Recent editorials of statewide and national interest from New York’s newspapers:
Newsday on the minimum wage increase in New York.
April 4
Workers across the region who take home the smallest paychecks will have better prospects to feed their families and pay their bills. That’s thanks to the increase in the state’s minimum wage signed into law by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo yesterday at a Manhattan rally that included organizers of the Fight for 15 movement and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Sen. Bernie Sanders was not invited, though the issue has been a mainstay of his campaign.
The change won’t happen overnight. With yearly increments, Long Island and Westchester will see the minimum go from $9 now to $15 on Dec. 31, 2021. New York City reaches $15 on Dec. 31, 2018, for large businesses, and a year later for small ones. Upstate, where the economy is struggling, the top amount of $12.50 would be reached Dec. 31, 2020. Concerns expressed by some small-business owners are understandable. But there is an escape valve in three years to adjust the formula if the economy stalls.
The battle for a $15 minimum, once nearly impossible to imagine, got a burst of attention when some 200 fast-food workers walked off the job in New York City in 2012, saying something had to change. This progressive groundswell was taken up by Cuomo, a moderate Democrat, in addition to Clinton. The candidate, who backs a $12 federal minimum wage and local increases on top of that, praised Cuomo’s practical centrist work. At first, Cuomo wanted to unilaterally push through a minimum-wage increase for state employees and fast-food workers. The decision to include the legislature in the process allowed workers statewide to benefit.
Senate Republicans, many of whom faced considerable opposition in their home districts, did the right thing and voted to help the working poor. But demands for an increase would have flamed out without sustained pressure from groups concerned that rewards in our economy have become unbalanced.
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Online:
https://nwsdy.li/1TBYyko
The Syracuse Post-Standard on New York lawmakers taking up ethics reform.
April 1
Now that Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state Legislature have put a bow on the $156 billion state budget, Albany needs to address the elephant in the room: ethics.
A year ago, the powerful leaders of both the Senate and Assembly were brought up on corruption charges. A few months ago, former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos were convicted of those charges. Just last week, Silver lost his ability to practice law in New York, the root of his downfall - when he was disbarred.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed a slate of ethics provisions in his State of the State speech. They included closing the LLC loophole, stripping pensions from officials convicted of corruption, improving disclosure of campaign contributions, limiting contributions from party “housekeeping accounts” and enacting a public campaign financing scheme that amplifies the voices of small-dollar donors.
Cuomo, speaking Friday, said the ethics package was not part of the budget deal because it was not an economic issue. (It was in last year’s budget, but never mind.) Earlier in the week, Albany good government groups decried Albany’s failure to respond to its “Watergate moment.”
The opportunity is not lost.
Albany’s Watergate moment is now. Call or write your legislator to demand action on ethics reform this session.
The governor promised that ethics reform will be the “major focus” of the rest of the legislative session, which ends in June. He thinks he can force the issue because all 213 legislators are up for re-election in November, and a week after Election Day a pay raise commission controlled by the governor will decide whether they get a raise. (It is unfortunate that politicians will have to play politics to do the right thing.)
Voters speak first in that formulation. New Yorkers need to send a clear message to the Legislature that a failure to act on an ethics reform package will cost them their jobs on Election Day.
The Silver and Skelos convictions should have shaken the status quo, but nothing much has changed in Albany.
At the beginning of each legislative session, we try to rise above the cynicism and express hope that this will be the year for meaningful change. At the end of each session, we’re left disappointed. And so are voters, 89 percent of whom consider corruption a serious problem in Albany, according to recent polling by the Siena Research Institute.
Albany’s Watergate moment is now. Call or write your legislator to demand action on ethics reform this session. If they don’t respond, voters will be looking for a few honest candidates this November.
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Online:
https://bit.ly/1MdQvc2
The Albany Times Union on why the Senate should consider President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee.
April 4
Twice since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the U.S. Supreme Court has deadlocked on cases.
Twice, then, America has witnessed the fallout from the U.S. Senate Republican majority’s outrageous determination to put party above Constitution and country.
As the Republican establishment wonders how it is that a divisive, bigoted billionaire reality show star without a clue of what it means to govern a nation could quite possibly become their party’s presidential nominee, they have only to look in the mirror. We’re talking especially to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, as establishment as it gets.
It was Mr. McConnell who, within hours of Justice Scalia’s death, declared that the Senate would not consider any nominee to replace him from President Barack Obama. It was for the people to decide, he reasoned; the next president should fill this vacancy.
Never mind that we have a president right now, chosen by the people. Since Mr. McConnell failed in his top priority- to deny Mr. Obama a second term - he decided to try to render the Democrat as powerless as possible. So, in Mr. McConnell’s republic, Mr. Obama gets only three-fourths of a term. And the NRA gets a veto.
As a result, the judicial branch is hobbled by the same ideological gridlock that has crippled the other two.
Thank you, Republican Party.
Two weeks ago, the high court tied 4-4 on a case over whether two wives who had signed on as guarantors on their husbands’ loan could be held financially responsible for the failure of their spouses’ real estate venture. The tie leaves conflicting lower court rulings in place, creating different rules of law in different parts of the U.S.
And last week, in a widely-watched case, the court again tied on whether non-union public employees who benefit from union-negotiated contracts must pay to cover their share of the union’s costs for collective bargaining. The case argued such “agency fees” infringe on rights of free speech and free association. So the fees remain legal, for now.
There’s more uncertainty to come, on birth control, abortion and religious freedom. With the court evenly split between conservative- and liberal-leaning justices, it’s likely such issues will be left in legal limbo at best, and subject to conflicting rulings in different parts of the country at worst. Citizens will effectively be subject to unequal treatment under the law, depending on where they live.
