After a relaxing few weeks I returned to find exactly what I’d predicted and expected. A mess. Calling this stuff isn’t hard. All it takes is a few good friends and some eyes.
On Monday May 4… As I’d told you was coming, Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York State dropped the expected multi-count influence-peddling complaint-bomb on Dean Skelos and his coat-tail-surfing son Adam. The pieces are still falling out of the sky 5 weeks later.
It took no time. Dean was fast in the bag talking deal and ratting his ass off just as loud as Shelly Silver within the week. Some people claim this happened even before the public sleaze and his son were actually charged. Perhaps… perhaps not, but stranger things have happened in Albany, obviously. Publicly, of course, Dean was professing his innocence not-so-proudly and proclaiming he would fight this and even called the criminal complaint a “press release”! I’m sure that endeared him to the people and the prosecutors. In fact during his meltdown he crashed through the week in shock dropping a number of obnoxious doozies! While defending his son, Dean waxed sanctimonious:
“He worked hard, did a good (no-show patronage) job, and that’s what (corrupt Albany politicians’) kids are supposed to do… they shouldn’t be penalized because of the title their father has.”
Then, he added: “And you should all think about that as parents.”
Someone pointed out -the irony of parenting advice from the #2 man in NY State politics who’s at the tip of an iceberg of corruption. He and the top three sold out New York State citizens and their children’s future, as well as helped cause record devastation to New York’s economy along the merry road to personal wealth. “Monetizing government” as US Attorney Preet Bharara calls it
And by the way he wants you to feel sorry for his son.
The drama was building. So much so that it would double the size of this post to do it all justice.
The accompanying complaint against Skelos and his parasite crotchspring Adam was blistering, featuring evil transcripts of Preet’s wiretaps that left no doubt the father-and-son public douchebag duo had sold New Yorkers out and then some.
When the news broke that Monday, the usual posturing by your generally spineless reps began. Just like the NY Dems did when Shelly Silver got arrested, now it was the NY GOP’s turn. In fact the band of sisters in the downstate GOP “Crime Cabal” actually looked like they were going to put up a real imperious stink. They even threatened to cry. The upstate media bought it and the downstate media just stomped their feet. Upstate spineless ambulating vaginas like Hugh Farley of Schenectady and Herkimer’s Jim “The Sewer” Seward were supporting Deano late into week one despite their constituents vehement outcry.
Then reality started to sink in…
ADAM SKELOS -“It’s like fucking Preet Bharara is listening to every fucking phone call. It’s fucking frustrating.”
DEAN SKELOS – “It is.”
PREET BHARARA – “BWAAAAAHAHAHAhahaha!”
However, by the end of that first week any NY politician with more than seven brain cells had junked that tack under ridicule from all sides… the blood was in the water (the wiretap transcript edits of Dean & son mocking taxpayer’s and um, the wiretaps, didn’t help) and Dean’s friends started running from him like they’d just found out he had anal cancer.
On the 10th Wayne Barret writing for the NY Daily News opened up like a cannon at the NYS GOP freakshow before it dragged on another week. The NYDN, always quick to attack the Right and praise the Left, went to fucking town on Skelos and basically anyone in the NY GOP who had any chance at being appointed in Skelos stead. He took the the whole Skelos Clan up one side of the Totem-Pole and down the other. Too bad they didn’t do such a thorough dropkick just three months earlier when the shoe was located in the NY Democrats’ ass.
Then on the 6th, The Daily Show’s Lefty Jon Stewart made it an official mess and went off on Dean and his son. He called the entire New York State Chamber the “Patriots of corruption“.
Re. Jon’s 32 year-old son Adam using his dad’s juice to suck up a no-show living for hundreds of thousands a year while NY businesses struggle… and poor people starve in phony Lib New York he asked:
“Don’t you think it’s time he went out and stole his own money?”
New York’s corruption was in the spotlight again.
The first drama: The sleazy state Democrats tried twice to bring a motion to remove skelos as Majority Leader of the Senate. (Of course, many of these same dirtbags pissed and moaned when the shoe was on Democrat Speaker Sheldon Silver’s foot.)
Not to be criminally outdone in trampling the house rules and wrecking the decorum with stunts, Nassau Republican and Skelos minion (of course!) Jack Martins simply refused to allow the motion to the fucking capital floor!
The Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins wet their pants and stormed out.
By the 9th and 10th of May, the plot was thickening as details were dribbled out to lead the sleepy Albany press along. It was confirmed that Deano & Co. were up to their neck in the same real-estate kickback Pay-to-Play scams Shelly was. All involving Leonard Litwin and Glenwood Management. You remember them… Litwin and his companies et. al are Andrew M. Cuomo’s top donor and the investigation has ensnared him also.
Albany comedy gold ensued: Reporters began camping out all over the State House fighting for any morsel that would get them an exclusive on what was happening and who might be appointed to replace Deano should he smarten up and step down. The ruckus at the State House reminded me of that old Loony Tunes cartoon A Mouse Divided where a drunken stork left a baby mouse with Sylvester the cat and his wife. Within minutes every window in the house was crammed with every cat in the neighborhood – perched on the sills, the chimney, outside looking in.
The infamous “Secret Corridors” and back halls became escape routes for the mostly sadass NYGOP members to do the dirty voting for the replacement scumbag and get out unscathed and unmolested by The People who pay these scheming dirtbags.
Tom Precious of the Buffalo News was there and he ended up submitting something between a political piece and technical writing just to convey the action as Albany lawmakers scurried about zigzagging through the catacombs in the State House running away in mobs from the Albany press brat pack that was finally waking up to the huge gaping hole in the state government.
“They used head fakes, lookouts, decoys, and circuitous routes to avoid answering questions about Skelos and his legal problems that began Monday morning with his arrest on federal corruption charges.
Consider:
Skelos walked straight down a Senate hallway Monday into the throng of reporters waiting his arrival. He said nothing, but at least gave photographers their photo op.
Meanwhile, GOP senators took a longer, more twisting route. They came up an elevator on the south side of the building. Some took a right turn – the opposite direction of their meeting – and ducked into a sergeant-at-arms office.
They then walked through a hidden hallway that goes into the Senate secretary’s office, crossed through the Senate chamber, which had been locked. Next, they scooted to the left into another hidden hallway – also locked off from reporters – past Skelos’ private office, a conference room, another series of offices and finally through the “Bruno door” and safely into the closed-door conference room.
Three hours later… a long line of Senate Republicans snaked their way back through that same route. When a reporter caught up with them, they stopped moving and Sen. John Flanagan Jr., a Long Island Republican, approached the reporter. He declined comment and warned that the “real story” was just around the corner, where one of his Senate colleagues was about to make an official statement on the Skelos matter.
From that one GOP conference room, there are 13 different doors that senators can open into other parts of the third floor, from one side of the building to the other.”
The battle dragged on as Skelos went through denial after denial, refusing to step down and even threatened to fuck the GOP’s already thin hold on the senate’s power by resigning. Phil Reisman’s son Nick Riesman of Capitol Tonight summed up the arc of Skelos’ predictable political meltdown in one elegant tweet:
Maybe the creep Dean got a talking to by smart people who are quite above it all, because he started making his exit plans. As an excuse, and since no-one really felt sorry for Dean or Adam after the “You should think about that as parents” crack… he invoked sympathy for his grandson while stating he was quitting the Leader position supposedly because some reporter somehow had caused the two-year-old to fall and split his lip.) as his reason to finally agree to stand down from his position. Since the taxpayers’ have literally paid for practically every cell in the kid’s body shouldn’t we be more pissed off than you or your son Dean?
After a few days of nasty backstabbery, infighting, backroom deals and denial, the GOP gang appointed John Flanagan as leader of the New York State Senate.
More of the same as in the “Same as the old boss… only stupider” post below. Mr. Flanagan’s track record actually mimics Dean’s because he’s literally Dean’s protege. This leaves upstate citizens with zero high public officials who live North of the Tappan Zee representing them. You get the government you deserve.
Prince Andrew Cuomo tried to spend this embarrassing time talking about anything but the Corruption Cucaracha going on full blast all around his handiwork:
- “Crackdowns” on NY Nail Salons and attendant fake-media firestorms. Fingerpainters are now safe from the petrifying ravages of viscous predatory Asian nail salon owners. Everybody knows they’re the epicenter of human-trafficking, 3rd-world off-the-books wages and toxic scary nasties in the air billowing about. Stuff that these owners would have more money to fix if they weren’t herkin’ along under NY’s outrageous “Highest Taxes in the US” status on their backs. Cuomo’s crew has used this and other manufactured news stories to avoid seeing his name associated with the headlines and online comments across the web.
