Rudy's Spectacular Fail

 

It must be a perfectly awful thing to be Rudy Giuliani these days. I say that without a molecule of schadenfreude. He wasn't the best mayor my adopted town of New York City ever had, but he was far from the worst. And although he accomplished a lot of good during his tenure at Gracie Mansion, his relationship with minority communities always left much to be desired. I had the chance to meet him when I was still living in the Big Apple on the corner of Madison and West 86th Street and he seemed like a thoroughly decent guy - in spite of the fact that many people proclaim him to be a horrible human being.

When the Feds raided his office and apartment in merrie olde Manhattan the other day, it looked to be that Rudy's chickens were about to come home to roost with a vengeance. For them to be able to enter the premises of an attorney with his power and influence tells us that the G-men have much evidence to make such a raid relatively easy as far as getting the proper warrants were concerned. I am told by people more scholarly than I that getting the permission to sift through Attorney/Client communications is all-but-impossible. Yeah, it must really suck to be Rudy these days.

Rudy is proof that getting involved with the likes of Donald Trump will always come back to haunt you. Why could he not have left the mayor's office in early 2002 and quietly retired? His legacy today would be as secure as stone. In the months following the tragedy of September 11, 2001, he was arguably the most beloved politician in America. "America's mayor", remember that? But the man's insatiable quest for power knew (and knows) no boundary. If he indeed committed any crime, and if the government is able to prove that he did, he will be placed in history's Hall of Infamy as just another in a long list of disgraced and corrupt politicians. It's not a place where anyone with a knowledge of history wants to be found.

Giuliani told Tucker Carlson last night that he offered the agents inside his office two laptops that he claimed had evidence of crimes committed by Hunter Biden, the president's son, and that they refused to accept them. This cannot be true. They were ordered to seize all computer devices. They most certainly would not have left to laptops behind. I'm sorry, but that one just doesn't pass the smell test.

It reminds me somewhat of the recent travails of Prince Andrew. When the Duke of York's obituary is published years from now, the photograph at the top will not be of him wearing that silly military garb that he loves to parade around in; it will be of him with a lecherous arm around the waste of a seventeen-year-old Virginia Roberts at a private party in 2001. He must know this and it must drive him crazy. I suspect that Rudy Giuliani might be having similar thoughts at this moment.

Tom Degan

Goshen, NY

SUGGESTED VIEWING:

The film is called The Time of Their Lives. This is Abbott and Costello's masterpiece. Even if Bud and Lou are not your cup of tea, you might like this one. IT takes place in the Revolutionary War. Here is a link to watch it on YouTube:

Abbott and Costello - The Time of Their Lives(1946) - YouTube

Lots of fun!

A Bad Idea

The Supremes in 1937, the year FDR attempted to pack the court.

Don't get me wrong; I think that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are doing a fairly good job at their respective jobs. Although I supported neither of them in the primaries last year, I'm awfully relieved they won the 2020 election. I'm quite sure I don't need to explain to you my reasoning. You get the idea, I'm sure. 

That being said, someone with a bit of influence with the president really ought to have a word with Joe about the fact that he has his people studying the possibly of raising the number of justices on the Supreme Court. This is a terrible idea that is surely likely to blow up in Joe's face - just as it did with Franklin Delano Roosevelt eighty-four years ago.

Yeah, that's right. This has been attempted before.

You see, in 1937 Roosevelt had the same headache that the POTUS is having today - a judicial branch of the government that was packed to the rafters with a cabal of right wing extremists who were hell-bent on curtailing human and social progress. After winning reelection in a resounding landslide in 1936, FDR put his plan into motion. The last straw for the Frankster was when the Supremes declared the National Recovery Act unconstitutional a couple of years before. After his second inauguration was behind him he put his plan into action. Although he had support from the progressive diehards in the congress, most of them - even a sizable number of members from his own party - were aghast at the idea. Franklin Roosevelt was handed the worst political defeat of his twelve year presidency.

Within a year of his scheme, one of the old codgers on the court retired and FDR was able to appoint William O. Douglas to the court. More vacancies soon followed, and by the end of his term in 1945, he pretty much had the Supremes locked up.

It might take a few years, but the balance on that court will favor the progressives again someday. An attempt to "pack" the court in 2021 would only set a bad precedent. Who's to predict that the Republicans don't attempt to try the same thing if they ever get back into power?

Please note that I said "if they ever get back into power.

If President Biden is seriously considering going down this path, he really needs to rethink it.

Tom Degan

Goshen, NY

MATTYGATE

It is something I cannot even attempt to conceal. I despise Matt Gaetz. Matt Gaetz is the epitome and personification of what is wrong with conservatism in America in general and the Republican Party in particular. The guy is such an obvious boorish buffoon that it would take an awful lot of research to come up with an example in American history of anyone as thoroughly reprehensible as our boy Matt. Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin is one of the most discredited politicians in American history, but, according to most of his contemporaries, old Joe was a fairly likable fellow - he even counted Massachusetts senator Jack Kennedy as one of his closest friends. It's a different scenario in this narrative. EVERYBODY IN BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS LOATHES MATT GAETZ!

I knew from the moment he walked onto the national stage a few short years ago that he would eventually fall of his own weight; what startled me was how quickly it took for this implosion to occur. It seemed as if he crashed and burned before he barely got his feet off the ground. It's something that is so much fun to watch, I can barely conjure up the words. Life is very good indeed.

It is not a good thing to be Matt Gaetz these days, that's for sure. When a close associate named Joel Greenberg was nabbed in a case that involved the trafficking of underage girls (among many other things too numerous to mention) it became a point of interest among the feds that the distinguished congressman from the great state of Florida may have had a hand in the festivities. If Greenberg cops to a plea deal by telling them everything that Gaetz may potentially  have been involved in, not only is his political career kaput. He's also looking at many years in the slammer.

Poor old Matt Gaetz must be shitting purple yo-yos these days. No, it's not a good thing to be Matt Gaetz at all, not anymore.

If Gaetz has an attorney at his disposal, he's obvious not taking his or her advice. Every good lawyer (and most bad lawyers, I imagine) will tell a client to keep quiet, but Matt can't keep his mouth shut over the matter! He even went on the Tucker Carlson program to remind the host of a dinner date they had that Carlson denied ever even happened. Later Tucker called it the "weirdest" interview he had ever conducted. One thing that has become incredibly and pathetically clear since he was elected  to congress: Matt Gaetz is not the brightest bulb in the House.

A curious thing happened after the election of 2020: Matt started appearing on the right wing news shows publically insisting that former president Trump issue a blanket pardon to all Republicans in the House and Senate. This way, he surmised, they would be able to dodge the scores of illegal persecutions that would come along once those evil liberal Democrats were back in control. Was he aware then that he was the target of a Department of Justice investigation? My bet is that he was. Matt Gaetz if the most clumsy and transparent politician of my lifetime.

Matt Gaetz will be gone soon, and that's a good thing, too. He has been a stain on American democracy since the moment he stepped out into the national spotlight. Seventy years ago there was only one Joe McCarthy. Today, the political stage is literally infested with oodles of Joe-wannabes. We can do better than this. We must do better than this. It's our only hope.

Tom Degan

Goshen, NY