Ida really hit the New York City area hard, killing 41, many of whom drowned in their basement apartments. Here’s a good explainer — one major factor in the catastrophic flooding was that the New York City sewer system wasn’t designed to handle this kind of deluge, and billions of dollars will have to be spent to enhance it. I sure hope Joe Manchin takes his finger off of the pause button long enough to pass the infrastructure bill that will pay for it.
Kathy Hochul has been all over the downstate area, lauding heroes, pledging to spend what it takes to make New York City safer, and generally being a strong presence. This is after she called the legislature back in a special session to pass an eviction moratorium extension she’s already signed, to make open meetings “safer and more accessible” (I think that’s to allow more Zoom meetings) and to confirm nominees to the State Cannabis Board so we can finally get legalized weed retail moving.
AOC has also been busy in her district, which was hard-hit by Ida. Of note is a group of volunteers made about 100,000 check-in calls to residents in her district, in addition to raising $185K to fight the Texas abortion law. I’ve never heard of a Member of Congress organizing what’s essentially a phone tree in their district.
In the mid-80’s Tom Daschle won his first election to Congress by a couple hundred votes. He started the first 1-800 line to Congress for constituent services. It seems commonplace and unremarkable now, but then it was a fairly big deal. A lot of the work on that 1-800 line was simply explaining government to people. If you’ve ever attended a district meeting by a Member of Congress, a lot of their work involves explaining which part of government can solve their problem, and some of it involves solving their problems. The 1-800 line was a simple, easy and free way for someone to interact with their Congressman’s office. I see the work that AOC is doing in her district as another step towards closer engagement between her and her constituents. I wonder if other Members of Congress are doing the same — I’m not seeing it in my district.
Anyway, the chuckle of the day is that Bill de Blasio’s got a piece in Politico yesterday saying that he’s considering a run for governor. The reason that’s funny is that Kathy Hochul is going to be basically living in NYC for the next few days, then she’s going to return to Albany to get a firehose of money pointed at NYC for infrastructure expansion. She’ll have as much or more free, positive media exposure in the NYC market as de Blasio. My prediction is she’ll whup his ass in the primary if he’s dumb enough to run.
Benw
Fucking de Blasio. I hope his next slice is small and lukewarm
germy
I was wondering when the usual suspects would “hillary” the new governor. I mean, if anything, Hochul is a little too prepared.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@germy: What a crock of shit.
Maybe if she took more advice from Joe Manchin, she could slow it down to a crawl.
Spanky
SNORT!
Pull the other one.
germy
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix:
Why can’t she be more like Cuomo?
/
VOR
Meanwhile in my state, all the R’s running for guv in 2022 are running on a pro-COVID platform. They are all arguing the current D governor was a failure, not because too many people died, but because he was a tyrant who impinged on their freedoms.
Ruckus
@VOR:
Awww, just like a dem governor to infringe upon their freedumb to be totally freaking stupid.
Baud
Glad things are going well in NY. (Politically speaking).
randy khan
The AOC disaster response operation is a great model, not least because she’s engaging volunteers and keeping them connected between campaigns.
Edmund Dantes
@randy khan: this. Dems build up huge campaigns structures then let them rot. It’s bizarre.
you see it more at senate and presidential as they happen less often than a house election but use these tools for more than just fundraising
Omnes Omnibus
@randy khan: This sort of thing is why I think that she is by far a net positive for the Dem Party’s future.
Old School
@germy:
For those who didn’t click through to the article:
germy
@Old School:
I disagree with Wolf. Hochul made it clear what they were meeting to vote on. And there was some urgency around evictions.
I think Hochul’s administration will be transparent. Certainly more than Cuomo’s. And definitely more than every Republican governor
And Rob Ortt? I wouldn’t take him seriously. He’s a NY Republican. Of course he’s going to bite at everything Hochul says and does.
Feathers
@Old School: State Minority Leader complains. Boo effin’ hoo. I like that in a parliamentary system the out of power party is called “the opposition.” Sets the right expectations.
dr. bloor
1010 Wins had interviews with Hochul in heavy rotation yesterday. DeBlasio was getting about a minute an hour’s worth of coverage. Whatever the Albany Beltway insiders or their scribes might think, NYC’ers seemed to very much appreciate her pace.
As it happens, I drove into the city yesterday. The usually 30 minute leg from the NY/CT border to the UWS took a little over two hours. They are So Not Ready Yet for what’s coming.
germy
@dr. bloor:
1010 Wins! That really brings back memories.
I haven’t heard it in about three decades. I imagine they’re exactly the same, though. Maybe I’m wrong.
Ken
However it is perfectly Congressional that it’s happening about a hundred years after the technology existed to support it. I am still waiting for Congress to start using document revision tracking software, so we can find out just who put each line into each bill. Of course they may prefer to have deniability.
germy
Exxon Mobil, of course.
