Saturday, December 15, 2012

The Caucus

Obama Responds to Connecticut School Shooting

Fighting back tears, President Obama declared that the hearts of Americans were "broken" in the wake of the shootings in Connecticut and he said the country must "come together to take meaningful action" to prevent future tragedies.

Nation Mourns Victims of Tragic School Shooting


Nation Mourns Victims of Tragic School Shooting

Twenty children are among the 27 dead after a man opened fire at an elementary school.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Obama: Pot Users In Washington And Colorado Not A 'Top Priority'
The Huffington Post  |  By Posted:   |  Updated: 12/14/2012 12:01 pm
President Barack Obama said prosecuting pot users in states that have legalized the drug won't be a top priority for his administration.
"We've got bigger fish to fry," Obama told ABC News' Barbara Walters. "It would not make sense for us to see a top priority as going after recreational users in states that have determined that it's legal."
Last month, voters in Colorado and Washington legalized recreational pot use for adults, though marijuana remains illegal under federal law.
The Obama administration suggested last week that it was considering plans to undermine the voter initiatives. In his interview with Walters, Obama did not say whether his administration would go after producers and suppliers of marijuana in those states. The administration has cracked down extensively on the medical marijuana industry in California, despite its legality under state law there.
A slim majority of Americans want the Department of Justice to leave pot smokers alone in the states where the drug has been legalized, according to a HuffPost/YouGov poll.
Obama himself smoked pot as a youngster in Hawaii, where he and his high school pals called themselves the Choom Gang.
"There are a bunch of things I did that I regret when I was a kid," he told Walters. "My attitude is, substance abuse generally is not good for our kids, not good for our society."
Opinion

Built on deception, the Independence Party boosted Michael Bloomberg into office in three elections

Mayor used money to strengthen ties with the party and its leaders

Updated: Friday, December 14, 2012, 4:10 AM

























Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks to the New York Independence Party at a meeting inside the Avalon Hotel.  At right is Cathy L. Stewart, New York County Chair.

Giancarli, Alfred Freelance, NYDN

Mayor Bloomberg with Independence Party leader Cathy Stewart.

Much ado about next to nothing, Mayor Bloomberg said of this series of editorials about the Independence Party. “What’s the big deal?” he asked.
To answer the question: The big deal is that a clique of political operatives with no claim to broad public support has played a powerful role in determining who runs New York — notably Bloomberg — while making dupes of voters.
By the thousands, New Yorkers have mistakenly joined the Independence Party when enrolling to vote. Intending to have no political affiliation, these voters instead checked the “Independence Party” box — empowering the group to exploit an illusion of popular strength.
Still more seriously, Independence leaders have exercised the authority to back candidates by stocking legally mandated governing panels with the names of unwitting people, many of whom have no idea they are listed as party members.
Bearing the earmarks of orchestrated fraud, the tactics represent a distortion of the democratic process as it has been established by state law and court rulings.
That the party’s leaders are members of a cultish group steeped in a bizarre combination of Marxist philosophy and sex therapy puts an exclamation point on the illegitimacy of their influence over who gets elected mayor, controller and public advocate.
No New York official has built closer ties to Independence leaders or benefited more from their support than Bloomberg. He ran as their candidate in three mayoral campaigns, twice scoring votes on the Independence line that exceeded his margin of victory.
For New Yorkers who supported Bloomberg’s elections, the upside of his alliance with the late Fred Newman, the party’s lunatic and odious guru, was, obviously, that Newman helped the mayor win. Who cares how?
At the same time, voters in the opposing camp can fairly argue that Bloomberg squeaked into office in his first and third races with a boost from cheaters. Based on the findings of this series, the mayor’s detractors have solid grounds to believe that they got taken.
Which is a very big deal and will continue to be as Newman’s acolytes influence next year’s mayoral election by granting a candidate or candidates permission to run on their ballot line, as Bloomberg did.
The history of how he secured the favor offers both a look at Independence Party power playing and an understanding of how determinedly the mayor courted the Newmanites. As you might expect, money played a key role.
Roll the clock back to 2001. Although Bloomberg opened what seemed the world’s largest checkbook, he was handicapped as a Republican running in a Democratic city.
Only three modern Republicans — Fiorello LaGuardia, John Lindsay and Rudy Giuliani — had made it into City Hall. All had succeeded by running as the GOP candidate and as the candidate of a second party. No dummy, Bloomberg reached out to Independence Party state Chairman Frank MacKay.
Word came back that Bloomberg needed Newman’s blessing. So the aspiring mayor made a pilgrimage to 60 Bank St., a West Village townhouse where Newman lived with his followers.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/mike-sleazy-pals-article-1.1219843#ixzz2F2ZoxRhP

