Is the K. Noem/B. Noem/C. Lewandowski drama newsworthy as a kink? Nope. In fact, it seems kinda tame by those standards.
Is it newsworthy (and amusing) b/c it looks hypocritical while Noem has been all about the old-school family values (and xeonphobic "othering") of her party? Sorta. I'm also guessing she was not exactly a champion of queer culture back in South Dakota (raunchy ranches?), but I could be wrong.
Meanwhile, NYC still does not have a balanced budget past its deadline (exactly like during the Eric Adams years, hooray!) and the City Council has basically told Mamdani to go fuck himself w/his not-so-progressive proposals to increase taxes on
all NYC homeowners and/or lower the 50% ceiling on estate taxes for anything valued at over 750K (which equals almost anyone passing any property to their kids paying a rate of 50% tax—b/c fair or not, most NYC real estate is now worth over $750 in 2026, even if you paid $75K on it decades ago, my totally cheap, shitty, rapidly decaying 1950s one-bedroom apartment included).
City Council of NYC wrote:
NEW YORK, NY – Today, the New York City Council published its response to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Preliminary Budget proposal, offering an alternative budgeting path for Fiscal Years (FY) 2026 and 2027. The response provides the necessary resources to fund spending priorities without increasing taxes on property owners and renters, reducing funding for critical services, or drawing down the City’s reserves.
Suffice, to say, our snow-shoveling mayor seems pretty unhappy about this and is acting like he's had a rude awakening. So it looks like he's now proposing... austerity and service cuts! To be continued...