This will be quick because I’m on a wifi connection that should be a crime against humanity.
Anyway, it’s clear that Eric Adams is very corrupt, and to me, it’s absolutely disqualifying that any mayor would override his Fire Chief to have the FD certify a high-rise as being safe to occupy when it’s full of violations that could endanger the lives of the people in it as well as firefighters — especially in NYC. And anyone with two eyes and a functioning brain can tell he did it — the evidence is overwhelming.
But if you read the statements from the leading Democrats in New York: Jeffries, Hochul (what a disappointment she is), Schumer and others, they’re all saying “let the system play out” blah, blah, blah.
AOC, of course, no surprise, got it right and called for him to resign, and Adams had the gall to criticize her constituent service (which, from all evidence I’ve seen, is gold standard.)
This embarrassment needs to go and he needs to go now. Fucking Fox is going to have a field day with him anyway, but at least New York Democrats can show a smidgen of leadership and tell him to get the fuck out.
New York isn’t in play, but our Congressional Districts are key to a trifecta. We fucked the rest of the party last cycle when we lost some very winnable seats. We can’t do that again.
Jon Ossoff, Always Doing the Work
rikyrah
This is in Hochul’s court. I’m sort of amazed that a Governor can straight up fire the Mayor of a City, but, it seems to be true.
She needs to get rid of him.
Old School
laura
AOC is in the right and the NY Governor continues to step on every possible rake.
Im busy this afternoon hate-watching the last A’s game at Oakland Coliseum. Im never getting over how the citizens of Oakland have had the economic and cultural rug pulled out from under them since the moderization of the port, the loss of blue collar jobs, and all their sport teams.
alquitti
How long before he throws in with trump? “We’re both fighters!”
Ishiyama
@alquitti: a New York minute.
prostratedragon
@laura: Adding more insult, I understand they’re destined to become the Las Vegas Broilers in a year or two.
FNWA
I’m not a city dweller but close in Westchester Suburb so I have opinions. If you are semi awake and read the FTFNYT, you have to know they’ve got him dead to rights and he needs to be gotten rid of.
Baud
The NY Dems do seem like the Boeing of state Dem parties.
SatanicPanic
Disappointing that leadership feels like they need to protect this man. Throw him out guys. Anyone else who is behaving in this way should be thrown out too. The cause is always greater than any one politician.
laura
@prostratedragon: OakVegas. In the meantime, the A’s will play in our sweet little triple A River Cats park and that is causing some big feelings.
Sure Lurkalot
Letting the system play out in New York is how we got President Trump. He paid no price for screwing over his suppliers and contractors and his tax dodges and he gamed the legal system with appeals and delays to outlast his victims. For all that, he was deemed a genius in his own mind and his cult today believes he is just a consummate businessman.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: Born and raised in NY and will soon turn 69, and that statement would be true at almost any point in my life.
Baud
OT, Via reddit, planetary photo of Helene.
Omnes Omnibus
The closest I have come to being a New Yorker is living in Fairfield County, CT, so I don’t have much to say on the topic but I thought I would pass on that Valdivia, who has been a NYer, is calling for the NY Democratic Party to be burned to the ground. And she tends toward being an institutionalist. FWIW.
West of the Rockies
@Baud:
Florida on line one…
rikyrah
These are paper and money crimes. The receipts are there. They got him.
I gotta ask…
where’s the $10 million?
rikyrah
@Sure Lurkalot:
Sigh…
Gonna point out the obvious.
Adams is Black.
Period.
Steve LaBonne
@West of the Rockies: Learned-helplessness parties like FL and OH are bad, but the party in blue NY whose leaders have long history of making crooked deals with Republicans to insure that nothing too progressive happens is worse.
CaseyL
NYC is just a strange place. We had a discussion about it the other day. It’s a very old city, with numerous ossified power centers. Practically a textbook example of “been corrupt forever, will probably continue to be.”
Chicago’s another place like that.
