Call-Outs And Shout-Outs: It's Time...

For Andrew Cuomo.

Why?

For starters, Lindsey Boylan, former Deputy Secretary, and special advisor to Cuomo. Boylan claims Cuomo kissed her, and "would go out of his way to touch me on my lower back, arms and legs," as well as once suggesting they play strip poker. What a way to sweep a girl off her feet!

Or how about Charlotte Bennett, Cuomo's Health Policy Advisor? She reported uncomfortable conversations about dating, whether she was interested in dating older men, and the fact that Cuomo was open to dating a woman in her 20's. What a charmer!

"I understood the governor wanted to sleep with me, and felt horribly uncomfortable and scared. And was wondering how I was going to get out of it, and assumed it was the end of my job," said Bennett. The next week, she informed Cuomo's Chief Of Staff, Jill DesRosiers, of these awkward conversations, whereupon Bennett was quickly transferred to another job. The Governor's Special Counsel, Beth Harvey, acknowledged Bennett had made the complaint, and had then been transferred away "to a position in which she had already been interested." How convenient! But Bennett has told interviewers that she likes her new job, and other than hoping that telling her story will empower other harassment victims, she just wants to move on, a pretty common feeling after being sexually harassed. Bennett went on to say, in part: "To the Governor’s survivors: I am here. Lindsey is here. You do not have to say a single word. But if you choose to speak your truth, we will be standing with you. I promise.”

After we heard from those two ladies, Anna Ruch came forward to describe her encounter with Governor Hot Pants. Ruch, who met Cuomo at a wedding in 2019, says Cuomo placed his hand on her lower back, and when she removed his hand with hers, Cuomo remarked that she "seemed aggressive" (!!!), so he put his hands on her cheeks, and asked if he could kiss her! (Governor-dude, if you think Anna Ruch was aggressive, you oughtta be damn glad you didn't try that stunt on Your Crusading Blogger, who would make Lorena Bobbit look like Pollyanna if anyone unwelcome tried a move like that on me). Obvious case of blood pooling too low and not circulating up to the brain.

After thinking about it for awhile, the good Governor decided to cooperate with an investigation launched by New York Attorney General Letitia James. Considering that he is in the super hot seat with two scandals going on, that might have been the prudent way to go.

Your Crusading Blogger held her tongue (and her keyboard) in her hands last year when it came out that Cuomo had signed an order requiring nursing homes to admit Covid patients. I withheld judgement (and scorn) because our elected officials just about universally ham-handed the pandemic, first by inadequately planning for one, and thus having to constantly play catch-up with a novel, quick-changing and complicated virus. Let's face it, the lowest-hanging fruit that we had to deal with first was personified by President It'll Go Away In The Spring-Inject Bleach. And I certainly felt alot of sympathy for our nation's governors as they tried to navigate the pandemic with no real, consistent, solid leadership from a centralized federal government. Instead Trump left pandemic response up to the states, and allegedly showed favoritism for red states, and those states whose governors showed "proper appreciation" of his efforts on their behalf.

Now that controversy is back in the limelight as it has come out that Cuomo's aides allegedly fudged numbers on reports containing nursing home deaths. Not cool. Not furthering of progressive values. Most importantly, not compatible with preserving the life, health and welfare of the people whom Cuomo was elected to serve. If Cuomo felt he did right last year, why the cover-up? This blogger believes that if they had known Cuomo would conduct himself in this manner, most New Yorkers who did, would not have voted for him.

Many other countries keep their politicians honest with the concept of a "no confidence" vote, where opposition parties can, under certain circumstances, call a special election to settle whether a given politician should be retained after a controversy. Certainly there are circumstances, and I believe this is one of them, where such a concept would be of great utility in the American political system. I maintain that there are occasions (the previous president being one, also), where the American system makes it unnecessarily difficult to remove a particularly bad leader, especially when unfitness for office is caused or abetted by moral or mental illness, and further buttressed by politics. I refer to the blind loyalty of most leading Republicans to the previous president, no matter his conduct. I put such blind loyalty in the category of selling one's soul to the devil. There is always a day of reckoning for such enablers. But I digress. I certainly can also see how a "no confidence" vote situation could be just as easily misused by an opposing party to "play politics" when political winds aren't blowing their way, so "no confidence" should not be permitted to be entered into easily, but with ill-suited leaders abounding, I'm sure most of us agree something needs to be done.

I'm starting to wonder, between this ignominy, the recent conduct of former New York (remember when he was America's?) Mayor and former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani,