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. 

Noodling Around: A More Perfect Union (Part 1)

Steaming hot noodles

In what seems like a lifetime ago, back in January of 2014, I posted this quote from President Barack Obama's State of the Union address. 

We owe it to the American people to say what we're for, not just what we're against.

He was talking about Republicans and their then forty votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act; his point was that if they had ideas to make it better, to save money, or whatever, they should tell us what they'd do differently. But the truth is, he could have been talking about any bill, idea, plan, or pipe dream.

We see this all the time, the things everyone's against: the Dems are opposed to ABC if the Rs are for it, and the Rs are totally against XYZ if that's what the Dems support. And what makes thing worse? The American people probably have different priorities than the people we elect do - and we agree on them. 

It's true: polls have long shown there's agreement on what needs fixing, even if there are dozens of ideas on how to fix what ails us. And with people on both sides of the aisle unhappy with each other and with their own parties, with extraordinarily thin majorities in both chambers,  and with folks even arguing about what unity means, how on earth is anything going to get done?

I've been doing some noodling around on this for a while now. To me, the first step is to figure out what's important to us - to the majority of us, not just the loudest yellers. All we know for sure is, what matters most to the politicians (i.e., staying in office while amplifying the voices of the yellers) doesn't seem to jive with what most of us want for ourselves, our families, our neighbors, or even for perfect strangers.

Noodling Around: Reactions to Barr's Memo

I've got me a bowl of piping hot ramen here, so let's do some noodling around, shall we?

I'm reminded immediately of the quote that's often attributed to Richard Nixon,"I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant."

It comes to mind because it seems that many people are misstating what AG William Barr's letter to Congress said, or didn't say, and what it meant, or didn't mean, either on purpose or because they really don't know what it said because they just read the headlines, not the articles.  It's a hot mess, just like my noodles.

So, what do I know, after 22 months of Mueller's investigation, the hundreds of search warrants and subpoenas and interviews and the 30-some-odd indictments?

The president has egg on his face and poop on his shoes. Donald Trump, who spent two years blasting the FBI, the Justice Department, and just about everyone involved in the investigation as partisan hacks, clueless witch-hunters, angry Democrats and more - now finds himself having to say what a great job they did, whether he wants to say that or not, because those are the very people who found (to the best of our knowledge, anyway) that he did not and his family did not and his administration did not formally collude or conspire with the Russian government.

At the same time as he's now touting his (ahem) total exoneration, he's suggesting that there are many people who have committed treason against our country via their participation in the investigation. He's claimed that no one's mentioning their names, but he's mentioned their names, but he didn't mention their names when he called them out namelessly.  Like I said, poop on his shoes. Treason is a serious allegation, even when it's uttered by a complete charlatan.

Adam Schiff, put up or shut up. Schiff, the California Democrat who is now chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (some might say that's an oxymoron but that's a tale for another day), has said that his Committee has tangible proof, ample evidence, of collusion; he's said that for about a year now. Just like Trump and his treason claims, Schiff has to come clean with his evidence, sooner than later. Like now.

Mitch McConnell is the worst thing to come out of Kentucky ever, except maybe Reba McIntyre as Colonel Sanders.  The latest example? He refused to allow a vote on the non-binding resolution asking for release of the full Mueller Report, which passed the House by a 420 - 0 vote. He can go pound salt with his iron fist, or something. I mean, even Trump, even today, said he would have no problem with the full report being released. Even today, after his attorneys said that his written answers to Mueller's questions shouldn't be released, Trump said that the whole darn thing should be made public. What the heck is wrong with McConnell?

Congress is already investigating, and they want more. After weeks of complaining about how much money the Mueller investigation has cost the taxpayers (and completely ignoring that it might end up making money, after all is said and done) now the R's want to investigate the investigators who, you'll recall, found no collusion. I mean, I can see them investigating if there was a finding of collusion, but since their reality TV star president is now safe from that particular allegation, you'd think they would not want to spend a whole lot more time talking about this stuff.

Lindsey Graham basically promised James Comey a turn in the Senate Intelligence Committee's hot seat (yes, another oxymoron, I know) which won't go well for Graham, if Comey's previous testimony is any indication. Comey doesn't break under pressure, while the senators who will be questioning him will be so busy trying to make a fundraising video that they'll look ridiculous by comparison. And let me just confess that Peter Strzok was my favorite Congressional witness ever, with the exception of Matt Damon doing Brett Kavanaugh on SNL.

And the Dems are no better on this, believe me. I swear they'd investigate their own mama if they could find a reason or make one up. And yes, the fundraising video making is a driver here, as well.

Impeachment must be off the table. It simply must be off the table, I don't care how badly people want it, I don't care how many House members want it, it can't happen. First of all, it won't be successful - the House probably wouldn't go for it and there's not a snowball's chance in Death Valley that there'd be a positive vote in the Senate.  The timing will be horrible -- we're already knee deep in the 2020 race, and trying to impeach him during the election campaign almost guarantees another four years of Trump lying and Pence staring. Please -- don't blow the chance to get him out of the White House, It's going to be hard enough without forcing the Dems to hop around on their self-inflicted foot wounds Don't do it.

Governing. They're supposed to be governing. Enough said? Enough said.

Noodling Around: The Failed Amazon Deal

I've been thinking about the Amazon deal that just went poof in NYC, coming to terms with why I supported this project even though I long have questioned the value of most economic development projects, and thinking about my utter frustration with politicians in New York State.

The deal would have provided performance-based incentives over the course of a decade, in addition to other incentives under local programs designed to encourage development in 'opportunity zones' as well as a Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) agreement on property developed for community use on the Amazon campus.

There was to have been a new school, job training, infrastructure improvements, and more. And yes, there would have been issues to deal with along the way - there's no question about that on a project of this size. But these incentives are not new - the state regularly offers these deals, and others, to companies large and small, for a variety of promises. Counties and cities across New York also offer their own incentive programs, with similar mixed results.

A deal of this significance falling apart? That's new for us, so I'm trying to understand what happened.

Right from the get-go, why did Amazon walk away so quickly? Lots of speculation there, including the possibility that they weren't really committed to Long Island City in the first place. I admit to some surprise that any location in New York was chosen; for better or worse, we're a blue state, after all. And our Sonofa Gov's protestations notwithstanding, we're not really a business-friendly state.

So, while questioning the company's haste in leaving is certainly valid, it seemed clear the local (and national) killer attack progressives didn't want to play with Amazon. I say that because, at least from their public comments, they were happy to see the deal fall apart and happy to criticize Amazon, Bezos, de Blasio and Cuomo, and not all that interested in running towards salvaging the deal. If I were Amazon, and wanted to expand into an area that said they wanted me to be there, only to find out that I'm going to be fought at every single turn by folks who seem uninterested in negotiating with me, and that apparently even doing the things that the opponents wish were going to be done wasn't going to be enough, I'd think hard and fast about putting down roots, too. And my answer would likely have been the same as Amazon's.

Meanwhile, Virginia, a more business-friendly state, has moved forward quickly to approve their (much smaller) incentive package, clearly showing a welcoming attitude and a willingness to participate fully to bring  HQ2's 25,000 $150K jobs to their neck of the woods. Similarly, things look pretty upbeat in Nashville, which will be getting another 5000 high-paying Amazon jobs.  And yes, the incentives are smaller, but they can be, because of the differences in the business climate, as well as the political climate.

Let's untangle a few more noodles.