Originally published at: Thirty-One False Starts - TPM – Talking Points Memo
Hello, it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender 
One minor mystery of the DHS surge into Minneapolis has been the relative dearth of prosecutions. Recall what happened in Chicago: DHS, having flooded the city with federal agents, sought aggressive charges against anyone who it perceived as having gotten in the way. They supplied affidavits…
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First. Those failed prosecutions are cracking me up. Careers are being ruined.
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New York
A New York state Judge ruled this week that the state’s only Republican-led district in New York City is unconstitutional and has to be redrawn by early February. A redrawn district could flip the city’s only Republican district to a more Democratic-leaning one.
The decision is expected to be appealed in an appellate state court.
Posted a couple days ago on the NYC Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani thread in the Hive –
From my morning Hell Gate email –
The Return of Congressional District Chaos!
It’s been just over two years since New York’s congressional districts were thrown into chaos by a judge’s ruling, so obviously we’re long overdue to reset the clock.
Late Wednesday afternoon, a state judge ruled in favor of a longshot lawsuit that claims New York’s 11th congressional district, which encompasses all of Staten Island and most of Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, and Bath Beach in Brooklyn, violates state laws against racial discrimination, by making the district’s growing Black and Latine communities “systematically unable to influence elections.”
The plaintiffs in the case, who included Democratic voters on Staten Island, and who were represented by the Elias Law Group (which was founded to help Democrats win redistricting battles), had argued that the easiest remedy would be for the judge to order that overwhelmingly-Democratic Lower Manhattan be switched from the 10th congressional district (currently represented by Dan Goldman and spanning Lower Manhattan to brownstone Brooklyn), to the 11th, making a traditionally right-leaning district suddenly an extremely competitive one—and giving New York Democrats the opportunity to pick up another House seat heading into the midterms.
It would look something like this map the plaintiffs filed with the court, with Bay Ridge moving over to the 10th congressional district, and Lower Manhattan south of Union Square being conjoined with Staten Island:
We won’t know exactly what the new district would look like for at least two weeks—Justice Jeffrey H. Pearlman ordered the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission to redraw the district’s lines by February 6, before petitioning for June’s primary election begins later that month.
What does this all mean for New York’s already simmering 10th congressional district primary between incumbent Goldman and former New York City comptroller Brad Lander?
It’s very possible that Goldman, facing down a very tough battle against Lander, will instead jump over to a newly-redrawn 11th district including Lower Manhattan (where he used to serve as a federal prosecutor), and try to take out Staten Island’s MAGA Republican Nicole Malliotakis. (Technically, Goldman would not have to move to the 11th district to run—congressmembers do not have to live in the districts they represent BUT Goldman has more than enough cash for a FiDI pied-à-terre.)
“As I said before, I’m proud to represent my constituents in my current district and am focused on running for reelection to continue to build on the work we are doing together,” Goldman said in a statement to Hell Gate. But, he added, "Our top priority must be to retake the majority and make Hakeem Jeffries Speaker of the House, and I will always place that goal first.”
Essentially—Goldman is saying he would be willing to swap districts to take down Malliotakis to net Democrats another seat, something he said as much to Ben Max last week.
Lander, for his part, appears psyched at the prospect of a non-competitive primary in Brooklyn, where he would coast to the nomination in the district.
“I support efforts to enforce the Voting Rights Act and to protect the rights of voters of color,” he told Hell Gate in a statement. "Like the plaintiffs, and all candidates who might be affected, I eagerly await the results of the redistricting commission.”
We checked in with local politics ball-knower and Zenith Research founder Adam Carlson for his reaction to this. “I’d be shocked if Goldman doesn’t shift to the new NY-11, both to avoid the Lander fight and because most of Lower Manhattan would now be in NY-11 (though we’ll wait to see the final shape of the district),” he told Hell Gate over text message. “Lander [has a] glide path almost certainly now that he has Mamdani’s backing. Doubt he’ll go unopposed but don’t think he’ll be sweating his competition.”
A congressional district stretching from the liberal heathen enclaves of Tribeca and the East Village all the way to the MAGA strongholds of Tottenville? It’s not unprecedented! As recently as 1983, Staten Island was conjoined with Lower Manhattan to form a single congressional district.
