Comptroller Cracks Down On Rent Cheating Yankees

Comptroller and mayoral candidate Bill Thompson is out to get the Yankees for $3.7 million dollars in rent that his office says the team cheated the city on. The Bronx bombers have plenty of money, especially with consistently ranking #1 as the team with the highest salary in the Majors. Yet over the last eight years, they've been skimming a little too much off the top.

From NY1:

The Yankees owe the city more than $65,000 in rent payments for the first quarter of last year, according to an audit released Monday by the city comptroller's office. Comptroller Bill Thompson says the team has consistently overstated their rent deductions by more than $3.7 million since 2000.

He says the Yankees have a pattern of not paying the city what is owed until it has been audited.

The Yankees are not disputing the audit and plan to pay. Yankees President Randy Levine says that the audit was a routine part of the team's compliance with a complicated lease.

While I applaud the recovery of $3.7 million, it is still only pennies on the dollar from what the team should not be taking from the city in the form of tax free bonds and other means to have New Yorkers pay for the construction of the new Yankee Stadium. It was nice to see city officials give back the stadium suite, but those hundreds of millions of dollars should be given back to the city, heavens knows Steinbrenner could have financed that stadium if he had to.

Eric Cantor: Rockstar Republican

Using Aerosmith's "Back in the Saddle Again" to describe their "Party of No" label couldn't be further from the truth for the Republican caucus. The American people have stood up and rejected them by wide margins in the last two cycles. They've shredded the economy with their wasteful, de-regulated ways and they are mad that they don't have much power left. This cute little commercial tries to swing (the youth?) audiences to believe that they're fighting for you, or some empty rhetoric like that.



The truth is, that stimulus bill is the best thing we have going for us, with an investment in the American economy and millions of jobs that we desperately need. Eric Cantor can whip his party into song and dance all he wants, but the chorus behind him is shrinking by the moment.

Update: Oh and when Mr. Cantor says he's looking out for you, perhaps he just meant his wife and her lust for TARP funds.

George Wills Enviro Facts To Meet His Own Reality

George Will is one of the more respected conservative pundits and writers out there. He doesn't come across as shrill very often and would probably get just as nauseous around Ann Coulter as I would. Yet that demeanor does not mean that he isn't immune to that GOP disease of making facts up about global warming that are completely and utterly false.

From TPM Muckraker:

Over the weekend, the Washington Post's George Will, got in on the act. And it took us about ten minutes -- longer, it appears, than the Post's editors spent -- to figure out that Will, like Barnes, was essentially making stuff up.

Both of Will's major "data points" fall apart after a moment's scrutiny.

Here's the first:

According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.

But within hours of Will's column appearing, the ACRC had posted the following statement on its website:

We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979. This decrease in sea ice area is roughly equal to the area of Texas, California, and Oklahoma combined.

It is disturbing that the Washington Post would publish such information without first checking the facts.

Yeah, I'm with ACRC on that one. George Will doesn't have the best record when it comes to portraying the facts on the issue and the Washington Post should assign an editor and a fact checker to their conservative pundit. Will also tried to smudge the facts on another point in regard to global temperatures, but he cherry-picked the data without taking a look (or avoiding it intentionally) at the mean numbers.

It is sad to see people like this so avidly deny what is staring us all in the face. Global warming is not a partisan issue, it will affect the planet no matter if you are a Democrat, Republican, Socialist, Reform, Green or whatever.

The Not-So Fiscal Conservative Side Of Jim Tedisco

Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco can talk a good game about caring for his constituents and good old fashioned Republican values. He doesn't want to take a position on a bill in Congress that gives a strong stimulus to the economy because it was too long to read. He called things in there (so he read a little?) earmarks and pork-barrel politics. It sounds great, really. Fighting for the common man, hurrah. Too bad it just doesn't match up with the Jim Tedisco he doesn't want people to see.

From The Albany Project:

First, a little background, the Assembly now has 109 Democratic members and 41 Republican members. The Republican number has declined to a record-low level under the three-plus years (two election cycles) of Tedisco's "leadership."

But, even though there are many more Democrats than Republicans in the Assembly, Tedisco has seen fit to give out three times more free cars to his members and staff than are provided to Democratic members and staff.

According to the Times-Union blog post (it really should be a story, and may be tomorrow), the Democrats in the Assembly super-majority give out four free cars -- to the Speaker, the Majority Leader, the Ways and Means Committee chairman, and the Assembly chief of staff.

"Fiscal conservative" Tedisco gives out 12 cars -- to himself and nine other members and two top staffers.

A "free car" is worth $300-$500 a month. Do the math, and it's clear that Tedisco is spending about $40,000 a year more on free cars than the Assembly majority.

And that doesn't even include the gas for those cars. Fiscal discipline is all well and good to prevent job creation, but when it comes to getting him and members of the Assembly GOP a set of wheels...bring on the perks of office!

