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You are here: Home / Open Threads / When You Walk Through the Garden, You Gotta Watch Your Back

When You Walk Through the Garden, You Gotta Watch Your Back

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Last night, New York State Troopers arrested Timothy Granison, the husband of the mayor of Rochester, Lovely Warren. I just listened to the news conference and ho-lee-shit is there a lot going on.

According to the Monroe County States Attorney, Sandra Doorley, who has already secured an indictment against Warren on two felony campaign finance charges, the arrest is the result of a seven-month wiretap targeted at someone else. When Granison turned up on the wiretap, Doorley called in the State Police.

The search uncovered an unregistered handgun and a semi-automatic rifle at Warren’s house, where the couple’s school-age daughter was home alone. (She was taken away by a relative before Troopers entered the house.) All together, $100K in cash and 2 kilos of powder and crack cocaine were recovered in arrests of seven people, total. (Clarification: money and coke was not at Warren’s house, the guns were.)

Warren has a decent primary opponent named Malik Evans, but even with her indictment, she was favored to win the primary, which basically gets her another term as mayor. Warren is a mediocre administrator, thin-skinned, divisive, petty and vindictive. Our local Democratic party is split into a mostly-white mostly-suburban faction led by Congressman Joe Morelle, and a mostly-black mostly-urban faction once led by Assemblyman David Gantt, who died recently. Warren is Gantt’s protegee. It would be nice to have a mayor who can unite the factions, but if dreams came true, hey, wouldn’t that be nice?

Anyway, my only point is that it’s better to live in a blue part of a blue state than the red part of a red state, but it isn’t all wine and roses. Open thread.

Reader Interactions

69Comments

  1. 1.

    Mom Says I*m Handsome

    Warren is a mediocre administrator, thin-skinned, divisive, petty and vindictive

    I’m sure two kilos of cocaine don’t help.

  2. 2.

    wenchacha

    It’s always great when the hometown politics goes sideways. So many mistakes, over so many years. If it gets Rochester a QOP mayoral candidate, that will suck.

    A friend in the PAB said Malik Evans is great. I hope this ends Lovely’s hopes for re-election, and Evans gets the opportunity.

  3. 3.

    Benw

    I remember what my ol grandpappy used to tell me: sonny, when you’re running cash, kilos, and guns, keep your head on a swivel.

  4. 4.

    Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix

    @Mom Says I*m Handsome:  LOL.  As an example:  a very even-handed, soft-spoken local public broadcasting radio guy threw her some slightly challenging questions a couple of years ago, and she’s refused to go on his show ever since.

  6. 6.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    speaking of NY politics:

    Josh Marshall @joshtpm 1h
    It seems worth asking why the New York City mayors race, or rather the Democratic primary, which is likely the same thing, continues to be dominated by two candidates who are anathema to the city’s progressive movement, leaders, influencers, etc.

    I know Yang has lost some of his “progressive” appeal, but is he really anathema? Isn’t he still holding up the shiny illusion of UBI? Is Kathryn Garcia progressive in the way I sense Marshall is using it here? ETA: a lot of twitter people, mostly progressives but also libertarian Josh Barro, say things like “In a sane world, Garcia would be ahead X points”

  7. 7.

    Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix

    Ach, I just realized that the wording of the piece indicated that the coke and cash was found in Warren’s home.  It wasn’t, just the guns.  Her husband was arrested in a car and had a good amount of coke on him at the time.

  8. 8.

    Another Scott

    Zooks.

    Unfortunately, it’s this kind of “big city” politics/corruption/criming that the GOP has pointed to for years as reasons why “the Heartland” shouldn’t trust Democrats.  City polls really do need to clean up their acts in too many places, and voters there need to demand it.  It’s hurting the country not to do so.

    It can happen, too.  Mayor For Life Barry is long gone.

    Good luck.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  11. 11.

    Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix

    @Another Scott: Rochester had a black mayor from 94-2005, Bill Johnson.  He was a good mayor in a tough time, and also a gentleman and a scholar.  One local right-wing radio personality was suspended for likening him to a gorilla.  The haters really hated on him, for no reason other than the color of his skin.

    Sadly, those same haters hate Warren for the same reason.

    They will also hate Malik Evans.

  13. 13.

    smith

    @Another Scott:  In my opinion, the idea that big city politics are more corrupt than small town is just another Republican myth. That’s not to say big city politics are clean, but that small town pols are often just as corrupt, but for smaller stakes. As an example, this story is no wilder than the one about Joel Greenberg and Seminole County, not a metropolitan hub as far as I know.

  14. 14.

    dr. bloor

    Buddy Cianci nods approvingly at Warren’s game from whichever level of hell he’s parked on.

  15. 15.

    Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix

    @Kay: Yep.  That said,  the semi-auto rifle they recovered from her home  (which is being analyzed to see if it’s illegal) had a loaded magazine in the same room, which in NYS is considered a loaded weapon.  Their minor child (maybe middle-school age, I forget) was in the house alone with it.  So Lovely might get a charge out of that, who knows?

