Episode 58: December 12-18, 2021

December 12-18, 2021

Good afternoon, I’m Dennis Futoryan, and this is the 25th hour, helping you remember everything that happened beyond the 24/7 news cycle. Now, in this week’s episode for the week of December 12-18, 2021, City businesses and indoor venues shut down in the face of rising COVID cases, de Blasio refuses to close schools, Adams continues to make a series of appointments, the City Council passes its last group of bills for the year, Governor Hochul fights back defiance against her vaccine mandates, Biden’s human infrastructure bill was shot down by Senator Joe Manchin, and much more. A reminder that the show is taking off for Christmas and New Years, so we’ll see you next year! Now, onto the show; things may have changed by the time you hear this.

De Blasio

• COVID
  • The alarming rise in Omicron cases have made public officials call for school closures once again, saying that the City should have learned its lesson the first time around and not delay remote learning. Mayor de Blasio is resisting the move, despite rising cases in schools. Asked about the move on the Brian Lehrer show, the Mayor said what’s happening now is not March 2020. The Mayor pointed to a less than 1.2% positivity rate based on a small sample, and the Department of Education released a statement saying there was no “systemic” staff shortage amongst schools.
  • The rising case numbers has also shut down a number of indoor venues and restaurants citywide. The Rockettes’ Christmas Spectacular has cancelled the rest of its shows for the season and a number of Broadway shows have dimmed their lights. According to Eater, 30 restaurants have had to shut down due to rising numbers. NYU decided to cancel the rest of their in-person classes and holiday events.
  • City employees are decrying their mandated return to the office in the face of rising case numbers. Despite a 6.5% rise in positive tests in the City, City Hall is maintaining that any protests amongst City workers to come back into their office buildings are part of a minority. 
  • One thing exacerbating the spread of the virus is that the number of City testing centers dropped from 54 to 31 over the past few weeks, creating a squeeze now that New Yorkers seek to get tested in the middle of a surge. The Mayor had announced that more test centers are coming and that the current hours of operation will be extended to seven days a week, as well as the distribution of 500k rapid test kits.
  • Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said he tested positive for COVID and is quarantining at home with mild symptoms. 
  • Two police officers, Lieutenant Joseph Marsella and Captain Desmond Morales, have had their guns and shields surrendered for submitting 19 fake vaccine cards while others are being investigated in a department-wide probe by Internal Affairs. 
• Adams:
  • Despite the rising number of COVID cases, incoming mayor Eric Adams still plans on holding his inauguration ceremony indoors at the Kings Theater in Brooklyn on the evening of January 1st. The event requires proof of vaccination, but worries persist, as Adams has held indoor events even while he was campaigning. The incoming Mayor has also refunded more than $1m in campaign donations to more than 650 donors, according to the Gotham Gazette. The New York Post also reported that Adams has met with 60 industry leaders, from Delta Airline to JPMorgan Chase, outlining his pro-business priorities. 
  • Adams has made a number of appointments this week, bringing in old and new faces into the fold. Brendan McGuire, who worked in the Southern District as a federal prosecutor before joining law firm WilmerHale as a partner, will be returning to the public sector to serve as Adams’ chief counsel. Jocelyn Strauber, who also was a federal prosecutor before joining the law firm Skadden Arps, will head the Department of Investigation, but she’ll need the Council’s confirmation. 
  • As Adams named Louis Molina, the former head of the Las Vegas Department of Public Safety, as his pick to become the next Corrections Commissioner, the incoming Mayor said that he wants to bring back solitary confinement as a form of punishment against prisoners who need to be taken out of general population, and reiterated support for a plan to close Rikers by 2027 and replace it with four smaller jails, one in each borough except Staten Island. Adams was reportedly furious when he learned that de Blasio was placing prisoners currently in solitary confinement back into the general population. Rikers has been buffeted by bad news, from Correction officer work slowdowns to increased prisoner suicides and deaths, including the recent death of an inmate this week, bringing the death toll to 16 this year.
  • For the Department of Finance, Adams may go with deputy city comptroller for the budget Preston Niblack. Jacques Jiha, the current head of the Office of Management and Budget, is going to keep his job.
  • In one of the more higher profile decisions, Adams has chosen Nassau County’s Chief of Detectives Keechant Sewell to be the first black female City police commissioner. Sewell made a slew of media appearances, saying that her main focus is going to be on gun violence. 
• Schools:
  • The City is continuing a pause on academic screenings for middle schools for next year, while high schools admissions will expedite the process.
• Development:
  • One of the development plans that was approved by the City Council in a final meeting was the rezoning of SoHo, or South of Houston, which includes the destruction of the Elizabeth Street Garden, disappointing residents who will now see the garden turned into 123 affordable housing units. City Councilwoman Margaret Chin, who represents the area, said the payoff is one that had to be made. 
  • The Public Advocate’s office released a list of the City’s worst landlords, continuing an annual tradition. Named to the top spot is David Schorr, who managed 330 properties for Sugar Hill Capital Partners, racking up more than 1400 violations within a 1-year span. After Schorr was Abdul Khan, who racked up more than 1300 violations on his properties. Making an honorary appearance on the list is the good-old New York City Housing Authority.
• Transportation:
  • When it comes to giving senior citizens and disabled riders discounts on subway and bus trips, the MTA has conceded that it has been facing difficulty implementing the discounts with the new OMNY system. The contactless system doesn’t offer the discounts at the turnstile, except for a select few that are part of a pilot program.
  • The MTA did announce, however, that starting March 1st, frequent subway riders would get a weekly cap of $33 on trips made with the OMNY system, looking to get an increased number of riders. 
  • The Transportation Agency did experience a period of time when timekeeping was disrupted, with the company in charge of overtime clocks being hit with a ransomware attack over last weekend.

