RUDY VERITAS

The Remaining Party Boss

 

Over the years, and even in his obituary, Ray Harding was often called "the last old time party boss."  While it's true that Ray had total party discipline within the Liberal Party, he achieved much of his legend through the atmospherics.  In the late 20th Century, few party leaders were still subsisting on black coffee and five packs a day of unfiltered Camels.  His height and immense girth also added to the legend; not to mention his brusque manner and profanity-laden speech. 

Ray's real strength, however, lay in his strategic ability to see political actions four moves ahead.  But for all his capabilities, Ray Harding never instilled the fear that Michael Long does.  Michael Long, Chairman of the NYS Conservative Party, lacks the cigarette smoking and physical heft, but he maintains a rigidly disciplined party philosophy.  So when Mike Long said he would punish the four Republican state senators who voted for marriage equality in NYS, pols paid attention.  All four had run previously with Conservative Party endorsement.  Yesterday's primaries in NYS provided the win-loss for Long's threat.

One of the four, Jim Alesi, withdrew early when it became clear he could not get his party's nomination. Last night the remaining three faced primary challenges organized and funded, mainly, by the Conservative Party.  So how effective were Mike Long's threats?  Pretty effective. 

Mark Grisanti, thought most vulnerable, coasted to an easy win (he has personal issues that may yet result in a November defeat).  Steve Saland is 42 votes ahead after all the votes were counted.  Certainly a very serious canvassing of the ballots will be forthcoming.  And Roy McDonald lost narrowly, 51%-49%.  McDonald and Saland will still be on the November ballot as candidates of the Independence Party and may in fact still win, although doubtful.  Should Saland eek out a victory from last night, he will still face a Conservative Party opponent in November.  So how did Mike Long do?

In politics, the fear of losing can have the same effect as losing itself if the goal, which was Long's, is to instill fear.  He got rid of Alesi early, caused McDonald's defeat and may still get Saland out.  All four of these men had won their previous re-elections handily.  I knew Mile Long somewhat back in the day.  He's a funny, serious, decent man.  On most issues - minus the big three: death penalty, abortion and gay marriage - I agree with him completely.  Although I disagree with his gay marriage views, I was raised to admire the exercise of brute political might.  Long and his party felt betrayed and sought to make these ideological Quislings pay.  Moreover, he wanted to send a message to other Republicans elected with Conservative Party support not the take the party for granted.  He set his mind to do that and succeeded pretty well. 

From a purely political standpoint you have to greatly admire his determination and his ability to achieve a result.  On gay marriage I believe him to be on the wrong side of history.  Twenty years from now I think Mike Long himself will make that admission.  But not tonight.  The upside, even to conservatives like myself who disagree with him on gay marriage, is that when Gov. Cuomo wants to raise taxes, impose new regulations or expand state power, there will be Mike Long shaking his head No to the Republican caucuses in the Assembly and Senate.  That's the positive result for those of us who found his actions tonight regrettable.

 

Russell Harding

A Cuomo Reverts to Family Form

 

When I said prior to the 2010 gubernatorial election that Andrew Cuomo is - like his father - a thug at heart, I knew it would only be a matter of time before the true Andrew Cuomo surfaced.  Less than two years in office - and after a spectacularly successful first year - the true Cuomo nature has come to the fore.

Amidst the largest ethical scandal any of us have ever seen in our state legislature, Gov. Cuomo's ethical reforms have been exposed as the insider sham they were always intended to be.  The Speaker of the Assembly is ensnared deeply in the current scandal involving hush money payments - taxpayer hush money, mind you - to sexual harassment victims of Assemblyman Vito Lopez.  And which body would appropriately investigate this scandal?  The State Ethics Commission, newly reconstituted by Gov. Cuomo.  Who sits on this?  Appointees of Sheldon Silver.  Who chairs it?  Cuomo ally and Westchester District Attorney Janet DeFiore - inarguably the most corrupt D.A. in the entire state of NY. 

So instantly discredited is the Commission that: a. a special prosecutor had to be appointed; and b. no one has any faith that this current commission will be capable of investigating this independently when roads already lead to Democrat Sheldon Silver, Democrat Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Democrat Comptroller Tom DiNapoli and possibly Gov. Cuomo's administration or even his office. 

