The next mayor of New York City is .... Zohran Kwame Mamdani. Mamdani and I share a birthday. He was born on October 18, 1991, the day I turned thirty-three. At any rate, I believe I have already shared my view that Mamdani's election in likely to be a disaster for the City that has now placed itself in his hands. I would like today to address the question: will that disaster help or hurt President Donald Trump? I've heard one theory that Trump needs a good bogeyman. After all, Nancy Pelosi was his bogeywoman for a long time. She remains in the House of course but has faded into the background and her successor in party leadership there, Hakeem Jeffries, has a much lower profile. The mayor of New York City has long been a national figure -- Jimmy Walker, Fiorella LaGuardia, John Lindsey all come to mind -- even though the post doesn't seem to work as a stepping stone to higher office. So ... a mayor of New York, one who attaches the label "socialist" ...
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I haven't said much in this blog about the whole Putin-as-puppeteer theory of the 2016 presidential election, and Mueller's investigation. But the days are running short until the Mueller report will drop from the presses, and with Pelosi wielding the gavel, we're getting onto some fascinating terrain. Fascinating for the intellectual consumption of an old poli-sci major from the distinguished Marist College program. The Hill recently listed "five things to know" about the Trump Tower Moscow project. For now I'll simply summarize that publication's discussion. 1) The timeline. Back when Michael Cohen was POTUS' personal lawyer, he testified that Trump's circle conducted discussions about such a project in late 2015, and that the idea had dissipated by the end of January 2016. That would suggest a real but somewhat limited overlap between those talks and the presidential campaigning. More recently, as part of his new status as a cooperatin...
Tuesday night's excitement has passed. A brief restatement of the results (for those coming in late). I'll list four in broad brush terms, then I'll focus for a bit on the fourth. 1. The Republicans have retained control of the Senate. Generally speaking the seat turnarounds that the Dems thought in their giddiest moments they might get, they did not get. They did not, for example, topple Ted Cruz. That photo is of Cruz opponent, Beto O'Rourke (D), whose 15 minutes may now have passed. 2. The Democrats have taken control of the House of Representatives. This likely means that Nancy Pelosi will be back as Speaker (though that is not a certainty). What is certain is that the new management of the House will change the dy namics considerably over the next two years, although any impact it might have upon such matters as judicial confir mations will have to be indirect. There was a fair amount of moaning before the vote about how the national Dem Party had failed t...