Author: Yoda

During the transit strike, defenders of the TWU when asked why the union was striking while other municipal unions did not strike even as negotiations dragged on for years, fell back on one defense – that the TWU had a policy of no contract – no work. Now even at the time, this was a pretty weak argument for so called progressives to make – "tradition requires a strike". But now, as we are in the 5th month of no contact, I’m wondering what happened to no work? Even the anti-Toussaint militants aren’t demanding an immediate strike . Has this important policy gone the way of the token?

The following two stories show that the NY State Senate Republicans are breaking new ground in their use of taxpayer’s money to fund their campaigns.

Times Union and The Journal News

I was amused by a story in the Buffalo News about an attempt to do away from some tolls on the thruway up there.

John Faso pledged to eliminate with the tolls (an idea that has merit) but his explanation of where the lost money would come from is the amusing part: 

Faso said he would end the tolls and replace the lost toll revenue by separating the New York State Canal Corp. from the Thruway Authority.

The canal agency, which oversees the state’s sprawling canal system upstate, had its budget transferred to the Thruway Authority in 1991 to save money in the state’s general fund. Since then, the canal office has been a financial drain on the Thruway.

Andrea Peyser has a column in the Post supposedly explaining how Mark Green’s arrogance doesn’t let you like him.

But if you deconstruct the column, it’s not clear what Green did wrong.

Here are parts of the column and my comments:

I was running [for mayor] after 9/11 in the face of $74 million" spent by Mike Bloomberg, a lean Green told me yesterday over eggs easy …

"If I told you I ran for election in Hawaii and the date was Dec. 7, 1941…, would you say the attack had nothing to do with the election?

The Sacramento Bee published an editorial criticizing local Congressman John Doolittle for, paying his wife a 15% commission on contributions to his campaign committee. The Bee points out that they can find only 1 other Congressman doing that – NY’s own John Sweeney who pays his wife 10%.

The Bee makes a strong case that this may violate House ethics rules. Read the editorial and see but wonder why no NY paper (to my knowledge) has criticized Sweeney for this action.

It’s really amazing. The Bloomberg administration is so used to telling lies about the Olympics; they can’t help themselves even if it serves no real purpose. On Friday, a small item in Metro New York concerned Mike being asked at the press conference announcing the new stadium for the Mets about whether there were any plans to have the stadium designed so that it could serve as an Olympics stadium if the City bid for one again.

Mike responded “You could not use this for an Olympic stadium. Olympic stadiums hold 150,000 for track and field.”

Did you notice all the chatter on TV about Donald Rumsfeld saying he didn’t know what Condeleezia Rice was talkimg about? 

Neither did I but there it was in the Washington Post.         

One reason why nobody on TV was talking about it was because they were talking about the self-indulgent foolish actions of a liberal Democrat.

And that’s why the Cynthia McKinney story is important.

Because this "progressive" who cares about poor people, who wants to end the war in Iraq put her personal demons ahead of all those issues she cares about.

Last week in response to an entry of mine about Andrew Cuomo, someone wrote:

AGAIN this 1977 thing comes up. Why?

THINK FOR A MINUTE: Not one person in this whole wide world has ever kept a copy of any of those so said posters. How come? Wouldn’t they be collector’s items? And also different people who recollect seeing them have diff descriptions . It’s another URBAN POLITICAL LEGEND.

I direct all to this Daily News column –

"Alas, there is still one big sore spot, and Cuomo raised it yesterday: signs that appeared on Queens lampposts in 1977, saying "Vote for Cuomo, not the homo." The issue threatened to derail Koch, who denied on TV he was gay. Koch believed the Cuomo camp was behind the signs, while Cuomo has always denied it. He said yesterday he thinks he knows who did it, but that there is no point in identifying the person now."

Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, whose party has a much slimmer 35-27 hold on the Senate and faces a greater threat to holding the majority this fall, denied there will be raises this year.

"There has been no discussion of pay raises, other than for judges," Bruno said. "We’re ruling it out. It’s never been discussed."

If you haven’t seen it, liberals should read this item from AMERICAblog.

In it, John  Aravosis takes his felow liberals to task for their knee-jerk defense of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who makes our own Ada Smith seem sane.

It’s good to see at least one blogger criticize those on his own "team".