Hey, remember this guy? Brock Pierce, former child actor (career highlight: he’s the 27th listed actor in the credits for The Mighty Ducks) turned failed tech entrepreneur turned crypto billionaire turned wannabe political mastermind? The guy with a long track record of associating with [alleged] pedophiles (hey, Epstein!) and living in the gray areas of the law?

The guy who tried to run for Pat Leahy’s U.S. Senate seat in 2022 despite his apparent residence in Puerto Rico? (And whose campaign — which never actually materialized — was managed by none other than Ben Kinsley, centrist political actor best known for his tenure at the ineffectual pseudo-centrist policy shop Campaign for Vermont?) At the time, I dubbed Pierce “Richie Rich” in homage to Rich Tarrant, the original rich guy who wanted to buy one of Vermont’s Senate seats — and because the now middle-aged Pierce looks exactly like a wealthy child all growed up.

Well, he’s back, and standing resolutely at the side of… disgraced New York City Mayor Eric Adams.

You just can’t make this shit up.

For those who need reminding, Adams won the NYC mayoralty in 2021 by taking a plurality in a dogpile Democratic primary and immediately began inspiring buyer’s remorse among the electorate. Let’s just say he was a bad, corrupt administrator who cut a clownish figure in public. He was universally despised by the time this year’s election season began. After initially planning to run as an independent, he withdrew from the race on September 28 in the face of polls that gave him single-digit support.

Less than a week before Adams’ withdrawal, Pierce made a $1.1 million donation to a pro-Adams political action committee. And after Adams stepped aside, Pierce doubled down this week in a “chaotic,” “bizarre press conference” in which he castigated “the blindness of this city,” asserted that “like George Washington, Eric Adams would be called back again,” and vowed to launch a “Draft Eric Back” movement. The presser, according to Landon Manning of beincrypto.com, “featured harebrained electoral schemes, veiled threats to Adams’ advisors, and other such whimsical asides.”

It was the same sociopathic brand of whimsicality that characterized his non-campaign for Senate in Vermont. He abandoned that effort before ever launching it (but after spending at least $600,000 on it) apparently for tax reasons; Pierce lives in Puerto Rico because it gives huge tax breaks to wealthy people who live in PR for at least 183 days per year. He couldn’t maintain his tax haven and still qualify to run for office in Vermont, and he chose to vote with his bulging pocketbook.

Anyway, sorry to see this schmo grace a political stage once again, and happy as hell it has nothing to do with Vermont.