5/13/2021

23 Responses to “Gov. Cuomo And His Special Definition of Harassment”

1. Hello.

   Dana (fd537d) — 5/13/2021 @ 10:53 am

   
   

2. “Harassment is not making someone feel uncomfortable,” the scandal-ridden governor said

   He’s right, although it almost invariably will include that, to say the least.

   The case against New York City mayoral candidate Comptroller Scott Stringer (only one woman) is full of holes.

   Jean Kim claimed that she was an intern. She was not intern. Interns are college students or just out. She was a 30-year old volunteer in 2001, and Stringer had other volunteers associated with his political club – and she had a paying job elsewhere. She didn’t need college credits, or something to put on her resume.

   She claimed that, years later, she never applied for a job with him when he ran for Comptroller the first time in 2013. Exposed as a lie. The Stringer campaign released her application and resume she submitted.

   Stringer says she contributed money to his campaign in 2013. It can’t be denied. She said that giving small sums of money to candidates was part of her job as a lobbyist. (!) But she at keast initially denied applying for a (paid) job with his 2013 campaign.

   After she was turned down she went to work for Eliot Spitzer’s comeback campaign for Comptroller.

   She claims they never had sex. Stringer says they did, a number of times over several months, but his approach was nothing like what she said. (and apparently he has witnesses that they kissed – he says sometimes he started it and sometimes she did. He seems to have witnesses that they were an item.)

   She claims that she was introduced to him by Eric Schneiderman (boo!) Stringer denied that. Later she amended it to say that two years earlier she asked Schneiderman how she could get ahead in politics and he said join a political club like the one Stringer belonged to.

   She says she told her fiance in 2013 and he backs her up on this.

   She claims that Stringer told her he could make her the first Asian American district leader, and she was interested, but when she asked a question Stringer said she would have to prove herself to him (or something like that) Didn’t happen Stringer says.

   Stringer says they were both single at the time (although he was 11 years older) and that was before he met his wife. He seems to think there has been bad blood between them since 2013.

   I don’t like Scott Stringer. He sounds incompetent and was endorsed by the UFT. He’s lost some other endorsements but not that.

   Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 5/13/2021 @ 11:18 am

   
   

3. Governor Cuomo did not proposition Charlotte Bennett for sex. The way she tells it, he was careful not to, although she understood what he was after.

   Then he wanted her to find someone else for him.

   Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 5/13/2021 @ 11:22 am

   
   

4. Cuomo is unfit to serve ;but like many other power mad men will do anything to stay in power. As I write this on the news Netanhayu’s allies in the religious parties are trying to lynch israeli arabs in the street and just saw them dragging away arab girl. All to stop the opposition from forming a coalition government with israeli arab parties to keep netanhayu in power and stop his trial for corruption. Como has away to go to top this.

   asset (2ef0e7) — 5/13/2021 @ 1:45 pm

   
   

5. Let’s tell the truth here: every man is interested in sex, and yes, we have all tried to get women — and, I suppose I have to admit that some have tried to persuade other men — interested in sex. Like every other guy, I’ve struck out a time or two. I guess that some of my many-years-ago strikeouts could be considered actionable today!

   How much of this is actual harassment, and how much of this is the criminalization of normal human behavior? I’m not an attorney and couldn’t tell you, but I’m sure glad that the vast majority of my career was spent in an almost all-male environment!

   The Dana in Kentucky (e9cac9) — 5/13/2021 @ 3:15 pm

   
   

6. You know my continued prediction that Cuomo won’t resign but will announce that he won’t run for the fourth term that his father failed to secure? I no longer believe that’s true. He’ll run and he’ll squeak through, partly because the GOP is busy shooting itself in the foot and partly because the NY Democrat machine is cynical enough and powerful enough not to care one bit about all of that MeToo stuff.

   The bastard is going to survive this because we have exhausted our right to self-govern ourselves.

   JVW (30a532) — 5/13/2021 @ 3:21 pm

   
   

7. She was not intern. Interns are college students or just out. She was a 30-year old volunteer in 2001, and Stringer had other volunteers associated with his political club. . .

   Oh, I don’t know about that, Sammy.

   JVW (30a532) — 5/13/2021 @ 3:25 pm

   
   

8. asset (2ef0e7) — 5/13/2021 @ 1:45 pm

   As I write this on the news Netanhayu’s allies in the religious parties are trying to lynch israeli arabs in the street

   I don’t think they’re Netanyahu’s allies. or else he would earlier have been able to form a government. But one small party didn’t want to join a government that depended on an Israeli Arab party. Stalemate, several ways.

   As I write, Israeli troops have invaded Gaza. What they’ll do is not clear – maybe just occupy the rocket launch sites and try to find and destroy all rockets.

   A Hamas leader, as you may know, has called on Arabs im Jerusalem to murder Jews with knives. It’s bluster, but still..

   Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 5/13/2021 @ 4:08 pm

   
   

9. JVW @7. Yes you could take someone more established as an intern, if they want to break into the business, but the Los Angeles Times is a profit making(or losing!) corporation and doesn’t have any other way for someone to work for free.

   Scott Stringer said they had an intern program but it was for college students. She was a volunteer, who had been acquainted with Stringer for two years before. She wouldn’t have been called an intern like she claimed when she first went public.

