Meanwhile, Back in Albany (v21)

(Nathaniel Brooks/NY Times photo)

Five years ago today, I did a post on campaign finance reform at the request of a right-leaning Facebook friend (yes, as a left-leaning centrist, I have those -- and I hope you, too, engage with folks on the other side of the ideological line on whatever social media platforms you use).

The post addressed not only taking care of things as the national level, but also at the meanwhile, back in Albany level.

I was reminded of that post and others today when I was going through my writing research pile and found an article from mid-July about the Legislature coming back for a special session to take care of ethics reform.

The New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) called for the special session mentioned in the article, to get the Sonofa Gov, the Democratic-controlled Assembly and the (barely) Republican-controlled Senate together to get something done on a handful-and-a-half of proposals, including:

• the 'database of deals' that would track all taxpayer subsidies received by a corporation, how many jobs were created, the cost per job and so on -- all about transparency with this one.
• limiting campaign contributions by the governor's appointees, and from vendors and contractors doing business with the state. Notably missing? Limiting contributions by appointees of the Legislature, such as on commissions and authorities, many of which include members appointed by the Gov, the Assembly and the Senate. 
• restoring oversight by the state comptroller on spending related to the CUNY, SUNY and other 'centralized' contracts, which was removed several years ago. This bill would also prohibit state contracts from being 'passed through' state agencies or affiliated organizations.
• budget transparency, via an independent stage budget office, which would make it harder for non-specific lump sum spending to be hidden away somewhere in the budget.
• getting rid of JCOPE, the ridiculously ineffective Joint Commission on Public Ethics and also the Legislative Ethics Committee and replacing them with an independent watchdog agency. 
• closing the LLC loophole which allows campaign contribution limits to be bypassed by donating through limited liability companies. This baby's been around since 1996, and has withstood repeated attempts to talk about limitations.
• limiting outside income for legislators and executive branch employees.

In my opinion from five years ago, and just as strongly today, I do not believe they're going far enough. Several things are missing, including these:

• term limits, something I think we need at every level
• limiting fundraisers during the legislative session (here's a great read from 2016 on the same subject)
• taking campaign donations only from actual human beings, and only then from folks who live within the legislative district.
• limiting how campaign contributions can be used, including no personal use, no out of district use, and how to handle them when the politician leaves office
• limiting or legitimizing franked mail, one of my least favorite legislative perks.

Since it's been a full month since the article on the special session was published, I think they're safe -there's no chance the Leg will come back to tackle ethics or anything else. 

Instead, they can spend the next several weeks roaming around their districts, as they do every election year, telling us how they take this stuff seriously. 

Seriously. 

TGIF 8/24/18

Raise your hand if you're happy you're not an employee of the Trump Organization, or a friend of the president, or a Trump lawyer, or a former lawyer or campaign official - unless of course, you are one of those, and you got your own immunity deal from the Mueller investigation team or any other prosecutors. You're having a pretty good week, either way.

Raise your hand if you live in Randolph County Georgia and you're happy that the elections board made the right decision today, to keep all of the county's polling places open for the general election this fall. Raise two hands if you're happy it took them less than 60 seconds to do the right thing. You had a pretty good week, too.

Raise your hand if you're a parent and have sent one or more kids off to college in the past few days, or even if you're sending one off in the next few days - kudos to you! I can only imagine the emotions you must be feeling, and I wish you and your kids all the best.  You've had a good week, too!

If you're the person at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation who decided that this past Wednesday the Foundation should bump up all non-matched donations made to classrooms around the country through the Donors Choose program, raise your hand. As a result of the Foundation's generosity and the encouragement it provided, over $4M was given in one day; over 20,000 teachers in 13,000 schools had projects receive funding from over 40,000 donors. Teachers, students and yes, the folks at the Foundation, had a great week!

We'll end sort of where we started, with one of Trump's former lawyers, Michael Cohen. He's in the news, of course, because of his guilty plea to eight counts, on the same day that Paul Manafort was convicted of eight counts himself. A GoFundMe page has been established to help support Cohen:

On July 2, 2018, Michael Cohen declared his independence from Donald Trump and (his) commitment to tell the truth.

On August 21, Michael Cohen made the decision to take legal responsibility and to continue his commitment to tell the truth.

Michael decided to put his family and his country first. Now Michael needs your financial help - to pay his legal fees.

The Michael Cohen Truth Fund is a transparent trust account, with all donations going to help Michael Cohen and his family as he goes forward on his journey to tell the truth about Donald Trump. 

In two days, the fund has raised nearly $156K of the $500K goal.

TGIF, everyone.

Wondering on Wednesday (v144)

Is your head still spinning from all of the news this week?

Manafort found guilty on eight counts. Cohen admitted guilt to eight counts. Trump knows what he didn't know before when he didn't know anything until he started knowing things unless it wasn't helpful for him to know them in which case he said even if he knew or did things it doesn't matter because they're not illegal, unless they are but even if they are, he didn't know about them or someone else did it and he only found out later.

Michael Cohen used to be his Fixer, when Trump needed a fix for something but now that things have been fixed for Cohen, and not for Trump, Cohen's just a lying dirty rotten lawyer and oh by the way he's always been a lying liar anyway, just ask Rudy. Who thinks the truth is not the truth unless it is, in which case it doesn't matter because even if they told the truth, whatever they did or said is not illegal and oh by the way show us the witches.

Paul Manafort used to be the guy who worked for Trump's campaign for what, 42 days or something? Except it was longer than than and had he been found unanimously guilty on those other ten charges, you can be sure he'd still be the guy who only worked for Trump for a few weeks not a few months but since the jury couldn't decide, Trump can and he's decided that Manafort, a guy who bought really expensive clothes and probably had a gold plated toilet like Trump does now is a good guy who has been treated badly by Mueller and the 13 17 1,000,000 Angry Democrats. And the fact that Manafort has another trial to face, well pardon me boys, but just pardon me, OK?

How horrible must Omarosa the Fired feel - perhaps unhinged? She was the story until she wasn't the story anymore, and there's nothing like being the person everyone wants to hate because when they care enough to hate you, they're talking about you and like the president taught her on his TV show, no press is bad press unless it's a wrinkle in a Manafortian suit or something. But when they stop talking about you because someone else is more important your choices are to claw your way back into the news or die on the vine.

Trump threatened Comey with tapes; he threatened reporters with tapes, he didn't threaten Putin with tapes. Cohen actually has some. Omarosa actually has some. We have no idea who else has any, or who will threaten someone that they have tapes. How many more shoes, how many more shoeboxes of tapes will fall?

Someone at his rally in West Virginia last night tried to say that any man, certainly a man like Trump, would have paid off their paramours because it would be wrong and hurtful to the manly man's wife to have this come out. Not, mind you, that only a person who has an affair can hurt his spouse if she finds out that an affair occurred. Whether it was Stormy Daniels or Karen MdDougal or one of who knows how many other women there might be, I guess they can be blamed for talking about it or trying to, but the 'it' that they want to talk about is the man who cheated on his wife and tried to shut them up with money.