This is the same Governor who sealed otherwise public records of his investigation into Gov. Patterson when he was Attorney General.  Cuomos are all high-minded talk and open government advocates until reporters want to start looking under the hood.  Then the Cuomo capos and lieutenants shift to full cover-up mode.  Rest assured, if any actual truth is to be publicly revealed, it will come from Staten Island D.A. Donovan, in his role as Special Prosecutor.  Whatever report the Ethics Commission produces will make the Warren Commission look like the Church Committee.  For those of you under 50, that's an unfavorable comparison.

NYT: Cuomo open to ethics changes

 

Russell Harding

A Judicial Sex Offender

Syracuse Family Court Judge Bryan Hedges resigned abruptly last April.  Now we know why.  The State Commission on Judicial Conduct was investigating the judge for an incident with his 5 year old niece 40 years ago.  Apparently, 25 year old Hedges was visiting his brother and his family.  While masturbating, Mr. Hedges' 5 year old deaf niece came into the room.  Everyone agrees on those facts.  The niece, Ellen Warner, claims that her uncle had her put her hand on his while he continued masturbating.  Judge Hedges says she saw him and left.  Before I comment on these facts, let me tell you what would have happened to Judge Hedges had this happened today.  He would go to prison for years, first of all.  Then, when he was released, he would be registered as a Level 3 sex offender, which means for life.  Extra points are added to determining your level based on the child's age and whether she was handicapped, in this case deafness.  That would have been his fate.  Instead, he is only being barred from a seat he has already resigned. 

I know this is a very minority view, but I think this is a prime example of bullshit outrage.  She saw her uncle jerking off, big fucking deal.  If he had her help him, while seriously wrong, I do not believe this 10 second moment at five years old has traumatized her for the rest of her life, as she claims.  She states that at 45 years old that episode still haunts her.  Yes, men masturbate and parents have sex.  Kids walk-in all the time catching both acts in progress - happens every day in this country. It may be a distinct memory, but no one is lifetime traumatized by this.  And if they are, they have other, much deeper problems.  No, he shouldn't have encouraged her to "put her hand on his," which is the precise statement she made.  But this girl has far larger life issues if she has been unable to move on with her life because of it.

Even if you accept her version of that day, Judge Hedges is a prime example of why sex courts and sex offender registration are all voodoo and junk science.  Judge Hedges has lead a clean life and not engaged in any other acts of this nature.  No parent or neighbor needed to be notified of his existence in their neighborhood or school. He didn't need to to be banned from schools, the internet, Facebook or attending college.  Had he been caught today and a Level 3 sex offender, all those would have been restrictions.  But the sex offender industry and all the doctors who make a living off it, claim that men like Hedges are prime to repeat this behavior.  Except he hasn't.  It also bears out all the statistics that show that 95% of child molestation happens between family members or family friends - not strangers, not your neighbors, not your mailman; but your uncle, brother, or best friend.  No sex registry is going to prevent that.  The lesson of this case?  Everyone: Ms. Warner, the Commission, the news media, should just chill the fuck out about this phony pandemic of sexual molestation.

NYT: Judge Kept off Bench

 

Russell Harding

Janet DeFiore Update

 

Although I live inarguably in the most corrupt county in New York State, even I am sometimes shocked by what government and law enforcement get away with here.  As you know, Westchester District Attorney Janet DeFiore is the focus of a scandal, first reported in the NY Post, involving a welfare scam perpetrated by her nanny allegedly with DeFiore's knowledge.  There is a local muckraking newspaper in Westchester called the Westchester Guardian that fights a lonely battle against the various corrupt government entities throughout Westchester.  This week they published a summary of the investigation including government e-mails attempting to thwart any scrutiny of DeFiore. 

