Andrew Cuomo

If his name sounds familiar, it should. Andrew Cuomo was the corrupt Attorney General who refused to go after the multitude of Wall St. crooks because he was chasing after their big money campaign contributions.

Now, New York's mini me version of Scott Walker has just gotten through a budget with draconian and completely unnecessary cuts to attack public workers, the middle class, and the poor. That piece of walking garbage even pushed through a tax cut for the rich.

Cuomo's sleazy 3/28/10 press release should give you an idea of what he's really about.

"I have said that New York is at a crossroads – one road leading to further dysfunction and decline, the other towards fiscal responsibility and government efficiency. I believe this budget puts us on the right path," Governor Cuomo said. "This budget makes tough choices, which is what you sent me to Albany to do. It closes a $10 billion dollar deficit with no new taxes or borrowing, redesigns government to force it to cut waste and inefficiency, and finally delivers real results for hard-working families across New York State. I applaud and thank Majority Leader Skelos and Speaker Silver for working together to reach this agreement."

Let's look at the facts.

1) The deficit was one entirely manufactured by corruption and easily could have been resolved without cutting the state budget at all. The amount of money handed to back to Wall St. in the stock transfer tax rebate would be more than enough to balance the budget. Nothing epitomizes the pay for play environment in Albany than the stock transfer tax rebate, a Wall St giveaway, and Andrew Cuomo is one of its most strident and uncompromising supporters.

2) Cuomo massively cut taxes for the super rich in order to reward big money campaign contributors.

3) Cuomo's cuts were far from "waste and inefficiency." Cuomo cut HIV/AIDS funding, public K-12 education, funding for public universities, medical care for the poor, foster care, and mental health care among other vital services. Obviously, Cuomo thinks that it is "a waste" anytime anything goes to anyone who isn't a wealthy donor of his. Cuomo is such a spoiled, elitist, classist jackass who will do anything his rich and corporate bankrollers tell him to do.

4) The "real results for hard-working families across New York State" Cuomo is touting are lost jobs, lost services, daughters and sons who cannot afford college, and slower economic growth in the state. The results for his rich contributors will be..........Ka-ching!

No one can seriously claim to be moving "towards fiscal responsibility" while cutting taxes for the rich and continuing a huge, corrupt Wall St. giveaway. A fiscally responsible governor would have raised taxes on the rich considerably, given that tax rates for wealthy parasites have been cut over and over again.

Remember, any time any politician supports a tax cut for the rich or insists on keeping tax breaks for Wall St, that is absolute, irrefutable proof of corruption.

The reality is that Andrew Cuomo is an incredibly evil person with absolutely no personal or public integrity whatsoever. He may pretend to be a centrist Democrat, but he's really an extreme rightist whose real agenda is scarcely different from that of Scott Walker, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, or Karl Rove.

The rest of the Democrats who went along with this inexcusable budget deserve nothing but contempt as well. I don't know how I could ever vote for a New York "Democrat" again after this. The New York "Democrats" are as sleazy and as far to the extreme right as Texas Republicans, when you look at what they do instead of what they say.

 

I received this Action Alert in an email from Credo/Working Assets (It has been edited for brevity.):

Call Attorney General Eric Schneiderman: Hold Wall Street criminals accountable!

Call New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman at (800) 771-7755.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has a chance to make sure some of Wall Street's biggest criminals don't get away with cheating millions of foreclosure victims. But we need you to make a call right now.

Less than a month ago, the lead Attorney General in a 50-state investigation of the mortgage industry, Tom Miller of Iowa, promised a group of foreclosure victims and their advocates that the investigation would "put people in jail."1

This was in response to revelations from Congressional hearings and news articles documenting pervasive abuses by mortgage servicers — the companies that collect the mortgage payments, impose late fees, negotiate loan modifications and initiate foreclosures.

But now AG Miller has changed his tune, calling the investigation "inherently civil," not criminal.2 And just last week, when AG Miller once again met with foreclosure victims, he refused to repeat his pledge to prosecute those responsible.

That's why we're teaming up with our friends at National People's Action for a national call campaign targeting the attorneys general of every state. Join thousands of activists across the country in calling your state's attorney general to demand that Wall Street's biggest criminals are held accountable for their crimes against foreclosure victims.

Call New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman now and demand criminal penalties for corrupt mortgage servicers.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman — (800) 771-7755

I would mention that Schneiderman should go after all the other crimes being committed routinely by Wall St. as well.

