Cuomo - why does it take so long from this sort of stuff to come out?

[Mabouya]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/12/n...smid=url-share

"Dozens of current and former employees of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s executive chamber described the office as chaotic, unprofessional and toxic, especially for young women."

I'm probably going to be hammered for this, but I have to ask, why do people like Cuomo (and the hundreds of other men just like him who've done that sort of thing, and as we all know, a lot worse) get away with it for so long? I'm not implying that accusers are inventing this, I just don't understand why this can go one for years and years without the truth ever coming out.

Does no one ever speak out? Do they speak out but are ignored?

Especially in this day and age, thirty years since the Anita Hill spoke out during the Clarence Thomas hearings, four years after Harvey Weinstein was exposed, and men are still getting away with it? I realize that the men are typically in a position of power and the victims are not, so it isn't easy to speak up, but wow, something has to change. Ideally men would stop acting like the leches so many are, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that.

[Tom]

Before I start with my tin hat theory, let me say that the behaviors are inexcusable. I'm not making excuses for the guy.

Why don't people say something sooner? It's complicated. People will work with the executive chamber, agree with policy and actions and dislike the man intensely because of how he is but the job needs to be done to serve the state. I know of people like that. That's not everybody but it is part of it.

Realize that if NYS was a country it'd have like the 8th largest economy in the world. That's a lot of power and if you're weak it goes to your head.

And then you negotiate the twin crises. The biggest public health crisis of our lifetime where I am convinced that without immediate decisive and difficult action to lock things down fast we'd have like a 30% death rate in the city. Then the resulting fiscal crisis where state revenues crashed. Everything froze and worse, school funding gone, you name it. The revenues are still running at least 5-10 percent behind normal. This while dealing with a federal government that was alternately incompetent and adversarial.

The guy did a fantastic job. People I know from other states telling me they wish they had a governor like that. Maybe too fantastic a job.

Tin hat: this makes the man too dangerous to people on both sides of the aisle. What was known but swept under the rug is exposed. "Et tu, Brute?"

[rwsaunders]

Fear, retribution, surprise, disgust, power of position, his word against mine, who is going to believe me, who cares what I say...When the term sexual harassment first made the HR rounds in the 80’s, I had a client who stated to me in a sarcastic manner, that in her bank, some of the men in the C-suite considered sexual harassment to be a fringe benefit.

[classtimesailer]

He was useful as Dem. governor. And he is now useful as Dem. perpetrator.

[vertical_doug]

It is very simple. In most instances if you make the charge, you are making a decision to end your current career and career prospects going forward. You may win the battle, but the establishment will rage war on you. Until this stops, I see little change in behavior.

The part you never hear about regarding Anita Hill:
n 1992, a feminist group began a nationwide fundraising campaign and then obtained matching state funds to endow a professorship at the University of Oklahoma College of Law in honor of Hill.[10][39] Conservative Oklahoma state legislators reacted by demanding Hill's resignation from the university, then introducing a bill to prohibit the university from accepting donations from out-of-state residents, and finally attempting to pass legislation to close down the law school.[10] Elmer Zinn Million, a local activist, compared Hill to Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President Kennedy.[10][39] Certain officials at the university attempted to revoke Hill's tenure.[40] After five years of pressure, Hill resigned.[10] The University of Oklahoma Law School defunded the Anita F. Hill professorship in May 1999, without the position having ever been filled.[41]

If you recall, Hillary went on national TV and slandered Monica Lewinsky. It really wasnt until about 20 years later, that Monica is really back on her feet fighting a good fight.



If you want it closer to home, my daughter's friend who is American of Chinese descent and a senior in high school was harassed last summer by local boys in the same high school with chinese slurs, and etc etc. She was very upset, and I asked why don't you report it. Her response was who are the police going to believe? A couple of white boys or a chinese girl? Besides, the boys parents will then wreck my life.
(We live in a wealthy area where people have resources.)

[gregl]

Why did this take so long to come out? The same reasons it took so long for Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein to be brought to justice. Vertical_doug provided a great example. It’s extraordinarily difficult to publicly accuse a sociopathic bully in a position of power. The bully will fight back with every weapon they have. Cuomo has always been an autocratic bully. Those outside New York are just learning that now. His handling of nursing home fatality data during the pandemic was the first significant chink in his armor. While I personally don’t care for Mr. Cuomo, I hope that a rigorous, thorough investigation is conducted into the claims against him. I hope he is treated fairly under the law and is appropriately censured or criminally charged if the evidence is clear. All citizens should be treated equally under the law, regardless of their politics or position as an elected or appointed official.

