Recent editorials of statewide and national interest from New York’s newspapers:
The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle on the importance of the independent Office of Congressional Ethics and lawmakers’ failed attempt to place it under the oversight of the House Ethics Committee.
Jan. 3
In 2013, 10 members of Congress, three former aides to President Barack Obama, several spouses, and 32 staff members attended an all-expenses-paid conference in Azerbaijan. They were invited by the Azerbaijani government-owned oil company, which also sponsored their visa entries and displayed its logo on banners throughout the conference halls. The congressional contingent was wined and dined, and every U.S. lawmaker was given numerous gifts- including rugs valued from $2,500 to $10,000. Among those who took the trip was a member of the House Ethics Committee.
That committee should not be confused with the nonpartisan, independent watchdog Office of Congressional Ethics, which investigated this trip. The OCE found egregious ethical violations. The House Ethics Committee, whose members are all congressional representatives, did not.
The Azerbeijani oil company was among a number of energy companies seeking an exemption from U.S. sanctions imposed on Iran in order to allow a pipeline project. Five days after the conference, Obama signed an executive order that exempted the pipeline project.
Steven Rich, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and database editor for The Washington Post, and two of his colleagues obtained a copy of the confidential OCE report and broke the news to the American public.
“This story would not have been possible without the Office of Congressional Ethics,” Rich tweeted late Monday night, after House Republicans privately voted to dramatically weaken the OCE and place it under the oversight of the House Ethics Committee.
The vote was taken in secret, with no public discussion. The full Congress was not back from the holidays. No Democratic lawmakers were present. We were unable to access a full listing of Republicans who threw their support behind the measure, which reportedly passed 119-74.
As they dropped the amendment amidst widespread criticism on Tuesday, a New York Times article called it “an embarrassing turnabout.”
This was much more than embarrassing. The moronic effort is damning evidence that lawmakers in Washington are out of touch with the people they are supposed to be representing.
To his credit, U.S. Rep. Tom Reed, R-Corning, was among the GOP lawmakers who voted against the change. A spokesperson for Rep. Chris Collins, whose district includes parts of Monroe, Livingston and Ontario counties, says the congressman was not present for the vote.
The OCE was established by the 110th Congress in 2008 to increase accountability and transparency in the House of Representatives. The 115th Congress, in its first major act, set out to destroy it in darkness.
This should serve as fair warning to us all. If we want a clean government, we cannot depend on our government to give us one.
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Online:
https://on.rocne.ws/2iPfplp
The Gloversville Leader-Herald on why President-elect Donald Trump should make cleaning up the VA one of his top priorities.
Jan. 2
The body of a military veteran was left in a Veterans Affairs health care facility shower room for more than nine hours before someone finally had it moved to a morgue, the Tampa, Florida, Bay Times reported last month.
Then, once their negligence came to light, some staff at the Bay Pines VA Healthcare System hospice tried to cover it up, according to an in-house investigation.
Some staff at the hospice violated VA policies by “failing to provide appropriate post-mortem care” of the veteran’s body, the hospital Administrative Investigation Board concluded. A hospital spokesman called the episode “unacceptable,” but refused to tell the newspaper whether the guilty employees had been disciplined in any way.
Providing that information would have been a violation of confidentiality rules, the spokesman said.
That is absurd, of course. If confidentiality rules prohibit the government from disclosing whether employees have been disciplined- without providing any names -something is badly wrong within the Department of Veterans Affairs.
But we knew that.
What the spokesman did say was that members of the hospice staff have “recommitted” to VA core values.
Pardon us for doubting that. More likely, those involved breathed sighs of relief for being punished by mere slaps on the wrist. If they recommitted to anything, it was to not getting caught the next time they do something wrong.
A bill that would allow VA officials to come down hard on the handful of personnel who make a mockery of efforts by others to help veterans is pending in Congress. Why hasn’t it passed, yet? Because the bureaucracy wants it killed.
President-elect Donald Trump should make cleaning up the VA one of his top priorities- recommitting the nation to treating veterans decently.