Council

• Speaker race:
  • It’s not over til it’s over, but Councilwoman Adrienne Adams sure says the race for Speaker is done. Adams, not to be confused with the incoming Mayor, released 33 names of Members who plan on voting for her, including having the Mayor’s support himself, to secure her position as the next Council Speaker, who is responsible for setting the Council’s legislative agenda. Fellow Councilman Francisco Moya, who stirred the race up with claims of victory of his own, including allegedly having the Mayor’s support, conceded the race. The Council as a whole votes in a secret ballot for the Speaker the first week of January. 
• Rezoning:
  • In its last stated meeting of the year, the Council approved a flurry of bills, including the controversial rezonings of SoHo and NoHo after last-minute negotiations from Council Members Carlina Rivera and Margaret Chin. The plan seeks to 3k new units, with 900 of them deemed affordable. The City would build its own 100% affordable units on two lots it owns, and lowers the maximum height allowed for new buildings.
• Other bills:
  • From that final Stated, the Council also passed a ban on gas hookups in new buildings in order to lower carbon emissions. The ban would force developers to include electric stoves. Another passed bill, sponsored by Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal, would force employers to post minimum and maximum salary levels on job postings. Finally, the Council passed a resolution calling on the State to pass the so-called “Good Cause eviction” bill, which would prohibit evictions unless there was a good cause such as nonpayment of rent or using the unit illegally in order to prevent callous evictions. Another bill that was set to ban criminal background checks on prospective tenants failed to pass.

