Tag: New York (state)

A surprising 43 percent of Tar Heel residents were born out-of-state, according to a recent blog post by the Carolina Population Center at UNC Chapel Hill. Help us deliver journalism that makes a difference in our community. The politics of those born out of state seem to be a little different from North Carolina natives. In 2017, non-natives for the first time outnumbered native North Carolinians. Of the 2.96 million registered voters known to be born out of state, 33 percent are Democrats, 30 percent are Republicans and 37 percent are unaffiliated. Another way of looking at it is that of all registered Democrats, 56 percent are North Carolina natives and 44 percent were born out of state. Of all registered Republicans, 51 percent are North Carolina natives and 49 percent were born out of state. Of all the unaffiliated voters, 41 percent are North Carolina natives and 59 percent were born out of state. White Southerners moving into North Carolina tend to register as Republicans, while black Southerners tend to register as Democrats, according to an analysis by Bitzer on his blog, Old North State Politics. The two Southern states that twice voted for Democratic President Barack Obama — Virginia and Florida — are also the two Southern states where polls show the voters are to the left of North Carolina’s voters.

raided the Rockefeller Center office and Park Avenue hotel room of President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, on Monday morning, seizing business records, emails and documents related to several topics, including a payment to a pornographic film actress. The prosecutors obtained the search warrant after receiving a referral from the special counsel in the Russia investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, according to Mr. Cohen’s lawyer, who called the search “completely inappropriate and unnecessary.” The search does not appear to be directly related to Mr. Mueller’s investigation, but most likely resulted from information that he had uncovered and gave to prosecutors in New York. “Many people have said you should fire him.” The president once again railed against Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, for recusing himself in the Russia inquiry, and blasted the F.B.I. “Today, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York executed a series of search warrants and seized the privileged communications between my client, Michael Cohen, and his clients,” Mr. Ryan said. It is not clear what Mr. Mueller saw that made him refer the matter to other prosecutors. The search is an aggressive move for the Justice Department, which normally relies on grand jury subpoenas to obtain records from people who are represented by lawyers and are cooperating with authorities. Justice Department rules require prosecutors to first consider less intrusive alternatives before seeking records from lawyers. Mr. Ryan said Mr. Cohen has cooperated with the authorities and turned over thousands of documents to congressional investigators looking into Russian election meddling. “I will get all of Putin’s team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.” But the emails obtained by The New York Times show no response from Mr. Cohen, who told congressional investigators that he regarded Mr. Sater’s talk as puffery. It is not clear how significantly prosecutors view the payment to Ms. Clifford.

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)—In what some experts are calling an unprecedented use of military force, Donald J. Trump on Tuesday ordered four thousand National Guard troops to protect the midtown Manhattan offices of his accountant. According to those familiar with the National Guard’s deployment, the troops will secure the corridors and elevator banks in the vicinity of the accounting firm that prepares Trump’s taxes. The troops, whose mission is being called “Operation Safe Returns,” are expected to arrive on Wednesday, after making the two-thousand-mile journey from the Mexican border. At the White House, Trump defended his decision to use the nation’s military to protect his accountant’s offices. “Yesterday our country was attacked,” he said. “Never again.” Trump’s unilateral decision to invade Manhattan drew a muted response in diplomatic circles around the world, with many allies taking a cautious “wait and see” attitude. In North Korea, Kim Jong Un said that he still planned to have a May summit with the U.S. President, “whoever that is by then.”

For years, a breakaway faction of Democrats helped Republicans control the state Senate in New York, one of the country’s most liberal states. IDC members blame Felder for Republican control, claiming they have moderated a GOP agenda that would pass with Felder’s help anyway. But progressive activists, some of whom are backing a primary challenge against Felder as well, have lambasted the IDC members as “Trump Democrats.” They note that GOP control of the Senate, enabled in part by the IDC, has prevented progressive climate action and single-payer health care bills that passed the state Assembly from coming up for a vote, and stalled or diluted other liberal legislation. IDC-enabled GOP domination of the state Senate prevents Democratic Senate Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a black woman, from playing the leadership role in negotiations that Democrats’ numerical majority would otherwise afford her. Biaggi is one of seven Democrats challenging IDC members with the backing of major progressive organizations like the Working Families Party. Cuomo, often blamed for failing to leverage his power against the IDC and Felder, has also elicited a left-leaning primary challenge from Cynthia Nixon, an actress and progressive education activist. A condition of the deal is that neither former IDC members, nor mainline Senate Democrats would back primary challenges against incumbent members. In an open letter to IDC members on Wednesday in which Biaggi and the six other candidates affirmed their decision to stay in the race, they argued that IDC members “cannot undo the damage that [they] have done by blocking a single Democratic state Senator in the room to advocate for common-sense progressive priorities.” Intent on punishing IDC members and securing a more progressive Senate delegation for its own sake, the grassroots coalition No IDC New York and the labor-backed New York Working Families Party are both maintaining their support for the IDC challengers. “If you’ve set your own house on fire and watched it burn for eight years, finally turning on a hose doesn’t make you a hero,” Nixon said. “And the common enemy is defeating Trump and Ryan and McConnell and defeating their agenda and taking over the New York state Senate so we can protect the state the way it needs to be protected.” However, Cuomo also revealed at the press conference that his re-election campaign would be coordinating closely with the campaigns efforts of Senate and Assembly Democrats.

