Category Archives: Politics

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Cuomo Corruption Delays Buffalo Billion

The Federal probe into corruption in Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration has delayed funding for a key economic development project in Buffalo.

On Wednesday, the State’s Public Authorities Control Board (PACB) failed to approve $485 million in funds slated for Buffalo’s SolarCity project, a key part of the Buffalo Billion Economic development program. A vote by its three-member board is postponed for at least a week.

No estimates were provided on how long construction can continue under currently approved funding. Sooner or later, however, construction will cease absent the PACB’s approval of the funds.

The three members of the oversite panel are State Budget Director Robert Mujica, representing Cuomo, and counterparts representing Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie, D-Bronx, and Senate Majority Leader John J. Flanagan Jr., R-Huntington. Although the three parties must vote unanimously to release the funds, approvals by the obscure panel are usually routine.

Cuomo has been distancing himself from Alain Kaloyeros, the key Cuomo aide who is the subject of the Federal investigation. “If we find out someone did something wrong, I will be the first to throw the book at them because public trust is crucially important to me,” the governor added.

.The vote was postponed when reporters asked whether the vote would go forward given the ongoing probe by US Attorney Preet Bharara.

 

Meanwhile, Cuomo insisted that “On the PACB issue, that’s just a scheduling issue.” Cuomo went on to say that beyond the approval of the board, the funding would now be subject to the approval of Bart Schwartz, who Cuomo hired to investigate the allegations.

 

Observers of the ongoing shenanigans in Albany remember that Cuomo appointed an ethics oversight committee popularly known as the Moreland Commission, to investigate wrongdoings. Cuomo disbanded the Commission when it turned its attention to the Cuomo Administration. The action prompted a Federal investigation into allegations that the Governor’s office had interfered with the Commission’s inquiries.

 

In March 2106, a Cuomo confident, Seth Agata, was named to New York State’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics. Two members of the Board resigned immediately, apparently in protest.

 

A government watchdog, Reinvent Albany, criticized Agata’s appointment. “It is simply not credible that Mr. Agata, who was Governor Cuomo’s lawyer and represented him on ethics issues can objectively investigate potential ethical violations by the governor or his political enemies,” said the group’s director, John Kaehny. “We believe that it is incredibly difficult for any person to discard long-held loyalties and personal obligations. Mr. Agata served in a trusted position very close to Governor Cuomo and even represented the governor before JCOPE. The conflict of interest is obvious.”

Now Cuomo’s hand-pick investigator into the actions of his own Administration has a vote in releasing funds for a Cuomo project.

No wonder Cuomo was comfortable endorsing the corrupt Hillary Clinton.

The stench suffusing the Cuomo administration just keeps getting more pungent.

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Will Obama Apologize at Hiroshima?

The White House has announced that President Obama will become the first sitting U.S. president to visit Hiroshima.

The president will visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, a site dedicated to the thousands who in the world’s first atomic bombing during World War II. According to Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, the President will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe there “to highlight his continued commitment to pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

“In making this visit, the president will shine a spotlight on the tremendous and devastating human toll of war,” he wrote. “Their visit will offer an opportunity to honor the memory of all innocents who were lost during the war,” Rhodes added.

Rhodes also noted that Obama would use his appearance on May 27 to promote nuclear nonproliferation and America’s strong ties with Japan.

Rhodes continued:  “As the president has said, the United States has a special responsibility to continue to lead in pursuit of that objective as we are the only nation to have used a nuclear weapon.”

It sounds like the beginning of an apology. The vast majority of Japanese believe that the United States’ use of the two atomic bombs to end the war was unjustified. There have been calls for a US apology, or even reparations, for years.

Apologies are important in Japanese culture. Japan has issued a litany of apologies for the Empire’s many atrocities during World War II.

Yet Japan’s apologies, or lack of them, remain controversial today. In 2008, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s denied that the Imperial Japanese military had forced “comfort women” into sexual slavery during World War II. In addition, Prime Minister Abe stated “There is no definitive answer either in academia or in the international community on what constitutes aggression. Things that happen between countries appear different depending on which side you’re looking from.”

In 2007, the United States House of Representatives passed House Resolution 121, asking that   the Japanese government apologize to former comfort women and include curriculum about them in Japanese schools.

