March 8, 2010
PoliticsNY.Net: NEW YORKSTATE POLITICALINTERNET NEWS
Illuzzi Please note: There is little if anything being reported statewide with respect to public policy or the budget, very telling & very sad. ...
NY TIMES: The Escalating Price of Politics. A hugely cynical Republican Party memo on the care and feeding of big donors disdains them as "ego-driven" check writers who can be bought by access to power and vanity tchotchkes. The memo, obtained by Politico.com, is exceptional for its candor about the crassness of the multibillion-dollar politicking industry. That industry is on the verge of a great leap forward in this year's Congressional elections, thanks to the Supreme Court ruling that freed corporate executives and union bosses to spend whatever they want on their own commercials touting candidates who toe their lines or, more likely, attacking those who don't. See LOCAL screen
NY TIMES: At Church, Paterson Vows to Stay in Office. Speaking before a church congregation in Brooklyn, Gov. David A. Paterson declared on Sunday that he was the victim of innuendo and lies and that he would finish his term to "fulfill the mission in which God placed me." See state screen
NY TIMES: "Gov. David A. Paterson insisted Friday that he had no plans to step down as his staff tried to carry on the business of state amid a fiscal crisis and the cloud of multiple investigations. Mr. Paterson seemed intent on conveying an image of confidence and surety at one of the darkest hours of his career. "I don't have any plans to resign," he said after a nearly two-hour lunch at the Four Seasons. "At a certain point, I will cooperate with the investigations and will be clearing my name." Full Story
NY TIMES: For Juveniles in Family Court, Judges Seek Safer Alternatives to Prison. Judge Daniel Turbow in Family Court in Brooklyn, a city prosecutor confidently listed the reasons why the 16-year-old boy in the courtroom should be sent upstate to a juvenile prison. Full story
TIMES UNION: Who, how and if... Questions about how procedure in Paterson allegations would unfold. A state commission's referral of felony perjury allegations against Gov. David Paterson has left unsettled the question of what agency, if any, may seek to investigate the case or present evidence to a grand jury for possible indictment. See state screen
TIMES UNION: Democrats are privately discussing lieutenant governor candidates should the current LG, Richard Ravitch, ascend to the governor's post. A few prominent names have been bandied about, but many of those talking about the notion stress they think Ravitch, a heavy man and heavy smoker who will turn 77 in July, should choose a standout should he be unable to serve the remainder of the term Gov. David Paterson took over for Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Full story
NY DAILY NEWS: Peter Kauffmann became 'very disillusioned' with Gov. Paterson's lying ways, says source. Gov. Paterson's communications chief Peter Kauffmann, who quit in disgust last week, nearly bolted in January over his boss' lying ways, friends told the Daily News.The well-respected Kauffmann, 34, became increasingly frustrated by Paterson's aversion to the truth. More and more, his office was caught dispensing dead-wrong information provided by the lame-duck governor."This is something he wrestled with for a while," said one close associate. "He was becoming very disillusioned ... and was really trying to weigh his obligations to public service versus his increasing concern." See state screen
NY DAILY NEWS: Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch calls meeting with Andrew Cuomo to discuss plan if Gov. Paterson resigns. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo Friday secretly met with Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch to talk about the budget and how to move forward should Gov. Paterson leave office, the Daily News has learned. It was Ravitch who called the meeting, which was part "meet and greet" and part political discussion, at the Water Club in Manhattan, sources told the Daily News. "It was not a briefing on the state of the investigation," said a source. Full story
NY POST: Silence of the sham. Gov's claim of 'probe gag' is another lie.Gov. Paterson, liar, liar, pants on fire! Sad to say, Paterson, who's earned a reputation as something of a pathological liar during the past two years, is lying again to the people of New York -- as he continues his claim that he can't talk about the criminal investigations he faces, even though, of course, he'd so much like to do so. See state screen
NY POST: "Gov's pick' em path to power. When Eliot Spitzer's top aides were mulling David Paterson as a potential running mate in the winter of 2005, two people who knew him cautioned that the Albany veteran was a "hard partier." They were referring to Paterson's extramarital dalliances, past drug use and penchant for late-night clubbing. But Spitzer's people didn't get the message. "We didn't know what 'hard partying' even meant," a former top Spitzer aide confessed to The Post. "Our idea of fun is to go exercise. The thinking was, 'He enjoys partying -- that's nice!' " The warnings about the then-Senate minority leader were never even passed on to Spitzer, since they seemed beside the point. "We didn't understand that it meant women or that it was in any way inappropriate. We didn't understand the lifestyle going on there." Full story...
NY POST: "Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver Friday rejected Gov. Paterson's appeal for more time in office and told the scandal-scarred chief executive to come clean on "very serious allegations" of obstruction of justice, perjury and ethics violations. "The governor has to respond to the allegations so the business of governing can move on unimpeded," Silver (D-Manhattan) told reporters in Chinatown. "We can't be mired in all of those issues," said Silver, noting that the state faces a $9 billion-plus deficit for the fiscal year beginning April 1. "We're facing a severe fiscal crisis -- obviously, it's a distraction. Silver said if Paterson addresses the charges against him now, "the court of public opinion will weigh in and make a determination." Silver, meanwhile, said Cuomo had assured him that the investigation of Paterson, which had been requested by the governor himself, would move ahead swiftly." This is entire article...
NY POST: "State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo held a secret meeting Friday with Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch, Fox 5 News has learned. The meeting took place at 10:30 a.m. Friday morning at the Water Club on the East River at 30th Street in Manhattan. When Fox 5 called the attorney general's office for comment on the meeting it received a "no comment." The lieutenant governor's office has not returned a message. Ravitch would become governor in the event of Governor David Paterson's impeachment or resignation. Cuomo is investigating whether Paterson illegally contacted a woman who had accused a top aide of domestic violence. The governor is also under fire for a charge by the state's Commission on Public Integrity for violating the state gift ban by accepting World Series tickets from the Yankees." This is entire article
POLITICS DAILY: "The travails of Paterson and Rangel are unraveling just as other prominent characters in the city's black political landscape are facing their own investigations for ethical and other law violations. Among them are Congressman Gregory W. Meeks and State Senator Malcolm A. Smith, who together founded a nonprofit organization that federal prosecutors are investigating for potential misuse of funds. At the same time, the state inspector general's office is investigating the bidding process in the Aqueduct Racetrack project. One of the investors is the Rev. Floyd Flake, a prominent figure in the African-American community. "There's a sense of financial entitlement among these officials," a Democratic Party insider told me. "They feel they are exempt from the law. It has nothing to do with race, but it is a problem." New York City hardly stands alone at the top charts of political corruption." Full story
ERIE COUNTY JAIL
UPDATE: Federal Judge William Skretny on Saturday ordered Erie County to openthe jaildoors to federal investigators on March 22 - 23, 2010. Skretny also refused to throw out the lawsuit brought by the DOJ. Skretny cited the reoccurring suicides in the jail as one issue that went into his decision.
"Due to the Justice Department's demonstration of good cause and the recurring incidents of suicide, and attempted suicide, at the Erie County Holding Center, this court finds that the requested expedited discovery is both warranted and necessary."
Update: Apparently, county officials will accompany DOJ investigators. ...
We could not glean from the ruling or published reports whether or not the investigators will be accompanied by jail officials which was an issue for Sheriff Tim Howard & County Attorney Cheryl Green.
County spokesman Grant Loomis: "The county law department is currently reviewing the judge's ruling and will do so over the next few days to determine the best course of action for county taxpayers." ...
State inspectors are being sent to the holding center & county jail. We believe Sheriff Howard has the wherewithal to get thiscrisis under control; an excellent first step in putting addicted prisoners in the same holding area. ...
Three suicides in four months is NOT acceptable. Something is terribly broken - Please fix it! Read our five part series below
JosephIlluzzi704@aol.com
Denise O'Donnell
Gov's actions "unacceptable."
By DENISE E. O'DONNELL
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Last week, I resigned my po sition as commissioner of the Division of Criminal Justice Services and deputy secretary of public safety for the state of New York.
I made that decision with a heavy heart but a clear conscience.
I cannot condone and will not defend behavior that is the antithesis of what many of us have spent our entire careers working to build -- a legal system that protects victims of domestic violence and brings offenders to justice.
The legitimacy of our system rests on a foundation of trust, grounded in experience, that victims canreport these crimes without fear of reprisal.
That foundation of trust has been seriously compromised -- and now all of those who care about protecting victims of domestic violence must work to rebuild this trust.
Last week, the governor and members of the State Police acknowledged having direct contact with a woman who had filed for an order of protection against a senior member of the governor's staff.
These actions are unacceptable, regardless of their intent. And their damage was immediate.
"I thought it was going to be swept under the table because he's like a government official," said the woman, "and I have problems even calling the police because the state troopers kept calling me and harassing me to drop the charges and I wouldn't."
This paper reported her testimony -- that the assailant, with whom she had lived for four years, "had choked her, stripped her of much of her clothing, smashed her against a mirrored dresser and taken two telephones from her to prevent her from calling for help."
In the end, the woman failed to show up for her final court hearing and the charges were dropped.
Despite repeated requests for help, our legal system is failing her.
Research has shown that fear of reprisal is a major factor in whether victims report crimes.
The more dangerous the attack, the more often fear of reprisal is a reason for not reporting the crime.
It is hard to imagine a higher potential for reprisal than being contacted -- in this case, three times -- by the State Police on behalf of your attacker and then, ultimately, by the state's most powerful politician.
We will have to wait for the results of Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's investigation before we know all the facts.
But we don't have to wait to see this episode as an object lesson to remind us why we pass the laws we pass.
And we simply cannot wait to recommit to enforcing the letter and spirit of laws to protect future victims of these serious crimes.
Living Legends
by Bill O'Reilly
Stay with me, because you are not going to believe this column. This month in Chicago, an event will honor three men as "living legends." The men are Minister Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor of Barack Obama's church, and Father Michael Pfleger, a radical-left Catholic priest. The men will stand together, and thousands of spectators will pay to see them.
The press release announcing the program says, "Because of their legacy of educating, they are being honored as Living Legends for their unfailing work and dedication."
And who, exactly, selected the three men as honorees? Um, well, that would be the Rev. Jeremiah Wright!
That's right, the good reverend is honoring himself and his bomb-throwing pals -- and charging up to $100 for a ticket. Who gets the proceeds? Again, that would be Wright. His school and day-care center will divvy up most of the dollars. Pfleger's parish and Wyclef Jean's Yele Haiti charity will also get some cash, according to the release.
There are many interesting things about this exposition. First, it has received almost no media coverage, even though Farrakhan, speaking before a crowd of 20,000 a few days ago, accused the "white right" of planning the assassination of President Obama. The minister, wearing a Muammar Gaddafi-style hat, went on to say that the "Zionists" were derailing the president's agenda and white Christians were praying for Obama's death. Sounds like the stuff of "living legends," doesn't it?
Also, what is a Catholic priest doing standing with Farrakhan and Wright? Catholics follow Jesus, a man who preached peace and love for all people. My staff called the Archbishop of Chicago, Francis Cardinal George, for comment. But he doesn't have a comment. Are you kidding me? I'm a Catholic -- I'd like to know what's going on!
If you decide to attend the "Living Legends" event, you will hear some music from the "Soulful Sounds" and will be able to purchase Wright's new book, "A Sankofa Moment." I don't exactly know what that is, but it sounds like a thriller. By the way, there is no truth to the rumor that Farrakhan's new book will be entitled "Marley, Me, and the Zionists."
This whole deal is pretty amusing, and even if you don't like him, you have to give Wright some credit. The retired minister now inhabits a million-dollar house in a largely white, gated community and, apparently, has some time on his hands. So, he came up with an award ceremony that promotes his interests, and I'm betting the Chicago theater will sell out.
But, as much as I'd like to, I will not be going. Somehow I don't think old Louie, Jerry and Mike would appreciate me sitting there as the "Living Legends" program unfolds. Just a hunch.
Alice In Health Care Part IV
By Thomas Sowell
Some years ago, one of my favorite doctors retired. On my last visit to his office, he took some time to explain to me why he was retiring early and in good health.
Being a doctor was becoming more of a hassle as the years went by, he said, and also less fulfilling. It was becoming more of a hassle because of the increasing paperwork, and it was less fulfilling because of the way patients came to him.
He was currently being asked to Xerox lots of records from his files, in order to be reimbursed for another patient he was treating. He said it just wasn't worth it. Whoever was paying-- it might have been an insurance company or the government-- would either pay him or not, he said, but he wasn't going to jump through all those hoops.
My doctor said that doctor-patient relationships were not the same as they had been when he entered the profession. Back then, people came to him because someone had recommended him to them, but now increasing numbers of people were sent to him because they had some group insurance plan that included his group.
He said that the mutual confidence that was part of the doctor-patient relationship was not the same with people who came to his office only because his name was on some list of eligible physicians.
The loss of one doctor-- even a very good doctor-- may not seem very important in the grand scheme of heady medical care "reform" and glittering phrases about "universal health care." But making the medical profession more of a hassle for doctors risks losing more doctors, while increasing the demand for treatment.
A study published in the November 2009 issue of the Journal of Law & Economics showed that a rise in the cost of medical liability insurance led to more reductions of hours of medical service supplied by older doctors than among younger doctors.
Younger doctors, more recently out of medical school and often with huge debts to pay off for the cost of that expensive training, may have no choice but to continue working as hard as possible to try to recoup that huge investment of money and time.
Younger doctors will probably continue working, even if bureaucrats load them down with increasing amounts of paperwork and the government continues to lower reimbursements for Medicare, Medicaid and-- heaven help us-- the new proposed "universal health care" legislation that is supposed to "bring down the cost of medical care."
The confusion between lowering costs and refusing to pay the costs can have a real impact on the supply of doctors. The real costs of medical care include both the financial conditions and the working conditions that will insure a continuing supply of both the quantity and the quality of doctors required to maintain medical care standards for a growing number of patients.
Although younger doctors may be trapped in a profession that some of them might not have entered if they had known in advance what all its pluses and minuses would turn out to be, there are two other important groups who are in a position to decide whether or not it is worth it.
Those who are old enough to have paid off their medical school debts long ago, and successful enough that they can afford to retire early, or to take jobs as medical consultants, can opt out of the whole elaborate third-party payment system and its problems. What the rising costs of medical liability insurance has already done for some, other hassles that bureaucracies and politicians create can have the same effect for others.
There is another group that doesn't have to put up with these hassles. These are young people who have reached the stage in their lives when they are choosing which profession to enter, and weighing the pluses and minuses before making their decisions.
Some of these young people might prefer becoming a doctor, other things being equal. But the heady schemes of government-controlled medicine, and the ever more bloated bureaucracies that these heady schemes will require, can make it very unlikely that other things will be equal in the medical profession.
Paying doctors less and hassling them more may be some people's idea of "lowering the cost of medical care," but it is instead refusing to pay the costs-- and taking the consequences.
March 7, 2010
O's SaturdayInternet Address
PoliticsNY.Net: CONGRESSMAN MASSA QUITS
UPDATE: Massa will resign Monday to avoid ethics inquiry. ...
"A freshman congressman, from Western New York announced yesterday that he will retire -- as allegations surfaced that he had sexually harassed a male staffer.
Eric Massa (D-Corning) denied reports from House aides on both sides of the aisle that the House Ethics Committee had been informed of harassment allegations.
"Those kinds of articles, unsubstantiated without fact or backing, are a symptom of what's wrong with this city [Washington] . . . I do not have the life energy to fight all the battles all the time," Massa told reporters in a brief conference call."
SENECAS SEE COMEBACK OVER SALES OF CIGS
There is a relatively short list of people who like mail-order cigarettes teenagers, adults evading sales taxes and the Seneca Nation of Indians of western New York, which dominates the national market. Full story
#2 ON YOURSIDE GOT IT WRONG AGAIN
We just listened to a Channel #2 report at 11:00 AM Friday claiming Black leaders from around the state agreed to support Paterson until his term runs out.
That report is erroneous!
First: The meeting was attended by Paterson's allies from NYC not from around the state as #2 reported.
Second: The attendees were NOT monolithic in their support of Paterson. There were those who believed he should step down. The leaders reached a "consensus";Paterson should stay on until charges are brought of another shoe drops & his position becomes untenable.
Paterson has taken on a bunker mentality keeping his own counsel; he will hang on as long as humanly possible, smart.
He learned his lesson well from Spitzer. We believe if Spitzer had to do it over again he would not have resigned so quickly.
Channel #2's recent story on Antoine Thompson's trip to Jamaica for a jobs conference was way over the top. Thompson gone just three days. No word yet on why "#2 on your side" didn't report that Buffalo Councilmen Micky Keanrs & David Rivera spent some time in Puerto Rico at a political operatives residence. We don't believe they were there in the hopes of bringing jobs back to Buffalo. Who paid for the trip? Fair exchange (or coverage) is no robbery. ...
Pressure Mounting. There are those that have taken different views," Mr. Sharpton said after the two-hour meeting. "Most of those in the room tonight strongly felt the governor should continue." The meeting drew some of the city's most prominent leaders, and a crowd of about 100 curious onlookers stood outside as the politicians met in a back room. Among those who attended were Congressmen Gregory W. Meeks and José E. Serrano; Assemblyman Keith L. T. Wright, the Manhattan Democratic Party chairman; and Hazel Dukes, the former president of the N.A.A.C.P. See state screen ...