But what really caught my attention was a charge, that if true, would certainly demand DOJ involvement.  DeFiore is a favorite of Gov. Cuomo, so there will be no state investigation of DeFiore's scandal or the attempts to block any inquiry.  The revelation in the Guardian story that blew me away was that on the day after the Post story broke, members of DeFiore's staff raided the Department of Social Services (DSS) and seized boxes of documents.  DSS is the agency that started this investigation and the District Attorney's Office would have absolutely no cause to be seizing documents and without any warrant.  Not to mention the obvious fact that the D.A.'s Office clearly would have needed to recuse themselves from any involvement in this whatsoever.  Rob Astorino, the County Exec for whom I had previously had great respect, permitted his agency to be raided without a word of protest.  This raid, if true, would be more in line with Putin's Russia than a county government in the United States.  I applaud the Guardian's Quixote-like war on Westchester corruption.  But Westchester government is, at all levels, a sewer that seems simply beyond repair.

Guardian: DeFiore Scandal

 Please see the original May 29th post: DeFiore Scandal Hits Home

Russell Harding

Shameful & Shameless Sen. Schumer

 

Just a brief comment on how embarrassed all New Yorkers should be that we inflict Sen. Chuck Schumer on the rest of the nation.  I agree that life in general has to go on after Aurora.  But to have self-serving press conferences on a peaceful Sunday when the President is visiting with the victims and the City of Aurora is holding its large memorial ceremony is beyond sickening.  On top of that, the subject of the press conference has no relation whatever to its proposed federal remedy.

While Obama and Romney have correctly paused their regular campaign schedules, the usual rules of decorum and good taste never seem to apply to the egomaniacal Chuck Schumer.  Schumer had his usual "notice me" Sunday press conference on the real crisis of whooping cough outbreak.  Whooping cough contagion is a growing and alarming problem.  It's something, like Polio, that had been pretty much eradicated through childhood vaccination. Whooping cough spreads quickly and can be deadly for young children.  But why is this happening all of a sudden.  To hear Sen. Schumer tell it, the cause is the cost of the vaccine.  He is proposing free federal vaccinations on this Sunday.  Now if there were any link whatsoever to the outbreak and the cost, it might be a worthy solution, even on this Sunday.  But as every single medical professional knows, the cause of this real problem is Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Jenny McCarthy. 

While most of us think this Hollywood inspired hysteria over childhood vaccinations and its non-existent link to autism is just celebrity idiocy, its effects are real.  Lots and lots of really stupid people, especially out West, are refusing to vaccinate their kids for whooping cough.  The results are real and rapid.  Kids get whooping cough if not vaccinated and it spreads quickly. 

Over the last few years the increase in whooping cough cases have increased from 300% to 700% depending on state.  There is not a single person, other than Sen. Schumer, who believes the reason is cost.  In every city and small hamlet in this country, parents can get vaccinations for their children at no cost.  Certainly the lack of federal funding or involvement plays no role whatever in the increase.  But Sen. Schumer's staff had nothing else this week for his inviolate Sunday press conference, so they created this fictitious causality.  Shame on him for injecting himself and this nonsensical federal solution into this real problem on this Sunday when the nation is focused on Aurora and not, for five minutes, on Sen. Schumer.

NYC Unemployment Rate Over 10%

 

NYC has come within 2,000 of the highest number of people unemployed in over 37 years.  The June unemployment rate, 10.1%, is higher than at any point during the Great Recession of 2008-2009.  Ironically, in 2009 the entire rationale for the only coup in U.S. history was that only Michael Bloomberg could steer us through these perilous economic times.  As of now, only four other major U.S. cities have higher unemployment rates than New York City.

Unlike what we see on a national level, with an 8.2% rate, NYC's media and elected officials are nearly silent on calling for the mayor to do something to spur the economy.  It certainly can't be blamed on the national economy.  Republican governors in many states have enacted policies that have reduced their spending and unemployment dramatically.  It can be done.  It's just not being done in NYC or NYS.  For all the praise of Gov. Cuomo, NYS's unemployment rate only continues to rise.  NYC's population and economic size contribute to this greatly.  So unlike in most states, it's the governor who needs the mayor to do something rather than the other way around.  NYS's unemployment rate without NYC's number is considerably lower.

New York City, in the 10th year of the reign of Mike Bloomberg, is now awash in gunfire and rampant unemployment.  According to the police commissioner, the rise in crime is somehow linked to the ingratitude of its citizens for its police force.  This unique causality will surely be studied by John Jay College for years to come.

