Episode 60: January 9-15, 2022

January 9-15, 2022

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 January 9-15, 2022, Eric Adams continues facing questions regarding the hiring of his brother on his protective detail, the state continues to accept rent relief applications despite the expiration of the eviction moratorium, Biden’s attempts at passing voter reform and limiting the filibuster fell flat on its face thanks to fellow Democrats, and the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s private business vaccine mandate. Now, onto the show; things may have changed by the time you hear this.

Adams

• COVID
  • City hospitals continue to struggle against the weight of COVID patients amidst the Omicron surge, but are thankfully not facing as many deaths as the start of the pandemic in March 2020. Trends have been steadily decreasing as of the time of this recording. The daily average of confirmed cases is more than 29k, 651 hospitalizations, and 44 deaths. Despite the trends, hospital staffing levels are low, and Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn has even been the recipient of a military team sent by President Biden to assist with handling COVID cases. 
  • NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell has warned her fellow officers against submitting fake vaccine cards under the Department’s vaccine mandate. Doing so is a crime.
• Bernard Adams:
  • Adams can’t swat down the suspicions behind the hiring of his own brother. After the announcement that Bernard Adams was chosen to be deputy NYPD commissioner, Eric Adams tried shifting Bernard’s position as being on the Mayor’s personal security detail, saying that his protection is personal. When that wasn’t enough to throw journalists off his tail, Eric Adams said he submitted Bernard’s post to the Conflict of Interest Board and will abide by their decision, and followed that up with reserving his right to hire whoever he wants because he’s “the Mayor.” 
• Education:
  • Following outcry from teachers, students, and parents about the lack of a remote learning option during the Omicron surge, the Department of Education has released updated guidance giving teachers discretion to decide which students are allowed to learn remotely and count them as present in their classes online. Adams has been adamant about not closing schools, but said that the administration is working on bringing back remote learning for those who need it temporarily. Some NYC high school students walked out of their classes earlier in the week.
  • The online platform Skedula, which some schools use to track attendance, record grades, and contact parents, was knocked offline due to a security incident since Saturday, according to the company that operates it, leaving those tracking accurate data in the dark, compounding the issues left by the Omicron surge in tracking how many kids are attending school. On Thursday alone, more than 50 City schools had at least half of their students absent.
• Crime:
  • 17 people, including 8 children, tragically died in a house fire in a high-rise in the Bronx this week. The fire started from the third floor as a result of malfunctioning space heaters, with all of the victims dying from smoke inhalation, according to Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro. Class action lawsuits have already been filed against the landlords of the building, with the spotlight landing on Rick Gropper, a co-founder of one of the landlord companies, who was also on Adams’ housing transition team. Adams was also accused of victim blaming one of the families of those who perished in the fire by imploring New Yorkers to remember to close their doors when fleeing fires, as that was one of the reasons why smoke traveled up an emergency staircase up to the 15th floor. Adams announced support for the 118 families of the victims, promising $2250 in payments coming from the City and Bank of America combined. Bronx Congressman RItchie Torres said that he is planning on introducing legislation in Congress forcing space heater manufacturers to install automatic shutoff features to prevent future fires.
  • There’s been some controversy following Adams’ new Corrections Commissioner, Louis Molina, firing the Department’s Chief Investigator Sarena Townsend for reportedly refusing to drop probes into officers’ use of force against inmates. Mayor Adams denied that he was appeasing the Corrections Officers union with his hiring of Molina and loosening rules tied to officers’ use of sick leave. Townsend’s work has been lauded for staying on top of federal oversight of Rikers. 
  • The Queens Daily Eagle reported that pre-trial detainees at Rikers have been waiting for three years or longer for a trial date, and those that have been locked up between 1-3 years, comprise 30% of the entire Rikers population.
  • Following outcries over Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s memo at the start of his term outlining prosecutorial priorities away from fare-beating, prostitution, and resisting arrest in some circumstances, newly installed Police Comissioner Keechant Sewall released her own message to the NYPD saying she will resist efforts to make her officers feel less safe. Bragg and Sewall held a “frank” discussion over the phone this past week. 
• Veto:
  • Adams has issued his first legislative veto this week, blocking a City Council bill that would have increased first-time fines on SoHo artists lacking their required licenses to $15k. The previous zoning laws for the neighborhood only allowed those who qualified for an artist license but SoHo was recently rezoned to allow other types of residents. 
• Budget:
  • Mayor Adams may have to have a public conflict soon with newly elected Comptroller Brad Lander following Adams’ calls to the state legislature to increase the City’s borrowing limit by $19b. Lander’s response to the news was to say the request wasn’t necessary, fiscally imprudent, and premature. 
  • The Mayor also directed most of his City agencies to come up with plans to slash 3% of their spending across the board, with the exception of those agencies burdened by the pandemic, such as the Health Department.

