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Shortly after sexual harassment allegations against Gov. Andrew Cuomo surfaced, his press office stopped regularly publishing the public schedule of his next in line: Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul.

The former member of Congress from Buffalo, who had simply expressed support for the investigation launched by State Attorney General Letitia James, went about her largely powerless job, attending ceremonies and making it a point of pride to visit all of New Yorks 62 counties at least once annually.

Among them: Bronx County, where Hochul attended the local Democratic Partys unity celebration last week following Eric Adams win in the mayoral primary.

The 62-year-old Democrat, elected in 2014, made her presence known in a far bigger fashion this week when she declared Cuomos behavior, as outlined in James report, repulsive and called on him to step down.

As Cuomo mulls his next move and the state Assembly heads toward impeachment, Hochul is poised to make history as New Yorks first female governor and the first to come to Albany from north of Peekskill since Gov. Nathan Miller took office a century ago.

We are fortunate to have Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul, who is ready to lead with integrity and continue building on the advancements that New York has made towards greater economic, racial and social justice, the New York State Nurses Association said in a statement Thursday, joining a growing line of political and labor leaders calling for Cuomos ouster.

Hochul would come into the top office after over five years of tirelessly zig zagging across a state of nearly 20 million people on Cuomos behalf, attending ribbon-cuttings and touting the executive offices achievements. She also helmed the governors Enough is Enough campaign against sexual violence on college campuses.

Now, as New Yorks potential next leader, Hochuls getting ready to endure scrutiny of a relatively modest public service record that might suggest political pragmatism to some or a penchant for chameleonism to others. Her fans say shes up to the job.

Shes a tough chick from Buffalo and I think shell be prepared, said State Sen. Diane Savino (D-Staten Island/Brooklyn). She certainly knows the issue that affects the state from the North Country to the South Bronx.

Before Hochul became the second lieutenant governor of Cuomos three terms, she amassed a history as a center-right Democrat.

In 1994, she was elected to her first political office joining the Hamburg Town Board after running on both the Democratic and Conservative ballot lines. She became Erie County clerk in 2007. And when she sought re-election three years later, she ran on four party lines: Democratic, Independence, Conservative and the Working Families Party.

In 2007, she fought then-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzers proposal to issue drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants. Hochul, then the Erie County clerk, teamed with another upstate county clerk and worked with law enforcement to formulate a plan to arrest undocumented immigrants who applied in their counties.

Her Democratic bona fides have been hip-checked several times since then.

In 2018, as actress and activist Cynthia Nixon ran for governor and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams sought the lieutenant governor slot, they pushed for drivers licenses for undocumented New Yorkers. Hochul, in a turnaround, tacitly gave her approval.

I think she probably reflects the politics of western New York, which tend to be similar to Staten Island: moderate in many respects, said Savino.

In 2011, Hochul ran her first congressional race and beat a Republican in a conservative district that had been held by the GOP since the 1960s. She won the congressional special election race by five percentage points likely helped by a Tea Party candidate who siphoned off Republican votes.

During her brief stint in the House of Representatives, Hochul campaigned heavily against a Republican plan to convert Medicare into a voucher program that could also be used in the private market.

In 2012, Republican Chris Collins, a former Erie County executive, challenged her re-election bid. The lines of her congressional district had been changed by Albany politicians, including a Republican-controlled State Senate. She lost her seat to Collins by 5,000 votes or a margin of 1.6 percentage points.

Shortly after leaving Congress, Buffalo-based M&T Bank Corporation hired her as vice president of government relations.

Her political comeback came in 2014, when Cuomos first lieutenant governor, former Rochester Mayor Bob Duffy, bowed out. Duffy said he couldnt keep up with the hectic travel schedule the job requires.

There was no such problem with Hochul: After her election, Cuomo began sending her across the state to highlight his pet projects and serve as his administrations main surrogate, bringing her to all corners of New York.

Visits to New York City may not be enough for Hochul to prove to downstate Democrats that shes the right candidate to potentially succeed Cuomo in a 2022 election, especially with local officials like Williams said to be considering a run.

Still, she has shown an ability to fundraise when needed, collecting and spending nearly $4.8 million in her two congressional runs. So far, her campaign has raised $1.9 million this cycle and has $1.7 million on hand.

While it appears increasingly likely that Hochul will succeed Cuomo, when or for how long are up in the air.

