Like a lot of other people, I’ve been hearing about the accusations against Andrew Cuomo, and heard his attempt to apologize. What struck me was his pointing out, in what seemed to me a rather desperate tone, that he never touched anyone inappropriately. If the allegations are true, this statement is untrue, but guess what? It doesn’t matter.
Quick question — why would anyone think that asking someone who works for you about their sex life is ever okay, and wouldn’t make that person uncomfortable?
But women misinterpret things, right? After all, hormones and emotions and all that messy stuff. So Governor Cuomo, here’s someone talking about this issue man to man.
The Case So Far
The New York Times has a good summary of what’s happened so far:
www.nytimes.com/…
The investigation is into the workplace accusations. The third accusation that took place at a wedding is described in this article from Jezebel, that includes the photo a friend took. Be sure to look at the expression on Anna Ruch’s face.
theslot.jezebel.com/…
You can watch Cuomo’s statement here:
www.theguardian.com/…
And here is one response to it that is worth our attention:
Letitia James is certainly getting a workout.
If Cuomo does resign, Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul will become New York’s first woman governor.
www.governor.ny.gov/...
Other News
Of course, the other big news this week has been the passage of the American Rescue bill and the fight over including the minimum wage. It was never going to be in a reconciliation bill, but it made for some interesting arguments. This is a women’s issue and always has been. I found an article from the Economic Policy Institute from 1999, when the issue was raising the minimum wage from $5.15 to $6.15. The substance has not changed. Here also are some considerations of the issue from 2014 and from the current debate.
www.epi.org/…
www.pewresearch.org/…
www.nelp.org/…
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Of course, a Biden presidency and Amy Barrett on the Supreme Court will bring more and more impossible bills from the states with Republican legislatures.
khn.org/…
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Announced on Friday morning, March 5: Maia Chaka becomes first black female NFL official.
https://www.pilotonline.com/...
A health and physical education teacher, she worked her way up from officiating for high school games, to college, to the Football Bowl Subdivision, the XFL, and the Alliance of American Football.
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A somewhat positive follow-up on the story about the abduction of 300 Nigerian schoolgirls:
apnews.com/…
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The Islamic State says they shot and killed three young women working for a local TV station in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
www.bbc.com/…
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The UK has made non-lethal strangling attacks by domestic abusers illegal, with penalties up to five years in prison. Sounds like a good idea, but does this mean it wasn’t before!!!????
news.trust.org/...
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As always, thanks to those who helped round up the news; this week that includes mettle fatigue, Tara TASW, SandraLLAP, and elenacarlena.
Special thanks to elenacarlena and Tara for covering for me last week when my computer (now ex-) was making life difficult. I phoned a Kossack whose number I have and asked her to pass the message on to them, and everybody came through.