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Facebook executive helped Cuomo smear sex-harassment accuser: AG report

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438 pointssnomad269 comments

Cuomo also sent thousands of elderly people to their deaths by forcing them back into nursing homes.

And yes, I mean forcing.

Do you remember the hospital ship? The field hospitals? Javits center?

Did you know the hospital ship went home after being almost completely unused? Did you know it treated IN TOTAL 182 people? With a crew of 1200 and 1000 available beds?

Did you know that javits center never even got remotely close to full? In TOTAL in treated about 1000 patients and had 4000 beds.

And yet he’s forcing these elderly back into nursing homes because it makes him look in charge, and fuels his idiotic feud he had going with the federal government over who was more leadery. He won an Emmy for it!

Cuomo should be facing prison. The people who have been helping him cover up killing thousands of elderly people as a political play should as well.

The fact that he was transferring state employees around so he could kiss them on the cheek and touch their face should get him disgraced and fired. It is absolutely a distraction from the horror he has inflicted upon thousands of people. Imagine him sending your grandmother to her death so that he could look good on television. Absolutely evil.

Sadly the real scandal is that he was "following the science" at the given time and he wasnt the only official who did

Whether Cuomo "followed the science" in his nursing home directive is debatable. From Wikipedia (see above link):

>Cuomo repeatedly stated that the order was based on CDC guidance issued by the Trump administration. PolitiFact rated that statement as "mostly false" because the guidelines issued by the CDC and CMS indicated that a medically stable COVID-19 patient could be discharged from a hospital to a nursing home "only if the nursing home can implement all recommended infection control procedures."

What were the recommended infection control procedures? Disinfect surfaces and provide masks? Kind of a big deal was that the nursing homes mostly resisted but ultimately had to obey the order

Two things:

1. What he did went against published federal guidelines which state no transfers to nursing homes unless they have medical isolation wards

2. Why lie about it?

Also contemporaneous with his policies, pundits like mark Levin (who broke this story) were calling him out on it only to be accused of spreading conspiracy

For the doubters:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_COVID-19_nursing_home...

>In January 2021, Attorney General of New York Letitia James released a report finding that Governor Andrew Cuomo had understated the toll of COVID-19-related deaths in state nursing homes by as much as 50 percent. The scandal was made public on February 11, 2021, when the New York Post reported that Melissa DeRosa, a secretary and aide to Cuomo, privately apologized to lawmakers for the administration withholding the nursing-home death toll in fear then-President Donald Trump would "turn this into a giant political football".

>U.S. Attorney Seth DuCharme of the Eastern District of New York and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have launched an investigation into New York state's handling of nursing home deaths.

> withholding the nursing-home death toll in fear then-President Donald Trump would "turn this into a giant political football".

When will the left calm down and realize this isn’t a war?

Conservative Trump voter here: Everyone who is watching the news thinks they're in a war with people who have slightly differing opinions than they do.

Liberal Biden voter here: Totally. Everyone is absorbing media that spends 90% of its energy encouraging them to think that they're being attacked by the other half of the country. Both ends of the spectrum are encouraged to have a victim complex that makes them feel totally justified in their heinous behavior, because in their minds they're just defending themselves against the aggressor.

It's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. I consume no media directly, but I get exposed to the victim complexes quite thoroughly here on HN. And from that I do indeed get the impression that I'm under attack.

Not (necessarily) a Trump voter, but a conservative nonetheless. I think it's a little more complicated. There's a style of propaganda that seems uniquely tuned to how technology has changed the way we engage with news. It goes something like "this thing you are saying is happening isn't, but if it was it's actually good, and if it's actually bad you deserve it". This formulation absolutely drives engagement numbers across the political spectrum, regardless of the "truthiness" of any of the preceding claims. That particular progression just didn't happen when we all dutifully read our newspapers with our morning coffee because it takes a few cycles to formulate. A lot of conservatives I know just don't engage with news anymore because once you notice these kinds of rhetorical patterns you can't un-see them.

> A lot of conservatives I know just don't engage with news anymore because once you notice these kinds of rhetorical patterns you can't un-see them.

CNN and WaPo both engage in word association type brainwashing. Anything negative one republican does, they associate it with all to help build that unconscious bias. In other sentences they'll associate proud boys or other extremist groups with the republicans to help build that idea that all republicans are extremists. It's a big part of why there's a huge divide these days. And yes, it gets old and sickening.

When one side basically denies the virus exists, it kind of is.

It only becomes a war when people are willing to do anything to “win”

I don't think any serious person denies the existence of the virus. Even if you go to the ('ultra' far right?) patriots.win, you'll find very few COVID deniers. The bulk of the sentiment is about rejecting the government's response to the virus and being left alone to make their own choices (good or bad).

Oh no, it was called a "hoax" for a long time, people were claiming doctors were faking death certificates. Trump said Covid is "their new hoax.” People on facebook were saying covid would "disappear" after the election.

Don't gaslight people.

Some examples:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

https://www.insidenova.com/headlines/congressman-elect-bob-g...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

Trump did not call COVID itself a hoax: https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-ap-f...

Do you have any links that’s not just news about someone calling it a hoax getting the virus, but one of the actual quote of them saying it’s a hoax? Because one of the supporting links you provided shows one quote and it’s not calling the virus a hoax, it’s calling the pandemic a hoax.

“It's a serious virus, but it's a virus. It's not a pandemic ... You get it. You stand up against tyranny. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for saying no to the insanity."

> it’s calling the pandemic a hoax.

I find that distinction odd. The definition of a pandemic is "a disease prevalent over a whole country or the world."

Is your claim that they are really saying is that there is a virus, but it is not "prevalent over a country or world"? For the pandemic to be a "hoax", there needs to be either no virus, or it isn't worldwide. That's a strange hill to die on to defend denialism.

If you're going to say "well really they are referring to something else when they say the pandemic is a hoax" then you're arguing about what you think they meant, not what they said.

> For the pandemic to be a "hoax", there needs to be either no virus, or it isn't worldwide.

Or it isn’t as widespread or dangerous as being made seem. That’s the other way. And this quote was mad what, July 2020?

Further if you look at the stats for global population lost, COVID claimed about 0.06% to 0.1% lives. It’s barely on the list of the top 18 pandemics by deaths. It got beat out by pandemics which we have no or incomplete data on.

So while you may think the world is ending, it’s really not.

The media once again attempting to control people and keep them indoors and vaccinated has caused mass panic.

In the US, more people died than US soldiers in WWII, which in any common parlance was "dangerous." Rationalize harder. Ready, Go!

Cause viruses and war are the same right? WWII also took 3% of the world population. So using your own example COVID is less deadly than WWII. But go ahead and cause more panic. It seems to be working well right? /s

> Do you remember the hospital ship? The field hospitals? Javits center?

Let's not mingle in choices that were reasonable given the best knowledge and advice from medical experts at the time along with crimes.

I hate this binary thinking of "bad person did x, therefore x is bad too!"

They intentionally shoved COVID positive patients into nursing homes full of vulnerable elderly while simultainiously rejecting the large-scale help offered by the Fed. There's no grey area here, just pure evil. They did the same in PA too, the PA Health Secretary even removed his mother from a nursing home before implementing this policy.

You're proving my point.

My comment was about "field hospitals, Javits center, and the hospital ship" which are all good safety precautions to protect the largest outbreak in the largest city in the country--just like the added safety of a seatbelt is good even on days you didn't get in an accident.

Your response is about none of those things.

It's a good thing the DOJ dropped the investigation into him and Whitmer over this at the end of last month. Evil and corrupt.

Don't forget the 40,000 ventilators he demanded for his state (a claim he said was based on science and data no less).

He then also criticized the Trump admin for not giving him that number even though they were giving him thousands already. 40k new ventilators didn't even exist at the time, there is no warehouse with tens of thousands of them, they were being built and distributed nationwide; but the media ate it up because orange man bad.

So you're talking about back in March of 2020 - when we did think ventilators would help. And at that point the federal government had sent a grand total of 400 ventilators to New York. But somehow managed to find 200 to send to Russia in May. And you can't figure out why he was complaining?

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/489214-cuomo-says-n...

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/20/us-sends-200-ventilators-to-...

> More than half the nearly 8,000 ventilators the federal stockpile sent to states to fight the coronavirus pandemic went to New York, while the rest were split among 14 other states and territories, a report from the federal government shows.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2020/04/1...

I don't mean to be hyperbolic or off-topic, but wow, if this specific thread is anything to go by, I don't think we can have a nice society at all. We're like monkeys throwing feces around at eachother and can't even agree, after the fact, as to who threw the first batch or whether it was justified.