The controversy went on for years. At the end of 2015, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean Foreign Minister Yum Byung-se announced that they “finally and irreversibly” resolve the “comfort women” issue. Nevertheless, many of the surviving “comfort women” expressed their discontent over the agreement.

Obama has been extremely divisive in domestic politics while claiming to be a unifier. No doubt, he will bring his unique brand of controversy to this issue as well.

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The Cuomo Corruption Trail

Most people who follow the news know that New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration is under investigation by US Attorney Preet Bharara. Yet few understand the long trail of suspicious behavior that prompted the probe.

It began in 2013 when the state initiated the $750 million RiverBend subproject of the Buffalo Billion economic development program. Any project of this scale is put out to bid through the state’s normal construction routine, beginning with notices in the state publication “The Contract Reporter.”

Instead, the state took out a legal notice on page B11 of The Buffalo News, next to the crossword puzzle. The ad directed interested parties to contact the Fort Schuyler Management Corporation in Utica to get a bidding package with details of a Request for Proposals (RFP) in return for signing a confidentiality agreement.

Fort Schuyler is a not-for-profit corporation that SUNY Polytechnic Institute created to avoid normal bidding regulations. Its practices are not governed by the usual system checks and balances for state contracts and its proceedings are not approved by the State Comptroller’s Office.

One element of the RFP that made some bidders suspicious: The original RFP demanded that a winning bidder have at least 50 years of “proven experience” in a variety of real estate experience in Buffalo. That would steer the huge contract to only two eligible bidders: LPCiminelli and McGuire Development. Both of those company’s websites note 50 years’ worth of various business dealings in Buffalo.

Now the state says that the 50 year requirement was “an honest mistake” that was later changed to 15 years in October 2013. Analysts familiar with the process have their doubts. Documents related to construction projects are checked by dozens of experienced eyes.

Moreover, the point person for Fort Schuyler is Alain Kaloyeros, a Cuomo acolyte who is under investigation by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is looking at possible bid-rigging violations for a separate project. A source quoted by the Buffalo News confirmed that U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara is aware of Schneiderman’s probe and that Bharara’s Buffalo Billion investigation is “inter-connected.”

Just two days before that RiverBend bid results were announced, Cuomo flew to Buffalo to raise money for his campaign at two fundraisers, including one that LPCiminelli’s owner Louis Ciminelli hosted at a Buffalo restaurant. Unsurprisingly, Ciminelli won the contract.

Four months later, the state increased the scope of the $49 million project to $400 million without rebidding it.

Now Bharara has issued subpoenas in his investigation of whether longtime Cuomo friend and aide Joe Percoco received $150,000 in bribes related to the RiverBend project.

Cuomo denied culpability and launched his own “independent” investigation. Albany insiders know Cuomo is a control freak and that nothing, large or small, happens in state government without his blessing.

Percoco was the first non-elected official to be thanked by Cuomo in his November 2014 acceptance speech, during which Cuomo praised him as “my father’s third son and my brother.”

The New York Post quoted an unnamed Democrat who once counted himself among Cuomo’s strongest supporters as saying “This is a devastating turning point for Andrew that could be the beginning of the end’’ of his career.

Two of the “three men in a room” who once governed New York, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and Senate leader Dean Skelos, have been convicted in corruption probes.

Given the circumstances, Cuomo could well become the third.

Pictured: Cuomo with Percoco, NY Daily News

http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/albany-politics/cuomo-defends-buffalo-billion-program-longtime-adviser-20160502

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What Trump’s “America First” Policy Means

Yesterday Donald Trump made his initial foray into foreign policy, announcing that “America First will be the major and overriding theme of my administration.”

Today the slogan is generating criticism from some who remember what the term “America First” meant in the early 1940s.

CNN proclaimed that “Trump’s ‘America First’ has ugly echoes from U.S. History.” The Chicago Tribune opined that “Donald Trump’s new America First slogan has old baggage from Nazi Era.” Radio host Glenn Beck managed to link Trump with David Duke, the Ku Klux Klan, and Neo-Nazis during his broadcast this morning.

