New York State governor Andrew Cuomo had the temerity to complain to interviewer Mike Lupica when labeled a “politician.”  Cuomo proclaimed that neither he nor his father, Mario Cuomo, former 3-term New York governor were politicians.

Cuomo is apparently even more delusional than I thought.

The father/son Team Cuomo combined resume looks like this:

Eighteen years as Governor of New York.  Four years as  Lieutenant Governor of New York.  Four years as New York State Secretary of State.  Four years as Attorney General of New York.  Five years as the US head of Housing and Urban Development.

Not a single professional moment spent outside of the political world yet a self-proclaimed pair of non-politicians?

This delusional dictator thinks he can sell us anything.

He’s not only a politician, but a corrupt one.  His closest ally, Joseph Percoco is under indictment and his pet project, the Buffalo Billion is fraught with allegations of fraud, bid-rigging and malfeasance.

Cuomo is a fraud, a sneak and a thief, ramming through dubious legislation in the middle of the night to avoid public scrutiny.  He is not only a politician, but a stinking, rotten version of one as well.  Wear it proudly Andy.

Coupled with the latest New York government scandal, the promised panacea of “ethics reform” is the catch phrase most favored to demonstrate the righteous indignation that follows its discovery.  However, words still do mean things, so how do we reform something that never really existed in the first place?  Given the reality of over 40 elected officials either indicted, charged, in jail or thrown out of office in the past 10 years for corruption, and now the latest arrests involving the Governor’s inner circle, it requires a delusional state of mind to pretend that any semblance of ethics exists in Albany today.

Clearly, ethics and morality were of grave concern for the founders.  James Madison, writing as Publius in Federalist #51 reminded us that, .”if men were angels no government would be necessary.”  Madison went on the state that the biggest challenge of self-governance would surly be the task of controlling the governed while also controlling itself.

The angels of Albany flew off long-ago, replaced with the powerless pigeons, left to peck away and compete for those few morsels strewn about by the amoral power brokers who provide just enough to stave off serious scrutiny.  By turning governance into contests and pitting regions of the state into competitive events against each other in order to “win” what should rightly be shared, favors are curried, pockets are lined and votes are secured to make sure it all happens predictably, over and over again and again.  By rigging the system, incumbents enjoy re-election rates of more than 90%.

The problem is, you can’t legislate morality.

Former Speaker of the House, Robert Winthrop said that, ..”men must be controlled either by the Bible or the bayonet.”  Considering the bayonet of Federal Prosecutor Phreet Bharara is apparently the only defense New Yorkers can count on, maybe a re-examination of the power of the Bible is not only in order but long over-due.

George Washington said, “Religion and morality are the essential pillars of civil society.”  John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  And finally, Benjamin Franklin leaves us with this thought.  “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.  As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”  And in the headlines, we see the masters emerge.

Freedom of religion has been misinterpreted to become instead freedom from religion.

Man is not capable of properly defining morality and ethics.  These are gifts from God, defined by God and found in the holy scriptures of God’s inspired word to man.  What we define for ourselves can only have singular authority.  We need the absolutes of God’s instructions to bolster our confidence and create the shared sense of righteousness that we can then depend upon in knowing the certainty of outcomes and the predictability of our performances.  Only a commonly held believe in the words of the Almighty can create that sense of finality and righteousness.

My Grandparents came to Johnson City, NY in the early 1900’s humbled to find a job at the Endicott-Johnson Shoe Corporation.  EJ not only providing them an income, but a home, recreational opportunities, medical care and a close-knit, loving community, built upon around a common bond of hard-work, pride of workmanship and love of family and country.  As founding members of the First Presbyterian Church in Johnson City in 1916, my family’s religious life was just as important and integral to their well-being and the community.  Family baptisms, marriages and funerals all happened in that grey stone sanctuary on the corner of Main Street and Floral Avenue.  Five family generations have occupied the same seats in the same section of the church since then, only today, dozens dwell where hundreds used to worship.

In 1920, the grateful workers of EJ, led by my Grandfather, erected a massive stone arch over Main Street, right along side of our church.  Built to honor George F. Johnson, the founder of EJ and to immortalize a great man, these words are carved in the stone face of the monument, words that captured the sentiment those grateful workers had for their employer:  Home of the Square Deal.

In less than 100 years, the home of the square deal has yielded to the broken deal.

