I’ve been busy and haven’t had a chance to comment on this week’s Cuomo dust ups, so here’s a good overview of the whole Cuomo deal at TPM (no sub required). The tl;dr: Mario’s kid is still shitting the bed. That said, Cuomo sure has some terrible, no good, ham-fisted opponents. Case in point:
Describing an alleged exchange with the governor that has not been previously reported, Democratic Assemblyman Ron Kim told CNN that he received a call on his cell phone from the governor last week as he was bathing his children at home.
“Gov. Cuomo called me directly on Thursday to threaten my career if I did not cover up for Melissa [DeRosa] and what she said. He tried to pressure me to issue a statement, and it was a very traumatizing experience,” Kim said. Cuomo proceeded to tell the assemblyman that “we’re in this business together and we don’t cross certain lines and he said I hadn’t seen his wrath and that he can destroy me,” according to Kim.
Kim’s wife told CNN that she had overheard parts of Kim’s phone call with Cuomo last week, and described the governor as “loud” and “angry.” She said she heard Cuomo say, “Who do you think you are?” as well as the words, “my wrath,” and that immediately after the phone call, her husband told her: “The governor threatened to destroy my life.”
Cuomo’s office says he didn’t say those things, which is obviously a lie. Of course he said them! He’s Andrew Fucking Cuomo. Nobody — Democrat, Republican, Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV — doubts he did. The question is, can he back up those threats, and what’s Kim going to do about it?
Kim is a back bencher with an axe to grind, which is fine: this is politics, not a spring cotillion, and grinding axes is part of the deal. But goddam, dude, if you’re gonna go at Cuomo, don’t act like a few yelly shoutys reduced you to a pile of traumatized jelly. Are we supposed to feel sorry for you because Cuomo called when you were bathing your kids and you didn’t hand the job off to your wife (who was there, since she “overheard” everything)? It just makes you look like you don’t have the good sense that God gave a mule, and that you can’t handle a conversation that was probably less upsetting than ones that $10/hour call center employees endure hourly.
The right move here is to say something like “Cuomo called and blustered in my ear for a long time but his empty threats show how desperate he is about his coverup.” Laugh at the notion that Cuomo can “destroy” you. Say it’s part of the politics of 30 years ago, because Cuomo is stuck in the past. Jesus, it’s not that hard.
Atrios calls Cuomo “Blue Trump” with some justification, but I’ll take his handing of COVID over Pennsyltucky’s any day of the week and twice on Sundays, just the same. And I sure as shit am not excited about the prospect of a state legislature committee vetting every one of his emergency decisions, especially if that committee has goobers like Ron Kim sitting on it.
sdhays
As a non-New Yorker, I’m just glad that the Andrew Cuomo boomlet is over. I understand how people were needing something to grab onto last year just to get by, but the slobbering over Cuomo was kind of disgusting.
I don’t think Cuomo is the Democratic Trump because the Democratic Party as it is currently comprised doesn’t really offer a place for a Trump-like character (thank the benevolent FSM!). But I definitely think Cuomo fits as the Democratic Chris Christy. And that’s not that much of step up.
JoyceH
Meanwhile, DeSantis announces that Florida will half-mast the flag – for Rush Limbaugh.
BigJimSlade
Regarding the post title, Chris Isaak played a free lunch-time concert at Downtown Crossing in Boston in the 90s. At the end a (middle-aged) woman yelled out, “YOU’RE LIKE BUTTAH!!” That cracked me up.
Baud
@sdhays:
Yeah, Christie seems like a better analogy than Trump.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
From the TPM link:
This is the nut of it, right? the death count was accurate in total, but they (sorta kinda) cooked the numbers on nursing home vs hospital deaths?
I’ve always been a Cuomo skeptic. He looked better compared to trump in the early months of the pandemic, and probably also de Blasio to whom I pay little attention. As with Rahm Emmanuel, with whom I think he has a lot in common, I’d be a large amount of money he was the source of all the rumors about the various high-level jobs he (wasn’t really) being considered for
rp
Calling Atrios “Blue Limbaugh” is more accurate
ETA: Not that I’m defending Cuomo. He’s a schmuck.