The mayor's approval ratings still remain high and most of his potential successors seem hesitant to distance themselves from most of his policies.  In addition, NYC's major media outlets seem willing to give the mayor pass after pass on his abysmal job performance.  It now appears evident that just as the national economy cannot return to robust growth until after Barack Obama leaves office, NYC cannot begin to return to any sense of normalcy and dynamism until our Mayor-for-Life decides to step down.  Let's hope the nation and the city can survive the interregnum.

ADDENDUM:  Mike Bloomberg spent his time this morning on his weekly radio show lamenting and lambasting the lack of gun control.  It's interesting that the NYC news media permits the mayor to blather on incessantly about national gun policy and never, ever questions him about NYC's terrible economic state.  Tomorrow's papers will be filled with his comments and his calls for greater 2nd Amendment restrictions, but not a word about what he's going to do here in NYC and not in Aurora, CO about this appalling unemployment situation.  Why is nothing done?  Because the news media permits him to set the agenda of what's news and they never push back.  Do the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who are unemployed want their mayor focused on Aurora, CO or a better economy here in NYC?  Since the news media is too frightened of the prickly mayor to ask the question, we'll never know.

 

Russell Harding

Shame on the New York Times

 

I've been on a roll of beating up on the New York Times so let me round out the week with one more.  Yesterday's editorial calling for lengthening the statute of limitations on child sex abuse accusations illustrates the dangers of legislating hysterically.  The Times takes Gov. Cuomo to task for not jumping on this bandwagon.  I assume he will eventually. 

New York's statute of limitations is five years after someone turns 18.  Are 23 year olds infants?  Are you too immature by the age of 23 to know whether you were abused and wish to extract some justice?   It's absurd.  Proposed legislation would extend that to 28.  But here are the facts surrounding the hysteria.

Amos Kamil wrote a cover story in the NYT Sunday Magazine filled with mostly second and third-hand accounts of abuse committed by three Horace Mann teachers who are now deceased and cannot rebut the allegations.  But these accusations are being accepted as holy truth.

Then there's Penn State.  To state the obvious, Penn State is not in New York. To address that issue, however, Gov. Cuomo has correctly toughened rules on teacher reporting of abuse.  This is fine reform but Penn State is a unique case with its sick hero worship climate of a football team and coach.  There is no other Penn State.  Abuse happens, but the specifics of what happened at Penn State could only have happened at Penn State.  There is no equivalent in New York.

The Times astoundingly mentions Syracuse University as a reason for the legislation.  Coach Bernie Fine has been accused of sexual abuse by former students.  I wrote on the day the accusations became public that I was convinced they weren't true.  A few weeks ago his second accuser, Zach Tomaselli, admitted to making the whole thing up.  He claims he was told to create the story by Fine's chief accuser, Bobby Davis.  Why did he make the story up?  Because he dislikes Syracuse as they are rivals of his Kansas team.  He said, "It was a game to me. It was fun trying to make this story come alive."  No charges are going to be filled against Tomaselli other than the ones that already exist - molesting a 13 year-old boy. This is how wildly out of control this has become, he did it because it was fun.  I remain convinced when this is all settled all the accusations will be found to be without merit. 

Now imagine if Fine had dropped dead days after these accusations started.  Here's what I know with certainty: Zach Tomaselli never would have recanted and lots of more attention seekers would have come forward with false claims of similar abuse.  Bernie Fine would be remembered not as a great and beloved coach but as a predator.  Since Fine is choosing to fight this hard, he won't suffer legal consequences from these libelous charges but in all likelihood, because of the publicity, he'll still be remembered as a predator. 

The Times points out that NJ is considering lifting all statute of limitations on sexual abuse.  Which means an 85 year old man can now claim that back during the Depression a now deceased teacher molested him.  The only crime for which there is no statute of limitations is murder.  Why on Earth, of all the other crimes that exist, is this the only one that deserves that rarefied protection?  Especially when in nearly every instance there are no witnesses or evidence.  If the statute of limitations is increased or erased entirely will this result in more accusations?  You bet.  And I guarantee that the majority will be false.