Under the state Constitution, she would become governor, at least temporarily, as soon as the state Assembly impeaches Cuomo, if he doesnt step down first.

Even if she makes history as the first female leader of the Empire State, she probably wont break the record for the shortest stint as New York governor: 29 days by Lt. Gov. Charles Poletti. In 1942, Poletti stepped in for Gov. Herbert Lehman, who left with less than a month in his term to accept a federal post during World War II.

Hochul was born the second of six children to Jack and Pat Courtney, who started their marriage living in a small trailer in Buffalo. Her father was a clerical worker at Bethlehem Steel, where he also was an union organizer. He eventually became president of an information technology company.

Hochul attended Syracuse University, where she boycotted a campus bookstore for high prices and tried to get the school to name their famous stadium, the Carrier Dome, after alumnus and NFL player Ernie Davis. She also rallied to get the university to divest from South Africa to help end aparthied.

After graduating from Catholic University with a law degree, Hochul worked at a Washington law firm. She later toiled on Capitol Hill as an attorney and legislative aide for then-Rep. John J. LaFalce and U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, both New York Democrats.

Hochul lives in Buffalo with her husband, William Hochul, a former U.S. Attorney for Western New York who now works as general counsel for Delaware North, a hospitality company. They have two adult children, William and Katie.

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Who is Kathy Hochul: On the Brink of Replacing Andrew Cuomo as NY Governor - THE CITY

As a busy mother of six little darlings, if there is one thing I enjoy, that is stepping into my moms kitchen. Laughing, I informed her, You know, its just like hungry hormones are released when I step into your kitchen! Really there is something about it; it doesnt matter what part of the day I happen to come to her house, I always feel like I could eat!

Maybe Ill have to do some blame-shifting here and make the excuse that perhaps it comes from being fed so well every time Im there.

Why, recently I popped in with all six little ones and it so happened that she was just ready to head out the door to have a tea party with friends. Now listen to this, she stepped into the kitchen and pulled this most delicious-looking peach delight from the fridge, and yes, she had planned to take it to the party. No amount of my protests budged her decision. This is such a rare treat, you sit down and enjoy it with your children, she declared.

Going to the cupboard where she keeps her pretty dishes, she chose my favorite set of clear glass bowls, and proceeded to fill them with generous servings for each of the children and myself. Relaxing on the sofa next to us she declared that being late to her party wont hurt a thing.

Thirty minutes later we had covered a wide range of news, catching up in each others lives. Soon six little children and myself were on the pony cart and clipping out the driveway.

Now not all of you have mothers, and especially not living a mile from where you live, like I do.

Many times in the 11 years since I got married, Ive told myself, Better enjoy this stage of living close to family, because it may not always be like that. I have come to treasure our times together.

On a deeper note, Gods also been teaching me that all people are to be cared for and loved like family. And guess what? The most special part of that entire picture is that according to Scripture, if we do Gods will, were Jesus brother and sister! Really now, that is more special than any amount of words that would ever fit into an entire column, or even into the biggest book, for that matter!

I then wonder and ponder what I can do today to splash that love on others, that no matter what, theyll always matter to me and to the One who created life within every one of us? Id love to hear your input.

Dear Jeanne, a faithful reader and friend from Cincinnati, Ohio, gave a beautiful example of that today. You can only imagine the scene when Daddy brought a package from Jeanne into the kitchen. From oldest all the way down to baby Joshua, we all crowded around to watch. Daddy carefully cut the tape, the flaps were swiftly pulled back by all, and guess what? There was a stuffed baby deer in memory of the one that passed away in our home and also as a token of God using difficulties in our lives to make us stronger.

The children immediately started talking of how theyll take turns to it sleep with it. Under the fawn was a beautiful book of a baby deer which I just finished reading to the children before putting them down for naps. I read page after page of the baby deer and how God had a perfect plan for it; time and again I paused, marveling to the children how this book perfectly explains how God will use them as they grow up for him.

Now Ill undoubtedly have to share one of moms specialties with you. Recently one evening she called me and asked if well by chance be stopping in since she has some deluxe sugar-free dessert shed like to share with us. Well it turned out, that by the time we got there, she had already left for the evening. On the counter was a note telling us to help ourselves to anything we find. My, there was no turning it down. I had little ones clutching my skirts as we ransacked Grandmas fridge, and yes, we had a party!

