Cowardly Cuomo Has His Thugs Shut Down Criticism At Vigil For Orlando

Sherry Wolf Confronts Gov. Cuomo at the Vigil for Orlando from TheDustyRebel on Vimeo.

Cowardly Cuomo Refuses To Own Up To Working Families Party Slam

Typical from Governor Narcissist - say something scummy, then make believe he didn't say it:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo today denied identifying the labor-backed Working Families Party as a “fringe” party, despite radio remarks yesterday that seemed to mock and belittle the left-leaning group.

On a Friday interview on the Brian Lehrer Show, Mr. Cuomo seemed to allude to the WFP–with which he has long had a fractious relationship, and which reluctantly endorsed him twice for governor–as a “fringe” party, while pushing the Women’s Equality Party, which he created this year. The WEP purports to promote the anti-discrimination, pro-choice Women’s Equality Agenda, but many critics view it as an effort to lure progressives away from the WFP and deny it the 50,000 votes it needs to keep its ballot line.

“The Women’s Equality Party, the Women’s Equality Agenda, is something that is very important to me. I think it can be a national precedent. And it empowers women in a way that’s never been done. It’s almost amazing when you think about it. We’ve formed every kind of fringe party for every kind of reason. We have Democrat, Republican, Green, Red, White, Blue, Working People, Working Short People, Working Tall People,” Mr. Cuomo said yesterday.

But following a rally in the Bronx today with 1199 SEIU, 32BJ SEIU and the Hotel Trades Council–all components of the WFP’s union-community group alliance –“I don’t think I called them a ‘fringe party,'” Mr. Cuomo said, then clarifying his remarks when the Observer quoted his words from yesterday to him. “I think that I said there are a number of parties, you can vote for me on the Democratic Party, you can vote for me on the Independence Party, you can vote for me on the Working Families Party, you can vote for me on the Women’s Equality Party.”

Clearly he was tweaking WFP yesterday with the "We have Democrat, Republican, Green, Red, White, Blue, Working People, Working Short People, Working Tall People” comment on Lehrer's show.

Too bad he didn't have the guts to admit it in front of working people from 1199 SEIU, 32BJ SEIU and the Hotel Trades Council who were rallying for him.

Too bad the working people from 1199 SEIU, 32BJ SEIU and the Hotel Trades Council who were rallying for him don't realize what an arrogant, anti-union prick he is.

Andrew Cuomo Shows His Cowardice

In case you missed the news, Andrew Cuomo has pulled out of his billed appearance at the Education Reform Now-sponsored education reform retreat at Whiteface Lodge in Lake Placid.

According to Jessica Bakeman at Capital NY, Cuomo cited scheduling difficulties for the conference and has sent a video along instead of driving himself over on his motorcycle and appearing as the "honorary chair."

I'm sure Cuomo's cancellation had nothing to do with the growing protests over the conference or the anti-Cuomo rebellion spreading across the state as parents and educators fight Cuomo on his education reform agenda.

Oh, no wait - I bet that's exactly the reason why he's cancelled his appearance.

Cuomo has made himself less available this year, not just over the education policy protests - Zach Fink at Salon wrote that's he making many fewer appearances before the Albany press for Q & A.

Cuomo's on the run over Common Core, the state's education testing regime, the tax cap, the Moreland Commission, and his complicity in Chris Christie's Bridgegate scandal, among other things.


Cuomo's cancellation at the Camp Philos event is just another example of the vulnerability he is experiencing going into his re-election campaign.

Cuomo needs to stage manage his appearances as much as possible and after last week's protests outside a Long Island fundraiser, he looks like he's going to get a little more controlling about where he makes those public appearances.

Just as Christine Quinn couldn't make a public appearance when she was running for NYC mayor without having the Anybody But Quinn people protesting her, Cuomo's got angry parents, angry teachers and a curious press corps looking to confront him over various things and, like the coward he is, Cuomo seems to be looking to duck them all.

