"$100,000 Bought Me The Mayor": Shocking Testimony Of De Blasio Donor Revealed

You don"t have to look around too hard to realize that the "political swamp" in America stretches from sea to shining sea and from the highest offices in Washington D.C. to the lowliest of city halls on Main Streets all across the country. 

The latest evidence of such comes to us from New York City where a Mayor Bill de Blasio donor-turned-felon testified in extraordinary detail yesterday that he and his businessman pals wrote the book on city corruption — buying off the Mayor’s Office and the Police Department using brazen pay-to-play tactics.  As the New York Post details today, 34-year-old Jona Rechnitz went into staggering detail in his testimony about political favors he received from City Hall for a small $100,000 donation.

“We’re going to become significant contributors, but we want access,” Jona Rechnitz, 34, testified telling de Blasio fundraiser Ross Offinger after Hizzoner clinched the Democratic nod for mayor in 2013.

 

De Blasio soon paid Rechnitz a visit in his office, the disgraced businessman told jurors in Manhattan federal court.

 

De Blasio — who last year called his relationship with Rechnitz “not a particularly close’’ one — handed the wheeler-dealer his private cellphone number and email address, the witness said.

 

The pair then began chatting “at least” once a week about “different issues in the city” — as Rechnitz funneled about $160,000 to de Blasio’s campaign and pet political projects, said the government witness.

Rechnitz appeared as the star witness in the bribery trial of former city corrections union chief Norman Seabrook. He is accused of bribing Seabrook to get him to invest $20 million in union pension money in a pal’s ailing hedge fund.  But testimony quickly veered toward de Blasio, as Rechnitz was questioned about his ties to the ­administration.

Rechnitz said he had high hopes for the kinds of favors he could potentially receive.

“My mind was limitless,” he said.

 

Business pal “Jeremy [Reichberg] had told me in the days of Giuliani, people made a fortune.

 

“I was focused on making money, getting my name out there, becoming a big player in town. So I figured maybe I’ll buy an office building, and I’ll get the city as a tenant. Maybe I’ll need to get special permits to make residential developments.”

 

Rechnitz and Borough Park businessman Reichberg initially targeted the NYPD in their pay-to-play scheme, doling out gifts and cash to cops in return for favors. Then they set their sights on City Hall, Rechnitz said. “We had the police going for us — and now it was time to get into politics,’’ he testified.

 

Rechnitz started calling Offinger every time he needed a favor — including one involving a friend’s massive water bill and violations Rechnitz faced for a tenant subletting a residence on Airbnb.

Rechnitz even admitted to using "straw donors" to circumvent caps on individual political contributions, a scam which he says De Blasio"s fundraisers were privy to.

In 2014, Rechnitz donated another $102,300 toward a failed effort led by de Blasio to help Democrats wrest control of the state Senate.

 

Rechnitz said some of the dough was from straw donors, which is illegal.

 

“A couple of people in my office, I had them write checks, because I wasn’t allowed to give more than $4,950. And I reimbursed them for those donations,’’ Rechnitz said.

 

Rechnitz said he promised Offinger to hit target donations — and the fundraiser would stop by his office to check on the fundraising.
“I had a lot of pressure from him to bring that amount in,” Rechnitz said of the pledged amount.

But it wasn"t just De Blasio"s office where Rechnitz attempted to buy political favors as he admitted that his pay-to-play scams stretched north to the affluent suburbs of Westchester County and involved County Executive Rob Astorino. 

During his hourlong testimony, Rechnitz said the corruption even extended beyond the Big Apple.

 

Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino gave him and Reich­berg positions as police chaplains in exchange for their ­financial contributions — even though neither of them is a rabbi or a priest, Rechnitz said.

 

“It meant that I got my parking placard,” said Rechnitz, whose firm JSR Capital donated $15,000 to ­Astorino’s campaign in June 2013.

 

He said Astorino once approached him with a picture of a Rolex watch and asked for help in procuring it.

 

“I told him I’m happy to give it to him; he doesn’t have to buy it,” Rechnitz testified.

 

“He told me that he couldn’t take it as a gift. He had to pay something because that wouldn’t be allowed. It was a $7,000 to $10,000 watch, if I remember correctly.”

 

In the end, Astorino agreed to pay $1,000 to $2,000 — and Rechnitz covered the rest, he said.

