By Roger J. Stone

Sheldon Silver

Embattled New York Governor David Paterson must resist establishment pressure to resign in the wake of various ethics sandals unfolding in his Administration. The elevation of unelected Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch is the desired game-plan of Assembly Speaker Sheldon 'Shelly' Silver who is elected only by a narrow swath of voters on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Ravitch's very appointment is legally spurious. The State Appeals Court upheld Paterson's authority to appoint him by a 4-3 vote. Curiously, Silver stooge Jonathan Lippman cast the deciding vote on the Appeals Court. This is what lawyers call "wrongly decided." Lippman has no basis in law for this ruling. It is purely political because Lippman's balls are in Shelly's pocket.

Richard Ravitch

Donald Trump is right about one thing; Ravitch is a bumbler, a bureaucrat and a self promoter. More importantly, he owes his appointment as the unelected Lieutenant Governor by the unelected Governor to Silver. The ascendency of Ravitch to the Governor's chair would give the inscrutable Silver defacto control of all three branches of Governor since Lippman is the Chief Judge of the Appellate Court and won't fart without checking in with Shelly.

The idea that Silver would try to marginalize Paterson because the Governor allegedly tried to shield his "body-man" on the Governor's staff from a sexual assault charge, is precisely what Silver himself did when his own counsel, J. Michael Boxley, rapped, not one but two women in Albany. Silver whitewashed the first assault in a sham investigation and then appropriated $500,000 from the taxpayers to settle a lawsuit in order to assure that the matter never became public. Unfortunately, Boxley raped again and the second time Silver could not shield him from arrest.

Jonathan Lippman

The Silver-Ravitch-Lippman power grab must be thwarted. It is only a matter of time before a prosecutor with guts indicts Silver for taking huge sums from a personal injury law firm in return for killing Tort Reform in the Empire State. If Staten Island District Attorney Daniel M. Donovan Jr. wants to be elected Attorney General, he should run on a pledge that he will indict, convict and jail Silver for a transgression far worse than anything Joe Bruno ever thought about doing.

I am perplexed as to why Paterson would have his adversary Andrew Cuomo investigate the Governor's misdeeds instead of appointing an unbiased Special Prosecutor which the Governor has full authority to do. Nonetheless, the Reverend Al Sharpton has deftly organized the African American community so the Cuomo moves on Paterson in his investigation at his own peril. Some in the Harlem Clubhouse think this is genius. I wouldn't want my balls in Andrew Cuomo's hands if I were Paterson.

David Paterson, hang in!