Tuesday, we head out to Cherry Hill to spend the holiday with “Harold” and his family. Since we just returned from an almost-two-week overseas trip, we’re staying only until Wednesday. And we also don’t want to leave Atticus for much longer than a day or so.

So for those of my readers who celebrate this event, let me wish you “L’shana tova”; may you all be inscribed in the Book of Life for another year. I will either return here on Wednesday or on Thursday. It depends on when we come back from New Jersey and on my mental and physical state.

And so it went!

Ooh, my very first AI-generated image! Good heavens!

And So It Goes

Today is Saturday, September 20, 2025. The extent of this current regime’s corruption seemingly knows no bounds as it has been reported today by news media that White House border “czar” Tom Homan accepted $50,000 in bribes from undercover FBI agents, but that this felon’s partisan-inclined Department of Justice just shut down the entire case claiming the matter was fueled by the “deep state,” which is anything that is actually critical of the Orange Buffoon in the White House. An article online for MSNBC entitled “Tom Homan was investigated for accepting $50,000 from undercover FBI agents. Trump’s DOJ shut it down,” by Carol Leonnig and Ken Dilanian explores this newest scandal set to engulf the current administration.

According to credible sources, it appears that Homan was recorded by the FBI accepting $50,000 in cash after indicating he could help the agents who were posing as business executives win government contracts in a second Chump administration, according to multiple people familiar with the probe and internal documents reviewed by MSNBC.

The FBI and the Justice Department planned to wait to see whether Homan would deliver on his alleged promise once he became the nation’s top immigration official. But the case indefinitely stalled after Dump became president again in January, according to six sources familiar with the matter. In recent weeks, Dump appointees officially closed the investigation, after FBI Director Kash Patel requested a status update on the probe, two of the people said.

Undercover FBI agents posing as contractors communicated and met several times last summer with a business colleague who introduced them to Homan, and with Homan himself, who indicated he would facilitate securing contracts for them in exchange for money once he was in office, according to documents and the people familiar with the case.

On September 20, 2024, with hidden cameras recording the scene at a meeting spot in Texas, Homan accepted $50,000 in bills, according to an internal summary of the case and sources.

No further investigative steps were taken by FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors in the final months of 2024, the people said, and were expected to keep monitoring Homan to determine if he landed an official role and would make good on steering contracts in a future Dump administration.

At the time when Homan was caught in the FBI sting, he was president and owner of a private consulting business that said it could help companies in the border security industry win government contracts.

At the National Conservatism Conference in July 2024, Homan promised he would run the biggest deportation operation this country has ever seen if Dump returns to the White House in January – which he did, of course.

Several FBI and Justice officials believed that they had a strong case against Homan for conspiracy to commit bribery based on recording him accepting cash and his apparent promise to assist with contracts, according to four people familiar with the probe. But he was not charged since he was not a public official then and Dump was not president at the time he accepted money in the FBI’s undercover sting, so his actions didn’t clearly fit under a standard bribery charge.

When asked about these potential charges against Homan, legal experts said that a person who promises to influence federal contracts when they become a public official can’t be charged under the federal bribery statutes until they are named or appointed to such a post. Now that Homan has ascended to the immigration throne, he could find himself in hot water with the feds if he reaffirms his promise or communicates in some way about his plan to deliver on his agreement. Only time will tell. However, now that Patel and the Justice Department are in the pocket of Dump, it doesn’t seem likely that an independent investigation of Homan would ever be facilitated anytime soon. This won’t be the first time that a presidential cabinet contained accused miscreants, but this is the only one in which an entire cabinet is practically composed of them.

The good news emanating from the Jimmy Kimmel debacle is that the Disney Corporation (the backers behind ABC the station that let Kimmel go because of an allegedly anti-Charlie Kirk remark, which was ridiculous altogether) has lost $3.5 billion in just days. This was posted on my Instagram feed. It appears that people are canceling Disney cruises, Disney vacations, and even their subscription to the Disney channel. Sheesh, and I just took a Disney cruise in July. This flagrant attack on free speech must be fought with every ounce of our being.

Today Elliot and I enjoyed the company of two of our Austin Street Diner breakfasters at “Rachel’s” house right here in Forest Hills. She invited three of us to her lovely apartment on Yellowstone Boulevard for lunch at 12. She served us lox, bagels, chicken and egg salad, and coffee. The other person at this get-together was “”Hannah.” We stayed for almost three hours. There was a lot of jollity and some heavy baring of family secrets at the dinner table. Before leaving, we said we’d have everyone over to our place to reciprocate.

