"ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- A former member of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration who previously accused him of sexual harassment offered new details Wednesday, saying he once kissed her on the lips without consent.

"Lindsey Boylan said that during her more than three years in the Democrat's administration, Cuomo 'would go out of his way to touch me on my lower back, arms and legs,' compared her to one of his rumored ex-girlfriends and once remarked they should play strip poker.

"Cuomo's spokesperson Caitlin Girouard said that all Boylan's 'claims of inappropriate behavior are quite simply false.'

"But the state legislature's two top leaders criticized Cuomo's alleged conduct Wednesday as calls grew for an investigation."

Read entire article here.

"On Feb. 24, House Democrats will hold a hearing on 'traditional media's role in promoting disinformation and extremism.' This hearing is a dangerous threat to American democracy and goes entirely against what the Founders intended when they made a free press Americans' guaranteed First Amendment right in the Constitution.

"It's also just the latest threat against free speech from the left, which has now mainstreamed a despotic desire to use government to cancel conservative speech. ...

"Using government to restrict 'wrong' speech creates a chilling effect. People will get the message that they don't deserve to express themselves in the public sphere. Doing so may reduce divisiveness, but only in the way that nations like Russia, China, and Iran avoid 'divisive' public debates.

"If patriotism and respect for diversity aren't reasons enough for the mainstream press to pause its attack on free speech, perhaps its self-interest will be. Trump was accused of targeting journalists, but it was the Obama administration that actually wiretapped them. What if a future populist, conservative president followed Obama's path -- but went one step further, ordering the FCC to cancel outlets that allowed a commentator's undesirable opinion to be heard? If free speech can be tossed aside on a whim, not only the left will use that power.

"Those in the media and on Capitol Hill who misunderstand free speech are making a grave mistake. They should drop their dangerous demands before they cause irreparable damage to our democracy and to our society."

"Minimum wage mandates aren't free. They force employers to make difficult decisions and tradeoffs. When government forces wages up, non-wage pay goes down: Workers get less paid time off, shorter breaks, higher insurance premiums, and fewer perks. Some workers lose their jobs. Some younger and less experienced workers never get hired at all. Yet, the pain is rarely spread around evenly.

"That is because the cost of living varies widely across different regions of the country. In high-cost Manhattan, for example, these tradeoffs may barely be visible at a $15 minimum wage, because wages there are already in that range. In smaller towns where costs and wages are lower, the tradeoffs would be severe. This is the regional differences argument. It is the primary reason why the push for a $15 federal minimum wage is facing an uphill battle in the Senate right now. ...

"The regional differences argument is why there should be no federal minimum wage at all. Different regions with different economic conditions should not have the same wage policy. States and cities are, rightly, free to set their own policies, and most already have. Twenty-nine states currently have minimum wages well above the current federal minimum of $7.25 per hour."

Read entire article here.

"A strong majority of U.S. voters say an increase in the power of government leads to a decrease in individual freedom, according to a new Just the News Daily Poll with Scott Rasmussen.

"Sixty-three percent said increasing government's power means individual Americans will enjoy less freedoms. Just 22% disagree with that proposition, while 15% were 'not sure.'"

Read entire article here.

"Radio is a powerful medium, more personal somehow than TV, and few broadcasters exploited its power to greater effect than Rush Limbaugh.

"The former DJ kicked around various gigs until finding the right outlet for his talent ('on loan from God,' of course) in political talk radio.

"Limbaugh created a new industry, revitalized AM radio, and made friends with millions of people who never met him but were drawn to his voice and irresistible persona. His lashing critiques of the Left, comic riffs, and combative ebullience spawned many imitators, but none of them came close to being his equal.

"To think that he had such an impact, sitting alone at a microphone, with few guests and not many callers, for three hours a day, is astonishing."

Read entire article here.

"The behavior of teachers unions during this pandemic confirms the nickname that Forbes magazine gave the NEA in the 1990s: 'The National Extortion Association.' This latest betrayal of American students is no surprise, considering the unions' long history of sabotaging learning. Since the 1970s, the National Education Association has been the leading advocate of 'no-fault' teaching: whatever happens, don't blame the teacher. Unions have launched strikes to prevent 'parental interference' in public education. The Chicago Tribune concluded in 1988 that the Chicago Teachers Association has 'as much control over operations of the public schools as the Chicago Board of Education' and 'more control than is available to principals, parents, taxpayers, and voters.' The Tribune noted that 'even curriculum matters, such as the program for teaching children to read, are written into the [union] contract, requiring the board to bring any proposed changes to the bargaining table.'

"Teachers unions have worked to destroy local control of education, subvert standards, prevent teacher accountability, and deny parents a significant voice in their children's education. In the late 1970s, the NEA denounced back-to-basics as 'irrelevant and reactionary.' An NEA publication asserted that such reforms were orchestrated by the 'neo-conservative New Right, a mixture of taxpayer groups, fundamentalists, and a few unreconstructed racists.' The same publication denounced minimum competency testing for students because it supposedly 'sacrificed children who are black and poor on the altar of accountability.' As Richard Mitchell noted in his 1981 classic, The Graves of Academe, the NEA has helped debase American public schools because its members 'wanted to be not teachers but preachers, and prophets too, charging themselves with the cure of the soul of democracy and the raising up in the faith of true believers.' For decades, the NEA pushed to have 'social studies' replace history, government, and other classes. The result: American students are appallingly ignorant of the Constitution, American history, and American culture.