New Jersey is famously corrupt (Hi, former Senator Menendez!) but possibly not as flamboyant about it. The Mob was there, early and often and big time, but mostly in Atlantic City rather than the state capital. New Jerseyites, please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong!
Red State cities are corrupt, too, but mostly along a racial and Good Ol’ Boy axis. More about skimming money from their citizens, less about taking international bribes and messing with municipal codes (which, if they have any, simply aren’t enforced anyway).
This is something I’ve thought about for many years, because NE Democrats have thrown out some whoppers of corruption (Menendez and Torricelli just being two famous examples). The thing is, their constituents generally like them because they still do decent, if not great, constituent service, and they generally make sure their districts or states get a full share of Federal dollars.
That strikes me as the difference between the two parties, in terms of corruption. Democrats are corrupt, but will make sure their constituents are taken care of. Republicans are corrupt, and don’t give a shit about their constituents.
rikyrah
OT: it’s almost 5 pm EST.
Nothing from Jack Smith?
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
They’re creepy and they’re kooky
Mysterious and spooky
They’re all together ooky
The Addams family
Steve LaBonne
@CaseyL: People who go ballistic when someone says we need a sane and competent Republican Party need to reflect on the inevitable bad results of long-term one-party rule.
prostratedragon
I actually had to think twice about this:
rikyrah
Marshall Cohen
@MarshallCohen
NEWS: pro-Trump channel Newsmax has settled a major 2020 election defamation lawsuit with Smartmatic, in a last-minute agreement to avoid a high-stakes trial that posed a significant financial risk to the cable outlet, according to a court official. https://cnn.com/2024/09/26/media/newsmax-smartmatic-trial-2020-election-defamation/index.html
alquitti
@rikyrah: So he’ll be the poor man’s Clarence Thomas. The repugs can always use another Black trophy guy.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
I think those people have a fantasy that the Dems will split in two along centrist/progressive lines. I’m not sure I’ve heard an explanation of what happens to the millions of faithful Republican voters in that scenario.
Dave
@Omnes Omnibus: Central New Yorker and the NYS Democratic Party is a dumpster fire for a variety of reasons.
Aided and abbetted by the fact that the NYS GOP is of course completely bugfuck and viscious
No idea how to fix it but it already cost us the house in 2022 so I’m not pleased.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: In the minds of the people who think that? I am assuming reeducation camps.
Kent
It is the whole fucking state party, not just NYC. First we had Cuomo playing footsies with a GOP legislature and turncoat dems to undermine the party. Then we had a redistricting fiasco that gave up too many GOP seats. Then we had an electoral fiasco of Dems losing seats they should have one to people like George Santos.
Then we had the fiasco of Hochul killing congestion pricing on behalf of out of state commuters. That one is a fucking mystery to me. In no other state in the union would a governor disadvantage his or her own voters to advantage out of state interests. I live in the PNW. Can you imagine the governor of Oregon disadvantaging Oregonians to advantage out-of-state California interests? No you cannot because it would be absolutely inconceivable. Or say the governor of Colorado doing the same to advantage Texans over local Coloradans? Ridiculous right? But that was what Hochul did with congestion pricing.
Now Hochul has the opportunity to relieve Adams of his position and fire him. Will she do that? She is the only one who can. Do you think DeSantis would hesitate for a millisecond to fire some corrupt mayor? No he would not. She will happily kill congestion pricing which inconveniences millions. But fire a corrupt mayor? Nope
Meanwhile we are out here in the WA 3rd busting our butts to elect Democrats in red Congressional districts to try to take the House and the whole thing is fucked up by NY Democratic Party incompetence or malevolence.
Marc
The city and county made a series of bad (one might say “corrupt”) deals with the owners of the various sports franchises to pay for upgrades to the Coliseum to keep the the teams in town. Oakland simply could not afford to continue bailing out a bunch of billionaire owners. Oakland Ballers minor league games are a lot of fun and were getting quite popular during their first season. Plus, the owners are paying for their own damn park renovations (what a concept!). I’ll be making a point of going to more games next year.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
They will simply join the more racist of the two.
