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Despised Team Owner Dolan Shouldn't Make Knicks Visit Trump's White House

Despised Team Owner Dolan Shouldn't Make Knicks Visit Trump's White House

New York has been electric since the Knicks completed their storybook playoff run on Saturday to deliver long-suffering fans throughout not only the city but the entire tri-state area their first NBA title in 53 years.

On Thursday, millions of fans gathered in lower Manhattan for the traditional ticker-tape parade down the aptly named “Canyon of Heroes,” with jubilant revelers chanting, cheering, and coming together to celebrate the team that finally won it all.

Usually it takes tragedy to bring New Yorkers together. After the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, New Yorkers united to help the families who lost loved ones and the first responders who helped rebuild the city.

Usually it takes tragedy to bring New Yorkers together. After the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, New Yorkers united to help the families who lost loved ones and the first responders who helped rebuild the city.

And six years ago at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, New Yorkers would open their windows and bang pots and pans to honor the frontline healthcare workers trying to heal the sick and dying.

Now, we’re witnessing that a happy moment can unite a region, too.

And so, and I say this in the most sincere way possible: Knicks players, please don’t ruin this moment with a visit to Donald Trump’s White House.

The Knicks owner, James Dolan—whose meddling in the team is a large reason why the Knicks stunk so badly for so many years—said Wednesday that the Knicks organization will visit Trump.

“We just did receive an invitation from the White House, which we accepted,” Dolan said on local sports radio station WFAN. “We still have to figure out the details, etc., but yes, of course. Look, I invited the president to come down for the game. He is a friend, I’ve known him for 30 years and I’m very proud to bring the team to the White House.”

But you know who wouldn’t be proud of witnessing the Knicks at the White House? The Knicks fans who loathe Trump and everything he stands for. And if the team goes, it will put a damper on the celebratory mood.

Already, Dolan’s support and friendship with Trump nearly jinxed the Knicks’ playoff run. Dolan greatly inconvenienced fans when he brought Trump to Game 3 of the finals between the Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs. And Trump brought so much negative energy and distraction that the game he attended broke the team’s historic 13-game playoff win streak.

Knicks fans told Dolan how they felt about his decision to bring the wannabe dictator to the game, loudly booing Trump the one and only time his sweaty, orange-makeup-smeared face appeared on the jumbotron.

Forcing players to go to the White House would just be another slap in the face to the fans who have remained loyal to the Knicks despite decades of sadness and mediocrity.

Knicks players need to know: While Dolan wants to visit, you do not have to go. The fans support you, not the team owner.

The players hold the cards in this situation, as Dolan would be vilified as an utter disgrace if he punished the stars who finally won a championship for his franchise for not visiting Dolan’s fellow prick who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

We already know at least two star players hate Trump. Guard Josh Hart, for example, fired this gem on social media when Trump lost the election to now-former President Joe Biden.

“YESSIR!!!! GET TRUMP’S DUMBASS OUT THE WHITE HOUSE!!!!!!” Hart tweeted at the time.

And Karl-Anthony Towns slammed Trump in 2018, when Trump criticized NBA star LeBron James, who had just given a CNN interview about schools he was opening in his hometown of Akron, Ohio.

“So let me get this straight: Flint, MI has dirty water still, but you worried about an interview about a man doing good for education and generations of kids in his hometown?” Towns wrote in a post on X. “Stop using them twitter fingers and get stuff done for our country with that pen.”

Ultimately, details haven’t been worked out for the Knicks visit—which would make them the first NBA team to visit the Trump White House in either of his two terms. So, hold firm Knicks players. Don’t ruin this jubilant moment with a visit to the White House.


AOC And Bernie Sanders Draw Giant Crowds At 'Fighting Oligarchy' Rallies In West

AOC And Bernie Sanders Draw Giant Crowds At 'Fighting Oligarchy' Rallies In West

On the heels of record-breaking attendance at a "Fighting Oligarchy" event in Tempe, Arizona earlier this week, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York held a rally in Denver, Colorado on Friday evening that drew more than 34,000 people—making it either largest event that Sanders or Ocasio-Cortez has ever held.

Sanders, an Independent, wrote on social media on Friday that the turnout is a sign that "the American people will not allow Trump to move us into oligarchy and authoritarianism. We will fight back. We will win."

According to Anna Bahr, Sanders' communications director, the senator's largest rally prior to Denver took place in Brooklyn, New York in 2016, when he was running for president.

Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat, wrote online that "something special is happening... Working people are ready to stand together and fight for our democracy. Thank you Colorado!"

At the rally, which took place at Denver's Civic Center Park, the two lawmakers hit on the same themes they spoke about in Arizona.

"The American people are saying loud and clear, we will not accept an oligarchic form of society," Sanders said, according to Colorado Public Radio. "We will not accept the richest guy in the world running all over Washington, making cuts to the Social Security Administration, cuts to the Veterans Administration, almost destroying the Department of Education—all so that they could give over a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the wealthiest one percent."

"If you don't know your neighbor, it's easier to turn on them," said Ocasio-Cortez, per CPR. "That's why they want to keep us separated, alone, and apart. Scrolling on our phones thinking that the person next to us is some kind of enemy, but they're not."

Sanders launched his "Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here" tour in February, with the aim of talking to Americans about the "takeover of the national government by billionaires and large corporations, and the country's move toward authoritarianism.

"The series of "Fighting Oligarchy" events have been taking place as some Democrats have gotten an earful at town halls back home, where constituents have come out to implore them to do more to counter efforts by the Trump administration.

Earlier in the day, Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders also held a rally in Greeley, Colorado—which is represented by Republican Gabe Evans in the House of Representatives—which drew more than 11,000 people.