That hard work ethic has been replaced with the entitlement mentality.  Personal responsibility has been traded for self-gratification.  Love of God, patriotism and charity have morphed to love of self, globalism and the massive transfers of wealth from the productive to the useless.  Government throughout New York, from the Governor’s office to the school districts, is completely corrupted and rigged to work only for those on the inside of the deal.  Public sector scandals, arrests, indictments, trials and continued accusations of wrongdoing dominate the news.  Accordingly, New York taxes are the highest in the nation yet the state fails miserably in almost every measurable category of metric as compared with other states.  We spend over $16,000.00 a year to send our kids through schools ranking near the bottom.  Property taxes are the highest in the nation yet our infrastructure is pitiful.

The once glorious Empire State has managed to create in upstate a burgeoning open penal colony simultaneously populated with those walking out of the recently closed mental hospitals, creating zombie-like scenes on the streets as these miscreants wander to and from Wal-Mart in their pajamas and slippers, transfixed on their Obama phones and clutching their EBT cards.

I can’t stand to watch any more.  I drive by my childhood home and see the change and it makes me sick.  The rot and decay is advancing at a pace that I think makes it impossible to reverse.  I’ve tried my damnest to intervene, but no one seems to care.

My daughter lives in Colorado, loves it there and I’m on my way.  I’m sorry to say that after 100 years of trying, this family is giving up on New York.

Class is not a condition of birth in the United States.  The poor and rich can trade places; this is the savory allure of competitive capitalism.  The only true “class” construct in the US is the reality of the political-ruling class.  Once elected, politicians become untethered from accountability, committed to benefiting themselves.  We’re right to be suspicious of “politicians” because the story never changes; ever-higher taxes, over-regulation, intrusion and disruption of our lives.

A common sentiment heard repeated across party lines is the desire to see the country run like a business yet we have never elected such a candidate.  Presidents are hatched from the political class.  Trump offers our first non-political, business background candidate.  Self-financed and with no political experience makes him beholden to no one.  Clinton is owned by her contributors.  Support comes with expectations.  This pay-to-play system uses political power as a blunt instrument, funding winners and thumping all others.

Trump knows from experience that government is best when it is least.  Clinton is a big government liberal.  As former President Reagan said, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”  Mrs. Clinton clearly represents the problem.

Clinton brings a 3rd term of Obama.  Seen by her party as the lady in waiting, Bernie Sanders was sacrificed at her alter.  Inside the party trechery kept the Clinton candidacy alive not her quality as a candidate.

The unknowns of Trump are more encouraging than the givens of Clinton.  Trump sees this quest as his closing chapter, a genuine calling to make America great again.  Clinton has been plotting for this her entire life and that fact makes her motives dubious.

Everything involving Clinton’s public life has been somehow tainted and suspect.  The accumulated storm of accusations can’t all be imagined.  The slickness of Willie has burnished the hubris of Hillary.  In her wake, deception, deceit and doubt have always crept.  Can it be that the best candidate for President is a former Presidents wife?  The Clinton’s are not a dynasty and Hillary’s resume is paper-thin.  We’ve proven that affirmative action does not produce a good President.  Gender can’t invent Clinton’s validity.

It all fails the simply sniff test.

Her messy history leaves too many unanswered questions, too many unbelievable, unimaginable, extraordinary blanks spaces.  Clinton is too glibly slippery to be President.  When her denials end in pleas of ignorance, it demands of us our own stupidity in order to believe.

Trump has completely flummoxed his pundits.  Everyone was wrong about everything they said about him.  He never had a chance, yet Trump is the last man standing amongst 16 others who were all projected to do better.  A survivor under fire.

Think carefully about motives.  Clinton has been plotting and planning this her entire life, yet has no significant accomplishments.  Trump sees this calling as a duty to his country, managing the rehabilitation of our nation’s greatness.  Clinton envisions the presidency as her platform to personal salvation, vain validation at the expense of America. 

The RA training program at BU (Binghamton University) called #StoppingWhitePeople2K16 has quite predictably garnered much attention, locally and nationally, both on and off the campus.  While being titled to be purposefully provocative, the course description is even more outrageous, stating it will teach RA’s how to respond to, ..” good arguments from uneducated people”, and “help others take the next step in understanding diversity, privilege, and the society we function within.”  The course description ends by stating, ” This open discussion will give attendees the tools to do so, and hopefully expand upon what they may already know.”

Let me preface my remarks with the following information.  I am an alumnus from the BU School of Management, own a successful business and have been experiencing life’s dramas for approximately three times as long and the average undergraduate has been on the planet, so if nothing else, I have it over most of you by way of breadth and depth of experience.  Furthermore, I have lived a full and successful life and most of you have yet to prove you can accomplish the same outside the comforts of mommy and daddy’s nest and their generosity in paying your tuition, so perhaps a little humility and respect on your part might be in order.