Council

• Investigations Committee:
  • Following Mayor Eric Adams’ failure in getting his nominee for City Council Speaker, news publication The City reports on how he might also fail in getting his choice for Chair of the Council Investigations Committee, Julie Menin, installed to the post. Instead, former Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer might be Speaker Adrienne Adams’ choice to be Chair, as Brewer dropped her own bid for Speaker against Adrienne Adams. Nevertheless, Mayor Eric Adams might still see his picks become Chairs of the Public Safety, Education, and Finance Committees.
• Paladino:
  • One new Republican Council Member is already starting trouble. Queens Councilwoman Vickie Paladino said that will never disclose her vaccination status against COVID, even if it means she’ll be barred from the legislative chamber. Paladino, was in fact, barred from the chamber, having to cast a recent vote from Republican leader Joe Borelli’s office. 

Hochul

• COVID
  • The Governor tried to calm the state down this week as she gave a speech saying the Omicron surge is ebbing, and that the seven day average of new cases showed a sharp decrease to 67k, and the positive testing rate falling from 23% to 16%.
  • Hochul also said that contact tracing is not a requirement anymore. Accompanied by Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett, the Governor said that if New Yorkers test positive, they shouldn’t wait for a call from the state health department any longer, and that people can submit their testing results on a new website the state is launching.
• Rent relief:
  • The state’s eviction moratorium expired yesterday, despite tenants being able to apply for rent relief and eviction protection as applications were kept open by court order. The state has asked the federal government for more money in order to fund the rent relief program, which provided landlords with rent in lieu of tenant payment due to COVID hardship. When a tenant submits their relief application, they are temporarily protected from being evicted. 
• Environmental:
  • Governor Hochul announced the finalization of two offshore wind farm contracts off the coast of New York, promising almost $9b in investments and 5200 jobs, with the wind farm feeding two electric grids in Long Beach and Queens. 
• MTA:
  • LIRR union leaders are imploring the MTA to stop using the Kronos timekeeping system after discovering that a number of current and former Metro North employees had their personal information sweeped up in a recent cyberattack last month. 67k workers had learned their personal info was swiped. An MTA spokesperson said they’re continuing to work with Kronos to continue safeguarding employees’ personal information.
  • Governor Hochul has decided to make the Acting MTA chair Janno Lieber stay in the post permanently, enshrining the position Lieber has held since July of last year. Lieber used to be the head of the Construction of Development division, overseeing projects like the East Side Access, the second part of the Second Avenue Subway, and the LIRR main line expansion. 
  • Lieber may be excited by this: the MTA received a $6b grant by the federal government, one which Senator Chuck Schumer calls the “largest federal grant in transit history ever.” 
• Antitrust:
  • State Attorney General Letitia James led a group of four dozen states, including New York, in asking federal Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia to reconsider his decision to dismiss an antitrust challenge against Facebook, saying the states have a public interest in pursuing those claims against the website and its parent company Meta. The antitrust claims revolve around Facebook’s purchase of Instagram and Whatsapp and denying companies like Vine access to Facebook data.
• Student loans:
  • Letitia James has also successfully gotten student loan servicing company Navient to cancel $1.7b in student debt following allegations of deceptive practices. Navient has reached similar agreements with 39 other states. The loans being cancelled come from Sallie Mae in between 2002-2010, and were primarily taken out by those with poor credit. 

Legislature

• Corporate subsidies:
  • A hearing about the state’s corporate subsidies in the State Senate Investigations Committee revealed that there is no study showing an adequate return on investment back to the state. State Senator and Chair of the Committee, James Skoufis, placed Empire State Development officials in the hot seat because of the practice’s waste and corruption, as activists call for the film credit in particular to be phased out. Supporters of the subsidies say that it allows New York to keep jobs within the state. 

State Courts

• Court of Appeals:
  • The State legislature has confirmed Shirley Troutman as a new Judge on the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals. Troutman is Hochul’s first nomination on the court. Former prosecutors now represent 4 out of the 7 seats on the state’s highest court.
• Seneca Nation:
  • The Native-American Seneca Nation has reached a settlement agreement with New York state following court decisions finding the tribe owing hundreds of millions of dollars to the state under a gambling contract. The agreement allows the tribe to continue operating three casinos in Western New York, pay back the state what’s owed, while allowing the tribe to pursue claims against other debts the tribe says aren’t owed since the original gambling contract addressing those debts expired in 2016. 

