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Featured PostsRep. Carolyn Maloney, please disband the SEC!"Many of us have lost confidence in the SEC," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat from New York. (Reported at yesterday's Congressional hearing on Bernie Madoff.) You go, girl! "Where can we go to get the proper oversight? I don't have trust in them (the SEC) for the future," she said. End the SEC! It's useless! It's garbage! It's a complete joke! I was watching a CNBC special report today, an hour-long investigation of Bernie Madoff. How could he have gotten away with it for so long? There were many camera shots of the Lipstick building on Third Avenue, just a few blocks from my old home on East 57th Street. Madoff operations occupied three floors. NY Post Strange Definition Of A PalOn Monday, New York Post Washington Bureau Chief Charles Hurt, as part of his continuing audition to become a Republican hitman on FOX calls “Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Obama's old pal and political ally.” Umm, How's About A Website? Or, Ya Know, A Blog?Someone should ask Mayor Mike and Deputy Kevin how many 'umms' and 'ya knows' Caroline Kennedy could--theoretically speaking, of course--produce should she be forced to filibuster something which she knew nothing about? Or even filibuster something she should know a lot about, like say, how come she wants to be selected a senator? Just joking, Kevin. But kind of not, Kevin. Because my impression of what a senator does most is speak and make articulate and compelling arguments to one's colleagues in order to get something done--kind of like convincing people that one (Caroline) would make a great senator, and as thus, should be selected over someone whom already does this extremely well, like say, Kirsten Gillibrand.
New Yorkers, It's Time to Stand Up for Our Representation!!It looks like Ellis Henican hit the nail on the head with Sunday’s column about Caroline (Kennedy) Schlossberg’s candidacy (note the title, "How THEY, Elected A Kennedy"). From the beginning, it seemed like something with the Caroline (Kennedy) Schlossberg nomination was fishy and Ellis did a good job of pointing out what it was.
MSM AWOL as Community Blocks Thoroughfare in Response to Holiday Shootings
City news cameras and beat reporters were conspicuously absent when a contingent of local leaders and community groups blocked Brooklyn's Rockaway Ave. for hours, calling for an end to a rash of shootings that took place between Christmas and New Year's. Also missing in action was Tracy Boyland, rumored to be preparing a run for her old council seat. Boyland works for a HMO located steps from where three brazen daytime shootings took place. Led by A.T. Mitchell, founder of Man Up!, the march began at the Nobel Drew Ali Houses, stopping at every location where holiday shootings occurred. Followed by a caravan of SUV clubs, the march grew, blocking Rockaway Ave. bus and car traffic. Shoppers expressed solidarity with the marchers chant, “Less bullets! More books!” Children and adults leaned out apartment windows, shouting and waving in agreement. Economic Thoughts for the Worst Economic Year of Our Lives
In case you are wondering, the title is optimistic. A pessimistic scenario, which I will share below, would have future years that are progressively worse. I expect the value of assets -- stocks, bonds, real estate -- to fall farther before bottoming out, because I do not believe their current value could have fully anticipated and “priced in” an economic disaster that (outside Michigan) is really just getting started. What has happened, and will happen, is enough to make one look behind the economic artifice that has built up over the decades and ask more fundamental questions, such as “what is real wealth.” In response to a query on the subject on another discussion board, a man from Virginia put it this way: real wealth “is an asset for you that isn’t a liability for someone else, whose value to you does not rely on other people’s opinions.” What a brilliant statement, perhaps even more so than he intended, because in the current environment it seems to eliminate just about every possible place one could put their savings.
Quasi-Press Release: The Latest Poll Results on the Term Limits Extension Issue is Now Available
The Center for Worker Education runs a graduate program in Urban Policy and Public Administration, through the Department of Political Science at Brooklyn College. Last semester (Fall 2008), five graduate students from the course “Politics and Public Opinion Formation (#735x)” completed a poll on the term limits extension issue. It was conducted over a one month period and ended on December 13th, 2008. There were nine questions asked to a total of 364 respondents. Ninety-three percent of the respondents were registered voters in NYC. Eighty-five percent of them were Democrats. The poll was authorized -as part of this course- by Dr. Joe Wilson; the program’s director. Professor Many Ness is his deputy. M. Pam Miller is the administrator of this program and also approved the survey. It just happens that I have been a lecturer here since last year. I also facilitated the students in this endeavor; this effort was primarily theirs; they deserve the credit: not me.
Parking ticket reductions! We're giving out millions of "reductions"!Friday's New York Times finally covers the parking ticket reduction program. If you challenge a ticket, the city can "plea bargain" with you and give you a reduced price, in lieu of seeing a judge. The Times story is light on the details; the "reductions" program simply cannot be evaluated. I wrote a response that perhaps can be read at the NY Times website. The program began with commercial adjudications. UPS gets thousands of parking tickets and had many long, pointless hearing. An average figure was worked out, allowing UPS to pay a reduced bill--with both sides saving money on legal costs. The "plea bargain" reduction system was, without fanfare, expanded to individuals.