Twitter What to watch for this week in New York politics: With a new state budget in place, City Council preliminary budget hearings over, and it being the annual April school break, there are limited events scheduled this week. We expect to hear more from Mayor Bill de Blasio about the budget outcomes, as well as other officials, advocates, and others. Governor Cuomo will speak in New York City on Thursday, likely about highlights in the new budget -- see below for details. Cuomo also will participate in at least one election-related event this week. ***Do you have events or topics for us to include in an upcoming Week Ahead in New York Politics? e-mail Gotham Gazette editor Ben Max: bmax@gothamgazette.com*** The run of the week in detail: Monday Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro will launch his campaign for the Republican nomination for governor on Monday. Along with his lunch with Carranza, de Blasio's other public event for Monday is his weekly appearance on NY1's Inside City Hall, during the 7 and 11 p.m. hours. At 2 p.m. Monday, Governor Cuomo will make an announcement at Johnson Community Center in Manhattan. Thursday At 11 a.m. Thursday, Governor Cuomo will speak at an Association for a Better New York event at Cipriani Wall Street. E-mail Gotham Gazette executive editor Ben Max any time: bmax@gothamgazette.com (please use "For Week Ahead" as email subject).

Now, with his son newly installed as a top aide to the president, Kushner even expressed hope, one close family friend said, that he might receive a pardon. Absolution, however, is not what the White House has conferred on the Kushners. Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn are studying whether one of Kushner's daughters dangled White House influence before prospective Chinese investors. Most recently, the head of the federal Office of Government Ethics informed a House member in a letter that he had asked the White House counsel to examine meetings in the White House last year between Jared Kushner and officials from two financial companies. That Josh Kushner, 32, has made no secret of the fact that he did not vote for Trump upset his brother, several friends said. "We are actively involved in more than US$3 billion of projects and banks are providing US$1.5 billion of financing in the first six months of this year," he said. Josh Kushner, who runs the investment firm Thrive Capital, which recently raised a US$700 million fund, cleared the meeting with outside counsel beforehand, his spokesman said. Charles Kushner says he is willing to buy out his partner, but some business associates say that would only double an already money-losing real estate bet. She added that her brother had left the firm to work in the Trump administration. "My daughter, our company, did nothing wrong," he said.

A progressive powerhouse in New York politics thinks Nevada is ready to move left. Giunchigliani is facing off in the Democratic primary against fellow commissioner Steve Sisolak, a candidate with a hefty war chest who began his campaign last summer by touting himself as a moderate. The group, known for its powerful and coordinated ground games, has also been instrumental in bringing policy issues such as a $15 minimum wage and government-mandated paid sick leave to the top of the national Democratic Party agenda. “My platform, I think, mirrors what they’ve been talking about,” Giunchigliani said. “I want to build a Nevada that works for everyone and not just the privileged few, and I think that resonates with them.” Dan Cantor, the national committee chairman for the WFP, said the group chose to endorse the Giunchigliani after an hourlong phone interview with her last month from which he and the other committee members came away with the same thought: “What is it about Nevada that is producing a leader like this? We want to bottle it,” he said. But unlike in most other places, third parties in New York can carry serious weight. There, minor parties can appear on the ballots and even cross-endorse candidates, meaning that a candidate’s name could appear multiple times on the ballot in the same race but with a different party endorsement next to their name. Three lines down, his name was listed next to the WFP endorsement. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, last week got himself a primary opponent in Cynthia Nixon, the actress known best for her role as Miranda in the HBO series “Sex and the City.” If Nixon can manage to get the WFP’s endorsement, Benjamin said, “the governor has a real problem.” In Nevada, however, where the minor parties have historically had less influence, Benjamin isn’t sure what kind of measurable effect its endorsement will have.

