Sheldon Silver Shows His Concern About Primary Challengers

Matt Townsend of the New York Observer wrote a piece today about being polled about the upcoming primary election in Assembly District 64. If you don't know that number, you will shortly, it is the district of the Speaker of the Assembly, one of the three men in a room, Sheldon Silver. Apparently Silver is worried about at least one of his primary challengers, Paul Newell.

From The NY Observer:

Last month, a market-research firm called my Lower East Side apartment to gauge my support for Paul Newell.

I admitted that I had never heard Newell's name before, and the caller quickly explained that Newell will challenge my state assemblyman-Speaker Sheldon Silver-in the Democratic primary in September.

The caller told me Newell is 32, worked as a community organizer and lives on the Lower East Side. Then he presented positive statements about Newell and Silver, followed by negative statements about Silver. He asked me to say if the statements would make me "more likely" or "less likely" to vote for that candidate. Then it was over, but the origin of the call was a mystery.[...]

When asked if he was worried about Newell, Silver responded: "I'm always confident that my record on education, rebuilding ground zero and transportation is unmatched by any public official. I think my record speaks for itself."

When I spoke to Newell, he said he heard about the poll from several people, and he has no doubt that Silver commissioned the poll to see how vulnerable he is.

Newell said that he believed Silver's campaign may have been reacting to some 6,000 fliers he and his supporters handed out to voters in the 64th Assembly District on Super Tuesday. From what he heard about the poll, Newell said, the positives the callers are presenting come almost verbatim from the flier.

"My gut reaction [to the poll] is that I can't believe he's calling this many voters and telling them my positives and his negatives," Newell said. "I thought it meant that he's taking the race seriously, but I might have liked if the giant had been sleeping for a few more months.[...]

"There is no doubt in my mind that Sheldon Silver commissioned the poll," Newell said. "It was either me or him, and it wasn't me."

Seeing this story is rather amusing to me, since I was talking to Luke Henry a couple hours ago at City Hall about the race (He was there in support of Clean Elections in NYC). I asked him about possible upcoming debates and rhetorically if he thinks he'll see Silver on stage with him anytime soon. Of course he noted that we need to put pressure on the Speaker to show up at some point. Yet that doesn't mean he isn't paying attention, and doing a poll on the race all the way back here in March is telling that Shelly is worried about the much needed change we need in this country, and specifically up in Albany.

The Pennsylvania Low Down

Chris Bowers sits down with John Mercurio at HotLine TV to discuss what the Pennsylvania primary is shaping up to be and what it means in the national context:

Through 3-D Glasses, McCain Sees Success In Iraq

John McCain, the maverick extraordinaire is on a path to look as much like George Bush and Dick Cheney as possible. He really can't seem to stop himself on going as far right as possible. Perhaps he is judging the "progress" in Iraq based on his trip to the Haditha market last year (you know the one that reminded Rep. Pence (R-IN) of his home state), but for some reason he sees us succeeding in Iraq.

From The Huffington Post:

CHULA VISTA, Calif. — Fresh off his eighth Iraq visit, Sen. John McCain declared Monday that "we are succeeding" and said he wouldn't change course _ even as the U.S. death toll rose to 4,000 and the war entered its sixth year.

To underscore his view of the stakes in Iraq, the certain Republican presidential nominee twice referenced a recent audio tape from Osama bin Laden in which the al-Qaida leader urged followers to join the al-Qaida fight in Iraq and called the country "the greatest opportunity and the biggest task."

"For the first time, I have seen Osama bin Laden and General (David) Petraeus in agreement, and, that is, a central battleground in the battle against al-Qaida is in Iraq today. And that's what bin Laden was saying and that's what General Petraeus is saying and that's what I'm saying, my friends," McCain said.

"And my Democrat opponents who want to pull out of Iraq refuse to understand what's being said and what's happening _ and that is the central battleground is Iraq in this struggle against radical Islamic extremism," he added. McCain also said Democratic rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton were naive and "dead wrong" to want to withdraw troops.