Earlier, we were visited by “Ernest,” the tech expert who came to look at the nonfunctioning television set in the living room. I tried to call him two days ago but couldn’t connect for some reason, so I went into Foodtown where he works and asked if I could leave him a message. I subsequently learned that his cell phone dropped out of his pants on the subway and was snatched by some petty thief. So my calls were just going to voicemail initially.

So Earnest entered the apartment right before we intended to leave for Rachel’s house, which was close to 11. He stayed for several minutes to gauge the situation. He claimed that the problem stemmed from faulty wiring and he said he would return to take the TV and come back with proper wiring. Thus far, he hasn’t returned. He did say he was going to other peoples’ houses in the evening, so I should just wait and see.

I now just received a message from Ernest in which he stated he is stuck in traffic and will come instead on Monday. I hope the elevator will be operating later that day. Also we won’t be home on Tuesday since we’re driving down to my friend “Harold’s” house to stay for Rosh Hashanah. I hope he can complete the job in one day, but I won’t be that optimistic that he could. This might take several days.

Have a good Sunday.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Friday, September 19, 2025. Boy, was I overjoyed that we missed the political news emanating out of this country the time we were in Copenhagen and Israel, even though we heard some snippets of the carnival of fascism swirling in this country during the present moment on BBC World News in Copenhagen. The family member we were staying with in Tel Aviv had no CNN, so we didn’t watch the news at all, but we certainly heard the news about far-right activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination while we were in Copenhagen, I believe. (I believe it happened on September 10; we were leaving Copenhagen for Israel that day.) The reaction over Kirk’s death was swift and unrelenting on the far right; the buffoon of a president talked way out of turn and condemned the “far left radicals” for Kirk’s murder, but if he had just waited until a damn suspect was taken into custody, he would have learned the gunman was not from the left at all; he was a registered Republican, as his grandmother told news outlets. This is what this “divider in chief” does so well: he divides the country into “radical lefties” and proper far righters, which he deems more American than those who espouse those policies considered too “woke” for Dump’s factions to ever wish for.

What has resulted from the death of Dump’s 31-year-old extremist friend who deserves no accolades other than that he shouldn’t have been shot for espousing such hateful opinions under the rubric of free speech is the repercussions of what Little Donnie has exacted in the wake of this event, which was to strong-arm ABC to take Jimmy Kimmel off the air for allegedly spouting anti-Kirk views on his show, which was not even the case at all. He never criticized Kirk directly for his views; he criticized MAGA for embracing Kirk’s death as a political stunt and claiming incorrectly that it was carried out by someone on the far left, which had already been disproved. For this, he was taken off the air! How ridiculous! Has anyone ever mentioned that Fox News itself should be taken off the air for espousing lies, damn lies, and more lies to the gullible American public? This station has done more irreparable damage to the American psyche ever since it came on the air, and it still is allowed to flourish, despite an almost 1-billion settlement against it for spouting lies about the 2020 election. And Kimmel is taken off for one inoffensive comment that was deemed too sensitive for the toddler in chief’s ears. In a stunning move that should serve as a wake-up call for all Americans that our First Amendment rights are now directly under attack by this fascistic administration, the Jimmy Kimmel show was put on an indefinite preemption by ABC.

It was Nexstar that owns dozens of ABC affiliates who applied pressure to the network to remove Kimmel from his late-night show. This move by Dump and his awful minions to suppress free speech should send a deep shudder through every American who cherishes the notion of free speech in this country. We are not a dictatorship – yet. But this blatant abuse of power on behalf of this authoritarian president must be dealt with severely – either with immediate lawsuits filed by Kimmel himself or by boycotting ABC itself by all people who denounce this decision by this regime. I have also been made aware that people should boycott Disney, even, since it owns ABC now. I haven’t been to a Disney property in years and I have no intention of going to one in the near future anyway.

Podcaster Aaron Parnas writes about this disturbing trend with the firing of Kimmel thusly: “If this becomes the norm, no figure in the public eye, regardless of political leaning, is safe from being pulled ‘indefinitely’ when their words displease powerful stakeholders. Beyond Kimmel, the deeper danger lies in the chilling effect this sets for all media figures, entertainers, and journalists. If the cost of expressing opinions – however clumsy or controversial – is corporate cancellation, the incentive will shift from speaking truth to power toward speaking nothing at all.” The world of 1984 will rule over this country like Big Brother reigned over that fictional land created by George Orwell.

We cannot let this thin-skinned baby get his way here. Now is the time to resist. As Parnas concludes a piece he wrote, “Today it is Jimmy Kimmel. Tomorrow, it could be any voice that dares to step outside the lines drawn by those in power.”