Fifty years ago, on the day before St. Patrick’s Day, Robert F. Kennedy announced that he was running for the presidency of the United States. “I do not run for the presidency merely to oppose any man, but to propose new policies,” said Kennedy, who four years earlier had been elected U.S. senator from New York. For a brief period it seemed Bobby was the only one who could bring a deeply divided America together. Assassinations, riots, war, protests. In American Pastoral, his beautiful, chaotic novel about how these events tore apart the seemingly perfect marriage of an Irish American beauty queen and a Jewish American striver, Philip Roth refers to 1968 as the high-water mark of “the indigenous America berserk.” And Irish Americans -- from Bobby Kennedy to blue collar workers - -were central players. On the national stage, two Irish Americans -- Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy -- began the year as political outsiders, challenging the Vietnam War policy of President Lyndon Johnson, who would eventually shock the world by not even running for re-election. But out in the working class ethnic neighborhoods of New York and Boston and Chicago an anger was bubbling. Consider a small moment from Chris Mathews' recent book Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit. Kennedy was campaigning in Manhattan. Just five months after Bobby Kennedy’s assassination, it was Richard Nixon who skillfully figured out how to tap into this anger, and move into the White House.

Cambridge Analytica executives aggressively sought the backing of rich GOP donors, who they believed would help the company “effectively corner the market” in the United States, internal records show. ?” Nix asked his researchers, who followed through, according to emails provided to The Washington Post by former Cambridge Analytica employee Christopher Wylie. “They met with me I believe, but it was nothing that we found interesting, and the pitch was not compelling.” Internal documents and interviews with former Cambridge Analytica employees illustrate how intently the company — a spinoff of a British firm — worked to win over U.S. political clients for the 2014 midterms. At the time, the company had access to Facebook data that had been obtained by a researcher for academic purposes and improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, Facebook executives said last week. Mercer has been the largest donor to Bolton’s super PAC, giving $5 million since the 2014 cycle, according to FEC records. Part of the work that Cambridge Analytica performed for Bolton’s super PAC was psychographic voter targeting, which the company claimed could profile voters on the basis of certain characteristics. [Cambridge Analytica harnessed Facebook data in work for super PAC led by John Bolton, according to former employees] “They used the psychographic stuff, and the Facebook data was a part of that,” said a former Cambridge Analytica employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal strategy. The New York Times first reported that Cambridge Analytica harnessed its Facebook data in services it provided to the Bolton super PAC. In the 2014 cycle, GOP congressional campaigns and conservative-leaning groups paid at least $729,000 to the firm for a range of services, including research, data analytics and microtargeting. Follow @myhlee Craig Timberg is a national technology reporter for The Washington Post.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- The mayor of Puerto Rico’s largest city became an international star when she donned a T-shirt and baseball cap and begged for help after Hurricane Maria left San Juan in shambles. Six months later, constituents of Carmen Yulin Cruz are still struggling for food, shelter and power, and many have turned on the leader who they say turned her global close-up into a never-ending parade of self-promotion. After the speech, Cruz characterized the president’s pledges of support to Puerto Rico as “hypocrisy.” But while Cruz’s pitch-perfect soundbites make for good TV, there’s a growing frustration among her constituents who feel forgotten and say Cruz’s personal political ambitions are coming at the expense of the very people she’s supposed to be representing. “It stopped being about us a long time ago.” A bartender at a popular hotel in Old San Juan says she feels like a political pawn. “The impact of Hurricane Maria has created a situation of flux in Puerto Rican politics,” he told Fox News. She’s also used her newfound popularity to target political rivals inside Puerto Rico. Cruz calls out Rossello every chance she gets for his handling of Maria and his support of the Trump administration. San Juan spokeswoman Carmen Serrano, who refused requests for interviews from Fox News, told Noticel that the photos “are part of our job documenting, with dignity, the disaster not just in San Juan but other areas as well.” She added that the pictures “served to show the world that things are not back to normal like President Trump likes people to believe.” Despite the four extra photographers on hand, one of the most widely viewed pictures came from Cruz’s permanent press team. In it, the mayor is waist-deep and wading through black, muddy water. “She’s not going to go into black water up to here just because,” Puerto Rican comedian Roy Sánchez Vahamonde said.