While the big news for today will be Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech before Congress today on the existential threat to his country if Iran is allowed to continue to build nuclear weapons, let me bring you up to speed on what is happening in the ethics front in New York while we wait.
State Level Shenanigans:
It has been reported that Gov. Cuomo quietly ordered sometime in 2013 that all state workers’ e-mails be automatically deleted after 90 days. Now this is interesting on many levels, but the most important was that this was ordered right before he created his commission to investigate corruption in the state goverment. When he disbanded his commission without warning, the US Attorney Preet Bharara took up the investigation which resulted in the arrest of Sheldon Silver, Speaker of the Assembly. [Here's a link to my previous post explaining all about that.]
Yeah, that's some good planning by Gov. Cuomo to make it easier to destroy evidence before he convened and then disbanded the investigation that got uncomfortably close to his own office. Fortunately, the state workers have not been very diligent in deleting their emails, so last month thousands of email were automatically deleted by the state's "chief information officer". One can imagine that this has made a very many people quite upset and hopefully one of them will be US Attorney Preet Bharara.
Gov. Cuomo has made it very clear that he is really, really pushing to overhaul the ethics laws in New York government and said he won't approve a budget without major changes. It all seems to hinge on the long-criticized state laws that require how much lawmakers have to disclose about their private income and clients that they service. It seems way too many of our state legislators may have clients who may or may not have official business with the state creating what may or may not appear to be a conflict of interest. Since the majority of elected officials are Democrats, the Republicans who are not exactly saints in regards to the conflict issue, have taken the side of more disclosure and transparency. So to tweak the Governor just a bit because they know he really just wants to get this settled as quickly and quietly as possible, several GOP legislators have floated the idea to require that live-in girlfriends' income must be disclosed just like a spouse.
You may not know this, but Gov. Cuomo has been living with his FoodTV Network cooking show star/hostess Sandra Lee (I hesitate to ever give her the moniker "chef") since his divorce from Kathleen Kennedy (yes, one of THE Kennedys) years ago. Instead of living in the Governor's mansion in Albany, they have chosen to live in her multi-million dollar mansion in tony Westchester County. But, since the embarrassing episode in Oregon where Governor John Kitzhaber recently was forced to resign over claims that his fiance Cylvia Hayes was selling her access to the Governor, one would think that Gov. Cuomo would be more than willing to embrace this idea or at the very least, not dismiss it outright. But his office responded with the assurance that Ms. Lee has no business before the state and then with an "anonymous" quote "suggesting that the financial disclosure measure be expanded 'to include all girlfriends, even those of married members' of the Legislature." Cheeky little devil is this "anonymous" quote-source.
New York City Level Shenanigans:
At the first of the year, our Mayor Diblasio, mandated that illegals and any other citizen of the city (but mostly illegals) who didn't have proper photo identification would be able to get one free of charge courtesy of the City of New York. The new NYC Municipal ID will allow those who do not have ID to open checking accounts and do other business that requires a photo ID to be able to do so within New York City. All one has to have is some kind of documentation that proves that you have an address in NYC. To sweeten to pot, along with new NYCID, a whole host of free stuff comes with it - free memberships to various museums and cultural isntitutions, prescription drug discounts, grocery discounts and may other goodies. The ID can also serve as a library card.
As a taxpaying citizen of the City of New York, I was very interested in getting all that free stuff too, so I applied for my NYCID on Friday. All I had to do was fill out a form and present my NY State drivers license to prove I had an address in NYC, and bing bang boom, I will get my new NYCID in 4 weeks. Which brings me to the other part of the story. Remember I told you that this was primarily so that Mayor Diblasio could give proper identification to illegal aliens in our city? Well, this week, the Mayor passed an executive order that all information and applications regarding NYCID will be destroyed on December 31, 2016 to protect any ID holders just in case the new WH Administration should be a little more inclined to uphold our federal immigration laws.
What is it with New York State Democrats and their need to destroy evidence?
