New York Mayor Eric Adams

Dear Commons Community.

The New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, was at a recent dinner party that included New York City Mayor Eric Adams as a guest.  Here is an excerpt from her column commenting on Adams and his recent legal problems.

“And there, walking right past Andrews Cuomo to the bar, was Mayor Eric Adams. He reversed the host, Cindy Adams’mantra: He was invited, and now he’s been indicted.

I did a feature on the mayor in the summer of 2022, when he was six months into the job.

He had started with such flair and swagger, but by the time I was trailing around the city after him, his poll numbers were dropping. Some of the mayor’s aides at City Hall were getting very uneasy about his cronies and clubbing at the private Zero Bond. And later, some of his best aides began leaving his increasingly murky orbit.

“It’s like the second coming of ‘Beau James,’ Jimmy Walker,” one top Democratic politico told me, prophetically. Another Democratic mayor with flair, a star of the Roaring Twenties’ Tammany Hall machine, Walker was forced to resign after an investigation showed he had accepted a windfall from businessmen trying to secure municipal contracts. He argued that he took “beneficences,” not bribes, and avoided potential criminal prosecution by disappearing to Europe with his mistress, a Ziegfeld girl.

When I interviewed Adams, he was buoyant. He talked about his favorite show growing up, “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom,” and I asked him which animal he related to. “Clearly, I am a lion,” he said, laughing. “I am meant to rule the jungle.”

As the daughter of a police detective, I was hoping that the former New York police captain would shine, not tarnish his office.

His story was powerful: The Brooklyn native joined the force after being beaten by the police as a teenager. His mother scraped to support six kids with cleaning work; as a child, Adams would sometimes have to take a bag full of clothes to school in case they were evicted by the end of the day.

I wanted to believe that this moderate Democrat could root out bad cops and bring justice to Black victims while quelling crime and pushing back on defund-the-police and coddle-the-criminal rhetoric on the far left.

But warning signs kept bubbling up.

Our interview — conducted after we rushed to the scene of a murder — was over dinner at Osteria la Baia, a restaurant owned by his friends the brothers Petrosyants, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to an illegal check-cashing scheme designed to evade anti-money-laundering rules.

Mayor Adams had chosen Philip Banks as deputy mayor of public safety, even though he was an unindicted co-conspirator in a corruption scandal involving Bill de Blasio donors in 2014. He had made Frank Carone his chief of staff, despite questions about his past business dealings.

I asked the mayor about all this, and he replied that he wanted to see the best in his friends, to give them second chances.

“The worst day of your life should not define your life,” he said. “I just believe that because I’ve had some worst days.”

And some more worst days are to come. His sketchy associates weren’t the only graspy problem. Adams himself was, according to law enforcement officials.

In a stunning tableau on Friday, Adams was arraigned downtown. He is the first sitting mayor of New York to be charged with a federal crime — a reflection of just how sloppy Adams must have been.

He pleaded not guilty and claims, Trump-style, to be a target of a rigged system out to get him — while Hochul mulled whether to remove him and Cuomo still circled.

It’s hard to believe that a New York mayor could be had for a bunch of luxury hotel suites and business-class seats on Turkish Airlines — taking circuitous routes to Europe, Asia and Africa.

The indictment charges Adams with bribery, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations, alleging he got emoluments for clearing away obstacles for Turkish officials, most frighteningly, pressuring the fire department to open a new high-rise Turkish diplomatic building, despite its having a faulty fire safety system.

When I wrote about Adams, his biggest scandal — which I learned at our dinner — was that he still ate fish even though he claimed to be a vegan.

But it seems that wasn’t the only fishy thing about him.

Tony

Joe Biden, Rosalynn Carter, and Jimmy Carter

Dear Commons Community,

Tomorrow, former President Jimmy Carter turns 100 years old and  Joe Biden sent the following good wishes.

“Mr. President, you’ve always been a moral force for our nation and the world. I recognized that as a young senator. That’s why I supported you so early. You’re a voice of courage, conviction, compassion, and most of all, a beloved friend of Jill and me and our family.

We know this is the first birthday without Rosalynn. It’s bittersweet, but we also know she’s always with you. She’s in your heart; she’ll never go away. She may be gone, but she’s always going to be with you. She’s always there, and I know you know that.

Your hopeful vision of our country, your commitment to a better world, and your unwavering belief in the power of human goodness continues to be a guiding light for all of us.

