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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   28399 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 23, 2024

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Eric Adams indicted

NYC mayor Eric Adams has been indicted in federal court. The indictment details a scheme where he took illegal benefits from Turkey in a quid-pro-quo scheme, and there's an additional scheme where he applied for matching campaign funds using illegal campaign contributions. https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/26/us/whats-in-nyc-mayor-eric-adams-indictment/index.html

The indictment against New York City Mayor Eric Adams unsealed Thursday morning alleges he secretly solicited and accepted freebies and illegal campaign donations from wealthy foreigners, including Turkish officials, as far back as 2014.

In exchange, he pressured the Fire Department of New York to approve the opening of a new Turkish consular building in the city without a fire inspection, the indictment states. In addition, his campaign used those illegal campaign donations to “steal public funds” through New York City’s matching funds, according to the indictment.

Those allegations represent the core of the federal indictment charging Adams with five counts: bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy and two counts of soliciting campaign contributions from foreign nationals.

Adams, a Democrat elected in 2021, has denied wrongdoing and said he does not plan to resign.

“I look forward to defending myself and defending the people of this city as I’ve done throughout my entire professional career,” Adams said.

And that's pretty much the meat of it. There's the full indictment in the link if you want to read 56 pages of legalese.

Naturally, the right wing punditsphere is speculating that this dropped because Adams is critical of the open border, but I think it more likely that he just got caught, and maybe there's some sort of low-profile diplomatic dustup with Turkey that got the FBI investigating Turkish influence in the US. Bigger question- what are the odds he tries to play up that story in the hopes of a Trump pardon? I suspect that if he was going to pull an Eric Johnson over his disagreements with the DNC(and he is not a standard democrat) he would have already done it, but there doesn't seem to be much way he can really dispute these charges and federal courts almost always convict, and Trump just might pardon him like he did Blagojevich.

I know that at an entire three days old, this thread is completely dead, but I want to observe that NYT has suddenly found Jesus on this topic, now that it's Not Trump:

Still another challenge stems from a recent decision by the United States Supreme Court that narrowed the instances in which the bribery statute applies to acts by public officials, a ruling that makes the crime more difficult to prove if the government cannot show that payoffs were made with the intent to reap a quid pro quo.

Yes, yes, there was a SCOTUS ruling recently on the bribery statute. You know what else had a SCOTUS ruling, saying that it needed to be a quid pro quo? Campaign finance laws. Almost fifteen years ago. NYT obviously didn't care when it was all about getting Trump. It had never made sense and continues to make no sense to think that Donald Trump entered into a quid pro quo with Donald Trump to exchange Donald Trump's official acts for Donald Trump's money to pay off Donald Trump's financial expense.

Naturally, the right wing didn't stop for a second to acknowledge that the Biden DOJ has indicted a major D figure.

Part and parcel of a politics where even if opponents do something completely and unambiguously right (for once), it can't be acknowledged. Which is sad, because Adams had it coming and the DOJ was absolutely right to indict him (and Hunter Biden while we're at it).

DOJ was absolutely right to indict him (and Hunter Biden while we're at it).

DOJ slow-walked the investigation so certain crimes would reach statute of limitations, indicted when they could no longer put off indicting (because Hunter kept committing embarrassing gun crimes) then gave Hunter a sweetheart plea deal that only fell through when a judge refused to rubber stamp it. DOJ gets no credit here.

Naturally, the right wing didn't stop for a second to acknowledge that the Biden DOJ has indicted a major D figure.

You could just as easily take this the other way, right wing sides with a major D figure for once.

You could just as easily take this the other way, right wing sides with a major D figure for once.

If that's the case, it's the absolutely most retarded choice.

This is a story about a Democrat mayor getting indicted under a Democrat politician, and you're whining about Republicans.

I will say that the main counterargument I’ve seen on the right is that Adams was indicted precisely because he has defied the Biden administration on immigration and policing. He notably said at a public event that the mass influx of “asylum seekers” into NYC would “destroy this city.” He will also, if removed from office, be replaced (pending a new election) by a very far-left black anti-police extremist named Juwaane Williams; this has led some to believe that Adams is being cleared out precisely to allow Williams’ ascent.