Any questions, comments, updates?
State Level Shenanigans:
It has been reported that Gov. Cuomo quietly ordered sometime in 2013 that all state workers’ e-mails be automatically deleted after 90 days. Now this is interesting on many levels, but the most important was that this was ordered right before he created his commission to investigate corruption in the state goverment. When he disbanded his commission without warning, the US Attorney Preet Bharara took up the investigation which resulted in the arrest of Sheldon Silver, Speaker of the Assembly. [Here's a link to my previous post explaining all about that.]
Yeah, that's some good planning by Gov. Cuomo to make it easier to destroy evidence before he convened and then disbanded the investigation that got uncomfortably close to his own office. Fortunately, the state workers have not been very diligent in deleting their emails, so last month thousands of email were automatically deleted by the state's "chief information officer". One can imagine that this has made a very many people quite upset and hopefully one of them will be US Attorney Preet Bharara.
Gov. Cuomo has made it very clear that he is really, really pushing to overhaul the ethics laws in New York government and said he won't approve a budget without major changes. It all seems to hinge on the long-criticized state laws that require how much lawmakers have to disclose about their private income and clients that they service. It seems way too many of our state legislators may have clients who may or may not have official business with the state creating what may or may not appear to be a conflict of interest. Since the majority of elected officials are Democrats, the Republicans who are not exactly saints in regards to the conflict issue, have taken the side of more disclosure and transparency. So to tweak the Governor just a bit because they know he really just wants to get this settled as quickly and quietly as possible, several GOP legislators have floated the idea to require that live-in girlfriends' income must be disclosed just like a spouse.
You may not know this, but Gov. Cuomo has been living with his FoodTV Network cooking show star/hostess Sandra Lee (I hesitate to ever give her the moniker "chef") since his divorce from Kathleen Kennedy (yes, one of THE Kennedys) years ago. Instead of living in the Governor's mansion in Albany, they have chosen to live in her multi-million dollar mansion in tony Westchester County. But, since the embarrassing episode in Oregon where Governor John Kitzhaber recently was forced to resign over claims that his fiance Cylvia Hayes was selling her access to the Governor, one would think that Gov. Cuomo would be more than willing to embrace this idea or at the very least, not dismiss it outright. But his office responded with the assurance that Ms. Lee has no business before the state and then with an "anonymous" quote "suggesting that the financial disclosure measure be expanded 'to include all girlfriends, even those of married members' of the Legislature." Cheeky little devil is this "anonymous" quote-source.
New York City Level Shenanigans:
At the first of the year, our Mayor Diblasio, mandated that illegals and any other citizen of the city (but mostly illegals) who didn't have proper photo identification would be able to get one free of charge courtesy of the City of New York. The new NYC Municipal ID will allow those who do not have ID to open checking accounts and do other business that requires a photo ID to be able to do so within New York City. All one has to have is some kind of documentation that proves that you have an address in NYC. To sweeten to pot, along with new NYCID, a whole host of free stuff comes with it - free memberships to various museums and cultural isntitutions, prescription drug discounts, grocery discounts and may other goodies. The ID can also serve as a library card.
As a taxpaying citizen of the City of New York, I was very interested in getting all that free stuff too, so I applied for my NYCID on Friday. All I had to do was fill out a form and present my NY State drivers license to prove I had an address in NYC, and bing bang boom, I will get my new NYCID in 4 weeks. Which brings me to the other part of the story. Remember I told you that this was primarily so that Mayor Diblasio could give proper identification to illegal aliens in our city? Well, this week, the Mayor passed an executive order that all information and applications regarding NYCID will be destroyed on December 31, 2016 to protect any ID holders just in case the new WH Administration should be a little more inclined to uphold our federal immigration laws.
What is it with New York State Democrats and their need to destroy evidence?
Any questions, comments, updates?
13 comments:
"What is it with New York State Democrats and their need to destroy evidence?"
Probably the same thing with Obama's IRS officials and their ability to lose emails.
