MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
Rumor has it that Bill de Blasio will be announcing a run for president some time next week and the response I’ve seen has been all snark and chortles, even from the left. I get it — in such a crowded field, another candidate almost seems absurd on its face at this point. Another issue is that de Blasio is not a particularly popular mayor here in New York City, which invites jokes that we residents are trying to export him to the rest of the country.
I’ve lived in New York City since 1999 so I’ve seen Giuliani, Bloomberg and de Blasio. By far, de Blasio has been the best and most progressive mayor we’ve had since I’ve been here. His signature accomplishments have touched me personally. Just before our son was old enough to enter the public school system, de Blasio managed to provide universal public pre-K. This helped our son start his education earlier and saved us potentially tens of thousands of dollars. Yes, private programs cost that much here and they are overbooked, year after year.
Under Giuliani and Bloomberg, the police were ever-present in city life and the administrations defended the practice of police officers randomly stopping people (well, not all people in practice) and searching them for contraband. We were told, as I was reminded in a Twitter exchange with fellow New Yorker Josh Marshall, that allowing the police to stop and search people at the slightest suspicion was all that stood between us and a return to the high levels of street crime seen from the 1970s through the early 1990s. Mayor de Blasio put an end to stop and frisk policing and the city still grows safer each year.
Mayor de Blasio has acted out of concern for the health of city workers, for a higher minimum wage and for tenant rights. If he does join the presidential race, he’d be on the left side of the scale and has a record as a progressive mayor in a city that’s larger than a lot of states to prove it.
He’s unlikely to win, but so are they all. He has enemies in the party who are ready to kneecap him, starting with our governor Andrew Cuomo. But he deserves serious consideration rather than snickers, by any voter who counts themselves progressive.
Comments
From one progressive New Yorker to another, I agree that de Blasio gets a bad rap. Still, he doesn't have a shot in hell at the nomination.
by Michael Wolraich on Fri, 05/03/2019 - 10:41pm
The reason for the ridicule is that most New Yorkers don't think like the two Michaels. Overall, they think like me, that he's doing a lousy job: he's right down pretty near Trump territory with the job approval rating. I also agree with a lot of the ridiculers about him lacking self-awareness and having ridiculous confidence in himself for no obvious reason and often uttering dumb things (sound familiar? even though the things are more lefty in orientation, doesn't mean they are not very similar dumbness. I think there's more similarities to Trump than most would admit to themselves. The word that always comes to my mind is: bozo; a clueless bozo.)
Quinnipiac April 3, 2019 - New York City Mayor, First Lady Get Lukewarm Grades, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Voters Say 4-1 De Blasio Should Not Run For President
For others who haven't seen it, here is The Daily News story that broke the news. The Daily News is a Dem party-oriented paper and it's got quotes from Dem operatives:
by artappraiser on Fri, 05/03/2019 - 11:11pm
More similarities to Trump,
poor on the management front and hiring abilities
By The Editorial Board @ NYTimes.com, April 21, Who’s Running New York City? Good Question. Key city roles sit vacant as Mayor de Blasio hits the campaign trail.
Pay to play accusations:
MAYOR DE BLASIO’S DEFUNCT FUNDRAISING GROUP FACES ONGOING STATE ETHICS PROBE
By Greg B. Smith & Yoav Gonen @ TheCity.nyc, April 19
letting family run programs with a billion dollar budget while they don't seem to be accomplishing anything:
bullshit promises and people suffering due to incompetence:
by artappraiser on Fri, 05/03/2019 - 11:39pm
Piling on with more pay-to-play. This is someone you think would make a good president after what we've been through this time? Really? Sure it isn't a joke? Pre-K makes treading all kinds of ethical lines okay? Treading the lines and using the dopes if you get caught and letting them take the fall? Sounds so familiar! It's the New York way, after all. (Pssst: my experience as a 20-something: other towns don't run like this, they get actual things and services for the taxes they pay. It's possible. Other cities don't have all the make work bureaucrats collecting big paychecks, you get in trouble if you try to pay to play, it's called bribery. It was so shocking coming from the Midwest to find no one complains about the huge amount of graft, grifting crookedness and like in NYC government, And DeBlasio has turned that spigot back on strong! The swamp things = bad with a vengenance and a bozo helping them. Doesn't sound familiar?)
