Andrew Cuomo

In the liberal fantasyland that is the Associated Press, it's only Republican governors with an eye on 2016 that are fraught with potential problems that could end their campaigns before they begin.  In their May 2 AP story, reporters Bob Lewis and Charles Babington sought to convince readers that the Republicans governors of Virginia, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Florida are all train wrecks.

Lewis and Babington focused in particular on Virginia's Bob McDonnell and Louisiana's Bobby Jindal, who are unpopular in no small part because of moves they made on tax policy. McDonnell signed off on massive tax increases for transportation, while Jindal’s failed attempt to reform his state tax code -- making the state income tax free but boosting some sales taxes to make up for lost revenue -- has eroded his once-stellar popularity. Of course, plenty of Democratic governors thinking about 2016 also hiked taxes, but they were curiously left out of the mix. 

An exasperated Chris Matthews on Sunday highlighted Governor Andrew Cuomo's plummeting poll numbers in the wake of New York's new gun control legislation. Singling out the National Rifle Association as the villain, he fretted "...Is anybody safe from the NRA?"

The host of the Chris Matthews Show lamented the inability of many states to pass gun control laws. Matthews told his guests that, initially, he thought "there's a few place in the country we are safe from the NRA, maybe California, maybe the Northeast." Citing a new poll showing Cuomo's polls have dropped 15 points, the journalist added, "I read the other day Cuomo's numbers have crumbled pretty much on that one issue in New York State." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

On CNN this morning, in a quote captured by Rush Limbaugh on his program today (but predictably ignored by David Edwards covering the broadcast at Raw Story), Carol Costello told viewers that "no one is talking about overturning the Second Amendment or confiscating guns in America."

Wow. What hermetically sealed cave have you been living in during the past few weeks, Carol -- or for that matter, as Limbaugh effectively asked, where have you been during the past 4-1/2 decades? Here's some of what Rush had to say in response (bolds are mine):

One would think that a newspaper which in its view has largely made its reputation on publishing leaked government documents and revealing government secrets would have been a bit more excited about being the sole receipient of a report from the State of New York indicating that hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," is safe. The State had already sat on the report for a year.

The Times published the story on January 3, but on Page A19, while changing its original strong title ("Hydrofracking Safe, Says N.Y. Health Dept. Analysis" -- seen in the browser window) to a less descriptive, boring, and somewhat deceptive "Gas Drilling Is Called Safe in New York."

What similarities are there between a domestic terrorist organization and the alleged journalists at the Journal News headquartered in White Plains, New York? At least two biggies: total lack of respect for privacy and complete disregard for others' safety. The domestic terror group Earth First has an "EAT(IT) "Eco Assassin Team (in Training)," which has tired of "the stale old debate about adopting nonviolence as a movement principle." Accordingly, the Earth First Journal (HT to J. Christian Adams at PJ Media; those wishing to go to the original need to go there first, as I would rather not directly link) has published a top ten "'Eco-F***ers Prank-Hit List,' at least until we come up with something more creative."

The Journal News has published its own (conveniently unbylined) list, complete with interactive maps. The maps contain "the addresses (and names) of all pistol permit holders in Westchester and Rockland counties." Really:

On Thursday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told an Albany radio station some of his ideas for gun control: “Confiscation could be an option. Mandatory sale to the state could be an option. Permitting could be an option — keep your gun but permit it.”

But in covering what Cuomo said, Thomas Kaplan at the New York Times prefaced Cuomo's specific statement, which he buried in the story's seventh paragraph, by writing that "Mr. Cuomo did not offer specifics about the measures he might propose." Looks "specific" enough to me, Tom. The Times, perhaps sensing that a statement such as Mr. Cuomo's might be the kind with the potential to seriously damage the gun control cause, buried Kaplan's story on Page A29 in Friday's print edition and gave it a boring headline:

In a Thursday afternoon item carried at the Los Angeles Times via reporters Shashank Bengali and Joseph Serna (HT NewsBusters tipster Gary Hall), New York Governor Andrew Cuomo claimed that "When we built New York, we didn’t think about floods, about storms. We didn’t have hurricanes and floods. ... Extreme weather is here to stay. Climate change is a reality. Political gridlock has held us back too long. ... Maybe Mother Nature is telling us something. One time, two times, three times. There are places that are going to be victimized by storms. We know that now."

