In Case You Missed It (v8)

Ready for our week in review? Let's dive in.

We had three interviews with Mayor Pete in this week's edition of Sunday School; here's a snippet from one of the questions on Turkey, Syria and the Kurds.

...when an American president talks like that, when an American president pulls the rug out from under people who trusted us with their lives, that's going to have implications for American interests all over the world. Any place in the world where we need someone to trust us, to go out on a limb, to fight alongside our troops, it's going to be harder. And that could last for decades and will make America less safe.

Because of all of the Peteness, we had a Sunday School Extra Credit entry on Monday, which featured Chris Wallace talking with Mick Mulvaney, and the latter's explanation of his horrible press conference, as well as a Jake Tapper interview with Amy Klobuchar. Mulvaney told us he has not offered to resign, among other things. One of Klobuchar's subjects? Presidential decision-making, and how her deliberate approach differs from the guy in the White House now.

And this president, President Trump, has been folding to all kinds of pressure. He gets a call from Erdogan, and what does he do? He puts the Kurds out to slaughter. He gets a call from Vladimir Putin, and what does he do? He says that he doesn't believe that Russia invaded our election... 

In Tuesday's Meanwhile Back in Albany entry, we learned that NY's Sonofa Gov is continuing an unethical practice that was apparently followed by his predecessors: hiding Executive Chamber staff on payrolls unrelated to the Executive Chamber. And that's led to an FBI investigation, and attorneys, and whatnot.

Making the decision to be ethical in spite of how others have acted in the past, are acting today, or are likely to act in the future is exactly as easy as making the decision to be unethical because of those same factors. That Cuomo and his advisers don't know this, or choose to ignore it, is a stain on them, but it's consistent with past behavior.

 That's right, this is not the first time that the governor had a choice, and took a wrong turn.

And then it was time for Wondering on Wednesday. In addition to the usual nonsense, I wondered about the state of the Old Gray Lady for a couple of reasons, including the one below.

I'm also wondering how long the NY Times will be able to survive? I mean, the president is threatening to cancel  its subscription, according to his interview with presidential advisor Sean Hannity (R-Fox).

Thursday was a two-fer, with a Sidebar providing some details on the hiring issue that has the FBI nosing around in Albany.

 In fact, more than 40% of the people who currently work in Cuomo's office are paid not by the Executive Chamber but by separate agencies or public authorities, according to a Times Union analysis of records.

And, I had another update in Who Loves Me, Baby? This week showed a distinct difference in tone from the Dems running for president. On the side of desperation, we Julian Castro and Joe Biden, among others.

Biden's emails, while slightly less frequent, generally reached out with Castro-like subject lines: we're dropping; we fell short; reaching out to you personally; I hate doing this; here's the honest truth; please. 

There were happier candidates, of course, including Buttigieg and Klobuchar.

Klobuchar was in a celebratory mood after her debate performance, including a thank you for blowing past the $100K one-day-post-debate fundraising goal. In the first 24 hours, her campaign raised $1.1 million, with a $2M total for the week.

Friday was another two-fer, with a Quick Take on New York's Democrats and what they've committed to - fighting against Donald Trump.

Not "committed to fight for New Yorkers" or "committed to fight for fairness and equal opportunity for all New Yorkers" or frankly, any commitment at all that represents me. 

And then, it was time for TGIF. The 'bad week' folks? Most of them have been in that boat before including Rudy Giuliani who landed there, spectacularly, this week,

 - not for the usual reasons, such as a wacky TV appearance, assault and battery on sentence structure and logical thought, or any of that.

And on the flip side, the good week side? Would you believe a kid's song made the list?

The Washington Nationals are up two games to none, as I write this, against the Houston Astros. That's probably surprising to most experts, it seems, who tended to pick the Houstonians. Sadly, this is also good news for the Baby Shark song.

So there you have it - another week in the books. And we'll be right back at it before you know it.