Good Tuesday morning, CivMixers.
It’s workday one of a foreshortened week for many of us, and I’m sure after the past several very eventful weeks, a lot of folks were grateful for the break – even though it came so closely on the heels of the 2020 holiday season..
But now we’re right back to it, and it’s going to be yet another eventful week, with the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris scheduled to take place in a very heavily fortified Washington, D.C., where authorities are taking extra precautions as a result of the violent uprising at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
In other words, it’s President Donald Trump’s last full day on the job at the White House.
Today is a big day in Albany, as Governor Andrew Cuomo is scheduled to release his executive budget proposal. Last week, the governor laid out his vision for how he will continue to steer New York through the COVID-19 crisis and its post-pandemic economic recovery. In the budget, we’ll find out the details of just how he plans on achieving all of that, (or some of it, anyway).
Thanks to better-than-expected revenue numbers from state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s office, Biden in the White House and a Democrat takeover of Congress, New York’s fiscal picture is looking rosier than it did just a few months ago.
There’s debate over the size of the budget deficits for the current and coming years. The governor’s office is insisting the shortfalls are $12 billion and $10 billion, respectively, but not all budget watchdogs agree with that assessment. (Maybe it’s actually $8 billion this year? Or even as low as $4 billion?)
Even with all the federal aid expected to flow in New York’s direction – the state’s two U.S. senators have pegged that number at more than $50 billion – Cuomo will still need to both raise revenue and potentially make funding cuts.
He has already said he’ll be proposing the legalization of adult-use cannabis and mobile sports betting, but we don’t know HOW he envisions those programs will operate. We also don’t know how much, if at all, he will propose raising taxes on the rich, which is something Democratic members of both the Assembly and Senate and their progressive allies want very much.
So, today, we’ll find out quite a bit about that. But it’s also only just the beginning of the budget dance, which will end on April 1 – the constitutionally mandated date for the state budget to be approved in order to be on time.
Rather fittingly, given all the action that’s about to take place at the state Capitol (virtually, of course, because the pandemic is still a big problem), it’s National Popcorn Day. Read all about the history of this sweet and/or savory snack here.
More clouds, more snow showers and more temperatures in the mid-30s. What did you expect? It’s mid-January in upstate New York.
OH! Happy Birthday to country music icon Dolly Parton, who turns 75 years young today.
In the headlines…
Tomorrow morning, Donald and Melania Trump will depart the White House as President and first lady, but they will not invite their incoming counterparts, Joe and Jill Biden, inside before they do – one of many snubs the outgoing First Family is perpetrating on their successors.
Trump reportedly wants a military-style sendoff from Joint Base Andrews Wednesday morning, complete with a military band and a red-carpet walk flanked by troops as he boards Air Force One for the last time, and even possibly a flyover by Air Force fighter jets.
As Trump prepares to leave the White House, 34% of Americans approve of the job he is doing as president, the worst evaluation of his presidency.
Biden will arrive in D.C. tonight for an inauguration eve ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool honoring the nearly 400,000 people who have died during the coronavirus pandemic that will be his first priority after he is sworn in tomorrow.
The U.S. Capitol was briefly locked down after a fire broke out a few blocks away in the middle of a rehearsal for Biden’s inauguration, putting security precautions through an early stress test in the wake of the bloody pro-Trump attack on the building.
Trump’s expected batch of 100 pardons and commutations on the penultimate day of his presidency won’t be the highest of his recent predecessors. But his record of clemency could very well be the most controversial.
Trump reportedly has been considering issuing pardons on his last full day in office for rapper Lil Wayne and former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
Trump was expected to issue as many as 100 pardons and commutations today, but yesterday was leaning against some of the more controversial proposed grants of clemency at the urging of his advisers, said people familiar with the discussions.
Former Attorney General William Barr reportedly pushed back strongly on Trump when discussing claims the president was circulating about the election being “stolen” from him.
In the days before Trump fired James Comey as FBI director – one of the most defining moments of his presidency – Trump penned a scathing four-page letter to Comey that has never been publicly released.
Rudy Giuliani now says he won’t be a part of Trump’s impeachment defense team because he’s a “witness” in the case.
Giuliani used a provisional ballot to vote in the 2020 election despite publicly bashing the voting method as he attempted to overturn the results of the election.
The Trump-appointed director of the U.S. Census Bureau, Steven Dillingham, is stepping down close to a week after whistleblower complaints about his role in attempting to rush out an incomplete data report about non-citizens became public.
The White House released the report of the presidential 1776 Commission, a sweeping attack on liberal thought and activism that calls for a “patriotic education,” defends America’s founding against charges that it was tainted by slavery and likens progressivism to fascism.
Trump ordered an end to the ban on travelers from Europe and Brazil that had been aimed at stopping the spread of the coronavirus to the U.S., a move quickly rejected by Biden aides, who said he will maintain the ban when he takes office.
Biden plans to unveil a sweeping immigration bill on Day One of his administration, hoping to provide an eight-year path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. without legal status.
Biden is expected to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline permit on his first day in office, quickly reversing his predecessor’s approval of a project to move oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
As Biden prepares to take office this week, his administration and the Federal Reserve are pointed toward a singular economic goal: Get the job market back to where it was before the pandemic hit.