Let's review a little history -- history anyone in the establishment press could have found in the Google News Archive and Wikipedia as I did. What I found demonstrates how extreme and outrageously untrue Mr. Cuomo's "we didn't have hurricanes and floods" claim really is.

Democrats are at it again, claiming that Republicans, particularly House Republicans, are sabotaging the economy, while ignoring the quite effective job President Barack Obama has done to ruin the economy both on his own (regulatory and anti-fossil fuel hostility, wasteful green "investments," etc.) and with the help of Congressional Democrats when they controlled both Houses of Congress (stimulus, ObamaCare, trillion-dollar deficits, etc.).

The best argument against this nonsense is that if Republicans were really interested in hurting the economy, GOP governors wouldn't be doing good to even great jobs with their own states' economies. At the Associated Press, aka the Administration's Press, Josh Lederman, reporting from the National Governors Association meeting in Williamsburg, Virginia, attempted to frame a response to GOP governors' contentions (in bold after the jump) which qualifies as the howler of the day:

In what may be the most obvious over-employment of journalistic resources since the Associated Press assigned 11 reporters to review Sarah Palin's book in late 2009, seven journalists with the AP (yep, again) worked up a Friday afternoon item (saved here for future reference, fair use, discussion and embarrassment purposes) entitled "6 months later, what has Occupy protest achieved?"

Primary writer Meghan Barr, along with "Jeff Martin in Atlanta, Kathy Matheson in Philadelphia, Michael Gormley in Albany, N.Y., Erika Niedowski and David Klepper in Providence, R.I., and News Researcher Julie Reed in New York," recited an embarrassing, paper-thin list of accomplishments. They also completely avoided what most of the nation likely sees as the movement's primary achievement, despite the press's attempts to minimize and cover it up: showing us what the world might very well look like if the movement's leaders and primary instigators ever got their way -- ugly, dangerous, and filthy. Here is the complete list of key accomplishments the seven AP personnel cited (my comments in italics):

New York Times reporters Danny Hakim and Nicholas Confessore filed another in a series of front-page stories Friday  revolving around the natural gas industry, especially the “fracking” process by which natural gas is obtained from shale and is opposed by liberal environmentalists. This time the scene is the paper’s own backyard: “Cuomo Moving To End a Freeze On Gas Drilling.”

The Cuomo administration is seeking to lift what has effectively been a moratorium in New York State on hydraulic fracturing, a controversial technique used to extract natural gas from shale, state environmental regulators said on Thursday.

The process would be allowed on private lands, opening New York to one of the fastest-growing -- critics would say reckless -- areas of the energy industry. It would be banned inside New York City’s sprawling upstate watershed, as well as inside a watershed used by Syracuse, and in underground water sources used by other cities and towns. It would also be banned on state lands, like parks and wildlife preserves.

"New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's successful push to legalize gay marriage in his state has made him a national hero to liberal voters and has sparked talk of a potential presidential bid for Cuomo in 2016," Associated Press reporter Beth Fouhy insisted in a story filed today.

"But Cuomo paired his quest for same-sex marriage with efforts to slash state spending and curb the power of public employee unions, suggesting a blend of fiscal prudence and progressivism on social issues could be a new Democratic model in tough economic times," she added.

After citing one "California gay-rights leader" who cheered Cuomo as a "civil rights leader," Fouhy waited until the 12th paragraph of her 19-paragraph story to cite a Democrat who's talking up the freshman New York governor as a prospective 2016 presidential aspirant:

As expected, New York Times coverage of the law passed late Friday night allowing gay marraige in New York State was heavily favorable. Sunday’s front page New York Times story provided the tick-tock on how New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo marshaled support to pass gay marriage in the Republican-controlled New York State Senate in part by convincing “super-rich Republican donors” to support him, in Michael Barbaro’s “Behind Gay Marriage, an Unlikely Mix of Forces.” It included this odd anecdote about a Democratic state senator and holdout against history:

 

Nobody ever expected Carl Kruger to vote yes.