RaflW
What can a rank and file Dem in a midwestern state do to help get him bounced? I think his presence is terrible for the party, but I don’t see how emailing Ilhan Omar will matter much. She’s not gonna sway Jeffries.
Harrison Wesley
Ahem. Don’t forget the City of Brotherly Love. Back in 1903, Lincoln Steffens wrote: “All our municipal governments are more or less bad. Philadelphia is simply the most corrupt and the most contented.”
Now, Philly can’t even be a corruption champion. According to a 2021 WHYY piece, it’s only No. 7 in the country.
Kent
@RaflW: It’s not Jeffries call. It is Hochul’s. She could fire him now if she wanted. Jeffries has no role.
Harrison Wesley
@Kent: Why would DeSantis fire a corrupt mayor? A woke one, for sure, but corrupt? Meh.
Kent
@Harrison Wesley: Maybe not a good example. But the point being that the GOP has no hesitation at firing people when it is to their advantage to doing so. None at all. And politically speaking, firing Adams would be a win for Hochul. Both in NYC and in upstate NY. Would it not be?
Omnes Omnibus
OT: It looks like Trump is publishing messages from Zelenskyy on Truth Social.
RaflW
@Kent: I read somewhere that by arcane NYC (or state?) rules, if Mayor Turkish Delight leaves office, the temporary fill-in is someone Hochul personally and virulently hates.
Anyone in NY, or better informed than lil ol me know what that all is?
BR
I called my rep earlier today and said that she either needs to tell Hakeem Jeffries to kick Adams to the curb or he needs to step aside for better house leadership. There should be no tolerance of corruption in his backyard.
BR
@Kent:
He can call for Adams to resign like AOC did.
CaseyL
IIRC, Adams got in because he won a three-way split primary.
In Washington State, we have a jungle primary system: whoever the top two vote getters are in the primary, they go on to the general election. Could be from the same Party, if that’s how the jungle vote goes. And in the Land Commissioner race, five Democrats ran in the primary and split the Democratic vote so badly we almost, almost, were stuck with two GOPers in the general election. After many days counting and recounting ballots, the Democratic candidate made the cut by 54 votes.
So what I’m saying is, state Democratic Parties have simply got to be more disciplined in letting too many candidates enter the primaries. Someone somewhere needs to look at the folks filing in the primaries and tell some of them, “No, your base of support isn’t big enough, you’ll only split the vote.” Or look into the candidates past records and say, “No, you can’t run on the Democratic ticket because you’re basically a Republican.”
IIRC, that was the deal with Adams: he was the most RW of the Democrats running, and won mostly because (again, IIRC) the next-most votes went to a woman. The people of NYC decided they’d rather have a conservative male cop than a liberal woman for mayor.
RaflW
@Kent: Yeah, though mistermix calls out Jeffries in the OP.
Baud
@CaseyL:
No one is going to trust party officials to screen people for participation in the primary
ETA: The primary Adams won was the primary Andrew Yang participated in. He had no business being there, but can you imagine the uproar of the party excluded him?
rikyrah
@RaflW:
He is more left -wing, but, seems a protestor/do gooder type.
But, he only gets the job for a limited amount of time. (months, max)
The clock for the Special Election starts immediately upon Adams’ firing/resignation.
BR
Have you all read the indictment? It’s bananas. Like a bad knockoff of Gotham City in Batman.
Omnes Omnibus
@CaseyL: Okay, how do state parties do that?
Princess
@Omnes Omnibus: Weirdo.
Kent
@RaflW: Both Adams and Jeffries are from NYC so maybe they both go way back. I dunno. But he isn’t any more of a leader of the Democratic Party than Schumer and not as much of one as Biden or Harris.
The line of authority goes straight to Hochul and stops with her. If she doesn’t like the possible replacement, tough shit. Do your job. She WAS the unliked replacement not that long ago when Cuomo got tossed.
rikyrah
@CaseyL:
got in because of ranked choice voting.
