Now that we've vanquished the Slasher, we can turn to the next pathetic embarrassment that calls himself a legislator: Pedro Espada.
Espada's challenger, community organizer Desiree Pilrgim-Hunter, is having a fundraiser on March 22:
Please join us in supporting Desiree Hunter's campaign to bring integrity and accountable leadership to NY's 33rd Senate District. Join with residents of the district and others to support this important campaign for progressive change in Albany. Meet Desiree, hear her vision, ask questions and meet other supporters.
* 6:30pm-8:30pm, Monday, March 22, 2010
* At the home of Miriam Ford and Jack Marth
3853 Cannon Place, Bronx NY 10463 -- Link to Map
RSVP by making a contribution below or email jmarthbx@gmail.com or call (718) 549-4415
If the media is going to take Desiree's challenge seriously, she needs to start raising some cash. I suggest everyone attend if you can afford it. Defeating Pedro is going to be a lot harder than defeating the Slasher was, primarily because it appears he is going to have the support of the corrupt Bronx Democratic Party (please prove me wrong, Carl Heastie). So Desiree is going to need all the help that a truly insurgent campaign needs- please show her some love.
The SEIU is putting a full-page version of this ad in tomorrow's Staten Island Advance to pressure S.I. congressman McMahon to vote for the final HCR bill. The implicit message is a threat to leave McMahon out in the cold in future elections if he votes against HCR. Let us double-down on this threat. Don't expect to find any love from the NY progressive blogosphere in the form of funds or boots on the ground this November if you vote nay on health care.
How bad must it get for an 85-year-old former mayor of the City of New York - not an easy job, that - to leave retirement and start rattling the cage?
Pretty bad.
The following is an op-ed that went out by email to the mayor's list.
The New York Uprising Begins
Last Friday, at the New York City offices of my law firm, Bryan Cave LLP, for a group of us, the New York Uprising began.
A hundred men and women came together to commit themselves to the overhaul of the New York State legislature, which the Brennan Center for Justice appropriately called "dysfunctional" six years ago, and which has alarmingly deteriorated since. The legislature in Albany is an abysmal failure and a disgrace to the Empire State.
The New York Uprising was convened by Dick Dadey of the Citizens Union, Henry Stern of New York Civic and myself. The purpose for the meeting was a brainstorming session aimed at developing a strategy for reforming the state legislature, both the Assembly and Senate.
Compounding New York's government problem is its non-functional governor who is beset with allegations that he may have committed a crime by swearing falsely before the New York State Commission on Public Integrity, as well as allegations of possible obstruction of justice now being investigated by the New York State Attorney General. The latter recused himself from the investigation -- he is a perceived candidate for the office of governor in the November election -- and selected Judith Kaye, retired Chief Justice of the New York Court of Appeals, to oversee the investigation by the Attorney General's staff.
Attending the March 12th meeting were Frank Baraff and Brian Keeler, leaders of a coalition of New Yorkers called Reboot New York, who are organizing upstate and Long Island citizens to push for reform in Albany. Other citizen-based organizations are being established around the city and state, including Unshackle Upstate, headed by Brian Sampson, as well as various reform-minded groups of business people. Five respected good government groups - the Brennan Center for Justice, Citizens Union, Common Cause NY, League of Women Voters/NYS and N.Y. Public Interest Research Group - have organized to address Albany reform. The Westchester County Association, led by former Lieutenant Governor Al Del Bello and Bill Mooney, is taking up the effort in Westchester.
Today is the big day. Peralta v. Monserrate. Consider this the official open thread for reporting any election-related news, anecdotes, or other input of import.
On the latest election news, it appears the Slasher has also broken election law- twice:
Around 11:30 a.m., he strutted into a senior center on Roosevelt Avenue in Corona that also held a polling station, violating election laws that require candidates and their supporters to stay at least 100 feet away.