You know, you’re one of the most influential statesmen in our history. Even after you left office, the moral clarity you showed throughout your career showed through again in your commitment through the Carter Center and Habitat for Humanity – resolving conflicts, advancing democracy, preventing disease, and so much more. It’s transforming the lives of people not only at home but around the world.

Put simply, Mr. President, I admire you so darn much.

Jill and I send to you and your incredible family our love. May God continue to bless you, Mr. President. You’ve been a good friend.”

Happy Birthday, President Carter!

Tony

Nate Silver
Alan Lichtman

Dear Commons Community,

The feud between historian Allan Lichtman and prognosticator Nate Silver is heating up on social media as Election Day approaches. As reported by USA TODAY.

Lichtman, an American University professor who has correctly predicted the outcome of nine out of the 10 most recent presidential elections, earlier this month forecasted that the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz ticket would win the White House.

Since then, Silver, a political pollster and founder of FiveThirtyEight, released data showing vice president Harris ahead of former President Donald Trump in the national polling average by nearly three points – 48.9% to 46% – but Trump and vice presidential candidate JD Vance have a 56.2% chance of winning the Electoral College compared to Harris-Walz (43.5%).

On Friday, Silver questioned Lichtman’s abilities to read his own 13 keys used to make presidential election calls. “At least 7 of the keys, maybe 8, clearly favor Trump. Sorry brother, but that’s what the keys say. Unless you’re admitting they’re totally arbitrary?” Silver posted on X, the social media site previously known as Twitter.

To that, Lichtman responded back on X that Silver “claims to have applied my keys to predict a Trump victory. He doesn’t have the faintest idea how to turn the keys.”

Lichtman continued: “He’s not a historian or a political scientist. He has no academic credentials. He was wrong when he said I could not make an early prediction of Obama‘s re-election (in 2010). He’ll be wrong again in trying to analyze the keys.”

Lichtman reiterated his questioning of Silver’s ability to “turn the keys” in a video on TikTok Friday night.

The back and forth continued with Silver on Saturday posting on X that “Lichtman is comically overconfident and doesn’t own up to the subjectivities in his method, but you’ll legit learn a lot about presidential elections by reading his work, and he’s at least putting himself out there making testable predictions.”

Most of the online audience seemed to enjoy the squabble.

“If you don’t know what they’re talking about this whole exchange looks like two wizards bickering,” Capitol Forum reporter Paul McLeod commented.

Back in July after President Joe Biden’s first post-debate television interview, Silver suggested Biden should step back as a presidential candidate and let Vice President Kamala Harris run. “The most generous way to put it is that he doesn’t seem in command,” Silver posted on X.

Silver, who founded FiveThirtyEight in 2008, took his site to The New York Times in 2010, then to ESPN and ABC News in 2013.

After ABC News acquired the company and Silver left in 2023 amid layoffs at The Walt Disney Company, he started the Silver Bulletin Substack newsletter and website.

In July 2024, Silver became an advisor at Polymarket, a prediction market where you can bet on elections and other world events.

Lichtman, 77, is a distinguished professor of history at American University who lives in Bethesda, Maryland.

More than two decades ago, he and the late seismologist and mathematical geophysicist Vladimir Keilis-Borok, devised a way to predict presidential elections using Keilis-Borok’s work in earthquake pattern recognition.

“We re-conceptualized presidential elections in earthquake terms,” Lichtman told USA TODAY in May 2024. If there’s stability, “the party holding the White House keeps the White House,” he said. If not, “the party is turned out.”

Let’s hope that Lichtman is right!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

James Carville, who served as an adviser to President Bill Clinton, suggested that Democrats should embrace “autocracy” ahead of the November election, arguing not everyone should have “a seat at the table.”  As reported by The Hill.

“I would always tell people in campaigns: If you want a democracy after the election, you have to have an autocracy before the election,” Carville said during his Friday appearance on Politico’s “Playbook Deep Dive” podcast.

“When I hear people say, ‘We gotta be inclusive and we gotta listen to everybody,’ no you don’t,” he added in comments highlighted by Mediaite, citing differing skillsets.

Carville stated that the “shortcomings” of Democratic campaigns sometimes come from having too many voices and perspectives influencing the outcome.

“It’s been always, I think, a shortcoming of Democratic politics that everybody has a seat at the table, and everybody can be heard,” he said in the podcast. “No, not everybody’s skillset is equal.”

The Democratic strategist also discussed his upcoming documentary “Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid,” saying part of being a good campaign operative is having good instincts, a value that is not determined by college grades.