All while another separate set of monkeys (media), with their own agendas, tell the rest of us stories and interpretations of said feces throwing. Who am I to believe here? Where are the facts? Who is being punished and fired and impeached and imprisoned after we evaluate the facts? Were laws broken? Should there be laws against some of these things?

I think the culprit really is the clickbait, gotta get it out before someone else does, media. They seem to rarely fact check things anymore before pushing it out and when they are proven wrong retractions rarely happen. The lines between the democratic party and the media is definitely blurred, which isn't surprising as there are a lot of media execs who end up working for administrations for some time. It really is a worrying trend.

>I think the culprit really is the clickbait, gotta get it out before someone else does, media. They seem to rarely fact check things anymore before pushing it out and when they are proven wrong retractions rarely happen.

I think the culprit is people like yourself, who post a link to the government sending ventilators a month later, and pretending like it happened at the time New York was begging for them. What ACTUALLY happened was after 3 weeks of unending negative press, Trump finally caved and released ventilators. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/cuomo-knocks-trumps-claim-ny...

>"FEMA says, 'we're sending 400 ventilators.' Really? What am I going to do with 400 ventilators, when I need 30,000?" Cuomo said at a news conference.

>Later, Trump announced he would supply another 4,000 ventilators to New York from the national stockpile, but he added a claim that Cuomo had turned down the chance to stock up on thousands of ventilators in 2015.

>The lines between the democratic party and the media is definitely blurred, which isn't surprising as there are a lot of media execs who end up working for administrations for some time. It really is a worrying trend.

I'm not even sure what to do with that. The Trump administration literally hired Fox News employees to be a part of the administration. Fox News was founded to be a propaganda wing for the Republican party to ensure that they could try to control the message the next time they were caught in a situation like Watergate. And your concern is the media and the democratic party?

https://www.gawker.com/5814150/roger-ailes-secret-nixon-era-...

> CPI identified about 430 individuals working in journalism who contributed to either candidate between January 2015 and August 2016. Of the $396,000 they contributed, 96 percent ($382,000) went to Clinton, and 4 percent (about $14,000) went to Trump.[4]

https://ballotpedia.org/Fact_check/Do_97_percent_of_journali...

I'm concerned anytime media outlets have such close ties with politicians and political parties. Fox New included. But to me, one media outlet that leans conservative is way different than the other 5 or 6 major media outlets that run liberal.

> I think the culprit is people like yourself, who post a link to the government sending ventilators a month later, and pretending like it happened at the time New York was begging for them. What ACTUALLY happened was after 3 weeks of unending negative press, Trump finally caved and released ventilators.

Just because they were begging for them, doesn't mean they were entitled to them over every other state. In the end they got over half the federal stockpile. For one state. Those were taken away from allocations that would have gone to other states. Every state was facing ventilator shortages (my wife worked in an ICU at the time in VA and saw the same daily). NY just got more because they screamed the loudest.

>I'm concerned anytime media outlets have such close ties with politicians and political parties. Fox New included. But to me, one media outlet that leans conservative is way different than the other 5 or 6 major media outlets that run liberal.

And your point is what? 430 individuals is a fraction of the total journalists in the US, and an individual journalist donating to a political candidate != a news outlet supporting a candidate. But you know that, and are again attempting to insinuate something the data you've provided doesn't actually prove, at all. That's ignoring the fact that far more than 4% of the journalists in the US are conservative journalists... so either even the conservatives had no taste for Trump, or the numbers are bogus. If the numbers aren't bogus, it means journalists as a whole universally rejected Trump, and it has absolutely nothing to do with a liberal vs. conservative skew: the conclusion you're trying to draw from thin air.

>Just because they were begging for them, doesn't mean they were entitled to them over every other state. In the end they got over half the federal stockpile. For one state. Those were taken away from allocations that would have gone to other states. Every state was facing ventilator shortages (my wife worked in an ICU at the time in VA and saw the same daily). NY just got more because they screamed the loudest.

So you went from intentionally falsely implying they received 4,400 ventilators to now backpedaling to: they didn't deserve them. Like I said, you are clearly attempting to mislead people with things you know to be untrue while trying to act as though you aren't. It has no place here or anywhere else.

OP is doing exactly what he claims is the problem. He's picking and choosing links and completely ignoring timelines and facts. Sure, New York EVENTUALLY got 4,400 ventilators AFTER they went public and called out the federal government on the original offer of 400.

Normally I would give him the benefit of the doubt that he just didn't do proper research, but then when I see him making claims like "the lines are blurred between the media and the Democratic party" I just assume he's acting in bad faith and knows full well that the ventilators weren't released until after the negative press.

Wasn’t NY the hardest hit back in March 2020. Literally bodies shoving in trucks?

Yes, which is why the federal government sent a ton of supplies (more than any other state by a large margin) and a hospital ship there: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2020/04/1...

He has the second highest covid death rate per capita, NJ's Phil Murphy beat him out (so far).

NY was ground zero in the US, so even without mismanagement it might have been the case. I work remotely with a Dr. in the Bronx and they were hit unbelievably hard early on. The hospital he worked at was surrounded with refrigeration trucks to store bodies.

To be fair, I don't think any politician could seriously influence that number. Crafting sensible policies helps a bit, but infection is a matter of chance and how people behave.

Indeed, I am poking fun. The current narrative is that sensible policies are the only thing that matters, which leads to the obvious conclusion that there was failure that should be accounted for.

It was disgusting re: the ships and the Javits center. But, the rude refusal to use any of those (by both Cuomo and Newsom), solely because Trump provided them, was also one of the early revelations of the politicization of the pandemic.

Newsom repeatedly and publicly thanked Trump for the USNS Mercy.

https://www.axios.com/gavin-newsom-trump-coronavirus-cnn-71e...

Before any of that happened, Trump was promising the pandemic would go away on its own, calling for less testing (implying either an astounding lack of intellect or something more nefarious) and he later admitted on a television interview he lied about the severity of the pandemic.

Yeah, and not a soul in the media or other most elsewhere cared until after the election. Indeed, CNN had his own brother interview him, even coaching him to maximize his appeal. The activist media is detestable.

I think CNN liked the brother vs. brother angle purely for entertainment value. The only activism they practice is what drives traffic.

I don't doubt they make good money off of their activism, but let's not diminish the extent to which they are activist rather than journalist. These are the OG "mostly peaceful protest" folks[0], and this is only one of the more conspicuous on a long list of egregiously activist takes that they've produced in the last few years.

[0]: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cnn-fiery-but-mostly-peaceful...

I think activism implies service to an idealistic cause. I don't believe CNN has any idealistic causes, they're a capitalist firm servicing their market.

I don't mean this as a defense of CNN in any way. They're clearly giving their audience what they want to hear which drives revenue, making them more of an entertainment company than a news company. But the problem of for-profit news is bigger than CNN.

I'm not sure we can really separate activism from corporate greed in the context of the media. Typically you have a lot of rank and file journalists and editors who are activist and corporate leadership who have figured out how to monetize their employees ideological fervor. Moreover, as "activists" are rewarded financially for their commitment, they become greedy grifters rather than mere devotees of a toxic ideology (consider prominent activist-grifters such as Kendi or DiAngelo). Which is all to say that it seems not particularly worthwhile to try to distinguish between activists and grifters because it seems more like a spectrum than distinct categories and all positions on the spectrum are pretty equally toxic as far as I can tell (you're either propagating misinformation out of zeal or greed and one doesn't seem strictly better than the other).

If you are taking about Portland, it really was mostly peaceful protest. It probably would have been completely peaceful if trump hadn’t sent in his fascist anonymous SS shock troops (against the express wishes of both the city and state governments).

> fascist anonymous SS shock troops

Can you try again without going full Godwin's Law on your first post in the thread? How can we have any hope of productive conversation with rhetoric like this? (I'm far from a Trump supporter, but there's valid Trump criticism--and plenty of it--and then there's absurd hyperbole).

I'm not who you're responding to, but I'm not sure how else to reasonably characterize unmarked, unidentified armed and armored personnel snatching people off the streets into unmarked vehicles.

Is it more charitable to assume you genuinely can’t tell the difference between the US Marshals and SS troops or that you’re arguing in bad faith?

I don't believe those were US Marshalls, iirc they were volunteers from a collection of federal agencies that were the most loyal to Trump.

However, they way they acted, in refusing to identify themselves, the agency for which they worked, where they were taking their abductees, etc makes me inclined to liken them more to a notorious fascist unit than a legitimate law enforcement agency.