(snip)
About a half hour later, Mr. Monserrate's sound truck arrived outside another polling site at Public School 89 in Jackson Heights followed by two vans with his name on them.
The vehicles parked in front of the school and Mr. Monserrate stepped out to talk to voters.
A poll worker requested that the vans be moved. Mr. Monserrate denied that their vans were working on his behalf and continued to speak with voters.
When the poll worker confronted Mr. Monserrate, he said angrily, "Buzz off, man. Buzz off. Go shave, get a haircut and get lost. Who are you to tell me who I can and can't talk to?"
Indeed. Who is a poll worker to tell a candidate about violating election law? Who has the right to tell the Slasher about any law, since no law applies to him? I think we have Stephen Colbert's latest alpha-dog of the week right here.
Koch, 85, is at the forefront of a new effort to clean up the dysfunctional cesspool of state government that is Albany World.
The former "How-Am-I-Doing?" mayor of New York City is organizing a coalition to plan the electoral takedown of incumbent state legislators who block reform. The idea is to elevate candidates who are committed to reform.
Koch correctly sees the entire state Legislature as the problem. Reading his comments to The New York Times, one comes away with the impression that he'd be happy to cashier the whole lot of them if only one could.
"I don't believe the good ones are good enough and the bad ones are evil," Koch told the Times.
Antoine Thompson gets some excellent advice from Foghorn Leghorn
We've got to give credit where credit is due and NYS Senator Antoine Thompson's Bigger, Better Bottle Bill has really done a great job of getting a lot of pesky trash off the streets and out of the garbage stream (especially those water bottles).
Saturday, March 13th, 2010, isn't quite St. Patrick's Day. This matters not to the people of the City of Albany. They hold not two parades each year.
As luck would have it, the parade coincided with the Coffee Party's National Kickoff this year. I don't doubt them for not seeing this one coming. In fact, nobody saw this movement coming. From a single Facebook comment in to nearly 150,000 members in just a month, the Coffee Party was kicking off in over 300 meetings yesterday thanks to dedicated grassroots organizers...
...such as myself. I organized the Albany County Coffee Party that met at Uncommon Grounds nearby the SUNY Albany campus. Navigating the parade traffic from the Noon meeting of the Downtown Coffee Party meeting earlier, I found that luck was on my side...on our side as the Coffee Party kicked off in our state's historic capital.
Below the fold, this edition of Soundpolitic Sundays gives the whole scoop for those of you who wish to go beyond the media coverage of National Coffee House Day and get to story straight from the horses mouth...
Blogger Colin Abele, aka Soundpolitic organizer of the Albany County Coffee Party is interviewed on the highest-rated morning radio show in the Capital Region
This morning, I appeared on the Don Weeks Show on News Talk Radio 810 WGY to talk a little bit about the Coffee Party. The movement has grown from a small Facebook comment to nearly 120,000 members as of tonight.
Tomorrow, the movement will have it's National Coffee House Day as the nationwide kick-off to reboot our democracy through citizen initiated civil discourse, with the mission of getting our democracy out of gridlock and back on track to express the collective will of the people.
But enough extra typing. You can listen to the interview right here in streaming MP3. Or, you can click below the fold to read the transcript.
Today, I had a Letter to the Editor appear in my local newspaper, the Altamont Enterprise regarding my organization of the Albany County Coffee Party as part of the National Coffee Party Kickoff to take place this Saturday, March 13.
I feel compelled to re-post the the letter in its entirety here for two reasons. First, because the Enterprise never puts its Letters to the Editor on it's website.
Second, because the final few paragraphs of my 1,776 word letter were cut off, along with any byline to attribute the letter to me. You can discern it was written by me in a small story deeper in the paper. I don't hold it against them; the Enterprise is a top-notch, independently owned local paper that gives a huge forum to letter writers every week, so a mistake here and there is forgivable.
Without further adieu, here's what I wrote, along with the headline:
It seems like everywhere you look these days, someone's trying to spread...The Fear.