Eolirin
@Baud: Cuomo’s a lot more competent than Christie ever was though. And more intelligent. If you grade the Republicans on a curve it tracks though.
Ramalama
I kept wondering how Cynthia Nixon woulda handled the virus, lockdowns, and now I’m really wondering.
Suzanne
IDGAF about Andrew Cuomo, but I am sooo tired of the criticism about sending people with COVID to nursing homes. There was nowhere else to send them because the American healthcare system has zero resiliency designed into it. That’s reality.
rp
@Eolirin: Cuomo effectively illustrates the difference between the right and left. He’s probably most similar to some of the best Republicans, like Larry Hogan or Mitt Romney. Smart and generally competent, but their egos and need for power will always limit them.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Ramalama: I’m wondering how Leticia James will handle being governor, because I think that’s what’s coming down the pike.
dr. bloor
@JoyceH:
After an appropriate period of mourning, they will give Rush’s half-masted flag a boner pill so it can return to full height.
Baud
@Eolirin:
Which of course make the analogy to Trump even more implausible.
James E Powell
New Yorkers are all over social media with “Didn’t we tell you he was an asshole?” posts.
Ramalama
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: Oh! Better!
WaterGirl
On the plus side, this should dampen any hopes Cuomo had of riding his COVID success to a presidential run. I will never forgive Cuomo for his bullshit shenanigans with the Republicans.
Roger Moore
@Suzanne:
This. Hospitals were desperate for beds, and the patients being sent to nursing homes were ones who didn’t need hospital care. What was NY supposed to do? Were they supposed to let those patients continue to take up hospital beds when they were in desperately short supply? Were they supposed to dump the patients on the street and let them fend for themselves? Anyone who wants to criticize the decision needs to explain what they would have done with those patients or STFU.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
the liberal media must be covering up a lot sadistic racism and violent attempts to subvert American democracy on Cuomo’s part, just for starters
guachi
Y’all need to go listen to Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing. It’s like what you’d get if George Thorogood and Roy Orbison did a duet together. But it was sung by one guy.
West of the Rockies
@BigJimSlade:
I saw Chris perform in Reno. He was so good. We met him afterwards and he was courteous and kind. Corresponded for a time with his drummer. Nice folks.
West of the Rockies
@guachi:
Solid description.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: If you slice and dice Trump’s horribleness and focus on specific issues, I can see the general hyperbolic point, which has some truth. But, you are correct in that you have to ignore a lot of Trump’s sins and crimes.
jl
In a sense, Trump’s awfulness has a universality to it. If you do slice and dice and organize, you can make a whole smorgy of messes, one for every appetite. We can all belly up to the bar, or sneeze guard, whatever, and find a few ghastly dishes that fit each of us personally. But our plates are so small.
Edit:
Trump is timid, Trump is bold,
He’s a kid denying ‘old’
Same faults for all, truth be told.
Mary G
Subsole
@guachi:
Chris Isaak is amazing. Everyone knows wicked game and forgets the rest of his work.
Really good description of his style, too.
Baud
@Mary G: Nice.
WaterGirl
@Mary G: I LOVE no fucks left to give Hillary. You have to admire that she didn’t get bitter after 2016.
Chyron HR
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix:
Maybe AOC can be New York’s first senator/governor, Air Bud-style.
Suzanne
@Roger Moore: AND, even if we accept the absolutely fantastical premise that we could have constructed new or repurposed existing facilities for housing those people, no one has an answer for where we were supposed to get more nurses, doctors, janitors, etc.
It is a tragedy that it happened. But don’t pretend that it would have been any different with someone else in charge. The failure was baked in.
Ramalama
@Mary G: Was she referring to Cruz’s dog Snowflake, that they’d left behind in Texas when off for the romp to Mexico?
lowtechcyclist
@Roger Moore:
Was this before or after they had the hospital ships there? My memory of what happened last spring in New York is hazy.
Anyway, something like that. Take over Madison Square Garden, fill it with beds, put ’em all there. At least there, they can’t infect a metric ton of extremely vulnerable old people.