Bill de Blasio, the Prostitute-Providing Elves, and New York-Style Constituent Service
An elf home-delivered a Christmas bribe to a cop. Flew him to Vegas with a hooker on board. And asked the mayor to put him on a police corruption panel—after donating lots of cash.
@ DailyBeast.com, 08.07.17 1:00 AM ET
Mayor Bill de Blasio treads an ethical fine line Call it the Bill de Blasio law of large numbers.
Editorial board, amNY.com, April 13, 2018
by artappraiser on Sat, 05/04/2019 - 4:27am
Piling on with another poll:
De Blasio Would Make Most NY Dems Unhappy As 2020 Nominee: Poll
Only a quarter of New York Democrats would be happy with the mayor as their party's presidential nominee, a new poll shows.
By Noah Manskar, Patch Staff Mar 8, 2019
Then @ The Patch they also have this, from his homies at the gym he insists on still going to even tho it's at least a fucking hour away from Gracie Mansion:
Flyers At De Blasio's YMCA Demand Members Not Run For President
Flyers at the Park Slope YMCA bear a warning: "By entering these premises you agree not to run for President of the United States in 2020."
By Noah Manskar, Patch Staff Updated Apr 30, 2019 5:59 pm ET
Now this is not from right wing Staten Islanders, this is from Brooklyn hipsters who personally know him before he became mayor.
Then there's 3 dozen of his own campaign-for-mayor people who said to Politico in March:
'F---ing insane’: De Blasio allies warn against 2020 run
The New York mayor has been flirting with a presidential bid, but has few backers.
03/11/2019 05:03 AM EDT
Who does that sound like, hmmm?
by artappraiser on Sat, 05/04/2019 - 4:02am
Ending stop and frisk alone places him as more progressive than a lot of the field of current candidates. I don’t get the hate at all.
by Michael Maiello on Sat, 05/04/2019 - 11:09am
AA, I'm well aware that many New Yorkers hate de Blasio. But I don't understand why they hate him. It's certainly not because of the slow roll out of air-conditioners in public schools. De Blasio may not have accomplished everything he promised, but he has delivered on his biggest campaign promises--free Pre-K, more affordable housing, end stop-and-frisk. And while NYC has plenty of infrastructure problems (public housing!), it's not clear that these are any worse than they were under de Blasio's predecessors.
I grant you the pay-to-play scandal, which is also my biggest beef with de Blasio, but I don't think that's the reason he's so unpopular. Plenty of politicians have done worse without tanking their approval rating (looking at you Cuomo). De Blasio reminds me of Hillary Clinton in that everyone is ready to believe the worst of him and ignore the best. That's why I said he gets a bad rap. It's also why I said that he doesn't have a chance in hell of winning the presidential nomination.
by Michael Wolraich on Mon, 05/06/2019 - 3:42pm
Oh shit... I read this after my response to the other Mike, but damn, this is an interesting perspective.
by tmccarthy0 on Mon, 05/06/2019 - 9:28pm
Maybe they read in the NYTimes what a lousy manager he is? Or maybe they don't need to read it, they have experienced it themselves because they can't get any help from the bureaucracy anymore and 311 has become useless. He hasn't shown any ability to manage this city, can't hire any people much less good people-it's running on strings and mirrors with temporary appts., but he wants to run the country? He should be ashamed to ask "how 'm I doing?" but he has the gall to think about running for president?! It's absurd!
Cuomo is a crooked Dem machine pol, too, but at least he knows how to manage! Cuomo's not a dolt in over his head. DeBlasio is a one man advert for the Peter Principle, he should have gone no higher than his last job.
by artappraiser on Mon, 05/06/2019 - 10:41pm
people who know him agree he's basically a political hack, not a governing type! Furthermore, he lacks self-awareness about that! So much that is similar to Trump personality problems. And then there's the previously mentioned Trump-like behavior as well.
