Not a very surprising development:
Michael G. Grimm, the Republican Party’s lone congressional representative in New York City, announced late Monday night that he would resign effective Jan. 5, two weeks after he pleaded guilty to felony tax evasion.
The decision to call it quits by Mr. Grimm, of Staten Island — perhaps best known for threatening to break a reporter in half and throw him off a Capitol Hill balcony — came after a conversation on Monday with the House speaker, John A. Boehner, which a person close to the speaker confirmed. In a statement released by Mr. Grimm’s office just before midnight, he said, “I do not believe that I can continue to be 100 percent effective in the next Congress, and therefore, out of respect for the Office and the people I so proudly represent, it is time for me to start the next chapter of my life.”
Mr. Boehner appears to have done what a midterm election, constant ridicule in the news media and a guilty plea in federal court in Brooklyn could not: persuade Mr. Grimm to go away.
I’m not sure how much convincing Boehner had to do, because Grimm is about to face a judge and plead for his freedom, and it is kind of hard to go before a judge and pretend to be contrite while being a macho asshole for everyone else declaring that even God himself won’t make you resign. Again, IANAL, but I would think that his defense team explained to him that this was an either/or proposition- you can keep your freedom, or you can keep your seat, but the odds of you keeping both are pretty slim.
At any rate, Staten Island, which is basically NYC’s version of Alabama, will no doubt vote in another sociopath who will vote against their interest.
raven
AMF douchebag.
FlipYrWhig
Gotta figure this special election is going to end up being all about who loves cops most.
Baud
In this case, I think it may come down to how you define what “their interest” is.
debbie
@FlipYrWhig:
As if there could be any other issue!
beth
There may be nothing they can do about this guy since he pleaded guilty but you better believe nothing will happen to Steve Scalise. After all, Newsmax is telling me that Jimmy Carter has “terrorist” ties and if you read the article you’ll see that he’s spoken to Muslim groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and voices support for the Palestinians. See – both sides do it!
Keith G
Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road.
danielx
Seems like every place has some Alabama area in it; I once read a description of Pennsylvania as being Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with 300 miles of Alabama between them. Then of course there are the larger areas, Alaska as Alabama with oil and polar bears.
big ole hound
@FlipYrWhig: Yup, Staten Island has a huge population of retired cops and firefighters who only care about their pensions and guns. The original tea party target group.
NotMax
Well, Staten Island does share a name with the capital of the Confederacy.
It is Richmond County.
lol
@beth:
That might’ve been true until Duke started repeatedly voicing his defense of Scalise to any media outlet that would take his call.
Violet
If you think they are voting against their interest you are fooling yourself. They are very interested in sticking it to Those People even if they get hurt too.
Keith G
NPR has put up very interesting and uniquely formulated story about the attention span of the D.C. press corps.
dr. luba
@danielx: Michigan: Pretty much Detroit, Ann Arbor, Traverse City and Alabama.
Tumbrel for Hire
Remember, the REAL criminals on SI are the guys selling loosies on Bay Street.
Citizen_X
There’s your Republican congressmen, America: thugs and white power assholes.
Caprice
“For someone who believes in personal responsibility, you spend a lot of time blaming government.”
(A liberal addressing a conservative in a recent New Yorker cartoon)
MattF
The Staten Island:Alabama analogy is a little unfair to both. In fact, despite the position of the legal boundary line, SI is physically and culturally a part of New Jersey. I’d compare Grimm with Christie.
TOP123
@MattF: Yes.
Roger Moore
I assume he’s going to resign, ask for leniency, and then run in the special election for his old seat if he isn’t in prison. It’s the properly sociopathic thing to do.
Joey Giraud
@Baud:
This phrase really needs to be retired from the liberal vocabulary.
Couldn't Stand the Weather
I see why you’d say that. To me, these folks are truly out to lunch regarding their priorities.
These voters that sent Grimm to DC are about to send another brain donor to the House that will do what g00pers do.
The Staten Island voters will grab their figurative 10 mm pistol, aim carefully at their collective foot, and fire until the weapon is empty. And, after the election, the successor to Grim will help them reload.
danielx
@Joey Giraud:
Haughty and insulting it sounds but as somebody once noted, reality has a well-known liberal bias.
“Class suicide: that’s when a guy making minimum wage votes Republican.”
Frankensteinbeck
@Violet:
Yep. There are many kinds of self-interest beyond economic. We liberals have been known to vote for what makes us feel warm and generous like we’re doing the right thing, even if it’s not the best for us personally. For decades, the GOP has been playing to the bully’s rush of ego and cruelty.
God damn, I wish that wasn’t an accurate description of our political divide. Fuck you, Nixon, fuck you Southern Strategy, and fuck you Reagan most of all for uniting a whole political party behind the principle of ‘Do you enjoy hating women/coloreds/poor people/communists/hippies? Here’s some other groups you might enjoy hating!’
shelley
And God said “Remember the Titanic”
ruemara
Oddly, Staten Island is about the only affordable place near NYC right now. I wonder if the minority voters of Staten Island have their voting fingers ready.
