Whats the scam with this Governor?

[CPD39]

I havn't really been following this thing with Cuomo. I get it that now the elections are over and won the Demokrats feel safe selling him out, probably because they know the news media will go easy on him and most voters are softballs. After all compared to Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, Cuomo isn't on their level. I get it he ordered thousands of Grandma's into nursing homes, effectively killing them and anyone else around them. And then they lied about it all, he sold a book, and just now its starting to catch up with him. A little.

But I dont understand why the Demokrats are distancing themselves from him just for killing a few thousand and then Lieing about it. I thought he was a Demokrat darling. Is there something I dont see? Does he have enemies in the party cadres? There must be an angle because theres always an angle or a scam.

[none]

Because the AG of NY State who is a flaming anti cop liberal is running against him for Governor.

[PJ807]

I havn't really been following this thing with Cuomo. I get it that now the elections are over and won the Demokrats feel safe selling him out, probably because they know the news media will go easy on him and most voters are softballs. After all compared to Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, Cuomo isn't on their level. I get it he ordered thousands of Grandma's into nursing homes, effectively killing them and anyone else around them. And then they lied about it all, he sold a book, and just now its starting to catch up with him. A little.

But I dont understand why the Demokrats are distancing themselves from him just for killing a few thousand and then Lieing about it. I thought he was a Demokrat darling. Is there something I dont see? Does he have enemies in the party cadres? There must be an angle because theres always an angle or a scam.

My theory is that he's a legit centrist challenger and the Left wing of the dem party is looking to neutralize him.

But lets look at another possibility: Cuomo is from NY. Joe Crowley, also a centrist, was also from NY and was the #4 dem in the House when AOC primaried him out.

Maybe the nat'l dems see weakness in the NY delegation and are looking to keep them off balance.

Maybe the nat'l dems would rather the Left side of the NY delegation get all the attention so more corporate money flows to the offices of more moderate dems in other states.

Remember when Bush/Cheney took out Giuliani and Kerik with the contractor kickback scandal? They saw Rudy rising and didnt want their ability to hold office and power challenged.

[delury]

All the blue state governors are POS, but Gov. Cuomo is the King of POS and the Crown Prince is Mayor Warren Wilhelm, and they hate each other. "New York State open for business", while anyone who can leave has left or is thinking about it. The exodus will continue with no end in sight.

[Prosay]

[Prosay]

The reason why the NY Democrats (and quite a few on the national level) are anti-Cuomo is, basically, because he's a big pain in the ass.

He's been aptly called a "bully," and that runs in his family, and not only with Fredo.

"Negotiations" and "compromise" are not words in his vocabulary. He "rules" (not "governs") with physical threats, blames others, personally, for his own flawed, stupid, and illegal behavior (after he's caught), and demands undeserved "credit" for the good work of others. He is also a pathological liar, as we've seen most recently, and in great detail.

Some of his closest aides have taken a fall for Cuomo's corruption, even to the point of criminality, giving the best example of the term, "thrown under a bus."

Speaking of which, he has been implicated in at least one homicide in his younger days, which "Dad" took care of, having it assigned to the Queens Wink-and-Nod Squad.

Washington DC has absolutely no use for him. When he was Clinton's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, he bullied the banks into writing mortgages for "sub-prime borrowers," using threats of lawsuits, public accusations of "redlining" of certain areas and people from borrowing, and accusations racial discrimination, leaving the banks to come up with unusual ways of of packaging those bad loans, resulting in the MASSIVE world-wide financial collapse of 2008.

Finally, the NY Democrats have said "Enough!" with this guy, with the nursing home criminally negligent homicide case giving them the move they've always wanted.

The NY Post has that Front Page to make that case.

[delury]

Never hear about this Andrew allegation before (homicide investigation) but his dad Mario and Mario's father-in-law knew lots of wiseguys. The Sicilian connection from the old country continued on here. Briarwood near Jamaica Hospital, my birthplace.

[Dustoff262]

Sounds a lot like Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich before his fall.

