It's been rough and rocky travelin',
But I'm finally standin' upright on the ground.
After takin' several readings,
I'm surprised to find my mind`s still fairly sound -- Willie Nelson
It started simply enough.
I was a geeky junior high school smart ass; by contrast, Paul was a popular junior high [...]
During this year’s final mayoral debate, Bill Thompson was said by the local commentariat to have made two grievous errors, which were only not said to be fatal in and of themselves because his candidacy was pronounced by the same wise-men to be in a state of extremis, for which [...]
“No new taxes,” was Senate Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson's response to a question regarding the state's budget reduction negotiations.
“We are holding the ground on midyear school cuts. We are trying to mitigate or minimize the cuts to health care. We are looking at things we are trying to cut across the board with respect to agencies,” said Sampson, and “also making a sweep of those authorities that have additional capital and monies in those areas.”
Rick Lazio says:
"[Last year's state] budget should never have been enacted," said Rick Lazio, a Republican candidate for governor in 2010. He said instead of making harder, long-term fixes, Albany is "lurching from special session to special session ... we are barreling toward fiscal collapse. We need adult supervision."
Hey [...]
One of the arguments in support of the creation of New York City Campaign Finance Law was that by providing funds to insurgent candidates and limiting the amounts that could be contributed, City elections would become more competitive.
With the huge number of incumbents getting re-elected since the law came into [...]
via Room Eight
A Chance to Make History
Dear Friends,
Our election may be over, but there are still some critically important campaigns that have yet to have been decided.
Annise Parker, the current Houston City Controller, is running to be Mayor of Houston, the nation's 4th largest city. If elected, she would [...]
via the NY Times
Spitzer Talks About, Well, EthicsFormer Gov. Eliot Spitzer was invited to speak at Harvard University on Thursday about what first made him famous: policing Wall Street. Mention of the prostitution scandal that made [...]
Looks like Rick Lazio and Chris Collins are as good as it's going to get for NYS GOP in the 2010 gubernatorial race. That Lazio hasn't said or emoted anything remotely approaching the milieu of bizarro utterances from the Six Sigma Sertified Savant from Buffalo, probably makes Lazio the front runner. Word's already on the street that Collins is a real bozo.
For his part, Lazio appears [...]
It deeply offends me that our Democratic Governor, David Paterson continues to ignore sound alternatives addressing New York State’s deficits. Instead, his proposed budget cuts slash $686 million from public education.
His cuts include $223 million from New York City’s schools. Fifty-one percent of the cuts target high poverty school districts [...]
All weekend, I have been mulling over whether I should post this. As someone who tries not to allow myself to be easily manipulated, I had to make sure I was not being goaded into reacting instead of responding. I have come to the conclusion that the person in question [...]
Eight years ago, this was the political landscape in the U.S
There was a Republican President who was elected with 47.9% of the popular vote.
Republicans controlled the US Senate 51-49 and the House of Representatives 229-206.
Democrats had just been elected Governors of New Jersey & Virginia, after [...]
The following is a quote from David Seifman's New York Post column of this morning:
Mayor Bloomberg's campaign crew's excuses for his shockingly close 4.6 percentage-point win over Bill Thompson go something like this:
* No matter that we consistently told everyone publicly he was leading by double [...]
It would be a mistake to classify Bloomberg's November 4 mayoral reelection win as anything but a defeat for the working people of New York City. At the same time, however, there is no reason to despair; on the contrary the election results represent a basis for optimism moving forward.
First, [...]
Now it can be told.
Last year, I used my Election Day vacation in an effort to help make Malcolm Smith the State Senate Majority Leader;
Having seen how that worked out, this year I used my day off to take care of my sick son Dybbuk and his new [...]
On Friday, three days after the his Marist Poll was shown to be off by a significant margin in the New York City Mayoral Election for the second election in a row, poll director Lee Miringoff claims an unreleased poll was actually right!
A Marist poll completed the [...]
Barron is serious. At a recent meeting of the United African Movement, Barron told the audience that he would soon make a formal announcement of his campaign to be elected Council Speaker. After two terms in office, Barron says he has the skills for the position: a working knowledge of [...]
In the film “Chariots of Fire” a rich man of Jewish origins sets out with a goal in mind and proceeds to dedicate all of his considerable resources, both material and from within, to its achievement.