All around us...in every town...on every corner...a massive Army Of Fear is standing by, according to the Messengers, ready at a moment's notice to obey the dictates of some unappointed Czar or another.
Just ask Glenn Beck: concentration camps for the white people, jackbooted stormtroopers ready to snatch the guns from your cold dead fingers...Socialist Government-Controlled Healthcare That Threatens Your Not Socialist Medicare...it's all coming, my friends-and unless we organize, as a community, to return to the values of the Founding Fathers, The Government, meaning that awful Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and George Soros and all the other Evil Community Organizers, will win.
There's no government, we're told, like no government.
You know who would find all of this fear of self-government just entirely bizarre?
The Founding Fathers.
In today's conversation we'll consider the fundamentals of American patriotism, we'll ask one of those Founding Fathers how he saw the role of Government-and we'll toss in a few words from Abraham Lincoln, just for good measure.
In less than two months, the Coffee Party movement has grown to over 100,000 members nationwide. And in three days, National Coffee House Day will officially kick off the movement to reform our political culture in all fifty states.
New York is playing its part in about a dozen fledgling organizations that will meet in the afternoon of Saturday, March 13, 2010. From Downstate to Upstate, the Empire State is set to become one of the hot spots of the movement to cool down the rhetoric so we can once again speak to our common goals as Americans.
I organized the Albany County Coffee Party to make sure Albany itself wasn't left out; within a matter of days, one for the city of Albany sprouted up as well.
But this movement is about more than just one blogger, or one city. A complete list of all the New York Coffee Parties are linked to below the fold. And since this movement is bigger than just one state as well, then if you've just heard of the Coffee Party Movement or are not really sure what we'll be doing on Saturday or what we're about, the video directly below makes it clear and simple:
Looks like fun, huh? Click "There's more" to see if there's a New York Coffee Party organizing in your neck of the woods.
Just got back from a day of canvassing for Assemblyman Jose Peralta. His organization seemed very motivated and not taking anything for granted, and it was a great experience on a beautiful day. The feedback from the voters was almost completely pro-Peralta, but the Slasher did have his organization on the ground and appears to be making an effort. Below is a photo of a Monserrate worker talking to voters. Twice when I passed her, I yelled "Don't vote for a criminal!" The second time, she yelled back "vote for somebody in the community!" Yeah, like the local Assemblyman is a real carpetbagger...
Also notice the Obama-type logo on the sign. Shameless.
This photo is inside Peralta HQ- everyone there was really motivated and made me feel confident that soon we will no longer have to worry about having the slashing shame of the state in our legislature ever again.
ALBANY, N.Y. - The National Organization for Women on Tuesday 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."
"It is now time for the governor to step down," she said in the written statement.
There was no immediate comment from Paterson's office. Some leading Democrats have said he should resign to avoid further damage to the party in the 2010 elections. Paterson has said he did nothing wrong and won't resign.
Yeah...Paterson also said he'd run for election. That lasted less than a week...
The two-year anniversary of Spitzer's resignation is March 17. With powerful organizations like NOW calling for Paterson to step down, he may not last long enough to mark the occasion.
With another nail-biting House vote approaching, with the futures of 30 million people lying in the balance, what New York house members are not on this list?
In interviews with the AP, at least nine of the 39 Democrats - or their spokesmen - either declined to state their positions or said they were undecided about the revised legislation, making them likely targets for intense wooing by Pelosi and Obama. Three of them - Brian Baird of Washington, Bart Gordon of Tennessee and John Tanner of Tennessee - are not seeking re-election this fall.
The others are Rick Boucher of Virginia, Suzanne Kosmas of Florida, Frank Kratovil of Maryland, Michael McMahon of New York, Scott Murphy of New York and Glenn Nye of Virginia.
Some of us saw this coming when he delayed his potential campaign announcement for the umpteenth time, but it's nice to see it made official. What hasn't been said already? Goodbye, good luck, and don't come back.
