Gov. David A. Paterson personally directed two state employees to contact the woman who had accused his close aide of assaulting her, according to two people with direct knowledge of the governor's actions.
Mr. Paterson instructed his press secretary, Marissa Shorenstein, to ask the woman to publicly describe the episode as nonviolent, according to a third person, who was briefed on the matter. That description would contradict the woman's accounts to the police and in court.
Mr. Paterson also enlisted another state employee, Deneane Brown, a friend of both the governor and the accuser, to make contact with the woman before she was due in court to finalize an order of protection against the aide, David W. Johnson, the two people with direct knowledge said. Ms. Brown, an employee of the Division of Housing and Community Renewal, reached out to the woman on more than one occasion over a period of several days and arranged a phone call between the governor and the woman, Mr. Johnson's companion.
After the calls from Ms. Brown and the conversation with the governor, the woman failed to appear for the court hearing on Feb. 8, and the case was dropped.
These accounts provide the first evidence that Mr. Paterson helped direct an effort to influence the accuser.
Of Ms. Shorenstein's call, the person briefed on the matter described it as an effort to "reconfirm what the governor had said before, that it was not an acrimonious -- it was not a friendly breakup but it wasn't acrimonious, that the allegation itself was not true."
In an interview with The New York Times, the governor had characterized the fight as being "like breakups you hear about all the time."
The call from Ms. Shorenstein to the woman came on the evening The Times was preparing to publish an article about Mr. Johnson, his past episodes with women and the police, and his ascent to the top ranks of the Paterson administration.
The person briefed on the matter said that at the time of the call, Ms. Shorenstein was not aware of the severity of the alleged assault, and that she did not believe that Mr. Paterson was aware of it either. Ms. Shorenstein failed to reach the woman, who has never spoken publicly about the episode.
Last Friday, Mr. Paterson ended his campaign for election, after The Times first disclosed that he and his State Police detail had intervened in a domestic abuse case involving Mr. Johnson, one of his closest aides.
Mr. Johnson's girlfriend had accused him of choking her, smashing her into a mirrored dresser and preventing her from calling for help during a Halloween altercation in the Bronx apartment they shared.
Mr. Paterson has stated that he was unaware of the details of the case until The Times reported them, and has said he did nothing improper. After the news reports, he suspended Mr. Johnson and asked Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo to begin an investigation.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2010 00:00 ||
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Last week, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a crime syndicate dedicated to tightening the Democratic Party's grip on America, dissolved its national structure. Too much of ACORN's corruption had been exposed to public scrutiny for it to run its vote fraud and extortion rackets effectively. So, ACORN activists will have to soldier on in state-level organizations, such as New York Communities for Change and New England United for Justice in Massachusetts.
ACORN does indeed operate like the Mafia, but it more closely resembles another organization that began as an affiliate of the Democratic Party, the Ku Klux Klan. Aside from intimidating some bank executives, ACORN does not engage in violence, but like the KKK it has vote fraud as a top priority.
There have been two distinct organizations known as the Ku Klux Klan. The modern-day KKK, with whom most people are familiar, was spawned in 1915 by the Hollywood epic Birth of a Nation, premiered at the White House by a Democrat president, Woodrow Wilson. Cross-burning and other rituals were actually inspired by the movie. The Klan came to dominate the Democratic Party so thoroughly that the 1924 Democratic National Convention was known as the "Klanbake."
It is not so much this Klan 2.0 that ACORN parallels as the original version. Established in 1866, Klan 1.0 was an affiliate of the Democratic Party during the Reconstruction era. Named for "kuklos," the Greek word for "circle," the Ku Klux Klan waged war against the Republican Party in the former Confederate states. Goofy titles for its commanders such as Wizard and Cyclops were intended to disguise the fact that the KKK was a paramilitary organization. In some areas, leadership of the Ku Klux Klan and the Democratic Party were indistinguishable.
Democrats used the Klan to suppress their political opposition, with vote fraud and intimidation and violence. Klansmen aimed at African-Americans, nearly all Republicans in those days, and at white Republicans who tried to help them. Once threatened by the KKK, Republicans could in many cases save their lives only by publicly swearing allegiance to the Democratic Party. According to a southern governor, "Few Republicans dare sleep in their houses at night."
"The suppression of enough GOP votes could ensure a Democratic victory," wrote one historian. "There's no question that Klansmen closely watched the polls" -- easy to do before the secret ballot was introduced in the United States in the 1880s. All too often, Republican ballots were not even counted.
Like ACORN, the Ku Klux Klan operated with impunity until Republican politicians and journalists sounded an alarm. In 1869, Nathan Bedford Forrest, the KKK's Grand Dragon, ordered the Klan disbanded. Why? The national organization was getting too much attention, so Klansmen would have to soldier on in state-level organizations, such as the Red Shirts in South Carolina and the Men of Justice in Alabama. Nonetheless, most members of these spin-off groups considered themselves to be Klansmen.
A congressional investigation reported that "the operations of the Klan are executed in the night and are invariably directed against members of the Republican Party."