Thursday, December 13, 2012


A GOP stampede! Republican honchos fret as 2 more ponder joining mayoral race 

Brooklyn GOP boss Craig Eaton: A crowded field 'forces the candidates to attack each other — and I just think that it’s counterproductive.'












Joe Lhota is eyingmayoral run.Craig Warga/Daily News

Craig Warga/STF

Joe Lhota is eyingmayoral run.Craig Warga/Daily News

METRO: John Catsimatidis: Sponsor of Citizenship NOW! -Owner of

Jeanne Noonan/for New York Daily News

METRO: John Catsimatidis: Sponsor of Citizenship NOW! -Owner of

The Republican race for mayor suddenly has become crowded — and party leaders are worried.
At least four people say they are running for the Republican nomination — and two more, including MTA boss Joe Lhota, are weighing whether to plunge into the race.
A crowded field “forces the candidates to attack each other — and I just think that it’s counterproductive,” Brooklyn GOP boss Craig Eaton told the Daily News.
Bronx Republican Chairman Jay Savino said, “The Democrats would like nothing more.”
“We have such an enrollment disadvantage in the city . . . that we can’t afford to be tearing each other apart,” he said.
A large field likely would complicate any candidacy by Lhota — whom many business leaders are lobbying to enter the race because they are dissatisfied with the crop of Democratic candidates.
Some Republican leaders say there is a silver lining in having so many people seeking the Republican nomination.
Manhattan Republican Chairman Daniel Isaacs said the clamor to run as a Republican proves the crop of Democratic mayoral wanna-bes is not particularly strong.
“A year ago, everyone was saying, ‘No Republican wants to run for mayor.’ Now we have half a dozen serious contenders,” he said. “Our cup runneth over, as they say.”
Only one of the six people running or weighing whether to run in the Republican primary — Lhota — is a longtime member of the party. The rest have been Democrats most of their adult lives.
Three of them — weekly newspaper publisher Tom Allon, nonprofit executive George McDonald and former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión — left the Democratic Party recently just to seek the GOP nomination.
Another candidate, grocery store magnate John Catsimatidis, was a Democrat until 2007. And Queens state Sen. Malcolm Smith, who is weighing whether to run as a Republican, is still a Democrat.
Michael Bloomberg took an identical path of opportunism to City Hall, leaving the Democratic Party so he could run as a Republican in 2001 and extend an amazing winning streak: Although the city is overwhelmingly Democratic, no Democrat has been elected mayor since David Dinkins in 1989 — when the subway fare was just $1.
The Republican county chairmen said that no matter how many people run, they would like to coalesce behind one candidate early next year.
Isaacs and Queens Chairman Phil Ragusa said there’s more talking to be done, but both like the idea of a Catsimatidis candidacy.
The Brooklyn Republican chairman supports Carrión while the Bronx chairman is said to be leaning toward him.
Robert Scamardella of Staten Island is playing it close to the vest.
“I’m not going to make a decision until I know what my options are,” he said.
“If we get into that situation where we have different (county leaders) going with different individuals, we’re only hurting our chances of winning in the general election,” he said.
ckatz@nydailynews.com

Hints at Steeper Road to Victory for Perceived Front-Runner in Mayor’s Race

Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, has faced recent criticism as potential rivals gain endorsements, suggesting that name recognition also makes her a more inviting target.

Some residents of a halfway house, left, run by Community First Services on Gold Street say it offers little more than meals and a bed, not counseling and job-search help.
Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Some residents of a halfway house, left, run by Community First Services on Gold Street say it offers little more than meals and a bed, not counseling and job-search help.
The founder of Community First Services in Brooklyn has left a trail of exaggerated claims and self-dealing.