The America First Committee, as the historically-minded know, was an isolationist movement that attempted to prevent the United States from intervening on behalf of the Allies before World War II.  Its most noteworthy spokesman was aviator Charles Lindbergh, an unabashed admirer of the Nazi Luftwaffe. It disbanded soon after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Certainly, someone on Trump’s campaign team knew the historical significance of the term. They knew, but they didn’t care. Intellectuals who remember the now-discredited “America First” of 75 years ago are not going to vote for Trump anyway. Trump’s advisors were also confident that the term, once identified with anti-Semitism, would not tinge Trump in that way due to his strong pro-Israel stand.

Trump’s speech tries to re-invent the term for a modern audience.

“Many Americans must wonder why our politicians seem more interested in defending the borders of foreign countries than their own,” Trump declared. “Americans must know that we are putting the American people first again. On trade, on immigration, on foreign policy – the jobs, incomes and security of the American worker will always be my first priority.”

But is Trump’s “America First” isolationist like its precursor from the 1940s? Or is it interventionist?

First Trump criticizes the interventions of the recent past.

“It all began with the dangerous idea that we could make Western democracies out of countries that had no experience or interest in becoming a Western democracy. We tore up what institutions they had and then were surprised at what we unleashed. Civil war, religious fanaticism; thousands of American lives, and many trillions of dollars, were lost as a result. The vacuum was created that ISIS would fill. Iran, too, would rush in and fill the void, much to their unjust enrichment.”

Yet then Trump endorses future interventions.

“Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon and, under a Trump administration, will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.”

Never? At what cost? War?

“And then there’s ISIS,” Trump continued. “I have a simple message for them. Their days are numbered. I won’t tell them where and I won’t tell them how. We must as, a nation, be more unpredictable. But they’re going to be gone. And soon.”

So we are going to intervene in foreign affairs, at least against ISIS. But those future interventions will be essential and winnable.

“I will not hesitate to deploy military force when there is no alternative. But if America fights, it must fight to win. I will never send our finest into battle unless necessary – and will only do so if we have a plan for victory.”

As if his predecessors didn’t think that their interventions were essential and winnable too. They did not think that they had a plan for defeat. Whoever does?

So what does Trump’s America First mean?

It means just what it says. Us first, everyone else second.

That’s Trump’s idea of a “disciplined, deliberate and consistent foreign policy” that “will endure for generations.”

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Kasich Steps Back From Deal with Cruz

Today Governor John Kasich hedged on his armistice deal with Senator Ted Cruz not 24 hours after the pact was announced.

Yesterday the two campaigns announced an agreement whereby Kasich would not contend against Cruz in the key GOP primary in Indiana, while Cruz would leave Kasich alone in Oregon and New Mexico. The goal was to prevent a first round ballot nomination for Donald Trump.

Today, when pressed by reports about the deal, Kasich seems to back away from it, refusing to encourage his supporters in Indiana to vote for Cruz. In fact, Kasich encouraged them for still vote for himself.

“I’ve never told them not to vote for me,” insisted Kasich. “They should vote for me.”

Moreover, Kasich contended that the deal was more about a scant war chest.

“I said I think it’s fair because, you know, in some places we haven’t spent a lot of resources,” he continued. “I didn’t spend resources in the state of Wisconsin. Minor amount of spending. I don’t have, you know, like Daddy Warbucks behind me giving me all this money. I have to be careful about my resources.”

The assertion came despite consensus opinions that a vote for Kasich in Indiana only helps Donald Trump.

The deal came about after the Never Trump movement called on Kasich to back off in Indiana. They were frustrated that Governor John Kasich was hindering their efforts to deny Indiana delegates to Trump.

Katie Packer, a veteran of Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign and the executive director for the anti-Trump group Our Principles PAC, said “There’s nothing we see that indicates that Kasich has real opportunities to pick up delegates [in Indiana],” she said. “I don’t really know what their campaign’s objectives [in Indiana] are…but for our purposes – no.”

“Don’t understand Kasich logic of competing in Indiana,” former Romney strategist Stuart Stevens had tweeted. “He can’t win but can help Trump, greatly reducing any convention option. Why?”

The logic still applies.  Our conclusion? Either Kasich is an idiot (possible) or he is double-dealing.

Kasich agreed to the deal only under intense pressure from the moneyed Never Trump folks. He’s hedging to preserve his options.

Plan A: His quixotic campaign for the White House.

Plan B: Despite his denials, Kasich will settle for Vice-President. Donald Trump’s Vice-President, that is.

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A Vote For Kasich Is A Vote For Trump

Republican voters heading to the New York primary polls have three choices: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich.

