John Nichols at The Nation writes—Tuesday’s Election Could Be a Second Blue Wave. On November 5 voters can reject Trump and embrace criminal justice reform, rent control, and democracy in states and cities nationwide:
New York Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, a rising star in the Democratic Party who might, like his predecessors, end up as mayor of the nation’s largest city or a statewide officeholder, is running this fall against Donald Trump. Williams’s rival in his race for a full term as public advocate is actually Republican City Council member Joe Borelli, but Williams is gleefully reminding voters in the president’s overwhelmingly Democratic hometown that Borelli proposes bringing the Donald Trump Presidential Library to New York.
“Better work fast,” Williams joked in a tweet with the hashtag #ImpeachmentIsComing. Even as he runs a citywide campaign that focuses on housing affordability, expanding mental health programs, and fully funding legal services for undocumented immigrants, Williams rarely misses a chance to rip a president whose agenda the New Yorker promises to “resist at all costs.”
While Trump is not on any November 5 ballot—the busiest Election Day between the fall of 2018 and the fall of 2020—the New York race offers a reminder that his presence has pervaded every political race. In the 2017 odd-year elections, many Democrats ran against Trump rather than their Republican rivals—in suburban Delaware County, Pennsylvania, the Democratic signs mentioned no candidate names, simply announcing: “Vote… Against Trump.” The party won big, taking New Jersey’s governorship, every statewide race in Virginia, and scores of legislative seats and local posts across the country. A similar swing—the latest “blue wave,” if you will—in 2019 will be read as an ominous signal for the president, and by Republicans who are trying to figure out the politics of impeachment and Trump fatigue. [...]
The fact is that Tip O’Neill was wrong: Politics was never all local. So count on the search for signals amid the rough waters of a moment that this country has never before faced, when an impeached-but-perhaps-not-convicted president could for the first time in history bid for a new term in 2020.
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QUOTATION
“Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”
~~Abraham Lincoln
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2007—Giuliani’s Corruption Problem:
Between 1990 and 2004, Rudy Giuliani raised Bernard Kerik from police detective to deputy correction commissioner, then correction commissioner, then police commissioner, to ultimately being, briefly, Bush's nominee for director of homeland security. In each of the roles he filled, as The New York Times details, Kerik was characterized by corruption and abuse, yet Giuliani continued to promote him. For doing that, Giuliani owns Kerik's corruption.
As corrections commissioner:
Behind the scenes Mr. Kerik ruled like a feudal lord, many former employees have said. He had taken up with a woman who was a correction officer; he was accused of directing officers to staff his wedding. He befriended the agency’s inspector general, whose watchdog responsibilities require keeping an arm’s-length relationship, and the investigator attended his wedding.
But far more serious were his ties to a mobbed-up construction company, which developed during his tenure as corrections commissioner, a role in which he repeatedly assisted the company in its dealings with the city, while it hired his brother and paid for the renovation of his own apartment. Despite this, Giuliani had him made police commissioner, over a more qualified candidate.