Wondering, this Wednesday, how much lower we will go before we start going back up again?

#MAGA.

Quick Takes (v28): Onondaga Grown

Quick Takes

Those of you in the CNY area have probably seen the television commercials with the guy with the impossibly deep voice singing "it's Onondaga grown" at the end. The commercials celebrate all there is to love about farming and locally grown produce, meat, eggs and other products.

Now, there's a new website from our friends at the Onondaga County Agriculture Council to further support our local farmers.

The site, onondagagrown.com, is the latest effort in this three-year old campaign to help not only the farmers, but also buyers large and small to find local products.

According to this article, there are over 700 working farms in the county, and the website lists over 100 farms, restaurants, agriculture businesses and others selling, growing or cooking with local goods.

Also noted in the article?  The date for this year's ON Farm Fest - Saturday, September 22nd -  when a number of local farms will be open for visitors. Admission is free; products will be available for purchase. A listing of the farms, which include  alpacas, veggies, beef, apples, and more - as well as a map - are on the website.

We've attended Madison County Farm Days in the past and look forward to checking out this year's event in Onondaga County.

Grains of Salt (v37): Public Art for Syracuse

Grains of Salt

I visited my Philadelphia cousin a few years back, and remember being struck by the murals on the walls all over the city. Here's a blog devoted to the artworks - check out the photo galleries in the toolbar and you'll see why they caught my eye.

I remember thinking how cool it was, instead of looking at blank walls on buildings and bridges, that there was art everywhere, in all kinds of neighborhoods, and that it was not marred by graffiti.

How cool, I thought, if something like that could happen here in Syracuse someday...

Now, I know we have a handful of murals, including S.ALT CITY, on the side of the M. Lemp building, which is made from hundreds of QR codes and commemorates the city's salt making heritage; the street scene in Columbus Circle; and Clinton Serenade, depicting downtown Syracuse and the Erie Canal on the side of the NBT Bank on Salina Street.

We might never reach Philly heights when it comes to murals; after all, they've been at it for a while, it's a much bigger city, and so on - there are even books about them. But we're taking baby steps here in Syracuse, we are.

Two murals were recently completed under the railroad bridge on South Salina Street near Tallman St.  Syracuse illustrator London Ladd created the murals celebrating visits to our city by Frederick Douglass (1861) and Martin Luther King, Jr. (1961).  Here's a video of Ladd talking about his murals.

London Ladd Murals from The Girl Mirage® on Vimeo.

Another project recently announced is aiming high -- 12 murals in 12 weeks. This one's an effort of the public art pilot program 315Alive and will be headed by the Spark Contemporary Art Space on East Fayette Street. One mural, "The Hub of the Bicycle World," has been approved by the city's public arts commission, for the walls of the old Stearns Bicycle building.

In case you're not familiar with Stearns bicycles, this article from the Onondaga Historical Association highlights a race between a six-passenger Stearns bike and a NY Central train back in 1896. Ah, the good old days, right?

While Ladd's murals were funded from money Syracuse University pays the city (in lieu of taxes), the 315 Alive/Spark project is relaying on a GoFundMe page to raise $12,000 which will be supplemented by businesses and local foundations, with some $40,000 needed to help pay for insurance, permits, fees, materials and artist stipends.

Want to learn more, or donate?  Here's the link to the fundraising page. And for more info on public art in Syracuse, check out this link.

How cool it would be...

Sunday School 8/19/18

I ducked into two classrooms today, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, to hear from the Bishop of Pittsburgh, and Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace to hear from Mick "pay me and I'll listen to you" Mulvaney, Trump's Budget Director and head deregulator of the CFPB.

If you're interested, you can check out Chuck Todd's interviews with former CIA Director John Brennan and with Rudy Giuliani, if you can stand that last one, on Meet the Press.

I'll start with Mulvaney, who was on the show to tell us that things with the economy will continue to be great. For example, when asked to talk about changes from the Congressional Budget Office on the sustainability of Trump's economic growth,he said the people who challenge the numbers have a "vested interest" in seeing Trump fail. And, he explained, what the Trump administration has done - deregulation, and taxes, are not a sugar high. 

It's fundamentally changing the way we create wealth in the country.

No one can disagree with him on that, I don't think. It's true that corporations, their executives, and their shareholders have seen a terrific boom from the changes that have occurred; much less so, from everything I've seen, for the people who work for the companies. Here's just one article talking about wages and inflation, which notes that buying power hasn't really moved in decades.

You can read the rest of what he had to say, about the upcoming budget negotiations, Trump's now cancelled military parade, and more in the link above.

Moving on to the horrific report that some 300 priests in Pennsylvania sexually abused more than 1,000 victims over some seven decades, we hear from Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh, who has been the bishop of the Pittsburgh diocese since 2007. He began by offering three key messages:

First of all we need to have a - a deep sense of empathy for all the victims who have suffered so much; as I apologize to them we need to continue with looking for efforts to help their lives become better.

Second of all, I can well understand the rage that people have in reading this report. I feel that rage  as well too. 

And third of all, I want to offer my support to the very faithful priests and deacons who served our people so faithfully.  

He was less charitable, if that's the right word, about allegations of a cover-up. He said there wasn't one in Pittsburgh, that all allegations were turned over to the appropriate authorities and that they have responded to every allegation in the report, and those responses are public.

Stephanopoulos referenced a specific item from the report that suggested a cover-up involving Zubik, including a confidentiality agreement.

It says the testimony of the victim of Monsignor Raymond Schultz who testified that he was abused or raped 10 to 15 times, and he describes a meeting with you (Zubik) where you offered to pay for college tuition for his children, counseling as well.

But the victim says he refused the offer because the Diocese followed up and said this - I want to put it up on the screen - "you're going to have to meet with our lawyer and sign these documents that basically said you are done with, you can't come after us, it's over, no public, your mouth is closed."

Zubik denied the suggestion of a cover-up.

No, I think first of all, George, that was an allegation that was brought forward after the person who was alleged to have committed the abuse was in face deceased. I think that we have taken a position, the Diocese of Pittsburgh since 2002, not to do any confidentiality agreements. But we needed to be able to assert whether or not the alleged behavior did in fact occur.  And that was part of the discussion that took place in that particular case.

Next, Stephanopoulos asked Zubik about comments from the Survivors of the Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), show below, and he asked for Zubik's response.

(SNAP) is calling for tough action against your diocese. It says Catholics should stop donating to Bishop Zubik's diocese until he steps down or takes proven steps to protect kids. Such a boycott may be the best way to cut through the persistent denial of Pittsburgh's church hierarchy. 