Not surprisingly, De Blasio"s office dismissed Rechnitz" testimony saying "the administration has never and will never make government decisions based on campaign contributions"...clearly just more attempts to "criminalize behavior that is normal."

NYC Mayor de Blasio Readies "Millionaires Tax" To Fix Subway

The New York City"s transportation system is in trouble. Delays have skyrocketed on the century-old subway system, and several recent accidents have raised safety concerns. Joseph J. Lhota, chairman of The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, has called upon the mayor to provide more money to fix the system, recently outlining a roughly $800 million emergency rescue plan with a sweeping set of fixes that he vowed would turn around steadily deteriorating service.

“We’re here because the New York City subway system no doubt is in distress, and we’re here looking for solutions,” Mr. Lhota said during a news conference at the authority’s headquarters in Lower Manhattan.

Well, it appears Mr Lhota is about to have his wish come true courtesy of "the rich" once again.

Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to push for a tax on wealthy New Yorkers to pay for improvements needed to address the crisis, according to a report from The NY Times.

Mr. de Blasio will announce a so-called millionaires tax on Monday for wealthy New York City residents to pay for subway and bus upgrades.

The proposal also includes funding to offer half-price MetroCards for low-income riders — part of a national movement that is gaining momentum in New York.

“Rather than sending the bill to working families and subway and bus riders already feeling the pressure of rising fares and bad service, we are asking the wealthiest in our city to chip in a little extra to help move our transit system into the 21st century,” Mr. de Blasio said in a statement.

Of course - de Blasio faces an uphill battle for his populist plan to soak the rich just a "little" bit more...

The tax changes would require approval from state lawmakers in Albany - a difficult task, with Republicans in control of the Senate, though the urgency of the subway’s decline has raised the stakes and captured the attention of both parties.

The mayor’s proposal builds on an effort by State Senator Michael Gianaris, Democrat of Queens, to tax the wealthy to support the subway, and a campaign by transit advocates to establish reduced fares for poor residents after a successful program in Seattle.

“I would argue that the M.T.A. is in a full-blown crisis and that would justify our return to Albany to enact this measure in an emergency session,” Mr. Gianaris said.

The new tax would raise about $700 million to $800 million a year, with more than $500 million going toward capital costs for subways and buses and about $250 million for the half-price MetroCard program, city officials said. It would increase the city’s highest income tax rate by about 0.5 percent, to 4.4 percent from about 3.9 percent, for married couples with incomes above $1 million and individuals who make more than $500,000.

City officials estimate that the tax would be paid by about 32,000 New York City tax filers, or less than 1 percent of those who file their taxes in the city. New Yorkers already contribute to the authority through various taxes and fees, and the city has committed $2.5 billion for the agency’s current capital improvement plan.

Anyone else see "the broken subway fallacy" at work here? Still doesn"t matter, the "rich" can afford it right? It"s only "fair",,,

New York Mayor Defends Decision To Attend Hamburg G-20 Protest

After facing a backlash for his decision to travel to Hamburg, Germany and speak at an anti-capitalist, protester-organized gathering on Friday outside the G-20 conference, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, who’s facing re-election this year, defended his decision, arguing that it’s up to local officials like himself to speak up on issues like climate change now that President Donald Trump has taken the US out of the Paris Accord, Bloomberg reports.

De Blasio, who left NYC the day after NYPD officer Miosotis Familia was assassinated in the Bronx, didn’t publicly disclose his plans to appear as the keynote speaker at the anti-capitalist rally in Germany until just hours before his departure. He left the city as New Yorkers were struggling with a deteriorating subway system, a spike in crime, uncollected bulk trash, an increase in homelessness, and myriad other problems. He also skipped an NYPD swearing-in ceremony for 524 new NYPD recruits, further damaging his already strained relationship with the police.

Yet Hizzoner says it was all worth it to show the people of Germany that not all Americans are like Trump, according to Bloomberg:

“It’s a variation on the concept of voting with your feet,” de Blasio, a Democrat, said in an interview before speaking at the “Hamburg Shows Attitude” protest on Saturday. “While the national governments will probably only make limited progress, the rest of us don’t have that choice. If we make only limited progress we’ll only be going backwards.”