Per NPR (a solidly left-leaning source) they were US Marshals and they used unmarked vehicles to avoid the violent protesters who were allegedly targeting police. They didn't arrest anyone, but transported them to a safe location for questioning and immediately released them. Certainly not a good look but obviously this is nothing like SS troopers kidnapping people for death camps, torture, imprisonment, etc.

I am a vocal critic of Trump, but I don't understand the impulse to invoke absurd comparisons between the US and Nazi Germany. Trump gives us plenty of legitimate stuff to criticize on a regular basis, why discredit yourself like this?

“They didn’t arrest anyone.” Please. What is arrest other than losing freedom movement and then being moved to a location. It doesn’t make sense to me that you’re choosing to die on this hill. There is no excuse for using unmarked vehicles and police with no insignia. This is the US government, they’re doing it because they’re afraid of protestors? Sounds like BS. I’m tired of the government playing the victim during protests.

> It doesn’t make sense to me that you’re choosing to die on this hill

Friend, I’m not the one comparing US Marshals to SS Troopers, but please go on.

> What is arrest other than losing freedom movement and then being moved to a location.

Maybe the right phrasing would be "detained without the legal protections given to arrested people" -- not a step up...

What if there really were fascist shock-troopers and when people tried to express their outrage, anyone who wasn’t there says “whoa whoa, tone down the hyperbole”

There’s no real threat of fascism in America and people who use the term to characterize American politics are either ignorant or disingenuous or both.

I’d say Trump was definitely toeing the line. Taking all his actions as a whole 1) sending federal police to Portland and randomly kidnapping people 2) literally spewing lies every other word to the point you don’t know what’s real 3) wanting a military parade with tanks saluting him 4) inciting a mob to storm a democratically elected legislative assembly 5) expecting Supreme Court picks to be loyal to him specifically 6) undermining the integrity of an election which his own government and party often admitted was secure …

https://twitter.com/sfmnemonic/status/896884949634232320

>> "By all means, compare these shitheads to Nazis. Again and again. I'm with you."

If the Jack boot fits…

What's with the hysterical anti-media FUD? We know about Cuomo's nursing home shenanigans because the media you complain about were at the forefront of reporting about it, starting as far back as April 2020. (WSJ, Politico, WaPo, NYT, NBC News, Chicago Tribune, ABC, and CBS were just some of the national news organizations reporting on this.)

The public decided it didn't care.

Compare coverage on those outlets before and after the election. The media largely decides what the public does and doesn't care about. If they ran these stories as breathlessly as their ICE stories or their BLM stories the public would care.

...and he made the nursing homes not liable for anything related to covid-19. That's super villain evilry.

He repealed that law after becoming under federal investigation for it.

This man is the perfect illustration of New York State politics. Corrupt to the core.

I’m glad I have a downvote button in this country.

Can you explain why you downvoted? Just making a snarky comment doesn't add anything to the conversation or explain why the post is incorrect or misleading.

Calling someone snarky is snarky and HN ALWAYS downvotes comments about downvoting which means this is an echo chamber and basically a waste of time as your comment so well illustrates.

My election votes do matter however and I may use them to downvote certain candidates which was the topic at hand.

He was not allowed to transfer covid patients to the ship. The captain/navy didnt want to deal with the cleaning/disinfecting after the fact.

Tha javits center was for overflow, not first priority.

Where else were the elderly supposed to go? This one i have no info on

Then you move non-infected folks out of hospitals or nursing homes onto the ship, then use the empty space for the covid patients. There were still ways to utilize the resources available in a much better and safer way.

> The captain/navy didnt want to deal with the cleaning/disinfecting after the fact.

That sounds weird, like they weren't going to clean up after non-COVID patients? Is there a cite on this claim?

Covid patients were not allowed on board the ship. This was reported at the time.

On top of its strict rules preventing people infected with the virus from coming on board, the Navy is also refusing to treat a host of other conditions. Guidelines disseminated to hospitals included a list of 49 medical conditions that would exclude a patient from admittance to the ship.

Ambulances cannot take patients directly to the Comfort; they must first deliver patients to a city hospital for a lengthy evaluation — including a test for the virus — and then pick them up again for transport to the ship.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/nyregion/ny-coronavirus-u...

The ship's facilities were not meant for COVID patients, it was meant for patients who would go to a hospital if it wasn't full of COVID patients.

You forgot his "Best Selling" braggadocios book about how great he handled COVID-19, including his decision to send thousands of elderly to their deaths.

It's one thing to make a policy blunder and deal with the consequences... It's another thing entirely to cover it up, lie, and suppress just to cling to power.

Just reflect for a second... the media cooed at how great this man was and how he was going to be the next President. And now, he won't go down for killing thousands of elderly and the ensuing cover-up, no - he's going to go down (big maybe!) for being a sexual creep. What a world...

> And now, he won't go down for killing thousands of elderly and the ensuing cover-up, no - he's going to go down (big maybe!) for being a sexual creep.

A politician killing a few (hundred) thousand people is rarely that big a black mark on their legacy, especially among their supporters.

People dying as a result of bad policy is one thing - people can hold the politician accountable at the ballot box (either next election or recall if bad enough). You can't always know a policy is bad before enacting it... that's just life.

Covering it up though, makes that process impossible.

Even when Cuomo realized this was a bad policy and was resulting in thousands of unnecessary deaths - he didn't reverse course... instead he doubled down, wrote a book, and won an Emmy - all while literally knowingly sending people to their deaths.

The very fact that the conversation surrounding Cuomo nearly always is focused on sexual harassment means the cover-up worked, and he got away with it.

Even now, as his own party (and the President himself) have turned their back to Cuomo, the conversation leaves out the cover-up.

Cuomo got away with it, sold a ton of books, won an Emmy, and will have learned nothing other than to not get caught groping women again. Wow...

> Did you know the hospital ship went home after being almost completely unused? Did you know it treated IN TOTAL 182 people? With a crew of 1200 and 1000 available beds?

That's probably because it wasn't sent originally to support COVID patients, and it wasn't until later that they opened up for COVID, and then left shortly after it had opened for COVID. Not sure about Javits.

> He won an Emmy for it!

Isn't that a TV/movie price? For good acting?

News reporters win Emmys too, they got varying categories.

Let's not be hyperbolic. He may not have handled covid perfectly but there are dozens of governments and legislatures out there that literally made mask mandates and lockdowns illegal to implement. If he deserves prison what about them?

This story is generally not discussed openly because there's a silent acknowledgement amongst people that distasteful things were done from 2016-2020 for obvious reasons.

Behind closed doors plenty of people say they think it's fine because the end goal was achieved.

I believe the initial rehousing of elderly patients back into nursing elder care facilities predates the arrival of the hospital ship and the construction of the Javitz Center hospital and triage space.

I'm ignorant on if this practice continued post arrival and construction of the added COVID treatment centers though.

>> Dani Lever — who had worked in Cuomo’s press operation since 2014 but left in August 2020 to join Facebook as a communications manager

This is the sort of hire that drives me nuts. I'm sure this person is a fully capable communications manager, but what Facebook really purchased was political access. Is it no surprise then that long after beginning work she was doing favors for her former employer? Maintaining a connection to powerful politicians might well have been in her job description.

>> Prior to joining Cuomo’s office in 2014, Lever worked as a press assistant for President Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign and worked in press relations at the Clinton Foundation, among other roles, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Which is more valuable to Facebook: her skills as a "communication manager" or the fact that she probably has the personal numbers for half of Washington?

After some quickly googling: she appears to be the daughter of a prominent NYC attorney, which might have something to do with her previous work, as a student, for NY's attorney general. And for NYC's comptroller general. I would have killed for such jobs during law school. She seems to have bounced between them while an undergrad.

"Lever, who grew up in Quaker Ridge, graduated from [redacted] and the University of Wisconsin-Madison also worked for state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, President Obama's 2012 campaign, and Clinton Foundation. She is the daughter of Joel and Debbie Lever of Bradford Road."

https://scarsdale10583.com/about-joomla/the-project/5776-sca...

I love that "Bradford Road" reference. That is New England code for an old and well connected family. (The implications of her highschool are just inappropriate and so I redact it.)

Regulatory capture, innit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

Nick Clegg is another notable political hire by Facebook. It seems like a tactic of theirs.

Nick Clegg was once the deputy prime minister of Great Britain. The two hires are in no way comparable.

I know several people who have transitioned from working in politics to working in private sector.

The reason is usually much less nefarious: Private sector pays a lot more than political jobs. This is especially true for FAANG positions.

