American Politics IV: 1400 Reasons Why(A Stimulus Serial)

[Kowani]

The EPA brings back its website about climate change after Trump killed it off

[The Black Forrest]

The EPA brings back its website about climate change after Trump killed it off

Little by little the mess gets cleaned up.....or is cleansed the correct word?

[The Black Forrest]

Where you not all about not removing politicians until the next election cycle?

Im against recall elections not resignations.

Forcing somebody to resign is basically the same thing.

[Kowani]

The EPA brings back its website about climate change after Trump killed it off

Little by little the mess gets cleaned up.....or is cleansed the correct word?

either one works

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

House votes to condemn the Myanmar Coup (398-14-1), ends session until April 13th

who voted no?

Biggs-(R-AZ)
Boebert (R-CO)
Buck (R-CO)
Budd (R-NC)
Gaetz (R-FL0
Greene (R-GA)
Harris (R-MD)
Hice (R-GA)
Massie (R-KY)
Miller (R-IL)
Mooney(R-WV)
Moore (R-AL)
Perry (R-PA)
Roy (R-TX)

In addition, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) voted Present

Well it's good that he didn't condemn the Myanmar coup, if he was Present.
Boom boom!

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

Im against recall elections not resignations.

Forcing somebody to resign is basically the same thing.

It is if they DO resign when urged to. Not if you resort to crimes against them to make them resign.

I'm starting to think impeachment (or expulsion by supermajority) is a Very Bad Idea.
Instead, use Suspension until trial in a regular court for a regular crime is complete.

[Kowani]

Another day, another aide comes out against Cuomo

He called her and her co-worker “mingle mamas.” He inquired about her lack of a wedding ring, she said, and the status of her divorce. She recalled him telling her she was beautiful — in Italian — and, as she sat alone with him in his office awaiting dictation, he gazed down her shirt and commented on a necklace hanging there. In the latest allegation against Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, Alyssa McGrath, an employee of the governor’s office, described a series of unsettling interactions with the governor, telling The New York Times that Mr. Cuomo would ogle her body, remark on her looks, and make suggestive comments to her and another executive aide. Ms. McGrath, 33, is the first current aide in Mr. Cuomo’s office to speak publicly about allegations of harassment inside the Capitol. Her account of casual sexual innuendo echoes other stories that have emerged in recent weeks about a demeaning office culture, particularly for young women who worked closely with the governor. he most serious accusation against the governor was made by another current aide who has accused Mr. Cuomo of groping her breast in the Executive Mansion. Ms. McGrath said that the aide described the encounter in detail to her after it was made public in a report in The Times Union of Albany last week.

“She froze when he started doing that stuff to her,” Ms. McGrath said, adding, “But who are you going to tell?”

She added that the co-worker, who has not been publicly identified, told her that the governor had asked her not to talk about the alleged incident, knowing that the two women regularly spoke and texted about their interactions with Mr. Cuomo.

“He told her specifically not to tell me,” Ms. McGrath said.

In several interviews conducted over the past week, Ms. McGrath described a pattern of the governor mixing flirtatious banter with more personal comments, as well as a subtle and persistent cultivation of competitive relationships between female co-workers in his office. It was something she said was compounded and protected by a demand for secrecy, and normalized inside the governor’s inner circle.

Ms. McGrath did not accuse the governor of making sexual contact, though she said that she believed that his actions amounted to sexual harassment.

Over the last three years, Ms. McGrath said, the governor had seemingly fostered an unusual work triangle with her and her friend, the co-worker he allegedly groped, blending a professional relationship with unwanted attention. There was paternalistic patter, but also a commandeering, sometimes invasive physicality.

“He has a way of making you feel very comfortable around him, almost like you’re his friend,” Ms. McGrath said. “But then you walk away from the encounter or conversation, in your head going, ‘I can’t believe I just had that interaction with the governor of New York.’”

