The story about Governor Andrew Cuomo has been getting a little more press lately, but for those of us who followed it, this was all evident back at the beginning of the pandemic. In short, Cuomo ordered thousands of COVID-19 positive patients back into nursing homes, where as you would expect, the virus spread rampantly and killed many thousands of people. Beyond this, he also allowed the nursing home industry to cut many corners, virtually ensuring viral spread. Subsequently, to protect the nursing home industry from the legal liability that would ensue when thousands of people realized that their loved ones died because of their negligence, he passed a “liability shield” protecting nursing homes from liability (and which was written by the nursing home industry itself). In other words, if your family member died of COVID-19 in a nursing home, despite any negligence that might have occurred, you aren’t allowed to sue. To date, 26 other states have similarly turned Cuomo’s liability shield into law.
Read MoreI don't think that this is a particularly novel idea, but the more I think about it, the more the recent bailout seems magnitudes worse than anything we've seen before.
We're likely going to see unemployment at levels that will rival those of the great depression. This is a tragedy in itself, but what might be worse, is that as a result of decades of tax cuts for corporations and the rich, working class and middle class income tax plays a disproportionate role in funding government services relative to other forms of taxes. In other words, in other countries, taxes on the wealthy and on corporations constitute a much higher percentage of total tax revenue, but here, decades of tax cuts have meant that the tax burden falls overwhelmingly on average people. That is, average Americans shoulder the burden of funding the government. Consequently, the massive loss in jobs means a huge decrease in tax revenues, because the super-rich and corporations don’t really pay taxes..
Read MoreWith their decision to keep the Wisconsin polls open, we can now add the Supreme Court to the list of politicians and government officials who have literally killed people during this crisis. It's a long and bipartisan list, including NYC's mayor who acted much too late, New York's Governor, who also acted much too late, and who has taken this moment to make massive healthcare cuts and to repeal bail reforms (the latter of which will help transform New York's prisons into death camps). And to this list we could also add Joe Biden, who encouraged voters to go the polls in Wisconsin, just as he similarly encouraged them a few weeks ago in Florida, Illinois, and Arizona.
These days, it would be hard to find a politician who didn't have blood on their hands. And while they’ll each claim that these are days when difficult decisions have to be made, and when there are no good decisions, this is a lie.
Read MoreI live in New York State’s District 17, and our state senator happens to be Simcha Felder. No doubt many of you in the state know Felder because he’s an almost infamous character in New York State politics, but for those of you who don’t know him, I’ll try to offer a brief explanation.
While New York State should be a reliably Democratic state, our politics are actually fairly conservative, because the Republicans essentially have control of the state government. The reason they have control of state politics has to do with a few issues. First, it has to do with the IDC, who were a group of “turncoat” Democrats who don’t caucus with the Democrats, essentially empowering the Republicans. Second, Andrew Cuomo, our Democratic Governor, quite likes having a Republican controlled state senate, because it allows him to talk a somewhat “liberal” game, but he never has to legislate in that way, because the legislature is conservative. So, he can appeal to his constituents with liberal talk, but he never runs the risk of actually having to legislate progressively, which might alienate him from his very wealthy donor base. And last, there is Simcha Felder, our state senator. Felder runs as a Democrat, but he’s essentially a Republican. But he typically runs unopposed in the Democratic primary, because no one wants to waste their time challenging him, because it’s presumed he has a lock on the district. Our district is heavily gerrymandered, creating a district with a very large Orthodox Jewish population, and Felder himself is Orthodox. But outside of this issue of identity, he’s very effective at representing the interests of the Orthodox community. So, it’s long been thought that it would be a waste of time to challenge him, because the district is his. And along with the IDC, Felder helps make the New York State Senate a Republican legislature.
That’s the backstory. And then, as happened in many places in this country, the election of Trump was an awakening. In my neighborhood, a group of people began organizing with the intention of challenging Felder by either putting pressure on him to legislate in a progressive way, or else, by running a primary challenger against him.
Read More