“We almost have Washington as an island at this point, unrepresentative of the views of the American people on many levels, and that’s going to take a different kind of politics to address,” de Blasio said.

Eric Phillips, de Blasio’s spokesman, said the mayor only agreed to go grandstand in Hamburg after making sure he would be able to attend Familia’s funeral, scheduled for July 11. He returns to New York on Sunday. De Blasio, who met Hamburg’s mayor on Friday, tried to spin the trip as a reconnaissance mission to learn more about Hamburg’s renewable energy and early-childhood education programs, though he also said it was also important to make sure people understand President Donald Trump’s views are not shared by all Americans.” Because apparently some within the G-20 have never watched CNN, and think that everyone in the US agrees with Trump?

I"m at the G20 to remind the world that on issues like equality, climate change and more, our cities — and their people — lead the way. pic.twitter.com/t2qyp7mRfy

— Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) July 8, 2017

The organizers of the rally where de Blasio, 56, was to speak distanced themselves from the violent clashes between protesters and police that have broken out at the G20.

Meanwhile, in a trolling of the Mayor, New York City’s Sergeants Benevolent Association kept up its criticism, tweeting that 160 police had been injured during the protests. “Whose side are you on, Mr. Mayor??” the group asked the socialist mayor.

So far 160 police officers have injured by protesters at this year"s G20 summit. Whose side are you on Mr. Mayor?? https://t.co/OB3nG7VByZ

— SBA (@SBANYPD) July 7, 2017

Adding to the insults, De Blasio’s  Republican challenger in November’s mayoral election, Staten Island Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, posted an image on Twitter of de Blasio’s face photo-shopped onto a picture of a man in lederhosen sitting in front of tall glasses of beer and a plate stacked with sausage and sauerkraut.

“While #NYC ’s subways crumble, sex crimes increase double digits, litter on streets pile up & the number of street homeless soars... #G20,” Malliotakis wrote.

While #NYC "s subways crumble, sex crimes increase double digits, litter on streets pile up & the number of street homeless soars...#G20 pic.twitter.com/JsYoHhHaVG

— Nicole Malliotakis (@NMalliotakis) July 6, 2017

Meanwhile, Trump"s trip to Germany - in which he established “personal relations” with Russian President Vladimir Putin and achieving a “breakthrough” truce involving the southern de-escalation zone in Syria  - appeared more successful, and actually prompted the G-20 to conclude that the 2-day meeting wasn"t a waste, even though during his speech de Blasio voiced his "doubts" that the world leaders could resolve important global issues at the G20 summit. You can watch more below:

NY DA Vance Cites ISIS as Reason to Disarm Countrymen while Unvetted Foreign Nationals Given ‘Sanctuary’

Vance memorializes the Pulse nightclub “gun-free zone” murders by an Islamist terrorist by endorsing more citizen disarmament as the way to thwart ISIS. Promoting anti-RKBA sentiment in Spanish is telling in terms of understanding the enthusiasm for “sanctuary cities.”

“New York County District Attorney Cy Vance in an interview aired Sunday blasted a GOP plan that would allow qualified owners to carry concealed handguns in other states that allow individuals to carry concealed firearms,” The Hill reported Sunday. “The district attorney warned lawmakers that they were ‘playing into the hand’ of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other terrorists, pointing to ISIS publications describing the ease of buying guns in some American states.”

“This bill is supported, I’m sure, by ISIS,” Vance asserted, just to make sure the headlines would be hysterical and the herd would be properly spooked. “ISIS points its readers to America and how they can easily obtain guns by going to states where there are no permitting requirements. So ISIS is paying close attention to this bill as well.”

For “Progressives,” every day is Opposite Day, so leave it to one of their key players to declare the very thing the Founders deemed “necessary to the security of a free State” to be its undoing. And that, of course, requires that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms [BE] infringed.”

Tim Sullivan knew the most successful official criminals controlled the guns.

New York City is a prime violator of that right, from the criminally insane Sullivan Laws—literally. The notoriously corrupt “Big Tim” Sullivan, a favorite of city trade union leaders and the suffragette movement, forced them through to the benefit of his criminal cronies. He died under mysterious circumstances after escaping from a sanitarium, where he’d been suffering from paranoid delusions and the ravages of tertiary syphilis.