Andrew Cuomo Allegedly Goes Corleone On Merryl Tisch

Newsday has a very interesting story out tonight about something Merryl Tisch allegedly told to a middle school principal from Red Hook:

A Long Island Republican has posted on the Internet video from a forum this week on the Common Core academic standards where a Hudson Valley middle school principal relayed a conversation she said she had with state Regents Chancellor Meryl Tisch, touching on Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

  In it, the principal says Tisch told her the governor pressured the chancellor, in no uncertain terms, to make the Common Core rollout work. A spokesman for Tisch says the story isn’t true.

  Here’s how it unfolded:

   Karyann (Katie) Zahedi, principal of Linden Middle School in Red Hook, told the panel of Assembly members Wednesday night that she and other educators strongly expressed their concerns to Tisch about the Common Core, which has generated controversy around the state.

  “She was frustrated that we were so critical,” Zahedi, speaking of Tisch, told an audience that included parents and educators.

  “She said to me: ‘How would you like to be in my position?’” Zahedi continued. “This is what she says: ‘I’m at the governor’s mansion and he shouts at me that if you don’t get this done, if you don’t get this through, I’ll put three geniuses in a room and I’ll force it down your throats.’”

It's possible Tisch is just putting the blame on Sheriff Andy, but knowing how Cuomo operates, Tisch's story is believable too.

I'm sure Cuomo wants Common Core implemented because he took a bunch of DFER money and hedge fundie cash to get it implemented (along with the charter school cap lifted, teacher evaluations tied to test scores, and the testing regime in the state "strengthened.")

I can believe Cuomo got in her face when the pushback against the Core, the Endless Testing, the APPR teacher evaluation system and inBloom intensified and started making the papers.
I can believe he is totally on board the Ed Deform Express behind the scenes and still pushing this stuff, even as students, parents and teachers around the state turn against it.

And I can believe he got totally tough behind the scenes, telling her this shit better get done or Luca Brasi's ghost is going to visit SED and the Board of Regents and get make them an offer they can't refuse.

It's completely in Cuomo's character to take no responsibility for the ed deform agenda in public anymore, to actually run from questions and make like he's never heard of this Common Core thing before, while pushing behind the scenes to get it done.

He's a bully and a coward, but in 2014 we're going to get him on the public record over this stuff, starting with his State of the State speech.

NYSED Commissioner John King: A Profile In Cowardice

Reaction to NYSED Commissioner John King's canceling of his Common Core Gospel Tour:

.@tfarley1969 @Stoptesting15 @carolburris @LIOptOut only if Shelly & Regents paying attention he's lost confidence of parents & teachers
— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) October 12, 2013

King has definitely lost the confidence of parents and teachers.

Up until this week, he had more than maintained the confidence of those in the corridors of power in Albany and NYC.

It will be interesting to see if that remains so after his Profile in Cowardice.

Not only did he fail to convert anybody at his Common Core Gospel Tour in Poughkeepsie the other night, he made things worse by talking down to the audience and just generally acting like the rookie teacher with classroom management issues he was back in his teaching days.

No wonder he split the public school system after one year for charter school heaven.

No worries about classroom management there - you just toss out the malcontents, right?

In any case, King's canceling of the remaining stops on the Common Core Gospel Tour expose him as a coward and an ineffective defender of the corporate education reform agenda.

Will the powers that be stick with him after his running from the fight or will this week signal the beginning of the end of Commissioner John King's reign?

I suspect if he becomes an object of ridicule and mockery to parents and teachers, they will have to send him packing in the end.

It behooves us to make that very thing happen.

NYSED Commissioner John King Shows His Cowardice

NYSED Commissioner King was slated to do a mini-tour spreading the Gospel of the Common Core all across NY State.

The tour was co-sponsored by the reform-friendly New York State PTA and was meant to give Commissioner King a friendly forum to come and sell the Common Core gospel to the people.

Only problem is, the people didn't want to hear John King preach Common Core.