Any resemblance to the current Mayor of the City of New York are unintentional, [...]
It is sad to witness the post mortem finger pointing just 24 hours after the Thompson upset loss of the Mayoralty. Bloomberg's people were smart and sharp -- they hid what they knew about the polls from the people. Howard Wolfson so dramatically ridiculed Thompson's pollster as creating a new [...]
The DN's Errol Louis flagged this interview Correction Officers' Benevolent Association President Norman Seabrook gave NY1 last night at Bill Thompson's party, which perfectly captures the anger among Thompson supports at Democrats who stayed on the fence.
Seabrook, whose union endorsed Mayor Bloomberg in 2001 and 2005, [...]
I recently argued in this space that New York State has no real political parties (with the possible exception of the Conservative). I saw nothing last night to make me re-evaluate that conclusion, but that is a talk for another time.
Unlike in New York State, there is something [...]
10:26 PM
76% of precincts reporting
Bloomberg 50%
Thompson 47%
“There is a out there a great seething resentment, not all of it rational, but much of it quite on the mark, for the sort of clueless lack of concern over this legitimate frustration. And for many, Bloomberg is its personification. In fact, the [...]
The time: 1965.
The place: Fair Lawn, New Jersey. Somewhere around 1949, the 40,000 strong Jewish community of the Silk City, Paterson, New Jersey (where my maternal great-grandfather ran a textile mill in partnership with noted designer Boris Kroll, and where my paternal grandfather lived between bankruptcies by hustling [...]Today, I grudgingly rolled down to the same location at 7:30 am. There' [...]
THE STEPHEN KAUFMAN NEWSLETTER
Council Candidate District 5 Manhattan
IF I DO NOT WIN THIS ELECTION
“YOU, THE PEOPLE” LOSE, NOT ME!
If you have issues about voting for me on the Republican line
vote for me on the Independence line.
YOU MUST GET OUT AND VOTE!
You know my positions on the major issues [...]
It's Election Day. Today we as voters have an opportunity to elect a new mayor, but, perhaps more importantly, show [...]
So it has come down to this. I check out The Housing Bubble Blog to look over today links and street level comments on the real estate collapse, and who has purchased the banner ad? You guessed it, Mike Bloomberg. Aside from myself, how many NYC residents are likely [...]
Chapter 1: Blame It on Al
Al Vann, after 35 years in elected office, is at risk of being displaced. If Vann loses, it will be his own fault. Among other missteps, Vann voted himself a 25% pay increase (for a part time job) and supported Bloomberg's ruinous extension of term [...]
KURT VONNEGUT: If you wish to study a granfalloon, just remove the skin of a toy balloon.
In Part One, entitled “Cats Cradle“, I sadly put forth the proposition that all of New York’s ballot status parties, save the Conservatives, were granfalloons. The creator of that term, Kurt Vonnegut, defined [...]KURT VONNEGUT: A granfalloon is a proud and meaningless association of human beings.
I have not for decades felt the need to cite a quotation from the master of making the whimsical seem profound; not at least since the day long ago when I made the adolescent-switch away from airplane [...]
More than a week the question on Capitol Hill was “Who are these clergy and where did they come from?” More than 100 clergy, members of Brooklyn-based Churches United to Save and Heal (CUSH), descended upon Capitol Hill Wednesday, Oct. 21 to press Congress for comprehensive immigration reform (CIR).
[...]Steve Malanga, senior editor of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal has an Op-Ed in Sunday’s New York Post complaining about how New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine is responsible for ruining because of high taxes.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/bribing_the_voters_of_new_jersey_wc8CPVLsmQe5klWsuOeqD
“The state has one of the most progressive income tax structures, so that residents earning more than [...]
I have previously written that I believe there are now two electorates in the US. One is a pretty small one that consists of people like the readers of this blog and others like it and faithful viewers of the cable news yappers of the left, right & center – [...]
AbeS, news, Larry Littlefield, Jerry Skurnik, Gatemouth, Dan Margolis -- NY State Communist Party, Mary Alice Miller, NGD, Rock Hackshaw, davidqnyc, Senator Reverend Ruben Diaz, Yoda, bklynpol
