A recent Siena poll demonstrates that a clear majority of New York residents think their state Assembly leader, Sheldon Silver, should resign. The findings come amidst a recent scandal that saw Silver use over $100,000 in taxpayer funds to silence victims in a sexual harassment case. That case involved powerful state Assemblyman, Vito Lopez. The coverup was masterminded by Silver. It wasn’t the first time taxpayer funds had been used to close a harassment case in the Assembly.
In 2003, Silver was criticized for a slow response to a case involving his former aide, J. Michael Boxley, who was accused of rape and later pled guilty to sexual misconduct. Three years later, the Assembly agreed to pay $500,000 of taxpayer money to settle the case. Boxley was also accused of assault by another Assembly aide in 2001.
With this kind of track record, is New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s repeated support for a Democrat ally accused of enabling sexual harassment, a clear indication of a true War on Women?
And lest you assume use of the word ‘enabler’ is a might bit strong, I refer you to a report presented by Staten Island District Attorney, Dan Donovan, involving Silver’s role in the Lopez case. In it, he writes that the “secretive manner” used by Silver’s staff “encouraged” Lopez to keep up his harassing behavior.
Assembly Republicans have asked Cuomo to denounce Silver’s actions and call for his resignation. Steve McLaughlin, a possible gubernatorial challenger in 2014, has repeatedly called for Silver’s resignation. Thus far however, Cuomo and his Democrat colleagues have resisted such calls.
McLaughlin tells FreedomWorks, “I find it to be the absolute pinnacle of hypocrisy for Cuomo and the Democrat conference to continue to support him.”
That hypocrisy can be seen in the governor’s recent unveiling of a Women’s Equality Act, a 10-point plan to “restore New York’s reputation as the leader on women’s rights”.
One has to wonder how leadership on women’s rights issues can generate from a state whose leader can not summon the political courage to denounce actions which have been found to encourage harassment of women. Actions which led one journalist to refer to the Capitol of New York as “the most sexually abusive workplace in the nation”.
“Cuomo rolls out his Women’s Equality Act, yet continues to back Silver who has repeatedly covered up sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and rape,” McLaughlin said.
“Democrats either need to hold a vote of no confidence in Silver or forever shut up about the fictitious Republican War on Women.”
But why would a governor with Presidential aspirations continually support hostility towards the victims of sexual harassment, while trying to push through a pro-women’s agenda?
I interviewed State Assemblyman, Bill Nojay, who explained:
Andrew Cuomo has spent his entire career doing what we call the Albany Two-Step — say one thing for the cameras and reporters, then do the opposite behind the curtain. He is the Master of Spin who would make his mentor Bill Clinton proud.
Cuomo is trying to position himself as a defender of women’s rights, but when given a chance to prove his commitment by calling for Sheldon Silver’s resignation, he ran for cover. Why? Expediency; Cuomo needs Silver to move his legislative (and Presidential campaign) agenda, so he sacrificed principle for the pursuit of power.
McLaughlin agreed, saying “Clearly Cuomo wants Silver standing, so that he can push his radical progressive agenda”.
Does that make Governor Cuomo guilty of enabling a culture of anti-women corruption in New York State?
McLaughlin surmised, “Silver enabled Lopez, and Cuomo enables Silver”.
With Silver unwilling to resign and Cuomo unwilling to pressure him, the last option rests with Democrats in the Majority Conference. Nojay explained that, “Under rules of the State Assembly, only his fellow Democrats in the Majority Conference, who elected him in January, can now remove him from office.”
He added that unfortunately, “Only 2 out of 107 Democrats have called for him to resign”.
Two Democrats. Two Democrats, willing to stand up for the victims of sexual abuse in the workplace. Two Democrats, willing to truly support women’s equality. While 105 of their colleagues and a timid governor, continue to wage a true war on women … through silence.
McLaughlin says that these are the ones “who are hostile to women’s rights”.
The message they are sending is clear,” he said. ”As long as their progressive agenda marches on, any women that get hurt along the way are expendable.”
I wish this was a parody, or some other pathetic attempt at comedy but alas, it is neither.
Via the Union Leader:
The event had people supporting the Mayors Against Illegal Guns movement, founded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, reading the names of those “killed with guns” since the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary outside their “No More Names” bus.
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The presence of the national gun control group in front of the state Capitol Tuesday night prompted numerous shouts from gun rights supporters. While there were about 40 No More Names supporters, there were at least 60 gun rights supporters at the rally.
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Rally organizers, whose bus had Texas license plates, refused to speak to a New Hampshire Union Leader reporter and referred him to the organization’s national headquarters.
Some of the loudest shouts came when a reader spoke the name of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects who was killed by police during a gunfight.
“He’s a terrorist,” several protesters shouted.
Unbelievable!
Yesterday, a reporter for the Troy Record was on the scene of an FBI raid involving an abandoned small town autobody shop. Charles Sweeney described a scene in which State Police and FBI agents had surrounded, and eventually impounded, a Saturn coupe.