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Online:
https://bit.ly/2iMsKea
The Niagara Gazette on New York’s population decline.
Dec. 30
Economic development announcements come fast and furious in New York state.
It seems like just about every week Gov. Andrew Cuomo and lower-level politicians hold press conferences to discuss some major state investment project that they claim will lead to job creation while adding to improvement in local economies.
Niagara Falls, Buffalo and the rest of Western New York have become accustomed to such things, with the massive Buffalo Billion-funded SolarCity project standing as one of the highest profile of all state-led economic development efforts in recent years.
Questions have to be raised, however, about the effectiveness of the state’s approach.
There’s ample evidence to suggest whatever it is state leaders have been doing hasn’t worked effectively in terms of changing New York’s image as a tax- and regulation-heavy place where entrepreneurs and business owners struggle to realize profits and achieve success.
One piece of evidence that the state is not doing as well as its elected officials claim can be found in New York’s declining population.
As reported in the pages of the Niagara Gazette by CNHI Albany correspondent Joe Mahoney, U.S. Census data shows the Empire State is shedding people overall and has experienced its first statewide population decline in a decade.
Statistics recently released by the Census Bureau show 191,367 people left New York for other states in the year that ended July 1, erasing gains from immigration, births or people arriving from other parts of the country.
“In a broad sense, we’re seeing the worsening of a long-term situation,” said E.J. McMahon, research director for the Empire Center for Public Policy, an Albany think tank.
As Mahoney reported, the number of people moving out of New York was the highest since 2007 and brought the outflow over the past six years to 846,669. That was highest in the nation and about the size of the state’s fourth-largest city, Yonkers, according to the Empire Center.
New York was one of just eight states to see a population drop in the last year. Its overall population fell by 1,894 people, to about 19.7 million. The state that lost the most was Illinois, which shed 37,508 residents.
While the decrease was “slight,” McMahon said it is nonetheless an “attention getter,” particularly because New York City continues to benefit from immigration.
A total of 118,748 foreign immigrants settled in New York in the past year, more than any other state except California and Florida, according to the Census Bureau.
Also helping to offset the population outflow was the fact that births eclipsed deaths by 75,794.
Add up all the Census numbers and they present significant concerns about New York’s standing in the nation as a population center and a business driver.
Of course, for long-suffering Western New Yorkers this is an all-too-familiar tale.
Niagara Falls, Buffalo and the rest of the region have struggled to maintain population base despite recent public infrastructure improvements, waterfront enhancement efforts and, yes, copious amounts of investment in private-sector projects by the local, state and federal governments.
It’s hard not to conclude that high taxes and a regulatory environment that is not friendly to business growth continue to have an impact on the state’s overall economic condition.
New York’s leaders need to remember that while the Empire State has a lot going for it, people don’t have to live here.
They have other, less expensive and less oppressive options.
Many of them have already voted with their feet.
If things don’t change, and soon, many more will surely follow in years to come.
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Online:
https://bit.ly/2j61hra
Newsday on helping the homeless on Long Island.
Jan. 2
It’s been almost a year since Gov. Andrew Cuomo promised $2 billion toward affordable and supportive housing. His plan included 6,000 permanent housing units across the state for those who are homeless and need additional services.
The promises have yet to become reality.
That’s because using the funds and building the units require a memorandum of understanding signed by Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, and Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan. All it takes is three signatures. It doesn’t need a hearing, it doesn’t even need a vote in the State Legislature, which convenes on Wednesday.
In the fall, Cuomo said he would sign his part of the memorandum, and he released detailed plans for the first 1,200 supportive housing units.
Since supportive housing- which includes mental health, drug treatment, and other key services -remains the best long-term solution to the homelessness across the state, the commitment to the 1,200 units is an important first step. Most are going to New York City, which is fighting a homelessness crisis and needs the housing.
Just 122 of the units, spread among seven projects, will be built on Long Island. But advocates say Suffolk and Nassau counties need 3,000 units of their own. So, more has to be done.