Semafor reporter David Weigel, who attended both the Greely and Denver rally, posted online that at the Greeley rally it wasn't easy to find people in the crowd who had voted for Sanders in the 2020 presidential primary. Weigel also wrote that the Sanders team told him that half of the RSVPs to the rallies were not from the lawmaker's supporter list.

Eric Blanc, an assistant professor at the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University, wrote on Bluesky on Saturday that it is "pretty remarkable how AOC and Bernie have become leaders not just of lefties, but of the Democratic Party's mainstream liberal base."

While its dangerous that "establishment liberals" are yielding to Trump, he wrote, "the silver lining is that this has enabled anti-corporate forces such as labor unions and AOC-Bernie to set the tenor of Resistance 2.0."

"Because today's anti-Trump resistance is more focused on economic concerns, more rooted in labor unions, and more anti-billionaire, it has the potential to sink much deeper roots among working people and, in so doing, to definitively overcome MAGA," wrote Blanc.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

AOC Says She Will Seek To Impeach Supreme Court Justices

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) responded to Monday’s Supreme Court decision finding presidents have far greater immunity against criminal prosecution than even the Founders appear to have wanted, announced she will file articles of impeachment against the justices, although she did not name which ones.

In their 6-3 ruling along partisan lines, the justices claimed presidents cannot be criminally charged for “official” acts, but are not immune from charges for private ones. Legal scholars declared the six right-wing justices had effectively just made Donald Trump a “king.”

“The Supreme Court has become consumed by a corruption crisis beyond its control,” Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, known as “AOC,” wrote on Monday.

“Today’s ruling represents an assault on American democracy. It is up to Congress to defend our nation from this authoritarian capture,” she added. “I intend on filing articles of impeachment upon our return.”

Congress is in recess this week ahead of the Fourth of July holiday.

Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-FL) responded, “I fully support this.”

NBC News’ senior national political reporter Sahil Kapur noted impeachment would “require a majority of the House to impeach plus two-thirds of the Senate to remove a member of SCOTUS.”

But former Obama administration official Brandon Friedman remarked, “Before everyone starts whining about how an impeachment of Supreme Court justices won’t pass a Republican-controlled House, that isn’t what this is about. It’s about the spectacle. It’s about the headlines. It’s about communicating to voters a grave threat to the Republic.”

Earlier on Monday Georgetown Law professor Josh Chafetz had said, “Democrats should go to war with the Court. The public is on their side on the issues—including abortion, immunity, environmental regulations, etc. They should make opposition to the Republican Court the organizing theme of the November election.”

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Bowman's Defeat By Moderate Democrat Exposed Flaws In 'The Squad'

Bowman's Defeat By Moderate Democrat Exposed Flaws In 'The Squad'

Jamaal Bowman's loss was the Democrats' gain. A member of the left-fringe Squad, his primary defeat removes at least one irritant to the Democrats' quest to take control of the House. And if his replacement with a moderate marks the beginning of the end for the Squad, well, bravo for the victor, Westchester County executive George Latimer.

New York's 16th Congressional District includes some New York suburbs plus a slice of the Bronx. Squad founder Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the old socialist Bernie Sanders thought it a good idea to hold a rally for Bowman in the South Bronx.

Never mind that the South Bronx wasn't part of Bowman's district. Ritchie Torres represents that area. Perhaps Bowman figured his working-class audience would relate to his obscenity-filled rants. Torres thought otherwise.

"There is nothing in Jamaal Bowman's unhinged tirade," Torres posted on X, "that remotely resembles the decency of the people I know and represent in the South Bronx."

Bowman insisted that as a Black, he has an "ethnic benefit." Well, Torres is half-Black, half-Latino, and former New York Rep. Mondaire Jones is Black. Both Torres and Jones endorsed Latimer, a 70-year-old white guy who happens to have experience in governing.

Bowman seems to have forgotten that a congressman is supposed to do a thing called constituent service, that is, providing help to the people in the district. The people rarely saw him.

"He doesn't really study government," Latimer said at a recent event for seniors. "He doesn't really understand it. He's out there on a soap box, talking what he feels."

AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, spent a lot of money trying to get Bowman defeated. Headlines say they're the reason he lost. But it took more than AIPAC to produce an incumbent's 17-point loss.

No doubt their barrage of ads played a part, but Bowman's views on Israel were worse than incendiary; they were ignorant. It's one thing to criticize Israel's conduct in the Gaza war. It's another to question the claim that Hamas committed sexual violence in its Oct. 7 attack on Israel, as Bowman did.

Bowman clearly has some screws loose. He gave voice to a looney conspiracy theory related to the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on New York City. The Daily Beast unearthed Bowman's blog post passing on the paranoid belief that the collapse of Building 7, a skyscraper in the World Trade Center complex, was a controlled demolition.

As a congressman, he famously set off a fire alarm in a House office building, juvenile-delinquent style. This was done, it is believed, to delay a scheduled vote on a government funding bill. Of course, the building had to be evacuated.

Bowman first lied about setting off the alarm. Then when security cameras caught him in the act, he lied about not knowing what it was. You'd think that a former middle school principal would know what a fire alarm looked like.

Bowman had joined AOC in voting against Joe Biden's infrastructure bill — a tantrum over one of their priorities being left out. To this day, unions have not forgiven either of them for that.

Perhaps the biggest problem for Bowman is that his challenger is a man of substance. As a county executive, Latimer makes budgets, manages essential services, including public safety, and sees that the laws are enforced.

AOC, Bernie, and Bowman apparently chose the South Bronx for its symbolic value. And it all fits. Their posturing was for the cameras, not the 16th district's constituents who happened to live elsewhere.

The Squad suffers a serious lack of quality control, and Bowman isn't its only flawed product. May moderate Democrats continue to replace them.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

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