In 1871, the Republican-controlled 41st Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act, and a Republican president, Ulysses Grant, signed it. Until overturned by the Supreme Court twelve years later, the law effectively banned the KKK. Federal troops crushed Klan uprisings in South Carolina and Louisiana, while hundreds of Klansmen were convicted in federal court. Law enforcement played a role in eliminating the Ku Klux Klan, but primarily the Klan disappeared because after Democrat regimes replaced the Reconstruction state governments there was no need for Democrats to suppress Republican opposition by covert means when government authorities could do so openly.
Back then, Klansmen had to contend with a Republican administration, but now, with a Democrat in the White House, ACORNistas know that the federal government is on their side. With Eric Holder's Justice Department condoning polling place thuggery and other illicit activity against the GOP, there is less incentive for Democrats to suppress Republican opposition by covert means when government authorities are doing so openly.
The Democrat-controlled 111th Congress has made ACORN spin-off groups eligible for billions of taxpayer dollars. Once an insurgency, community organizers are now part of the establishment. To the victors go the spoils.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2010 00:00 ||
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In early 2008, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson grabbed national attention when he ran for the Democratic nomination for President. He dropped out early in the race but still made headlines for endorsing Obama over Hillary. As thanks, Richardson was named the nominee for Commerce Secretary. One of the first scandals of the Obama Administration followed almost immediately. Due to a controversy surrounding a pay-to-play scandal, Richardson was forced to withdraw his name from consideration after only one month.
Richardson quietly slipped out of the national spotlight and most Americans forgot about New Mexico's corrupt Governor. Most don't realize that prosecution for the scandal was quietly discontinued when the Obama team drained the investigator's budget resource, leaving them unable to pursue prosecution. The case is still pending and will likely remain that way.
Now back in New Mexico in his final year as Governor, the behavior of a man who was an inconvenient nuisance to the Obama team has revealed itself to be nearly cataclysmic to my state's future.
Just seven years ago, New Mexico was one of only a handful of states in the black, thanks to the leadership of our previous Republican Governor. Now, we've got an estimated $500 million deficit this year thanks to a government that continues to loot the pockets of taxpayers.
Aside from the absurd corruption, pay-to-play scandals and shady investment deals one of the most obvious evidence of poor management is the sheer size of New Mexico's government. With new state agencies and 4,500 new employees, our state government has grown by more than 50% in the last 7 years costing taxpayers $250 million annually. Further, the numbers don't even include the hundreds of exempt political appointees now drawing a government paycheck. Those people got jobs as payback for family, favors and financial contributions. Estimates put new political appointees in the neighborhood of 450 costing taxpayers around $50 million a year.
Already I've accounted for more than half the budget shortfall, and I haven't even begun to talk about the fraudulent investment schemes, pay-to-play scandals and pork projects that have nearly sunk our state.
To put it into perspective, for every 100 private sector employees there are 24 state and local government employees. The average ratio is 12 per 100. I can assure you, my interaction with government in this state is not twice as good as it was seven years ago.
And now, the Governor who doubled the size of government has to find a way to pay for his distends. His answer? Well, it isn't cutting state employees. And it isn't cutting unfriendly regulations to grow small business. Nope. His answer is--you guessed it--NEW TAXES. During our last legislative session, lawmakers proposed taxes on candy, cigarettes, soda and even tortillas.
All proposals died a slow death and our legislatures failed to come up with a budget. Now, they've been called in to a special session that begins next week.
I am running for Governor of New Mexico to put an end to the graft, greed and waste that has run rampant in New Mexico.
The moment I am elected, I will immediately demand the resignation of every unnecessary political appointment. I made a pledge this week to roll back the number from over 600 to 167. I have called upon the Democratic candidate, Lt. Governor Diane Denish, to make the same pledge. The Lt. Governor has been trying to distance herself from the present administration's defective distends, but a promise to return to a reasonable number of political positions would be a substantive statement, should she be willing to make it. Sadly, I expect silence will be her response.
The issue of bloated government is not limited to New Mexico. The waste here is merely a reflection of the corruption that is occurring nationally. For those among us who challenge the wisdom of Federal Stimulus dollars, look no further than the state of New Mexico for evidence of its failings. Those dollars only fuel our inefficient government and do nothing to force our government to fix itself.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
New Mexico -- so far from heaven, so close to Texas.
#2
While the governor might talk your ear off about taxes, education and the Rail Runner, one subject remains off-limits: the political jobs he's handed out and then protected as the state budget plunged into crisis.
Take for example Maxine Otero. The governor got her a job doing secretarial work in the state prison system and set her salary at $60,000 a year to do office work.
That's nearly twice what the state pays a trained correctional officer at the Penitentiary of New Mexico.
But ask questions about her qualifications and how she got the cushy secretarial job, and the governor won't say. Yet there are some clues.
Maxine's father is wealthy Santa Fe contractor Sonny Otero, one of the governor's biggest campaign supporters. Sonny Otero has contributed some $86,000 to Richardson's Democratic campaigns, according to the New York Times.
#5
Land of Enchantment
Eh, when I went to Albuquerque for NCO Academy in the mid-90s, the other NCOs stationed at bases in New Mexico called it "Land of Entrapment." And IIRC, the city fathers in one particular city (whose only industry was the local AF Base) were referred to bitterly by the military personnel stationed there as "The Shifty Fifty."