“Campaign skills are not determined so much about where you went to college, what your GPA was and anything else, it is more an instinctive thing that some people have and some people don’t,” he told the host.

The comments came just days after he said he has a “feeling” that Vice President Harris could win the election, now less than six weeks away.

“I don’t like to predict elections. I would just say, this just doesn’t feel like a race that Harris is gonna lose,” Carville said earlier this week on CNN, adding, “But that’s just a feeling. That’s just a feeling.”

Tony

Mark Cuban and Donald Trump.   Allen Berezovsky via Getty Images; Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images

Dear Commons Community,

Mark Cuban slammed former President Donald Trump on Thursday over tariffs he proposed for John Deere Company should he win the election.

Trump, who has previously pledged to impose tariffs on foreign-made products from China and other countries in a proposal that several economists have warned about, threatened the agricultural equipment company Monday with a 200% tariff if it moves some of its manufacturing in the U.S. to Mexico.

“Donald Trump is trying to come in with a hammer and say, ‘You’re the nail, I’m gonna hit you with a 200% tariff, John Deere,’” said Cuban in an appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

He continued, “Kamala Harris is saying, ’I’m gonna give you incentives to manufacture more. Which do you think is gonna work better with companies? Do you wanna be underneath a hammer?”

His comments arrive months after Fox Business Network reported that John Deere laid off hundreds of employees at plants in Illinois and Iowa. The company also announced that it was moving manufacturing of skid steer loaders and compact track loaders to Mexico by the end of 2026.

A spokesperson for the company, in response to Trump’s threat, noted in an email to The Gazette that under 5% of its U.S. sales are manufactured in Mexico whereas 75% of U.S. sales stem from American facilities.

John Deere isn’t “moving production to Mexico as continues to be reported,” the spokesperson said, and the company has instead “strategically leveraged our footprint in Mexico for cab production.”

Cuban, who has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris and has referred to her as “pro-business,” wrote on social media earlier this week that imposing a 200% tariff on John Deere would be “insane.”

“Good way to destroy a legendary American company and increase costs to American buyers,” Cuban wrote in response to a clip of Trump’s comments.

Cuban, in his “Squawk Box” appearance, warned of what could happen if Trump wins and puts such a tariff on John Deere.

“When you put a 200% tariff on John Deere and then only a 10-20% tariff on their Chinese competitors, their Chinese competitors are now less expensive than John Deere,” said Cuban of Trump, who has falsely claimed that tariffs don’t “affect our country.”

The billionaire, in an interview with MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace on Wednesday, questioned why Trump has the “perception of tariffs being good on the economy.”

“I mean, he’s a good salesperson, you know? He talks a good game, but it doesn’t mean he follows through or gets the job done,” Cuban said.

Cuban knows what he is talking about.  Trump doesn’t!

Tony

Kamala Harris visits the Mexico border with U.S. Border Patrol Tucson Sector Chief John Modlin in Douglas, Arizona. (Rebecca Noble/AFP)

Dear Commons Community,

Vice President Kamala Harris worked to turn the tables on border security, Donald Trump’s strongest issue against her in the coming presidential election, promising yesterday to take a harder line on those who cross the border illegally and accusing the former president of deliberately sabotaging legislation that would have helped solve the problem.  S.V. Date of The Huffington Post reported.

“It was the strongest border security bill that we have seen in decades. And it should be in effect today,” the Democratic presidential nominee said in a 24-minute speech near a port of entry in southern Arizona. “But Donald Trump tanked it…. He prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.”

Harris said she would continue President Joe Biden’s new policy that has dramatically cut illegal border crossings by ending asylum requests for those who did not come into the country at an authorized port of entry once such crossings exceeded 2,500 per day over seven straight days. And she said she would increase criminal penalties on repeat offenders.

“I believe we have a duty to set rules at our border and to enforce them,” she said.

Harris was introduced by a mother who lost a son to a fentanyl overdose, and she spent several minutes discussing the “scourge” of that drug’s effects on Americans. She reminded her audience that as a two-term attorney general of California, she prosecuted Mexican smuggling gangs.

“I walked through tunnels that traffickers used to smuggle contraband into the United States,” she said. “I’ve seen tunnels with walls as smooth as the walls of our living room, complete with lighting and air conditioning, making very clear that it is about an enterprise that is making a whole lot of money in the trafficking of guns, drugs and human beings.”

Harris also criticized Trump for making no effort to reform the immigration system during his four years in office, and she said she would make that a priority, particularly to offer a path to citizenship for those who were brought into the country illegally as children.