Martin
@germy: California passed a state level eviction moratorium just over one year ago. NY has had plenty of time to do this – they didn’t need to rely on the feds and then scramble at the last minute.
germy
@Martin:
We had Cuomo. Dick swinging and feuds. Time wasting power struggles.
Hochul has to play catch up. She’s hit the ground running.
SpectrumNews is happy to play the “some critics are not pleased” game. Fuck them.
WaterGirl
I say this all the time, but taking advice from the other side in politics is like playing volleyball and listening to your opponents and not going after the ball because the other team has yelled “out!”
Shalimar
“Bill de Blasio for Governor: It’s the only way he’ll move”
I want $100k if his campaign uses that slogan.
Martin
AOC is great. I don’t think people realize just how much voter reach she has. It’s massive. More than any other politician I can think of.
Here’s an example. It’s a really odd video of a guy with the handle hbomberguy talking about a DonkeyKong 64 stream he did for charity, and how it got out of hand, turned into a weird social phenomena, and got AOC to call in not long after she joined the House.
The presentation style, kind of humor, references etc. may all seem completely foreign, but this is where you reach young voters, and this space is owned by AOC and to a lesser degree by Ilhan Omar.
Woodrow/asim
Hilariously, I just watched that video a few weeks ago. hbomberguy is actually someone of some small note in the YouTube community. Although he’s arguably must famous for a 2 hour exegesis on how awful the BBC SHERLOCK series is, his bread-and-butter for years was video takedowns on some of the worst of what we now call alt-right folx. Hell, his videos are basically a historical snapshot of that movement thru a funhouse lens.
He doesn’t seem to do a lot of video work, these days.
The Moar You Know
@randy khan: I was not at all sold on her at first.
Now I suspect she’ll be Speaker one day, if she wants it. She gets it. She gets constituent services, she gets seniority, she gets the whole fucking ball of wax. Couple more terms like her last and she’ll have that seat for life. That woman is damned smart.
Central Planning
@germy: Fuck Spectrum1
topclimber
I am a New Yorker via Long Island and then the Capital District. I don’t follow Gotham politics like in the past, so please, some help here:
I am still waiting for the specific reasons “everyone” says di Blasio is a disaster.
I know he first ran on a platform to end stop and frisk, then further pissed off NY Cops Inc. in the first few weeks of his administration by daring to show up at a funeral for officers killed in the line of duty.
I know the NY Post hates him.
I know that after downplaying Covid early on, he called for a NYC lockdown before Handy Andy did, then got shut out of the process by the gov.
I know from people who know the score that he has done more than any of his predecessors to make the Byzantine social services system in the city more accountable.
I know he made efforts to revitalize downtown Brooklyn, which of course means he probably was willing to put up with gentrification, though he may have been more conscientious than most in getting input from local residents.
So, folks, educate me. Besides an oversized ego, that rarest of thing in male politicians in NY, what is so bad about the guy? How come he got laughed off as a Presidential candidate in the last Dem primaries when fracking Mike Bloomberg was given real consideration until EW blasted him off the debate stage?
Please tell me it isn’t because of purity pony BS. Like, was he a schmuck for endorsing Justice Democrats, or for defending Israel, or (ha-ha) both?
Barbara
@topclimber: Bloomberg appealed to media types desperate for a “realist” who wouldn’t raise their taxes. My understanding is that DeBlasio took the opposite approach from that advised by Teddy Roosevelt, and started by talking more loudly than he could back up with a stick and spent a lot of effort walking back promises and spending political capital to make nice with NYPD.
JustRuss
@Old School: Huh, I assumed the NY Coalition for Open Government was a RWNJ front, but they seem to be legit. Still, calling for proper procedure in the midst of a literal disaster seems pretty asinine.
Betty
@topclimber: Our family in Queens were thoroughly fed up with the way he handled school c!osings at the start of the pandemic – all the over the place before he made a decision to close. Now this year refusing to allow any distance learning. His handling of the police situation has also been uneven. Any number of people were upset with his gym habits. I don’t recall the details. That’s all I have.
Another Scott
Relatedly, …
Good, good. More please.
(via CherylRofer)
Cheers,
Scott.
Nicole
@topclimber: He spent a lot of political capital trying to get the carriage horses banned in the city as a payback to the real estate interests (Steve Nislick, et al) that gave him a ton of money for his campaign and kneecapped Christine Quinn, who was the frontrunner until she came out in favor of the carriage horses and then suddenly the “Anyone but Quinn” campaign started. The anti-carriage people here are like anti-abortion protesters- they harass the drivers, they scream at customers going for rides, they doctor photos and put them on the internet claiming they’ve found signs of abuse (the NY Post fell for one of their smear attempts recently). They harassed a woman who provided retirement homes to some of the horses into giving up doing it. In fact, the NYC carriage trade is one of the best regulated in the country, the drivers are union workers and they make a decent blue-collar living (income is listed as ranging from $40,000-$100,000 a year; I’m guessing more of them fall closer to the low end than the high end). But di Blasio spent a lot of time and effort trying to get City Council to ban the 200 or so carriages that provide tourists with a service (and, I say this as a horse lover, keep some former Amish farm horses and retired trotters from the racetrack gainfully employed and out of the slaughter auctions). It wasn’t until the Teamsters publicly came out in opposition that the situation was dropped (although the horses were moved to a location inside the park that frankly, isn’t as good for their long-term health). But NYCLASS is still out harassing drivers and screaming and waving signs in animals’ faces. And he did all this with so many other issues in the city being much more in need of attention, including the state of the animal shelters dealing with all the unwanted dogs and cats. It was absolutely bizarre, and one of the few times the Daily News, Post and Times were all in agreement on the same issue (that it was stupid to be doing this). A majority of NYCers were against banning the carriages.
