The State of New York is in turmoil. Well, more turmoil. After months of Gov. Andrew Cuomo cooking the books on Covid-19 nursing home deaths finally coming to light, it seems the proverbial dam has burst. In the wake of the nursing home scandal, there came the sexual harassment scandal. If that’s not bad enough, Mario’s little boy has seen his emergency Covid-19 powers stripped by the state legislature and the state’s attorney general has instructed his staff to “safeguard” any records that might be germane to the sexual harassment investigation. Without a doubt, Randy Andy’s glad the week is almost over.

And who said karma isn’t a bitch?

He had a good ride. You have to admit it. The media loved him. His brought joked and patted him on the back instead of doing in-depth interviews with him. How long will it take us to forget the infamous giant Q-tip interview?

When he was still riding the crest of the wave of media fawning all over him, he won an Emmy. He wrote a book on the Covid-19 crisis and the “leadership lessons” he learned. As recently as last month, he visited the White House to speak with President Biden about the Covid crisis and what should be done.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

And it is about time.

It’s about time the media quit covering for him. It’s about time his fellow politicians start holding him accountable.

It is about time the citizens of New York and of the United States learn what sort of “leader” he really is.

And that starts with the action taken by the NY state legislature yesterday. It began with a 43-30 vote in the state senate to strip Cuomo of his emergency Covid powers. Mere hours later, the state Assembly passed the bill 107-43. Neither vote was close. What it was is simple. It was a mandate to the governor telling him they have had enough. Enough of his overreach. Enough of his entitled attitude. Enough of him putting himself and his wants ahead of his constituents.

I think everyone understands where we were back in March and where we are now. We certainly see the need for a quick response but also want to move toward a system of increased oversight and review. The public deserves to have checks and balances,” said Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Westchester County.

So the question–well, one of them at least–is why Biden has put so much faith in what Cuomo has done when it comes to containing the virus? The follow-up question is why Biden hasn’t said anything about the fact Cuomo and his aides cooked the books, so to speak, when it comes to the number of Covid-related nursing home deaths, something the governor finally had to cop to. Perhaps it is because Cuomo believes in the power of the executive order in much the same way Biden has proven to. Since the onset of the “pandemic”, Cuomo has issued something in the range of 100 EOs.

NYC might be the Big Apple but New York State is the personal fiefdon of Randy Andy Cuomo.

But even now, Cuomo and his staff continue to try to spin things in his favor. His special counsel Beth Garvey issued a statement Friday to the effect that there “was no intent to mislead the public or lawmakers.”

Hmm, that sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it? Sort of like his non-apology apology for harassing any woman whom he might have made uncomfortable.

All that would be enough to make Friday a bad day for Cuomo, but that wasn’t all to that happened. As noted earlier, the state’s attorney general is taking the sexual harassment allegations against him seriously enough to instruct his staff to safeguard any evidence they might have that is germane to the investigation.

From the NYT:

Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat who won national acclaim as a leader amid the pandemic, has seen his public persona tarnished over the past six weeks as a result of a series of troubling revelations and reports about his behavior, both professional and personal.”

National acclaim built on a house of cards supported by lies. A public persona hidden by smoke and mirrors and protected by a media unwilling to tarnish it until it had no choice. Sorry if I have little–okay, no–sympathy for the man.

Oh, and if that’s not enough, the governor allegedly had one of his aides take the state mandated sexual harassment training. Training Cuomo himself made a requirement in 2018. Oh, and the person making the allegation? Twenty-five year old former Cuomo aide Charlotte Bennett, one of the women alleging the governor sexually harassed her.

In 2019, he did not take the sexual harassment training,” Bennett told “CBS Evening News” anchor and managing editor Norah O’Donnell. “I was there. I heard [the office director] say, ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this for you’ and making a joke about the fact that she was completing the training for him. And then I heard her at the end ask him to sign the certificate.”

Needless to say, Cuomo, through Stephanie Benton, his office director, has denied the allegation.

But can we believe this denial? Do we dare believe it in the face of the bigger lies he told concerning Covid-19 and nursing home deaths?

This should be, without a doubt, a case of “how the mighty have fallen”. But even with so much evidence piling up against Cuomo, even as the media begins to cover it, you can see reporters and their media outlets struggling to find some way to rehabilitate Cuomo’s image. She hear the deafening silence from the #MeToo! Hollywood types and their hangers-on. He was their golden boy, the one they were grooming for bigger and better things. Now he is in danger of falling from grace.

And, unfortunately for those who fell victim to his dishonest accounting practices and their families–not to mention the women who have been brave enough to speak out–it has come too late. But that doesn’t mean we should turn our back on it or on him. No, we need to keep the allegations against him in front of the public. We must make the media cover them. Those in NY must continue putting pressure on their state legislators to carry through with a thorough and complete investigation of not only the sexual harassment charges against him but his actions regarding the nursing home Covid numbers.

Lest we celebrate prematurely the New York legislature coming to its senses where Cuomo is concerned, consider this:

The Democratic governor suggested earlier this week that he will sign the bill, which would revoke Cuomo’s power to issue new orders related to coronavirus, while allowing current orders to remain in effect, albeit with great legislative oversight.”

First, the bill will go to Cuomo to sign. If anyone is holding their breath over this, stop. There is no guarantee he’ll sign it and, if he doesn’t, no guarantee the pols will override his veto. Then there’s the fact it only revokes his power regarding issuing new orders. It doesn’t revoke his earlier orders. And what the hell does “great legislative oversight” mean?

Still, it is a good first step, one the legislature must follow up. It is also something the Feds need to follow up because Cuomo’s actions, both with regard to the nursing home death numbers and the allegations of sexual assault, can be easily turned into federal cases. That is yet another reason why we need to keep informed about what is going on and why we must keep pressure on the media, on our legislators and on Cuomo himself until these matters are settled.

There is something rotten in the State of New York and, because he is at the center of it, Friday was Randy Andy Cuomo’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. And here’s to hoping it is just the first of many until he is finally out of office.

Featured image: Andrew Cuomo caricature by DonkeyHotey. Creative Commons 2.0 license.