Greg

[j44ke]

Power.

[Bob Ross]

I hope that a rigorous, thorough investigation is conducted into the claims against him. I hope he is treated fairly under the law and is appropriately censured or criminally charged if the evidence is clear. All citizens should be treated equally under the law, regardless of their politics or position as an elected or appointed official.

^^^This.
And until that happens, I hope Cuomo stays in his position as governor and doesn't voluntarily resign. Because Al Franken and Gary Hart did, and Donald Trump, Brett Kavanaugh, and Clarence Thomas didn't, and all we got from those episodes is confirmation that Dems are pushovers and that there is no political capital to be gained from taking the moral high ground.

[72gmc]

There need to be legal protections for the accused, yes. But let’s not forget that our society punishes accusers of powerful men automatically. To the cases already mentioned you can add so many more where legal rights of accusers were trampled on, often without the powerful man even having to ask for it. What mechanisms have been added to protect accusers since Anita Hill testified?

[vertical_doug]

There need to be legal protections for the accused, yes. But let’s not forget that our society punishes accusers of powerful men automatically. To the cases already mentioned you can add so many more where legal rights of accusers were trampled on, often without the powerful man even having to ask for it. What mechanisms have been added to protect accusers since Anita Hill testified?

You mean was someone like Christine Blasey Ford able to resume your teaching career? The answer was no.

After Anita Hill, changes were made to EEOC regarding pay etc.. But that is just the work environment. There are no real options to prevent unrelated trolls from Harassing you and destroying your life.
Toxic male culture runs deep.

[Too Tall]

You mean was someone like Christine Blasey Ford able to resume your teaching career? The answer was no.

After Anita Hill, changes were made to EEOC regarding pay etc.. But that is just the work environment. There are no real options to prevent unrelated trolls from Harassing you and destroying your life.
Toxic male culture runs deep.

As an aside...as an adjunct duty I was trained by EEOC as an ADR officer and prior to that served as a EEO officer. I added this to my duties becuase, well...the workplace is toxic and too many people getting away with cr@p for too long. Long story short. It was, still is, shocking as hell that me as an white male was able to sit down with other white (possibly) criminally indictable managers who would easily relate their abuse of workplace laws/norms. It was as if I was a buddy they would tell this to over a few beers???? WTAMFF??? I'd diligently write down all the details,try not to blink sometimes asking them to repeat for clarity. It's like this, what Doug said full stop. It gets even worse, behind closed doors ADR officers settle scores between children no sh!t. Grown arse adults had to be told how to be ADULTS and the consequences.

Anywho, it is difficult to hear? Imagine being her.

[72gmc]

Related: Marina Hyde’s latest column for the Guardian. My wife agrees with her, that women have to dismiss this as “nothing” because it’s not worth the effort to try to make it something. Nothing is done about it. And it’s just the street, not the workplace.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...arassed-street

[funcrusher]

I'm just glad there is support to change the name of the bridge back to tappan zee...

[j44ke]

There is an accused rapist in the Australian government, members of the French government who are accused or convicted of assault, the British House of Parliament (very large building in London) is an abusive work place, heck even Prince Andrew been implicated in international sex trafficking and now the governor of New York has been accused of abuse and assault.

Obviously this is a women's problem. They need to do a better job reporting assault and abuse to the authorities as soon as something like this happens.

^Sarcasm^

[e-RICHIE]

This cat can lose his job yet for four years Trump was untouchable?

Regardless of the facts or severity of accusations, I don’t understand why one is possibly gone when the other remained.

[Bobonli]

This cat can lose his job yet for four years Trump was untouchable?

Regardless of the facts or severity of accusations, I don’t understand why one is possibly gone when the other remained.

Oh come on now, you know...

One political party will defend its members to the end of the earth even when there's audiovideo evidence and the accused's own attorney testifies against him. The other party will eventually cave in and canabalize their own team member even before the due process they claim is so important is carried out. I'm surprise it took the Jr Senator from NY so long to speak up. She didn't waste that much time with Al Franken!

[Peter Polack]

This cat can lose his job yet for four years Trump was untouchable?

Regardless of the facts or severity of accusations, I don’t understand why one is possibly gone when the other remained.