Facebook is large enough to afford professional lobbyists and consulting firms if they need political access. They don’t need to give executive level positions to former employees of a governor’s communications team to get access.

>> professional lobbyists and consulting firms

Those cost and are not very effective. Lobbyists create paper trails and must follow rules. A more efficient strategy is to hire the friends and family members of influential people.

It's a cost worth paying as it provides the "cover" for the actual influence.

"Everything is aboveboard, the lobbyists we hired are just that good."

> A more efficient strategy is to hire the friends and family members of influential people.

Recently, a Picasso sold at auction for $150k. Recently, a Hunter Biden painting reportedly sold for $500k.

Nothing to see here, he’s just a really great artist. Coming off his fantastic career as a Ukrainian energy guru.

“Facebook is large enough to afford professional lobbyists and consulting firms if they need political access. They don’t need to give executive level positions to former employees of a governor’s communications team to get access.”

This is no different. Basically they are hiring lobbyists on staff instead of dealing with a lobbying firm.

What is the job of "communications manager" if not to maintain human networking?

To spellcheck outgoing messaging. To organize press events. To ensure a cohesive message is presented that is accurate to the intentions of the company. To stop execs from saying horrible things (Blizzard-Activision). There is plenty of communications work that doesn't require influence.

These political hires remind me why I always question the "former" in "former CIA". Just like Lever seems to have carried loyalty to and willingness to work on behalf of her former boss into her new job, a lot of these "former CIA" types seem to do a lot of things that are beneficial to theirs.

I did a quick search for some of the big companies to see who is on their board with a political past.

Apple - Al Gore (Vice President of the US) - Ron Sugar (Northrup Grunman)

Google - Roger Ferguson (Federal Reserve of US)

Facebook - Robert Kimmett (Department of Treasury)

Facebook Oversight - Helle Thorning-Smith (PM of Denmark) - Nick Clegg (Deputy PM of UK)

Salesforce - Colin Powell (Secretary of State in the US) - John Roos (Ambassador to Japan from the US)

Those are past connections to companies. How many hires are sons/daughters of people still on boards or regulatory bodies. Active family connections are much more difficult to regulate or even document.

And look at the board that was in place for Theranos....

Afterpay has a growing list of hires that are obviously for political and regulatory fire supression[0].

[0]: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-04/afterpay-square-mille...

Don't forget collections of low and mid-level staffers who really get work done who maintain connections back to the military/political industrial complex who collectively become invaluable to organizations.

Dropbox - Condi Rice (Bush Sec. State)

I don't think she's currently on the board.

It's a two way street....

Biden's Counselor - Jeff Zients from Facebook's Board

Biden's General Counsel - Jessica Hertz from Facebook

White House Office of Legislative Affairs - Louisa Terrell - Public Policy director at Facebook

Governments and corporations are just not clearly separable entities.

Corporate executives regularly go in to politics, and there influence legislation or regulations that affects the industries they came from or award government contracts to their former employers or other companies which they wind up working for at high paying jobs after they leave government.

It's an open secret in Washington that after leaving office politicians get cushy, high paying jobs at firms they favored while in office.

The back scratching between corporations and governments never stops.

I mean, people got to earn a living somehow after they leave politics, right? Would you ban certain positions? Or just give former politicians a salary for the remainder of their lives and forbid them from working? Or how else would you solve this?

Of course it all smells more than a little fishy, but I'm not really seeing any realistic way to solve it.

Exactly. It can't be both ways. Nope, not living on taxpayers' money also can't take private sector job commensurate their skills.

Agreed. I'm not suggesting a ban on what you can do after politics. Just pointing out who is on their board at the moment.

It's a feature, not a bug.

This is why politics and voting are completely pointless at this point… We currently live in a world where people who amassed wealth before we were even born, have bought off every politician, locked down our government and closed off every single avenue to real change.

Welcome to our neo-feudal reality!

> This is why politics and voting are completely pointless at this point…

That's patently false. The government, and in particular the executive branch, holds immense and immediate powers whose implementation materially changes when a change of officeholder takes place, even sometimes within the same party.

It's not clear that Biden's platform would have been as worker focused were it not for Sanders' run or as America-first were it not for Trump.

Also consider that within an 10 year span legislation as opposed to each other as Obamacare and the Trump tax cut took place.

Voting matters a great deal.

The corruption of revolving doors pays for the grandkids college.

"While he was Minister for Trade and Investment, Robb approved Chinese company Shandong Landbridge Group to lease Port Darwin for 99 years. As soon as he left politics, Robb was hired by Shandong Landbridge on a $880,000 per year salary. In 2019, Robb left the position, shortly before a new foreign-interference law took effect."[0]

Good work if you can get it and still sleep at night.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Robb

“The New York electorate seems to be inured to corruption, they seem to believe it’s normal and expected behavior"

"According to a poll released last week by Quinnipiac University, 45 percent of New Yorkers consider corruption to be a “very serious” problem, but 48 percent of voters said it’s as bad as anywhere else"

"You'll be hard pressed to find New Yorkers who don't think government corruption is a problem in New York State,” poll analyst Mary Snow said. “Yet, it's not the defining issue in the race.”[0]

[0]: https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/201...

Sheryl Sandberg was also hired for political access. "Maintaining a connection to powerful politicians" is also her job description.How much she is paid for that!

> The implications of her highschool are just inappropriate and so I redact it.

Right before you link to the page where you pulled your self-redacted quote from. So all you really did was call more attention to it. Clever trolling.

I think unless one keep claiming US exceptionalism everytime discussion like these comes up. This behavior is standard almost anywhere in the world. I would expect the same here.

> Maintaining a connection to powerful politicians might well have been in her job description.

Well not doing that will be just resorting to banal technicalities to hire one for an important job. To me it would be as stupid and irritating as companies asking me SpringBoot 2.3.1 experience for a Sr Engineer job instead of problem solving skills.

> but what Facebook really purchased was political access.

I wish people would evaluate their own susceptibility to conspiracy theory thinking. There is no evidence of this other than "it is something I've seen in the movies that seems plausible," which frankly is more or less the same level of proof as "Plandemic" and "Antivax."

This is one of the most common things in the political world, we even have a name for it. It's the revolving door.

Extremely weird or naive to think of it as an implausible conspiracy theory.

> I love that "Bradford Road" reference. That is New England code for an old and well connected family.

Maybe I'm missing something, but you posted an article from a local news site in Scarsdale, NY. I'm pretty sure that just means that her family literally lived on Bradford Road.

I've never heard Bradford Road used as code before, and I grew up in New England. (And besides, NY is not in New England.)

FWIW re your last two paragraphs:

I think you're reading too much into the small town newspaper editorial.

"Bradford Road" is how you describe the road they lived on, in a small town paper.

Scarsdale NY is a wealthy suburb in Westchester County, with a large Jewish population.

"Solomon Schechter" (your redaction) is a private school in Manhattan named after an important rabbi. Censoring his name is confusing. Are you concerned that readers here will think you are reacting negatively to her family's (presumed) religious affiliation?

Small town editorial is chummy and insular, but it's not written for a larger audience. I don't see anything unusual or inappropriate in the writing here.

I feel that you missed the most egregious problem with the article though. It was posted in 2016, and almost five years later, no one has corrected the misspelling of the name of the town!

>> Censoring his name is confusing.

It isn't that. If we are talking about family relations, daughters working for people who know their fathers, a school with ties to a particular religion or community injects a statement that I did not want to make. It is irrelevant to the issue but can easily start a _very_ negative conversation. I don't think ever mentioning someone's likely religion in such context is ever appropriate.

As for "of such and such road", that is a very common phrase going back centuries. It is a way of stating the wealth, or lack thereof, of a person's family.

OK fair enough. But what if her name had been something distinctly ethnicity-or-religion-linked instead of Dani Lever (which is actually pretty distinct though of course not determinative)? Is her name off limits?

Ironically, perhaps, your redaction was the only part of your comment that made me want to read the linked article, which I found 110% inoffensive (aside from the spelling errors!).

Sorry for the meta-discussion. Not much to say about the "privileged families raise privileged children, film at 11" thread.

Why is it inappropriate? She went to an exclusive high school costing over $45K/year.

The shocking thing about Cuomo is how blatant it all was. Not just the sexual harassment but his character across the board.

This is a guy who wrote a book about his leadership in the covid pandemic during the covid pandemic. That's like Churchill writing his memoir of World War II during The Blitz.

We ought to have a culture where someone who behaves like this is laughed out of the building.