Ms. McGrath said that it was only after the fact that she found these interactions to be troubling — a sense that grew with each new sexual harassment accusation lodged against the governor, and his blanket denials.

Mariann Wang, a lawyer for Ms. McGrath, said that “this would be unacceptable behavior from any boss, much less the governor,” and that Ms. McGrath’s experience reflected larger issues for women in the workplace in Albany’s corridors of power.

“The women in the executive chamber are there to work for the State of New York,” Ms. Wang said, “not serve as his eye candy or prospective girlfriend.”

Multiple women, including former and current aides, have accused the governor of inappropriate remarks and behavior, including unwanted touching and unwelcome sexual advances.

Mr. Cuomo, 63, has denied any wrongdoing, and has suggested that his relationships with employees he viewed as friends may have been misinterpreted.

On Friday, Rita Glavin, a lawyer for Mr. Cuomo, responded to Ms. McGrath’s allegations by saying that “the governor has greeted men and women with hugs and a kiss on the cheek, forehead, or hand. Yes, he has posed for photographs with his arm around them. Yes, he uses Italian phrases like ‘ciao bella.’”

Ms. Glavin added: “None of this is remarkable, although it may be old-fashioned. He has made clear that he has never made inappropriate advances or inappropriately touched anyone.”
[...]
Although Ms. McGrath does not work directly for Mr. Cuomo, she said that she and her co-worker were commonly pulled from the pool of executive chamber assistants to work weekends and at the mansion. Many assistants in the chamber are women, often decades younger than Mr. Cuomo.

Emails reviewed by The Times showed that Mr. Cuomo’s surrogates would often ask Ms. McGrath — who has a young child — and her co-worker to work on weekends at the Capitol building and at the mansion, where the governor lives.

The calls for assistance came from a top scheduling official in the governor’s office, home to a large staff of administrative assistants, many of whom are women who earn a base salary between $40,000 and $60,000 a year, according to state payroll records.

“Hi gals,” read one email sent to the two women on Feb. 29, 2020. “Who can spend a little while with him when he gets back on the book signing project?”

That day — the Saturday before the state’s first confirmed case of coronavirus — Ms. McGrath and her co-worker answered that request. They were working alone with Mr. Cuomo in the Capitol when the topic of a planned trip to Florida by the two women arose.

Ms. McGrath was separated from her husband at the time. While chatting with the two women, the governor asked the co-worker — who was married — if she was going to try to meet men and “mingle” while they were in Florida.

The women laughed off the question, as did the governor, but not before giving them a nickname.

“He called us ‘mingle mamas’ for the rest of the day,” Ms. McGrath said.

Two months earlier, on New Year’s Eve, Mr. Cuomo asked the co-worker to pose for a photograph with him and send it to Ms. McGrath, she said. The photo, which was reviewed by The Times, shows the governor sitting in a chair at the Executive Mansion with the aide, her face next to his, nearly touching.

The aide’s wedding ring is visible on her hand, her arm draped over the governor’s shoulder. Mr. Cuomo, beaming, is sitting in a gray sweater and a T-shirt.

Ms. McGrath, whose accounts were supported by contemporaneous texts, emails, social media posts, said she did not understand why the governor had wanted her to see the photo, but she believed it may have been “to make me jealous.”

She said that it was common knowledge around the office that Mr. Cuomo would play favorites among female staffers.

“We were told from the beginning that was a typical move of his,” she said. “Who was the girl of the week? Who was the girl of the month?”

Ms. McGrath said that her uncomfortable interactions with the governor began not long after she was hired in the middle of 2018. Early the following year, she was called to the governor’s second-floor office in the mansion.

While she prepared to start working, Mr. Cuomo asked Ms. McGrath if she spoke Italian — she does not, though she is of Italian heritage — and then made a comment in that language. Later on, she asked her parents what the phrase meant.

“It was commenting on how beautiful I was,” she recalled being told. Ms. McGrath’s mother confirmed this account.