Biden, before he ended his reelection campaign, had been polling far behind Trump on the issue of illegal immigration, but Harris has managed to close that gap somewhat in recent polls. She has aggressively blamed Trump for scuttling the measure that would have added 1,500 more Border Patrol agents and paid for 100 new machines to detect fentanyl at ports of entry, which is where the vast majority of it has been coming into the country.

That Trump persuaded his GOP allies to stop the legislation early this year is not in dispute.

Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, the lead negotiator for Republicans on the bill, supported it, saying his party was getting much of what they wanted on border security. He told Fox News that Trump personally lobbied his colleagues to kill the bill in an effort to help his campaign to regain the White House.

“Trump said don’t fix anything during the presidential election. It’s the single biggest issue, don’t resolve this. We’ll resolve it next year,” Lankford said.

And Trump himself acknowledged at the time that he did not want the bill to pass. “Please blame it on me. Please,” he said at a Jan. 27 rally.

Since Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee after Biden dropped out in July, Trump has accused her of failing to solve the illegal immigration problem despite being “the border czar.”

“She’s done the worst job, probably in the history of any border, not just our border,” he said in remarks to reporters Thursday in an attempt to rebut Harris’ Arizona visit in advance.

Harris has correctly noted, though, that her brief was to find and address the root causes of migration flows from Latin America into the United States, not to “secure” the border.

Harris has proved since becoming Trump’s opponent to be a more effective communicator than Biden. In her Sept. 10 presidential debate with Trump, for example, she answered an immigration question by making it entirely about Trump, accusing him of blocking the border bill solely to keep it alive as a campaign issue.

She then tangentially noted that Trump’s rally-goers leave his events before he has finished speaking, which then drew from him an angry response that devolved into his now infamous lies that Haitian immigrants were eating their neighbors’ pets in Ohio.

The coup-attempting former president, who is now also a convicted criminal awaiting sentencing, made illegal immigration a cornerstone of his 2016 presidential campaign and repeatedly promised he would force Mexico to pay for a massive border wall of reinforced concrete.

Upon election, however, Trump made no effort to get Mexico to pay and ultimately raided money earmarked for housing and schools for military service members and their families to build his promised wall, which by then had morphed into a slightly taller version of the steel border fence that been started by President George W. Bush and continued under President Barack Obama.

By the time Trump left office, there were only 52 new miles of fence built where there previously had been no barrier along the 1,954-mile border. An additional 400 miles of 18-to-30-foot steel fence was constructed to replace older fencing.

Kamala has Trump pegged right.  He whines, cries and does nothing!

Tony

C.E.O. Sam Altman.

Dear Commons Community,

Mira Murati, the chief technology officer, and two others are leaving OpenAI as C.E.O. Sam Altman works to transform it into a for-profit company.

Joining Ms. Murati are OpenAI’s chief research officer, Bob McGrew, and vice president of research, Barret Zoph. As reported by The New York Times.

OpenAI is controlled by the board of a nonprofit organization that Mr. Altman and his co-founders created in late 2015 to oversee the start-up’s technologies.

While becoming a for-profit company is not expected to happen until next year, OpenAI is in talks for a new round of investment that could value the company at as much as $150 billion, a huge leap from its last round at $80 billion. The United Arab Emirates’ technology investment firm, MGX, is among the potential investors, which also include Microsoft, Nvidia, Apple and Tiger Global, three people familiar with the conversations said.

OpenAI is seeking cash because its costs far outpace its revenue, the three people said. It annually collects more than $3 billion in sales while spending about $7 billion.

After years of public conflict between management and some of its top researchers, OpenAI is trying to look more like a more traditional tech company that can be a leader in the industry’s drive toward artificial intelligence.

But Wednesday’s executive departures followed months of similar exits by other OpenAI leaders. And they bookend a turbulent year for the company, which included the surprise ouster of Mr. Altman as chief executive and his reinstatement five days later.

Ms. Murati, who had joined OpenAI in 2018, was appointed to lead the company after Mr. Altman’s removal, but rejected the role just two days later. She has remained one of the public faces of the start-up, making frequent public appearances to discuss its technology.

A spokeswoman for OpenAI declined to comment beyond what the executives posted online.

In a reply to Ms. Murati on X, Mr. Altman thanked her for her years at the company and said he would provide more information on the leadership transition in the coming days.

“It’s hard to overstate how much Mira has meant to OpenAI, our mission, and to us all personally,” he wrote.