Here's the deal that I could support.  Draft legislation that would make the crime of false molestation and rape accusations as serious as the crime itself.  Let the Times support that.  That will never happen, of course, and people like Zach Tomaselli and Wanetta Gibson will continue to do this with total immunity.  Has anyone watched The Children's Hour lately?  This isn't new.  Adults and children lie.  Yes, the crime of child and student molestation is real.  But as real is the problem of false accusations.  You cannot reform one without the other and Albany shouldn't.  The New York Times should be ashamed of itself using the Bernie Fine tragedy as a cynical tool for this unnecessary and dangerous "reform."  The Times editorial is titled The Children Deserve Justice.  So do the falsely accused.

 

Russell Harding

NYC Unemployment Rate Soars

 

While the mayor and his staff of this great city spend their days planning his retirement, according to New York Magazine, the economy of the city crumbles.  The NYS Department of Labor reported May's jobs numbers today.  New York City's unemployment rate has soared to nearly 10% (9.7%).  Just to put this in perspective, the national rate is 8.2% and New York State's is 8.6%.  However, if you remove NYC from that, NYS's rate is 7.9%.  Compared nationally, only three states have higher unemployment rates than NYC.  For the first time in my memory - and in the memories of almost anyone alive - we are in a consistent period of NYC leading the state in unemployment.  NYC has historically been the jobs engine for New York State, although not under Mayor Bloomberg. 

Imagine what Barack Obama's approval rating - and chances for re-election - would be if he had an unemployment rate of 9.7%.  But further, NYC's rate has increased dramatically from a year ago by almost a full percentage point (8.8%).  Unlike Obama, however, Bloomberg has no one to even try to blame for this.  Obama keeps blaming George Bush for the state of the economy.  He's right to the extent that the recession he inherited was Bush's.  That he's done nothing about it, that's all on him. 

But Bloomberg has been Mayor for over a decade, he has no one else to blame.  The sole rationale - the only one - for justifying the coup, was that we had to have this economic wizard to weather the impact of 2008.  When we wouldn't change the Charter to keep Rudy Giuliani when the city was literally on fire, it was somehow seriously argued that only one man among 8 million could do this job and therefore merited a coup.  And the results?  We have nearly 10% of our citizens unemployed.  In the minority community it's more than double that. 

His decade-long focus on eliminating the automobile, ballooning our budget, restricting our liberties (driving, smoking, trans fats, sugar, soda, salt, etc.), wasting billions on contracts his staff can't manage  and perpetuating himself in office has meant virtually no time to create a prosperous economy where New Yorkers can find work.  Although he has plenty of time to appear on every TV network to expound, and wage war on, the evils of Snapple (originally a NYC company).  Sadly, as with most things in this city, the media will hardly notice these numbers and give the mayor his one thousandth pass on a job so poorly done.

 

Russell Harding

Cuomo Smacks Bloomberg, Yet Again

 

Mayor-for-Life Mike seems to have gotten the message that the remainder of his mayoral tenure (if, praise God, this really is over) had best be spent focusing on soda, bike lanes and parks because, if Gov. Cuomo has anything to say about it, anything else Mike wants to do will be thwarted.  First, Gov Cuomo stepped in and defeated Bloomberg's plan for outer boro cabs.  An issue I personally find so boring, I can't detail it any further.  Then he waded in to a much more serious matter and ordered Bloomberg to stop fingerprinting food stamp recipients (the only place in NYS that does).  Now he has stepped into the most serious issue for New Yorkers, crime.  Crushing Bloomberg's war on minority youth, the Governor has proposed decriminalizing marijuana in public view. 

Bloomberg uses pot as the major pretext for the Stop & Frisk arrests.  Since Bloomberg took office, 400,000 people, overwhelmingly young blacks and latino men, have been arrested for pot possession.  The insidious aspect of the arrests have been that the suspects committed no crime until the cop orders them to empty their pockets and they produce the pot.  At that point it has been publicly displayed - which is the crime - and they can be arrested.  All these men have been booked, arraigned, forced to hire lawyers, missed work, often fired and then possess a criminal record.  Mike Bloomberg and Ray Kelly have together created a generation of criminals out of thin air.

