Doctor’s Orders
Courtesy Marquil at EmpireWire.com
Tag: Cuomo
Good News Everywhere
The Ford Stamping plant is adding 350 jobs and a 3rd shift to help feed parts to nearby Canadian Ford factories that are being crushed by demand for Ford’s excellent new lineup of cars. (Now imagine if Ford didn’t have to be in the business of providing health insurance for their employees and could just concentrate on hiring the best people to produce its cars, and if people had the freedom to apply for those jobs without regard to health benefits. That’s how it is in Canada, and that’s why Canada is attractive to manufacturers like Ford, Toyota, Honda, and GM. A 2002 analysis found that the labor cost to automakers in the US came out to $45.00/hour; in Canada, with its socialized medicine and all, the rate was closer to $30.00/hour).
Governor Cuomo has been in WNY practically every two weeks ever since the locals decided that the NY SAFE Act was a horrible affront to 2nd Amendment rights because every American has the right to have an arsenal powerful enough to defeat the most expensive and powerful military in the world. Or something.
Yesterday, he came to town to announce $225 million project to create a green energy campus at the site of a barren brownfield in Buffalo. Two companies are being attracted from California to develop and produce energy-efficient LED lighting and solar panels. The state is developing the property and buying the companies some machinery, and the companies will be hiring hundreds of locals for well-paying jobs and investing $1.5 billion in the move. Tax breaks are expected to attract even more businesses and jobs to the new green campus.
Jim Heaney’s Investigative Post analyzes the deal, and declares it to be “progress”, although not a “game changer”. However, one selling point is that it may lead to 5,000 new, well-paying jobs over the next decade. Not a bad day, even if it’s only half as successful as that.
Shorter Esmonde
On Friday, Cuomo is pretty awesome, and he pulled out of this argument with the Canadians just at the right time, because he’s pretty awesome.
On Sunday, Cuomo is an obstructionist punk who is horrible, and he caused a big fight with the Canadians, because he’s an obstructionist punk.
Shorter Esmonde’s week in Cuomoland?
When it comes to Peace Bridge and plaza expansion, I will feign interest in its progress, because my own positions on these topics swing around more than a drunken octogenarian driving the wrong way on the I-190 in the middle of the night.
The Root of Cynicism is Cynicism
Courtesy Marquil at EmpireWire.com
Mark Tuesday as a pivotal day – the day that New York’s own Machiavellian governor announced an effort to clean up New York’s election laws. The Malcolm Smith arrest for allegedly bribing Republican party bosses in exchange for a Wilson-Pakula electoral fusion cross-endorsement has, at long last, shined a spotlight on the transactional horribleness of New York’s legalized electoral racketeering.
Yesterday, Governor Cuomo announced that he wants an independent monitor at the state Board of Elections to root out corruption and campaign finance fraud.
Ending Wilson-Pakula would be a significant blow to the clout of the leadership of the state’s influential minor parties who grant the waivers for candidates of major parties to run on their ballot lines. Cuomo said he does not support ending cross-party endorsements, meaning major party candidates could still have fusion ballot lines in a general election.
This isn’t a perfect solution, as it still permits candidates to circulate petitions to get on a minor party line. It does, however, greatly reduce the clout that minor party bosses have, and this is a desired result. Why should the boss of a party with a single-digit enrollment percentage have any clout at all? The Daily News describes the law thusly,
Wilson Pakula law, which gives party bosses the power to decide if candidates not registered in their parties can run on their lines. Cuomo said the setup encourages ballot lines to be traded for campaign donations.
Of course, Sheldon Silver – champion of awful – opposes eliminating a point of electoral fraud.
“I don’t think we should preclude people from running on more than one line,” Silver said at a news conference today. “They’re only allowed to registered in one party. There has to be a mechanism for us — for people — to gain dual endorsements or more.”
