Good morning, it’s Thursday.
Once upon a time, military service was practically a pre-requisite for political success – and also a source of not a little controversy. Remember, for example, all the swift boat/John Kerry stories?
It wasn’t until 2012 that neither presidential candidate (at the time Mitt Romney and Barack Obama) had a military background. Obama, who was too young to have been drafted during the Vietnam War, touted the fact that he had veterans in his family, but admitted when speaking to soldiers that he could not possibly fully understand their battlefield experience.
Romney, on the other hand, had received four draft deferments, both because he was a student (at Stanford) and then later had been serving during the later years of Vietnam as a Mormon minister of religion while he was a missionary in France. He did sign up for Selective Service, but his draft number was very high and he was never called.
These days, serving in the military is not nearly as widely revered as it once was. Recruitment is down, and polling shows not only that public confidence in the armed forces is waning, but that a majority of American adults would not be willing to serve were this country to enter a major conflict.
Be that as it may, we do continue to honor and lionize (IMHO with good reason) members of the so-called “Greatest Generation”, who not only lived through the Great Depression, but, in many cases, fought in World War II. The service of these men and women has particularly personal meaning for me as a Jew, but also as the daughter , step-daughter, and granddaughter of proud military veterans.
My grandfather on my mother’s side didn’t talk a lot about his war. He served in the Navy. My dad was in the Army during Vietnam, but didn’t deploy. My step-dad was a Marine and served in Vietnam – an experience that deeply impacted him and continues to fundamentally inform his worldview and emotional and physical wellbeing.
Today is the 80th anniversary of D-Day, which, in 1944, involved the combined land, air, and sea forces of the allied armies in what became known as the largest amphibious invasion in military history. It was impactful, certainly, but also terrifying and very deadly. From a strategic standpoint, the success of the allies on D-Day enabled British troops to capture the city of Caen, which was a big win, and ultimately led to the liberation of France – a big loss for Germany.
All told on D-Day, 2,501 Americans were killed, which accounted for more than half of the total Allied deaths that day. In the subsequent Battle of Normandy, some 73,000 Allied service members died and 153,000 were wounded. It’s unclear exactly how many of the individuals who were on the beach that day and survived are still around but it’s definitely not a lot.
According to estimates from the U.S. Veterans Administration, fewer than 1% of the 16.4 million Americans who served during World War II were still alive at the end of 2023, and 131 are dying every day. The number of British D-Day vets still living is estimated to be less than 100 – one, who was 19 on the day of the invasion, is now 99 years young.
In other words, soon there won’t be anyone from the Greatest Generation left to celebrate.
The last remaining WWII vets are converging on Normandy for what will likely for many of them be their last big D-Day ceremony. President Biden is on hand. And this commemoration is also taking place at a sobering – and scary – time when peace in Europe and elsewhere in the globe is far from a reality.
It’s going to be a suitably somber day, weather-wise, with overcast skies and rain in the morning that morphs into thunderstorms later in the evening.
In the headlines…
President Biden will observe the 80th anniversary of D-Day on the beaches of Normandy by asserting that the allied effort to stand up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a direct extension of the battle for freedom that raged across Europe during World War II.
A World War II Navy veteran, Robert Persichitti, of Fairport, NY, who witnessed the raising of the U.S. flag at Iwo Jima died at the age of 102 while traveling to France to participate in an event commemorating D-Day, a veterans organization said.
Persichitti and his guardian flew overseas with the National World War II Museum Group. They flew into Germany and were on a ship sailing down the coast to Normandy — where the memorial celebration will be held — when he had a medical emergency.
House Republicans issued criminal referrals against Biden’s son and brother, accusing them of making false statements to Congress as part of the GOP’s yearlong impeachment inquiry.
Two of Hunter Biden’s former romantic partners, his ex-wife and an ex-girlfriend, provided vivid and gut-wrenching testimony about his out-of-control addiction to crack in the weeks and months before he claimed to be drug-free on a federal firearms form.
