Category: News and Opinion

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.”

To complain about scandals in Albany is like griping about someone farting while you're walking through an open sewer. Acts of actual illegality are the exception rather than the rule, and are usually the function of laziness and inattentiveness to paperwork. Far more significant are the acts which are moral outrages, but perfectly legal. And, finally there is the press, too jaded or dumb or lazy to pay attention, and nearly always getting it wrong. The stupidity often festers until it becomes the conventional wisdom, so that even those who know better decide that it’s the west and you print the legend. The stupidest Albany legend is the one repeated by Ed Koch, time and again, while everyone nods their head at it’s sage wisdom: “Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver was responsible for killing the commuter tax in 1999, and he did so to help the Senate Democrats win a special election”. WRONG!!! 

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.

Back in Trinidad when I was in high school, I fancied myself a boxer. So I would go to the gym on many an afternoon, trying to emulate the moves of the many great professionals that I had seen or read about. Sometimes I would showboat (hot-dog) , because I had quick hands and feet. To my chagrin, the coach would always admonish me to "keep it simple". I hated to hear him say that:  "just keep it simple, no need for all that fancy stuff".

Then I left high school  and  found that coach’s words could be applied to life, and usually  that the simpler you keep it the better. So after  doing my research on the latest Cynthia McKinney news-making incident, my old coach came to mind.

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."

(Part Three in an Occasional Series on the Race in New York’s 10^th Congressional District)

Re-reading my two prior posts (See, Curse You Chuck Barron and  Edolphus Towns And The Limits Of Pork) anticipating the nauseating battle between Ed Towns and Charles Barron, it occurred to me that this might be that rare contested race that did not involve mudslinging. I mean, why would these guys need to lie about each other when the truth will suffice?

Rarely do I harbor thoughts of divine intervention, but after spending over two hours composing, refining and polishing a study of the failings of Congressman Edolphus “ET” Towns, only to have it disappear in a matter of seconds due to my computer illiteracy, I am now almost convinced that there is a God, and that God firmly supports Ed Towns as the lesser of the evils in the 10^th Congressional District. So, before I try again, let me make this offering to the force Reform Jews refer to as “Our Parent, Our Ruler”: "Ed Towns is the political equivalent of indigestion; Charles Barron is a heart attack. Supporting Charles Barron as a cure for the ills of Ed Towns is like curing a hangnail by amputating your foot." That offering being done, I will now proceed.

Since there has been a lot of talk recently about whether statewide Democratic candidates will get 25% of the vote at the State Committee or will have to petition and whether receiving the designation of the State Committee was worth anything, I thought it might valuable to look at the history of Statewide Democratic Primaries.

The history does not go back far. Statewide Primaries began in 1968. Up until then, each party’s State Committee chose candidates with voters having no direct say in the process.

The change continued the Committees having a role but not a decisive one. Each Committee would have a meeting (or convention). Candidates receiving 50% or more of the vote became the Party’s designated candidate. Any candidate receiving 25% or more could also run in the Primary. Others could submit petitions signed by enrolled Party members to vote. The original petition requirements were harsher than they are. But it is still a difficult task. Now candidates in the Democratic or Republican parties must submit at least 15,000 signatures, with at least 100 signatures from ½ of New York’s congressional districts.

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".