More Cuomo

Lots more.

Here, "In Resignation Speech, Cuomo Makes a Last Play to Preserve His Legacy."

And, "Cuomo Resigns Amid Scandals, Ending Decade-Long Run in Disgrace":

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said on Tuesday that he would resign from office, succumbing to a ballooning sexual harassment scandal in an astonishing reversal of fortune for one of the nation’s best-known leaders.

Mr. Cuomo said his resignation would take effect in 14 days. Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, will be sworn in to replace him, becoming the first woman in history to occupy New York State’s top office.

“Given the circumstances, the best way I can help now is if I step aside and let government get back to governing,” Mr. Cuomo said in remarks streamed from his office in Midtown Manhattan. “And therefore, that’s what I’ll do.”

Mr. Cuomo’s dramatic fall was shocking in its velocity and vertical drop: A year ago, the governor was being hailed as a national hero for his steady leadership amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The resignation of Mr. Cuomo, 63, a three-term Democrat, came a week after a report from the New York State attorney general concluded that the governor sexually harassed nearly a dozen women, including current and former government workers, by engaging in unwanted touching and making inappropriate comments. The 165-page report also found that Mr. Cuomo and his aides unlawfully retaliated against at least one of the women for making her complaints public and fostered a toxic work environment.

The report’s findings put increased pressure on Mr. Cuomo to resign, with even President Biden, a longtime friend, advising him to do so. It spurred the State Assembly — Mr. Cuomo’s last political bulwark in an Albany increasingly arrayed against him — to take steps toward impeachment. And it left Mr. Cuomo with few, if any, allies to fight on with him.

The fallout from the report was swifter than even those closest to Mr. Cuomo expected. He quickly became isolated and grew more so by the day. His top aide, Melissa DeRosa, resigned Sunday. On Monday, the speaker of the State Assembly, Carl E. Heastie, made clear that there would be no “deal” to allow Mr. Cuomo to avoid an impeachment that appeared increasingly inevitable.

In the end, Mr. Cuomo followed through on the advice his top advisers and onetime allies had been offering: leave office voluntarily.

By stepping down, Mr. Cuomo dampened talk of impeachment in the State Assembly, which is dominated by Democrats, and left open the possibility, however remote, for a political revival.

In a 21-minute speech that was by turns contrite and defiant, Mr. Cuomo decried the effort to remove him and acknowledged that his initial instinct had been “to fight through this controversy, because I truly believe it is politically motivated.”

“This situation and moment are not about the facts,” he said. “It’s not about the truth. It’s not about thoughtful analysis. It’s not about how do we make the system better. This is about politics. And our political system today is too often driven by the extremes.”

The governor said he took “full responsibility” for his actions as he denied ever touching anyone inappropriately. He sought to frame the allegations from 11 women as stemming from generational differences and even thanked them for coming forward.

“In my mind, I have never crossed the line with anyone,” Mr. Cuomo said. “But I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn.”

At one point, he addressed his three daughters directly to let them know that “I never did and I never would intentionally disrespect a woman.”

“Your dad made mistakes,” he said to a room filled with staff members, some of them teary-eyed, most caught by surprise. “And he apologized. And he learned from it. And that’s what life is all about.”

His speech was prefaced by a 45-minute presentation from his personal lawyer, Rita Glavin, who blamed the media for creating a frenzied environment. She sought to cast doubt on many of the women’s allegations and the level of seriousness of some of the others.

“This report got key facts wrong,” she said. “It omitted key evidence, and it failed to include witnesses whose testimony would not support the narrative that it was clear this report would weave from Day 1.”

It was a taste of the bare-knuckled counterattack that Mr. Cuomo had been eager to launch and was considering in the days after the report came out. Instead, he appeared to conclude, as many of his advisers already had, that no path existed for him to stay in office.

Mr. Cuomo still faces potential legal liability, particularly from the accusation that he groped an executive assistant, Brittany Commisso. She filed a criminal complaint with the Albany County sheriff’s office last week.

From the start, Mr. Cuomo’s tenure in office was a study in vivid contrasts, marked by a head-spinning scale of accomplishment — the passage of marriage equality, raising the minimum wage, the construction of bridges and train stations — and political scandals, such as his decision to shut down a panel investigating public corruption before its work was completed.

His demise stunned Albany, where Mr. Cuomo had governed with an outsize presence for more than a decade, wielding the State Capitol’s levers of power with deft and often brutal skill, both alienating allies and keeping them in check. Most politicians — Democrats and Republicans — welcomed Mr. Cuomo’s decision and offered Ms. Hochul their support. Few thanked Mr. Cuomo for his years of service. Some could barely contain their glee.

“It was past time for Andrew Cuomo to resign, and it’s for the good of all New York,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has been repeatedly attacked and disparaged by Mr. Cuomo over the years.

Mr. Biden took a different tone, saying he respected the governor’s decision to resign and praising his accomplishments. “I thought he’s done a hell of a job,” he said, mentioning infrastructure, voter access and “a range of things.”

“That’s why it’s so sad,” Mr. Biden added.

As recently as February, it was largely assumed that Mr. Cuomo would coast to a fourth term next year — eclipsing the three terms served by his father, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, and matching the record of Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller — perhaps positioning himself for even higher office.

But that notion was shredded by a steady drumbeat of sexual harassment allegations earlier this year, coupled with troubling reports about his administration’s efforts to obscure the true extent of nursing home deaths during the pandemic, an issue that has been the subject of a federal investigation.

The allegations led to a barrage of calls for his resignation in March from top Democrats, including Senator Chuck Schumer and most of the state’s congressional delegation. Under immense pressure, and in an effort to buy himself time, Mr. Cuomo authorized Letitia James, the state attorney general, to oversee an investigation, urging voters to wait for the facts before reaching a conclusion.

The Assembly also began a wide-ranging impeachment investigation earlier this year. That inquiry was looking not only at sexual harassment allegations, but also at other accusations involving Mr. Cuomo’s misuse of power, including the possible illegal use of state resources to write a book about leadership last year for which he received $5.1 million, as well as his handling of nursing homes.

The inquiry was unfolding slowly, but the attorney general’s report eroded what little support Mr. Cuomo had in the Assembly. Mr. Cuomo was left with two options: step down or risk becoming only the second New York governor to be impeached in state history.

The last elected New York State governor, Eliot Spitzer, also resigned, after it emerged in 2008 that he had been a client of a high-end prostitution ring.

Multiple claims of sexual harassment. Eleven women, including current and former members of his administration, have accused Mr. Cuomo of sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior. An independent inquiry, overseen by the New York State attorney general, corroborated their accounts. The report also found that he and aides retaliated against at least one woman who made her complaints public.