Biden

Domestic

• COVID
  • Your health insurance now covers up to 8 rapid COVID tests, due to a new policy released by the Biden administration. Consumers have to file reimbursements with their insurance company, so don’t throw out that receipt. 
  • A new website will launch this Wednesday allowing people to order at-home tests from the federal government, called covidtests.org. Each household will be allowed to order up to 4 tests, with 500m tests available in total. The tests are shipped 7-12 days later, with critics saying it’s too late to stem the surge from Omicron. Biden has made clear that the government will purchase another 500m tests for future surges. Biden also announced that his administration is sending schools 10m COVID tests monthly starting this month. 
  • The CDC has updated their mask guidance in saying that cloth face-masks give less protection than higher quality KN95 and N95 masks in light of the Omicron variant’s higher rate of contagiousness. 
  • The Treasury Department released a warning against Arizona Governor Doug Ducey that it would seize some of the state’s pandemic aid and prevent future aid if Ducey doesn’t reverse current policies tying the aid to anti-mask policies in schools.
  • As briefly mentioned earlier, Biden has sent six teams of military medical personnel to hospitals around the country to help with severe staff shortages.
  • Pfizer is saying that it is going ahead with developing an Omicron-targeted vaccine despite the country starting to come over the hump from the latest surge. The company is pushing to create 50-100m doses of the new version.
• Health:
  • Medicare has released what’s called a preliminary decision to pay for patients entered into clinical trials to try out the controversial Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm. The drug was approved by the FDA last June despite mixed results and high risks. Aduhelm is priced at more than $28k a year per patient.
• Economy:
  • The economy continues to sputter on shaky footing. Economic figures released this week show that retail sales dropped by 1.9% in the US in December 2021. Mortgage rates jumped to their highest level since March of 2020 to 3.45% for a fixed-rate loan, in line with expectations that the Federal Reserve will increase their interest rates. Consumer prices rose at their fastest rate in 40 years, with the annual inflation rate increasing 7% last year, according to the Labor Department. 
  • More than 30m families have lost access to the child tax credit after Congress allowed the program to expire. The child tax credit passed as part of the most recent COVID relief law passed by Congress, but partisan wrangling, including opposition from moderate Democrat Joe Manchin, allowed the credits to lapse.
  • The US Mint has placed Maya Angelou on the US quarter, becoming the first baclk woman to be featured on the coin under a new Treasury program honoring women’s contributions to the country. Three other honorees will be released each year.  
• SEC:
  • It’s no secret that Elon Musk and the Securities and Exchange Commission aren’t friends, but the vitriol may extend to individual employees as well. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Elon Musk asked Cooley LLP, the law firm repping Tesla, to fire an associate hired from the SEC, the same one that interviewed Musk during an investigation into whether funds were improperly acquired to take Tesla private, as per one of Musk’s tweets. Musk agreed to resign as chairman of Tesla and pay $20m in fines as a result. Cooley LLP refused to fire the associate and he’s still there to this day. 
• MIT Scientist case:
  • Federal prosecutors have recommended dropping charges against an MIT scientist and mechanical engineering professor accused of hiding ties to the Chinese government. Professor Gang Chen was arrested last January, but now Energy Department officials say that Chen didn’t have an obligation to submit former posts with the Chinese government in grant applications he filled out. Chen was also accused of forging a partnership between MIT and a university in Shenzhen, China, although MIT was the one supporting the partnership.

Foreign

• Russia:
  • Defense Department spokesman John Kirby has confirmed reporting by CNN that Russia has placed operatives in Eastern Ukraine to carry out acts of sabotage in a so-called false flag attack in order to justify an invasion into the region, echoing statements made by Ukrainian defense officials, corroborated by US intelligence. Diplomats from the US and Russia are currently holding bilateral talks to get Russia to retreat more than 100k troops on the Eastern border with Ukraine. Russia is demanding that Ukraine never become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, formed to counter Soviet influence in the 20th century. Putin’s spokesman, Dmity Peskov, denied the false-flag allegations.
• North Korea:
  • After North Korea tested their own hypersonic missiles twice this month alone, the US will pursue UN sanctions against the Hermit Kingdom. The US sanctioned North Korea on its own for now through the Treasury Department, citing 6 North Koreans, a Russian, and a Russian company for helping acquire weapons for China and Russia.
• Havana Syndrome:
  • US diplomats serving in Geneva and Paris have been struck by the elusive Havana Syndrome, which causes dizziness and nausea, among other neurological symptoms. At least one diplomat was evacuated back to the US for treatment. 
• Ethiopia:
  • Biden held a call with Ethiopian President Abiy Ahmed over concerns of increased air strikes and civilian casualties taking place over the country’s war in the Tigray region. A readout released from Ahmed said the conversation was business-like and candid.