Zubik disagrees.

I want to go back to when I became the bishop of the diocese of Pittsburgh in 2007. I can honestly say that we have followed every single step that we needed to follow to be responsible in our response to -- to the victims. First of all, we've listened to them carefully. Second of all, we've removed priests from ministry. Third of all, we have in fact turn it over to the district attorneys of the appropriate counties. Fourth of all, we have engaged the independent review board to assess and take a look at the allegations and whether or not a person would be suitable for ministry again.  

And we have in fact informed the - the people in our parishes about those allegations as well as put our press releases accordingly. So I think that that behavior and the steps that we've consistently taken since 2007 really works against SNAP's calling for my resignation.

Asked what he'd say to the many Catholics who feel betrayed by the church hierarchy,  Zubik focused mostly on the past, with a nod to the future.

We have to be able to to continue to look at the things that -- that we have done to really correct the issue. The church of Pittsburgh today is not the church that's described int he grand jury report. And if I could indicate, you know, starting with - with 1988 when Bishop Wuerl became bishop of Pittsburgh, one of the first acts that he had to confront was an abuse of two brothers by three priests. He was very passionate about addressing... sexual abuse. 

And what happened is that we began to develop stringent policies around sexual abuse. He was very direct with the priests in 1988 to tell them if they knew anything they had to come forward. We established an independent review board to assist the bishop to be able to assess allegations. Fourth of all, we established a diocesan assistance coordinator. It was a position that - that meets specifically with victims. 

And we both first encouraged people who were victims to go forward to report their allegations and then we followed up on that as well, too. Those were some of the things that we've done in the past to try to -- to show people that we had been doing things over the course of the years. And we can't stop there.

We have to look for new ways to be able to eradicate sexual abuse in the church, but to work together with all of society to eradicate from society in general. 

Wuerl, now the Archbishop of Washington DC and a key ally of Pope Francis, is facing calls to resign after the grand jury report said he had shielded abusive priests; a petition to remove his name from a prominent Catholic school the the Pittsburgh Diocese has gotten over 6,000 signatures, aiming for 7,500 as the next threshold.  He has withdrawn as a speaker at a conference in Ireland.

Zubik has admitted "a few priests" named in the report are still in the ministry, because the church was not able to substantiate the allegations against them.

See you around campus.

Random Thoughts: Dammit, I'm Mad!

Able was I, ere I saw Elba.

A man, a plan, a canal - Panama!

Was it a rat I saw?

Never odd or even.

Yep - it's palindrome week, that once a year event where the dates are the same frontwards and backwards.

And, of course, there's the palindrome in the title, which seems appropriate this week. Here are just two examples of maddening behavior from this week.

Dammit, I'm mad and horrified and disgusted and whole bunch of other emotions about the latest report of Catholic priest abuse and the associated cover up. This time, it's in Pennsylvania, hundreds of priests (a third of whom are deceased) and over a thousand identifiable victims, with potentially an equal number of others who did not or cannot come forward. And with the fact that Pope Francis hasn't directly addressed it (although a Vatican statement was issued). And we've pretty much stopped talking about that already.

Dammit, I'm mad that the national media is spending so much time talking about the guy in Colorado who killed his family. First, we got to see him on the national news talking about how he raced home from work when his wife wouldn't answer his text messages, and mentioning an 'emotional conversation' he and his wife had at 4 in the morning - at which point I turned to my husband and said "he did it" - and ever since, we've heard from friends and family, and the police and the body language 'experts' ever since he confessed and we know all about their financial troubles and all the rest, and it's only going to continue.

Meanwhile, here are the names of the 349 people murdered in Chicago this year, through August 14th. They are receiving zero attention, less than zero attention.

What the heck is wrong with us?

Wondering on Wednesday (v143)

Why is it, I wonder, that the Chief of Staff decided to use the Situation Room to fire Omarosa? Doesn't he have an office? Or was he expecting a 'situation' to develop?

And why is it, I wonder, that folks seem to think Omarosa had a disregard for national security, because she took her phone into the SitRoom? Was Omarosa ever involved in any discussions regarding national security? If yes, one has to wonder if  the mere idea of that isn't a bigger disregard for and threat to our security than anything she alleges occured.

The president revoked the security clearance of John Brennan, the former CIA director, because he's been mean to the president. Or, as the White House alleges the president said in a statement,

Mr. Brennan's lying and recent conduct, characterized by increasingly frenzied commentary is wholly inconsistent with access to the nation's most closely held secrets and facilities, the very aim of our adversaries which is to sow division and chaos... More broadly, the issue of Mr. Brennan's security clearance raises questions about the practice of former officials maintaining access to our nation's sensitive secrets long after their time in government has ended. Such access is particularly inappropriate when former officials have transitioned into highly partisan positions and seek to use real or perceived access to sensitive information to validate their political attacks.  As head of the executive branch and commander in chief, I have a unique constitutional responsibility to protect the nation's classified information, including by controlling access to it...

I can only wonder how many people are trying to figure out a way to revoke the security clearance of the person who puts this stuff out on social media:

When you give a crazed, crying lowlife a break, and give her a job at the White House, I guess it just didn't work out. Good work by General Kelly for quickly firing that dog.

Moving on, related to the most head-scratchingness piece I've seen in a long, long time, I have to wonder what the hell is wrong with New York's Sonofa Gov Andrew Cuomo. Take a look:

We're not going to make America great again. It was never that great. We have not reached greatness. We will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged...

Apparently realizing the error of the Gov's ways, his press office quickly issued a clarification, calling out president Trump for his #MAGA slogan, "which obviously means he doesn't think it is great now" and pointing out where the Gov disagrees:

The Governor believes America is great and that her greatness will be fully realized when every man, woman and child has full equality....The governor believes that when everyone is fully included and everyone is contributing to their maximum potential that is when America will achieve maximum greatness. 

Going out on a limb here and wondering if everyone who's running against Cuomo, regardless of party, already has their ad agencies incorporating this into spots that will be released immediately, if not sooner?

And am I the only one wondering if this will have legs like President Obama's "you didn't build that" comment, still being taken out of its somewhat confusing context, which I just saw in a post this week?

Finally, while I wonder about the value of any conversation about Omarosa and her allegations against the president (unless she comes up with something brand spanking new, like Trump buried Jimmy Hoffa or a similar breaking news alert), I also can't help wondering whether the president is helped or hurt by Sanders not stating fully and forcefully  - dare I say Putinesquely? - that there simply is no tape of the president using the n-word. Trump says it's not in his vocabulary, but neither are a gazillion other words. And his 'proof' of there being no tapes is that The Apprentice producer allegedly called him and said there aren't any.

And yet, the president is apparently taped much more often than he knows, it seems, and he has threatened that he himself tapes conversations. Why are we to believe Mark Burnett?, or why are we to believe Trump? Why are we to believe Omarosa?