Nursing home Covid-19 controversy. The Cuomo administration is also under fire for undercounting the number of nursing-home deaths caused by Covid-19 in the first half of 2020, a scandal that deepened after a Times investigation found that aides rewrote a health department report to hide the real number.

Efforts to obscure the death toll. Interviews and unearthed documents revealed in April that aides repeatedly overruled state health officials in releasing the true nursing home death toll for months. Several senior health officials have resigned in response to the governor’s overall handling of the pandemic, including the vaccine rollout.

Will Cuomo still be impeached? The State Assembly opened an impeachment investigation in March. But after Mr. Cuomo announced his resignation, it was unclear whether the Assembly would move forward with its impeachment process. If Mr. Cuomo were impeached and convicted, he could be barred from holding state office again.

Looking to the future. Mr. Cuomo said on Tuesday that his resignation would take effect in 14 days, and that Ms. Hochul, a Democrat, would be sworn in to replace him. She will be the first woman in New York history to occupy the state’s top office.

In recent months, Mr. Cuomo had tried to steer attention away from the investigations and scandals that had battered his administration, seeking to counter his critics’ contention that he had lost the capacity to govern. His top advisers believed that the good will he had amassed during the pandemic would allow him to survive, despite the findings from the state attorney general’s investigation, which was being conducted by a team of outside lawyers...

CNN President Jeff Zucker Protected Chris Cuomo. Then Came a U-Turn (VIDEO)

Following-up, "Chris Cuomo Out at CNN: Network Terminates Prime-Time Host Amid New Revelations of Efforts to Protect His Brother (VIDEO)."

Well, well, well ... from Ed Driscoll, at Instapundit, "FORMER PRODUCER HARASSED BY CHRIS CUOMO SAYS INTERNAL INVESTIGATION AT CNN ISN’T ENOUGH."

I remember reading about the allegations earlier this year.

In any case, at WSJ, "Network boss fired the star anchor on Saturday, leaving a hole in the channel’s prime-time lineup":

CNN President Jeff Zucker stood by Chris Cuomo last spring after revelations that the star anchor had helped his brother, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, navigate a sexual-harassment scandal.

In a virtual town hall with staffers in May, he conceded that Chris Cuomo had “made a mistake,” but also said he wasn’t surprised that the anchor discussed the matter with his brother. Mr. Zucker said suspending Chris Cuomo would be “punishment for the sake of punishing.”

Everything changed this past week. New information surfaced—including detailed records from the New York attorney general’s office, a report from the law firm Cravath Swaine & Moore and an unrelated allegation of sexual misconduct—that sealed Chris Cuomo’s fate.

Mr. Zucker was taken by surprise by the attorney general’s report, and felt Mr. Cuomo misled him, according to people familiar with the situation. On Saturday he completed a U-turn, firing Mr. Cuomo on a call, one of the people said.

Mr. Cuomo has apologized for advising his brother, who was embroiled in a significant story CNN was covering. A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo said in a text message on Sunday: “Mr. Cuomo has the highest level of admiration and respect for Mr. Zucker. They were widely known to be extremely close and in regular contact, including about the details of Mr. Cuomo’s support for his brother. There were no secrets about this, as other individuals besides Mr. Cuomo can attest.”

CNN said in a written statement it is disappointed with Mr. Cuomo’s characterization of events. “He has made a number of accusations that are patently false,” the network said. “This reinforces why he was terminated for violating our standards and practices, as well as his lack of candor.”

Staffers at CNN have been surprised by the network’s handling of the controversy from the beginning. When the revelations first surfaced, some employees were taken aback that there wasn’t disciplinary action, people inside the network said. After Mr. Zucker publicly defended Mr. Cuomo for months, some staffers figured the anchor would survive any fallout, and were equally surprised that Mr. Zucker reversed his position, the people said. Some on-air and behind-the-scenes staffers had said Mr. Cuomo could be back on air in January.

Mr. Zucker’s decision to fire one of CNN’s most-watched anchors creates a hole in the network’s prime-time lineup. Like every cable news channel, CNN is grappling with a viewership slump compared with last year, when the fractious 2020 presidential election and its aftermath drove ratings to new heights. The network is also in the midst of launching a streaming service, CNN+.

Mr. Zucker has been one of Chris Cuomo’s biggest champions at CNN. One of Mr. Zucker’s first moves when he arrived at CNN in 2013 was to recruit Mr. Cuomo from ABC News to co-anchor a morning news show. Mr. Zucker promoted Mr. Cuomo to prime time in 2018, giving him the coveted 9 p.m. hour and putting him against two cable-news heavyweights, Rachel Maddow at MSNBC and Sean Hannity at Fox News. A year later, Mr. Zucker praised Mr. Cuomo’s pugilistic instincts to the Hollywood Reporter, calling him “the perfect cable news anchor.”

That professional relationship eventually came under strain. Allegations that Mr. Cuomo aided his brother’s advisers came to light in May in a Washington Post article. It was a sensitive moment for CNN, whose parent company, AT and T Inc., T 1.78% had just reached a deal to merge its media assets with rival Discovery Inc. DISCB -11.57% Mr. Zucker hadn’t yet announced his eventual decision to stay on to steer the network through the merger.

As months went by, Mr. Cuomo remained on air, even after he continued to make headlines and create headaches for Mr. Zucker. In August, New York Attorney General Letitia James released a report that confirmed Mr. Cuomo had aided then-Gov. Cuomo’s response to his scandal...

Still more.

 

Chris Cuomo Out at CNN: Network Terminates Prime-Time Host Amid New Revelations of Efforts to Protect His Brother (VIDEO)

Gawd, if they didn't fire the guy...

At NYT, "CNN Fires Chris Cuomo Amid Inquiry Into His Efforts to Aid His Brother":

The star anchor Chris Cuomo was fired by CNN on Saturday, completing a stunning downfall for the network’s top-rated host amid a continuing inquiry into his efforts to help his brother, Andrew M. Cuomo, then the governor of New York, stave off sexual harassment accusations.

The anchor was suspended on Tuesday after testimony and text messages released by the New York attorney general revealed a more intimate and engaged role in his brother’s political affairs than the network said it had previously known.

On Wednesday, Debra S. Katz, a prominent employment lawyer, informed CNN of a client with an allegation of sexual misconduct against Chris Cuomo. Ms. Katz said in a statement on Saturday that the allegation against the anchor, which was made by a former junior colleague at another network, was “unrelated to the Gov. Andrew Cuomo matter.”

It was not fully clear what role the allegation played in CNN’s decision to dismiss Mr. Cuomo. Ms. Katz is also the lawyer for Charlotte Bennett, a onetime aide to Andrew Cuomo who accused the former governor in February of sexual harassment.

