Cuomo Appears To Use Criminal Investigations To Punish His Enemies

Okay, one more...

As I posted a couple of days ago, the criminal investigation into Bill de Blasio's campaign fundraising appears to be politically motivated, stemming from a "report" written up by a Cuomo appointee at the Board of Elections, Risa Sugarman, that claimed felonious activities in Team de Blasio's 2014 attempts to take the state Senate for Democrats.

Capital NY reported that Cuomo's Luca Brasi, Joe Percoco, was part of that ill-fated attempt by Team de Blasio to coordinate fundraising efforts and help Democratic state Senate candidates around New York win their individual races.

Percoco, Cuomo's "closest and most loyal aide," according to the NY Daily News' Ken Lovett, of course fed back information about the coordinated campaign fundraising efforts to his boss, Andrew Cuomo, and while Cuomo appears to have taken little-to-no action at the time of the efforts, skeptics now see his hand behind Sugarman's BOE report alleging criminal activity by Team de Blasio and subsequent referral of those allegations to Manhattan D.A. Cyrus Vance Jr. and U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.

News of that damning BOE "report" was leaked to Ken Lovett at the NY Daily News.

Vance and Bharara have subpoenaed many in de Blasio's circle, including his top aides, while Percoco does not appear to have received a subpoena in the investigation despite being a part of the fundraising effort.

That has raised the thought among cynics like myself that the Sugarman "report" was spurred by Cuomo, aided by information (and perhaps testimony) from Percoco, then leaked by somebody close to Cuomo to the press, all with the intent to irrevocably harm his "friend," Bill de Blasio, with whom he has been feuding for a few years now.

So far, it's been pretty successful.

The NY Post has pictured de Blasio in an orange jump suit on its front cover while the Daily News has hammered de Blasio daily for alleged corruption and malfeasance.

A Team De Blasio campaign lawyer blasted the Sugarman report over the weekend, claiming it was a political hit job and completely misconstrued (or misunderstood) campaign finance law and de Blasio followed that up on Monday by publicly questioning the motivation behind the leak of the report.

De Blasio continued that defense on WNYC today:

ALBANY -- New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday defended his fundraising efforts to help upstate Democratic Senate candidates in 2014 and questioned the motivation behind the state Board of Elections probe.

De Blasio’s team is under fire for using the county committees in Ulster, Putnam and Monroe counties to pump more money into the Senate candidates' elections.

"Everything was done very carefully, meticulously, with legal guidance – all along the way and consistent with what so many other people have done," de Blasio said on WNYC-AM in Manhattan. "That’s why I’m saying: It’s very interesting that now it becomes subject of these questions, and I think we have to figure out some of the motivations behind this."

Federal and state prosecutors are investigating a report from state Board of Elections chief enforcement counsel Risa Sugarman that charged de Blasio and his team skirted campaign-finance laws by getting donors to contribute to the county committees. Then the committees sent the money directly to four candidates who ultimately lost: then-Sens. Ted O'Brien of Irondequoit, Monroe County; Terry Gipson of Rhinebeck, Dutchess County, and Cecilia Tkaczyk of Schenectady County, as well as Justin Wagner, an attorney from Croton, Westchester County.

In all, more than $1 million in total contributions from New York City-based unions and political donors went to the three county committees in the weeks prior to the 2014 elections.

Sugarman is a former aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has been in a public battle with de Blasio over myriad issues between the city and the state.

De Blasio stopped short of pointing the finger at Cuomo over the election probe.

"I think people should dig into this question," de Blasio said. "I think they should ask the question of how does a state Board of Elections official single us out, apparently not understanding how state election law works, and then leaked their document to the media – which in and of itself may be a violation of law. I think that needs to be looked at. I find it telling."

Cuomo has not commented about the election probe.

Other observers have noted the selectivity of the criminal referral, pointing out how other politicians use similar tactics to the ones Team De Blasio used in 2014 (like former NYC mayor, Michael Bloomberg in various bids to aid his state Senate Republican allies, for example.)

In any event, de Blasio is the one facing the firestorm in the press, which is an interesting thing, because it all just sort popped up out of nowhere over the past two weeks, almost as if it were engineered by somebody with a grievance against the mayor.

Gee, I wonder who that guy with the grievance against the mayor would be?

Oh, right...  

Funny thing is, this may not be the only criminal investigation that Cuomo is using to settle scores.

The Syracuse paper reported the following this morning:

SYRACUSE, N.Y. Saying he does not intend to assist a "fishing expedition,'' an Onondaga County judge this week delivered a setback to District Attorney William Fitzpatrick and his efforts to investigate alleged wrongdoing at Syracuse City Hall.

County Court Judge Walter Hafner Jr. blocked Fitzpatrick's subpoena for emails, notes, drafts and other communications produced by Syracuse city lawyers, saying the DA made "no showing'' that the documents were part of any crime or fraud.

Hafner's decision was contained in a sealed order issued Tuesday, a copy of which was reviewed by Syracuse.com.

Fitzpatrick said he will submit a motion asking the judge to reconsider, and will appeal the decision if Hafner continues to block the subpoena.

The district attorney, who criticized Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner for bringing a lawsuit against COR Development Co., the Inner Harbor developer, has launched an investigation into Miner and some of her political allies.

Among other things, Fitzpatrick is looking for evidence of alleged wrongdoing connected with what he called "phony affidavits'' filed in the lawsuit by two city councilors who are friendly with Miner.

But in his ruling to decide what documents city hall must turn over, Hafner said Fitzpatrick has not produced evidence of wrongdoing to justify his demand to see communications between city lawyers and other city officials. Most of those records are protected from disclosure by attorney-client privilege, the judge wrote.

In response to the district attorney's request that Hafner review all the city hall materials privately to determine whether any should be forwarded to the grand jury, Hafner called that proposal "patently absurd.''

"It is not . . . the function of this court to assist the district attorney in a fishing expedition,'' Hafner wrote."

Fitzpatrick is an old Cuomo crony, having worked as an apologist for the governor on the Moreland Commission. State of Politics has a little more on the Cuomo-Fitzpatrick connection here. 

Miner, on the other hand, used to be friendly with Cuomo, having worked as the co-chair of the state Democratic Party, but has been on the outs with Cuomo since she publicly criticized him over policy.

So it certainly is interesting to see a Cuomo crony and apologist like Fitzpatrick go on what a judge just described as a "fishing expedition" to see what he can unearth around a real estate development gone bad to use against a Cuomo enemy, Stephanie Miner.

Does this constitute a pattern of Cuomo's using the criminal justice system to punish enemies?

Perhaps not a pattern, but certainly it gives an observer reason for pause.

Or, as Arsenio Hall used to say, "Things that make you go 'Hmmmm...'"

The other instance I can think of where a Cuomo enemy may have been punished via criminal investigation came as the former head of PEF, Susan Kent, publicly called for a primary candidate to challenge Andrew Cuomo, then supported Zephyr Teachout when the Fordham law professor announced a run.

Concurrent to that battle came this news:

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of Manhattan is investigating a former Public Employees Federation council leader who was accused of using a union debit card to run up thousands of dollars in questionable purchases at stores and restaurants.