Another staffer quit yesterday amid Gov. Paterson's meltdown -- Communications Director Peter Kauffmann, who said he couldn't take the lying anymore. "As a former officer in the United States Navy, integrity and commitment to public service are values I take seriously," said Kauffmann, who joined Paterson's administration almost a year ago. "Unfortunately, as recent developments have come to light, I cannot in good conscience continue in my current position. I have notified the governor that I am resigning," the $175,000-a-year spokesman said. Full story ...
Paterson's top spokesman quits; third key official to leave. Gov. Paterson's top spokesman, Peter Kauffmann, has just resigned, making him the third latest administration official to quit since last week's domestic violence bombshell.
"I have been honored to serve the people of New York during a difficult time in our state's history. As a former officer in the U.S. Navy, integrity and commitment to public service are values I take seriously," Kauffmann said in an e-mail. "Unfortunately, as recent developments have come to light, I cannot in good conscience continue in my current position. I have notified the Governor that I am resigning as Director of Communications." Full story ...
"A group of prominent black leaders will meet Thursday night in Harlem to discuss whether scandal-plagued Gov. Paterson should resign, a source told the Daily News.
"There are a lot of things that people now see as indefensible," the source said. "A lot of people think it's time to move on - not just for the state, but for David as well." ...
Gov. David A. Paterson falsely testified under oath during an ethics investigation into his acceptance of free World Series tickets last fall, according to the State Commission on Public Integrity, which announced on Wednesday that it had asked prosecutors to determine if criminal charges should be brought against the governor. ...
State Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs traveled to Albany on Tuesday with the intention of asking scandal-scarred Gov. Paterson to resign, a knowledgeable source said. But Jacobs changed his tactic during the drive from Long Island after Paterson called him and told him he has no intention of quitting, the source said. Jacobs, who acknowledged speaking to Paterson on the way to Albany, Wednesday night denied he was going to ask the governor to resign. Full story ...
After the conclusion of a leaders meeting, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was asked whether he could keep working with David Paterson, amid the charge today that he lied to the Commission on Public Integrity and improperly solicited and accepted free Yankees tickets.
"There are obviously serious allegations that the governor will have to address, but we are dedicated to making sure we do the job that the people of New York sent us to do, and that's to produce a budget to deal with this unprecedented and difficult time," he said. "The governor is the governor right now, and we have no choice. The people sent us here to do our job, and that's what we're doing—negotiating with the governor. I think everybody who's involved in that process would agree: our job is to produce a budget."
Silver was also asked at what point the Assembly should begin its own investigation into what's going on, possibly bringing impeachment charges.
"I think we have more serious investigations going on, with subpoena power and the attorney general, and there's no reason to do it yet," he said, noting that Andrew Cuomo has "hit the ground running very quickly on this investigation because he understands that the people of New York want answers and he's going to try to provide the answers as quickly as possible." Times Union ...
New York Gov. David Paterson should finish his term, rather than resign, New York State voters say 61 - 31 percent in a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday.
Voters disapprove 62 - 24 percent of the job Gov. Paterson is doing, his worst score ever.
Support for Paterson staying in office until December 31 is 64 - 28 percent among Democrats, 57 - 33 percent among Republicans and 58 - 34 percent among independent voters, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds. Women say 56 - 32 percent that Paterson should finish his term, while men support that 66 - 29 percent. Poll ...
Investigators Are Told of Paterson Bid to Quiet Accuser. A key figure in the domestic abuse scandal bedeviling Gov. David A. Paterson told investigators that the governor phoned to enlist her help in quieting the accuser, according to a person with knowledge of her account. ...
Paterson pleads for more time. Gov. Paterson hunkered down in the walled-off Executive Mansion and begged state Democratic leaders for more time yesterday as a growing number of party members demanded his resignation. The beleaguered governor made his plea in a dramatic high-noon summit attended by a succession of party leaders, led by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate boss John Sampson.
"Most of it was about the governor's future," one senior legislative source said of the 90-minute powwow. "It was conducted to a considerable degree in Paterson-speak, where he indirectly referred to his ability to hang on." "It had a tragic quality to it," said a second source familiar with the meeting. "In his own unique way, he was begging to survive." ...
Silver says,"the topic of resignation did not come up" and declared, "I do not feel that he should resign."...
NY POST: Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Democratic leader John Sampson have just arrived at the governor's mansion near the Capitol where Gov. Paterson has been holed up for the past two days. Full story ...
Illuzzi: Do not forget these guys with the votes can impeach Paterson.
NY DAILY NEWS: Gov. Paterson's world was crumbling around him Tuesday as some of his closest supporters called on him to resign - and the state's Democratic Party chair Jay Jacobs was on his way to Albany for a "realistic" chat. Full story ...
NY TIMES: 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.
PoliticsNY.Net: ERIE COUNTY LEGISLATURE
The legislators served themselves well at Thursday's session; contentious excellent debates, votes were taken, things got done, decorum was the order of the day. The session actually started on time.
The voters will have an opportunity on downsizing the Legislature, with Collins signature, from 15 to 11 as recommended by the 21st Century Commission. The three Dems voting with the six GOP members are Kennedy Bove & Loughran. The census numbers will be out by early 2011 & the lines should be drawn in time for the 2011 election. Nothing about extending terms from two to four years. The local law passed 9-6. The other from 15 to 13 went down 6-9 not to discharge from Committee.
Ina heated exchange the Legislature voted11- 4 to approve a non binding resolution calling for the Sheriff to bring in a suicide prevention specialist, Hardwick & Dixon voting with the Dems.
Very disappointing that the Capital program stilllingers in Committee awaiting court action on Comptroller Poloncarz lawsuit. The County Executive giving the Control Board the authority to do the $173M 13 year bond rather than the Comptroller.
JosephIlluzzi704@aol.com
Quinnipiac University New York State Poll
Big 48-Hour Drop In Paterson Support, Quinnipiac University New York State Poll Finds; Slim Plurality Want Governor To Finish Term
In a significant 48-hour drop in support, New York State voters say 46 - 42 percent that Gov. David Paterson should finish his term rather than resign, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Another 12 percent are undecided.
Today's finding is a substantial drop from the 61 - 31 percent support for Gov. Paterson serving out the year in a March 3 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University.
In this latest survey of 1,325 voters conducted March 3 and 4, 45 percent of women say Paterson should stay and 40 percent say he should resign. Men say 47 - 44 percent that he should stay. Black voters want the Governor to stay 55 - 36 percent, while white voters are split 44 - 44 percent.
Voters disapprove 61 - 21 percent of the job Gov. Paterson is doing. This is the lowest approval rating ever recorded for an elected official in 18 years of Quinnipiac University polling except for former President George W. Bush and former Sen. Robert Torricelli of New Jersey, who had approval ratings of 18 and 19 percent just before they left office.
"Support for Gov. David Paterson erodes with every new headline. New York State voters started the week giving the Governor the benefit of the doubt 2-1. Now, there is more doubt and less benefit as he clings to a bare plurality of support," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
"Voters surveyed Monday and Tuesday were in favor of keeping Paterson by a net 30 points. On Wednesday and Thursday, voter support was a net four points. That's a 26-point drop in two days."
"President George W. Bush and Sen. Robert Torricelli may have lower grades than Paterson, but both of them were on their way out the door," Carroll added.
New York State voters say 37 - 32 percent that Paterson would do a better job than Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch for the rest of the year, with 31 percent undecided. This compares to a 47 - 29 percent vote for Paterson March 3.
Paterson and the State Legislature will not be able to work together on a state budget, voters say 64 - 26 percent.
"By more than a 2-1 margin, voters have a bad feeling about the outcome of Albany's historically tortuous budget negotiations," Carroll said. "We didn't even bother to ask about the prospects of getting a budget by the April 1 deadline."
New York State voters say 47 - 43 percent that the State Constitution should be amended so the Governor can name a Lt. Governor when that position becomes vacant.
From March 3 - 4, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,325 New York State registered voters, with a margin of error of +/- 2.7 percentage points.
Pitching For America
byPat Buchanan
It was Father's Day, 1964, when the Phillies' Jim Bunning, a father of seven, took the mound against the Mets.
Ninety pitches later, Bunning had struck out 10 and allowed not one batter to reach first base. Twenty-seven up, 27 down. The first perfect game in 86 years in the National League, and the finest hour of the Hall of Famer's baseball career.
Beginning last week, Jim Bunning took the Senate floor for five straight days to object to Harry Reid's call for unanimous consent to waive through a $10 billion spending bill. First, the Kentucky senator demanded, show me how we're going to pay for it.
His own leadership abandoned Bunning. Susan Collins of Maine assured the Senate and country that Republicans did not back their colleague: "Senator Bunning's views do not represent a majority of the caucus. It's important that the American people understand that there is bipartisan support for extending these vital programs."
Vital programs?
Had Bunning blocked rescue flights to Port au Prince or Santiago, or ammunition for the Marines in Marja?
No. Bunning had held up for a couple of days a vote on a $10 billion bill to extend unemployment benefits, make payments to doctors under Medicare and extend satellite TV to rural America. Reportedly, some 2,000 Transportation Department workers were furloughed for a few days.
"If we cannot pay for a bill that all 100 senators support," Bunning said, "how can we tell the American people with a straight face that we will ever pay for anything?"
Good question.
Indeed, the behavior of senators suggests that neither party appreciates the depth of the crisis we are in or the pain that will be required to get us out. Last week, Bunning did more than any senator in many moons to raise the consciousness of the country to the magnitude of the deficit-debt crisis.
His taking to the barricades may have inconvenienced some, but Bunning forced us all, briefly, to stare into the chasm.
Consider. Congress this year will spend $1.6 trillion more than it collects in revenue, with the largest outlays in that FY 2010 budget for defense at $719 billion and Social Security at $721 billion.
Thus, if the U.S. Government on Oct. 1, 2008, had shut down the Pentagon and furloughed every soldier and civilian here and around the world, and announced that it would not send out a Social Security check for a full year to any of the 50 million retired and elderly, we would still be $160 billion short of balancing the budget. If you zeroed out federal benefits to veterans for a full year, that, added in, would bring us close.
Such is the magnitude of the fiscal crisis facing the country.
To balance the budget this year would require a 43 percent across-the-board cut in every category of federal spending -- defense, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Homeland Security, highways, etc. -- or, if one used taxes alone, a 72-percent increase in federal tax revenues.
Budget cuts of that magnitude are impossible. They would cause a revolution. And any attempt at tax hikes of that magnitude would drain off all available consumer capital and hurl the economy into another Depression.
For the foreseeable future, then, this nation is going deeper into debt
And when Harry Reid and colleagues wave through yet another $10 billion for unemployment checks and making sure farm folks get yard dishes to see reruns of "The Sopranos," the United States must go to Beijing, Tokyo or Riyadh and borrow the money.
That is the hole we are in.
And when one stares at some of those budget numbers, the priorities of the Obama administration seem almost surreal.
In George W. Bush's last full year in office, we spent $29 billion for "international affairs." The lion's share of that was foreign aid. In FY 2011, the year for which Congress has begun to budget, spending for international affairs and foreign aid is to jump to $54 billion and continue to surge through the Obama years.
What is the rationale for the United States, the world's greatest debtor nation, putting itself deeper in debt to China to send foreign aid to nations that will never repay us and that vote habitually with China and against us in the United Nations?
This city does not seem to grasp that the days of wine and roses are over. We are not in the 1950s or 1960s anymore. Then, we could throw open our markets to imports from the world. Then, we could dish out foreign aid and fight wars in Vietnam with 500,000 men, while maintaining 50,000 troops in Korea and 300,000 in Europe.
America is headed for a time when, like the British Empire, she is going to have to make painful choices, or have them forced upon us.
He may have been booed all last week, but Jim Bunning pitched one of the best games of his career.
Onward, He Said, Regardless
by Charles Krauthammer
So the yearlong production, set to close after Massachusetts' devastatingly negative Jan. 19 review, saw the curtain raised one last time. Obamacare lives.
After 34 speeches, three sharp electoral rebukes (Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts) and a seven-hour seminar, the president announced Wednesday his determination to make one last push to pass his health carereform.
The final act was carefully choreographed. The rollout began a weekearlier with a couple of shows of bipartisanship: a Feb. 25 Blair House"summit" with Republicans, followed five days later with a few concessionstossed the Republicans' way.
Show is the operative noun. Among the few Republican suggestionsPresident Obama pretended to incorporate was tort reform. What did hesuggest to address the plague of defensive medicine that a MassachusettsMedical Society study showed leads to about 25 percent of doctor referrals,tests and procedures being done for no medical reason? A few ridiculouslyinsignificant demonstration projects amounting to one-half of one-hundredth
of 1 percent of the cost of Obama's health care bill.
As for the Blair House seminar, its theatrical quality was obviouseven before it began. The Democrats had already decided to go for a purelypartisan bill. Obama signaled precisely that intent at the end of thesummit show -- then dramatically spelled it out just six days later in his35th health care speech: He is going for the party-line vote.
Unfortunately for Democrats, that seven-hour televised exercise hadthe unintended consequence of showing the Republicans to be not only highlyinformed on the subject, but also, as even Obama was forced to admit,possessed of principled objections -- contradicting the ubiquitousDemocratic/media meme that Republican opposition was nothing but nihilisticpartisanship.
Republicans did so well, in fact, that in his summation, Obama wasreduced to suggesting that his health care reform was indeed popularbecause when you ask people about individual items (for example,eliminating exclusions for pre-existing conditions or capping individualout-of-pocket payments) they are in favor.
Yet mystifyingly they oppose the whole package. How can that be?
Allow me to demystify. Imagine a bill granting every American a freefederally delivered ice cream every Sunday morning. Provision 2: steak onMonday, also home delivered. Provision 3: A dozen red roses every Tuesday.You get the idea. Would each individual provision be popular in the polls?Of course.
However (life is a vale of howevers) suppose these provisions werebundled into a bill that also spelled out how the goodies are to be paidfor and managed -- say, half a trillion dollars in new taxes, half atrillion in Medicare cuts (cuts not to keep Medicaresolvent but to pay for the ice cream, steak and flowers), 118 new boardsand commissions to administer the bounty-giving, and government regulationdictating, for example, how your steak was to be cooked. How do you thinkthis would poll?
Perhaps something like 3-1 against, which is what the latest CNN pollshows is the citizenry's feeling about the current Democratic health carebills.
Late last year, Democrats were marveling at how close they were tohistoric health care reform, noting how much agreement had been achievedamong so many factions. The only remaining detail was how to pay for it.
Well, yes. That has generally been the problem with democraticgovernance: cost. The disagreeable absence of a free lunch.
Which is what drove even strong Obama supporter Warren Buffett to gopublic with his judgment that the current Senate bill, while better thannothing, is a failure because the country desperately needs to bend thecost curve down and the bill doesn't do it. Buffett's advice would be tostart over and get it right.
Obama has chosen differently, however. The time for debate is over, declared the nation's seminar leader in chief. The man who vowed to undo Washington's wicked ways has directed the Congress to ram Obamacare through, by one vote if necessary, under the parliamentary device of "budget reconciliation." The man who ran as a post-partisan is determined to remake a sixth of the U.S. economy despite the absence of support from a single Republican in either house, the first time anything of this size and scope has been enacted by pure party-line vote.
Surprised? You can only be disillusioned if you were once illusioned.
Last week
PoliticsNY.Net: ERIE COUNTY GOP CHAIRMAN JIM DOMAGALSKI
"Jim Domagalski had a very successfulfundraiser Wednesday night at the Airport Holiday Inn.
Attendance circa 230+, awho's who of the Republican and Business community, County Executive Chris Collins, Sheriff Tim Howard with GOP counsel Emilio Colaiacovo serving as emcee.
Erie County Conservative Chairman Ralph Lorigo, Carl Paladino, and Ambassador Tony Gioia were there as well.
The night was filled with tributes and accolades forDomagalski, his work for the Republican Party and Western New York.
Albeit, Domagalski didmake a strong speech about his lifelong dedication to fighting for the taxpayers of WNY and the obstacles put in the way by Albany.
No announcementswith respect to his future plans." STAY TUNED!
JosephIlluzzi704@aol.com
PoliticsNY.Net
Part 1: Mental Health Crisis Redux
Sheriff Tim Howard
Inmates with 'Mental' Problems
By Staff
As Erie County struggles to meet its four-year financial plan, overcrowded conditions at the downtown Holding Center and at the Correctional Facility in Alden continue to drain important resources.
One very significant component to the overflow problem is the housing of individuals with psychiatric problems that find themselves in the criminal justice system. Efforts continue to find alternatives to incarceration. However, for now both facilities are straining to handle near-overflow conditions.
"We keep pushing the envelope," says Holding Center Superintendent Don Livingston who estimates that the two facilities are running at nearly 100 percent capacity, well above the state''s comfort level of between 80 and 90 percent.
