Room Eight is closed to new posts. The existing archive will remain up for the immediate future.
If you were a Room Eight writer and would like access to an export of your content, please contact the editor.
This site is not affiliated with or collaborating with any other news or opinion site.
If there was ever a doubt that many advocates for third party Presidential campaigns are not concerned about anything that is actually important, as opposed to their belief that being “independent” has some inherent value, Monday’s story in the Daily News should be a clincher.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/08/17/2008-08-17_mayor_bloomberg_on_virginia_ballot_as_ca.html
As some may recall, one of my political heroes is the late Arizona Congressman, Morris Udall, who ran a misbegotten Presidential campaign in 1976, logging a seemingly endless series of close-but-no-cigar losses, usually to Jimmy Carter (including a heartbreaking Dewey defeats Truman squeaker in Wisconsin), and sometimes to Scoop Jackson (including New York), before being eclipsed as Carter’s main rival in the late-going by Jerry Brown, Hubert Humphrey and Frank Church. “Ole Second Place Mo” struggled on to the convention, with Carter’s nomination a foregone conclusion.
As of late, an urban myth has grown up that Senator Marty Connor actually said at a candidate’s debate with his opponent Dan Squadron that he supported congestion pricing and kept it a secret. This myth has been spread by the Squadron campaign, its blog-world supporters like Michael Bouldin and the Brooklyn Heights Blog, and media outlets like the Rupert Murdoch (once a client of Squadron’s father) controlled Courier-Life chain and the anti-Connor Brooklyn paper.
But, in reality it is not Connor who kept his position a secret, but Squadron. Actually, that’s not quite fair. In Squadron’s case, first he was against it, then refused to talk about it in clear English, then came out for it.
A recent article on Bloomberg News demonstrates why I believe this recession will not be nearly as bad for most New Yorkers as the 1987 to 1992 or 2000 to 2003 recession in terms of their employment situation, but could be as bad as the 1970s for their standard of living and state and local taxes and services. “Jessica Walter didn't go to Harvard University to study cupcakes, but they're what she does since losing her job as a vice president in credit strategy at Bear Stearns Cos.,” the article reported. “’I want to teach kids to cook,’' said Walter, 27, who founded Cupcake Kids! in New York to provide birthday parties and cooking classes for children. `The goal is to have this be my full-time job and make enough to live.’'' Congratulations on joining the company of socially useful adults, Jessica! The bad news is that the impact of your work on society, as measured in dollars, is a lot smaller than it once was. The good news is there is a “plus” sign in front of it instead of a “minus.” The other bad news is that you and people like you, and your former firms, will be paying much less in taxes to the City and State of New York, who will now look to sacrifice someone else to make up for it.
The propaganda is coming fast and thick as the New York State legislature meets to consider a school property tax growth cap for the portion of New York State outside of New York City. The New York State Untied Teachers and the Working Families Party claim that restricting the increase in taxes to 20% more than the inflation rate, unless local residents vote to increase taxes more, would devastate upstate and suburban schools. And some state legislators from New York City have claimed that if tax increases were limited elsewhere, the state would have “no choice” but to cut education funding for New York City, or raise taxes on city residents, to make up the difference.
“Dan Squadron is not a Bloomberg Democrat“.—-Michael Bouldin 8/8/08
“I am proud to endorse Daniel Squadron for State Senate, and strongly encourage Democrats in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn to vote for him in September."– Michael Bloomberg 8/12/08
Given the unpopularity among public school parents of continued Mayoral control of the school system, many thought that the assertion made a few days ago that the State Senate race between incumbent Marty Connor and challenger Dan Squadron was going to be a_referendum_on_continued mayoral_control_of_the_public schools looked to be wishful thinking on the part of supporters of Senator Connor.
On Brooklyn streets -on the other side of town- black folks have a saying: “God don’t like ugly”. This statement is often invoked, when the perception is that someone has done -or is doing- such egregious wrong(s), that eventually the powers that be, will catch up to them. And the belief is that when this happens, the wrath of God will descend heavily on the recalcitrant(s). Look, if in reality it does go down like this, then keep your eyes on the 56th AD folks: it is possible that strange things are about to take place.
I have already written columns on what’s been happening this year, to candidates challenging the county machines in both Brooklyn and Queens. I have even bemoaned the fact that the mainstream media seems to be paying very little attention, to the attempts to undermine and subvert democracy in both boroughs. Maybe it is because this crap has been going on for so damn long, that to the fourth estate there is no longer a responsibility to highlight this stuff anymore.
For thirty years, during which time Governor Paterson’s generation and those before have dominated the state legislature and much else, they have continually voted themselves an irrevocably good deal every time the economy was up and money was rolling in. And then imposed “shared sacrifice” on younger generations and those without connections every time the economy was down and money was scarce. From public debt to the infrastructure to the environment to seniors who pay no tax while young people with the same income are taxed double, the story has been the same. And in public service, as I wrote here, public employee unions have pursued, and the state legislature has passed (generally without a single ‘no’ vote), ever richer pensions after ever shorter careers every time the economy was up. And claimed the time spent living in leisure off other people would cost nothing. In reality, this has been balanced by lower pay and benefits for future public employees every time the economy was down, part of a pattern of younger generations (except for the very rich) being worse off economically in every way ever since 1973. In exchange, the unions have told their members they have the right to do a worse job, since they were underpaid.
Several months ago, the man who claimed that on day one everything would change had a chance to veto a bill that simultaneously allowed NYC teachers with seniority to walk out the door at age 55 and live off others for the rest of their lives, and cut the take-home pay of future teachers significantly. The usual. Eliot Spitzer signed it, a couple of weeks before it was revealed he was screwing the young literally as well as figuratively. Now Governor Paterson faces the same choice between fairness and privilege.
http://www.leadercall.com/local/local_story_184100548.html
JACKSON (AP) July 02, 2008 10:05 am
— Mississippi Congressman Chip Pickering has told The Clarion-Ledger that he filed for divorce from his wife, Leisha.
Pickering, a 44-year-old Republican, announced in August 2007 that he would not seek re-election this year. He said then that he wanted to spend more time with his wife and their five sons.
Rhoda Jacobs was first elected to the New York State Assembly in 1978. Four years later the lines of her district were changed up a bit and it obviously became a minority-majority district. This meant that more than half the residents were non-white. This was when the demographics of Flatbush were changing with each passing day, as Caribbean-Americans moved in to these areas like nobody’s business.
That year (1982) she beat back the first of many spirited challenges by blacks who have run against her. The opponent was a Trinidad-born attorney named Anthony Agard. He was the first of three men born on that island to challenge Ms. Jacobs. They have all lost. Ten years later the demographics changed even more as piece of the district was carved out to create the 58th AD (Nick Perry). In 2002 it changed yet again but only slightly. The district is now over 85% non-white. About half the residents were born in the Caribbean. Strangely enough there is a significant Hispanic population here (about 15%) that hardly votes.