Congress

House

• Retirements:
  • New York Republican Representative John Katko announced this week that he is not going to seek reelection. Katko is known for being one of the few Republicans who voted in favor of Trump’s second impeachment following the Jan 6 insurrection. Katko’s district’s boundaries are still unclear following the Census, and he said his personal priorities have changed since the death of his and his wife’s parents.
  • Indiana Republican Representative Trey Hollingsworth also announced his retirement, obeying his own set 4-term limit. Hollingsworth was notably also one of the Republicans who supported establishing the January 6th Commission.  
  • Rep. Ed Perlmutter became the 26th Democratic to announce his retirement and not run for a ninth term. Redistricting had made Perlmutter’s district more conservative. 
• David Scott:
  • Politico has reported that some House Democrats are trying to replace House Agriculture Chairman, Representatives David Scott of Georgia, for noticeable health concerns, including halting speech and trouble focusing on a topic, as well as his inability to control Republicans in committee hearings. House leadership, including Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Jim Clyburn, expressed confidence in Scott. Scot himself dismissed questions about his health.
• Jan 6:
  • House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, after saying he isn’t going to cooperate with the January 6th select committee investigating the insurrection against the Capitol by Trump supporters, has to tread carefully with what he says he remembers. After McCarthy claimed he didn’t remember telling fellow Republicans Trump took responsibility for the insurrection, CNN unearthed a radio interview where McCarthy recounted the exact conversation. Following the attack, McCarthy supported a committee investigating the President and placed blame on Trump. In the meantime, former Trump Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who was subpoenaed by the Committee, made a virtual appearance this week behind closed doors.
  • The committee also sent out a fresh round of subpoenas against social media companies Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Reddit, after Chairman Benny Thompson said the companies’ answers in response to the Committee’s requests for information were inadequate or were unanswered altogether. Also subpoenaed were Andrew Surabian and Arthur Schwartz, two of Donald Trump Jr. 's advisors, and Ross Worthington, who helped write Trump’s speech to rioters before the attack on the Capitol.
  • The Justice Department has filed seditious conspiracy charges against Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the right-wing Oath Keepers group, and 10 other Defendants for their role in the January 6th insurrection. The charges allege that the Oath Keeper members recruited others, stockpiled weapons, and planned to stop the certification of Biden’s win in the 2020 Presidential election by force. The head of the DOJ’s National Security Division has also announced the creation of a new domestic terrorism unit in front of hte Senate Judiciary Committee this week in order to support prosecutors’ counterterrorism efforts.

Senate

• Voting rights:
  • Another piece of Biden’s legislative agenda is about to hit a brick wall, as Senate Democratic leadership is still teeing up a vote on two voting rights bills, and if that fails, to take a vote to exclude the obstructionist filibuster procedure when it comes to matters of civil rights and voting. Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema have made clear that they do not support getting rid of the filibuster, and ahead of Biden’s meeting with Senate Democrats on Thursday, Senator Sinema gave a speech on the Senate floor making clear her position, placing Biden’s plans dead in the water. Biden admitted as much when he came out of the lunch meeting, saying he wasn’t sure he could pull the voting rights bills off. Biden and Vice President Harris recently took a trip to Georgia promising voting reforms and preventing Republican voter subversion, based on Trump’s lies of a rigged 2020 Presidential election. This marks the second time BIden’s agenda was stalled by the two moderate Democrats, after Manchin went on Fox News to announce his opposition to Biden’s Build Back Better human infrastructure proposal. Biden had invited Sinema and Manchin to the White House, to no avail.
• Ted Cruz Nord Stream bill:
  • A bill placing sanctions on Russia for its construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline into Germany by Senator Ted Cruz was shut down by Senate Democrats despite promises made by the Biden administration not to whip against the bill. The vote, 55-44, failed to overcome a Democratic filibuster.