We are in deep doodoo, my friends, and we must make ourselves aware of how bad the situation is developing in this country and fight it. Or we won’t have a country anymore!

Despite this warning, please have a good weekend.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Thursday, August 4, 2025. There couldn’t have been a more explosive Senate hearing than today when Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. the secretary of the Health and Human Services (HHS) agency was grilled by both Democrats and Republicans for being so incompetent in his role as the purveyor of this country’s health. An online MSNBC article by Brandy Zadrozny entitled “Senators tear into RFK Jr. over vaccine restrictions in explosive hearing” outlines some of the salient points that came out in today’s hearing.

Amid many calls to resign and accusations that he is a danger to Americans’ health, Kennedy struggled to defend himself against these most accurate allegations. The hearing spanned about three hours in front of the Senate Finance Committee in which both sides of the aisle accused the health and human services secretary of lying to senators during his confirmation hearings (Duh!) and harming public health by restricting access to vaccines. The only thing he could do just like Demented Don was to lash out, accusing senators of misleading the public and allegations of corruption.

This hearing marked itself as the harshest congressional oversight of any Cabinet official since the start of Demented Don’s second term in January. I say it’s about time that those lawmakers have found a spine here. One after the other, both Republicans and Democrats peppered the abnormally tan “black sheep” of the Kennedy clan with questions over his chaotic leadership of the Department of Health and Services, including his firing of the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC), his anti-vaccine record and rhetoric, and his ongoing attacks on disease-fighting treatments.

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren slammed into the conspiracy theorist of a secretary by noting that Kennedy’s new recommendations for COVID vaccines have limited their availability at pharmacies in many states. She outright accused Kennedy of lying to the committee during his nomination hearings, breaking his promises not to restrict access to vaccines.

She fumed, “Last November, you said, ‘If vaccines are working for somebody, I’m not going to take them away.'” But just last week, she noted, “You announced the Covid-19 vaccine is no longer available for healthy people under 65.” So you be the judge here: Didn’t Kennedy just lie here about having the COVID vaccine available to all people, despite their age? Hell yes, I’ll answer. The brain-devoured secretary has been caught in a momentous lie.

At one point during the heated exchange, Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, became quite exasperated during his questioning – at one point asking Kennedy to tell him how many Americans had died of COVID. The clueless secretary responded, “I don’t know.” He should have known that the pandemic has killed more than 1 million people in the United States – a figure that Kennedy has baselessly disputed.

Then Warner exhorted, “The secretary of health and human services doesn’t know how many Americans have died from Covid, doesn’t know if the vaccine helped prevent any deaths, and you are sitting as secretary of health and human services. His voice rising, Warner postulated, “How can you be that ignorant?”

During the contentious hearing, Kennedy acknowledged he had rejected the expertise of veteran CDC officials. When asked who at the CDC he does rely on for vaccine expertise, here Kennedy should just have said voodoo experts. Instead of just acknowledging how cuckoo he really is, Kennedy named William Thompson – a longtime CDC scientist who once claimed the agency had withheld data linking vaccines to autism and who was the central figure in the 2016 anti-vaccine documentary Vaxxed. Oh, that “expert”!

At one time, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, the highest ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, told Kennedy, “Every single day, there’s been an action that endangers the health and wellness of American families. He accused Kennedy of elevating conspiracy theorists, crackpots, and grifters to make life-or-death decisions about the health care of the American people.

Even a key Senate repugnican, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a doctor and chairman of the Senate health committee who had stupidly voted for Kennedy’s confirmation, joined with blistering questions of his own.

Cassidy accurately pointed out the inconsistencies inherent in Kennedy’s support for Dump’s Operation Warp Speed, the first-term program that delivered COVID vaccines to Americans, and Kennedy’s recent statements saying those vaccines have caused widespread injuries and deaths. Cassidy charged, “I would say, effectively, we’re denying people vaccines.” Of this, Kennedy stated incorrectly, “You’re wrong.”

Well, now that the hearings are over, where do you think this leaves us with Kennedy being the head of HHS? Let’s hope he has enough common sense to know that lawmakers and the American people hate him and want him gone. Do you think he got the hint today?

I’ve been a little coy with you in not mentioning my plans for travel tomorrow. I just didn’t want anyone to say, “Oh, there he goes again!” Anyway, Elliot and I are traveling to Copenhagen, Denmark, tomorrow for about four days and then we’re flying to Israel to see Elliot and my family in Tel Aviv. Here we stay about five days. Everyone has warned us about traveling to the Middle East in light of the ongoing conflict, but we have no intention of traveling anywhere in the country. We intend to stay with Elliot’s cousins in a suburb of Tel Aviv the whole time. Therefore, we return – hopefully – on September 17. See you when we get back.

