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Cuomo Advanced a Feminist Agenda. Was That Just Politics? – The New York Times

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Critics have long grumbled that the governor championed women’s rights when it suited him but also used the cause for his own purposes.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo often boasts about the work he has done to change the world. On Tuesday, he expressed astonishment that the world had, in his telling, changed without him.

In announcing his resignation, Mr. Cuomo recounted how he had learned — in reading a 165-page report accusing him of sexually harassing nearly a dozen women, and with the help of his three grown daughters — that perhaps he wasn’t the enlightened feminist ally he had meant to be.

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“In my mind, I’ve never crossed the line with anyone, but I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn,” he said. “There are generational and cultural shifts that I just didn’t fully appreciate, and I should have.”

In Mr. Cuomo’s accounting, he was a victim, too: an old-school politician who, like a time traveler stumbling into a different reality, had abruptly discovered a society upended by the MeToo movement. (That such basic expectations have long been taught in kindergarten — Hands to yourself! — seemed somehow forgotten.)

The governor’s not-so-contrite apology set off a wave of criticism from advocates and political rivals who have long grumbled about a gap between his public accomplishments on behalf of women and his willingness to use the rhetoric of feminism to bolster his public image or seize political advantage. The report’s revelations had left them trying to make sense of an even greater disconnect — between the record of a progressive governor who had championed gender equity and women’s reproductive rights and personal behavior that violated the standards he himself had signed into law.

But there was no such ambivalence about Mr. Cuomo’s attempt on Tuesday to explain away his conduct by pleading ignorance of societal standards and expectations of accountability.

“He absolutely knew that this kind of behavior has never been OK or acceptable,” said Assemblywoman Linda B. Rosenthal, a Manhattan Democrat, who said that an Assembly hearing she was leading on rent relief erupted in applause upon hearing news of Mr. Cuomo’s resignation. “The culture has shifted in Albany somewhat, but his behavior was never appropriate. Not 10 years ago. Not five years ago or last week.”

But, Ms. Rosenthal added: “I guess what else is he going to say?”

Mr. Cuomo has rarely been at a loss for words in promoting his feminist credentials. For years, he cast himself as a crusader for women’s rights, often adopting the rhetoric of the MeToo movement.

“There must be zero tolerance for sexual harassment in any workplace,” he wrote on Twitter in 2018, “and we can and will end the secrecy and coercive practices that have enabled harassment for far too long.”

He also frequently suggested that being the father of three daughters had given him special empathy for and insight into the needs of more than half the population — as if sexist men only have sons.

“God told me I was a feminist when he gave me three daughters,” he said at a rally for abortion rights in 2018. “My father was a feminist. God told him he was a feminist when he had 14 grandchildren, 13 girls out of 14 grandchildren.”

In his speech on Tuesday, Mr. Cuomo once again referenced his daughters — his “three jewels,” he called them — but in a very different way, saying that he was pained by the look in their eyes and that he wanted them to know he would never “treat any woman differently than I would want them treated.”

Cindy Schultz for The New York Times

“Your dad made mistakes, and he apologized, and he learned from it,” he added.

Yet in minimizing his behavior as old-fashioned but innocent, Mr. Cuomo also leaned on a familiar political playbook for male politicians accused of sexual harassment: Cite generational changes, a “tactile” style of retail politicking, a desire to connect with voters that overcomes any regard for their personal space.

In April 2019, President Biden relied on a similar explanation after facing charges that his campaign-trail touching made some women uncomfortable — accusations that never took on the gravity of those leveled and substantiated against Mr. Cuomo.

Ms. Rosenthal suggested Mr. Cuomo’s problem was less a reflection of his failure to keep up with societal changes than of his personal sense of entitlement. “It’s sort of like even on his way out, he’s denying his female employees’ experience,” she said.

In his speech, Mr. Cuomo asked voters to remember his landmark progressive accomplishments, including marriage equality, an assault-weapons ban and free college tuition for eligible students.

Notably unmentioned was his record on women’s rights.