And ultimately, I wonder "what difference, at this point, does it make?"

OrangeVerse XXXV: Drumming up Support

The president came to New York yesterday, to drum up support for two Republicans seeking to hold on to their seats in Congress.

Trump made an appearance at Fort Drum, home of the 10th Mountain Division, to sign an apparently nameless military spending authorization bill and to mispronounce the name of Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who made a very brief appearance on stage with Trump. Oh wait, it wasn't a nameless bill, it was the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act of 2019, according to the White House website. Trump must not have known that, right, because he failed to mention McCain's name?

Vice President Mike Pence flew in to Fort Drum to deliver yet another obsequious introduction for the president. I have no idea how much it cost, but it had to be worth it for a five-minute speech that, pointedly, also did not mention McCain's name, I'm sure.

These two, I swear... Anyway. When the president speaks, poetry leaks. Or something. Excerpts:

Atten-HUT!

So I want to start by saying

At Ease. Just Relax. Do you have seats? 

You can sit down. Come on. Sit.

If you want to stand you can. We'll just get 

one.big.standing.ovation, right?

NDAA

The National Defense Authorization Act

is the most significant investment

in our military and our warfighters in modern history 

and I am proud

to be a big, big, part of it. 

It was not very hard.

You know, I went to Congress

I said let's do it. We got to do it...

And that's what we did.

Not Even Close

Because we know that to survive 

and having that survival of our freedom

it depends on the might of our military.

And no enemy on earth

can match the strength courage and skill

of the American Army and the

American Armed Forces.

Nobody is even close.

They never will be.

Fur Elise

And I have to tell you about Elise. 

She called me so many times. 

I said, I don't

want to take her call.

She wanted me to be here

I said I won't be able to, we'll

have to change a lot of scheduling.

But that didn't suit her.

She didn't stop. And here I am. Here I am.

Elise, come here. Come here, Elise.

Listen Listen Listen

Listen to this now.

So we've been trying to get money.

They never gave us money

for the military for

years and years and it was depleted.

We got $700B. And next year

already approved we have $716B

to give you the finest

planesandshipsandtanksandmissiles

anywhere on Earth. 

Nobody makes them like we do.

And very, very far distant

in this case - jobs are very important in all cases

but in this case, military  might

is more important than even jobs.

But all of this 

equipment is made right here

in the USA and it's the

best equipment on Earth.

Nobody makes it like we do.

Right? Right? Bueller? Anyone?

America is a 

peaceful nation

But if conflict

is forced upon us

we will fight

and we will win

Right General? Right? Right?

Better believe it Generals.

They're the guys.

We're powered by

the unstoppable force

of the United States Army.

Very Special. 

And then he talked about jobs and himself, and jobs, and himself, and himself, and called out by name one of the soldiers and an Army wife who selflessly helps others, and he talked about fake news, and General Patton, and himself, and Space Force! And then he turned his attention back to the soldiers in front of him and thanked them for their service. 

And then he went off to Utica to stump for Claudia Tenney, a name that's much easier to pronounce than Stefanik.

Or John S. McCain. 

Sunday School 8/12/18

I visited two classrooms today, CNN's State of the Union with Jake Tapper in the host's seat, and ABC's This Week without George Stephanopoulos; Jonathan Karl sat in today.

Tapper's guests included former Virginia Governor (and hometown Syracuse guy) Terry McAuliffe, and the president's attorney Rudy Giuliani, which is where we'll start.

Among other things, Tapper asked Giuliani about a comment he made on another network about the president asking James Comey to go easy on Michael Flynn. Giuliani denied ever saying that. Except when Tapper rolled the tape of that conversation, he admitted he did say it. Confused yet? If not, this explanation will help  with that.

Yes, I said it. But I also said before it that I'm talking about their version of it.

Look, lawyers argue in the alternative. I know it's complicated, by my goodness, you have been over this long enough that - I mean, why would I say something that - that isn't  true? I mean, that - the president didn't say to him go easy on Flynn or anything about Flynn. He's (Comey) saying that. I am talking about their alternative. I'm saying the conversation never took place, but if it did take place -- and here's the conversation that's alleged - it is not illegal to have said that.  That's what I'm saying. We call it arguing in the alternative. 

Graciously, Tapper didn't laugh out loud. And doesn't that sound like another recent Giuliani comment, that collusion didn't happen, but even if it did, it's not illegal? That's some 'alternative' world he's lawyering in, I dare say.

McAuliffe talked about Charlottesville, and about his record as governor, and about Democrats and the upcoming elections. He noted the Dems should not be talking about 2020 but should be focusing on getting some checks and balances on Trump by winning seats (or control) of the House and Senate, and should also focus on getting more Dems elected as governors (they're down some 18 statehouses to the Republicans). Specifically about 2020, he said he hopes everybody runs - and I do too, frankly. Let's step away from the coronation and have a good ole shootout the way the Rs do.

Moving down the hall, here are two pieces of Jonathan Karl's interview with Kellyanne Conway.  The first is in response to Karl's question about whether she believed Trump's claim that there would be a 'red wave' in November and that the Rs would actually pick up House seats. After suggesting that it's possible and dropping some of her patented lines (Trump makes history, he doesn't repeat it; he makes his own trend, he doesn't follow them; people predicted doom and we've got economic boom, and so on), she raised one very valid point:

Here's what - here's the problem I see for the Democrats.  It's who's in charge of their party? Is it Tom Perez, who they don't respect? Is it, is it the 28 year old socialist? Is it the 70-something-year-old socialist? It is Elizabeth Warren who says that all law enforcement is racist from front to back and forward and backward? Is it - is it Hillary Clinton who still can't get over her loss in 2016? Who is the leader of the party? And what is their message, exactly?

Karl then asked her if Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III would still be Attorney General at the end of the year.

Well, how in the world will I know the answer to that question?

Pressed on what she thought, because, Karl noted, the campaign manager says Session should be fired and Trump says he's MIA...

Excuse me? That's -- I'm not answering questions as to who will be in The White House at the end of the year. That's a crazy question. You just want to roll the tape sometime.

She did, however, point out that Sessions is doing a great job on law enforcement,  but

he has recused himself from this. And the president rightfully wants to -- wants America to see that this Mueller investigation comes to a conclusion in a timely fashion. So far no Russia collusion proven. And you know it. You know I was the campaign manager for the winning part of the campaign. I never talked to anybody in Russia. I talked to people in Macomb County Michigan and Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Not Moscow...  You know there's no collusion. Paul Manafort's on trial, has nothing to do with the campaign, Russia, collusion, the judge warned everybody not even to say those words. 

I love her mentioning she ran the 'winning part' of the campaign -- she's used that line before - but who ran the 'losing part' - was that Manafort, or Lewandowski?