Cuomo’s promises won’t go anywhere without sign-offs from Heastie and Flanagan, who have so far agreed only to a one-year payout of $150 million. That’s virtually useless without a long-term game plan and assurances that more will materialize. There are too many unknowns, and it’s very difficult for an effort of this size and scope to succeed with such uncertainty.
There has to be a long-term agreement by all three leaders, with a timetable, location breakdown and funding guarantees. That’s the only way to hold everyone accountable, and change the lives of those who are homeless.
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Online:
https://nwsdy.li/2j1LqWJ
The Wall Street Journal on the rising threat of a potential ISIS attack in Asia.
Jan. 1
How long until Islamic State gets lucky in Asia? ISIS and its followers haven’t hit the region with their worst terrorist horrors, but recent arrests in several countries show this isn’t for lack of trying. Much of Asia is increasingly fertile ground for terrorist recruitment, and ISIS setbacks in Syria and Iraq could bring hardened foreign fighters back to sow terror at home.
Days after last week’s ISIS truck attack at a Christmas market in Berlin killed 12, authorities in Australia arrested seven men allegedly planning to plant bombs in central Melbourne over the holidays. This was “one of the most substantial terrorist plots” of recent years, said Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, with possible targets including a train station and a cathedral featured in a recent ISIS video.
Australia hasn’t had a major attack since an ISIS sympathizer took 18 hostages in a Sydney cafe in 2014, two of whom died. But several foiled plots and small attacks, including a stabbing in September, have led to 57 terror-related arrests. Officials estimate that 110 Australians are fighting for ISIS in the Middle East.
Indonesia also had a tense Christmas. Police raids to disrupt suspected holiday terror plots led to several shootouts in which five militants were killed and 20 arrested. “Indonesian authorities continue to arrest terrorists who have allegedly been in the advanced stages of attack planning,” Australia’s government said in a recent travel warning. One alleged plot targeted the resort island of Bali, where bombings in 2002 and 2005 killed 220 people.
Officials say at least three of those killed this month were tied to Bahrun Naim, a Syria-based Indonesian believed to have coordinated the attack last January in which terrorists with guns and crude bombs killed four people in a Jakarta district popular with foreigners. Several hundred Indonesians are believed to be with ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
Malaysia recently arrested seven men allegedly plotting to attack an international school, an entertainment district and an unspecified target in nearby Burma. At least one was apparently coordinating with a Malaysian in Syria. ISIS’s lone success in Malaysia to date was a small grenade attack on a bar near Kuala Lumpur in June, but weeks later authorities arrested 16 suspects for plotting to attack police. Officials in 2014 said they foiled another plot to attack pubs and a Carlsberg brewery.
“The threat of a terror attack here is at its highest level in recent times, much more so than after 9/11,” Singapore’s Home Affairs Minister said in March. “It is no longer a question of whether an attack will take place but really when is an attack going to take place.” In August six alleged ISIS loyalists were arrested in Indonesia for plotting a rocket attack, possibly by sea, against Singapore’s upscale Marina Bay district.
It’s a relief that ISIS has had difficulty executing attacks in Asia as deadly as those in Europe and the Middle East, but time could be on its side. Islamist political actors are growing more powerful in Indonesia, where they’re poised to depose the Christian governor of Jakarta, and Malaysia, where the ruling party has stoked Islamist grievances to distract from its corruption scandal. Saudi money funds Islamist schools and institutions in both countries.
In the restive southern Philippines, where ISIS has deputized an emir for Southeast Asia, the draw of the caliphate has made Muslim insurgent groups more ideological and more willing to cooperate across clan and ethnic lines. It doesn’t help that Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte threatens to evict U.S. counterterror forces. A little farther afield, the persecution of Muslims by state authorities in western China and western Burma is another boon to ISIS recruiters.
Defeating ISIS in Asia will require toppling its caliphate in the Middle East and deepening the cooperation exemplified by Indonesia’s counterterror squad, Detachment 88, which works closely with the U.S. and Australia. As important is limiting the oxygen that jihadists draw from Islamist politics and anti-Muslim repression. That’s a project for nearly every government in Asia to take up.
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Online:
https://on.wsj.com/2hIHEVO
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