  16. 16.

    Ken

    @smith: I go with the classics:

    “It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”

    “You horrify me!”

    “But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.”

  17. 17.

    Cameron

    Dems in Disarray?  I’m shocked – shocked, I tell you!  Nothing like this has ever happened in history in the history of things happening ever!

  19. 19.

    JPL

    Ever since I discovered that a council member that I campaigned for, thought highly of Marjorie Greene, I’m done.    Local politics is non partisan, but that’s a bridge to far.

  21. 21.

    smith

    @Ken: Right-O, Sherlock. And just think of all those loathsome county sheriffs with uncontested power over their fiefdoms.

  22. 22.

    Cameron

    Voting for Democrats where I live is pretty easy.  Electing Democrats….well, the county party has told me that they’re just this close.  Except that registered Republicans outnumber registered Democrats in Manatee County by something like 50%.  There’s a yooge number of registered independents, but I don’t know what would give them a come-to-Biden moment.

  25. 25.

    germy

    Over the summer, she faced calls to resign over her handling of the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man who stopped breathing after police placed him in a mesh hood and pressed him to the pavement. Police and city officials said almost nothing publicly about the death for months until Prude’s family obtained and released body camera video showing the death.

    In March, a probe into the official response to Prude’s death, commissioned by Rochester’s city council, said Warren lied to the public about what she knew and when she knew it. A special counsel to the city administration disputed those claims.

    In April, a federal civil rights lawsuit was filed naming Warren and other city officials, accusing them of allowing a culture of police brutality against racial minorities.

    (Associated Press)

  26. 26.

    PJ

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think Marshall is using “progressive” in the Twitter sense, not in the real world getting-things-done-that-help-people sense.  Yang doesn’t seem to have any fixed positions or policies beyond UBI (which, as Mayor, he would have no power whatsoever to enact) and seems to say whatever he thinks his audience will like at a given time.  Garcia is running on providing good government, which, strictly speaking, is not a “Twitter progressive” value, but many of her policies, such as providing permanent housing for homeless people instead of building more shelters, probably would be considered progressive in the context of current Democratic politics.

    For all the media and twitter people who live in NYC, it hasn’t been a particularly progressive place, politically, since the financial crisis of 1974.  I have strong doubts that someone like AOC could get elected Mayor right now.

    The bigger problem with the mayoral primary is that, because of ranked choice voting, no one significant has dropped out, and there is very little media coverage of the different candidates, their proposals, how they differ from each other, etc., or at least that I can find anywhere.   We get to choose up to 5 candidates, and I honestly have little idea about what most of them stand for (I am leaning towards Garcia as #1, but would like to know more about her too!)

  27. 27.

    gvg

    @smith: Seminole county is part of the Orlando metropolis. When I lived there it was called the tricounty area and it’s grown since. It is definitely not a small town area.

    There are small towns that have been engulfed by Orlando, but they are still Orlando area.

  28. 28.

    Rusty

    The aroma of scandal goes back even further with Mayor Warren.  I am too busy to search, but the Rochester area had a Republican state rep or senator that was caught up in some crazy scam of a fish farm in the far east, and committed suicide.  Somewhere in the whole mess it came out that he had helped secure the seed money ($50K?) for Warren to run for mayor.  No one really wanted to look too hard at why a Republican was giving money to a Democrat running for mayor, but the whole thing had a whiff of pay backs and more.

  29. 29.

    germy

    As the bloody conflict between Israel and Hamas rages on, Senator Bernie Sanders will propose a resolution that would aim to prevent a U.S. weapons sale to Israel, in another sign of progressive discomfort around America’s policy toward its longtime ally.

    The Washington Post reports that Sanders’s bill will aim to stop the sales of Joint Direct Attack Munitions and Small Diameter Bombs worth $735 million.

    “At a moment when U.S.-made bombs are devastating Gaza, and killing women and children, we cannot simply let another huge arms sale go through without even a congressional debate,” Sanders told the Post.

    Even if the bill garners 50 votes in the Senate, which is highly unlikely, it would need a two-thirds Senate and House majority to override a Biden veto. Though it won’t succeed, the proposed legislation is a sign of the rift between progressives in Congress and the Biden administration on Israel.

  31. 31.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @PJ:

    I think Marshall is using “progressive” in the Twitter sense, not in the real world getting-things-done-that-help-people sense.

    that was my sense, too

  32. 32.

    Delk

    35 year old son-of-ghouliani is claiming to have spent 32 years in politics and government.

  33. 33.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Delk: I think Rudi got drunk and dropped him on his head, or maybe he took a few golf balls to the noggin while dawdling on the green too long

  36. 36.

    JoyceH

    @Delk: ​
     

    35 year old son-of-ghouliani is claiming to have spent 32 years in politics and government.

    I think he’s considering his upstaging grandstanding at Dad’s mayoral inauguration as his entry into politics.