Who’s gonna take care of them, you ask. Well, who takes care of them in nursing homes? By and large, not actual nurses. So you get enough nurses to have whatever level of nurses-to-patients ratio that nursing homes are expected to have, and enough non-nurse staff to do the rest (this was when much of the country was unaffected by Covid, this sort of staffing was still possible), and there you go.
citizen dave
@West of the Rockies: Kenny! Don’t think I ever saw him in concert, but we loved the tv show (2001-04 wikipedia tells me). Very funny.
natem
@rp: I dunno about that. Duncan does that thing at times where he’s the cool, disaffected kid who loves to remind us how opportunistic and backstabbing Democrats are, so you know, “Fuck them” and all that.
Barbara
@Roger Moore: The only alternative was some kind of freestanding transitional hospital for recovering Covid patients, or a separate ward within a nursing home, which might not have been possible. Nursing home patients are a fragile population and there is probably no step they could have taken that would not have resulted in nursing home deaths. Nearly all of the deaths locally in my county have been in nursing homes, and we have nothing like the rate of case load or death that NYC experienced. Still, you can’t lie about the data.
Freemark
@lowtechcyclist: And just do it in two weeks with health care workers having their own COVID crisis.
Ken
@Ramalama: “You might think that; I couldn’t possibly comment.” – Francis Urquhart, House of Cards
Didn’t Clinton do something like this once before, talking about candidates who accepted payments from Russia? Several people took great offense, then it was pointed out that no names had been mentioned…
Ken
Governor DeSantis begs to differ.
LurkerNoLonger
@JoyceH: if they truly wanted to honor Limbaugh’s contribution to the culture they would have covered the flag in shit and raised it upside down.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@natem: apparently if you’re sophisticated enough to compartmentalize trump’s racism, and overlook the whole “overthrow the Constitution and seize power” thing, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference. It’s really about class, and economic anxiety.
That’s called keepin’ it real. Man.
eclare
@Mary G: Burn!
BruceFromOhio
Yeah, whatever. Can we pick on DeSantis, Abbott, and Reynolds (Iowa) instead? Cuomo is a jerk, but these fuckers are evil and are actively working to kill their constituents.
BruceFromOhio
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It’s Atrios. Grain(s) of salt should be added to any recipe featuring this ingredient.
Gravenstone
@Ken: As I recall, Tulsi damn near stampeded some poor soul in her rush to a microphone to denounce that completely non-specific accusation. It was grand.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: if what Cuomo did is so self evidently correct I’m sure he’ll release the data about it any year now
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Barbara:
I get that, and as a strong believer in the separation of powers and oversight, I get why the state lege is involved, and all special executive powers should be regularly reviewed, but… why is the FBI involved? are there federal funds or other resources involved?
Peale
@Roger Moore: Yep. Nursing care patients released to whom? Unprepared relatives? Then?
BruceFromOhio
@natem:
This. Eschaton used to be a regular stop, until one day I realized he was kind of an asshole. Still, I liked his constant sell-bonds-cheap-to-build-trains drum beat, that still holds.
kindness
Cuomo was stupid for lying about Covid deaths. He should be given hell about it. Now I don’t know that it is at a resign level of hell. I’m suspicious of those that say that in the same vein that many of those same people have been calling for the recall of my Governor Newsom and I think Newsom has done a good job (and Republicans were out the day after he was elected with petitions to recall him).
The MSM does not serve us well.
Martin
Always gotta be careful when the biggest asshole is removed from the conversation. Attention will then turn to who was the 2nd biggest asshole.
NotMax
@BruceFromOhio
Uh huh. Surprising anyone can make out what he’s saying through the mouthful of salted dicks.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
have some (potential) good news:
gvg
@WaterGirl: Is Hillary eligible to run for NY Governor? What do the locals think of her?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and some bad news
he’s voting against her because of tweets
WaterGirl
@Ramalama: That is my very strong guess.
NotMax
@gvg
She’ll be 74 this fall. Let her enjoy retirement and grandkids.
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: fk him Manchin knows this is the as far as he gets so is flexing his muscles.
Emma from FL
I am so sick and tired of the Kewl Kids. No, boys, Cuomo does nor resemble Trump in any way. He’s a twice-baked bastard: a New Yorker and a Cuomo. But he did his damn best in a situation that sucked because he not only was under fire from the virus he was under fire from the President of the United States and his mobster crew. There were no hospital beds, there was no help coming, what the hell was he supposed to do?