Finally - and yes, I absolutely saved the best for last -- here's what table chat guest Ana Navarro had to say when Karl suggested turning to what Omarosa is saying:

Oh God, why??

See you around campus.

The Update Desk: TGIF 8/11/08

In last week's TGIF post, I mentioned Buffalo-area Rep. Chris Collins, who was the first member of Congress to climb aboard the Trump train all those months ago.  And, he was just indicted for insider trading.

When the indictment came out, Collins was adamant that these were false allegations - meritless was the word he used in this press conference in which he outlined his general business acumen, his history of saving jobs for western NY, his political career, and his plans to vigorously fight the allegations while continuing to serve in Congress.

He even brought his wife to the press conference; she waved clumsily, then stood by his side, a fixed expression on her face, looking as if for the life of her she couldn't figure out why she was there. It was strangely reminiscent of the Eliot Spitzer presser after the whole Client #9 stuff broke ten years ago, except that in that case, it was a 'stand by me while I admit to being a cheating cad who doesn't take off his socks' thing, vs. a 'I saved our son a few million bucks' thing. 

Yesterday, however, Collins had a change of heart. He is suspending his campaign for re-election, throwing the race to hold the most Republican district in NY into turmoil. Here's his official statement, done in the usual fashion - toss around a few trigger words, and focusing attention on himself as a savior of the world. They must go to school to learn how to do this.

Democrats are laser focused on taking back the House, electing Nancy Pelosi Speaker and then launching impeachment proceedings against President Trump. They would like nothing more than to elect an 'Impeach Trump' Democrat in this District, which is something that neither our country or my party can afford.

After extensive discussions with my family and my friends over the last few days, I have decided that it's in the best interests of the constituents of NY-27, the Republican Party, and president Trump's agenda for me to suspend my campaign for re-election to Congress.

I will fill out the remaining few months of my term to assure that our community maintains its vote in Congress to support president Trump's agenda to create jobs, eliminate regulations, reduce the size of government and lower taxes.

I will also continue to fight the meritless charges brought against me and I look forward to having my good name cleared of any wrongdoing.

We'll have to see whether there's time to get his name off the ballot before November.

And maybe we'll hear from the president on this when he makes his trip to New York on Monday.

TGIF 8/10/18

How was your week, pretty calm?

I think some folks might have wished that were the case.  Take Omarosa. You remember her, right? The thrice-fired Apprentice, who was also fired by the Trump Administration and was booted from Big Brother, another pseudo-reality TV show, is making the media rounds in advance of her latest book, Unhinged: An Insider Account of the Trump White House.

Why is she having a bad week? Well, for starters, her interviews appear to contradict her book - which is a no-no in the business - and do so on her big bombshell, that there are tapes of then Celebrity Blowhard Donald Trump using the n-word.  And she may have heard the tapes, even though she was only told that he used the n-word, she never heard him actually say it. Or, maybe she did or didn't hear anything at all, who knows.

Actually, what might be more damaging than her missteps on the book tour are the authors she's lumped with in the "people who bought this book also bought" list. Omarosa is in fine company (um, yeah, that's what it is) - see for yourself:

• Jeanine Pirro: Liars, Leakers and Liberals, The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy
• Gregg Jarrett: The Russia Hoax, The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump
• Newt Gingrich: Trump's America, The Truth about Our Nation's Greatest Comeback
• Jerome B. Corsi: Killing the Deep State, The Fight to Save president Trump

Whether she's telling the truth either in the interviews or in the book, and even if she's bunched in with an "interesting" group of authors, she still probably had a better week than this guy, Buffalo-area Republican Congressman Chris Collins. 

Collins, you have likely heard, has been charged with insider trading; the charges stem from him being on the board of an Australian pharma company, and him allegedly using information he learned about the failure of one of the company's drugs, which he then allegedly shared with his son (perhaps as he attended a White House gathering, if the timeline is correct), and his son allegedly shared the information with his soon-to-be father-in-law. Collins son and his FIL sold shares of stock in advance of the public announcement of the bad news, and that is bad news for the Congressman. 

Everyone's pleaded not guilty, and Collins plans on staying on the ballot, at least he does for now. This whole thing would be much less interesting, and we'd be hearing much less about it, if Collins hadn't been the first member of Congress to jump on the Trump bandwagon. And it would be much less interesting if, around the time he allegedly called his son to warn him, there was some way he could have protected his daughter, too - because, according to this report, she allegedly lost over a million bucks on her shares in the pharma company.

And speaking of alleged things, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) went to Russia; he had a letter with him that he passed to Putin's people. According to Paul, the letter was from the Trump Administration and contained stuff about important things; in fact, Paul suggested that Trump send the letter. Except that the White House is saying the letter was meant to introduce Paul to Putin, and that's why the Senator wanted the letter. And the contents? Those were Rand Paul's topics of interest, not the presidents. After all, he's allegedly been talking to Putin regularly since the #HELLinHELSINKI2018 summit last month.

Finally, an update on this week's Wondering on Wednesday post, which included a reference to Kris Kobach, the Trump-loving election fraud conspiracy theorist and Kansas Secretary of State who's locked in a tight gubernatorial primary race with the state's current Governor. Kobach had said that he would not recuse himself, should a recount be requested. Kobach has changed his mind since Wednesday, as his already thin lead was cut in half and concerns about discrepancies and about Kobach's guidance to county election officials has been called into question. He has transferred his oversight activities to his top aide. 

TGIF, everyone. 

Meanwhile Back in Albany (v20)

Nathaniel Brooks/NY Times photo

Got a vending machine? Get a tax break!  Wouldn't that make a great billboard along the highways leading into all of the cities, towns and villages in upstate New York, instead of those silly signs we have on the Thruway?

I talked about the fake condominium tax break that certain homeowners are able to take advantage of in the last MBIA post; if that wasn't enough, now we've got the 'three vending machines in a room'  plan, which apparently passes for 'commercial space' in converted buildings.

Folks who pay attention to how things are done in Albany, particularly when it comes to the budget, will recognize the 'three (somethings) in a room' concept; that's how our Sonofa Gov Andrew Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie get together, hash out the budget, and make a plan to cram a bunch of legislative initiatives into the spending plan. In happier times, the three men in a room were The Three Amigos, according to Cuomo - except that two of them are now convicted felons. But I digress.

According to reporting by Tim Knauss of the Post-Standard and Syracuse.com, here's what vending machines have to do with anything.

Three vending machines at a Syracuse apartment building dispense candy, chips and soda. And they serve another purpose. They have helped the building owner avoid more than $3 million in property taxes. 

The vending machines are the only visible sign of commercial activity at Copper Beech Commons, a sprawling apartment complex for college students.

Here's why that matters: the property owner gets a lavish tax break that is available only to renovated buildings that have both commercial and residential space.  

Wait, wait -- vending machines count as commercial space?

