"Come on aboard, I promise you you won't hurt the horse
We treat him well, we feed him well
There's lots of room for you on the bandwagon.." -- R.E.M. "Bandwagon"
The group of courageous state Attorneys General speaking out against and standing up to the ridiculous and shameful multi-state settlement with the nation's largest banks gained a new member today. Kentucky AG Jack Conway is joining AG Schneiderman as well as the AGs of states like Massachusetts and Delaware in saying "not so fast" with a "settlement" that amounts to not much more than a "get out of jail free" card for the biggest players in the foreclosure mess.
Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway has added his name to a list of state law enforcers who fear that a settlement being negotiated among government officials and big banks isn't backed by a sufficient investigation into potential wrongdoing.
As law enforcers approach a deal with banks to settle allegations that the companies improperly foreclosed on American homeowners, the banks are pushing for a broad release from liability for actions that have not yet been fully investigated, Conway said in a Thursday email to the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, obtained by The Huffington Post.
By raising these concerns, Conway has aligned himself with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and law enforcers from other states who have questioned the adequacy of the groundwork underlying the settlement talks.
"Today's economic crisis was caused by Wall Street acting improperly," Conway, a Democrat, said in the email. "Every American has paid the price -- with families losing their homes, investors losing their money, and many Americans losing their jobs. There should be absolutely no criminal or civil immunity given to banks for activity that has not yet been investigated."
Kudos to AGs like Schneiderman and Conway who, by saying "not so fast," are standing up for the interests of those they were elected to represent as opposed to the interests of those who swindled this country into the mess we're in today.
Nan Hayworth voted late last night to tie Hurricane Irene relief for Hudson Valley families and farmers to budget offsets - something she said she would do in a controversial Times Herald-Record story that came out on the day the Hurricane hit.
But then, when she saw the story and the outrage it created in her district (aka lost votes in November), she reversed herself saying she would NEVER tie relief to offsets and went on to participate in several photo-ops with flooded farmers. This flip flopping landed her as a WORST PERSON on Olbermann and she was voted the BIGGEST LOSER in a state poll.
What is 100% true and cannot be refuted is that she voted last night to hold Irene Hurricane victims in the Hudson Valley hostage to budget cuts when she could have easily, with just one vote, have voted for the Senate Relief Bill which had no offsets and provided immediate relief. She made a choice. The wrong one for the Hudson Valley. (The right one for Eric Cantor, though.)
Not long after her vote to tie relief to offsets a constituent posted a comment to her official congressional Facebook page asking her if she's a flip flopper for a liar.
"The six Assembly Special Elections did not have competitive party primaries that continued the worst traditions of Albany dysfunction. Worse, the process had no accountability to the voters because the candidates were picked by the party leaders not the voters. It is a badly flawed process and a constitutional remedy should be considered," said New Roosevelt Founder Bill Samuels
The six Special Elections held across New York State last Tuesday for the open Assembly seats highlight a fundamental flaw with choosing that process over a traditional primary and general election. In every case, Governor Cuomo had the choice to allow for a primary and general election, which would have adhered to his campaign platform of protecting the right to popular election, and instead chose Special Elections. Special Elections deprive voters of the choice to pick the strongest candidate from a wide field to represent their party.
Samuels added that the State should adopt the principal put forth by state constitutional expert SUNY Professor Gerald Benjamin, who in his research on this subject for a forthcoming Constitutional Change project, an effort to examine constitutional reform in New York, wrote that "to the greatest degree practicable, vacancies in elected offices should be filled by elections held at a time and through a process that will maximize competition and accountability."
it's compatible with what the oil and gas companies want to do with it.
That seems to be the message of the career of Thomas West, the "Super Lawyer" who announced that his firm would be bringing a lawsuit against the Town of Dryden last week. (I didn't originally mean to single out West, but he's proud of his work and appears at many of the most important places where gas drillers demanded that everyone else bow down before their power.)
Do you ever wonder how compulsory integration, which basically lets drillers force their way under up to 256 acres of a 640-acre drilling unit, could have happened?
He was one of the principal authors of the spacing and compulsory integration legislation that overhauled New York's oil and gas program in 2005.