The investigation, which is being led by the U.S. Department of Labor, was revealed last month when a federal grand jury subpoena was sent to the Rockland County PEF union formerly headed by Deborah J. Lee, whose purchases first drew scrutiny within her union's ranks two years ago.

The probe by Bharara's office comes as first-term PEF President Susan Kent, who faced criticism for her handling of Lee's case, is running for re-election to the top post in the state's second-largest public labor union.

Lee, 65, was cleared of wrongdoing last year by a union ethics panel appointed by Kent. The internal review rankled many PEF executive board members who accused Kent of appointing political allies to the ethics panel. The decision was later overturned by PEF's executive board, which voted to remove Lee from their union for at least three years.

Susan Kent lost a re-election bid and no longer runs PEF.

The man who beat her, Wayne Spence, has adopted a more conciliatory tone toward Cuomo.

Now I'm not an expert on PEF internal politics and I'm certainly not out to defend Deborah Lee for improper purchases on her expense account.

Nor am I saying Cuomo was definitely behind the Lee matter and the internecine battles that caused within PEF.

I just think it's interesting that Kent, after a publicly hostile contract battle with Cuomo and subsequent support of a primary challenger against him, got mired in this ethics investigation that helped to bring her down and bring into power a union head more friendly to the governor.

It surely is interesting how some of Cuomo enemies either face criminal investigations themselves or have criminal investigations of people around them that undercut their power.

De Blasio for sure, Miner almost for sure, Kent perhaps...

And of course the whole idea behind empaneling the Moreland Commission was to dig up dirt on his fellow Albany pols, then use it against them to get what he wanted out of them.

No wonder Michael Mulgrew and the UFT bend over backwards to remain on good terms with Cuomo (and yet nonetheless check the office for bugs just in case.)

You don't want to end up on Cuomo's shit list because the next thing you know, the people around you are getting subpoenas and somebody's leaking damaging information about you to the press.

Cuomo's Not-So-Secret Deal To Keep The State Senate In Republican Hands

Another double cross from Governor Cuomo for New York Dems:

Gov. Cuomo’s “fantastic’’ candidate in the important Nov. 3 special state Senate election will be “crushed’’ by her Republican opponent because Cuomo reneged on his pledge to go all out to help, senior Democrats have told The Post.

“Cuomo’s great candidate, Barbara Fiala, is going to get crushed on Election Day, and we all know why — he hardly lifted a finger,’’ said a prominent Democratic strategist, referring to Cuomo’s former Motor Vehicles commissioner, whom the governor picked in July to run for the Binghamton-area seat left vacant by the corruption conviction of Deputy Senate Majority Leader Tom Libous, a Republican.
...

Cuomo’s selection of Fiala — who he claimed “would be fantastic as a candidate” — was widely seen as significant because of the widespread view among Democrats that the governor has worked for years to keep the GOP in control of the Senate in order to strengthen his overall control of the Legislature.

Senate Democrats had been told to expect Cuomo to raise at least $100,000 for Fiala’s campaign — a drop in the bucket for Cuomo’s cash-rich campaign machine — but as of the weekend, nothing approaching that amount had arrived, a source close to the campaign said.

 ...


Cuomo faced a surprisingly strong Democratic primary challenge from little-known leftist law professor Zephyr Teachout last year partly because he was seen by Democratic activists as having kept Republicans in narrow control of the Senate.

Many Republicans also believe Cuomo has long had a peace pact with Senate Republicans, but few, besides Assemblyman Bill Nojay (R-Rochester) have been willing to discuss the arrangement publicly.

“Fiala’s clueless and underfunded campaign is clearly part of a deal between Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan [R-Suffolk] and the GOP senators to protect the former Libous seat,’’ said Nojay, who has watched the special Senate race closely.

“This is consistent with Cuomo’s strategy going back to 2011-2012 with the redistricting deals that ensure GOP control of the Senate in exchange for GOP senators rolling over on key Cuomo initiatives such as the 2012 tax hikes, gay marriage, the SAFE [gun-control] Act, and budget deals.

“So once again Cuomo has double-crossed the Working Families Party and his own Democratic Party by tacitly supporting continued GOP control of the Senate rather than turning the leadership of the body over to Senate liberals who might embarrass him or go rogue by teaming up with the New York City Democrats who run the Assembly,’’ Nojay continued.

Fiala's been a disaster as a candidate, but let's remember that it was Cuomo who touted her before she even announced a run and it was Cuomo who promised to help her win the Libous seat, then reneged on the promise.

Another example, as if we needed it, of how Governor Cuomo is a member of a party of one - the Cuomo Party.

Zephyr Teachout: Angry New York Teachers Can Get Get More Formal Political Power By Running For Office

Alan Chartock in the Daily Freeman:

Cuomo is known and respected up to now as a take-no-prisoners tough guy, but his political antennae seem corrupted. His picking on the teachers in New York state is dumber than dumb. It appears that he fell in with a crowd of rich potential funders who are always yelling about “educational reform.” Maybe he wanted their money and he became a fierce charter school advocate and then adopted positions which then threatened the hell out of the teachers who are underpaid and overworked. Their tenure is one of the few things they do have going for them, and however Cuomo meant it, the teachers saw him as looking to evaluate them with an eye toward firing them. These are usually people who want nothing to do with Albany politics, but they sure got a wakeup call. I talk to them all the time and they are angrier than I have ever seen them.

Zephyr Teachout has an excellent idea how teachers can take that anger and do something productive with it:

Liberal activist Zephyr Teachout is touring New York starting tonight in Syracuse to try to recruit teachers and women to run for public office in New York.


Teachout, the Fordham Law School professor who ran against Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a Democratic primary last year, said the education policy battles at the state Capitol should spur teachers and parents to run for political office so their voice can be better heard.

“The focus is getting more people into the political process, and the focus here is on teachers and women,” Teachout said in an interview with Gannett’s Albany Bureau. “If there’s a central thrust, it’s educators and parents.”

Teachout, who lives in Manhattan, is partnering with the union-backed Working Families Party and the New York State United Teachers union on the effort.

She said the massive testing opt-out movement in New York in April, as well as protests to new teacher evaluations show that education advocates can play an increasingly important role in politics — on the state and local levels.

“I don’t think most people go into teaching in order to run for office, but they didn’t go into teaching to protest either,” Teachout said. “And they’ve become this incredible, powerful political force, and my hope is to engage some of those teachers who are political and hopefully get them elected and have more formal political power.”

Now electing teachers to political office isn't guaranteed to make politics more amenable to public education teachers - after all, former Speaker of the House Denny Hastert (now under indictment for making illegal payments to someone he allegedly molested back in the 70's) and Independent Democratic Caucus head Jeff Klein are both former teachers and neither are what I would term "teacher- or public education-friendly" in their political views.

But in general, having teachers run for political office is a terrific idea and certainly there are many teacher leaders out there who would make excellent candidates.

The same goes for parent activists in the opt-out movement.

Zephyr Teachout and Tim Wu, both professors, ran in 2014 for governor and lieutenant governor respectively and put in very respectable showings.