No Mr. McCain, it isn't just your Democratic opponents, it is two-thirds of the country that wants out of Iraq. We are sick of the deaths, sick of all the casualties and sick of the destruction being wrought both on Iraq and the welfare of our own nation. You sir, are naive to think we are doing anything good in Iraq. And that "dead wrong" comment? Why don't you tell that to the 4,000 families that have lost their loved ones in Iraq over the last five years? I'd love to see that YouTubed, as you go to every door and have it slammed in your face.

Come Stand Up For Clean Elections In NY Today!

At high noon on the steps of City Hall you can be part of the action and see the efforts made by Citizen Action as Councilman Tony Avella joins us to propose a truly clean elections system here in New York, both as a state and here in the city. There has been a lot of hard work involved in getting just to this point, but with the help of many New Yorkers that have not heard the call, we can help enact real reform right here, right now.

From The Daily Gotham:

Join Council Member Tony Avella and me on Tuesday, March 25, at noon, on the steps of City Hall. Council Member Avella will be announcing the "Clean Money, Clean Elections" (CMCE) bill that he is sponsoring in the City Council. The more support we can get, in the form of people coming out, the more initial impact we'll make.

CMCE will virtually eliminate private fundraising for candidates. It will truly level the playing field for candidates who don't have access to big money. It will reduce the lower of lobbyists who use big campaign donations and bundling to gain access to our elected officials. In short, CMCE will make our elected officials responsible to constituents, not special interests.

This will be an enormous uphill battle. Entrenched special interests, and the politicians in their pockets, will fight tooth and nail to maintain the current system. They'll call it "the best in the country," without a shred of evidence to back that claim up. They'll put legislative hurdles in our path.

That post would be from Dan Jacoby, one of the key citizen backers of this legislation. It is immensely important to him to see real reform in New York, as it is to myself. I hope we will get a huge turnout today, so come one, come all and see citizen action in progress!

Can WalMart Pick-Up That 3AM Phone Call?

Cheers to Wakeup Walmart on their latest video:



Exposing the evils of Walmart is a beautiful thing!

M.T.A. Can't Deliver On Anything

New Yorkers have been paying increased prices to ride the subway for almost a month now and none of the promises made by either the Mayor or the M.T.A. are going to come true. We fought tooth and nail against their quest to pile on the burden of commuters. They countered with saying sweet nothings like shorter wait times on the 1, 4 and 6 and more trains on the G train. Ultimately the people's campaign to stop the M.T.A. failed, approved by our ex-Governor. Yet we were supposed to get better service, and now that is not happening.

From The NY Times:

The postponed service upgrades included plans to add more frequent service on the G line in Brooklyn and Queens, extending B and W service on weeknights to 11 p.m. from the current 9:30 p.m., and shaving one or two minutes from waiting times for evening service on the 1, 4 and 6 lines. The M.T.A. had also said it would create a new bus line, the M13, from the Lower East Side to East Midtown, and would extend the B71 and B77 buses from Brooklyn via the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel into Manhattan, where they would go to South Ferry.

Officials said the upgrades could still be approved in June if the authority’s finances recovered.

They had previously warned that the beefed-up service would only be approved if the authority produced healthy financial results in the first three months of the year.

But the authority revealed today that the money it receives from taxes on real estate transactions had fallen significantly in February and March.

Gary J. Dellaverson, the chief financial officer of the authority, called the economic outlook “gloomy” and used words like “frightening” and “dramatic” to describe the fall in real estate-related revenues.

Yeah, the economy is definitely frightening, I'll agree to that. Yet to rely on that heavily on real estate revenues seems absurd. It would be like basing your retirement security on commodities. Perhaps if the M.T.A. would manage their money more efficiently, we wouldn't be in this mess...and they wouldn't have to rely on their riders to bail them out every couple of years with fare increases.