Freshman Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) will not run for re-election this year, the New York Daily News reports. Massa ousted two-term Rep. Randy Kuhl (R) in 2008 by just 5,000 votes after losing to Kuhl two years earlier by 6,000 votes.
Massa is expected to announce his decision in a 3:30 p.m. conference call with the press. Politico reports Massa will resign amid allegations that he sexually harrassed a male aide.
The 29th District was George W. Bush's best-performing congressional district in New York in 2000 and 2004, and one of four districts in the state to go for John McCain in 2008. McCain won the district by fewer than 7,000 votes.
The boot-shaped district takes up a large chunk of western New York.
A high court majority reviewing a handgun ban in Chicago indicates that it sees the right to bear arms as national in scope, and can be used to strike down some state and local gun regulations.
The Supreme Court justices, hearing a 2nd Amendment challenge to Chicago's ban on handguns, signaled Tuesday that they were ready to extend gun rights nationwide, clearing the way for legal attacks on state and local gun restrictions.
The court's majority appears almost certain to strike down a Chicago ordinance and rule that residents have a right to a handgun at home. Of U.S. cities, only Chicago and its Oak Park suburb have total bans on handguns. But many cities and states have laws regulating who can have a gun and where they can take it.
Gun rights advocates have said they've been waiting for the court's ruling in this case to begin challenging gun regulations nationwide.
At one point in Tuesday's argument, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. noted the city's lawyers doubted that people had a right to carry concealed weapons in public.
"Well, maybe that's right," Roberts said. But he quickly added that the question could be left for a future case, indicating that the court was not likely to sweep away additional gun regulations in this ruling.
But the clear message from the argument is that a five-member majority on the court thinks the right "to bear arms" is a fundamental right, like the freedom of speech, that cannot be unduly restricted by federal regulations, state laws or city ordinances.
Two years ago, the justices in a 5-4 decision struck down a similar handgun ban in the District of Columbia -- a federal enclave -- saying for the first time that the federal government is restrained by the 2nd Amendment from preventing an individual from having a gun for self-defense. In the Chicago case, the court is weighing whether to extend that protection to state and local jurisdictions.
In the ruling two years ago, the court also said reasonable regulations of guns were permitted in the District of Columbia. The tenor of Tuesday's argument suggested it may take years of lawsuits to draw a line between an individual's right to have a gun for self-defense and the government's authority to set reasonable regulations.
Since 1982, Chicago has enforced a strict ban on handguns, even for law-abiding residents who want to keep one at home. The city's lawyer argued Tuesday that throughout American history, cities and states have enforced restrictions on weapons without much interference from federal judges.
"Firearms are designed to injure and kill," and cities need to regulate them to protect the public's safety, James A. Feldman said.
But he ran into skeptical questions from the court's leading conservatives, who referred to their decision in the Washington, D.C., case.
Shortly after that decision, gun rights advocates sued to challenge Chicago's ban on behalf of Otis McDonald and several other city residents. The case forced the high court to confront a simple question it had never answered: Does the 2nd Amendment limit only the federal government's authority over guns and state militias, or does it also give citizens nationwide a right to challenge their local and state gun laws?
Since the District of Columbia is a not a state, the court's ruling in D.C. vs. Heller left that issue unresolved. But during Tuesday's arguments, the justices who formed the majority in the D.C. case said they had already decided that gun rights deserved national protection.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the individual right to bear arms is a "fundamental" right, like the other protections in the Bill of Rights. "If it's not fundamental, then Heller is wrong," he said, referring to the D.C. ruling, which he joined. Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr. echoed the same theme.
At one point, Justice John Paul Stevens proposed a narrow ruling in favor of gun rights. Two years ago, he dissented and said the 2nd Amendment was designed to protect a state's power to have a "well regulated militia."
Now, however, Stevens said the court could rule that residents had a right to a gun at home, but not a right "to parade around the street with a gun."
A lawyer representing the National Rifle Assn. scoffed at the idea and opposed a "watered-down version" of the 2nd Amendment.
Scalia also questioned the idea. In his opinion two years ago, he described the right to bear arms as a right to "carry" a weapon in cases of "confrontation." Such a right would not be easily limited to having a gun at home.
The justices will meet behind closed doors to vote this week on the case of McDonald vs. Chicago. It may be late June before they issue a written ruling.
#4
The trouble is that the people can no longer rely on the SCOTUS, because whenever there is a shift to a liberal dominated SCOTUS, they have made it clear that the rules and precedents observed by conservatives no long apply to them.
The memory of the abuses of the Warren and Burger courts should not be so easily forgotten. They laid the groundwork for the entire concept of "judicial activism" and "legislating from the bench."
We are still under the onus of many of their bad decisions, and even the sitting liberal justices have made it clear that if they assume power, they will reopen what is now profoundly settled law, decide cases with respect to what foreign courts have done, and continue the process of unbridled federal power at the expense of the States and the people.
Liberals were very crafty to include indoctrination in the public schools, with the idea of undermining American beliefs and rights in the long term. So this should be the stage for the next fight by the gun movement, to restore the liberty of American gun culture and its perspectives to our children.
So that when they are of their majority, they will be ready to pick up where we left off, and continue the fight.