Hints at Steeper Road to Victory for Perceived Front-Runner in Mayor’s Race

Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, has faced recent criticism as potential rivals gain endorsements, suggesting that name recognition also makes her a more inviting target.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012


Ho, Ho, Ho! 9/11 Was An Inside Job!

By Santa Claus
December 12, 2012 | ISSUE 48•50 | More Commentary

Seasons greeting from your old friend Santa! My, my, Christmas is just two short weeks away, and everyone here at the North Pole can't wait to deliver presents to all you nice boys and girls this year. Yes, Jolly ol' St. Nicholas hopes you're all being as good as can be!
But today, Santa would like to tell you all about something very naughty, something very, very naughty indeed. Dear children, have you not heard? Why, 9/11 was an inside job! Oh, ho, ho, my, yes it was!
I mean, look at the facts, boys and girls! We already know the Bush administration was itching to go to war in Iraq, now, don't we? Yes, indeed we do, my darling ones! The Downing Street memo proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Then you look at the Presidential Daily Briefing of Aug. 6, 2001, the one headlined "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." Ignored! Why, children, they threw that briefing aside like used wrapping paper on Christmas morning, didn't they?
And remember, sweet little ones, Bin Laden never claimed responsibility for the attacks until 2004. Do you know how many years that is, boys and girls? Something was up the government's sleeve, and I'll let you in on a little secret: It wasn't sugar plums, oh, no! No, it was the ties between the bin Laden and Bush families. They've been under the mistletoe for decades, if you catch your old pal Kris Kringle's meaning! I've checked my list twice, and it seems Arbusto Energy, a Bush business, had financial connections to Salem bin Laden, half-brother of Osama. The CIA actually helped create and fund al-Qaeda right around the time Bush Senior was the agency’s director—ho, ho, ho, ol' H.W. stuffed their pockets as fat as a Christmas goose!
Now, as for the towers themselves: The type of steel they used melts at a temperature of about 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit, and as I'm sure all you smart little boys and girls know, jet fuel burns at 1,500 degrees, tops. My darlings, you'd need quite a Yule log to create that extra 1,200 degrees, wouldn't you? Oh, what a glorious sight it would be!
Of course, you do know what they found in the Ground Zero debris, don't you? Would you like St. Nicholas to tell you? Well, then, hop up on his lap and I'll whisper it in your ear: traces of nano-thermite. Does that jingle any bells upstairs? Nano-thermite is an explosive compound, children, capable of making the biggest Christmas cracker you ever saw! So what in the name of Donner and Blitzen was it doing in the world's largest banking complex? Was Lehman Brothers or one of the insurance companies stockpiling explosives? No, children. You find nano-thermite where there's been a controlled demolition. Ever see a controlled demolition, little ones? That's where the whole building plummets straight downward like a plumb bob and every floor is destroyed. Even if the building is struck in the middle.
Oh, dear, perhaps ol' Santa has just gone a little nutty in the head, like dear Mrs. Claus repeatedly likes to claim! Perhaps, much like Mrs. Claus, Santa would be better off pretending the facts don't exist. But you believe, don't you, children? You believe in Santa's theory.
Now, I'm not saying the hijackers weren't naughty. They were very, very naughty indeed. But if you want to really talk naughty, there's not enough coal in Santa's sack for a government that throws its own citizens under the sleigh just to gain political power.
Ho, ho, ho, so many questions dance through Santa's head! What about the six eyewitnesses who saw a low-flying jet immediately after Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, children? Why was debris from the flight found miles away from the crash site? And why did the BBC incorrectly report that 7 World Trade Center had collapsed moments before it actually did? Talk about a snow job, eh, young ones? Why, it's a veritable winter wonderland!
Perhaps this Christmas, Santa will bring some of you very well-behaved—and discreet—young children some nice, shiny new computers to play with, so you can go to 911truth.org, watch "Loose Change" on YouTube, and see for yourselves. Because if you ask Santa, the truth needs to come out in order to properly honor the memory of the victims and awaken a duped populace, slumbering away in their cozy beds, living in dreamland. We can close our eyes and drink the government eggnog, or we can raise our voices and demand to know what really happened. Isn't that right, boys and girls?
Well, I've still got a lot of toys to build before Christmas Eve, my little ones, but I'll be visiting you all very soon—ho, ho, ho, that is if I'm not jailed as an enemy combatant for asking simple questions!
Because that's what they fucking do, you know.