Biden has overtaken his Republican challenger Donald Trump in three battleground states, according to polls five months before the presidential election.
In the wake of the new executive order, migrants scattered along the U.S.-Mexico border are trying to understand how they will be affected by the measure, the most restrictive border policy instituted by Biden.
Senate Republicans blocked action on legislation to codify the right to contraception access nationwide, a bill Democrats brought to the floor to spotlight an issue on which the G.O.P. is at odds with a vast majority of voters.
White House officials and Biden’s allies went on the attack against The Wall Street Journal after the news outlet published a report on the president’s performance in private meetings headlined “Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping.”
Wall Street Journal reporter Siobhan Hughes doubled down on her article about Biden’s mental acuity following blowback from the White House.
The Georgia Court of Appeals stayed the criminal election interference case against Trump until an appellate panel could resolve the matter of whether the DA in Fulton County should be disqualified from prosecuting the case based on a conflict of interest.
The court stated that any movement at the trial-court level pertaining to Trump and eight other defendants who have appealed a ruling allowing the prosecutor, Fani T. Willis, to remain on the case was “stayed pending the outcome of these appeals.”
The appeals court is expected to rule on the disqualification issue by March 2025, though it could issue a ruling sooner.
Judge Aileen Cannon is again ripping up the court schedule in Trump’s classified documents case – pushing some of the legal questions that have been before her for months even further down the road.
Cannon is planning on holding a sprawling hearing on Trump’s request to declare Jack Smith’s appointment as special counsel invalid, signaling she could be more willing than any other trial judge to veto the special prosecutor’s authority.
The planned hearing also adds a new, unusual twist in the federal criminal case against the former president: Cannon said that a variety of political partisans and constitutional scholars not otherwise involved with the case can join in the oral arguments.
Trump says he is prepared to prosecute his political enemies if he is elected this fall. Simply making those threats, legal experts said, does real damage to the rule of law. And if he wins in November, very little will be in his way of carrying out those threats.
The NYPD The Police Department is seeking to revoke Trump’s license to carry a concealed weapon after his conviction in his New York hush-money case, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
Trump’s New York concealed carry license was quietly suspended on April 1, 2023, following his indictment on criminal charges in New York, a senior police official said.
It is unclear when the former president has last held a gun, but his gun license for New York City was active at the time of his indictment in the hush money case in March 2023, according to an NYPD spokesperson.
Rep. Byron Donalds, speaking at a Black voter outreach event for Trump, suggested that Black families were more unified and better off during the Jim Crow era, sparking immediate backlash from top Black Democratic officials.
Donalds, who has emerged as a key Black surrogate for Trump and a vice presidential contender, made the comments on Tuesday evening at a “Congress, Cognac, & Cigars” event in Philadelphia.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that she was shelving the long-awaited tolling plan known as congestion pricing, just weeks before it was to go into effect.
Hochul issued a pre-taped video statement saying the program would harm New Yorkers dealing with an affordability crisis, but tried to assure residents she’s committed to finding funds for the MTA and “will continue to find strategies to fight congestion.”
“Circumstances have changed and we must respond to the facts on the ground,” Hochul said, pointing to economic concerns including high inflation and post-pandemic vacancy rates in Manhattan office buildings.
After earlier plans were rejected by regulators due to steep price hikes they had requested, two offshore wind developers have once again agreed to build a pair of projects off the Long Island coast.
To halt the implementation of congestion pricing, Hochul needs the approval of the 23-member board of the MTA, which oversees public transit in New York City and much of its suburbs. It’s not clear when such a vote will take place.
The suspension of congestion pricing will leave New York City with a great deal of expensive equipment worth hundreds of millions of dollars that has already been installed and for which it now has no use.
Hochul’s abrupt decision to delay the long-awaited plan put her in line with the former president, who has a habit of attacking New York, his hometown.
The MTA had planned on $15 billion in financing backed by the tolls of congestion pricing for a number of crucial upgrades and repairs to the aging transit system. Now its budget is in limbo.
