Category: News and Opinion

NY Times Endorsements

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There is a general belief among people active in politics that a candidate who challenges his or her opponent’s petitions forfeits any chance of receiving the New York Times endorsement or at the very least guarantees criticism by The Times of such “undemocratic” tactics.

Many, including me, think that fear is what prevented the Ferrer campaign from challenging the petitions of Christopher Brodeur & Art Piccolo for Mayor even though leaving them on the ballot increased the likelihood of a Primary Run-off.

I don’t agree with this view. I think that the Times Editorial Board considers a number of factors in deciding whom to endorse and whether a candidate takes advantage of the election law is a relatively minor one.

The Michael Moore Democrats

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I have been recently been taken to task for my use of the phrase “the Michael Moore wing of the Democratic Party”. Given the use of the term “Michael Moore Democrats” by Republicans who’d like to tar us all, I think it is important to draw the distinction in my use. My usage is to make clear that while this tendency does exist, and exemplifies a strong and virulent strain of thought on the American left, it should not be used as a broad brush to tar us all. Frankly, the Moore group is smaller than it appears; unfortunately, the problem is twofold; its prominence among the media, which magnifies its importance to observers in the punditocracy and the heartland, and its malignant influence among other liberals who really do not believe in the same mindless kant. One reader said to me “I am damned proud to be a Michael Moore Democrat.”  However, I don’t think he really understands what he is saying.

Medicaid: The Family of Last Resort Dilemma

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Society faces a dilemma.  It does not want to see children and the elderly suffer from the neglect of family members.  When it assumes the role of “family of last resort,” however, it encourages the selfish to shift family burdens onto the community, taxing those who meet such obligations to pay for it.  Concerns about burden shifting by parents led to the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, which cut them off from assistance after five years even at the risk of suffering by the children.  Yet the modest, and now miniscule, cost of welfare is dwarfed by the cost of custodial care for the elderly, and as the population ages that cost is set to explode, with consequences that dwarf those of baby boom retirement and the unfunded cost of Social Security.  This may be the most important financial issue we face as a society.   And for New York, which has more generous services for the elderly than any other state, it is a greater issue still.

Who’s Not Running

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A while ago, I reported on the candidates who filed petitions to run in contested Primaries in New York City. Now I’m reporting which elections in New York State do not have a traditional Republican vs. Democrat contest. That is, the Congressional & State Legislative districts where either the Democrats or Republicans do not have a candidate running.

Congress

4 Democratic Members of Congress – Rep. Gary Ackerman, Rep. Gregory Meeks, Rep. Anthony Weiner & Rep. Maurice Hinchey have no Republican opponents.

State Senate

15 of the 62 State Senators do not have major Party opponents. 7 are Democrats from New York City plus 1 Republican from NYC – Marty Golden.

I Guess It All Depends Upon Your Definition of “Progress”

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The number of phone calls I’ve gotten urging me to support Chris Owens for Congress because he is the most “progressive” candidate, has gotten me thinking (always a dangerous activity). The term “progressive” is obviously meant as a shorthand, but shorthand for what? Earlier this year, WFP Executive Director Dan Cantor said Eliot Spitzer would be the most progressive Democratic governor since FDR, ignoring the fact that Roosevelt’s immediate successor, Herbert Lehman, was clearly more progressive than FDR. Moreover, depending upon how the word is defined, Spitzer might also be said to be less “Progressive” than Charles Poletti, Averill Harriman, Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo. Mario’s WORDS were certainly more progressive than Spitzer’s; Mario’s DEEDS (to the extent he ever did anything but blame his complete lack of accomplishments on a Republican Senate he refused to expend any of his political capital, monetary or otherwise, on trying to alter for the better) may not so qualify.