Still, will the jeans empire heir Goldman actually be able to waltz into Staten Island and assume that he’ll just be the uncontested nominee? "I don’t think there’s anywhere on Staten Island where (they’ll) say ‘Yeah, we’ll let the guy from Manhattan walk in,’” a Staten Island Democratic source told City & State.
Malliotakis and her fellow Republicans are predictably not happy.
“We are reviewing the judge’s decision and our options to protect the voices of the people of Staten Island and Brooklyn,” Malliotakis said in a statement. “Nothing changes the fact that this is a frivolous attempt by Washington Democrats to steal this congressional seat from the people and we are very confident that we will prevail at the end of the day.”
Complicating Republican efforts to challenge the ruling is the fact that the defendants in the case are themselves the very state Democrats—like Kathy Hochul—who are rooting to have Malliotakis voted out of Congress.
If Republicans do find a way to challenge the ruling to the state’s highest court—the Court of Appeals—it currently has a liberal majority, despite years of efforts by both Democrats Andrew Cuomo and Kathy Hochul to hand it over to conservatives.
I added the following to my above post –
ETA – If this congressional district change does hold up, and if Goldman does jump to the 11th district, I wonder if Mayor Mamdani will endorse him? As it stands now, Mamdani is endorsing Lander over Goldman in the 10th district primary.
Goldman was vocal about neither endorsing nor voting for Mamdani in the mayoral general election last November.
Dan Goldman is a well-liked and popular congressman with this country’s democrats. Though Brad Lander, who is currently primarying Goldman, is more popular with the NY’s 10th district’s residents. Lander has been their neighbor and advocate for 30 years. Goldman is a first term congressman.
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Isaiah 5:20-23
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Ah, you who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter!
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Ah, you who are wise in your own eyes,
and shrewd in your own sight!
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Ah, you who are heroes in drinking wine
and valiant at mixing drink,
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who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
and deprive the innocent of their rights!
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Seven House Democrats joined Republicans to help pass the DHS bill.
Screams into the void.
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This would litterly be in my backyard, Testing our new Governor NOW
ICE eyes massive Hanover warehouse for processing facility - Virginia Business
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Krugman’s latest substack discussion with economist Gabriel Zucman brings up the idea of Europe using extremely targeted sanctions on oligarchs, American or otherwise, who have Trump’s ear and push for special favors from the demented king. This idea is really bad news for Ronald Lauder, the sole heir of the Estee Lauder fortune, and the mischief-maker who has been constantly pushing the Greenland annexation fantasy, even to the extent of bringing down NATO and hurting much of the US military-industrial complex – all for some water and minerals. Targeted sanctions have the additional benefit of signaling to others seeking personal favors from the executive that is could kill their business. The oligarchs that lined up to kiss the ring at Trump’s inauguration a year ago could become much more wary about transactional grifting. The EU’s sanctions on Russian oligarchs have been slow-acting, but today they have really begun to bite. Perhaps the bright side of EU sanctions on US oligarchs is that such persons are less likely to face defenestration or accidental drowning.
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Saturday’s Heather & Paul:
Take it easy shoveling Blue State and Dots!
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Back from his stunning* speech at Davos, the head terrorist rages over his sinking polls. Meanwhile in Minneapolis, he has pissed off millions of Americans who have had enough of him and are now willing to go on strike to \accelerate his failure.
*And so, in a time of great technological gains, the U.S. drove scientists and engineers away because I kid you not, truth had become the enemy. The rest of the world welcomed the refugee intelligence. As you can see from looking around, stupid was not an adequate substitute.
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It is very possible that the reason for prosecutorial failure on the part of ICE apprehensions is that saner judges and juries prevail on seeing the flimsy evidence that is presented.
Find me a case where ICE has successfully prosecuted a case, or the DOJ, and I will bet there was a MAGAt judge in charge.
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31? I’m surprised there aren’t 52 for every week in the past year of this administration, I would say 365 but with this Supreme Court he does get his wins.
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ICE Incompetence comes in many forms.
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We Americans noted the imagery sooner even though it looks comical on Pee Wee Himmler.
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16th!
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Winning!
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I said earlier in the week that he’d lose interest in Greenland and decide he needs Antarctica instead. 
By the way, there’s propaganda, but this is the stupidest kind of propaganda I’ve ever seen.
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Disbarments should be happening.
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