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Well, some people aren't going to like this column, but what's new? I think I have found a good female candidate for the next election for the office of Brooklyn borough president. If she runs and wins, then history will be made, since she will be the first female borough president of Brooklyn.
In 2006 we finally got a female NYC council speaker in Christine Quinn; and I know that for the forces of empowerment, inclusion and diversity, she fits two bills: she is also a lesbian. Fine.
I have been reading Paul Theroux’s book Ghost Train To The Eastern Star in which he follows in the path he had taken earlier in his books The Great Railway Bazaar. I found the book interesting making me proud to be an American and a person who finds joy in the international community. Until that is he arrives in Southeast Asia and we learn of America’s role in the Cambodian genocide and then the Vietnam War where we had killed two million civ
On September 21, I asserted that the cynics who said so-called Ground Zero mosque was a classic summer story were correct and I predicted that the media would no longer act as though this is major issue that will resonate with voters in November and affect American relationships around the world.
http://www.r8ny.com/blog/jerry_skurnik/hello_fall_goodbye_mosque_news.html
Was I right?
I say yes!
WORKING FAMILIES PARTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR DAN CANTOR: Tom DiNapoli: Margin of Victory on WFP line…Candidates who disdained our line… paid for it. (Citing Aubertine, Kaplowitz, Johnson, Wilmot, Arcuri & MICHAEL MCMAHON)…We haven’t seen the numbers, but margin for Bishop, Owens and Maffei (sic) most likely came in on WFP line.
Gov David Paterson said something very interesting the other day.
Paterson declared he did not want the job of newly-censured Harlem Democrat Charles Rangel in Congress, but went on to add that Mayor Michael Bloomberg is eyeing President Obama’s job.
CHARLES OTEY (in his “Pro Bono” column in The Brooklyn Eagle): Sen. Golden’s Big Role In Grimm Victory
“If [Sen.] Marty Golden hadn’t been challenged by this guy [Michael] DiSanto, [Michael] Grimm might have lost,” claims a Pro Bono reader.
From the Times: "Richard Ravitch, the lieutenant governor of New York, is among those warning that states are on an unsustainable path, and that their disclosures of pension and health care obligations are often misleading. And he worries how long it can last."
“They didn’t do it with bad motives,” he said. “Ninety-five percent of them didn’t understand what they were doing. They did it because it was easier than taxing people or cutting benefits. We’re getting closer and closer to the point where we can’t do that anymore. I don’t know where that is, but I know we’re close.”
(Published 2/21/2012)
Gatemouth's Holiday Appeal: Stop City cuts to Runaway and Homeless Youth.
Perhaps there are more worthy cuts to fight (though I'm hard pressed to think of any), but most of them (if they exist) have some potential powerful constituencies to fight for them.
There are some who object to the federal unemployment insurance extension, which will keep money coming for the long term unemployed, because it will add to the deficit. But employers pay a federal unemployment insurance tax in addition to the state unemployment insurance tax. When there is no federal unemployment insurance extension, which is almost all the time, the states pay for the unemployed, not the federal government. Those federal unemployment insurance taxes just go — somewhere. A trust fund? Like the Social Security Trust Fund? Was that "lock box" opened too for spending on other things? Or did the federal UI fund run out, perhaps because the tax only covers the first $7,000 of wages? I haven't heard anyone ask about this.