Let me breakdown this liberal crap that does not even rise to the level of pablum.  Over the years, I’ve developed my bi-lingual ability to interpret the slippery language of liberal-speak.

Hashtags do not make ideas good when they are bad.  There is no power in a hashtag, no imbued credibility, no elixir to a bad idea, undoubtedly spawned by someone under 25 who thinks hashtags have some intrinsic value.  The hastags your mom tried in vane to bleach from your adolescent underwear had approximately the same value.

Any phrase, title or slogan that you believe is offensive to one group but not another when you simply interchange those groups, is patently offensive to all groups and this title fails that test.  If you were to say #StoppingBlackPeople2K16, that too would be offensive, so hiding behind the false premise that white people are somehow not entitled to the same level of respect any other ethnic group would expect is not only hypocritical but simply wrong.

“Good arguments from uneducated people.”  Wow.  So, if the argument is “good”, it can be disqualified simply on the basis that the person making the argument is “uneducated?”  If that is the case and the author of this description is an example of the educated class he/she describes, I would prefer the company of those with the good arguments.  What the author of this description really means when he/she uses the term “educated”, is someone who thinks like him/her.  So much for diversity of thought and what a clear example of the air of superiority so common in the minds of newly minted college students.  An education my young friends, is in no way a guarantee of wisdom.

The sentence about..”helping others take the next step…”, again, dripping with that air of superiority, “others”, you know, those poor saps that don’t have the braintrust we do, we’re here to help you understand the secrets of higher knowledge.  Please, gag me with a spoon.  This sentence goes on to speaks of “privilege.”  What that means of course is WHITE privilege but the author apparently doesn’t quite have the stones to call it what it really is, again the premise that white is wrong, suspect and immune from any and all defenses.

Finally, we get to the last sentence about this being an “open discussion.”  Yea, right, open only if you agree and you’re in lock step with the other bigots who dreamt up this crap.

This level of intolerance mixed with academic superiority and condescension is abhorrent.  I’m ashamed to say I attended such a place and happy to tell you that when I did, I would have been equally outraged as I am now had some misguided student been on the same rant.  My parting words of encouragement, Shut-up, sit down and learn something before you have the temerity to tell anyone anything about which you know nothing.

There are six actors in the 30-second Time Warner Cable ad clip, all black and all apparently related.  The mother, father, their two juvenile kids, “Uncle Pete” and an older woman who appears as an image on a computer tablet.

Uncle Pete is babysitting what appear to be two adolescent brothers; both under ten years old.  The ad opens as the mother and father are leaving their home and as they close the front door, the last words from the mother are, “Behave for Uncle Pete.”  The boys sit in silence on the couch for 2 seconds and then all hell breaks loose as the boys start screaming, yelling and assaulting Uncle Pete with pillows and cushions to the point of feathers flying, running all over the furniture and climbing all over Uncle Pete.  One boy strikes Pete several times with what appears to be a cane or staff, hitting him in the face, head and torso as he straddles the mans neck.  The other boy throws a ball at Pete’s head and later is seen crawling over his shoulder and kicking at his head.

As Pete is scrambling to find something, anything to calm these two kids, the older woman appears on a computer tablet screen image and through a smiling face asks Pete, “Are you having fun?”  This is all happening as Pete is being struck on his head while one of the boys straddles his neck and the other pulls at him from the side.

Finally, Pete timidly approaches each boy with a computer tablet in each hand.  The boys go silent and quickly become absorbed in the tablets video content as they sit quietly on the couch and Uncle Pete bows his head and signs in relief as the onslaught is stopped.

Attached is a YouTube video link.  Take a quick look at this ad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvvGhvfAPrI

This bothers me and on so many levels I don’t know where to begin.

Are mom and dad really that clueless as to not know their out-of-control brat kids would beat up on Uncle Pete?  If they really didn’t know, they’re incompetent parents and if they did know, well, again, incompetent parents.  The older woman on the tablet seems to take delight in the situation, smiling with pride.  Really?  This is OK behavior?  “Are you having fun?”, seriously?  So unless you are armed with tablets and cool video content, it’s apparently alright for brat kids to assault adults in order to get their devices.  Does anyone else see a racial component here?   If all of the actors were white, would the message be relevant?  Would it resonate, be believable, or is it OK in the black community to tolerate assault, chaos and meyhem?

Maybe Time Warner has stumbled onto the solution for the race wars that are coming to our country.  The next time there is a riot with arson and looting in places like Milwaukee, Ferguson and Baltimore, handout tablet computers and then everyone can just get along.