~ from Edward-Isaac Dovere @ TheAtlantic.com, May 6
by artappraiser on Tue, 05/07/2019 - 2:29am
AA, what evidence do you have besides anecdotal complaints about 311 (which was never much more than a PR stunt) that NYC is worse off under Blasio than it was under his predecessors? Not the problems he hasn't solved, not what people think of him. Which quality-of-life factors have deteriorated since he took office, and why is he responsible for them?
I credited him with three concrete improvements--UPK, more affordable housing, and the end of stop-and-frisk. I would also add the reduction of traffic fatalities and diversification efforts at the elite public schools (though that's still in progress and obviously controversial).
That's not a terrible record. So what, specifically, has he done to injure our fair city that would count against those accomplishments?
by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 05/07/2019 - 11:02am
I'll fully admit to just anecdotals PLUS he has Trump level approval ratings! I am addressing the topic Bill De Blasio would make a great president and I am saying that's ridiculous. It strikes me as sort of absurd that I should I have to defend my opinion on this. It's not just personal dislike, I am unhappy with the job he's doing running the city, plus there are a lot of people that agree with me, including the NYTimes Editorial Board. If he's doing such a great job compared to other mayors, why those approval ratings?
On not a terrible record: What a great campaign slogan!. NOT.
On more affordable housing, I will say this much this piddling stuff does not impress me especially when this is going on. On the reduction of traffic fatalities, as a frequent driver in the outer boroughs, personally I find everything I have seen him say and do about the traffic situation stupid and abhorrent. The logistics of getting around has grown to a nightmare state in the last five years or so and he seems to do nothing except exacerbate it, it's a favorite topic with friends and neighbors. It's not just the subway situation but that of course contributes mightily.
Nobody seems in co control of anything like street construction. It's become a fucking lousy place to live and he's not improving it for my kind, I want out like all those others. On diversification efforts at the elite public schools I don't have much to do with that and don't understand the system as I don't have children, but all I read makes it sound like whatever he's doing is causing a lot more unhappiness and friction than before and thank god I don't have kids. As an borough homeowner, I really did feel a difference during the Bloomberg years, you could get service from the bureaucracy sometimes and things ran more efficiently. It's absolute chaos out here in the Bronx. The not my problem syndrome.
Let me just add that when I say neighbors, they are not just nobody know nothings. My elderly next door neighbor has a classic Irish family with four grown kids in city service, two in fire department and two in police, one a high up lawyer for the police dept. They are continually over here fighting bureaucratic nightmares for her and even they can't get through. The next neighbor over just retired from management in the MTA, he wants out too, there is no longer any quality of life here, just hassles. And many caused by, rather than solved by, city government procedure combined with poor management.
I will be spending part of this afternoon fighting with the NYC unincorporated business tax department who can't seem to get my filing status right for the last 2 years. Just another couple hours of working for them rather than them working for me.
The city has taken a big turn for the worse since about the time he was elected as far as I see it, that's all I really need to say. The mayor should not get blame for that, he should be praised for 2 or 3 accomplishments? He should be elected president?
I have lived here since 1983. I have never been this frustrated with the quality of life here, even during the early years when it was high crime, crack epidemic, Bernard Goetz subways. It has definitely grown worse during his tenure. City government meanwhile seems to me to be moving towards the equivalent of the Donald Manes parking violations bureau.
Manhattan especially seems to be becoming a shell of what it once was. It does no good to have a piddling number of inexpensive housing units when fewer and fewer interesting businesses feel they can exist there. Without a more pro-small business agenda, it may be an empty shell for many years to come. I don't have that kind of time.
by artappraiser on Tue, 05/07/2019 - 1:37pm
P.S. I'd like to sum it up this way since you have compared the two. It would strike me as reasonable to argue that Gov. Cuomo would make a great president, while it strikes me as nearly laughable to say Mayor De Blasio would make a great president. To me it's very clear after his tenure so far that DeBlasio is simply a political hack who does not know how to manage much at all, is incompetent at an executive role and covers that up with spin, while Cuomo is a quite capable manager, whether one likes his policy or not.
by artappraiser on Tue, 05/07/2019 - 1:50pm
Ftr, I in no way advocate de Blasio for president. He would be universally despised, just as he's despised in NYC. But I do say that he gets a bad rap. He's the guy everyone loves to hate, has been since the day he took office. I don't think he's such a great mayor, but the animus against him is all out of proportion to his flaws. It's very easy to get people to talk about how much they despise him, but I rarely hear anything other than diatribes about his personality and generalities about how NYC is going downhill.
