New York City Mayor Eric Adams is continuing to resist calls to resign after being indicted on federal corruption charges. In recent weeks, at least seven senior city officials have resigned, leaving the city government in a state of crisis. This comes a year before New Yorkers will vote to pick the city’s next mayor. Adams has vowed to run for reelection, but opponents, including fellow Democrats, are lining up to run against him.
We are joined now by New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, who has just announced he will join the race. Mamdani is a Ugandan-born Democratic Socialist who was elected to the New York State Assembly four years ago.
He is running on a platform centered on the needs of working-class New Yorkers and easing the cost-of-living crisis. He shares a number of his policy proposals and also discusses his pro-Palestine advocacy in the State Assembly, where earlier this year he introduced the Not on Our Dime Act, which would prevent New York charities from providing financial support for Israeli settlement activity.
The rule of law continues to disintegrate in the U.S.
How so, in this case? We can’t very well say that someone who’s been charged but not found guilty shouldn’t be allowed to keep or run for an office. The issue is that there are people who may still vote for him despite the evidence before them but that’s more a question of individual stupidity than anything to do with laws. It’s the same way Trump is allowed to run but every single person who who’s even on the fence has shown that they’ve got mush for brains.
I think there is just a general feeling of frustration for how the law is being used. The theory being the laws are there to protect innocent people from accusations from corrupt actors, but the reality is that the ones that are caught red handed are taking advantage of those protections to continue to get away with things, dispose of evidence, etc while slowing the wheels of justice for years. See Trump, Ken Paxton, Bob Menendez, and so on.
While not a violation of the literal law, it is a violation of the supposed purpose of those laws.
ETA: Also, anyone stuck living in these jurisdictions is also being forced to continue to pay these peoples’ salaries and be subject to their corrupt will in the meantime. I imagine it isn’t a great feeling to have these people being in charge of things, and as a citizen who is supposed to be the one being served by this person, you as an individual, city, or state, have no protection from this person, while a crook’s livelyhood is being protected instead. It’s like if you couldn’t get a restraining order against someone until they were convicted of a crime.
I once tried to get a restraining order and it was going to fall to a judge. What that means is that we’d all get in a room together, I’d give my entire schedule and then I’d explain (in front of the other person) why I feel unsafe, and then the judge can say yes or no.
I did not do that. Instead, I just moved, changed jobs, and sold my car.
The rule of law continues to disintegrate in the U.S.
They elected a cop as mayor on the heels of 2020 - I shook my head about it at the time, and this is precisely the outcome I expected as an outsider. He thinks he’s above the law because that’s his normal.
More than just a cop, he’s a landlord cop. The thing is no one actually likes him. But he got the support of rich landlords and blue lives asshats who have more combined power than the average NYer
And he’ll be out bid by SuperPACs for the next corrupt mayor.
Adams can’t let go of power, else how would he do corruption?
