Stupid NY politics

[Kaelik]

Kathy Hochul has announced that the NY state government will stop all contracts with Ben and Jerry's unless they start praising genocide.

In case you were wondering what very import priorities are being finally addressed because nothing else about NY needs to change like anything that might actually help anyone who isn't a consultant.

[deaddmwalking]

Have they ever had a contract with Ben & Jerry's?

Ben & Jerry sold the brand to Unilever anyway; they made the 'political stand' a condition for the sale so the unit can still do things like refuse to open locations in occupied Palestine...

That said, I do a lot of work with government entities. Most of them have a requirement that my company would not be permitted to do business if we had a policy against doing business in Israel.

Twenty-seven states have adopted laws or policies that penalize businesses, organizations, or individuals that engage in or call for boycotts against Israel. The laws or policies in 17 of those states explicitly target not only companies that refuse to do business in or with Israel, but also those that refuse to do business in Israeli settlements. Some states whose laws do not explicitly apply to settlements have also penalized companies that cut settlement ties.

source

[Kaelik]

Have they ever had a contract with Ben & Jerry's?

Ben & Jerry sold the brand to Unilever anyway; they made the 'political stand' a condition for the sale so the unit can still do things like refuse to open locations in occupied Palestine...

That said, I do a lot of work with government entities. Most of them have a requirement that my company would not be permitted to do business if we had a policy against doing business in Israel.

Twenty-seven states have adopted laws or policies that penalize businesses, organizations, or individuals that engage in or call for boycotts against Israel. The laws or policies in 17 of those states explicitly target not only companies that refuse to do business in or with Israel, but also those that refuse to do business in Israeli settlements. Some states whose laws do not explicitly apply to settlements have also penalized companies that cut settlement ties.

source

Yes it is extremely common to have conditions that make it illegal to contract with the state or even sometimes be hired as a teacher without signing a loyalty pledge where you explain that you believe all Palestinians should be genocided, and sometimes you are required to promise to contribute to that genocide specifically.

But you might hope that a state in desperate disarray after finally getting rid of the shit head ribbon cutting blackmail dude who sucked at every part of his job could just not be doing that instead.

I have no idea what contacts Unilever or Ben and Jerry's has with the state of NY, and therefore don't know how big a threat it is. It's just a thing the governor decided to do today.

[Thaluikhain]

A couple of places tried to ban Lorde after she decided not to tour in Israel, and Israel tried to fine 2 New Zealanders in New Zealand for traumatising Israeli Lorde fans. Didn't work, though.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

How childish. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WON'T TOUR IN ISRAEL? THIS IS TRAUMATIC, WE'RE BANNING YOU!"
Some people really need to get over themselves, and the government of Israel is one of them.

[Kaelik]

Adams is reinstituting torture in jails and hiring a corrupt guy who resigned previously to end the investigation into his embezzlement as Deputy Mayor of Public Safety.

[Kaelik]

Andrew Cuomo fishing for validation of his plans to run again for governor, literally just in the next election. Weird how people keep coming back when you keep letting them!

If only the NY government could do something about it. Oh right, they can! They could have impeached him instead of hoping an investigation promoted him to resign, and they STILL CAN IMPEACH HIM, at which point he would not be able to run again.

But they are cowards, so look forward to Andrew Cuomo running again in the very near future.

[Kaelik]

The governor and Lt. governor of NY wrote a piece for the new york daily news explaining why bail reform is good and has improved things and how the people blaming it for crime are stupid, because it has not in fact done so.

This is in the stupid section of NY politics because these same too people are actively campaigning to have the legislature repeal bail reform so they can lock more people up without trial.

[Kaelik]

Kathy Hochul leveraged her power over the budget to repeal a bunch if criminal legal system reforms and give a billion dollars in public money to a billionaire.

It's almost like even when they aren't serial sexual assaulters liberals are still bad.

[Kaelik]

My favorite thing about america is how you can just say "I am not committing any crimes to get elected" and then if you get the most votes, you just say "actually I was committing crimes to get elected, but I'm in office now" and everyone just shrugs and goes "well he's in office now, so he can't be punished for crimes he committed to get elected."