Asked about the new allegation, a CNN spokeswoman said in a statement on Saturday night: “Based on the report we received regarding Chris’s conduct with his brother’s defense, we had cause to terminate. When new allegations came to us this week, we took them seriously, and saw no reason to delay taking immediate action.”

A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, Steven Goldberg, said in a statement on Saturday, “These apparently anonymous allegations are not true.”

Ms. Katz said that her client “came forward because she was disgusted by Chris Cuomo’s on-air statements in response to the allegations made against his brother, Gov. Andrew Cuomo.” Ms. Katz cited a March 1 broadcast in which Chris Cuomo said: “I have always cared very deeply about these issues, and profoundly so. I just wanted to tell you that.”

Mr. Cuomo’s spokesman responded that the former anchor “fully stands by his on-air statements about his connection to these issues, both professionally and in a profoundly personal way. If the goal in making these false and unvetted accusations was to see Mr. Cuomo punished by CNN, that may explain his unwarranted termination.”

Earlier on Saturday, CNN said it had “retained a respected law firm to conduct a review” of the anchor’s involvement with Andrew Cuomo’s political team. “While in the process of that review, additional information has come to light,” CNN said. “Despite the termination, we will investigate as appropriate.”

As the gregarious and sometimes combative host of CNN’s 9 p.m. hour, Mr. Cuomo was at the peak of a broadcast journalism career that he had forged outside of his famed political family. But it was the troubles of his brother, who resigned the governorship in August, that ultimately embroiled Mr. Cuomo in a controversy that appeared to precipitate his dismissal.

“This is not how I want my time at CNN to end but I have already told you why and how I helped my brother,” Chris Cuomo said in a statement earlier on Saturday. “So let me now say as disappointing as this is, I could not be more proud of the team at ‘Cuomo Prime Time’ and the work we did as CNN’s #1 show in the most competitive time slot.”

Until last month, Mr. Cuomo had enjoyed the support of CNN’s president, Jeff Zucker, and he faced no discipline for his behind-the-scenes strategizing with Andrew Cuomo’s political aides, a breach of basic journalistic norms.

But documents released on Nov. 29 revealed that the anchor offered advice on Andrew Cuomo’s public statements and made efforts to uncover the status of pending articles at other news outlets, including The New Yorker and Politico, concerning harassment allegations against the governor.

Mr. Zucker — who had been steadfast in backing Mr. Cuomo, at one point saying the anchor was “human” and facing “very unique circumstances” — informed the anchor on Saturday that he was being fired. “It goes without saying that these decisions are not easy, and there are a lot of complex factors involved,” Mr. Zucker wrote in a memo to CNN staff. The spectacle of a high-profile anchor advising his powerful politician brother amid scandal was a longstanding headache for many CNN journalists, who privately expressed discomfort at actions that, in their view, compromised the network’s credibility. The CNN anchor Jake Tapper went public with his concerns in May, telling The New York Times that his colleague had “put us in a bad spot,” adding, “I cannot imagine a world in which anybody in journalism thinks that that was appropriate.”

Even so, the timing of Mr. Cuomo’s firing, on a Saturday at 5 p.m., caught many members of the CNN newsroom off guard.

The network’s decision earlier in the week to suspend Mr. Cuomo had left open the possibility that he might return to the channel at a later date. CNN’s chief media correspondent, Brian Stelter, speculated on air on Wednesday that it was “possible he’ll be back in January.”

The network said on Tuesday it would begin an internal review of Mr. Cuomo’s conduct. But its executives had not immediately planned to hire an outside law firm, according to a person familiar with the network’s internal decision-making process. That plan changed in recent days, and CNN declined on Saturday to identify the name of the law firm it had retained...

 

 

Cuomo Resigns

Finally, sheesh. 

And good riddance to the muthafuck.

At NYT, "Cuomo Resigns Amid Scandals, Ending Decade-Long Run in Disgrace":

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said Tuesday he would resign from office, succumbing to a ballooning sexual harassment scandal that fueled an astonishing reversal of fortune for one of the nation’s best-known leaders.

Mr. Cuomo said his resignation would take effect in 14 days. Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, will be sworn in to replace him.

“Given the circumstances, the best way I can help now is if I step aside and let government get back to governing,” Mr. Cuomo said from his office in Manhattan. “And therefore that’s what I’ll do.”

The resignation of Mr. Cuomo, a three-term Democrat, came a week after a report from the New York State attorney general concluded that the governor sexually harassed nearly a dozen women, including current and former government workers, by engaging in unwanted touching and making inappropriate comments. The 165-page report also found that Mr. Cuomo and his aides unlawfully retaliated against at least one of the women for making her complaints public and fostered a toxic work environment.

The report put increased pressure on Mr. Cuomo to resign, leading to new calls to do so from President Biden, a longtime friend of the governor, and other Democratic leaders who had withheld judgment until the report’s findings were made public, and leaving Mr. Cuomo with few, if any, defenders.

The report’s fallout had left Mr. Cuomo increasingly isolated: His top aide, Melissa DeRosa, resigned Sunday after concluding the governor had no path to remain in office, according to a person familiar with her thinking. In the end, Mr. Cuomo followed through on the advice his top advisers and onetime allies had been offering: leave office voluntarily.

Mr. Cuomo stepped down as he faced the specter of forced removal from office through impeachment and was poised to become only the second governor to be impeached in the state’s history. Following the report’s release, the leaders of the State Assembly, which is controlled by Democrats, began moving to draft articles of impeachment and appeared to have enough support to pass them.

The dramatic fall of Mr. Cuomo, 63, was shocking in its velocity and vertical drop: A year ago, the governor was being hailed as a national hero for his steady leadership amid the coronavirus pandemic. His political demise stunned Albany, where Mr. Cuomo had governed with an outsize presence for more than a decade, wielding the State Capitol’s levers of power with deft and often brutal skill.

As recently as February, it was largely assumed that Mr. Cuomo would coast to a fourth term next year — eclipsing the three terms served by his father, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, and matching the record of Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller — perhaps positioning himself for even higher office.

But that notion was shredded by a steady drumbeat of sexual harassment allegations earlier this year, coupled with troubling reports about his administration’s efforts to obscure the true extent of nursing home deaths during the pandemic, an issue that has been the subject of a federal investigation.

The allegations led to a barrage of calls for his resignation in March from top Democrats, including Senator Chuck Schumer and most of the state’s congressional delegation. Under immense pressure, and in an effort to buy himself time, Mr. Cuomo authorized Letitia James, the state attorney general, to oversee an investigation into the claims, urging voters to wait for the facts before reaching a conclusion.

The Assembly, where Mr. Cuomo had retained a small well of support among a bloc of Democrats, had also begun a wide-ranging impeachment investigation earlier this year. That inquiry was looking not only at sexual harassment allegations, but also at other accusations involving Mr. Cuomo’s misuse of power, including the possible illegal use of state resources to write a book about leadership last year for which he received $5.1 million, as well as his handling of nursing home data during the pandemic.

