Author: Gatemouth

“City Democrats To Attend McCain Fund-Raiser” —By MARK GIANNOTTO, Special to the Sun | July 29, 2008 

With recent polls showing a growing gap between Senator McCain and the surging Democratic rival, Senator Obama, the presumptive Republican nominee is looking for additional support from an unlikely source: New York City Democrats.

“…think about the fact that just a week or two before September 11th, you had this major conference on global racism and intolerance happening in Durban, South Africa. How many Americans knew 1) That is was going on? or 2) That the American delegation walked out of the country when the thorny issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was brought up, from the perspective of people of color?”—Kevin Powell

Today came “news” that Congressional candidate and Hip-Hop Philosopher Kevin Powell would be meeting with 200 Hasidic leaders in Williamsburg and accepting their endorsement for Congress.

In describing his history of violence, especially, but not exclusively against women, Congressional candidate and Hip-Hop Philosopher Kevin Powell has called himself a “recovering misogynist” and compares himself to "a recovering alcoholic or a crack fiend who has righted her or his ways," warning that "I can lapse at any time."

But Powell also notes his efforts to cure himself of this illness, citing 20 years of therapy. In a recent open letter to his opponent, Congressman Ed Towns, Powell notes:

“I was born and raised in Jersey City, New Jersey, to a young single Black mother, who was never married to my father. Indeed, my father so emotionally devastated my mother by his irresponsibility, absence, and neglect, that my mother turned that hurt on me, her only child. Yes, like many young people in your district, Mr. Towns, I was a victim of all manner of violence as a child, including physical and mental abuse. I strongly recommend that you Google my poem 'Son2Mother’ to get the full picture of what an inner city child like me, born on the heels of the Civil Rights Movement, had to live through in terms of violence and low self-esteem, and feelings of worthlessness.“

 “I also want to say very directly for the British people why this matters so much directly to Britain.

First, let us not forget that the attacks of September 11 represented the worst terrorist outrage against British citizens in our history. The murder of British citizens, whether it happens overseas or not, is an attack upon Britain.

Liz Benjamin (on Daily Politics” – 7/17/07): This is totally random.

Among the 388 individual contributions reported by Paul Newell, one of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's two primary challengers, is $1,000 given by someone named Hester Diamond.

Tis the season to talk about ballot access.

It is a long treasured truism of New York politics that our state has the most onerous ballot access laws in the country and accounts for 50% of the nation’s election law litigation. There are endless articles which quote such a statistic, but not one has ever cited any empirical data to back up that assertion, most likely because one is more likely to find alligators living in a sewer, or Judge Crater living in a cardboard box than to actually find any proof of this Urban Legend’s veracity.

In an early 2008 interview with Yahoo! News, presidential candidate John McCain said, "I am a [computer] illiterate that has to rely on my wife for all the assistance I can get."

One morning, in a prior life, I was dispatched to work on a campaign in Queens. Another “volunteer”, similarly dispatched from my office, had been sent out to buy bagels, and had returned with two dozen, all plain.  

 Peeved at the prospect of sinking my teeth into bland white bread without getting anything stuck between them, I questioned her about her choice. She said that she wasn’t sure what variety people would want, and therefore chose the lowest common denominator.

“25^th AD (Queens): Evidence would seem to indicate that both Morshed Alam and Rory Lancman are insufferable egomaniacs. But, the evidence also indicates that only one of them is an insufferable egomaniac who sucks up to Republicans. Frank Padavan is almost a case study of what is wrong with Albany. Morshed Alam is Frank’s padawan Therefore, three cheers for Lancman." —Gatemouth’s Voter’s Guide (9/7/06)