Until we meet again! Farvel which is Danish for goodbye.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Wednesday, September 3, 2025. Today the news was all Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, as a powerful group of former Epstein victims demanded accountability against the backdrop of the U.S. Capitol for other adults, probably including the sitting president, who enabled the deceased financier’s sexual abuse and stated they would release their own “client list,” considering this fucking administration has not done anything to that effect ever since the Orange Turd got into office once more.

This event serves as the focal point of a Miami Herald article in the Daily News by Emily Goodin and Julie K. Brown entitled “Epstein victims say they will compile their own ‘client list.'”

Lisa Phillips, an Epstein victim who hosts a podcast that chronicles stories of sex abuse survivors, said, “We know the names.” She added, “Now, together as survivors, we will confidentially compile the names we all know were regularly in the Epstein world.”

The rally preceded a press conference, held by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), with Epstein lawyers and victims as the two congressmen push for the U.S. Justice Department to release all of the information from its investigations into the disgraced financier.

These events occurred in the wake of Epstein’s unholy accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, who appears to be pressing for a pardon from the convicted felon to commute her 20-year prison sentence.

Standing alongside Massie and Khanna was the surprising figure of Marjorie Taylor Greene, the progenitor of many crazy conspiracy theories, who said she would be very happy to work with Epstein’s survivors to make the list public. She said at the press conference, “It’s a scary thing to name names, but I will tell you, I’m not afraid to name names. So if they want to give me a list, I will walk in that Capitol on the House floor, and I’ll say every damn name.” Very ballsy from a ballsy woman!

The two lawmakers who organized the press conference, Massie and Khanna, could be using today’s event as a form of public pressure to press Congress to release the files already. It’s unclear, of course, how quickly Senate repugnicans will want to bring the matter to the floor and whether the convicted felon – whose name could possibly be contained in those files – would sign it!

Thus far, no new information from the case has emerged, further enraging those people personally connected to the case, especially Epstein’s adult victims who were abused as preteens. The Justice Department has only turned over its first tranche of files to the Oversight Committee, but Democrats said they contained mostly old information. No date for the next delivery has been announced.

Dump has suffered severe backlash in this matter for his abrupt about-face regarding the issue after his bimbo of an attorney general suddenly proclaimed there was no list and the files would remain sealed. I do hope this issue destroys him. Something has to!

Today marked a day of once-powerless women speaking out against power and privilege and Congress – and the country – must pay attention to them!

As you know, I was away from this venue yesterday since I attended my gay men’s reading club at 6:30 with my newest friend, “Harry.”

The number of guys present at last evening’s meeting was truly astounding: I estimated there were 60 of us literature lovers there, since a few of the latecomers had to sit on top of the platform in back of the cluster of chairs up front. This was new to me; no one had to sit up there ever before until yesterday.

The topic of discussion was Thomas Grattan’s 2024 novel, In Tongues. Not surprisingly, we took up the entire 90 minutes in assessing the book’s effectiveness. I even raised my voice several times in opposition to it. I was not much in favor of the book, if you need to know. Many of the other attendees were in agreement with me, even though there were some defenders of the book as well.

After the discussion, a small knot of us walked to Julius’s Bar. I actually ordered a cranberry juice, while Harry ordered a beer.

I got home around 10:30.

Since today is Wednesday, I drove to my comic bookstore on Metropolitan Avenue to pick up three comics, but I was unable to have breakfast in my usual Dominican coffee shop because every booth was occupied by someone there. This has never happened; I couldn’t ponder why this was so. Did a tourist bus just discharge all of these people at the door of Buen Sabor Latino Restaurant? I didn’t stay very long; I went to the Chinese bakery around the corner to have a Swiss cheese sandwich on a roll.

It’s late; so good night.

And so it went!

And So It Goes

Today is Friday, August 29, 2025. Out of a show of support, Elliot and I attended an invitation-only screening of our polymath friend “Ralph”s film which was a filmic recreation of his Dictator for a Day musical that played off-off Broadway last October – before the election. The showing was supposed to have begun at 6:30, but it was delayed a full hour. There were supposed to have been about 50 people at this event, but I was informed there were only about 35 people instead. I had no idea that the screening was planned to take place in someone’s huge loft apartment on Canal Street, right near the Holland Tunnel. It was truly a schlep to get to our destination, but we had all the time in the world, since we left much earlier to spend some time in historic Chinatown and have dinner there.