The things described by the victims were indeed perfectly relatable for anyone who ever watched one of his press briefings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK_kB-JJMKo

After you realize that Jimmy Savile could do it in front of an entire nation live on TV for several decades this ugly Schmock's feat doesn't seem so incredible anymore. Same goes for Epstein. Humans are a bunch of opportunistic little fuckers who will look away whenever it gets uncomfortable or is useful.

> We ought to have a culture where someone who behaves like this is laughed out of the building.

Some of us do, but the partisan politics have blinded many. We can't even agree on basic things any more, like supporting the Iraq war should be a disqualification for either party at this point. People keep supporting these liar, fraud, war criminal types.

To be fair, Iraq basically was a disqualifier in 2016. Little data is to be had on 2020 since the gop primary didn't really mean much.

Trump campaigned on how dumb Afghanistan and Iraq are and promised to remove troops.

Only in New York is a persona like that tolerated and celebrated. Those of us in Middle America are indeed laughing at his obvious attention seeking and machismo.

Like many other officials during this period, his frequent press conferences were nothing but ego satisfying spectacles.

Are you serious? Middle america voted for a guy exactly like that.

Yea, I totally get how you can make that comparison. I think the difference is that those that support Trump view him being a “self-made” businessman and offering them something. Does he have an ego? You bet, but the stereotypical New Yorker? Idk.

Cuomo is a silly caricature of what the rest of the country think of when they poke fun at New Yorkers: vain, aggressive, crooked, loudmouth bully.

Also, his appearance and mannerisms make him seem like a character from the Sopranos or a Scorsese movie. It is hilarious. He is just so obviously full of shit.

It would be like if the Governor of Minnesota acted and spoke like someone from the Movie “Fargo”.

I don't think you're trying to be satirical, which baffles me, since you go on to use adjectives that describe Trump to a T.

To be clear, I'm not defending Cuomo. What's going on now with the leaders of the democratic party is exhibit A in the case for the difference in how the two parties handle bad behavior by one of their own (e.g. the president calling on him to step down). Comments like yours are exhibit B -- a stunning lack of awareness at best; rank hypocrisy at worst.

Trump fashioned his persona for decades as the ultimate New Yorker, to the dismay of most New Yorkers.

And you seem to be forgetting the existence of a one Governor Jesse Ventura!

I think you are unintentionally describing another New Yorker. Trump.

I thought I should make the comment from the sibling poster more explicit.

Was paid 4M to write a book*

Highest recommendation for Robert Caro's The Power Broker, biography of Robert Moses. The guy who built NY's parks, bridges, highways, etc. How he acquired and wielded power. The impact he had nationally. It gives some insight into the game Cuomo and so many others are playing.

Politics is nasty. Full stop.

My only TIL that I can offer: Everyone should run for office. Any office. At least once.

Once you decide to play the game -- play to win -- every thing makes perfect sense.

Not to excuse it, in any way. It's just that folk theories aren't even wrong. So people get worked up about the wrong stuff. There will always be devils doing bad stuff.

What should we do about them?

(Haven't started Caro's LBJ biographies yet. I've gleaned that LBJ makes Moses look like a middleweight.)

First off, Cuomo is terrible. People are right to point to the nursing home problems, but there's even more. Stuff like setting up an "anti-corruption" commission to attack his political foes, then hastily shutting it down when it started investigating him. Many of his close aides being arrested for straight up corruption, etc. He's been flagrantly bad for a long time. (Look up the Moreland commission)

That said, a communications manager is strongly, hilariously, obviously not a "facebook executive". For one thing, it's an IC position. CM's don't manage people, they "manage" a message. (Source: I worked at FB)

Please don't let yourself get baited by the literal tabloid that is the Murdoch post.

When i saw this was from the post, i was saddened by how many comments there where as so many seem to take it seriously.

Yeah, it's really sad. I don't know what to do about it. There's just a shocking lack of context when it comes to news/politics here. Which, I guess, shouldn't be so shocking -- why should we expect people to have expertise in this area?

Maybe the truly shocking thing is the ratio of strong opinions to actual knowledge.

Imo, all this Cuomo stuff is a huge distraction from the much bigger elephant in the room which people in power don't want to address.

Back in March 2020, the American Health Care Association told Cuomo, Wolf, Murphy, Whitmer etc to stop ordering infected patients into nursing homes. The governors ignored the AHCA and removed their own family from nursing homes while forcing others:

https://archive.is/bP8hz

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1191811

After this, it turned out Cuomo was also fabricating and lying about the actual nursing home death numbers by 10000.

Remember the trans Health Secretary Rachel Levine from PA (now US Assistant Health Secretary) who took out her own mother from nursing home while pushing covid patients into them:

https://nypost.com/2020/05/13/pennsylvania-health-official-m...

Despite all this, nobody has been held accountable and last month, the DOJ dropped the investigation:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-04/cuomo-alo...

The worst part is, bits of this were known from the beginning of the pandemic, but that didn't stop him from becoming a national hero on the left, despite a pandemic performance that ranged from unlucky at best to inept/corrupt at worst. It's only once Trump was out of office that a big chunk of the population (partially) woke up from this weird delirium in which literally everything bad is Trump's fault and literally everyone who isn't him is a saint.

In light of deep stupidity like this, it baffles me that people bother using models of electorate behavior more sophisticated than emotionally-incontinent monkeys banging on typewriters. There's more consistency and intelligence evident in the way six year olds pick their favorite power rangers.

Are you saying that nursing home patients should be moved to live on the street? Where else could they go?

Hospitals.

The US military docked a hospital ship in New York Harbor during the peak of the initial outbreak. That ship remained almost entirely unused [0] while COVID-positive adults were being discharged from hospitals straight back to nursing homes, where they died and/or infected others. The emergency hospital established in New York's Javits Convention Center went similarly underutilized [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital_ships_designated_for_...

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/why-nycs-largest-emergency-h...

New York is a large state. Just because there was a hospital ship harbored in the Hudson, doesn't mean you could fill it from nursing homes or emergency care facilities upstate.

Some could have been sent? An attempt made?

There were plenty of empty beds in NYC hospitals. The hospital ship they brought was pretty much entirely unused.

It is a hospital's job to keep beds open. They would shuffle people into nursing homes (or the street) without any direction to do otherwise.

Why Is Cuomo still able to keep Office despite being the incarnation of corrupt politician? Who are his supporters/backers ?

> Why Is Cuomo still able to keep Office

It’s been hours since the Attorney General’s report was was released. This is asking “why are people allowed to lie unassisted” picoseconds after a car crash.

No, he was accused long ago, 6 months or longer. Many other men were cancelled on much flimsier accusations. But he’s a Democratic politician in NY, so he’s a favoured demographic by most media…

Often what happens with a scandal is after it breaks the defendant will say they deserve a chance to be heard, and if an investigation is launched that's at least a reason to back off for a bit, and the bad press can go away for a while.

Now that the AG has finished the report, it looks like a matter of time.

It might just be a question of him positioning an ally to take his seat, or maybe tying up a few loose ends.

> he was accused long ago, 6 months or longer. Many other men were cancelled on much flimsier accusations.

Fortunately, it takes due process to “cancel” a holder of public office. Part of that involves verifying claims.

What’s so “fortunate” about that? If the rulers were liable to be cancelled as easily as plebs, maybe the plebs too would then be allowed due process.

That’s not actually true though. Impeachment is a political process, not a judicial one. An executive can be impeached for whatever the legislature feels like according to rules that the legislature itself sets.

Historically officials have been impeached for such things as drunkenness and “intemperate speeches” (racist rants). If the legislature wanted to, he’d be gone in 30s flat.

"Cancelled" isn't a sufficiently precise term to be meaningful in this context. I doubt many people would have voluntarily booked him for a comedy tour or whatever, six months ago, and my corner of the world (liberals and leftists in NYC) had already been unhappy with him as a politician well before these accusations. But impeaching a governor, or having him voluntarily resign, is a much more involved process.

It’s kind of amazing how valueless the word “cancel” is, given that it now covers everything from becoming unemployable to being criticized.

I find it particularly dumb in this context. This isn’t about “cancelling” or legally prosecuting Cuomo, it’s about deciding whether or not he is fit to continue to wield executive authority on behalf of the people of New York. You can decide that someone isn’t worth “cancelling”, whatever the fuck that means, and still decide that they shouldn’t be the governor of your state.

NY Dems are hoping to push him out without a messy impeachment. He has few allies left, but he can make a fuss on the way.

> NY Dems are hoping to push him out without a messy impeachment

The only way to do that is to credibly threaten impeachment. That’s the work that is being done.

