On The Beach Blog

The recent news about long-time New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has been unsettling, cf:

Watchdog Group Pushes Ethics Board to Probe Reason for Silver's Secret Payout

At issue is the Speaker's decision to not reveal the expenditure of $103,080 in public funds to two female staffers in the legislative offices of Assemblyman Vito Lopez who had brought charges of sexual misconduct against the Democrat from Brooklyn.

What gives? Is Lopez holding some embarrassing photos of Silver over the Speaker's head?

It is a decision that Silver (d-Manhattan) has admitted that he should have handled differently.

Do ya think?!

Lopez, who has stepped down as the Brooklyn Democratic Party chairman, has refused to follow suit in respect to his Assembly seat, and it's not only dirtying him up and spashing all over Silver, but has now involved two other high State office-holders, Attorney General Eric Schneider­man and Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.

(All four are Democrats, which is cited since until Congressmen Anthony Weiner was exposed for sending digital photos of his wiener to a number of women last year, this sort of inappropriate behavior seemed to be heavily Republican in nature.)

Schneiderman and DiNapoli have been implicated in the ethics probe because their offices approved payment of the apparent "hush money."

And here, 40 years later, the lessons of the Watergate Hearings... it's not the original act so much as the lying and the cover-up which will get you... had been disremembered.