Today that investigation has led to two arrests in a bizarre terror plot that allegedly involves local Jewish organizations, and a portable X-Ray weapon that could be used to deliver lethal doses of radiation to what the accused perceived as “enemies of Israel”.
Via Fox News:
Federal authorities have accused two upstate New York men of assembling a portable X-ray weapon they intended to use against opponents of Israel.
Prosecutors say 49-year-old Glendon Scott Crawford, of Galway, and 54-year-old Eric J. Feight, of Hudson, have been charged with conspiracy to provide support to terrorists following a yearlong undercover investigation.
Investigators say Crawford approached local Jewish organizations looking for people to help him with technology that could be used to secretly deliver damaging and even lethal doses of radiation against those he considered enemies of Israel.
The weapon was designed to remotely poison and kill targeted individuals.
Both men face up to 15 years in prison.
State Senator Jeff Klein (D-Brooklyn) has raised the ire of leftists who believe that he and a group of other Democrats who broke rank to form the Independent Democratic Conference, and allowed a sharing of power with Republicans, has been a thorn in the side of Governor Cuomo and the progressive agenda ever since.
Today, those leftists had all they could stands, and they couldn’t stands no more.
Via the Times Union:
State Police arrested 21 people on disorderly conduct charges after they protested Tuesday outside the Capitol office of state Sen. Jeff Klein, the leader of the Independent Democratic Conference.
The rally began at 1 p.m. at the top of the Western Staircase, where about 200 progressive activists decried the blockade of GENDA, the Dream Act, a hydrofracking moratorium, campaign finance reform and the full 10-point Women’s Equality Act. The four-member IDC has been criticized for allowing Republicans to block action on many of those items through a power-sharing deal.
After hearing from representatives of each issue, the activists — including representatives of Citizen Action, Occupy Albany and more — headed up to Klein’s fourth-floor offices. Activists locked arms and sat down, blocking two doors into Klein’s suite. Many speeches ensued, as well as chants on the theme of IDC perfidy (“Klein got more clout/We got sold out”) and and Civil Rights songs reworked with an Albany twist (“Ain’t gonna let let Senator Klein turn me around … walking on to freedom land”).
As per usual, the protesters sole accomplishment was a series of chants which showed off their epic rhyming skills - because basic chanting at a 3rd grade level is oh so impressive.
Fortunately, we here at the Mental Recession have located exclusive footage of the protest outside of Senator Klein’s office, seen below.
Whoa… Not sure how that slipped in there. Remind me to fire the video production manager later.
Anyway, here’s the actual clip (via Capitol Confidential) of the progressive activists protest, which pretty much amounts to the same thing – a group of losers pretending their message trumps all.
Ah, the return of the ever-effective “Mic Check” followed by a series of Mother Goose rhymes.
Wait, wait … I can do this too. Here’s one for you liberals…
It’s hard to hold on to a job – when you keep acting like a knob!
Your movement IS stoppable, shampoo and soap is possible!
See how easy that chanting business is? Consider that one free for the sharing.
On a serious note, one of those arrested was Citizen Action’s Karen Scharff, a former co-Chair of the Capital District WFP at a time when Democrats were being allowed to commit voter fraud on their ballot line. Scharff is also a stalwart of the now defunct corrupt organization known as ACORN.
In the end, not everyone was impressed with the activists efforts.
Staten Island Sen. Diane Savino, an IDC member, said the protesters should “grow up.”
Guess who pays for this program? Legitimate cell phone customers. In other words, you and I.
The federal ‘free’ cell phone scheme for low-income individuals cost $2.2 billion last year, all of which came from fees added to the phone bills of paying customers.
And while there are some people who legitimately make good use of this program – emergency contacts for children and parents, or to receive job interview responses – there is a whole hell of a lot of this going on…
Via the Daily Mail:
Undercover video shot in May by a conservative activist shows two corporate distributors of free cell phones handing out the mobile devices to people who have promised to sell them for drug money, to buy shoes and handbags, to pay off their bills, or just for extra spending cash.
The ‘Obama phone,’ which made its ignominious YouTube debut outside a Cleveland, Ohio presidential campaign event last September, is a project of the Federal Communications Commission’s ‘Lifeline’ program, which makes land line and mobile phones available to Americans who meet low-income requirements.
Lifeline was a $2.19 billion program in 2012.
One exchange saw a man specifically tell an employee he was going to sell his taxpayer funded phone to buy heroin. To which the employee states, ‘Hey, I don’t judge’.
Every one of the individuals who claimed they would sell the phone as opposed to actually using it for legitimate purposes, was given a phone.
Nobody was turned down.
In fact, some were instructed to visit pawn shops to determine the phone’s value, or they are instructed to go home and deactivate the phone, sell it, and return to get another.
Watch below and read the rest of the report…
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