03/28/24
Good morning! It’s Thursday, March 28th.
Opening day!
I love Opening Day so much. I just love sports. And I love the Padres – we’ve never done anything to anyone. We’re just happy to be here! (Although this is our year. I don’t mean to brag but… we’re currently sitting at number one.)
And now, the news.
Hunter Biden Returns to Court
Hunter Biden is back in court!
On Wednesday attorneys for the President’s son returned to federal court in Los Angeles, in hopes of dropping the tax charges against him.
As a reminder, the charges stem from a period from 2016 to 2017, where he failed to fix his taxes and is now being accused of engaging in a criminal tax-evasion scheme. In reality, this is the story of a man in deep grief and addiction, who did eventually pay those back taxes and all fees associated with them. However, because he is also the president’s son… this is now, suddenly, a case again.
The case is expected to begin June 20th.
He is also slated to begin his gun charges trial on June 3rd in Delaware. His team unsuccessfully pushed for those charges to be dropped. He’s being charged with allegedly lying about drug use when he bought a gun in 2018. He only kept the gun for 11 days and didn’t commit any crimes with the gun. But he is charged with lying on the form.
MTA Approves Fee Into Manhattan
-via NY Times
New York, New York – city so nice they named it twice. (The other name is Manhattan)
That joke is from The Office. And this next joke is from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
As early as mid-June, it will cost most passenger cars $15 a day to enter at 60th Street and below in Manhattan, a program expected to raise $1 billion annually for public transit improvements.
A billion!
It’s also meant to reduce traffic.
With this 11-1 vote, Manhattan becomes the first American city with a comprehensive congestion pricing program.
Trump Versus the Gag Order
-via NBC News
In “Have you ever learned a lesson? Ever? Just one?” news…
Less than a full day after getting hit with a gag order in his New York hush money case (better name pending), Trump spoke out against the judge (not protected in the gag order) and the judge’s daughter… not protected by the gag order because she’s not a part of this!
Classically, he called the Judge biased (because if you’re not all in on Trump and willing to go along with his lies and conspiracy theories, you’re against him completely) and blamed that on his daughter who he said is paid to “Get Trump” which seems to be based on a conspiracy started by Laura Loomer, who is as heartless as she is fact-less. She started a similar one about the judge in his New York money crimes case and it was also fact-less.
Joe Lieberman Dies
-via CNN
Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic Senator from Connecticut, and the first Jewish vice presidential nominee for a major party (he was Al Gore’s running mate in 2000), died on Wednesday. He was 82.
He was a mainstream Democrat on many things but split with many in the party in his strong support of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In 2008, that split deepened after he showed up at the 2008 Republican Convention in support of McCain, who later said he regretted not having Lieberman on his presidential ticket.
The two were friends and I believe he meant it, but I also believe he regretted not having literally anyone else on his ticket.
Because people are complicated, it should also be mentioned that he was a founding chair of the No Labels Group – a group looking to put third-party candidates on the ticket. I can’t be any clearer about this – voting third-party is a guaranteed Trump win. If you want to vote third-party, don’t. Vote for Biden (because, you know… democracy), and then push for ranked-choice voting.
DeSantis v Disney
-via AP News
And finally… DeSantis and Disney have reached a settlement.
As a reminder, this is in the case of the time that DeSantis was like “don’t say gay!” and Disney, under Bob Chapek was like “that’s fine, but like… maybe… can we… vaguely support our gay employees who are super upset about the fact that I’ve done nothing to support them while also actually just being bad at my job?” DeSantis retaliated by taking over Reedy Creek Improvement District, which Disney had controlled for more than 50 years – Disney World lives there and because the company and park generate more than $6 billion in tax revenue in the state. Not to mention the more than 263,000 people directly, or indirectly, employed by Disney in the state.
DeSantis risked it all… because some people are gay.
Disney fought back, suing under a First Amendment argument.
This isn’t a big part of it, but I can’t not mention that DeSantis, in all of this, said he’d just create his own theme park that could compete with Disney World.
Dude – if you could, you certainly wouldn’t waste your time in politics, getting bullied and letting people know how jarring your voice is.
The settlement requires both Disney and Florida drop their lawsuits and negotiate new development agreements for the Reedy Creek Improvement District.
And that’s it. That’s the news.
I’m proud of baseball. I just love it.
Also the Padres.
But more than… oof… more than other baseball teams… because they may all be number one day, but you’re number one every day… I’m proud of you.