NextGenDems

Down the Rabbit Hole With Slick Rick

Looks like Rick Lazio and Chris Collins are as good as it's going to get for NYS GOP in the 2010 gubernatorial race. That Lazio hasn't said or emoted anything remotely approaching the milieu of bizarro utterances from the Six Sigma Sertified Savant from Buffalo, probably makes Lazio the front runner.  Word's already on the street that Collins is a real bozo.

For his part, Lazio appears to think he gets to come into this thing like the Virgin Mary--i.e. no record and pure as the driven snow--just because he's spent the past several years not in government building a record, but rather on Wall Street accruing fiscal gravitas and that mythical "private-sector experience" while working for JP Morgan as a managing director.

On its face, it's not an unreasonable plan.  And it's worked before.

Here's Lazio's putative meta-theme from the top of his website:

The present government in Albany is broken. It's a national embarrassment. It can't be repaired by tweaking it here and there. It's dysfunctional and we need to start all over from the beginning -- not to help the politicians in Albany but to help our children and our grandchildren so they can dream of an Empire State and have a Government they respect and have confidence in.

Lazio has New York as a national pariah: broken, dissolute and corrupt. So unlike Wall Street. So unlike investment bankers like Rick.  And so unlike other states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Connecticut, and the so-called "failed state" of California.  It's not even worth going into just how clueless/disingenuous/lazy Lazio is vis a vis other states and New York's place among them.

So Lazio slithers across the state, delivering his ethically-embroidered disquisitions--evoking some kind of anti-incumbent, private-sector-fixer image. Imagining himself a serious fiscal guy by dint of doing high-finance things on Wall Street--at least on the surface.  But here's the thing: Lazio's praying that what he and his company were/are really up to proves to be too esoteric for the MSM to really drill down on--and just bore the shit out of anybody else.

So, kind of like a public service for everybody but Slick Rick and JP Morgan, we thought we'd jump down Rick's rabbit hole and show just how boring and esoteric it really isn't.

To this end, here's a list of simple, sourced and bite-sized questions that somebody really ought to ask full-disclosure-Rick.  Preferably after his next ethical monologue or self-serving harangue about crummy New York. Warning: These are guaranteed to work if you want to see Lazio sweat, scratch, stammer and squirm:

1. Rick, while a managing director at JP Morgan, did you have any role in slinging the swaps that JP Morgan foisted upon Jefferson County, AL--and to which JP Morgan now owes $50M in penalties for literally driving the place into bankruptcy?  Could you also tell us about your company's write-down of nearly $800M in Jefferson County swap fees and why the SEC made this determination? And while at JP Morgan, did you work with these guys? What about this guy?

2. Could you please describe in less than a thousand words how the following picture works? Especially now that you're all about dysfunction, budgets, full disclosure, national embarrassment, and most of all, "results?"

3.  Turning to some other JP Morgan "products" and states, did you have anything to do with marketing or selling CDOs (collateralized debt obligations)? Like those sold to Springfield, MA--nearly wiping out the city in the process?   

4.  Could you please tell us about JP Morgan's role--and profit--in the New York State auction rate securities debacle? You know, Rick, that scheme in which the state and many of its local governments--like Nassau County--got stuck holding the bag while simultaneously getting soaked for millions a week in trading fees, mostly for worthless pieces of paper that never traded. Finally, how much was JP Morgan forced to reimburse under the terms of Andrew Cuomo's settlement?

5. Were you or JP Morgan involved in any infrastructure securitization deals? And if so, how were your and/or JP Morgan's fees determined?  And what were they?

6. Speaking of fees, Rick, please tell us about your bonuses.  How big were yours and how were they determined? Preferably by year, but especially crosswalked by deal.

7.  Rick, are you only now running for governor because you and your ilk finally succeeded in exterminating the once-thriving Municipal Golden Geese? In other words, is there any state and local government left within the United States that you guys didn't get your hooks into--and then bleed dry?

Not for nothing, this blog has no particular axe to grind with Wall Street. Nor with the people who work there, the vast majority of which are not clueless plutocrats, craven nepotists, corporate felons--or political hires like Lazio--but rather secretaries, accountants, mid-level systems analysts, even mathematicians and software engineers--plus a huge supporting network of caterers, car services, office supply vendors, temp services, messenger services. And since these folks' taxes built our kids' schools, we should be highly grateful that it's all embedded in our state and our city, and not in say, Boston.  

However, this blog does has an axe to grind with petulantly hypocritical gubernatorial candidates who hurl proverbial stones from their non-proverbial glass investment banks.  On second thought,  'dysfunctionally operative mirror' might be better metaphor for Lazio and his newest boilershop operation for cashing-in on another patch of government--this time an election. After spending years in an industry that literally bled-out places like Springfield MA and Birmingham AL, and a whole host of other places across the country.  And now this guy thinks he should be governor because of this. Kinda like how this guy should be running the Romanian Red Cross.

But what's even more hideously outrageous about Lazio's boilerplate that New York is the worst state in the US that now needs him, is that he and his company sucked everything they could out of the "nationally embarrassed" state of New York along with any number of places within the state, like Nassau County.  

Somebody needs to ask Lazio just how stupid he really thinks we are. 

Turnstiles of the Rich and Famous

Everybody's got their own rich-and-famous posterboy New Yorker who's left the state and moved to Florida.  For some like Tom Golisano, it's Tom Golisano.  For others like the Empire Center, it's probably Rush Limbaugh. 

For NGD, our guy is Joey Calco, who took his skills, talent and earnings to Florida. This guy was in such a hurry to quit paying taxes here, he even changed his name to Joey Milano. 

And here's small business owner Joey on the job in the Sunshine State:

Hey, maybe Steve Pigeon and Tom Golisano can lure Joey back to New York with a fat job at Responsible New York. As an in-house calzone-maker/receptionist. Maybe even let Joey loose on the Erie County Board of Elections. If not, Joey can get a spot as a speechwriter for Chris Collins--because not even Joey's that much of a freggin' stronzo.