Andrew Cuomo did very little as Attorney General to crack down on the Wall St. banksters and brokesters. However, Schneiderman campaigned on a promise to be "The Sheriff of Wall St." I do know that politicians try to weasel out of campaign promises when interests that make big campaign contributions are involved. That's why it is so critical for people to remind our new Atty. General of his responsibilities.

On a lighter note, here are some great quotes about banksters I ran in a previous posting about a year ago.

It is easier to rob by setting up a bank than by holding up a bank clerk.
Bertolt Brecht

I hate banks. They do nothing positive for anybody except take care of themselves. They`re first in with their fees and first out when there`s trouble.
Earl Warren

But if you want to continue to be slaves of the banks and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let bankers continue to create money and control credit.
Josiah Stamp

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
Thomas Jefferson

Whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of all industry and commerce...when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.
James Garfield, 20th US President
Assassinated, 1881

Photo: wot_nxt

 

Green Party Candidate for Governor in NY, Howie Hawkins, with supporters

Lame duck Gov. Paterson of my good ole state of New York has made the headlines by laying off 900 state employees during the worst recession since the Great Depression. Paterson, like the political elites in most states, are using imaginary state budget "crises" to justify this attack on the middle class.

The rich in New York, like other states, don't pay anywhere near their fair share in taxes. Raising tax rates on the wealthy to equitable levels would turn deficits to surpluses in every state that has budget shortfalls. New York, also, is neglecting to do its job to fairly tax Wall St. There is this weird gimmick called the "stock transfer tax rebate" which allows the banksters and the brokesters to rip off the rest of us who live here. Repealing that gimmick alone would create a budget surplus.

Unlike the "Democratic" candidate Andrew Cuomo, the Green Party candidate, Howie Hawkins opposes the layoffs. The Green Party of New York State gives us information about Hawkins' views on the subject which are largely censored by corporate media outlets. (bolding mine)

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, said today that when elected he would rescind any layoffs of state workers instituted by Governor Paterson as a threat to the health and safety of state residents..

Paterson agreed last year to a no-layoffs pledge as part of deal for a new, less generous pension tier for state workers. Attorney General Cuomo, running for Governor, said that he would defend Paterson’s effort to break the agreement.

“The state’s fiscal crisis is the result of the handouts to the rich from state lawmakers, including massive tax cuts to the wealthy and the rebate of $16 billion from the stock transfer tax. State workers are not the cause of the state’s fiscal crisis and should not be scapegoated like this. It is bizarre that Governor Paterson seems intent on making layoffs the prime legacy of his flawed administration. It is also bad that Cuomo as Attorney General has put politics ahead of the law in holding that this layoffs aren’t in violation of the memo of understanding agreed to earlier this year not to lay off any state workers in 2010,” Hawkins stated.

If you are unemployed, corporate media are trying to get you to resent government employees who still have jobs. However, laying off government employees hurts people who already are unemployed from the private, instead of helping them. It just puts even more people in the competition for scarce jobs. It's typical of the divide and conquer tactics the wealthy elites use against the rest of us on a variety of issues.

One reason why the Democrats from New York have sold us out so badly is that the Green Party doesn't have ballot access. That means that many Democrats will have no opponents on the left in most campaigns. In the cases where Green Party candidates do jump through the hoops to get on the ballot, the signature gathering process takes most of the time that otherwise would be used to actually campaign. Greens will get ballot access for the next two elections if they get 50,000 votes in this year's governor's race.

Cuomo is guaranteed a victory this time out, due to the self destructive campaign run by his execrable GOP opponent. There is nothing to lose by voting Green in the Governor's race. In fact, voting Green is essential if you want to pressure Cuomo and other New York Democrats to stop acting like Republicans for the next four years.

Please vote for Howie Hawkins for Governor!

 

Green Party Candidate for Governor in NY, Howie Hawkins, with supporters

I've never thought much of Andrew Cuomo. He's basically an empty suit who has been handed things he hasn't earned because of who his father is. Cuomo has been an execrable Attorney General, deliberately overlooking the overwhelming majority of Wall St. criminality he is legally obligated to prosecute.

Paladino certainly is even worse than Cuomo, but Paladino has completely obliterated his own campaign. There certainly is no need to vote for the Democrat out of fear of that doomed GOP candidate.