The inquiry was unfolding slowly, but the attorney general’s report eroded what little support Mr. Cuomo had in the Assembly and accelerated impeachment efforts. The turning point came when Carl E. Heastie, the Assembly speaker, whom Mr. Cuomo’s critics had accused of covering for the governor by stalling the impeachment inquiry, declared that Mr. Cuomo had “lost the confidence of the Assembly Democratic majority” and “he can no longer remain in office.”

By then, Mr. Cuomo was left with two options: to step down or risk becoming the first New York governor to be impeached in more than a century, a stain on his legacy. The resignation of Mr. Cuomo, who has repeatedly denied inappropriately touching anyone, follows the resignation of the last elected New York State governor, Eliot Spitzer, who stepped down in 2008 after it emerged that he had been a client of a high-end prostitution ring.

In recent months, the governor had tried to steer attention away from the investigations and scandals that had battered his administration, seeking to counter his critics’ contention that he had lost the capacity to govern...

Still more. 

Chris Cuomo's Conflicts of Interest (VIDEO)

My wife and I have been talking about this for weeks. 

You see, we were both watching a lot of CNN back in March, April, May or so of last year, and some of these segments were the "family hour" on Chris Cuomo's prime-time show on CNN. Honestly, I thought some of the brotherly back-and-forth was pretty funny, although even then I was thinking, "This is probably not a good look for a purportedly "non-partisan" news outlet," but what the heck? Comic relief during the pandemic? And of course, no one knew then what we know now, and what we know now, about Andrew Cuomo, is criminal.

In any case, I watched Governor Cuomo's press conference on Monday, and he looked like he was lying remorselessly. I think later I even caught a critical segment discussing the governor on CNN, but not with Chris Cuomo. Maybe HE should be fired. 

In any case, WaPo, of all places, has the story, "CNN’s Chris Cuomo is reminding us why conflicts of interest poison the news":

On his Monday night CNN program, host Chris Cuomo provided an update on the biggest story of the past year. “Now, good news: When it comes to coronavirus, we’ve had the best week we’ve seen so far, in terms of getting people vaccinated. And every week since New Year’s, the rate has only improved,” said the host.

Here’s an update that he skipped: Just hours before “Cuomo Prime Time” aired, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo held a news conference to address his state’s nursing-home scandal. Under his leadership, the state has shown a staggering lack of transparency regarding the extent of coronavirus-related deaths in New York nursing homes. “We should have provided more information faster,” said Cuomo in the press briefing, which addressed an undercount of nursing-home deaths in the state.

That story — the hottest on the covid beat on Monday — didn’t make the cut on “Cuomo Prime Time.” Perhaps that shouldn’t be a surprise: Chris Cuomo and Andrew Cuomo are brothers, and journalists can’t reliably cover their brothers.

Except that Chris Cuomo did cover his brother, famously, during the early months of the pandemic. As the coronavirus spread around the country, Andrew Cuomo turned in more than 10 appearances on “Cuomo Prime Time.” The heartwarming moments stick out: In May, Chris Cuomo presented a gigantic test swab to joke about the governor’s televised coronavirus test. They laughed about their parents quite a bit, too. At the end of one appearance, Chris Cuomo thanked his brother for coming on the air. “Mom told me I had to,” replied the governor. The TV host rolled his eyes...

Well, it's not so funny now, is it?

And if you're watching Fox News at all, do try to catch a segment with Janice Dean, the network's weather-caster. She lost her in-laws (husband's parents) after they were sent to nursing homes during the height of New York's deadly pandemic, and Ms. Dean has never been political in her life, and certainly not on her network, but she's been out there with all cannons firing, and wants prosecution and imprisonment for the perpetrators of the deaths of thousands of thousands of New York's elderly covid-19 victims.

What an awful story, man.

Can Freakin' Governor Andrew Coumo Resign Already? Sheesh (VIDEO)

I've been going pretty hard on my own state's moronic governor, but even the idiot Newsom's not near as bad as the predator in Albany, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

It's gotten so bad for the Emmy winning "author" that mainstream news outlets simply can't ignore the story, and that's keeping in mind that the story itself wouldn't have broken, had not leaked video surfaced, featuring top Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa. And the nursing home debacle? This story just keeps getting worse, and there's big headlines this morning, at NYT, "Cuomo Aides Rewrote Nursing Home Report to Hide Higher Death Toll," and WSJ, "Cuomo Advisers Altered Report on Covid-19 Nursing-Home Deaths."

Even far-left CNN's been reporting (and not Chris Cuomo, who's totally complicit at this point), so that tells you something: 

And from this morning Los Angeles Times (which also can't avoid the story, on both of these dolts), here, "News Analysis: Cuomo and Newsom, once pillars of the Democratic Party, now look for paths to survival":

WASHINGTON — It wasn’t supposed to be like this for Democrats, who expected to honeymoon into spring as Republicans sifted through the political wreckage Donald Trump left behind. But the bad behavior and grave unforced errors of two of the party’s biggest outside-the-Beltway stars are spoiling that reprieve, distracting from the Democrats’ work in Washington and forcing them to divert their attention to triage in parts of the country where they usually draw strength.

The missteps and aloofness that now have California Gov. Gavin Newsom facing the threat of recall from office have been overshadowed by the sexual harassment scandal that has rapidly engulfed his counterpart in New York, Andrew Cuomo. The two men took very different paths in their descent from favorites of liberal voters to the targets of scathing parody on “Saturday Night Live,” but both share problems so big they are stealing oxygen from a party that doesn’t have much to spare.

“I feel awful about it,” Cuomo said Wednesday of his behavior that led two women decades his junior who worked for him and a third he met at a wedding to accuse him of sexual harassment. “And frankly, I am embarrassed by it.”

He pledged at a news conference to cooperate with an investigation by the state attorney general, while still maintaining that he did not intentionally harass or inappropriately touch anyone. “I’m not going to resign,” Cuomo said, adding later: “I never knew at the time I was making anyone uncomfortable.”

Cuomo is vowing to serve out the rest of his term at the same time Newsom is battling a well-funded effort to eject him before his term ends. Political experts predict that if the recall qualifies for the ballot, by the time the election is held, voters are likely to be more forgiving of Newsom’s missteps: dining maskless at the Michelin-starred French Laundry while ordering the state locked down, bobbling school reopenings, botching the vaccine rollout, failing to halt billions of dollars in fraudulent unemployment payments.

Nobody is counting either of them out at the moment, as both Cuomo and Newsom have clawed their way back from the political abyss before — Newsom from personal scandals as San Francisco mayor, Cuomo from ethical lapses as governor that resulted in his allies going to prison. But the realities of the #MeToo era for Cuomo and a pandemic that has brought voters to the brink may have made obsolete the playbooks that worked so well for the men in the past. Calling in political favors, circling wagons inside the party and public displays of contrition are less potent tools than they once were.