Hochul

• COVID
  • The State set a record for the number of single day case numbers, with the Governor revealing that more than 21k New Yorkers tested positive for COVID, bringing the daily test positivity rate to 8% from 4.3% last Saturday. Half of the new cases came from New York City. 
  • The Governor said that she wants to mandate vaccines on students before the next school year, but said that she can’t do it on her own, calling on the legislature to pass a law. Incoming NYC Mayor Eric Adams already stated his support for the idea, some private schools have the mandate in place, and California has a school vaccine mandate in place. The Governor also called for increased pay for health care workers as she described the possibility of overflowing hospitals ahead of this next COVID surge. The Governor is set to preview her agenda for 2022 in a speech in three weeks, which will also includes measures such as mail-in voting.
  • The state’s moratorium on utility cutoffs if New Yorkers can’t pay their bills because of COVID hardship ends on December 21st, potentially throwing 1.3m people into the dark during the winter months. 
  • Defiance of Hochul’s indoor mask mandate continues, with even Democratic officials joining their Republican counterparts in not enforcing the directive. Long Island’s two Executives of Nassau and Suffolk County made statements this week saying they won’t take part in what they called “hard enforcement,” but will instead look into complaints of noncompliance.
• Elections:
  • With the question we posed last week about whether law professor Zephyr Teachout was going to drop out of the Attorney General’s race now that Letitia James dropped out of the Governor’s race, it turns out that Teachout is also opting not to go against the incumbent James. Other candidates in the Attorney General’s race have dropped out since learning of James’ decision to retain her seat instead of going after the Governor’s Mansion.
• Schools:
  • Future teachers may not have to take a controversial certification exam anymore. Education officials are thinking about getting rid of the edTPA, which were twice as likely to fail Black applicants versus the rest of their peers. The test includes an assessment of teaching skills and costs $300 to take. 
• Economy:
  • The state’s economy is continuing to slowly recover since the start of the pandemic, with the jobless rate falling to 6.6% from 6.9%, adding a little more than 24k jobs. NYC currently has a 9% unemployment rate, falling .4%.
• Investigations:
  • Robert Ashe, the Police Chief of Hoosick Falls in Rensselaer County, has been suspended with pay while the State looks into his involvement with ballot fraud in these most recent elections. Ashe was allegedly collecting absentee ballots. County Executive Steve McLaughling, meanwhile, was himself arraigned on campaign funding fraud for taking $5k out of his campaign account in 2017. Michael Stammel, the Mayor of Rensselaer, was interviewed as well on the absentee ballot question, which included having his phone seized. 
  • The order by the Joint COmmission on Public Ethics for former Governor Andrew Cuomo to repay his $5m book advance has been deemed illegal by the State Attorney General Letitia James. According to a written legal opinion, the Attorney General’s office wrote to JCOPE Executive Director Sanford Berland that the COmmission should have had its own investigation, issued its own report, and tried to recoup those funds first before issuing an order.
• Development:
  • Governor Hochul announced that JFK will get its makeover after all - to the tune of $9.5b, up from the previously estimated $7.4b, coloring up the price tag by saying that the redevelopment of the airport will lead to 10k jobs. 
• Weed:
  • The State Office of Cannabis Management has proposed another round of regulations after holding meetings with stakeholders, clarifying rules on what can be considered a craft product, as well as creating a new license for farmers who want to pick hemp flowers themselves. A public comment period is in place for the next two months. 
  • In the meantime, 28% of New York’s municipalities have decided to opt out of allowing dispensaries, with a little more opting out of so-called “consumption sites.”
• Personnel:
  • The state’s Chief Information Officer, Karen Sorady, is stepping down from public service after three decades. Sorady permanently took on the role of the state’s head of the Office of Information Tech Services from Deborah Snyder in 2019, and is currently interviewing candidates to replace her.
  • Suffolk County is getting its first black Police Commissioner after Executive Steve Bellone announced that he tapped NYC Chief of Department Rodney Harrison to take up the post.

State Legislature

• Use of state resources:
  • Following the controversy of former Governor Cuomo allegedly using his staff to work on his COVID book, a bill introduced by State Senator Todd Kaminsky and Assemblywoman Monica Wallace aims to prohibit the use of government workers for private gain. 
• Gottfried retiring:
  • One of the state’s longest serving lawmakers, Assemblyman Richard Gottfriend, announced his retirement this week. Gottfriend has served in the legislature for 52 years, having been elected first when he was 23. Running against the Vietnam War, Gottfried was elected and had been involved in policy fights for decades, from public healthcare to weed legalization.

State Courts

• Retiree Medicare healthcare:
  • New York Supreme Court judge Lyle Frank ordered a delay to a planned switch in public retirees’ health care until April 1st of next year, giving retired public workers until June 30th to opt out of the switch. The ruling was borne out of a plan by the de Blasio administration to change retirees’ Medicare plans to privately-managed plans on January 1st, according to negotiations between the City and municipal unions, in order to cut costs, but retirees voiced skepticism that they were getting better health care out of the deal. 
• Rent:
  • Tenants and housing group advocates have filed a lawsuit against the state to continue accepting applications for rent relief after the application period had closed on November 12th. Governor Hochul has asked the federal government for an additional $1b in disbursements for continued rental aid. The state may also redistrbiute more than $250m in rent relief that wasn’t accepted by landlords yet, giving them 180 days to do so.