They wanted to let him know how disturbed they are by the state's testing agenda, by the changes wrought by the Common Core, by the imperiousness with which these have been handed down by the Board of Regents and the SED.



After getting beaten up for his hypocrisy, after being confronted by parents angry over the radical changes he has brought to the system, after being forced to listen to people who told him in no uncertain terms to his face that they do not buy his reform agenda, King called an end to his Common Core Gospel Core:

Dear PTA Members and Friends,

The NY State Education Commissioner’s office has requested suspending the remaining Town Hall meetings on the Common Core scheduled for:

Tuesday, October 15-Garden City HS, 170 Rockaway Ave, Garden City

Wednesday, October 16- Shenendehowa HS West, 970 Rt 146 Clifton Park

Thursday, October 24- Williamsville North HS, 1595 Hopkins Rd Williamsville

Wednesday, October 30-New Hartford SHS, 33 Oxford Rd,New Hartford

While our goal was to provide an opportunity to learn and share, based on review of the initial October 10 meeting, the Commissioner concluded the outcome was not constructive for those taking the time to attend. Please know that NYS PTA will continue to work with all education and child advocacy partners to keep our members updated and informed on education, health, safety and welfare issues affecting children and families.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and express our sincere appreciation to those who have given their time to assist with organizing this initiative.

New York State PTA

What a coward.

Here he had the chance to go and learn from people what the problems with the Common Core standards and the SED testing regime are, here he had a chance to see how the peasantry are feeling about how the plutocracy is handling education policy, and this functionary for the plutocracy couldn't take the heat and called it quits on his future Town Hall meetings.

King happily meets with his fellow education reformers like David Coleman and Paul Vallas to hear tributes to his greatness and has no problem meeting with reformy groups like the Gates Foundation-funded Educators4Excellence.

But parents who tell him the damage he is doing to their children and their children's schools?

Teachers who tell him the damage he is doing to their students and their schools?

Nah - he doesn't want to hear from them.

He doesn't have the guts to hear from them.

That's clear from his canceling the Common Core Gospel Tour after one session.

Why Won't NYSED Commissioner John King Face Parents Over His Education Agenda?

Via NYC Eye, we learn that the first of four hearings on the NYSED/Regents education reform agenda was held on Long Island, and it did not go well for the deformers from the state:

The growing focus on testing in New York’s schools is sickening students, bewildering parents and threatening to undermine public confidence in the state’s education system, speaker after speaker said Tuesday at a public hearing on the state’s “reform” agenda.

Jeanette Deutermann, a mother of two from Bellmore, said she had to take one son to the doctor last year because he was so stressed out by test preparation.

“I don’t care about the data; I don’t care about the statistics,” she said. “I care that I want my son to like to learn.”

Deutermann, who started a Facebook page for parents on Long Island wanting to pull their children from state-directed tests, was addressing the state Senate’s Education Committee. The committee Tuesday held the first of four planned hearings on the state’s ongoing reforms: the Common Core learning standards; new teacher evaluations; tougher state tests; new student data systems; and more.

And how did NYSED Commissioner John King take hearing parents criticize his education reform agenda?

He didn't take it all - he was too big a coward (or just too "big") to attend the hearing, so he sent his deputy, Ken Wagner, instead:

The soft-spoken Wagner, a well-liked former school psychologist, was on the defensive from the start. Standing in for Education Commissioner John King, he was peppered with questions about the state’s rush to roll out new standards and tests.

“There always has to be a year one,” he said. Wagner conceded the state has to more effectively explain its goals to teachers and parents.

The problem here is that John King and his merry education reformers at the NYSED don't think they have to explain anything to anybody.

As yesterday's Politico story on the rising opposition to Common Core makes clear, many education reformers haven't bothered to try and get buy-in from stakeholders like parents and teachers and instead have gone ahead with an autocratic imposition of the Common Core standards, the associated tests and "assessments," and the data tracking and teacher evaluation systems that go with all of this.

