By the Playbook: Power, Greed & Corruption.

As reported in the NYT 4/4/15, "Sheldon Silver, the former New York State Assembly speaker, arrived at federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday. Credit Seth Wenig/Associated Press."

As reported in the NYT 4/4/15, “Sheldon Silver, the former New York State Assembly speaker, arrived at federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday. Credit Seth Wenig/Associated Press.”

When it comes to the Sheldon Silver corruption trial this week, you certainly can follow Politico’s “Playbook” advice and “pick your news.” The NY Post and Times are illustrating that the GOP/Dem. divide certainly makes for contrasting coverage. But Politico’s NY Playbook is doing a solid job linking to various sources, reporting this week in a curtain-raiser story that Silver “… has maintained his innocence and said he was looking forward to this day. On this mild autumn Tuesday, the man who led the State Assembly for over two decades wrapped himself in the system of Albany. What prosecutors cast as misdeeds — collecting referral fees from a real estate law firm employed by major developers and a firm that represented asbestos patients treated by a medical researcher that Silver gave state funding — were presented as the inevitable conflicts of a part-time Legislature where lawmakers have side jobs.”
 
(This is, of course, a criminal trial. The civil court implications come from allegations that Speaker Silver is charged with a kickback scheme involving referrals for mesothelioma victims, gaining millions of dollars in referral fees while funneling state funding to the clinic making the referrals.)
 
And we’re off…