- Through all of May the “publicity crackdown” and “public awareness” campaign was released, re-released and even today re-re-released as fresh news! Next stop: World Peace and a couple stiff shots.
- Another whirlwind “church tour” campaign on Sunday May 14 to give tax breaks to parents of private schools that was roundly laughed off by everyone but the duped churchgoers he’d used as a distraction and puff-piece prop.
- JFK-esque proclamations that New York State will “End AIDs” in the next four years [By 2020]. No joke. It’s nice that he tries but we know his heart’s not in it for the right reasons that much.
- Raising the minimum wage to $15 an Hr. for NY Food Service workers… surely to the glee of the way out Lefty socialists and people who think McDonalds should be a career to aspire to and raise a family on. Personally, if you study it – it’s pretty much a stunt.
To hear Cuomo’s supporters and his 15,000+ social-media fake spambots tell it, it was a whirlwind month for His Shadiness, but unnoticed, the consistent talk of Cuomo’s 2016 Presidential Campaign quietly vanished. I’m glad the rest of the world finally came booming into the 21st century and got up to speed on his fitness for High Office, and hip to the generally corrupt air in Albany.
Moving though May:
After the top lawmakers swore Felon Flanagan in as “Senate Majority Leader Until He’s Arrested for Being a Well-Documented Disciple of the Skelos Political Model”, they held a macabre send off for ‘ol Skelator with applause and congratulation’s for his “fine service” on the floor. Really!
That night the surly gang got down to trying look like they were finishing official state business remaining before the assembly with only a few weeks to go. Suddenly the jailers had run off and the prisoners and mental patients were left wandering the asylum.
A new problem soon arose: Albany NY is so fucking corrupt as a normal course of politics that no-one would talk to anyone about any budget or special-interest issue at all for fear the lawmaker they were talking to was wearing a wire. The music had stopped, someone had flipped the lights on and everyone was frozen. In any other month but May 2015 that might seem bizarre.
But the “brave” assembly pressed on! All around them the chaos of a state government in “WTF mode” trying to screw up teacher evaluations and education changes by end of session.They did so well at it too.
By Crisis! Week 3! – Many people were noting with contempt how Skelos voted to withdraw welfare benefits to scores of needy New Yorkers living below the poverty line while his son and he were enjoying your taxpayer cash they’d pried loose, and Adam was sitting his thief ass on $300k stashed in two bank accounts. Money they’d done nothing but peddled their influence for. No matter where you are on assistance and how much you feel should be doled out to the poor, it should anger you to see industrial scale theft from people who could have benefited from it.
So how panicked is the Skelos family these days you ask? – “Motivated”!
Via Jimmy Veilkind at Capital New York we see in the Albany Craiglist a particular “Condo” (which is a literal shack) for sale.
The ad says:”Motivated buyer!” Yeah, a six count indictment… numerous inbound lawsuits from NY business owners who Dean Skelos roundabout fucked out of a level playing field for years… and companies that lost out due to Three Men in a Room’s “Albany for sale” shenanigans along with the guaranteed federal asset-vacuuming tend to make one “motivated” to liquidate their ill-gotten-booty rather ASAP.
A property-title search revealed the $130k unit on the West end of Albany is owned by none other than Dean’s retouched wife Gail Skelos. When any discovery proceedings roll around if Dean doesn’t cop out… you’ll all be treated to an educational peek at just what a sleazeball she is and who she thought she was up until this point. Don’t worry enraged taxpayers and vengeance-seekers… by the time the powers moving on them are done she won’t be able to afford even her coloring jaunts.
Sound harsh? I’m being nice! People familiar with her paint a picture of a woman who not only knew what was going on, she helped with logistics and has quite the opinions! This is not a nice family at the top of the state food-chain.
Oh the little pile of treasures they’d have kept too… if not for that meddling ethical US Attorney, and his pet peeves of “promoting liberty and protecting equality”. I guess you can’t take it to prison with you. With any luck she and Sheldon Silver’s “top aide” Judy Rapfogel can commiserate in prison. In a perfect world Judith can tell Gail about how losing the $400k cash the NY FBI cleaned out of her closet left a gaping hole in her black soul.
