The Abyss by Tom Reynolds
I normally try to ignore NY City politics unless it directly affects SCOPE. But…NYSFocus had an article that was too good not to share the highlights for the amusement of those of us ‘upstate.’
Today, here is a NY City Council special election being voted upon. The smoke-filled-room manipulations show a lot about what really happens ‘downstate’ and what we 2nd Amendment defenders are up against in a NY City controlled state.
Lindsey Boylan, a former aide to Andrew Cuomo, was the first person to publicly accuse the ex-governor of sexual harassment. She is now running in the special election for the District 3 City Council seat. Boylan is running against Carl Wilson (and two others.) Wilson has much of the establishment’s support in the race.
The super PAC Westside Progress reported spending $144,500 starting last week on ads, texts and phone calls supporting Carl Wilson. That’s more than the race’s four candidates had raised combined as of last month.
Follow the money.
Cuomo’s candidate Wilson got his support from Westside Progress. Where did Westside Progress get its money? It received most of its own funding from another super PAC, called Next NYC, which recently kicked in $175,000. Where did Next NYC get its money? NY State disclosures show that the group has received $233,000 from 12 people; eight of those people donated money last year to either Cuomo’s campaign or the super PACs that supported him.
Some might say this is retribution by Cuomo through a super PAC’s he influences. Others might say that since Mayor Zohran Mamdani has endorsed Boylan, she can probably be categorized as radical left and Cuomo is just trying to save the Democrat Party from itself by financially supporting a more moderate candidate, Wilson. (Whatever ‘moderate’ means in NY City.) Or maybe it’s a twofer for Cuomo?
But the abyss of NY City politics goes even deeper.
Marc Landis is the Treasurer of Westside Progress. Landis is also one of eight commissioners on the city’s Board of Elections. So, an election official responsible for oversight of election administration is serving as the treasurer of a super PAC supporting a candidate in a race they are supposed to be overseeing.
Personally, I could care less about who wins the election. But this demonstrates the political abyss of what we are up against when defending 2nd Amendment rights in NY State and the need to get every gun owner voting in November so we can overwhelm the system.