"We''re at about 99 percent just about all the time," says Livingston, the former deputy superintendent who took over from McCarthy Gibson after Gibson was appointed Buffalo''s new police commissioner.
When it comes to prisoners with mental problems, for the most part the Holding Center and the Correctional Facility are on their own.
"Prisoners with possible mental problems are screened by our staff, and if necessary are examined by a forensic doctor," says Sheriff Tim Howard. "If it is determined the a prisoner is a danger to himself or others, they are put on a forensic watch, and mostly that''s inside our facilities."
According to Sheriff Howard, occasionally prisoners are sent to ECMC for psychiatric evaluation, but that''s not an everyday occurrence.
Of course there is the problem with dispensing medication, long or short term inmates, that are, have been, or are currently in need of forensic medications of all sorts. The other side of that coin is the potential of giving inmates the wrong meds or unneccessary medications, opening pandora's box, if you will! A real issue & just another series of land mines for the Sheriff to traverse.
Superintendent Livingston says the Holding Center has four new forensic units, each with four beds, to hold inmates with mental problems. On occasion, inmates are sent to outside facilities for observation but that does little to relieve the near-capacity conditions at the downtown jail and at the Alden facility.
At the present time, there are approximately 610 prisoners at the Holding Center, and nearly 1,600 inmates in all between the two facilities. Jail sources say there are roughly 20 inmates currently sleeping on the gymnasium floor because there are no cells available to house them.
Livingston says on a typical day, 50 percent of the inmates scheduled for court appearances come back to the jail that same day.
Asked how much it would help if that number was reduced, Livingston responded "a lot, but where are you going to put them." The underlying fear in law enforcement is that potentially dangerous inmates could be released too early in order to ease the population crisis and then commit a crime. But answers need to be found. Erie County simply must find ways to cut costs, and the jails are a target.
As the inmate population continues to push the envelope, the Giambra Administration's point man to identify savings is pushing hard to find alternatives to incarceration that would reduce the population at the Holding Center and potentially save millions.
Jim Hartman, county director for management initiatives, said in an earlier interview "it will require extensive coordination to achieve the goal of reducing inmate population, and it will have to involve the sheriff, the district attorney, and the courts. There is a task force working on the effort, and we''ll need to get a lot of cooperation from all parties to make this happen.
Like a lot of potential solutions, reducing inmate population will need labor and management cooperation and creative thinking to achieve. Right now, merging the county jail in Alden with the Sheriff''s Department that potentially could save more than $3 million is being blocked by court action brought by the various affected unions."
Hartman also, in a presentation before the County Fiscal Stability Board, discussed the high costs on the revenue side & manpower to house inmates with obvious mental health issues. Hartman mentioned that possibly as many as 25% of the jail population fall into that category.
Hartman hopes to identify Federal dollars to relieve the County of the financial burden, at the same time find more humane alternatives for obviously mentally ill prisoners.
In the meantime, there remains the question of humane treatment for prisoners with mental problems, at the same time protecting the general popualtion.
The county jails continue near the breaking point via over flow.
The costs continue to escalate squeezing the county budget and the imperative to identify savings.
Part 2: Mental Health Crisis
DA Frank Clark: A Prosecutors Perspective
District Attorney Frank Clark says there are several different ways the criminal justice system deals with suspects who appear to be mentally disturbed at the time of their court arraignment, but despite a range of options many of them may still wind up in the jammed Holding Center because of state cutbacks in the mental health area.
In some cases, it comes down to "where do you put them," Clark told PoliticsNY.Net, in an recent interview, during which he also criticized cutbacks in the number of prosecutors and probation officers which he says may have doubled the average stay for prisoners in the Holding Center from just a few years ago.
Clark is mindful of the county push to relieve overcrowded conditions at the Holding Center to save money, but he says the short-term solutions (staff cuts) enacted during the budget crisis, and cuts at the state level in the mental health area, have made the problems worse.
On the mental health side, Clark says at the time of the arraignment of a suspect who appears mentally disturbed, the arraigning judge can order a forensic examination and then, depending on the results, "the judge can do nothing, he can order the prisoner medicated at the Holding Center, he can order the suspect isolated from the general jail population or, in some cases, the judge can send the individual to another institution or to a psychiatric facility if the inmate is deemed not fit to proceed."
In that case, according to the DA, "the criminal charges would be held in abeyance, and that means we could have suspects institutionalized who have never even committed a crime. And sometimes the crime alleged is relatively minor. Nobody is sure what to do."
The district attorney said the situation is made worse by cutbacks at the state level in mental health professionals and the closing of mental health care facilities, decisions made in the name of cost savings but which Clark believes are hurting the system.
"There are people released too soon and they resume the abhorrent conduct that got them there to begin with," said Clark who blamed the current situation on financial constrictions."We've had people die, we've had people who were not kept long enough, and we just can't keep saying we can''t afford to do this or that," said Clark. "We can''t keep making convenient decisions. The Band-Aid solutions in the mental health area are not getting it done. Many of these prisoners just wind up back at the Holding Center with no place else to go. And that just adds to the whole problem.
On the overcrowding issue in general, Clark believes cuts made during the county budget crisis have ended up costing money because they have added to the length of time prisoners are held at the Holding Center."My priority is public safety," says Clark, "but while 75 to 80 percent of the suspects going to court are released on bail, I''m not going to recommend violent felony offenders be released on low bail and endanger the public. As for the courts, it''s the judge''s decision to be fair, not to save money.
Clark also will not willingly release individuals with obvious or possible mental problems prematurely. As an officer of the Court & as a human being it is clear DA Clark is deeply concerned both for the inmate & the public at large. "Now would a quicker disposition save money? Of course it would. Would it be fairer? Unquestionably. But what we''ve done with the cutbacks to the probation department and in the number of prosecutors is to lengthen the average stay in the jail. And that adds to the cost. If the average stay was 50 days back in 2002, it''s probably more than double that today.
The biggest reason is the delay in getting back the probation report on the inmates because of the cutbacks.Clark believes the frenzied cuts made by county leaders, inspired by media reports, may have sounded good but have not had the intended results. He cited the cuts in the County Clerk''s office, where $100,000 in cuts may have cost #200,000 in revenue. Cutting $100,000 to lose twice that amount in revenue doesn''t make sense, says Clark, who believes county leaders must abandon the short-term solutions for more meaningful reforms that will work in the long run.
County leaders must consider the human toll involved in regionalizing, downsizing, or simply trying to close a deficit. The ramifications in the short & long term could be devastating. Especially to those individuals, their families, who suffer the human pain of mental illness and find themselves, for whatever reason, in the criminal justice system.
Part 3: Mental Health Crisis
Domestic Violence Court Judge Sharon LoVallo
City of Buffalo Domestic Violence Court: An Overview
An approximately 40 year old African-American woman is walked into Buffalo City Court Judge Sharon LoVallo's Domestic Violence Court in handcuffs and in tears. She has allegedly stabbed her domestic partner and now she is in big trouble. She has already been in jail for a while and now, after a conference between Judge Sharon LoVallo, defense counsel, and the Asst. DA assigned to her case, it looks like she's going to have to spend several more days in jail until her case can be sorted out and bail can be set.
The woman looks even more dejected as she turns to leave, knowing that additional time on the inside is her immediate fate. That's the way it goes in Domestic Violence Court. It's no walk in the park for accused perpetrators and it's not meant to be.
Of course there is always the lingering question that must be addressed asap, does this individual have a mental health history?
If released on bail will this individual be a danger to herself or others?
Not far away, another City Court Judge, Robert Russell, runs something called Drug Court, a treatment based institution in which some drug offenders are offered an alternative to jail in the form of de-tox and other rehabilitation strategies. If they falter occasionally along the way as addicts almost always do, there is a carrot and stick approach to try to nudge them back toward the straight and narrow.
One of the scariest components of a forensic evaluation for drug addiction is the distinct possibility that a defendant has an addiction to drugs prescribed by a doctor. Acerbating the problem both in Domestic Violence & Drug Courts is that addiction to prescription drugs is what brought for whatever reason this defendant into the criminal justice system, landing this individual in Sheriff Tim Howard's jail (Read Parts 1 & 2), awaiting a decision from DA Frank Clark with respect to criminal charges.
Domestic Violence Court is a very different proposition than Drug Court.
"One important thing you have to remember is that Domestic Violence Court is NOT a treatment court," declares Judge LoVallo. "Sometimes we do send perpetrators to anger management classes or the batterer's program, but the purpose here is not to rehabilitate that person, though sometimes that does happen. Our purpose here is always to stop the abuse and to protect the victims from further abuse."
Clearly the objective is very different from that of Drug Court and, for the most part, so are the methods used.
"We don't get all touchy feely with regard to our perpetrators in Domestic Violence Court," Judge LoVallo points out. "It's true that we make referrals in some cases but it's not because we think they have a problem with controlling themselves. These are people who control themselves just fine at work all day and then come home and seem to lose that ability at night when they see their wife. The issue with these people is power. They want total power over another person and that's why they commit these crimes. Domestic violence is not a disease. It's a crime."
How successful is Domestic Violence Court at achieving its objectives? By the nature of the beast, it is very hard to say.
"What is success in Domestic Violence Court," Judge LoVallo rhetorically inquiries. "Is it not having this particular perpetrator commit domestic violence against this particular victim for six months or a year? Is it keeping this person away from their last victim so that they go and get involved in doing the same thing, possibly, to someone else? Or does the original victim just keep quiet about the abuse and that's why we don't hear from anything about this defendant again? It would be nice if I could give you a percentage. But, success in our court is extremely difficult to quantify."
Still, there's no doubt that DVC does produce its obvious success stories.
"I had a young man just recently come back to our court asking me to marry him to a young woman," Judge LoVallo recalls. "He told me that what we had done in his case in my court had turned his life around and now he was getting married and leading a much better life. I was very happy that he did that. I was very pleased. But, most of the time it's hard to say how often we succeed. I wish I knew."
Still, there is a basic principle of Domestic Violence Court life which no one can doubt.
"One thing that we make clear is that domestic violence is NOT going to be tolerated in Erie County," Judge LoVallo sternly states. "Victims should know whether they are wives or husbands or children and whether the abuse is physical or mental or both that they DO have a place to go and that we will do everything we can to protect them, stop the abuse, and punish the perpetrator."
There are treatment facilities & treatment for husbands, wives & or children that suffer real mental health issues. However, in LoVallo's court the words "Stop the Violence" is the first order of the day!
Part3: Continued: Mental Health Crisis
Domestic Violence Court: How It Works
What's the answer to the long term problem of preventing domestic violence? Are there any reliably effective solutions? Acknowledged experts in the field such as Buffalo Court Judge Sharon LoVallo readily admit that they don't know the answers to these questions. In fact, public institutions like Domestic Violence Court exist amidst a conspicuous absence of real solutions or proven answers. Defendants are ordered to participate in programs such as anger management or batterer's class despite the fact that no proof of their efficacy seems to exist.
They may be referred to so-called "mental health" programs and prescribed psychiatric drugs though many doubt their scientific basis while others wonder if they are even safe. (See the March issue, "PoliticsNY.net…"The Magaazine")
Still, hard working professionals such as Judge LoVallo try their best. Since understanding and solutions seem out of reach, enforcement, of necessity, has become the watchword. Having cut her teeth in the field under the tutelage of Erie County Asst. District Attorney in charge of Domestic Violence, Lisa Rodwin, she knows that her first duty is to protect the victims and worry about solutions later and that's exactly what she does.
"People have the stereotype of a domestic violence perpetrator as an alcoholic husband who hits his wife, but really perpetrators of this crime take many forms," she points out. "Often it is a husband abusing a wife. But, sometimes it's a wife abusing a husband or it's children being abused. We have many cases that involve people who are poor or lower middle class. But, really domestic violence knows no socio-economic boundaries. Sometimes we also have wealthy people or professionals coming into our court."
When a case is sent to DVC, it's referred to a case manager who takes a lengthy look at the situation from an overview perspective. How many persons has this alleged perpetrator offended in the past? Does this person have other charges pending against him or her? Does the accuser also have a few legal strikes against her?
"It very often happens that there are charges against both parties, as in a case that came before me recently," Judge LoVallo points out. "So all this has to be sorted out."
Much of the sorting out seems to be done, not in the course of adversarial trials like in the Perry Mason series which first inspired Judge LoVallo to enter the legal profession, but in the form of conferences participated in by Her Honor along with the court's two asst. DAs, its two public defenders, and/or various defense counsel, as engaged by accused culprits rich enough to hire one.
On a typical day, something in the area of 30 cases will be heard in a morning session and 30 in the afternoon. Some defendants will be led in in handcuffs, those who are already in custody, and some without. There are arraignments in which the newly accused appear only to be ordered to show up at a later date once all the requisite studies of their case and circumstances have been done. In the mean time, he or she will be under a strict judicial mandate to keep far away from those they have been accused of harming.
"That's always our first concern, to protect the victims from being hurt anymore," Judge LoVallo repeats. "If an alleged perpetrator violates my order, an arrest order will be issued immediately."
Upon their second appearance, very often an agreement will have been struck between prosecution and defense. The defendant may be able to escape jail despite his or her guilt, depending on their acceptance of a court mandated program.
Has the defendant attended all their classes, kept away from the victim, obeyed all the strictures the court laid out for him?
"If someone has not done what I've ordered him or her to do or has not even showed up for their court appearances as sometimes happens, I will order that this person be arrested and sent to jail," Judge Lovallo adds. "If they do and do not offend while they are under the court's supervision, they can avoid jail."
Still, unlike Drug Court , no defendant's record is expunged in Domestic Violence Court.
"If they plead guilty in my court and do a program, even if they avoid jail, they have to understand that it's the same thing as if they were found guilty of that crime by a jury," she explains. "As someone convicted of a domestic violence offense, they are not allowed to own or possess a gun and they can be arrested for even trying to purchase a gun. It's a serious thing. We are not fooling around. We are trying to prevent these people from offending again while, above all else, protecting victims from domestic violence."
Part 4: Mental Health Crisis
A Family Court Perspective
Family Court Judge James Dillion
The question of mental illness is a difficult one for the corrections system, and that's certainly true in Family Court where most of the teenagers who come before a judge have a history of not being able to cope with their environment.
Erie County Family Court Judge James H. Dillon, who is highly respected with 16 years of experience on the bench, says there are many different degrees of mental health issues that come before the court and "we have a lot of special education kids" to deal with on a pretty regular basis.
In the last 15 years or so, as the mentally ill have become a larger segment of the population in jails and prisons, professionals in the mental health field have become essential to correctional administrators. As we heard from District Attorney Frank Clark last week, the state has cut back on mental health professionals and treatment facilities in order to reduce costs, and according to Clark the results are not always positive.
Judge Dillon has a similar view when it comes to treatment facilities. In a recent interview, he told PoliticsNY.net that "we don't have enough mental health placement facilities, and these young people can't stay in detention forever." Judge Dillon stops short of blaming state cutbacks for the problem, but that's obviously the reason for what the professionals see as a weakness in the treatment of the mentally ill inmates and offenders: not enough medical professionals and facilities equipped to deal with the mentally ill.
There are several steps available in Family Court to handle teenagers who appear mentally incompetent, keeping in mind Judge Dillon's comment that there are many different degrees of mental health.
If necessary, judges have the individuals evaluated by medical professionals to determine a course of action. Judge Dillon says that could be a short-term placement in a state facility or group home.
"If we have a child who has been charged and has admitted or been convicted (of an offense), the child would be evaluated by one of our clinics and the clinics would prepare a report for the court to determine where we go," says Judge Dillon. "That could be one of our special probation programs where officers are trained in dealing with such cases, or there could be a placement in an institution or home."
One of the problems, says Dillon, is that options for placement have been restricted due to reductions in the size of some of the centers made by the state.
"We just don't have the mental health placement facilities," says Dillon, "and as I said at the start of the interview, we can't keep these kids in detention forever."
According to the experts, it is estimated that about 15 percent of offenders imprisoned at any time have severe or significant psychiatric disabilities. Prisoners tend to be in poor mental health and about 80 percent of male prisoners (and 80 percent of female jail inmates) will, over their lifetime, have at least one psychiatric disorder. The greater the level of disability while in prison, the more likely the inmate is to receive mental health services. It's also true that proportionately, more female prisoners use mental health services than males and whites are more likely to seek or secure prison mental health services.
Again, according to corrections experts, the ratio of mental health practitioners to inmates remains much too low. And while there has been some progress from 20 and 30 years ago, as we've heard from Judge Dillon and District Attorney Clark, there is a shortage in professionals and facilities to deal with the mentally ill who come into the corrections system.
What's left is that institutions are forced to deal with mental health issues on a priority basis with few to no services provided for the majority who do not exhibit violent or bizarre behavior. It would seem that in the corrections, "the squeaky wheel gets the grease." It continues to be a problem and with budget-conscious lawmakers continuing to look for ways to save money, it may get worse before it gets better.
Part 5: Mental Health Crisis
Judge Robert Russell
Our Growing Mental Health Crisis,Buffalo City Mental Health Court
(Some personal details in this story have been altered to protect the privacy of individuals.)
A 41 year old woman looks at the floor and then makes a sheepish confession to her counselor.