Just as I suggested j44ke read Ronan Farrow's book, I highly recommend you read Mary Trump's biography of her uncle Donald, Too Much and Never Enough-How My Family Created The World's Most Dangerous Man.. Besides the biography and the politics, it explains how he was able to get away with it. Trump is also featured in the Ronan Farrow book. I literally just finished reading Trump's book this past weekend.

[BBB]

There is an accused rapist in the Australian government, members of the French government who are accused or convicted of assault, the British House of Parliament (very large building in London) is an abusive work place, heck even Prince Andrew been implicated in international sex trafficking and now the governor of New York has been accused of abuse and assault.

Obviously this is a women's problem. They need to do a better job reporting assault and abuse to the authorities as soon as something like this happens.

^Sarcasm^

Re the Australian scenario...you beat me to it!

Australia's Federal Parliament is having its moment of reckoning and it is not going too well.

A month or so ago a former staffer of the current defence minister alleged she was raped in the ministers office after a night out. This happened in March 2019, in the teeth of a federal election and an election in which the current government was rightly (imo) labelled as having a problem with women. Suffice to say the allegation did not see the light of day prior to the election, the alleged rapist was quietly let go (security breach) and while all sorts of people appeared to have known about the issue, no one (apparently) told the Prime Minister. This incident set off rounds of recriminations (who knew, when did they know, who did they tell, why doesn't the parliament have an appropriate process to deal with these types of incidents and so on). The defence minister ended up in hospital (pre-existing heart condition that no doubt the stress of the incident being played out in Parliament and in the media exacerbated the issue), but she did herself no favours by calling the staffer a 'lying cow', which resulted in lawyers at 20 paces and an apology. The Prime Minister led from behind and brought his wife into the fray by saying she asked him to consider his own daughters when coming up with the appropriate response (which is about 54 different reviews).

Sadly, and it is very sad, this story was blown off the front pages by an allegation that an un-named Cabinet Minister had raped a 16 year old when he too was a teenager. It quickly became apparent that the un-named cabinet minister was none other than the Federal Attorney General. The ABC (tax payer funded broadcaster) had touched the AG up - please excuse the pun - in an investigation into bad behaviour in Canberra that went to air last November with the result that the AG came off like a misogynistic a-hole (and they also had the rape allegations at the point, but couldn't air it in the story for legal reasons). In any event, the complainant had committed suicide in 2020. She had begun the process of revealing the alleged rape in 2019 and resolved to go to the Police in 2020, which happened, but was delayed by Covid. Unfortunately the complainant's mental health worsened and she withdrew the complaint (or supposedly she did) and took her own life. What was left behind was a lengthy dossier of the events in question, complete with contemporaneous diary notes. The Police, without a complainant or a sworn statement indicated they could take the issue no further and closed the investigation, at which point the AG outed himself (and despite being advised by one of the best defamation lawyers in the country, the press conference was a debacle). The PM continued his ham fisted handling of sensitive issues and declared it a rule of law issue and as the AG wasn't going to be charged then he was innocent and would we please all move on. The AG has refused to design and is currently on leave. Of course, the PM's approach has made matters worse and there are numerous calls for some form of seperate enquiry as it is very far from ideal that the AG has an allegation of rape hanging over his head. There are many more twists and turns to this story than the brief summary above and many more to come.

As to the why? Men can be pigs. We need to have a very good look at ourselves in the mirror. As has been said in a very eloquent put down to the PM, you don't need daughters, you just need a conscience.

[Bobonli]

Regarding the criminal investigation, and the last written reporting I saw was from Friday so it may be outdated:

A woman made an allegation but refused to file an official report with the state. So the gov’s counsel referred it to local police. This could be a clever counter attack by the governor’s lawyer, setting up a potential scenario where they turn the tables on the accuser and say she’s FOS because she wouldn’t come forward and file an actual complaint, or celebrate victory when the local LEOs can’t substantiate the claim. I would anticipate some offense being played this coming week or some spectacular distraction to help shift the focus off this story.

Maybe it’s time for a ticker tape parade to celebrate victory over Covid or unveil a new casino .....that’ll make people forget.

[Tom]

Yeah, NYS is certainly corrupt. At all levels ot is pay to play so my cynicism no knows no bounds as is same with the politicians speaking out only now. But who should be recognized for finally killing irony is Stefanik. Snuggling up to the guy with eight credible rape allegations and feigning outrage now? That's some funny stuff there, that is.