Category: News and Opinion

Of Snow and Buffalo

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Of Snow and Buffalo

 

By Michael Boyajian

 

The snows that recently hammered our region seem to be overwhelming with 100,000 losing power in the mid-Hudson Valley while politicians conveniently disappeared and ever frugal Mayor Bloomberg closing New York City’s schools for the seventh time in thirty two years but this is nothing compared to the typical snowy winter in Buffalo, New York.

Calpers Might Come Clean

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According to this article and another in the Wall Street Journal (subscriber only), California's public employee pension system might be prepared to admit that its projected 7.75% rate of return is nonsense. That means that it will also admit that even more devastating tax increases and service reductions and eliminations will be required. Required to pay for the unfunded pension enhancements of the past 12 years, resulting from deals between politicians and unions to increase their pension benefits (even as most workers get little or nothing), and deals to cut pension contributions (paying for two decades of special tax deals). New York's projected rate of return? Eight percent plus. Fraud, I as wrote here.

Corporate Influence In Politics

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Last January, after the Supreme Court overturned the ban on corporations’ spending money on federal campaigns, the Times Editorial Board got angry.

Here’s some of what they wrote –

With a single, disastrous 5-to-4 ruling, the Supreme Court has thrust politics back to the robber-baron era of the 19th century…

The majority is deeply wrong on the law. Most wrongheaded of all is its insistence that corporations are just like people and entitled to the same First Amendment rights.

It was a fundamental misreading of the Constitution to say that these artificial legal constructs have the same right to spend money on politics as ordinary Americans have to speak out in support of a candidate.

“Drink all day and Rock all night”

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GRATEFUL DEAD: Rich man step on my poor head,
When you get back you better butter my bread.
Well, do you know it's like I said,
You better head back to Tennessee Jed.

Always check the blogs before that second glass of wine.

If I’d checked the blogs earlier, I’d of been able to write a decent piece about tonite’s main event.

Of course you all know the story.

An African-American political wannabee carpetbagger, born far away, and barely residing in his purported constituency, a man who was utterly clueless about how to win a New York election, and lacked anything approaching a coherent rationale, but who nonetheless attracted attention bordering upon hype from those obsessed with classless chattering, has finally shown his true colors by ending his latest political endeavor almost before it ever really started, complete with a disingenuous Op-Ed piece spouting self-serving excuses and rationalizations not even he believes.

Nothing to Fear from Labor Union Card Check

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Nothing to Fear from Labor Union Card Check

 

By Michael Boyajian

 

My father was a big labor union man.  The unions put food on our table, gave us healthcare, put us through college and provided my dad with a pension when he retired.  He had one rule for the family.  We could talk about any politics that we wanted to around the kitchen table but we could never bad mouth the unions.

FOR CLARIFICATION PURPOSES ONLY.

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Last week, I handed in my resignation to Ms. Darlene Mealy (NYC council member of the 41st District). I assume that most of you are aware that I have been working with her since December -as the part time Communications Director.  Hopefully, my last day in this role will be on the 26th of March (as per my resignation letter).

The main reasons I have chosen to go this route are what necessitate this column. I want to make it clear that this is my choice -and mine only. I was not forced to walk the plant, nor given any subtle shoves out the door. I have given her enough notice (4 weeks) so that she can hire someone to replace me without her small staff being strained, stressed and/or stretched.

David Parrothead (aka Searching for his Lost Shaker of Salt) (revised)

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JIMMY BUFFETT: Some people claim that there's a woman to blame
But I know it's nobody’s fault

Has the Governor really morphed into Jimmy Buffett?

In Buffett’s song, Jimmy starts, as noted above, by refusing to lay blame for his pitiable condition. By verse two, as if in an evolving stages of grief scenario, Buffett acknowledges “it could be my fault”; while by the song’s end he admits “it's my own damn fault.”

This is surely not the David Paterson scenario, I suspect in the Governor’s second verse ends verse “but I know, it's Sulzberger's fault,” while by verse three he’s gone on to blame Whitey in general for some sort of double standard.

The Invisible Sea of People Without Jobs

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The Invisible Sea of People Without Jobs

 

By Michael Boyajian

 

Back in 2008 when I was laid off from my state job as a judge the Poughkeepsie Journal wanted me to do a column that would track my job search.  I considered the idea but then decided against it.  You see, being laid off without cause was a humiliation that I did not want to share at that time.  I was especially unnerved because I had recently adjudicated with great success two of the biggest cases in state history and also because I had never been reversed on appeal as a judge.

Why Hiram Can Win

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Now that former Councilwoman Helen Sears has ended her weekend as a Republican, the Special Election to replace former State Senator Hiram Monserrate is down to 2 candidates.

Assemblyman Jose Peralta has the Democratic & Working Families lines while Hiram is the candidate of the Yes We Can party.

Most observers think the support of Peralta by the Democratic organization, various unions plus Hiram's bad deeds make Peralta the favorite.

But I wouldn't be so sure.

Special Elections are low turnout affairs and they usually come down to which candidate has the best "pulling"operation.