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The Making of an American Political Prisoner
By Michael Boyajian
So you leave New York City for the quiet life in Fishkill in the suburbs of Dutchess County only you discover a dark secret. Developers had wanted to pave over the graves of hundreds of revolutionary war soldiers and most of the site, known as the Fishkill Supply Depot or New York’s Valley Forge, has been developed with unimaginable losses of historic artifacts at the hands of a back hoe.
Today my regular “Gateway” column will start implementing a new feature already present on Gate‘s Facebook Page, a regular repost from my “Best of Gate” archives. Sometimes,. As it does today, this feature will eschew high quality in favor of pertinence.
Last night, was the NYS deadline for filing nominating petitions for candidates running in primaries of ballot status parties; in honor of what was once a major nite of fun for me (I was the guy passing out the cigars at the Board of Elections after-party), today's "Best of Gate" is a long, mediocre and partially plagiarized O. Henry story about ballot access. Candidate B | Room Eight www.r8ny.com
| From: | rabbi@bhsbrooklyn.org |
| Sent: | Thu 7/15/10 5:45 PM |
I just today received this compelling, researched and extremely informative letter from my friend and colleague Rabbi Samuel Weintraub of the Kane Street Synagogue in Cobble Hill. It offers a description of the organization behind the boycott protests of AHAVA products at Ricky’s. I am sharing it with you at his request and my endorsement.
State Comptroller Said to be “Getting Close” with Fishkill Audit
By Michael Boyajian
The Office of the New York State Comptroller reported today that the office was “getting close” to the conclusion of its audit of the Town of Fishkill’s financial situation and that details are expected to be available next week.
Perhaps the saddest thing about NY politics is the high percentage of insurgents who resemble Ciafone. Errors And Mysteries As John Ciafone Bids For Ballot In Queens Assembly Race www.cityhallnews.com
Right wing Zionists, please take note–Israel has too many enemies for you to conjure up more out of its friends.
Money quote:
"This heightened vulnerability leads many pro-Israel advocates to reject expressions of “critical support” because insidious efforts to delegitimize Israel internationally gain credibility when Jewish voices rally against its policies. In turn, advocates of “critical support” say a vocal, pro-Israel but anti-occupation position exposes a needed distinction between those who, while critical, stand firmly on Israel’s side – and those whose criticism of Israel masks opposition to the state itself.Tellingly, the Reut report underscores a similar distinction. It notes that Israeli policy often fails to differentiate “critics” from “delegitimizers” and that, by tarring them with the same brush, Israel pushes the former into the hands of the latter. It suggests that Israel should “engage the critics” – even if they’re harsh and unfair, as long as they don’t demonize Israel and don’t blatantly deploy double standards. Not an easy call, but it can marginalize the delegitimizers." What does being pro-Israel mean? www.theglobeandmail.com
BRUTE FORCE (in an early release on the Beatles' Apple Label): “And the Fuh King did what he wanted to do
I said the Fuh King–he went to wherever he wanted to go
Mighty mighty Fuh King
All hail the Fuh King
The mighty Fuh King
All hail, all hail the Fuh King”
CONGRESSMAN PETER KING: Under the freedom of religion in this country, you cannot stop a mosque, a church, a temple from being built… But also, there is a bit of a double standard there. I remember when Catholic nuns wanted to build a convent near Auschwitz and there was a worldwide opposition to that.
I’m not saying that the legal position is the same in Poland as it is in New York…But I’m saying the moral outrage that was shown over that, and that was 50 years after the Holocaust and there still was a feeling of outrage that you would have something of another religion constructed on what was considered sacred ground.
Year after year, the New York State legislature passes bills that enrich the pensions of New York’s public employees. The employees who benefit are often already retired or about to retire, and thus offer neither improved work nor gratitude in return. Even this year, with taxes rising and public services being gutted, dozens of such bills were introduced and many were passed, with the Governor already signing a bill to possibly allow tens of thousands of government workers to retire years earlier than they had been promised – and decades earlier that most New Yorkers in younger generations will be able to.
So how much do all these pension deals cost? Most are passed in the dead of night with no analysis, no debate and no announcement. An irrevocable decision that future state legislators cannot reverse, no matter how disastrous, is hidden from public view. But to the extent the state legislature, Governor and/or Mayor do put a price on these deals, it generally falls into one of two categories. Either they claim it costs nothing, or they claim it actually saves money. I beg to differ. As the model in the spreadsheet attached to this post shows, newly re-attached for those who had trouble downloading it, just the recent deals I am aware have vastly increased the cost of New York’s public employee pensions far beyond what had been promised or admitted. Public services and benefits will be devastated to pay for them. This massive, bi-partisan transfer of wealth from those who are worse off to those who were already better off marks the beneficiaries as selfish and the state legislators as despicable. Totally despicable. Particularly when the unions and legislators subsequently have the nerve to pretend to object to service cuts, benefit cuts, and tax increases, staging a hypocritical show of protest.
Transatlantic Network 2020
By Michael Boyajian
The British Council’s Transatlantic Network 2020 is a network of young emerging leaders from Europe and North America who are interested in establishing transatlantic and global links.
The group includes people like Anabel Knight who works in London for Lisbon’s Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and who believes communications are the key to success. As a global citizen she has spent 9 months in Portugal and has traveled to the U.S. and Chile.
George Steinbrenner deserves the praise of all New Yorkers. He was a legend, and a good humanitarian who exuberated a winning attitude that all New Yorkers could appreciate.
He never talked about it in great detail, but Mr. Steinbrenner did a lot to help African American college football programs.
How?
One relationship Steinbrenner had was with the late great Grambling University football coach, Eddie Robinson.
Not enough people know that Steinbrenner actually loaned Yankee Stadium to Grambling for the annual Whitney M. Young Urban League Football Classic, which showcases black college football teams and even today raises scholarship money.
Could there be anything more despicable than someone who calls himself a "conservative" trying to use landmarks law as a sham-ful and shameful means to deprive someone of their right of religious free exercise?
Memo to Rick Lazio, Tom Ognibene and Carl Paladino: We live in NY, not Saudi Arabia. Rick Lazio Makes Guest Appearance at Landmarks | The New York Observer www.observer.com