Only now, the education reformers are learning that people don't like having the wool pulled over their eyes, they don't like having questionable education reforms imposed on their children, and they don't like the arrogance with which the reformers have treated students, parents and teachers.

That arrogance was on display this week when NYSED Commissioner John King let his deputy commissioner take the heat for his agenda.

I can't say I'm surprised by this, of course.

King will show up at education reform symposiums where he can be feted by his fellow education reformers, but he's not going into a room full of people wanting to question him over evaluations, inBloom, Pearson and the rest of the education reform mess he has brought us.

He doesn't have the guts to do that.

What are you scared of, John?

Why don't you meet the parents and teachers face to face for some discussion over your reform agenda?

There are still three more meetings.

Clear your schedule and come defend your agenda in person instead of hiding behind your deputy.

Weiner's Full Of Baloney Over Homophobic Remark

Anthony's Weiner lack of moral courage and principles continues to reverberate in the mayoral race.

On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that Weiner told a voter who called his rival Christine Quinn a "dyke" that it was okay that she had used the slur.

Here's the exchange:

The offense occurred in The Washington Post, which published a lengthy story Thursday on the mayor’s race that included this scene that described Mr. Weiner’s interaction with a voter on the campaign trail:

“You a registered Democrat?” he asked an elderly woman wheeling a shopping cart by him.

“I am,” she said. “And I’m not voting for uh, what’s her name? The dyke.”

“Okay. I just need you to sign the petition to get me on the ballot,” said Weiner, who then noticed the incredulous reaction of a reporter and added, “and you really shouldn’t talk that way about people.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the woman said.

“It’s okay,” Weiner responded. “It’s not your fault.”

Notice that it wasn't until Weiner noticed that the reporter covering Weiner on the campaign trail looked horrified at the exchange that he said anything negative to the woman.

It's pretty obvious from the exchange that he wouldn't have said an admonishing word at all had the reporter not been there.

This is a telling moment in the Weiner campaign for City Hall.

When Weiner first sent out his infamous Twitter photo, his initial reaction was to lie to the press and try to cover up the truth.

He didn't give up on the cover up until it became completely untenable to continue trying to tell lies.

That Weiner never felt the inclination to tell the truth about the incident until he absolutely had to tells you a lot about him as a person - namely that is dishonest at the core.

This homophobic slur incident is another excellent insight into Weiner as a human being.

His initial reaction, after the woman called Quinn a "dyke," was to ignore the slur and get her signature on his petition.

He didn't care a whit that she had used a homophobic slur.

It wasn't until he realized the reporter had seen how he didn't care a whit about the slur that he realized he had to react and lightly admonish the woman.

Just as his initial reaction in Twittergate was to lie, his initial reaction here was to ignore the slur and get what he needed from the woman - a signature on his petition.

Weiner has since apologized to Quinn directly, even calling her to tell her his side of the story, but as in Twittergate, his words are meaningless.

His actions are much more telling.

PROFILE IN COWARDICE: Cuomo Wants Silver Gone, Doesn't Want His Fingerprints On The Knife

Hard not to read this Times story that way:

CAROLINA, P.R. — Andrew M. Cuomo will not be sworn in as governor for seven weeks, but his jockeying with the Legislature has already begun.

...

Many saw Mr. Cuomo’s influence at play in an article published on Sunday in The New York Post, which speculated on how the governor-elect might join with rank-and-file lawmakers to unseat Mr. Silver, the longest-serving speaker in state history and Mr. Cuomo’s chief rival for influence in Albany.

Aides to Mr. Cuomo are quoted anonymously in the article as saying that Mr. Cuomo would prefer to work with Mr. Silver rather than challenge him as speaker. A spokesman said on Monday that the governor-elect was not behind the story.

Asked what sort of signal he wanted to send to Mr. Silver, Mr. Cuomo, a politician highly practiced in the art of the strategic press leak, insisted he was “not a big signal-sender.”