Had Teachout gotten the Working Families Party ballot line for the general election, she would have done some serious damage to Andrew Cuomo, taking him well under the 50% line in his race against GOP candidate Rob Astorino, but even in the Democratic primary she did serious damage, winning 23 counties to Cuomo's 29.

Cuomo's campaign was so worried that Tim Wu had momentum against Kathy Hochul that they called out Randi Weingarten and Bill de Blasio to robocall for her, turning the contest toward Hochul for good.

Nonetheless, the Teachout/Wu campaigns of 2014 served notice that many Dems were not happy with Andrew Cuomo and his policies and they can serve as models for educator and parent campaigns going forward.

Teachout: Cuomo's A Puppet For Glenwood Management

Casey Seiler at Capitol Confidential:

Zephyr Teachout, the Fordham Law professor and author who challenged Gov. Andrew Cuomo for the 2014 Democratic nomination, appeared at the Capitol at a Wednesday midday rally by New York City tenants-rights advocates calling for stronger rent regulations.

The rhetoric was almost as harsh for Cuomo as it was for landlords: Numerous signs assailed him as “Governor Glenwood” — a reference to the support he has received from the various organs of Glenwood Management, the real estate giant caught up in the federal corruption cases that prompted the downfalls of Dean Skelos and Sheldon Silver.

...

“Andrew Cuomo right now likes to think of himself as a strong man,” said Teachout, who might not have seen Cuomo’s recent poll numbers. “But he’s acting like a puppet for Glenwood Management.”

Cuomo's clearly hurting on the rent regulation issue - that's why he's going to hold a "rally" tomorrow on the issue:

Governor Andrew Cuomo is planning a rally Thursday in support of tougher rent regulations, Capital has learned, even as tenant groups question his commitment to the issue.

Cuomo aides on Wednesday were reaching out to officials and groups about participating in the event, which will be held in central Harlem in the early afternoon, according to an invitation obtained by Capital. It comes 11 days before rent regulations are set to expire, and two weeks before state lawmakers are set to adjourn for the year.

...

 dozens of activists, including several sitting state lawmakers, were arrested at the Capitol during a protest that blocked the doors to Cuomo's office. Ava Farkas, executive director of the Metropolitan Council on Housing, called Cuomo's planned rally “a load of nonsense.”

“While real estate-driven corruption scandals swirl … Cuomo sits on Albany’s biggest pile of real estate cash and holds a bogus rally in support of corrupt rent laws,” she said. “No wonder his job approval ratings are going down as fast as working families' rents are going up.”

A Cuomo spokesman declined to comment.

He fools few with his jive these days

More and more, that's clear.

Anyone for a Cuomo mash-up of the Dan Penn song "I'm Your Puppet"?

Zephyr Teachout Robocall Urges Parents To Opt Children Out Of Standardized Tests

From Ken Lovett at the Daily News:

ALBANY — Fordham Law School professor Zephyr Teachout urged parents on Sunday to refuse to have their kids take the controversial statewide assessment exams slated for this week.

Saying “high-stakes testing is really hurting our kids,” Teachout — who last year mounted an unsuccessful Democratic primary challenge against Gov. Cuomo — told parents in a recorded phone message that they have a “constitutional right” to refuse the tests for their kids without facing sanctions.

She said New Yorkers overwhelmingly oppose the tests, which she claimed are designed to ensure that 70% of kids fail.

The call was sponsored by a coalition calling itself New York State Allies For Public Education.

This is the biggest education-related robocall since Randi Weingarten recorded one for Governor Cuomo's bank lobbyist running mate/charter school shill Kathy Hochul.

Note once again that parents have the "constitutional right" to refuse the test for their kids without facing consequences.

Because the supporters of the Endless Testing regime are trying to get parents to believe otherwise.

Working Families Party Takes On Cuomo's Education Proposals With The Help Of Some Legislators

From State of Politics:

Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and three Democratic assemblywomen – Addie Russell (North Country), Michelle Schimel (Long Island) and Latrice Walker (NYC) – are featured in a Working Families Party video speaking out against Cuomo’s education proposals.

And the video:



The arguments the legislators make are excellent and I'm glad to see them make them.

Two points of criticism:

It's a shame Stewart-Cousins looks like she was videotaped using a camera from the 1970's.

It's also a shame Working Families Party didn't fight Cuomo BEFORE the election, when they REALLY could have done some damage.

Open Letter To Randi Weingarten About Andrew Cuomo And New York's Teacher Evaluation System

Dear AFT President Randi Weingarten,

I wanted to write you an open letter asking what you intend to do now that Governor Andrew Cuomo has signaled that he is not happy with the teacher evaluation results in New York City and will look to impose a much more punitive system that rates more teachers "ineffective."

One thing the governor says is right - there is a huge problem with the way the current evaluation system is constituted.

The changes we have seen as a result of the current system have been numerous - 4-6 annual classroom observations (known colloquially by teachers as "Danielson drive-bys"), ratings tied to student test scores, the use of the Danielson rubric to "assess" so-called "effective" teaching so that every teacher must teach in a standardized way or risk a low rating.

This evaluation system that Cuomo helped put into place here in NYC requires many more hours of a teacher's time and energy, takes away a lot of time that could be spent with students and forces teachers to spend much of that time on compliance work (paperwork "proving" their "effectiveness.")

Teachers aren't the only ones angry about the system - so are well-respected education leaders.

In fact, a group of Lower Hudson Valley superintendents called the state's evaluation system "demoralizing, expensive and ineffective":

The superintendents group contends that the evaluation system has been demoralizing, expensive and ineffective, resulting in the overtesting of students. The system has not made it easier to fire poor teachers, the group says.

This region's school chiefs would like to see legislators convene a group of educators, teachers, lawmakers and state officials to create a system that would help teachers improve instruction and make it easier for districts to fire poor teachers.

"We need to start over," Harrison Superintendent Louis Wool said.

...

A study commissioned by the superintendents found that scoring problems prompted school districts to give teachers high grades for classroom observations so they would not get undeserved poor overall grades. State Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Yonkers, the Democratic leader in the Senate, said the study deserves serious discussion so teacher evaluations can be made more effective. 

"It is always important to listen to the people that have the expertise and knowledge of the current procedures and standards," she said.

Cuomo, on the other hand, seems to believe a teacher evaluation system should be demoralizing, since he said he wants to use it to "break" teachers:

The governor told the Daily News Editorial Board in October he wants to toughen the evaluation standards in the coming year, calling it a big way to bust the public school “monopoly.”

Just yesterday, Cuomo said this about the current system:

“These results of these evaluations say one thing: not real,” he continued. “It’s not real. You are an evaluation system in name, and you have to go back to the table and try to come up with an evaluation system that is more accurate. The teachers’ union is trying to reduce the number [of teachers] that are deemed ineffective, right? And that’s what this evaluation system did. But it’s clear that an inaccurate evaluation system helps no one, not even the teachers.”

From what I see in the governor's statements, Cuomo will only be happy with an evaluation system that greatly increases the number of teachers deemed "ineffective" every year so that he can accomplish his goal to "break" the public school "monopoly" and privatize much of the public school system.