Don't Worry About Our Troops, They Volunteered

The Vice President is on a rampage roll lately with his oh so compassionate remarks about the American people and the war in Iraq. His latest testament to having human compassion was warm and fuzzy as he usually is, about as caring as Satan on a hot day in hell. When asked about the terrible milestone of 4,000 deaths in Iraq, he claimed the most ridiculously absurd thing anyone could think about.

From ABC News:

"I want to start with the milestone today of 4,000 dead in Iraq. Americans. And just what effect do you think it has on the country?" asked ABC News' White House correspondent, Martha Raddatz, who traveled with the vice president on a nine-day overseas trip to Iraq and other countries in the Middle East.

"It obviously brings home I think for a lot of people the cost that's involved in the global war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan," Cheney said in the interview, conducted in Turkey. "It places a special burden obviously on the families, and we recognize, I think — it's a reminder of the extent to which we are blessed with families who've sacrificed as they have."

"The president carries the biggest burden, obviously," Cheney said. "He's the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans, but we are fortunate to have a group of men and women, the all-volunteer force, who voluntarily put on the uniform and go in harm's way for the rest of us."

Um.....WTF!?! The President does not give two shits about the burden he has placed on America and its soldiers that bravely fight under our flag. If he had any empathy at all, he'd call off this needless, ridiculous and expensive occupation of another country that does not want us there.

Oh and by the way Mr. Cheney, those soldiers that volunteer to go over there, do you mean soldiers like these?

Its....Raining McCain

Is this for real? Its anyone's guess, but to me this is absolutely hilarious:

Four Thousand Reasons To Leave

Sunday may have been a day of easter egg hunts and young children getting their picture taken with the Easter bunny, but it was far more grim in the streets of Baghdad and Iraq as a whole. As a few of our soldiers made their way down a Baghdad street, a bomb brought four of their young lives to a close. In that instant four families lost a loved one and the nation counted it's four thousandth death in this avoidable tragedy that has gone on for more than five years.

From Yahoo News:

The American deaths occurred Sunday, the same day rockets and mortars pounded the U.S.-protected Green Zone in Baghdad and a wave of attacks left at least 61 Iraqis dead nationwide.

An Iraqi military spokesman said Monday that troops had found rocket launching pads in different areas in predominantly Shiite eastern Baghdad that had been used by extremists to fire on the Green Zone, which houses the U.S. Embassy and the Iraqi government headquarters.

"We hope to deal with this issue professionally to avoid civilian casualties," said spokesman Qassim al-Moussawi.

The four soldiers with Multi-National Division — Baghdad were on a patrol when their vehicle was struck at about 10 p.m. Sunday in southern Baghdad, the U.S. military said. Another soldier was wounded in the attack — less than a week after the fifth anniversary of the conflict.

Navy Lt. Patrick Evans, a military spokesman, expressed condolences to all the families of soldiers killed in Iraq, saying each death is "equally tragic."

Yes Mr. Evans, each death is equally tragic, yet we continue to accrue equally tragic casualties in this misbegotten folly of a war. Easter may have been a happy day for many that believe in the Easter bunny, but not for those four families that had their worst fears realized....and the 3,996 families before them.

More To The Spitzer Story Than We Thought

It is old news that Roger Stone hated Eliot Spitzer with a passion. Of course it was quite the hub bub when he left that nasty message on the answering machine of Eliot's dad last year. Besides angry messages, could there be more to Stone and Spitzer...and especially in regards to the ex-Governor's downfall this month?

From RawStory:

Last November, his lawyer wrote a letter to the FBI. In it, GOP political operative Roger Stone's attorney, Paul Rolf alleged that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer "used the services of high-priced call girls" while in Florida, basing his information on a "social contact."

The letter, dated Nov. 19, said Stone gleaned the information from "a social contact in an adult themed club."