It’s no surprise that certain Democrats remain almost childishly butthurt over the election of Jeremy Zellner as chairman of the Erie County Democratic Committee. Typically, there’s litigation pending to underscore the factionalism, most of which has to do with who controls the paltry number of patronage jobs. The Erie County Independence Party barely exists in anything but name only, and the state committee is almost exclusively backing Republicans nowadays. The Erie County Conservative Party is run cynically by Ralph Lorigo, who will only endorse candidates who oppose abortion, gay marriage, and gun control, except when convenient for him and his own self-interest. The Republicans, as one would expect, oppose Democrats uniformly. That’s how it’s supposed to work, after all. Except in judicial races.
So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that everyone united in interest against the Democratic committee apparatus would attend a fundraiser for its chief opponent – another Democrat from neighboring Cheektowaga. If people like Ralph Lorigo can help defeat Democrats in a general election, Zellner gets blamed and the Max/Pigeon people can argue that they should take over the party, and people like Lorigo get to control a few jobs here and there, thus solidifying their positions. But if you take away Lorigo’s ability to control his party’s line, that could significantly affect outcomes.
Because none of this has anything to do with Democratic ideas or principles. It all has to do with transactional petty nonsense like who gets to hire whom for some no-show job at some city, town, or county authority.
Abolishing Wilson-Pakula is a great first step. Abolishing electoral fusion and cross-endorsements altogether would be a fantastic second step, as it would eliminate the number of hands in the government cookie jar.
But if you sit there wondering why people want nothing to do with western New York’s political system, and why we have a hard time getting people to run for office, you have to realize that it has a lot to do with the fact that even the smallest, least significant elected office in this area is fraught with awfulness.
Ranidaphobic Clarence Man Writes Blog
Hi there.
1. Did you know that, thanks to a petition that more than 3,000 people signed, and thanks to a big turnout and lively speakers at last night’s Amherst Town Board meeting, the town’s ridiculously restrictive proposed food truck regulation has been scrapped and the town is going back to the drawing board. It’s something of a pyrrhic victory because while Amherst’s lawmakers go back to make their sausage, the food trucks will continue to operate under the anachronistic peddling law that’s on the books now.
While imperfect in many ways, the Buffalo food truck ordinance should be a template. Perhaps different circumstances may require certain towns to make minor tweaks, and perhaps some more business-friendly communities might introduce much smaller licensing fees, but this isn’t brain surgery. From the News’ report,
Board members said they agreed that changes were necessary but were concerned at the timetable required to make changes. Building Commissioner Thomas Ketchum said it would take at least two months to make the needed changes.
Supervisor Barry Weinstein said he doubts the matter will be resolved so quickly.
“Two months is excessively optimistic,” Weinstein said.
Hm. And here I thought two months is excessively pessimistic.
2. Someone in Governor Cuomo’s office trial ballooned a story to the New York Post’s Fred Dicker about ousting Sheldon Silver as Assembly Speaker. In the wake of new, electoral fusion-related indictments, metaphorically cleaning up Albany has become something of a priority. Not surprisingly, Assembly Democrats wouldn’t dare go on the record to bash Silver. It would be political suicide at this point – you (again, metaphorically) throw Shelly under the bus when the bus is moving. Dicker writes,
Silver’s possible ouster comes as Cuomo — who campaigned for governor in 2010 promising to end “pay-to-play” in Albany — plans to announce broad ethics reforms.
“This is a rare moment for sweeping change,” Cuomo told his aides this weekend.
The overhaul could include a Moreland Act Commission that would put influential lobbyists under oath to testify on how the system of corruption works.
Also under consideration is a ban on the “cross endorsement” of candidates of one political party by another party.
Cuomo is also eyeing a repeal of the “Wilson-Pakula” law, which allows candidates from one party to run on another party’s ticket.
State Sen. Malcolm Smith planned to run for mayor on the GOP ticket but was busted by the feds last week for paying off Republican county chairmen in exchange for endorsements.