Listening recently to friends talk about religion prompted me to reaffirm my own understanding of the subject, so I’ve done a little research and I hope this helps everyone understand the subject matter better.  What triggered my desire to define this clearly for them, was the statement one of them made that in effect said their good deeds, righteous living and Golden Rule ethics would be enough to insure salvation.  I don’t think so and here is why.

Grace is defined as the unmerited granting of mercy.  In other words “undeserving.”  The following Bible passage explains grace and faith perfectly.  Faith, in Christianity, is the belief that Jesus is the only Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary and was killed for the salvation of mankind’s sins, rising from the dead and ascended to Heaven.
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:8-10).

The first sentence tells us that we have been saved, even though we do not deserve it, simply through our faith.  This salvation cannot be earned through our deeds, the passage says, “this is not from ourselves, it is a gift from God-not by works, so that no one can boast.”  In other words, our salvation has nothing to do with our ability to earn it, deserve it or create it by our actions, even going so far as to negate our ability to boast about it because we didn’t earn it to begin with.

So much for the old standard-bearer argument that says, “I just do good things and try to be a good person and don’t hurt anyone else and that is good enough to get me into heaven.”  That is NOT what I read in the Bible.

The second sentence is even more insightful and tantalizing, stating we are God’s handiwork, created to do good things which God prepared in advance for us to do.  So again, we can’t “earn it”, but God makes it clear that we are put upon this earth to do good things, which he has already prepared in advance for us to do.  I read this as an admonition to not sit back and rest on our laurels, simply because we believe God’s grace has saved us.  God is making it clear that He has a plan for us and it is not that plan that gets us to grace, but it is a plan of God’s design, nevertheless to be understood, obeyed, and pursued.

John 3, New International Version (NIV)

¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. ¹⁹ This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. ²¹ But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

I read this passage as a clear warning:  If you know about Jesus and reject Him, you are condemned; this is plain language within the biblical text.  It seems clear that in this passage “light” is interchangeable with truth, Godliness and righteousness.

All in all the message in this case and for this subject is clear as crystal; we get to heaven only by God’s grace.  We can do nothing to earn or deserve God’s grace, we simply profess our faith in Him, worship Him and obey Him and our salvation is guaranteed.  If we come to know Him and reject Him, we are condemned to death without salvation.

I hope this helps.

A common question I hear that ultimately leads to debates is the issue of working on a criminal case where I either know or suspect that the client is guilty.  The argument goes like this; How can you sleep at night if you get someone off who is guilty of some terrible crime?  How is that just under a system of justice?

Because we don’t teach civics anymore, I think most people outside of that system misinterpret the job lawyers and investigators do.  We don’t “get them off” when cases go well for our clients.  When that happens, the prosecution has either done something wrong, failed to do their job, or someone involved with the arrest made a mistake sufficiently egregious to fail in proving guilt or otherwise violated constitutional rights, rules and regulations that are a necessary component to our legal systems integrity.  Just because a person is arrested for a crime they definitely committed does not in any way mean that the rules of justice and fairness in adjudicating the matter are somehow less important, relaxed, or to be dispensed with.

We begin with the premise that innocence is a given in the absence of PROOF to the contrary.  In other words, all people accused of crimes are innocent, that is the assumption from the start.  It is the duty of the state to PROVE guilt.  There is no obligation for the defendant to assist the state in making their case.  The defendant can remain silent during the entire process if he or she so chooses.  The burden is entirely on the state to prove guilt.

In doing so, the state has an obligation to act within the parameters of the law and the requirements of our constitution.  Serious deviations from those rules, laws or constitutional guarantees can result in otherwise guilty people being set free.  The reason this is so is to set such a high standard on the state in order to insure strict compliance with the letter of the law and the bounds of the constitution.  If serious breeches of the law were allowed, the system would have no incentives to preserve these rights.  The penalty for violating these provisions needs to be extraordinarily high in order to act as sufficient incentive for the state to use the utmost care in making criminal prosecutions.

When viewed through the lens of distortion that outlines a defendant that the public deems to be obviously guilty, these safeguards seem barriers to justice, simply slowing down an inevitable process.  When applied to others who may well be innocent of wrongdoing, or to you personally, those same safeguards and guarantees may well be your last resort to continued freedom.

Remember the last sentence of the Declaration of Independence which ushered in our Constitution.  “And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

That doesn’t sound like a “technicality” to me.

