Governor Tells Citizens to Leave

This article was provided exclusively to the New York Analysis of Policy and Government by New York radio personality Ted Flint.

Increasingly, those who believe in limited government, low taxes and traditional moral values are deemed racist, or “deplorable.” Politicians, including Hillary Clinton and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo feel free to engage in verbal abuse against them. During the 2016 Democratic primary debates, Ms. Clinton, when asked who she believes the “enemy” is, didn’t say terror, Russia, China, poverty or disease. She said, “Republicans.”

New York’s Governor Cuomo has doubled down on that concept.

Cuomo promised within 100 days of his new term, “The most progressive agenda this state has ever seen, period.” It sounds good, if you’re a progressive. But what if you are not fully on board with the Governor’s statist agenda or his methods for implementing it? Well, you’ll have to find another state to call home. The governor has hinted that on more than one occasion – and many New Yorkers, 1.2 million of them over the last decade, have taken him up on his offer. In fact, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau, New York’s population continues to decline faster than any other state. The report found New York was just one of nine states to see a decrease in population, losing an estimated 48,510 residents between July 1, 2017, and July 1, 2018. That’s more than any other state. Deep Blue Illinois saw the second largest population drop at 45,116. Upstate New York has been hit the hardest. Since 2010, 42 of the 50 upstate New York counties lost population.

The governor and his fellow democrats don’t appear to understand the reasons for New York’s outward migration. The governor has blamed New York’s cold climate for the exodus, but it’s the economic climate that is fueling the decline. The best and brightest New Yorkers are fleeing to more friendly economic environs in lower-taxed Red States, where the cost of living isn’t so onerous.

With Governor Cuomo’s State of the State coming soon, what better time to assess the economic well-being of what was once called the Empire State, under his “progressive” reign. The state is plagued by a government that has to raise taxes to pay for its profligate spending.

Due to limitations of space, we’ll confine our criticism of the Governor to three areas: ethics, economic development and religious liberty. In 2013, the governor created the Moreland Commission to weed out public corruption and to recommend reforms to the state’s ethics and election laws. Less than a year later, the governor abruptly shut down the commission. Cuomo’s office came under harsh criticism for interfering and restricting the commission’s investigations. According to media reports, then Secretary to the Governor, Lawrence Schwartz, barred the commission from issuing subpoenas to organizations with ties to the governor. With characteristic hubris, Cuomo said, as reported by Crain’s New York, “It’s not a legal question. The Moreland Commission was my commission…It’s my commission. My subpoena power, my Moreland Commission. I can appoint it, I can disband it. I appoint you, I can un-appoint you tomorrow.”

The latest ethics cloud hanging over Albany involves allegations the governor had improperly received details of a closed-door vote of the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics. The difference is that while we now use chemical methods to achieve that youthful appearance, our ancestors turned levitra fast delivery why not try here to nature. The symptoms will depend regencygrandenursing.com cialis sale upon which organ in the body is either low or lacking. The cheap cialis professional disease may well be caused by several conditions. The best and the visit these guys now tadalafil 20mg india most cost effective way of finding out well the site functions. According to the Albany Times Union, Julie Garcia, appointed to the panel by Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, complained to the former JCOPE Executive Director in January that a Heastie staff member had contacted her shortly after a commission meeting and informed her of Cuomo’s alleged conversation with Heastie. Garcia told the TU : “I was being told the governor knew how I voted in executive session, even though I was unable to confirm whether or not the information was accurate.” Garcia resigned from JCOPE October 10, six days after the Inspector General’s Office issued a letter saying it could not substantiate the allegations the governor had been tipped off to how Garcia voted. That vote was about whether JCOPE should investigate Cuomo’s former campaign manager Joe Percoco, who performed his duties from his government desk, which was not far from the governor’s second floor office at the Capitol. State leaders are tight-lipped about whether the IG’s Office interviewed the governor or Heastie concerning the matter.

Then there are the economic development “initiatives” – or rather, boondoggles, that went bust. Case in point, SUNY Polytechnic Institute opted to sell a Rochester building after waiting six years to fill it with high-tech jobs. Needless to say, the jobs never materialized. When SUNY Poly purchased the site from Kodak in 2013, the governor and his “economic guru” Alain Kaloyeros vowed millions in private investments. According to the New York Post, “Team Cuomo promised the building would become a 100 million dollar solar panel manufacturing plant. Then it was a 500 million dollar electronics facility- and, next, a photonics showplace. None of these grandiose plans panned out. And Kaloyeros is headed to prison.

Not content with New York State having some of the most liberal abortion laws in the country, the governor and his democratic cohorts are continuing their attempts to silence pro-lifers by recently passing into law, the Boss Bill. According to Denise Harle, legal counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom Center for Life, the Boss Bill mandates that employers must “be willing to employ people whose beliefs and behavior as to “reproductive health decisions” run counter to their own.” In other words, if you run a Christian church or a Christian school, you could be forced by state government to hire people who don’t share your faith values or your respect for the lives of the unborn. This law, however, may be unconstitutional. Last year, the U.S. Supreme court ruled that faith-based ‘crisis pregnancy centers’ are not obliged to tell women that free or low cost abortions may be available elsewhere. In a victory for free speech the High Court ruled that a pro-abortion rights state government “cannot co-opt pro-life speakers to deliver its message for it.” Of course, state leaders could have carved out an exemption for religious organizations, but chose not to do so.

In 2014, during an Albany radio program the governor said republicans with “extreme” views were creating an identity crisis for their party and represented a bigger concern than Democrats such as himself.