There you have it. Wilson-Pakula, electoral fusion, and the open market for cross-endorsements in New York are the manure that fertilizes New York State’s culture of corruption. It is a culture that keeps government bloated, dishonest, and opaque – lawmakers acting in their own best interests, rather than those of their constituents. This corrupt fusion system enables tiny political “parties” and their bosses to wield incredible power and clout. As for the “Independence Party”, it isn’t, and it should be banned simply for the confusion it creates for people who intend to register as “unenrolled” voters. Abolition of electoral fusion and cross-endorsements is the first, critical step to disinfecting Albany.
3. Monday’s Buffalo News carried a big headline declaring that a “Clarence man with frog phobia wins $1.6 million verdict“. I saw plenty of Tweets and Facebook posts ridiculing the idea that someone could win so much money because he was afraid of frogs, or something. Upon reading the article, however, I discovered that the story was really about a Clarence man, Paul Marinaccio, whose property was rendered unmarketable because an adjacent development diverted water runoff onto it.
The issue of Mr. Marinaccio’s fear of frogs was perhaps a humorous anecdote, but had nothing whatsoever to do with the merits of the case that he won. He won because a developer and the town destroyed his land. This was quite an important result and victory in an area that all but deifies developers. The Buffalo News’ headline was misleading and turned an important issue into a joke. It also falsely left the impression that a ridiculous lawsuit with an outrageous outcome had taken place, and that the legal system is out of control and scumbag lawyers and litigious society, etc.
Bias in the Newsroom
Next time you listen to a newscast – a purportedly straight newscast reported-on by Steve Cichon or Dave Debo, or anchored by John Zach and Susan Rose – remember that this banner is now hanging in that station’s newsroom:
That’s after the station spent all day last Thursday “covering” this anti-gun rally in Albany, joining with Carl Paladino to sponsor a bus caravan of WBEN listeners to the rally.
The funny thing is that protests in Albany are a dime a dozen, and the only novelty about this one is that it was populated by underemployed conservatives who are not used to activism that goes beyond stating their name and location for a call screener.
WBEN’s blatant anti-SAFE Act propaganda and agitation are all well and good, I suppose, but the station should no longer masquerade as a straight news outlet. It has crossed the line into issue-based PAC and should register with the Board of Elections. Thursday’s newscast and subsequent talk shows were nothing more than an infomercial for people who think that limiting magazine capacity from 10 to 7 rounds is “tyranny”.
Assemblyman Says Cuomo is like Hitler, Mussolini
Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin likens Governor Cuomo’s use of “messages of necessity” to Hitler and Mussolini.
Under Article III, Section 14 of the New York State Constitution, a bill must be printed and on members’ desks in final form at least three (3) legislative days before it can be voted on for passage, unless the governor issues what is called a “message of necessity”. To do so, the governor certifies that an immediate vote is necessary on the bill once it reaches members’ desks in final form. No amendments are allowed, and a vote is to take place immediately.
In 2011, McLaughlin voted 17 times in favor of bills sent up as messages of necessity. In 2012, he did so on four of the five messages sent up by Cuomo, including the Tier VI pension plan, redistricting and an expanded DNA database for criminals.
In 2011, Cuomo issued 29 messages of necessity and used it five times last year, according to NYPIRG—the fewest number of times in recent history.
Nothing about the message of necessity takes away the legislature’s right to act, to debate, or to vote as a representative, deliberative body on the bill. The Brennan Center has targeted unnecessary messages of necessity as being ripe for criticism, noting that between 1997 – 2001, almost 30% of bills received one.
However, criticizing an overused constitutional provision for the fact that legislators have inadequate time to review and amend bills is one thing. Likening that to the horrors of National Socialism and fascism is a completely different thing, altogether.
Watch this, and note WNY Assemblywoman Jane Corwin’s reaction.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAyi6No42io]
How many messages of necessity did Hitler sign, anyway?
Perhaps not as dumb as he seems, McLaughlin apologized later in the day.