  37. 37.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    That’s a pretty cool story – here in The Peoples’ Democratic Soc!alist Kenyan Islamist Shariah Republic of Louisville, we only get feckless management of police, soft graft and the sex scandals that serve as the fuel for all of it.

  38. 38.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Delk:

    I nominate any and all of his voters ahead of time as the most cynical, corrupt motherfuckers on the planet.

  46. 46.

    Baud

    @rikyrah:

    Agree that the GOP is disgusting, but it looks like that the Judiciary Committee vote.  Not clear yet whether the handful of so-called nontreasonous moderate GOP senators will vote no.

  47. 47.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Okay, maybe not as bad as it looks… Graham and Coryn votes with the Dems. I am confused

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A federal judge seen as a possible future U.S. Supreme Court pick by President Joe Biden cleared a key hurdle on Thursday in her nomination to an influential appellate court, winning approval in a Senate committee despite Republican opposition.

    The Democratic-led Senate Judiciary Committee advanced Washington-based U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on a 13-9 vote. All those in opposition were Republicans, with two – Lindsey Graham and John Cornyn – voting with Democrats to approve the nomination.

    Looking at the R membership, it’s less surprising that Graham and Cornyn are the… how shall I put this?… least biggest assholes? LI’l Benji Sassè… you almost tried to show some character that one time.

  49. 49.

    Dan B

    @Baud: I hope so.  Biden’s pich was amazing.  A white guy who loves his muscle car saying, “Jobs for auto workers, jobs for changing station installers, jobs for electricians.”  Then following that with the Secret Service being left in the dust, plus, “This sucker is quick!”  The official launch was an anti-climax.

    Ford is an iconic American company.  Cars are an iconic American product.  Autoworkers have symbolized the American Dream since Henry Ford paid enough so every worker could afford a car.  China, Tesla, and VW were on the verge of bankrupting Ford and GM.  Dragging them into the future was great.  I hope the money managers get a clue.

  52. 52.

    Gravenstone

    @Delk: He must have dialed it back on further tellings. First report of his argument that I saw had him claiming 5+ decades of political experience.

  53. 53.

    wenchacha

    @Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: I thought Bill Johnson was a decent guy. The Fast Ferry tanked, and it feels like he left with that as one of his legacies. I don’t know enough of the details to say who was at fault. Pretty sure 9/11 guaranteed it would never happen again in my lifetime.

  54. 54.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Delk:

    I’ve made them, and am working my way through pivoting around some chords. Also working on hammers and taking a stab at “Midnight Rambler” (Allman Brothers).

  56. 56.

    Arclite

    RE: The article title, nice reference to The Wire, one of the greatest TV shows ever made.

  57. 57.

    lahke

    @PJ:

    NYTimes has interviewed them all, and IIRC, endorsed Garcia.  Of course, there’s a paywall.

  59. 59.

    rikyrah

    @Dan B:

     

    Biden’s pitch was amazing.  A white guy who loves his muscle car saying, “Jobs for auto workers, jobs for changing station installers, jobs for electricians.”

     

    Makes me smile just reading this.

  60. 60.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: As a normie-in-training like yourself, I’m eschewing cable news programs mostly, but I did see a clip this morning of Maddow going on about the electric F-150. It’s worth a look. (She’s a truck lady!) She also underscored the point that the F-series is the most popular vehicle in America by far, and if Ford builds electric trucks that work better, have cooler features and are more useful than gas trucks, even coal-rolling assholes will buy them, and it will go a long way toward crushing fossil fuel consumption. The segment included the tidbit that the electric F-150 can serve as a backup generator for your house! Now I want one too! :)

  61. 61.

    Hoodie

    @Betty Cracker: I think the electric F150 is really directed at fleet operators, who will not blanche at the price because it offers an opportunity to significantly cut down on maintenance and fuel costs.  Those people usually have defined routes that are less than the range of the vehicle and can afford to set up their own charging infrastructure that right now is lacking for the general public.   However, Ford is being really smart by going for high performance, because the Joe Sixpacks that drive them for work will spread the word that they’re not glorified golf carts.   It’s somewhat analogous to Tesla’s original strategy of selling performance to hook early adopters, in contrast to the underpowered Prius appeal to tree huggers.

  62. 62.

    evodevo

    @smith: ​
      Yep.. the population of our little KY town is ~200, and we have had more embezzlement and govt. corruption than what you would think, given that everyone knows everybody else (or is related to them lol). PLUS 3 murders in the last 15 years…and we’re not even in eastern KY…

  65. 65.

    S. Cerevisiae

    I wonder how the electric F-150 does heating and A/C, I would think that would suck a lot of battery power during winters in Minnesota or summers in Arizona. I suppose you would have to adjust your range accordingly.

  69. 69.

    Morzer

    “Warren is a mediocre administrator, thin-skinned, divisive, petty and vindictive.”

    I think we’ve found the perfect VP candidate for the Thing From Mar-a-Lago in 2024.

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