No, I wouldn’t want him as a President. But if I have to choose between him and Mitt? or him and Ted? I’d vote for the New York bastard in a New York minute.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ugh. That’s really bad.
M31
send the people back to nursing homes and pay the employees enough that they don’t have to work jobs at 3 different nursing homes to support themselves and supply them with enough PPE and
oh no we can’t afford THAT
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JPL:
I like your optimism
O’Bro Jon Lovett was saying earlier this week (Tuesday podcast) that in her recent Politico interview. Sinema said she not only wants to keep the filibuster, she wants to strengthen it. I haven’t had the heart to google it to find out what she means by that. Assuming she knows what she means by that.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
More not good.
AZ is now a bluish state, so she has fewer excuses than Manchin.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Nicolle Wallace quietly slips the knife in, “Joe Manchin, who voted for Jeff Sessions, will not vote for Neera Tanden”
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Just wait til the “Sex in the City” girls sweep next year’s elections
Major Major Major Major
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I really can’t bring myself to care about this. It’s not like Tanden is some sort of fantastically talented administrator who could uniquely take OMB to new levels of competence. Her nom never made much sense to me.
@Baud: ugh. She’s always been the one who worried me the most about this since she seems to be naive, not calculating a la Manchin.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: FWIW, I doubt Manchin thinks the voters of WV are keeping score on this vote. He voted to convict donald trump twice. I think this represents a sincere belief in his own bipartisan-y statesmanship.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Aside from minimum wage, they both seem on board with COVID relief. I think the real test will be how they respond when the GOP starts obstructing legislation that can’t be passed through reconciliation.
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He voted the KKK supporter Jeff Sessions. So pleased that he found a soul.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: If the dems won’t nuke the filibuster for HR 1 then our democracy is uh. Going to be in a much worse place. This is our one chance. I predicted earlier that HR 1 obstruction will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back some time this fall, but seeing her still talking this way makes me not so sure.
Peale
@Baud: She is stupid. Frustratingly stupid. Sorry, I regret hoping for better.
dr. bloor
@Major Major Major Major:
Tanden is smart enough to know that she went into this with a bullseye painted on her ass, and as the designated scalp to be had among Biden’s nominees. I doubt she or anyone at the WH is very surprised.
Roger Moore
@kindness:
I’m not as happy as you are with the job Newsome has done. I think he’s let himself get pushed around and made the decision to reopen businesses earlier than he should have. In particular, it was a serious mistake to reopen in June, and reopening as early as we did contributed to the summer spike. Similarly, I think he was way too slow to clamp down again in November/December, and I think quicker action could have saved a lot of lives.
More generally, I think most politicians have made a serious mistake by paying attention to levels rather than rates. They’ve looked at things like the daily number of positive tests rather than whether the number of daily positive tests is increasing or decreasing. On top of that, we’ve gotten desensitized to how bad the pandemic is, so that our idea of how bad things have to get before we clamp down has gotten laxer and laxer. The net result is that we didn’t pay attention to the fall spike until the daily number of cases was almost as bad as the summer peak, by which point a much worse peak was already inevitable.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: I have no real investment in Tanden, her nomination surprised me too, cause I never thought of her as a policy person (if I’m honest, I mostly found it hilarious that Bernie world got its collective knickers in a twist over the nomination). I’m more concerned that Manchin is willing to grandstand against Biden for the sake of the bad-faith proclamations of hurt feelings of a bunch of seditionists
@Baud: I can’t imagine either one of them being willing to torch the flibuster over the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, and I wish a few high profile senators who are expending their political energy on other pet issues would focus on that.
Feathers
I caught a Boston news broadcast very early on in the COVIDtimes, just as things were starting to shut down. There was a full segment where a woman was angrily complaining about her father, who had Alzheimer’s, being transferred to another nursing home, so that the one he was in could be empty to accept COVID patients when they were released from the hospital. She was very angry, what we would later recognize as the full Karen, and the reporter was highly sympathetic. I was not. I saw it as the Mass government knowing what was coming and what the fuck they had to do. Of course, that horrific local VA hospital was just coming to light as well. And once the lockdowns came, Karen wasn’t going to be able to see her father, so it wouldn’t really matter if he were 15 minutes away or over an hour.
