What prosecutors cast as misdeeds — collecting referral fees from a real estate law firm employed by major developers and a firm that represented asbestos patients treated by a medical researcher that Silver gave state funding — were presented as the inevitable conflicts of a part-time Legislature where lawmakers have side jobs.
“New York has adopted a citizen Legislature model. They not only live under these laws, they work under these laws … and this allows more points of view to be heard,” Molo said. “That may make you uncomfortable, but that is the system New York has chosen, and that is not a crime.”
It's a system where campaign money flows, where powerful interests hire connected lobbyists to ensure their needs are whispered into the right ears. Where the speaker can prevent a vote on legislation that has the support of the majority of the chamber's elected representatives. It's a system where Silver doled out earmarks based on seniority and loyalty to consolidate his own grip on power. Where he traded a reduction in pension benefits for the ability to draw legislative districts and authorized the state's first charter schools in exchange for a pay raise.
Playing both sides - that was Silver's game:
"Mr. Silver is one of the great, great champions of tenants’ rights." (And secretly on landlords' payroll.) https://t.co/pexqfXjGrx
— Bill Hammond (@NYHammond) November 4, 2015
This "is the system New York has chosen" - that echoes Hyman Roth in The Godfather II:
I dunno, I have a difficult time seeing how this defense works so well for Silver - hey, sure it looks bad, but everybody does it!
Steve McLaughlin put it well:
If the best that #TarnishedSilver defense team has is 'this is all normal, nothing to see here'.. get his cell ready https://t.co/FbVYVi7dki
— Steve McLaughlin (@SteveMcNY) November 3, 2015
We'll see - you never know with a jury - but some of this doesn't sound too good for Shelly.
He deserves life in prison if only because of his sponsorship of Tisch and other terrible Regents and he gradually anti-teacher bent the last 5 years of his reign of error. He is a disgusting human being.
ReplyDeleteShelly is a shell corporation for Albany malfeasance. Shelly is Meryl Tisch's Godfather.
ReplyDelete