Somehow when I think of "old-time back-room politics" I don't associate it with important debates about the definition of marriage and the safeguarding of religious liberties.

But apparently AP's Michael Gormley does.

Here's how he opened his June 21 story which the Washington Post ran on page A2 (emphasis mine):

The New York Times vs. state spending cuts, take three. After the New York State legislature passed a $132.5 billion budget under new Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo that cuts overall spending by two percent, Albany-based reporter Thomas Kaplan went looking for budget victims for Friday’s “After an On-Time Passage of a Pared-Back Budget, Bracing for the Pain to Come.”

Not once did the Times forward an elementary piece of information -- the state’s $10 billion deficit. The word “deficit” did not appear in the story, although the emotionally laded word “pain” appeared three times, including in the headline. One had to look to local coverage for that basic piece of fiscal information. Instead, Kaplan went around soliciting sob stories, from school teachers, to prison guards, to NYC Mayor Bloomberg.

The New York Times on Sunday offered an extraordinarily sober prediction: if the state of New York doesn't rein in spiraling costs of public employees, it will find itself unable to provide even essential services.

Despite clearly tying the problem to the power of New York's public employee unions, the Times editorial board assured readers that it's still pro-labor and is opposed to what Gov. Scott Walker is doing in Wisconsin:

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, who was raised a Baptist, criticized Dr. Edward Peters, a Vatican canon law adviser, Wednesday on "Morning Joe," for his call to deny Holy Communion to a public figure who is living "in violation of a fundamental moral expectation of the Church."

"Deny Communion? I'm sorry, and not to get religious here, but Jesus said, you know, 'I didn't come here to heal the healthy,'" Scarborough trumpeted from his soapbox.

"Why don't they first open the books on past priests who have victimized children?" columnist and "Morning Joe" regular Mike Barnicle chimed in, following Scarborough's lead.."That shows rigor. That would be a mistake," CNBC anchor Jim Cramer lampooned the Church.

The issue at hand is not a matter of whether Dr. Peters is "butting in" and questioning Cuomo's faith or unduly condemning him. The Catholic Church's Code of Canon Law 915 explicitly states that those "who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to holy Communion."
 

On the day the Republicans took over the House, NBC's Today show found time to send correspondent Peter Alexander out to profile New York's "First Couple" of the newly elected Governor Andrew Cuomo and his Food Network chef girlfriend Sandra Lee. While Alexander devoted most of his Wednesday report to Lee's biography, he did air political consultant Dan Gerstein observing that an unmarried First Couple in New York wasn't a big deal considering that Cuomo was following a governor "who was discredited in a prostitution scandal and another governor who admitted not just infidelity but cocaine use." Of course neither Gerstein or Alexander bothered to mention that those two respective scandalized former governors (Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson) were Democrats.

The following is Alexander's puff piece on Cuomo and Lee as it was aired on the January 5 edition of the Today show:

Steven Rattner, the first Obama car czar who allegedly "bribed a political consultant to win business from New York's pension fund for his former investment firm," was extremely close this week to cutting a deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), only to see that agreement held up this week to the intervention of New York Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo, the Washington Post reported today. 

On page A16.

NBC's Matt Lauer questioned Carl Paladino on Monday's Today about his recent controversial remarks on homosexuality, and hinted that his comments might prompt "violence against homosexuals" and suicides of homosexual youth, such as the recent case at Rutgers. When Paladino attacked Andrew Cuomo for taking his children to a "gay pride" parade, Lauer implied that he might take his kids to such an event.

The NBC morning show led the 7 am Eastern hour with a promo on Paladino's Sunday speech to orthodox Jewish leaders: "Anti-gay? New York's Republican gubernatorial candidate stirs up another controversy with comments on homosexuality. Was he being homophobic, as his opponent claims? We'll ask Carl Paladino in a live interview."

Remember when liberals brushed aside any criticism of candidate Barack Obama being unqualified to become president because of his lack of executive experience? Well, that was then and this is now because Susan Estrich has suddenly developed "concern" over the qualifications of the Tea Party backed Republican gubernatorial candidate in New York, Carl Paladino. A skeptic might rightly believe this recent Estrich infatuation with qualifications could be inspired by the fact that Paladino is closing the gap in the polls with the Democrat candidate, Andrew Cuomo.