Soon after that experience, Ms. McGrath was called into Mr. Cuomo’s office in the Capitol for a dictation session. She was alone and nervous and wanted to do a good job, she said. She sat across from the governor, pen and paper at the ready.

“I put my head down waiting for him to start speaking, and he didn’t start speaking,” she said. “So I looked up to see what was going on. And he was blatantly looking down my shirt.”

The governor noticed her gaze, she said, and then “made a reference, a subtle reference, saying, ‘What’s on your necklace?’ Which was in my shirt.”

Ms. McGrath said she felt flushed and embarrassed — “My face turned really hot,” she said — but she continued to work. She shared this experience at the time with her co-worker.

Ms. McGrath and her co-worker regularly texted and spoke about the governor. They confided in each other in part because an informal policy forbid them from speaking to anyone outside the executive chamber about Mr. Cuomo.

“We were told right off the bat, as soon as we walk out of the office or as soon as we walk away from the governor, we were not to say a word about anything to anyone,” she recalled.

At an office Christmas party in 2019, the governor’s attention to her and her co-worker continued.

“He kissed me on the forehead,” Ms. McGrath said. “And in the picture we posed with him that year, he is gripping our sides very tightly.” The Times reviewed a photo of the two women and the governor, with the governor grinning, his hands wrapped firmly around their waists.
[...]
Ms. McGrath believes that her proximity to the governor may have stymied other opportunities. When she sought another job in state government in 2019, she was told that the governor’s fondness for working with her would interfere with her taking the new position.

She was told, she recalled, that “because I ‘help out up front,’ I couldn’t leave.”

Since other allegations against Mr. Cuomo have arisen, Ms. McGrath has continued to go to work. She says that the executive offices are largely quiet, a far cry from the heady days of Mr. Cuomo’s pandemic-related popularity, when the halls of the Capitol buzzed with excitement and purpose.

Ms. McGrath said that she watched the governor’s first news conference after Ms. Bennett went public in The Times, on March 3, and that she was angry at his insistence that he never “touched anyone inappropriately.”

“It makes me really upset to hear him speak about this and completely deny all allegations,” she said, saying it left her in disbelief. “And I have no doubt in my mind that all of these accusers are telling the truth.”

One of those accusers is her co-worker. Ms. McGrath said she feared retaliation for speaking out, but she and her co-worker had grown upset with themselves for putting up with Mr. Cuomo’s behavior for so long.

“Her and I discussed this after the fact and now we’re like, ‘How did we not see this?’” Ms. McGrath said, still bewildered by her interactions with Mr. Cuomo. “Because it’s so blatant and obvious.”

[The Black Forrest]

Forcing somebody to resign is basically the same thing.

It is if they DO resign when urged to. Not if you resort to crimes against them to make them resign.

I'm starting to think impeachment (or expulsion by supermajority) is a Very Bad Idea.
Instead, use Suspension until trial in a regular court for a regular crime is complete.

Investigate and if proven guilty; remove him. Simple claims are not valid for removal. Cuomo sounds like there is enough to remove him.

This is why the Repubs controlled the lines of investigation over Kavenaugh. Remember when they closed down their sexual assault investigator when she was showing sympathy?

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

Another day, another aide comes out against Cuomo

He called her and her co-worker “mingle mamas.”

What follows is more serious, but calling them "mingle mamas" is just a cute way of saying "quit chatting when you're supposed to be working". It's not particular sexist if they're both women. It's patronizing, but you get that from the boss. Starting the report with that detail is rather poor writing: it trivializes the rest.

Also, inline quote is too long. More than a page, except in an OP, is too long.

[Umeria]

I'm starting to think impeachment (or expulsion by supermajority) is a Very Bad Idea.
Instead, use Suspension until trial in a regular court for a regular crime is complete.

Not all impeachments are because of crimes though.

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

It is if they DO resign when urged to. Not if you resort to crimes against them to make them resign.