Late Wednesday, Mr. Altman said on social media that the departures of Mr. McGrew and Mr. Zoph were unrelated to the resignation of Ms. Murati but that “it made sense to now do this all at once, so that we can work together for a smooth handover to the next generation of leadership.”

OpenAI’s move to for-profit status will be watched closely especially in terms of major cash infusions which will cement its leadership position in AI development.

Tony

US vice-president Harris meets with Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy in Washington
Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Dear Commons Community,

Kamala Harris denounced the Trump position of  ending Russia’s war against Ukraine as “proposals of surrender” as the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Washington to present his own “victory plan”.

Addressing Zelenskyy at the White House, Harris said that “some in my country” would pressure Ukraine to accept a peace deal in which it surrendered its sovereign territory and neutrality in order to make peace with Vladimir Putin. As reported by The Guardian and The Associated Press.

“These proposals are the same as those of Putin, and let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace,” she said. “Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable.”

While she did not mention Donald Trump or JD Vance by name, those terms for peace closely resemble ones laid out by the Republican vice-presidential nominee in an interview earlier this month.

Zelenskyy had publicly denounced Vance as “too radical” after those remarks, sparking a conflict with Trump allies that has culminated with accusations of election interference and Republican calls for Ukraine to fire its ambassador to Washington.

In an apparent U-turn late on Thursday, Trump told reporters he would meet Zelenskyy at Trump Tower in New York today.

When asked if Ukraine should give up territory, Trump was non-committal, saying: “Let’s get some peace … We need peace. We need to stop the death and destruction.”

Harris’s remarks came after Zelenskyy met Joe Biden at the White House for the formal presentation of Zelenskyy’s high-stakes proposal, which he has said can end the war with Russia with additional American aid.

The White House issued a short statement after the meeting, saying that the “two leaders discussed the diplomatic, economic, and military aspects of President Zelenskyy’s plan and tasked their teams to engage in intensive consultations regarding next steps”.

“President Biden is determined to provide Ukraine with the support it needs to win,” the statement said.

Zelenskyy has kept the details of the plan secret, but US officials have said it includes additional American aid to prevent a Ukrainian rout on the battlefield and “provide the [Ukrainian] people with the assurance that their future is part of the west”.

Zelenskyy faces an uphill battle in securing support for the plan, because of caution among senior officials in the Biden administration about providing Russia with a pretext to escalate the conflict further, and the looming November presidential elections that could lead to a re-election of Donald Trump.

Before the meeting, Biden announced more than $8 billion in military assistance to Kyiv, calling it a “surge in security assistance for Ukraine and a series of additional actions to help Ukraine win this war”.

The aid includes the provision of a medium-range “glide bomb” munition fired from fighter jets that would allow Ukrainian forces to strike Russian troops and supply lines at safer distances.

The allocation included $5.5bn from the Ukraine security assistance initiative fund by the end of the year, as well as an additional $2.4bn in security assistance via the Department of Defense.

The package includes additional Patriot air defense batteries and missiles, unmanned aerial systems, and measures to strengthen Ukraine’s defense industrial base, Biden said. The US will also expand training for additional F-16 fighter pilots, with an extra 18 pilots to be trained next year.

But Biden was not expected to grant a key Ukrainian request that has been supported by the UK – permission to use arms such as long-range Atacms ballistic missiles to strike targets deeper inside Russia – due to fears of escalating the conflict with Russia.

“There is no announcement that I would expect [on that],” the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters before the meeting.

Zelenskyy said in a social media post: “We will use this assistance in the most effective and transparent way possible to achieve our main common goal: a victorious Ukraine, a just and lasting peace, and transatlantic security.”

Biden also announced that he would convene a high-level meeting of the Ukraine defense contact group to coordinate aid to Ukraine among more than 50 allies as he enters the lame-duck period of his final three months in office.

US media have reported that the Biden administration and European allies have been skeptical of Zelenskyy’s plan to achieve victory, which is understood to need to secure maximal support from the west before potential negotiations with Russia.

“I’m unimpressed. There’s not much new there,” a senior official told the Wall Street Journal.

Zelenskyy had said the plan included decisions that can be taken “solely” by the United States and “is based on decisions that should take place from October through December” – meaning the end of Biden’s term in office.

Zelenskyy, in an interview with the New Yorker published this week, said he believed Trump “doesn’t really know how to stop the war” and criticized Vance for describing a vision for peace that included Ukraine ceding territories currently occupied by Russia.

Before the meetings, Zelenskyy met members of Congress on Capitol Hill.