You were sitting next to him at a Forbes forum last June when he first made his "break the public school monopoly" comments, so I know you know he means this threat and has been thinking about it for a while now.

Rumor has it that he will try and add a quota for the percentage of "ineffective" teacher ratings a district must hand out every year.

Other ways he may "toughen" the rating system is to ratchet up the "effective" and "highly effective" categories so as to make them aspirational but nearly unobtainable, make 40% of the evaluation based on state test scores alone, and/or tweak the VAM used for the test score component so that "effective" or higher is difficult to reach.

What do you and your compatriots at the NYSUT and the UFT plan to do in order to fight Governor Cuomo on his threats to "toughen" the New York State teacher evaluation system in order to "break" the teachers in the public school system?

He's coming for us, he's coming to do harm and now is the time for you and the rest of the teachers union leadership in this state to fight him.

Will you fight him?

I have my doubts.

You claimed in the fall that the "break" the "monopoly" comment he made was simply "campaign rhetoric," there was nothing to worry about.

Do you still think that way?

Earlier this year you backed a putsch at NYSUT that knocked out an increasingly anti-Cuomo NYSUT leadership, you (along with Michael Mulgrew at the UFT) joined a contingent of union leaders that threatened the Working Families Party with financial ruin if they didn't endorse Cuomo last May and you made robocalls for his running mate, Kathy Hochul, when it looked like she could lose her Democratic primary.

All this help and he pays you back by threatening to "break" your members and the public school system they work in.

Doesn't sound like you got much payback from him for the political aid and comfort you have given him.

It surely would be nice if you stopped helping Andrew Cuomo and started helping us - especially now that he has stated publicly repeated times that he intends to destroy us.

So what's it going to be, Randi?

Fight or flight?

I see you all over the TV and newspaper with the UVA/Rolling Stone story, the Garner protests, the Ferguson protests.

All that political work you do for those causes is great, but now I (and my fellow union members) would like you to take some of the energy you put into those causes and put it into the cause of fighting Andrew Cuomo on his threat to "break" us.

Are you in, Randi? 

Or are we, as usual, on our own?

Sincerely,

An Embattled Member of the UFT, AFT and NYSUT
Perdido Street School

Zephyr Teachout Publicizes Cuomo's Planned Giveaway Of Public Schools To His Hedge Fund Buddies

There's a news conference today:

At noon, Zephyr Teachout, former gubernatorial candidate; WFP NYS Director Bill Lipton; AQE Advocacy Director Zakiyah Ansari; public school parents, community leaders, and advocates “target hedge fund takeover of New York schools,” Tweed Courthouse, 52 Chambers St., Manhattan.

The Daily News has more:

Fordham law professor Zephyr Teachout is promising to remain a thorn in Gov. Cuomo's side -- the former gubernatorial challenger is re-joining forces with the Working Families Party Tuesday to fight Cuomo on charter schools, the Daily News has learned.

The WFP -- which picked Teachout as its candidate for governor before ditching her to endorse Cuomo in the Democratic primary last June -- is teaming up with its old ally to fight Cuomo's efforts to raise the state's cap on charter schools in a possible special session next week.

On Tuesday, they plan to release a report entitled “Corruption in Education: The Hedge Fund Takeover of New York's Schools."

Many of Cuomo's top donors are funding the charter school lobby, Teachout charges, singling out in the report Carl Icahn, Paul Tudor Jones and Dan Loeb for pouring "more than $10 million into state lobbying and election campaigns since the beginning of 2014, with electrifying results."

“I see Cuomo trying to pass policy in hasty, secretive ways,” she said in an interview. "Cuomo is trying to redefine education policy on the fly, in a one-week period after a seven-week campaign. I think it hasn't gone through the layer of public debate.”

Cuomo has already told us he wants to "break" the public school monopoly.

He has also told us he plans to see expansion of charters all across the state - that is one of the lasting legacies he thinks he can achieve.

Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch said she wants to see "aggressive" expansion of charters in the state as well.

This comes after we learned that the Regents and the NYSED gave a charter school to a con man who lied about his education credentials, work experience and pretty much everything else on his application.

This also comes after an analysis of state audits of charters showed this:

New York State charter schools have made more than $28 million in questionable expenditures since 2002, according to a new review of previous audits of the publicly funded, privately run schools.

The Center for Popular Democracy’s analysis charter school audits found investigators uncovered probable financial mismanagement in 95% of the schools they examined.


...


The state controller’s office and state Education Department have audited 62 of New York’s 248 charter schools, according to Serrette’s report. All told, Serrette’s group estimates wasteful spending at charters could cost taxpayers more than $50 million per year.

The most effective pushback against the planned charter cap increase is to continually point out the fraudulent activity engaged in by many charter operators and the lack of oversight being conducted by the state.

If "Dr" Ted Morris, professional con man, can get a charter school in this state, than anybody can get a charter school in this state.

And once a charter is in place, it takes an awful lot to get it closed, no matter how bad the financial mismanagement or fraud.

Raising or eliminating the charter cap will just bring more opportunities for the charter school criminals to steal money and resources from the public schools to line their own pockets.

Even when charters aren't engaging in out-and-out fraud, they're stealing from public schools.

Take Success Academies, for example.

We already see Eva Moskowitz spending millions on advertising and political lobbying (and paying herself over half a million a year to boot) even as she claims poverty when it comes to paying rent for her schools.

Imagine what will happen if the cap is increased or eliminated completely.

Say no to Cuomo and the cap increase.

Out Of Public Eye, Andrew Cuomo Plans His Vengeance

Andrew Cuomo experienced many personal slights during the election season.

First he had to grovel for the Working Families Party nomination.

Then he had to face a primary challenge by Fordham Professor Zephyr Teachout that saw her win 34% of the vote on Primary Day.

He beat his GOP opponent by 13 points on Election Day - but only after outraising said opponent 9 to 1 in campaign funds (Cuomo raised $45 million for the race, his opponent Rob Astorino raised $5 million.)

In addition, Astorino got no help from the Republican Governors Association in the race and little-to-no help from the state GOP, which seemed to have a secret pact with Governor Cuomo that they wouldn't help Astorino out if he wouldn't help Democrats win back the State Senate.

In the end, Cuomo won re-election, but with vote turnout at historic lows and with the lowest vote totals of any gubernatorial candidate in New York State since FDR in 1930 - not exactly a victory to crow over.

Since his re-election, Cuomo has stayed out of the public eye, as reported by Ross Barkan at the Observer:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has not held a single public event since winning re-election on November 4, returning to a schedule Albany watchers know well–minimizing opportunities for the press to scrutinize him and ensuring that the public is unaware of exactly where their governor is going or what he is doing.

For a governor who avoided the campaign trail when he could and openly resents the news media, a 10-day quiet stretch–interspersed with one radio interview–is not much of a surprise.

...

With election season over, it’s now business-as-usual for an executive notoriously indifferent to transparency. While Mayor Bill de Blasio, who at times has had a testy relationship with the media, continues to hold several press briefings a week and distribute a relatively detailed public schedule, Cuomo watchers are left to wonder what “Governor Cuomo is in the New York City area” really means.