[Fts2005]

The reason why the NY Democrats (and quite a few on the national level) are anti-Cuomo is, basically, because he's a big pain in the ass.

He's been aptly called a "bully," and that runs in his family, and not only with Fredo.

"Negotiations" and "compromise" are not words in his vocabulary. He "rules" (not "governs") with physical threats, blames others, personally, for his own flawed, stupid, and illegal behavior (after he's caught), and demands undeserved "credit" for the good work of others. He is also a pathological liar, as we've seen most recently, and in great detail.

Some of his closest aides have taken a fall for Cuomo's corruption, even to the point of criminality, giving the best example of the term, "thrown under a bus."

Speaking of which, he has been implicated in at least one homicide in his younger days, which "Dad" took care of, having it assigned to the Queens Wink-and-Nod Squad.

Washington DC has absolutely no use for him. When he was Clinton's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, he bullied the banks into writing mortgages for "sub-prime borrowers," using threats of lawsuits, public accusations of "redlining" of certain areas and people from borrowing, and accusations racial discrimination, leaving the banks to come up with unusual ways of of packaging those bad loans, resulting in the MASSIVE world-wide financial collapse of 2008.

Finally, the NY Democrats have said "Enough!" with this guy, with the nursing home criminally negligent homicide case giving them the move they've always wanted.

The NY Post has that Front Page to make that case.

That’s exactly it. Very well summarized.

[Prosay]

but his dad Mario and Mario's father-in-law knew lots of wiseguys.

Indeed. And even today they're on a first-name basis, no doubt.

In fact, why do you think that Columbus Circle in Manhattan still has cops on fixed posts, as well as barriers surrounding it? Could it be because that the Patron Saint of NYC organized crime families, Joe Columbo, was shot there in 1971, dying from his wounds in 1978? Could it be because Cuomo "got the phone call" from the NYC mob: "Hey, Andy, don't let those scumbag demonstrators fuck up our monument. Tell that Kraut mofterfucker deBlasio to put cops on it....."? Fearing retributions, Andy put a bunch of cops there initially (while precincts were going into backlog). Eventually, however, Shea saw it as the waste of manpower it was, and now only two cops in an RMP sit there.

In 1970, Colombo created the Italian-American Civil Rights League. Later that year, the first Italian Unity Day rally was held in Columbus Circle to protest the federal persecution of all Italians everywhere. In 1971, Gallo was released from prison, and Colombo invited Gallo to a peace meeting with an offering of $1,000, to which Gallo refused, instigating the Second Colombo War. On June 28, 1971, Colombo was shot three times by Jerome A. Johnson, one being in the head, at the second Italian Unity Day rally in Columbus Circle sponsored by the Italian-American Civil Rights League; Johnson was immediately killed by Colombo's bodyguards. Colombo was paralyzed from the shooting. On May 22, 1978, Colombo died of cardiac arrest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Colombo

[Elmo334]

Cuomo a centrist? That’s a good one!

[PressurePointCop]

Stop talking bad about Big Fredo and buy his poster.

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/YI...2a98d424b0d455

[PJ807]

Cuomo a centrist? That’s a good one!

He's right there with the Pelosi, Feinstein, Obama, Biden wing of the party. You may not consider him a centrist but the AOC, Bernie, Squad wing of the party sees them that way.

[Prosay]

Cuomo a centrist? That’s a good one!

He's not a "centrist," he's a self-promoting, egotistical, narcissist. A sick dude.......

Narcissistic personality disorder involves a pattern of self-centered, arrogant thinking and behavior, a lack of empathy and consideration for other people, and an excessive need for admiration. Others often describe people with NPD as cocky, manipulative, selfish, patronizing, and demanding.

[Prosay]

From the NY Times, this is a shocking story for them to be writing about a DEMOCRAT.

It's on the level of them calling him a psycho in need of confinement and mental health help.

But only up to about half-way through the story.