‘New Model’ for Albany Looks Familiar

In the New York State Senate, Republicans, who lost their majority in November, have forged a coalition with a group of breakaway Democrats.

Monday, December 10, 2012


Disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner might as well consider a run for mayor

He's got nothing to lose, really hasn't done anything we haven't put up with before, and would add to an already colorful cast.

Updated: Monday, December 10, 2012, 3:00 AM











  

 
  
   
    
     
      
       
        Anthony Weiner is on the outside looking in to city’s 2013 mayoral race. Despite his fall from grace, Weiner’s transgressions don’t necessarily bar him from joining the cast of colorful candidates.

Elisa Miller for New York Daily News


Anthony Weiner is on the outside looking in to city’s 2013 mayoral race. Despite his fall from grace, Weiner’s transgressions don’t necessarily bar him from joining the cast of colorful candidates.

It is pretty much official already that the city’s mayoral campaign is going to be something for which you could sell tickets; the entertainment potential is that high. You look at the field right now and think the only thing that could make it better is if Anthony Weiner got back into it.
In a race that already has more sheer color to it than a crowded subway car, why shouldn’t Weiner get back in the game? You remember Weiner. He acted like an overheated college boy, got busted, lied about it, stayed busted. It is worth mentioning that the most popular President in recent history, Bill Clinton, did essentially the same thing and got to keep his job in Washington, even if Weiner didn’t.
article_Lupica10N 5_1209

Jeff Bachner for New York Daily News

City Controller John Liu is an announced candidate. His fundraising has come under investigation.
And please remember what kind of private life the sainted Rudolph Giuliani had before Sept. 11, 2001, back when you needed a scorecard to keep his affairs in order. So to speak.
It is Weiner, though, who was the first star of the 2013 campaign for mayor even if he never announced. He sent those hunky pictures of himself to young women to whom he was certainly not married, originally saying his email account was hacked. He finally came clean, resigned from the House, became a dad, only seemed to backslide into disgusting behavior by writing an occasional newspaper column.
article_Lupica10N 4_1209

Craig Warga / NY Daily News

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio speaks as he (from left) and Democratic mayoral hopefuls Christine Quinn, Bill Thompson, and John Liu appear in a panel discussion at the Sheraton Hotel in midtown on Nov. 28. De Blasio's wife recently made headlines for reportedly once being gay, a revelation some have suggested the campaign may have leaked.
For now, he remains a private citizen. And what was supposed to be his competition for mayor looks like this:
You’ve got Bill Thompson, who nearly beat Mike Bloomberg last time. You’ve got Christine Quinn, City Council speaker, somebody who thought she and Bloomberg were much closer until it turned out Bloomberg suggested that Hillary Clinton should try to succeed him before getting turned down flat.
Unless you’ve been out of town, you of course know that Quinn, if elected, would be the city’s first openly gay mayor. Maybe that’s why it seemed pretty fabulous last week when it was reported that the wife of another guy who wants to succeed Bloomberg, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, was once gay but isn’t anymore.
article_Lupica10N 2_1209

Marcus Santos for the New York Daily News

 City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was thought to be Mayor Bloomberg's preferred successor until reports surfaced that he unsuccessfully enlisted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to run.

Her name is Chirlane McCray, and she is a fully engaged and extremely visible partner to her husband’s political ambitions. It now comes out — so to speak — that back in the 1970s, she wrote a story for Essence magazine titled “I Am a Lesbian.”

Bloomberg Weighs Making Bid for The Financial Times

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has an affinity for the newspaper, is said to be weighing the wisdom of the purchase if a sale opportunity arises.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

'Fifty-seven percent in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say they'd back a run by Clinton to succeed Barack Obama.' (photo: Reuters)
'Fifty-seven percent in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say they'd back a run by Clinton to succeed Barack Obama.' (photo: Reuters)