In 2012, Mr. Cuomo released a 10-point “Women’s Equality Agenda” that eventually led to a package of laws aiding the fights against workplace and salary discrimination and domestic violence. His efforts escalated after Donald J. Trump was elected president and female voters emerged at the forefront of the opposition to the new administration. On the day that women marched against Mr. Trump’s inauguration, Mr. Cuomo announced that his administration would require health insurers to cover medically necessary abortions and most forms of contraception at no cost — essentially safeguarding protections that Republicans were trying to repeal.

In 2019, he signed the Reproductive Health Act, which enshrined the right to abortion in New York State in case Roe v. Wade were overturned, expanded access to abortions, and allowed abortion after 24 weeks to protect the mother’s health or if the fetus was not viable. He also signed legislation extending the statute of limitations for rape in New York State.

And in August 2019, he signed sweeping anti-sexual-harassment legislation that supporters said would make New York’s laws among the nation’s strongest.

At times, though, Mr. Cuomo exploited the feminist sensibility that was taking root in the national Democratic Party during his tenure.

Before his 2014 re-election, Mr. Cuomo set up a Women’s Equality Party — which put his name on its party line — as a tactical move to fend off a female challenger, Zephyr Teachout, and undercut his rivals in the left-wing Working Families Party.

Some advocates also minimized the degree of difficulty of Mr. Cuomo’s accomplishments and said he could have pushed harder, sooner, and done more.

Cynthia Nixon, who challenged Mr. Cuomo for the Democratic nomination in 2018, said: “Our campaign kept saying that he pays all this lip service to women’s rights, but his allyship was always about a quarter of an inch deep. It was always to give himself political cover and appear like a caring ally, which was far from the truth, obviously.”

As the MeToo movement swept America, Mr. Cuomo emerged as a clarion voice on the side of victims. He surrounded himself with celebrity feminists and allied himself with the leaders of Time’s Up, the organization founded by Hollywood women to fight sexual abuse and promote gender equality. He railed against Republicans for pushing through the nomination of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, calling on Mr. Kavanaugh to take a polygraph test. And he trumpeted New York’s sexual harassment legislation in 2019, saying it would “honor the women who have had the courage to come forward and tell their story.”

All the while, however, according to the state attorney general’s independent report, Mr. Cuomo was behaving privately in ways that he condemned publicly.

“What changed is the law caught up to everyone’s common understanding of sexual harassment,” said Rita Pasarell, co-founder of the Sexual Harassment Working Group, a group of former Albany legislative aides who pushed for the legislation. “What hasn’t changed is powerful people thinking they’re above the law. And I think that’s exactly the crux of what’s going on with Cuomo.”

Of course, it was Mr. Cuomo’s selection of a female lieutenant governor that will lead to Kathy Hochul’s being sworn in to succeed him, becoming New York’s first female governor, after 56 men, and only the 45th woman to serve as governor of any state.

Ms. Hochul, who was largely ignored by Mr. Cuomo, will take the reins of state government in the midst of a resurgent pandemic and in the wake of a leader who tightly controlled state government for over a decade.

That’s not atypical, in politics or in business. After men resign in scandal, female leaders are often asked to clean up the messes left behind.

The phenomenon is so familiar it has a name: the glass cliff. A derivation of the glass ceiling, it refers to women being elevated to positions of power when things are going poorly, creating a greater risk of failure.

Some women’s rights advocates and New York officials say that simply replacing Mr. Cuomo with a woman will not be enough. They want lawmakers in Albany to move forward with impeachment proceedings and a conviction, barring Mr. Cuomo from running again for statewide office.

Shaunna Thomas, a founder of UltraViolet, a gender equity advocacy group, said that in watching Mr. Cuomo’s speech, she felt that he was continuing to try to “weaponize feminism in his own defense.”

“This needs to be the start of accountability,” she said of his resignation, “not the end.”

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Trump's claims on crime rates clash with police data – NBC News

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Surging crime levels, out-of-control Democratic cities and “migrant crime.”

Former President Donald Trump regularly cites all three at his campaign rallies, in news releases and on Truth Social, often saying President Joe Biden and Democrats are to blame.

But the crime picture Trump paints contrasts sharply with years of police and government data at both the local and national levels.

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FBI statistics released this year suggested a steep drop in crime across the country last year. It’s a similar story across major cities, with violent crime down year over year in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C.

NBC News analyzed crime data to evaluate Trump’s assertions about the topic.