BTW: Here's some very simple math for the hysterically disingenuous folks at the Empire Center and New York Post (no link to Andy Soltis' piece yesterday) who lament the fact that so many low-tax-paying immigrants have found homes in New York--especially in New York City:

D=NY-I

(Detroit = New York - Immigrants.)

Reality Bites Update

This week this blog examines another quick-fix canard: That pension fund boards like California's are inherently superior to solely administered pension funds like New York's.

And to ascertain how much and how so--just like with initiative and referendum, term limits and tax caps--California again leads the way. So the next time the New York Post writes that New York's morphing into California, bloggers like NGD get to write that as long as we stay away from term limits, tax caps, referendum-on-demand--and now pension boards--New York should be OK.

At any rate, here's what the Wall Street Journal writes last week on California's pension fund management by board:

America's largest public-pension fund, Calpers, revealed that a former board member had reaped more than $50 million in fees for arranging investments that could saddle state taxpayers with hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.

The disclosure deepens concerns that alleged conflicts of interest are undermining state retirement funds.

The California Public Employees' Retirement System said it is launching a "special review" into payments by money managers -- including billionaire Leon Black's Apollo Management LP -- to firms including Arvco Financial Ventures LLC. Arvco is headed by Al Villalobos, who served on Calpers's board from 1993 to 1995.

To think that this problem with pension fund boards is somehow limited to California is equally unaware. Or even confined to pay-to-play issues.

The question New Yorkers should as themselves is this: Has the current state comptroller has been anything other than a model of probity and rectitude in administering New York's common retirement fund?

No, I didn't think so. 

But if he has--or does a crappy investing job--we get to vote him the hell out of office next year.

Look, just because Eliot Spitzer was a spittle-spewing lunatic doesn't mean some new kind of dispersed decision-making contraption should now run the state.

The problem with Spitzer and Hevesi is/was the person in the office and not the office itself.

Reality Bites

Reality bites. Again.  As in jumping up and biting in the ass of those making a living out of New York dying.

NGD has done this kind of thing before, so this is more or less an update. This blog would like to say that it doesn't enjoy rubbing this crowd's nose in what has become a constant and relentless repudiation of their self-serving world view that New York is the most dysfunctional political entity in the US. Or the worst the worst state in the US to live.  (Or that authentic, hard-core political dysfunction like this simply doesn't exist.  At least not for the AP.)

Here's a very interesting item from 'dysfunctional' California:

The chief justice of the California Supreme Court criticized the state's reliance on the referendum process Saturday, saying it has "rendered our state government dysfunctional."

The widespread use of referendums to change state laws and constitutions hampers legislators, gives special interests too much power and burdens the judicial branch, Chief Justice Ronald M. George said in a speech delivered in Cambridge, Mass.

"The court over which I preside frequently is called upon to resolve legal challenges to voter initiatives," George said. "Needless to say, we incur the displeasure of the voting public when, in the course of performing our constitutional duties as judges, we are compelled to invalidate such a measure."

Wow. Sure sounds like more-direct-democracy isn't working out for the Golden State. Here's a thought: The next time somebody like Rudy Giuliani, Rick Lazio or the Brennan Center starts with their specious power-to-the-people shtick, ask them how they'd solve California's evident conundrum with initiative and referendum gone wild. Then ask them about how initiative and referendum in conjunction with term limits and property tax caps in California have compelled that state to navigate the Great Recession by descending into a Hobbsian state of political nature. All because, basically, they get to rewrite the state's constitution whenever they feel like it out in California.  Just like the 'reformers' around here want to do.

What should be the scary part--but won't be-- to New York's reformers is that there's no way for California to walk itself back from all this. The fact is, a lot of people--just like the aforementioned chief justice--argue that it is precisely things like I&R, term limits and tax caps that have torn the achilles heel off a functioning state government.  

Not for nothing, the state's investors sure seem to know that I&R, term limits and tax caps have little in common with a stable and functioning state government.

The bottom line is that there's no such thing as tooth fairies, free lunches or shrink-wrapped reform packages that miraculously 'fix' local and state governments just as soon as the instructions are downloaded.  The world just doesn't work that way. 

But on the subject of asking big experts small questions, why not ask itinerant-billionaire Tom Golisano about this finding from Harris:

New York City tops the list of cities that people would most like to live in or near, followed by Denver and San Francisco.

These are some of the results of The Harris Poll^®of 2,498 U.S. adults surveyed online between August 10 and 18, 2009 by Harris Interactive^®.

The Harris Poll has asked these questions almost every year since 1997. Florida topped the list of the most popular states every year from 1997 to 2001. California jumped to the number one position in 2002 and has remained there ever since.

After California and Florida, the states where the largest number of Americans would like to live are Hawaii (#3), Texas (#4), and Colorado (#5). Next came three states tied for 6^th place: Arizona, North Carolina and Washington state.

Filling out the rest of the top 15 states are Tennessee (#9), Oregon (#10), New York (#11), South Carolina and Massachusetts (both equal #12), Georgia (#14), and Montana (#15).

New York City is numero uno and New York state is number 11.  How's this happen when New York City's the highest taxed and regulated entity in the land, antagonistic to small business and small children? And New York State just got through overlaying a millionaires tax upon a statewide grid of extortionate property taxes, crumbling infrastructure and decimated upstate regions? 

Hmm. Sound like a question for EJ McMahon of the New York Post.  Maybe EJ can explain all this with less than 60,000 words of walk-back.  Kind of like how the New York Post walk-backed New York from being singularly lousy (unlike 'good' California)--to plain-vanilla lousy, as in danger of becoming the next (now singularly lousy) California.