I find it odd that a formal impeachment would be necessary. If NY Democrats just refuse any further cooperation with Cuomo then surely he has no option left but to resign?

NY’s Governor has quite a bit of power even if the Assembly and Senate refuse to work with him.

Right now, a majority of the Assembly has come out in favor of an impeachment trial. We will see over the next few days if that threat is enough to push him out. I suspect it won’t be.

Watch House of Cards.

Wow, that’s a mike-drop kind of comment - dead on!

Politics is a weird thing, and to those who question situations like this really should watch that show. Aside than learning about the Constitution in school, you’ll learn more about real world politics from that show than you can imagine.

Watching House of Cards to learn about government and the Constitution is like watching Bond movies to learn spycraft. It bears little resemblance to actual workings of Congress and the White House.

Absolutely not, it’s a fantastical fiction. Completely made up for entertainment purposes.

I live in NYC - Cuomo is still somewhat popular here, particularly (and perhaps counterintuitively) among older women. At least among the older women I know, his transgressions are processed in the same way that Trump's were when the "grab 'em by the p-ssy" tape leaked.

Cuomo is skilled in playing "leader" on tv:

* the daily covid press briefings - these were especially powerful among Americans looking for some kind of steady leadership they could latch on to and feel safe and were especially amped up by the media (remember "Cuomo-sexual"?)

* in his response yesterday to AG's allegations, he showed multiple pics of him hugging and touching people he greeted, as a way of minimizing the pic that showed him touching one of his accuser's face

* multiple staged videos on tv of him assessing and riding the subways, cleaning the subways, attending gay pride parade, etc all to create a fake image of him as a "man of the people"

^^ that stuff still works on the over 55 demographics that watch CNN, so they still support him. IIRC, he had like ~50% approval rating like a couple weeks ago.

I don’t know why the answer is unpopular. I not an American and don’t follow the NY politics. I don’t know too much about the scandal. But the ^^^ description sounds like a playbook followed by many politicians in many places , and the one that seems to work quite often.

I will probably get more downvotes for this, but don't care.

Likely being downvoted by folks who identify as liberal / democrat who still have misplaced faith that Cuomo is an effective leader.

That's how strong the media effect is.

Politics has become a religion substitute in this country. People are becoming blinded by dogma, but instead of the dogma being about unfalsifiable claims, it's about facts and real world happenings.

This is why the focus is on sex assault and not nursing home deaths. Like it or not, there's a segment of the population that celebrates men who grab life by certain parts. they're typically elderly.

And the elderly are a more active voter bloc.

The reason they stoped investigating the nursing home deaths is because titillating older women with a handsome elderly man is more likely to lead to political success than talking about how he killed older ladies.

You may be unfamiliar with just how serious the allegations against Cuomo are, there's a link to the state AG report in this HN thread. Arguably, they paint a comprehensive picture of a guy who simply cannot be trusted with any leadership role, or any authority over people more generally. There's simply no excuse for his treating people who were working with him as he did.

The report lists many cases of grossly intrusive, invasive and inappropriate behavior; if even a single instance had some merit it would be more than enough to immediately and seriously call into question his ability to lead people effectively.

Absolutely, but forcing elderly to their deaths in the face of multiple warnings against it and against federally recommended policy is much worse.

Sex assault is terrible, but marching people off to death is much worse, IMO.

He keeps the office until the next election regardless of what he does. Kind of a problem with elected positions. It used to be possible to shame people into resigning but that no longer works.

No, he will be impeached if he does no resign - that's the consensus amongst legislators in Albany from what I've read.

Impeach but not convict.

Politics is by its very nature nasty and corrupt. New York politics is no different. In fact its kind of notorious for it. Cuomo is a powerful and politically connected family. The current governor's dad was once governor of NY as well. And his brother is a high profile news anchor.

It shouldn't be that way. Families shouldn't have that much power. But they do. And it takes a fair bit to bring them down.

I disagree that politics by its nature is corrupt. I can see how, in some countries, it is hard to think otherwise, but I find the statement itself to be false.

I agree with you. Certainly, you don't have to be corrupt to be a masterful politician.

However, it is a fact that politics is a nasty business. We benefit when the people capable of doing it are the ones that we put in power. Otherwise, we will get gobbled up by the other factions and entities that do emplace that sort of person in their political institutions.

Personally I find it very interesting that these behaviors have allegedly been known by those in his working radius for many years, yet they are only coming to a head now after Cuomo's profile was elevated within the party and on the national stage during the scary slog of covid.

I am leery of the use of sexual indiscretions to hamstring political operators. If he did something illegal (to be clear, I am not saying he is innocent nor guilty), they should take it to court rather than to the New York Times.

Power attracts those who pursue power, and those most willing to go to any ends to obtain that power are those mostly likely to wind up with it.

I don't think that power itself is necessarily a corrupting force, but it is a magnet for those who are corrupted.

Maybe that’s part of it, but a lot of it is also how organizations of people work.

When one person agrees and the other disagrees it comes down to interpretation of the rules and then imposing those rules. It can become very despotic quite fast. And it’s not because the people are like that. The “system” makes them into that. In the case above, if the agreer sees the disagreers side this encourages other disagreers to flout whatever it was and things can devolve into anarchy. So you necessarily have to enforce some rules.

Too late to edit my post but this quote from Frank Herbert's "Chapterhouse: Dune" says it well:

> All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.

> those most willing to go to any ends to obtain that power are those mostly likely to wind up with it

That's not how the real world works. We're not in a comic book or self help course where if you want something badly enough, you'll get it.

Plenty of people want to be successful rappers (insert any other competitive profession). Most of them don't make it.

Now if you genuinely believe the deciding factor is 'willingness to go to any ends', you're simply empirically wrong. That's not how the real world functions and if it did, complex modern society would not be possible.

"power corrupts". Politics by nature is about assigning power to a few decision makers.

Democracy has less corruption than other systems due to separation of power, but it's foolish to think there isn't temptation to become corrupt when you think you can get away with something.

Government politics is violence and coercion without consent - it is rotten at its very core. It may be necessary, and it can be better or worse, but forcing people to do things at the threat of violence is horrible. We should hope to evolve to a system where violent coercion is replaced by communication and consent.

>We should hope to evolve to a system where violent coercion is replaced by communication and consent.

Until someone doesn't agree with a law. Then it will return to coercion.

As soon as there are multiple entities (countries, tribes, etc) that want the same thing (usually resources), there will be some level of dishonesty in order to gain an advantage (because human nature).

The definition of corruption is willingness to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain.

Given a tribe is big enough, it'll have multiple sub-tribes in it. Now go back to paragraph one.

That's why politics is corrupt, as soon as a tribe is above a tiny size, people act dishonestly to further their sub-tribe's interests.

Cuomo was elected by public vote.

Governor positions aren’t placed via connections or corruption or family power. The citizens have to vote them in.

These most recent issues weren’t known prior to the last election cycle. Given these recent revelations I don’t see the voters going for him again, if he were to run at all.

A small minority of voters are swayed by the kids of behavior Cuomo is in the hot seat for.

They don't put "enforcing a strict moral code" above their direct personal preferences.

But you more or less have to get on the ballot at all, which is much easier if you're endorsed by a party. That requires connections, is aided by corruption, and doesn't require a public vote.

During the most recent NYC gubernatorial elections, eight parties had "automatic ballot access" due to getting enough votes on their party line from the last election. One of these eight is the "Women's Equality Party," created by Cuomo and his running mate Kathy Hochul in 2014, when Cuomo was already governor and running for re-election.

Those eight parties ended up nominating three candidates: four including the Democrats nominated Cuomo, three including the Republicans nominated Marc Molinaro, and the Greens nominated Howie Hawkins.

Two other parties without automatic ballot access were able to get onto the ballot - the Libertarians and the new "Serve America Movement" party. 15K signatures are required to qualify. The Libertarians got about 30K signatures and 95K votes; the SAM got about 40K signatures and 55K votes. There were also about 7K write-ins. Meanwhile, the two major nominees got millions of votes each.

It is technically true that an independent or write-in candidate could win. I don't think a write-in candidate has ever won state-wide office in New York. One write-in candidate has achieved federal office in recent years, but it was an extraordinarily special case that does not back up the general idea that write-in candidates are viable: incumbent Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski won re-election in 2010 after losing her primary.

But Murkowski illustrates that in fact you don't need the party apparatus if you have the people. It's a lot of work, but if you have that popular support it's really possible.

