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.
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.
I’m sorry you had to deal with all that to be safe. I hope you are in a better situation now. 😔
While the principle of our justice system is supposed to be the whole “better to let someone guilty go free then to punish someone innocent,” that’s naturally going to leave quite a number of people never getting the justice they deserve.
I have no clue what the right way to punish people is, but I feel people definitely have valid anger at the justice system even if things have been done by the letter of the law. The law is not perfect by design, so we should absolutely have the right to criticize it.
Yeah, with perspective, I realize it was maybe not as necessary as it felt at the time, but maybe that’s luck. I do keep a google alert up for his name and he beat the shit out of someone with a restraining order against him a few years ago, so there’s that, but I didn’t have nearly the emotional entanglement with him at the time that they did.
I’m now living in a different country (and he definitely can’t get a passport), so much less concerning now.
Edit: also thank you for the concern, that’s really sweet.
It’s better to have been overly cautious than to find out after the fact you left yourself too open to danger. I’m glad you were able to realize the situation you could have been in and were able to act on it despite the difficulty involved.
I don’t know you, but no matter who you are, I’d prefer you to be safe and happy. Nobody deserves to be miserable or scared.