Here is Estrich with her newly developed qualifications concern:

The Republican nominee for governor of New York doesn't spend a lot of time talking about himself, which is both good and bad. It's good because, in truth, his surprise victory over the "establishment" favorite (and Conservative Party candidate) Rick Lazio had very little to do with his qualifications and agenda, and everything to do with his tea party-infused attacks on Albany, government and the powers that are. It's bad, of course, for precisely the same reason.

Is Carl Paladino actually qualified to be governor of New York?

Flying Pigs Alert!

The gubernatorial campaign of Andrew Cuomo has such a poor credibility problem that even the local New York City CBS affiliate is asking: "Cuomo Caught Lying About Voting for Bloomberg?" And what caused such an aspersion to be cast upon Cuomo's veracity? Check out this video in which Cuomo asserted that he voted for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. However, as the CBS affiliate pointed out, it didn't happen:

But for all his actions as the state’s chief law enforcement officer, Cuomo did have a little problem with telling the truth about his election box support for Mayor Bloomberg.

“Have I voted for the mayor? Yes,” Cuomo said.

Actually, he didn’t. The Cuomo campaign had to issue a clarification, saying he was only registered to vote in New York City in 2005 when he endorsed Democrat Fernando Ferrer.

With recent controversial race topics entering the spotlight, such as the voter intimidation incident and Shirley Sherrod story, the media has been more than willing to open their arms and turn on their cameras to hear the opining of the National Chairman of the New Black Panther Party, Malik Zulu Shabazz.  Shabazz has appeared on Fox News, issued a statement through CNN, and done exclusive interviews for various media outlets.

The Anti-Defamation League has described Shabazz as anti-Semitic and racist, trying "to recast himself as a serious civil rights leader in recent years by cloaking his bigotry and intolerance in religious and civil rights principles and inserting himself in high profile, racially charged issues around the country."  This certainly seems to be the case as he has made an increasing number of appearances in the media, in which the audience is to suspend belief and assume this man is an evenhanded voice on race relations in America.

In fact, Shabazz used his statement at CNN to accuse the ‘Republican or right wing tea party strategists' of ‘stir(ing) up racial fears'.

For the second day in a row, ABC's "hot seat" segment on "Good Morning America" turned into a cringe-inducing display of gushing questions, including a query about Chris Cuomo's underwear habits. The network promoted the series, which kicked off on Wednesday, as a time when GMA's hard-charging hosts would be forced to ask tough viewer questions. An ad touted how weatherman Sam Champion "bravely" went first and exclaimed, "Every morning, they ask the tough questions...So, who will go next and what will they reveal?"

Apparently, the answer is they will reveal things that few want to know. Cuomo received this video question from twenty-something Tara of Pennsylvania: "So, Chris, boxers or briefs?" She then proceeded to suggestively wink. An apparently-not-too embarrassed Cuomo began, "Assuming I have anything on-" before being stopped by co-host Diane Sawyer. [Audio available here.]

One day after calling New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo a communist, CNBC “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer appeared on the November 8 “Today” with another attack.

“No, he's not doing his job,” Cramer said to host Meredith Vieira, in his usual animated, over-the-top manner. “This is New York State. This is not the federal government. He is making it so that the very institutions we need right now to provide money for people are gun shy – Fannie Mae, Washington Mutual.”

Cramer went after Cuomo on the November 7 CNBC “Street Signs,” where he called the attorney general a “communist” because of his crusade against some mortgage lenders.

See the YouTube video after the break.

Leave it to resident CNBC loose cannon Jim Cramer to take it upon himself to call a spade a spade or a red a red.

Cramer, host of the CNBC’s “Mad Money” called liberal Democratic New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo as “communist” on CNBC’s November 7 “Street Signs.”

“[W]itness the fact that right now, the most important man in America for the stock market – the most important man and I mean it negatively is this guy Andrew Cuomo, the New York State Attorney General,” Cramer said. “I’m getting tired of the New York State Attorney General being the most important man in America.”

See YouTube video below.