New York Is #1 … In Political Corruption

Congratulations, New York, You’re #1 In Corruption

 

 

 

 

 

” Other states have plenty of corruption, but it’s hard to beat New York when it comes to sheer volume. The indictment Monday of Dean Skelos, the state Senate majority leader, and his son Adam came just three months after charges were brought against Sheldon Silver, then the Assembly Speaker. Having the top leaders in both chambers face indictment in the same session is an unparalleled achievement, but Skelos is now the fifth straight Senate majority leader in Albany to face indictment.

  New York doesn’t so much have a culture of corruption as an entire festival. So far, Senate Republicans are standing by Skelos, but if they decide to make a change, they probably won’t turn to Thomas Libous, the chamber’s Number Two leader. He faces trial this summer on charges of lying to the FBI, while his son faces sentencing later this month on similar charges. All told, more than two dozen members of the New York state legislature have been indicted or resigned in disgrace over the past five years. “Albany for a long time has had a culture of self-interest, where private gains are woven in with public policy,” says Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause in New York.

  Clusters of corruption and even convictions are not unique to New York. Silver was one of four state House Speakers to face indictment over the past year (Alabama, Rhode Island and South Carolina are home to the others). In Massachusetts, three Speakers prior to current incumbent Robert DeLeo all resigned and pleaded guilty to criminal charges. When Dan Walker died last week, it was hard for obituary writers not to note that he was one of four Illinois governors over the past five decades who ended up in prison. “While I’m a proud New Yorker and want my state to be ahead in everything, I’m not sure we’re ahead on corruption,” says Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who teaches law at Columbia University.

  Richman is kidding, but he makes a serious point. Give any U.S. attorney a year and 10 FBI agents and he or she can probably come back from the state capital with a passel of indictments. Having said all that, however, the waters in Albany have long been heavily stocked with potentially big fish. Remember in the movie Lincoln, when the president decides he has to resort to low dealings to get the anti-slavery amendment through Congress? The characters he relies on to do the trick come from Albany.”

 

Politico has the details

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Oh Happy Day: Corrupt NY “Sc*mbag” Sheldon Silver To Be Arrested Today

Sheldon Silver, New York Assembly Speaker, Faces Arrest On Corruption Charges

 

 

 

 

” Federal authorities are expected to arrest Sheldon Silver, the powerful speaker of the New York State Assembly, on corruption charges on Thursday, people with knowledge of the matter said. The case is likely to throw Albany into disarray at the beginning of a new session.

  The investigation that led to the expected charges against Mr. Silver, a Democrat from the Lower East Side of Manhattan who has served as speaker for more than two decades, began after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in March abruptly shut down an anticorruption commission he had created in 2013.

  Details of the specific charges to be brought against Mr. Silver were unclear on Wednesday night, but one of the people with knowledge of the matter said they stemmed from payments that Mr. Silver received from a small law firm that specializes in seeking reductions of New York City real estate taxes. The total amount of the payments was unclear, but another person has said they were substantial and were made over several years.

  Mr. Silver failed to list the payments from the firm, Goldberg & Iryami, on his annual financial disclosure filings with the state, as required.”

     God bless Preet Bharara and the Federal prosecutor’s office . It looks like Gov Cuomo’s shutdown of the Moreland commission was not enough to save one of the Dem’s favorite sons . Heres hoping Silver finishes his days in an 8×8 cell . Wishful thinking , I know , but one can hope .

Read more at the NY Times

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Cuomo’s NY Creates List Of 35,000 People Deemed “Too Unstable” For Gun Ownership

New York’s Registry Of Mentally Ill People Barred From Having Firearms Draws Heavy Criticism

 

 

 

 

 

 

” A newly created database of New Yorkers deemed too mentally unstable to carry firearms has grown to roughly 34,500 names, a previously undisclosed figure that has raised concerns among some mental health advocates that too many people have been categorized as dangerous.

  The database, established in the aftermath of the mass shooting in 2012 at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and maintained by the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, is the result of the Safe Act. It is an expansive package of gun control measures pushed through by the administration of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. The law, better known for its ban on assault weapons, compels licensed mental health professionals in New York to report to the authorities any patient “likely to engage in conduct that would result in serious harm to self or others.”

  But the number of entries in the database highlights the difficulty of America’s complicated balancing act between public safety and the right to bear arms when it comes to people with mental health issues.

“ That seems extraordinarily high to me,” said Sam Tsemberis, a former director of New York City’s involuntary hospitalization program for homeless and dangerous people, now the chief executive of Pathways to Housing, which provides housing to the mentally ill. “Assumed dangerousness is a far cry from actual dangerousness.” “

 

Post Gazette

 

Another Cuomo Term Is No Longer Inevitable

Why Cuomo Is No Longer Invincible

 

 

 

” As his run for re-election starts to gear up, Gov. Cuomo is in surprisingly weak shape. With a huge war chest in a heavily Democratic state, he’s still the odds-on favorite — but he’s suddenly looking a lot more vulnerable.

Here are 10 big reasons why the governor has to worry.

  He burned Mayor de Blasio. Sure, he made himself look good to centrist voters by humiliating the new herald of progressivism on both pre-K and charter schools. But he also earned a black eye with the left — and made an enemy of the mayor, who after all is the top politician in a city where Cuomo needs a lot of votes come November.

  He’s annoyed the public-employee unions. He tightened the state school-aid spigot and put in his property-tax cap, making it harder for teachers locals across New York to win higher pay. Then he pushed for test-based teacher evaluations, anathema to the unions. (Yes, the scheme never had real teeth, but unions can’t stand the precedent.) And he topped it all off with his embrace of charters — which the unions, not without reason, see as a naked bid for fat hedge-fund donations. Other unions feel burned because he forced modest contracts on most state-employee unions and won minor public-pension reforms. They won’t go to war on him for that — but why should they lift a finger to help?Now his sudden rush to win some union friends is getting ugly. Few voters will notice or care that the Transit Workers Union contract pays for raises by adding hundreds of millions to the MTA’s long-term liabilities — but they can understand a $6 million TWU slush fund.

  His robotic pretense that he’s still “studying” fracking after three-plus years is an oozing political sore. It tells people leading hardscrabble lives all across Upstate that he cares more about millionaires and special interests than he does about them — and doesn’t even have the guts to be upfront about it. The hypocrisy of his pose is so rank, it’s hard to see how anyone can trust his word on anything, public or private.”

 

Read the entire , heartwarming analysis at the NY Post

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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