U.S. and big city crime rates

Trump’s campaign often refers to crime levels, regularly pointing the finger at Biden.

“On Joe Biden’s watch, violent crime has skyrocketed in virtually every American city,” the campaign said in a news release published this month on its site.

Trump himself has made similar remarks.

“Four years ago, I told you that if crooked Joe Biden got to the White House, our borders would be abolished, our middle class would be decimated and our communities would be plagued by bloodshed, chaos and violent crime,” Trump said in a speech last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “We were right about everything.”

Government figures don’t support that characterization.

Reported violent crime dropped 6% across the board when comparing the last three months of 2022 to the same period in 2023, the FBI reported.

The reported drops were especially pronounced in the big cities that Trump often assails, many of which have Democratic mayors. Violent crime dropped by 11% in cities with populations of 1 million or more, according to FBI data, while murders dropped by 20%, rape was down 16%, and aggravated assault fell by 11%.

Reached for comment, the Trump campaign pointed to other reports indicating that certain types of crimes increased in specific cities.

At the national level, the reported rate of violent crime in 2022, the most recent full year with comprehensive FBI data, was 380.7 offenses per 100,000 people. That’s lower than the overall reported violent crime rate from 2020 — the last full year Trump was in office — when the figure was at 398.5.

The lowest reported violent crime rate of Trump’s presidency was in 2019, when the metric was at 380.8 — in line with the 2022 rate.

The FBI said it will release more comprehensive 2023 crime data in October, just before the election.

The Trump campaign, reached for comment, cited certain categories of violent crime, such as motor vehicle theft, as having increased during the Biden administration, according to FBI figures.

“Joe Biden is trying to convince Americans not to believe their own eyes,” campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, adding that “Democrats have turned great American cities into cesspools of bloodshed and crime.”

New York City crime

Trump, who was born and raised in New York but now lives in Florida, often rails against what he portrays as an increasing crime rate in his former hometown.

Those references to soaring violence have only increased as he faces criminal charges in New York accusing him of falsifying business records related to hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump, who has pleaded not guilty in that case, must also post a $175 million bond to prevent state Attorney General Letitia James from collecting the judgment from a New York civil fraud case.

“I did nothing wrong, and New York should never be put in a position like this again,” Trump posted on Truth Social about the civil judgment in all capital letters. “Businesses are fleeing, violent crime is flourishing, and it is very important that this be resolved in its totality as soon as possible.”

In a separate post, he claimed that “murders & violent crime hit unimaginable records” in the city.

However, major crimes in New York City are down this year by 2.3%, according to police department data comparing year-to-date figures to the same period in 2023.

Those figures for last year were also far below the highs from recent decades. In 1990, more than 527,000 major crimes were reported, compared to more than 126,000 last year, according to New York police data — a drop of more than 75%.

In 2001, more than 162,000 major crimes were reported in New York. The figure dropped by more than 20% over the next two decades.

At the same time, New York City data indicates that the number of major crimes increased in the past few years, though reported violent crimes like murder and rape were down last year from previous years.

‘Migrant crime’

Trump’s dehumanizing language about migrants has become a mainstay of his political speeches since he first sought office in 2015.

In a news release this month, his campaign said the “border Crisis has created a tragic surge in violent crime against innocent American citizens at the hands of some of the world’s most violent criminals.”

Trump has also focused his energy on high-profile cases such as the death of Laken Riley, who was killed in Georgia while jogging. The suspect is a Venezuelan citizen who entered the U.S. illegally in 2022.

“Every day, innocent citizens are being killed, stabbed, shot, raped and murdered because of Biden migrant crime,” Trump said in a video posted to his campaign’s X account last week.

However, there is no evidence of a migrant-driven crime wave in the U.S., according to local police department data.

Crime reports have decreased in several major cities targeted by Texas’ Operation Lone Star, a program backed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott that flies or buses migrants from the state to Democratic-run cities across the U.S.

Several of those cities — New York, Chicago, Washington and Philadelphia — have had decreases in year-to-date reported crime totals compared to the same period last year.


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Federal government promising a 'renters' bill of rights' in upcoming budget – CBC.ca

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his government will introduce new measures — including a new “bill of rights” — that he says will help protect those who rent their homes as part of the upcoming budget.