Looking ahead… USAG Preet’s peeps are quietly preparing trusted NY and national political reporters for what’s coming next. Per the trusty federal prosecutor’s playbook they kept (and still are) rolling out the subtle drumbeat of related tips and off-record comments to reporters. It’s a time-tested tactic when public figures need to be removed for misconduct without destabilizing public trust in the institution. This is even more important in New York’s case where you have the three top figures and numerous attendees going down amidst various interrelated scandals involving banks, a horde of corrupt judges* and other bad actors. Considering NY’s status as a banking center and “powerhouse” of trade and banking, a sudden takedown of the top three without careful conditioning to the causes could create chaos. Hate the feds if you like, they can be a hit-and-miss crowd, but in most cases they’re all just people and some even do things for the right reasons.
The goal is to alert the hoi polloi to the problem slowly so that as each figure is charged they are replaced – in NY’s case with equally miserable and dodgy characters.
So where’s the destructive Prince Cuomo through now? He’s wounded, sporting a disastrous 37% job-approval rating, probably the lowest in US politics perhaps, and trying to stay ahead of the game, a tactic which always served him so well in the “Good old days”
When the piss hit the prop, Andrew Cuomo got pasted and it’s just starting up. He’s under attack by the teachers for quite literally selling out NY’s kids with a flourish for personal gain. Every single gun owner and firearms professional in NY detests the pond slime in office. His enemies are rallying and he’s got few friends left willing to stick their necks out when they know they’re gonna get those necks chopped.
Still doubt Andrew’s gone forever soon?
Just look to the changes you have already seen… look at the prevailing political wind in the Cuomo-sphere. Example: NYC Mayor Bill Deblasio actually needed Andy a year ago. The worm has turned, now Blazo’s doing slam dunks defying Andy today. Now the little birdies are singing and even the densely clingy local and national Democrats are turning against him. His girlfriend, Junk-Food-Isle TV Chef and host Sandra Lee is handling a breast cancer diagnosis and mastectomy. And here, just like when Gov. Andy was married to Kerry Kennedy, he capitalized on any nearby tragedy to the tackiest effect. All month Cuomo’s blowers were posting sympathy-inducing, cringeworthy photos of Prince Andrew sitting next to his girlfriend who in one case appeared to be still-unconscious as he was trying to suck the life out through her forehead and in another, she appeared to be in shock… traumatized while forcing a smile. Some say he’s doing sedatives and is acting “crazy” and “like a wreck”.
Photo op:
What an awful spectre at the top of the state leadership. Nevermind the shock and stress of the locals, any company looking at NY as a potential home for future growth or a startup site after all this isn’t impressed for sure. They just don’t make corporate welfare crack rocks this big.
Now near the end of the month on Thursday May 28th, the actual indictment (and a good breakdown at the esteemed The Albany Project, dropped on Skelos and his cretinous son. As expected it added further detail to the already infuriating complaint, as well as new charges. (Via- Tim Bolger LIP)
And finally, again as I warned was coming, yesterday and today the NYC media added another new few beats to the Cuomo Funeral Dirge with the latest on Preet Bhaara’s advance on Andrew Cuomo’s scrawny neck.
NY Post political editor and “Dean of the Albany Press Corps Kids, reformed liberal and Cuomo-hater Fred Dicker – who as everyone already knows, would literally only bury the hatchet if he could bury it in Cuomo’s face… got in his usual delicious digs in.
“US Attorney Preet Bharara moved “a giant step closer” to Gov. Andrew Cuomo late last week with an indictment that alleges insurance exec Anthony Bonomo, a top Cuomo contributor whom the governor made chairman of the New York Racing Association, gave a lucrative no-show job to state Sen. Dean Skelos’ son, sources have told The Post.”
There’s that familiar “sources have told us” or “sources close to investigation say” bit. Do you people think this is all made up still?
Speculation?
An aside on Andy’s state of mind – A good friend and legal researcher who very regularly conducts detailed examinations of large-format photos of the Prince’s puss notes the apparent stress he is under. It seems right to me. He looks like “Captain Xanax” in half of them – that “look”… like he’s one final stressor away from being the neighbor’s “nephew” you know with the collection of playing cards and dried drool flakes in his purse.
But the smart money knows Cuomo’s too fucked up in the pinhead and congenitally narcissistic to see the writing on the indictments and quit. You know… like a normal person would if he suddenly one day realized he was the only person he’d fooled all this time.