"Teachers unions increasingly look like conspiracies to protect incompetent teachers and impoverish local taxpayers. Teachers unions are especially powerful in inner cities, where teacher pay is often highest and teacher performance is usually the worst. As far back as 1974, Mario Fantini noted in his book What's Best for Children, 'For many black and Puerto Rican parents, the teachers unions now represent the "enemy."' A 1992 Detroit Free Press investigation entitled 'Shielding Bad Teachers' found that it takes a Michigan school district seven years and costs an average of $100,000 to fire a single incompetent public school teacher. Seven years is over half of the schooling time of the average pupil. The Free Press concluded, 'No protections are built in for the state's 1.5 million public school students, who can suffer physical, sexual or educational abuse.' Thanks in large part to NEA priorities, by 1980 the average time spent studying traditional subjects in high school was less than three hours a day. A vast increase in government spending for schools has failed to undo the damage to students' reading ability.

"The clout of the teachers unions has become far more perilous during the COVID-19 pandemic."

Read entire article here.

"The Green New Deal has come, believe it or not, to the state of Texas. How's it working out so far?

"Well, the good news is all that alternative energy seems to have had a remarkable effect on the climate. Sunday night, parts of Texas got the temperatures that we typically see in Alaska. In fact, they were the same as they were in Alaska. So global warming is no longer a pressing concern in Houston.

"The bad news is, they don't have electricity. The windmills froze, so the power grid failed. Millions of Texans woke up Monday morning having to boil their water because with no electricity, it couldn't be purified. ...

"That happens every time when the power goes out; even advanced societies become primitive and dangerous, and people die. We've seen it happen repeatedly in California for years now, rolling blackouts in a purportedly First World state that is slipping steadily into chaos.

"But who saw that coming in Texas? If there's one thing you would think Texas would be able to do, it's keep the lights on. Most electricity comes from natural gas and Texas produces more of that than any place on the continent. There are huge natural gas deposits all over the state. Running out of energy in Texas is like starving to death at the grocery store: You can only do it on purpose, and Texas did."

Read entire article here.

"ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo wrote a book on managing the COVID-19 crisis. Now he faces intensifying accusations that he covered up the true death toll of the pandemic on nursing home residents, attacks that challenge his reputation for straight-shooting competency and could cloud his political future.

"State lawmakers called for investigations, stripping Cuomo of his emergency powers and even his resignation after new details emerged this week about why certain nursing home data was kept under wraps for months, despite requests from lawmakers and others.

"Top aide Melissa DeRosa told lawmakers the data was delayed because officials worried that the information was 'going to be used against us' by the Trump administration's Department of Justice.

"The new salvos from Republicans and Cuomo's fellow Democrats mark a stark turnaround from the early days of the pandemic, when Cuomo's daily briefings helped cement a national reputation for leadership. The briefings, in which he promised to deliver 'just the facts,' won him an International Emmy and helped lead to his book, 'American Crisis.'

"'He stepped in it, more than a little bit. It would be bad enough if this had come out and he had not been publicly sort of celebrating, and been celebrated, for his handling of the pandemic,' said Jeanne Zaino, political science professor at Iona College. 'But putting that aside, it doesn't get more serious than this. You're talking about the deaths of 15,000 people.'

"The Cuomo administration for months dramatically underreported the statewide number of COVID-19 deaths among long-term care residents. It is now nearly 15,000, up from the 8,500 previously disclosed."

Read entire article here.

"(Bloomberg Opinion) -- After nearly a year under some of the nation's -- indeed, the world's -- toughest Covid-19 restrictions, Californians are increasingly frustrated. With little sympathy from elected officials, they've endured mass layoffs, wrecked businesses and lost schooling. They've even lost their Disneyland annual passes. Yet the virus has still devastated the state.

"Now they're taking out their frustrations on Governor Gavin Newsom, who for many epitomizes governmental high-handedness and dysfunction. It doesn't help that the governor suffers from what could be called resting smug face. Or that he comes from San Francisco, which exemplifies the combination of scary vagrants, general disorder and sky-high housing prices that makes Californians wonder how their state got so broken. (Not to mention the school district is against George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.)

"Petitions to force a vote on whether to recall Newsom look likely to succeed -- despite the obstacles to collecting signatures during a pandemic. Instead of relying on paid canvassers outside supermarkets, campaigners have to convince supporters to circulate and mail petitions individually. ...

"The recall has until March 17 to submit signatures. If it qualifies, the special election would include two items: a yes-no vote on whether to recall Newsom and a gubernatorial ballot to pick his replacement if the recall passes. So voters would have some idea of the possible alternatives."

"Six months ago, when President Joe Biden was candidate Joe Biden, he spoke of 'a crisis being felt all across the United States of America.' The crisis was school closures. Millions of children were staring at laptops rather than learning in a classroom. Biden said: 'This is a national emergency. President Trump doesn't have a real plan for opening schools safely. He's offering nothing but failures and delusions.'

"Six months later, the education crisis abounds, and now-President Biden is so far just making it worse.

"At Tuesday's press briefing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the new White House goal was 'to have the majority of schools, so more than 50 percent, open by Day 100 of his presidency.' She defined that as 'some teaching in classrooms, so at least one day a week, hopefully it's more.' This isn't just walking back a promise; it's completely erasing one.

"According to school-data aggregator Burbio, we are already well past Psaki's spring milestone today, and we were before Biden took office. Over 60 percent of school districts are already open with at least a 'hybrid' model. 'Hybrid' colloquially means two to three days a week of in-person learning. One day a week was not originally part of this debate. It's a new and lower standard -- one Team Biden has introduced."

Read entire article here.