I'm starting to think impeachment (or expulsion by supermajority) is a Very Bad Idea.
Instead, use Suspension until trial in a regular court for a regular crime is complete.

Investigate and if proven guilty; remove him.

I'd like to think you agree with me and "proven guilty" means "convicted of a crime."

People DO sometimes agree with me

Simple claims are not valid for removal. Cuomo sounds like there is enough to remove him.

This is why the Repubs controlled the lines of investigation over Kavenaugh. Remember when they closed down their sexual assault investigator when she was showing sympathy?

(Dunno what browser you use, but Google Chrome has a bunch of well-known names in its word list, and knows there are three A's and no E in Kavanaugh. Yes, that was a plug.)

The ability of politicians or the media to control lines of investigation, is exactly why there should be a judge presiding over the enquiry, rules of evidence, and all witness statements made under oath. In short, a trial.

Maybe NY has a provision like the 25th amendment whereby the governor can stand aside until he declares that he is "fit" to return? And conditions similar to conviction-after-impeachment to prevent that if the legislature so wills? It would be the ideal solution for now, also Cuomo might find it easier to take the final step if it was two smaller steps.

[Senkaku]

“Yes, he uses Italian phrases like ‘ciao bella.’”

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Governor of the State of New York

[Kowani]

Wyoming State Rep. Jeremy Haroldson (R) claims that the way we teach about slavery is worse than the slavery itself

“Slavery was something that shouldn’t have happened in America, but it did. But we’ve created slavery into a place that has created a position of being stuck, in my opinion, for a people group,” Rep. Jeremy Haroldson, R-Wheatland, told lawmakers Wednesday. “And that’s a sad place to be. And that was probably, in my opinion, worse than the slavery itself, because we have created a place where people cannot get free from because of their past.”

“So slavery needs to be discussed,” he added. “It needs to be brought forward and the different views, that slavery was not maybe what it has been painted in this nation completely.”

Haroldson made the comments as he presented members of the House Education Committee with HB-177 – Education-Understanding federal and state government, a bill that would rewrite parts of Wyoming’s public schools curriculum.The measure would require Wyoming public schools to not only educate schoolchildren on the United States Constitution — which is already required by law — but also on a number of “threats encountered by the democratic republic and free society,” a list that includes “identity politics,” corruption in government, religious discrimination and “the political extremisms of fascism and communism.”

Haroldson, who the report noted is a pastor, said he does not believe that students are “getting a fully well-rounded view of the founding of this nation,” listing “a lack of knowledge of the U.S. Constitution among his concerns as well as what he views as an overemphasis of the subject of structural racism.”

Haroldson was stumped, however, when pressed on his own knowledge of the Constitution.

“Do you know what the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is?” Rep. Cathy Connolly, D-Laramie, asked Haroldson as he presented the bill.

“I would have to look at it right now ma’am,” he responded.

“It’s the right to vote for women,” she said. “And it’s not included in your bill. So I’m curious about that.”

According to the report, the bill failed to advance on a vote of 7-2, though “some committee members expressed interest in his ideas, including Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow."

[Immortan Khan]

Now wondering if Cuomo had his own bunga bunga parties.

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

I'm starting to think impeachment (or expulsion by supermajority) is a Very Bad Idea.
Instead, use Suspension until trial in a regular court for a regular crime is complete.

Not all impeachments are because of crimes though.

Yeah. But the reason Presidential impeachment has never been successful is Lese Majeste ... and the lack of a Senate supermajority for the other party. It's my opinion that both Clinton and Trump committed crimes ... but that's just my opinion. If a court had ruled so in either case, it likely would have overcome partisan allegiance in the Senate.

Three false negatives: not actually a problem because failure to convict does nothing worse than waste time.
But a false positive: a President or Governor removed on bogus charges, basically for being the wrong party?

The institution barely works, and it could go wrong. Get rid of it!

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

Now wondering if Cuomo had his own bunga bunga parties.

