Andrew Cuomo is the present Attorney general for the state of New York. He has held this position since the first day of January 2007. He has done reasonably well for himself in this spot. He has avoided any personal scandals recently, and got sympathy from most folks when his high profile marriage to one of the “Kennedy” girls didn’t work out. C’est la vie! 

He is the son of a former three-term New York governor (Mario Cuomo-1983 thru 1994), who was the sweetest political speaker before Barack Obama.

Shoot! Mario’s speeches dripped saccharin. He talked about issues. He offered solutions to problems. He talked about social- justice and equality. He talked about poverty and civil rights. He talked about building a shining city on the hill, inclusive of everyone- no matter what race, religion, ethnicity or nationality; but he probably built as many jail cells as school-classrooms for that shining city: during his mediocre tenure. Still, his feel good speeches inspired New Yorkers to vote him into the governor’s mansion three times in a row. 

Tom Robbins in this week’s Village Voice in a column titled – Pedro Espada's Enablers -The people who brought you Albany's greatest scoundrel, goes after various developers & landlords who have contributed to notorious State Senator’s campaign.

Robbins writes –

… it should be worth the trouble to aim some of that fury at Espada's enablers. These are the deep-pocketed sponsors who have been all too happy to profit from this scoundrel regardless of his obvious taint.

The names on the checks to New Yorkers for Espada are among real estate's most prestigious. They came from the Rudin family, the respected builders, who gave some $4,000; from Leonard Litwin, the grand old man of luxury rentals, who gave another $5,000; from Donald Capoccia, the successful developer who depends on government subsidies, who gave thousands more.

Reparations for the Exploited

By Michael Boyajian

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in a recent edition of the New York Times argues that there can be no reparations for the descendents of slaves because Africans took part in the slave trade.   Therefore there are no innocent parties to this tragedy.

There has been a raging debate over immigration reform which has been taking place for too many years now. I have kept relatively silent for many solid reasons. One of which is the fact that I am foreign born. I didn’t want the silly people who troll these blogs to accuse me of some built-in bias.

Despite the fact that I do try to look at issues objectively for the most part, there are those trolls who just post crap in the threads for whatever reason their strange minds perceive. Recently, I was pleasantly surprised when V.J. Machiavelli told me to my face, that I am relatively open minded about most issues (or something to that effect); since VJ is one of those blog trollers I observe and study. He is very lucid when you meet him in person. He is nowhere near the silly and strange poster he sometimes projects.  I found him to be quite engaging: pleasantly so.

Need Based Immigration Reform

By Michael Boyajian

The country is in an uproar over the immigration problem and those with a racist bend seem to be pushing through their own harsh and most likely unconstitutional solutions.  One wonders if they would care at all about immigration if those crossing the border were white.

The recent announcement from State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that Senate Majority leader Pedro Espada Jr. and family members allegedly looted more than 14 million from the government-funded nonprofit Soundview HealthCare Network reminded me of the last man to hold the seat before Cuomo—the so-called “Sheriff of Wall Street.”

While on a personal level, the two democrats Elliot Spitzer and Andrew Cuomo are not fans of each other, they do share some interesting similarities. (please see Sam Roberts piece in the NY Times…. Spitzer on Cuomo: He’s Driven, Often by Politics)

-Nearly a year in advance of the 2006 race, polls showed Spitzer, the heavy favorite in his run for governor, and four years later Cuomo is looking at the same situation—with basically only token opposition from republicans and in all likelihood is the next governor of New York State.

I have known John Sampson for near twenty years now. He is one of the most likeable politicians in Brooklyn. Period. He is not the type to make a lot of waves, nor is he the type to go looking for enemies, controversies or problems. He is essentially a diplomat. He is also a nice guy. He honestly tries to get along with all people. Unlike many elected blacks, he doesn’t harp on race and ethnicity – even though he skillfully played up his Caribbean-American heritage /ethnicity, to gain his initial victory fourteen years ago. His father was born in Guyana, South America; and his mother was an Afro from the South.

Conservative “think tanks” continue to push the so-called “fair tax” plan — replacing the progressive federal income tax with a regressive national sales tax. Their argument is that the U.S. needs to tax work and investment (income) less and consumer spending more, to rebalance the economy. The fact that the tax burden would shift from the wealthy to the middle class and poor, in this view, is merely an unimportant (and undisclosed) side effect. Meanwhile, a Federal Deficit Reduction Commission may recommend a federal value added tax – a sales tax that is more difficult to cheat – in addition to the income tax. Former Fed Chairman Volker has suggested it. The reason is the United States is broke, and we are facing higher taxes and diminished public services as a result. On April 15 the U.S. Senate, dominated by members of Generation Greed who do not want to admit what they have done to their children and the country, passed a non-binding resolution objecting to the addition of a value added tax by an overwhelming margin.

As usual, there is an option that I would be in favor of that no one is likely to consider – enacting a regressive value added tax as a replacement for the even more regressive payroll tax. If a shift in the tax burden from work to spending were the goal, and the shift from the rich to the rest were not, Republicans and conservatives would be in favor. If restraining excess consumerism while raising revenue without hurting exports, which President Obama proposed to double, were the goal Democrats would be in favor. And yet I have not heard anyone make this proposal.

Time to End School Bullying

By Michael Boyajian

My fondest memories of childhood were of joyously finger painting in New York City kindergarten.  Then mid-term my family moved to Long Island where I entered another kindergarten class as the new guy in school and my happy world came crashing down to a sad end.

Usually, when I disagree with one of my fellow writers on Room Eight New York Politics, I would simply go to the thread of the article and express my disagreement; but I couldn’t do that last week since the thread was closed off from comments in Dominic Carter’s last column. Carter wrote an article suggesting that Bill Thompson (former Comptroller of NYC) is the potential frontrunner to become the next mayor of this city. He believes that it is Thompson’s race to lose. Dominic Carter is way off base and way too early with his analysis. I don’t even think Thompson will be a candidate when the time comes; but we shall see.