Kent
@Omnes Omnibus: State legislatures can re-write the rules. And the Democratic Party controls the state legislature.
Baud
@rikyrah:
He won legitimately. IIRC, his main competitors got caught up in the “Defund the Police” craze.
Baud
@Kent:
What rule are you thinking of that would fix this?
Baud
Via reddit, hopium.
Anoniminous
@Steve LaBonne:
If single party rule means women aren’t screaming in pain and bleeding out in hospital parking lots after being refused proper medical care I’ll take single party rule.
Timill
@CaseyL: No, it was RCV. Of those voters who expressed a preference between Adams and Garcia, more chose Adams, so he won.
rikyrah
@Baud:
I completely agree.
Wiley ran a bad campaign, run by Berniebrose. She didn’t do the retail politicking that reached out the the Democratic Party BASE.
RaflW
@rikyrah: Thanks.
But really, I wouldn’t put it past Hochul to be protecting Adams in part over something as petty as her feels about the very temporary stand-in.
She showed how terrible she is in the ongoing congestion pricing debacle l
zhena gogolia
I’m sick to my stomach about what they’re doing to Zelensky.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
That’s only because you’re a decent person.
A Librarian
So yeah. It’s been an interesting twenty-four hours here.
What RaflE said is basically right: in the case of Adams’ removal from office, our Public Advocate, Jumaane Williams, would assume the office of mayor until a special election could be called. And while I am not aware of any statements as such, there are at least some indications policy-wise that Hochul would hesitate in doing anything that would elevate Williams to the position.
That being said, Adams even getting into office was a perfect storm in the first place: first test of the ranked choice system for the primary, a staggeringly low voter turnout, and some back-and-forth about who was the worse candidate between Adams and Yang would be the worst-case scenario (and thus, who would be better to block the other with a Rank 5 vote in case of sudden popularity).
But here we are, with a city council that allegedly (if not publicly) will refuse to work with Adams and some betting on the side if he’ll suddenly find himself ingratiating himself to Trump to try and win some support (and possibly some of the grift that comes with it).
Guess he shouldn’t have taken on Big Library after all!
Kent
@Baud: Instant runoff voting in party primary elections would do it, wouldn’t it?
I don’t now how that would have played out in that primary. But generally you should get the candidate moving forward with the broadest base of support.
I wasn’t that close to that election. But I sort of recall he got a LOT of votes from the non-White working classes which is a lot of NYC.
Harrison Wesley
@Baud: That would be too sweet. Having his fat ass handed to him in his adopted state.
Juju.
@Baud: Oh dear. That’s not good. It has a well developed small eye. I live in coastal plains NC. I have a bit of experience in what to look for in a potentially strong storm. If the pressure is low, get out of Helene’s way.
Baud
@Kent:
I honestly don’t know if runoffs produce better outcomes than ranked choice. I’m OK with either one. What I can’t stand is people winning with a plurality, especially in a crowded field.
Kent
@Harrison Wesley: I don’t have my hopes up. But if Harris wins FL then it is game over.
Judging from my retired parents. JD Vance isn’t wearing well with the retiree crowd that isn’t ultra MAGA and just wants their social security and Medicare left alone.
Steve LaBonne
@Anoniminous: Single party Democratic rule is obviously a necessary evil until we have a sane, competent Republican Party, which I don’t expect to see in my lifetime. Still, that necessity is not a good thing.
Harrison Wesley
@Kent: I got interested in approval voting a while back as an alternative to RCV, but it doesn’t seem to have gotten a lot of traction. The only places that use it that I’m aware of are St. Louis, MO and Fargo, ND.
CaseyL
@rikyrah: Oof. I didn’t remember that. Or that the race was RCV.
(Haven’t heard much from BernieBros as such lately, though they’ve probably meshed in neatly with the more generic Purity Ponies.)
Never mind what I said, then.
Just the (bad) luck of the draw.
Baud
@CaseyL:
There’s no system that will protect against voters making bad choices.
