@Mark from Queens

Cuomo started to play up more progressive ideas when $Hillary needed help in the NY primary. That's when Cuomo FINALLY moved on the minimum wage issue (and note how upstate NY was excluded from most of it).

Cuomo lately has been trying to up his progressive cred by pushing some initiatives, but the Repug Senate filled with IDC traitors who Cuomo supported will stop most of them. So it is just a bunch of smoke.

I hope people see Cuomo for what he really is, a two-faced liar whose only loyalty is to Wall Street and himself, much like $Hillary Clinton!

The Neoliberal Nightmare in New York

Did you get a load of Andy Boy out there last month or so, straining a muscle trying to get some Progressive cred by somehow getting Bernie to stump with him about a proposed free higher education bill for NYS (I'm pretty sure the fine print will amount the typical corporate mantra of staggered implementation in the future and hidden fees, in other words not free at all)?

Because I don't like when people link there, I'll copy most of the essay for folks here:

What this piece in the National Journal does is lay out a pretty good litany that, as anyone who's been paying attention should know, Andrew Cuomo is a complete corporatist disaster.

In fact, I would say his record and stance on things is not much more than a continuation of another recent New York politician: the previous, infamous Protectorate of the Plutocrats/architect of the Khmer Rogue-style military invasion (sans the murder) and vicious wipeout of the world's favorite populist protest movement Occupy Wall St, Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who actually managed to weasel himself into a third term (which increased the billionaire's personal wealth even more, while at the same time decimating the entire city by turning it into a pandemic of eyesores, with gleaming new banks on practically every corner of our neighborhoods, an assault of corporate franchises blowing out small businesses and the more obvious harrowing reminder of the Depression we're in as seen by the glut of unleased storefronts).

Both preen around as social reformists, but only as long as they can hand the place over to the their plutocrat masters (or in Mike's case, his friends and cohorts). Bloomberg has gutted NYC into a playground for the wealthy. Cuomo is keeping the same path in place. Being a social Democrat isn't enough to counterbalance being a corporate Democrat.

If we can't even get a .5% raise on the wealthiest's taxes to pay for pre-K (why are we always begging for crumbs?) then how in the hell are we ever to expect getting real progressive change, starting with Healthcare for All and free higher education? NYC once had such an education program in the 1970's. Included in their "vision" of education is the turning over of school keys to more of their crony capitalist buddies to be run like businesses.

There's an ever-present populist rage coursing through the conversations of most everybody in NYC (including the upper and upper middle class in NYC), but this disconnected Friend of the 1% plays deaf, dumb and blind. Put to a poll, overwhelming majorities would be in favor of levying massive taxes on the super wealthy, who continue to flout their gov't ransacked ransom money by buying up all the property and pricing all of us out our city. They'd also come out in huge numbers on the side of hitting Wall St with a way long overdue massive taxation of all financial transactions (especially given the latest scam of the lightning-fast computer-generated trading favored now). He apparently thinks otherwise, or more likely doesn't want to know when there's endless boatloads of dollars coming in and favors to repay for it.

On the ballot last November were two things I'll never forget: a decision to turn over a state land preserve to a mineral company, and the other to authorize casino gambling in NYC. Just what we need in NY, right? The city's being plundered left and right, hollowed by greedy interests, the social tapestry shredded, hospitals, arts and culture and affordable housing thrown to the curb, boutique shopping, high-end designer hotels and high-rise luxury condo living installed everywhere instead - and the best Cuomo can muster is we ought to bring in casinos to raise money, instead of taxing the wealthy? What a real schmuck this guy is.

Like Bloomberg, who remained almost comically out of touch with the 99% while hiding behind his "own private army" in the form of the Stop & Frisk/free license to beat & imprison protesters & journalists NYPD, Cuomo's pals (masters) include a couple of the most villainous 1%ers. Namely the Home Depot thug who compared the Pope's declaration against greed, corporatism and cronyism to be on par with Nazism, and the spoiled brat brothers of daddy's money fame Koch Bros:

Several Democrats who spoke privately to National Journal lamented that Cuomo accepted $87,000 in campaign contributions from David Koch and his wife during the 2010 cycle—more than double the $34,000 that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker took. Cuomo has also accepted donations from John Catsimatidis, de Blasio's Republican opponent. And he earned praise and money from Home Depot cofounder Ken Langone, a major GOP donor who started the group Republicans for Cuomo. (Langone recently caught flak for comparing progressives to Nazis.)

And, does it get anymore insidious than this, taking money away from defrauded homeowners to fill the State's coffers?

Then there's the simmering antipathy between Cuomo and the man who took his old job, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. The two men have never been allies, but things have gotten more acrimonious as they fight over the $613 million that Schneiderman extracted from JPMorgan Chase in a mortgage-securities settlement. Schneiderman wanted to use the money to prevent foreclosures, while Cuomo saw the AG's move to direct the cash as a power grab, and insisted the money be put in the state's general fund.

Everyday I wake up and there's not at least a general strike, a massive boycott, real civil disobedience in this city, this state, the world - I'm amazed.