As the film finally rolled at 7:30, the audience was treated to a pastiche of skits, musical numbers, dancing, all over about 85 minutes, and all on the gaffes and foibles of the 45th president. The Dump impersonator, J-L Cauvin, really outshone as the dimwitted president; I can’t name the other cast members since we didn’t really receive a program of any sort. I do know that some of the other performers were probably friends of Ralph. There was one who did a very good impersonation of Columbo the detective from television, but here I thought the segment was superfluous and could have been cut. But I’m no critic. There was even a Bernie Sanders impersonator who had two numbers; his latter routine could have also been pared down a bit, I think. However, after listening to some of the songs now, many things that have played out during Chump’s second term were forecasted in these songs. Remember, this played originally in October, a month before the election.

Right after the film, three cast members appeared up front to take questions from the audience. At this point, Elliot darted out to go home. I waited until the bitter end, which was about 9:30. Someone asked J-L Cauvin the question I would have asked him, which was when did he originate his Trump impersonation and how long has he been doing it. Now I can’t recall the answer. It was a long day. I have checked him out and he does have videos on YouTube, so if you’re intrigued, check him out yourself.

Of course, when Ralph wrote this skewering of Dump during his first term, he never envisioned him actually winning on Election Day. He spoke about this in remarks he made to the audience before the film was shown. He thought he would just go away, which was what everyone in the room probably thought too. Boy, were we wrong!

This is news you don’t want to hear, but there is a huge nationwide spike in COVID cases and emergency room visits as Labor Day nears. This is not very good news, considering that the head of the Health and Human Services agency is a lunatic, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who is the most unqualified of Dump’s lackeys in his cabinet. There is an online article from Axios on this issue entitled “CDC warns of huge COVID spike amid internal turmoil,” by Herb Scribner.

This dire warning comes as the federal health agency struggles with its own internal chaos and the ramifications of a new COVID vaccine policy.

If you haven’t followed developments within the Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC) lately, there have been walkouts and resignations fostered by the stupid head himself, Kennedy, who just terminated the CDC director just weeks after she was sworn in, Susan Monarez. On Thursday, dozens of staff members and leaders at the CDC rallied in support of departing colleagues.

In an email Wednesday, a CDC spokesperson told Axios, “COVID-19 activity is increasing in most areas of the country.” He added, “Emergency department visits for COVID-19 are low but increasing” for all age groups.

Five states thus far have driven that increase: Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arkansas, and Louisiana. These states have a positivity rate of 15 percent to 19.9 percent.

The CDC’s warning comes as Kennedy announced new recommendations for the coronavirus vaccine.

I seriously hope that Democrats push for this idiot’s termination from the very agency that is responsible for saving lives in this country. There is no room for a vaccine denier in the highest pinnacle of this agency. Kennedy is no doctor, no medical professional of any kind, just a privileged member of an old-guard political clan whose family members have practically disowned him. If anyone deserves the boot before people die on this orange asshole’s watch, just like during the first pandemic, it’s Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. We might just be closer to a second pandemic than anyone thinks! Heaven forbid, but the warnings are there, and when this happens, this will be a total disaster!

Today’s adventure took us to a general appliance store in my old neighborhood to purchase a new refrigerator. Yes, a new refrigerator! For only about two days, we noticed that items in the appliance were not cold. We played with raising the coolant numbers in the refrigerator, but nothing happened. Today we called the store where we bought it and a spokesperson recommended a repair person to come to our apartment. And he did! Unfortunately, he declared the 15-year-old silver Amana dead and not worth repairing. Something about a hole in the back letting freon out. That it was expensive to repair the appliance, given its advanced age. Thus we drove as quickly as we could to Len Harris Appliances and ordered another similar refrigerator. This one is now a Whirlpool. Luckily for us, we were promised delivery and installation tomorrow. However, we intended to drive to Ralph and Sandy’s house in Easton, Pennsylvania, to have a sleepover with them before driving to Sellersville, Pennsylvania, to attend a retirement party for “Harold,” my childhood friend from the Bronx. Now we have to wait for the appliance to be delivered and installed before doing this.

As I just reported then, today is my last blog before Sunday or, even, Monday. I don’t know when we’ll get back on Sunday, so I might just pass on writing my blog if we come home late that day.

By the way, there are protests planned for Monday, Labor Day, to demonstrate against the authoritarian policies of this autocrat. I have participated in at least three protests against this administration but have sadly missed a few because of scheduling conflicts. I haven’t even considered going to this one if it is even going to be held in New York.

It’s hard to believe I’m writing have a good Labor Day weekend, but here I am doing just that.

And so it went!