Cuomo, in particular, is finding the aggressive tactics that helped him survive multiple scandals over the course of his three terms in office are not all that effective when facing claims of unwanted sexual advances. Putting party officials on notice that their loyalty will be rewarded and dissent punished, as Cuomo has in the past, is not going to fly. The allegations compounded a political crisis Cuomo had already created for himself by hiding data related to COVID-19 deaths at nursing homes.

“His problem right now is really big,” said Robert Shrum, director of the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future. “He’d be lucky to stay governor, and incredibly lucky to run and get reelected.”

If you keep reading, LAT authors Evan Hapler and Seema Mehta can't resist accusing Republicans of hypocrisy regarding the allegations against Cuomo, comparing them to the totally bogus accusations Christine Blasey Ford leveled against now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. 

But it is what it is, and I'll be cheering here in the once-"Golden State" when that recall makes it to the ballot. And I don't know what the citizens of New York are waiting for, but they need to remove the perverted Cuomo, and fast. 

Governor Andrew Cuomo Says He Won't Bow to 'Cancel Culture'

What a f*cking arrogant, pissant, goober creep. Gawd, this man is indeed the worst governor I can remember in my lifetime, and that's saying a lot, given California's stream of dumb leftist governors over decades, including "Arnold."

"Cancel culture" for you, but not for me, the asshole. 

At NYT, "Cuomo Says He Won’t Bow to ‘Cancel Culture’ and Rejects Calls to Resign":

Nearly all of the Democrats in New York’s congressional delegation, including Representatives Jerrold Nadler and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, say that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has lost the ability to govern.

A raft of powerful Democratic members of New York’s congressional delegation, including Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jerrold Nadler, called on Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to resign on Friday, saying Mr. Cuomo had lost the capacity to govern amid a series of multiplying scandals.

“Governor Cuomo has lost the confidence of the people of New York,” said Mr. Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and one of the highest-ranking members of Congress. “Governor Cuomo must resign.”

Mr. Cuomo immediately rejected the calls for him to step down, telling reporters at a quickly convened news conference that he would not resign or bow to “cancel culture.” He also denied ever abusing and harassing anyone.

“I did not do what has been alleged, period,” Mr. Cuomo said.

The calls for his resignation, which came in rapid succession and appeared to be a coordinated message, were the sharpest rebuke yet of Mr. Cuomo from the upper echelons of the Democratic Party.

A least 13 House Democrats from New York said Friday that Mr. Cuomo should leave office following a string of sexual harassment allegations and controversy over his administration’s handling of nursing homes during the pandemic. Another House Democrat, Kathleen Rice of Long Island, had previously called on Mr. Cuomo to resign.

In remarks to reporters, Mr. Cuomo reiterated that he respected the right of women to speak out, but suggested that some of the accusations may have been ill-motivated and had to be thoroughly investigated.

He said that politicians who had called for his resignation without knowing the facts were “reckless and dangerous.”

“The people of New York should not have confidence in a politician who takes a position without knowing any facts and substance,” he said, adding that “politicians take positions for all sorts of reasons, including political expediency.” He added that “part of this is that I’m not part of the political club.”

“And you know what?” he said. “I’m proud of it.”

President Biden and Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York have not called on Mr. Cuomo to step down, instead reiterating their support of an independent investigation into the sexual harassment claims overseen by the state attorney general, Letitia James. That investigation, conducted by two outside lawyers deputized by Ms. James, began this week...

More at that top link.

 

Rachel Maddow Breaks Silence on Despicable New York Governor Andrew Cuomo

Following-up, "Governor Andrew Cuomo Says He Won't Bow to 'Cancel Culture'."

Well, while New York Dems nearly across the board have abandoned to serial sexual harasser (and groper) Andrew Cuomo, no fear! MSNBC hasn't uploaded Rachel Maddow's rant against Cuomo from last night, and!, both Google and Twitter have buried any search results even pointing you anywhere near Maddow's segments; so no doubt, Creepy Cuomo's still got a little mojo with Big Tech's totalitarians.

I did find this, the first result, at Duck Duck Go, which is actually pretty amazing.

At Fox News "Rachel Maddow breaks silence on Cuomo, warns MSNBC viewers his scandals are 'developing by the second'":

The liberal star referred to the governor's growing political woes as 'quite dramatic'.

MSNBC star Rachel Maddow addressed the growing scandals plaguing Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for the first time since his political woes began six weeks ago.

While her primetime colleagues Chris Hayes and Lawrence O'Donnell similarly waited weeks before finally acknowledging the controversies surrounding the embattled governor, Maddow shocked her viewers Thursday night with an "impeachment inquiry" graphic that loomed over an image of Cuomo.

After taking an audibly deep breath, Maddow began detailing the "dramatic turn" that took place amid the "rising scandals," laying out the sexual misconduct allegations that have surfaced in recent weeks and how an impeachment investigation is being launched by Democratic lawmakers that is set to look into the alleged coverup of nursing home deaths by the governor's administration.

"Now, impeachment at the state level works basically the same way that it does at the federal level," Maddow explained to viewers. "If the Assembly were ultimately to vote to impeach Governor Cuomo, the next step is he would then be tried in the state Senate. Well, as of tonight, roughly two-thirds of the senators in the New York state Senate have already called on Governor Cuomo to step down, including the Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins."

Unlike her CNN rivals, Maddow did mention Cuomo's sixth accuser, a former aide who according to the Albany Times-Union newspaper said the governor groped her late last year at the Executive Mansion. Cuomo denies her claims but called them "gut-wrenching."

MSNBC's most-watched host concluded the segment by offering a warning to her viewers that Cuomo's troubles were far from over.

"This story is developing by the second. Some of these latest developments, quite dramatic. Watch this space," Maddow said.

Prior to "The Rachel Maddow Show," MSNBC offered minimal coverage of the groping allegation on Thursday, giving it only brief coverage in the network's 5 a.m. and 4 p.m. timeslots...

Naturally (*Sigh.*)

 

A Week in 'Woke' America

 It's the phenomenal Caroline Glick, "One Week in Progressive America":

The Democrats had a lousy week. It began with former President Donald Trump’s acquittal in the Senate.

Trump’s acquittal was a major blow to the Democrats. It isn’t that anyone believed Trump would be convicted. Whether Republicans love or hate the former president, the fact is that it is unconstitutional to hold an impeachment trial for a former officeholder. And for that reason alone, there was no chance that more than a smattering of Republicans would support the move.