Compulsory integration now plays a crucial role for gas drillers assembling sites in New York. No well can be drilled without a state permit. And no permit can be awarded until the drilling company creates an approved "spacing unit" -- typically 640 acres -- at the proposed well site. The spacing unit is made up of property leased to the drilling company, plus property owned by holdouts who won't lease.
Compulsory integration may only be applied if the driller obtains leases on property totaling at least 60 percent of the proposed spacing unit. After that threshold is reached, the company can force the holdouts to join against their will.
To some, that arrangement seems an outrageous violation of basic private property rights.
"It is a way to get around negotiating price with landowners, a way to acquire gas rights at below-market rates, and a way to force people into leases or lease terms they don't want," said Fractracker, a website managed by a group founded at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health.
When the gas industry in Pennsylvania sought a milder version of New York's compulsory integration statute for drilling in that state's Marcellus Shale — the leasing threshold was 75 percent instead of 60 percent — it met vehement opposition and died.
In New York, opponents never had a chance to mobilize because there were no public hearings before the bill sailed through, Denton said. Albany attorney Thomas West claims on his website bio that he "played a key role" in winning passage of the 2005 bill. Denton agreed, saying, "Tom West shepherded it through the Legislature."
Yep - New York's delightful combination of a sleepy legislature and sleazy lobbyists frequently adds up to a not very funny joke. For all the complaining industry does about the cost of doing business in New York, we sometimes sell ourselves cheap.
And now, of course, this line of thinking has come to Dryden. Dangle riches in front of large landowners, downplay the risks, and hope they'll come along voluntarily. If they don't, worm your way toward enough acreage to take the rights anyway. And if they step up to say "Stop! This is a lousy idea!" - well, sue them.
The Sunday edition of a dead tree newspaper is the most important edition of the week. Some people only read the Sunday paper, drawn in by the magazine section and the comics. When the editor decides to make a particular story front page of the Sunday edition, that editor is looking for maximum eyeballs on the story.
Sunday's New York Post, the flagship of the Murdoch's American fleet of media outlets, had a full page, front page, with huge photo, of a heretofore unfamous Assistant Attorney General working for NYS AG Eric Schniederman.
It exposed intimate details of her private life and a way clearly intended to hold her up to scorn and embarrassment. It is clearly meant to harass and terrorize her and by example terrorize everyone in the AG's Office, the NY County DA's Office and the US Attorney's Offices that might be looking into the misdeeds of the banking industry or even might be thinking of maybe looking into the crimes of the banksters.
You see, she worked on the Bank of America case brought by the NYS AG's office while Andy Cuomo was AG. The message could not be any more crystal clear, mess with the banksters and they will come after you, your family, your friends, your cat.
I was a big fan of Elliot Spitzer's tenure as AG. He was the canary in the coalmine trying to warn the American people of the reckless and criminal activities of the banksters and he used every bit of legal leverage he had to try to fight back, basically all alone.
For that, he was stalked until they found him to be, ahem, "associated" with a skank for hire calling herself Ashley Dupree. And that betrayal of his marriage vows, which should have been a private matter between Spitzer and his family, became front page news.
I read somewhere that his wife wanted him to fight back. I wish he had, because had he done so, perhaps this tactic would have been consigned to the rubbish heap. Instead, it is now back and more virulent than ever, being aimed at non public figures.
I can only guess at the horrible morale that will wafting through the halls at 120 Broadway, at Hogan Place, or at One St. Andrews Plaza. No longer does the boss, stand as a shield and defense against these kinds of attacks, taking the heat so the staff attorneys are free to do their jobs courageously. Nope, the bad guys are doing an end run around the boss, just to show him how powerless he is to protect his people from these terror tactics.
Unless.
Unless, you fight back. I disagree with Yves Smith. I think this young woman should sue Murdoch to within an inch of his trust fund if so much as one semi colon of that front page piece is incorrect. She may be a public employee, but that does not make her a public figure and she does not have to prove malice under NY defamation law.
Spitzer should have fought back and exposed his stalkers. This AAG should fight back and for that matter every prosecutor's office with plausible jurisdiction should be investigating the circumstances of this "outing", because if they don't, none of the staff attorneys or investigators in those offices will feel safe doing their jobs.