To your points, I don't have enough bureaucratic interactions to form a judgment on the state of NYC bureaucracy. I believe that it's horrendous, but I suspect that it's been horrendous for a long time.
What I personally see making NYC worse is the rents--driving out the people and businesses that make this city so incredible. That started long before de Blasio, and he surely hasn't stopped it, but at least he's trying harder than Bloomberg ever did.
PS I have little sympathy for city drivers, sorry. We have too much traffic because there are too many cars on the road. If I have to choose between sitting in traffic or saving lives, it's an easy choice.
by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 05/07/2019 - 2:13pm
Switching to a more lighthearted vein, I am actually running across more stuff along these lines on Twitter in reaction to the DeBlasio news than I am seeing bashing of DeBlasio himself:
by artappraiser on Sat, 05/04/2019 - 1:03am
If you want bland white progressive, 'why not Jay Inslee! He's that bland PNWer, he has run an entire state and he's originally from E. Washington, which means nothing, except he might know some farmers! I don't think he has any scandals!
by tmccarthy0 on Sun, 05/05/2019 - 10:44am
Bland? Bill isn’t bland. His wife is hella cool. He stopped stop and frisk. He’s a good egg!
by Michael Maiello on Sun, 05/05/2019 - 2:41pm
His wife is cool, but face it, Bill deBlandio, is dull, dry, drab. Is he really getting in this race? I think a bunch of these people are in it for the ultimate payoff that comes with an unsuccessful run for the Presidency. Everyone wanting you to pontificate on the boob tube, some op-Ed’s in the WaPo and NYTimes maybe even WSJ, more time on Fox and then MSNBC and maybe even a 60 minutes interview. And then all culminating in a their own show on whichever cable news company thinks they can fit them in. It’s all about money. We really have become The Society of the Spectacle, ugh.
by tmccarthy0 on Mon, 05/06/2019 - 9:26pm
At first I thought: she doesn't have it exactly right as I would go with political hack over dull, dry, drab, that it's a better descriptive. But then I thought: while he's a hack but he's not very skillful at it. I suppose I could use both our words together. But after I've thought on it a while, I think bozo is best: accurate and succinct at the same time.
My main thought from the whole thread: so tragic how Trump has lowered our expectations that classic NYC political graft should be acceptible in a possible president. Any whiff of pay-to-play should be an immediate disqualifier, like: getta outta here, you can't be serious. Trump basically learned how to be Trump from NYC pay-to-play politics. Being happy that he gets you your one favored program and not caring what else he does is no different than fans of Trump because he's anti-abortion, they don't care what else he does.
by artappraiser on Mon, 05/06/2019 - 10:11pm
Bozo! Hah!!!
I do agree AA, Trump has lowered our expectations that graft and corruption are okay at all levels. But it make me think this is the way to beat him. America will be Elliot Ness and Trump is our Capone and we do have to stop him or the corruption will kill us all.
Honestly I’m worried, I’m worried about America if we don’t ablate Trump.
by tmccarthy0 on Mon, 05/06/2019 - 11:20pm
Chirlaine is so cool she's got away $1.8 billion dollars of taxpayer's money playing with a ditsy naive pet project about "mental health" while thousands of mentally ill still live on the streets.