Trudeau said the new measures are specifically geared toward younger people, who are renting more than previous generations.

“It’s about changing the rules of the game in a way that meets young people where they are,” he said on Wednesday.

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Ottawa will work with provinces and territories to develop a “renters’ bill of rights” that would introduce a national standard lease agreement and implement requirements for landlords to disclose an apartment’s pricing history to allow tenants to negotiate their rent.

The new measures will also include a $15-million fund for provincial legal aid organizations that help tenants fight against “renovictions” and landlord abuse.

The Liberals are also proposing to change federal rules so that making rental payments on time will count toward someone’s credit scores, something Trudeau said is meant to help renters looking to one day buy a house.

“If you look at someone who pays a $2,000 [per month] mortgage, they’re getting recognition and credit for that from their bank as part of their credit score,” the prime minister said.

“But if you’re paying $2,000 a month on rent, you get no kudos.”

Typically the government doesn’t discuss what is in an annual budget until it is introduced in the House of Commons. But the announcement was made weeks prior to the release of the Liberals’ next budget, which is slated to drop on April 16.

Releasing tidbits from the budget ahead of time is part of a new communications strategy for the Liberals, sources told CBC News. Trudeau and his ministers are expected to make a number of similar announcements in the run-up to the budget, the sources said.

WATCH | Trudeau says new measures aim to help tenants: 

Liberals promise ‘renters’ bill of rights’ to fight housing crisis

5 hours ago

Duration 2:07

The Liberals are looking to create a ‘renters’ bill of rights’ to help deal with Canada’s housing crisis. Justin Trudeau says the plan is geared toward younger people suffering from a rising cost of living. The Conservatives call the measures meaningless.

Before revealing the planned rental measures on Wednesday, Trudeau took a moment to plug the April 16 fiscal plan, saying that the budget will be about “fairness.”

“For Canada to succeed, we need everyone to succeed,” he said.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland joined Trudeau for his announcement and hinted about further announcements ahead of budget day.

“Over the coming days and in the April budget, we are going to launch a no-holds-barred plan to wrestle down the cost of owning and renting a home,” she said.

Wednesday’s announcements came on the same day that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation released a report that found a surge in new apartment construction drove housing start increases in several major Canadian cities last year.

But the report also cautions that demand continues to outweigh supply.

The opposition Conservatives, who have enjoyed a healthy lead in recent polls, have made housing — and other cost-of-living issues — a key point of attack against the governing Liberals.

Following his announcement, Trudeau was asked whether he thinks he bears any responsibility for people feeling left behind in the current economy and whether the new measures would be enough to convince younger people to support him in the next election.

In response, Trudeau suggested that a recent rise in the cost of living is not unique to Canada.

“Young people who are key to our present, and obviously key to our future, are seeing a system that is stacked against them. That’s true in Canada but also true elsewhere around the world,” he said. “What we’re focused on now is making sure that young people can see their success in the economy.”

Opposition parties criticize Liberal announcement

Scott Aitchison, the Conservative housing critic, said Wednesday’s announcement was Liberal posturing that won’t get results.

“Today’s photo op is just another set of meaningless measures that won’t result in building the homes Canadians need,” he said in a statement.

NDP housing critic Jenny Kwan criticized the announcement for not going far enough.

“The Liberals are so out of touch with what Canadian renters are experiencing that they keep offering half-measures instead of a real action,” Kwan said in a statement.

The NDP is calling on the government to invest more in affordable housing while temporarily preventing for-profit firms from buying designated affordable-housing spaces.

WATCH | Liberal government promises better protections for renters in upcoming budget: 

Liberal government promises better protections for renters in upcoming budget

9 hours ago

Duration 11:39

The Liberal government unveiled three new proposals Wednesday to better protect renters in Canada. Power & Politics speaks to Marci Ien, minister of women, gender equality and youth, about the proposed protections.

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‘Hillary was right’: Lifelong GOP voter on why he is leaving party – CNN

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‘Hillary was right’: Lifelong GOP voter on why he is leaving party

Texas Trey, a lifelong Republican voter, speaks with CNN’s Laura Coates about why he plans to leave the party before the 2024 election.


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– Source:
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