In February, MTA officials released a report stating that without the funding, the agency “runs the risk of falling behind on repair work necessary to update aging infrastructure and assets critical to the reliability of the system.”
The governor could replace the money, at least temporarily, with funding from the state’s reserves. She is also said to be considering proposing a tax on New York City businesses, which would require the approval of the state Legislature.
Advocates who have been fighting for decades for the program were shocked by the governor’s sudden move and lamented its impact on funding for the city’s subway.
“The whole thing is galactically stupid,” said Pete Sikora, a senior adviser to the climate and anti-poverty group New York Communities for Change. “It’s part of a pattern of this kind of flip-flop.”
Epinephrine injectors, which are used to treat life-threatening allergic reactions, could soon be required at stadiums, ballparks, concert venues and amphitheaters across New York if legislation passed last week is signed into law.
Judge Mark Grisanti, a former state senator and acting State Supreme Court justice in Buffalo who was censured after being seen on video shoving a police officer during a brawl with neighbors, will be replaced on the bench, authorities said.
A City Council bill that would expand the chamber’s ability to block top mayoral hires quietly underwent some significant changes late last week ahead of a high-stakes vote on the measure scheduled for today.
An amended version of the bill publicized by the Council without a formal announcement last Friday — the day after a contentious hearing — lowered the number of commissioner posts that would be added to the advice-and-consent list from 21 to 20.
A couple of the Democrats who could be in the mix for a 2025 primary challenge to Adams are split on the matter of expanding the council’s “advice and consent” powers, however.
In an attempt to smooth over narratives of tension with the City Council, Mayor Adams recalled this week that he and Speaker Adrienne Adams, a childhood friend, have a “great” relationship.
The Adams administration is asking a judge to suspend implementation of the ban on solitary confinement at New York City jails until the federal monitor overseeing the facilities can weigh in.
The City Council will vote today Adams’s plans to update New York City’s zoning rules – the three-part so-called “City of Yes” proposal. His next proposal, to build more housing, could be contentious.
Two of the city’s five borough presidents said they will push to soften parts of Adams’s City of Yes housing plan, in an early sign of the resistance that the wide-ranging reforms will face once they come up for a vote later this year.
Community organizers are condemning Adams’ plans to build a new police training facility in Queens that will cost some $225 million.
Councilmember Lincoln Restler is floating a plan to give new power and added responsibilities to the watchdog agency running the city’s taxpayer-funded campaign matching funds program amid deepening investigations into Adams’ 2021 campaign fundraising.
Health experts are warning of new and highly contagious fungal strains after an NYC man in his 30s developed a sexually transmitted form of ringworm — the first reported case in the US.
Seventeen individuals have been arrested in connection to a thriving network of illegal gambling and loansharking on Staten Island, under the control of the notorious Gambino crime family.
A large swath of Cayuga Lake’s eastern shoreline in Lansing will soon open for public use as an established wildlife management area. The property was formerly known as Bell Station and was owned by NYSEG.
While New York is a beacon for many migrants, with a law guaranteeing shelter and pro-immigration political traditions, its asylum office is also the toughest place to win a claim in the country, records show.
Price Chopper’s parent company will open its new Market 32 stores inside four former ShopRite stores June 14.
After nearly a decade of planning and delays caused by the pandemic, DeFazio’s in within sight of opening a new restaurant as it expands its footprint and business base in the City of Troy’s Little Italy neighborhood.
Broadview Federal Credit Union says its mobile app and online banking systems are now running smoothly after a planned weekend shutdown followed by a tech glitch Monday at one vendors that left many customers without remote account access.
A Troy firefighter is suspended with pay while a burglary case, in which he is accused of stealing from a city home where he had responded to a call, is pending, city and court officials said.
It’s never too soon to start making summer plans and if you’re looking for a fun, affordable family activity, Regal Cinemas just announced the return of its popular Summer Movie Express series.
Famed film composer John Williams has canceled his upcoming Tanglewood engagements amid health concerns.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
