Editorials from around New York

Recent editorials of statewide and national interest from New York’s newspapers:

The Ithaca Journal on the Dannemora prison break and Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s priorities.

June 9

Add prison breaks to the list of floods, blizzards and fires that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo rushes to lend his steady hand of concern.

Cuomo is Johnny on the Spot when it comes to showing up, looking serious and leading state officials in another chorus of “A Crisis Bites Us.” The governor is just an extra on the stages of disasters and chaos, but an extra who grabs the spotlight to polish an image of being in charge of a pressing state issue.

Saturday’s prison break of convicted murderers Richard Matt and David Sweat had the governor rushing to a prison in the northern Adirondacks at Dannemora.

Inside the Clinton Correctional Facility, Cuomo looked at the neatly carved rectangles the convicts had cut into the steel walls of their cells. He followed their escape route down flights of catwalks, and peered into a gaping hole the two prisoners apparently cut into a steel pipe.

Regrettably, Cuomo did not strap a camera to his forehead to record a wriggling journey through the drain pipe to the manhole where the two convicts apparently emerged outside the prison. That effort might have cast some light on how two killers could escape from a New York maximum-security prison.

The governor’s quick response to a prison break and natural disasters in the state is the kind of speed and focus he ought to be applying to his most important job: getting more jobs for New York’s residents.

Inspecting the prison, looking at mountains of snow in Buffalo, surveying the tornado damage in central New York last summer or visiting communities torn up by floods are secondary jobs for the governor, even though they make great photo ops and sound bites.

Cuomo can show his shock and concern, and then move on so the searches and rescue work can get started.

Contrast Cuomo’s response to a prison break or a record-setting blizzard to the workforce reductions and plant closings announced nearly every week in New York that set off far-reaching community disasters.

Upstate’s economic earthquake rolled through Broome County again last fall, when Penguin Random House closed its Broome operations. That was a disaster for the 290 workers who lost their jobs.

Had it been a real earthquake displacing 290 Broome workers and families, Cuomo would have been on the scene with the wreckage of homes and neighbors as a backdrop. But the dreary image of former workers heading to the Binghamton unemployment office failed to attract a visit from Cuomo to see what New York could do to save those jobs.

Plant closings and pink slips are far more common threats for New York communities and their residents than blizzards or prison breaks. The economic earthquake that rattles New York - and the Southern Tier in particular - is where Cuomo ought to spend his time and talent, not peering into a prison drain pipe.

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Online:

https://ithacajr.nl/1Gs9GJU

The Poughkeepsie Journal on medical marijuana legislation in New York.

June 4

In the past two years Gov. Andrew Cuomo has come a long way in amending his once unsupportive views about medical marijuana, but it is not far enough.

New York has become the 23rd state to legalize medical marijuana in some form, and this should help those New Yorkers suffering from cancer, glaucoma and other serious illnesses. But if the program works as intended, it should be expanded.

Friday is the deadline for businesses to apply for only five licenses that will be granted to manufacture and dispense the drug statewide. Each of the five medical marijuana makers will be permitted to implement four dispensaries, but with only 20 locations to get the drug, patients will need to drive for hours all over the Empire state to get relief. And some businesses have apparently backed out of the application process due to restrictions on products and business models that would hinder profits. For example, only marijuana extracts such as oils, vapors and capsules can be made and distributed; neither smoking nor eating it in its raw form is legal in New York.

The severe restrictions on every aspect of the drug’s implementation in the state -from which ailments it may be used for and how debilitated a patient is, to how it’s manufactured and dispensed - risk undermining the good intentions of the program.

Meanwhile, because medical marijuana remains illegal under federal law, patients and their caregivers are at risk of arrest under certain circumstances. And because it is a Schedule 1 drug, federal law restricts medical marijuana research. With legal landmines like these, federal officials must push to clarify that states have the authority to implement medical cannabis programs to help residents in need.

Along those lines, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., is one of several lawmakers who have introduced the Compassionate Access, Research Expansion, and Respect States (CARERS) Act, a bipartisan bill which recognizes that marijuana has accepted medical use and that it is the states’ responsibility to set policy on the drug’s use in a medical context.

This is an important part in the political process of getting relief to those who need it. But it needs backup. The governor and his policymakers finally sowed the seeds for this important issue almost a year ago. They need to continue helping, not hindering, the state’s medical marijuana program as it takes root.

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Online:

https://pojonews.co/1cJ2zjZ

The Plattsburgh Press-Republican on the integrity of horse racing’s Triple Crown.

June 9

Congratulations to that wondrous athlete American Pharoah, who will likely infuse a significant level of fandom back into horse racing.

For those who have been off the planet for the past week or so, American Pharoah (misspelled by the owner) is the gifted thoroughbred who broke a 37-year drought by finishing well ahead of the field on Saturday in the Belmont Stakes, thereby completing horse racing’s Triple Crown.