Or you could support Democrat Scott Murphy instead, because New York's 20th District deserves better.

February 16th In One Hundred Seconds

I wasn't around for most of the afternoon and evening, so I got a quick roundup of today's events and punditry extravaganzas from Talking Points Memo:

How Bad Are These Economic Times For New York?

A few less Starbucks stores in the neighborhood, a few more "For Sale" signs and landlords offering a free first month upon signing are all indicators in Manhattan at least that times have gotten tough. Seriously though, unemployment has skyrocketed in the city and across the country and life in NYC has gotten harder. The boom times of Wall Street's excess had the poor barely getting by and the affluent loving every moment, but hardly anyone expected it could get this bad, this quickly. Well, economists that have been paying attention knew about it, and now that the recession is upon us their portend for the future does not look so bright.

From The NY Times:

John Tepper Marlin

Former Chief Economist

City Comptroller’s Office

Some people have compared this recession to the Great Depression. Mr. Marlin’s view? It could turn out to be worse.

He is troubled that this time, the crisis is more global in nature, given the interconnectedness of the world economy. That means it affects more people, and it also means there are more people to blame: the aggressive peddlers of subprime mortgages in California; the proponents of deregulation, led by two powerful former members of Congress from Texas, Dick Armey and Phil Gramm; and the people he sardonically calls the “geniuses” on Wall Street.

“We’ve had the verdict — Wall Street is guilty — but what’s playing out here is the sentencing, and it’s not just Wall Street that’s being sentenced; it’s the rest of the world,” Mr. Marlin said.

And that is just one person the Times talked to. Others did not have much better news. Nicole Gelinas at the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute predicts that even though property taxes are helping the city stem the bleeding, reassessments will lead to even further reduced revenues. Ronnie Lowenstein of the Independent Budget Office in NYC says for us to forget about those boom years if Obama follows through with re-regulating Wall Street (a good thing from a macro perspective, that's for sure). Still others suggest things aren't as bad or will not get as bad as the Great Depression or even the recession of 1982. Precautions have been put in place so that the city won't go bankrupt like it has.

Of course as the article says in the title, we should expect change. That means we need to not rely on Wall Street like we have and in my view, diversify our economy. Long before Bloomberg's ramped up gentrification plan, the city had a booming cultural economy that has been stymied by the Mayor and others like him in the past. We need to stop begging and pleading the large banks to solve all our fiscal woes because more often than not, they dig our holes bigger than we started out with.

GOP Tries To Take Credit For Stimulus That They Weakened And Opposed

Not that I am too surprised, but it really is amazing to watch Republicans in Congress pivot from hating Obama's bill to energize the American economy to loving each stimulus dollar that goes into their districts. Not one single Republican in the House voted for the bill and only three in their Senate caucus went along with legislation that will soon be signed into law by the President. Now they are falling all over themselves to take credit.

From McClatchy:

WASHINGTON — Rep. John Mica was gushing after the House of Representatives voted Friday to pass the big stimulus plan.

"I applaud President Obama's recognition that high-speed rail should be part of America's future," the Florida Republican beamed in a press release.

Yet Mica had just joined every other GOP House member in voting against the $787.2 billion economic recovery plan.

Of course this should be expected, because Mica is just looking out for himself and his standing among the voters of his district. While Democrats were fairly united about bringing reinvestment to all of America, Republicans fought that idea of standing together in these tough times. John Boehner's spokesman made that position abundantly clear.

Mike Steel, a spokesman for House GOP Leader John Boehner of Ohio, at first ducked when asked about Mica and Young issuing press releases praising the bill they'd opposed.

"I don't work for Mica or Young," Steel said initially.

But then he explained that what Mica and Young did in touting aspects of the bill was in fact consistent with the Republican message.

"Being supportive of one portion of a trillion dollar bill, but voting against the entire trillion dollar bill, is perfectly reasonable," Steel said.

It is a consistent message of the GOP that as a member, you should do or say anything that looks good politically for oneself and at times, for the party. Never shall you do or say anything that might actually be good for the American people as a whole. As it usually does, politics trumps patriotism and love of country any day of the week.

Roland Burris Desperately Trying To Conceal His Connections To Blagojevich

Senator Burris held a press conference in an attempt to combat the new inquiries into exactly what he said and didn't say (and who he didn't say it to) in regard to how Blagojevich picked him as Barack Obama's replacement in the Senate. It turns out that what Roland has been saying lately doesn't quite match up with what he told the Illinois House when they impeached Rod last month. Despite trying to proclaim his innocence, the facts of the story indicated otherwise.

The Commonalities Of Michael Bloomberg And Hugo Chavez

It might be hard to imagine the Mayor of New York and the President of Venezuela sharing much in common but if you strip everything away and just consider the trappings of power, the two are one in the same. Yesterday a small majority of Venezuelans (or so the polls say) voted to abolish term limits so that Hugo can run indefinitely. It must have made George Bush cringe and boiled the blood of neo-cons everywhere. Though I doubt they weren't too concerned when Michael Bloomberg decided he wanted to run for a third term despite New Yorkers having had approved of term limits by referenda twice in the 1990s.