Jamie Rodemeyer, a 14 year old LGBT kid from Buffalo struggling with discovering his own sexuality and the victim of relentless bullying, has taken his own life.
Jamey Rodemeyer needed help. At 14, he was grappling with adolescent demons that could torment grown men.
And when he was online, he wrote about it.
"I always say how bullied I am, but no one listens," he wrote Sept. 9. "What do I have to do so people will listen to me?"
Just over one week later, Jamey was found dead outside his home of an apparent suicide.
....
On Saturday night, he posted a lyric from Lady Gaga's song "The Queen" on his Facebook page: "Don't forget me when I come crying to heaven's door."
Jamey tweeted this just before committing suicide last weekend:
It's not like Jamey suffered in silence. Apparently the bullying went on for quite some time and he was quite vocal about it. Much of it was even posted in public forums for all to see.
Jamey did have bad days. Issues of bullying and even suicide talk were not new to many of Jamey's family or friends. They were common topics for him and seemed to ramp up to an extreme level when other students started making taunts with gay references to Jamey about 12 months ago.
"JAMIE IS STUPID, GAY, FAT ANND UGLY. HE MUST DIE!" read one post.
Another read: "I wouldn't care if you died. No one would. So just do it :) It would make everyone WAY more happier!"
And die he did, by his own hand.
I hope that those kids and their parents feel the viscous slick of blood on their hands this morning. If those kids are capable of projecting so much hate at such a young age, it says something really awful about the lives they have lead to this point and the quality of the parenting in the homes they are growing up in.
But there is plenty of blame to go around. It seems so many "adults" in Jamey's life failed him utterly. This was not a kid who was silent about the abuse he was receiving nor was he shy about talking about the ultimate remedy for such treatment at the hands of his peers. He even made a "It Gets Better" video a mere 4 months ago.
And yet it never got better for Jamey Rodemeyer, a child that will never see his potential realized, will never fall in love, will never be able to someday, in the future, tell a troubled, bullied young teen that "it gets better."
I am a state worker, a member of PEF, and I received a layoff notice in June, prior to the tentative agreement between the union and governor. I didn't worry too much when I got that layoff notice because I thought it was likely that a tentative deal would be reached and it would be canceled before the termination date. That is in fact what happened; no need to worry!
However, the ratification vote is taking place right now, and I am very worried that I may not have a job in the near future. The PEF membership usually votes the same as CSEA, and they have ratified the contract, but within PEF there has been strong disagreement over ratification. A faction of the leadership has actively campaigned against ratification.
This opposition has been fueled by two main principals: 1)Cuomo was heavy-handed and unfair in the contract negotiations (this claim is largely justified) and 2)A desire by this faction to replace the current union president and take over executive control (this internal struggle should absolutely NOT be the rational for as many as 5,000 people--one tenth the total union membership--losing their jobs.)
I have written a letter to the editor regarding the contract ratification and sent it to the three major area newspapers. The Troy Record ran it yesterday in it's full original form--roughly equal space with Alan Chartok! The Times Union said I would need to shorten it to have it considered, and I did send an edited version back but have not heard anything since. The Daily Gazette hasn't responded at all. The letter deals only with the first issue concerning the unfairness of the contract and Cuomo's negotiating tactics, since that is the root cause of opposition among most of those who oppose it. The internal power struggle is of much less concern to most members, but it does bother me that a great many of them may not be aware of it when they make their ratification decisions.
I am placing the text from the original letter in the copy block below. I ask any PEF members who have not yet voted on the contract to please consider what I say. Thanks for your time and consideration.
I live the town of Cortlandt, Westchester County. We have a population of about 40,000+ and 26,623 registered voters (active and inactive). There are 39 election districts. On primary day, last week, there were races for town justice for the Green Party and the Working Families Party lines. In both races it was the Republican candidate against the Democratic candidate. With all 39 EDs reporting, the unofficial results are that both races ended a 2-2 tie. 8 votes were cast.
Dump fusion voting and this ridiculousness goes away.
There's an obvious and a less obvious lesson to be learned from NY-9 about independent, non-partisan redistrict. And it's worth learning.