Besides the dessert there were burgers, salads, chocolate cake, home canned peaches, the list goes on. This is better than a restaurant, I mused to myself and straight out of Moms kitchen at that!

The following day Dad remarked to me, You made Grandmas day stopping in and helping yourself when we werent home. I smiled. What more could I say?

Meanwhile, I am going to share this recipe for Moms pea and bacon salad recipe, similar what I found when going through her fridge!

Pea and Bacon salad

12 oz frozen peas

1 cup mayo

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 cup bacon bits (I prefer frying my own, then cutting it up in small pieces)

3/4 teaspoons salt

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon onion salt

Thaw peas, add remaining ingredients. Stir, chill, and enjoy!

Gloria Yoder is an Amish mom, writer, and homemaker in rural Illinois. Readers can write to Gloria at 10510 E. 350th Ave., Flat Rock, IL 62427.

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Easy, 'Peas'y at the Yoders - Wilmington News Journal, OH

McCain had some memorable blowups in that final season, which she rejoined after taking a maternity leave late last year -- and here are some of the most wildest exchanges.

1. Fight breaks out on Meghan McCain's first day back -- and Whoopi Goldberg forced to cut to commercial

She returned to the show on Jan. 4, after news broke of Donald Trump's pressure campaign on Georgia officials to "find" the votes necessary to overturn his loss there, and McCain clashed with co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar over the size of Joe Biden's election win -- and respecting the feelings of disappointed GOP voters. "I said that's your perspective -- the perspective of Joy Behar, you know, you're a proud progressive leftist," McCain said, "but I am a proud conservative and I think that the idea -- the only reason why people voted for President Trump in the last election is that they were lied to and they're morons who are just being fed information is not only disrespectful and inaccurate."

2. The View's Meghan McCain wants Biden to fire Dr. Fauci because she doesn't know when she can get her vaccine

McCain urged President Joe Biden to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci in February because she wasn't sure if or when she could be vaccinated. "The fact I, Meghan McCain, co-host of 'The View,' don't know when or how I will be able to get a vaccine because the rollout for my age range and my health is so nebulous, I have no idea when and how I get it," she said.

3. LeVar Burton shuts down Meghan McCain on Dr. Seuss and 'cancel culture'

McCain tangled with children's television host Levar Burton over "cancel culture" and the meaning of accountability. "I think it has everything to do with a new awareness by people who were simply unaware of the real nature of life in this country for people who have been othered since this nation began," Burton explained.

4. Whoopi Goldberg forced to cut to commercial as Meghan McCain and Joy Behar yell at each other over the COVID-19 vaccine

McCain and Behar clashed against in May as she justified conservative resistance to coronavirus vaccines, saying that liberals had made them feel bad about avoiding the potentially life-saving shots. "It's not productive, that's why people go into their corners," McCain said. "This is coming from a place of fear. I don't think it's a place of politics. People don't understand and don't know. I don't like to judge people who aren't accessible to the same resources and education I am. This is a serious, serious problem in this country."

5. Meghan McCain gets blasted for claiming she's never heard Fox News discourage vaccines

McCain prompted a round of fact-checking on air and online after insisting that Fox News strongly promoted vaccinations. "I wish we could all come together on it, but I was watching 'Fox & Friends' this morning," she said. "Steve Doocy said get the vaccine."

Meghan McCain rages at Marjorie Greene for making Republicans look like 'we're psychotic barbarians'

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Jim Jordan 'knows exactly what' Trump told him during the MAGA riot: former Tea Party congressman - Raw Story

The debate centers on what lessons to draw from Donald Trump, who talked like a populist but governed with the exception of trade policy more like a Reaganite. The divide doesnt quite fall along pro- and anti-Trump lines. The pro-Trump former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, for example, has emerged as a leading champion of traditional free-market policies in opposition to other pro-Trumpers like Vance and Hawley. The battle is likely to play out in the 2024 presidential primary, and shape the future of Republican politics long after Trump exits stage left.

The emergence of the new economic counterculture is loosely connected to the two-year-old think tank, American Compass, whose founder, the Harvard-trained lawyer and former Bain consultant Oren Cass, routinely derides his adversaries as market fundamentalists peddling stale pieties from the 1980s. Cass left the free-market Manhattan Institute in 2019 to launch American Compass, the first right-of-center think tank dedicated to pushing the government to get more, rather than less, involved in national economic policy in order to help advance a certain set of social and cultural goals a view Cass and his ilk have termed common good capitalism. The groups mission: To restore an economic consensus that emphasizes the importance of family, community, and industry to the nations liberty and prosperity.

Oren Cass at a conference in New Orleans in 2017. | Stephen McCarthy/Collision/Sportsfile via Flickr

In order to become the party of the working class, Cass has argued, the GOP must abandon its doctrinaire attachment to free-market principles in favor of traditionally Democratic causes like organized labor, the minimum wage and an industrial policy in which the government boosts particular industries over others. He also favors a stricter immigration policy with an eye toward migrants impact on the wages of American workers, arguments echoed by Vance and Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

Its a very different set of things to put together and support, certainly from Republicans, Cass told me recently, describing his position as in all respects antithetical to the Chamber of Commerce view.

Cass critics say he is merely a more intellectual version of the crass political opportunists looking to capitalize on the Trump legacy. Why else would the 2012 Romney campaign adviser turn his back on the free-market principles he once championed? Why else would the populist agitators of the previous decade, including the Tea Party darling Marco Rubio and his chief of staff, the former Heritage Action enfant terrible Michael Needham, shift their focus from restraining government and controlling spending to finding new ways for the feds to meddle in the economy, or the onetime Trump critic Vance transform himself into an avatar of populist economics?

A lot of people have tried to assign meaning to the Trump phenomenon, and a lot of that meaning is self-serving, says Michael Strain, director of economic policy at the American Enterprise Institute. President Trump did not expose some deep problem in American society that requires a rethinking of the economic system, Strain adds, arguing that the 2008 financial crisis and the recession that followed led to the sorts of populist uprisings around the globe that have historically followed economic cataclysms.

Others, including the political scientist Richard Hanania, say Cass is drawing the wrong lessons from Trumps political success, which Hanania believes had more to do with culture than economics. In an essay published after the 2020 election and titled, unsubtly, The National Populist Illusion, Hanania called out Cass and Rubio by name, arguing that attitudes toward issues like political correctness and immigration were more closely linked to Trump votes than economic status.

Hedge funds, private equity firms and venture capitalists, many of them longtime Republican donors, have been on the receiving end of many of Cass barbs, and the titans of industry, broadly speaking, argue that Cass has no more business charting the countrys economic policy than any other Ivy League consultant. See last months nasty Twitter tangle between Cass and the hedge fund billionaire Clifford Asness, a top GOP donor, that began when Cass argued that Asness firm hasnt been good at delivering results for its own investors. Describing American Compass as a blood and soil organization, Asness urged his followers to familiarize themselves with Cass work: Its every populist piece of utter nonsense all in one place. Very convenient, he wrote.

Twitter battles notwithstanding, Cass cites as his chief intellectual adversaries Haley, the former U.N. ambassador, as well as the outgoing Pennsylvania senator Pat Toomey, a moderate Republican who has been a leading voice on economic policy, and the members of the Wall Street Journal editorial board.

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is, along with Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, one of the leading opponents of the emerging movement of Republican economic populism. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Toomey delivered a speech last year titled In Defense of Capitalism that took aim not at the old threat that comes from the left but rather at the hyphenated capitalism trending on the right. When I look at this and I look at where this is coming from, he said in the speech, it strikes me as maybe the most serious threat to economic freedom and prosperity in a long time, because its coming from our allies. It is meant to be a dagger thrust into the heart of the traditional center-right consensus that maximizing economic growth is all about.

Haley, a likely 2024 presidential candidate, made the debate the subject of her own remarks at the conservative Hudson Institute last February and later in a Wall Street Journal op-ed slamming those who are pushing a watered-down or hyphenated capitalism.

Other 2024 prospects among them, Mike Pompeo, Ron DeSantis, Ted Cruz and Rick Scott havent yet staked out strong positions on the GOPs intraparty economics debate, but they will inevitably need to do so. The one thing on which both groups agree is that an economic brawl on the right is likely to play out in the next Republican primary. Cass predicts a fight for the future of right of center between his allies, like Rubio and Hawley, and those he describes as pre-Trump, including Haley.