I'd say she actually underscores that write-ins prevent some types of democratic backsliding in the US, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the unhealthy instincts of the core Republicans who tend to decide primaries in deeply Red states result in at least one more Murkowski in 2022.

He’s an old school political boss. Nobody loves the guy, but he usually has an air of competence backed by the combination of carrot and stick that governors wield.

New York is a pretty complex state. When you hear somebody blabbering about “dems” and “blue”, you know they are clueless. It’s a conservative democratic state with a bunch of internal tensions that drive a lot of different dynamics.

Another thing is that the competition is pretty lame. If he survives this scandal, he will win re-election.

>the competition is pretty lame

The person elected governor before Cuomo (Eliot Spitzer) resigned due to a sex scandal. (prostitution in this case)

And who was the Attorney General exerting the muscle?

Andrew Cuomo himself was NY AG at the time.

The investigation was done by the feds though.

The bar for a fireable offense has been set extremely high in the last few years. That said, the Democratic party is largely still center-left, well-functioning, and with a working moral compass (for a political party), unlike that other authoritarian cult.

Cuomo will be forced to either resign or be impeached.

From everything I’ve read it sounds like the NY legislature plans to move expeditiously toward an impeachment, so I’m not sure he is able to keep the office.

NYS politics are a mess—not quite the level of habitual corruption stereotypically associated with Chicago, but it wasn't far off from that within my memory.

The only governor we've had in the past 40 years who wasn't visibly corrupt was Eliot Spitzer—who allowed a sex scandal with no political/corruption elements (that I ever heard of) to push him out of office.

Cuomo was actually looking pretty good for a while, relatively speaking. He was still very much a NY politician, but he was getting some stuff done, and with Silver and Bruno no longer keeping a stranglehold over the state legislature, we actually had budgets coming in on time (for many years, it was guaranteed that the state budget would be months late, at best, due to the deliberate gridlock in Albany).

It is, of course, supremely unsurprising that Cuomo has been doing this sort of thing all along. It's exactly the sort of mid-20th-century "politician's perk" that anyone who's paying attention would absolutely expect him to be making sure he gets. Unfortunately, because he's built up a decent amount of political capital due to the aforementioned "getting stuff done", combined with the fact that it is something that far too many still consider "normal", and his almost fanatical stubbornness, it's also supremely unsurprising that he's not resigning. I expect to see a messy, drawn-out impeachment fight, at best.

At this point, we can just hope that we might get a replacement who's actually interesting in improving New York, rather than one who mostly cares about improving his own image and network. But I won't hold my breath.

He was elected through the public vote. Politicians aren’t removed from office the instant they’re associated with negative press. There will certainly be an impeachment process that can possibly remove him in the middle of an election cycle, but it takes time.

> There will certainly be an impeachment process

The impeachment process against Cuomo has been underway for a while, and it has shifted into a higher gear with this report.

And where are all the Kavanaugh detractors making noise about Cuomo?

I'm also interested in seeing Anderson Cooper trot out the accusers and interview them about Cuomo.

FWIW, every liberal I know wants Cuomo out of office. I don't know any Cuomo supporters outside of the NY Democratic political machine.

I agree most “desire” to have him out. But they’re not making noisy rackets in the street demanding immediate removal (either when these things initially came out like 10 months ago or now).

If you're going to compare apples to apples, shouldn't you be contrasting the Republican party's response to that appointment, with the Democratic party's response to Cuomo?

I, uh, don't recall either Trump or Mitch McConnel demanding that Kavanaugh withdraw his bid. Both Biden and Pelosi, however, have called for Cuomo's resignation.

It's strange how the Republican party seems to be unwilling to hold itself to a much lower standard than what they demand from Democrats.

They will do the same thing they did when it was discovered that Virginia's Governor dressed up in blackface, and his LT Governor was accused of sexual assault..... nothing at all. It was an election year and they needed the votes.

There are major differences between Northam (did not commit a crime, happened decades ago) and Cuomo (did commit crimes, happened during his term in office). I suspect that the closer parallel in Virginia history would be Bob McDonnell- in 2013 he announced he was under federal investigation for bribery charges (like all sitting Virginia governors, he was ineligible to run for reelection, so this did not affect his campaign, though it definitely affect the campaign that was running to replace him).

He ended up taking the case all the way to the Supreme Court, who ruled that what he did was not legally bribery.

It’s interesting to see some people get cancelled for things they said or did decades ago, but others don’t get cancelled for that. What are the considerations when they go for someone who said something decades ago (or in the cases of people in their early twenties, things they said on Twitter in their teens —and look at Jack, he said cancelable offenses when Twitter was young too but he remains a darling)

You mean like Biden? Pelosi? Both NY Democratic senators?

You really can't pin hypocrisy on the Democratic party here. You saw the same with Al Franken (where, in hindsight, they were probably too quick to judge).

I agree with the Franken incident. It was "bro" culture, but I don't think it was enough to dispatch someone from office. But Cuomo and the Virginia governor cases, had they been another party we would have had lots of clamoring for removal.

There were several issues with the Franken case; a number of claims don't really pan out on closer examination for example.[1]

As for "lots of clamoring for removal", things are moving in the right direction; why make a lot of noise if things are going well? Plus in recent years at least, the Democratic party generally has a history of usually doing the right thing with these kind of issues as far as I know. The Republican party on the other hand has lost the trust that they will just do the right thing, and events from the last several years don't really make that lack of trust all that unreasonable to be honest.

[1]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/29/the-case-of-al...

I think this proves it’s politics and not based on principle (which is what these are sold as). They don’t say, yeah, he’s a lout (or a sexual assaulter or whatever) but he’s our guy, so let’s keep ‘im, it’s like shhhhh, let’s not make any noise, let’s do some party platform things to wash your sins and let’s get on with it. If it’s the opposition it’s, we will not rest till they are out of office, they cannot represent us, it’s a travesty, yes he did blackface decades ago but he’s still a racist (look at all the decades old sins they dig up on people they don’t like).

Protestors are not marching in front of the governor's mansion wearing hand maid's tale outfits like protestors did for Kavanaugh.

These cases are not the same. In one case it's being taken serious by an organisation which has a history of taking these things serious. In another case it was not taken serious by an organisation with a history of not taking these kind of things serious.

Why would anyone protest if Biden has already called for the resignation? "We are demanding that you do what you're already doing!" That would be silly.

Now now, let's not pretend that Uncle Joe Biden doesn't have his own history of creepy behavior towards women[0]. He should apologize!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden_2020_presidential_ca...

Creepy behaviour is not sexual assault, but okay.

It really is impossible to have any sort of sensible conversation if you're hell-bent on blaming the Democrats. They are calling for his resignation and working on his impeachment, and ya'll still outraged and bringing up all sorts of unrelated things.

So is that doesn't satisfy you, then what will?

The problem is if you don't protest nothing may be done. Biden saying he wants Cuomo to step down is irrelevant since Biden has no power to force it. We need either Cuomo himself to step down or the legislature to impeach him. This may not be done unless there are protests. Look at Ralph Northam. He just weathered through people calling for his resignation and nothing was done about it. That is why you need protests.

I'm going to presume that you are not American. In the systems used by almost all other democracies around the world (either Westminster or Party List), where his office was dependent on maintaining support from Parliament, he probably would be gone by now. The US presidential/bicameral system (replicated in all of its flaws in almost every state) where the President/Governor is directly elected by the people does not have an effective means of removing someone, as we all learned by watching two impeachments of the previous President.

The executive can resign if they choose, but forcing a independently elected official out of office basically takes a lot of work and effort. He would need to be impeached by majority vote in the lower house, then convicted by a 2/3 vote in the upper house (plus, in an unusual NY quirk, the highest court, the Court of Appeals, joins the upper house as jurors) after a trial, where the governor has his own lawyers making his case for the defense, there are sworn witnesses and testimony, etc.

Impeachment has never removed a president. It has only ever removed one governor of New York. Cuomo has made enough enemies- and done enough heinous stuff- that he might lose, but it will be time consuming and painful, baring a resignation.

> The US presidential/bicameral system (replicated in all of its flaws in almost every state) where the President/Governor is directly elected by the people

The US President is not directly elected by the people, even though the people by whom he is elected are not the legislature and he does not need to maintain their support.

> Why Is Cuomo still able to keep Office despite being the incarnation of corrupt politician?

If corruption didn't work for politicians, the “corrupt politician” image wouldn't be a thing.

But Cuomo is done, its just a matter of time. Unlike what has happened with the national GOP and Trump, NY Dems are done with Cuomo; his impeachment and removal are essentially certain even with his party hold majorities in both houses of the legislature, and it looks like there is a decent chance of him facing criminal charges as well, with DAs in multiple NY counties conducting investigations.