The Supreme CourtÂ’s conservative majority has made clear that it is very concerned about the right to bear arms. There is another right, however, that should not get lost: the right of people, through their elected representatives, to adopt carefully drawn laws that protect them against other peopleÂ’s guns.
Assuming for the moment that's true (and it isn't), what about Chicago's total ban is 'carefully drawn'?
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/03/2010 18:58 Comments ||
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Shouldn't have ducked the issue in Heller.
With Heller they only addressed hand gun ownership. That's settling only for a slice of the pie. The real right is for the same technology weapon that the military issues to its line personnel. That is the whole pie. Swiss militia model.
#7
If this turns out to be a 5-4 vote, I'm going to be Praying for the health of our Justices for the next 3 years at least.
Posted by: Charles ||
03/03/2010 21:57 Comments ||
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#8
I pray that I am wrong, but I suspect that I am not and we may soon see ideology driven assassination of the SC justices as a means to the ends of the left. When the end justifies any means (as with the left) there is no level of depravity beyond them. They already kill their own (unborn) offspring for the convenience of their lifestyle. How much more would they do to keep/gain power?
Posted by: abu do you love ||
03/03/2010 22:22 Comments ||
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#9
I pray that I am wrong, but I suspect that I am not and we may soon see ideology driven assassination of the SC justices as a means to the ends of the left.
If it comes to that we will see ideology driven assassinations of leftists in response.
#10
Most people don't even know the names of the Supreme Court justices, abu do you love, let alone what they look like, nor do their private lives make the news. To people who believe in abortion, killing something that looks rather like a tadpole does not resonate in the same way as killing a person capable of walking independently, so the one does not work as training for the other, no matter how you feel about it.
California Rep. Pete Stark will temporarily seize the gavel of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, succeeding Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., who stepped aside because of an ethics probe, Fox News learned Wednesday.
House and Democratic caucus rules assert that when a chairman steps aside, the next senior lawmaker on that committee should assume the chairmanship.
Senior House sources familiar with the situation signal that Stark will take the gavel in Rangel's absence, but the House Democratic caucus could alter that decision and trump the traditional line-of-succession.
Rangel stepped aside Wednesday morning until the ethics committee finishes investigating him on a slate of probes, ranging from his failure to pay taxes to his use of rent-controlled apartments in Harlem for political purposes.
Known for a sometimes-volcanic temper, many Democrats fretted privately that Stark is too volatile to lead such an important committee.
In a famous 2007 incident on the House floor, Stark accused President Bush of sending troops to Iraq"to get their heads blown off for the president's amusement."
He also once called former Colorado Republican Rep. Scott McInnis a "fruitcake."
Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., represents a district that borders Stark's in northern California. Honda described his California colleague as "passionate."
"He doesn't back off from a verbal fight," said Honda. "He's a man of his word."
Even as Rangel resigns temporarily because of the ethics probe, the same panel just exonerated Stark in a smaller-scale investigation it conducted into a tax exemption he received for a piece of property in Maryland.
The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct cleared Stark of any wrongdoing in January.
Some insiders speculated that appointing Stark could pose a problem for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Not only is Pelosi from California, but four other Californians already chair major House committees. Rep. Howard Berman leads the Foreign Affairs Committee. Rep. Henry Waxman heads the Energy and Commerce Committee. Rep. George Miller chairs the Education and Labor Committee. And Rep. Zoe Lofgren sits atop the ethics committee.
With the installation of Stark on a temporary basis, Pelosi now has three Californians chairing the three committees with jurisdiction over health care reform: Waxman, Miller and Stark.
Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus were lobbying for Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a senior Ways and Means member and a civil rights era legend, to succeed Rangel.
It's unclear if the temporary appointment of Stark in lieu of Lewis could be the source of tension between Democratic leaders and the CBC.
But Lewis downplayed those concerns.
"We have seniority," Lewis said. "I don't think it's right for people to be jumping over one another."
Another named mentioned privately for the job was Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass. Many lawmakers say that Neal is the one of the best-qualified members to lead the panel, with a granular understanding of the tax code.
The ultimate fall from grace, a Federal grand jury is about to indict John Edwards, The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively. and on this issue, the ENQUIRER has a stunningly good record
In another shocker, close sources say Edwards' estranged wife Elizabeth could help send the former presidential candidate to jail!
Edwards, the disgraced two-time Presidential loser, is being investigated by the feds, including the FBI and IRS, for possible campaign violations related to paying his mistress Rielle Hunter.
"John is terrified that he's going to be indicted," a friend told The ENQUIRER. he'd be even more scared if he thought he was going to the big house but I can't see a jail sentence for campaign violations
Posted by: lord garth ||
03/03/2010 14:32 ||
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WASHINGTON - Rep. Charles Rangel stepped aside as chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee Wednesday, saying he was temporarily giving up the gavel because he didn't want his ethics controversy to jeopardize election prospects for fellow Democrats. Before you all start celebrating he just requested a "Leave of Abscence". The fat Lady ain't singing yet. AP article so read the rest at the link.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/03/2010 11:47 ||
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#1
Ya think he'll tell Nanny about this? She didn't seem too sure earlier.