Part of the issue is politicians being willing to piss off people like this. Apparently Cuomo wasn’t. I never followed up on how Mass handled this issue. My sense is that they’ve done some things really well and screwed the pooch on others. There were well thought out plans ready to be implemented, but also Massholes to deal with once Trvmp turned a medical fight into a culture war. I could feel it on the street of my blue town once the first lockdown was lifted. A lot of people just turned ugly.
Without clear leadership from the top, people are going to have to improvise, for better or worse. I really don’t know how the Mass vs. NY nursing home fatalities went. I think we do need to look into these things, no matter where they take us, just to find out what happened and what we can learn from it.
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You beat me to it. So he’s just flexing his muscles and saying look at me, look at me.
Major Major Major Major
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Eh, politics. She’ll take her fall and nobody will remember she was even nominated this time next year. @dr. bloor has a good point that she may just be the designated pound of flesh, as it were.
I think Manchin is willing to “reform” the filibuster to get HR 1 through. He’s a good boy. Sinema troubles me greatly now.
debbie
@BruceFromOhio:
There a motherlode of people to pick on in Ohio. Aside from the GQPers Mandel and Timkins who want to replace Portman, John Becker has announced he wants to lead the Ohio GQP. What, you say you don’t remember him? Becker’s the clown who wants to impeach DeWine. He’s also the clown who introduced legislation to ban abortion at the nanosecond of conception.
Fun times, indeed.
Subsole
@Baud: If Doug Jones could stand up and do the right thing, these two really have no excuse.
Also, didn’t this guy vote for SC Justice Sniffles McDate-rape? And he’s going on about toxicity?
Tazj
@Emma from FL: My thoughts exactly.
debbie
@Baud:
She’s not a real Democrat. WTF would you want to lessen the influence of your own party???
Subsole
@Major Major Major Major: Didn’t she used to be Green, back in the way-before times?
Because membership in that outfit is kind of a red flag.
Feathers
@M31: Yeah, the nursing home infection problem, both patients and staff, was massively worsened by people working the multiple jobs required to survive. Which was then carried into the community.
1 person 1 job is a safety issue.
JMG
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Sinema wants ALL Senate votes to require 60 to pass. She is obviously either real dumb or really not in touch with reality. No other Senators want THAT. Congress would be unable to function even to name post offices. Of course, if she blocks Biden legislation on that ground, she’s cutting her own throat in politics forever, so I lean to the dumb explanation.
James E Powell
On Manchin & Sinema.
I will never understand why some Democrats need to weaken their own party’s presidents and senate majorities. Especially over something as trivial as an OMB nominee’s tweets
This is not something that would cause him to lose one vote in WVa. Same with Sinema and him on the filibuster. If they want to get re-elected, work to make people happy!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JMG: yeah, she strikes me as sincerely squirrelly, but committed to it
Martin
@Major Major Major Major: Yep. HR1 is a must pass. Killing the filibuster to do that would be worth it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Wasn’t that human toad arrested for vigaria possession by US Customs. Yes, half-mast indeed.
Elizabelle
We’re not Cuomosexuals anymore? Goddamn.
@Emma from FL: I agree with Emma. I don’t see the point of tearing our own to shreds. Expect better, and see just what happened with NYS’s nursing homes, and other nursing homes around the nation. But equate him with Trump?
Why I stay out of these kinds of shitposting threads.
Elizabelle
OT: any suggestions for dog toys for little French bulldogs who really love to chew and tear things up?
Trying to figure out something safe for this little one. Hate to think she’s got a tummy full of wood chips from sticks (and happy about it).
She is a bulldog. She is committed to the chew and the tear and will not be distracted that easily.
satby
Yup. I read from the bottom when I’m late to a thread, so this is as far as I got. Figured it would be exactly like this and no need to go further up.
