Ethics Agency Might Claw Back Cuomo's $5 Million "Advance" For His "Book"

Sorry to make liberal use of the Schizophrenic Quotation Marks.

I use them a lot these days. I used to use them as a parody of how a schizophrenic who doubts the reality of most of what he sees and hears.

And now I use them for realsies.

Have I gone schizophrenic, or has the world simply gone mad?

Anyway, as I've complained many times before, these "advances" given to leftwing figures are not advances at all.

True advances are, well, advances against expected future royalties. That's why they're called "advances."

People expect that a J.K. Rowling book will produce at least $5 million in royalties, so you give her a $5 million advance on those royalties. You're giving her a payment on her royalties in advance of actually seeing those sales.

But you do expect them.

You don't pay her fresh royalties until the royalties she generates exceeds the initial advance on royalties you paid her.

When she makes $5 million and one hundred dollars, you send her a fresh check for one hundred dollars.

When these major media conglomerates, all left-leaning and most with business before the government, give millions to Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden and Andrew Cuomo, there is no one at that company that expects the books will ever make that much in royalties.

They're just payoffs. Or disguised political donations.

It's not an "advance" if you cannot show a plausible stream of sales which will meet or exceed that "advance."

Personally, I'd love to see some kind of law on this subject to force these large media corporations to prove that they have a genuine, rational belief that a Hunter Biden book will make $10 million in sales (which would justify a million dollar advance, assuming a royalty of 10%).

And I'd like to see their corporate officers sign certifications for the government that they're not fudging the numbers. And that they understand that their might be prosecutions for perjury if they do lie about expected future royalties.

Much like people in the financial sector are constantly required to sign.

Why should media corporations be immune from such requirements?

And I'd love to see these disguised campaign donations treated and limited just like actual campaign donations.

Or, better yet: No "advances" for serving politicians, declared politicians who are running, or any politician ten years after his term of service ends. They can just take their royalty checks as royalties actually accrue.

If Hunter Biden really sells $10 million in books -- LOL -- then he'll get that million dollars eventually in royalty payments. They'll just come over the course of a year or two rather than all at once in an "advance" on future earnings.

If not -- then not.

This isn't stopping them from getting paid for books they sell -- it's to stop mega-media-corporations with business before the government, and a strong desire to pay off politicians they like, from giving "advances" to favored politicians that bear no relationship whatsoever to the actual expected royalties the books will generate.

Anyway, on to the story: Groper Cuomo used public employees to write "his" "book," which makes the fruits of their labors the property of the taxpayers and not of Cuomo.

Disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo could be forced to return the royalties gained from his $5.1 million book deal if it’s determined that he violated New York law, the top official sitting on the state’s ethics agency told lawmakers in Albany on Wednesday.

State Sen. Dan Stec (R-Queensbury) grilled Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) executive director Judge Sanford Berland during a state Senate Ethics Committee hearing as to whether or not the panel was empowered to claw back profits gained from Cuomo’s pandemic-era memoir, "American Crisis: Leadership Lessons and the COVID-19 Pandemic."

"If the financial gain is significantly more than any fines or penalties [that] can be invoked, there’s an obvious encouragement for the behavior... if I get a $5,000 fine for a $5 million book deal -- that’s not much of a deterrent. So I guess my question is, again, hypothetically, if financial gain is significant, is there a mechanism for JCOPE to claw back beyond just a standard fine or penalty, but the actual gain itself?" probed Stec.

Berland replied that the statute does provide "for a penalty that includes recoupment of the compensation or benefits received by the individual."

However, the judge has previously argued the move could face legal hurdles if the action is voted on by JCOPE commissioners via a full panel vote.

Cuomo's book deal is the subject of an ongoing probe by the FBI and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn into whether the disgraced governor misused state resources by employing government staffers to help write and produce the book during work hours.

Cuomo has denied the allegations, arguing the aides volunteered on the project.

Yeah. Writing a dry politician propaganda book is so much fun people gladly give up their night-times and weekends to write someone else's book for him.

Strange that no one not being paid by the state to serve Cuomo likewise volunteered to write the book!

I think this is an example of the military's "voluntold:" The corporals were voluntold to creatively secure equipment from another unit.

posted by Ace at 03:44 PM

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