Biden

Domestic

• COVID
  • The number of COVID deaths in the US surpassed 800k this week.
  • More preliminary studies from Pfizer and Moderna show the companies’ boosters are effective against the new Omicron variant, shown to be more elusive against the established two-dose regimen of shots out there. Although Omicron is spreading rapidly, the current surge throughout the country is still being led by the more deadly Delta variant.
  • Pfizer predicted that the pandemic could continue until 2024, at which point the disease will be endemic.
  • The President plans on giving a speech on Tuesday outlining how he and his administration are going to tackle the Omicron variant’s very fast rise throughout the country. 
  • According to the CDC, 30% of Americans who are eligible for a booster shot have gotten one so far. The CDC also said that out of the top three vaccine-makers, Pfizer and Moderna were preferable to get their booster over Johnson and Johnson due to a rare blood-clotting side effect found in the latter. As for students, the CDC said that unvaccinated students who were exposed to COVID who later test negative can stay in school instead of quarantining for two weeks.
• Health:
  • The FDA has lifted restrictions on receiving aboriton bills over the mail, having previously requiring women to receive the pills from providers in person. The pills have become a common way to abort fetuses up to 10 weeks into pregnancy, and has become a new target of anti-abortion legislation. 
• Economy:
  • The Fed hinted at its plans for 2022, saying it might raise interest rates three times in line with the bettering economy.
  • Biden is getting some flak with the younger cohort in the country when Press Secretary Jen Psaki confirmed the administration is allowing collection on student loans to continue unabated at the end of January.
  • The President signed the recently passed debt ceiling increase, preventing a national default on its debt. The new law raises the government’s borrowing limit to $2.5t.
  • The Labor Department released figures showing a rise of 9/6% in prices suppliers have been charging on businesses to get their products to shelves, suggesting consumers will pay the brunt of price increases into the next year.
• Trump:
  • The agency in charge of Trump’s hotel lease in DC didn’t hold up it's end of making sure there weren’t any ethical lapses, according to a House committee’s report. The General Services Administration failed to look into constitutional issues with Trump’s refusal to divest from his hotel in DC, according to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and failed to monitor foreign government payments to the hotel.
• Harris:
  • Vice President Kamala Harris made clear that she and Biden haven’t talked about running for reelection in 2024, and is apparently not a topic that she thinks about. Harris also got into a brief spat with radio host Charlemagne tha God, when Harris was asked about who controls the country - Biden or Democratic Senator Joe Manchin. Harris accused Charlemagne of talking like a Republican. 
  • Separately, the Vice President, who is in charge of immigration in her executive portfolio, announced new investments to help ease the roots of Central American migration into the US. Seven companies have committed to investing into the root causes of migration, including Pepsi, Mastercard, and Cargill, who are going to pay $1.2b to fight the region’s poverty and violence.
• Kentucky:
  • The President promised to cover emergency costs associated with the destruction wrought by tornadoes in Kentucky for the first 30 days of recovery, having recently traveled to the state to survey the damage. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear confirmed that 64 people have died in the state alone from recent storms which caused tornadoes in various states. 

Foreign

• Afghanistan:
  • Defense officials announced that no one will face punishment over a drone strike in August that mistakenly killed an Afghan aid worker and numerous children. The military originally thought the aid worker was a member of ISIS carrying bombs in the truck of his car, but it turned out to be jugs of water the worker was bringing back for his family. The US is attempting to bring the surviving family members into the country. 
• Haiti:
  • The gang that has kidnapped 17 US and Canadian missionaries has released the remaining 12 hostages they were holding onto. The missionaries were returning from a trip to an orphanage when the 400 Mawozo gang kidnapped them and demanded a $1m ransom for each worker. It wasn’t clear whether a ransom was, in fact, paid.

Congress

House

• Jan 6 Commission:
  • The entire House voted to hold former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in contempt for failing to cooperate with the January 6th Commission, tasked with finding out what Trump and his associates did during the hours of the Capitol riot by Trump supporters. Biden himself said that Meadows is worthy of being held in contempt this week. 
• Anti-Islamophobia bill:
  • The House has passed Representative Ilhan Omar’s anti-Islamophobia bill that would create a new office at the State Department dedicated to tracking hate against Muslims. The vote came after a spat with Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who has referred to Omar and other Democratic lawmakers as the Jihad Squad.