Run, Hillary, Run

By Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast
09 December12

s it too early to talk about 2016? Of course it is. It's preposterous. So I'm not talking about 2016. Instead, I'm talking about something much bigger: I'm talking, let us say, about the great march of history, the ineluctable links of causality, the tempora and the mores, the old mole working both underground and above. And in this context, this context of keeping history moving forward, Hillary Clinton has not just the chance to run in 2016. She has the obligation to do so. Her party, and her country, will need her then, to consolidate gains and prevent the backsliding that the backsliders just can't wait to commence. In other words, if the next four years go the way I suspect they might, it will be of the most fundamental importance that the Democrats hold the White House thereafter, and the burden of so ensuring falls squarely on the shoulders of Hugh Rodham's rebellious daughter.
Here's what I mean. I suspect that the next four years will go rather nicely for my side. The economy shows every sign of turning around and, one hopes, going like gangbusters three years hence. Obamacare will be implemented. Taxes - tax rates - will have been hiked. Immigration reform may well have been enacted. With a ridiculous amount of luck, a carbon tax. And all that will have been on top of Dodd-Frank, the equal pay act, and the other first-Obama-term accomplishments. We stand a decent chance, come 2016, of looking back on a pretty darn good eight years.
Well, that's my "we." There's another we - the we on the other side of the ideological parking lot, who'll be looking back on eight years of unmitigated socialistic disaster that they'll be aching to undo. They'll be desperate to get the top tax rate back down as low as they can get it. They'll be itching to repeal Dodd-Frank, or at the very least eliminate its most visible and progressive manifestation, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. They'll be pining to roll back myriad rules and regulations that don't get much press attention but have certainly helped make a more progressive country in areas like labor, the environment, energy, and more. And they'll never stop poking at Obamacare's perimeter fence, looking for weaknesses.
Whatever ooey-gooey, reasonable-sounding verbiage they employ to get to the White House in 2016, the fact is that their agenda will be just as I describe it above. This rapacious leopard won't change its spots that drastically in a mere four years. They'll do a better job of hiding it than Mitt Romney did, but they'll want to take the country in a radical direction and erase the past years the way as Ramses wanted the name of Moses scraped from the obelisks.
So the Democrats collectively will have a job to do in 2016, or several jobs. There will be many gains to be protected. And new gains to win. Obamacare, if anything (listen up, conservatives!), will need to be expanded, given that the original subsidies in the bill are a tad parsimonious. The battle over taxes will continue, as will the fight over the future health of the Social Security and Medicare systems. And - just sayin' - Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy will both turn 81 in 2017.
The presidency was once described by some historians as a prize, won in one election by this team, in another by that team. The metaphor suggests that elections are discrete and separate from one another and that the stakes aren't much greater than those encountered on a game show. But that's not the case anymore. Prize is the wrong metaphor for how we ought to see the presidency today. Now, we ought to see it as an instrument through which progress can either be advanced or retarded, and rather than thinking of each election victory as a prize, we ought to think of each as a step on a continuum.
This will be especially true in 2016, when a Republican victory would put at mortal risk the gains of the Obama years. So the next election will be no time to leave all this to chance - or to Andrew Cuomo or Martin O'Malley or even to Joe Biden. Hillary has to do it. She could handily beat the whole parade of Republicans. They're children next to her. None of them is even in her weight class except for Jeb Bush, but he seems to me pretty easily disposed of with one question: "Okay, America, you're being the given the choice to extend either Bill Clinton's presidency or George W. Bush's. Which way do you want to go?"
The circumstances have to be right, of course. I could be wrong about the next four years. But if I'm not, it will be the case not only that Hillary could run - it will be the case that she must run. The Democratic Party's leaders and money people won't be able to force others not to run, but they should do everything within their power to signal to the political world that it's Hillary and just get on the damn bus. As someone I know rather well said back in 2001, it's Hillary's Turn.
 