   Stringer also objected to her claim of working 35 hours a week, or something like that. Stringer might have been confused about what that particular allegation was:

   https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/09/nyregion/jean-kim-scott-stringer-sexual-misconduct.html

   Ms. Kim grew animated during the interview while describing a conversation with Mr. Stringer in early 2001 in which, she said, he sketched out an expansive role for her. In addition to her full-time job, she said, she spent about 35 hours a week helping out on the campaign, including traveling to events with Mr. Stringer.

   “I was just really like, ‘Oh my God, I just hit the jackpot,’” she said. “For somebody who doesn’t know anybody, and now here he is taking me under his wing.”

   Mr. Stringer said in his statement that there had been no such offer.

   “Even I wasn’t out campaigning for 35 hours a week — most days, I was holed up in a room for hours on end raising money,” said Mr. Stringer, who, as a state lawmaker, was also traveling between New York City and Albany in 2001.

   Here’s a change of story:

   …Ms. Pastor said on April 28 that Ms. Kim had been introduced to Mr. Stringer by Eric T. Schneiderman, another club member, whom she met in 2001. He later became New York’s attorney general and resigned after being accused of assault by several women.

   Ms. Kim later suggested the association was less direct: She said that she had “chatted” with Mr. Schneiderman about her interest in politics in 1998. He directed her to the Community Free Democrats and suggested she seek out Mr. Stringer, she said.

   Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 5/13/2021 @ 4:24 pm

   
   

10. More:

    New York’s primaries in 2001 were set for Sept. 11. About a week before, Ms. Kim said, she was at a bar — she believes it was Merchants — with Mr. Stringer and others from their political circle. She and Mr. Stringer were the last to leave. They were at the bar facing each other, she said, when Mr. Stringer kissed her. Ms. Kim tensed up. Then, she said, he kissed her again, this time more passionately.

    “The fact that I didn’t slap him away, I think he just took that as indication that it was OK,” she said. Then, she said, he “took his hand, and he put it down, like, the back of my pants.”
    Ms. Kim described being both “horrified” and fearful of alienating Mr. Stringer. She said she sought to turn the conversation back to business. Mr. Stringer warned her not to tell anyone of his advances, she said. Mr. Stringer said Ms. Kim’s account of that remark was “totally and completely false. Our relationship was never a secret, and I would not have said anything of the sort.

    I think she plagiarized that from Harvey Weinstein.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 5/13/2021 @ 4:30 pm

    
    

11. There’s should be different, stricter, rules for the workplace. Don’t screw the workers. Not in any way.

    Leave the “Faint heart never won fair lady” for the singles bar and, anyway, it was actually the lady who said it to the timid admirer in the first place.

    nk (1d9030) — 5/13/2021 @ 4:44 pm

    
    

12. I think she chopped off his head later, too.

    nk (1d9030) — 5/13/2021 @ 4:45 pm

    
    

13. #10…Weinstein? That’s a great first couple columns of a Penthouse Forum, Sammy.

    urbanleftbehind (29f45e) — 5/13/2021 @ 4:59 pm

    
    

14. It’s pretty hard to imagine this playing well with the democratic base, and obviously he has no republican support. His goose is cooked. Hoisted by his own petard no less.

    nate_w (d802cb) — 5/13/2021 @ 5:06 pm

    
    

15. Our Windy City barrister wrote:

    There’s should be different, stricter, rules for the workplace. Don’t screw the workers. Not in any way.

    Do you mean supervisors and subordinates, or just any co-workers?

    Having worked at the University of Kentucky Hospital after college, I can tell you: if you couldn’t get laid working at that hospital, you just couldn’t get laid.

    The Dana in Kentucky (e9cac9) — 5/13/2021 @ 6:36 pm

    
    

16. O tempores, o mores!

    nk (1d9030) — 5/13/2021 @ 6:40 pm

    
    

17. Having worked at the University of Kentucky Hospital after college, I can tell you: if you couldn’t get laid working at that hospital, you just couldn’t get laid.

    Crossing my fingers that you didn’t work in the morgue…

    🙂

    Dave (1542be) — 5/13/2021 @ 7:40 pm

    
    

18. @18 That’s some nk-level stuff, Dave! So funny!

    norcal (4131e1) — 5/13/2021 @ 7:56 pm

    
    

19. Like heck it is!

    nk (1d9030) — 5/13/2021 @ 9:20 pm

    
    

20. 🙂

    norcal (01e272) — 5/13/2021 @ 9:26 pm

    
    

21. Nahhh, I was a ward clerk.

    Great job, plenty of cute, cute girls around, including one named Dana who asked me out, but it didn’t pay squat and there was no room for advancement.

    The Dana in Kentucky (e9cac9) — 5/14/2021 @ 4:26 am

    
    

22. Of course, the workers have to do their share. Why would you want to tell your boss that you’re thinking of getting a tattoo in the first place? And if he tells you to put it on your ass where people can’t see it, it sounds to me like something your parents should have told you more than it sounds like anything else.

    nk (1d9030) — 5/14/2021 @ 5:56 am

    
    

23. I heard on the radi that Cuomo was perhaps deliberately confusing federal and New York State rules.

    For federal purposes, sexual harassment must be pervasive as well as related to a job (and also the person affected must have complained) but Governor Cuomo got kudos some time ago for signing a bill that ut in place tougher standards for New York State. It’s much thinner ice.

    Sammy Finkelman (51cd0c) — 5/14/2021 @ 6:42 am