But once their farcical trial ended, public focus moved to the Democrats – who now control both houses of Congress and the White House. True, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is already planning to drag Trump back to center stage with her “January 6 Truth Commission.” But that won’t happen for several months. And in the meantime, for the first time in five years, the Democrats find themselves, and their actions, the focus of public attention.

The first casualties of the scrutiny have been the Democrat governors of the most populous Democrat-run states in the Union – Andrew Cuomo of New York and Gavin Newsom of California.

After a nearly a year in which Cuomo was lavished with adulation for his leadership of the coronavirus pandemic in New York; upheld as the future of the Democratic Party; touted as a possible candidate for Attorney General; and even won an Emmy for his press conferences, the truth has caught up with “America’s governor.”

Last March, as the number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized in New York hospitals mounted and fears that hospitals would be overwhelmed rose, Trump ordered the Army to set up a field hospital at the Javits Center and sent the Navy’s USS Comfort floating hospital to New York harbor. Not wanting to give any credit to Trump, Cuomo ordered nursing homes to take in COVID-19 patients from hospitals. The result was disastrous. COVID-19 spread like wildfire among the most vulnerable population and thousands of elderly New Yorkers died.

Republicans and conservative journalists long pointed out that Cuomo’s move was lethally misguided. But protected by the media, Cuomo indignantly denied the allegations.

Recently, though, his ability to deny the charges was dealt a fatal blow. New York’s Democrat Attorney General Letitia Jones released a report that showed Cuomo’s data on nursing home deaths from COVID-19 were false. Whereas Cuomo claimed that 8,500 nursing home residents died of COVID-19, the real number is more than 15,000.

This week, Associated Press reported that Cuomo also understated the number of COVID-19 patients that were transferred to nursing homes from hospitals by nearly 40%. In the face of the actual data, many Democrats have joined Republicans in calling for federal and state authorities to open criminal investigations against Cuomo.

Last December, the chorus of California business owners and parents making impassioned pleas to Governor Gavin Newsom to lift his draconian COVID-19 lockdowns that barred California children from school and shuttered most businesses, including restaurants for both indoor and outdoor dining was becoming a groundswell. As he imperiously rejected the calls, Newsom and his wife were photographed dining with friends at a swanky French restaurant in Napa Valley. Newsom’s mind-blowing hypocrisy reinvigorated a Republican campaign to recall him from office in special elections. This week, activists garnered the requisite one and a half million signatures – a month before the deadline – and so guaranteed that California will hold a gubernatorial election later this year. Facing an enraged public, Democrats fear that they may lose their total control over their deep blue state for the first time in 15 years.

This then brings us to President Joe Biden. Less than a month into his presidency, Biden has managed to turn off US allies and anger his own voters.

Both during the campaign and since taking office, Biden pledged to rebuild America’s standing in the world after Trump allegedly destroyed respect for America with his “America First” foreign policy. Yet, as Walter Russell Mead laid out in the Wall Street Journal this week, US allies are not at all pleased with how Biden’s “return to normalcy” is shaping up...

Still more.

 

Andrew Cuomo Under Fire and Desperately Fighting for His Political Life

Here's statement from yesterday, "Full Response: Gov. Cuomo Denies Allegations In Sexual Harassment Report."

And at the New York Times, "Under Fire and Alone, Cuomo Fights for His Political Life," and "‘Completely Violated’: Women Describe Cuomo’s Groping and Intimidation."

Also, "Biden Says Cuomo ‘Should Resign,’ as Sexual Harassment Findings Emerge."

Plus, the paper's editorial, "You Should Resign, Governor Cuomo."

Mario Cuomo Dies at 82

Cuomo spoke at Fresno State back in 1992. Definitely an icon of traditional Democratic Party liberalism. No one could articulate the vision of liberal activist government as he could. He was an interesting man.

Here's the outstanding obituary, at the New York Times, "Mario Cuomo, Governor, Governor’s Father and an Eloquent Liberal Beacon, Dies at 82":

In an era when liberal thought was increasingly discredited, Mr. Cuomo, a man of large intellect and often unrestrained personality, celebrated it, challenging Ronald Reagan at the height of his presidency with an expansive and affirmative view of government and a message of compassion, tinged by the Roman Catholicism that was central to Mr. Cuomo’s identity.

A man of contradictions who enjoyed Socratic arguments with himself, Mr. Cuomo seemed to disdain politics even as he embraced it. “What an ugly business this is,” he liked to say. Yet he reveled in it, proving himself an uncommonly skilled politician and sometimes a ruthless one.

He was a tenacious debater and a spellbinding speaker at a time when political oratory seemed to be shrinking to the size of the television set. Delivering the keynote address at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, he eclipsed his party’s nominee, former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, seizing on Reagan’s description of America as “a shining city on a hill” to portray the president as unaware of impoverished Americans. “Mr. President,” he said, “you ought to know that this nation is more a ‘tale of two cities’ than it is just a ‘shining city on a hill.’ ”

The speech was the high-water mark of his national political career, making him in many ways a more admired figure outside his state than in it.

RTWT. (Via Memeorandum.)

Explosive Lindsey Boylan Sexual Harassment Allegations Against Govenor Andrew Cuomo (VIDEO)

I was watching "Outnumbered" this morning on Fox News, and the news was just breaking on this Lindsey Boylan blockbuster story.

And there's additional Fox News reporting here.

She's posted her whole story at Medium, "My Story of Working with Governor Cuomo":

“Let’s play strip poker.”

I should have been shocked by the Governor’s crude comment, but I wasn’t.

We were flying home from an October 2017 event in Western New York on his taxpayer-funded jet. He was seated facing me, so close our knees almost touched. His press aide was to my right and a state trooper behind us.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” I responded sarcastically and awkwardly. I tried to play it cool. But in that moment, I realized just how acquiescent I had become.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has created a culture within his administration where sexual harassment and bullying is so pervasive that it is not only condoned but expected. His inappropriate behavior toward women was an affirmation that he liked you, that you must be doing something right. He used intimidation to silence his critics. And if you dared to speak up, you would face consequences. That’s why I panicked on the morning of December 13.

While enjoying a weekend with my husband and six-year-old daughter, I spontaneously decided to share a small part of the truth I had hidden for so long in shame and never planned to disclose. The night before, a former Cuomo staffer confided to me that she, too, had been the subject of the Governor’s workplace harassment. Her story mirrored my own. Seeing his name floated as a potential candidate for U.S. Attorney General — the highest law enforcement official in the land — set me off.

In a few tweets, I told the world what a few close friends, family members and my therapist had known for years: Andrew Cuomo abused his power as Governor to sexually harass me, just as he had done with so many other women.

As messages from journalists buzzed on my phone, I laid in bed unable to move. I finally had decided to speak up, but at what cost? Parts of a supposed confidential personnel file (which I’ve never seen) were leaked to the media in an effort to smear me. The Governor’s loyalists called around town, asking about me.