Young Mexican police chief who fled drug cartels seeking asylum in the US

  • Last Updated: 9:43 AM, December 9, 2012
  • Posted: 4:07 AM, December 9, 2012
As the bodies of her former law-enforcement colleagues pile up in Mexico’s violent drug wars, former small-town police chief Marisol Valles Garcia is fighting for asylum in the United States.
“I thought I could make a difference,” Valles says of her decision at age 20 to become the top cop in Praxedis Guadalupe Guerrero, a dusty town of 9,000 in the Chihuahua region, just south of the US border.
Two of her predecessors were executed, and the job was vacant for a year before Valles, a criminal-justice student, took it.
But she, too, was vulnerable to the intense violence of the drug wars, and two years ago decided to flee to Texas, where she now works 12-hour shifts at a pecan-processing factory to support her toddler and five relatives.
WAY TOO HOT: Small-town mayor Maria Santos Gorrostieta (above) has been murdered and the doors of a police station sprayed with bullets in the year and a half since once-celebrated Mexican police chief Marisol Valles Garcia (below) was run out of the country by drug cartels and came to the US.
WAY TOO HOT: Small-town mayor Maria Santos Gorrostieta (above) has been murdered and the doors of a police station sprayed with bullets in the year and a half since once-celebrated Mexican police chief Marisol Valles Garcia (below) was run out of the country by drug cartels and came to the US.
Newscom
Her first immigration hearing is scheduled for next summer. Still, she told The Post, “We are grateful to be alive, to have security.”
Valles, now 22, made worldwide headlines in 2010 when she bravely took over as Praxedis police chief.
“We can’t let fear beat us,” she announced.
Taking the post was a brave move. Several members of her department had been murdered, and her immediate predecessor was chief for just a week before his severed head was delivered to the police station in a cooler.
It was clear the job of top cop was likely a death sentence, but Valles was undaunted.
She hoped to make her mark in the 13-officer department by focusing on domestic violence and juvenile crime. She figured it was the job of Mexico’s army to take on the rival Sinaloa and Juarez cartels battling for control of drug routes to the United States.
“I felt that people were beginning to trust the police again,” Valles said of the time she spent in the high-profile job.
But the drug lords put her in their sights after she refused to tip them off about police and military maneuvers.
Soon after, she got a chilling message on her cellphone from an unknown number: “Didn’t you receive the message?” the mysterious male voice told her. “We don’t want you here.”
Within a half-hour, her family had packed and fled to the US border in a neighbor’s pickup truck.
Today, her future is uncertain — a far cry from the days not long ago when Valles was an idealistic student.
Her husband, who was a diesel mechanic in Mexico, has worked a series of odd job in the United States, including as a ranch laborer and at a cement factory.
Valles refuses to disclose where she is living, or to identify any family members by name.
She had little to say about the recent murder of small-town mayor Maria Santos Gorrostieta, 36, an outspoken critic of the cartels who had survived two previous assassination attempts.
Last month, Santos’ half-nude and mutilated remains were found by a roadside.
isabel.vincent@nypost.com

Rally Protests Coalition in New York State Senate

The Rev. Al Sharpton organized the rally in Harlem to draw attention to breakaway Democrats who have said they would join with Republicans in the next state legislative session.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Politics

Alec Baldwin names Bill De Blasio as his pick for next New York City mayor, knocks Christine Quinn as ‘untrustworthy’

Baldwin reiterated that he won’t run for mayor himself, he told CNN’s Piers Morgan, saying he’s too busy to put in the time this year.












 "30 Rock" star Alec Baldwin publicly flirted with a run for New York City mayor before ruling it out last year. 

Jason Merritt/Getty Images

"30 Rock" star Alec Baldwin publicly flirted with a run for New York City mayor before ruling it out last year.

One-time mayoral wannabe Alec Baldwin weighed in on the expected field of New York City candidates late Thursday, saying he favors Public Advocate Bill De Blasio over “untrustworthy” Christine Quinn.
Baldwin, who publicly flirted with a mayoral run before ruling it out last year, told CNN’s Piers Morgan that Quinn is a “lovely person,” but proceeded to slam the City Council Speaker for helping end term limits and paving the way for Mayor Bloomberg’s third election. 
“She was the one who singlehandedly killed the voter referendum at Bloomberg’s behest and gave him a third term,” he said. “And I was very, very upset about that.”
With typical dramatic flair, Baldwin said, “Quinn has that blood on her hands.”
Baldwin also said he is resistant to supporting Bloomberg’s “handpicked successor.”
“I resent that to some degree – that Bloomberg feels he needs to control the fate of City Hall and of Gracie Mansion beyond his term,” Baldwin said.
“I just don’t think that Quinn is trustworthy,” he said. “She’s a very nice person – I met her – but in terms of her political aspirations, she’s a very untrustworthy person. She’s very, very self-seeking.”
Baldwin reiterated that he won’t run for the seat himself, saying he’s too busy to put in the time this year.
“People told me – although it was something I would love to have done, truly – you’d have to take about a year and a half of your life to do nothing but raise money, and I didn’t have time because I’m doing the TV show now, and I have other commitments,” he said.
But don’t expect the outspoken Baldwin to stay too far out of the political spotlight.
“I’m very interested in what the post-Bloomberg New York will look like,” he said.
klee@nydailynews.com