ETA: at least, no system we’d support
Kent
@Harrison Wesley: I don’t think there is necessarily anything you can do about perfect storm type candidates like Adams. I mean no one knew he was going to be this bad during the primary. He seemed to campaign as a more liberal and less racist version of Law and Order Giuliani.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: If we don’t win this election, Ukraine will be turned into a death camp.
Scout211
In other news Jack Smith filed the evidence against Trump under seal.
Harrison Wesley
@Kent: Agree. I do favor a system that elects people with the greatest popular support, but any system will fail if the voters either don’t know how to evaluate (or don’t care about evaluating) what the candidates stand for.
JPL
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s not coming up. What type of messages?
AnonPhenom
Andrew Yang came in a distance 4th in the 2021 Dem Primary first round behind Adams, Kathryn Garcia and Maya Wiley.
He was eliminated in the second round where Adams won (42.9%) with Garcia second (42.2%).
Yang wasn’t a big factor.
Geminid
@Baud: I’m not sure if Kathy Garcia messed with the “Defund the Police” slogan.
As for Dawn Wiley, I remember a Bronx educator, “Mr.Weeks” (@WonderKing82) saying a few months after the election that he was for Dawn Wiley, but when he heard Wiley adopt the slogan he knew she would lose.
Weeks said he thought the phrase was a loser in neighborhoods like the one where he grew and returned to after college to teach. He spoke of crime as a real problem, not some scare ginned up by politicians and the media
Ed. I also remember reading after the 2021 NYC primary that Eric Adams ran best in Black, Hispanic and Asian Outer Borough neighborhoods while Garcia carried Manhattan, so maybe people in the Outer Boroughs thought that crime and not police practices was the more salient voting issue.
Hob
@Timill: I don’t understand the argument that the switch to RCV is what allowed Adams to win. The previous system was a straight first-past-the-post, plurality winner. Adams had a comfortable lead in first-place votes, so he would’ve simply won right away. I think people who are blaming RCV are assuming that there would’ve otherwise been a runoff between Adams and Garcia, but there wouldn’t, not in a NY primary.
JPL
@Omnes Omnibus: It just came up. trump will now be on the road talking about the beautiful love letter Zelenski sent him
omg what an awful person
Omnes Omnibus
@JPL: It was a request for a meeting. Trump seems to be reacting very poorly to Harris’s meeting with Z today.
Dan B
@Baud: Living a mile from Boeing Field and the former headquarters this stings. Boeing used to be a very good company but Chicago School beancounters must give all the money to the rich. The good thing is the Machinists are striking. They care about the employees.
Kelly
@Baud: One thing twitter is still good for is giggling at the “secret weather control is causing this” loonies
Steve LaBonne
@Geminid: Few things in politics make me cringe more than good policy dressed in, and tarred by, politically toxic slogans. Politics needs heart but it also requires use of the head.
Gretchen
@zhena gogolia: what are they doing to Zelenskyy?
Baud
@Geminid:
Thanks. My memory is fuzzy.
Hob
@Kent: There were some red flags in terms of stuff Adams said during the primary, and a few iffy things over the years… but yeah, people who were voting on the basis of his record as Brooklyn borough president would’ve had no reason to think he was as all-around awful and nuts as this. As far as I can tell (granted that I haven’t lived in NYC for a long time) he served as a pretty standard establishment politician. He had more relevant city executive experience than Giuliani, and about as much as De Blasio. And despite having been a cop, he’d been critical of the NYPD to a degree that’s hard to imagine from looking at him now.
Another Scott
+1
Plus (someone probably already made this point), one of the most effective criticisms of the Democratic Party by the GQP is “corrupt big city mayors”. It – understandably – resonates with normies. It’s really, really hard to counter unless there is swift action against obviously corrupt people. It makes it harder than it should be to preach the virtues of good government.
Adams gotta go.
Grr…,
Scott.
Geminid
@Hob: The old system required a runoff if no one’s vote exceeded 40%. There likely would have been a head-to-head contest between Garcia and Adams in which voters got a better look at the two candidates.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Oddly, on reddit, I actually see them emphasize that it was a Democratic administration that brought these charges. That’s a good spin.