But a vote for Kasich is really a vote for Trump. The reason is simple.  He splits the anti-Trump vote and has no chance of winning the nomination himself.

Kasich has won only 148 delegates, fewer than Macro Rubio, who dropped out a long month ago. If he won every single remaining delegate, he would still fall short.

Moreover, Kasich must win eight states to have his name put into nomination for President under the current Republican Convention rules. He has won only one state so far, his native Ohio.  He will not win any others going forward.

So why is Kasich still running? Pure ego? A quixotic hope that the establishment will turn toward him rather than Trump or Cruz in a brokered convention? Maybe.

The fact is that Kasich’s continued candidacy helps only one man, Donald Trump.  He could not be helping Trump more if he planned too, except that he might possess the very votes needed to deny Trump the nomination on the first ballot.

Hmm…

That would also give Kasich the votes to give the nomination to Trump on the second or third ballot in return for the vice-presidency. Kasich denies that he is running for vice-president, but of course he would, especially if it were so.

There can only be one conclusion.

If one wants to cast an anti-Trump vote, there is only one choice left: Ted Cruz.

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UALBANY Racial Violence Hoax Takes a Turn Toward Justice

Justice may soon be served against the three African-American women who recently perpetrated a racially-based hoax in Albany, New York.

On January 30, 2016, the three students at the University at Albany, made national news when they alleged that they had been assaulted during a racially-motivated incident on a public bus.

Now Asha Burwell, Ariel Agudio, and Alexi Briggs will face a Grand Jury that will decide whether to prosecute them on twenty accounts of assault and of falsely reporting a crime.

In early April, all three turned down a plea bargain deal that would have required an apology from them. Now a Grand Jury investigation has begun.

The women claim that they are being unfairly prosecuted by Albany County District Attorney David Soares (who happens to be black). They are supported by the Upstate Chapter of New York Black Lives Matter.

The three were also supported initially by UAlbany President Robert J. Jones, who issued a statement declaring that he was “deeply concerned, saddened, and angry about the incident. He added that “there is no place in the UAlbany community for violence, no place for racial intolerance, and no gender violence.”

Hillary Clinton contributed a Tweet, sermonizing that “There is no excuse for racism and violence on college campuses.”

Asha Burwell’s brother, San Diego Chargers lineman Tryeek Burwell, fired off a threatening Tweet directed at a young male witness who did not participate in the incident. “Just found out you were one of the dudes that put your hands on my little sister. Hope the police get to you before I do.”

The usual pattern of angst ensued on campus: anguished soul searching and calls for greater “diversity” among faculty and college administrators.

Thousands attended a protest rally (pictured above), during which the three “victims” tearfully pleaded for social justice.

Unfortunately for the Terrible Trio, video from the bus, plus every other eyewitness, contracted their story in full. The videos may be found on any number of Albany local news feeds.

It turn out that that the attacks were indeed racially motivated—that is, the three black women attacked a 19 year old white woman while screaming racial slurs. Police filed charges against them in mid-February.

No apologies have since come forward from UAlbany President Jones, although a disciplinary hearing occurred on campus regarding the false report from the Three. Tryeek Burwell has taken his Tweet down, but not apologized for his threat. Hillary Clinton, of course, just hopes that everyone has forgotten her involvement.

But maybe Clinton was right for once.  Maybe the criminal justice system will prove that “There is no excuse for racism and violence on college campuses,” even when it comes from African-American students.

Tawana Brawley was never prosecuted for her false allegations.  The Reverend Al Sharpton exploited the hoax to the fullest and remains a national figure despite owing $4.5 million in back taxes.

Maybe this time, just once, justice will prevail.

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The Quotable John Kasich

Love him or hate him, John Kasich has a distinct way of expressing himself. Here are some classic quotes.

“Politics can not only be drudgery and Captain Queeg with the balls in his hands.”

“I’m an old fashioned person and I happen to believe in traditional marriage.”

“I support traditional marriage, but it’s time to move on.”

“Guess what? I just went to the wedding of a friend of mine who happens to be gay.”

“If the B-2 (bomber) is invisible, just announce you’ve built 100 of them and don’t build them.”

“How did I get elected? Nobody was—I didn’t have anybody for me. We just got an army of people who, and many women, who left their kitchens to go out and get me elected.”

