Greetings and welcome to this 56th edition of the Carnival of Fools! Let’s cast off summer’s torpor as we sail into autumn winds and cooler weather with . . . well, I can’t quite offer you a smile. Perhaps a wry grimace will suffice? In any event, we’re getting ready for the fall in more ways than one.
CTU Eulogizes a Cop-Killer
If you spend any time on social media, you have likely heard about the latest outrage from my city’s Cthulhu-like public sector behemoth, the Chicago Teachers Union: On Friday afternoon, to note the death of radical left-wing Sixties terrorist Assata Shakur (born Joanne Chesimard) in Cuba, the CTU’s X account issued the following statement:
Rest in Power, Rest in Peace, Assata Shakur.
Today we honor the life and legacy of a revolutionary fighter, a fierce writer, a revered elder of Black liberation, and a leader of freedom whose spirit continues to live in our struggle.
Assata refused to be silenced. She taught us that “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
Keep in mind, as Noah Rothman eloquently explained yesterday afternoon, that Shakur was a cop-killer who escaped from prison to live the rest of her days in a totalitarian country. My readers tend to be a fairly savvy bunch, so I suspect many of you are asking yourselves why a teachers’ union would have felt the need to celebrate the passing of an infamous American terrorist murderer. (For those wondering — because it occurred to me to check — Shakur was never a teacher herself, unless her job was to instruct people in criminal undertakings.)
But while this question may puzzle out-of-towners, it makes all the sense in the world to us locals. The Chicago Teachers Union is (as I have explained many times in these pages) arguably the single most radical major union in America, a throbbing, graft-bloated parasite attached to Chicago city government the way a tick burrows deep into a pig. And much like a tick, the CTU isn’t content merely to suck money out of the city’s taxpayers. It gives back as well — in the form of Mayor Brandon Johnson, former CTU lobbyist and current laughingstock of America.
The Chicago Teachers Union has become a full-service progressive organization at this point. It is an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (famously “Local #1,” the first and most important chapter) and its true leader, AFT head Randi Weingarten, is in my opinion a far greater American villain than any of the overrated Soros-backed progressive foundations out there tripping all over their shoelaces. (The CTU is dangerous precisely because it knows how to get what it wants.)
So I wasn’t surprised at all to see the union out there eulogizing a communist cop-killer, nor was I surprised when its vice president later doubled down on the praise for Shakur. This is who these people are. They are exactly what I thought they were.
And they teach the city’s children during the school day.
Trump Makes a Martyr Out of the Least Deserving Man in Washington
It feels as if it ought to have been the lead act in this week’s Carnival, but what else is there to say about the Trump administration’s altogether predictable indictment of former FBI director and perpetual drama queen James Comey? The charge is transparently ticky-tack nonsense — he is reportedly accused of lying to Congress back in 2016, of all things — and has been ably dismissed on its legal merits by Andy McCarthy multiple times elsewhere.
What is there to add? It is a transparently thuggish act of lawfare — using the full power of the federal government as opposed to private suit — and is so nakedly directed at one of Trump’s chief nemeses that nobody is even bothering to make the usual excuses for it. It’s payback, pure and simple, for Crossfire Hurricane. Trump wants to punish Comey for his role in the Russian-collusion hoax that crippled his first term (and, in extremely indirect fashion, led to his first impeachment).
Trump controls the Justice Department now in a way he never did during his first term — AG Pam Bondi is purely an instrument of his will in a way Bill Barr explicitly refused to be — and he has repeatedly announced how happy he is to weaponize it against his enemies. (At this point, he has done everything to get the point across short of quoting the Geto Boys on Truth Social.) I cannot help but notice that many commentators are almost stunned at how open Trump has been about his Mafioso tactics, which he brags about regularly for all the world to see, but I again ask people to realize he is not playing to the sensibilities of old-school liberals, whom he feels little commonality with and regards as a shrinking market segment.
All I can really contribute is my disappointment that Trump had to go and make a martyr out of James Comey, of all people, a man who craves continued relevance in our ongoing national conversation the way Keith Richards once craved smack. High on the list of people whose recurring appearances in these pages I would wish to avoid, America’s tallest, most personally awkward seashell arranger has loped back in. Unless the senseless, vulgarly partisan indictment is dismissed by the court, Comey is what we will get.
Donald Trump adheres to the well-understood rules of lawfare: The process is the punishment, regardless of outcome. And he has chosen to further degrade the integrity of a Justice Department in pursuit of it. His partisans will crow that this is what the DOJ has always been throughout history: a tool of the administration, from the days of the Palmer Raids to Bobby Kennedy’s acting as enforcer for his brother the president. Even if one accepts their contention — which I do not — there is still a price to be paid in the long term for dropping the mask entirely.
Fare Thee Well, Eric Adams
Pour one out for the hopeless Eric Adams, soon-to-be-former mayor of New York City. On Sunday morning, he descended a flight of stairs to the strains of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” to announce that he was ending his race for reelection, finally yielding to a reality that all those around him had accommodated themselves to long ago.
Adams had become a footnote in the New York City mayoral race long before Zohran Mamdani swept in from the wings to snatch a Democratic primary nomination that most had assumed would go to the repulsive Andrew Cuomo. Adams had no future in the New York City Democratic Party after the Trump administration dropped federal bribery charges that the Biden administration had brought against him: The original charges were bad enough, but it was the overwhelming stench of a quid pro quo with the hated Trump that knocked out even his most ardent supporters.
And it’s not like he was ever much good at his job in the first place. Prior to the indictment, over the comically small-beer allegations of bribery by the Turkish government in the form of extra legroom on transatlantic flights to Istanbul, Adams was mostly known for being a flake, a somewhat zany (and undeniably likable) goofball who was in way over his head.
His signature achievement after four years in office will be bringing New York City into the 20th century of sanitation technology, by requiring residents to put their garbage in plastic bins rather than in bags on the curb. Other than that, the best argument that can be made for him is “it could have been worse.” The city is legendarily ungovernable — or so they say — but Adams ran City Hall like a man who wasn’t terribly inclined to even try to govern it. Rather, he enjoyed going out on the town and being photographed looking dapper and enjoying New York City’s finest public delights. (Mamdani joked several months ago in an interview that he might even consider keeping Adams on “as Nightlife Ambassador,” a job that admittedly seems like his true calling.)
There are many commentators out there — particularly those who live and work in New York, like my colleague Caroline Downey — who will tell you that, as politically hapless as Adams’s mayoral tenure was, the city felt safer than before. Things really were better than during the dark days of de Blasio. Perhaps, amid spiraling inflation and the continuing shockwaves from Covid, it was impossible for New Yorkers to appreciate what wasn’t going wrong. They will have ample chance to reflect on that in the future.
So fare thee well, then, Mayor Partydown: As bad as you were, New York is probably going to regard your tenure more fondly in retrospect, because what comes next will be even worse.
Headlines from a Doomed Country
Finally, from the U.K. Telegraph, a headline to ponder: “First-cousin marriage has ‘benefits’, says NHS guidance despite birth defect risk.” My subheading provides the only comment necessary.
Until next week.