When I first heard of the organization “Black Lives Matter.”, (BLM), it seemed like a truism.  Why would anyone challenge that?  Does that really need to be stated?  The name itself sounds like a lecture.  I’m insulted that BLM thinks it necessary to remind folks that they matter.  The statement is no different that “white lives matter”, or “tan lives matter”, or “fetuses lives matter”, all true, fill in the blank….  It certainly smacks of racism, singling out only black lives mattering, a message apparently targeting white people.  It assumes the need for validation yet the facts are not there.

The black community itself needs to be convinced that their own lives matter,  considering the following disturbing facts.

1. Black abortion rates are 4 times higher than that of whites.
2. Black on black murder in only 2 years exceeded by 1400 the total number of lynchings from 1882 until the 1960’s.
3. Black’s are 13% of the population yet commit over half of all murders.
4. Blacks commit a disproportional level of crimes, putting their lives at risk.
5. In a single 4-year span, black-on-black murder resulted in 4472 dead while in the same period police killings of blacks was 112.

When lecturing about black lives mattering, begin in the black community that seems suicidal by these statistics.

The BLM website states two primary goals, “working for the validity of black life.” and  …”working to rebuild the black liberation movement.”

I was stunned by the perceived need to validate black life.  I never thought of any life as being invalid.  It staggered me to learn that the leadership of this organization feels that black life is somehow invalid, the accusation of a collective inferiority complex.  I hope this does not represent the black community as a whole.

Rebuilding the black liberation movement goal had a familiar ring from the past.  With a little historical digging, it is clear that today’s Black Liberation Movement has its roots in the Black Worker Congress and the Black Panther Party of the 1960’s and 70’s.  These groups had a love for socialism and a hatred for what they deemed as inherently racist capitalism.

BLM is nothing more than a 60’s re-hash, brought back to life as a result of the Trevon Martin case in Florida and the Michael Brown death in Missouri.  Never mind that in both cases it was established that these were justifiable homicides, BLM shamelessly uses them anyway as proof of police misconduct, dismissive of the legal system unless it provides the outcomes they want.

The truth is that the BLM foundation is falsely built on the graves of two martyred felons and both occasions gave fellow thugs license to loot, destroy property and commit arson, all in the name of “validation.”

If black lives actually matter to the black community, they ought to start acting as if they believe that themselves before lecturing the majority of people that never thought otherwise.

Reason and logic are as necessary in making sound decisions as hydrogen and oxygen are required to form water.  The antithesis of reason and logic is emotion and hysteria.  Decision-making based on emotion is by definition devoid of logic and reason because an emotional response overrides logical possibilities.  Logic and hysteria cannot occupy the same space.

We witnessed the result of such hysteria last week when we watched the “sit-in” in the US House of Representatives.  Their gripe?  Losing four anti-gun votes.  The idea that an iconic United States Congressman with the stature of John Lewis would lend his hand in comparing this farce of a stunt with the importance of his past involvement with the civil rights movement is contemptible.  While facing down race discrimination was of the highest nobility, shutting down Congress simply because they didn’t get their way is a thoughtless response that is in no way comparable.

Four separate votes came up and were defeated, that is how the democratic system works.  There is nothing “noble” about having a temper tantrum in the well of the House of Representatives and then cry foul because the camera were turned off.  So much for the photo op to raise all of that money needed for re-election, a publicity stunt, nothing more.

At least two very important lessons should be learned by this.  First, the emotional and hysterical aspects of the mass murder in Orlando are driving the agenda of those politicians that took to the floor in protest.  If they actually had the strength of their convictions as profoundly as they would have us believe, based on their willingness to disrupt their own legislative body, it begs the question of where their collective outrage was in the days and weeks before the highly publicized mass killing.  Anyone as outraged as this it would seem would be making this topic their life’s work, but absent some sensational tragedy, these otherwise seemingly zealous advocates for a cause were all silent on the matter.  Considering this reality, one can only conclude that their shrill protest is a publicity and fund-raising scheme, unashamedly based on the deaths of innocent people, all in the name of money and the power to get re-elected.

Second, the advancement of liberal policy is often times driven by emotion and reaction, as evident in this case.  Because sound legislation is logically and thoughtfully created, a judicial system stacked with sympathetic jurists is required to over-ride the legislative will of the people.  Through judicial activism by legislating from the bench, the liberal agenda can be imposed on us in the name of newly found and freshly minted constitutional rights.

Our current Supreme Court is evenly divided, liberal and conservative.  Our next president will decide the future balance of that court and with that decision will rest the fate of a nation.  Do we live by representation, thoughtful legislation, and the resulting rule of law, or by stomping our feet, shouting down our rivals and screaming rhythmic slogans?