#2
But people looking for the reasons why the Obama presidency has not lived up to its promise won't find the answer amid the minor rifts between key players. Nor will they find the answer in how well or poorly this White House has played the game of politics. The fact is that after a campaign that appealed so successfully to idealism, Obama hired a bunch of saboteurs of hope and change.
Rahm was simply their chief of staff. And now, this hypercompetitive bantam rooster is attempting to blame others for what went wrong. That's evidently so important to him that he's trying to take a victory lap around the wreckage of what was once such a promising presidency.
And this is from the Huffington Post? Queen Nancy really is preparing to go down with the Titanic.
Over the weekend, Speaker Nancy Pelosi finally acknowledged that, for many of the House members whose votes she needs, casting a vote for Obama's health-care bill would effectively doom them in November. But, for those faced with that difficult choice, Pelosi thinks the right call is to defy their constituents and vote for a bill their districts deeply dislike, even if it guarantees defeat this fall. "We're not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress. . . . We're here to do the job for the American people."
So far, nine House Democrats are hearing the call . . . for political suicide.... Detailed commentary on all nine at the link.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/03/2010 09:24 ||
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#1
We're here to do the job for TO the American people
#4
She's acknowledging it is a bad bill that violates the Constituion, unpopular with constituents they were elected to represent, and still is trying to get them to commit political suicide by signing onto a radical Progressive agenda. Even Gavin Newsome is waking up to problems in her district, so it may be enough to end Queen Nancy's reign. What's really in it for her?
25 minute speech at link by Governor Christie of NJ to 200 Mayors of NJ cities.
Marlboro, after a two year negotiation, they give a five year contract giving 4.5% annual salary increases to the teachers, with no contribution, zero contribution to health care benefits.
But I am sure there are people in Marlboro who have lost their jobs, who have had their homes foreclosed on, and who cannot keep a roof over their family's head there is something wrong.
You know, at some point there has to be parity. There has to be parity between what is happening in the real world, and what is happening in the public sector world. The money does not grow on trees outside this building or outside your municipal building. It comes from the hard working people of our communities who are suffering and are hurting right now.
I would love to tell you that municipal aid will stay level, but it's not. And it's not because we don't have the money. So you need to prepare. You need to prepare for what's coming down the line because we have no choice but to do these things.
And so we need to get honest with each other. In this instance, the political class,for which unfortunately all of us are a member of, the political class is lagging behind the public on this. The public is ready to hear that tough choices have to be made. They're not going to like it. Don't confuse the two. But they are ready to hear the truth.
In fact, they find it refreshing to hear the truth.
They are tired of hearing, don't worry I can spare you from the pain, because they have been hearing that for a decade, as we have borrowed and spent and taxed our way into oblivion. They cut the end of the speech. I think because that's the part where he says "Oh, Shiiiiiiiiit
#2
Not sure this guy can be president. But I do like the fact that he has the cojones to tell the entitled American public that it isn't ever going to be 1954 again.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
03/03/2010 6:48 Comments ||
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#3
NMU, it's also that he has the cojones to tell the entitled PUBLIC SECTOR PARASITES that they have to suffer with the rest of us.
Former Rep. Harold Ford Jr. said Tuesday that Democrats are "scared" heading into this fall's election and that he decided not to run for the Senate from New York because he feared his party would lose the seat after a tough primary.
"The fall is going to be a tough, tough fall for whatever Democrat emerges," Ford said during an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," his first since announcing Monday night that he is not running. "It would have been a tough brutal fight."
Ford, who ran unsuccessfully for the Senate from Tennessee in 2006, denied reports that he was scared off by the potential candidacy of Mort Zuckerman -- who is believed to have courted many of Ford's potential fundraisers and supporters -- insisting that he would have been able to raise plenty of money regardless of who else entered the race.
"Mort will spend his own money. Mort's a billionaire," Ford said. "I wish we could all be billionaires."
Rather, Ford stuck to the explanation he gave The New York Times on Monday night. "I'm a Democrat, I'm an independent Democrat, and I didn't want a Republican to win," he said.
But Ford offered little support to the candidate he would have challenged, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, or to the Democratic Party he says he's looking out for.
"Voters don't know the junior senator," he said, referring to Gillibrand. "They can't name one positive outcome from her."
Ford also indicated that Republican Sen. Scott Brown's win in Massachusetts made a Republican win in New York possible.
"They're scared," he said of the state's Democratic establishment. "For anyone to believe our normal messaging will win this election ... they are kidding themselves."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Dont agree that the dems or the repub are scared, they constitute the backbone of our ignoble oligarchic largesse, which under the superior terms, of plausibly deniable compartmentalism....
Slate blogger Mickey Kaus makes it official: he's taken out papers to run in the Democratic primary against California Senator Barbara Boxer. I've known Mickey since he wrote for The Washington Monthly and The New Republic in the 1980s and have always enjoyed his idiosyncratic take on issues and candidates. In his Kausfiles blog he writes the way he talks when he's making an argument: a prime example of how a blogging format can communicate almost like conversation (ed: though it's a pretty one-sided conversation, no? No, he presents alternative views). Mickey insists he is a strong Democrat, but he's an idiosyncratic one: he supports current Democratic health care legislation, but opposes comprehensive immigration legislation that includes legalization of illegal immigrants, and he strongly supported welfare reform in the 1990s. The Boxer campaign oppo research folks, after they've finished perusing Kausfiles for material that will strike Democratic primary voters as damning (they will have an embarrassment of riches) might want to check out his book The End of Equality.