Senate

• BBB
  • Discussions to pass Biden’s BBB bill collapsed this week when talks failed with moderate Democratic Senator Joe Manchin. Manchin opposed paid leave policies and wants the child tax credit to lapse, putting him at odds with Democrats aiming to pass Biden’s agenda. Majority Leader Schumer continuously makes it sound like he’s going to pass the bill before Christmas, although that’s unlikely. Manchin later went on the Sunday show circuit to say that he can’t support the bill in its current form, dealing a death blow to Biden’s bill. President Bill acknowledged that BBB won’t get done by the end of the year, promising to still take it up next year. This just after the Senate Parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, who is in charge of making key procedural rulings on legislation, rejected a third attempt by Democrats to include immigration measures in the bill that would grant so-called DREAMERs legal status.
• Voting rights:
  • In lieu of passing BBB, Democratic leaders are also holding talks with Manchin about allowing a filibuster exception for voting rights, passing the 60-vote supermajority requirement to pass bills like the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would reverse many Republican-led voting changes since the 2020 election. The Senate recently used this so-called nuclear option to raise the debt ceiling, needing a simple majority of Democrats to do the deed.
• Defense bill:
  • One thing the Senate managed to get done was send the National Defense Authorization Act to Biden’s desk for signature. The bill appropriates money for the Pentagon and Defense Department as a whole.
• Biden nominees:
  • Senator Ted Cruz and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer struck a deal which would allow a vote on dozens of Biden’s nominees for various federal posts in exchange for Schumer to allow Cruz’s bill to impose sanctions on Russia. The move allowed for the confirmation of Rahm Emanuel as Ambassador for Japan.
• Isakson:
  • Former Republican Senator Johnny Isakson has died at the age of 76 due to complications from Parkinson’s, which led to Isakson’s resignation last December. 

Federal Courts

• A federal judge dismissed a case brought by former President Trump to block Congress from accessing his taxes. 
• The Supreme Court refused to take up a case brought by New York healthcare workers looking to challenge the state’s vaccine mandate in their industry, which doesn’t include religious exemptions. Justices Gorsuch, Thomas, and Alito dissented from the opinion-less decision, saying that the Court is abdicating religious protections. The Court turned down a similar challenge from Maine previously. 
• The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals panel has allowed Biden’s private-sector vaccine mandate to continue, 2-1, after the rule imposing vaccines on businesses with more than 100 people was stopped in its tracks weeks ago by the 5th Circuit. The ruling was quickly appealed up to the Supreme Court. 
• New York’s federal District Judge Colleen McMahon dealt a blow to the countrywide settlement between OxyContin maker Perdue Pharma and thousands of plaintiffs, saying that the settlement agreement couldn’t legally shield the Sackler family in charge of the company as it would be inconsistent with the US Bankruptcy laws. Perdue said it would appeal the ruling.

National

• COVID
• bell hooks:
  • Acclaimed author and activist bell hooks has died this week at the age of 69. hooks was known for writing about feminism and race, having adopted her great-grandmother’s pen name.
• Derek Chauvin:
  • The former cop who was convicted of the murder of George Floyd, Derek Chauvin, switched his not guilty plea to guilty in the federal civil rights charges he faces from the Justice Department. The change in plea allows Chauvin to avoid another high-profile trial as he continues to serve his 22.5 years in prison.
• Maxwell trial:
  • The defense has rested in the Ghislaine Maxwell trial, accused of sex trafficking for Jeffrey Epstein. Maxwell declined to testify.
• DC AG sues Proud Boys:
  • DC Attorney General Karl Racine announced the filing of a lawsuit against the right-wing Proud Boys and Oath Keepers over their role in the January 6th Capitol insurrection, attempting to hold the groups civilly liable for the violence that day. Racine’s lawsuit is the first lawsuit by a government agency against the groups for the insurrections. 
• Gymnast settlement:
  • More than 500 gymnasts who experienced sexual abuse from Olympic doctor Larry Nassar have agreed to a $380m settlement from USA Gymnastics, including gold medalists Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, and Aly Raisman. The settlement is the largest for a sexual abuse case, and Nassar continues to serve his jail sentence.

And that’s it for this week’s show of THE 25TH HOUR, helping you stay on top of the 24/7 news cycle. Don’t forget to rate us on Apple Podcasts, share us with your friends, and subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. You can email your tips and suggestions at the25thhournews@gmail.com and become a Patron today for as low as $2 a month to support the show at patreon.com/the25thhournews! Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next week.