The situation seems so odd that a couple very thorough legal researchers working on all this noise (and so far 5X5 correct in their tea-leaf predictions) even speculate that – here again per that prosecutor’s playbook – Cuomo may already have been given the “talking to” by Preet’s gang and is effectively a figurehead in office. These folks believe Andrew Crime-O is already cooperating and playing along in order to stay out of prison. We’ll see in the future if that is a correct analysis. Would anything shock at this point?
Regardless, the sum total is that all this upheaval and confusion bodes well in the long-term for the nuts still left trying to stick it out as normal Joes in NY. Upstate, despite a 1st Q of NY economic and employment decline, a few new organically created businesses showed gains, in Ilion, Remington Arms Defense Div. beat 5 other bids (including Colt) and added 200 heads back to the run-down old Herkimer line. The bump was an $83M order for the fine M4/ACR related product, while internally noting the impending demise of Cuomo and his disastrous SAFE act scheme to disarm NY state and do damage to firearms owners and manufacturers-dealers everywhere in the state. I’m still pissed right off into the sky about K&K closing up because of all this.
If you think the lawsuits against the Cuomo administration are bad now, wait till everyone realizes what some of us have been saying for years. Watching, gathering info and studying traffic across a wide spectrum of information. Either way, for different reasons, those who took hope for Remington in Ilion are sadly mistaken if they think the rehires mean Rem is staying any longer than it has to. (Remington is another story we’ll get to in due course.)
Two years ago Cuomo was King, unchallenged and feared. Today, even the small non-confrontational types like NY’s beloved “Wandering Dagos” traveling food vendors stand vindicated and no longer in terror of Andy’s army of political parasites. Downstate is reeling in the shock and awe of the USAG SDNY and upstate is (falsely?) pondering the end of the “three men in a room” leadership that has constrained them like a millstone leaving them without anything but patronizing, token political influence in statewide matters for decades. Many are wondering if this is an improvement or just another layer of the onion to be peeled back? (I’m seeing “onion”.)
If you’re wondering what’s coming, take the long view. “Will and Wait” I always say – Time always tells. It’s ablative to the stupid and the stubborn. Stress brings entropy and death.
And a final update as I write this: Less than seven hours ago, The International Business Times is breaking that Cuomo’s administration is yes – involved up to his neck in the influence peddling investigation and that the administration is “cooperating” in the investigation into Cuomo’s top campaign donor Leonard Litwin (Owner of the notorious Glenwood Management that ties all these influence-peddling cases together) and the rest of the whole mess.
Today’s bonus news: Today I learned that two more top Albany officials are knee deep in this mess. I’d dish but A: The info is colored, presumably to track ongoing out of school leaks and B: I’m not going to be the one stupid enough to derail a top-notch federal prosecution with so much riding on it.
Still think all this shit’s “made up” of whole cloth folks? Watch and learn.
Tick tock
*Extra credit here – Are there any other astute NY-area legal eyes keeping count of the unusually high number of NYS/NYC Judges stepping down whom were associated with this snarl of lawyers, goofs and money?
Extra extra credit for astute Second Amendment buffs pissed off about New York City politicians:
Q: How does all this relate to the NY SAFE Act and the fact that Dean Andrew and Shelly all conspired and took payments to even put the SAFE Act on the State House floor?
Hint: In 2013, as Senate Leader, Skelos was the guy who suspended Senate rules and brought the NY SAFE Act to the floor. Then, with his following cabal of bought-off Nassau and assorted downstate RINO tree-jumpers they voted for the SAFE Act and advocated its passage amid outcry from even his own constituency.
Did the NYS NRA gang ever have a chance with the embalmed braintrust at the top? What is wrong with the phony upper NY GOP to keep endorsing this indicted asspounder?
Not long after and nearing elections Deano claimed “Ahh maybe I was too hasty” and the fucking NY No-Information Voters re-elected him.
If you don’t know what time it is by now people, fold up the tent and head on out.
You heard now and there’s the path to why the SAFE act is itself a criminal construct, a product hatched by the “Three Men in a Room” and it will be a future lesson to those who would sell out Freedom and the 2A forever. That’s all I’m saying for now.
cnytruth -Tales of Finally Escaping Rotting Upstate NY 