Or maybe the people Harris polled aren't hip to the Brennan Center, Tom Golisano or the New York Post editorial page? Or maybe they just don't count because they're not billionaires like Golisano?

Ultimately, there's two possibilities here. Either these professional 'New York sucks' people are opportunistic, intellectually-depraved jerks or recalcitrant, socially-promoted meatheads.  (Is it possible to be both?)

 

The Liar, The Lunatic, and The Idiot

Betsy McCaughey, Greg Ball and Jimmy Tedisco would really do Dostoevsky proud.  Better yet, it's some kind of collective GOP incarnation of Waiting for Godot. Except that today, instead of two, we've got these three awaiting their GOP savior to deliver them from the roadside of abject irrelevance.

So what do they talk about as they wait?

The Liar.

In today's New York Post we can read an op-ed from Betsy McCaughey, George Pataki's former Lt. Governor and one-time Democratic gubernatorial candidate (the NY Post doesn't tell us that in her blurb. But maybe that's because her name was Betsy McCaughey-Ross at the time.)  It's called "The 'Kill Granny' Bill."  This thing is so feckless and contrived, I'm not even going to link to it. But here's how it ends:

In any case, the health-reformers' plan to cut spending on patients 65 and older won't simply reduce end-of-life care, it will also eliminate care for patients who are perfectly capable of surviving their illness and going on with life.

Of course, McCaughey's incandescent logic is the same that supplying toilet paper to the Pentagon's restrooms leads to nuclear annihilation.

The Lunatic.

His name is Greg Ball.  In these parts we call him "Ball Boy." Or "Ball Boy from Hell." This is because he stalks old girlfriends and political opponents, gets butchered goats delivered to his front lawn, and like Betsy, makes ridiculously grandstanding statements on any manner of subject. And fortunately or unfortunately, the proverbial blind, toothless watchdog has again been summoned from its slumber.

The Idiot. (Or as they say on the street, "a real chooch.")

Like McCaughey and Ball, Tedisco will say or do anything to get a rise from a town hall meeting or just see his name in print. Anything. Anything all.  Today, it happens to be another blog project.

Fortunately for Democrats everywhere, Darwin's Law is still in effect and Jimbo's blogging daze are numbered.  Kinda like Tedisco's Take. Affectionately known to NGD readers as Tedisco's Toke. Remember that brain-fart blog of Jimbo's?  The one where Jimbo adamantly refused to answer email and censured all comments.  The same one that was last updated in January?

This raises an interesting question: Will the Times Union also censor user comments to Jimbo's posts?  We hope not. We hope not because we're guessing Jimbo can't handle two way traffic. And that he'll spontaneously combust.

And speaking of blogs and comments, boy, would we ever like to show you some of the comments Jimbo and/or his staffers posted in our comments section. 

But that's all irrelevant now that Jimbo's dumb mouth and dumber moves (plus karma) put him on the bottom rung of a broken step ladder he and his using to scale the Empire State Building.

Oops. Looks like another rung just busted.  The reason this guy's leaving the Tedisco-engineered permanent minority?

"The Republican Party in the Assembly stood for nothing."

All The President's Baggage (Part II)

So, what to make of President Obama's public humiliation of David Paterson? Doesn't dial up the governor a week or so ago when he met with Mike Bloomberg in lower Manhattan. Meets the governor on the tarmac of the Albany Airport, gives him nothing but air, then puts the governor nine cars behind him in the motorcade ride through the governor's state. Then at the site of the speech, he uninvites the governor from his VIP reception with Andrew Cuomo, Tom DiNapoli and others. Then, during his speech he looks like he just lost a contact when barely acknowledging the governor--before heaping the praise on Cuomo. 

Then these indignities get memorialized in photos running on the covers of the New York Times, Daily News, and New York Post (among others) featuring the governor with a look of shock and abject awareness on his face. 

So the question is: What did the governor pull to precipitate this treatment from the most powerful man in the world?  I say "pull" because the president doesn't even treat Joe Wilson this badly.

Here's some suspects:

Did Obama want to make a high-profile example of Paterson after he threw the president into his cockamamie screed about white people out to get him and Dominic Carter's the black orchestrator? Is Team Obama that sensitive on that subject that they made a public example of tearing Paterson into little pieces of scrap in hope of permanently shutting down the race rant spigot from other Democrats?  Therein also shutting down any direct connection whatsoever between himself and the not-well-thought-out racial outbursts from Paterson Nation; made manifest again last week with Michelle Paterson remarking that the president should support her husband because he's black. And the president's black and presumably should not support Andrew Cuomo because he's white.

Did Paterson's staff simply shit the bed again? As in maliciously and incompetently--either or both-- leaking Obama's confidential overtures to the Times? Similar to what Team Paterson did with Caroline Kennedy and her "financial issues," and in so doing publicly humiliating the president, like they had Kennedy? Stunningly incognizant of the fact that you can't just can't game presidents of the United States and expect to get away with it?

Did Paterson passively defy Obama?  As in: "Um...you can tell the president that I think to address his request...what I'm trying to say here is that if one thinks about all the missed opportunities in life then those opportunities are missed only if one thinks about them from a positive perspective. So to answer the president's request, I'd say, 'see what I mean?'" And then just change his mind after a day or two because that's what he does when his staff--who's only future is with Paterson--convinces him that the world's out to get them?

Did Paterson passive-aggressively defy Obama? Day One: "Yes, tell the president, he is right about my poll numbers." Then, Day Two: "Somebody get me some MSM on the phone, what the president is doing to me is completely outrageous and alarming and unprecedented and uncalled for...I'm running."  Sincerely incognizant of the fact that you can't just happen to change your mind with the president of the United States? And then not tell him, so as to avoid confrontation--and then drill him as a consequence of changing his mind?

