Knowing LA as I do, I didn't dare hope that a guy like Spencer Pratt actually had a chance of winning and becoming Mayor. But I must admit, I let my guard down, and I began to care about how the race turned out. Well, now we know.
Prominent conservative commentator Ann Coulter hammered President Donald Trump Sunday night over what she labeled as his “absolute worst” act of selfishness she’d witnessed yet, one that’s expected to inconvenience thousands of Americans.On Friday, Trump confirmed that he planned to attend the NBA Finals game in New York between the San Antonio Spurs and the New York Knicks, scheduled to kick off Monday night. As such, the thousands of attendees will have to adhere to a “strict-no bag policy” and be subjected to “TSA-style screening procedures,” CNBC reported.“Of all the selfish, narcissistic things Trump has done, attending [Madison Square Garden] to see the Knicks play in person Monday night is the absolute worst,” Coulter, an early backer of Trump, wrote Sunday night in a social media post on X to her more than 2.1 million followers.“20,000 attendees will be MASSIVELY inconvenienced for all the extra security, the Knicks Watch Party at Garden is canceled, thousands of extra law enforcement officers will be required (paid for by taxpayers), traffic will be a disaster – all so he can sit in the Garden rather than watch the game on TV.”Panelists on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” predicted Monday that Trump will receive a less-than-friendly reception from sports fans while attending the event, with host Jonathan Lemire expecting a “volume of boos” should they show the president “on the jumbotron.”In addition to her criticism, Coulter also offered Trump a piece of advice.“Presidents ought to be willing to sacrifice once in a while,” she wrote.Of all the selfish, narcissistic things Trump has done, attending MSG to see the Knicks play in person Monday night is the absolute worst. 20,000 attendees will be MASSIVELY inconvenienced for all the extra security, the Knicks Watch Party at Garden Is canceled, thousands of… pic.twitter.com/oQyVbvRQRn— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) June 8, 2026
It will take about a month for Los Angeles to finally count all of its votes, but we already have some good news and bad news in the city’s race for mayor. It starts with the bad news: Mayor Karen Bass has advanced to the top two runoff. Bass has been an undeniable failure, particularly […]
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Sávio Bortolini Pimentel just missed getting on the roster to represent his national team, Brazil, at the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the United States. At the time, he was a 20-year-old professional player with the Rio de Janeiro […]
I’m guessing you have a pretty good idea of what Graham Platner was getting up to last week—fending off yet another round of allegations about his character. But what about Susan Collins, Maine’s incumbent GOP senator and the person almost sure to be Platner’s opponent this November? You probably didn’t hear a word about her. The only significant news story of the week in which she figured (aside from being mentioned in all the Platner stories) is that she cast her 10,000th consecutive vote in the Senate—a milestone, to be sure, but something of a double-edged one as it serves to remind voters that she’s been in the Senate since Christ left Chicago.This is just how Collins wants things. As long as the subject is Platner’s boozing and his ex-girlfriends, Collins may skate to reelection. So, the key thing Platner has to do, assuming he wins tomorrow’s primary and stays in the race, is to maneuver things such that come October, the topic is Collins’s record, not his past.We’ll get to that record in a bit, but first, let’s deal with the Platner question. Two big stories came out last week. The first was about his sexting with several women in the early days of his current marriage. He married Amy Gertner in 2023. Early in the campaign, Gertner told an aide who was a friend about the messages, and the friend—now presumably an ex-friend—told a lot of people and shared some screen grabs with The New York Times. Gertner denounced the friend, Genevieve McDonald, and defended her husband and marriage. On that one, I think your average person would say Well, if his wife doesn’t care, why should I?The second story was potentially more damaging and concerned Platner allegedly twisting the arm of a former girlfriend and slamming a door shut on her; also, that he “regularly grabbed her by the shoulders,” according to The New York Times, which broke the story last Thursday. It’s disturbing, no doubt. It’s worth noting that this woman is, or was at the time, apparently a very committed conservative Republican—the cofounder of “Ladies for Kavanaugh,” which she formed to confront what she termed the “baseless, 11th-hour accusations orchestrated to stop [the justice’s] confirmation.” (One question the Times left on the table but crossed my mind and maybe yours was how Platner could have said “you are literally everything to me” to someone who, according to Newsweek, worked at the Heritage Foundation at the time.)Two other exes told the Times of similar treatment from Platner. On the other hand, “several” other exes (dude got around!) described him as “a fun and caring partner,” and