Following testimony from a felon that he bought Mayor Bill de Blasio with donations, I asked New Yorkers a simple question: Do they care?
I got quick answers from three people. No, the public doesn’t care, they insisted. Did I mention that all three are elected liberals, one of whom is the mayor himself?
De Blasio made his feelings clear when he told reporters to stop asking him about corruption and get on to the “real things” the public cares about. Presumably, he did not mean his undeniable success at increasing the homeless population and giving a free pass to public pissers.
Sens. Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders, one a Democrat, the other a socialist, both made it clear they also don’t care about de Blasio’s corruption by endorsing him for a second term. “He’s answered questions on those issues,” Schumer told the press Monday. “I’m proud to endorse him.”
Actually, the mayor’s answers have been mostly of the I-don’t-recall variety instead of outright denials. But that’s good enough for Schumer, a fact worth remembering the next time the Senate minority leader accuses a presidential nominee of being dirty.
A crooked pol is fine with Schumer, as long as he’s a Democrat. Party first, you know.
Sanders called de Blasio “one of the great progressive leaders” in the country, though he ignored direct questions about corruption. His endorsement says enough.
Voters will get their say next Tuesday, but there’s no doubt that Schumer, Sanders, Comptroller Scott Stringer and other Dems are reading the polls. They think de Blasio is going to win, and they interpret that as meaning voters don’t care enough about corruption to fire him.
Of course, if de Blasio had been indicted and was trailing in the polls, Schumer and Sanders would have kept their distance and Stringer would probably have challenged the mayor in the primary. Morality has nothing to do with it.It’s a curious mindset, and we see it openly advertised in both parties. “My crook is better than your crook” is an unspoken fact of political life, with selling out your office just another issue to be considered, like your position on taxes or abortion or education.
Voters who put integrity at the top of the list are a decided minority, so we really do get the government we deserve. Which, in the case of New York state and city, means some of the worst in America.
A host of measurements, from the most corruption cases to the highest taxes to the highest Medicaid and education costs per capita, which yield slow job growth, poor health care and lousy education results, give New York a perpetual black eye and put it at a competitive disadvantage.
And that’s without even mentioning the deteriorating subways and street gridlock.
How do the pols get away with it? Here are three top reasons.
First, low voter turnout. In the 2014 gubernatorial race, the state hit a new bottom in the modern era, with only 3.7 million votes cast, or just 34 percent of the 10.8 million people registered.
The city is even worse. In the mayoral election in 2013, turnout was just 24 percent. In the recent mayoral primary, only 14 percent showed up. Think about that — 86 percent of registered Dems stayed home on Election Day.
The city also reflects the second deficit of New York-style democracy — it’s a one-party town, with Dems holding a whopping nearly 7-1 registration advantage. Although Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg won the mayoralty on the GOP line, along with other lines, Republicans are usually invisible in citywide races. They hold no seats in Manhattan and, except for Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, are not competitive in most races.
Across much of the state, one party or another holds a virtual monopoly. Of 213 legislative seats, as few as 15 are competitive in any given year, meaning incumbents have a better chance of going to prison than being defeated in the general election. In some years, one-third of the seats, or about 70, go uncontested, meaning only one of the two major parties puts up a candidate.
The third feature — corruption — is the inevitable consequence of low turnout and single-party rule. Our system is based on checks and balances, but, in reality, it depends on a strong two-party system.
Without that, the party in power has almost unlimited power to make the laws, set the agenda and control the local courts. It’s practically a license to steal, which many pols embrace.
These are the stakes next week. If de Blasio waltzes to victory despite his pay-to-play schemes, you can be certain his second term will be worse than his first.
After all, he will have gotten away with it and been proven right that voters don’t care about corruption.
Headline: Man, woman caught having sex on airplane.
The story out of Detroit, where the plane landed, said the two were strangers until meeting on the flight from Los Angeles.
“There are children,” one passenger told a reporter. “There are families. There are seniors. These things should be respected.”
Respect? How quaint.
Whine-whine situation
Everybody is a victim.
A poll from NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Harvard finds that a majority of whites, African-Americans, LGBTQ people, Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian-Americans all believe their own groups are discriminated against.
Mueller unbiased? ‘Taint’ so
To those who demand to know, yes, I still believe special counsel Robert Mueller should resign.
The indictments of Paul Manafort and an associate on money laundering, tax evasion and other charges unrelated to the campaign, and the guilty plea of a volunteer campaign aide do not change my view that Mueller is hopelessly conflicted. If he were a judge, he could not preside over these cases.Mueller’s close relationship with James Comey was always a problem, but the new role of the Russian dossier, which was paid for by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party, expands Mueller’s conflicts beyond the pale. Any examination of Russian meddling in the election must include that Democratic money paid for the dossier and compensated sources, but Mueller and Clinton were colleagues under President Obama.
Besides, with some of the dossier sources linked to the Kremlin, paying them for dirt on Trump could be seen as an example of Clinton’s collaboration with Russia.
And because the FBI likely used the partisan dossier to investigate Trump, Mueller would have to investigate the agency he headed. Then there’s the White House he worked for, which might have used the dossier for political purposes to help Clinton.
The investigation does not depend on Mueller. Just as Jeff Sessions recused himself as attorney general, Mueller can be replaced and the investigation can continue.
The point is that the public must be convinced that the findings, whatever they are, are free of partisan taint. Mueller can no longer meet that test.