Geminid
Glad to see the DOJ announce this afternoon that 9 Oathkeepers were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges including conspiracy. I’d like to think this ultimately leads to Roger Stone. The insurrection took organization and coordination, and Stone had the brains and ruthlessness to try to pull it off. trump trusted Stone, and the insurrectionists knew that.
JPL
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: He was doctor shopping for opioids, but went to rehab and all was forgiving. At the same time he was preaching a lock em up for the drug addicts.
satby
@Elizabelle: I’ll link to my sister’s store on FB for you. It’s a brick and mortar in NJ, but she’s made suggestions on her site for toys like that.
Major Major Major Major
@satby: I usually don’t like MM’s threads for this reason (not a secret) but criticism of Cuomo is very much warranted given the tongue baths he got last year. No Dem gov has shit the bed quite like Newsom, though. I’m totally in favor of criticizing “our own” (blech) if it’s warranted.
Buffalo Rude
@James E Powell:
Some of us have been saying it since he was HUD Secretary.
Baud
dr. bloor
@Geminid: I haven’t been following it particularly closely, but has Stone’s name come up as one of the possible point guys on 1/6? Can’t recall seeing it myself.
dr. bloor
@Buffalo Rude:
Every now and again, the Universe gives a bully pulpit to a bully, and he looks like gold for a short while. COVID was Cuomo’s; 9/11 was Giuliani’s. Anyone who knew anything about either man knew it was a mirage from the get-go.
Elizabelle
@satby: Thank you. This dog is adorable but high maintenance and just not into Nylabones, regrettably.
Peale
@Buffalo Rude: Well, considering that the GOP had spent 12 years stealing money from HUD for kickback schemes and purposefully destroying the living conditions of everyone in housing complexes to enrich themselves, he was actually an improvement.
Geminid
@Subsole: Kyrsten Sinema was involved with the Greens during the first years of George Bush’s presidency. She was active in anti-war and LGBTQ rights advocacy. When she decided to run for elective office, she ran as a Democrat and won a seat in the Arizona legislature.
In 2012, Sinema ran for Congress in a newly created district. She won a very close victory against a Republican who had called her “a pagan hippie.” Then, Sinema became a pagan hippie Blue Dog.
This did not keep her from winning the nomination to run against McSally in 2018. Even though the Arizona Democratic Party keeps threatening to censure her, Sinema’s approval rating among Democrats remained high her first two years in the Senate.
Sinema probably is certain she will be primaried from the left in 2024, but she seems to be determined to do things her own way regardless. But I think most of the time she’ll vote with Mark Kelly, who himself ran as a moderate.
Peale
@JMG: So what’s the excuse this time? She wouldn’t nuke the filibuster because she said she wasn’t elected to nuke the filibuster. Did she run on enhancing the filibuster further? What exactly did she run for? The pension?
zhena gogolia
@Emma from FL:
Thank you.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: new family member, or pet sitting?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: No country (or blog) for opinionated women with immigrant roots, some animals are indeed more equal than others.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Isn’t your blog that?
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle:
Frenchies are the best, tho.
Just Some Fuckhead
Seems like a lot of vitriol directed at Kim for.. what exactly?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I need to revive it. I was actually talking about Balloon Juice.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
BJ has Ruemara, although she doesn’t post that often.
ETA: I didn’t realize you had stopped blogging.
smedley the uncertain
@Emma from FL: Agreed and besides, he’s my bastid… I followed his strategies given the catastrophe at hand and the animosity in DC. At least there was someone in charge dealing with facts at hand and the ever changing data. Compare that to the other state governors. Oh, it’s New York; a Brutus on every corner.
As noted above the raw totals were accurate. Where they occurred is the issue. The DOJ issue sprang from the WH.
Baud
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Her decision to divorce Kanye has hit a lot of people hard.
gogiggs
@JoyceH: They should get some of Rush’s illegally prescribed Viagra so they can full mast it.
I’ll show myself out.
Just Some Fuckhead
One more fool who can’t tell shit from shinola. That’s probably the best part of all these arrests: finding out who is a completely gullible fool.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I am glad we have ruemara. That comment was self referential and it is a long story. Perhaps something I can blog about on my revived blog to be called the washerman’s ? since he belongs nowhere, neither on the riverbank nor at ?.
kindness
@Roger Moore: Do you think recalling Newsom is to correct answer? I do not.