But Ford's timely demise isn't just a win for Senator Gillibrand, or liberals, or the netroots. It is, in fact, a win for the fledgling pro-reform movement in New York State politics.
New York politics operate on money. That's no secret, and it's not exactly different from politics anywhere else. But New York's almost total lack of campaign finance laws on the state level allow a disturbing amount of power to be wielded by a relatively small number of people who have money to burn.
Billionaire coup architect Tom Golisano is a perfect example. Golisano spent a lot of money in 2008 supporting candidates he liked. Some of them were good candidates, and good people. But when Malcolm Smith wasn't deferential enough, Golisano used his power to try and overthrow the state government.
Another example is Mike Bloomberg, the man who personified the corrosive force of money in American politics when, faced with a voter-approved limit on his term of office, simply bought all the votes he needed to stay in power.
Here's where Ford comes in. Make no mistake about it, Ford's base of support (such as it was, consisting mostly of the upper east side of Manhattan, but only above the 30th floor) was centered in and around the same kind of big money contributors who own and operate much of the dirtier side of the New York state legislature.
One of the ringleaders of this behavior (and one of Ford's major backers) is Mike Bloomberg. Another is Steve Pigeon, the "Democrat" whose most undemocratic ideas and total lack of anything resembling the human emotion of shame landed him the seat as the man behind the curtain to Pedro Espada, and the operator of the massively corrupt Independence Party.
The power that Pigeon and those like him wield is, without a doubt, the biggest single opponent to fixing what's broken in New York State government. Why? Because the privileged power brokers like the concentration of control into their own hands.
What kind of power? The power to direct state money, yes. To bend and break laws, sure. To lie, cheat, steal, and get away with it. But moreover, it's just about raw power. The power to bring the state government screeching to a halt because Malcolm Smith checked his Blackberry during a meeting with you. The power to push elections one way or the other. The power to take home a seven figure salary without paying the taxes that the plebes have to.
In a system with no campaign finance laws, no term limits, and no demand by the people that the legislature do the public business or else, power has collected around the lowest common denominator--the people most shameless in their exploitation of that broken system to reward corruption and punish underdogs.
Call it whatever you want--the center, big business, the DLC, corruption--Ford's candidacy represented a money-first view of politics, that the guys on Wall Street mattered more than what was right for New York State as a whole. And New Yorkers rejected that: in the polls, in contributions, in their participation online and across the state.
Because of that, a strong ally of reform, populism, and a fighter for New York State has sent Ford packing. Now it's time to do the same for our legislature, and get this great state back on track.
LANGUAGE WARNING: Today's story is uncharacteristically blunt, and from this moment forward we will be using lots of inappropriate language in making our points.
It is by now fairly well known that Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's White House Chief of Staff, had a bit of a blow-up with liberals who were ready to start running ads against "blue dog" Democrats who were working very hard to shut down the health care reform effort.
Now we're not gonna get in the middle of that argument today; instead, since we're finally getting a chance to talk, I figured me and Rahm could get a few other things out of the way that have been on everyone's mind for the past year or so.
Winter has struck again in Upstate New York. If the roads themselves don't do the trick, then just digging will make you feel like you've just stepped off a rollercoaster. It's dizzying, this much snow! The storm just sat there all week, swirling above Manhattan and spinning the weather around and around. One second the snow was going left, then it was going right...
Wait. This isn't a rollercoaster. It's the Tea Cups! How fitting...since this edition of Soundpolitic Sundays sees the author taking a wild ride at a local Tea Party meeting. I attended the get-together on Saturday of last weekend.
My excuses for not getting this up earlier is twofold. First, there's a lot of back-story to what's going to be said here that I used last week's edition to take care of. Not a very good excuse, but check it out if you missed it.
My second excuse? It's the best and most obvious one: it took a week for my head to stop spinning.
Cross-posted at RebootNY . Check us out and get involved!