Otherwise, the Times, in order to prevent the terror that state workers have seen coming down on the paper, decides midway to "change course" and do the story basically JUSTIFYING Cuomo the EDP.

Cuomo bullied the banks, creating havoc on the world markets; he bullied the nursing homes resulting in 10,000-15,000 DOAs. He attempted to bully the NYS Employees' Pension System to pay for his unjustified memorial to his equally-crazy father, but, fortunately, that didn't work.

There's no justifying the actions of a crazy person. It does the patient, nor the people around him, any good and will most definitely lead to a much worst situation.

---

nytimes.com

Uprising Grows Over Andrew Cuomo’s Bullying
The scrutiny of Covid-19 deaths in New York nursing homes has also put the governor’s aggressive behavior in the spotlight.

Jesse McKinley, Luis Ferré-Sadurní
11-14 minutes

---

ALBANY, N.Y. — During Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s first term, two former administration officials were married in a New York City wedding heavily attended by state government workers, as well as some lawmakers and their aides.

When it was time for the toasts, a guest who worked for the Cuomo administration began with a question: “Who in this room has been yelled at or bullied by Andrew Cuomo?”

Hands shot up across the room, as laughter rolled through the crowd, according to two people who attended the wedding.

The theme suffuses many of Mr. Cuomo’s interactions — accounts in which the governor berated aides and elected officials, brought people to tears and threatened to fire them or end their careers. People outside the governor’s direct control who have clashed with him said he told them they would be subject to negative news stories or political challenges or, in one case, would be publicly likened to a “child rapist.”

After building a reputation as a competent and compassionate leader in the midst of a pandemic (???), Mr. Cuomo’s standing has faltered over the last month amid revelations that his administration underreported thousands of deaths of nursing home residents. Federal prosecutors are investigating, and lawmakers have moved to strip the governor of emergency powers he has held since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak.

At the same time, heightened scrutiny is now being cast on a recurrent theme of his decade-long tenure: his penchant for verbal attacks and attempted intimidation. That trait burst into full view last week when a Democratic Assemblyman, Ron T. Kim of Queens, came forward with accusations that the governor had called him while he was home bathing his children and threatened to “destroy” him — urging him to retract negative comments he had made after the nursing home story broke.

During an appearance last week on ABC’s “The View,” Mr. Kim described being deeply rattled by the experience. “He has abused his powers,” Mr. Kim said. “And abusers are cowards.”

Mr. Cuomo’s office has called Mr. Kim a liar, but to many in New York politics, the report rang true, as other accounts of the governor’s aggressive and sometimes unsettling behavior have begun to emerge.

Indeed, in interviews with more than three dozen legislators, political consultants, former state and city officials and New York political veterans, a recurring portrait emerges of Mr. Cuomo: a talented and deft politician whose tendency toward aggression can seem out of step in an age when abusive behavior in the workplace or in professional surroundings is increasingly called out and often censured.

“His primary tool for governing is to create fear,” said Karen Hinton, a communications consultant who worked with Mr. Cuomo when he was housing secretary in the Clinton administration and has since fallen out with him.

In the fall of 2018, for example, when Mr. Cuomo was told by a leader of the Working Families Party — which had backed his primary opponent, Cynthia Nixon — that it would endorse him in the general election because he was better than a Republican, Mr. Cuomo’s response was blunt.

“If you ever say, ‘Well he’s better than a Republican’ again, then I’m going to say, ‘You’re better than a child rapist,’” the governor said, according to two people who were on the call. “How about that?”

He once threatened to end the career of a staffer who failed to properly transfer a call to his office, according to one person who worked for him and requested anonymity for fear of retribution. He has been known to refer to his top female aides as the “mean girls,” said the person, who described the governor’s office as toxic and controlling.

Those who work in the halls of the Capitol say the governor’s conduct has an additional impact: scaring some employees into near paralysis for fear of earning his wrath.