Medicaid: Parsing The High Cost Per Recipient (Second of Three)

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As I reported here, in 2003 New York State was charged $7,912 per Medicaid beneficiary, 76% higher than the national average of $4,487 and more than any other state.  This is not a surprise, as New York has had the highest Medicaid spending per recipient as far back as I have collected data.  And, I once read a paper that described New York State’s Medicaid program as being vastly more expensive than other states in the early 1970s, less than a decade after the program was created.  In fact, I saw a film on the Channel 25 “City Classics” program showing a press conference by former Mayor Abe Beame, who was bemoaning the fact that Medicaid spending was out of control and seeking to use city resources to combat fraud to stop it.  The state had no interest in doing so, Beame said, because it could simply force the city to pay.

NYC Demography: A Stunningly Rapid Change

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I’ll have to interrupt my series on Medicaid, which was delayed by a computer problem at home, to call your attention to recent data from the American Community Survey.  The data on educational attainment, written up in today’s Times, is in fact shocking.  I say that as someone who has looked at similar data over long periods of time.  It’s not so much the direction of the change, which corresponds with what I see on the street, but its scope and speed.

The share of the city’s population that is high-school and college-educated is soaring; the share that has not completed high school is plunging.  This cannot be the result of the educational attainment of those who comes through the city’s schools:  the state’s policy of making the life-chances of the city’s children even worse that it would otherwise be has thus far succeeded.  Rather, it is a function of who is moving in and who is moving out or dying off.  The former are better off than the latter, and the population turnover appears to be rapid.

John McCain – Just Another Pol

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A while ago, I wrote on one of the blogs that the test of whether Sen. John McCain is really as different as the media wish is true all their heart or is just another pol would be if he changed his position on ethanol in order to win the Iowa Caucus.

I think the answer is becoming clear.

Here’s McCain’s old position –

McCain Also Voted Against Ethanol in 2004, and 2003. In 2004, John McCain voted against an amendment to Senate Bill S 150 to promote ethanol, declaring that ethanol was “a product that we have created a market for which has absolutely, under no circumstances, any value whatsoever except to corn producers and Archer Daniels Midland and other large agribusinesses.” In 2003, John McCain voted to block a final vote to an “energy bill coveted by Iowa farm interests” that “would double use of corn-based ethanol.” [S 150; Aberdeen American News, 5/2/04, S. Res. 150, 4/29/04, Roll Call #74; Des Moines Register, 11/22/03; H.R. 6, 11/21/03, Roll Call #456]

A Real 2004 Ohio Conspiracy

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While various liberal bloggers + Keith Olberman and Robert Kennedy, Jr. have been trying to convince us that a massive vote stealing scheme (with Democrats & UAW officials in on it) delivered Ohio to George W. Bush in 2004, today’s Ohio papers bring news of a real scandal that really might have made the difference in Ohio.

Shouldn’t this be news outside of Ohio?

Less than a week before the 2004 presidential election, Jim Conrad, then head of the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, took steps to ensure that a $215 million investment loss in an offshore hedge-fund would not become public …

The Lunatics Will Soon Be Back Running the Asylum (or The Not So Lonesome Discomfort of Frank McKay)

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So, in the Independence Party court battle over whether the constitutional right to free speech trumps the constitutional right to free association (for the all the gory details, click here), a Brooklyn Court has punted, deciding that what really matters is blind adherence to the plain language of the state’s pernicious election laws, which allows a party the right to attempt to dis-enroll its voters, but only at the request of a county’s local party chair. Since the county parties in question were all controlled by the Fulani-Newman anti-Semitic cult, rather than Party Chair Frank McKay’s ragtag coalition of fast-buck opportunist and tin-foil hatted nutcases, this would appear to be game, set and match. In an incidental and accidental victory for free speech, the Fulaniite zombies will still be able to exercise their First Amendment right to regurgitate whatever hateful bile Fred Newman instructs them to chant, without being deprived of their ability to belong to the Party of Fred's choice. Another defeat for the imperialist, Zionist, running dog lackies of International Capital. "But", in the words of Bob Dylan, "you who philospohize disgrace, and criticize all fears, take the rag away from your face, now ain't the time for your tears".