I knew that Mickey was the son of the late California Supreme Court Justice Otto Kaus, but I didn't know till I started googling that he is of Viennese origin: his father was born in Vienna and his paternal grandmother novelist and screenwriter Gina Kaus was well connected in Viennesse literary and intellectual circles and fortunately moved to Paris in 1938 and the United States in 1939 and settled in Los Angeles. I think it's likely that she knew some of the Viennese natives who became Hollywood greats, like Otto Preminger and Billy Wilder. Did Mickey mingle with some of these people when we was growing up? I'd love to know.
I don't suppose the Boxer campaign is too worried about Mickey's candidacy. But there's a precedent that suggests that a decent showing for an unlikely candidate could cause trouble for the Democratic nominee for Senate in California. In 1982 the novelist Gore Vidal ran for the open Senate seat being vacated by Republican S. I. Hayakawa. The overwhelming favorite in the primary was incumbent Governor Jerry Brown (then 44; now at 72 running for governor again). Two relatively conventional politicians were also running: Orange County state Senator Paul Carpenter and Fresno Mayor Daniel Whitehurst. Brown won the primary by a wide margin, but with only 51% of the vote. Vidal finished second with 15.11%, just ahead of Carpenter (15.10%) and well ahead of Whitehurst (6%). Brown's percentage, relatively low for an eight-year governor with universal name and substantive recognition, and Vidal's second place finish suggested that Brown was not a strong general election candidate, and in November he lost to San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson by a 52%-45% margin. Vidal got 415,366 votes. A similar showing for Mickey in the June primary might be a sign of weakness for Boxer.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2010 00:00 ||
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Two prominent Republican governors on Tuesday plan to go after Sen. Mary Landrieu, Louisiana Democrat, in an attempt to criticize President Obama's health-care bill and also highlight what they say is a piling of unfunded mandates onto states.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican Governors Association (RGA), and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, RGA vice-chair and a potential Republican candidate for president in 2012, will argue that Landrieu has admitted that states will be saddled with large financial obligations because of Medicaid expansion provisions in the president's plan.
The governors say Landrieu is "the first Democratic senator to admit that states will have to shoulder significant new costs created by President Obama's proposed health-care plan," and plan to call on her to declare what state programs she would cut or what taxes she would raise in order to meet those obligations.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2010 00:00 ||
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Harold Ford gave many reasons for his decision not to launch a primary challenge against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, but he didn't mention a decisive one: The emergence of a richer, stronger center-right challenger whom many of Ford's potential supporters on Wall Street and in New York's business community would prefer.
Ford's departure signals, according to two top New York Democrats, just how serious Mortimer B. Zuckerman is about a Senate race.
Zuckerman, who parlayed a fortune in real estate into a mixed bag of media holdings and a prominent role in American Jewish life, has been encouraged by the reaction to the trial balloon he floated a few weeks ago in The New York Times, friends told POLITICO. And he seems to have shut down the former Tennessee Congressman's attempt to enter New York politics before it ever got off the ground.
"A lot of donors were telling [Ford] that if Mort ran, they would be with Mort," said a senior New York Democrat.
(A spokesman for Ford, Davidson Goldin, denied that Zuckerman played a role in Ford's decision. Ford cited a desire to save his party a bruising primary.)
But Zuckerman -- who would likely skip the Democratic primary and challenge Gillibrand in the general election as a Republican-Independent -- poses a far graver threat to the national political status quo. The New York billionaire who owns one of the Democratic Party's loudest megaphones, the New York Daily News, backed Barack Obama in the 2008 campaign but has emerged as a bitter White House critic, and his entry into the race would put Republicans clearly within striking distance of retaking the Senate.
At this point, the only real obstacle to Zuckerman's entering the race is Zuckerman himself. Friends said they're not sure whether he's willing to give up the unusual status he's bought as a figure who is public when he chooses to weigh in on public policy issues and utterly private in his unconventional personal life. And friends like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg have told him that, at 72, after a lifetime of running his own businesses and making millions, the last thing that would make him happy would be becoming a freshman senator.
But Zuckerman, who owns the New York Daily News and U.S.News & World Report, has been a practicing pundit for years and "has always wanted to be in the political mix," said Howard Rubenstein, the New York PR man and a Zuckerman friend. More important, the weaknesses of his likely opponent, Gillibrand, are clear to everyone, and a statewide office has rarely seemed so ripe for the plucking.
"He'd be her 'worst possible opponent' among possible candidates, said Democratic political consultant Dan Gerstein.
If Zuckerman were to mount a serious challenge to Gillibrand as a Republican, it would extend the list of strong GOP candidates to well within striking distance of the Democrats' 18-seat majority, though Zuckerman would most likely define himself as an independent.