Many of the tactics involve a threat to hurt people’s careers. Ms. Hinton, for example, says she fell out of favor when she became the press secretary for Mr. Cuomo’s nemesis in the Democratic Party, Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Soon, there were threats. During a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in 2015, Ms. Hinton questioned the state’s response in a New York Times article. Ms. Hinton said Mr. Cuomo told City Hall he would personally blame the mayor for any deaths in the city if Mr. de Blasio did not fire Ms. Hinton. The mayor did not dismiss Ms. Hinton, but City Hall distanced itself from her remarks.

One current and one former City Hall official confirmed Ms. Hinton’s account. The governor’s office said neither it or the anecdote about the Working Families Party was true, characterizing the negative comments about Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, as coming from “political adversaries.” The office also said the governor was “direct with people if their work is subpar.”

“The people of this state have known and given the governor their trust for the last 14 years, have heard him and looked into his eyes during the darkest period,” Richard Azzopardi, a senior adviser to Mr. Cuomo, said in a statement. “Yes, they have seen him get impatient with partisan politics and disingenuous attacks, and New Yorkers feel the same way. They know you must fight to change the status quo and special interests to make progress, and no one has made more progress than this governor.”

Even Mr. Cuomo’s detractors will concede that the governor’s heavy-handed approach has often been effective in delivering concrete liberal accomplishments, including legalizing same-sex marriage, raising the minimum wage and enacting criminal justice reforms.

Others describe the governor’s use of anger as “an executive skill,” employed to cut through niceties and other time-wasters — skills of particular use during a pandemic response.

“The governor understands the political value of taking action and creating the perception of strength, even if it occasionally seems cocksure or bullying,” said Eric Phillips, a former spokesman for Mr. de Blasio. He called the governor “a master of brutalist political theater,” though he said those skills were less effective in “a moment demanding contrition or even a modicum of self-critique.”

Defenders also say that New Yorkers — who have elected Mr. Cuomo three times, commandingly — know what the governor’s personality is like. “It’s well-worn territory for the press and the public,” said Josh Vlasto, Mr. Cuomo’s former chief of staff. “Those traits are there, but they are part of a broader perception of him that the voters like and are comfortable with.”

Ken Sunshine, a veteran public relations executive and a longtime friend of the governor’s, noted that the nature of New York politics is tough. “Has he raised his voice on calls with me? I’m sure he has,” Mr. Sunshine said. “Have I done it sometimes? Sure. And by the way, we’re from a place called New York. It’s not for the timid.”

In this dispute, however, Mr. Kim, not the governor, has the support of a raft of New York politicians.

“That’s classic Andrew Cuomo,” said Mr. de Blasio on Thursday. “A lot of people in New York State have received those phone calls.”

Mr. Cuomo’s image was burnished by a series of nationally televised news conferences during the early days of the pandemic, in which the governor mixed just-the-facts presentations with dad jokes and appearances by his three daughters, his mother and his brother, Chris Cuomo, the CNN anchor. Last fall, even as a second wave of the virus began to swell in New York and nationally, he published a memoir, offering “leadership lessons” and a sentimental dedication.

“Love wins,” he wrote in its conclusion. “Always.”

But in the wake of the scandal over nursing homes, that persona has turned darker: On Saturday, Mr. Cuomo’s temper was mocked in a segment on “Saturday Night Live” in which his character, played by comedian Pete Davidson, sheepishly admitted to hiding where the deaths of nursing home residents occurred and promised vengeance on Mr. de Blasio, a frequent political foe.

Other accusations have been more serious: In December, a former top aide to Mr. Cuomo’s economic development agency, Lindsey Boylan, accused Mr. Cuomo of fostering a “toxic team environment.”

On Sunday, Ms. Boylan was among a growing chorus of people speaking out about Mr. Cuomo, telling The Times he is prone to “screaming at people inside and outside of the state government when he does not get exactly what he wants.”

Mr. Cuomo’s penchant for tough-talk tactics dates back decades, to his apprenticeship as an adviser to his father, former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, whom he was known to fiercely defend. “I think he learned it from his father, who needed bare knuckles to combat the old machine pols,” said Michael Shnayerson, author of “The Contender,” a 2015 biography of the younger Mr. Cuomo.