Did Paterson sit, nod and smile at Obama's emissary, Patrick Gaspard, then as soon as Gaspard splits, the governor starts speed dialing the MSM on this 'confidential' conversation coming from the White House?  And before long, the entire world knows, and then newspaper editorial boards, Paterson's friends and Obama's enemies start teeing off on Obama as a heavy-handed control freak.  In other words, Team Paterson--in their signature roundabout style--goes to battle with Team Obama.  And with the usual signature-roundabout-style-Team- Paterson result: Public humiliation a couple days later.  Then eventually everybody involved with Team Paterson gets blown up too.

Is it possible that the governor did all of these things? And then tried to fix it all at the 11th hour on the tarmac of the Albany Airport? 

On the other hand, if anyone can possibly pull all these things off--simultaneously--it would be the governor.

All The President's Baggage (Part I)

As the world now knows, President Obama over the weekend lowered the boom on David Paterson, the governor of New York. And that as such, there's all sorts of racial undercurrents to be established, expounded, embellished, exploited and then ground into fine particulate dust.

I don't even know what the word 'racist' means, and thus no expert at identifying racists, but that some of the president's loudest detractors appear to be congenitally obsessed with the fact that he's black is pretty clear. Just go to any political blog and read some comments.  Or look at some of the pictures from the recent Tea Party march on Washington. 

It's also clear that there exists another loud group of people obsessed with the race of those obsessed with the race of the president--and thus say, do and think equally bizarre and irrational things. Like one mouse chasing the other in a treadmill, but going in different directions. Neither of these groups appear able to get beyond the president's race, or my race, or your race.  Most are not cogent, and many not lucid. Unfortunately, race appears to have consumed their minds and souls.

I try not use the word 'obsessed' non-clinically. I even looked up its definition and found it's all centered on "intrusive thoughts" and "repeated behaviors." As in: 'I need to go to Home Depot to pick up a gallon of Rouge Road Ranch deck stain, but the president of the US is black.  And maybe a racist himself. And not even an American citizen [cascading intrusive thoughts], so instead of staining the deck, I'm gonna watch Glenn Beck trash that other black jerk, Van Jones.' Or: 'The US is in the process of reconfiguring its entire health care system, but some of those white people protesting in Washington might be racists [intrusive thought], so instead of reading the health bill, let me trash these white jerks on Keith Olbermann'. 

See, it's all about intrusive thoughts and repeated behavior.  Who knew it was this simple, right?

The president, of course, knows all this.  And also knows that constructing any type of narrative around this for his--or one's own (like Paterson)--benefit is a deeply dangerous and non-productive endeavor, and thus keeps his mouth shut. He's not about to jump into the Snake Pit with these people.  He's smart like that. He not only ignores their best thinking, but spurns it. Time and again. But that's why he's president, and his helpers aren't. In fact, none of his helpers even work for him.  But they've nonetheless managed to become his burden. 

The president knows this is all dangerously simpleminded because there is no endgame for him here--except sagging poll numbers and a premature end for his presidency. Because the president understands that the game has already been played, and that he won. And also that it's not good to get mixed up with broad-stroking anyone who just voted for him with a callow, played-out and counter-productive pejorative. This is probably because labeling anyone as racist--especially by dint of a couple thousand white people on the Washington Mall, or because of some congressional loudmouth--is a big non-vote-getter. 

More precisely, labeling the Tea Party protesters as ipso facto racist because of the unanimity of white faces, may be a little off-putting to white voters from say, Davenport, Iowa or Franconia Notch, New Hampshire--both lily white states that Obama took and will need in 2012. Even to those white voters who think the enraptured Tea Party people have completely lost their noodles, it still doesn't work for the president. This is because nobody holds a monopoly on thin racial skin or racial ennui. Here's the president's fear made manifest:

“As far as African-Americans are concerned, we think most of it is,” said Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), when asked in an interview in between sessions how much of the more extreme anger at Obama is based upon his race. “And we think it’s very unfortunate. We as African-American people of course are very sensitive to it.”

I don't even know where to begin with this. (Although I did read a columnist the other day who wrote that Johnson's quantum mechanics makes him King of the Jews.) But here's how Johnson's world view works out: Let's say Eric Holder's investigation of the CIA--a very, very big and controversial thing--vehemently upsets the people in Davenport and Franconia Notch, so let's ensure it becomes a wedge issue by not only calling them racists for hating Holder's investigation, but also that because of their opposition, every black person thinks they're racists too, (even the president, since Johnson speaks for all black people). 

Great strategy. Kind of like the guy who drives his new car off the lot with the salesman and dealership owner barking at him, "By the way, we think you're a real asshole if you ever complain about the stereo or even think about not buying your next car from us--because we're sensitive about our kids starving." 

People like Johnson would kill the president via a thousand cuts if he doesn't stop them.

The other thing the president knows is that the Conservative obsessives--Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, et al.--collectively could not prevent him from being elected and thus don't possess the power to prevent him from being successful or getting reelected. You don't need a calculator to figure out that the Conservative noise beast, to be effective, needs to be fed a steady diet of stupid thought, act and speech. Which the president's helpers are in the process of supplying.

Here's Exhibit B: It's called Getting the Media to Track Down the White Racist Amongst Us:

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said that it's not enough for African-Americans to levy allegations of racism against the right-leaning protesters, and that the media must look into their views.

"I want those people talked to; I want them interviewed," Waters told the liberal Bill Press Radio show in a podcast. "I want journalists to be all over those rallies and the marches with the birthers and the teabaggers."

The "birthers and the teabaggers," she says. Nice. Hey, maybe Waters will send her journalists after me for implying that she's a forensically clueless liability for the president.

The unfortunate thing is that I didn't go out looking for these type sound bites, they found me, like they're finding most people. And I can't even remember the last time I watched FNC (although I did channel surf by Glenn Beck the other night because I thought I might catch this wing-ding non-contemporaneously sobbing again)--so they're not coming from Fox.