"I've been on anti-depressants for nine years," she says. "I was a little depressed back then after my brother and sister-in-law died in an accident and I went to a doctor. He wrote a prescription for me for something I thought was some kind of medicine. Instead, he got me on these anti-depressants and now I'm afraid to try to get off of them. I have a girlfriend who tried to get off of them and she had to go to the emergency room she got so sick.
‘I can't afford to go through something like that but I really want to get off these drugs. They make me sick to my stomach and cause strange mood swings that I don't like. I want to get control of my life again but I don't know how. I was never suicidal, just a little upset over a death in the family. Why did they put me on these terrible drugs?"
A sentiment echoed by a 35 year old father of three who is currently going through a messy divorce.
"I lost my temper with my ex-wife once and yelled at her, though I didn't hit her," he recalls. "Now the Judge is insisting that I stay on psychiatric drugs or I have no chance of getting visitation rights to see my kids. These drugs make me feel sick a lot of the time and make me feel lethargic and unable to get things done. Yet, the Judge is making me take them because he says I have ‘a chemical imbalance.'
"This is despite the fact that no lab tests have been taken to prove this so-called ‘chemical imbalance' and in fact no such test even exists according to many experts including psychiatrists!"
Anti-psych drug activists such as this young man quote New York Psychiatrist Dr. Ron Leifer: "When people come to me and say they have a chemical imbalance I say, ‘Show me your lab tests.' There are not lab tests so what's the chemical imbalance?"
Psychiatrist Dr. David Kaiser wrote in 1996: "Modern psychiatry has yet to prove convincingly the genetic/biological cause of any single mental illness. Patients have been diagnosed with ‘chemical imbalance' despite the fact that no test exists to support such a claim."
Voices of despair born of a mental health crisis that seems to have impaired the lives of millions.
Still, no one could expect such concerns to have intruded on the calculations of the well meaning people who run Buffalo's Mental Health Court, at least not yet.
Here long time psychiatric patients, diagnosed with these "chemical imbalances" are given opportunities to avoid harsher punishments by going back on their drugs. Interestingly enough, Judge Robert Russell, the truly compassionate and honorable jurist who presides over MHC, acknowledges that it's seldom that a newly diagnosed or undiagnosed victim of a "chemical imbalance" finds himself a defendant in his court.
"It's usually those who have been under the care of a psychiatrist for a long time," he explains. "These are people who are severely mentally ill and who have gone off their medication."
You might think that those afflicted with chemical imbalances who as yet have received no treatment for them would exhibit even worse behavior than psychiatric veterans whose "imbalances" have been treated for years. You''d think the newcomers would be the most severe offenders. Yet, strangely enough, it is only those who have been "treated" for their imbalances for some time who end up going psychotic and committing criminal acts.
Mental Health Court is modeled on the highly successful Drug Court, which Judge Russell also runs. It's extraordinary effectiveness has been discussed in these pages in the past.
It's graduation day for Buffalo's Drug Court and a courtroom usually filled with crestfallen defendants and their nervous attorneys is today populated mainly by happy graduates and their grateful guests. Then just as the festivities are about to reach their climax, presiding City Court Judge Robert Russell does an amazing thing.
He comes down off the bench in the middle of the session to personally congratulate this latest group of proud men and women who have bravely climbed the mountain of abstinence from substance abuse and come out the other side.
Then Judge Russell leads the assembled gathering in giving the graduates a standing ovation for what they have accomplished.
"I want everyone here to know that this hasn't been easy but it's definitely been worth it," the woman says to the dozens of onlookers, most of which are in various stages of the Drug Court process. "You have to just keep at it. If you have setbacks, you have setbacks. Just don't ever give up because what there is to achieve is more than worth it. I fought Judge Russell for a long time. Then I finally realized that he was working to help me. At that point, it all became a lot easier."
Mental Health Court attempts to use the same techniques to get people back on their psychiatric drugs that Drug Court uses to get them off street drugs.
"Most of the people who come before Mental Health Court have been diagnosed years ago with a severe mental illness," the Judge explains. "A small percentage of our defendants are developmentally disabled, what some would call retarded, and a small number are brain damaged. Some of them come in as a result of DWI situations. Many are brought before us because they have engaged in some behavior which has caused them to run afoul of the law."
What Judge Russell's Mental Health Court does is use the same carrot and stick approach used in Drug Court to get them back on their meds and away from destructive or uncontrolled behavior.
"These are people who have been diagnosed as schizophrenics or with bi-polar disorder," the Judge reports. "We get them back on their medications, since usually they have gone off it, and try to get them back into constructive behavior patterns so that they are not offending and not ending up in jail."
"We let them know as well as we can that there are consequences to their behavior and they need to change it, including doing what their doctors tell them to do, if they are going to become productive members of society again."
Then the Court monitors their progress to make sure they are keeping their agreements with the Judge.
"If they stay on their programs, we validate that behavior," Judge Russell explains. "If they don't, we let them know that they need to get back to doing what they promised."
Does MHC have its share of success stories like Drug Court?
"Yes, we do," he reports. "Our recidivism rate is only 10-13%. We have successes in terms of people who have more self confidence and self respect because they are back to being productive citizens again. They are holding jobs now rather than just wandering around aimlessly. We do have our successes, though admittedly it's not an easy job."
Alice In Health Care Part III
By Thomas Sowell
With all the controversies, charges, counter-charges and buzzwords swirling around the issue of medical care in the United States, there is a lot to be said for going back to square one and asking just what is the fundamental problem.
The quality of the medical care itself is not the problem. Few-- if any-- countries can match American medical training, medical technology or the development of life-saving pharmaceutical drugs in the United States. Most countries with government-controlled medical care cannot come close to matching how fast an American can get medical treatment, particularly from specialists.
Political hype is no reason to throw all that away. In fact, policies based on political hype over the years are what have gotten us into what is most wrong with medical care today-- namely, the way it is paid for.
Insurance companies or the government pay directly for most of the costs of most medical treatment in the United States. That is virtually a guarantee that more people will demand more medical treatment than they would if they were paying directly out of their own pockets, instead of paying indirectly in premiums and taxes.
Since people who staff either insurance company bureaucracies or government bureaucracies have to be paid, this is not bringing down the cost of medical care, but adding to it.
What also adds to the costs are politicians at both state and federal levels who mandate additional benefits to be paid for by insurance companies, thereby driving up the cost of insurance.
If medical insurance simply covered risks-- which is what insurance is all about-- that would be far less expensive than covering completely predictable things like annual checkups. Far more people could afford medical insurance, thereby reducing the ranks of the uninsured.
But all the political incentives are for politicians to create mandates forcing insurance companies to cover an ever increasing range of treatments, and thereby forcing those who buy insurance to pay ever higher premiums to cover the costs of these mandates.
That way, politicians can play Santa Claus and make insurance companies play Scrooge. It is great political theater. Politicians who are pushing for a government-controlled medical care system say that it will "keep insurance companies honest." The very idea of politicians keeping other people honest ought to tell us what a farce this is. But if we keep buying it, they will keep selling it.
One of the ways of reducing the costs of medical insurance would be to pass federal legislation putting an end to state regulation of insurance companies. That would instantly eliminate thousands of state mandates, which force insurance to cover everything from wigs to marriage counseling, depending on which special interests are influential in which states.
It would also promote nationwide competition among insurance companies-- and competition keeps prices down better than politicians will. Moreover, competition can bring down the costs behind the prices, in part by forcing less efficient insurance companies out of business.
Another very real and very big cost behind the high prices for medical treatment are the many forms of expensive "defensive medicine" that doctors and hospitals have to practice, in order to avoid being sued by unscrupulous lawyers. Expensive and unnecessary tests and treatments cost even more than the multimillion dollar awards that clever lawyers can get from gullible juries.
Tightening up the laws, so that junk science does not prevail in courts, would create some real savings in medical costs. But, since plaintiff's lawyers are big financial contributors to the Democratic Party, that is unlikely to happen during this administration.
Finally, there are costs that are high because people want medical care in more comfortable surroundings-- a private room rather than a bed in a ward, for example-- and are willing to pay for that. This is more common among Americans.
There is no reason for others to interfere with that, just because of a mindless mantra of "bringing down the cost of medical care" or class warfare rhetoric about "Cadillac health plans."
PoliticsNY.Net: GOVERNOR DAVID PATERSON MUST RESIGN.
Enough is enough!
This Gov is either "Stir Crazy" or he believes we are all dumb as dirt.
UPDATE: Paterson: ‘I don't think that I've been accused of anything'
Governor, if the NY Times, et al. articles are correct; we believe they are & more via the Aqueduct racino case,you are guilty in the David Johnson matter of obstruction of justice, public corruption, etc. Does that answer your question?
Your problem Governor: Areyour trusted aides & confidants lying; we do not believe they are lying.
The time is NOW for the feds to step in & appoint a Special Prosecutor.
It is clear NYS' government, over the last three years, is one of the most criminal & corrupt in the annals of the American political system.
One elected official remains in office that being Cuomo. However,with all of the political considerations can anyone expect Cuomo to be objective. He is running for Paterson's job (unannounced).
The elections are eight months away; the Democrats cannot afford another one of their own resigning or being thrown out of office. Sheldon Silver made that abundantly clear Tuesday with his rather disingenuous support of Paterson remaining in office.
The people running this state cannot run this state effectively much less deal with another one of their own, an insider in his own right, that being David Paterson run out of office.
Paterson is already under federal investigation for his role in the Aqueduct racino scandal. Paterson admitted political considerations went into awarding AEG (Harlem's Rev. Flake) the Aqueduct racino contract. This is a gambit like a chess move. Admit complicity to something hoping to avoid the entire truth surfacing.
Appoint a Special Federal Prosecutor.
JosephIlluzzi704@aol.com
Subprime Mortgage Crisis Hits Whorehouses
by Ann Coulter
It looks like Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes is on track to win another endorsement from ACORN!
This week, Hynes announced that "no criminality has been found" after his investigation of the videotapes made by investigative journalists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, which show ACORN employees counseling the pair on getting a mortgage for a house of prostitution.
(They got a choice of government loans: Phat Fannie Mae, Prince Freddie Mac or Barney Fresh Daddy Frank ... aka "Sir Fix-A-Lot.")
I'm just glad to know that Hynes conducted a thorough "investigation" first. Who did he have screen the videotapes, Gov. Paterson?
If his investigators had actually watched the videotapes, they would have found ACORN employees apparently advising a pimp and prostitute on how to defraud mortgage lenders, deposit prostitution money in a bank, hide money from the government and avoid detection while running a whorehouse with teenage girls from El Salvador.
I'm not a lawyer -- oh, wait, yes, I am -- but I count approximately a half-dozen state law crimes being discussed on those tapes, from money laundering to advancing prostitution.
In a "Eureka" moment, ACORN Employee-of-the-Month Volda Albert identifies for O'Keefe and Giles the problem they had been having getting a mortgage:
Albert: Um, is it legalized? Is prostitution legalized in New York state?
O'Keefe: It's not. It's not, unfortunately.
Albert: Well see, that's your problem
As ACORN employee Milagros Rivera said, "You can't say what you do for a living because of the law." But displaying ACORN's can-do attitude, she explained: "Honest is not going to get you a house."
ACORN employees helped concoct a scheme to hide from the lender the source of O'Keefe and Giles' down payment money. Albert suggested that O'Keefe "pay a down payment -- or (Giles) can transfer to somebody else, who is not in that business ... a close friend, then (Giles) can transfer that, and then he can give you, like, a gift to purchase."
Under New York law, hiding the true source of down payment money from a lender constitutes mortgage fraud. Also, using the proceeds of criminal conduct in any banking transaction is money laundering.
Does anybody need a flow chart at this point, or should I continue?
To help Giles hide her income from turning tricks, ACORN employee Albert advised Giles to open two banking accounts, depositing no more than $500 per week in each one. (This would not only enable her to conceal her illegal earnings, it would also qualify her for free checking.)
But Albert's most inspired idea was that Giles get a "house with a backyard. You get a tin can ... and bury (your money) down in there, and you put the money right in, and you put grass over it, and you don't tell a single soul but yourself where it is."
Back when I was in Louisiana, we advised people to put their illegal money in the freezer, but that didn't work out so well. And I guess putting your money in a mattress isn't advisable if you live in a whorehouse.
Anyway, Albert was particularly detailed on the tin-can-in-the-backyard investment plan: "Keep thinking: 'I have a yard. I have a house.' You gotta start coming out with, like, plants and you start doing -- so it won't be suspicious. You start buying plants for the backyard in pots and what have you, and you mark a spot."
She later told Giles: "You are not paying Social Security, so you'll have society, all right? You are not getting a pension, so you need to save that money for in later years." ACORN: Helping Plan Your Financial Future.
If only shady lawyers advised clients to bury money in cans in their backyards, instead of putting it in tax shelters, we wouldn't have all those attorneys clogging up prison cells!
The ACORN employees also stressed that Giles should do nothing to attract attention to her prostitution money. Albert said: "You can buy a decent car for yourself, no big fancy thing to attract people, all right?"
In Albert's defense, this could have been common etiquette advice. No one likes a showy hooker.
Even after Giles explained her plan to house a "slew" of 13-, 14- and 15-year-old girls from El Salvador for her prostitution business, Rivera simply responded: "So you guys ready to schedule that (mortgage application) for the summer?"
Rivera clearly missed her calling -- she should be pushing vacation time shares in Boca Raton beach condos.
Under New York law, a person is guilty of advancing prostitution if he: "knowingly ... aids a person to commit or engage in prostitution (or) ... engages in any other conduct designed to institute, aid or facilitate an act or enterprise of prostitution."
It is a class D felony (up to seven years in prison) if the prostitute is under 19 years old -- as the ACORN employees knew Giles was -- and a class C felony (up to 15 years in prison) if the prostitute is under 16 years old -- as Giles stated the El Salvadoran girls were. (And if she's under 15 years old, Eliot Spitzer may be involved.)
If none of the advice given by ACORN on those videotapes constitutes conspiracy or aiding or abetting a crime, see this column next week for my opus: "10 Detailed Plans to Kill George Soros and Why This Might Be Right for You."
Alice In Health Care Part II
By Thomas Sowell
What is most like Alice in Wonderland is discussing medical care reform in the abstract, as if there are not already government-run medical care systems in this country and elsewhere.
Yet there seems to be remarkably little interest in examining how government-run medical care actually turns out-- medically and financially-- whether in Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Administration hospitals in this country, or in government-run medical systems in other countries.
We are repeatedly being told that we need to have a government-controlled medical care system, because other countries have it-- as if our policies on something as serious as medical care should be based on the principle of monkey see, monkey do.
By all means look at other countries, but not just to see what to imitate. See how it actually turns out. Yet there seems to be an amazing lack of interest in examining what government-controlled medical care produces.
While our so-called health care "summit" last week was going on, British newspapers were carrying exposes of terrible, and often deadly, conditions in British hospitals under that country's National Health Service. But this has not become part of our debate on what to expect from government-controlled medical care.
Such scandals are an old story under the National Health Service in Britain, one repeatedly producing fresh scandals that their newspapers carry, but ours ignore.
In addition to a whole series of National Health Service scandals in Britain over the years, the government-run medical system in Britain has far less high-tech medical equipment than there is in the United States. Neither in Britain, Canada, nor in other countries with government-run medical care systems can people get to see doctors, especially surgeons, in as short a time as in the United States.
It is not uncommon for patients in those countries to have to wait for months before getting operations that Americans get within weeks, or even days, after being diagnosed with a condition that requires surgery. You can always "bring down the cost of medical care" by having a lower level of quality or availability.
But, again, you may never learn any of this by following most of the American mainstream media. It is not that they don't make comparisons between medical care in different countries. But they tend to feature news that will promote government-controlled care.
One of the statistics they spin endlessly is that life expectancy in some countries with government-controlled medical care is higher than in the United States. What they don't tell you is that, in some of these countries, all the infants that die are not included in infant mortality statistics, as they are in the United States.
More important, both political and media supporters of government-controlled medical care consistently confuse medical care with health care.
Much, if not most, of health care depends on what individuals do in the way they live their own lives-- including eating habits, alcohol intake, exercise, narcotics and homicide. A study some years ago found that Mormons live a decade longer than other Americans. But nobody believes that Mormons' doctors are that much better than other doctors. When you don't do a lot of things that shorten your life, you live longer. That is not rocket science.
Americans tend to have higher rates of obesity, narcotics use and homicide than people in some other countries. And there is not much that doctors can do about that.
If those who make international comparisons were serious, instead of clever, they would compare the things that medical science can have a great effect on-- cancer survival rates, for example. Americans have some of the highest cancer survival rates in the world, and for some particular cancers, the highest.
When you can get to see a doctor faster, and get treatments underway without waiting for months, while the cancer grows and spreads, you have a better chance of surviving. That, too, is not rocket science. But it is also something that you are not likely to see featured in most of the media, where people are promoting their own pet notions and agendas, instead of giving you the facts on which you can make up your own mind.
PoliticsNY.Net: SNOWDEN'S RICK'S TALLY - HO RAIDED
Rick Snowden's, a political operative claiming friendships with former presidents, strip club was raided this morning. Federal state & local authorities arresting a number of the Club's employees on cocaine & heroin related charges. No word on whether Snowden will be charged.
