With the media hounds baying as the Buffalo Billion trial closed this week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s been bent on distracting the dogs with a whole series of spurious “look, squirrels!”
The gov couldn’t avoid comment Friday, after four guilty verdicts against his associates for corruption. But he tried to dodge reality, claiming he barely knew Alain Kaloyeros — the guy he’d put in charge of his signature economic-development program.
Later that day, his Health Department dropped a major distraction: legal pot.
Word leaked weeks ago that Cuomo’s minions would say legalization is best for public health. But the report also included a call to expunge all pot-related criminal records.
No matter that the Health Department has zero business weighing in there: The point was to get headlines — ones that might bury the Buffalo Billion news.
It was that way all week. Closing arguments finished Monday; that night Cuomo invoked the abortion “squirrel!”
After President Trump named his Supreme Court pick, the gov warned, “They are moving to roll back Roe v. Wade.” In “response,” he issued an executive order to force insurers to cover contraceptives with no copay, and demanded the state Senate return to pass a “women’s health” bill.
Wow. In fact, Brett Kavanaugh has signaled that he won’t overturn Roe. And that move wouldn’t matter here, anyway: New York legalized abortion long before the 1973 decision, and has only liberalized its laws in the decades since.
Indeed, there’s so little room to expand abortion rights here that Cuomo’s bill is largely about letting nurses and midwives do the procedure.
By Thursday, Cuomo resorted to trying to bait Mayor Bill de Blasio with a new demand that the city cover half the cost of subway repairs. Huh? City Hall has coughed up that share for the current emergency work — and Cuomo himself refuses to discuss the ($30 billion-plus) bill for the “Fast Forward” modernization plan.
The Democratic primary is still weeks off, and Election Day isn’t until Nov. 6. Expect Team Cuomo to spend the whole time pointing to one squirrel or another, rather than address the rampant corruption all around him.