Zelma
@Elizabelle:
There are these plastic toys with spikes sticking out of them. They have squeakers. My dog – who has destroyed many a toy – loves them and they last. Good luck.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Washerman’s Dog is a cool name.
Cheryl from Maryland
@rp: Take it from someone who lives in Maryland. Larry Hogan is neither smart nor competent. He is a development grifter (his firm is run by his brother who has acquired land near road improvements before those improvements are announced — collusion anyone) who favors GOP-leaning counties in MD, especially with COVID vaccine. More populous blue counties and cities are left to rot. Any progressive laws passed in MD are because Hogan’s vetoes have been overturned by the D Legislature. He is just a more polite version of Trump.
Geminid
@dr. bloor: Stone was in DC January 6, and is on video put up by CBS and others, hanging with some Oathkeepers outside his hotel that morning. One asks him, “So, we’re probably going to get this today right?” Stone answers, “We shall see.” A careful answer.
That, of course, proves nothing. But if one posits that there was coordination, and that it was neccessarily closely held, Stone leaps out as the possible ringleader. He had already served as trump’s link to the foreign entities that subverted the 2016 election. Robert Muellars team could not make a conspiracy case against trump precisely because Stone was that link, and would not be broken.
Being the career criminal that he is, trump knew he needed someone he could trust to execute his most desperate crime of all, and Stone could be that man. As I said above, trump trusted Stone, and people like the Oathkeepers and Proud Boys could trust Stone because they knew trump trusted him. And Stone had the ruthlessness and even recklessness to try to pull this job off.
Stone broke into politics doing “dirty tricks” for Richard Nixon. Had it succeeded, the January 6th insurrection might have been Stone’s ultimate dirty trick.
Subsole
@JPL: Black folks take drugs. White folks suffer from a history of substance abuse issues.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: My next dog neighbor. She takes me for walks.
Elizabelle
@Zelma: On the lookout. Thanks.
One Frenchie website had these plush “flat Stanley”** looking animals — a fox, 2 other animals — anyway: why worry about the stuffing? Your dog can tear these things up and there is no stuffing.
Those people know Frenchies.
** they’re cuter than road kill looking animals.
Soprano2
If you’ve ever dealt with Medicare you know that after a certain number of days with no improvement, they kick you out of the hospital. What I wonder is, what was Cuomo supposed to do with these people?
rikyrah
I don’t care about this story.
I believe that DeSantis and Abbott have been running criminal enterprises with regards to COVID-19, and they are after Cuomo??
Sure Lurkalot
@Martin: Killing the filabuster is likely the only way HR1 will pass and without it, we’ll all be back to not sleeping at night in no time. I sincerely hope Ms. Sinema can be likewise convinced that it’s no time to pal around with fascists.
sab
@Suzanne: Ohio sent Covid people to nursing homes. They were on my fad’s floor because it was a memory unit and the doors locked. They were isolated at one end of the unit with their own nurses, and special air filters etc.
It worked out fine. They couldn’t be sent home, and they freed up hospital beds.
Ohio sent people to nursing homes that were medically sophisticated enough to handle their care. That’s why DeWime and Acton divided the state into regions, with nursing homes and hospital specially designated in each region to deal with Covid cases.
trollhattan
Meanwhile
“It’s a small world
after all”
JPL
@Subsole: Bingo.
Elizabelle
@Sure Lurkalot: I think Doug Jones should be deployed to reason gently with Ms. Sinema.
debbie
@rikyrah:
You didn’t think distractions ended when T***** moved out of the White House, did you??? ??
sab
@Elizabelle: Nylabones
ETA Oops. She doesn’t like.
lowtechcyclist
@Cheryl from Maryland:
As a fellow Marylander, I confirm your assessment of Hogan. Especially now that he’s gone whole-hog into the gotta-reopen-the-schools bandwagon, forcing localities to do so whether they want to or not.
I will note, though, that he’s pulled vaccines from Calvert County, where I live, which went for Trump by 20 points in 2016. (Never bothered to see how my county went last year, but I still see to damned many Trump flags still around. Traitors.) So whatever he’s doing with the vaccines, it isn’t straight blue-to-red.