Trump’s surrender would put all of Europe in danger of Russian incursions.  Then again Trump would do anything to ingratiate himself with Putin!

Tony

Eric Adams.  Photograph: Kent J Edwards/Reuters.

Dear Commons Community,

Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted on federal criminal charges, according to people with knowledge of the matter, and will be the first mayor in modern New York City history to be charged while in office.

The indictment is sealed, and it was unclear what charge or charges Mr. Adams, a Democrat, will face or when he will surrender to the authorities. Federal prosecutors were expected to announce the details of the indictment today.

In a speech recorded at his official residence, Adams said he would remain in office, describing any charges he may face as “entirely false, based on lies.”  As reported by The New York Times and The Associated Press.

“I always knew that if I stood my ground for all of you, that I would be a target — and a target I became,” Adams said. “I will fight these injustices with every ounce of my strength and my spirit.”

It was not immediately clear what laws Adams is accused of breaking or when he might have to appear in court.

Federal investigators had seized Adams’ electronic devices nearly a year ago as part of an investigation focused, at least partly, on campaign contributions and Adams’ interactions with the Turkish government. Because the charges were sealed, it was unknown whether they dealt with those same matters.

It marks a stunning turn for Adams, a former police captain who won election nearly three years ago to become the city’s second Black mayor on a campaign that stressed his working class roots and commitment to public safety. But as Adams has made reducing crime a cornerstone of his administration, he has faced growing legal peril, with multiple federal investigations honing in on his top aides and his own campaign.

In the last two weeks alone, the leaders he appointed to oversee the country’s largest police force and largest schools system have announced their resignations.

Adams is the first mayor in New York City history to be indicted while in office. If he were to resign, he would be replaced by the city’s public advocate, Jumaane Williams, who would then schedule a special election.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has the power to remove Adams from office. Hochul spokesperson, Avi Small, issued a statement late Wednesday that said “Governor Hochul is aware of these concerning news reports and is monitoring the situation. It would be premature to comment further until the matter is confirmed by law enforcement.”

The indictment comes against the backdrop of the United Nations General Assembly, which has brought dozens of world leaders to New York, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The federal investigations into Adams administration first emerged publicly on Nov. 2, 2023, when FBI agents conducted an early morning raid on the Brooklyn home of his chief fundraiser, Brianna Suggs.

At the time, Adams insisted he followed the law and said he would be “shocked” if anyone on his campaign had acted illegally. Days later, FBI agents seized the mayor’s phones and iPad as he was leaving an event in Manhattan.

Then on Sept. 4, federal investigators seized electronic devices from the city’s police commissioner, schools chancellor, deputy mayor of public safety, first deputy mayor and other trusted confidantes of Adams both in and out of City Hall.

Federal prosecutors declined to discuss the investigations, but people familiar with elements of the cases described multiple, separate inquiries involving senior Adams aides, relatives of those aides, campaign fundraising and possible influence peddling of the police and fire departments.

A week after the searches, the city’s police commissioner, Edward Caban, announced his resignation. Yesterday, Schools Chancellor David Banks announced he would retire at the end of the year.

Adams himself insisted he would keep doing the city’s business and allow the investigations to run their course.

Over the summer, federal prosecutors subpoenaed Adams, his campaign arm and City Hall, requesting information about the mayor’s schedule, his overseas travel and potential connections to the Turkish government.

Adams spent 22 years in New York City’s police department before going into politics, first as a state senator and then as Brooklyn borough president. He was elected as mayor in November 2021 — a victory he has repeatedly said was ordained by God.

But after more than two years in office, Adams’ popularity has declined. While the city has seen an increase in jobs and a drop in certain categories of crime, the administration has struggled with an influx of tens of thousands of international migrants who overwhelmed the city’s homeless shelters.

There has also been a steady drip of accusations and a swirl of suspicion around people close to the mayor.

In addition to the sprawling inquiries launched by Manhattan prosecutors, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn are investigating another one of Adams’ close aides, Winnie Greco, who had raised thousands of dollars in campaign donations from the city’s Chinese American communities and later became his director of Asian affairs. Greco hasn’t commented publicly on the FBI searches of her properties and continues to work for the city.

When agents seized electronic devices from Caban, the former police commissioner, in early September, they also visited his twin brother, James Caban, a former police officer who runs a nightlife consulting business.

Agents also took devices from the schools chancellor; his brother Philip Banks, formerly a top NYPD chief who is now deputy mayor for public safety; their brother Terence Banks, who ran a consulting firm that promised to connect businesses to government stakeholders; and from First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, who is David Banks’ domestic partner.