“I’m looking forward to working with the leadership of the Assembly,” Mr. Cuomo said, not mentioning Mr. Silver by name.

Asked whether he would discourage lawmakers from mounting a coup against Mr. Silver, Mr. Cuomo did not answer the question. Instead, he parried by citing another article in The Post, published on Monday, in which Mr. Silver expressed support for the idea of closing next year’s $8 billion budget gap without raising taxes.

“To the extent that today’s article suggests that Sheldon Silver supports that position, that’s great,” Mr. Cuomo said. “That’s what I’ve been talking about for months. I welcome his support and I welcome the support of the Assembly.”

While some have speculated that the 33-member caucus of black and Latino lawmakers in the Assembly could band together with upstate Democrats to select a new speaker, it is not clear what appetite actually exists for a coup against Mr. Silver. He is valued by many Assembly lawmakers for defending their institutional prerogatives and for bearing the brunt of editorial-page criticism of the Legislature on matters of spending and ethics reform.

“Maybe there are people there that like to play politics behind closed doors and I think they should be more transparent,” said Assemblyman Félix W. Ortiz, chairman of the chamber’s Puerto Rican-Hispanic Task Force. “Why do they have to hide?”

Cuomo shows himself to be the gutless bully he is.

If Cuomo wants Shelly gone, then he should say so - in public.

With his own lips.

He should stop hiding behind anonymous leaks and planted articles.

Especially when the planted stories are as obvious as this one.

One last thing: Little Andy better watch the hubris.

He's strutting his stuff now, but if he wants to take on Silver, he better know that everybody else who has taken Shelly on in the past has lost.

If Anyone Needs To Be Fired, It's Vilsack...and Obama

What bullshit.

The Obama administration fired a USDA employee for an alleged racist incident that turned out to be manufactured by right-wing smear merchant Andrew Breitbart.

Breitbart edited a videotape to make it look like the employee, Shirley Sherrod, was admitting she had not helped a white family keep their farm because of race.

Actually when viewed in its entirety, Sherrod continues on to say she came to realize that was wrong and needed to help this family regardless of race. She says this incident opened her up to seeing race issues in a whole new light.

The family farm, btw, was saved, and Sherrod became friends with the family.

Had the Obama administration actually looked into the story before acting, they would have known the truth.

Instead the White House called USDA Secretary/Monsanto Whore Tom Vilsack and told him to fire Sherrod immediately.

Sherrod told CNN she received three calls from the White House telling her to resign.

On that last call, somebody at the White House demanded her resignation immediately - even though Sherrod was behind the wheel of her car - and told her to pull over to the side of the road and send in her resignation via her Blackberry.

How's that for change we can believe in, eh?

Now the Daily News reports the administration is embarrassed by their actions and are walking back the firing:

On second thought…

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack now says he will reconsider the abrupt firing of a black employee after learning more about a video posted online this week which suggested she was racist.

"I am of course willing and will conduct a thorough review and consider additional facts to ensure to the American people we are providing services in a fair and equitable manner," Vilsack said on Wednesday morning.

Shirley Sherrod, the former Georgia director of Rural Development, resigned under pressure this week after right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart published a video clip where she seemingly tells a group she did not give a white farmer "the full force of what I could do," after he asked for assistance.

Sherrod said her statements, which were given at a local NAACP banquet in Georgia in March, were part of a larger story about overcoming her own prejudices 24 years ago.

Sherrod told NBC's Today show on Wednesday that she didn't know if she would return to her old job.

"I am just not sure how I would be treated there," she said.

Vilsack's change of heart came after the NAACP posted Sherrod's full 43-minute speech on Tuesday night. He initially said he had "zero tolerance for discrimination" and released a second statement later that day saying rightly or wrongly, Sherrod's comments could cause people to doubt her decisions as a federal employee.

The NAACP, which initially supported her dismissal, said she should be rehired. Fox News commentator Glenn Beck has also backed Sherrod, saying on his show on Tuesday, "She should not have been fired or forced to resign."