VeniceRiley
The JD Vance oppo finally dropped, and, as much as fElon tried to keep it off twitter, Boing Boing has it:
https://boingboing.net/2024/09/26/you-can-finally-read-the-trump-campaigns-dossier-on-j-d-vance-problems-that-u-s-media-refused-to-publish-boy-does-j-d-vance-hate-trump.html
sdhays
@Omnes Omnibus: I must be missing something, since it looks like an attempt by Zelenskyy to have respectful meeting. He doesn’t say anything particularly inappropriate or embarrassing. It’s just Trump being an ass, and demonstrating that his “plan” to end the war in Ukraine is to end Ukraine.
Timill
@Hob: I believe that the rules used to be that if the plurality winner had under 40% of the vote there was a runoff later between 1 and 2.
The people who wanted Garcia think that the interval would have allowed people to change their minds about Adams, but this looks like motivated thinking to me…
sdhays
@VeniceRiley: Well, finally someone believes that information wants to be free!
Omnes Omnibus
@sdhays: Yes, it’s Trump being a complete asshole. Nothing in the message reflects poorly on Zelenskyy.
Baud
@VeniceRiley:
Good. It’s insane that no major media would publish it.
zhena gogolia
@Gretchen: The Republicans are accusing him of campaigning for Harris. He asked to meet with Trump and was rebuffed.
HumboldtBlue
LIVE NOW: Watch as cameras from outside the @Space_Station capture views of Hurricane #Helene as it approaches the Gulf Coast of Florida.
RevRick
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh, where in Fairfield County? I grew up in Stamford. In the working class part.
Sure Lurkalot
Ranked-choice voting is on the ballot in Colorado this year for almost all offices, federal and state. The proposal is open primaries for each office with the top 4 advancing to the general where RCV would be used to determine the winner in however many tallies are needed until one candidate has won a majority of the votes.
Both parties oppose the initiative, the criticism being the top 4 to advance will simply be those with the most money. Funny that the party of Citizen’s United now seems concerned about money in politics.
The PACs that support the measure have spent over $6 million to approximately $37,000 on the oppose side. So it is true there’s a lot of money being thrown at this.
Kent
@VeniceRiley: So curious how Elon had an absolute conniption fit when the famous “twitter files” revealed that twitter had paused for 24 hours or so the publication of the stolen Hunter Biden laptop files. Because FREE SPEECH demands that stolen political material be published immediately without delay.
Now he is trying desperately to shut down the publication of exactly equivalent stolen oppo material from the Trump campaign. Hypocrite much?
Fuck him. At least have a consistent standard for your social media platform.
Baud
@Kent:
Third posting
Kent
@Hob: “Red flags” are a tough thing to handle. Because in this day and age, with so much oppo trash being thrown around it is hard for the average voter to discern what is an actual red flag versus “Walz abandoned his Guard unit in their time of crisis” type of bullshit.
I mean if you read twitter there are a bazillion “red flags” about Harris. We can sort though that sort of stuff. I’m not sure the average relatively disengaged voter is equipped to do it.
So some “red flags” about Adams seems pretty weak. No one knew he was going to be like this.
jonas
@rikyrah: I’m surprised it even got that far. I don’t know what kind of game of chicken they thought they were playing, especially after the Fox settlement with Dominion. I hope part of the settlement is that they have to run a continuous loop of ads on their evening programs for the next six months copping to their election-denying bullshit.
Kent
@Baud: Unfortunately for Musk, Tesla’s core market is Democrats.
Except for the Cybertruck of course. But I don’t think he is going to save Tesla on the backs of the Cybertruck.
We are looking at EVs in 2025. I’m currently Hyundai Ioniq5 curious. No chance our next car will be a Tesla. Pre 2022 it might well have been.
columbusqueen
The thought that a mayor of NYC would willingly jeopardize citizens & firefighters AFTER 9/11 is unspeakable. Kick his scummy ass to the curb, now
Geminid
@Timill: There is a different dynamic in a one-on-one race. It’s very possible that Garcia could have won; she seemed to have the elements of a strong politician. The race certainly would have gotten better focussed attention from the public.