Just as Trump disrupted the political consensus on China, the outcome of this debate is likely to shape the consensus economic views of a party in tumult. One of the practical questions stemming from this debate is how voters respond to the rhetoric of a watered-down capitalism, and whether it produces results electorally. Opponents argue it might be good short-term politics, but that voters ultimately punish politicians who preside over periods of economic contraction precisely what those like Toomey say the populists are likely to produce.

Those of us who think as I do need to constantly remind people that capitalism serves the common good, Toomey said in an interview. This whole notion of common-good capitalism betrays the flawed premise on which its based, which is that capitalism somehow does not serve the common good.

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A Big Policy Fight Is Brewing on the Right. And Its Not All About Trump. - POLITICO

Originally published in Inside Sources.

It sounded frightening.

Israels president thundered its a new kind of terrorism. The prime minister threatened strong action. The Israeli ambassador demanded that state governments in the United States bring the perpetrators to court.

This wasnt about a missile strike or a cyberattack. It was about ice cream.

Ben & Jerrys had announced it would be ending production and sale of their treats in Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Israels response was extreme maybe, but not really surprising.

This same Israeli government defines the global civil society boycott a nonviolent pressure campaign to stop Israels violations of international law and human rights as an existential threat. Apparently, even when its about ice cream.

In 2006, Israel created its Ministry of Strategic Affairs to respond to the alleged threat posed by Irans nuclear enrichment program. (Israel, not Iran, holds the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, but thats another story.) A few years later, the same ministry got a new assignment: stop the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, known as BDS.

Its not really a nonviolent boycott of Chunky Monkey that Israel is worried about. Its bad publicity.

Boycotts are protected by our Constitution and the Supreme Court. Theyve been used forever in this country from the Boston Tea Party to the Montgomery bus boycott to the boycott of apartheid South Africa. Other citizen boycotts are underway today targeting Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Turkey, China, and even the Tokyo Olympics.

The BDS campaign targets Israel over its occupation of Palestinian lands, discrimination against Palestinian citizens in Israel, and denial of Palestinian refugees right to return to their homes.

These human rights violations have led influential organizations includingHuman Rights Watchand the Israeli human rights organizationBtselem to determine that Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid.

Israels real fear isnt about ice cream. Its the publicity that comes with boycotts supported by wildly popular brands like Cherry Garcia.

Boycotts lead to people asking embarrassing questions. Whats the deal with Israeli settlements? If Palestinians are citizens of Israel, why dont they have the same rights as Jewish citizens? Why cant Palestinian refugees go home? The answers arent actually hard to find.

About 700,000 Israelis now live in Jewish-only settlements in the Palestinian West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem. Theyre allillegal under international law.

Palestinian citizens of Israel do have the right to vote. But many rights in Israel are determined not by citizenship but by nationality. If youre not Jewish, Israeli lawsays explicitlythat many rights dont apply to you.

And despite international law and U.N. resolutionsmandating the right of Palestinian refugees like all people to return to their homes after a war, Israel refuses to allow dispossessed Palestinians to return home. But Jewish migrants from anywhere in the world whether or not they have ties to Israel are welcome to full citizenship.

Israel worries when people ask those questions. Because the answers raise more questions about the legitimacy of Israel as a democracy or our best friend in the Middle East. Questions like: How can we be such close allies with a countrywhose prime minister said, Ive killed lots of Arabs in my life, and there is no problem with that?

That leads to asking members of Congress why they send $3.8 billion of our tax money directly to the Israeli military every year. Shouldnt we condition that aid on ending human rights violations or cut it altogether?

U.S. public opinion has changed dramatically on the subject, especially among Jews and Democrats.

In a recent poll,25 percent of Jewish voters agreed that Israel is an apartheid state, and 34 percent called Israels treatment of Palestinians racist.In another poll, 66 percent of Democrats want the United States to impose economic sanctions or take other action in response to Israeli settlements.

Ben & Jerrys has a long history of social responsibility. Founded by progressive Jews, the company has supported the Black Lives Matter movement, environmental justice, and a wide range of other causes.

Pulling out of Israels illegal settlements, encouraged by a petition campaign in their home state of Vermont, is consistent with their history and U.S. public opinion.

Who knew that ice cream could be so important?

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Ben & Jerry's Is Carrying On a Proud Tradition of Boycotts for Human Rights - FPIF - Foreign Policy In Focus