These offenses to the Constitution mount as Mr. McConnell refuses to let the Senate fulfill its role of advice and consent. Some Republicans say the Senate should consider Mr. Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, the chief judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, a moderate choice. Conspicuously, a number of those senators are up for re-election this year. They seem to realize that many voters won’t tolerate this dereliction of duty.
If Mr. McConnell fears his party will be overtaken by the fringe, his first step should be to come back from it himself, and let the Senate do its job.
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Online:
https://bit.ly/1q6o0Tg
The New York Daily News on Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sander’s views on Israel.
April 6
Declining to address in person the annual meeting of an organization intensely interested in American policy toward Israel, Bernie Sanders last month said he felt pressed to instead remain on the campaign trail in Utah.
Meanwhile, Democratic rival Hillary Clinton presented her vision to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, as did the three Republican contenders.
Even Donald Trump showed up amid criticism for having taken a typically ignorant stance about helping the Israelis and Palestinians reach a peace deal.
Since then, it has become very clear that there was more to Sanders’ absence than a scheduling conflict.
A speech he delivered 1,800 miles away in Salt Lake City and a Daily News Editorial Board interview indicate that a President Sanders would fundamentally reset the relationship among the United States, Israel and the Palestinians to the severe disadvantage both of Israel and of hopes for negotiating a peace agreement.
Sanders would also bring to the White House a destructive conviction that Israel is deeply guilty of oppressing the Palestinians - including through excessive, unjustified violence.
Still more, although he deplores the Palestinians’ use of terror to achieve their aims, Sanders virtually writes out of history Israel’s attempts to reach peace, as well as ingrained Palestinian rejectionism. He signals a presidency that would be wildly out of moral and pragmatic balance.
Any deal between Israel and the Palestinians will have to set the boundaries of two states by dividing land in disputed territory, some of it heavily populated by Palestinians and some by Israelis. But drawing maps only begins to get at deeper issues.
To name one, Israel needs a negotiating partner that can reliably guarantee security, halt terror attacks and recognize the Jewish state’s right to exist. To name another, the Palestinians insist on a right of return to land they judge stolen and occupied.
Despite those complexities, President Obama charted a futile course by insisting that Israel stop housing construction that the Palestinians and the U.S. see as illegal settlements in the West Bank. Obama’s position gave the Palestinians cover to refuse conversations until the Israelis met his fiat.
Now, with the following sentence, Sanders has topped Obama by empowering the Palestinians to demand that Israel agree to uproot from their homes potentially thousands of its citizens as a condition for negotiations:
“Peace will mean ending what amounts to the occupation of Palestinian territory, establishing mutually agreed upon borders, and pulling back settlements in the West Bank, just as Israel did in Gaza.”
Pressed to explain his intentions, Sanders, who is Jewish, expressed total commitment to Israel’s welfare, pointed out that he had once lived there and has family there, and added that “long-term, we cannot ignore the reality that you have large numbers of Palestinians who are suffering now, poverty rate off the charts, unemployment off the charts, Gaza remaining a destroyed area.”
As for specifics on removing housing developments, Sanders said, “If I had some paper in front of me, I would give you a better answer. But I think if the expansion was illegal, moving into territory that was not their territory, I think withdrawal from those territories is appropriate.”
Sanders has also criticized Israel for “disproportionate responses to being attacked” by indiscriminate rocket and mortar fire from Hamas. The country’s military has twice used force in Gaza to stop assaults launched by Hamas from civilian areas, including hospitals and schools.
Both conflicts produced accusations that Israel had inflicted an unacceptable death toll on Palestinians - despite having gone many extra miles to spare civilians whom Hamas had deliberately put in harm’s way.
When speaking of warfare that took place in 2014, Sanders in Salt Lake City condemned Hamas, which had assaulted Israel with 4,500 rockets and mortar shells. Regardless, he found Israel guilty of “the bombing of hospitals, schools and refugee camps” as if its military had done so with malicious abandon.
Questioned by The News about his belief that Israel had been disproportionately hard on the Palestinians, Sanders explained:
“I think most international observers would say that the attacks against Gaza were indiscriminate and that a lot of innocent people were killed who should not have been killed.”
Stunningly, Sanders said he believed that Israel had been responsible for 10,000 deaths - a number almost five times the United Nations count of roughly 2,000 killed.
His use of the figure 10,000 was all the more remarkable and irresponsible coming from a presidential candidate who had previously put the death toll at 1,500.
Sanders has, of course, focused his campaign on the American economy, emphasizing a view that the rich and powerful have rigged the game against the working and middle classes.
Only lately, with the approach of the New York primary, has he begun to face probing questions about his plans for rebalancing the country’s wealth. He has gotten even less scrutiny on foreign policy, as proven by how ideologically blind and dangerous his approach to the Middle East would be.
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Online:
https://nydn.us/23h7L4k
The Gloversville Leader-Herald on the Boko Haram.
April 4
The indoctrination, beatings and drugs Boko Haram terrorists used on a 10-year-old girl in Cameroon last week were not enough. They were able to strap explosives to her and send her out on a suicide bombing mission.
But she kept her wits about her. She and an older child went to a police station instead of following orders. They are both safe, now.
Boko Haram, which operates primarily in Nigeria, is one of dozens of vicious Islamic terrorist organizations. Reports of them using children for attacks are not uncommon. Neither are atrocities in which they massacre children.
Why on earth would civilized people ever talk of “containing” such barbarians - as U.S. leaders did for a long time?
Evil such as this cannot be “contained.” It needs to be eradicated.
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Online:
https://bit.ly/1V9ivjw
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