Good morning, it’s Wednesday.
Given the gravity of the revelations surrounding Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s sexual harassment of 11 women – both former and current staffers – and the extent to which top aides – both former and current – have gone to try to protect him and discredit his accusers, I’m not sure that it would be appropriate for me to start this missive off in the usual lighthearted way.
Small-d democracy is teetering on the edge of a serious crisis, with yet another New York governor accused of significant misconduct and abuse of power and now standing on the brink of having to resign or be impeached.
We have lived through the demise of Eliot Spitzer and the short-lived tenure of David Paterson and the coup and stalemate in the state Senate and the corruption-related ouster of multiple legislative leaders AND rank-and-file lawmakers. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, as it doesn’t include the legions of local elected officials who resigned or were forced out due to corruption.
How much more can one state take?
I know we’re New Yorkers and we’re resilient and strong and all that. But this is getting out of hand. Between this and the Delta variant, I’m downright verklempt. And it’s only the middle of the week.
What new and twisted developments will today bring? I can’t even imagine. I need more coffee.
At least we’re in for fairly decent weather, with cloudy skies and temperatures in a more seasonally-appropriate range of the high 70s to low 80s.
And now, the headlines…
President Joe Biden called on Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to resign, following an official report from state Attorney General Letitia “Tish” James’ office that said Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women.
Asked whether Cuomo should be removed from office if he refuses to resign, Biden said: “I understand the state Legislature may decide to impeach, I do not know that for a fact.”
Shortly after Biden’s response, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, a Democrat, announced that the chamber would seek to quickly conclude its impeachment inquiry into Cuomo.
Once the Assembly receives all relevant documents and evidence from the AG’s office,” Heastie said, “we will move expeditiously and look to conclude our impeachment investigation as quickly as possible.”
Also calling on Cuomo to resign were House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, New York’s senior senator. The list is VERY long, and includes individuals from all sides of the political spectrum.
“Sexual harassment is unacceptable in any workplace, and certainly not in public service,” LG Kathy Hochul said. “The attorney general’s investigation has documented repulsive and unlawful behavior by the governor towards multiple women. I believe these brave women and admire their courage coming forward.”
The governors of four neighboring states called for Cuomo to step down, and Democratic mayoral nominee Eric Adams said that state lawmakers should impeach the governor if he does not resign.
Cuomo is the latest in a long series of political figures who have been accused of sexual harassment or assault. Nearly all have faced calls for their resignation, and some have heeded them while others have steadfastly refused to step down.
Cuomo has thus far refused to heed calls for his resignation, declaring that “the facts are much different from what has been portrayed.”
“I never touched anyone inappropriately or made inappropriate sexual advances,” Cuomo said. “I am 63 years old. I have lived my entire adult life in public view. That is just not who I am, and that’s not who I have ever been.”
Charlotte Bennett, a former executive assistant to Cuomo who accused him of sexual harassment, criticized the governor’s response to the state attorney general report, saying he was not taking sufficient responsibility for his actions.
Cuomo attempted to rebut the AG’s report with reels of photos of him kissing, hugging and touching people through the years, including Bill Clinton and Robert De Niro.
A person familiar with the process said it could take just a month to complete the inquiry and draw up the articles of impeachment. A trial in the State Senate could begin as soon as late September or early October.
Only one of New York’s 56 governors has been impeached and removed from office, and that happened more than a century ago. In case you need a primer on how the process works, click here.
Albany County District Attorney David Soares said his office will be formally requesting information obtained by the Attorney General’s office from its investigation into the sexual harassment of multiple women by Cuomo.
“Governor Cuomo sexually harassed current and former state employees in violation of both federal and state laws,” James said.
“Our investigation revealed that these were not isolated incidents,” said Joon Kim, one of the outside lawyers who led the investigation for the AG’s office into the allegations against Cuomo. “They were part of a pattern.”
Part of the AG’s report included a selfie taken right after he allegedly groped an anonymous executive assistant in the Executive Mansion.
CNN anchor Chris Cuomo was among a group of advisors not employed by the state who were provided confidential and privileged information by the Executive Chamber as his brother tried to respond to a slew of sexual harassment allegations earlier this year.
A high-ranking lawyer in Cuomo’s office resigned because the sexual harassment allegations against the governor – and his public response – created an “intolerable dissonance” for her.
A lawyer for Cuomo sought to defend him against a report that found he had sexually harassed current and former government workers by comparing his behavior to those of politicians embracing hurricane victims.
James’ report details efforts by the Democratic governor’s staff to undermine those who accused him or investigated him. Some of these efforts ran afoul of the law, according to James’s report, while others involved bare-knuckle politics.
Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, was the person behind a series of controversial phone calls that some Democratic county executives felt mixed politics with the state’s vaccine distribution efforts, according to the AG’s report.
The hasty 2018 promotion of a New York state trooper to the governor’s security detail who has since accused Cuomo of sexual misconduct raised questions from local reporters at the time – but no story ran, according to a state investigation.
The governor directed that the trooper be offered the job and subsequently sexually harassed her after she was reassigned to his protective detail two months later.
In (mostly) non-Cuomo news…
President Biden spoke out against Republican governors who’ve sought to block vaccine and mask mandates, as COVID-19 cases spike across the U.S.