Federal Judiciary

• Private-sector vaccine mandates:
  • The Supreme Court ruled this week that vaccine mandates on businesses with more than 100 employees is unconstitutional, at least as it currently stands based on an Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulation, which bypassed a public comment period if the Labor Secretary deemed the cause of a regulation a threat to workers. The conservative majority, in a 6-3 vote, said that OSHA’s mandate was overbroad as it tried to regulate the public generally. In a separate but enmeshed case regarding mandates on healthcare organizations receiving federal funds, Justice Roberts and Kavanaugh joined the liberals in a 5-4 decision to let vaccines mandates stand, reflecting the longstanding precedent that the federal government can place certain terms on its grants.
• Immigration bond hearings:
  • The Supreme Court also heard arguments this week from the government requesting the Court to decide that immigrants in detention for more than six months are not entitled to a bond hearing. The Biden administration does not want detained migrants released while they await bond hearings. The case puts the President and the liberal Justices in rare odds against each other, as they questioned Justice Department attorney Curtis Gannon why the Biden administration would want to undo a so-called bedrock principle of freedom.
• Martin Shkreli:
  • NY federal District Judge Denise L. Cote released an opinion ordering infamous “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli to pay back almost $65m in profits he received from upping the price of the HIV and anti-parasitic drug Daraprim, violating antitrust laws. Shkreli was also banned from taking part in the pharmaceutical industry, which isn’t even the first ban handed down to him from court. Shkreli is currently serving a 7-year sentence from unrelated fraud convictions.
• Avenatti:
  • Former Stormy Daniels attorney and now-convicted fraudster Michael Avenatti filed a $94m lawsuit this week against the federal government over inhumane solitary confinement conditions in Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center, saying the conditions are in retaliation for his criticism against Trump and his former Attorney General Bill Barr. Avenatti once represented porn star Stormy Daniels in her suit against Trump, but was then sued by Daniels for fraud and apparel company Nike for extortion. 
• Prince Andrew:
  •  U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan refused requests by Britain’s Prince Andrew to dismiss a sexual abuse lawsuit against him by one of the late Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre, who was sex trafficked by Epstein and his accomplice Ghislanie Maxwell when she was a child. Prince Andrew allegedly had sex with Giuffre at the direction of Epstein. Prince Andrew claimed that a previous settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre shielded Andrew from prosecution, but Judge Kaplan rejected that premise. The Queen of England subsequently stripped Andrew of his military honors.
• Amazon:
  • U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady has decided to step aside from a civil suit between two former Amazon employees and the online retail giant, citing financial conflicts of interest since members of his family held stocks in Amazon.

National

• COVID
  • Students from all over the country walked out of class to protest their schools being open during the Omicron surge. In NYC, Boston, Chicago, and more, students demanded a return to remote learning, more COVID tests, and masks. Public officials have turned to remote learning in a minority of jurisdictions, but most maintain that schools are safe environments and that Omicron hasn’t had the same effects on mortality as past spikes.
  • West Virginia Republican Governor Jim Justice has been reportedly feeling extremely unwell with COVID, postponing his State of the State address. Justice has been vaccinated and boosted, and is receiving monoclonal antibody treatment. 
  • Total COVID hospitalizations all over the country broken a record at 145k people with the virus, smashing a previous record of 142k a year ago. 
• Texas hostage situation:
  • A brief hostage situation at a Texas synagogue thankfully ended without casualties Saturday. A man stormed into the Colleyville synagogue, demanding the release of an Afghan terrorist held in Fort Worth. After about 11 hours, Texas Governor Greg Abbott tweeted “Prayers answered,” and that all of the hostages were safe. The suspect ended up dead after a stand-off with police. 
• RFK assassin:
  • California Governor Gavin Newsom has rejected the grant of parole for RFK’s assassin, Sirhan Sirhan. Sirhan killed RFK in 1968 following a speech RFK just finished at the Los Angeles Ambassador Hotel during his presidential run. Sirhan claims to have been hypnotized during the assassination, and Newsom cited deficiencies in Sirhan’s reasons for killing RFK in rejecting his parole.
• RNC debate rules:
  • The Republican National Committee released new guidance for their upcoming President candidates saying that they shouldn’t take part in debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates, echoing past comments made by Trump when he refused to take part in the Republican primary debates. Republican Senator Mitt Romney, a former candidate himself, said the guidance is nuts. 
• Pig-human heart transplant:
  • Surgeons from the University of Maryland Medical Center have successfully transplanted a pig heart into a human patient in a breakthrough operation. The patient, David Bennett, Sr., was doing well after his surgery. Dr. Bartley Griffith, who performed the operation for eight hours, became the first surgeon in a potential long line of doctors who can save those who are waiting for organs that never come.

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.