According to the New York Times, that 400,000 number represents more pot arrests than his three predecessors combined.  Gov. Cuomo very cleverly didn't seek to have Albany legislate how the NYPD functions or how it makes arrests.  Instead, he very surgically kicked the chair out from under their phony, underlying rationale of 750,000 annual stop and frisks.  He also sends a signal to minority communities that he's paying attention to the white mayor and white police commissioner's war on minority youth. 

Whether that's a civil liberties or a political concern of Cuomo's, it hardly matters.  If he derives a political benefit from taking a bold, correct civil liberties stand, fine with me.  This Mayor has for too long taken advantage of Albany's paralysis and ethical circus.  Successive Governors have either been distracted or disinterested in confronting an out-of-control NYC Mayor.  That inattention has ended and Bloomberg seems to have gotten the word that he had best stick to measuring cup sizes and leave the major policy decisions to Andrew Cuomo.

 

Russell Harding

Janet DiFiore's Scandals Hit Home

 

Here is my favorite story of the day: the heavily besieged and extraordinarily under-qualified Westchester County District Attorney, Janet DiFiore, has been caught pulling strings to get her live-in maid food stamps, Medicaid and cash assistance. 

The best part of all is that she is the Chair of the newly created state ethics panel (Joint Commission on Public Ethics), personally selected for the job by Gov. Cuomo.  DiFiore is part of a pattern of voters electing scandal-ridden, Italian-American housewives as Westchester County District Attorney with commensurate results.  

DiFiore paid her maid $200 cash a week for her services.  It is unclear, according to the NY Post, if DiFiore paid Social Security taxes on the maid's wages.  As I have written before, Westchester County may be the most corrupt county in the United States.  Inarguably it is New York State's.  There's something perversely comforting in knowing we have a D.A. who is more incompetent and corrupt then those she prosecutes.  Unless of course you're a cop hurling racial slurs and you've killed an innocent black Marine.  Then, no worries, D.A. DiFiore has your back.

UPDATE: 5/29 - D.A. DiFiore has issued a statement disputing the NY Post story.  Her statement reads in full: “I’ve done nothing wrong in any respect. The person quoted in this illegally leaked email has a well known political agenda that she has been carrying on against me for at least a decade and this appears to be more of the same.”  No background, no context, that's it.  The worst, most amateurish press release you could release: It stonewalls; it provides no information; it adds no new facts to rebut the story; and will make the press corps only MORE inquisitive, not less.  It's what's known in the public relations field as a 'guilty' press release.  She should fire her press office.

Here are the outstanding questions that the NYC press corps needs to ask today:

1. Did DiFiore have a live-in maid named Marina Buchanan?  No one seems to dispute that fact.

2. What did she pay Ms. Buchanan? If true, the only maids in America who are paid $200/wk are Malaysians kept hostage by Saudi families.  That pay alone warrants serious investigation.

3. Did Ms. DiFiore pay Social Security taxes for Ms. Buchanan?  Given the very low pay, it's possible she might not meet the threshold to pay the tax.

3. Did/Does Ms. Buchanan receive welfare assistance (i.e. Medicaid, food stamps, cash assistance)?  At $200/wk, it would be hard to see how she wouldn't.

4. Was Ms. Buchanan originally denied benefits and what does the paper trail show as to Ms. DiFiore's involvement to turn that decision around?

Westchester County government has started to circle the wagons and is refusing to release any information on Ms. Buchanan claiming privacy regulations.  County Executive Rob Astorino, perhaps the only honest man in Westchester Cnty government, needs to start distancing himself from this and instruct his agencies to be forthcoming. 

Even though I have provided Ms. DiFiore's full statement, I am adding the link to it because its brevity and lack of context is so bizarre - and perhaps telling - when seen fully.  DiFiore Statement from D.A.'s Website

UPDATE: 5/30 - Here is the NY Post's editorial on the DiFiore scandal: NY Post: Albany & Ethics, Again

8/18/12 UPDATE  Please see the latest post on the DeFiore scandal: DeFiore Update 8/18

 

Russell Harding