A big question hangs over Janet Yellen this week at her confirmation hearing to become U.S. Treasury secretary: How much debt is too much?
Polly Trottenberg, the former NYC transportation commissioner, has been tapped by Biden to serve as deputy secretary of transportation as he fills out his administration before taking office.
The Pentagon is intensifying efforts to identify and combat white supremacy and other far-right extremism in its ranks as federal investigators seek to determine how many military personnel and veterans joined the violent assault on the Capitol.
A former New York City firefighter with a history of racist accusations against him is being hunted by the feds in the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol — where he claimed to be “at the tip of the spear,” authorities said.
A Staten Island man who allegedly livestreamed his participation in the Capitol riot was arrested, according to reports and the FBI.
A woman who the FBI says took a laptop belonging to Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and tried to sell it to Russians has been arrested. (She turned herself in to local police).
The world is facing a “catastrophic moral failure’’ over its distribution of COVID-19 vaccines — with wealthy countries gaining more access because they yield higher profits, a global health leader charged.
California yesterday became the first state to reach 3 million cumulative coronavirus infections as the pandemic continues to set records in the state and across the U.S.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo is skipping Biden’s inauguration, opting to stay in Albany amid threats of potential violence and the possibility of armed protesters targeting capitals across the country.
The governor penned a letter to Pfizer asking if the pharmaceutical giant would cut out the middleman and sell COVID vaccine doses directly to New York.
The company said it appreciated Cuomo’s kind words, but would need a green light from the feds before agreeing to this plan.
Biden’s Covid Advisory Board member Dr. Celine Gounder said Cuomo’s plan could cause more problems than it solves.
Data shows that COVID-19 cases in New York are on the decline after the holiday surge, but there’s a concern that new variants found at home and abroad could usher in a new and dangerous period of surging cases and overwhelmed hospitals.
Immunocompromised New Yorkers still aren’t eligible to receive the coronavirus vaccine — a week after Cuomo announced that they would be added to the list — and say they feel forgotten amid the state’s troubled inoculation rollout.
New York is going to reallocate unused COVID-19 vaccines that had been earmarked for nursing homes — with tens of thousands of staffers at thed facilities declining to get the shot as the state’s stockpile dwindles, officials said.
Mobile sports betting is coming to New York, but disagreement exists between the dueling proposals over who would run it and how the millions raised would be spent.
Casino revenues dedicated to education and the state treasury have plummeted by $600 million in the current fiscal year, state Gaming Commission reports reveal.
Police and Black Lives Matter protesters clashed outside City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan last night, resulting in dozens of arrests and several injured officers, authorities said.
Videos posted online by witnesses and participants show NYPD officers with helmets, batons and zip ties trying to clear protesters gathered near City Hall. Some of the marchers went to the area after walking across the Brooklyn Bridge.
With the Rev. Al Sharpton playing host in Harlem on MLK Day, as is his tradition, the crowded field of Democratic NYC mayoral candidates tried to sell themselves and inspire a battered city.
The crowded mayor’s race is already taking a negative turn, with candidates’ knives out for Andrew Yang.
In an endorsement video posted to YouTube, Martin Luther King III said Yang’s proposal to parse out $1 billion to low income residents of the five boroughs was a concept his father would have backed.
The MTA is delaying a planned fare hike of as much as 4 percent until at least the summer.
Rail and bus agencies are discussing how to lure back riders as the nation emerges from the coronavirus pandemic by devising new incentives and ticket types for workers who may wish to work from home more often.
Manhattan’s Union Square Park could be in line for a $100 million makeover that will greatly expand its footprint.
The city should give another $25 million to food pantries struggling to feed hungry New Yorkers reeling from the coronavirus outbreak, say leading Big Apple charities.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation is blocking the use of a popular pesticide for mosquito control upstate and in New York City following the revelation that the chemicals’ containers were made with hazardous PFAS compounds.
Cuomo’s administration late Friday defended sending a contract to bid without giving first refusal to organizations employing people with disabilities.
The governor wants to let part-time employees receive unemployment benefits based on how many hours they work.
A second wave of coronavirus infections that began last Halloween and peaked this month has finally begun to level off in the Capital Region, but hospitalizations and deaths remain at alarmingly high levels, officials say.
The City of Albany Policing Reform and Reinvention Collaborative will convene for a final meeting this evening, where the collaborative will present the community with a draft final report.
The latest restaurant to decide to take a pause from service as winter drags on and coronavirus vaccine rolls out more slowly than projected is New World Bistro Bar in Albany.
After months of contentious debate and multiple leadership turnovers, the Tri-Village Little League in Bethlehem voted last week to not put up a Black Lives Matter banner at Magee Field for the 2021 season.
A campy Gothic house in Poughkeepsie’s “Witchcraft District” that served as a gathering place for the atheist group the Church of Satan went up in flames after an arson attack.
Mets General Manager Jared Porter sent over 60 unsolicited text messages, including one of a naked penis, to a female baseball reporter in 2016 while he was working for the Chicago Cubs.
The reporter told ESPN that she believed she was beginning a standard reporter-source relationship with Porter, but that Porter’s tone quickly became unprofessional.
