Hayseeds No. 194

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Former Assemblyman Michael Bragman Backing Republican DA. It looks like the former man who tried to challenge Shelly Silver for his speakership is now supporting the Republican candidate for DA out in Syracuse. P'Link

Will Spitzer's First 40 Days Be a Success? Or will it be remembered as a failure? The opinions on his bold strategy are varied to say the least, with many suggesting that his hostility to the legislature will lead to a largely unsuccessful agenda at the end of the day. P'Link

Scott Stringer To Look Into NYC Road Use Fees. The Assembly's only vegetarian wants to get some meaty cars off Manhattan streets by studying the possibility of charging people for driving in Manhattan. Most of us poor Upstaters thoughts they did that already by high parking fines and obscure traffic laws.

Normally paying people to use their roads seems silly as is the New York State Thruway. But we are talking about lower Manhattan. If you want to go to that cesspool of a city, then you should pay. After all, Manhattan is our little cash cow that pays for the rest of the state's 120 billion dollar budget. P'Link

Kingston Gets New Toys for Police. It looks like the Ulster County Sheriff's office is getting lots of new computers for their cars so they can be better linked up with the county's databases. Or something like that. The important thing is that these are new toys to play with! P'Link

Assemblyman Magenarelli and Governor Spitzer. It looks like Governor Spitzer took his fustration out with the State Assembly on Thursday by attacking Assemblyman Magneralli personally during a ralley in Syracuse, raising more then a few eyebrows. P'Link

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Comptroller Tom DiNappoli and Shelly Get Death Threats. It looks like the latest in white powder (not cocaine but anthrax) mania has hit Shelly and DiNappoli by somebody who either doesn't like the choice of comptroller or maybe just wants to make a stupid political statement.

Then again, everybody and their brothers is getting mailed anthrax these days, so the Assembly mail room (well, actually the Office of Generalized Screwups) irradiates all it's mail and irritates all of the members by holding up their overnight packages. So it's not really news like CHILD MOLESTERS aren't really news. P'Link

Spitzer Attacks Bob Reilly and Backs Off on His Rhetoric. It's questionable if our governor is going too far to attack an Assembly marginal on his vote for Comptroller in his home district. He did this to the great Assemblyman Bob Reilly of Colonie, a man who is too nice for anybody too attack.

It's obvious Spitzer gone too far. You don't go after marginals in your own party, particularly if your not planning to primary them. That's called treason. We execute people in our country for doing that if done to our federal government. So that's a big no-no.

That said, the reaction of people to Spitzer doing that has forced him to tone down his rhetoric as you can't piss on all your party's members and expect them to continue to support him.

Of course, Spitzer figures whatever the party (and the Assembly Democrats) thinks of him—the public still thinks Spitzer Rules and the Legislature drools or something like that. It's amazing how misinformed people are about the legislature outside of Albany. P'Link

The Tappen Zee White Elephant Plans Rail/Bus Service. While there has been a lot of talk about doing something about that terrible bridge in New York City that has had serious traffic problem since it opened in the 1960s, they are now talking again about adding mass transit to the bridge as they upgrade it some point in the future—assuming that they can find somebody to finance this project.

See, the problem the State of New York doesn't have the $20 billion or so dollars hanging around in it's back pocket to make bridge replacement a reality. Do you have that kind of money? Could the state borrow it—pretty please. At any rate, it's fun to plan, and it gives lots of planners and engineers jobs to do so. And it doesn't require all that much in the way of fossil fuels to plan and never build. P'Link

John Egan OGS Commissioner Again. The man who was the first Commissioner of the Office of Generalized Screwups, is now re-appointed to that position by Governor Spitzer after having taken lesser jobs under the tough times of Pataki's rein in Albany. I'm sure he's pretty happy to have his old job back.

You have to wonder if he's getting paid less in this position then head of Harriman Campus redevelopment (har-har) and Albany County Airport. But still at $136k a year, it's not a bad way to boost his pension before he finally calls it quits. And he will probably have fun running OGS and getting slammed from all sides who think their legislative office is too hot or cold, or when the aging Empire State Plaza fails in some major way. P'Link

Bruno Gives Silver Roses. That would be really cute, particularly in light of their new honeymoon. Then again, Spitzer got one from Bruno so not to feel left out in the cold. But we know who he really loves these days. P'Link

Assemblyman Jose Rivera Considers Getting an Order of Protection Against Spitzer. While this remark was probably done in jest, it's pretty funny to think that legislator is purty fed up with the governor's harassment of him and other legislators for their votes on the Comptroller. P'Link