Last week, Assemblymember Ron Kim spoke out publicly about the intimidation and abuse he has faced from Governor Cuomo and his aides. As Mayor de Blasio remarked, “the bullying is nothing new.” There are many more of us, but most are too afraid to speak up. I’m compelled to tell my story because no woman should feel forced to hide their experiences of workplace intimidation, harassment and humiliation — not by the Governor or anyone else. I expect the Governor and his top aides will attempt to further disparage me, just as they’ve done with Assemblymember Kim. They’d lose their jobs if they didn’t protect him. That’s how his administration works. I know because I was a part of it.

I joined state government in 2015 as a Vice President at Empire State Development. I was quickly promoted to Chief of Staff at the state economic development agency. The news of my appointment prompted a warning from a friend who served as an executive with an influential civic engagement organization: “Be careful around the Governor.”

My first encounter with the Governor came at a January 6, 2016, event at Madison Square Garden to promote the new Pennsylvania Station-Farley Complex project. After his speech, he stopped to talk to me. I was new on the job and surprised by how much attention he paid me.:

My boss soon informed me that the Governor had a “crush” on me. It was an uncomfortable but all-too-familiar feeling: the struggle to be taken seriously by a powerful man who tied my worth to my body and my appearance.

Stephanie Benton, Director of the Governor’s Offices, told me in an email on December 14, 2016 that the Governor suggested I look up images of Lisa Shields — his rumored former girlfriend — because “we could be sisters” and I was “the better looking sister.” The Governor began calling me “Lisa” in front of colleagues. It was degrading...

Keep reading. 

As all the hipsters like to say now, the woman's "got the receipts." (She's posted all kinds of screenshots of implicating texts and email, etc.)

Liberal Piety and the Memory of 9/11

Scotty Lemieux is too predictable on the news from New York: "Landmark Preservation Commission To Bigots Who Despise Principles of American Constitutionalism: Drop Dead."

And I don't call folks like him "liberals" (they're radical leftists), but Dorothy Rabinowitz nails it anyway:

Americans may have lacked for much in the course of their history, but never instruction in social values. The question today is whether Americans of any era have ever confronted the bombardment of hectoring and sermonizing now directed at those whose views are deemed insufficiently enlightened—an offense regularly followed by accusations that the offenders have violated the most sacred principles of our democracy.

It doesn't take a lot to become the target of such a charge. There is no mistaking the beliefs on display in these accusations, most recently in regard to the mosque about to be erected 600 feet from Ground Zero. Which is that without the civilizing dictates of their superiors in government, ordinary Americans are lost to reason and decency. They are the kind of people who—as a recent presidential candidate put it—cling to their guns and their religion ....

Long discussion of Mayor Michael Bloomberg (hardly a commie like Lemieux, but a fellow traveler in hopeless political correctness nevertheless), and then:

In the plan for an Islamic center and mosque some 15 stories high to be built near Ground Zero, the full force of politically correct piety is on display along with the usual unyielding assault on all dissenters. The project has aroused intense opposition from New Yorkers and Americans across the country. It has also elicited remarkable streams of oratory from New York's political leaders, including Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

"What are we all about if not religious freedom?" a fiery Mr. Cuomo asked early in this drama. Mr. Cuomo, running for governor, has since had less to say.

The same cannot be said for Mr. Bloomberg, who has gone on to deliver regular meditations on the need to support the mosque, and on the iniquity of its opponents. In the course of a speech at Dartmouth on July 16 he raised the matter unasked, and held forth on his contempt for those who opposed the project and even wanted to investigate the funding: "I just think it's the most outrageous thing anybody could suggest." Ground Zero is a "very appropriate place'' for a mosque, the mayor announced, because it "tells the world" that in America, we have freedom of religion for everybody.

Here was an idea we have been hearing more and more of lately—the need to show the world America's devotion to democracy and justice, also cited by the administration as a reason to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City. Who is it, we can only wonder, that requires these proofs? What occasions these regular brayings on the need to show the world the United States is a free nation?

It's unlikely that the preachments now directed at opponents of the project by Mayor Bloomberg and others will persuade that opposition. Those fighting the building recognize full well the deliberate obtuseness of Mr. Bloomberg's exhortations, and those of Mr. Cuomo and others: the resort to pious battle cries, the claim that antagonists of the plan stand against religious freedom. They note, especially, the refusal to confront the obvious question posed by this proposed center towering over the ruins of 9/11.

It is a question most ordinary Americans, as usual, have no trouble defining. Namely, how is it that the planners, who have presented this effort as a grand design for the advancement of healing and interfaith understanding, have refused all consideration of the impact such a center will have near Ground Zero? Why have they insisted, despite intense resistance, on making the center an assertive presence in this place of haunted memory? It is an insistence that calls to mind the Flying Imams, whose ostentatious prayers—apparently designed to call attention to themselves on a U.S. Airways flight to Phoenix in November 2006—ended in a lawsuit. The imams sued. The airlines paid.

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser—devout Muslim, physician, former U.S. Navy lieutenant commander and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy—says there is every reason to investigate the center's funding under the circumstances. Of the mosque so near the site of the 9/11 attacks, he notes "It will certainly be seen as a victory for political Islam."

The center may be built where planned. But it will not go easy or without consequence to the politicians intent on jamming the project down the public throat, in the name of principle. Liberal piety may have met its match in the raw memory of 9/11, and in citizens who have come to know pure demagoguery when they hear it. They have had, of late, plenty of practice.

This should be a ragin' discussion all day, for example, at the far-left Salon, "Michael Bloomberg delivers stirring defense of mosque" (and the links at Memeorandum). Sigh. Those "enlightened" leftists. What would we do without them?

Caroline Kennedy and the Family Dynasty

The recent media attention to Caroline Kennedy, who is lobbying for an appointment to the U.S. Senate, is not that big of a deal to me. She's certainly under-qualified, but I'm one of those who remains fascinated by the Kennedy mystique, and seeing Caroline in power in Washington will likely give many Americans a warm sense of nostalgia in a period of tumultuous socioeconomic change.

Caroline's by no means assured an appointment, of course, despite all her glamour and name recognition. As John Fund reports, New York Governor David Paterson, himself recently appointed to office upon the fall of Eliot Spitzer, has a powerful incentive to appoint New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to replace Hillary Clinton. By sending Cuomo to Washington, Paterson would remove one of his top rivals in home state politics.

Today's Los Angeles Times offers an interesting take on all of this, focusing on New York's dynasty politics. Recall, for example, that Cuomo is a former in-law to Caroline, having once been married to Kerry Kennedy, the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, Caroline's late uncle.