This means that people like Mad Max are getting into the Moderate bloodstream.  And thus present a problem for the president with the Moderate voters who elected him.

"He is my soldier, I am going to get him."

"You think you're having a bad day.  I used to think I was having a bad day too.  But you're not really having a bad day unless you're getting mortared first thing in the morning."

That was communicated to me by an NSA guy working in Iraq.  Our people over there--men and women--are daily making sacrifices that are virtually incomprehensible to most of us. Here's one such sacrifice.  It was made by a Fort Drum, NY soldier who yesterday received a posthumous Medal of Honor from President Obama:

Monti died during a firefight with the Taliban in Gowardesh, Afghanistan, in June 2006. The 30-year-old Monti showed "conspicuous gallantry," the White House declared when announcing he would win the Medal of Honor for his role in a fight along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Monti's 16-man patrol had been scouting ahead of a larger offensive against the Taliban. A helicopter deployed to resupply the patrol blew their cover; Taliban fighters converged, and Monti called for backup.

One of his men, Pvt. Brian Bradbury, was shot during the encounter. Monti, who enlisted at age 17, twice left cover and ran into the open under intense enemy fire to retrieve the wounded soldier.

Monti "did something no amount of training can instill," Obama said. He quoted Monti as saying, "he is my soldier, I am going to get him."

On Monti's third attempt, he was struck by a grenade and died on the field.

If he could, how do you think Monti would respond to someone telling him that the guy giving him the medal is "Hitler" and the country he just lost his life for is no better than Nazi Germany? Or how about telling that to Monti's parents?

It's kind of disgusting if you think about it for a few seconds.

On the other hand, would a "wise Latina" have done the same thing as Sgt. Monti, or even Pvt. Bradbury?

The New York Times Does Next Gen Dems

Word on the street is that the New York Times (we won't name names, although we got 'em) is looking to identify NGD. Again. Sigh. We also know who's on their short suspect list and they're not only barking up the wrong tree, but aren''t even in the right forest. So we thought we'd help them out and just write their NGD hit piece for them. 

Vitriolic Blog Finds Niche Brokering in Human Misery

In the shadowy nether world of Internet political blogging--where intrigue meets invective and rancid calumny is de rigeur--one apocryphal New York blog stands ominously and perniciously alone.  Constructed, composed and cosseted in both mystery and malice, the blog calling itself 'Next Gen Dems'-- or simply 'NGD' in attenuated Internet parlance--has found a small but significant following defending some powerful politicians and their causes and airing multi-dimensional grievances with the so-called "mainstream media," pouncing on what it perceives as shoddy journalism and imbecilic editorialization while categorically dismissing the entire New York Times opinion page staff as "...intellectually-pasteurized cadavers. But with laptops and air cards."

Spewing staccato derision like smoke-stack particulate into an acrid November gale, the blog has characterized two-time gubernatorial aspirant B. Thomas Golisano as a "dumb-dog billionaire," and strongly suggests that Mr. Golisano--the financial architect of this summer's State Senate coup--is a power-mad, Viagra-and-Scotch-inebriated opportunist.  Nor has the blog been hesitant to employ inflammatory racial objectification in pursuit of its political ends, once referring to B. Steven Pigeon--Mr. Golisano's protege and now counsel to Senate Majority leader B. Pedro Espada--as a political "torch monkey," and deriding Mr. Pigeon's protege, Mr. B. Gary Parenti, as a "tool in the 'hood."

Journalists have fared no better.  The blog has christened William Hammond, a prominent columnist for some other newspaper, as 'Mr. Bill' after the bungling, self-destructing character of Saturday Night Live fame. Often mocking Mr. Hammond's inveterate penchant for top-heavy metaphor and obdurately churlish writing style, the blog once stated that enduring Mr. Hammond's histrionic syntax is tantamount to "getting waterboarded" by someone "under the influence of habitually inhaled paint thinner."

"Bloggers like this have upended the democratic process from Uruguay to East Timor, and have no place in the civilized world,"  said Dr. Jack M. Auff, the Saul Alinsky professor of political communication at the Columbia University School of Journalism. "They're completely out of control," Professor Auff continued, voice quivering with anxiety.  "These people simply write whatever they feel like writing, but worse still, write whatever they're thinking they're feeling. There's no filter here and that's a very dangerous thing for any democracy. People are reading this stuff and then getting a perverted conceptualization of what we determine to be objective fact. In class, I simply refer to bloggers as 'scum.' The two terms are virtually interchangeable," added Dr. Auff, face glistening with cautionary perspiration.

Even within the so-called blogsphere, Next Gen Dems' scorched-pixel style has made few friends and alienated natural allies.  "They came on the scene out of nowhere and basically told us that we better stop googlebombing unprogressive, old-school, suckass Democrats like Shelly...or else," said another New York blogger with the screen name of 'Biscotti.' "Who are they to dictate what Democrats we can or can't intimidate or googlebomb? When I said this is our constitutional right and standard Netroots and Daily Kos protocol, they ignored me and then called me a 'self-licking ice cream cone' and told me to get back to playing Lord of the Flies with my little friends.  I actually printed out that post just in case you don't believe me. It got so bad that I felt I had to go out and get this tattoo. Look at how it reads: 'NGD Sucks!' Take it from me, these people are hurtful--very hurtful. And they need to be stopped before they can do any more more damage to people like me."

Cash for Clunkers

Did everybody connected to the Senate Democratic Majority "leadership" take the short bus to school as kids? 

Today's Exhibit is the same as Yesterday's Exhibit: The Senate hires more people and pays them a boatload for doing things they can't, won't, or shouldn't be doing.