Civil Rights Generation Stuck on Race, Yet Again
Year's end saw a highly unusual press conference during which Illinois Governor Blagojevich announced his appointment of Roland Burris, the first African-American elected to statewide office in Illinois, to the vacant U.S. Senate seat of Barack Obama. Blagojevich said “As governor, I am required to make this appointment. If I don't, then the people of Illinois will be deprived of their voice and vote in the Senate.” By using his authority as governor to name Obama's replacement, Blagojevich did what the Illinois General Assembly did not do – move to fill Obama's seat via special election.
Health Care: Suozzi Scores Again
If you want to know what Obama and the Congressional Democrats could do to aid state and local governments in an equitable fashion, read this. Tom Suozzi proposes that in lieu of other state and local government bailouts the federal government to pick up the full tab for Medicaid (eliminating the state government matching share), allow more people (especially the newly unemployed) to be covered, and require cost reductions, rather than keep the current structure intact and merely add more money temporarily. “For a modest investment of $50 billion, our new President could deliver real and immediate relief to state and local governments, and ultimately our taxpayers. The benefits would be distributed equally to every state, and we would take a big step toward achieving his vision of a comprehensive health care.” Why does it take a Suozzi to state the obvious -- that rather than having separate funds of money shifting all over the place in a series of special deal bailouts, federal-state fiscal relations and the government health care finance system should be restructured? Perhaps because his proposal would not benefit those who have lucrative health benefits, who are powerful, and might limit the amount of money the health care industry can receive.
Deputy Mayor Says Charles Barron Is Better Choice Than Cuomo
Titanic Taking on Water...and the captain announces: "Iceberg behind!" As we've enthusiastically noted, this Kennedy-Senate concept was a disaster to start with and will probably end that way too. I kind of feel awful for Caroline Kennedy and wish her no ill; really, I do. But if she wants to be a senator she should have figured out for herself that Mike Bloomberg and Kevin Sheekey were making huge strategic mistakes in her name and that they constitute huge liabilities--especially if one wants something from the state's Democratic "establishment" such as it is. This is to say nothing of their communications mismanagement resulting in Kennedy getting eviscerated in the MSM (especially Upstate) and even worse, satirized throughout the blogsphere. Dear Consituents:
As Democrats, it is our responsibility to offer protection for the most needy, the poor, the elderly, our children and handicapped people in all communities throughout New York State. It is for this reason that I am surprised that our Democratic Governor has proposed budget cuts of 2 billion dollars to the State’s budget and that these cuts will directly and definitely hurt our most needy communities. This proposal by Governor David Paterson includes cuts to programs and services for the elderly, cuts to our children’s education, increases in college tuitions, cuts to health care services, hospital closings, cuts to Medicaid, cuts to programs and services for the disabled, cuts to mental health services, and salary reductions to health care workers such as home-attendants, nurses and maintenance workers.
Making the rounds: attending a few of the Christmas parties that politicians and political organizations throw every year.
Normally I don’t do these Christmas parties that politicians and political organizations throw. You see, inevitably someone will ask me to dance, and then the “Mr. Bojangles” in me comes out. Then next thing you know, my “island blood” starts flowing and I am fighting with the deejay to play some calypso, reggae or soca. Sometimes the wannabee comedian in me takes over: then I am holding court in some corner, much to the chagrin of my host or hostess. I really don’t need to add anything further to my “bad-boy” political reputation at Christmas time; I’ve got enough detractors as it is already. That’s why the political Santa Claus usually drives his sleigh right past my house every year. I hardly ever get political presents (like high-profile big-money jobs; although I am over-qualified and overdue for one of them). I am often the “Rodney Dangerfield” of Brooklyn’s politics: “no respect”/lol.
New York State Public School Finance: NYSED Data For School Year 2006-2007
The New York State Department of Education has released its public school finance “masterfile” for the 2006 to 2007 school year. It may be found here. I’ve taken some of the data items in the file, attached more easily understood titles from the glossary, and done some summations, calculations and adjustments. The results are attached, and are discussed after the break. The data is for the school year impacted by former Governor Pataki’s last budget. It was Pataki’s first budget that slashed New York City’s state school aid, always low in proportion to its number of children, while increasing aid to the rest of the state. The observable results, among other things, sent my children out of the public school system and some of their friends out of the city. Later, Pataki instituted the STAR program, which directed more resources to school districts with the most, sending spending outside New York City to the moon. For a while it seemed that total state aid per student to the affluent downstate suburban counties, on average, would exceed the amount provided to New York’s generally impoverished children. But perhaps under pressure from the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit, Pataki reversed course. For fiscal equity, ironically, his last budget may be as good as it gets for the city’s children.
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