Fortunately, we do have a Green Party alternative, Howie Hawkins. He is doing a great job of standing up to Cuomo's anti union stance. From a 10/25/10 Hawkins campaign press release:

"When Cuomo was nominated last May he promised to 'tangle' with public employee unions. Now he promises a 'presidential-style permanent political campaign' against all labor unions. My pledge is to fight back and campaign with working New Yorkers for full employment, living wages, progressive taxes, and more workers organized into unions," said Howie Hawkins, a Teamster freight handler at UPS and the only union member running for statewide office.

"Since the mid-1970s, workers' wages are stagnant, productivity is up 80 percent, and almost all resulting growth in income has gone to the richest 1 percent. Working class taxes are up. The taxes on Wall Street and big business are down. Today's state fiscal crisis is caused by under taxing the rich, not over paying wages and benefits to workers or for government services for the general public. It is time to stop scapegoating workers and forcing them to cover the losses of bad investments by the economic elites. It was bad policy for resolving the 1975 New York City fiscal crisis that Cuomo uses as his model. It is just as bad today," Hawkins added.

Hawkins statement is in response to NY Times article
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/nyregion/25cuomo.html?pagewanted=1&%2359;ref=nyregion&&%2359;_r=1

Andrew M. Cuomo will mount a presidential-style permanent political campaign to counter the well-financed labor unions he believes have bullied previous governors and lawmakers into making bad decisions. He will seek to transform the state's weak business lobby into a more formidable ally, believing that corporate leaders in New York have virtually surrendered the field to big labor.

The sad reality is that Andrew Cuomo is bought and paid for by wealthy and corporate interests like most other alleged "Democrats" running for office. If you compared the platforms of Cuomo and Hawkins, Democratic voters would agree with Hawkins far more often. That's what makes the Democratic Party such a decaying and out of touch institution.

 

I don't often talk about voting rights issues in this blog because there is so much other stuff going on, and it can get depressing. Mark Crispin Miller does an excellent job of discussing voting rights issues in his blog. He was one of the most vocal and effective voices in exposing the thefts of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.

However, I just voted with the new system, and it adds new problems to the old one. It uses optical scanners. It could be worse. We could be stuck with touch screen voting which is completely unreliable and unverifiable. However, it is just as easy to hack the optical scanner machines, so their counts are not particularly trustworthy. The optical scanner system at least results in paper ballots that could be hand counted. However, detecting fraud is not easy, and I don't know how difficult it is to get a hand recount.

There can be fraud in hand counted paper ballots too, but it is much more difficult to pull off, and hand recounts can catch some of it. Besides, we have been in a period of joblessness that has lasted over a decade. People need work. Hand counted paper ballots are the method of choice if you want the most reliable and trustworthy elections.

As if that isn't bad enough, there is another problem with voting that has nothing to do with the methods and machines. It has to do with write in voting. If a candidate in the primary doesn't have an opponent who managed to get on the ballot, there is no election at all, which means you can't write in anybody. Primaries where there is only one candidate are the ones where one would generally like to write somebody in the most.

This time, I would have loved to vote against rightist Phonycrats like Andrew Cuomo, Chuck Schumer, and my local congresscritter. Yet, I didn't have the opportunity. I'll have to wait for the general election and vote Green in those races. But, there is something deeply offensive to democracy that you can't vote for the candidate of your choice.

Hand counted paper ballots appear to be banned by federal law, when they should be absolutely mandatory...no exceptions. Write in voting should be available for all elective offices...no exceptions. Our democracy had flaws before the voting machines which have made matters much worse.

 

At a time when New York is loaded with crooked banksters and brokesters guilty of defrauding investors, people with predatory adjustable rate mortgages, and the general public, what is Andrew Cuomo, our illustrious New York Attorney General doing? He's focusing on prosecuting an alleged prostitution ring that advertises on Craig's list.

You can't make this shit up.

When he ran for Attorney General, I was so furious with the Democratic Party bosses for lining up behind an empty suit like Andrew Cuomo. Yes, his father was one of the best governors in the history of this state, but that doesn't justify the son trading on a family name rather than actually having positive accomplishments of his own.

Now, our corrupt and feckless Atty. General is providing tabloid sensationalism instead of going after the Wall St. crooks. When you think of all the people who have lost their homes and jobs because of crooked banksters and brokesters, Cuomo's decision to go after victimless crime is truly reprehensible.