Vance is happy to keep the paranoid delusions against an armed citizenry going. The son of a former Secretary of State and globalist insider, he has teamed with Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer (another oath-breaking gun-grabber) to form Prosecutors Against Gun Violence, a nationwide clique of elitist government lawyers from “progressive”-controlled urban areas intent on advancing a state monopoly of violence.

“The group plans to focus on policies to reduce gang violence and weapons trafficking,” The Los Angeles Times claims. “Prosecutors will also explore connections linking domestic violence, mental health and gun-related crimes.”

Meanwhile, they fight like hell to import more gang members, who promise to reward them with even more blood to dance in and exploit, translating to more power. Their ancillary agenda, using domestic violence and mental health as cover justifications, is to disarm even more citizens who have not been convicted of anything. Their agenda is to further erode the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, and the right to full due process and jury trials.

Vance welcomes Feuer as they join to impose their “progressive” urban disarmament agenda throughout the Republic.

As for Vance’s charge that ISIS will benefit if your right to keep and bear arms is recognized and honored, it’s fair to explore what’s wrong with immigration and refugee policies that allow unvettable foreign nationals into the country in the first place. But rather than address that problem, New York City, under socialist Mayor Bill de Blasio, has proudly declared The Big Apple a “sanctuary city,” and pledged to fight President Trump’s travel restrictions (which we should be learning more about later today if the Supreme Court weighs in as expected).

So the “progressive” solution is to let in more Islamists, disarm the people, and smear anyone who warns against that as a hater and an anti-government extremist.

—–

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"We're Taking Matters Into Our Own Hands": de Blasio Signs Executive Order Committing NYC To Paris Agreement

The symbolic resistance against Trump"s climate agenda took another step on Friday evening, when New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio signed an executive order reaffirming the city’s commitment to the Paris climate change agreement despite, or rather due to, Trump withdrawing the U.S. from the agreement.

We"re taking matters into our own hands. pic.twitter.com/F3zHYHVBFR

— NYC Mayor"s Office (@NYCMayorsOffice) June 2, 2017

“We here in New York City are shocked at the development this week in Washington, D.C., to see the president of the United States pull out of the Paris accord and literally set this nation, and the whole globe, on the path of denial,” de Blasio said.

De Blasio’s order instructs New York City to adopt the principles of the Paris climate agreement, supporting its key principles of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050 and keeping a global temperature increase below 1.5 degrees Celsius. It also directs city agencies to work with the mayor’s Office of Sustainability to create a plan by September 30 to further reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions, and notes that New York City will work with other U.S. cities, states and countries to meet commitments set in the agreement.

I signed Executive Order 26 because New York City"s future is threatened by climate change. We will honor the goals of the #ParisAgreement. pic.twitter.com/ujskQl2q2o

— Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) June 2, 2017

“The actions of President Trump have undermined what we’re doing and what cities and states all over the country are doing, and that means we have to go farther,” de Blasio said. “We have to take matters into our own hands.”

In a series of tweets on Wednesday, de Blasio slammed Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the agreement, calling it “horribly destructive.”

De Blasio joins Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, who also signed an executive order this week affirming his city’s compliance with the Paris agreement.

Furthermore, as reported last night, billionaire and former NYC mayor, Michael Bloomberg, announced that he is developing a coalition of U.S. states, cities and business leaders to defy the President"s decision and comply with the terms of the original deal. And yet, considering that Trump won the presidency among other things on the vow to do precisely what he did, and withdraw from the Paris agreement, some have suggested that while global climate trends may a priority for Bloomberg, a man who flies around the world on a fleet of private jets and whose carbon emissions footprint is an "outlier", it is likely safe to say that a majority of Americans, especially those living outside the safe spaces of New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, either disagree, don"t feel the urge to be lectured by hypocrites, or simply don"t care.

Incidentally, here is the NYT on Mike Bloomberg"s carbon footprint:

Meanwhile, speaking of carbon footprints, here is a Elon Musk"s brand new Gulfstream G650 ER private jet, purchased in 2015.

Elon Musk private jet (Photo by Royal King)

NYC Mayor De Blasio Staffer Arrested On Child Pornography Charges

Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

A 29 year old staffer for NYC mayor Bill De Blasio"s office has been arrested and charged with two felonies after police found a massive collection of child porn on his laptop, according to court documents. The NYPD"s investigation began March 29th when Jacob Schwartz, 29, handed over his laptop - on which over 3,000 images and 89 videos were discovered depicting sexual acts with children as young as 6 months old.