A few months ago, the blood was boiling on the left side of New York's political side and in the veins of all people that decry political power plays such as what the Mayor and Council undertook. Yet for as much outrage as his opponents could muster, the Council, with Speaker Quinn's prodding, made sure that everyone was able to run for a third term, get extra benefits and allow the Mayor to drop $80 or $100 million on a campaign that some would call buying victory.

Of course, it isn't exactly the same set of circumstances. Our Mayor has never been the target of a U.S. backed coup, nor bashed President Bush day in, day out, and he doesn't even try to appear in touch or connected with the people he rules over attempts to govern. Bloomberg also has no shame, as he now tries to cajole the Working Families Party into letting him run on their line. Despite their differences, both are clearly obsessed with power, and will do whatever it takes to hold on to that. The means may differ because of where they each are, but the ends are all the same.

Paterson Tries To Appease Staff With Raises, Screws The Rest Of Us Though

Governor Paterson is experiencing some rough times these days. That massive budget deficit we have is causing him significant difficulty in deciding what to do about it, but unfortunately it seems if there's a bad choice to make, he'll go with it. Take for instance this latest mistake of giving raises to his top staffers, presumably to keep them from leaving their jobs. Now that's great for those few who work in the Governor's office, but what about the 130,000 state employees he told would have their wages frozen?

From The NY Post:

ALBANY - Gov. Paterson has secretly granted raises of as much as 46 percent to more than a dozen staffers at a time when he has asked 130,000 state workers to give up 3 percent pay hikes because of the state's fiscal crisis, The Post has learned.

The startling pay hikes, costing about $250,000 annually, were granted after the governor's "emergency" declaration in August of a looming fiscal crisis that required the state to cut spending and impose a "hard" hiring freeze.

One raise was approved as recently as last month - when Paterson claimed the budget deficit had reached an unprecedented $15.5 billion.

That would be another blow to the Governor's claims to wanting shared sacrifice in these tenuous times. Seeing stories like that do not make me feel so bad to hear about Paterson being chanted at and having buttons for a fair tax all around him. He had a few supporters in the room where the conference for the Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators was being held, but many of them wanted to see Paterson stand behind their issues by reducing the spending cuts (especially with a few billion more than expected from the stimulus bill) and instituting additional taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers so that "shared sacrifice" could actually be called a legitimate slogan when all is said and done.

Stimulating Sunday Talk....Or Not

Pundits, politicians and spinmeisters went to battle on the airwaves yesterday to either trumpet or decry the stimulus bill. One side talked realistically about creating jobs while the other cried for a special blend of bipartisanship that would have continued the same old failed tax cuts that we saw during the Bush Administration.

Sen. Graham Wouldn't Know Bipartisanship If It Was Staring At Him In The Face

With two days to go until President Barack Obama goes to Denver to sign the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law, we have one last Sunday talk cycle to get the frustrations of Republicans out so that we can all hear it for the umpteenth time. Democrats have already described McCain as an angry, old defeated candidate, but we need to add Senator Lindsay Graham in there too.

From RawStory:

At this point, Graham chimed in to say, "If this is going to be bipartisanship, the country's screwed. ... I know bipartisanship when I see it. ... There's nothing about this process that's been bipartisan. This is not change we can believe in."

"You rammed it through the House," Graham told the Democrats on the panel. "The markup, Chuck, in the Senate took an hour and forty minutes."

"We had every Republican vote for a $440 billion stimulus package," Graham continued, "that cut taxes, had infrastructure spending, and helped people who were out of work

Graham was apparently referring to Sen. John Thune's proposal, which was voted down 37-60. That proposal would have cut tax rates in a way that gave the most relief to affluent Americans and none to the working poor, made unemployment benefits tax-free, used tax credits to encourage renewed home-buying, and forbidden future tax increases to pay for current deficit spending. It would also have included a mere $65 billion in state grants to build and repair bridges and roads.

See, Senator Graham has it all wrong. The bipartisanship shown during Republican rule was where some Democrats would complain that the GOP gave everything to the rich and stole from the poor, then the GOP would ignore said Democrats and pass whatever the hell they wanted. Now that the Republicans have been beaten into a small regional party with limited influence, they're complaining about not getting things the way that they're used to. Proposing a counter-bill that had half the money and nearly all of that going to the very rich was laughable to say the least.

The American people demanded change this past November. Until Republicans like Graham actually want to sit down and come up with ideas other than their failed tax cuts, they have no claim to use the word "bipartisanship." At the very least, Senator Graham should consult a dictionary (and his constituents who are flailing in this wretched economy) before going on his next Sunday talk show.