Like Pedro Espada who hires at $150K, the right-hand of the guy who says he wants to subvert, harass, and destroy politically the most powerful Democrat in the state--who also happens to work down the hall in a Democratically-controlled fortress. I speak, of course, of Shelly Silver and the Assembly Democrats.

But think about this one for a minute. What kind of idiots foment and conceptualize--what's for all intents and purposes--a civil war like this? It's like McHale's Navy attacking Nimitz' Seventh Fleet. At high noon. After sending him an announcement. While taking on water from a Japanese torpedo.

And what kind of leadership acquiesces to this lunacy? Or worse still, pays a roster of people north of $150K for concepts like this? Kinda like July's Brainiac of the Month. That'd be when Senate Counsel wanted to sue Silver over Frank Padavan's walkabout.  They must think Silver's their voodoo doll they get to stick with pins whenever they shit the bed.

Keep in mind that Tom Golisano's threat--via the Senate Majority leadership--to take out Silver is not rumor nor conjecture nor conspiracy theory--it's public fact. It's fact because Golisano tells it to the world.  And then Golisano (again, publicly) institutionalizes the threat by ordering Espada to hire his consigliere Steve Pigeon to draft a war plan. Military Science for Complete Idiots says Golisano, Pigeon and Espada are planning to go to war. And that's because they are planning to go to war.  Look, if somebody tells you he wants to kill you, it's best to assume he does.  Especially if the guy really believes he gets to kill people because he's a billionaire. And because he's God. Because only Gods can make their own infomercials in marginal media markets with dorky strawmen.

And Silver's supposed to work cooperatively with this rats nest?

Could somebody please drop a comment on how all this is supposed to work, because I just can't figure it out. Really, I mean it.

It's probably a very good thing for Golisano, Pigeon, Espada and Carl Kruger that they're such rapacious and incompetent buffoons. Actually it's the only thing they've got going for them, else Silver would have to give them more than a second's notice and then do upon them what they would him.

But what makes this situation ridiculously ironic is that the Senate Democrats are going after Assembly Democrats with staff who were bounced out of the Assembly. But who're now getting paid double by the Senate for their manifest talent--like forging things, tormenting subordinates, playing aggrieved, playing dead and playing suicidal strategist.

And just like everything else the Senate Democratic conference has mutilated this year, this A-Team of theirs will blow up in their faces. There's simply no way it can't.  It's like throwing Gumby and Pokey into the cockpit of an F-16. 

The Senate Democrats best and only hope is that the Working Families Party grabs control of their entire reelection apparatus.  Because left to their own devices, these people are pretty much finished. And with Golisano hovering over them like the Talisman of Certain Failure, it's a near foregone conclusion.

Think about what they're now mixed up with. They can't even outsmart Joe Mondello. And yeah, if Pigeon and Golisano are involved with this, that means Espada's involved with this.  And that means the Senate Democratic leadership and its top staff members are involved with botching up the selection of the State GOP chair. 

So we're guessing that Shelly Mayer (Senate Counsel and A-Team Legislative Impresario) is hard at work figuring out how to sue Shelly Silver about all this.

DaBrinker Drops DaBomb on WNY Rats Nest

Sounds like he's got somebody on the inside out there in the Buffalo area.  Brinker writes:

Why would Henry Wojtaszek, The Niagara county Republican Chair and contender for State Republican Party Chair, recently give campaign funds to a Democrat. Like the old saying goes the Devil is in the details. 

Here's why, Henry Wojtaszek directed and personally gave money to Democratic candidate Kathryn Mazierski, who just so happened to be the campaign manager for Gary Parenti’s failed primary challenge against Democrat Assemblywoman Francine DelMonte. A race that was funded and NOT SO mastermind by Steve Pigeon   

Gary Parenti has been a Steve Pigeon lackey/political hack for nearly 10 years. He like Steve Pigeon and his friends including Pedro Espada tend to always have legal problems.  And as many of you know Steve Pigeon is the political advisor to Tom Golisano and counsel to the New State Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada, who by the way is now facing even more legal problems, this time tax evasion.

Now here’s where this gets interesting.  In Niagara County  when it comes to the republican party the major player is State Senator George Maziarz. Maziarz was one of the key players in organizing the attempted Coup of the State Senate. Maziarz brought together Dean Skelos (Republican), Steve Pigeon (Hired Mersinary), Pedro Espada (Ethically/legally Challenged) and Tom Golisano (I thought you moved to FLorida).        

All that just to say that Henry Wojtaszek takes his cues from the Pigeon/Golisano/Espada team and State Senator George Maziarz.  Clearly 5 Men that care only about Power and who are willing to do, say, trick, cheat and steal to accomplish their goals! 

We'll have something to add along these lines later in the week.

Race To The Finish Line

Our governor says the media doesn't like him because he's black, like the president.  The president says speak for yourself. A state senator says it's not that Paterson's black, but blind.  Nonetheless, people--including some allies--still want the governor gone.

Somewhere in all this is a silver lining in search of a cloud.

It's About Time

...that somebody stood up to the clowns populating these town hall meetings on Obama's health care reform.

The NY Post writes:

Sharp-tongued Rep. Barney Frank ridiculed one of his constituents at a heated town-hall meeting in his home state of Massachusetts when a woman compared President Obama's health plan to the Nazis.

"On what planet do you spend most of your time?" Democrat Frank asked the woman, who asked a question while holding a picture of Obama with a drawing of a Hitler-style mustache.

"You stand there with a picture of the president defaced to look like Hitler and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis," said Frank, who is Jewish.

"Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with the dining-room table. I have no interest in doing it."

Frank continued, "It is a tribute to the First Amendment that this sort of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated."

The woman, who was attending a Frank event at a senior center in the town of Dartmouth on Tuesday, had said the Obama plan would put some people's lives at risk.

"Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy . . . why are you supporting it?" she asked.