If Chirlaine is cool, then you should be cool with Ivanka as advisor doing her ditsy do-gooder pet projects as well.
by artappraiser on Mon, 05/06/2019 - 10:20pm
I just read this article at The Daily Beast, https://www.thedailybeast.com/mayor-bill-de-blasio-wants-to-be-president-hes-lucky-hes-not-under-indictment
Sounds like De Blasio is a crook, just like Trump.
by tmccarthy0 on Thu, 05/09/2019 - 7:37am
No again, not "just like Trump":
I've got no dog in this fight, just find it frustrating to keep re-visiting how others are "just like Trump" when they're not taking *personal money*, getting donations/payouts for *privately owned businesses*, supporting family members on the public dollar. Yes, government works on a slushfund of wealthy PACs and private donors, but they largely pay into our campaign system as the vehicle for change - see my In The News link for AOC's workshop on this (https://twitter.com/astroehlein/status/1093653649291653121)
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 05/09/2019 - 8:15am
Well, it is probably more correctly said as exhibiting how Trump learned to be Trump; his training grounds:
Edit to add more on that story from the New York Times
Landlords Get a $173 Million Deal From City as Their Lawyer Raises Funds for de Blasio
A lawyer who was representing landlords in a lucrative real estate deal against the city was also helping to fund-raise for Mayor Bill de Blasio’s federal PAC, which the mayor has used to pay for his visits to primary states, like Iowa in February.
You scratch my back, I scratch yours, real estate guys, Russians, what's the diff? A little grift here, a little grift there, payola gets ya what you need or want.
by artappraiser on Thu, 05/09/2019 - 1:52pm
Thanks, AA. Yes. This story is crazy and OMG he seems to be pretty crooked.
by tmccarthy0 on Thu, 05/09/2019 - 9:41pm
Yes, like Trump. And I was 100% correct about Avenatti too. :)
by tmccarthy0 on Thu, 05/09/2019 - 9:41pm
Wow that article has a lot more bad stuff than I knew about, TMac. It easily serves as a great laundry list of examples about ye olde Dem machine in New York City. It explains why we ended up with 16 years of voters selecting non-Democrats for mayors. But even doing that didn't manage to cleanse the system, it's still there.
by artappraiser on Thu, 05/09/2019 - 1:43pm
I didn’t know how bad it was, even though of course I’ve read history. But I guess we aren’t changing these things ever, in fact, we are allowing it to get worse by continuing to elect these clowns.
by tmccarthy0 on Thu, 05/09/2019 - 9:42pm
Seems to me like a plumber come with his tools to do a job.
Always impressed with his command of facts during his Friday morning " Ask the Mayor" segment on NPR.The telephone interviewer clearly ensure that he get's an uninterrupted string killer questions with the program manager skillfully pouring gasoline on the conflagration.
Does he get everything right? Of course not.But he's batting .300. He'll get his contract renewed,
by Flavius on Fri, 05/10/2019 - 12:00am
Just got around to reading this May 7 NYTimes piece. And gosh if so much doesn't ring a bell of some kind. Maybe "just like Trump" isn't that far off:
Ethics Cloud Hangs Over de Blasio as He Weighs Presidential Run
As the mayor nears a decision on the race, new questions have arisen over his efforts to raise money from donors who do business with the city.
By William Neuman
***NO COLLUSION? NO COLLUSION!!! NO COLLUSION!!!
*** 2 Donors Plead Guilty, but the Mayor Is Not Charged. Why? by William Neuman and William K. Rashbaum @ NYTimes.com, Jan. 26.
I want to conclude by going back to my original reaction: run for the Democratic presidential nomination? what the fuck, are you crazy too?
With all this shit going on unresolved even if not true? It's insane cluelessness, total lack of self-awareness, almost a kind of narcissism, selling a narrative but not one your lying eyes are telling ya; sound familiar?
by artappraiser on Fri, 05/10/2019 - 3:04am
P.S. for non-New Yorkers: Brian Lehrer, mayoral interlocutor among other things. Kind of like our non-political mayor in a way, as the term is used colloquially.
by artappraiser on Fri, 05/10/2019 - 3:15am
A $2675 bribe?
by Flavius on Fri, 05/10/2019 - 10:53am
And he's off https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/15/politics/bill-de-blasio-2020-presidential...
by Michael Wolraich on Thu, 05/16/2019 - 10:33am
I'm not laughing. Not that he was giving his all up until now, but it will be even less:
by artappraiser on Thu, 05/16/2019 - 1:16pm
To paraphrase an old saw about the size of male equipment: It's not how big the city is, it's what you do with it
by artappraiser on Wed, 05/22/2019 - 10:27pm
Suppose God put the names of Beame,Koch, Dinkins,Giuliani and Bloomberg in a hat and you had to decide to
A keep de Blasio or
B have him removed and let her pull the name of his replacement out of the hat.