Couldn't Stand the Weather
Sad, ain’t it?
A long time ago, Bo Diddley had a song called “Who Do You Love?”. The g00pers have taken that track and flipped it.
Frankensteinbeck
@Couldn’t Stand the Weather:
I try not to get sucked into the same politics of resentment, but it’s hard not to be cranky before breakfast.
MattF
@ruemara: According to the NYT, Queens is heating up:
nytimes.com/2013/11/03/realestate/the-tilt-toward-queens.html?pagewanted=all&module=Search&…
When I was growing up, the F train was the shuttle between the Village and the uncoolness of Rego Park. Maybe that’s coming back.
BruinKid
FYI, I posted this last night about what the GOP wants to do now.
THAT is who the local GOP wants to nominate???
But note that even as Bill de Blasio won his race with over 72% of the vote city-wide, he lost Staten Island, 44% to 53%. That’s how conservative the borough is.
Now, having had time to think about it, should we actually cheer on the GOP to pick Donovan, to truly show how they feel about minorities? That may be the only way to get almost every single minority in Staten Island to show up to vote in a special election. And if he still wins, he gets to then serve as a very nice symbol of everything that’s wrong with our legal system, embodied by the GOP.
lol
@Couldn’t Stand the Weather:
Some people will glad shoot their foot off if it means depriving a blah person of the bullets.
ruemara
@MattF: heating up? My family has lived there for over 25 years. Astoria was expensive back then. Now, our little mostly AA enclave near long island has become a pinched middle class set with many, many repossessed homes sitting empty. The neighborhood is starting to skew more Hasidic, since they’re buying and white to Asian on the fringes. This means apartments clustered around the transportation centers are expensive too. My parents rent the upstairs apartment in their house for $550. Going rate around the neighborhood is $700-850. Compared to Manhattan, that’s a bargain and it’s at least a 35 minute commute to a train into Manhattan.
The Thin Black Duke
@Frankensteinbeck: Problem is, it wasn’t really Reagan’s fault. Uncle Ronnie was only a symptom of the disease, after all. Bottom line, Reagan was successful only because there were so many hateful motherfuckers willing to buy into what he was selling.
MattF
@The Thin Black Duke: It’s hard to blame Reagan because it’s hard to distinguish between what’s due to his actions and what’s due to political confabulation by the clique that gathered around him. But trying to assign responsibility is playing their game. They all knew what they were doing. Or, at least did know, pre-dementia.
Botsplainer
Unrelated query – have Army psychs and social workers always been so completely full of shit and in the tank for the serving member in family court cases?
I got a letter from a major on behalf of my client (a sergeant) regarding trying to ensure that my client is present during her ex-husband’s very limited and supervised parenting time which happens only a couple of hours each week. The premises of the letter are a goddamned embarrassment; there’s not a snowball’s cance in hell that any of my judges will accept the ludicrous conclusions stated – plus, it is going to create a metric shitton of work my girl can’t afford.
To add insult to injury, I’m going to have to struggle to explain exactly WHY the letter is a bucket of rancid shit to my client, as she’s kind of simple.
Some days, I hate my job.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Botsplainer: There’s a reason I always said that I did criminal instead of domestic “because it’s much less nasty.”
JGabriel
@beth:
There is no finer irony nor higher comedy than seeing Republicans (and Teabaggers), after decades of appealing to racists for votes, all dismayed and shocked at finding themselves associated with white supremacists, klansmen, and neo-nazis.
What did they fucking expect?
woodyNYC
In other good NYC news, it seems the feds have something on Sheldon SIlver.
Interesting info on payola in the form of real estate tax reductions in Shelly district – hope it sticks this time
Botsplainer
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
I’ve been doing this for 25 years, have a pretty good grip on the predictability of certain things. I’ve seen lots of reports from psychs and social workers, so I know that there is a real predictability of recommendations which are generally supportable by intuition or ample literature. What I’m staring at now is fucking nuts and isn’t just factually unsupportable, it is unsupportable at law – basically, its that the kid cries because she is sad that mommy has stepped away during the father’s parenting time (which takes place at mother’s home due to legitimate medical reasons, and there’s a team of nurses that is there during the visit); to remedy that mommy must be there when daddy is visiting. Oh, and even though the nurses are present, there’s a health risk from the crying.
Like I said, nuts. I’ll get scolded and laughed out of the courtroom.
The Thin Black Duke
@MattF: Believe me, I’m not absolving Reagan for his crimes at all. There was a nasty old bastard behind that matinee idol smile. But he was also an obedient sock puppet who enjoyed what he was doing. As I said, nasty old bastard. My point was that I refuse to give stupid hateful bigoted voters an alibi for their complicity in fucking up this country. That’s all.