Trump Skedaddles. Kushner Bro Buys the Lakers. Hong Loses 

Trump Skedaddles. Kushner Bro Buys the Lakers. Hong Loses 

Trump Hides, Leaves Rubio and Bessent Behind

Did you see the reports that when Trump got off the plane in Turkey for security reasons, he left Marco Rubio and Scott Bessent behind on the plane? Also left behind were Stephen Miller and White House Communications Director Stephen Cheung. Trump, remember, was pulled off the plane over fears of an assassination attempt by Iran — U.S. intelligence had reportedly picked up multiple signs of a potential threat to the aircraft carrying him. The president took with him only his closest aides: Dan Scavino, the White House deputy chief of staff; Walt Nauta, director of Oval Office operations; and Natalie Harp, who assembles Trump’s daily briefings.

Trump and his inner circle pulled off quite an extraordinary piece of deception — boarding Air Force One in full view of the cameras, then sneaking off in an airport catering container and leaving the country on a military jet instead. According to CBS, the decision to keep Rubio and Bessent on the decoy plane was meant to preserve the line of succession in case something happened to Trump. Forgive me but what does it say about the president leaving a hundred people on a plane that might be attacked, while the select few slip out in a cargo container. This is astonishing. Even more astonishing is that none of the “sacrificial lambs” quit. They must really love their jobs.

Kushner (Josh) and Iger to Buy the Lakers

Jared Kushner’s older brother Josh, along with Disney’s Bob Iger, are buying the Los Angeles Lakers for a record $12.5 billion. The Lakers are currently owned by Mark Walter, who bought the team last year from the Buss family for what was then a record $12 billion. Walter still owns the Dodgers and holds a minority stake in the English soccer club Chelsea. Iger is a partner in Kushner’s venture capital firm, Thrive Capital, which buys assets in companies that technology can’t duplicate — I guess he’s never played “Madden.” Kushner is also a minority partner in the Miami Heat and presumably will have to sell that stake once the Lakers deal closes.

Hong Loses in Wisconsin

To the surprise of just about everyone — including the winner David Crowley — Francesca Hong lost the democratic primary for governor of Wisconsin. Hong had been leading by double digits in the polls, 44% to Crowley’s 22%. She lost anyway, but barely: 39.8% to 39.4%. I was surprised. Wisconsin has long been fertile ground for socialists, featuring the Peoples’ Republic of Madison. For years, the state capitol, Madison has been dominated by the far left. Voters in the state had just ousted two conservative members of the state Supreme Court and current governor Tony Evers has been a sharp contrast to Scott Walker. I figured the path was clear for socialists to take statewide office.

But Evers endorsed Crowley — the Milwaukee County executive who had earlier dropped out of the race and who had endorsed the state’s lieutenant governor, Sara Rodriguez, who in turn dropped out over “serious mismanagement and inaccuracies in campaign finance filings.” Before that, the state’s former lieutenant governor, Mandela Barnes, had dropped out, saying the polling made clear who the next nominee would be (Hong). Crowley then jumped back into the race.

Hong, a dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is a state legislator who endorses the entire DSA platform. She said Thanksgiving was a “colonizer” holiday and should be canceled. She wants Medicare for All, taxpayer-funded childcare, the top tax rate raised to 17%, and the elimination of all college debt. She wants to abolish ICE, defund the police (which she says exists to uphold white supremacy), and believes poverty drives crime — so that redistributing wealth to address poverty would stop criminals from being criminals. She wants to abolish the Senate, though she admits that’s “not practical at this time.” She wants the government to take over private enterprise, and to launch a state “public option” for health coverage. She would set up a Wisconsin Public Bank to give small businesses better rates, and she wrote a bill to create publicly-owned grocery stores. She would repeal Wisconsin’s right-to-work law, offer illegal migrants state IDs, and use sanctuary policies to “protect Wisconsinites of all documentation status from secret police.” She would raise the minimum wage to $20, legalize marijuana, and pass a “binding clean electricity standard requiring 60% renewable power by 2030.” She wants a 32-hour work week with no cut in pay and would cap utility costs “at 2% of income for energy-burdened households.” What’s not to love? A friend of mine called Hong “Looney Tunes.” That disrespects Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Tweety Bird. The fact that she came so close to the nomination is sobering.

As usual, college-educated white voters voted for the socialist. But she lost blue collar voters, voters without a college degree and blacks – Crowley is black. So the pattern continues. What’s interesting now is that Crowley’s win dampens republican hopes of flipping the state’s governorship. The republican nominee is Rep. Tom Tiffany, a member of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus and the most right-wing member of Wisconsin’s delegation. Of course, Tiffinay is endorsed by Trump, which in Wisconsin may be the kiss of death.