Do we have another source for this that's slightly less political than the NY post? Possibly a primary one for the AG report in question?

The AG report is in the link:

https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2021.08.03_nyag_-_inve...

Thank you for actually linking this. I hadn’t read parts of it before today and to be honest, like most things, the prepared evidence is more damning than any summary in the media. I strongly feel that Cuomo should be impeached after reading about his behavior.

Mr. Azzopardi also sent the Confidential Files to Ed McKinley of the Times Union924 and David Caruso of the Associated Press, among others, on the same day.925 Earlier on December 13, Mr. Azzopardi had sent the Confidential Files to former Executive Chamber staff, Josh Vlasto, Mr. Bamberger, Ms. Lever, and Steve Cohen. At the direction of Ms. DeRosa or Mr. Azzopardi, Mr. Bamberger and Ms. Lever coordinated with some of the reporters who received the documents to let them know that the Executive Chamber would be sending them.

That took me all of 5 minutes to find and I guess being lazy in complaining about lazy reporting is the ultimate irony?

> lazy reporting

Politically partisan reporting, not lazy reporting.

Any major newspaper is partisan nowadays. Weird that people will only ask for alternative sources in certain newspapers.

Bias is not a binary value. There are sources which are more or less biased, and we should strive to reward and share the journalists that try to guard their less-biased reputations.

which source is less biased than others?

Reuters, Axios, AP news?

I have read enough biased statements in the above publications and am aware of enough of their internal politics to see possible motives in their reporting -- such as who they hire:

https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/authors/dawn-scal...

> Dawn Scalici joined Thomson Reuters in July 2015 to serve as the company’s first Government Global Business Director. She is charged with the responsibility of advancing Thomson Reuters’ ability to meet the disparate needs of the U.S. Government—working across the company’s major business lines and optimally leveraging its vast and unique data, products, and services. In this capacity she develops strategic relationships with government sector constituents and key decision-makers, develops campaigns to promote Thomson Reuters’ business growth, and works with the company’s senior executives to determine relevant strategic goals and plans.

> Prior to joining Thomson Reuters, Ms. Scalici served 33 years with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In her last federal assignment, she served as the National Intelligence Manager for the Western Hemisphere within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). In this role, she was responsible for overseeing national intelligence for an area of responsibility spanning from the Arctic to the tip of South America, including the US Homeland.

> Ms. Scalici serves on the Board of Directors for the Association for International Risk Intelligence Professionals and on the Board of Advisors of the Momentum Aviation Group (MAG). She also serves on the Intelligence Committee of the Arms Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) and the Homeland Security Intelligence Council of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA).

You are citing a possible source of bias for three specific individuals.

That does not speak to whether the bias is present in their organization as a whole to the same degree as other publications you might more readily consider biased.

Hmm, I could have explained why that is problematic. The article here does it better than I can. On its own, a former CIA official working a different job is not unusual, that is agreed — on its own and not part of a pattern. https://thegrayzone.com/2021/08/04/twitter-uk-cia-reuters-ce...

OP didn't ask for an "alternative sources in certain newspapers", OP asked for a source from the AG's office.

Sorry, I meant that as in if this were the NYT I don’t think somebody would have asked for another source even though it would still be justified to do so.

These days I’m not sure there is such a thing (or at least it’s a short list)

https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart

Which is why the solution is not to rely on the hope that news sources minimize their bias.

Instead, it seems the best way to get actionable news without the addition of bias from the source, is to get it from the primary source itself.

I've been thinking about building something to accomplish this for a while, a news aggregator that pulls news exclusively from primary sources.

If you think about it, the primary/original source for news in these major categories usually falls in these buckets:

- Business/Financial News: primary sources are company press releases, government regulatory bodies, etc - Political/Local News: generally originates from the websites of government agencies, or that of a particular politician's.

There are of course several other categories of news, but I'd argue these two make up the bulk of what can be considered "actionable news"

You've got Cuomo getting an assist in smearing his accusers from both CNN and Facebook, two companies with some of the widest media reach on the frigging planet, and you're complaining about the bias of the NY Post in reporting it?

Sorry for the offtopic, but having a working CNN anchor drafting statements and advising someone very much in the news without taking a leave of absence of his job, that's certainly an insanely low bar on journalistic ethics : https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/biden-calls-andrew-cuomo-resig...

There are always double standards for journalistic ethics for primetime anchors, it's certainly not a CNN nor even a US only thing, but this one is a bit too egregious to spin, surely ?

I would love to hear the discussions going on on the international side of CNN (which I would argue has fairly high standards to reporting)...

You'll have to venture into space to explore other inhabitable planets to find such publication!

Had to scroll down quite a ways but I'm glad someone asked. I assume people here wouldn't be taking, e.g. this story[0] at face value. When that one came out I figured it was "big if real", but I decided it wasn't real and from then on realized the NYPost is not to be trusted.

[0] https://nypost.com/2020/08/29/political-insider-explains-vot...

Like the NYT that printed excuses for him? I think partisanship is a reality in the US everyone has to accept, but this would sound extremely different if it was about Kavanaugh. Maybe a Supreme Court Justice is more important than a NY gouverneur, but I don't really trust any newspaper in the US to be "less political".

Funnily now people call for keeping politics out of it. In politics. This isn't about general media anymore.

The only link to HN here appears to be the Facebook angle. But from the phrasing in the article, I don't think those "confidental files" had anything to do with Facebook?

There is an endless amount of hideous behavior from the folks over at Facebook that we all inevitably hear about.

I was always puzzled why so few FB employees whistleblow (RSUs aside). That was until I read An Ugly Truth and read about Sonya Ahuja's internal policing tactics. Scary stuff!

I feel sorry for you all being keylogged and monitored so closely by your employer!

Why am I not surprised at this at all.

Dems and Big Tech, name a more iconic duo.

This should highlight why some companies have such strict policies about what you can do outside of work. Like it or not, every extracurricular activity is a potential PR risk, especially in the last few years where reputations and trust can be quickly destroyed based on circumstantial evidence.

Facebook also has such policies. This would be a pretty clear violation, on multiple ways. If the story holds up (I'm aware of no reason why it wouldn't), there will be enormous internal pressure to remove her, and I'd be pretty shocked if they don't fire her reasonably quickly.

This is a dumb headline. She wasn’t working in her capacity as a FB exec. She was working as a loyal former aide.

That's a plausible hypothesis, but from the information given I can't really conclude that (nor the converse). It's worth investigating her role further to find out.

She may have been doing cuomo work on the clock but i generally agreew with your statement

At first stance it looked rsther bad but having read the article its much more flimsy.

However the optics of this happening are bad for fb and i dont think its unreasonable for fb to act against her.

And for that same reason, Facebook's shareholders should be demanding her head on a platter. It's still extremely newsworthy.

Unless she used her official FB email to send these docs I don't see why it would be much of a scandal. Probably won't help her career progression at FB, though.

This is something that applies to managers but especially to executives: You are a representative of the company at all times. Especially in a communications role, you are the corporate mouthpiece. All of your actions are under extreme scrutiny and you should behave accordingly.

More importantly, Facebook has to deal with sexual harassment allegations internally on their own all the time. If this is supposed to be acceptable behavior among Facebook's executives with regard to accusers, then I as an opposing counsel in a lawsuit with Facebook would be grinning from ear to ear right now.

Odds are Facebook is about to settle on a handful of claims, even potentially-bullshit ones. And that's why shareholders should be out with pitchforks.

I don't think that follows.

It is deeply immoral to do what this person did. I'm not sure of the specifics but I suspect it might also be illegal. (however thats a guess, don't put weight on that)

From a shareholder point of view, one doesn't want to have a person who will do something so down right nasty to protect the person they are serving.

A downside to the cuomo allegations is that cuomo was the only sane voice left protecting nyc, from further mismanagement by diblasio and pals.

The city mayor is so unpopular that The only thing stopping a recall is that he's going to be leaving office soon.

Cuomo has got to go for sure, hes now too weak to keep diblasio & pals in check

Within nyc, De Blasio is not that much more unpopular than Cuomo, and now that the AG report has dropped I would not be surprised at all if De Blasio is significantly less unpopular in updated polling.

DiBlasio is leaving. The primary already completed..Eric Adams will become mayor.

as a communications manager

OMG...this person worked as THE "communication manager" for facebook...everyone knows facebook only has ONE communication manager and she pretty much runs the company...

This is guilt by loose association...Typical NYPOST/Murdoch crap..

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