Hat tip to an interesting piece by the New York Times for a thought-provoking dialogue between academics, good government experts, and politicians on Friday. It's important that many people from both sides of the aisle recognize the problems of our dysfunctional government and debate solutions on curing the culture of corruption eating away the heart of Albany.
One person who definitely gets it is Kenneth Sherill, a Professor of Political Science at Hunter College. He writes:
The Legislature's core problems can be solved by changing its members and its rules - and sadly for the many good members, it increasingly seems as if you can't change its rules without changing its members. We need independent, nonpartisan apportionment of districts, serious campaign finance reform, and a liberalization of the rules of each house.
We agree entirely. We know that New York State government has the potential to work. It's worked in the past. New York used to be a model of effective government throughout the country, responsible for some of the brightest government programs around. Through strong leadership and a culture of responsibility, our politicians stood up for us. It's only in the recent era that we the people have been subverted by corruption and dysfunction by those who claim to represent us.
The answer is to kick out the trash currently occupying our state government and elect those who will stand up for our interests. With better leaders, we can change the way the state is governed and promote transparency, efficiency, and fairness. With a fair system of government, we can finally get back to a government that works for the people and responds to our needs.
Gerald Benjamin, a Professor of Political Science at the State University of New York, reminds us that some in the state have been down this road before.
The governance system needs serious fixing, as I've elsewhere argued. But ungovernable? Remember, we used to say that about New York City. No more. We found leaders that could make the city work. Now we have to use this election to do the same for the state. And then follow with the hard work of fixing the system itself.
We can change our state. It starts by booting out those who have failed us and electing those who will pus us first.
There is a word out there that I can use to unequivocally and quite comfortably describe myself. It stems from my longtime hobbies: Ever since I was a little bitty baby boy I always had my nose in a book or my fingers tapping at a typewriter or clutching playing cards.
Well, not since I was a baby boy. I'm no whiz-kid, especially not at age twenty-six. But I'll confess that I have no problem describing myself as completely, utterly, and happily...uncool.
I mean, who does stuff like this? Who at my age - or at any age - wakes up early on Sunday mornings to write politically-charged and Zen-infused rants on something that sounds so dweeby as a "blog?" This is totally uncool.
For that matter, who the hell else my age wakes up early on a Saturday morning as a progressive Democrat to hang onto every word of...the local Tea Party? And then, instead of going home to write about it immediately (and there will be lots to write about in the coming days) decides it's time to fiddle around with some of those nerdy playing cards?
No more games, folks. Soundpolitic Sundays continues below the fold...
The annual circus surrounding the NYS budget took another step up in absurdity this year when Paterson decided that:
"In an environment when we have to cut funding to schools, hospitals, nursing homes and social services, no area of state spending, including parks and historic sites, could be exempt from reductions," (Buffalo News 2/20/10)
This is just business as usal NYS governement style. None of the areas Paterson listed have been chopped the 18% that he is proposing for this year alone. Cuts to the parks woud be even higher if you add in reductions to the DEC. Its chop where it hurts the most, so public outcry covers up the fact that are significant savings to be had else where.
Where can we find $29 million to keep the parks open?
The number of State buracrats earning over $100,00 jumped 16% from 2008 - 2009 an is 4 times as high as it was in 2000. (Jim Heaney, Buffalo News)
The State subsidizes athletics spending, at UB alone, to the tune of $17 million a year.
Eliminating state subsidies for athletics at all SUNY schools would more than pay for the parks and a few other programs. If a kid picks a college because of the football team, maybe he isn't quite ready for college yet, ya think?
The UB Middle States Accredidation report indicates that is costs at least $22,800 about a year to educate a student. Tuition for out-of-state students is $15,000. Simply eliminating the State subsidy for foreign students (Currently 15% of UB or 4300 students are foreign) would raise $33.5 million. Even more if you reduce the State subsidy for out-of-state students. Multiply that across all SUNY schools.
%20132-31-007.jpg)