This is in the Stupid NY politics section and not every other place where it would also fit because this is a universal free crime land in america* because Eric Adams just recently had to publicly release the disclosures and it turns out he was just breaking all the disclosure laws leading up to the election, and the remedy for this is........ LMAO, there are no remedies of course, he's the Mayor, you can't be mad that he committed crimes to become Mayor!

https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/6/22/23178 ... eal-estate

*Federally, you don't even have to win! You just commit crimes and then the OTHER SIDE says that your crimes are good!

[Zaranthan]

"Oh, I thought I had given her my shares, but she never filed the paperwork to accept them and I never told the IRS I gave them to her."

"Oh but I haven't collected any rent on the property, which is totally the truth even though I lied to the IRS about rent I collected elsewhere."

I got fuckin audited because my dad wired me five hundred bucks and I forgot to report it, but by all means, this prick has done nothing wrong.

[Thaluikhain]

Think this is the most appropriate place to put this:

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-sho ... -rcna34990

Apparently the SCOTUS has just decided that people shouldn't have to have permits for concealed carry in New York (and presumably, everywhere else). Because of the 2nd amendment, which has been around for a bit, but only became an issue now for some reason.

[Kaelik]

Indeed, while their basically explicit call for people to challenge the right to counsel and miranda warnings as unconstitutional was the worst decision of the day, they still also took time to explain that a law that predates the state of Oklahoma and the Federal Income Tax lacks the historical tradition needed to be permissible.

All judicial review is fake bullshit, but there's something particularly fake about saying "modern gun regulations need a historical precursor" and the lists like 15 historical precursors and explains why none of them count in order to strike down a law that is basically from the 19th century.

[Kaelik]

Republican candidate for Governor in NY Lee Zeldin (so probably not a serious threat, let's be honest) who also currently represents the first district in Congress was attacked by some guy on stage. I don't know anything about the guy who attacked him and I mostly don't care.

The guy who attacked him was released immediately, and now Lee Zeldin is using this to fear monger against NY bail reform by saying that obviously this guy who attacked him should be in jail pretrial. Now.

1) I do want to be clear on this point. This guy could probably have gotten out anyway, because it's fucking BAIL. If he has money, he can leave prison no matter what. There is no reason for Bail to exist, fuck bail, people should not be in jail, people who haven't been convicted of a crime should not be in jail, but especially not when the real reason they would be in jail is for being poor, because the rich can always get out.

But.

2) NY bail reform wouldn't effect this guy getting out or not. What actually happened here is that the co-chair of Lee Zeldin's campaign for governor is the head prosecutor of the county this took place in, and they just didn't seek bail at all! This guy's literal campaign chair is the one who made the decision to release the guy who they COULD have forced to pay bail under the NY bail laws.

So yes, the fucking campaign chair released the guy who attacked you so you could campaign more and/or grift donations more! Probably because they know this guy isn't an actual threat, which, weird fact, is an argument for not jailing him pre trial.

[Kaelik]

Hochul appointing to the state Supreme Court (its not called that but you aren't ny lawyers so it's what you picture when you say that) a judge especially bad on abortion, labor rights, and defendants rights.

Because the NY state democratic party leadership is basically just a bunch of soft republicans.

EDIT: swear to god, leftists should just send an open letter begging her not to appoint a stalinist and she'll appoint them out of spite without looking into anything.

[Kaelik]

Mad as fuck that GOP gets to keep controlling the governor's office, the mayor's office, and the highest court by the simple expedient of calling themselves Democrats.

Man, sure wish democratic voters stopped being dumb as shit and defending every bad thing a person does as long as they have a D in front of their name.

[Kaelik]

This fucking dumbass judge that Hochul nominated a few months ago said under oath that he doesn't believe prosecutorial misconduct is capable of resulting in the conviction of innocents.

Presumably because he thinks everyone is guilty as soon as a prosecutor decides to string them up.

Really wishing we had actual democrats in positions of power in NY instead of republicans.

[Thaluikhain]

This fucking dumbass judge that Hochul nominated a few months ago said under oath that he doesn't believe prosecutorial misconduct is capable of resulting in the conviction of innocents.

