In Case You Missed it (v78)

Time for a cuppa and a recap of the week that was March 14th - 20th. 

It's rare that we start with something other than Sunday School, but that's what happened on Sunday, the first two-fer of the week. 

I offered up a Noodling Around post on how the people we elect seem to be working their agenda, not our agenda, and how that messes up opportunities for bipartisanship. Here's part of the post that sets the stage for what's coming this week in Part Two.

The folks at Pew Research did a poll last summer, the results of which are shown here, to see what issues registered voters thought were "very important to their vote" in the 2020 election. 

Looking at the chart, I can't help thinking how most of the issues could have been identified by people from both parties, and from the officially unaffiliated middle, which is where you'll find me. And while we don't know why these issues are very important, we know that they are, and that there's a lot of common ground here; nine of the twelve garnered at least 50% mention.

More to come on this one. 

For your Sunday School, I focused on the classroom discussions about my Sonofa Gov, Andrew Cuomo. Jake Tapper, host of 'State of the Union' on CNN, offered some commentary at the end of the show; here's an excerpt.

Tapper had a lot to say, including that Cuomo is entitled to due process. Still, he said,

By now he has to know there is a chasm between how he perceives how he talks to women on his staff and how some of those women perceive it, as in some of them perceive it not only as inappropriate but as pressure to sleep with him...Only he knows what other names and incidents might come forward as he digs in. One wonders if that is even a remote consideration.

The last two sentences are even more important now, given the news we got at the end of the week.

Staying on the Sonofa Gov, Monday was another two-fer. First, I had a Sidebar countering one of the key classroom proclamations: that Cuomo should resign, because that New Yorkers want him to. A Siena College Research Institute poll suggests that the people of NY aren't as keen on him resign as the politicians of NY are.

In a survey of 805 registered New York State voters, 57 percent said they were satisfied with how Mr. Cuomo had addressed the allegations, while 32 percent said they were not. Fifty percent said he should not resign, while 35 percent said he should. Nearly half said they believed he could continue to do his job effectively as governor, with 34 percent saying he could not.

The Sunday School Extra Credit post, on the non-Cuomo stuff, included excerpts from Stacey Abrams and Chuck Todd's conversation about the boatload of anti-voting legislation around the country, including in her home state of Georgia. They also talked about HR 1, the House's 'For the People Act,' that the Senate will take up soon.

She said "the whole of our democracy" needs to be defended and protected, and that 

the Senate has to believe it has the responsibility and the ability to act. And that is why my focus is on making certain that the exemption to the filibuster be the necessary front and center conversation, so we can get something done to protect our democracy.

She doesn't think much of the bills in Georgia, as you'll see in the post. 

Next up? A Poll Watch on that SRCI survey; again, I focused on the non-Cuomo stuff (although I did recap those highlights at well.) Among the findings? 

• Upstaters show higher favorability ratings for both the Assembly (42%) and Senate (44%) than I expected; Independents (35% and 36%, respectively) are less happy with both chambers. 
• Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins have extraordinarily high Don't Know/No Opinion ratings (71% and 68% respectively), given they're not new in their roles. That may have to do with them being in Cuomo's shadow, until recently.

Five posts before we hit mid-week? Maybe that's why your Wondering on Wednesday took a different turn - because it surely did. Here's how the post started.

Today, we're playing a fill-in-the-blank version of our wondering game. You're free to complete the answers any way you want. 

1. Someone suggested Meghan Markle might run for president in 2024. I wonder, will this really make Former Guy more likely to _______?
2. I wonder how many people have learned a new skill, such as _________, since the pandemic was declared a year ago this week?

I'll publish my answers to the questions this week. And I'm still open to yours, if you want to share.

Thursday's Meanwhile Back in Albany addressed the struggles and missteps the NYS Assembly's having trying to get an investigation of Cuomo off the ground, and whether it was an impeachment investigation or just an investigation. It's the latter, I guess.

The Assembly Judiciary Committee's investigation "will focus on three different things: the seven women who have accused the governor of assault, the nursing home deaths and the mounting questions about" the Mario Cuomo Bridge project. As one Assembly member said, “He’s got three major buckets of shit going on here,” referring to Cuomo. 

An apt description, I'd say. 

Friday was the third two-fer of the week. First, I dropped Democratic Overreach: HR 1 Edition. As Stacey Abrams pointed out, the voting rights stuff is a big darn deal - but that's not all the House put in HR 1. There's SO MUCH STUFF in the bill, which is at least partly why it passed without a single Republican's support. Here's my take on that.

Are the ethics, oversight, and transparency provisions important? Of course they are, from an overarching, lofty goal perspective. Should we be concerned about political appointees, lobbyists, and foreign influence? Of course we should be. 

But do those have the same immediate impact as do admittedly partisan restrictions and limitations on voting? 

My answer's in the post. 

We closed the week with a TGIF  that meandered around some fun subjects, including this one, about a house fire in Wisconsin.

An investigation determined the fire started on a couch in the living room and the cause of the fire was determined to be from a glass "crystal ball" ornament. The crystal ball had been located on a table near the couch and in direct sunlight. When sunshine came through a large set of windows and through the glass ball, it ignited the couch.

It seems some things should be kept under wraps and out of direct sunlight, including "crystals, mirrors, glass ornaments, and even bottles."

There's at least one other thing mentioned in the post that should be kept under wraps. You'll know it when you see it, I'm sure. 

That's a wrap on your week in review - I'll see you later for Sunday School.