NEWS READERSHIP: THE INTERNET RULES
Eclipsing radio and newspapers as a favored source for news, more Americans are now turning to the Internet to learn about world events.
According to a new poll released by the Pew Research Center, the Internet has become the third most popular source for news in America, right behind national and local television newscasts.
Oh! That is Buffalo News Editor Margaret Sullivan in the cartoon, just kidding!
JosephIlluzzi704@aol.com
U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer announced that he has written a personal letter to the Commissioner of the Mid-American Conference (MAC), Dr. Jon Steinbrecher,encouraging him to give the Men's and Women's NCAA MAC Conference Basketball Tournaments a permanent home in Buffalo. Right now, the sites for the tournaments are moved every year, making the MAC Conference's stated desire to hold both men's and women's tournaments in the same city very challenging.
The tournament organizers are currently in the middle of an 18 month search for a permanent home for the tournament, starting in 2012. The location has to be able to handle both the men's and women's tournaments simultaneously, and be close to a participating school. Schumer said that Buffalo is an ideal location for the MAC tournaments because Buffalo features two state of the art facilities, the University of Buffalo is a member of the MAC, and because Buffalo is a great sports town with the proper infrastructure to hold a high profile event.
"As someone who grew up playing hoops and loves the game, nothing would make me happier than to see this tournament parked permanently in Buffalo," Schumer said. "Anyone who has been to an athletic event in Buffalo knows what a great sports town it is, and having March Madness kickoff there will only add to its reputation."
U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer
Alice In Health Care
By Thomas Sowell
Most discussions of health care are like something out of Alice in Wonderland.
What is the biggest complaint about the current medical care situation? "It costs too much." Yet one looks in vain for anything in the pending legislation that will lower those costs.
One of the biggest reasons for higher medical costs is that somebody else is paying those costs, whether an insurance company or the government. What is the politicians' answer? To have more costs paid by insurance companies and the government.
Back when the "single payer" was the patient, people were more selective in what they spent their own money on. You went to a doctor when you had a broken leg but not necessarily every time you had the sniffles or a skin rash. But, when someone else is paying, that is when medical care gets over-used -- and bureaucratic rationing is then imposed, to replace self-rationing.
Money is just one of the costs of people seeking more medical care than they would if they were paying for it with their own money. Both waiting lines and waiting lists grow longer when people with sniffles and minor skin rashes take up the time of doctors, while people with cancer are waiting.
In country after country, the original estimates of government medical care costs almost always turn out to be gross under-estimates of what it ultimately turns out to cost.
Even when the estimates are done honestly, they are based on how much medical care people use when they are paying for it themselves. But having someone else pay for medical care virtually guarantees that a lot more of it will be used.
Nothing would lower costs more than having each patient pay those costs. And nothing is less likely to happen.
One of the big costs that have actually forced some hospitals to close is the federal mandate that hospitals treat everyone who comes to an emergency room, whether they pay or not. But those who talk about "bringing down the cost of medical care" are not about to repeal that mandate. Often they want to add more mandates.
The most fundamental issue is not whether treating everyone who comes to an emergency room is a good policy or a bad policy in itself. If it is a good policy, then the federal government should pay for what it wants done, not force other institutions to pay for it. Then let the voters decide at the next election whether that is what they want their tax money spent for.
Confusion between costs and prices add to the Alice in Wonderland sense of unreality.
What is called lowering the costs is simply refusing to pay all the costs, by having the government set lower prices, whether for doctors' fees, hospital reimbursements or other charges. Surely no one believes that there will be no repercussions from refusing to pay for what we want. Some doctors are already refusing to accept Medicare or Medicaid patients because the government's reimbursement levels are so low.
Similarly, if it costs a billion dollars to create one new pharmaceutical drug, then either we are going to pay the billion dollars or we are not going to keep on getting new pharmaceutical drugs produced. There is no free lunch.
Virtually everything that is proposed by those who are talking about bringing down the costs of medical care will in fact raise those costs. Mandates on insurance companies? Why are insurance companies not already doing those things that new mandates would require? Because those things raise costs by an amount that people are unwilling to pay to get those benefits.
If not, it would be a slam dunk for the insurance companies to add those benefits to the policies and raise the premiums to cover them. What politicians want to do is look good by imposing mandates, and then let the insurance companies look bad by raising the premiums to cover the additional costs.
It is a great political game, but it does nothing to lower medical costs.
Politicians who want a government monopoly on health insurance can easily get it, just by making it impossible for private insurance companies to charge enough to cover the costs mandated by politicians. The "public option" will then be the only option -- which is to say, we will no longer have any real option.
Marist Poll
Most Voters Don't Want Paterson to Resign But Question His Ability to Govern
Marist Poll
In the wake of a political scandal that ended Governor David Paterson's hopes of a full elected term in office, most registered voters in New York State ' 66% — say they want the governor to finish out his term in office. Only 28% are calling for Paterson's resignation. 6% are unsure.
But, do they think Governor Paterson will be able to govern effectively? 62% of voters in New York State think, if the governor does not resign, he will not be an effective leader during the remainder of his term. This includes 39% who believe he will not be very effective and 23% who say he will not be effective at all. On the flip side, 34% think he'll be able to fulfill his responsibilities as governor during the next ten months. Included here are 7% who report the governor will be very effective and 27% who say he will be effective.
"When it comes to Governor Paterson resigning from office, New Yorkers are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt," says Dr. Lee M. Miringoff, Director of The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. "But, regarding his ability to govern effectively, voters have plenty of doubts."
Most Voters Aware of Scandal…View Paterson's Role As Wrong
The current controversy facing Paterson focuses on a possible domestic violence case against one of the governor's top aides. And, unfortunately for Paterson, the electorate has not been insulated from the headlines. 82% of registered voters report they have heard about the case while 18% have not.
What do voters think about Paterson's actions when he spoke with the alleged victim leading up to her court appearance? 40% think he acted unethically but not illegally while 18% feel he acted illegally. Just 12% believe he did nothing wrong, and 30% are unsure.
But, is the governor being treated fairly? 55% of registered voters statewide say he is while 36% think he is getting a raw deal.
Paterson's Job Approval Rating Low But Steady
Governor Paterson's already low job approval rating has been little affected by the news of the scandal. In a Marist Poll conducted just last night, 23% say Paterson is doing either an excellent or good job in office. 33% think he is doing an average job, and 38% believe he is completely missing the mark. 6% are unsure.
When Marist asked about Mr. Paterson's job approval rating in the days leading up to his announcement last Friday, 24% of registered voters statewide thought he was doing either an excellent or good job in office. 40% said he was doing an average job, and 32% reported he was performing poorly. 4% were unsure.
New York's Next Governor? Richard Ravitch's Job Approval Rating
If Governor Paterson steps down, Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch will take over the reins of the state. What do voters think of his job performance? 44% have either never heard of him or are unsure how to rate him. 15% think he is doing either an excellent or good job in office, and 29% report he is performing fairly well. 12% say he is doing a poor job.
PoliticsNY.Net: NEW YORKSTATE POLITICALINTERNET NEWS
UPDATES: NY TIMES: Some Black Democrats Suggest Race Is Factor in Pressure on the Governor. Some top black New York Democrats questioned on Monday whether calls for Gov. David A. Paterson either to resign or to transfer some of his authority to the lieutenant governor were prompted by a racial double standard. Full story
TIMES UNION: Ford won't run against Gillibrand. He says he doesn't want to polarize and weaken the party. Former Tennessee congressman Harold Ford Jr. said Monday he won't challenge Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in this fall's Democratic primary because he doesn't want to divide and weaken the party. ...
NY DAILY NEWS: As scandal escalates, Gov. Paterson continues to show he can't handle the truth. When he announced Friday that he was not seeking election, Gov. Paterson solemnly raised his right hand. "I give you my personal oath I have never abused my office, not now, not ever," he declared. "I believe that when the facts are reviewed, the truth will prevail." Sees state screen
NY DAILY NEWS: Paterson told two female aides to contact alleged domestic violence victim Sherr-una Booker: source. Gov Paterson personally directed two female staffers to reach out to a domestic violence victim who was pointing the finger at his right-hand man. In the latest damning twist in a mushrooming scandal, Paterson had "multiple" conversations with a state worker who is pals with him and the woman, Sherr-una Booker, a source with knowledge of the situation said. Full story
NY POST: Flake & pals Face Grilling. Former US Rep. Floyd Flake and rap moguls Jay Z and Russell Simmons will be subpoenaed today in the state probe into the controversial contract to operate slot machines at Aqueduct Racetrack, The Post has learned. Flake, a Queens minister and personal friend of Gov. Paterson, and Jay-Z are partners in AEG, the company that was chosen by the governor to operate 4,500 slot machines at the track. Simmons is an adviser to Penn National Gaming, one of the losing bidders. The subpoenas were issued by the State Inspector General's Office, which is working with the US attorney. The three are the first of dozens likely to be quizzed. Aqueduct Entertainment Group offered the state the least money up front, had unrealistic revenue estimates and provided fewer financial details than competitors, according to Saratoga Racing and Gaming, a partner in a losing bid from Delaware North. See state screen
NY POST: SMOKING GUN! In an explosive development that puts Gov. Paterson at the center of an alleged cover-up, the governor instructed two female state workers to contact the woman involved in a domestic-violence case against his closest aide -- even enlisting one of them to ask the victim to downplay it, sources told The Post last night. Paterson instructed his press secretary, Marissa Shorenstein -- who met with probers from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office yesterday -- to phone Sherr-una Booker just as the media was preparing to unleash a damning piece on Booker's ex, troubled longtime Paterson pal David Johnson, one source said. Full story
NY POST: Gov says domestic violence probe involves aide, 'not me' In his first public apperarance since announcing that he intends to step down when his term ends, Gov. Paterson distanced himself from former top aide David Johnson by claiming he's not involved in the "problems of someone who worked for us." Johnson is at the center of an investigation into why state troopers visited his longtime girlfriend after she filed a domestic violence complaint against him last Halloween. Even though Paterson has admitted speaking to the woman in the case -- which is certain to come up in the investigation -- he insisted that's not why he decided to pull the plug on his uphill election campaign."This is a separate issue that really involves the problems of someone that worked for us and not me," Paterson said at a midtown breakfast forum sponsored by former City Council members Ken Fisher and Walter McCaffrey and attended by a couple hundred business leaders.The governor claimed he's the victim of a "hysteria" that has no basis in fact."Going back over a month there have been hideous and unsubstantiated rumors where I've had to read what the speculation would be about, what the actual stories would actually be," he said. "None of those stories, speculations, came to fruition." This is entire article
NY TIMES: Governors' Troopers Pressured by Duty and Politics. Under Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat who had been the state's top law enforcement official, investigators charged that state troopers were used in an attempt to dig up dirt on a political rival of the governor's. His successor, Gov. David A. Paterson, in his first week in office ordered an overhaul of the State Police to insulate the agency from political interference. Last week it was learned that state troopers from his security detail contacted a woman who had alleged she was assaulted by a senior aide to the governor. She told a judge they had pressured her not to pursue charges.
TIMES UNION: County chairmen: Paterson exit is best. Democrats also say election prospects for state Legislature better with possible Cuomo run. The Saratoga County Democratic chairman said Friday that he had gotten wind of the announcement hours ahead of time, but more importantly, the news was a vindication of sorts. Bulman had helped organize a meeting in January to air concerns that Paterson might potentially hurt the rest of the Democratic ticket in November. TIMES UNION: Paterson needs to quit now. David Paterson should resign as governor and be done with it. Full story
NY DAILY NEWS: Sheldon Silver wants Richard Ravitch, not Gov. Paterson, to handle talks on state budget crisis. Less Paterson. More Ravitch.Powerful Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver called on hobbled Gov. Paterson on Sunday to let his respected lieutenant, Richard Ravitch, spearhead crucial fiscal crisis talks in Albany. "I think it would be good," Silver (D-Manhattan) said. "I think he might have some, I'll call it, out-of-the-box thinking that may move us toward resolution. Obviously, everything he does would be at the behest of the governor."
NY DAILY NEWS: Cuomo can't get governor's race in gear until Paterson, Espada probes wrap up. Albany's dysfunction will keep Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's campaign for governor on ice for the foreseeable future.A source close to Cuomo confirmed the AG will not announce his candidacy as long as his investigations into both Gov. Paterson and Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada Jr. (D-Bronx) are open. It could take more than a month for the two cases to be resolved.The desire to wrap up his probes into fellow elected officials before jumping into the race gives Cuomo a rationale for continuing to avoid weighing in on contentious issues like the budget and ethics reform. Full story
NY DAILY NEWS: No longer running for election, the big question now is whether Gov. Paterson will spend his remaining days in office focused on legacy or leisure. In his two years as governor, Paterson has earned a reputation among many of his staff members, lawmakers and lobbyists for having a poor work ethic - and an affinity for the lavish lifestyle his position affords. "And that was when he had everything to lose," said one former Paterson aide. Many now wonder whether he can pull it together over the next few months to salvage his reputation. Full story
NY DAILY NEWS: Talk at black churches: Some blame race for Gov. Paterson's downfall, and some blame Paterson. The state'sfirst black governor was the talk Sunday of black churches, where some blamed race for his downfall while others blamed him. "The governor's just the latest example of a black politician being treated differently," said Cliff Frazier, 75, at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. Many parishioners at Abyssinian Baptist said race affects the way Gov. Paterson, President Obama and Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem) are portrayed in the press. "It's no coincidence that they're criticized more severely," Frazier said. But the Rev. A.R. Bernard at the Christian Cultural Center in Starrett City, Brooklyn, suggested Paterson wasn't up to the task. Full story
NY POST: 911 calls show Paterson aide's ex pleaded for help as 'victim of violence'. A flurry of frantic 911 calls made by the ex-girlfriend of Gov. Paterson's top aide reveal startling new details about the harrowing night that wound up bringing down the governor. Sherr-una Booker placed three emergency phone calls from her Powell Avenue apartment in the Williamsbridge section of The Bronx -- including one in which she says her burly boyfriend, David Johnson, who "works for the governor," had roughed her up, according to sources familiar with her story.Paterson, Johnson and top State Police officials are now at the center of Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's probe into whether they tried to persuade Booker to drop the case.
NY POST: Hit by Silver bullet. A bitter Gov. Paterson is blaming Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver for his political demise, angrily contending that "despite all I did for him," Silver conspired to oust him from office. Paterson is also accusing the powerful Silver of seeking to force his resignation so the speaker's longtime friend, Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch, would replace him, sources have told The Post. "David truly believes he gave Shelly all these big favors, including appointing Ravitch and naming the new chief judge, and that Silver turned on him anyway," said a source close to Silver. "He's saying 'despite all I did for him,' Shelly turned against him." Full story
NY POST: Paterson's aides tell of gov's laziness, tantrums and deceits. The crumbling of David Paterson's accidental governorship comes as no surprise to former top aides, who say Paterson loves the trappings of power, but not the work. The governor -- who announced Friday he would suspend his election campaign amid calls from Democratic leaders that he resign -- shows little interest in policy. He resorts to grilling press handlers about what to do about big budget and policy issues and has told his budget director to "just decide what to do." He is often unreachable for up to three days at a time. But Paterson cloaks his lightweight status in the garb of formality. Top staffers need an appointment to walk into his office, and even his most senior aides have to check in with his secretary to confirm that they can approach him. Full story
NY POST: Lobbyist's 'bad' advice. In apparent viola tion of the law, a top adviser to Gov. Paterson's now-ended campaign provided thousands of dollars' worth of services to the governor for free while lobbying him for the controversial Aqueduct casino contract. Bill Lynch, a prominent Democratic operative and longtime Paterson associate, was signed to a $7,500-a- month contract by would-be Aqueduct operator SL Green on Nov. 1 for the purpose of "assisting in the venture's bid for a license to operate the video lottery facility at Aqueduct," a copy of the contract filed with the Public Integrity Commission (PIC) shows. Full story
JosephIlluzzi704@aol.com
The Hoax of The Century
by Pat Buchanan
With publication of "On the Origin of Species" in 1859, the hunt was on for the "missing link." Fame and fortune awaited the scientist who found the link proving Darwin right: that man evolved from a monkey.
In 1912, success! In a gravel pit near Piltdown in East Sussex, there was found the cranium of a man with the jaw of an ape.
"Darwin Theory Proved True," ran the banner headline.
Evolution skeptics were pilloried, and three English scientists were knighted for validating Piltdown Man.
It wasn't until 1953, after generations of biology students had been taught about Piltdown Man, that closer inspection discovered that the cranium belonged to a medieval Englishman, the bones had been dyed to look older and the jaw belonged to an orangutan whose teeth had been filed down to look human.
The scientific discovery of the century became the hoax of the century. But Piltdown Man was not alone. There was Nebraska Man.
In 1922, Henry Fairfield Osborn, president of the American Museum of Natural History, identified a tooth fossil found in Nebraska to be that of an "anthropoid ape." He used his discovery to mock William Jennings Bryan, newly elected to Congress, as "the most distinguished primate which the State of Nebraska has yet produced."