But we’ll never know, and I think RCV is there to stay. People like it more than runoffs because of its convenience and apparent simplicity. I’m just glad the system is being tested by various localities so we can get a good look at it over time before it is more widely adopted. Same with all-comer, “jungle” primaries.
Alaska new system combines both models. They hold a jungle primary in August (I think) and the top four candidates advance to an RCV runoff in November. Alaska has a very large number of Independents and that may be why this system was adopted. But it also seems like something the political-industrial complex would lobby for.
But I like i, not least because it helped put Mary Peltola in the House. Peltola strikes me as a formidable politician and legislator who stands out among a very capable group of peers. She will accomplish a lot, I think.
JPL
@Omnes Omnibus: rump decided to meet with Zelensky on Friday.
kalakal
Helene is now a cat 4 packing 130 mph sustained winds. Also moving faster, 25 mph. Getting a few power flickers here, about 47,000 without power in the county. Quite windy but not much rain
PJ
@Kent: being indicted for corruption was not hard to predict at the time of his election, and in fact not a few people predicted it. Adams had several shady associates, and had lied about living in NYC. If he’s going to lie about something so basic, what else is he going to lie about?
AnonPhenom
Dem party leadership lets Republicans win by not lifting a finger & then blame the loss on anyone to their left.
PJ
@Hob: Adams had zero city executive experience prior to becoming mayor. The Borough Presidents are glorified cheerleaders and boosters for their boroughs. They have no decision making authority in the governance of the city.
Dan B
@Kent: My partner is looking at used VW, the ID 4 I believe. There’s a state credit for used EV’s that expires in May or June ’25 and there may be federal benefits as well. The Hyundai doesn’t qualify because it’s made in Korea, so far. My memory may be a bit off so do research. We’ve been leasing Leafs for years and love our deluxe 2023 but they have an old charger that’s being phased out. It won’t be suitable for road trips in a couple years. C’mon Nissan, get with the program!
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
@Kent: My neighbor has an IQ5 and its nice.
jonas
@kalakal: It’s crazy how hurricanes used to have to form off the coast of equatorial Africa, then travel 3000 miles across the Atlantic to the Caribbean to the Atlantic coast before picking up that much power. Now it’s like 500 miles across the Gulf of Mexico.
Kay
@A Librarian:
Ha! You got him.
Geminid
@AnonPhenom: The disappointing midterms result in New York got my attention, and I spent some time looking at the various after-action takes. It seemed like Democrats placed over 700% of the blame on at least 5 different individuals or entities.
But New York Democrats are a contentious lot. I was struck by the difference between their reaction in 2022 and the reaction of Virginia Democrats to McAuliffe’s loss the year before. We were like, “Let us not speak of this again.”
There is plenty of blame to go around for both setbacks. I have to assign some of it to rank-and-file voters. I know that in Virginia at least, Democratic voters were complacent and enough stayed home for Youngkin to come away with a 2% win. McAuliffe was not a very inspiring candidate and I thought he ran a medioce campaign, but I think Democrats have to learn to come out for every election no matter what.
Omnes Omnibus
@RevRick: Newtown.
kalakal
@jonas: They still do the Cape Verde trip but it’s not uncommon for them to form in the Caribbean late season, this one seems a tad earlier. What seems to have changed is how strong they get. It’s crazy that a monster like Helene can form just south of YucatanThere’s a couple of fish storms forming mid Atlantic right now, Isaac and whatever J is this year
Idalia, last year, started pretty much where Helene did ( also a Cat 4). The Gulf just gets so hot now they get supercharged.
Fair Economist
@Sure Lurkalot: Top 4 from the primary to IRV general is a really good system, IMO. Cuts way back on polarization and takes the wind out of a lot of antivoting propaganda like “nobody to vote for.” Hope Colorado adopts it.