...

“It’s not unusual for politicians to pare back especially when they are trying to assess a changed political landscape,” said David Birdsell, the dean of the Baruch College School of Public Affairs. “A lot of people are looking around, trying to figure out what’s going on.”

...


“It’s a missed opportunity to unveil the positive agenda he was criticized for lacking the entire campaign,” argued one Cuomo observer. “It would have been a great chance to begin restoring his favorability rating. Instead, it reinforced his negative perceptions about his obsession with secrecy.”

Mr. Cuomo’s office did not return a request for comment.

People are wondering what Cuomo has been doing since the election.

I'm not wondering what he's doing - I know exactly what he's doing.

@CuomoWatch He's back in his darkened room, planning vengeance against all who slighted him during the election season.
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) November 15, 2014

There you have it - Don Andrew M. Cuomo at work post-Election Day, getting ready to settle all Family business.

He's already threatened the public school system with destruction and teachers with sanctions.

You can bet other individuals and groups he feels slighted him are going to be targeted as well.

And if he doesn't like the Mafia reference, too freaking bad.

He ought to stop acting like an organized crime goon surrounded by other organized crime goons:

How Randi Weingarten And Other Union Leaders Help Andrew Cuomo Bring The "Death Penalty" To New York's Public School System

Last year, Andrew Cuomo promised to bring the "death penalty" to "failing schools."

This year, Andrew Cuomo has called the public school system a "monopoly" which he plans to "break" in his second term.

Cuomo doesn't seem to like teachers any more than he seems to like public schools.

Cuomo has promoted a punitive teacher evaluation system that superintendents in the Lower Hudson Valley have said is a disaster that needs to be changed as soon as possible as one of the best in the nation.

Last month, Cuomo said that teacher evaluation system needs to be revised because too many teachers are being rated "effective" or "highly effective" with it.

Last week, a highly-respected 17 year teaching veteran filed suit against the NYSED commissioner after she was rated "ineffective" in this system as a result of her students' test scores - even though her students' test scores were high in comparison with other students' scores around the state.

Last week, Cuomo promised to make the teacher evaluation system that rated a highly respected teacher "ineffective" even more punitive by adding "real sanctions" to it.

Last week, AFT President Randi Weingarten defended Cuomo's "monopoly" comments by saying they were "campaign rhetoric."

Cuomo made these comments twice - he doubled down after the Daily News first reported them - so the comments seem less like "campaign rhetoric," more like campaign promises.

Yet Randi was running interference for Cuomo even as she was also mounting a symbolic battle against TIME Magazine over a cover they ran about teacher tenure.

This wasn't the first time Randi Weingarten helped out her buddy Andy during the election cycle.

Back in the spring, Weingarten, along with UFT President Michael Mulgrew, engineered a putsch within the NYSUT to toss out the old NYSUT leadership when it started to show guts and take on Cuomo over issues and replace them with a more Cuomo-compliant leadership.

Also last spring, union leaders put pressure on the Working Families Party to endorse Andrew Cuomo over Fordham President Zephyr Teachout when they threatened the party with dissolution and financial ruin if Teachout were given the party's ballot line.

You can be sure the UFT was not part of that pressure on WFP without Weingarten's okay.

This September, when internal polling showed Teachout's running mate, Tim Wu, with a real shot to beat Cuomo's banker lobbyist running mate, Kathy Hochul, in the primary, Weingarten joined NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio in making robocalls for Cuomo's running mate, Hochul.

Hochul won her primary - Wu said the momentum in the campaign turned against him when the robocalls started.

This morning on Twitter, Randi Weingarten defended her defense of Andrew Cuomo's comments, saying she had criticized him and what more could she be expected to do?


Well, what she has done is quite clear - and quite helpful to Andrew Cuomo.

To reiterate:

She helped engineer a putsch against the old NYSUT leadership and helped install a new, Cuomo-compliant leadership at NYSUT.

She helped other union leaders push for a Working Families Party endorsement for Andrew Cuomo, a huge thing that meant Cuomo wouldn't have to worry about a third party candidate from the left during the general election (and multiple polls had shown Cuomo losing a lot of support if that happened.)

She made robocalls for Cuomo's bank lobbyist running mate when it looked like she might lose and helped the bankster lobbyist win her primary.

And now she defends Cuomo's plan to "break" public schools by calling the comments (which he made twice) "campaign rhetoric."

As I noted above, Cuomo has promised to bring the "death penalty" to schools he considers "failing" - and from comments he made this week, he seems to think the entire public school system around the state is failing.

When Cuomo "breaks" the school system, when he takes a sledgehammer to the public schools and gives them the "death penalty," that sledgehammer will have the fingerprints of AFT President Randi Weingarten on it.

Cuomo Sticks The Shiv Into De Blasio Before Election Day

Last spring, Governor Andrew Cuomo beat Mayor Bill de Blasio badly in fights over charter school co-locations and tax increases on wealthy New Yorkers to pay for NYC's universal pre-K plan.

De Blasio had been in a showdown with charter school entrepreneur Eva Moskowitz over co-locations of three of her schools when Cuomo helped co-ordinate a pro-charter rally in Albany and pushed through new rules in the state budget that forced New York City (and only New York City) to either find space for all charter schools or pay rent for space in privately-owned buildings.

Moskowitz and her charter school supporters are major donors to Cuomo and while the governor and the mayor were supposed to be friends going back to the days when they were both in the Clinton administration, Cuomo didn't think twice about screwing his old friend over for his wealthy charter school friends.

Cuomo also rolled de Blasio over the mayor's push for a tax on the wealthy to pay for universal pre-K in New York City.  The governor provided state money for de Blasio's pre-K plan (though not as much as the tax plan would have raised) but made sure that money did not come from increased taxes on wealthy people, many of whom are also Cuomo donors.

Again Cuomo didn't think twice about sticking it to old friend de Blasio and making sure his donors got what they wanted - no new taxes.

Cuomo was riding high after his twin showdowns with de Blasio during the budget negotiations, but that ride didn't last for long.

A challenge from the left flank of his party arose in the figure of Fordham professor Zephyr Teachout late in the spring.

Teachout attempted to get the Working Families Party ballot line during the WFP convention last May and present Cuomo with a problem for the general election - he would have had two opponents to take on, one from the right in GOP candidate Rob Astorino, one from the left in Zephry Teachout.

A Sienna poll showed Cuomo would have trouble breaking 50% if a challenge from the left emerged for the general election, so he and his campaign pulled out all the stops to make sure Teachout didn't get the ballot line.

First they had their union friends, major supporters of WFP, threaten the party with dissolution if the ballot line for the general election was given to Teachout.

Then Cuomo had his old friend Bill de Blasio intervene with the party faithful and negotiate an agreement between the governor and the party in which Cuomo would receive the ballot line in return for agreeing to work for a Democratic takeover of the State Senate.

De Blasio was supposed to be riding high after this intervention, since Cuomo had needed his help to secure the WFP line, but I thought at the time de Blasio was acting the fool for helping his old friend Andrew Cuomo in the negotiations.