Would you chose A or B?
by Flavius on Wed, 05/22/2019 - 11:52pm
his political hackitude showing:
by artappraiser on Wed, 06/05/2019 - 6:20pm
more doofus:
He's like a Trump doppleganger! All b.s. all the time.
by artappraiser on Thu, 06/13/2019 - 7:45pm
He differs from Trump in that doesn't argue he's a stable genius when he doesn't know something important to his current job, he just applies for a new, bigger one:
by artappraiser on Fri, 06/14/2019 - 11:15am
another doofus move: De Blasio apologizes for quoting Che Guevara in Miami
@ The Hill.com- 06/27/19 05:35 PM EDT
by artappraiser on Thu, 06/27/2019 - 8:03pm
Why? Did he misquote?
by jollyroger on Fri, 06/28/2019 - 2:26am
You can pretend that Guevara is a great revolutionary and a man of the people but you have to know many consider him a murderous bastard. I guess you're still shouting Vive La Revolucion when Maduro walks into the room.
by ocean-kat on Fri, 06/28/2019 - 3:43am
I presume they still call the Cuba Libra "la Mentirita" ("little lie") in Miami.
There seemed to be a bit of a loosening when Gloria Estefan was making it big and Raul took over, but that didn't liberalize feelings as much as I'd hoped - it's still a lot of pretty hardnosed rightwing types, Batista nostalgists...
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 06/28/2019 - 5:22am
You joke cause you like Che, my dear lefty friend. But puhleez, red herring, he goes out of his way trying to court Miami Latinos with Spanish, and picks one of the very few phrases that would insult them. I resubmit: Doofus! I will add: Bozo & Pandering Idiot.
by artappraiser on Fri, 06/28/2019 - 10:56pm
Inasmuch as the offending phrase is FAMOUSLY associated with El Che, I will cheerfully subscribe to the ongoing doofusication program following De B's proffer of ignorance as to the phrase's origin. Watta putz!
(That said, and in the larger goal of the defenestration of Trump, I will here share my, admonition to my favorite cousin following the first debate, she having expressed apprehension that neither a person of color nor a woman would be able to muster the necessary votes from our notoriously racist/sexist public.)
I think De Blasio may be your guy (wait, what?)
Inbox
x
Thu, Jun 27, 3:06 PM (2 days ago)
White (check), Male (check) plus, taller than Trump and just as rude...
Thu, Jun 27, 5:00 PM (2 days ago)
His name ends in a vowel (objectionable to our voter swamp) plus he’s from NY Sent from my iPad
Thu, Jun 27, 5:01 PM (2 days ago)
I do applaud the taller-than- Trump factor.
by jollyroger on Sat, 06/29/2019 - 11:51am
Excerpts:
by artappraiser on Fri, 07/12/2019 - 9:08pm
I just can't resist: believe the rest of us now?
It's Cuomo that would make a fine president if not a great one. De Blasio is and has always been doofus hack. A little more well meaning than Trump but not by much. Just because his narcissism projects as ability to schmooze a political machine system instead of personal "ratings" doesn't make him "great". Intellect level looking more similar to Trump's every day. So does the propensity to nepotism and listening to loyal yes men and ignoring those who don't agree with him.
by artappraiser on Mon, 03/16/2020 - 4:59pm
NOPE and you know by now you got that wrong. Should have instead gone with New York City voters should Defund vanity campaigns by dorky narcissist mayors:
by artappraiser on Thu, 06/30/2022 - 8:52pm
but I especially want to know what I got for the billion dollars Chirlane (nepotism, thy name is NYC government) spent on her ThriveNYC mental health plan. The city doesn't seem to have much mental health lately.
by artappraiser on Thu, 06/30/2022 - 9:03pm