Tuesday, March 11, 2025
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A View From the Ground
News and information about politics, government, civic participation and engagement from URL Media's network of Black and Brown publishers.
Good evening. Today we’re taking a look at what the mayoral candidacy announcement from former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo means for the race, which is already crowded, and how the controversy around current Mayor Eric Adams, who's still running, plays out.Also, Donald Trump’s speech to Congress was raucous and rambling but it offered a clue as what his presidency will be, how people will interpret it, and how Democrats should react. (Hint: It’s not with church fans).Rep. Al Green was censured in Congress for his defiance of Trump during the speech. He did it intentionally, he said, because of his belief in what America should offer her citizens.Plus, we’re bringing you the latest updates at url-media.com as events unfold. Have a question? Write to us at [email protected].
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Racing around the concrete jungle: The New York political landscape is now abruptly more complex than it already was with former Gov. Andrew Cuomo throwing his hat into the ring to run for mayor last week.It wasn’t really a secret that Cuomo was eyeing a run for City Hall. The rumor has swirled for months, despite the sexual harassment allegations and accusations of neglect of seniors during the COVID crisis while he was in the governor’s office. The harassment allegations in particular resulted in his resignation from office and being replaced by current Gov. Kathy Hochul.
This comes as Mayor Eric Adams still battles the really poor optics of the U.S. Justice Department’s request to drop corruption charges against him, which has made many suspicious that he engaged in a quid pro quo to bend to the Trump administration on its immigration agenda. He has denied those accusations.He also faces multiple calls for his resignation from around the political spectrum and a Quinnipiac University poll says that 56 percent of voters feel he should resign.According to EpicenterNYC, Cuomo is already considered the frontrunner in the race and polling shows him ahead by double digits. This puts him at the top of an already crowded field including City Comptroller Brad Lander; former comptroller Scott Stringer, and State Senator Jessica Ramos. But a sudden change that could upend the race was Thursday’s announcement from NYC City Council speaker Adrienne Adams (no relation to the mayor) that she is also running.President Trump, who remains terribly unpopular in New York, has been a factor in the election because Adams, despite prior criticism of the president in his first term, has morphed into an ally of the administration on its immigration agenda. Although Trump has targeted sanctuary cities around the nation, Adams did testify in Congress on March 5 that local law enforcement is not allowed to collaborate with ICE on illegal immigration enforcement.How Cuomo will respond to the crowded field, his new rivalry with Adams, and Trump remains to be seen.Get the perspective on Cuomo’s candidacy from EpicenterNYC →
Deciphering Trump’s Congressional rant: In an hour and 40 minutes of patting himself on the back for not really accomplishing anything to make the country better, Donald Trump declared a new “Golden Age” in America. But his address to a joint session of Congress introduced anything but that. In fact, what viewers saw was a dystopically divided body of legislators, with Republicans cheering him almost on cue and Democrats remaining seated, some of them holding up small signs resembling church fans emblazoned with phrases things like “FALSE,” “Save Medicaid,” and “Musk Steals.” A group, including Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and Fla. Rep. Maxwell Frost, walked out wearing T-shirts that had messages of protest written on them.
TANTV Studios examines the multiple corners the president spoke himself into during the address including the tariffs he has launched against Mexico and Canada, resulting in the self-inflicted gut punch on U.S. markets “…this was the work of a man whose understanding of global economics is best compared to a raccoon rifling through a trash can–chaotic, destructive, and entirely self-inflicted,” writer LaBode Obanor said in his essay.
Also, the “unholy alliance” with billionaire Elon Musk, who has been put in charge of the Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE), which has only succeeded in cutting a generation of essential career civil servants from their jobs, only to put in place Trump loyalists who have nowhere near the experience or institutional knowledge to do the same jobs.
Obanor breaks down the raucous event, criticizing almost every shameful moment, but also offers suggestions as to what Democrats should do in the face of GOP majorities in the House and Senate that seem determined to further Trump’s vicious agenda.“But protest alone is not enough. Democrats must pivot from performative outrage to an all-out, aggressive counteroffensive—one that includes pushing bold legislative alternatives, mobilizing grassroots efforts to expose Trump’s failures, and using every procedural weapon available to slow his march toward authoritarianism,” he wrote. “They should be flooding the media with a coordinated message, hammering home the economic devastation his policies have wrought and the dangers of his reckless governance.
Why Trump’s new cabinet may put Black and Brown people on the shelf: Right now, we can only imagine what a Kamala Harris administration would have looked like and who she would have picked to run the various governmental agencies. But imagine the exact opposite and you have Donald Trump’s choices of mainly inexperienced and barely competent people running the government. What’s worse, their agenda almost certainly will not benefit people of color.
Capital B outlines the choices in a list of the rogue’s gallery that seems almost hand-picked to upend a century of established government institutions. Many of the appointments, including Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth, DOGE leader Elon Musk, Education Sec. Linda McMahon, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have publicly spoken out against Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in government and have worked to dismantle them.
Rubio reportedly said in one report that “woke is weak” and that the State Department has a “misguided focus on wokeness” which has “undermined its effectiveness and distracted from its duty to protect and promote America’s national interests.” Meanwhile, Hegseth is on record saying that Black military personnel get promoted “simply based on their race.” He was also instrumental in the firing of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Charles CQ Brown, who has a 40-year list of accomplishments in the U.S. Air Force. Ironically, Hegseth has only served as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army National Guard.
These are just two of a number of cabinet picks that either espouse conservative causes which have historically worked against the progress of African Americans, or created economic, political and social barriers.The full list of Trump’s cabinet picks and the dangers they pose are at Capital B
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Rep. Al Green is happy to accept consequences after standing up to Trump: The bright spot of the president’s address to Congress on Tuesday was when the Democratic congressman who represents much of Houston defiantly shouted at Trump that there was no mandate to cut Medicaid. After warnings to be silent, House Speaker Mike Johnson had him removed.
Green was censured for basically calling Trump’s hypocrisy out for the world to see. While the House debated censure, he stood to address the body, saying:
”I said to the president, you do not have a mandate to cut Medicaid. I have constituents who need Medicaid. They will suffer and some will die if they don't get Medicaid. I heard the speaker when he said that I should cease. I did not, and I did not with intentionality.
Green’s protest was in the spirit of the brotherhood of Alpha Phi Alpha, which he joined in 1968 at Florida A&M University. The organization said in a statement that it supports Green’s stance and outlined its own position on White House policies.
“Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. applauds Alpha Brother Rep. Al Green’s courage and conviction to take a stand against President Donald J. Trump’s barrage of recent harmful and discriminatory policies during the President’s address to a joint session of Congress last night despite facing ejection. As Alpha men, among them Brothers Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Paul Robeson, Rep. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and famed Civil Rights litigator and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, we are no strangers to the fight for civil rights and the power of civil disobedience,” the statement read.
Green explained more about his protest. “It was not done out of a burst of emotion,” he said. “I was emotional about it. But I did it with intentionality. I think that on some questions, questions of conscience you have to be willing to suffer the consequences. And I have said I will, I will suffer whatever the consequences are, because I don't believe that in the richest country in the world, people should be without good health care. I stood up for my constituents then, I'm standing up for my constituents now.”
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Rumors and fear drive immigrants to skip court - Documented
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