Invited to testify at the Scopes trial, however, Osborn begged off. For, by 1925, Nebraska Man's tooth had been traced to a wild pig, and Creationist Duane Gish, a biochemist, had remarked of Osborn's Nebraska Man, "I believe this is a case in which a scientist made a man out of a pig, and the pig made a monkey out of the scientist."
These stories are wonderfully told in Eugene Windchy's 2009 "The End of Darwinism." But if Piltdown Man and his American cousin Nebraska Man were the hoaxes of the 20th century, global warming is the great hoax of the 21st. In a matter of months, what have we learned:
-- In its 2007 report claiming that the Himalayan glaciers are melting, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change relied on a 1999 news story in a popular science journal, based on one interview with a little-known Indian scientist who said this was pure "speculation," not supported by any research. The IPCC also misreported the supposed date of the glaciers' meltdown as 2035. The Indian had suggested 2350.
-- The IPCC report that global warming is going to kill 40 percent of the Amazon rainforest and cut African crop yields 50 percent has been found to be alarmist propaganda.
-- The IPCC 2007 report declared 55 percent of Holland to be below sea level, an exaggeration of over 100 percent.
-- While endless keening is heard over the Arctic ice cap, we hear almost nothing of the 2009 report of the British Antarctica Survey that the sea ice cap of Antarctica has been expanding by 100,000 square kilometers a decade for 30 years. That translates into 3,800 square miles of new Antarctic ice every year.
-- Though America endured one of the worst winters ever, while the 2009 hurricane season was among the mildest, the warmers say this proves nothing. But when our winters were mild and the 2005 hurricane season brought four major storms to the U.S. coast, Katrina among them, the warmers said this validated their theory.
You can't have it both ways.
-- The Climate Research Center at East Anglia University, which provides the scientific backup for the IPCC, apparently threw out the basic data on which it based claims of a rise in global temperatures for the century. And a hacker into its e-mail files found CLC "scientists" had squelched the publication of dissenting views.
What we learned in a year's time: Polar bears are not vanishing. Sea levels are not rising at anything like the 20-foot surge this century was to bring. Cities are not sinking. Beaches are not disappearing. Temperatures have not been rising since the late 1990s. And, in historic terms, our global warming is not at all unprecedented.
Dennis Avery of Hudson Institute wrote a decade ago that from A.D. 900 to 1300, the Earth warmed by 4 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit, a period known as the Little Climate Optimum.
How horrible was it?
"The Vikings discovered and settled Greenland around A.D. 950. Greenland was then so warm that thousands of colonists supported themselves by pasturing cattle on what is now frozen tundra. During this great global warming, Europe built the looming castles and soaring cathedrals that even today stun tourists with their size, beauty and engineering excellence. These colossal buildings required the investment of millions of man-hours -- which could be spared from farming because of higher crop yields."
Today's global warming hysteria is the hoax of the 21st century. H.L. Mencken had it right: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
PoliticsNY.Net: ERIE COUNTY - A CONUNDRUM?
Obviously, the most pointed error in Legislator Majority Leader Maria Whyte's (D) rant in the Buffalo News Saturday is this sentence
"Maybe one-man rule is how Collins (R) runs his businesses. But we don't want our county run like a business. We want it run like a democracy."
Thedemocracy part being a misnomer; the word in Whyte's case should be "SOCIALISM."
Absent the political considerations waxed into her prose,which are obvious, the woman means well; however, she is so far left of left no objective person can take her seriously!
The topic of the column had to do with deleting funds for child day care for eligible parents from the County budget based a budget concerns.
No question the Collins administration has shown little empathy, possibly apathy,with respect to the poorest of the County's residents; these are not the people who are going to vote for him anyway.
Collins dropping the WIC program, closing clinics, etc.
We believe the Buffalo News struck the right cord when the paper editorialized that Collins should not cut a program until there were alternatives to the programs being cut. He did in fact did do just that with WIC & the clinics.
This is not a case of Collins running government like a business BUT like a fiscal conservative.
Surprising his GOP cohorts unanimously voted with the dems on this issue.
The problem for Collins is the people who he is impacting are for the most part minorities & children.
"There'sthe rub" (actually this is the correct quote not therin lies the rub)
The Supreme Court held in affirmative action cases that if a historical pattern of racism existed, because that is what this is about, minorities can receive preferential entitlements.
We are NOT arguing that thislegalfinding applies here; what we are stating is that in Erie County there is a historical pattern of racism, the area being the 4th most segregated in the country.
Collins might want to take that into consideration in this matter. ...
Writing about the Legislature: Chair Miller Williams had control of the session. However, for a while there it looked like Lynn Marinelligave new meaning to the word filibuster; seems she is a filibusterer. Yes! That is a word! The problem is nothing was accomplished everything of note went to committee. Probably not a problem because the Legislature meets again Thursday the 4th.
We were very happy to see Renovation Church (see left) Pastor Brek Cockrell give the invocation at Whyte's invitation, God Bless Her! ...
Oh just one thing about the $7M Collins is spending on renovations to the old convention center (read below). The facility will be closed for the summer. Just hark back what 5 years give or take. The economic impact alone generated by our convention business over any given summer would be double &quadruple (plus) the $7M that Collins is spending, not to mention a few million in sales& bed taxreceipts. Unless this County has a new state of the art convention center marketed globally the County will never realize its fair share of the tourism dollar; this is just bad business, pun intended!
ERIE COUNTY CLERK KATHY HOCHUL
Hochul was endorsed for reelection by the Erie County Conservative Party, Ralph Lorigo Chariman.We do not believe the GOP the will want to spend any money to speak of on this race; possibly a token candidate. Hochul's popularity crosses party lines.
JosephIlluzzi704@aol.com
Why Kudlow Must Run
By Roger Stone
Pick up the Banner
The prospect of CNBC analyst Larry Kudlow seeking the Republican and Conservative Party nominations to oppose Sen. Chuck Schumer has become a cause among Tea Party folks, Conservatives, Republicans and many on Wall Street. Not since James L. Buckley won a US Senate seat in 1970 have New York Conservatives been so excited about a statewide
political race.
I don't know Kudlow well. We met several times during the Reagan years but it was at Buffalo Congressman Jack Kemp's 2009 memorial service that I got reacquainted with the pro-growth enthusiast. Kudlow has been on my STONEzone TEN BESTED DRESSED LISTtm since 2008. I admire him as an unabashed apostle of hope and optimism and opportunity on television and radio. His are the politics of Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp, who Kudlow calls his mentor.
It goes without saying that Chuck Schumer needs a vigorous challenger; he is perhaps the most odious, pushy, abrasive and self-absorbed jerk in Congress today. His pork-fests are legendary, and he narrowly escaped indictment for corruption as an Assemblyman before the becoming the master of the "pay to play" game in Washington.
But Kudlow's potential candidacy is about something even more important than sending Schumer packing.
Today leftist historians are rewriting history, burying supply-side economics and recasting what really happened under Ronald Reagan. Their mantra - the Reagan tax cuts caused the deficit ' is dead wrong. Government revenues soared under Reagan - so did Congressional spending which is the real cause of federal deficits.
Relight the Torch
Reagan and Kemp transformed the Republican Party from the party of the wealthy to the party of the workingman. It was the Bushs who carted us back to the country club. Still, the 1992 defeat of President George HW Bush who raised taxes demoralized those who understood the need to keep the "read my lips" pledge. Although W. was a tax-cutter the insane levels of spending undermined growth and tax-cutting became discredited.
As a result, the pro-growth wing of the Republican Party has no leader today, no one to carry the banner of growth and opportunity and free markets.
Larry Kudlow can make a case for economic growth at center stage in the media capital of the world. In the United States Senate, Larry Kudlow would have the bully pulpit. And make no mistake ' he would use it wisely.
Pick up the Mantle
It has bothered me to no end that The Washington Post never ran an obituary of Jack Kemp, whose 1988 campaign for President I ran in New Hampshire. The newspaper only mentioned his death in passing, relegated to the sports page.
The message behind the Beltway Bible's dismissive treatment of one of the lions of the Reagan Revolution is this: tax-reduction didn't work, so Kemp's greatest achievements were on the football field.
Conservatives cannot let them rewrite history, and Larry Kudlow can snatch away their pen. He was present at the birth of the economic prosperity Ronald Reagan brought to America. So it is up to him to pick up the Kemp banner; he must relight the Reagan torch.
Win or lose, a Kudlow campaign would re-energize the growth wing of the Republican Party. That alone is worth running for, but he can certainly beat Schumer whose approval rating has dipped to a record low.
Some decry Kudlow, saying he was wrong in his economic predictions as our global economic meltdown approached. But who was right? Here is what we do know: taxing and spending got us to where we are today, and higher taxes and more pork spending are making it far worse. This is Chuck Schumer's Washington, and it is NOT the answer.
But the 2010 campaign is not about the past, it's about the future.
Kudlow would run an uplifting, erudite and issue-oriented campaign in the style of Jack Kemp. Although he cannot match the $19 million in blood money packed in Schumer's war chest, Kudlow is well liked on Wall Street and at the Tea Parties and he can raise significant late dollars - big and small - to be competitive on television. As a skilled communicator in America's Medium, Kudlow would wear well with a broader audience.
In the end, it was a popular draft movement that pulled Jim Buckley and Alfonse D'Amato into their New York Senate races, and they both won tough campaigns. In perhaps the most important draft since Goldwater, Larry Kudlow would attract thousands of young conservative activists and he would re-invigorate the Reagan/Kemp wing of the
Republican Party.
I say run, Larry, run.
President Obama and the "S" Word
by Bill O'Reilly
Rush Limbaugh recently mocked me because I do not call President Obama a socialist. Although I asked Obama to explain his "socialistic tenets" in my last interview with him, I have not branded him with the "S" word, because the label does not exactly apply to his governance thus far.
As defined in the American Heritage Dictionary, socialism is a social organization in which the means of distributing and producing goods is owned collectively. Last time I looked, my production of material was owned by my corporation; the government was not involved. Yes, the federal, state and local governments can tax me at will, and they do. But that's a constitutional mandate and part of our capitalistic system. So until Obama begins seizing condos, I cannot put the "S" word on his resume.
Of course, millions of Americans disagree with me, and I have plenty of e-mails to prove it. The basic theme is "we don't need no stinkin' dictionary to tell us Obama is a socialist." OK, fine. I admit the man wants a huge federal presence to control as much of the economy as possible. I will agree that he is a big income-redistribution guy. But as long as he isn't nationalizing industry or purloining private property, I don't think the socialist label is accurate.
But what I think doesn't matter. If socialism and Obama become linked in the minds of most voters, the president is done -- and thus, the campaign to label him Hugo Chavez Lite. According to a recent Gallup poll, 36 percent of Americans view socialism positively, but 58 percent see it as a negative. No American president could win re-election if deemed a socialist.
There is only one socialist in Congress, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Sanders is proud to state that he wants the government to call the economic shots and make sure there is "economic justice." That means if your house is too big, the feds should be able to subdivide it. Sanders is a frightening guy. They love him on NBC News.
But let's get back to the president. If he does not begin tamping down the big government "nanny state" strategy, I believe the socialist label will get traction. Even with all our problems, the United States remains the most successful economy in the world, offering the most opportunity to the most people. Just ask the 12 million illegal aliens currently in this country. Capitalism is not going anywhere, and socialism will not take root here. If Obama gets on the wrong side of this, he is a one-termer for sure.
But short of putting Sanders in handcuffs, there really isn't much the president can do to turn the "S" word situation around. Except maybe hang around with Donald Trump.
Erie County Democratic Committee
Endorses Stachowski, Thompson and DiNapoli, Urges Cuomo To Run
The Erie County Democratic Committee issued endorsements in several key races this morning. Senators William Stachowski and Antoine Thompson received the committee's backing, as did New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.
The committee also urged Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to run for Governor.
"We believe that Andrew Cuomo is the best candidate to represent the Democratic Party this November," said Erie County Democratic Chairman Len Lenihan. "He has stood up for the people of New York time and again, rooting out corruption in Albany and Wall Street and fighting hard for the average person."
Senator William Stachowski is a tireless advocate for Western New York. Over the past two years he has acquired millions for education, job creation and funding forlocal police and fire departments. He continued his long fight for local veterans by securing $500,000 for Horizon Health Services. Senator Stachowski sponsored "UB 2020" -which would help stimulate the Western New York economy by increasing UB's economic impact on Western New York from $1.7 billion to $3.6 billion annually and create well over 10,000 jobs.
Chairman Lenihan praised Senator Stachowski's work ethic on behalf of Western New Yorkers, "He is a work-horse, not a show-horse. He isn't interested in grabbing headlines or chasing after the latest fad. He serves the people of his district well by showing up every day working hard. His record of accomplishment speaks for itself."
Senator Thompson represents parts of Erie & Niagara Counties, which include the Cities of Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Tonawanda, and the Town of Grand Island. He is Chair of the Environmental Conservation Committee. His goal of bringing "Green Jobs" home to Western New York was bolstered by the Senate's recent passage an Environmental Package.
As Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has instituted tough new ethics rules and dedicated himself to bringing greater openness to the public. He has provided new opportunities for New York's entrepreneurs and made investment in New York State companies a priority.
Denise E. O'Donnell Account Disputed
UPDATE: In a memo to state police Friday, embattled top-cop Harry Corbitt disputed Denise O'Donnell's version of the conversation that led the Paterson criminal justice czar to resign in protest yesterday.
O'Donnell cited a lie by the state police superintendent to explain why she quit her $165,000-a-year post amidst allegations that state police interfered in a domestic violence case against a top Paterson aid.
"The state police have been accused of harassing a woman by contacting and urging her to drop charges regarding a domestic incident involving a key member of the governor's staff," Corbitt wrote to troopers. "The attorney general's office will conduct an investigation and report on the merits of the complaint."
"Most disturbing is the resignation of former Deputy Secretary Denise O'Donnell who in a written document stated she was misled by me regarding State Police involvement in this matter," he continued. "Simply put, that did not happen. I would not tarnish the reputation of this agency and its employees by reporting inaccurate information."
"I cannot comment on the particulars of the investigation but only ask that you withhold judgment pending the results of the investigation," Corbitt concluded." NY POST ...
"The fact that the Governor and members of the State Police have acknowledged direct contact with a woman who had filed for an order of protection against a senior member of the Governor's staff is a very serious matter. These actions are unacceptable regardless of their intent.
It is particularly distressing that this could happen in an Administration that prides itself on its record of combating domestic violence. The behavior alleged here is the antithesis of what many of us have spent our entire careers working to build ' a legal system that protects victims of domestic violence and brings offenders to justice.
In early January, following a breakfast meeting on another subject, State Police Superintendent Harry Corbitt informed me that a senior Administration staff member had been involved in an incident months earlier where a Domestic Incident Report was filed. Superintendent Corbitt told me the staff member had an argument with his girlfriend, that a Domestic Incident Report had been filed, but that there was no arrest and that the matter was being handled as a local police matter by the New York Police Department.
My immediate concern was what role the State Police would take in the investigation and I was assured by Superintendent Corbitt that the State Police were not involved.
It was only last night when I learned from press reports the contrary details, including the involvement of the State Police.
For these reasons, I am resigning my position as Commissioner of the Division of Criminal Justice Services and Deputy Secretary of Public Safety effective today."
PoliticsNY.Net: Breaking News: PATERSONRESIGNS RACE!
We told a Channel #7 reporter last Friday that Governor David Paterson would not be on the ballot in September.
We predicated our belief on three facts: Paterson admitted that his decision to award the Aqueduct racino contract to AEG was made partlyforpolitical considerations; he wanted Rev Flake's endorsement. So much for his vow at Friday's news conference; a glaring abuse of power!
UPDATE: David W. Johnson, a top aide to Gov. David A. Paterson, reached out to the commander of the governor's State Police detail the day after an altercation with his girlfriend and asked the commander to call the woman, according to a person briefed on the commander's actions. Full story
Does anyone in their right mind believe that the State police would intervene unless they were certain Paterson signed off on their involvement; we do not think so. ...
I actually had a run in with Paterson aide David Johnson at one of his fundraisers at the Chop House. It was a closed event (no press). I was there at the Mayor's personal invitation. There was no doubt in our minds that when Johnson was promoted something was amiss. We did not know that Johnson had his own problems via his girlfriend at the time. We believe Paterson used his position to involve the State police & his personal contact via a phone call to convince the woman not to show up at court. We believed& believeDJ was the Gov's clean up the mess guy; ergo the promotion. Another example of Paterson abusing his power as governor.
Lastly, perception is reality in this business; the above combined with the alleged sexual indiscretions just was to much for Paterson to continue in the race. The whole being greater than the sum of its parts. ...
"Gov. David Paterson has told Democratic leaders that he won't seek election to a full term amid a roiling scandal over whether he and his troopers intimidated a woman who'd reported domestic violence against one of his top aides, The Post has learned. Paterson communicated his intentions to top advisers and supporters, saying he'll make an announcement today, multiple sources said -- confirming a Post report. Paterson, who took over the state's top spot when Eliot Spitzer resigned after it was disclosed that he had sex with a prostitute, is expected to say he won't resign." Full story
"NY DAILY NEWS CALLS FOR PATERSON'S RESIGNATION: For everyone's sake, please leave office, Gov. Paterson. Like most New Yorkers, the Daily News greeted David Paterson's ascension to the governorship with best wishes and fervent hope for success in endeavors suddenly assumed. Today, just shy of two years later, we urge Paterson to step down immediately.
