ABSOLUTE POWER: In the same week in which he’s been accused of being a fascist, Donald Trump said yesterday that if he becomes president again he would immediately fire Special Counsel Jack Smith who has run the two federal criminal cases against the former president.

   “Oh, it’s so easy. It’s so easy,” Trump said to conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt when asked whether he would “pardon yourself” or “fire Jack Smith.” The former president replied, “I would fire him within two seconds.”  Smith was appointed by the current Attorney general Merrick Garland who was appointed by President Joe Biden.

  Smith is appealing the decision by a federal judge in Florida to drop the secret documents case and is still prosecuting the election meddling case against Trump. Firing Smith would clear the way for a new Trump Justice Department to abandon both indictments.

  Trump is also stepping up his promise to use presidential power to deport millions of immigrants who illegally entered the country. He has described plans for massive roundups, building detainment camps, and diverting part of the military budget to pay for it.

BY THE NUMBERS: The final New York Times pre-election poll has Kamala Harris and Donald Trump deadlocked at 48 percent of the national vote. The average of other polls in recent days has Harris up by 1 percent.

  The Real Clear Politics average gives Harris an edge of just .3 percent. But RCP has Donald Trump leading by just a hair in the seven battleground states. 

THE BROTHERS MENENDEZ: Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón announced  yesterday that he ask a court to re-sentence the infamous Menendez brothers who are spending life in prison for murdering their parents in 1989, possibly leading to their release. 

  Gascón said, “I believe that they have paid their debt to society.” He said he would ask the court on to resentence the brothers to a murder charge that comes with the possibility of parole. That means they might be let go with time served.

  The brothers have drawn renewed attention this year after Netflix released a docudrama and an documentary about their case.

  The Menendez brothers shot-gunned their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion. In their defense back at the time Lyle and Erik Menendez, now 56 and 53, had said they were sexually molested by their father … that their mother knew about it … and feared for their lives after confronting their parents. Their first trial ended in a hung jury, and their second, with some evidence of molestation eliminated from the defense, resulted in their conviction.  

  Gascón, now cites a letter Erik wrote to a cousin before the murders describing his anxiety over the molestation and other mitigating evidence. Gascón, however, is in danger of losing his bid for re-election. 

BIG MAC: Lawsuits have already been filed against the McDonald’s hamburger chain after dozens of customers were infected with E. Coli in ten states and killing one of them. The McDonald’s chain now says that the culprit was the onions on its Quarter Pounder hamburger provided by a company called Taylor Farms. Meanwhile, Taylor Farms says it has not found E. Coli in their onions or the processing equipment.

THE BOYS OF SUMMER: The World Series between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers opens tonight at Dodger Stadium.  This is the first time the Yankees and Dodgers have faced each other in the Series since 1981.

  Game two is tomorrow in LA and game three is Monday in New York.

THE OBIT PAGE: Actor Ron Ely, best known for playing an updated version of the vine-swinging jungle man on the 1960s television show “Tarzan,” died on September 29th near Santa Barbara, California at age 86.

  Tall, handsome, and better built than Johnny Weissmuller, for better and sometimes worse Ely was branded as Tarzan. It took him a while to get other work after the show went off the air. But he went on to become a dependable supporting actor in the 1970s through the ’90s is such television shows as “The Love Boat,” “Marcus Welby, M.D.,” “Fantasy Island” and “Hawkeye.” 

  Ely’s life was marred by tragedy in 2019 when his son Cameron stabbed and killed his mother, Valerie Lundeen Ely, and the  Santa Barbara police shot and killed Cameron. 

  Ely for years avoided his Tarzan fans and being branded in the role but ultimately relented. “I came to realize that there were people that connected me so totally with the character that if I rejected it, it meant I would be abandoning them,” he told an interviewer. “I eventually re-embraced it. I came around.”

THE SPIN RACK:  American Airlines says it is testing methods for cutting down on “gate lice,” the selfish passengers who jump the line and get on the plane before their boarding group is called. Generally the gate lice are trying to get space in the overhead bins so they won’t have to check a bag. — Saudi Arabia has broken ground for what it promises to be “the world’s largest building” in the capital city of Riyadh. It would be a giant cube with a volume of 20 Empire State buildings and just, oh, so tasteful. — Neiman Marcus has dropped the word “Christmas” from its over-the-top December gift catalogue calling it instead a “Holiday Book.” 

BELOW THE FOLD: Right wing media personality Tucker Carlson took the stage Wednesday at a Turning Point Action rally in Georgia furiously telling the crowd that daddy’s coming home and “He’s pissed!” Dad, of course is Donald Trump … or at least he is to Tucker Carlson. He told the crowd. “Dad is pissed. … And when dad gets home, you know what he says? ‘You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl, and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now.‘” 

  Well then. Now we know what Tucker Carlson is into.

-30-