CMON MR CUOMO

The amazing thing about Andrew Cuomo’s announcement this week that he is stepping down as governor of New York is not that he left office, it is that it took this long for him to resign. And among the most troubling parts of the interminable saga is how many crimes he and New York politicians normalized in the process — because so many of these officials were complicit, too.

Cuomo resigned in the wake of Attorney General Tish James’ report detailing his sexual crimes. But here’s the truth that’s hard to say aloud: If the New York governor had not been a sex pest, he likely would have gotten away with hiding thousands of people’s deaths in nursing homes and shielding his health care industry donors from any liability — all while profiting off a $5 million book deal and being venerated by liberals and corporate media outlets as a shining star.

In fact, unless things suddenly change, he will get away with those crimes. With U.S. Attorneys so far declining to prosecute Cuomo on those matters — and with New York’s legislature refusing to begin impeachment proceedings on those issues — the federal and state political systems made sure these crimes weren’t considered transgressions at all. Same goes for many New York Democratic voters — a new poll shows that even now, a plurality of them say they approve of the way Cuomo has done his job.

To be sure, Democratic Assemblyman Ron Kim’s nursing home crusade, and his allegations that Cuomo tried to bully him into silence, created a singular political earthquake that shook the New York political system and media into finally scrutinizing the gubernatorial monster that had long been rampaging through Albany. But the refusal to prosecute or impeach Cuomo over that epic scandal has further normalized that kind of corruption.

Sirota today

Are you saying they are well governed? Or are you saying they have some safety-net programs that the US should have.

If the former...gimme a break.

If the latter...okay, but that is not what was being discussed at the time of your comment.

Yup...I can name lots of nations that have safety-net programs that the US SHOULD HAVE. We shame ourselves not to have them...as I have mentioned on several occasions.

But to suppose there are nations that are being governed much better than ours seems to me to be a stretch.

I may be wrong.

Every democratic country has a political elite. Every democratic country strutures their policies so that the political elite stays in power. This is as true in Canada as it is in the US.

I don't think specific policies have anything to do with the way democratic power is structured.

I wonder if Mame would still support "expanded voting" if it happened to mean that restrictions on abortion rights would be enacted in Canada. I suspect not (but she can answer for herself if she chooses).

The idea that democracy naturally supports one set of ideological positions over another is a partisan fantasy.

Not at all. As I said, I have no problem with your menu of desirable changes.

Well, let's keep pushing for them.

Well, I suppose that depends on how you quantify that. Are the people happier? Healthier? Safer?

I would say most developed nations were being governed better between 2016 and 2020, wouldn't you?

I'm saying both. The second is not disconnected from the first. For example, you'll probably recall the infamous Kristol memo advising Republicans that they had to stop Hillarycare because if it passed, people would love it and want to keep it and this would work significant damage on GOP electoral hopes in great part because it would invalidate the primary GOP ideological stance - government does harm, not good. The US is not the only western nation to have conservative parties who voice such an ideology but the degree of successful opposition to such programs is higher in the US than elsewhere, so far as I understand at least.

But that isn't all. There are various indexes one can refer to which survey the opinions of populations in many nations regarding their satisfaction/contentment with their nation's policies and thus their lives. The US does not fare well in such surveys.

I could talk about corruption, militarism, the influence of big money on the system, the deep inequities in wealth between those at the top and everyone else, etc, most or all of which are worse in the US than in any of those other nations. But perhaps the most telling argument would be that the US is the only country of those I named where, in this era, an individual like Trump could become the leader of the country.

The fact that the US remains a free country is an example of US superiority over all the other countries.

Gun control is an example of Canada abolishing freedom, not an example of Canada governing effectively.

Progressives often equate their personal interests with democracy itself, or pretend that they speak for the entire world when they express their opinion.

Good for you for noticing.

So do conservatives, Oralloy. I have always found the belief that gun rights are the same thing as freedom to be absurd.

It is a historical fact that the right to keep and bear arms has been a key right of free men for the past 2600 years.

If you don't think that strong civil liberties equate to a free country then how do you define freedom?

Your arguments are just like their arguments. And that is my point.

If voters elect representatives who pass gun control laws (or laws restricing abortion) that are deemed constitutional by the courts... that's democracy.

Eric Jackson
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It's facile and "safe" for men raised in a sexist power culture who also have dirty laundry on those sorts of things to buy into Cuomo's explanation. Just like it has been for a lot of people to buy into Trump's 'it's OK to be racist' attitudes. Those things don't buy forgiveness. They just turn back the wheel of humanity's progress.
Let it also be said that corporate Dems of the feminist hue are not off the hook by blasting Cuomo for the sexist part of what he did but remaining passive in the face of his more usual corruption. For donations from hedge fund people, he allowed a reduction of hospital beds that increased New York's COVID death toll. For donations from health care lobbies, he got an immunity law that encouraged the negligence of companies that provide health care service, which also contributed to the death toll. And then, against all advice and common sense, but very pleasing to some of his donors, he sent infected people to nursing homes and greatly amplified the disaster. It was the ugliness of donor base politics and no identity label can cover that stuff from public view for very long. Even when covered, it's the worst of politics.
To get past the Cuomo scandals and those like it, the USA has to get big money out of politics. Other countries do this in different ways, and those that don't are repeatedly beset by the worst scandals.

What does this mean? keep and bear arms has been a key right of free men for the past 2600 years. Wasn't that before Christ was born?

There used to be people in the past. They are dead now, but we refer to the record of what they did as history.

That is incorrect. My arguments are factually correct. Their arguments are contrary to reality.



Democracy and freedom are two very different things.

Thank you, I wasn't sure you understood that guns didn't exist 2,600 years age. Apparently you didn't, but nice try.

Glitterbag is being nasty again. She also seemed to miss (or forget) the classical education people her age should have received.

Virgil's Aenid started "Arma virumque cano... " "I sing of arms and the man". This was over 2000 years ago and part of a passage I had drilled into me and still remember.

Oralloy said "arms"... And arms existed (and were considered important) thousands of years before guns were invented..