All denied any wrongdoing.

While those investigations churned, federal authorities also searched the homes of newly named interim police commissioner, Thomas Donlan, and seized materials unrelated to his police work. Donlon confirmed the search and said it involved materials that had been in his possession for 20 years.

In his speech last night, Adams appeared to cite that search as proof of overreach by federal investigators.

Hours before the charges were announced, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called on Adams to resign, the first nationally prominent Democrat to do so. Adams reacted with scorn, dismissing Ocasio-Cortez as self-righteous.

Adams, who is expecting a tough primary election next year, faced additional calls to resign once the indictment became public last night, including from many of his declared or expected Democratic challengers in the mayoral race.

Sad day for the Big Apple!

Tony

CUNY, including City College above, has been a hub of pro-Palestinian activism for years.  Credit…Maansi Srivastava/The New York Times.

Dear Commons Community,

An independent third-party review of antisemitism and discrimination at the City University of New York called for a total overhaul of the system’s policies related to antisemitism and the creation of a center to address antisemitism and other forms of discrimination.

Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered the independent evaluation of CUNY’s “policies and procedures” last October, as anti-Israel activities rocked CUNY campuses in the weeks after Hamas’ invasion of Israel on Oct. 7.

Protests and turmoil over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, along with allegations of antisemitism, have continued across the CUNY system’s 25 campuses over the past year, restarting as its 225,000 students returned to campus in recent weeks. Dozens of students were arrested at pro-Palestinian encampments last spring, and Hillel events have faced protests.

Judge Jonathan Lippman, a former chief judge of New York State and a CUNY graduate, headed the evaluation and is the lead author of the report, which was published on Tuesday, with assistance from his law firm, Latham & Watkins. It recommends far-reaching changes, which Hochul has ordered CUNY to implement.  As reported by NY Jewish Week and The New York Times.

“CUNY’s current system of handling complaints regarding antisemitism, discrimination, and retaliation is ineffective and needs to be completely overhauled,” the report said. “CUNY’s current policies and procedures are in many respects outdated and potential sources of confusion.”

The report paints a picture of inept and muddled handling of antisemitism on CUNY campuses, partially due to the sprawling, decentralized structure of the university system, the nation’s largest urban college network. The colleges have significant autonomy from the central CUNY administration.

Many Jewish students feel unsafe on campus, the report said, even as it praised CUNY’s leadership for its good-faith efforts to ensure safety and combat discrimination.

“All leaders in the CUNY system uniformly take safety on their campuses very seriously,” the report said. But, it added, that commitment does not always translate into a comfortable environment for students, including Jews.

“We heard from many in the CUNY community that they do not feel safe on campus due to antisemitism and other forms of hate,” the report said.

In a letter to Hochul, Lippman cited recent “alarming” incidents, including the targeted harassment of incoming Jewish Baruch College students at a kosher restaurant earlier this month.

“Not only did the protestors cruelly taunt the students about the murder of six hostages by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, but the protesters also appear to have threatened the students with violence, and used antisemitic tropes in the process,” Lippman said. “It is truly saddening that students just beginning their college education were subject to such blatant hate.”

“Incidents such as this must never be tolerated at CUNY,” he said.

CUNY’s chancellor, Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, condemned the incident at the time and vowed an investigation.

CUNY is one of several universities to have commissioned and published reports on campus antisemitism after a year of protests over the war and as bigotry against Jewish students has vaulted into the national spotlight. A report last month on antisemitism at Columbia University, 20 blocks south of CUNY’s City College, said Jewish students there faced “crushing” discrimination.

Alleged antisemitism at CUNY predates Oct. 7. Some Jewish faculty sued their union in 2022 for discrimination, and city lawmakers have pressured CUNY to take action on antisemitism. Federal investigators have also probed antisemitism allegations at Brooklyn College. In 2022, in response to complaints about antisemitism, the university system announced a series of measures to address the issue.

The report sought to clarify two thorny and related issues that universities across the country have confronted when addressing protests over the Gaza war: the limits of free speech protections and when anti-Zionism crosses the line into antisemitism. On free speech, the report acknowledged that the law is complex but said categories of speech that are not protected include some forms of incitement, threats, defamation, obscenity, and “fighting words,” such as personal abuse.

On the question of Zionism, the report said the CUNY system should “recognize,” but not necessarily formally adopt, a popular but controversial definition of antisemitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Some universities have employed the IHRA definition as part of their anti-discrimination policies, but it has drawn opposition because it defines some criticism of Israel as antisemitism. CUNY’s administration has previously called the IHRA definition a “vital resource.”

