DA Rich McNally picks up TU endorsement

Here is what the Times Union has to say about DA Rich McNally's bid for re-election:

Four years ago, Rensselaer County District Attorney Richard McNally Jr. took over an office plagued with a backlog of cases and an image problem. It needed, as he puts it, a “sea change.”

Mr. McNally, a Democrat, has taken steps to do just that. He deserves another term to keep getting the job done.

His Republican opponent, Joel Abelov, a former assistant district attorney, claims he can do better. He says the conviction rate is too low and questions the changes Mr. McNally has made.

Among their more substantive differences, Mr. Abelov disagrees with Mr. McNally’s willingness to plea bargain many felony cases down to misdemeanors. Mr. Abelove’s hard-line position makes for a good muscular law-and-order message, but doesn’t reflect the job’s reality. Plea bargaining is a common and necessary practice in our justice system.

Without pleas, courts would be clogged, cases would sometimes go to trial with insufficient evidence and the valuable work prosecutors do in sorting criminals from those who might deserve a break would be lost. Prosecutors would be unable to focus their limited resources on the cases that matter most.

Mr. McNally’s approach has helped cut a case backlog in half. And, he requires that every plea bargain that involves a conviction include a DNA sample, which can be checked against unsolved crimes.

He has also taken a smarter, more compassionate approach in domestic violence cases, striving to keep victims out of court when possible.

Mr. McNally has taken a more enlightened yet practical approach to managing the office, too. He stripped away remnants of a caste system that had various bureau chiefs doing varying degrees of work and which relegated women to one large office while men had offices of their own. Mr. Abelove faults him for eliminating chiefs; we believe it reflects the realities of running an office in tight fiscal times.

We are also concerned that Mr. Abelove spent much of his career under Mr. McNally’s predecessors, Patricia DeAngelis, whose re-election prospects were so dismal she didn’t seek another term, and Ken Bruno, who publicly said the six-figure salary wasn’t good enough. It’s telling that Mr. Abelove faults Mr. McNally for the cost of using special prosecutors to appropriately remove himself from cases involving other Democrats, yet finds no fault with Ms. DeAngelis, a Republican who apparently saw no conflict in seeking to prosecute the county’s Democratic chairman.

While we can’t expect conflicts to never arise, we can expect public officials, especially those with the power of a district attorney, to see them when they do.

Guest Post - Progress in the Town of Nassau

by Nassau Town Chairman Mark Berger 

For the last six years, Democrats have contributed greatly to Nassau. With Ray Seney leading, he and Michael Roland and Sue Hains spurred the development of the comprehensive plan and updated zoning laws, initiated open government policies, took the junk yard to court and won, helped move the cleanup of the Dewey Loeffel Toxic Waste Site from the DEC to the EPA, worked with CEO to bring a comprehensive day care center to our area, oversaw the budget, and opened town government to all civic minded individuals.

Democrats and independents came forward and joined with Republicans to create and serve on the Natural Resources Committee, the Comprehensive Planning and Zoning Committee, the Website and Broadband Committee and presently many of those citizens still serve on these committees as well as the Zoning Board and Planning Board.

If you want this forward thinking representation to continue, electing our candidates is essential. Ray Seney has given his all to our town -- first as Supervisor and now as Councilman; he comes to meetings prepared and asks the questions that need to be asked. Ray is running for re-election, we have to keep him on the Town Council.

Guy Forte has stepped forward and is wants to move ahead with the initiatives outlined in the 2011 Comprehensive Plan and to work with both the Town and the Village of Nassau to figure out ways that mutual cooperation will work to save money and still provide quality services for all townspeople. Let’s get Guy elected to the board.

Along with Donna Ortgies, our town clerk candidates, and Marcelle Gadreault, our candidate for tax collector, all of our candidates are completely independent. They have no other overlapping loyalties. Decisions of our office holders are theirs alone. They are seeking office in order to serve the town and for no other reason.

Remind your friends that on Tuesday, November 8, the future of Nassau will be decided. The progress we have made is because we have had our candidates serve on the Town Council. A five-to-nothing Republican Town Council will be at best a status quo council.