"The governor has paid literally tens of thousands of dollars for these services," Rolf wrote. "It is Mr. Stone's understanding that the governor paid not with credit cards or cash but through some pre-arranged transfer."

It continued, including particular detail -- Stone's lawyer wrote that the governor hadn't taken off his calf-length socks "during the sex act."

It's unclear whether Stone's letter sparked the investigation: court papers say the investigation began "in or about October 2007."

It wouldn't be surprising if this were the work of Roger Stone. The Republican operative has long been an agent of dirty tricks in order to take down Democratic officials. He worked in the political department of Richard Nixon (not the button making and sign-waving kind either), spreading malicious rumors about Michael Dukakis and helping to create chaos in Miami when they were trying to count all the ballots in 2000.

Oh and of course GOP loudmouth (not to mention an exposer of CIA undercover agents) Robert Novak made mention of Stone in connection to Spitzer while the house was falling around Spitzer in the last couple weeks. You know when Novak drops a bomb, something usually stinks about the official mainstream story.

Hillary Caught Lying About Her Trip To Bosnia

If a picture tells a thousand words, then imagine how many this video shows about Hillary Clinton and her truthiness:

President Bush Hates Butterflies And Prairie Dogs

You would think it would take an imaginary evil cartoon character from some Disney movie in order to create hatred towards cute little creatures. How could anyone want to see butterflies, prairie dogs and hundreds of other critters die off for good and be passed by other than in a make-believe nightmare? Well that nightmare is coming true for many different species of plants and animals here in the United States and it is all thanks to George Bush and his Interior Department appointees like Dick Kempthorne.

From The Washington Post:

With little-noticed procedural and policy moves over several years, Bush administration officials have made it substantially more difficult to designate domestic animals and plants for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Controversies have occasionally flared over Interior Department officials who regularly overruled rank-and-file agency scientists' recommendations to list new species, but internal documents also suggest that pervasive bureaucratic obstacles were erected to limit the number of species protected under one of the nation's best-known environmental laws.

The documents show that personnel were barred from using information in agency files that might support new listings, and that senior officials repeatedly dismissed the views of scientific advisers as President Bush's appointees either rejected putting imperiled plants and animals on the list or sought to remove this federal protection.

Officials also changed the way species are evaluated under the 35-year-old law -- by considering only where they live now, as opposed to where they used to exist -- and put decisions on other species in limbo by blocking citizen petitions that create legal deadlines.

How could they do such a thing you ask? Why would they do this? Are they really that greedy to obtain land for stripping minerals and razing forests? Yes, they really are that greedy. They'll do whatever it takes to appease the industries that can benefit from killing off endangered life. They know what they are doing is wrong and that is why they are trying to cover up their trail.

"Lawsuits, starting in the early '90s, have really driven things," Hall said, adding that the administration has tried to keep species from declining to the point where they need to be listed. "I'm feeling pretty good we're back on track to do the job the way it's supposed to be done."

In court cases, however, a number of judges have rejected decisions made by Hall's agency and have criticized its slow pace. On March 5, a U.S. district judge in Phoenix ordered Interior to redesignate bald eagles in Arizona's Sonoran Desert as threatened after the agency delisted the entire species last summer.

Three weeks before Interior officials rejected a petition to keep the desert eagles listed, a scientific advisory panel it convened wrote that the population "appears to be less viable than populations in other parts of the country" because it had fewer than 50 nesting pairs. Survival usually requires 500 breeding pairs.

The Fish and Wildlife Service never released that report, along with internal agency documents showing "substantial" evidence that the Arizona eagles should be kept on the list: Both the report and the documents were unearthed under the Freedom of Information Act by the Center for Biological Diversity, an advocacy group.

Yep, thats right, they'll even sacrifice the bald eagle. So much for showing patriotism through a love of animals. I can hardly wait until this Administration is gone forever. I can only hope all of the criminals are prosecuted for their crimes against our country and nature itself.