I can virtually guarantee that these people have never heard the words 'Treblinka' or 'Buchenwald' or 'Bergin-Belsen.' Because if they had, they would never make these stunningly ignorant, inflammatory, and ahistorical statements.

Or realize that Nazi's would have exterminated Frank twice: once for being Jewish and again for being gay. And then them, for polluting the Arian gene pool with acute mental illness.

Maybe the ADL should hand out Heinrich Himmler palm cards and this map to these dopes before they decide to open their mouths. Kind of like having the VFW distribute Iwo Jima palm cards at the next Code Pink lunathon.

Golisano and Espada: Together Forever (Again)

The Albany Times-Union today tells us that Tom Golisano's guys--that'd be Pedro Espada and Steve Pigeon--have gone on another hiring spree. The paper writes:

As Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. fended off scrutiny over his son's short-lived Senate job, the chamber's Democrat leaders authorized $350,000 in pay raises and new hires for their new majority leader.

The new hires include employees of Soundview Health Care Network, the Bronx nonprofit Espada founded and runs, as well as the son of a former Soundview executive who pleaded guilty to funneling state dollars to Espada's campaign.

Also today, The New York Post editorial board writes on our post yesterday regarding Tom Golisano's infantile infomercial threatening Shelly Silver:

But Golisano's credibility here is, shall we say, lacking.

The veteran of three failed campaigns for governor, he most recently instigated the Senate coup that had both parties bidding for the services of serial sleaze and now-Majority Leader Pedro Espada.

Now he proposes to do the same in the Assembly?

Thanks, but we'll stick with Shelly.

And the Senate chaos was only Golisano's latest trick: Last year -- in a blatant attempt to stay relevant -- he threw his money behind Democrats in their quest to re-take the Senate.

Afterward, shockedthat the Dems he put in office would raise his taxes, he changed his legal residence to Florida.

Might we suggest that he stay there? He's done enough to New York already.

Again--and just like Spitzer and Ashlee Dupree--Golisano and Espada will always inhabit the other's profile. 

This clown Golisano is finished but genuinely doesn't know that yet.

Best Laid Plans of Mice and Morons (Updated)

Seems Tom Golisano just opened up his big "offensive" on the New York State Assembly and Speaker Sheldon Silver. And since he can't get any decent media organizations to pick this item up without mentioning Pedro the Partner, Tom went with an infomercial. 

Yup--the Garden Weasel solution.  

But as far as MSM pick-up goes, the only three mentions we could find were his hometown Buffalo News, Liz Benjamin's blog and today's New York Post.  Not exactly a story of the year. But again, the common theme in each of these accounts--and what must be really chewing at Golisano--is that he'll now and forevermore be chained to Pedro Espada and that man's self-aggrandizing and mercenary manipulations of the New York State Senate. And the more Espada keeps on doing such things--like hiring his son and Golisano-agent Steve Pigeon--the more Golisano smells like Espada--and/or vice versa.  Where's Shakespeare when you need him?

For instance, the NY Post today says:

Golisano changed his legal address to Naples, Fla., in May to protest a massive income-tax hike pushed through by Gov. Paterson and the Democrat-controlled Legislature.

That didn't stop him from conspiring with Republicans and two rogue Democrats in a bid to get control of the state Senate.

The failed coup resulted in five weeks of gridlock and a six-figure Senate job for top Golisano operative, Steve Pigeon.

Liz Benjamin of the Daily News yesterday writes:

Golisano's record is 0 for 1 when it comes to trying to influence legislative leadership decisions in Albany.

The transplanted New Yorker (now officially a Florida resident) was involved in the ill-fated June 8 Senate coup. Golisano's upset over then-Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith's poor BlackBerry etiquette spurred him to back renegades Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. and Sen. Hiram Monserrate when they bolted from the Democratic conference.

To this day, Golisano continues to insist the 31-day stalemate that resulted from the coup was worth it because it resulted in what he considered to be much-needed rules changes in the Senate. (It also brought a $150,253-a-year job to his advisor, Steve Pigeon, who is now on Espada Jr.'s payroll).

Then there's this from his hometown cheerleading Buffalo News:

When party leaders ignored campaign and post-election promises, the Rochester-area native helped orchestrate a Republican takeover of the Senate and moved to Florida to protest New York’s high tax rate. The maneuver crippled state government for a month and brought unfavorable publicity to Golisano and his head political adviser, G. Steven Pigeon.

And this is probably as good as it's ever going to get for Golisano.

Then comes this vintage-Golisano coda:

“The media is so harsh and so cynical, it keeps people away,” he said in reference to politics. “Fortunately I have a tough skin.”

Poor Tom. High taxes--and now the bad media--are keeping him in Florida. But he wants us to know he's some kind of hero for standing up to it all.  This guy has some serious messiah issues.

So at the end of the day, the only strategic recourse for Golisano is to do what he does best: Buy things in places like Buffalo NY and then open his big mouth about it.

But wait!  Then there's this bonus from the Syracuse Post-Standard editorial board:

NEWS ITEM: Majority Leader Espada hires Steve Pigeon at $140,000 a year to be his general counsel. Pigeon worked with unelected billionaire Tom Golisano back in June to lure Espada to defect from the Democrats to the Republicans -- a coup that paralyzed state government for five weeks and ended with a counter-coup and Espada's return to the party he had betrayed, crowned with the Senate's top leadership title and all the rewards that office confers.

The paper then calls for an investigation of Golisano and "the whole sordid affair." Read the whole thing.

The best part? Silver's response to it all (to Benjamin):

"I have no concerns about it, and in this country, if you have enough money, you can pay for whatever you want and say whatever you want," Silver told me yesterday, in between swings on an upstate golf course.

"His record will speak for itself. That's all. The public will make a determination whether he's right or wrong."

In other words, "Liz, why would I interfere with a political opponent hell-bent on suicide?"

Pop Quiz For The Brennan Center!

