Andy, Sandy and Friends

Behind every sociopath is a bad cook.

Just how much money did New York Governor Andrew Cuomo accept from a giant media company? 

News Corporation CEO and Walking Dead extra Rupert Murdoch must know, since the crustaceous oligarch reportedly paid Cuomo $700,000 to publish a book read by less people than this blog.  

Curiously, Murdoch and his Fox News Channel have also been kind to the governor’s live-in girlfriend, smiling TV chef Sandra Lee. Lee’s frequent appearances on Fox and Friends—semi-homemade advertising time for her books and brand—are also brought to you by News Corporation. Cuomo likely has less indigestion these days with Fox Cash lining the cupboards of the Mount Kisco mansion he shares with Lee.

After all, what’s good for the girlfriend is good for the governor.  
 

Sandy Lee: A Friend to Fox (and Andy C.) 

What exactly has Murdoch received from the state in return for his kindness to Cuomo and Lee?

Tax breaks, of course.

One of Cuomo's first acts as governor was to exempt News Corporation subsidiary HarperCollins from sales tax for e-books and online-only publications. While HarperCollins made $53 million in profits last year, the move has cost New York State at least $35 million a year since 2011, with the proportion of books now sold through small, independent book stores at less than ten percent nationwide.

Sadly, Murdoch’s money controls the media and many minds.

Speaking of minds, public schools in New York are due a lot more than $420 million, but Cuomo thinks this amount is better invested in Murdoch and tax breaks for the movie industry. Though box-office bombs like Fox’s Won't Back Down are optional nightmares for movie goers, insolvent school districts are not an option for parents, students and teachers throughout the state, thousands of whom have turned out at forums in recent weeks to tell Cuomo that they won't back down against his insidious need to annihilate their schools.    
     
Cuomo’s palms itch around billionaires, but curl into fists near kids. Withholding billions from their schools is no way for Cuomo to cement his self-created legacy as the Lobbyist for the Students, and neither is stripping teachers of their due process rights.  Besides, every principal knows that bad teachers usually fire themselves before submitting to the taunts of unruly students year after year. Those who do otherwise and still spend the majority of their adult lives helping other people’s kids are most often called former teachers. 

Of course, Cuomo’s war on union members is red meat for Murdoch and Fox, with the governor one Koch brother donation shy of sharing a ticket with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker in 2016. Walker stood up for Murdoch recently when he promised to protect the elderly Aussie from ISIS, just like he protected other billionaire assholes from union members soon after assuming office.

Rupert Murdoch's Dream Ticket?

Walker stopped short of calling the brave unionists who stormed the Twin Towers on 9/11 terrorists, however. At least some middle-class workers are off limits these days.     

With their governor seeking to subsume public schools on behalf of his benefactors and pass ethics reforms aimed at his enemies only, New Yorkers have no choice but to resist Cuomo's reforms and refuse his tests. Though it's looking more likely by the day, they cannot wait for the U.S. Attorney to cart Cuomo away in cuffs; civil disobedience is a more direct path to democracy anyway.
         
Let Andy and Sandy know they are not your friends.

Don't take their tests, buy their books, or multiply Murdoch's money.