Deleting emails after only 90 days? Be weird if that is allowed to stand.
Deleting info of illegals who receive or even just apply for IDs is stupid on many levels. How can one verify ID if there isn't some sort of database?
Also, 99% of the political fallout from mass deportation would land on Republicans, so DiBlasio deleting the database in order to protect illegals from Republicans is either politically stupid or a lie.
I don't think anyone (least of all Obama) is going to talk Iran out or pursuing the bomb, but sanctions aren't going to end Iran's quest for nukes either. They have oil and natural gas. Someone will do business with them.
Bombing would be more effective, but the possibility has occurred to the
Iranians, who have scattered and buried their nuke program.
Even regime change wouldn't end the quest for nukes since nukes are popular with the Iranian public (seen as a symbol of strength and sign of tech progress).
To end the program we'd need to invade and then stay for a long time. That would be no picnic since the Iranians are bigger fans of suicide bombing than any of the countries we've invaded. However, invasion and occupation (however bloody) beat nuclear annihilation.
So NY's governor is living in sin with a cook, sorta reminds me of Moon-Bat Brown shacked up with Linda Ronstadt. I was a little surprised to hear the talking heads at Morning Joe actually questioning what Hillary is up to, even the Brzezinski woman that sits next to him was acting all upset., I work for the State of Missouri and all of our emails are caught. There was a dust-up about a year ago with the Highway Patrol doing some stooped stuff and the emails proved that they were in fact trying to build a gun registry...it sure didn't help Gov. Nixon with the moderates in our state.
Wow, Netanyahu just got a 10 minute standing ovation from the joint Congress and that was before he spoke. I can see why Obama has been so opposed to this speech. Benjamin is just better at speaking and certainly more welcome in the House than Obama.
Interesting about the emails as the rest of us often have to keep records for years, sometimes up to 50 years. Emails can be searched by court order. Most of these rules are Federally derived. I am not a lawyer or a judge but like to play one at home, but it seems to me that destroying certain emails after 90 days is out of Federal compliance. I would love for once to see a government body held accountable to the same laws and regulations private businesses do.
Bev, I keep waiting for the Feds to issue a statewide indictment of the entire political class. It's stunning to me. In Colorado, we occasionally have someone get busted... though I can't think of the last time that happened, but you seem to have someone indicted every couple days. Amazing.
Andrew - I am shocked at the number of elected officials in NY who run for office after serving their time or after being censured (Rangel) and they think that is perfectly okay? And how many of them keep getting reelected?
Koshcat - I am shocked as most people who are who are paying the least bit of attention that Gov. Cuomo just decided to make sure that all evidence would be expunged. Oh, yeah, the email destroying state czarina explained it away with some tech jargon about combining 100's of antiquated systems into one and so forth...but the timing really, really smells. I am thinking that Andrew's dreams of occupying the WH are fading very quickly.
Bev, The Cuomos (rhymes with "not that there's anything wrong with that") have always been a tease. I remember throughout the 1980s how the left thought Daddy Mario would save them from the evil Ronald Reagan, but somehow Cuomo never had the nerve to run. His son seems to be made of the same material... time-wastium.
I am beginning to understand battered wife syndrome and women that decide to stay in an abusive relationship vs. jettison the garbage from their lives; they are much like NYS voters, always fearing it could be worse and grateful that they are not beaten and abused everyday but nonetheless betrayed by persons they once trusted who in the end created conditions that are shameful.
I am beginning to understand battered wife syndrome and women that decide to stay in an abusive relationship vs. jettison the garbage from their lives; they are much like NYS voters, always fearing it could be worse and grateful that they are not beaten and abused everyday but nonetheless betrayed by persons they once trusted who in the end created conditions that are shameful.
Tommy - that is exactly what it feels like sometime. It can be a form of Stockholm syndrome. But it can entertaining too. I thought Texas politics could be crazy, but in the 25 years I have lived in the State of New York, I have been shocked and amazed at what our elected officials get away with.
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