dagblog - Comments for "Tracking Graft, From the Bootlegger to the Mayor (NYC)"

And while Cohn is gone, the

artappraiser — Wed, 02 May 2018 08:22:17 +0000

In reply to Tracking Graft, From the Bootlegger to the Mayor (NYC)

[....] And while Cohn is gone, the exchange never shut down. Its unofficial legislative body is the floating quid pro quo Favor Bank that has always made New York tick at its highest levels, however corruptly, since Tammany Hall. It’s a realm where everyone has his (or her) price, and clout is always valued higher than any civic good. All that matters is the next transaction. Since time immemorial, those who find it unsavory are invariably dismissed as naïve.

The more I’ve looked back at the entanglements of Trump, Cohn, and their overlapping circles and modi operandi, the more I think the crux of their political culture could be best captured if Edward Sorel were to create a raucous mural depicting the Friday night in February 1979 when Cohn celebrated his 52nd birthday at Studio 54. That sprawling midtown Valhalla of the disco era, a nexus for boldface names, omnivorous drug consumption, anonymous sex, and managerial larceny, was owned by Cohn’s clients (and soon-to-be-imprisoned felons) Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager. The guest list? “If you’re indicted, you’re invited,” went the comedian Joey Adams’s oft-repeated joke about Cohn’s soirées. Among the (all-white) Democratic revelers joining Republican and Conservative party leaders at Cohn’s black-tie testimonial were the borough presidents of Queens (Donald Manes), Brooklyn (Howard Golden), and Manhattan (Andrew Stein), not to mention the former Democratic mayor Abe Beame and a bevy of judges, including the chief of the U.S. District Court. The investigative reporter Wayne Barrett, who covered the scrum from the sidewalk for the Village Voice, noted that, among the usual Warhol celebrity crowd, politicians, and fixers, was a “surprise” attendee — “newcomer Chuck Schumer, a ‘reform’ assemblyman from Brooklyn who insisted he was just the date of a gossip columnist.” Also in attendance, less surprisingly, and camera-ready for the paparazzi, was the 32-year-old Trump, who by then had been in Cohn’s orbit for six years.

Like the other developers on hand, Trump had sought and won favors from some of the older, more powerful Democrats who were present. With Cohn’s imprimatur, Trump gained easy access to the ostensibly nonpartisan press Establishment as well [.....]

It was Democrats in New York who taught both Cohn and Trump that they could buy off politicians and try to get away with anything. Cohn’s father, Al, was a Bronx and then New York State Supreme Court judge. The elder Cohn’s roots in the party’s machine were hardwired into his son: Young Roy figured out how to pull strings to fix a parking ticket for a teacher while still in high school. Trump grew up with a father who had been intertwined with the Brooklyn Democratic machine while building his residential-real-estate empire. By the time the clubhouse hack Beame arrived in City Hall in 1974 after the reform mayoralty of John Lindsay, Fred Trump had known him for 30 years. The new mayor immediately gave both Trumps a license to steal by declaring that “whatever Donald and Fred want, they have my complete backing.” [....]

~ Frank Rich, in

The Original Donald Trump

The New York Establishment will ignore unscrupulous acts to serve its interests — just look how it treated Roy Cohn, onetime lawyer to the president.

@NYMag.com, April 29, 2018

Good question, if you look at

artappraiser — Sat, 28 Apr 2018 13:13:03 +0000

In reply to How did they get from a

Good question, if you look at the link to the 2011 story about it from the Lowell, Mass. paper it's still not clear but suggests to me this was a van, maybe with commercial plates, and it didn't belong to the driver (registered with Peralta.) And they got a problem in Mass. with people transporting large quantities of liquor from NH where liquor is untaxed, they are always looking for that. There are big liquor stores on the NH border for people to buy untaxed. So then the surrounding states have laws where you can only be transporting so much per vehicle.

Well yeah, it's just the

artappraiser — Sat, 28 Apr 2018 13:06:55 +0000

In reply to Could someone relate the

Well yeah, it's just the standard third world/Russia kind of stuff: the rule of law is routinely for sale in NYC.

You take care of law enforcement and then whatever you want, they can get it for you. I.E., illegal guns, water bill problem fixed, real estate competition out of the way, legal issues with Airbandb at your fancy property, special protection, etc.

Taking care of law enforcement sometimes means more than taking them on fancy trips and buying them presents. Sometimes you may have to let them in on like, your liquor smuggling deals. You have to stay creative. But if you have connections to the machers and scoundrels who populated the world of New York real estate that should be no problem, as ideas just come to you.

Then there's that if you need a better lifestyle and have control of city union funds, you can make a nice kickback from a hedge fund if you are in with the right people.

Everybody should be entitled to be like The Donald.

How did they get from a

barefooted — Sat, 28 Apr 2018 02:44:14 +0000

In reply to Tracking Graft, From the Bootlegger to the Mayor (NYC)

How did they get from a "routine traffic stop" to searching the vehicle?

Could someone relate the

NCD — Sat, 28 Apr 2018 02:15:37 +0000

In reply to Tracking Graft, From the Bootlegger to the Mayor (NYC)

Could someone relate the serious part, in a few sentences, I got to the 2000 liquor bottles, the razor, and the cop getting a diamond and went back to watching the Cavs lose, which was boring enough.

well he certainly got himself

artappraiser — Sat, 28 Apr 2018 01:10:53 +0000

In reply to Thanks, I'm looking forward

well he certainly got himself quite an assignment here with a cast of characters that truly fulfills the you couldn't make this stuff up line Tough job telling this story shorter than book length, but he did it well!

Best line in the article, mho

artappraiser — Sat, 28 Apr 2018 01:06:22 +0000

In reply to Tracking Graft, From the Bootlegger to the Mayor (NYC)

Best line in the article, mho:

As it nudges the case toward its conclusion, the trial will reprise the investigation’s central theme: that a culture of graft — sometimes petty, sometimes serious — has existed in New York since the days of Tammany Hall.

I think this culture is the main reason why liberal NYC votes for mayors not of the Dem party from time to time. Many NYC residents don't see the Dem party as a savior of anything. It is a place where everyone learns to be, in the end, out for #1. If you always vote loyal party line, you realize that in the end you are endorsing a machine. Maybe you want to do that because your family and friends have always gotten jobs or favors with that machine; New Yorkers get that, too. It's also why New York often has some of the most zealous over-the-top Jean-Valjean-type prosecutors; the more cynical may see those types more like Don Quixote tilting at windmills.

Thanks, I'm looking forward

Michael Wolraich — Fri, 27 Apr 2018 23:20:27 +0000

In reply to Tracking Graft, From the Bootlegger to the Mayor (NYC)

Thanks, I'm looking forward to reading this. Alan's actually a friend of mine; he's in a writers group with Maiello and me. Great writer.