On May 30, I wrote:

Is de Blasio suffering from Stockholm Syndrome or did he get something in return for mediating negotiations between Cuomo and WFP?

If you remember, it was just a short while ago that Cuomo took every opportunity to stick it to de Blasio over not just charter schools but issue after issue.

Anthony Weiner even noted how putzy Cuomo was to de Blasio in a DN piece.

Now de Blasio helps save the day for Sheriff Andy.

My guess is, seconds after the election is over, Cuomo starts sticking it to de Blasio and the unions again.

Hard to know if this is Stockholm Syndrome, stupidity or a sell-out, but whatever the hell it is, it sucks.

De Blasio's aid for Cuomo didn't stop in May at the Working Families Party convnetion.

Polls showed late in the summer that Cuomo's pro-gun, anti-abortion running mate, Kathy Hochul, could lose her primary challenge to Teachout's running mate, Tim Wu.

Cuomo again reached out to de Blasio and had the mayor (along with union buddy Randi Weingarten) issue robocalls throughout the city in support of  the"liberal" Hochul.

After the election, Wu said that internal campaign polling showed him with the momentum going into the primary, but the de Blasio robocalls essentially stopped that momentum cold and Hochul won the race.

In short, Cuomo's running mate won her primary challenge because de Blasio helped her do it.

Again I wrote at the time that de Blasio was a fool for helping Cuomo, that Cuomo wouldn't think twice about screwing his "old friend" - and Ken Lovett and Jennifer Fermino at the Daily News reported the same thing:

“For good or bad, the governor is not a person who views the world as 'I owe you one.' If someone came to him and said, ‘I was there for you and I took care of you — you owe me,’ you don’t get a good reaction,” the insider said.

A second source who has had dealings with de Blasio and Cuomo agrees.

“Andrew appreciates what Bill has done for him. But if he needed to f--k over the mayor tomorrow, he's going to do it. That’s just how he operates.”

Even I thought Cuomo would wait until after the election to "fuck over" de Blasio, but it turns out Cuomo, worried that his GOP challenger Rob Astorino is making inroads over the first reported Ebola case in the city, decided post-Election Day was too late to screw de Blasio over.

So he did it yesterday instead.

On Thursday, Cuomo and de Basio made a joint appearance to reassure city residents after it was reported a doctor who had worked with Ebola patients in West Africa had tested positive for the virus here in the city.

Both Cuomo and de Blasio took pains on Thursday to tamp down hysteria over the incident and assure New Yorkers that the chances of getting infected by Ebola on the subway or in a cab were slim.

That was Thursday.

On Friday Cuomo changed course and suddenly decided hysteria over Ebola was exactly what was needed:

On Thursday night, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo sat beside Mayor Bill de Blasio at Bellevue Hospital Center as they offered soothing words to worried New Yorkers: New York City’s first case of Ebola, they said, was no reason for panic.

Less than 19 hours later, Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, joined the Republican governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, and struck a starkly different tone. The governors announced Friday that medical personnel returning to New York after treating Ebola patients in West Africa would be automatically subject to a 21-day quarantine.

The risk, Mr. Cuomo said, was grave. Offering an ominous hypothetical, he raised the precise situation that the mayor and the city’s health commissioner had tried to play down the night before: the danger of Ebola spreading through the subway system.

“In a region like this,” Mr. Cuomo said, “you go out one, two or three times, you ride the subway, you ride a bus, you could affect hundreds and hundreds of people.”

...

Within the city, an unexpected policy shift by Mr. Cuomo on Friday appeared to open up a public divide between the governor and the administration of Mr. de Blasio, a fellow Democrat. The city’s health commissioner, Dr. Mary T. Bassett, was not informed in advance of the Cuomo-Christie mandatory quarantine order and was “furious,” a senior city official who spoke to her said.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Cuomo, Melissa DeRosa, said city officials were not consulted about the quarantine policy because it pertained to airports that are run by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Mr. Cuomo’s shift came just 11 days before he will be on the ballot seeking a second term, and on a day when his long-shot Republican challenger, Rob Astorino, seized on the city’s Ebola case to assail the governor for not closing the New York airports to travelers from affected West African nations.

As Lovett and Fermino had reported in the Daily News in September, Cuomo wouldn't think twice about having to "fuck over" de Blasio if political expediency necessitated the screw job.

Apparently between Thursday night and Friday morning, political expediency necessitated Cuomo "fuck over" Bill de Blasio on the Ebola crisis.

In the same Times story on the "public rift" between Cuomo and de Blasio over Cuomo's sudden shift in policy, this is said about past health crises:

The partisan divide over how to respond to Ebola stands in stark contrast to previous public health threats over the last decade, including the anthrax attacks after Sept. 11, 2001, the West Nile virus, the avian flu and the tuberculosis outbreaks in the 1980s and 1990s. In those cases, public health officials worked largely in concert with elected ones to maintain calm and disseminate consistent information.

This time around politicians - including Cuomo and Christie, but certainly not limited to these two - are hyping the crisis for political gain.

Caught flat-footed once again by his old pal, Andrew Cuomo, it remains to be seen how de Blasio responds to the pre-election screw job by the governor.

But clearly Cuomo was showing de Blasio up yesterday at his press conference with Christie, big-timing the mayor by not alerting anybody in the de Blasio administration about the change in policy and protocol Cuomo was going to put into place with Christie at the Port Authority airports.

Much of this is de Blasio's own fault, of course.

De Blasio spent much political capital helping Cuomo in the spring with the Working Families Party and in the fall with the Hochul robocalls.

If Cuomo wins re-election with over 50% of the vote, that will happen because Bill de Blasio ensured Cuomo would not have a challenger from the left on the WFP ballot line taking double digits away from Cuomo in the general election.

Now Cuomo pays de Blasio back by sticking the shiv in him less than two weeks before Election Day.

I see two takeaways here:

One, De Blasio was a fool for expending so much political capital to help a "friend" who everybody knew would screw him over at the first opportunity.

And two, Andrew Cuomo is a sociopath, a man with no moral center who will literally do and say anything to promote himself and his career.

Neither of these takeaways are surprises, of course - we knew this stuff long before yesterday.

And indeed, Cuomo had already broken his promise to de Blasio and WFP that he would work for a Democratic takeover of the State Senate.

One thing I am surprised at, however.

I really thought Cuomo would wait until Wednesday November 5th to stick the shiv into de Blasio.

But he shoved the shiv in nearly two weeks earlier - that just shows you how desperate Cuomo is to not only win re-election but run up the score.

Cuomo's Lead Down To Twenty Points, Hawkins Almost In Double Digits

From State of Politics:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo leads his Republican opponent Rob Astorino by 20 percentage points, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday morning.

The poll found Cuomo receives the support of 51 percent of voters polled compared to Astorino’s 31 percent. Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate, received 9 percent.

Without Hawkins in the race, Cuomo leads 55 percent to 34 percent.

Cuomo’s lead in the August Quinnipiac poll was wider, when the governor led Astornio 56 percent to 28 percent. Hawkins was not included in that poll.

Had Teachout been in this race on the Working Families Party ballot line, she would have been garnering over 10% support and Cuomo would have been under 50%.