some remain friends with him to this day. Platner denies all the physical stuff, so someone is lying.Personally, I don’t know what to make of the guy. I suspect he’s not telling the truth about his Nazi tattoo and I’d bet you that he knew what it meant, but I also don’t think that makes him a Nazi. He has obviously lived a life that we would at the very least call picaresque. Balzac would have had fun with him. There’s also the question of, as it is often said in politics, what else is out there. Any good campaign—and Susan Collins does run good campaigns—knows to sit on the really bad stuff until after Labor Day, although campaigns can’t always control when things are disclosed, and anyway, all the revelations about Platner seem to be coming from establishment Democrats who are unnerved by his lefty swagger.There’s a lot we don’t know, and a chance we’ll find out all about it. I do, however, know these two things. One, Platner is almost certain to be the Democratic nominee. Two, short of revelations involving murder, rape, or a taste for child pornography, Platner needs to be backed by Democrats to the hilt. That may seem like a really low bar, and maybe it is. But I’m less interested in his personal life than I am in Collins’s public one, because that’s what really matters here.So let us now return to the question of Collins’s week. The Senate cast a bunch of votes last week. And Collins did what she always does when she’s up for reelection—she voted with the Democrats on the ones people pay attention to, and as a Republican on the others. There were a number of votes related to Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund. On most of those, like this one for example, she was one of maybe two or three Republicans (Thom Tillis and Bill Cassidy, who are both retiring) voting with the Democrats. On other less highly visible matters, though, she went with her party and with Trump. Last Wednesday, the Senate rejected a resolution that would have overturned Trump’s rollback of Biden-era emissions standards for coal- and oil-fired power. She went party-line on that one. The day before, she voted to confirm a federal judge for Kansas who, at his confirmation hearing, refused to say that Trump lost the 2020 election. Ah, judges: This brings us to where Platner needs to direct attention in this campaign.
Former reality TV star Spencer Pratt was on track to advance to the November general election for mayor of Los Angeles against incumbent Karen Bass. However, over the weekend, third-place challenger L.A. City Councilwoman Nithya Raman began to make substantial gains amid California’s week-long vote-counting process.Pratt appeared to have a strong lead over Raman on Wednesday, one day after the election, with over 40,000 more votes. That lead slowly shrank over the next several days, dropping to a 33,000-vote lead on Friday.'43,000, huh? Where have I seen that number before...?'Raman jumped from roughly 111,000 votes on Wednesday to 197,000 as of Monday morning, allowing her to squeak past Pratt by just over 3,000 votes, according to the Associated Press.“On election night, Pratt led Raman by about 40,000 votes — roughly a 10-point advantage,” KTTV reporter Matthew Seedorff stated. “As of tonight, Raman now leads Pratt by about 3,100 votes, a net swing of more than 43,000 votes since Tuesday.”“43,000, huh? Where have I seen that number before...?” Pratt replied in a post on social media, sharing a screenshot of a March article about the 43,699 homeless people living in Los Angeles. “Probably nothing.”Nearly one week after Election Day, California has counted only 83% of the votes.The AP has not yet reported who will go head-to-head with Bass in the runoff race.RELATED: Spencer Pratt and Nithya Raman shrink Karen Bass’ lead in tight race for LA mayor: Poll Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times/Getty ImagesThe final polls leading up to the election showed the three candidates separated by a few points.A survey conducted May 19-24 by the University of California Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times gave Bass just a one-point lead over Raman and a four-point lead over Pratt, which the Times referred to as “statistically insignificant” for the incumbent mayor.When asked which issues matter most to them, nearly all of the surveyed Pratt supporters expressed concern about waste and political corruption, as well as crime and public safety. Meanwhile, Bass and Raman supporters, who provided similar responses, stated that they prioritize protecting immigrants, moving the homeless indoors, and building more affordable housing.RELATED: Democrats unleash ‘secret weapon’ to go after Spencer Pratt in a last-ditch effort to end his campaign HIGHFIVE/Bauer-Griffin/GC ImagesWhile the mayoral race is nonpartisan, Pratt, a registered Republican, has run an impressive campaign in the Democratic stronghold city where only 15% of the population is registered as Republican.Voters will begin receiving mail-in ballots for the general election in early October.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) and Democrat Nithya Raman are projected to face off to lead the country’s second largest city this November, according to Decision Desk HQ. With 87 percent of votes in, Bass is at 34.68 percent, and Raman is at 27.12 percent, according to Decision Desk HQ. The June 2 results…