State law created the tax break to help turn old and underused buildings into the kinds of places that filled downtowns in the old days. The idea was to restore the buildings with upper-floor apartments and street-level businesses - restaurants, offices and stores - to bring back the bustle of urban life. 

For Copper Beech Commons, vending machines did the trick. Without the tax break the owner would pay $560,000 a year in property taxes. With the vending machine incentive, the annual bill comes to less than $33,000.  

Nice deal if you can get it, right? And, believe me, they are getting it: there are 39 other buildings in Syracuse that are getting the same exemption as Copper Beech Commons. The exemptions are worth millions to the developers.

It's important to note that many of the projects that are receiving it actually have legitimate commercial enterprises in them.The good guys have renovated buildings that are now home to restaurants, offices, community development agencies, and retail establishments. Many of them were the kind of buildings the law was intended to help: older structures that have sat empty, falling into disrepair, that are now great properties filling gaping holes in our neighborhoods.

A few of them, though, are brand new buildings, placed on lots where older structures were bulldozed, which is clearly (to anyone other than a lawyer or developer) not the type of projects the law was intended to help. There are others, in addition to Copper Beech Commons, that are student apartments, including the largest one, Theory Syracuse, which stands to save over $9 million over the 12 year term of the exemption.

As with the condo loophole, there is not enough guidance for assessors to follow, and so each makes their own decisions, including  whether or not to regularly determine if there's any actual commercial activity happening. 

Some say that this is the way things have to be done in order to get development, to increase the value of the properties in the city over all, and that this exemption, which is good for 12 years, is more than made up for by the price of the investments and the related activities that stem from the development. That's always easy to say, and frankly it's probably easy to prove - but it doesn't mean that we have to open our wallets every time someone finds a loophole in a law and takes advantage of it.

This is the kind of bill that needs to have some teeth added, which will hold developers - local ones like the guy who did Copper Beech Commons, as well as those from out of state - who are taking advantage of the poorly-crafted bills.

Options could include things like the ideas below::

• Adding clarity to what constitutes a qualifying commercial use, such as hours open, number of employees actually working, annual payroll or payroll taxes, and so on.
• Defining what a qualifying commercial space is, such as minimum square footage required, accessibility, etc.
• Strengthening the guidance for local assessors to install consistency.
• Limiting the length of time for which the exemption can be claimed, and reduce the amount of the exemption to a lesser percentage of the development's overall tax bill.
• Collecting full taxes up front, and rebating the to the developers the amount of the eligible exemption only after ensuring that there's actually a commercial operation in the building on a full time basis.
• And finally, limiting the sheer number of exemptions that a development can qualify for; surely all of these projects don't need the mortgage tax exemption, the sales tax exemption, the 485-a exemption, payments-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) agreements, moving expenses, furniture allowances, and the like.

At some point, we need to draw a line in the sand and let these projects sink or swim on their own merits. And if you're building a student housing project where folks rent bedrooms for over a grand a month, maybe you don't need our tax dollars to help you be successful. 

Wondering on Wednesday (v142)

Let's dive right in, shall we?

Kris Kobach, the Trump-loving election fraud conspiracy theorist and Kansas Secretary of State is in a primary with Republican incumbent governor Jeff Colyer for the right to face a challenger in November. Currently, Kobach has about a 190 vote lead over his opponent.  There are still absentee and provisional ballots to be counted but if it remains close and Colyer asks for a recount he'd have to make the request of, and pay a bond to, his opponent, because the Secretary of State is the chief election official. 

When the topic arose about Kobach recusing himself from the recount process, his answer should surprise no one. Check it out:

The recount thing is done on a county level, so the secretary of state does not actually participate in the recount. The secretary of  state's office merely serves as a coordinating entity overseeing it all but not actually counting the votes.

Now, a logical or ethical or reasonable person might wonder why on earth Kobach wouldn't recuse himself, but then one can simply remember that, as noted above, he's a Trump-loving election fraud conspiracy theorist and the best way to prevent any kind of election fraud and to ensure an accurate count is to serve as the coordinating entity overseeing a recount IN YOUR OWN RACE, right? And I wonder if anyone else sees a warning in the statement below?

If the margin it less than 10 votes or something extraordinarily close, I would expect any person to call for a recount. (it) would take a significant amount of time to do a recount statewide. 

As in, don't bother asking for a recount unless it's really close, because you'll make a mess of things for the whole state.  And 10 votes? Is that really what Kobach considers a reasonable recount threshold?

Another noteworthy outcome from yesterday's primaries was the strong showing by "conventional" Democrats in primaries. For example, in Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer (governor) and Elissa Slotkin (House) both defeated more progressive candidates. In the gubernatorial primary, for example, progressive New Yorker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders both campaigned for one of Whitmer's opponents, without success. There was a similar outcome in Missouri.

It makes me wonder whether we'll see another Ocasio-Cortez this election cycle, or if the progressives still have a lot of work to do to find common ground with others in the party.

And finally, a opportunity to comment on the media - who would have thunk that would happen?

Tonight I happened to capture the first few minutes of Access Hollywood (yes, that Access Hollywood) where one of the hot topics was the ugly and getting uglier legal battles between Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Details of the ugliness were given, but I'm not going to repeat them here.

After talking about how people who are going through a breakup or divorce "must love their kids more than they hate their former partner" and focus on keeping things as civil as possible, the hosts lamented that this whole sorry death of a relationship was being played out in the media, on purpose it seems, by both camps, and how that was the completely wrong way to do it.

And then, they continued to discuss it, including the possibility that the Jolie camp was trying to slow things down, but that, according to one of the hosts who "had done some reporting on this" and talked to people close to Pitt, she learned that he was supposedly wanting to go straight to divorce without wasting any more time -- and then stated that he has to have a girlfriend and that was what was driving his haste.

I wonder, when they watch the tape of the show, if they'll see how silly their hand-wringing about media coverage sounds, and if they'll learn their own lesson and in the future commit to not mentioning this or similarly sensitive stories. Or whether they'll consider how it would feel if they were to find themselves on the wrong side of such a report. One can only hope.

Poll Watch: Congress, Kavanaugh, and more

It's been several weeks since we last took a look at any polling, so I thought it was time to see what's going on out there in the world.

Let's take a look at a recent Quinnipiac University National Poll, from last month.  As always, we'll start with the small print: the poll was conducted by cell and land line phones of people who say they are registered voters from July 18 - 23, 2018.  Party affiliation of the respondents was 25% Republican, 31% Democrat, 38% Independent, and 7% something else.

Here are some of the highlights (numbers are percentages), starting with Congress:

• Hypothetically speaking, Dems have a 51-39 advantage in House races this year. Women support the Democratic candidates 57-32 while men are almost evenly split, 46% favoring the Republican and 44% the Democrat.  By race, whites are conflicted (46 Dem, 45 Rep), while blacks (78-16) and Hispanics (66-23) favor Dems. Probably most important are the  independents, who favor the Democratic candidate 50-33.