“Their problem isn’t me and the Democrats; their problem is themselves,” “Who are they? Right to life, pro-assault weapons, anti-gay — if that’s who they are, they have no place in the state of New York because that’s not who New Yorkers are.” Then California Governor Jerry Brown offered a similar ultimatum to Golden State residents just three years earlier. If they didn’t like the progressive policies emanating from Sacramento, they were free to leave. So much for inclusion.

Many New Yorkers are choosing that option.

Illustration: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

Part 2: America’s Strategic Posture

As we noted in Part 1, the dramatically deteriorating national security picture for the United States and its allies prompted a review of “America’s Strategic Posture.” We present Part 2, reviewing key strategic points. STRATEGY To achieve the most effective strategy for stability in light of the 2027-2035 threat environment, the Commission identifies three necessary changes: ` The United States must develop and effectively implement a truly integrated, whole-of-government strategy to address the 2027-2035 threat environment. The objectives of U.S. strategy must include effective deterrence and defeat of simultaneous Russian and Chinese aggression in Europe and Asia using conventional forces. If the United States and its Allies and partners do not field sufficient conventional forces to achieve this objective, U.S. strategy would need to be altered to increase reliance on nuclear weapons to deter or counter opportunistic or collaborative aggression in the other theater. ` The size and composition of the nuclear force must account for the possibility of combined aggression from Russia and China. U.S. strategy should no longer treat China’s nuclear forces as a “lesser included” threat. The United States needs a nuclear posture capable of simultaneously deterring both countries. The Commission recommends the United States maintain a nuclear strategy consistent with the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), based on six fundamental tenets—assured second strike, flexible response, tailored deterrence, extended deterrence and assurance, calculated ambiguity in declaratory policy, hedge against risk—and apply these tenets to address the 2027-2035 threat. STRATEGIC POSTURE In the context of a strategic posture deploying both conventional and nuclear capability, the Commission believes the traditional role of nuclear weapons in U.S. defense strategy remains valid and of continuing importance: deterrence of adversaries; assurance of Allies; achieving U.S. objectives should deterrence fail; and hedging against adverse events. The Commission recommends fully and urgently executing the U.S. nuclear modernization Program of Record (POR), which includes replacement of all U.S. nuclear delivery systems, modernization of their warheads, comprehensive modernization of U.S. nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3), and recapitalizing the nuclear enterprise infrastructure at the DOD and DOE/NNSA. The current modernization program should be supplemented to ensure U.S. nuclear strategy remains effective in a two-nuclear-peer environment. Comprehensive risk-mitigating actions across U.S. nuclear forces must be executed to ensure that delays in modernization programs or early age-out of currently deployed systems do not result in militarily significant shortfalls in deployed nuclear capability. The U.S. strategic nuclear force posture should be modified to: ` Address the larger number of targets due to the growing Chinese nuclear threat. ` Address the possibility that China will field large-scale, counterforce-capable missile forces that pose a threat to U.S. strategic nuclear forces on par with the threat Russia poses to those forces today. ` Assure the United States continues to avoid reliance on executing Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) launch under attack to retain an effective deterrent. ` Account for advances in Russian and Chinese integrated air and missile defenses (IAMD). The U.S. theater nuclear force posture should be urgently modified to: ` Provide the President a range of militarily effective nuclear response options to deter or counter Russian or Chinese limited nuclear use in theater. ` Address the need for U.S. theater nuclear forces deployed or based in the Asia-Pacific theater. ` Compensate for any shortfall in U.S. and allied non-nuclear capabilities in a sequential or simultaneous two-theater conflict against Russia and China. ` Address advances in Russian and Chinese IAMD. NUCLEAR SECURITY ENTERPRISE INFRASTRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION The Commission recommends the DOD and DOE/NNSA strategic infrastructure be expanded to have sufficient capacity to: ` Meet the capability and schedule requirements of the current nuclear modernization POR and the requirements of the force posture modifications recommended by the Commission in time to address the two-peer threat. ` Provide an effective hedge against four forms of risk: technical failure of a warhead or delivery system, programmatic delays, operational loss of delivery systems, and further deterioration of the geopolitical environment. ` Flex to respond to emerging requirements in a timely fashion. To support the proposed strategy, the Commission recommends Congress fund an overhaul and expansion of the capacity of the U.S. nuclear weapons defense industrial base and the DOE/NNSA nuclear security enterprise, including weapons science, design, and production infrastructure. Specifically: ` Congress should fund the full range of NNSA’s recapitalization efforts, such as pit production and all operations related to critical materials. ` Congress should forge and sustain bipartisan consensus and year-to-year funding stability to enable the defense industry to respond to innovative DOD contracting approaches and invest with more certainty. ` Congress should enact annual DOD and DOE authorization and appropriation bills before the beginning of each fiscal year. ` Congress should place the purview of all “050” programs (President’s Budget line item for “national security”) that are in NNSA under Defense appropriations subcommittees (House Appropriations Committee-Defense (HAC-D), Senate Appropriations Committee Defense (SAC-D). ` Cabinet Secretaries, working with states and union leaders, should establish and increase the technical education and vocational training programs required to create the nation’s necessary skilled-trades workforce for the nuclear enterprise. The Commission recommends a number of specific actions to expand the capacity and effectiveness of the nation’s infrastructure and supply chain for its strategic capabilities. The Report concludes tomorrow Photo: Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, commander, North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, speaks with members from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency as well as industry leaders at the NORAD and USNORTHCOM headquarters on Peterson Space Force Base, Colo.(DoD)