I have assumed since then he is utterly beholden to real estate interests, who found a candidate willing to try to get the stables closed so they could grab the land, and backed him. And he has absolutely terrible political instincts because he came across looking like a douchecanoe, what with absolutely refusing to meet with any of the carriage drivers or visit the stables he claimed were so awful, and as a failure, since he also claimed the carriage horses would be gone on day one of his administration.
There are other things he did that have been okay, really, but this was an incredibly dumb move for him to lead off his time in the office with.
Peale
Hasn’t stopped 1010wins from finding the cranks to complain that they only see government office holders when there is a disaster.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@The Moar You Know:
It’s a D +25 seat.
She wanted Bernie Sanders to be the Democratic nominee and she thought Nina Turner should be in Congress.
When Joe Biden beat Bernie Sanders in South Carolina, she referred to the older, African-American voters who voted for Biden as the corporate wing of the party.
Another Scott
@Nicole: Thanks for that.
From afar (here in NoVA), his personal family story could have been one that united New Yorkers, but he seemed to have no idea of how to be a sensible politician and take advantage of it once he won the election.
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@Old School:
“It’s too hard to read words!!!” Wah, wah, wah.
topclimber
@Barbara:
@Betty:
@Nicole:
Thanks for filling me in. Last time I asked this question I got crickets.
The only thing I know about campaign finance violations was that Preet Bhara was investigating him for it but never filed charges.
Geminid
@Another Scott: A similar permitless concealed carry law is under consideration by the Ohio legislature.
Ken
We had those in the morning thread, but it turned out to be slightly faked.
Quiltingfool
Trae Crowder has thoughts re Manchin and the deficit…
twitter.com/traecrowder/status/1433882691770871808?s=20
Jay C
One of those long-standing – if odd and/or unusual – principles of American politics is that NO Mayor of New York City EVER gets elected to any higher (or even other) office.I think the last one that did was some time back around the Civil War.
And it doesn’t look like Bill DiBlasio is likely to be bucking that trend any time soon….
Soprano2
The rain NYC got was bonkers. No system could handle over 3″ of rain an hour – no one builds for that storm event. I’ve heard engineers here talk about how the storm events need to be updated, because the 5 year 60 minute rain event isn’t the same as it was 50 years ago, so you can’t model with it anymore. Trust me, any city would have flooded during that rain event.
frosty
Storm drains are designed for the historic 10-year (10% chance of occurring) rainfall. No drainage system could handle that event. Stormwater engineers are trying to figure out what design criteria will need to be used based in climate (and weather) change.
eddie blake
@topclimber: besides ditching the city to tilt at windmills in a hopeless quest for the presidency? besides spending years measuring dicks with cuomo instead of getting down to the business of governing and solving problems?
he let the cops beat him. when they turned their backs on him during the funeral for the two assassinated police officers, he should’ve fired the lot of them on the spot.
with the corrupt cop culture decapitated, lots of new yorkers would’ve leapt at the opportunity to fill out the ranks and have a department that reflected the city it policed.
instead, he knuckled under and endorsed pretty much every NYPD escalation through his term, and turned a blind eye to how they handled the BLM protests. he gave carte blanche for many fascist-adjacent groups to go wilding throughout the boroughs. he let the fucking cops drive SUVs through crowds of protesters without so much as a peep.
fuck deblasio. he came in like a liberal titan and is going out like a little, petty garden gnome.
topclimber
@eddie blake: I appreciate the feedback.
As for the relationship with Cuomo, I tend to blame the governor more in this both sides do it game.
There was no doubt Andrew was a comfort to many in the days of his daily COVID updates. I particularly remember when he used the forum to start a six-state consortium to aim at common pandemic responses.
As part of the rollout, he had each governor ask questions, including the governor of Delaware, a state with less than a million people in it. By the time they got to him, there was nothing left to say.
For some reason, Andrew did not think an appearance was in order by the mayor of the city then in the epicenter of the plague, with a population of 8.4 million.
OK, I get it. This was about states in the region. But did the governor ever invite the mayor to appear for more than a cameo?
Soprano2
@frosty: We’ve put in some permeable pavement here. Every little bit helps. Several years ago they said we had $75 million of unmet stormwater drainage needs. I’m sure it’s worse now.