“I’m going to be sure, at least in my state, that (educational) standards are high and local control can be maintained…. Now some might call that Common Core. I don’t really know, but I’m telling you that’s the way it is in my state.”

“The Republican party is my vehicle, not my master.”

“Every time I go to Washington, I break out in a cold sweat. So I try not to spend too much time there.”

“We have to go massively, like we did in the first Gulf War, where we destroyed Saddam’s ability to take Kuwait. We need to have a coalition that will stand for nothing less than the total destruction of ISIS and he have to be the leader.”

“The foreign policy, you have to know how to pick and choose. There’s no way, if Saddam had not had weapons of mass destruction, I would have gone, because I don’t believe the US should be involved directly in civil wars.”

And the latest, as he defended his continue presence in the race during his interview on Face the Nation last Sunday.

“We’re going to win more delegates, and I mean that is our strategy.”

So the strategy for winning the nomination is gaining delegates. Who knew?

 

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Is Trump Self-Financing His Campaign? Not quite.

Donald Trump has famously declared “I’m self-funding my own campaign. It’s my money.”

The declaration is the basis of much of his support. Trump followers are convinced that he is the one candidate who is not beholding to special interest groups.

But is Trump really self-financed? The answer is “sort of, but not quite.”

Trump’s self-financing accounts for $26.7 million, or 71% of his campaign money so far, according to his FEC filings. Nearly half of this money, $12.6 million, has come in the form of loans from Trump to his campaign. These loans imply that he hopes to be repaid by the campaign by Election Day.

$2.7 million of Trump’s campaign payments have been made for services rendered by Trump-affiliated companies. Much of this money is related to Trump’s travel in his personal jet.

Non-Trump donors account for 28 percent of Trump’s campaign finances.

In addition, a pro-Trump Super PAC, Make America Great Again, has raised $1,732,684 for ads promoting Trump.

So is Trump’s campaign self-financed? As with many financial questions, the answer is “it depends upon how you count it.”

Below are the facts and figures.

Trump Fundraising Details

Campaign Committee Outside Groups Combined
Total Raised $34,740,678* $1,968,261 $36,708,939
Total Spent $33,399,873** $1,807,803 $35,207,676
Cash on Hand $1,340,805 $160,458 $1,501,263
Debts $24,384,058 – –
Date of Report February 29, 2016 March 21, 2016 –

*Includes $12.6 million in loans from Trump

**Includes $2.7 million in payments to Trump-affiliated companies for services, including his private jet

Source of Funds

Individual Contributions
– Small Individual Contributions
– Large Individual Contributions		 $9,527,020
$7,201,692 (21%)
$2,325,327 (7%)		 (27%)
Candidate self-financing (inc. loans from Trump) $24,666,434 (71%)
Other $547,224 (2%)

Source: Center for Responsive Politics

 

 

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Cuomo Bans Travel to Indiana and North Carolina—Cuba Okay

Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is angling to be the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention, generated nationwide publicity this week by banning official travel to North Carolina. The action came in response to a new North Carolina law that restricts the use of gendered bathrooms to the respective sexes according to their biological origin.

The travel ban for North Carolina is not a new tactic for Cuomo. Cuomo also ban non-essential travel by New York State employees to Indiana last year.

The action against Indiana came when the Hoosier State failed to enact proposed legislation that would have added sexual orientation to the state’s anti-discrimination rights list. The proposal failed to come to a vote after Republican and Democratic State Senators could not come to a compromise on whether transgendered individuals would be covered by the bill.

The bans are largely symbolic, because New York state employee travel to North Carolina and Indiana is practically non-existent anyway.

Contrast these bans to efforts by Cuomo to promote public travel to Cuba, a repressive communist dictatorship that has jailed untold numbers of political dissidents.  Last May, he announced air service to Cuba from New York City in conjunction with JetBlue Airline. Cuomo also meet with Raul Castro last year in an effort to promote trade with Cuba.

So Cuomo encourages travel to Cuba, where the government harasses, imprisons, and tortures transgendered people, but bans official travel to Indiana and North Carolina.

What’s next? Banning New York State travel to Orlando because there is no transgender version of Mickey Mouse? Or will it be Cuomo overtures to North Korea?

Does anyone remember Ted Cruz decrying New York values? This is the reason why.

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-bans-non-essential-state-travel-indiana

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