The civil rights group believes it and many others were tricked by Breitbart, who first posted the 2-minutes and 38-second clip on biggovernment.com, and gave it a spin which took it completely out of context.

Breitbart told political website Talking Points Memo that a source initially sent him the edited clips first and he's in the process of obtaining the full video.

Since the controversy, the white farmer who was the focus of her story in the video, also spoke out in Sherrod's favor.
"If it hadn't been for her, we would've never known who to see or what to do," Roger Spooner, 87, told CNN. "She led us right to our success."

Sherrod said she received a phone call from the USDA's deputy undersecretary Cheryl Cook on Monday who told her that the White House wanted her to call it quits.

"It hurts me that they didn't even try to attempt to see what is happening here, they didn't care," Sherrod said. "I'm not a racist. ... Anyone who knows me knows that I'm for fairness."

Here's an idea for the change we can believe in people running the White House:

TRY INVESTIGATING A STORY AND/OR ALLEGATION BEFORE TAKING ANY ACTION.

Yeah, I know dear reader, that seems obvious.

But it clearly seems even more obvious that the morons and cowards at the White House and USDA DO NOT understand that precept.

The good news is, if the American public got to vote on President Hopey/Changey's job this summer, they would send his arrogant, corrupt, incompetent ass back to Chicago where it belongs.

Unfortunately, if you saw the Times today, we have two more years of these assholes making policies like this one by the seat of their pants, taking actions without actually investigating the circumstances or thinking through consequences.

Their arrogance seems to only be superseded by their cluelessness at policy.

One wonders how they will govern with a Republican House.

I can imagine lots more of these phony scandals, a White House caving on every one, and governing with more right-wing, corporate-friendly policies designed to screw the working and middle classes and make their corporate overlords happy.

God help us all.

Especially those of us in public education.

We know EXACTLY what Shirley Sherrod experienced at the hands of President Obama.

We are facing the same thing under his Race to the Top policies.

Coward

The Obama administration embraced Arlen Specter's switch from the GOP to the Democratic Party as "Change We Can All Believe In" back in 2009.

Specter saw he was going to get wiped out in the GOP primary and made the expedient decision to become a Democrat.

The White House guaranteed they would back him over any challenger in a primary if he became a Dem and gave them another vote in the Senate.

Specter - who just a few years ago was embracing President Bush in his campaign commercials and asking people to re-elect him so he could make sure Bush's agenda was passed - suddenly now was embracing Obama and asking voters to re-elect him so that he could make sure Obama's agenda was passed.

Some turnaround, huh?

But the base of the party doesn't like Specter. They seem as a scumbag politician who will do and say anything to keep his Senate seat.

People began clambering for a "real Democrat" to run in the Dem primary against Specter.

Rep. Joe Sestak decided to run against Specter despite threats from Obama and Rahm Emanuel that he would be ostracized from the party for doing so.

The White House did all it could to get Sestak out and back Specter in the beginning, but once it became clear that Specter was in trouble and Sestak had a good shot to beat him, suddenly Obama wasn't so friendly toward Arlen.

Over the weekend, the Specter campaign, desperate for momentum, asked Obama to come to PA and campaign with him.

Obama said no.

Behind the scenes, the White House said they do not want the president to be associated with a "loser."

They also decided to keep VP Joe Biden away from PA and Specter.

How's that for change we can believe in?

Obama is a coward, willing to dedicate life and limb to you when all is well, ready to throw you under the bus as soon as things turn.

I guess we already learned that with Reverend Wright.

Nonetheless, it is good to see it in the open once again.

Obama likes to play like he is above politics, like he is a better human being than all the mere mortals who live in Washington.

But he is just as ordinary, just as scummy, as all the other politicians in Washington and around the country.

Maybe he's even worse, because unlike the Specters of the world who make no bones about their expediency and scumminess, Obama likes to depict himself as morally superior from the others.

But at the end of the day, he is a coward and a phony.

Go Sestak.