OK, we all know that the Brennan Center is the national authority on state legislatures and their ordinal efficacy.  We know this because they tell this to everybody all the time.  In the spirit of such, we have in our possession a scathing op-ed excoriating a particular state for being terminally effed-up. Now, if the Brennan Center experts can ascertain--without cheating--what particular state is being excoriated below, I'll take back what I compulsively imply: that the Brennan Center doesn't know jack about other states--because if it did, it wouldn't find New York singularly dysfunctional or even uniquely dysfunctional.

Here's the op-ed:

What do you call a budget that isn’t really a budget? Or what do you call a budget bill that isn’t to be taken seriously? And what do you call a budget process shot through with sham, hypocrisy and cynicism?

Phony is one word that comes to mind. Baloney is another. And that largely sums it up. With [Gov. X's] approval of his “bridge” budget, [state X] is now the sole proprietor of a phony-baloney budget.

How we got here is a painful story already too often told. Now into August, state XXX's budget crisis continues with little prospect for an early resolution. The state still has no real budget long after the constitutional deadline has passed and long after other states with far more serious budget problems have passed their own budgets. State XXX now remains only one of three states without a budget.

The fury and frustration now blazing across the state capital compel us to see this sorry situation for what it is. [State X']s budget process is badly broken. Happily, however, this raging crisis also offers a rare opportunity to see just what the problems are and what can be done to fix them.

This is just the beginning of the piece, it goes on, and then some. That it's produced by academia makes it all the more ironic.  [The reader who emailed it to NGD writes: "These guys sound like they want to set up a Brennan ctr branch office."]

On the other hand, I could just be following the Brennan Center template: I want you to take on faith something that may or may not be true or even exist--for which there may or may not be any original or supporting documentation. In other words, I could just be making the whole freggin' thing up--just so I can gratuitously bash the Brennan Center; because that's why people pay me and because I was kind of bored, plus people really get off on it.  And if anybody leaves me a snarky comment pointing out this insouciant stupidity, I'll just ignore it and then delete it (all the while emoting transparency and open-mindedness).

At any rate, should you happen to run into Eric Lane, Laura Seago or Larry Norden at like Starbucks or something, just ask him or her: "Can you please tell me where I can find the phoney-baloney budget process shot through with sham, hypocrisy and cynicism--the fury and frustration of which is blazing across the state?" Then, when Larry, Laura or Eric get that vacant/aggressive glint in his or her eye, and are about to mouth, "New York. Just ask anybody in the street.," tell them that their research and seminal superlative slinging are getting trounced in/by some other state--only you're not really sure which other state that is, or who's doing the trouncing. But it's all true because you read it on some blog somewhere.

Classic New York Times

The Times says:

The people who represent us in government are despicable, corrupt, petty, vile, mean and larcenous idiots who need to be overthrown by wise and virtuous voters with nothing less than a popular insurrection and constitutional colon cleansing.

The people who vote for people who represent us in government are despicable, vile, petty, pathetic, half-witted insurrectionists who really need to have their tongues and tubes tied.

Must be that William Jefferson and Ted Stevens are cut from a better cloth than say, Darrel Aubertine or Richard Brodsky.

Only in Timesland does all this make sense. I'd ask their public editor to walk me through it, but I'm terrified he might.

Moe Slaps Curley, Curley Blames Larry, Moe Slaps Larry

From Ken Lovett of the NY Daily News:

Even on vacation, Gov. Paterson can't avoid political embarrassment.

Paterson, who has spent the last few days in the Hamptons, on Friday amazingly canceled a special election for a Queens Assembly seat just hours after announcing it.

------------------------

Paterson's counsel, Peter Kiernan, signed the proclamation setting the special election date for the governor in error, Shorenstein said.

The governor's counsel is authorized to sign the governor's signature using an automark pen. Paterson's secretary to the governor, Larry Schwartz, also signed the proclamation.

Shorenstein insisted the governor did not approve the measure and asked that it be rescinded once he learned of it.

"This was an announcement that should not have been made," she said.

 

The Curious Case of New York and California

Last week the Austin Statesman reported that a number of high-tech (very well-paying) jobs were headed from the avatar of low-tax, high-growth (and functional) sunbelt supremacy to the high-tax, low-growth (and dysfunctional) hell-holes of Upstate New York and Northern California.

My question for arm-chair economists like EJ McMahon, Tom Golisano, Dean Skelos and Nicole Gelinas is simple: "How come?"

I ask the question partly because I sincerely don't know the answer, other than there's a lot more going on here other than levels of taxation.  The other reason is that I'd enjoy watching these invested ideologues twist, prattle and roll that there isn't.

Pigeon Droppings

To all those folks with an interest in not turning the rest of New York state government into a banana republic administered and governed by a dumbdog billionaire, this just in from today's Buff News:

Political mastermind G. Steven Pigeon, unfazed by accusations that he routinely flouts campaign finance laws, has set up two new political funds to serve his boss in the Bronx.

["Political mastermind," I like that touch.]

The special-interest money and assorted donations flowing into both new funds will be stacked and deposited in Buffalo, Pigeon’s base, by Pigeon’s handpicked treasurer or treasurers.

“You will see us do a lot of things in Buffalo because I live in Buffalo,” said Pigeon, a former chairman of the Erie County Democratic Committee who eats and breathes politics.

He's not just a political mastermind, but an economic engine for WNY too! His pandering is offensively condescending (redundancy intended). I'm thinking WNYers are smarter than Pigeon knows they aren't. Clearly, the guy who wrote this piece, Matt Spina, isn't buying any of it. (Although his editorial board is a entirely different animal.)

Here's a thought: Maybe Pigeon and Golisano can throw some of this new money towards doing a better job of investigating who we are.  And stopping us from scouring Hiram Monserrate's legal defense funding.  And then reading about it (again) in the Huffington Post.