The Hayseeds blog, No. 177 for the week starting October 1, 2006.
September 17, 2006
Hayseeds No. 176
October 1, 2006
Hayseeds No. 177
October 8, 2006
Hayseeds No. 177
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It looks like the scandal that is rapidly chewing up Alan Hevesi's campaign by having his wife driven around from time to time by his driver, continues to play out with Hevesi ponying up $82k for the use of the chauffeur and the state car. At the same time, Chris Callaghan is getting a lot of good play out of this, taking the campaign somewhat out of the crapper and back into having a chance of winning.
Saying that evanglical christians would more admentally oppose Clinton running for president then the devil. He now says that was tounge in cheak more then serious policy statement on his opposition to Clinton. Probably so, but I'm sure a lot of people would probably oppose a Hillary presidency, and few people really think it's a possibility in our party.
For those of who you who don't believe Pataki is running for President, it seems that soon will have an office open in Iowa to help out all those New Yorkers who need assistance in that corn growing state, and also to learn more about ethanol or something like that.
It looks like Faso is grumbling about Spitzer ignoring Hevesi's misdeeds who is saying in repute that he has no jursidiction unless the ethics panel brought it to his attention. Isn't it interesting how jursidiction can get in Spitzer's way when need be.
The bill that looks an awful like a bill of attainder prohibiting certain power companies who want to build something like NYRI from using eminent domain will now either have to be signed or vetoed by the governor in the next few days. Should be very interesting to watch.
It looks like Chris Callaghan has found the issue he wants to dig into Alan Hevesi with, and today's his tatics will be to go after him for failing to pay income taxes on the services given to Ms. Hevesi much like Hugh Carey got in trouble for doing many years ago.
They had a big debate at Cornell the other night and they set themselves apart on several issues, such as Faso's support for lie dectors for rape victims, equal pay for women, voodoo economics, his opposition for gay marriage versus Spitzer's support, among other things.
The Press-Republican finally caught on about three days late, that Nichols is officially backing Andy Brockway in the Assembly race. It's their lead story too. News simply isn't as new in the North Country.
Of course, the same can be said about the Quake WQKE Politics report at 5:25 on Saturday. Then again, we only go on the radio once a week, and Saturday will be our first real show. So y'alll better be listening. I keep having to update the script for the show as events keep changing in the great world of politics. The final script will be posted some time on Saturday.
It looks like in Jeanine's latest little problem, she has been caught trying to get Bernard Kerik of the NYPD to bug her husband's boat to find out if he was doing any cheating on him, a violation of the federal wiretapping statue.
Piurro says that this is a private affair and that the federal procecutors have no business probing into family affairs. That claim might have had a lot more merit 30 years ago, but with the modern perspective on domestic violence and the lack of family privacy, the feds are probably on good grounds with this all.
See also this NY Times article on Pirro trying to do damage control, and trying to save her bungled campaign that seems not to have gone right from the start. They are trying to emphasize that it must be the procecutors controlled by a Republican President have gone totally amuck in going after a Republican candidate for Attorney General:
Some advisers to Ms. Pirro, meanwhile, mulled possible options for rebounding from the revelations: Polling voters, especially women, about their views on Ms. Pirro, or filming a new campaign commercial that portrayed her as a victim of an aggressive federal prosecutor in the vein of Kenneth W. Starr.
I think voters will have a hard time buying that, and that repeatingly bringing up the issue will just continue to drag her on down.
It looks like the best thing Hevesi can do is appologize for his mistake in allowing his wife to use a state car for non-state purposes, and move on. That article makes the following points:
Hevesi, in a speech before county leaders, says he'd already been told by the state Ethics Commission three years ago that he would have to reimburse the state for the use of a state employee as a chauffer for his wife. He says it was wrong of him not to have begun paying back the state immediately.
"I am abjectly apologetic," Hevesi said. "It was irresponsible of me... for the Comptroller of the state of New York, it really was inappropriate."
Hevesi says he began using the staff member, a security guard, for the driving duties after he received threats. But he admits that in recent years, the security guard has spent 40% of his time driving Hevesi's wife, who is ill, to and from doctors appointments and doing other errands.
So it's not like he was abusing the driver too much. His wife was sick and couldn't drive, and Hevesi probably was busy at those times. Yet, the ethics panel is pretty clear about reinmbursement, and he should have done that sooner and this wouldn't have become such a scandal for him.
It looks like we are so desprate for blood in our state right now, particularly type O and type A, that Schumer has asked Pataki to allow state employees be given time to donate blood.
It's such an important thing to donate blood when you can. Unfortunately, I can't donate blood until November as I just did on September 11th. It's a relatively quick process, and if you can find time it's certainly worthwhile to do. Many blood centers have very convient hours, you get to eat free cookies and juice, and feel good knowing that your doing the right thing.
It looks like the Chautauqua County District Attorney David Foley will be taking the case to the grand jury to decide if shooting an ATV rider who didn't stop at a check point is a legal action or something to that effect.
