Senator Chuck Schumer loves to hold press conferences on Sundays, whereby he gets decent coverage in near all local newspapers the next day; it has been an effective media strategy. It sure helped him get to the US Senate. The question however is this: after the press leaves are the issues raised eventually resolved? What about the follow-up? Maybe a media outlet would apply some of its resources into researching Schumer’s success rate. And there is a reason why I say this.

I have lived in New York for the past 35 years, and it seems to me that every year or two, some politician, news outlet, university or think-tank, comes up with some study showing how blacks and Hispanics get screwed by mortgage brokers, real estate folks, insurers or banks. No kidding. And I recall Senator Schumer holding quite a few of his Sunday press conferences, to highlight this and other ancillary problems over the years.

Then yesterday it was announced that New York’s Attorney General Andrew Cuomo had secured nine hundred thousand dollars in restitution, for 270 black and Hispanic homeowners, who were ripped off by higher charges, fees (some hidden) and rates, by Green Point Brokers -a subsidiary of Capital One Financial Corp.

Cuomo claims to have used information developed through the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, in order to bring Green Point to the bargaining table. He says to expect more developments in this area. It is expected that Cuomo will go after other companies who practice this type of racial discrimination on a daily basis. Score one for Andrew Cuomo. This is long overdue.

Stay tuned-in folks.  read more »

Broken systems produce endless amounts of controversy, and healthcare is entirely typical of the phenomenon.

In Albany, Andrew Cuomo issued subpoenas to several large health insurance companies; the attorney general alleges that various insurers had used a wholly-owned subsidiary of UnitedHealth, Ingenix, to set reimbursements rates for consumers that were artificially low, leading to hundreds of millions in additional costs for consumers and, of course, correspondingly fatter profits for the insurers themselves.

“Ingenix is a wholly owned subsidiary of the industry, and the company is determining the rates that the insurance companies use to reimburse consumers”, Mr. Cuomo said.

Perhaps out of sheer embarrassment, the companies in question had no statement on the subject. As the saying goes, there ought to be a law - preferably an Elizabethan one that involves locking insurance executives in the stocks and encourages passers-by to throw offal at them.

In NY-29, meanwhile, Democratic challenger Eric Massa traces the feudal abuses of the healthcare system to its roots: crappy bought-and-paid-for legislators, specifically, his republican opponent, Congressman Randy Kuhl.  read more »

Tuesday’s paean in praise of Jacob Riis’ photography (google images of his work here , wiki article here)and 1880’s discovery of How The Other Half Lives, was given contemporary life by the report of NYS’s Labor Department which has discovered that employers are unlawfully exploiting their workers by not paying them, by paying less than minimum wage, by not paying disability and unemployment compensation etc. Ms.M. Patricia Smith, the Labor Commissioner, who set a bold course as chief of the AG’s Labor Bureau, continues to light fires. “I wouldn’t doubt that 10 percent of the state’s workers are either misclassified as independent contractors or work off the books,” Ms. Smith said. (Jonathon Tasini’s take here )

I see illegal employment everywhere: construction workers, off-the-books domestic workers, delivery people and supermarket baggers. They are working without fair pay in every neighborhood. Have you ever seen any? Will it come as a shock to you that many of those victimized are men and women of color?  read more »

Pam Spaulding alerted me to the demotardic shenanigans of Andrew Cuomo. My quick response is ending up being a larger piece on race, so let me just get the news out first.

Andrew Cuomo, the Attorney General for the State of New York and Hillary Clinton supporter, has earned not just a culturekitchen Demotard award. He also gets to hang on his door a Reappropriate "Racism Fairy" badge and enjoy a video prelude from Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing :

Andrew Cuomo (who could easily be played by John Tuturro, the italian guy in the video clip) said of the primary process that, “You can’t shuck and jive at a press conference ... all those moves you can make with the press don’t work when you’re in someone’s living room.”

His response to criticism for the quote? Well, what he really meant was "bob and weave" your way through a situation. That it was never meant as a reference to Barack Obama.

Yes, because "shuck and jive" is really all about bobbing and weaving.

Geezus.

I have more respect from Klansmembers than from Europeanoid liberals with repressed racist tendencies that get manifested in curiously inappropriate moments like, you know, when they're talking up their white candidate who's poised to lose the nomination to a black man.  read more »

Overheard in the parking lot in the media gaggle, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo on the administration proposal to issue ID cards to immigrants without regard to immigration status:

"If it shows up in court, as I expect it will, I'll defend it".

Full stop.

Doesn't seem all that enthusiastic, is it?