“I say to these governors: please help. If you aren’t going to help, please get out of the way of the people who are trying to do the right thing. Use your power to save lives,” Biden said.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis doubled down in defending his actions and his ban of mask mandates just as the state once again broke its record for COVID-19 hospitalizations.
Coronavirus is causing hospital wards to swell again, with nearly 56,000 COVID-19 patients receiving inpatient care across the U.S.
Nearly 72,000 children and teens tested positive for COVID-19, marking a “substantial” increase of 84% from the week prior, the American Academy of Pediatrics said.
The Lambda variant of the coronavirus, first identified in Peru and now spreading in South America, is highly infectious and more resistant to vaccines than the original version of the virus the emerged from Wuhan, China, Japanese researchers have found.
Many doctors on the front lines say unvaccinated patients in their 20s and 30s are becoming more severely ill, and more quickly. But comprehensive data is lacking.
The Biden administration announced a new, targeted federal eviction ban to replace the one that expired over the weekend, setting up a potential clash with the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new ban will apply to “counties experiencing substantial and high levels of community transmission levels” of Covid-19 and will last until Oct. 3, the agency said.
African countries saw an 80% increase in coronavirus deaths in the past four weeks, an alarming surge largely driven by the fast-spreading delta variant and the world’s “unjust” distribution of vaccines, the World Health Organization said.
Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson remain confident in their respective COVID-19 vaccines’ ability to prevent severe illness, hospitalization and death amid the spread of the highly transmissible delta variant.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is aiming to grant full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine by Labor Day or sooner.
The San Francisco Department of Public Health and Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital are allowing patients who received Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose Covid-19 vaccine to get a second shot produced by either Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna.
If more people got the vaccines, the current surge wouldn’t be as big; it certainly wouldn’t lead to the levels of hospitalization and death now seen across the US. This was true months ago, and remains true today.
Meatpacker Tyson Foods announced that it will require its 120,000 U.S. employees to be vaccinated fully this year and will pay them a $200 bonus to do so.
Add Microsoft to the list of companies that are mandating employees to get their COVID-19 vaccine.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio mandated inoculations for a range of indoor venues, requiring proof of Covid vaccinations from employees and customers of indoor eateries, gyms and entertainment centers.
“I announce a new approach, which we are calling the ‘Key to NYC Pass,'” de Blasio said. “The key to NYC, when you hear those words, I want you to imagine the notion that because someone is vaccinated they can do all the amazing things available in New York City.”
Reactions were largely supportive of vaccine restrictions imposed by de Blasio of New York City, the most stringent steps announced recently in any major U.S. city, though some health experts suggested they might not go far enough.
Term-limited de Blasio wouldn’t rule out a potential run for governor in 2022.
Rainer and Regina Greeven, Chris Cuomo’s father and mother in-law, attended a fundraiser for Congressman Lee Zeldin, a Long Island Republican who is looking to unseat Gov. Cuomo in the 2022 gubernatorial race.
Actress Jennifer Aniston says she has stopped interacting with people who aren’t vaccinated against COVID-19.
Erie County Clerk Mickey Kearns is opposing the county’s latest COVID-19 mask mandate.
An NYPD sergeant will pay $10,000 out of his own pocket as part of a $200,000 settlement of a lawsuit filed by a former female cop who claimed he sexually harassed her, officials said.
Republican New York City mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa is challenging Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to join him in putting up a reward for information leading to an arrest in the stunning Queens shooting that left 10 people wounded over the weekend.
After losing by only one vote in the Democratic primary for the Troy City Council’s Sixth District, Working Families Party candidate Marketa Edwards relaunched her campaign outside Griswold Heights.
State and local experts will be testing approximately a dozen residential water wells in Postenskill after PFOA contamination above the new state limit was detected earlier this year in one of the local public schools.
Peter Benvon, the general manager of GlobalFoundries’ Fab 8 computer chip factory, will announce tomorrow a “major gift” to Hudson Valley Community College’s foundation, which is raising money for an expansion of HVCC’s Malta campus.
Frontier Airlines is adding direct flights from Albany International Airport to Miami starting Nov. 4.
U.S. wrestler Tamyra Mensah-Stock closed out her first Olympics in dominating style, winning gold in the women’s 68-kilogram freestyle final. She is only the second woman — and the first Black woman — to win an Olympic wrestling gold for the U.S.
Simone Biles prevailed with a bronze medal on the balance beam at the 2021 Olympics after the USA gymnastics star not only battled through the strain on her mental health and a case of the “twisties,” but the recent death of her aunt.
Biles ended her Tokyo Olympics run with a silver medal in the team event and a bronze in the balance beam, which put her medal tally at seven – tying the record for the most Olympic medals by an American female gymnast with Shannon Miller.
Biles secretly trained for her Olympic return at a gym in the Tokyo suburbs.
Sunisa Lee is done with Twitter – for now – saying distractions of social media contributed to her bronze medal performance in the uneven bars.
The image of Communist China’s founding leader, Mao Zedong, made an unscheduled appearance at the Tokyo Olympics, and the International Olympic Committee said it is “looking into the matter.”
As her parents watched in the early morning hours from a theme park in Orlando, Fla., Duanesburg cyclist Emma White and her U.S. teammates delivered an ending that wasn’t quite a fairy tale but was still deeply satisfying, winning a bronze medal.
The stars all came out to wish Tony Bennett a happy 95th birthday with a big party on Twitter.