Schwartz - a computer programmer making $66k / year was also the president of the Manhattan Young Democrats - as well as VP of the NY State Young Democrats. When the NY Post reached the former organization for comment, they said they were "shocked" by the allegations against Schwartz - adding that he is "no longer a member of the board."

Schwartz thought he was hot shit in Democrat circles, rubbing elbows with and promoting Hillary"s campaign manager Robby Mook.

Breitbart obtained a now-deleted biography of Schwartz from the Manhattan Young Democrats:

Jacob was born and raised in the heart of Greenwich Village, and was involved in political organizing from a young age. Some of his oldest memories are handing out leaflets for his father, as he campaigned for District Leader. More recently, he helped start the New Democratic Alliance in New York City, and, in 2012, worked for the Obama campaign as a Field Organizer in the Lehigh Valley. A graduate of Lehigh University with an M.S. in Energy Systems Engineering and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, Jacob currently works for the New York City Department of Design and Construction on their Build It Back Hurricane Sandy recovery and resiliency program. He is also the founder and executive director of a climate education non-profit called Common Climate, and previously served as Issues Assembly and Policy Director for MYD.

Schwartz was charged with promoting a sexual performance by a child and possessing a sexual performance by a child under 16, both felonies.

Schwartz"s father is huge Democrat insider

Jacob Schwartz"s father is Arthur Schwartz, a prominent Manhattan attorney, community activist, and DNC operator. Schwartz served as council to Bernie Sanders during the 2016 election. He was also a delegate during Barack Obama"s 2008 run for president.

Schwartz has also represented SEIU, several unions, and served as general council to ACORN from March of 2009 to October 2010.

He also made a killing in NY real estate

Arthur Schwartz turned a 2003 investment of $499,000 into $20.89 million when he sold in 2014.

The elder Schwartz has called his son"s arrest "a personal tragedy," and told the Post "He"s already in therapy for this."

The younger Schwartz is out on $7500 bail.

And poor NY Mayor Bill De Blasio - the vocal Trump critic who headed up an anti-Trump protest in Columbus Circle, clogging up traffic, railed against Trump"s Immigration Executive Order - calling it "Simply Un-American," accused Trump of being the cause of Anti-Semitic threats (which turned out to be an Israeli guy). De Blasio also refused to assign a label of terrorism to a Sept. 2016 Manhattan bombing carried out by Afghani named Ahmad Kahn Rahimi which injured 29 people. Even though a note left on an unexploded pressure cooker referenced al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.

So, a rising star NY Democrat was arrested on charges of pedophilia, and two of Trump"s most vocal New York City critics on the left have been thoroughly dragged into the mud. 

Boy was Hillary"s timing bad...

During Friday"s commencement address at Wellesley College, Hillary tried to smear those investigating high level pedophilia:

Caught On Video: Hillary Clinton Warns She's "Ready To Come Out Of The Woods"

After months of crying in bed and moping around the woods of Chappaqua sulking over her shocking loss last November, Hillary Clinton told "The Society of Irish Women" at a St. Patrick’s Day speech in Scranton, Pennsylvania on Friday night that she"s finally ready to "come out of the woods."  And while that comment could be interpreted in a whole bunch of different ways, we"re going to take the high road and assume that it"s simply a hint that she"s ready to return to public life in some capacity.

"Our country seems so divided right now. I do not believe that we can let political divides harden into personal divides.  And we can"t just ignore or turn a cold shoulder toward someone because they disagree with us politically."

"We"ve gotta keep trying to listen to each other, to reason together and try to work to help people have better lives."

“I’m like a lot of my friends right now. I have a hard time watching the news, I’ll confess.  I am ready to come out of
the woods and to help shine a light on what is already happening around
kitchen tables, at dinners like this.”

Unfortunately, while Hillary is all too willing to encourage the rest of us to "listen to each other", she"s apparently not yet ready to listen to the advice of the 60+ million people around the country who decided they would prefer she not be an active participant in public life any longer.

Of course, these latest comments will inevitably spark rumors, once again, of Hillary possibly throwing her hat in the ring for the New York City Mayoral race.  As we pointed out a couple of months ago, while polls show that Mayor De Blasio will win in a blowout against most candidates, he would almost certainly lose in a landslide to Hillary...