NYPOST CALLS FOR PATERSON'S RESIGNATION: Enough, governor. It's time for David Paterson to close out his role in one of the strangest epi sodes in New York history -- and turn over the affairs of state to his lieutenant governor, Richard Ravitch. We don't prescribe this lightly. But new developments make it painfully clear that the accidental governor lacks the credibility to effectively see New York through its current crises. And that he has no hope of gaining it.
NY POST Dicker: 'Deathwatch' pols give gov 4 wks. at best. Gov. Paterson bought four more weeks in office -- at best -- by asking Andrew Cuomo to probe his involvement in a scandalous effort to intimidate a battered single mom. But when the AG's pack of former federal prosecutors finishes with Troopergate II, it'll be curtains for sure for our accidental governor. That's the view at the Capitol -- even among Paterson's fellow Democrats -- where an informal political deathwatch is under way. Top state government officials are counting the days to when Richard Ravitch, the state's accidental lieutenant governor, becomes New York's third chief executive in as many years. Full story...
"The fallout surrounding Gov. Paterson and allegations the embattled governor intervened when a woman accused one of his top aides of domestic violence has dealt a huge blow to him. The woman was identified as 40-year-old Lincoln Hospital official and mother of two named Sherr-una Booker, multiple sources told The Post." Full story
"The Governor has formally referred to this Office a matter for investigation and this Office is proceeding to determine if criminal or other wrongdoing is involved." AG Andrew Cuomo ...
"There's been an investigation called for. … The allegation … of what took place is horrific. If interference (occurred), it's totally, totally contrary to law. We'll put a statement out on the rest." Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver ...
Rep. Israel urges Paterson to give up election bid. Rep. Steve Israel is urging fellow Democrat Gov. David Paterson to drop his run for election this year following a published report about a domestic abuse complaint against a top aide. ...
Governor David Paterson statement:
"Serious questions have been raised about contact the State Police may have had with a private citizen who filed a complaint against a member of my staff. Any allegation of improper influence must be investigated thoroughly and completely.
"Superintendent Harry Corbitt has directed the State Police to conduct an internal investigation into this matter. I have full faith and trust in the integrity and ability of the State Police to conduct a thorough investigation.
"Because of the seriousness of these allegations, and the sensitive role of this staff member in my Administration, I am asking the Attorney General to investigate the matter to ensure in the public's mind that a comprehensive and independent inquiry has been conducted. Pending the outcome of the investigation, I am suspending David Johnson without pay." ...
Last fall, a woman went to court in the Bronx to testify that she had been violently assaulted by a top aide to Gov. David A. Paterson, and to seek a protective order against the man.
In the ensuing months, she returned to court twice to press her case, complaining that the State Police had been harassing her to drop it. The State Police, which had no jurisdiction in the matter, confirmed that the woman was visited by a member of the governor's personal security detail.
NYS GOP CHAIRMAN ED COX
UPDATE: "The end of Governor David Patterson's re-election campaign amidst a cloud of scandal is just the latest example of the Democratic Party's culture of corruption, stemming from their absolute control of government on a state and nationwide level.Over the past four years, as New Yorkers have had to cope with an economic crisis hitting our families and businesses, they've watched the Democratic Leadership of this state become a national embarrassment.
Two statewide officials, Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer and State Comptroller Alan Hevesi, resigned in disgrace, while Governor Paterson's own transgressions are now precluding him from seeking a second-term. Each of Attorney General Cuomo's 2006 running mates has left a tragic legacy of failure and abuse of the public trust. The fact Attorney General Cuomo has not recused himself from the Paterson investigation, in which his clear political interests are at stake, means Cuomo is no different than the others who perpetuate this corrupt environment.
Friday's announcement only underscores the need to put an end to one-party rule in Albany and to elect leaders who are removed and separate from the previous four years' worth of failure and corruption. New Yorkers seek and deserve that kind of leadership. Andrew Cuomo fails entirely to fit-the-bill." ...
"Governor Paterson has once again put himself first and the people of New York second. Not seeking re-election simply doesn't cut it. The Governor has engaged in serious misconduct and should not remain in office.As I stated yesterday, domestic violence cannot be tolerated, condoned, covered up or explained away.Paterson should resign immediately so that New Yorkers can have someone with integrity in the highest office in our state." ...
Chairman cites impact of political considerations and politically charged relationship between rivals in precluding A.G. from objective inquiry into allegations."
"While Attorney General Cuomo may have the legal authority to conduct the investigation into allegations concerning Governor Paterson, the antagonism and politically charged relationship that exists between the two rivals greatly undermines the Attorney General's ability to objectively and credibly investigate this matter.
The people of New York deserve answers free of political influence and interference. Attorney General Cuomo should recuse himself from this matter and turn responsibility over to the Deputy Attorney General for Public Integrity to ensure a full and fair investigation."
U.S. ATTORNEYNOMINEE BILL HOCHUL
Bill Hochul's nomination for US Attorney was unanimously approved by the Senate Judiciary CommitteeThursday morning. Next step will be consideration by the full Senate at a date to be determined.
"SNAKE OIL HARRY (FORD)-GO AWAY"
Illuzzi: We agree Ford should go back to Tennessee & take Gillibrand with him but for completelydifferent reasons; we support a ban on "gay marriage" !
Harold Ford took his "listening tour" to the mostly gay Stonewall Democratic Club in Manhattan's West Village on Wednesday night - and he sure got an earful. Ford tried to explain how he went from voting to ban gay marriage with a constitutional amendment in 2006 as a Tennessee congressman to now supporting it as he mulls a primary bid against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. It wasn't an easy message to get out in a raucous 30 minutes at the W. 13th St. club. Ford was interrupted repeatedly by chants of "No more lies, no more lies" and "Snake-oil Harry, go away." Full story
THE LATEST RUMOR IN THE 58th
UPDATE: Sources close to Assemblyman Jack Quinn say,"Quinn remains very focused on the 58th district NY Senate race regardless of who his opponent might be, Stachowski or Kennedy."
Sources continued, "Quinntalked with NYS Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos'sstate campaign committeeTuesday to discuss potential strategy & financing.
Quinn is expected to make a decision early next month." ...
The latest RUMOR in the NYS Senate race 58th district. Assemblyman Jack Quinn will not run against Bill Stachowski; but he very likely will run against Tim Kennedy. Polls have Quinn 7-8 points ahead of Kennedy. The rumors continue if Quinn runs County Legislator Dan Kozub (D) will run for Quinn's Assembly seat. If Kozub wins Fran Warthling will seek the appointment to Kozub's Legislature seat. Warthling currently a Water Authority Commissioner & co owner of Diamond Cutters with his brother Bill. ...
Excellent sources, "the anti Lenihan forces will put up former County Legislator Mike Fitzpatrick for Water Authority Chariman in April."
The Legislature Chair proposes a name; the candidate needs ten votes, I believe. Mike is a very popular guy in political circles if nominated by Chair Miller Williams he should get confirmed.
This will leave Lenihan pretty much on an island by himself. However, I should mention that he still has the support ofa number of thetown & village chairs.
I don't know why Dan Ward (D) hasn't made a move to replace his brother BOE CommissionerDennis Ward as Amherst Town Chairman. Dennis & his spouse former Legislator Michele Iannello blindsided Dan with her run for the NYS Senate last year. She lost, as did Dan,the primary to Joe Mesi. Dennis lost just about every election in Amherst except one Town Board seat.
The other question mark is when will the Cheektowaga dems throw their chair Frank Max under the bus; this guy is a non starter. All he is goodfor is throwing fundraisers populated with non paying politicos & town employees to make the crowd look larger.
BASS PRO A COLOSSAL ERROR IN JUDGMENT!
Making Bass Pro the center piece of waterfront development stands right up there with building the UB campus in Amherst, Bills stadium in Orchard Park.
Bass Pro overeight-nineyearshas become a self fulfilling prophesy in bad judgment & planning.
Most of our leaders know that; most to afraid to speak out!
The only reason why Bass Pro remains the center piece of harbor development is because the Riches by extension Larry Quinn are behind the project. The reason Bob & Mindy's, both great people, friendship with Bass Pro Chair Johnny Morris. They are neighbors in Florida!
Restaurateur Mark Goldman wrote a column for the Buffalo News claimingthe harbor development corp.doesn't needa big bang project. We should simply settle for being a second rate city & exploit what treasures we have, paraphrasing Goldman.
Goldman & his ilk never got!
We think Esmonde is beginning to get it. He just has a tough time admitting when he is wrong. Like that column about the Mayor being lost in action, just crazy & wholly disingenuous.
The success ofour region esp. Erie County, to capture our share of the billions in tourist dollars is our convention business. Other than Jesus walking on water nothing will bring people from around the world to our region enmasse than a thriving convention business, NEW $$$, exploiting our treasures.
A thriving convention business addresses so many questions having to do with bringing NEW$$$ into the region there are just to many to count. We have the data that demonstates the return on investment via the last impact study updated by the Giambra administration, the ROI ran as high as $75M. There certainly is enough hotel space which was a Collins objection. Collins says the County can't afford the expense.
Collins we believe should at the very least update the last impact studybefore its to late.
I am a great supporter of Chris Collins but his position is just completely wrong.
Great leaders find a way!
The County is shutting down the convention center on Franklin for the summer to make a few million dollars in improvements to the old building, a bandaid.
Build the Convention Center at the AUD site & Bass Pro at the Donovan site with a connecting bridge. The parking plan is already on the table. This is not brain surgery.
One of the first things that Lynn Marinelli did when she was first elected to the Legislature was to introduce a resolution to build a new convention center & paying cash if need be. Gorski had enough in reserves to do just that. The County Legislature should consider a resolution to do just that.
We are not suggesting that this project is a panacea; but we are suggesting it just makes common sense. Wiser heads must prevail.
JosephIlluzzi704@aol.com
While the party bosses are in downtown Buffalo preparing to endorse an incumbent who has been in Albany for nearly 30 years, I will be walking door-to-door in Cheektowaga, challenging the status quo, spreading a message of change, and listening to voters who are fed up with Albany.
People know that Albany is broken. They do not live in a fantasy world. They have real problems. They are the ones who have witnessed the corruption that plagues the capitol; they are the ones who have experienced the crippling job losses; and they are the ones who have been forced to pay the ever increasing taxes that are devastating hardworking families' budgets. They are the ones struggling everyday, and sadly, they are being disrespected by party bosses who would prefer to sweep Albany's problems under the rug to gain yet another term for an entrenched incumbent.
Since announcing my candidacy, I have been focused on one major endorsement: the one the voters will confer on September 14th. That day will be the first step toward authentic change that Albany so desperately needs.
Legislator Tim Kennedy
Obama's Problems -- and Ours
by Pat Buchanan
We inherited the worst situation since the Great Depression.
That is the reflexive response of President Obama to the troubles from which he has been unable to extract his country.
Even before the inauguration, he says, there were projections of a $1.2 trillion deficit for 2009. That deficit is not my deficit.
Presidents are usually blamed for deficits run while they are in office. But, in fact, presidents do not write budgets. Congress does. Presidents sign them. And the mammoth deficits of 2008 and 2009 came from budgets approved by a Congress run by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Did Sen. Barack Obama vote against those budgets?
As for the troubles he inherited, the president has a point. From day one, he has had to deal with two wars, a financial crisis and an economy careening into recession.
But Harry Truman inherited two great wars, an atom bomb and an ally, Joseph Stalin, about to dishonor his commitments and enslave half of Europe.
Richard Nixon came to office a minority president in the year of Tet, urban riots, campus uprisings, and the assassinations of Dr. King and Robert Kennedy. He inherited a war in which 500,000 Americans were fighting, and came to a capital city dominated by a media that detested him and a Congress where, for the first time since Zachary Taylor, the opposition controlled both houses.
Ronald Reagan, too, inherited the worst recession since the Depression, a hollowed-out Army, a Soviet Empire that had overrun Vietnam and Southeast Asia and seized Afghanistan, Angola, Mozambique, Grenada and Nicaragua, and a NATO shot through with Eurocommunism and pacifism.
Undaunted, Truman went on to a historic victory in 1948, and Nixon and Reagan went on to 49-state landslides. Presidents have a way of coming back, and America has legendary recuperative powers.
So no one should write this president or country off. But neither should anyone minimize the problems confronting us.
First is the debt crisis. Federal revenues are running at 16 percent of gross domestic product, spending at 27 percent. Wednesday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke warned that a Greece-like situation, where creditors refuse to buy U.S. debt unless we raise interest rates to cover the rising risks of a U.S. default, cannot be ruled out.
Yet there is no credible plan to get these deficits under control when the economy starts to recover. And this week came news that consumer confidence has plunged to a 25-year low and housing starts have plummeted to the lowest level in 50 years.
Economists at the International Monetary Fund have suggested the United States raise the inflation rate to 4 percent or 6 percent to float out of the debt crisis. This is another way of saying the government should clandestinely steal the wealth of the American people to pay off its debts. Bernanke says that will not happen.
Second is the war situation. Where Gen. Tommy Franks' Army occupied Iraq in three weeks, Gen. Stanley McChrystal's will require a month to pacify Marjah, a town of 80,000 in a nation of 28 million.
U.S. casualties are rising in Afghanistan even as Iraq's elections, which are to lead to a U.S. withdrawal, appear to be moving that country back toward a Sunni-Shia and Arab-Kurd sectarian and civil war.
Meanwhile, pressure on the president is mounting for "crippling" sanctions on Iran that could lead to a third U.S. war against a nation with a population larger than Afghanistan and Iraq combined.
A third crisis is political: the perception that President Obama is a weak leader who cannot even impose his will on a Congress where Democrats had, until January, a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a near 80-vote margin in the House.
Abroad, America is being defied by Japan on bases, by Israel on settlements, by China and Russia on U.N. sanctions, and by Venezuela and its compadres on everything. Dictatorships and democracies alike seem to be dismissive of American leadership.
While Democrats are despondent, facing almost certain defeat in the fall, Republicans seem united only on what they are against: Obama and Obamacare, cap-and-trade, civil trials for terrorists, socialism.
Perhaps that is enough for November.
But in 2012, the party of Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul will have to tell the country how it proposes to end these wars without losing them, how to bring manufacturing back and how to cut spending by $1 trillion a year, if taxes are off the table.
That Republicans failed under George W. Bush few Republicans today deny. That Obama and his White House are failing today few Democrats will privately deny.
The question raised by the successive failures is whether either party has a cure for the maladies that afflict America. Or are those maladies beyond the power of politics to heal?
Have we become a people incapable of accepting the sacrifices previous generations made, and of producing leaders with the vision and strength of character that our leaders of old possessed?
Toyota and the Price of Modernity
by Charles Krauthammer
WASHINGTON -- Amazingly, the congressional hearings on Toyota were relatively civilized. Apart from some inevitable theatrical hectoring, the questioning was generally respectful, the emotions controlled. This was all the more remarkable given the drama of some of the testimony, such as that offered by a tearful Rhonda Smith, who recounted how, in her runaway Lexus, she had called her husband because "I wanted to hear his voice one more time."
Such wrenching and compelling stories might impel you to want to string up the first Toyota executive you find. But the issue here is larger and highly complex.
Industrial society produces an astonishing array of mass-produced products -- cars, drugs, medical devices -- that are at once wondrous and potentially lethal.
The wondrousness sometimes eludes us. Even the lowliest wage earner has an automobile that conveys him with more luxury, more freedom, more comfort than any traveling king ever experienced in all the centuries before the 20th. And modern medicines -- why, vaccines alone -- have prevented more suffering, more debility and more death than anything ever conceived by man.
But these wonders can be lethal. And sorting out the endless complaints about these products is maddeningly difficult -- though sort you must, otherwise every complaint would require shutting down the factories, and we'd have no industrial society at all.
The question is: How do you distinguish the idiosyncratic failure from the systemic -- for example, the single lemon that came off the auto assembly line versus an intrinsic problem inherent in that model's engineering? How do you separate one patient's physiology producing a drug side effect versus an intrinsic problem with a drug that makes it unacceptably dangerous?
Consider the oddity of those drug commercials on television. Fifteen seconds of the purported therapeutic effort, followed by about 45 seconds of a rapidly muttered list of horrific possible side effects. When the ad is over, I can't remember a thing about what the pill is supposed to do, except perhaps cause nausea, liver damage, projectile vomiting, a nasty rash, a four-hour erection and sudden death. Sudden death is my favorite because there is something comical about it being a side effect. What exactly is the main effect in that case? Relief from abdominal bloating?
And how many sudden deaths does it take until we say: "Enough," and pull the drug off the market?
