Newell In The News

More appropriately Paul Newell was in the New York Sun today, being profiled as one of the candidates that is seeking to oust one of the three men in a room up in Albany, the infamous Sheldon Silver. Silver has been Assemblyman of District 64 for decades now and does so by bringing in the pork to some of parts of his district (like Wall Street) but he is a thorn in the side of the reform efforts that our state government so desperately needs. Paul Newell is one of two men looking to change the process and he was given the once over by the New York Sun.

From The NY Sun:

Blaming Speaker Sheldon Silver for thwarting an overhaul of the Rockefeller drug sentencing laws — "possibly the most destructive piece of legislation on the books," Mr. Newell said — he had looked forward to voting against the speaker.

His polling station, however, was closed because Mr. Silver, as usual, had no opponents. "I was thinking that somebody ought to challenge this guy," Mr. Newell said. Two election cycles later, Mr. Newell has quit his job as an AIDS awareness organizer for a South African NGO and is campaigning full-time against Mr. Silver, who represents a diverse district that encompasses the Lower East Side, Chinatown, and Wall Street.

"I need to get a few thousand people to vote for me," he said. "Sheldon Silver is a very powerful man in Albany. He's not that powerful downtown."

Mr. Newell is running on two issues: accountability and "affordable" housing, both of which, he said, Mr. Silver is against.

He accuses the speaker of "blocking development of 'affordable' housing in downtown for 20 years" and also blames him for "killing" congestion pricing, an issue, he said, that is "the perfect demonstration of Sheldon Silver's contempt for the democratic process and the concerns for Lower Manhattanites."

The article goes on to more mundane points such as where Paul went to high school, what he has done with his life since and his political experience campaigning for the once powerful Speaker of the House Tom Foley. However he is no Washington insider and certainly no Albany insider. Along with Luke Henry, either are much more able to change the status quo in our state capitol, because Shelly Silver is the epitome of the status quo.

More Presidential Delusions From The NY Sun

Well the rag known as the New York Sun is at it again. Presumably they saw their pick for President in Dick Cheney as ultimately hopeless, so they went to pick another. Who would come out of their magical bag but General Petraeus. Oy!

From The New York Sun:

......"What I cannot countenance is for you today to commend my skill and bravery in Anbar and Baghdad and then tomorrow to hold votes on how futile this struggle is. So let me make this choice easy for you. I believe we have a good chance to drive Al Qaeda and Iran's network from Iraq and stand up in due time a functioning democracy in Baghdad. I am prepared, even eager, to command our forces in this battle Â-- but only on one condition: That you signal that you share my goal of victory. If you think I am mistaken and wish to continue your efforts to undermine me, then I cannot command. Absent that signal, I will resign, effective immediately, and take my case to the voters in a run for the presidency on a campaign to finish the work of winning the war and redeeming the sacrifice of so many Iraqis, allies, and our own GIs."

* * *

That's the speech we'd like to see General Petraeus deliver to Congress on the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. No doubt he has another speech in mind. For he understands that he stands a better chance of getting the support he needs from Democratic leaders in Congress if he gives them a chance to save face and reverse course. That chance is for Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid to tell the Democratic Party base that their victory at the polls in 2006 forced the president to change strategies. Today our soldiers are patrolling streets whereas a year ago they were cooped up in the bases. Today Sunnis have a stake in destroying Al Qaeda.

The Democrats could even claim that General Petraeus would not be in command today had it not been for Democratic gains in the mid terms. Secretary Rumsfeld, after all, is a man who punished General Petraeus after his first tour in Iraq by sending him to Fort Leavenworth. No doubt this kind of line will infuriate the hard left who only eight years ago was holding mock war crimes tribunals of President Clinton for his decision to stop Slobodan Milosevic. But to continue to appease this fringe has infuriated many other Americans, such as the commanders in Iraq who are fighting everyday for that country and our own.

What the hell are they smoking over there?

The NY Sun Isn't Called A Rag For Nothing

New Yorkers read all sorts of things. There are several papers, more magazines and more local weeklies than you can imagine. A few of these are known as rags, they print a lot of garbage. The two notorious papers that do this are the Post and The Sun. The Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch, so enough said on that. The Sun also has a long line of abuses and today they lived up to their high standards. See: President Cheney.

From The New York Sun:

.....The Washington Post's polling expert, Richard Morin, noted that at 18% approval, Vice President Cheney was less popular than Michael Jackson after he was tried for child abuse and O.J. Simpson after he was tried for murder. Mr. Hayes quotes Mr. Morin as reporting that Mr. Cheney was "less popular with Americans than Joseph Stalin is with Russians." The Huffington Post printed a Thanksgiving Day prayer for Mr. Cheney's death, which, it said, would "rid the planet of its Number One Human Tumor."

Some of this may be blamed on a hostile press, and Mr. Hayes also reports on a dynamic within the Bush administration in which presidential aides sought to keep Mr. Cheney's profile low so that he didn't outshine the president. Some of it may have to do with Mr. Cheney's personality — "not a hugger," as the president put it.

The book quotes Senator McCain as saying, "Dick doesn't like campaigning." Nothing in the Hayes book suggests that Mr. Cheney is about to do it — except for that the vice president spent nearly 30 hours cooperating with the author and apparently gave the okay for many of his friends and colleagues to grant similar access. The Richard Cheney described in this book isn't vain enough to do that simply for his reputation in history. My own guess — okay, hope — is that Mr. Cheney has taken a look at the Republican presidential field and sees an opening. If Iowa and New Hampshire Republicans start receiving copies of " Cheney" in their mailboxes, Mr. Cheney's popularity may yet begin to climb.

The only climb Cheney's popularity could see would be if you flipped the world on its head and he climbed to zero. There is nothing likable about this man. He is a tyrant, a despot and a terrible human being. The New York Sun publishes some horrific stuff, but this is just plain insanity.

Big Pharma Strikes Back At Moore

As Michael Moore's new movie is making headlines across the country and even the world, do not expect Big Pharma to take this assault to their operations lying down. They have all known that Moore was filming this documentary and have been preparing to fire back at whatever Moore puts on the screen. Pfizer, Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, Amgen and the rest do not care that SiCKO has received a tremendous and well-received response. All they care about is their profits and for the system in Washington that rewards them to stay exactly how it has been going since Richard Nixon approved Kaiser Permanente's HMO system in the early 1970s.

The New York Sun reports on the counter-offensive:

"If you're in the policy business, your job is to find these teachable moments," the Cato Institute's director of health policy studies, Michael Cannon, said.

Cato has scheduled a breakfast symposium on Capitol Hill tomorrow featuring clips from "Sicko" and other movies documenting the health care industry. The event is expected to draw 170 guests, including congressional staffers. The "robust" turnout forced a change of venue three times to accommodate a growing list of attendees, Mr. Cannon said. "It's a nice problem to have," he said.

Cato scholars began last year writing Web log entries and op-eds on Mr. Moore's film, as well as posting pod casts to the Institute's Web site.

According to SourceWatch, a left-leaning group that tracks groups shaping public policy, several organizations staging responses to "Sicko" receive funding from pharmaceutical companies, including the Manhattan Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the Pacific Research Institute.

Out of all these groups, none represent patients and consumers of the health care industry. This is all about the industry and their friends on Capitol Hill. The only people interested in fighting Michael Moore are those that profit off of the horror stories you learn about in SiCKO. For these people greed comes before humanity, and if they think they can refute the tidal wave of information from Moore with their well paid pails lobbyists, they have another thing coming.