Tag Archives: responsibilities

“What’s the Goal Here?”

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That’s the question New York Assemblywoman Latrice Walker (D, 55th District) is asking on the matter of impeaching and bringing to State Senate trial soon-to-be ex-Governor Andrew Cuomo (D). He’s already resigned, she says. If the goal here was to move this particular governor out of office…, she says.

Other State Democrats are pressing for impeachment and conviction even after Cuomo’s resignation has taken effect.

Latrice misunderstands the situation, and those pushing for impeachment and conviction anyway, are clearer on the matter.

Cuomo resigned of the sex abuse allegations that have come to the fore, and that’s all he’s resigning over.

What about his other misbehaviors and abuses of his authority?

What about all the deaths that resulted from his demand that Wuhan Virus-infected elderly patients be put back into nursing homes to infect—and kill—thousands of other elderly?

What about his abuses of his authority regarding the Mario Cuomo Bridge?

What about his misuse of State government facilities and resources to write and peddle a book?

What about his abuse of his authority to give preferential virus testing treatment for family members and favored cronies during a time of limited testing resources?

What about his disbanding of the Moreland Commission when it began investigating his cronies?

What about his relationship with a crony convicted of bid-rigging for State government contracts?

What about the relationship between Crystal Run Healthcare’s donation of $400k in campaign donations to Cuomo’s 2016 campaign and Crystal Run’s subsequent award of a $25 million in State grants?

These, and especially the victims and victims’ survivors of Cuomo’s nursing home moves, badly want adjudication and justice. They, each of them individually and all of them together, badly need impeachment and a State Senate trial.

And: on conviction, the State’s legislature then would have the authority to bar Cuomo from State office for the rest of his life.

“Coronavirus-Related Fatalities”

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That term or phrase, along with “coronavirus-linked deaths” get bandied about a lot. See, for instance:

…its [Sweden’s] population had a total of eight coronavirus-related deaths in July, or an average of 0.26 coronavirus-linked deaths a day.

And

…4 and 329 coronavirus-related daily fatalities in the UK and US….

This is not to pick on Just the News; most of the news outlets use those phrases. All of them also seem to use the phrases interchangeably with “coronavirus-caused fatalities.”

But what do those alternative phrases really mean?

Here are some examples of other meanings for the phrases, considering a patient with Condition X, the…coronavirus…is present in his body, and he dies:

  • Cause of death: Condition X, coronavirus present
  • Cause of death: Condition X, coronavirus contributory
  • Cause of death: coronavirus, Condition X contributory
  • Cause of death: coronavirus, Condition x present

Notice that: all of those outcomes are “coronavirus-related/linked.” However, only one of them is solely coronavirus-caused, which is the only meaning of the uncaveated phrase “coronavirus-related/linked” when used to mean “coronavirus-caused.” Even taking a looser meaning for a loosely used phrase, two of those alternatives clearly are not “coronavirus-caused.”

To the extent the news purveyors really are relying on interchangeability, they’re badly mistaken. They’re either wholly illogical and non-credible or very lazy in their word use and non-credible. Or both and non-credible.

My Black Life Matters

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Your black lives don’t matter. Neither do your brown lives. Or your white lives. Or your oriental lives. Go suck an egg.

That’s the position of Congresswoman Cori Bush (D, MO).

I’m going to make sure I have security because I know I have had attempts on my life[.]

And

And defunding the police has to happen. We need to defund the police and put that money into social safety nets.

Bush bleats that she’s had a few death threats. She doesn’t care that folks in the inner city and in other crime-ridden neighborhoods—black, brown, white, oriental folks—exist with the daily threat of actual death from gang fight shootings, drive-by shootings, shootings in the bodega during a robbery, shootings from drug deals gone bad, bullets sprayed around from any of those gunfights.

No, those folks’ lives aren’t worth spit to Bush. She demands to defund the police forces that would, if backed by politicians in local governments, instead of being excoriated, disarmed, defenestrated by Bush and her ilk, protect those blacks, browns, whites, and orientals who without police actually will be killed, not just get the occasional angry emailed threat.

No. “Suck it up,” Bush says in her cynically manufactured righteous anger.

Back Rent

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On the day the moratorium on rent paying, enacted during the Wuhan Virus situation, expired, the aggregated back rent owed as a result of that moratorium amounts to some $15 billion.

There is broad concern for the renters who owe the money, and that’s appropriate as far as it goes. But the concern doesn’t go far enough. What’s lacking is any concern regarding the other side of that coin: to whom all that money is owed.

“To whom” are the landlords, most of whom are mom and pop businesses and individual moms or pops who own a house, or two, that they rent out. Those $15 billion are owed to far fewer landlords than they are owed by renters.

Absent the rent payments, those small-time landlords are unable to pay their own mortgages on the rental properties for which they’re responsible, and in many cases, without that income they’re unable to pay their mortgages on their own homes.

Where’s the concern for them? Where’s the help for them?

The silence deafens.

Dishonesty?

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Or Cowardice?

Recall The New York Times‘ reporter, Katie Benner, who tweeted out the following, regarding 10s of millions of Americans:

Her tweets read, in case the image proves unreadable,

Today’s #January6thSelectCommittee underscores the America’s current, essential natsec dilemma: Work to combat legitimate national security threats now entails calling a politician’s supporters enemies of the state. /1
As Americans, we believe that state power should not be used to work against a political figure or a political party. But what happens if a politician seems to threaten the state? If the politician continues to do so out of office and his entire party supports that threat? /2
This dilemma was unresolved by the Russia probe and 2 impeachments. With many Republicans denying the reality of the Jan. 6 attack, I doubt the #January6thCommittee will resolve it either. That leaves it up to voters, making even more essential free, fair access to the polls. /3

This time, I’m less interested in this…journalist’s…slur than I am in what she did about it. Amid the backsplash against her despicable smear of all of us average Americans so impudent as to disagree with her august self, Benner deleted those tweets. She claimed her tweets were unclearly worded.

Hogwash. If Benner truly were concerned about clarity, she would have left her tweets up, cited them in a quoting tweet or series of tweets, said they were “unclearly worded,” and then said in clear, concrete terms what she truly meant.

Benner chose not to. Instead, she chose to attempt to white wash her history—which is part of all our social history, part of the information database that all of us must use, for good or ill—to try to pretend her history didn’t actually exist.

Dishonesty or cowardice? You make the call. For me, it’s a tough call since there’s so much overlap: much of dishonesty is a form of cowardice.