An interesting article in The Forward yesterday about the apparently serious attempt by Hitler’s Nazis to move Europe’s Jews to Madagascar. When that proved impossible, only one course remained: round them up and kill them.

It was an interesting article, although I don’t think their analogy to what the Germans were up to and what Trump is suggesting for Gazans is at all the same. But it did remind me that there is a large province in southern Mozambique (I know it’s not Madagascar, but it’s close) called Gaza, a coincidence that the article did not mention.

But it is easy, is it not, to confuse Gaza in Palestine with Gaza in Mozambique? It is for one obvious reason: they are both Gaza. As I understand it, it was confusion between the two that led someone (someone named Donald Trump) to say that USAID had given $50 million to Gaza in Palestine for condoms. In fact (and I can’t swear to the amount of money) that the funds for condoms were going to Gaza in Mozambique, not Gaza in Palestine.

Now, some might say: “What’s the difference? We should not be using taxpayer money to buy condoms for either place.” Well, that’s wrong. And that is because distributing condoms is one of the important aspects of our assistance to countries in danger of AIDS epidemics, as condoms not only prevent pregnancies, but prevent STDs. So, the criticism was not well placed, although its erroneous premise has not been countered on a wide enough spread basis.

I am interested in the apparently upcoming Egyptian proposal for the reconstruction of Gaza (in Palestine) without displacement. I am interested in what the redone Gaza would look like, what the economic base would become, who would be in control of all of this, how (if?) Hamas will be out of the picture, and how things would be arranged to involve Israel (still the site of the major routes in and out of Gaza) and to make both Israelis and Gazans feel that further fighting was out of the question so that the Strip would not be rebuilt only to be destroyed once again. It will be quite a trick.

Of course, I can’t not mention Danielle Sassoon, now the former acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and her example of integrity in action when she resigned her position after she was asked to dismiss without prejudice the pending case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, without any concern as to the merits of the case. And then five high and very high ranking DOJ officials in Washington, who were also asked to involve themselves in this matter, also resigned.

We will see where all this will go. The case, which was apparently transferred from the SDNY to Main Justice, has still not been dropped. They will need to find someone ready to sign the request rather than resign their position.

And, then, if a request to drop the case is submitted to a judge, what will he/she do under the circumstances? Apparently, the judge can accept or reject the request, or can even engage a special prosecutor. That’s what I have heard on the news.

There are at least two other facets to this. First, the quid pro quo. Apparently, Adams’ lawyer told the DOJ attorneys that, if the case were dropped, Adams would fully cooperate with the Trump agenda. Not good  that, a swap of political loyalty for criminal exculpation. And it was more than talk. Reportedly Adams let, or said he would let, ICE agents into Ruykers Island prison to search for undocumented prisoners,  an apparent violation of New York law.

Second is the question of whether all Southern District prosecutors who worked on the case would be fired, just as the DC US Atty office prosecutors, and maybe the FBI  agents, who worked on the Jan 6 cases were, or will be, fired. I ask you – what is  more wrong or unfair as this?

And then, I guess, there is a third facet. NY governor Hochul apparently, under state law, can remove Adams as mayor. Last night, she said it was under consideration.

I saw New York City Controller, and mayoral candidate, Brad Lander on Chris Hayes’ show on MSNBC. He spoke well. Brad is the son and nephew of old (yes) St. Louis friends and deserves everyone’s support.

I am starting to read The Breach, by Former Congressman Denver Riggleman about the Jan 6 investigation, with which he was involved. I have already read Liz Cheney’s Oath and Honor about the committee’s work, which is an extraordinarily good book that I highly recommend.

Elon the Musk met with Prime Minister Modi of Ibdia today. Trump was asked whether Musk was meeting with Modi as a representative of the American government, or on the basis of his personal business interests. I paraphrase when I say Trump responded by saying “I don’t know”. Even surprised me. Particularly since it came after Trump’s comment that no one should worry about Musk, because Trump is watching what he is doing very carefully.

A lot more happened today, but you know that. What you don’t know is that I finally finished reading Stanley Karnow’s Paris in the Fifties, and I expect to talk about it when I get tired of writing about Trump. The final chapters I read today were on the French parliament (the French parliament in the 1950s was frighteningly similar to our Congress today), and the disintegration of the French colonial empire in North Africa. Reading this last chapter might give Expansionist Trump second thoughts.

Time for a totally different subject? At my Thursday morning breakfast group, I heard one of its members give a very good presentation on the breaking of the German and Japanese secret codes during World War II as a result of the work done at Bletchley in the U.K.

The Bletchley story is an amazing one, which may scholars believe did shorten the war and decrease the number of casualties in some places as the war ended. I knew that the entire operation was secret, just as the development of the A-bomb here was kept secret; clearly, this type of secrecy would be impossible today for all sorts of reasons. What I did not know is that there were 9,000 people employed at Bletchley. My reaction to that? What would Elon Musk do? He’d have closed in down immediately. Waste, fraud and abuse, he would conclude (he would conclude that before he set foot on the ground).

Until tomorrow.