State Senator Liz Krueger, a Democrat from Upper Manhattan who holds sway in the Legislature as the chairwoman of the chamber’s finance committee, said she had never been yelled at by the governor or his staff — for a reason.

She said Joseph Percoco, a former aide and informal enforcer inside the Capitol who was convicted of corruption in 2018, once told her she was on the “do-not-yell-at list.”

“I responded, ‘You people have such a list?’” Ms. Krueger said. “He said: ‘It is very small.’” (Mr. Percoco is in federal prison [having taken a fall for Cuomo] and could not be reached for comment.)

The backlash against Mr. Cuomo’s governing style stems, in part, from the changing makeup of the Legislature. Democrats won full control in 2018 thanks to a new generation of progressives that is more diverse and often unafraid of challenging the governor.

“The Legislature has become increasingly young and female, defining a feminist vision for leadership and workplace conduct,” said Alexis Grenell, a founder of Pythia Public Affairs who has written about Mr. Cuomo’s aggressive behavior in the past. “It’s not an accident that his loudest critics are young women.”

The rift between the governor and the legislative newcomers has often burst into public view. In 2019, Mr. Azzopardi, the governor’s senior adviser, told reporters after a dispute over fund-raisers that three recently elected female lawmakers, State Senators Alessandra Biaggi and Jessica Ramos and Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, were “idiots,” preceded by a vulgarity.

“This pattern of behavior he has created this really serious systemic culture of fear and abuse of power that shapes policy outcomes in New York and impacts people’s lives,” said Ms. Biaggi, a Democrat who has feuded with the governor’s top aides on Twitter.

Strategists in the Capitol say that the often combustible natures of Mr. Cuomo and his staff make for difficult negotiations, often freighted by fears of retribution.

The instinct to punch first seems to come from the top of the executive chamber: As The New York Times and CNN published accounts of the calls to Mr. Kim on Wednesday, Mr. Cuomo used a large part of his daily news conference to attack the assemblyman, suggesting he had engaged in unethical and possibly criminal behavior in regards to a six-year-old law. (Mr. Kim denied this.)

Mr. Vlasto, the former chief of staff, said that ongoing Republican attacks and Mr. Kim’s suggestion that the governor had committed a crime by withholding the data on deaths was “so over the line,” it justified a strong response.

“This time he decided to smack it down, hard,” he said.

Others recount stories of Mr. Cuomo alternating between charm and rage — at one moment, a charismatic leader who wants to work on policy, and at another, an intimidating one who wants to vent, something one lawmaker described as an unpleasant, sometimes profane experience.

Some of his toughest critics would agree that the governor had earned his good press during the dark days of the pandemic last year. But they also say that his more recent behavior is no surprise. (That statement, itself, is wrong: it was the virus "press conferences" which eventually EXPOSED him as an EDP; rambling on about his mother's cooking, talking about his daughter's personal relationship, bullying reporters for asking pointed questions about the virus he didn't want, or couldn't, answer, cracking jokes, contradicting published facts as well as himself...!)

“This is who he has always been,” said Rebecca Katz, a progressive political consultant who advised Ms. Nixon. “We tried to warn you.”

[uncivil servant]

CPD... Now that Orange Man Bad is gone and cant blame him for it plus they have absolute control of NYS ,they can afford to sink him in place of the Victim of the Month Candidate for Governor. There is no down side for ousting Cuomo. They look great for getting rid of him and no Republican , like Trump , can get a push for it. Its all in the timing. If Trump was still POTUS , they would be defending Cuomo like mad and blaming all on Trump.

[Prosay]

Another interesting observation about this Times article: they are basically blaming the FEMALES in government for bringing out Cuomo's lunacy.

That should go over well in Democrat Party circles....do we blame all our problems on females in government, and, out of fear, support a lunatic governor, or do we do what has to be done, and get rid of this guy?