• Sticking with Congress, it seems we are not amused with the job either party is doing, with disapprovals for the Rs at 66 and for the Dems at 63,and approvals at 27 and 30, respectively.  Surprisingly, the approval rates are actually up 5 and 4 points since April. 

Moving on to Brett Kavanaugh, president Trump's Supreme Court nominee, here's what we think:

• We are split on whether Kavanaugh should be confirmed; 40% say yes, 41% say no. The pollsters compare this to a similar question from last year on Trump's first nominee, Neil Gorsuch; by 50-35 we supported that nomination.

• Looking at the Kavanaugh approvals a little deeper, men favor him 50-35, while women don't, 46-32. By race, whites approve 46-38, blacks disapprove 61-15 and Hispanics are torn 37-38. And, in general we think  he'll make the court too conservative (45-38) if (well, when) he's confirmed.

• And when he is confirmed, we think by a large margin (62-27) that Roe v. Wade will not be overturned, at least not within the next few years. Overall, it would be a bad thing to overturn the landmark decision (66-23), but Republicans (48-39) think it would be a good thing. They are the only demographic who thinks that's the case. 

• Finally, on the legality (or lack thereof) of abortion, 64% say it should be legal in at least most cases, compared to 29% saying it should be illegal in at least most cases. On the outer edges, 26% say legal all the time, while 10% say illegal all the time.  The 'legal all the time' percentage is up 5 points since December, while the illegal all the time and illegal most of the time are both down (3 and 2 points, respectively.

Finally, let's turn to the president for the last section.

• We don't like the way the president talk about the media (65-32) more than we don't like the way the media covers Trump (56-36). 

• We trust the media more than Trump (54-34) to tell the truth on important stuff; again as has been true on so many surveys, Republicans are the only demographic (gender, age, race, education) who believe Trump more, and they do - by a huge margin (75-16). 

• He hasn't made a whole lot of headway with his 'enemy of the people' charge; 71% think the media is an important part of our democracy, with only 21% falling on the 'enemy' side of the ledger. By a 1-point margin (45-44) Republicans have fallen for Trump's rhetoric on this. 

• Other demographic groups  reject Trump on this issue by significant margins: Dems (90), blacks (82), women (57), Independents (56), 18-34 year olds (54), 65+ (50), whites and 50 -64 year olds (47), 35-49 year olds (46), men (43) and Hispanics (41).

In all, there's nothing really shocking here, except the continued allegiance of Republicans to the president, no matter what. It would honestly be OK if they disagreed with him on something - anything - in a single poll.  

It really would be OK. 

Sunday School 8/5/18

I dropped in on three classrooms this morning - Fox News Sunday, to hear what president Trump's national security advisor John Bolton and Florida Senator Marco Rubio had to say; Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan talking to Kellyanne Conway, and NBC's Meet the Press with Senators Amy Klobuchar and Roy Blunt talking with Chuck Todd.

There was lots of talk on most of the shows about the president's 'enemy of the people' comments, about Russia  and North Korea, and about the upcoming elections. Here are a few highlights from each of the conversations.

First, John Bolton:

• "Unequivocally" we had nothing to do with the alleged assassination attempt on Venezuela's President Maduro. It might have been something he orchestrated himself, or maybe it was something else.
• Trump talking about the Russian hoax means "the idea that somehow the Russians directed and controlled his campaign or direct and control his administration" or that there was some kind of conspiracy.
• Or, he means the hoax is "the idea that the Trump campaign was  beneficiary of a converted effort together with the Russians to affect the 2016 election."
• And when Trump mentions Russia and China and North Korea? "There's no question that Russia was the principal violator in 2016" and that they're the leading violator this year, but "It does not exclude the potential for others to meddle" and like Trump, I guess, we all need to be focused on the other guys, too.

Next, Marco Rubio:

• Trump thinks the Mueller investigation is just about collusion, but Rubio "believe(s) it's in the best interest of the United States of America and the American people for that investigation to run its course for all the truth to come out. I think that's the best thing that could happen for him, and I think it's the best thing that could happen for the country.
• Trump has to decide, with his lawyers, whether or not to sit down with Mueller.
• Kim Jung Un is "more than willing to tear apart facilities that are no longer necessary for old missiles because he's got newer ones that work better."

Kellyanne Conway:

• On Trump not directly echoing the sentiments of his entire national security team, "there continue to be active cyber security - cyber warfare campaigns, if you will, by North Korea, Iran, China, certainly Russia, and this president wants to make very clear that he was not the president in 2016 when evidence of Russian interference and meddling in our democracy in 2016 was presented to that president and his security team and buried because they wanted the other person to win and indeed thought she would win the presidency. This president is not burying it."
• When Trump says Russian hoax, "he means the investigation and some others on TV never under oath wanting to suggest that somehow Russian meddling in the 2016 election was successful in changing a single vote or indeed the electoral outcome."
• Or, "and when he talks about the hoax, he's talking about this fantasy, this unproven fantasy that somehow the campaign that I successfully managed for the successful part of the campaign was in cahoots with Russians."
• On the whole 'enemy of the people' stuff, she had a lot to say but the best was "I don't mention the journalists by name but I'm much more interested in the work of Alex Acosta, our labor secretary than Jim Acosta, because he's presiding over an economic boom. Doom was predicted, boom is what we have in our economy."

Roy Blunt:

• On election security: "I think the one areas where both the Congress and local officials and the federal government and local officials need to be working together is to be sure that whatever happens on election day, there is confidence that that's what really happened. 
• On whether there should be federal money every year for election security: "...I don't want this to become an annual entitlement. You know, the worst possible funding is distant money and local decision making on how to spend it" so he'd like there to be more guidance on what states and localities can do with the money.

Finally, Amy Klobuchar:

• On the statement by Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence, about "doing everything we can to have legitimate elections," she expressed concern "that you could have a hack that finally went through. You have 21 states that were hacked into. They didn't find out about it for a  year. And that's one of the reasons we want to pass our bill, so that there's now a requirement that they tell the individual Secretaries of State immediately so they can protect themselves.
• On a comment by Elizabeth Warren that the criminal justice system is racist: "For people who have been victimized and have been a victim of a crime, they need a criminal justice system that works for them... we know that there is racism in the system that needs to be fixed, that's why we have started instituting body cameras, which is a great solution, doing things on eyewitness ID, and I think the solutions are there for us. We just have to reform the system."

Lots to chew on there, if you're so inclined.

See you around campus.

Meanwhile, Back in Albany (v19)

Nathaniel Brooks/NY Times photo

People of a certain age will remember the old saying, "if you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you," a tip of the hat to America's Greatest Conman, George C Parker. If you don't know George, he was the guy that 'sold' the Brooklyn Bridge to newcomers to the Big Apple back in the day; he also reportedly sold Grant's Tomb.