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/alec-baldwin-backs-bill-de-blasio-nyc-mayor-article-1.1215458#ixzz2ETUHWYLp

Friday, December 7, 2012

G.O.P. Senate Deal: Diversity Takes Back Seat to Power in Albany

Black and Hispanic leaders in New York, one of the most diverse states in the nation, are growing increasingly concerned about their standing in state government.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

The Rise Of Skleinos

From the Capital Tonight morning memo, which you can subscribe to in the field on the right-hand side of the blog:
State governments are said to be the laboratories of democracy. In about a month, Albany will be the site of a rather ambitious experiment in a critical year for New York state government.
As watchers of state government know by now, five dissident Democratic senators announced a coalition government with Republicans in the state Senate in an unprecedented power-sharing agreement.
In theory, the coalition spreads the power around in the chamber.
There won’t be a “majority leader” but a rotating Senate presidency shared by Sen. Jeff Klein and Sen. Dean Skelos, who will both have a seat at the budget bargaining table.
In a series of interviews to the Albany press corps late Tuesday afternoon, Klein stressed that the best way to get a raft of “progressive” issues accomplished such as a minimum wage increase and stop and frisk reform for New York City is by putting a coalition government in place.
We’ll hear more later today when Klein and his fellow IDCers — that’s right, all five of them — sit down in an interview with Liz Benjamin on Capital Tonight in an interview that airs at 8 and 11:30.
And later this morning, Skelos will put in an appearance on Susan Arbetter’s Capitol Pressroom radio show. Among the key questions: Why strike the deal now with the IDC when two Senate races in the SD-46 and SD-41 remain unresolved?
We’ll also be getting more reaction from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose spokesman Josh Vlasto issued a statement suggesting the governor wants to steer clear and reserve judgment on the coalition at a later date.
Business groups chimed in the same afternoon, announcing they were somewhat optimistic the move would be good for them.
Not reserving judgment this morning: the Senate Democrats.
The frustration for the conference is palpable. After all, the IDC is now composed of both Klein and former Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, who presided over a dysfunctional chamber from 2009 through 2011.
The current Senate Democratic conference, meanwhile, is being front loaded with lawmakers who weren’t around during those bad times.
Democrats on Tuesday were out of the gate quickly to call the new coalition nothing more than yet another leadership coup in Albany that ignored the will of the voters.
Klein denies this, of course, noting that the coup of 2009 was done a band of unserious people not actually interesting in governing.
The main fear from liberals is that all those progressive goals will get watered down by a Senate majority coalition. It’s not inconceivable to see a deal on, say, minimum wage that some Senate Republicans could potentially vote for, but doesn’t go far enough for the non-IDC Democrats.
All of this comes as the state grapples with very real and substantive issues, including whether to allow hydrofracking and the still undetermined impact of Hurricane Sandy on the budget deficit.
Next year was already shaping up to be one of complexities and nuances. The majority coalition won’t simplify things by a long shot. It will require deal making and bargaining to go into hyperdrive
As Bruce Gyory told Liz on the show last night, coalitions are usually much easier to form than actually governing.
This new plan is being compared to a parliament similar to what we see in Britain or Israel. But the difference is the governor can’t dissolve the Legislature and call for new elections when the coalition fails. If things fall apart quickly, we’ve got this Brave New World until January 2015. Two years is a long time.
There is also a very low threshold for errors. Call it massively unfair, but any slip up by the nascent coalition will be scrutinized under a microscope and, perhaps prematurely, lead the coalition’s detractors to declare the whole experiment a failure.
The tight rope everyone will be walking next year — from Cuomo, to Skleinos and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver — will be quite narrow.

GOP cuts unprecedented deal with five renegade Democrats to control state Senate

The stunning agreement formally douses Democratic hopes of recapturing control of the chamber even though the party will have as many 33 of the Senate’s 63 seats next year.











Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Rockville Centre, stands in his office at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y., on Wednesday, March 7, 2012. Business tax cuts, tax incentives for hiring the unemployed, a moratorium on new taxes and a state spending cap will be part of the budget proposal of the New York Senate's Republican majority. (AP Photo/Mike Groll)

Mike Groll/AP

The chamber will be run by a unique bipartisan power sharing arrangement between GOP leader Dean Skelos (above) and a two-year-old coalition led by Bronx Democrat Jeffery Klein called the Independent Democratic Conference.

ALBANY — The capital was reeling Tuesday with the news that the GOP has cut an unprecedented deal with five renegade Democrats to control the state Senate.
The stunning agreement formally douses Democratic hopes of recapturing control of the chamber even though the party will have as many 33 of the Senate’s 63 seats next year.
RELATED: CRITICS SAY KLEIN JUST CRAVES POWER
Instead, the chamber will be run by a unique bipartisan power sharing arrangement between GOP leader Dean Skelos and a two-year-old coalition led by Bronx Democrat Jeffery Klein called the Independent Democratic Conference.
The two leaders will share “joint and equal authority” over state budget talks, committee appointments and which bills will come up for a vote.
They’ll also take turns every two weeks presiding over the chamber as Senate president and filling other constitutional roles such as stepping in to run the state if the governor and lieutenant governor are incapacitated.
“This new bipartisan governing coalition guarantees a fiscally responsible, fully functional Senate that will continue to produce positive results for all New Yorkers,” Skelos and Klein said in joint statement.
As part of the deal, the GOP has agreed to allow “progressive” bills sought by Gov. Cuomo and the Dems to come to the floor.
Among them are campaign finance reform, the decriminalization of small amounts of pot, and a hike to the minimum wage.
The specific details of the bills have yet to be negotiated, with a number of Dems saying they expect the legislation will be watered down to make it more amendable to a GOP that has traditionally blocked them.
“This is not a coalition but a coup against all New Yorkers who voted for Democratic control of the Senate and a progressive state government,” said an angry Senate Democratic spokesman Mike Murphy.
Many say the deal has the potential to either plunge the Senate into chaos or transform the chamber into a cutting-edge post-partisan legislative body.
While insiders say Cuomo preferred a coalition government to Democratic control of the Senate, his spokesman said the governor will “withhold judgment until he sees how the Senate functions and acts on critical issues facing the state.”
“The most important thing is to have a functional Senate that passes the governor’s progressive agenda to advance the state of New York,” Josh Vlasto said.
A spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg, Mark Botnick, was more upbeat, branding the the deal “an example of bipartisan cooperation at its best.”
klovett@nydailynews.com

Former Manhattan prosecutor David Leung busted on charges of selling marijuana to undercover informant

 Cops said they found seven bags of pot on the floor of the car Leung was driving and two large bags of weed in the trunk. The marijuana totaled more than 8 ounces.
























LOS ANGELES, CA - SEPTEMBER 7:  Marijuana plants grow at Perennial Holistic Wellness Center, a not-for-profit medical marijuana dispensary in operation since 2006, on September 7, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. A group of activists have submitted about 50,000 signatures in an effort to force a referendum on a marijuana dispensary ban in Los Angeles to take effect next week. A minimum of 27,425 valid signatures from registered voters is needed to let voters decide on the issue in March, and until the number can be verified, the ban will not be enforced. . The ban would not prevent patients or cooperatives of two or three people to grow their own in small amounts. Californians voted to legalize medical cannabis use in 1996, clashing with federal drug laws.  (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

David McNew/Getty Images

Marijuana plants grow at Perennial Holistic Wellness Center, a not-for-profit medical marijuana dispensary in operation since 2006, in Los Angeles.

A former Manhattan prosecutor has gone from dealing out justice to dealing pot, cops said.
David Leung, 44, a New York County assistant district attorney from 1993 to 2004 under Robert Morgenthau, was busted on charges of selling marijuana to an undercover informant.
The accused pot peddler slipped the informant an envelope with two bags of weed in exchange for $200 during a Sept. 27 drug deal on E. Ninth St., according to the criminal complaint.
Cops said they found seven bags of pot on the floor of the car Leung was driving and two large bags of weed in the trunk. The marijuana totaled more than 8 ounces.