Of course the obvious lesson is that the politics of legislature controlled redistricting leads to stupid gamesmanship. I still don't think Weprin was a bad candidate on paper, but I also tend to agree that Rory Lancman would have been a better candidate. Lancman never had a chance though, because Joe Crowley and New York Democrats in general needed a sacrifical lamb who could compete in the district and then ride into the night as NY-9 was dismantled by the map makers. Weprin fit the bill.
This is only a problem when politicians draw the districts. Independent, non-partisan redistricting doesn't take into account factors like seniority or which district is easier to cut. Independent redistricting would draw 27 districts on the basis of geography, continguity, compactness, VRA concerns, and a host of other factors other than cushiness for incumbents. And so if we had independent redistricting in the first place, the entire paradigm would have been different.
The less obvious lesson is just as, if not more important. I couldn't help but notice a lot of bloggers commenting on the string of special election losses by members of the Assembly. Weprin, Corwin, Scozzafava, and Tedisco. This led some to conclude that people who go to Albany and work in the Assembly can't win Congressional races. Let's forget that a whole heck of a lot of current and former Congressional members are former members of the Assembly. The fact that these four recent losers were all members of the Assembly isn't causation but it is correlation.
The better response about these four is that none of them had ever won a competitive campaign before. Their experience at real campaigning necessary to win tough special elections was non-existent. Weprin may have run for City Comptroller, but he did so poorly and unsuccessfully. All four of them simply weren't equipped for the rigors of a time-crunch competitive campaign.
And part of the reason is because their districts are gerrymandered to be uncompetitive, like almost every district in the state.
If we had real competitive districts, which we're more likely to get from independent redistricting, then candidates would actually earn their victories from the voters. That would give us politicians who understand how to talk to voters and better represent themselves and their constituents. And for our purposes, it would give us better candidates equipped to run for higher office, as opposed to people like David Weprin (i.e. nice guys and decent legislators but ill-equipped to run and win a serious, competitive campaign).
Mark down another notch in the belt of independent redistricting; better candidates, better legislators, heck, it's just better democracy.
Anschutz Exploration Corp. plans to file a lawsuit in state Supreme Court in Tompkins County to have the ban struck down in the Town of Dryden, according to the company's Albany-based attorney Thomas West. He said the lawsuit is expected to be filed this week...
"It will be a good opportunity to let the courts decide whether municipalities can, under the guise of zoning or otherwise, ban or regulate drilling," West said. "Hopefully, it won't be a difficult issue for the court."
I'm surprised they didn't wait until after the elections, but pouring fuel on the fire is after all what they're about. I'll be curious to see the actual filings, and will try to post them here.
I wouldn't expect early rulings in this case to settle anything, either - this will likely be settled by New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals, unless something like the proposal from Senator Seward or the one from Senator Ball intercedes on the side of the Town.
Dryden, however, seemed like a plausible target for the gas companies from the beginning:
Dryden is at an interesting geological location, with Trenton Black River, Marcellus Shale, and Utica Shale drilling all possible though not necessarily ideal.
They have a local surrogate happy to handle their public relations and cheer on the lawsuit.
Unlike Middlefield, we don't have the Baseball Hall of Fame to make it a potentially national issue.
The Town, though trending more and more Democratic, is still definitely a place where elections can shift policy drastically. Lawsuits can certainly be election issues.
I wouldn't have thought - though I am not a lawyer - that they would actually have legal standing to sue before the DEC actually issued them a permit. Perhaps they can do it in advance, but we'll see. It's not clear to me how they've actually been damaged at this point, but I suspect they'll use the prior Trenton Black River portion of the application to claim that they're an innocent victim of the charge against hydrofracking.
If they do have standing, I'm guessing this is largely a "might as well sue before other towns get the idea this is a good thing." Whether or not they have standing, announcing the lawsuit just as election time is gearing up seems like they hope the legal process will influence the election process.
It may well do that - just not necessarily in the direction they hoped.
If Weprin loses, it will be the fourth time in two years a New York special election has gone badly for a candidate hand-picked by the dominant party.
I think most of us here cheered when Scott Murphy, Bill Owens, and Kathy Hochul won, all Democratic insurgents challenging Republican establishments Upstate.
Now we have Republican insurgent Bob Turner defeating the Democratic establishment Downstate.