California has a top 2 to general, which is usually better than the party system for areas with strong partisan lean, but which has a serious potential problem in competitive areas in that one party may get both slots due to how the primary votes fall out.
Chris
@CaseyL:
Both of them have constituencies that will tolerate a lot of corruption from politicians that give them what they want.
The differences is what Democratic constituencies want is reasonably functional government services, and what Republican constituencies want is to hurt Democrats.
AnonPhenom
@Geminid:
Sure. But it would help if the chair of the party didn’t have to be “asked” to do his feckin’ job, right?
JML
Feels like NY democratic party has a lot of conservadems in it now because they know the GOP is a non-entity and they want to have a say in what goes on. so they help push through the more conservative dems. but that’s a little bit of a guess.
There’s also a reality that law & order candidacies play better than a lot of people realize in black and brown communities, despite all the racial profiling and racial killing that has come from cops.
But I’m not a fan of ranked choice voting or similar arrangements. I prefer to have candidates go up against each other and provide a real choice and contrast, rather than have to sort the field out…and I’m a political junkie. Imagine how the citizens who don’t track it closely but always show up to vote feel? The more complicated we make voting, the worse it is. And the dirty little secret about RCV is it pretty much never achieves what it claims it will do. It doesn’t produce majority winners (unless you pretend the exhausted ballots don’t count), it doesn’t reduce negative campaigning, it doesn’t increase turnout…so what exactly has it been accomplishing?
Maybe it’s giving us Eric Adams in NYC.
Geminid
@Fair Economist: I’ve wondered how California’s jungle primary system will affect political dynamics there. I suspect Californians are still finding out.
Geminid
@AnonPhenom: Like I said, there’s plenty of blame going around the Emoire Dtate. Jay Jacobs has gotten his share and I won’t lament his replacement if New York’s Democratic officeholders and party chairs decide he needs to go.
But if they do this it obviously won’t happen before November. And if Democrats do well in New York this year and they decide to keep Jacobs as state chairman I won’t kick about it either. Why should I?
davek319
@Baud: Aargh, I heard on WAMC the NYS Democratic Party just re-upped their leader, Jay Jacobs, that piece a shit, who, at the presser today, pulled his pet baked potato out of his mouth long enough to blame New York progressive Dems for the total hash Jacobs and his buddies made out of redistricting in 2020, verifiably a)snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and b)ensuring a fucking 7GOP House majority in 22. Well played, O dumbfuck political hack errand boy! Those Progressives, why, they’re worse than Carl Paladino Republicans, right, Jay? Yah fucktwaddle.
PJ
@JML:
The only thing that RCV accomplishes is preventing the cost of a run-off election. But I think that cost is well worth it if it lessens the likelihood of another Adams winning. When a race is narrowed down to 2 or 3 viable options, people have the time to figure out who the candidates are and what they stand for. When it’s more than 10 candidates, many of them have very similar policy positions (after all, they’re all supposed Democrats) ,and voters are expected to rank them in some kind of desired order, that’s a pretty tall request. It’s compounded now because local press is mostly non-existent in NYC these days, so there is very little information out there about most of these candidates. Of the 13 major candidates in 2021, only 2 had been elected NY officials, the rest, besides internet celebrity Andrew Yang, were pretty unknown. How are people supposed to make an informed choice?
Geminid
@Geminid: That would be “Empire State,” not Emoire Dtate. Doggone proofreader’s laying down on the job. Again!
Ella in New Mexico
As a native New Yorker, who no longer lives there, but observes from a far I’m having a hard time, remembering when New York City actually had a non-corrupt, effective, likable mayor – Republican or Democrat.
I don’t think I blame it on New York Dems en Toto… it’s more about the continued, deeply embedded strings of “New York City Corruption, Inc” that continues to only allow people who are part of The Crimers to be acceptable to the New York City party machine to run For mayor.
It’s the same deeply, genetic culture that allowed Donald Trump to thrive even though everyone hated him.