“For many Jewish people, Zionism is part of their Jewish identity and shared ancestry. For that reason, when dealing with speech related to the State of Israel, understanding what is protected free speech and what constitutes antisemitism is critical,” the report said.

CUNY told the New York Jewish Week that it “welcomed” the report and “will work to implement” Lippman’s recommendations.

“Amid a rising tide of antisemitism nationwide, CUNY has already taken critical steps to combat hate and discrimination,” Rodríguez said in a statement. “Recognizing there is more to do, we look forward to working on implementing Judge Lippman’s recommendations to redouble our efforts and build on our progress to create a more inclusive campus environment for students, faculty and staff.”

The team of investigators spent 10 months conducting more than 200 interviews and meeting with more than 300 people, including students, college presidents and deans. The investigators visited 13 out of the 25 CUNY campuses, representing a cross-section of the system. It also reviewed applicable laws, such as First Amendment protections, and CUNY policies.

The schools the team visited included some of the most prominent in the system, such as Baruch, Brooklyn College, City College and the CUNY School of Law, all of which have grappled with antisemitism allegations in recent years.

The team did not limit its discussions to antisemitism, but sought information about CUNY’s policies related to other forms of discrimination. It proposed changes to combat all forms of hatred.

The report recommended 13 actions CUNY should take, including creating the center to address antisemitism and other discrimination, promoting civil discourse, monitoring compliance across the system, and creating a more “centralized presence” to deal with hatred.

The report said CUNY’s sprawling structure creates problems because each college has autonomy in dealing with discrimination, creating inconsistencies in the responses. The location and demographics at each school also affect how antisemitism and discrimination are experienced. For example, schools in Manhattan are often squeezed into multi-story buildings with few entrances, making students more vulnerable to protests at those entrances. Schools with large populations of both Jewish and Muslim students had more reported discrimination complaints.

The report said the school system should also revamp its online portal for complaints, which it said is is largely ineffective because it does not provide any feedback to complainants and clashes with reporting procedures at some CUNY schools. CUNY set up the portal in January 2023 as part of a response to antisemitism, which the report said “appears to have had the best of intentions.”

“The discrimination and retaliation portal has failed,” the report said, adding that its categories were unclear and that because anyone could submit complaints, including those unaffiliated with CUNY, administrators felt overburdened by the number of reports. The portal also cannot run queries to identify trends across campuses, or even at a single school.

Some of the policies have not been updated in almost a decade, meaning they are not in line with current laws against discrimination and harassment, the report said. Other recommendations included establishing a victim’s advocate program to assist victims of discrimination, coordinating with law enforcement to establish standard safety protocols, conducting more oversight of diversity officers, ensuring that policies adhere to anti-discrimination laws, holding faculty accountable for “violative conduct” and adopting a comprehensive policy on freedom of speech.

In its statement in response to the report, CUNY highlighted steps it has already taken to combat hatred, including training programs, deploying additional safety officers, meeting with Hillel representatives and providing guidance to campus leaders on protest rules. The school has also set up a Jewish advisory council, partnered with the Museum of Jewish Heritage, and started the 2024 school year with a “campus unity campaign.”

CUNY’s leadership offered “steadfast cooperation” and assistance to the independent review, the report said, but it added that some faculty and student groups refused to speak and encouraged others against cooperation. Participation was voluntary and mostly confidential.

The report was not all critical — CUNY’s leadership, both at its central administration and at the individual school level, all “take safety on their campuses very seriously,” it said. Campus security and law enforcement coordinate their activities, the report said, resulting in few incidents of physical violence. CUNY faculty, however, need to “take more decisive action to stop antisemitism,” including by advancing dialogue between those with differing viewpoints, the report said.

“The overwhelming majority of students, faculty and staff are behaving appropriately at CUNY and are a credit to the institution,” it said. Still, it noted that many students do not feel safe due to protests, doxxing and other issues. Social media also worsens antisemitism by promulgating hate speech against students, it said.

Hochul said that after reviewing Lippman’s report, she directed CUNY to implement his 13 recommendations, and that the report should serve as a guide for all colleges in the state.

“Hate on campus has surged nationwide over the past year, and we needed a candid review of how best to protect our students,” Hochul said in a statement shared with the New York Jewish Week. “My expectation is that CUNY will enact these recommendations, and they have already taken initial steps to address the Judge’s findings.”

Let’s hope so!

Tony