Doubt, but with sufficient room to be convinced if there's evidence.

In particular, the timelines don't make sense. The comments on fake asylum seekers are after many of the matters in the indictment.

The theory here is more along the lines that every major political figure is guilty of something, especially in a city like New York. The feds can pick and choose prosecutions if someone is perceived as worth targeting.

But the flip side is that this particular stuff Adams is alleged to have done is hilariously bad. Now, so is what a lot of the other politicians in New York have done, and at least Adams (probably?) didn't kill hundreds or thousands and try to cover it up afterwards.

((But the Adams admin has what looks to be especially damning records and attempts to destroy those records, with unusually clear theory of law. But we wouldn't know, since we don't have access to the internals of investigations against these politicians, and especially don't have access to the internal records from a complete investigation.))

On the gripping hand, the theory is unfalsifiable in the derogatory sense.

Broadly agree.

I guess I think the statement "the feds can pick and choose prosecution" needs elaboration -- do they already investigate everyone so they have dirt pre-made before they are chosen? That kind of thing seems difficult to keep under wraps -- it's not like you can have an official marker on the file that tells middle management "not for prosecution until he steps on the wrong rail", so you run the risk of someone taking it at face value. And in the worst case, the next admin can come in and actually use it.

I mean, on the other hand, his path to survival is pulling an Eric Johnson. Politically driven railroading probably isn't aimed at doing that.

I'm going to posit, without any real evidence, that this is just the tip of the iceberg for Eric Adams, and that he was pimping out his offices and the levers of power in the city government for a lot more people than just the Turks. All the corruption here is penny ante shit, if he was willing to do this, he was willing to do a lot more.

This might be what they caught him on, but there's a ton more under the surface that will come out over time, even if it never makes it to an indictment. If he was willing to take obviously corrupt offers like this in exchange for a free flight, he was taking much bigger offers for much bigger jobs.

Discussing the case at this time is probably premature until we at least start to get the rumors of the bigger stories.

I'm not disagreeing outright, but it's also not uncommon for politicians to draw a line somewhere while engaging in petty corruption. I think he'd plead guilty if it turned out he was taking all the bribes- any further corruption is going to be of the sinecures for brothers in law types. Or at least that's my two cents.

Adams was always laughably corrupt and everyone knew it, but the business establishment (as opposed to the Democratic Party) supported him over the alternative(s) because a corrupt ex-cop who is willing to support law and order cracking down on the scum was a billion times better than another defund ACAB candidate prepared to let the city rot out of ideological insanity.

And sure enough, the person lined up to replace Adams if he’s removed is an insane ACAB ideologue.

Indeed, and that’s why Hochul is wavering for now.

I"m amused that you said he was laughably corrupt while @gattsuru said mayors were hilariously corrupt.

https://x.com/TheDailyShow/status/1839636694376583296

A rare funny daily show segment

New Yorkers are pragmatic, but the line is fine between that and stupid (Philadelphians) and delusional (Chicagoans). I will refrain from judging other cities for now.

I'm going to find you and throw a battery at you. Go birds.

Nyc is pretty unique in scale relative to other US cities so the corruption will be different than a city like Philly or Chicago.

It's also just kinda goofy because New York mayors have been so hilariously corrupt for so long it's hard to even distinguish what counts as penne-ante anymore. Taking 10 million in matching public funds would normally be a huge deal on its own (compare the Catherine Pugh scandal, which earned her three years over smaller numbers). But deBlasio's wife lost track of 850 million, and no one cares.

and maybe there's some sort of low-profile diplomatic dustup with Turkey that got the FBI investigating Turkish influence in the US.

In 2017 (was it that long ago!) there was an incident where Turkish secret police attacked anti-Erdogan protestors in Washington DC. It might have got Turkey on the radar.

The other thing that comes to mind is Turkey holding up Finland’s NATO admission, which would line up with the timeline quite well.

To completely sidetrack the conversation, is there a way to kick members out of NATO? Because Turkey needs to go. They just kinda... suck on every dimension.