It's not an easy calculation. Six years ago, Vioxx, a powerful anti-inflammatory, was withdrawn by the manufacturer because it was found to increase the risk of heart attack and stroke from 0.75 percent per year to 1.5 percent. The company was pilloried for not having owned up to this earlier, but some rheumatologists were furious that the drug was forced off the market at all. They had patients with crippling arthritis who had achieved a functioning life with Vioxx, for which they were quite willing to risk a long-shot cardiac complication. The public furor denied them the choice.
And don't imagine that we do not coldly calculate the price of a human life. In 1974, the speed limit was lowered to 55 mph to conserve oil. That also led to a dramatic drop in traffic fatalities -- approximately 3,000 lives every year. This didn't stop us, after the oil crisis, from raising the speed limit back to 65 and beyond -- knowing that thousands of Americans would die as a result.
The calculation was never explicit but it was nevertheless real. We were quite prepared to trade away a finite number of human lives for speed, and for the efficiency and convenience that come with it.
This is not to let Toyota off the hook simply because all products carry risk. Toyota executives have already admitted that they had underplayed the reports of sticking accelerators. They seem finally to have made a very serious, almost frantic, effort to correct what can be corrected -- the floor mat and sticky accelerator problem -- while continuing to investigate the more elusive possibility (never proved, perhaps never provable) of some additional electronic glitch.
But it is no disrespect to the memory of those killed, and the sorrow of those left behind, to simply admit that even the highest technology produced by the world's finest companies can be fallible and fatal, and that the intelligent response is not rage and retribution but sober remediation and recognition of the very high price we pay -- willingly pay -- for modernity with all its wondrous, dangerous bounty.
MEET THE STATE CHAIRMEN
A PoliticsNY.Net Exclusive
NYS Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs
JACOBS TAKES OVER DEMOCRATIC REINS SAYSBUFFALO VISIT SUCCESS
by Staff
What will Gov. Paterson do and when will he do it? Does he really intend to stick it out and run for re-election even though his poll numbers seem below the point of resuscitation? And what about Andrew Cuomo, the extremely popular Democratic attorney general who seems ready, willing, and able to lead Democrats in next year's elections?
Those questions and many others are among the challenges facing the state's new Democratic chairman, Nassau County's Jay Jacobs who took over the party's reins in Buffalo during a two-day conference that featured Paterson, Cuomo, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, and Democrats from across the state hoping for party unity in next year's looming elections.
"It went really very good in Buffalo," said Jacobs during anexclusive interview with www.PoliticsNY.net. "I talked to a lot of people and I think we've set ourselves on a good course."
Asked about the biggest challenge the party faces, Gov. Paterson's sinking popularity in the face of the state's growing budget deficit and his insistence on running for re-election, Jacobs said it's too early to panic.
"I think we have a good deal more time than everybody thinks," said Jacobs. "We're not through the 2009 elections yet, so the governor has some time to make his case to the public and he's going to do that. The poll numbers today may not be the poll numbers of tomorrow," adding "Gov. Paterson is running and I support him."
That position seems to fly in the face of the conventional political wisdom---and apparently President Obama's wishes---to let Andrew Cuomo top next year's ticket to avoid a Democratic statewide meltdown with a weak Paterson leading the way. But Jacobs insists Paterson has the opportunity and time to resurrect himself and says his job is to build an organization and a strong party to take on the Republicans in 2010.
As for Cuomo, Jacobs says the attorney general's high standing in the polls in well deserved. "He's done a great job," says Jacobs, "and I supported him in 2002 [during Cuomo's battle with Carl McCall], and I was one of the few county chairman who did and he's certainly someone I've always considered a good friend. I haven't heard anything but that he's running for re-election as attorney general, but what happens in the months ahead, I don't know," emphasizing again his support for Paterson.
On the battle for control of the State Senate, long a Republican stronghold but currently narrowly controlled by not-always-united Democrats, Jacobs says "you don't look at it [the Senate] in the aggregate, but in the target races where the parties are vulnerable. You have to be very strategic, raise the revenues, in order to fund strong races. I have been telling the [party] leadership that we had a procedural fight (a reference to the coup) in June, and now we have to demonstrate to the people that we have been fighting for them on the important issues, and we need substantive results to show that we should elect a Democrat. And I am going to try and help our leaders do that."
One Senate seat that many Democrats fear might be vulnerable next year is Bill Stachowski's in the 58th District, and Jacobs said "we know that was a tight race last time and we will have to keep a careful eye on that. We must weigh the threat and obligations of our party to protect our incumbents," saying he will be doing that as the travels the state to ready the party for next year's political battles.
Even though Democrats enjoy a roughly 5 to 3 voter enrollment edge in the state over Republicans, Jacobs cautions that "New York voters are smart, and while they have affiliation, we can't rest easy on that. Of course I would rather be us than them, but we can't leave any stone unturned."
Jacobs said he's optimistic that Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who took over Sen. Clinton's seat when she joined by Obama cabinet, will fare well with voters next year despite her rather poor standing in the polls. "President Clinton said last week that a poll is just a snapshot of a horse race that isn't finished," said Jacobs, "and the campaign hasn't even begun. Not many voters know her but after she spends millions letting people know what she has done, her name recognition and positive polls numbers will go up dramatically."
Right now, according to Jacobs, voters only know Gillibrand through the short snippets in newspaper stories and that will all change after she gets her message out. "I don't worry about the early poll numbers," said the new chairman. "I respect them [the poll numbers] but don't overly appreciate them."
Jacobs, who has been the Nassaut County Democratic chairman since 2001, says he met and talked to Mayor Byron Brown during his Buffalo visit "and I was extremely impressed by him. Very talented, tremendous potential, certainly someone who is likely to go places. One place where Brown has been mentioned as likely to go is on the ticket with Andrew Cuomo next year, providing Cuomo is the candidate at the top.
As for the two leading Republican names that have been bandied about for governor and senator, Jacobs says he doesn't think either former Mayor Rudy Giuliani or former Gov. George Pataki will risk their political legacies on races they might lose. "I have a sense that Rudy will take a long look and decide it's not a race and I think Gov. Pataki will do the same. They are both making a ton of money in the private sector and a loss would be catastrophic to their legacies and wouldn't make sense."
The only announced Republican candidate for governor so far is former four-term Congressman Rick Lazio who has been warmly received by Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long.
Jacobs has enjoyed great success as chairman in Nassau County where Democrats, under his watch, have re-elected a Democratic majority in the legislature in 2001, 2003, 2005, and 2007, and elected a Democratic county executive, comptroller, assessor, and district attorney.
He takes over as state chairman from June O'Neill.
A PoliticsNY.NetExclusive
NYSRepublican Chairman Ed Cox
COX SAYS ALL IS WELL WITH NIAGARA COUNTY CHAIRMAN HENRY WOJTASZEK
by Staff
Ed Cox, the soon-to-be Republican state chairman, stopped in Buffalo on Wednesday, the same day former Long Island Rep. Rick Lazio was in town to pitch his candidacy to be the GOP candidate for governor next year against most likely Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo.
Cox, a lawyer and the son-in-law of former President Richard Nixon, met with Erie County Republican Chairman Jim Domagalski and other party faithful, including his defeated rival to lead the party, Niagara County Chairman Henry Wojtaszek who had enjoyed the support of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, himself a possible gubernatorial candidate.
But Cox tells www.PoliticsNY.net that all is well with Wojtaszek, saying "I have Henry's full support and he is being very helpful." And Cox also had high praise for Giuliani, who had stumped hard to win the chairmanship for Wojtaszek, fueling talk that Giuliani wanted his own chairman for an expected gubernatorial run.
It was not the first time Cox had squared off against Giuliani. As chairman of John McCain's presidential campaign in New York State, Cox butted heads with the former mayor who harbored his own presidential ambitions. But on Wednesday, Cox was conciliatory.
"Mayor Giuliani would have made a great president," Cox said in a telephone interview. "But given the international situation, I felt McCain would be a little better. And secondly, I think the mayor is a wonderful asset for New York State and the Republican Party, so I wouldn't let anyone attack him during that [presidential] campaign, including the fire fighters in New York."
Cox added that he believes Giuliani "would be a great candidate and would make a great governor," adding he didn't think Giuliani's support for Wojtaszek "means that he was against me."
As for the enthusiasm of some GOP faithful to Lazio's candidacy, Cox said: "Well, when you are the only candidate out there, people get very enthusiastic. He has a lot of attractive features. He was a major J P Morgan Chase executive and that bank survived and did well during the economic recession. He [Lazio] has a certain charisma, supports a unicameral (single body) legislature. There's a lot there. But we're going to see a full field of candidates going forward."
Cox is expected to win election as state chairman next Tuesday at the GOP organizing convention in Albany when he will formally take over the party's leadership from Joe Mondello. While he would appear to face an uphill fight in rebuilding the party, Cox appears ready and willing to take on the challenge.
"I'm very excited, the opportunities to do good things for people are just tremendous," said Cox who had the clear backing of the majority of party leaders across the state, perhaps best exemplified by GOP Chairman Jay Dutcher of Ontario County who said the following about Cox: "…Ed Cox stands out as the candidate with the ability to rejuvenate the party, raise the funds, recruit the candidates and provide the support and leadership the Republican candidates across the state deserve."
So Cox will take over the helm of a party badly in need of rejuvenation, with a battle for control of the State Senate looming as well as the positions of governor and senator.And Cox was especially energized about taking on Sen. Kirsten Gilibrand who was appointed to fill out Hillary Clinton's term.
"She is very vulnerable," said Cox in describing Gilibrand as a "political chameleon without moral scruples or principles. She was a hard-core conservative [as a congresswoman] who voted for funding Acorn. Even [Sen.] Schumer voted against funding Acorn," an organization he said washes taxpayer funds for political purposes.
"She supported [Acorn] because she's concerned about the far left, especially in the New York primary process. I think taxpayers will be looking for principled candidates who will fight for the forgotten taxpayers of New York State."
Cox said that's what the party will be looking for, candidates who are dedicated to taking care of the forgotten state taxpayers who are paying more for less, feel that their jobs are being threatened, and witnesses their children leaving the state for better opportunities elsewhere. Cox included formerGov. George Pataki as one of those principled candidates who will be in the mix.The former governor and former Mayor Giuliani have both been mentioned as possible Senate candidates against Gilibrand.
So come Tuesday, the leadership of the State GOP will be in the hands of Cox, a prominent Manhattan lawyer who in 2008 was named in Super Lawyers in the area of Securities & Corporate Finance and his firm, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLL was ranked number one in New York city and number three in the U. S. on the American Lawyer's list of elite law firms.
Cox is perhaps best known as the husband of Tricia Nixon, daughter of the late President Nixon.
A PoliticsNY.Net Exclusive
NYS Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long
LONG HOPES GOP ENDS FIGHT SOON, BOOSTS POSSIBLE LAZIO CANDIDACY
by staff
State Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long says he hopes New York Republicans settle their leadership fight soon so that the focus will be on the full slate of offices up next year, including governor, comptroller, attorney general, and two U. S. Senate seats. There's also the matter of the State Senate, controlled for so many years by Republicans but now in the tenuous grip of Democrats.
"It's their fight, not mine," said Long, the state's longest tenured chairman (20 years) in declining to comment directly on the GOP chairmanship battle between Niagara County's Henry Wojtaszek and Nixon son-in-law Ed Cox. But Long added it was his hope that Republicans will settle the matter quickly and move on to developing a strong slate of candidates for next year's important elections with the state mired deep fiscal troubles.
Long, who jokingly refers to himself as the longest running play in town, told www.PoliticsNY.net that so far, the only Republican who has approached him about the top state office next year is former four-term Congressman Rick Lazio who lost to Hillary Clinton during the 2000 Senate campaign, largely because he got too close to her during a debate in Buffalo, seen as an intimidating move by many women voters.
"We have not committed to support anyone yet," said Long, adding that the only potential candidate who has approached so far is Lazio who has made a number of appearances before Conservative Party organizations giving every indication, according to Long, that he intends to run.
"I think he [Lazio] is a bright, articulate guy who if he has the support and money could be a serious contender," said the chairman. "He's always had the Conservative Party endorsement and he ran statewide in 2000, so he certainly knows the state and he is willing to make the personal sacrifices. At some point he will leave his job, a fairly high-salaried position (Wall Street executive) and campaign for governor."
Long said Lazio shows a willingness to take on the state's deep troubles and states there is a need for change. "We have to defend the taxpayers," said Long. "People are losing their jobs, taxes and spending are out of control. I think he understands that and feels New York is worth fighting for. He also bring some vision for the future," adding there is a need to stop people from voting with their feet and leaving the state.
"I like what he's saying," said Long, adding no other person has approached him or talked about being given consideration for a gubernatorial run.
As for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is backing Wojtaszek for chairman, Long said he didn't believe the 9/11 hero was planning a run.
"I heard he was saying he would decide in 30 to 60 days," said Long. "I would think if he was serious, he would be moving around. I don't believe he's considering a run for governor. A lot of people are trying to encourage him, but it doesn't appear he's going that way."
On the matter of Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who is seen by many as the strongest potential Democratic candidate next year given Gov. Paterson's dismal poll numbers, Long said that while Cuomo did speak at a major Conservative Party event last February, he doesn't expect that Cuomo would be looking for the endorsement of the party.
The Conservative leader said he did receive a visit from Assemblyman Jack Quinn at party headquarters in New York recently who, according to Long, said he wanted to work more closely with the party going forward.Long said Quinn (R-146th District) "is possibly looking to run for higher office," but that he made no commitment to Quinn who has been mentioned as a possible challenger to Democratic State Sen. William Stachowski next year. The other possibility should Senator Dale Volker retire is Quinn will move into that district &contest for Volker's seat. However, many politicalobservers believe that would be a crtical error in judgement on Quinn's part for reasons that will surface in the near future.
"Right now, I'm involved in the 23rd District congressional race," said Long, "We're going to support a conservative Republican when the seat becomes vacant later this year, with a special election possible in November. Maybe we can pull off a mini-Jim Buckley race and win a three-way contest." Long said the Conservative Party will support Doug Hoffman in the 23rd which covers mainly the north country, including Watertown.
As for the current state of the Conservative Party in New York, Long said the policies of Gov. Paterson in Albany and of President Obama in Washington are giving life to conservative policies.
"We [the party] have had our ups and downs, but I think with what's happening in New York and Washington with Paterson and Obama we're seeing a spike in support of conservative policies and a growth of the party," said the long-time leader.
A PoliticsNY.Net Exclusive
NYS INDEPENDENCE PARTY CHAIRMAN FRANK MACKAY
IP SETS GOAL OF 500,000 VOTERS
by Staff
The state Independence Party, the third line on the election ballot, is not focusing on next year's gubernatorial election, at least not yet.
That's the word from Chairman Frank MacKay (Suffolk County) who tells www.PoliticsNY.net that the focus right now is on party building. MacKay was doing just that while chatting on the phone from his car while traveling in Columbia County after a stop in Albany County, as the party seeks to expand its registered membership from the roughly 412,000 voters it has right now.
"That's the largest third party in the history of the U. S.," says MacKay, "and we're on the path toward 500,000, and that's certainly a goal of ours and it is within reach. When it does [reach 500,000], then we'll celebrate."
In this space recently (scroll down) , state Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long signaled the party was warm to the expected gubernatorial run of former Rep. Rick Lazio, who is expected to get into the race shortly. Meanwhile, President Obama is sending signals to New York Gov. David Paterson that he should not seek election next year, obviously recognizing Paterson's dismal poll numbers and the fear that Paterson at the top of the ticket could hurt Democratic candidates in numerous key races. Obama appears to favor Andrew Cuomo, as the attorney general enjoys very high standing among voters.
"It's early on the governor's race," says MacKay. "We don't endorse until we know who is in the game. We'll make our decision after we find out who is running and who is being endorsed. Paterson is a friend, as is Andrew and Rudy Giuliani. Also, Rick Lazio. All types of people. But we always go last."
Make no mistake about Chairman MacKay's allegiance to billionaire Sabres owner Tom Golisano and his top political adviser, Steve Pigeon, both of whom will most certainly have a lot to say about the party's candidate for governor next year.
"Tom Golisano is the founder of our party, and without him we wouldn't be here," says MacKay. "Our respect is never ending. Steve and Tom are very close, and certainly Steve is an ally and a friend," adding Pigeon's voice will have a great deal of influence with party leaders.
It is clear that MacKay is also hoping for harmony in Erie County, a place that he refers to as "Beirut on the Lake" because of the many party squabbles over the year. MacKay also had kind words for former Chairman Tony Orsini, still a state party vice chairman who seems to have retired to his Springville home following his tumultuous run as the local party's top guy. "We like Tony and we respect him," says MacKay, but he clearly notes the chairman is now Sandy Rosenswie and he's obviously hoping that Erie County will no longer set the bar in the state for rough and tumble politics and will enjoy a period of relative tranquility.
But MacKay says his focus right now continues to be party building and he's urging everyone to test the waters, with more and more candidates coming over, being independent rather than being Democrat or Republican. And he's also pushing hard to bring party unity to the fore, saying "yesterday's enemies can become our friends today."
MacKay, who has led the Independence Party at the state level since early 2000, usually makes three or four trips a year to Erie County, and while he couldn't say for sure when he will make his next visit, he said it would certainly be in the near future.
Newstex ID: PNY-0001-42665140