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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 23, 2024

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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.

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.