The latest example comes from a Quinnipiac University Poll which analyzed a hypothetical head-to-head match-up between Clinton and New York"s current mayor, Bill de Blasio.  Unfortunately for de Blasio, the poll found that, while he would beat almost everyone else whose name has been mentioned as potential contender, he would almost certainly be crushed by Hillary. 

In a very hypothetical race for New York City Mayor, Hillary Clinton, running as an independent, tops incumbent Bill de Blasio, running as a Democrat, 49 - 30 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

"New Yorkers aren"t in love with Mayor Bill de Blasio, but they seem to like him better than other possible choices - except Hillary Clinton, who probably is an impossible choice," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

"None of the possible contenders has made any real noise or spent any money, so this race still could get interesting."

In the Clinton - de Blasio matchup, Clinton leads 61 - 29 percent among Democrats and 45 - 31 percent among independent voters. Republicans back de Blasio 28 - 18 percent. She leads among men and women and black, white and Hispanic voters. She also leads in every borough except Staten Island, which goes to de Blasio 28 - 22 percent.

And here is a full break down of the results:

...that is, unless that nagging case of "pneumonia"
that brings with it random, yet inevitable, bouts of full-body paralysis, rears its ugly head again.

Trump Fires US Attorney Preet Bharara After He Refuses To Quit

The speculation over whether Trump would or would not fire the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, who earlier reportedly said he would not resign on his own, came to a close a 2:29pm ET when Preet Bharara, tweeting from his private Twitter account, announced he had been fired.

"I did not resign. Moments ago I was fired. Being the US Attorney in SDNY will forever be the greatest honor of my professional life."

I did not resign. Moments ago I was fired. Being the US Attorney in SDNY will forever be the greatest honor of my professional life.

— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) March 11, 2017

Bharara’s dismissal ended an "extraordinary" showdown in which a political appointee who was named by Mr. Trump’s predecessor, President Barack Obama, declined an order to submit a resignation.

“I did not resign. Moments ago I was fired. Being the US Attorney in SDNY will forever be the greatest honor of my professional life,” Mr. Bharara wrote on his personal Twitter feed, which he set up in the last two weeks. Bharara was among 46 holdover Obama appointees who were called by the acting deputy attorney general on Friday and told to immediately submit resignations and plan to clear out of their offices. But Bharara, who was called to Trump Tower for a meeting with the incoming president in late November 2016, declined to do so.

As reported previously, Bharara said he was asked by Trump to remain in his current post at the meeting. Bharara met with Trump at Trump Tower, and then addressed reporters afterward. Before the firing, one of New York’s top elected Republicans voiced support for Bharara on Saturday.

The Southern District of New York, which Bharara has overseen since 2009, encompasses Manhattan, Trump’s home before he was elected president, as well as the Bronx, Westchester, and other counties north of New York City. Last weekend, Trump accused Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower in Manhattan, an allegation which various Congressmen have said they will launch a probe into.

And now the speculation will begin in earnest why just three months after Bharara, who at the time was conducting a corruption investigation into NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio as well as into aides of NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo, told the press that Trump had asked him to "stay on" he is being fired and whether this may indicate that the NYSD has perhaps opened a probe into Trump himself as some have speculated. For more on the unexpected break between the two, read here.

Earlier on Saturday, ProPublica"s Jesse Eisinger proposed some good ideas in tweet format over the tension between Trump and Bharara, as follows:

1. The Preet Bharara drama began with a mystery: Why did Trump ask him to stay on in November, after their meeting in Trump Tower?


2. Why would Trump ask @USAttyBharara, an ostensibly tough US attorney and--more importantly here-- former Schumer aide, to stay on?


3. Was Schumer making a deal? Trump & Schumer go way back in NY politics. What was @PreetBharara going to do in return?


4. Maybe Trump liked that @PreetBharara going after high-profile NY Dems. Maybe he thought it would look worse for his appointee to do so.


5. Or maybe Trump just liked the cut of @PreetBharara"s jib and made the decision in a split-second, on instinct.


6. So what"s changed? Did SDNY start some kind of investigation of Trump? Is Preet collateral damage in Trump"s war vs the bureaucracy?


