Following his silly stunt Monday, any more questions about why I call him Mayor Putz? Is there any doubt he is the Worst Mayor Ever?
Bill de Blasio’s press conference inside Trump Tower was clownish without being funny, a joke without a punchline. The jackass move disgraced the Office of the Mayor and the City of New York.
The mayor’s aim, pure and simple, was to get attention by singling out President Trump in a dopey bid to tout himself as greener-than-thou because of a new law on skyscraper emissions. The ruse was absurd, given that owners have until 2030 to meet the new standards.
And it was doubly absurd given that officials acknowledge that many other owners would face fines far larger than the estimated $2 million Trump would face, assuming the law takes effect as written and buildings don’t comply.
De Blasio knew all that before he jumped in his SUV to ride to the building and lecture others about environmental apocalypse. Justice of a sort prevailed, however, because the landlord cranked up the music system in the public atrium and demonstrators forced the Putz to practically shout to be heard.
Not that he had anything to say except, “Cut your emissions or we will take your money, we will fine you.”
That’s his thing — telling other people how to spend their money and taking it from them. Recall his socialist shout-out last January: “Here’s the truth, brothers and sisters, there’s plenty of money in the world. Plenty of money in this city. It’s just in the wrong hands!”
But as he has proven repeatedly, putting money in de Blasio’s hands is as useful as flushing it down the toilet. From the sinkhole known as Thrive that his wife sort of runs to his Renewal school plan, more than $1 billion has vanished without doing much good for anyone except the mayor’s union pals.
De Blasio fancies himself a national figure and so comparisons to the owner of Trump Tower are inevitable but not favorable. Nor does it help de Blasio that he chose the same spot for his stunt where Trump announced his presidential run.
The two men are similar in one way: Both are tall.
The Putz says he’ll make his decision about running for the Democratic nomination this week, but he’s said that before. Whether he runs or not won’t matter because a snowball has a better chance in hell than de Blasio has of becoming president.
Unfortunately, he’s not the only New York official trying to piggyback on Trump for a career boost. State Attorney General Letitia James campaigned on a promise to take on Trump, whom she calls an “illegitimate president,” and acts as if she’s a special prosecutor with a single target.
In one interview, she said she would use “every area of the law to investigate President Trump and his business transactions and that of his family.”
And she has by, among other things, sending subpoenas to Deutsche Bank for its records on loans to the Trump Organization. Naturally, James’ office leaked the subpoena news to a Trump-hating New York newspaper.
James also wants legislation allowing her to file state charges against anyone Trump might pardon over federal charges, and joined other states in suing to block a border wall and opposing a citizenship question on the Census.
In short, whatever Trump is for, she is using her government office to oppose it.
Then there’s the state Legislature, which is likely to approve a bill that would allow Congress to get the state tax returns of any New York taxpayer. There is no secret about which taxpayer lawmakers have in mind.
One pol conceded it was a “workaround” because the federal treasury is refusing to give Trump’s tax returns to House Democrats. Gov. Cuomo, no stranger to kneecapping Trump when he’s not begging for federal money, says he will sign the bill if it passes both houses.
The measure is another illustration that with Democrats running all of Albany, the Trump resistance has a new home and governing is an afterthought. The state Senate’s Web site declared that it “Stands up to President Trump,” as if that’s the job members were hired to do.
If only New Yorkers could get Albany to stand up against the unions and other organized kleptocrats robbing taxpayers blind. The MTA is a state agency and it’s bleeding billions in waste and fraud, yet the Legislature shows no interest except to sock a congestion-pricing tax on Manhattan motorists to replace the lost money.
As I have noted, New York state spends $175 billion on public services for 19 million people, while Florida gets by with spending $90?billion on 21 million people.
Where does all the extra New York money go? Oh, let me guess: It’s Trump’s fault.
Praising the barr on FBI probe
A real attorney general — that’s what Bill Barr is.
The news that Barr appointed a top federal prosecutor to examine the origins of the Russia investigation is more than just a single promise kept. It is a sign that Barr, who came to the job just three months ago, recognizes that the disgraced Jim Comey and other anti-Trump zealots damaged the FBI’s credibility, and is doing something about it.
Barr has insisted on calling the surveillance of the 2016 campaign what it clearly was — spying.
Now he has taken a forceful step to learn whether it was legitimate or a cooked-up bid to stop Trump’s election.
Barr’s choice is John Durham, the federal prosecutor in Connecticut, a man well versed in revealing government scandals. He probed the FBI’s corrupt handling of Boston gangster Whitey Bulger and the CIA’s destruction of videotapes showing its interrogation of terror suspects in Iraq.
Fox News reports that Durham started working on the case “weeks ago,” a sign that Barr has a sense of purpose.
With Barr’s hapless predecessor, Jeff Sessions, sidelining himself in the Russia probe and deputy Rod Rosenstein in over his head and swamped by conflicts of interest, President Trump made a brilliant choice in giving Barr a second run as AG.
He handled the hot potato of the Robert Mueller probe as well as anyone could have, knowing he would become a target of raging Democrats no matter what he did.
Barr’s experience under President Bush 41, and his knowledge of the CIA, where he was an analyst, means Comey, John Brennan, Jim Clapper and the rest of President Obama’s team must account for how America’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies became partisan hothouses.
Finally, the worm is turning.
Foes come up blame
There’s a pattern here.
Iran is blaming the rise of hostilities on John Bolton, calling the national security adviser “the mustache” and warning Trump will get a war if he listens to Bolton.
Before that, North Korea blamed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for the failure of nuclear talks, saying he was “talking nonsense.”
Divide and conquer — how novel.