Our con men aren't as sneaky as Parker -  they do this stuff right under our noses, by taking advantage of poorly written laws and also by taking advantage of the people we elect to the New York State legislature.

One example of this - abuses of the condominium tax break - recently re-surfaced thanks to reporting by Michelle Breidenbach. In her article for the Post-Standard and Syracuse.com, we learn of two single-family homes on the same street in one of the wealthy eastern suburbs of Syracuse. The houses were purchased for the same price, are a quarter-mile apart, and one pays almost double the property taxes of the other. The lower-taxed house is a condominium under the carefully manipulated laws of New York.

A condominium, you say? Isn't that a bunch of connected units, like an apartment building? Yes, that's what most people think a condo is. But a condo is not a condo any more - at least, not according to the law.

From Breidenbach's article:

Savvy builders across New York are taking advance of a loophole in state law that allows all kinds of homes to be called condominiums. That requires them to be assessed at a lower value than traditional single-family homes.

More than 100,000 condos in upstate New York are cashing in on the tactic. Their owners are taking an average 36% discount on their assessments, according to a Syracuse.com analysis of thousands of assessment and sales records. 

Upstate condo owners avoid at least $330 million a year in property taxes, leaving their neighbors to pick up the slack to pay for schools and local government. 

Yep - at least $330,000,000 in property taxes that are not collected, all because some lawyers and builders figured out a way to screw their neighbors - completely legally.  Again, from the article:

This strategy has spread around the state to wherever builders know the trick -- from the Buffalo suburbs to the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester County. Yes, that Trump. 

The condo break has almost no public benefit. Yet it goes mostly unnoticed by neighbors, unchallenged in Albany and ridiculed by town assessors who struggle to administer it.  

Under the law, which was created half a century ago - back in the 1960s - to protect folks who lived in NYC apartments when their buildings went condo. The law says that a condo unit - including summer homes, ski lodges, and yes, single family homes - are to be assessed based on how much owners of these 'units' can make in rental income, rather than on the value if the 'condo' was to be sold.

Clearly, the average person can see that what's happening here in the Syracuse suburbs, on Trump's golf course, and across the state is both wrong and unfair.

Meanwhile, back in Albany, no one involved in the crafting of the legislation probably ever figured that it would be so abused; they probably never thought that anyone outside NYC would have paid any attention to the law, much less used it to such in such a detrimental fashion to the rest of us.  But, that's what always happens, isn't it?

We have a long history of laws that turn into private welfare systems for the wealthy and for corporations. It's almost an expectation that this will happen whenever we come out with legislation to protect someone, or to incentivize economic development, or to enable some other lofty goal.

Remember the Empire Zone program? You know, the one that allowed companies to file paperwork to rename themselves, and take credit for 'hiring' new people and garnering them fantastic tax breaks and in some cases, tax refunds?  Or, they'd hire one employee and voila, be eligible for the special deals? There's some great (shameful?) information on how this program ran amok in this Citizens Budget Commission report.

Or how about the Tax Free NY program? That one hurts companies like the one I work for, which in one way or another has been around for some 80 years, and instead favors a different class of companies and their employees with ridiculous tax breaks?  Here's are a couple of posts I've done on this program; you can decide if you think it's fair, or if it offers any true public value.

The bottom line? Legislation created by well-meaning Democrats and Republicans we send to Albany are being abused, in many cases by donors to those same legislators. And, whether it's because their afraid of losing their campaign cash or because they're just not strong enough to walk back something that's gone awry, we're stuck with these programs.

And not only that, they continue to create new ones at every turn; a perfect case in point is the whole 'competition' for economic development dollars promoted annually by our Sonofa Gov Andrew Cuomo. We all know what happened with that program, right? Criminal convictions of key players in the program, a close compadre of the governor, and developers from Syracuse and Buffalo - so far. You can read about that gang, pre-convictions - here.

It's long past the time for putting these gimmicky programs to rest, and it's time we put fairness back into our tax programs.

Wondering on Wednesday (v141)

Well, well, well - another Wednesday's here already.  Boy, time sure flies when you're having fun, doesn't it?

I wondered yesterday (a day early, I know) why we don't hold traditional media outlets to the same standard we're trying to use for social media outlets, and why fake accounts on Facebook seem worse than a lying, tweeting president. I will always wonder about that.

Staying in the same vein, I wonder how anyone can not love the fact that the president, after months of saying there was no collusion, is now saying that collusion is not a crime.  What on earth can it matter, if there was none? Why send the minions out with this message, unless...

Sarah Sanders, the president's Press Secretary, who happens to be the person most likely to lie on behalf of the president - lie, or 'clarify,' I should clarify - talked today about how the press has a history of misbehaving.

The media routinely reports on classified information and government secrets that put lives in danger and risks valuable national security tools. One of the worst cases was the reporting on the US ability to listen to Osama bin Laden's satellite phone in the late 90s. Because of that reporting, he stopped using that phone and the country lost valuable intelligence.

The CNN report linked above points out that her example was debunked a long time ago, not that it matters. Because she went on to say,

We fully support a free press, but there also comes a high level of responsibility with that. 

And from the Press Secretary, too, there comes a high level of responsibility; I wonder if Sanders understands that?

Also today, the president 'suggested' that Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III should end the Mueller probe, tweeting

...This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further. Bob Mueller is totally conflicted, and his 17 Angry Democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to USA!

Now, you may not have been paying close attention, but as recently as June 7th the president was yammering about 13 Angry Democrats. Here's one of dozens of tweets on the subject.

Has Mueller gone and gotten himself four more? Isn't there a limit on these things?

Seriously, I can't help wondering whether all of the Trumpeters will now start using 17 instead of 13, just like the president told them to , or will they stay with 13?

The other big wondering, of course, is whether Sessions will do what the president opined, You know that it was only an opinion, right, not an order or a proclamation or a presidential policy or anything. According to Rudy Giuliani, anyway --and the opinion was almost certainly based on the start of the Manafort trial.

Trump himself wondered why no one told him that Manafort was under investigation, as if he might not have hired him had he only known.

Which is pretty silly - I mean, there's no way he would have paid any attention, right? After all, he ignored information about Russian interference in our elections, information he was given repeatedly by all of the experts, including his own experts; and that information, sadly, he still does not fully believe.

And that's our final segue of this Wednesday: back to the Press Secretary, and her defense of the president's comment that to go out and buy groceries, you need a picture on a card, and you even need one of those in order to buy anything. Clearly, the statement is not true, but it riled up the base on voter suppression, so that's good.

But what was so wonder-ful was Sanders' statement on why Trump told the lie in the first place:

...the president wants to see the integrity of our election systems upheld. And that's the purpose of his comments.

I wonder how she sleeps at night.