7. & what does this mean for ongoing Cuomo & DeBlasio investigations? Would indictments from, say, USAtty Marc Mukasey be viewed the same?


8. That is, if Trump actually fires @USAttyBharara, who then becomes just @PreetBharara.


9. And is Trump launching the political career of @PreetBharara by martyring him?


10. Irrespective, it"s great for @USAttyBharara, who didn"t prosecute Wall St banks after the finl crisis & suffered no reputational damage.

To be sure, moments after the resignation, some of Trump"s most vocal opponents promptly took the president to task over the decision:

Might be very convenient to Donald Trump to leave the US Attorneyship for SDNY vacant for a long, long, long time.

— David Frum (@davidfrum) March 11, 2017

Finally, as a reminder, in 1993 Jeff Sessions was fired by Bill Clinton"s Attorney General Janet Reno in exactly the same way.

Why are we pretending that Trump replacing US attorneys is something new? Jeff Sessions was canned by Bill Clinton in the same process. pic.twitter.com/hfDlfYfEfY

— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) March 11, 2017

De Blasio Vows To Spend $300mm On NYC Shelters As Homeless Crisis Spirals Out Of Control

It"s fairly safe to say that Mayor Bill de Blasio has fallen "slightly" short of his original campaign goal to remedy the homelessness crisis in New York City.  In fact, The New York Post summed up the current situation in NYC fairly succinctly back in July 2015:

Unfortunately, particularly for a man seeking re-election later this year, the following stats on NYC homelessness are fairly damning.

So what do you do when you"re up for re-election in about 8 months and realize that you oversaw a massive expansion of a problem you previously vowed to eradicate?  Well, you throw as much taxpayer money as necessary at that problem to make it go way, of course.  Per the New York Daily News:

Mayor de Blasio unveiled an ambitious new plan Tuesday to address the vexing challenge of housing the homeless, vowing to build dozens more shelters but saying little about where he’d put them and acknowledging it won’t solve the crisis.

In a speech in lower Manhattan, the mayor promised to stop using the expensive hotels and the private apartments in “cluster sites” that the city has been reluctantly utilizing to house a homeless population that grows each year.

Instead, the mayor said he would move the homeless now staying in these places — many of which are plagued by decrepit conditions — into 90 new, traditional city shelters across the city.

Although the mayor said nothing about funding during his hour-long speech, his aides said later the city will spend $300 million over five years to build the shelters.

Meanwhile, even members of De Blasio"s own party blasted his lack of details and obvious attempt to just throw money at the the problem it hopes that it simple goes away.

Assemblyman Erik Dilan, a Brooklyn Democrat who as a city councilman was chairman of the Housing Committee, raised concerns about the high number of shelters.

“It’s going to be very difficult,” Dilan said. “There’s going to be an uproar in neighborhoods because they’d rather see people in permanent housing.”

“I am disheartened. I see more aspiration than reality,” said Councilman Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx), whose district has the highest concentration of cluster sites in the city.

“The city has been throwing the kitchen sink at the crisis, expending hundreds of millions of dollars, and none of it seems to be working,” he said.

“Our community wants to be respected,” he said. “We’ve sort of heard this story before, so the proof will be in the pudding.”

We sense an opening for you, Hillary.

Neera Tanden Reveals "Hillary Will Never Run For Elected Office Again"

"I felt a great disturbance in the farce, as if millions of snowflakes suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened..."

Just days after rumors emerged of Hillary Clinton potentially running for New York City mayor, Hillary Clinton confidante Neera Tanden told CNN that she doesn"t expect Clinton to run for New York City mayor -- or anything else, ever again.

"I think she"s going to figure out ways to help kids and families. That"s been what she"s been focused on her whole life, and a lot of issues that are affecting them, over the next couple of years," Tanden told CNN"s Jake Tapper on "State of the Union" Sunday.

"But I don"t expect her to ever run for any elected office again," she said.

Tanden, a close Clinton ally and the head of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, was shooting down reports of chatter in New York political circles that Clinton could run against incumbent Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio.

"I don"t expect her to run for this and I don"t expect her to run for other office," Tanden said. "I think her job is to -- what she"s thinking about right now is how to help those kids and families as she has her whole life."

It appears our video anology of Clinton"s strategy meeting was spot on...