As it is, Howie Hawkins is near double digits and may end up over 10% when all is said and done.

We'll see if Cuomo can win this election with over 50%.

It's a sign of weakness that he's down near 50% now.

As for Astorino, he's picked up three percentage points in support since the last Q poll while Cuomo has lost five percentage points.

But with less than a month to go now, it's hard for Astorino to close that gap - especially with this:

Cuomo’s favorable rating is at 50 percent, with 39 percent of voters holding an unfavorable opinion of him.

Astorino, meanwhile, is underwater: 27 percent hold a favorable view of him, while 29 percent do not. Forty-three percent of voters don’t know enough about him to form an opinion, the poll found.

I think the best we can hope to do here is hold Cuomo below 50% come next month.

Still, given how this was supposed to be a coronation for Il Duce, with wide support and overwhelming re-election numbers that set him up for a presidential run in the future, that would be a pretty big thing.

Cuomo's Staff Has Howie Hawkins Barred From Campaign Event

Man, this is lame:

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Green Party gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins was kept out of an Andrew Cuomo campaign rally today by the governor's campaign staff.

Hawkins, of Syracuse, said he had RSVP'd to the event, as supporters were instructed to do. Other people who didn't register were allowed inside the Southwest Community Center, as long as they showed identification.

But Hawkins was refused entrance to the indoor event. He said he had planned to listen to Cuomo. He was hoping to invite Cuomo for a ride around the South Side neighborhood on a pedicab, Hawkins' answer to Cuomo's bus tour through Upstate today.

Cuomo's campaign staff said his campaign rented the community center for Saturday's event. The campaign paid about $150 to $200 an hour for about six hours, a spokesman said.

Hawkins said he had tried to use the community center to launch his campaign for governor. He was turned down, he said.

Apparently Il Duce may not be offended by the sight of a campaign opponent.

First he refused to acknowledge the presence of his primary opponent, Zephyr Teachout, at the Labor Day Parade in NYC.

Now he has his staff bar the Green Party candidate from attending a rally - even though Hawkins wasn't planning on disrupting the event and had played by the rules the Cuomo campaign wanted "supporters" to play by.

Just another example of Cuomo's authoritarian ways.

Cuomo: I Don't Like To Compete For Stuff, I Just Want It All Handed To Me

The tweet of the month:

Cuomo today re: SUNY competing for awards: "Competition's always a little unsettling. I'd rather just win -- just have it handed to me."
— mike (@mikevilensky) October 2, 2014

No wonder Cuomo refused to debate Zephyr Teachout during the Democratic Primary and no wonder he won't agree to a TV debate with GOP opponent Astorino.

He doesn't want to deal with a competitive environment where an opponent can show him up for the sociopath he is.

Funny thing is, he loves competition for others - especially in education where competitive grants are his specialty.

But when it comes to himself, no competition for Sheriff Andy, thank you very much.

Zephyr Teachout Tells PEF Members: "Cuomo's Not Invincible Anymore"

From the Times-Union:

While the Fordham law professor lost her Democratic primary challenge earlier in the month to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Zephyr Teachout on Monday vowed to publicly support members of the Public Employees Federation as they move into upcoming contract talks.

"I will stand with you to get that dignified contract," Teachout told PEF delegates. Members of the 53,000-member white-collar state workers union are gathered this week for their convention in Niagara Falls.

She also took a shot at Cuomo, according to a PEF member who was there and who took notes. "Andrew Cuomo is not invincible anymore," Teachout said, referring to the spirited but ultimately unsuccessful primary challenge.

Teachout's talk, in which she also ripped what she termed privatization moves by the governor, sparked wide speculation among union activists that she might take some sort of hands-on role in the looming contract battle.

Among the possibilities mentioned were that Teachout was mulling a tour or series of events to highlight the importance of New York's public sector workers.

Phone calls and emails to Teachout weren't returned on Tuesday, nor were messages with what had been her primary-race campaign staff.

PEF spokeswoman Jane Briggs confirmed in an e-mail that Teachout offered "moral support'' to the union during a speech on Monday.

You can bet Cuomo will look to retaliate against PEF in contract talks for backing Teachout during the primary.

I hope she does support those PEF members who supported her during the primary.

We'll see if that happens.

People in politics- even Fordham professors who take on entrenched interests in primaries - say all kinds of things that they ultimately never follow through on.

Cuomo: No Shift In Treatment Of Teachers In Second Term

From State of Politics:

Asked about whether he’s shifting his tactics post-primary, Cuomo said he wouldn’t change his approach to public workers and teachers labor organizations.

“I knew what I was doing when I did not cater to the teachers union. I didn’t have to take the endorsement of the teachers union the first time, by the way.”

This is the man that Randi Weingarten engineered a putsch for at NYSUT, overthrowing Dick Iannuzzi and the old NYSUT regime when they started to turn on Cuomo and replacing them with the compliant, pro-Cuomo Karen Magee and Revive NYSUT.

This is the man that Michael Mulgrew threatened the Working Families Party for, warning that he would pull UFT funding from the party if they gave their ballot nod to Zephyr Teachout instead of Cuomo.

This is the man that Randi Weingarten helped when she taped a robocall for his right-wing running mate in the waning days of the primary.

What are AFT, UFT and NYSUT leaders getting paid to stick the shiv in their members and work for the corporatist Cuomo?

I hope it's good, whatever it is, because they're selling their members out to a cretin out to destroy teachers, schools, and public education.

Cuomo Rides E Train To Catch Terrorists

Go get 'em, Sheriff Andy:

New Yorkers had just better hope that the terrorists looking to blow up the E train that Cuomo rode today are not running against him in a Democratic Primary.

Because if they are, they could be right in front of his face and he wouldn't notice them:

Cuomo Has Big Lead Over Astorino But His Job Approval Matches All-Time Low

If the election were held today, a weakened Andrew Cuomo would win re-election pretty handily - but that doesn't mean he hasn't been damaged by months of scandal and controversy:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo holds a wide lead over his Republican gubernatorial challenger even as the governor's job-performance rating has fallen back to its lowest point since taking office, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC 4 New York/Marist College poll.

In the first public poll since the Sept. 9 Democratic primary, the governor holds a 25-point margin in the race among likely voters, with 54% of poll respondents supporting Mr. Cuomo. The Republican, Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, pulls 29% and Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins gets 9%.

Among registered voters, Mr. Cuomo maintains a 54% to 26% lead over Mr. Astorino, versus 54% to 23% among that group the last time the poll was conducted, in August.

But all is not well in Camp Cuomo:

The governor's job-approval rating fell to 42%, from 47% in August. Mr. Cuomo's rating stood at 42% in March but had climbed to 48% in the intervening months.

Mr. Miringoff attributed the decline not to any particular aspect of Mr. Cuomo's policies or management, but to voters' displeasure with their perceived lack of progress in the state as a whole. Half of respondents believe the state is moving in the wrong direction, the poll found, up from 45% in August, and 57% believe New York is in a recession.

But, Mr. Miringoff added, "his approval rating isn't converting into votes for Astorino."

