Quit pro quo?

There may be times when the goat gets the better of the Komodo Dragon, but don't bet on it.

Just as precarious a wager is that any given politician will repel the tantalizations of ambition and choose to sacrifice the temptations of personal enrichment in order to uphold higher principles of honor and duty.

Governor Kathy Hochul is reportedly considering removing Mayor Eric Adams because of "extremely concerning and serious" potential evidence that he caved to Immigration and Customs Enforcement's demand to be allowed access to Rikers Island for the purpose of processing and deporting known violent criminals deemed illegal aliens.

Rikers is part of our "sanctuary city," and Adams' concession makes him an apostate to Democrat orthodoxy on this issue. That incenses power brokers who are crucial to her 2026 election campaign against a backdrop of ominous poll numbers.

As a survivalist she knows what she must do: jockey and ingratiate.

Adams' change of heart coincided, the optics indicate probably by design, with the Department of Justice dropping multiple counts of corruption that had been lodged against him after many months of investigation. The DOJ has chosen to put the case to sleep, not to death. Charges can be revived. 

Contingent on what?

Extending an olive branch to save one's hide is a fair exchange, though not the most sublime motivation. Adams may be leasing his soul, not selling it.

If Hochul boots Adams, will it be for "just cause," or just because?

This is a critical crossroads for the governor. Since her ascendency to the governorship, she has never before been in such throes of indecision. She apparently never gave a thought to canning district attorneys who exercised prosecutorial discretion as a mask for ideological vindication. Crime victims and their survivors lament that.

But Hochul won't play roulette with political third rails. She doesn't want to get burned.

Suppose Adams had defied ICE, been prosecuted, and eventually found guilty of corruption. Would she have been as upset at the mayor for his proven wrongdoings as she is now, having yielded to ICE, though according to the law he remains innocent of former allegations?

Hochul's indignation at Mayor Adam's coerced but limited concession to federal authority is inspired — and perhaps precipitated by — the City Council. Among them are most of the City Council and four NYC deputy mayors who resigned in protest of Adams' perceived partnership with Tom Homan. Several federal prosecutors have quit as well, because of the conjectured covert deal. Among them are Hagan Scotten and Danielle Sassoon, former Interim United States Attorney for the Southern District.

"No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them back again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives," said Scotten.

Doing as told would have made him a fool or coward, he felt. I don't know whether his suppositions are valid, but he sounds like a man of conscience.

Except for lunatic fringes and compulsive watchdogs of "slippery slopes," whom we should have the bravery to discount, nobody objects to the lawful removal of known rapists, arsonists, kidnappers, slaughterers and drug traffickers.

But ICE should be frozen out of schools. They are not Rikers Island annexes. There must be no "random sweeps."

Citing New York State Executive Order 170.1, United Federation of Teachers (UFT) President Michael Mulgrew, notes "civil arrests by federal immigration authorities can take place in schools or other state institutions only when accompanied by a judicial warrant" and subjected individuals must be specifically identified. Although federal law prevails over the laws of the state, it cannot do so from an unconstitutional impetus.

Is government overreach at a turning point, as many federal employees are being impaled on its "fork in the road?” That ridiculous phrase is what the government calls its charm offensive to effectively compel workers to voluntarily fire themselves. The fork is a dagger.

Tens of thousands have taken the "deferred retirement" bait, which provides eight months' severance pay for employees who cut themselves loose within a tight time frame. If they don't, they can be fired anyway, with no payout. 

Although their job performance is not whatsoever a factor in their sacking, the government told them “Your Agency finds, based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the Agency would be in the public interest.” Too lazy and callous to even revise the template language.

They could have painlessly downsized the government by means of a multi-year hiring freeze combined with two annual "open seasons" with a retirement incentive. Promises made. Threats kept.

Elon Musk, who has a hundred million dollars for every corpuscle in a human body, is a colorful, idiosyncratic and anomalous genius, which doesn't help endear him. While he is burning calories with the metabolism of a shrew to downsize the workforce, might his own companies' contracts with the government be collaterally upsizing? Even if his SpaceX shares research and joint ventures with NASA, they are inherent rivals.

Have there been any blind trusts or divestments? Musk reportedly has access to critically sensitive data bases, including that of the IRS. Did he undergo the full protocol of the normally mandated security clearance, which includes disclosure or actual or potential conflicts of interest?

Oligarchs can be savvy switch hitters. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, longtime anti-MAGA conspirator, moves with the times and pivots to the side on which his bread is buttered. He is putting his hi-tech empire at the disposal of the Oval Office and sternly disciplining any of his employees who have not done a synchronized about-face with him.

Advocates of shrinking the government are sometimes not averse to government overreach, when it massages their agenda. Perhaps the following is a segue too far, but we have arrived. 

The federal government can erase, but they cannot annul. It has rubbed out the "T' and "Q" on all its agency websites, data sets and communications. That includes the National Park Service's website for the Stonewall Inn, where the revolutionary movement for sexual inclusion and tolerance began.

All references to "transgender" and "queer" have been expunged. Or as they see it, purged. They can scrub the letter, but not the legacy.

Reasonable people may differ on the government's advocacy role, if any, but they cannot dispute the right of recognizing people's existence. It is very dangerous to meddle with language. First, we write off words. Then we write off humanity.

The English language, with its range, power and precision, is a living organism. It grows. Government edicts cannot stunt it. Many years ago, the word "unkind" signified beneath mankind or worthiness of being human. Now, like ancient dinosaurs living on as modern pigeons, the word's meaning is just a tad harsher than “discourteous.”

The Administration seems to adjudge transgender and queer people as "unkind." Shakespeare would have understood and wept.