Top state Republican officials, including former Gov. George Pataki, reached out to Zuckerman when his exploration became public (not, as reported elsewhere, the reverse, two sources said), with New York state chairman Ed Cox telling POLITICO he has only one caveat: If Zuckerman runs as a Republican, he has to agree to caucus with the party. And Frank MacKay, chairman of New York's Independence Party, which has often offered wealthy candidates its line, said he finds Zuckerman "impressive" and is "wide open" to a meeting.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2010 00:00 ||
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Zuckerman -- who would likely skip the Democratic primary and challenge Gillibrand in the general election as a Republican-Independent
Actually the GOP staying out of this would work to Zuckerman's advantage - running as the official GOP candidate probably would hurt him.
Granted he'd be no better than Collins or Snowe or McCain, but at least he would not be another rubber stamp and would seem to enjoy thumbing Obama and the Dem leadership in the eye.
The National Organization for Women today urged New York Gov. David Paterson to resign because of a report he directed two staffers to contact a woman about a domestic violence case involving one of his top aides.
The group is highly influential in Democratic politics and called for the governor's resignation despite what it considers Paterson's "excellent" record of strong support for women's issues and in combatting domestic violence.
"It is inappropriate for the governor to have any contact or to direct anyone to contact an alleged victim of violence," said Marcia Pappas, president of NOW New York State. "This latest news is very disappointing for those of us who believed the governor was a strong advocate for women's equality and for ending violence against women."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2010 00:00 ||
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is facing a new conundrum as the swell of voices calling for the removal of House Ways & Means Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) begins to build.
Sources on the Hill tell HUMAN EVENTS that the latest problem involves the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and their objection to Rangel's ouster as the first member of their caucus to hold the chairmanship of the very powerful tax writing committee.
To complicate matters, one source says the CBC is pressuring Pelosi to give the slot to another CBC member, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.). The main problem with that scenario is she'd have to "reach down five people," passing over three other committee members in line to do so: Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) and Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.).
Stark is a 78-year-old bombastic Californian notorious for his lack of decorum. One source told me, "Pelosi really doesn't want to see Stark in the chairmanship."
At a town hall meeting over the summer a constituent told Stark, "Don't pee on my leg and then tell me it's raining." Stark replied to the senior citizen, "I wouldn't dignify you by peeing on your leg. I wouldn't waste the urine."
According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, "Stark once called the American Medical Association a bunch of 'greedy troglodytes.' He's got a point there ...
He assailed one Republican colleague as 'a whore for the insurance industry,' called another a 'fascist' and a third a 'fruitcake.' Recently, when a pesky journalist asked the same question too many times, Stark threatened to throw him out the window."
Another Hill staffer close to the arena told me on condition of anonymity, "Pelosi's choice is between unethical and crazy. It's tough to decide which is better."
Pelosi could likely justify stepping over Stark and his behavior, yet the next two in line, Levin and McDermott, don't have the issues their colleague has. It will be interesting to note which Democrat members of the committee support an affirmative action policy when it's the committee chairmanship at stake.
One thing is certain: Rangel's corruption issues are causing severe damage to the Democrat Party in the election year. This initial ethics finding was only the first shoe to drop. Rangel remains under investigation for more serious charges including income tax violations.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
One thing is certain: Rangel's corruption issues are causing severe damage to the Democrat Party in the election year.
On second thought Nancy, please leave him where he is.
If it weren't an election year, I'd say let him go.
#3
Oh, Nancy...please, please pick McDermott to run Ways and Means. By picking a Communist traitor to run one of the House's most important committees, you give the Trunks campaign-ad scripts that write themselves and GUARANTEE that the Quislingcrats will lose both the House and Senate in a landslide.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaaloo) ||
03/03/2010 9:25 Comments ||
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Uh, McDermott doesnt have issues?!
He is an issue unto himself as the farthest of far left loonies, he's farther. I dont even think the commies would take him. But for those folks in Alki and Magnolia, Bellevue and Mercer Island......he's perfect.
Republican Scott Brown beat Democrat Martha Coakley by five points in the senatorial contest to succeed Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts. But, in William Delahunt's congressional district, Brown beat the lady by 20 points. This was not good news for Delahunt, not good news at all.
He's serving his seventh House term in a state delegation that is all Democratic (which, alas, it won't be come Election Day 2010). The tenth C.D. has been Democratic since Gerry Studds won it in the seventies, and Studds held the seat for nearly a quarter-century. The only chance the Dems had of retaining the seat was for Joseph P. Kennedy III, one of the twin sons of Joe Kennedy Jr. (with whom, you may recall, I've had my quarrels) and grandson of JFK's brother Bobby, to leave his job as a prosecutor in Barnstable County and run. But JPK III ruled out that prospect Sunday in an interview with the Boston Globe. I don't know the man, but I am reliably told of his seriousness, diligence, and wit. I wouldn't have minded at all if there were someone in American politics who had the gene for responsible patriotism in his blood.
Alas, Delahunt does not. Not even in the elemental sense of reliability as a prosecutor. Back in 1986, Delahunt, now the morally haughty congressman, was the unbelievably casual district attorney in the Bay State's Norfolk County when Amy Bishop was arrested for shooting her brother. Yes, the University of Alabama professor who killed three of her colleagues (and wounded others) in mid-February had a record. Police suspected she sent a mail-bomb to her Harvard Medical School thesis adviser, Professor Paul Rosenberg, in 1993. And nothing happened.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2010 00:00 ||
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A new poll in Pennsylvania's Senate race shows Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter now leading conservative Pat Toomey, the Republican challenger whose candidacy drove the five-term incumbent out of the GOP last April.
The Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday reflects a significant change in a hypothetical general-election matchup that the university found to be tied since last summer. Peter Brown, the assistant director of the university's polling institute, said he could only assume Specter's campaign activity, such as mailings, or increased media coverage is responsible. We need to see the poll internals. This is rather out of whack with the other polls out there that show either a within-the-limits lead or a lead just outside the margin for Toomey.
The survey shows Specter leading Toomey 49 percent to 42 percent, a substantial edge over the former Allentown-area congressman who narrowly lost to Specter in the 2004 GOP primary.
Toomey has been endorsed this year by the state GOP and is considered the front-runner for his party's nomination. The Toomey campaign said the poll is an anomaly compared to other polls that have put him ahead in the last six months.
The poll also says Specter maintains a decisive lead over U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak in the May 18 Democratic primary, 53 percent to 29 percent, a gap that has remained constant since May.
Sestak dismissed the result as reflective of a voter base that is not paying attention to the race yet. His campaign, he said, has more cash on hand and better polling numbers than Toomey had when he took on Specter in 2004.
"We're a little ahead of where we thought we would be at this time," Sestak said Monday after a campaign event in Harrisburg.
The telephone poll of 1,452 Pennsylvanians was conducted during the week that ended Sunday. The sampling error margin is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2010 00:00 ||
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RealClearPolitics (RCP) has Toomey averaged out in all polls by + 4.0% over Specter. Penn. is considered a toss up state; can go either way. Still a long way to Nov.
Al Gore resurfaces in an op-ed to say that nobody's perfect, everybody makes mistakes and climate change is still real. And he has some oceanfront property in the Himalayas to sell you.
If hyperbole and chutzpah had a child, it would be the opening paragraph of Gore's op-ed in Sunday's New York Times. Gore surfaced from the global warming witness-protection program to opine that despite admissions of error and evidence of fraud by various agencies, we still face "an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it."
Perhaps he's trying to protect his investments as he knows them, for he is heavily involved in enterprises that deal with carbon offsets and green technology. If the case for climate change is shown to be demonstrably false, a lot of his green evaporates like moisture from the ocean.
Interestingly, it's that moisture from the ocean that he uses to defend his failed hypothesis. The blizzards that have buried the Northeast, he writes, are proof of global warming because record evaporation due to warming is what produces record snows. Except that supporters of his theory not long ago argued exactly the opposite.
He writes that we should "not miss the forest for the trees, neither should we miss the climate for the snowstorm." He should explain why last year Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., warned that lack of snow in the mountains was threatening California's water supply.
Boxer, who along with Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, is trying to ram through a Senate version of the House's Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, said: "Looking at the United States of America, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) clearly warned that unchecked global warming will lead to reduced snowpack in the western mountains, critically reducing access to water, which is our lifeblood."
So global warming simultaneously causes mountain snow to vanish and Himalayan glaciers to recede while blanketing the northeastern United States with snowfalls measured in feet. Clearly, this is an untenable position. One phenomenon cannot simultaneously produce two different results.
He speaks of "recent attacks on the science of global warming." These presumably include the unearthing of e-mails between researchers associated with Britain's Climatic Research Unit that revealed an effort to discredit skeptics and deny them peer-review, the destruction and manipulation of data, and the use of "tricks" to "hide the decline" in global temperatures.
CRU director Phil Jones has admitted that temperatures in the Middle Ages may have been even higher than they are today. Jones also confessed that there's been no statistically significant warming in the past 15 years.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/03/2010 00:00 ||
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But,but ...... Nobel prize winner and (even more important) Oscar-winner Al Gore says January was the hottest on record! It was in the NY Times. And Rantburg!
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/03/2010 6:02 Comments ||
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Next thing you know this charlatan will figure out some way to sell out of the trunk of his green car (yeah sure) on Wall Street carbon credit off-set derivatives (basically nothing)to investors. Maybe people will take out subprime loans to invest in these worthless derivatives.
#4
Al Gore? Lying? The inventor of the Internet, the romantic hero of Love Story, the true victor of the 2000 election, telling an untruth? It's not possible, I tells ya! Inconceivable!
/sarc
Posted by: Mike ||
03/03/2010 10:05 Comments ||
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This is how global warming science appears to me
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Last week, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a crime syndicate dedicated to tightening the Democratic Party's grip on America, dissolved its national structure. Too much of ACORN's corruption had been exposed to public scrutiny for it to run its vote fraud and extortion rackets effectively. So, ACORN activists will have to soldier on in state-level organizations, such as New York Communities for Change and New England United for Justice in Massachusetts.
California Rep. Pete Stark will temporarily seize the gavel of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, succeeding Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., who stepped aside because of an ethics probe, Fox News learned Wednesday.
Jim Geraghty, National Review
Former Rep. Harold Ford Jr. said Tuesday that Democrats are "scared" heading into this fall's election and that he decided not to run for the Senate from New York because he feared his party would lose the seat after a tough primary.
Al Gore resurfaces in an op-ed to say that nobody's perfect, everybody makes mistakes and climate change is still real. And he has some oceanfront property in the Himalayas to sell you.