In any case, I like this section from the Times article:

The joke in the U.S. Capitol this week is that a primal scream echoing through the hallways is from the senior senator from New York, Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat with a voracious appetite for attention even by the self-promotional standards of Washington. He was first overshadowed when the former president's wife waltzed in to New York to win her Senate seat in 2000. And now he may again be eclipsed by the supernova of the 51-year-old Kennedy, even though it's unclear, as one graybeard of New York politics put it, whether "she can cut the mustard."

This is a woman who long avoided the public -- a seemingly shy princess of Camelot who moved with her reclusive mother, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, and younger brother, John Jr., to Manhattan's Upper East Side a year after her father, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated. She later graduated from Radcliffe College at Harvard University and Columbia Law School; she married Edwin Schlossberg but never officially changed her name. She wrote and edited books and became a fixture not only at the openings of the American Ballet Theatre but also on the walk to school with her daughters and at her son's basketball scrimmages in sweaty public school gyms.

Kennedy has always been close to Uncle Ted, the iconic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy from Massachusetts, who walked her down the aisle and whom she reportedly speaks to several times a week.

But she only began stepping out as a high-profile political surrogate earlier this year after delivering a timely endorsement of Obama over Clinton.

"She always asked campaign staff on the ground how she could make the most out of her appearances, and apparently she did," said Joel Benenson, a former New York political writer and the lead pollster for the Obama campaign.

Robert Shrum, a Democratic strategist close to the Kennedy family for decades, said Caroline Kennedy needed to get her children launched (two of the three are in college) before she was ready to move into a more public chapter of her life.

Citing her inherent intelligence and leadership at the Harvard University Institute of Politics and John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, Shrum said: "She'd be a terrific senator. Caroline has always been interested in politics and public life."

Still, it is one thing for Kennedy to be treated as an admired flower under glass and quite another to be the target of pesky political observers and covetous rivals.

Despite the collective swooning over Kennedy this week, it's far from certain that she is a shoo-in to become the next senator from New York. (More back story: Her uncle Bobby, who was also assassinated, once had the same job.)

See more analysis at Memeorandum (here and here).

Photo Credit: Los Angeles Times

Sean Hannity to Leave New York After Gov. Andrew Cuomo Rant Attacking Conservatives

At Instapundit, "THE EXODUS IS HERE: Sean Hannity to Leave New York After Andrew Cuomo’s Anti-Conservative Rant."

He's not kidding. Listen at the Right Scoop, "Hannity to Cuomo: I’m leaving New York and I’m taking all my money with me…"

Democrats 'Distance Themselves' From Cuomo, Go Through Empty Pantomime of 'Calling For' Cuomo to Resign

At AoSHQ:

Journalists used to deploy a euphemism -- "distancing himself" -- to apply to politicians who offered up some kind of criticism of one of their own party.

It meant nothing. It did not advance any case against the wrongdoer. It did not call for any concrete action to be taken against the politician in bad odor.

It's just a transparently self-serving minimum-possible-effort maneuver to keep yourself from being associated with someone you're clearly associated with.

You're just "distancing yourself" from the stink.

But not doing anything to clean it up.

Democrats are now doing a lot of Distancing Themselves with Cuomo...

Still more.

 

Cuomo's Version of Liberal Tolerance

From Jonathan Tobin, at Commentary.

Also at Blazing Cat Fur, "VIDEO: Governor Cuomo: Pro-Life People Have 'No Place in the State of New York'."

And to think, I used to respect Cuomo's father, Mario. But peel off a few layers and all leftists are ultimately totalitarians.

Janice Dean Slams Andrew Cuomo's 'Bullying and Threatening' of Critics (VIDEO)

I blogged briefly about Ms. Dean here, "Chris Cuomo's Conflicts of Interest (VIDEO)."

The lady's a one-woman incinerator of Democrat sleaze and corruption, and she's got ultra-moral authority on the issue.

In any case, here's the video of her appearance on Hannity's last night, so enjoy:

RELATED: At the New York Post, "Rattled Andrew Cuomo rants about nursing home scandal ‘lies,’ won’t take responsibility."

Well, this should get interesting, as it's not just Fox News now that's hammering the New York Governor. The idiot's on the ropes, and it's beautiful, lol

Pro-Gun Laws Gain Ground

At the Wall Street Journal, "Since Newtown Massacre, More States Ease Regulations Than Bolster Them":

President Barack Obama made another push Wednesday to build support for gun-control laws in the wake of December's mass school shooting in Connecticut. But since then, states have passed more measures expanding rather than restricting the right to carry firearms.

Arkansas eliminated prohibitions on carrying firearms in churches and on college campuses. South Dakota authorized school boards to arm teachers. Tennessee passed a law allowing workers to bring guns to work and store them in their vehicles, even if their employer objects. Kentucky shortened the process for obtaining licenses to carry a concealed gun.

Those laws, along with the long odds for major federal gun-control legislation, show how the march toward expanded gun rights in recent years has hardly slowed since Mr. Obama pledged to use the "full force" of his office to tighten limits after 20 children and six adult staffers were killed at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

This year, five states have passed seven laws that strengthen gun restrictions, while 10 states have passed 17 laws that weaken them, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which tracks and promotes gun-control laws.

Gun-control advocates have scored some victories. In New York and Colorado, which was the site of a movie-theater shooting last July that left 12 dead, new laws require background checks for all firearm sales and limit the size of ammunition magazines. Connecticut lawmakers Wednesday were debating legislation to expand the state's ban on certain semiautomatic weapons and require background checks for all firearm sales, among other restrictions. Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy, a Democrat, has said he would sign such a measure.

Kristin Goss, a Duke University professor of public policy who supports gun-control legislation, said these measures are more sweeping than the gun-rights expansions in other states, which she called "technical and incremental."

Still, gun-control bills have faltered in Congress and other states, while pro-gun-rights bills move along elsewhere. On Tuesday, an Indiana House committee passed a bill that would require an armed staffer in every school.

Actually, those gun-control "victories" are already backfiring, at Instapundit, "FOR ANDREW CUOMO, A HASTY LAW IS IN TROUBLE ALREADY," and "HASTE MAKES WASTE — AND ANDREW CUOMO LOOKS STUPID: Cuomo’s 7-Bullet Limit to Be Suspended Indefinitely, Skelos Says."

Also out of Colorado, "Just days after Colorado Governor Hickenlooper signed them into law, new gun control measures are being declared by state sheriffs to be unenforceable due to ambiguities and constitutional concerns. And businesses are fleeing the state, at Denver Business Journal, "HiViz intends to follow Magpul's example, leave Colorado."

Yeah, those are some most excellent victories!

Yay idiot progs! Keep winning those gun control victories!

The Walls Are Closing In on Cuomo

It's bad.

At NYT, "Facing Loss of Supporters, Cuomo Gains Attention From Prosecutors."

More Cuomo blogging here.