Turkey has the second biggest army in NATO and relevant geography for anything involving Russia or the Middle East.

Isn't this just 20th century thinking?

Their human capital sucks. Israel would destroy Turkey in a war despite a much smaller population and inferior geography. The world has moved on from the era of the Dreadnought. Today's it's all about raw materials, supply chains, and microchips. Turkey is a dinosaur whose poorly trained troops would only be cannon fodder in a conflict which involved the U.S.

Turkey produces their own F-16s under license-build, they export drones, they build satellites and they're even working on their own fifth-gen fighter like South Korea.

Turkey isn't Iraq, Syria or Egypt totally reliant on whatever they can import, they build things. Turkey actually managed to beat back France and Britain and escape a planned partition after WW1, they don't just instantly lose whenever Europeans show up like Arabs. They export manufactured goods: televisions and vehicles. They're 8th in steel production worldwide.

Israel has never fought any first or even second-rate militaries like Turkey, they've never fought any serious industrial powers at all and would be reliant upon nukes (in the admittedly ridiculous scenario where the US wasn't bailing them out).

Even if that is all true (and given Turkey's population size, I don't think it is; quantity has a quality all of its own), it's far better for them to be cannon fodder FOR the US than cannon fodder for the other side.

There's no official mechanism that allows removal of a member that doesn't consent. If the alliance is dependent on however the USA feels about a member at any given time this diminishes the value of joining the alliance. The value of the alliance is also diminished by an adversarial member that does adversarial things too. Maybe to a lesser extent.

There's nothing that practically stops all the other members agreeing to boot Turkey out, considering that decision "unanimous", then writing a new rule about removal after the fact. Officially the alliance member needs to consent to removal to leave.

That's all a lot of mess when NATO and the US can just wait out Erdogan and hope the next guy is more compliant. Despite the theatrics and politics they did host support for US through the GWOT. Turkey also hasn't kicked all NATO personnel out of the country recently. Which they did in the 70's as I recall. So maybe they've always been a bit of an adversarial partner in the alliance. The grandstanding, bloviating, and opportunistic haggling is the price to pay for a relatively, if not quite as important as 50 years ago, important strategic ally.

There's nothing that practically stops all the other members agreeing to boot Turkey out, considering that decision "unanimous", then writing a new rule about removal after the fact. Officially the alliance member needs to consent to removal to leave.

I mean, if it's literally unanimous, then they totally can dump Turkey; they'd just need to agree to all leave NATO and make a new organisation that is literally copypasted NATO except Turkey doesn't get admitted.

Being able to almost singlehandedly block in Russian access in and out of the Black Sea (the only alternative is the Volga-Don canal) is incredibly valuable, and probably the main reason we put up with their shenanigans.

(the only alternative is the Volga-Don canal)

Wrong canal. You're thinking of the Volga-Baltic Waterway and White Sea-Baltic Canal, which together allow Russia to move stuff from the Black Sea to the Baltic or White Seas (the latter of which gives uninterdictable ocean access). The Volga-Don Canal connects the Black and Caspian Seas, but that's of much more limited value since the Caspian Sea is a lake.

No, you still need to traverse the Volga-Don canal to get to the Volga and those other canals (and eventually the Baltic or Arctic) because the Don empties into the Sea of Azov/Black Sea, while the Volga empties into the Caspian.

Whoops, got them mixed up. Apologies.

Seems not that valuable to me given that we have complete air superiority in the Mediterranean. Time to make Turkey pay their freight. Threaten to kick them out and they might actually act like valuable alliance members and not an embarrassment.

Per the Montreux convention, Turkey gets to block warships of warring parties without itself being a party to the war. If the US had to apply its Mediterranean air superiority to prevent Russia from reinforcing the BSF, they would have to (threaten to) directly fire on the Russians, which would let the Russians feel like they have license to shoot down US drones over the Black Sea, which would still be very detrimental to UA. Any attempt to claim that a naval blockade in international waters is not in fact an act of war would bite the US in the ass over Taiwan, as China could start that one sooner than the US argument could be memoryholed.

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