Ken
I thought that’s why McCarthy went down to Florida to get that mailing list?
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah:
Yes, it seems tiresome and it’s something that Fox is pushing. Sorry to see it as an obsession here.
Elizabelle
@sab: Thank you anyway.
Satby suggested fluff and tuff toys (that’s the brand). Very cute; pricey, but allegedly less destructible. And available locally here.
Meanwhile, did you unbox a dog yesterday??
Elizabelle
New thread!
Subsole
@zhena gogolia: I thought MM was a NY local?
Major Major Major Major
@zhena gogolia: there’s nothing wrong with criticizing a democrat.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
I don’t think Newsom has shit the bed especially badly. California’s numbers look terrible because we’re huge, but we’re middle of the pack per capita. Newsom certainly hasn’t been perfect, but he hasn’t been terrible.
I think we also have some really serious systemic problems, especially here in LA County, that have made keeping the virus under control especially difficult. Most specifically, high housing prices mean poor people live in incredibly crowded conditions. There are places where there are three or four families living in housing intended for one and where people are literally sleeping in shifts. It’s simply not possible to quarantine and isolate under those conditions, which makes it very difficult to stop the virus from spreading.
Roger Moore
@kindness:
Absolutely not. I’m not thrilled with Newsom, but I don’t think anyone else would have done worlds better. When practically every politician in the country is making the same mistakes, I’m inclined to blame it on systemic problems. I just wish we had the rare leader who was able to resist the pressure and do the right thing.
dww44
@Emma from FL: While I’ve not been paying attention to the Cuomo stuff, my takeaway from his news conferences was that he really did care about people. It was the opposite of Trump.
He also poked a bit of fun at himself from time to time. Arrogance is a negative but I’d take him over his younger brother any day of the week and over any prominent Republican every day of the week.
Jay
@Elizabelle:
Kong’s are almost indestructable.
https://www.kongcompany.com
Pippie’s from Gnawsome are squeaky, last a longtime, but PittieX’s will gently nibble the feet off after a while.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Subsole:
Mistermix = Rochester.
Major^4 = New York City.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
listening to Chris Hayes talk about this with a reporter, and they’re talking a lot more about Cuomo’s personality than the facts of the scandal, I’m still trying to figure out what the crime was and why the FBI is involved
Adam Geffen
“Kim is a back bencher with an axe to grind, which is fine: this is politics, not a spring cotillion, and grinding axes is part of the deal. But goddam, dude, if you’re gonna go at Cuomo, don’t act like a few yelly shoutys reduced you to a pile of traumatized jelly. Are we supposed to feel sorry for you because Cuomo called when you were bathing your kids and you didn’t hand the job off to your wife (who was there, since she “overheard” everything)? ”
Fucking no. Just no! I’m beyond fed up with toxic alpha male bullshit. This is sick defense of toxic behavior. Behavior that is just wrong.
Subsole
@Steeplejack (phone):
Many thanks.
Ella in New Mexico
100% agree with this post.
Jesus there really are some wimpy-asses out there.
Does anyone think that Cuomo bitch-slapped Trump up and down and sideways and literally saved New York in the early days of COVID because he was a polite, gentile guy who didn’t know how to play hard?
Seriously, data being reported in one column vs. another is classic media blaming Dems more than the real offenders (REPUBLICANS) because, “both sides and Dems should be held to a standard of perfection” is a stupid controversy. Smacks of what we did to poor Al Franken.
Ella in New Mexico
What do they say
“Suck it up, buttercup”?
Seriously, if you’re this delicate don’t run for office in NY state.
EM
I’ve read the summary of the so-called Scandal and I still can’t really wrap my head around what the hell this is all about. I mean, I think it’s something to do with the fact that when elderly people died in a hospital who had been in a nursing home they weren’t counted as official nursing home deaths? Is that it? That’s really the huge Scandal here? I’m totally indifferent towards Cuomo. I live in New York. I don’t like or dislike him. But my God, compared to Republicans who basically just said f*** it as relates to the virus and ignored it this is what passes as a scandal for a Democrat?