You're not trying to be racist, are you? You just like "bunga bunga" and wanted to say it

[The Black Forrest]

Investigate and if proven guilty; remove him.

I'd like to think you agree with me and "proven guilty" means "convicted of a crime."

People DO sometimes agree with me

That’s not it at all. We like torturing you. If we didn’t throw you a bone ever so often, you would leave.

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

I'd like to think you agree with me and "proven guilty" means "convicted of a crime."

People DO sometimes agree with me

That’s not it at all. We like torturing you. If we didn’t throw you a bone ever so often, you would leave.

I find being personally attacked the most motivating. People generally don't understand my motivations at all (or sometimes my sentences) and therefore need it all explained to them again. With more precision and pomposity; I can do both at the same time, it's like a super-power.

Something between Senate supermajority, and a criminal trial, would probably be better than either of them. The problem with the former is the appalling quality of the "jury" -- Senators -- and them having a blatant conflict of interest due to partisanism. The problem with the latter is that it's too slow, and even a judge couldn't be trusted if the verdict was immediately enforced regardless of appeals. I mean, if a judge banged the gavel after five minutes they would damn or redeem a President, despite that obviously being a mistrial, and even if that lead to the judge being disrobed I suspect a lot of judges would consider that a fair trade for making history.

Perhaps keep the Chief Justice to preside, keep proceedings in the Senate but in collaboration with SCOTUS write some rules of trial into one section of the Senate rules. Glue that in place with a supermajority to change (if this is possible). But instead of Senators, have the jury be 100 randomly picked (consenting, also paid and accommodated while in DC) registered voters. To comply with the Constitution these citizens would be designated "the Senate" for the duration of the trial. Two thirds to convict still.

Picking a proper jury, who would obey instructions from the Chief Justice, would make all the difference imo.

[Postauthoritarian America]

I'd rather have Trump than Reagan. At least Trump was undeniably a bastard to everyone who wasn't a fan. Reagan gets way too much praise even from people who didn't totally like his policies. He was worse than history portrays him.

Actually, Reagan's polling never really got above 50% approval.

This massive praise everyone is heaping onto him is a Republican propaganda campaign to show just how great the GOP is.

If you're wondering why he won reelection, it's because he happened to come around when computers became common in offices, which helped the economy, which then he decided to take credit for even though he didn't actually do anything to help, but he was able to fool enough people into thinking he helped to get the votes.

Reagan was over 50% for a good portion of his 8 years in office and over 60% for significant periods such as most of his fifth year. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/bi ... id=rrpromo

[Postauthoritarian America]

Potential Cuomo challenger Tom Reed accused of abuse; don't hold your breath waiting for the chorus of Republican elected officials calling on Reed to resign tho...

[Major-Tom]

Potential Cuomo challenger Tom Reed accused of abuse; don't hold your breath waiting for the chorus of Republican elected officials calling on Reed to resign tho...

Sometimes it feels like every other male politician in NY has an abuse allegation or two. Fucking christ.

[Kowani]

And the infrastructure wars see their opening salvo

Four congressional Democrats on Friday unveiled the BUILD GREEN Infrastructure and Jobs Act, a bill that would invest $500 billion over 10 years in state, local, and tribal projects to galvanize the transition to all electric public transportation—reducing climate-damaging greenhouse gas emissions and health-threatening air pollution while expanding clean mass transit and creating up to one million new jobs. Modeled after the Department of Transportation's BUILD grant program, the bill (pdf) to provide grant funding to green the nation's public transportation infrastructure while creating good-paying jobs in the process was introduced by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Ed Markey (D-MA) as well as Reps. Andrew Levin (D-MI.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).


