Saturday, January 24, 2015

BILL MAGEE & NYS ASSEMBLY - Time to DUMP SILVER

Sheldon Silver...you need to do the right thing and RESIGN.  Bill Magee, et al. it's up to you and the rest of the Assembly to see this rotten apple gets dumped from the barrel.  ANY LEGISLATOR standing behind SS deserves to follow him and his greed out the door.  For too many years it has been all too apparent that ALBANY has been a hotbed of graft and abuse.  Here is an editorial from the Syracuse Post Standard that adequately sums it up....DUMP THE CHUMP...send him to the CURB!

NY Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver must resign (Editorial)

It should go without saying that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver -- charged Thursday with taking millions of dollars in graft -- must resign from that job. He's politically crippled, ethically bankrupt and supremely unfit to lead.

But that may not be enough. Silver should consider quitting Albany entirely -- for the good of the institution, the good of the state and the good of the people.

The speaker has professed his innocence, and he will have his day in court. However, from now on he will carry the taint of corruption wherever he goes.

Say Silver does quit his leadership job but remains in the Legislature. After 20 years as speaker, does anyone believe he would be content to be a back-bencher in the Assembly? It doesn't matter where he sits in the chamber; Silver still will be pulling the strings.
Need proof? Just look at the Assembly Democrats lining up behind their leader in his hour of crisis. Have you ever seen (or heard) a more deluded bunch?"We have every confidence that the speaker is going to continue to fulfill his role with distinction," Rochester Assemblyman Joe Morelle said. This was before he read the 35-page criminal complaint against Silver.

We recommend that everyone read it -- and weep. Then demand more from your elected officials than blind allegiance to their embattled leader.
With corruption charges hanging over the speaker's head, any deals Cuomo and Skelos might cut with him would be suspect in the eyes of the public.
Syracuse Assemblyman Bill Magnarelli, a lawyer himself, said this after Silver's arrest: "It's the same as it was yesterday. Nothing has changed except there's this new wrinkle, so to speak."

On the contrary, Mr. Magnarelli. Everything has changed. If the allegations are true, Albany's cancer of corruption reaches right to the top. At minimum, our elected leaders should remove Silver from the speaker role.

As one of Albany's "three men in a room,'' along with the governor and the Senate majority leader, Silver has negotiated every piece of important legislation passed in New York state over the past two decades. The New York Times called Silver "a mercurial and potent force who could single-handedly sink the most cherished plans of mayors and governors.''
It's ironic that one of Albany's most opaque politicians appears to have been done in by aroutine ethics disclosure form. It's doubly ironic that the seeds of Silver's downfall were sown by the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption -- which he succeeded in closing down as part of the last budget deal. Thankfully, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara picked up where Moreland left off.

Now, with corruption charges hanging over the speaker's head, any deals Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos might cut with him would be suspect in the eyes of the public.

Silver is damaged goods. He should leave Albany before they run him out on a rail.