None of these races were identical - Bill Owens in particular benefited from a massive split among the Republicans. You can always argue about the quality of the candidates and the campaigns.
All of them, however, were in Congressional districts that seemed dominated by one party, until you looked closely enough to see the smaller pieces, the neighborhoods, the fragmentation generally. The losers were all, I think, Assembly members.
Since 2006 and Spitzer's election, I've wondered if New York voters in general are just looking for change. There's a broad grumbling out there that our political institutions aren't serving the state (or country) well. People and parties in power are the natural target of that fury, especially when there's a local connection.
I'm not sure that the machines themselves have changed for better or worse than usual, but I do think that voters are much more interested in Davids setting off to slay Goliath than they used to be, perhaps especially in races where national issues seem to be at stake.
With 383 of 512 precincts reporting, the Associated Press is calling the NY-9 special election for Republican Bob Turner. Currently, he's holding a 53% to 47% lead, a little over three thousand votes. Weprin narrowly won Queens, 52/48, but that wasn't enough to overcome Turner winning the smaller Brooklyn portion of the district 70/30.
There's a host of opinions on why NY-9 could be coming down to a photo finish today, ranging from blaming the President, to incompetence in the campaign apparatus, to a lackluster candidate, to arguments over foreign policy.
What's not getting enough attention, however--or enough condemnation--is the theme that runs all over the NY-9 special election... fear, in the form of one of the most brazenly open smear campaigns since the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth.
Republican candidate Bob Turner went in to a very heavily orthodox Jewish district, and depicted the Democratic candidate as being anti-Jewish, pro-terrorism, and anti-American. And not subtly, either. From the voiceover on Turner's very first TV ad:
It's been 10 short years. Everyone remembers. Some, though, want to commemorate the tragedy by building a mosque on Ground Zero. President Obama thinks that's a good idea. And so does Congressional candidate David Weprin.
Just in case that was too subtle for you, this was done over video of the World Trade Center burning and collapsing, pictured side by side with a photo of a mosque, and a smiling Obama.
It didn't stop there, either, with leaflets circulating more or less the same message: Weprin supports Islamic terrorism, and probably thinks that 9/11 was a great thing.
At this point, it would barely surprise me if I found out they Photoshopped a Hitler mustache on to his photo for their most recent ad.
What's appalling is not so much the negative campaigning with overtones of xenophobia--that's almost par for the course these days running against a Republican. No, what's remarkable about the situation in NY-9 is how brazenly open and out front they are about it. There are no dog-whistles to be found here: these are full fledged air raid sirens. And like with the Swift Boat Vets of 2004, it may sway enough people by pure, unadulterated fear to tip the balance.
Are you tired of the disgusting Albany practice of legislators choosing their voters, instead fo the other way around?
Are you tired of an anti-democratic political system where despite having among the lowest approval ratings in the country, our legislature is rewarded with one of the highest incumbent re-election rates?
Are you tired of a scenario where because legislators don't have to answer to voters, all they have to answer to are their conference leaders, lobbyists, special interests, and large fundraisers?
If you are tired of these things, you have the chance to make your voice heard, and soon. The LATFOR (legislative task force on redistricting), although is really shouldn't exist, just posted the details of the next 4 public hearings:
Tuesday
September 20, 2011
10:00 A.M.
Brooklyn Borough hall
Community Room
209 Joralemon Street
Brooklyn, New York
Thursday
September 22, 2011
10:00 A.M.
Joan & Allen Bernikow Jewish
Community Center
1466 Manor Road
Staten Island, New York
Wednesday
September 21, 2011
10:00 A.M.
Assembly Hearing Room
250 Broadway
Room 1923, 19th Floor
Manhattan, New York
Wednesday
October 5, 2011
10:00 A.M.
Farmingdale State College
Little Theater, Roosevelt Hall
2350 Broadhollow Road
Farmingdale, New York
In order to attend and speak, you need to sign up via instructions at the link, and I strongly recommend everybody submit their testimony beforehand.
As I mentioned, LATFOR isn't just part of the problem- it is the problem. It is the unholy alliance of Senate Republicans and Assembly Democrats to disenfranchise the voters of New York. Under any fair system, LATFOR's duties would be carried out by an uninterested party. And I plan on letting them know that. Very bluntly.