Er...did anyone challenge him on that or ask him to expand on that? Cause unless you throw in loads of weasel words that's impressively blatant.

[Kaelik]

This fucking dumbass judge that Hochul nominated a few months ago said under oath that he doesn't believe prosecutorial misconduct is capable of resulting in the conviction of innocents.

Er...did anyone challenge him on that or ask him to expand on that? Cause unless you throw in loads of weasel words that's impressively blatant.

It was in a lawsuit a couple months ago and the federal judge ruled against him and ruled that people have a free speech right to publish ethics complaints against prosecutors after they are filed and then the judge in charge of reviewing ethics complaints (LaSalle) failed to address them.

But aside from a judge calling him a dumbass and saying he can't prevail in suing people for publicly releasing the complaints he ignored, not much pushback to be had.

[Kaelik]

Kathy Hochul has decided to define her governorship by her ability to seat an anti abortion anti labor pro caging psychopath on the Supreme Court. She's calling in all the political favors she can to fight against Senate Leadership, unions, and reproductive rights orgs to get this guy on the bench no matter how many republican votes she needs to get it done.

Prospective future democratic speaker for the house Hakeem Jefferies is of course, fully on board, because he's a murderous monster who loves death and this is right up his alley, but it seems like one way or another this will break Kathy Hochul's first term at least and deprive her of the ability to do any legislating, for no meaningful gain because she could easily have seated a slightly less terrible right winger if she just withdrew his nomination.

But the NY republicans who call themselves democrats are just so bought in to the idea that they should never give in to the left on any issue that they can't imagine any hill not being the hill to die on.

[Kaelik]

It's a great sign when the Blue republican governor's blue republican chief justice nominee is getting a judiciary hearing where he can only get out of the committee if he gets every single red republican vote and four blue republican votes, and the opening speach is from the republican ranking member of the committee and it's about how this judge and he are good friends who agree on everything and how they used to work together locking up black people after the Crime Bill passed.

EDIT: I guess I'll add, surely the most offensive thing about this case in the last day was the governor of NY giving an entire speech about MLK and Hector LaSalle on MLK day comparing the act of criticizing LaSalle for his judicial philosophy to the act of "judging people by the color of their skin" by paraphrasing the one single MLK quote that liberals and conservatives know.

One of the criticisms of LaSalle is that he ruled in favor of striking jurors because THEIR SKIN WAS DARK. Literally "judging people by the color of their skin."

[Kaelik]

Kathy Hochul vetoed a bill that would have helped the family of victims of corporate murders and help companies slightly liable for their murders.

No one is entirely sure if she did it because she's just a republican and wants to protect corporations from any accountability no matter how small, or if it's because the bills sponsor tanked LaSalle's nomination and she will fuck up new yorkers to carry out grudges.

If pressed I would say both.

But anyway despite total lockstep gop support for Lasalle, he did go down, so that makes me feel good until the gop governor appoints someone else nearly as bad.

[Kaelik]

Kathy Hochul budget:

40 million for hundreds of new prosecutors, when prosecutors are already doing just fine.

money for new public defenders who are struggling? $0.00

Of course.

[Kaelik]

Reports are that they have finally reached a compromise to repeal bail reform and jail more innocent people in a way that has been proven to make NY less safe as the republican governor of NY has been fighting for.

One way to avoid this problem in the future, would be to stop voting for republicans in democratic primaries.

Meanwhile, Eric Adams just cut 250k people off medicaid in NYC. One solution to this problem would be to STOP ELECTING REPUBLICANS IN DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES.

Anyway, Paul Vallas, a lifelong republican who destroyed public schools in NOLA and Philly amongst other horrible things, is in the runoff of the Chicago Mayor election against Brandon Johnson. He has many democratic endorsements because of course he does, he promised to infinitely raise the cops budget and help them continue to get away with torturing confessions in their secret black sites. Sure how the people of Chicago are smarter then the people of NY or NYC, and don't vote a republican into office.

[Kaelik]

Nothing to do with NY. But the people of Chicago choose to vote for the actual leftist over the cops should kill more people Democrat for the first time in uh.... my life?