Co-sponsors of the proposed legislation—which is supported by almost three in five Americans, according to a new poll conducted by Data for Progress—include Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Mondaire Jones (D-NY), and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), among others.
[...]
Alluding to the recent crisis in Texas caused by the collision of a deregulated, fossil-fuel dependent energy system and a climate change-driven winter storm, Ocasio-Cortez said that "we must stop spending billions of taxpayer money on infrastructure systems only for them to fail at the most crucial moment." "The BUILD GREEN Act," Ocasio-Cortez continued, "helps ensure that our federal dollars are being invested in infrastructure that can sustain the impact of climate change and better prepares our communities for extreme weather events." "In most of the country," she added, "subways, buses, and other public transit are practically inaccessible or completely overburdened," meaning that "this bill would make a dramatic, material difference in the everyday lives of hundreds of millions of people."

Calling the electrification of personal vehicles and mass transit a "central pillar" of the Green New Deal resolution introduced in 2019 by Ocasio-Cortez and Markey, Levin said that "the answer to both the climate crisis and the crisis of wealth inequality is to empower working people with the sustainable investments necessary to rebuild the communities devastated by decades of pollution and corporate trade policy." He added that the bill "will deliver the transformational change demanded by the American people while ensuring that we build the green economy of the 21st century here at home with good-paying, union jobs."

The Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development and Generating Renewable Energy to Electrify the Nation's (BUILD GREEN) Infrastructure and Jobs Act would:

jumpstart the transition to all electric public transportation, expand clean mass transit to underserved communities, and help modernize our crumbling infrastructure by covering up to 85% of costs for eligible state, local, and tribal projects, with an option for the Secretary of Transportation to cover 100% of costs;
reduce carbon emissions by an estimated 21.5 million metric tons of CO2 annually or the equivalent of taking 4.5 million combustion engine cars off the road;
prevent an estimated 4,200 deaths annually by reducing significant sources of local air pollution that cause adverse health effects like asthma, and avert $100 billion annually in healthcare costs;
start to correct decades of health disparities and environmental injustice by dedicating at least 40% of all funding to projects in frontline, vulnerable, and disadvantaged communities; and
create up to one million good new jobs with strong labor protections.

[...]

A recent assessment of President Joe Biden's climate plans found his transportation policies to be inadequate if the U.S. is to reach his administration's goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.

Mebane added that "this bill will create close to one million jobs at a time when we need a just economic recovery immediately" in the wake of the devastating Covid-19 pandemic and corresponding economic crisis.
[...]
Sanders, for his part, said Thursday that if Republicans try to obstruct progress on green jobs and infrastructure, Democrats "must use our majority to get it done

[Dresderstan]

Potential Cuomo challenger Tom Reed accused of abuse; don't hold your breath waiting for the chorus of Republican elected officials calling on Reed to resign tho...

Sometimes it feels like every other male politician in NY has an abuse allegation or two. Fucking christ.

I think NY is giving other states a run for their money as most corrupt/controversial ridden state among elected politicians, especially among sexual abuse allegations.

[Odreria]

Potential Cuomo challenger Tom Reed accused of abuse; don't hold your breath waiting for the chorus of Republican elected officials calling on Reed to resign tho...

Tom Reed isn't the governor of new york, hope this helps.

[Stylan]

U.S. homelessness increased for the 4th consecutive year-and that does not include data from the pandemic

Homelessness across the U.S. increased by 2.2% in 2020 compared to 2019, making it the fourth straight year that the nation's population of homeless people grew, according to a report released by the Department of Housing and Urban Development on Thursday.
The uptick, based on a once-a-year count in January 2020, does not reflect the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, which unleashed financial pain on millions of people across the country and likely contributed to increased homelessness — especially in communities of color.

On a single night in 2020, roughly more than 580,400 people experienced homelessness across the U.S.

61% stayed in shelters while the remaining 39% were in unsheltered locations, such as on the street or in abandoned buildings.
The report also found that homelessness among families remained essentially the same compared to 2019 with fewer than 172,000 people in families with children experiencing homelessness.
Homelessness among veterans did not improve either despite significant drops in the number of homeless vets in prior years.

The 2.2% increase from 2019 represented 12,751 more people.

Greatest time to be alive.