Astorino's not winning this election - he's outgunned financially, Cuomo has been hammering him for months now with negative ads and he's not getting any help from his fellow Republicans (GOPer's in the legislature have mostly stayed on the sidelines in the contest and Chris Christie, the head of the National Governors Association, seems to be supporting Cuomo since he refuses to back Astorino with any money and keeps holding press conferences with Cuomo.)

So barring a pre-election indictment or some other major scandal, I don't see how Astorino comes even close to winning the election.

But Cuomo is not winning this election because he's some widely popular figure or people in the state think things are going swimmingly.

He's winning because he's the incumbent, Democrats have wide majority in the voter rolls, and he's been savvy enough to hammer Astorino for a while and make sure he can't win a two man race.

Oh - and he was especially savvy enough to make sure this two-man race didn't become a two-man and one-woman race.

Had Zephyr Teachout gotten the Working Families Party nod and been running against him from the left this November, then Cuomo would have had some trouble.

Alas, "progressive" Bill de Blasio and the heads of the five families, er, unions, made sure that didn't happen, so Cuomo will breeze to re-election.

The goal in my view is to continue to bang him up this election season the way he was banged up during the primary in order to weaken him as much as possible for the second term.

With a criminal investigation of his administration over Moreland still hanging over his head and with a lot of Albany people behind the scenes looking to stick it to him, Cuomo can be weakened to such a point that he won't be able to shove through his corporatist agenda this second term the way he did his first.

And remember, there's still a shot that the US attorney's Moreland investigation goes horribly wrong for Cuomo.

In the end, barring something unforeseen at this point, Cuomo's going to win re-election, but his power has waned considerably since he first was elected and now it's important for those in the opposition to weaken him even more.

Cuomo/Hochul Spent $5.9 Million On Primary

This says everything you need to know about the corrupt nature of our politics:

ALBANY – They were never worried about their Democratic Party primary challengers earlier this month, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and his running mate, Erie County’s Kathy Hochul, insisted over and over again.

Worries aside, Cuomo and Hochul spent about $5.9 million in the final couple of weeks and days immediately following their recent closer-than-expected Democratic primary contests.

New campaign finance filings with the state Board of Elections show that the governor spent $5.6 million, much of it on television ads, during the primary campaign in which he faced political newcomer Zephyr Teachout, a Fordham law professor who captured 34 percent of the Democratic vote against Cuomo.

Hochul's opponent Tim Wu spent under $300,000 on the campaign, Teachout's filings aren't available yet but it will be around the same numbers as Wu's.

$5.9 million to about $700,000

American democracy at its finest.

De Blasio Caves To Charter School Sector

If there was ever a time when Mayor de Blasio could tell Governor Cuomo to go @#$% himself, this is the time.

Cuomo needed de Blasio's help in securing the Working Families Party ballot line last May, something that was very important to Cuomo since the woman who might have gotten that line had de Blasio not helped Cuomo out - Zephry Teachout - took 34% of the vote away from Cuomo in the Democratic Primary on Tuesday.

In addition, de Blasio mounted a very public push for Cuomo's very conservative running mate, Kathy Hochul, making robocalls on Hochul's behalf and helping to curtail the momentum Teachout's running mate Tim Wu got after the NY Times endorsed him.

Wu said yesterday, the reason Hochul won was in large measure due to de Blasio's work.

So if ever there was a time that de Blasio could tell Governor Cuomo that he's going to go his own way on something, now would be the time - Cuomo owes him big time.

Alas, rather than try and stick it to the charter school sector over co-location space and risk making his pal in Albany mad at him, de Blasio has caved to the charter school sector in the latest co-location battle:

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, which spent the winter in a bruising fight with charter school advocates, said on Wednesday that it would find space in public school buildings for four charter schools that want to open or expand next year.

The list of approved schools includes two run by Eva Moskowitz, the charter school leader who has been Mr. de Blasio’s sharpest adversary.

As public advocate, Mr. de Blasio frequently criticized Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg for giving charter schools, which are privately run but publicly financed, free space in public school buildings over the objections of some parents and teachers. As a mayoral candidate, he called for a moratorium on so-called co-locations until the process for approving such arrangements was improved.

In February, he denied space to three of Ms. Moskowitz’s schools, setting off a political battle.

Charter supporters financed television advertisements criticizing the mayor, and Ms. Moskowitz bused thousands of charter school students and parents to Albany for a rally, at which Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo promised the families his support. The governor and legislative leaders ultimately inserted in the budget a requirement that the city provide space to charters or else contribute to the cost of their renting private space.

The four schools the city said on Wednesday that it would find space for are Ms. Moskowitz’s two schools, Success Academy Bronx 3, which is adding third grade next year, and Success Academy Bed-Stuy 1, which is adding fifth grade; Launch Expeditionary Learning Charter School, which is adding high school grades; and Bronx Charter School for Better Learning II, a new school.

Don't think the charter entrepreneurs weren't worried about what de Blasio was going to do - because they were:

 

Charter school advocates expressed relief at the news.

“We hope that this great step on the administration’s part will be the first of several, in order to make sure that this law works for everyone,” James Merriman, the chief executive of the New York City Charter School Center, said in a statement, referring to the new state law.

Cuomo rolled de Blasio last March when he finagled the Eva Moskowitz Charter School Giveaway Budget and forced NYC to either co-locate every charter's whims or pay for rent in private space.

That was when Cuomo was riding high in polls and power.

Since then, Cuomo has been rebuked twice by the left wing of his party, once last spring during the Working Families Party convention when party activists wanted to nominate Teachout and Cuomo needed the help of de Blasio and the unions to get the WFP ballot nod and Tuesday when he had the worst showing in a Democratic gubernatorial primary ever in New York State.

Cuomo has also been rebuked by US Attorney Preet Bharara for shutting down the Moreland Commission in return for getting an on time budget deal and for later meddling with former Moreland Commissioners in an attempt to defend that commission shutdown.

As I said in the beginning of the post, if ever there was a time that de Blasio could force Cuomo's hand on an issue - even the charter school issue - it is now, when Cuomo is diminished, weakened, and owes de Blasio big time.

De Blasio, for whatever reason, has chosen not do so and instead has caved to the charter school sector in the spacing battle.

Many are blaming de Blasio over this, claiming he's a sell-out and what-not, and they're probably right about that.

But I also suspect that, after getting no backing in the battle with Eva and Cuomo last winter/spring (including from the UFT), de Blasio has decided that this is not going to be a battle he's going to take on anymore.

So yes, blame de Blasio for caving to Eva and the charter school juggernaut.

But also blame the UFT for not backing him over Eva last year in the co-location battle.

BTW, the unions helped Cuomo out big time too this election cycle, not only helping him secure the WFP ballot nod by threatening the party with dissolution if they gave the endorsement to Teachout, but by pushing for Cuomo's conservative running mate as well.

AFT President Weingarten, she of the pro-gun control, pro-DREAM Act side of the political spectrum, robocalled for the anti-gun control, anti-immigrants' rights Kathy Hocul, as did Bill de Blasio.

It's nice to see the unions and the mayor on the same side in a fight - too bad it's on the side of helping the loathsome Cuomo and his uber-conservative running mate win this election.