People around this area have a heightened interest in horse racing, what with the storied Saratoga Racetrack being so close. We will hope to see American Pharoah run there this summer.

But horse racing, in general, has been losing followers in recent years, overwhelmed by tremendously popular team sports, with football leading the way.

Times have changed, in racing, in other sports - and even in the measurements used to document and compare their achievements.

Computers have enabled statisticians to come up with a dizzying array of numbers to underscore greatness.

(For example, ESPN reported that only twice has a Triple Crown winner in baseball hit a home run on the same day a horse won its own Triple Crown: Lou Gehrig with War Admiral and, currently, Miguel Cabrera with American Pharoah. How’s that for digging up arcane sports trivia?)

The racing Triple Crown had become so elusive that some commentators have been calling for making it easier to accomplish so that fans - and especially non-fans - would have more to draw them to the sport.

Proponents wanted to put more space between the three races - the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the particularly grueling mile-and-a-half Belmont Stakes - to give each horse more rest. The races are all held within five weeks.

These days, some competitive horses are held out of one or more of the early races to give them a better chance against the presumably weary winner of the first two.

Hogwash, we say. Sports thrive because, among other things, history interests fans, who wonder how an athlete of today would fare against yesteryear’s stars.

Remove difficulties, and you diminish the accomplishments of prior generations and make comparisons all but impossible.

Take the three-point shot in basketball, for instance. While it has proven to be a great innovation for the sport, yesterday’s legends, such as Bob Cousy, Jerry West and Oscar Robertson, didn’t have that enhancement to their achievements, so comparisons are somewhat hollow.

If you make the Triple Crown easier, you eliminate the legitimate speculation over whether this year’s entry is in the same class with Secretariat and Man O’ War, for example.

You have race times, but they are subject to weather and other factors so are not entirely reliable in all cases.

As it is, American Pharoah has at least put horse racing back onto the front pages. Whether the sport can sustain this level of interest remains to be seen.

But don’t dilute this tremendous horse’s achievement by making the hill easier to climb for his successors.

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Online:

https://bit.ly/1I1w5KA

The Wall Street Journal on harsh punishments in Saudi Arabia.

June 7

Saudi Arabia’s highest court on Sunday upheld a 1,000-lash flogging sentence against the country’s leading liberal dissident, Raif Badawi. The blogger and activist will also be jailed for 10 years and fined $266,000. Mr. Badawi has now exhausted the appellate process, and the ruling can’t be overturned save for a pardon by King Salman.

Mr. Badawi’s alleged crimes include founding the Saudi Liberal Network, an online-only forum promoting reform, individual rights and gender equality in the Kingdom, where women are still barred from driving cars and authorities behead people suspected of practicing witchcraft.

He was convicted last year of “insulting Islam” and committing cybercrimes. Mr. Badawi has already received the first 50 of the 1,000 lashes, and there is a real concern that he won’t survive the other 950 when the flogging resumes, perhaps as early as this week.

It is up to King Salman, who ascended the Saudi throne earlier this year, to undo this horrific and unjust sentence. The threats to the House of Saud come from Islamic jihadists who are suicide bombers, either Sunni or Shiite, not from liberals who want a modicum of more personal autonomy.

The King has been praised, rightly, for galvanizing the Sunni Arab states to act against growing Iranian hegemony in the region. But he can ensure a larger legacy if he adds to his foreign policy a domestic-reform agenda. Pardoning Raif Badawi would be a good start.

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Online:

https://on.wsj.com/1Gs7amV

The Jamestown Post-Journal on hacking and Americans’ internet safety.

June 9

Lock your front door and a determined burglar will merely climb through a window. Lock it and he may just break the glass to enter. As homeowners know, it can be very difficult to keep thieves out.

Now imagine a “house” with hundreds, perhaps thousands of doors and windows - some of which even the homeowner may not know exist. What a gift to the criminal element!

That is one way of visualizing why it so difficult to keep computer hackers from gaining access to personal information via the Internet. Computers and software used for various tasks have many vulnerabilities enabling hackers to gain access and sometimes, to manipulate digital systems.

It happens a lot. Just a few days ago, federal officials admitted the personnel files of millions of government employees were accessed by hackers, possibly employed by China.

“Einstein,” a government system of defending against such intrusions, was supposed to have prevented incidents such as the recent one. At a cost of $376 million for this year alone, “Einstein” seems to have been one more costly government flop.

Some members of Congress are upset about that. Government computer security officials - who, remember, have made grandiose promises - should be held accountable.

Meanwhile, more needs to be done to keep Americans safe from hackers bent on victimizing us through our computers.

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Online:

https://bit.ly/1GyzRAz