We need your support. Send us a contribution. Help us stuff envelopes. Anything you do, allows us to do more.

Thanks for listening,

Mark

Town of Nassau Democratic Committee, PO Box 237, East Nassau, 12062: Where your donations lead to good government.

Democracy for the Win

Congratulations to Charlie Smith and the people of North Greenbush who saw through the Republican attempt to deny them choice by trying to run Spain on all lines.

CB Smith prevailed in the primary and will have the Democratic line for the up-coming general election in November.

Congratulations CB!

NY-20: Gibson stumbles on FEMA 'offsets'

NY-20:-Gibson-stumbles-on-FEMA-offsets   Guest Post: Daily Kos' devtob.


Tea party Republican Chris Gibson, NY-20, represents a far-flung district that was hard-hit by Irene in every one of its 10 counties.
Thousands of his constituents still do not have power, and several major roads and bridges were washed away and are still closed.
Like a professional pol, rookie Gibson was out there getting free media and expressing his concern:

My office is working with the Cuomo administration to ensure we make the strongest case for FEMA assistance and I’m encouraged today to be with the governor and see his priorities, that he’s put on this. This is going to take our very best effort – the federal, state and county level — going forward.

But, like his tea party Republican neighbor to the south, Gibson has a Boehner/Cantor string attached to his support of effective FEMA support for his stricken constituents.
Details, below.

Boehner/Cantor, playing to the GOP's far-right tea party base, have proposed unspecified "offsets" (even more job-killing cuts in federal spending) that will be necessary before the radical House Republicans will provide funding for FEMA to do its basic job of helping victims of Irene, and local governments who need to rebuild scores of roads and bridges, just in NY-20.
Gibson's "very best effort" is constrained by his allegiance to Boehner/Cantor (from the initial link, above):

“We can do offsets,” Gibson said, agreeing with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. “Certainly we can find other places where we can save money, but this is what you need a federal government for — a moment like this — and it has got to be a priority.”

So what will happen when Boehner/Cantor propose a FEMA funding bill for Irene expenses that will inevitably involve cuts in federal programs that Democrats won’t abide?
The Boehner/Cantor bill won’t get a hearing in the Senate, and the issue could drag on for months in yet another radical Republican hostage-taking scheme.
Gibson has said he supports Boehner/Cantor hostage-taking that hurts people in his district.
That should count for something in next year's election.
And Gibson recently told Dutchess County constituents that he stands by his no-new-taxes pledge to Grover Norquist.
So Gibson will not do everything he can to help his Irene-affected constituents.
He will instead do what little he can, and only as much as his political bosses -- Boehner, Cantor and Norquist -- will allow. 

Bruno DINO in North Greenbush

The real Democrats in North Greenbush are supporting Charlie Smith for supervisor this year.

The "Democrats" who have been bought off by the Boss Bruno GOP machine (which still exists, despite Bruno's felony conviction) are supporting Al Spain, a "Democrat" who works for the Republican mayor of Troy and has endorsed Republicans in every election for years.

Spain is running for supervisor on the Republican, Conservative and Independence lines, all provided by the lingering Boss Bruno machine.

But like Republican Lou Desso last year, Spain wants the Democratic line too.

Because Boss Bruno machine hacks hate competition.

Most voters prefer a choice, at every election at every level.

Boss Bruno's buddies don't want a choice in North Greenbush -- they want to bamboozle good NG Democrats into supporting a Boss Bruno hack.

There will be a Democratic primary about this on Sept. 13.

Real Democrats will support the real Democratic candidate -- Charlie Smith -- and not the fake Democrat pimped by the Boss Bruno machine -- Al Spain.

Gibson blames the president for S&P's downgrade

In a stunningly partisan move that fails to take any responsibility for Tea Party brinkmanship, Congressman Gibson released a statement blaming President Obama and the Democrats for the downgrade in America's credit rating.

"This week, Congress passed and the President signed the Budget Control Act, which will cut between $2.1 trillion and $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years. This Act averted the immediate crisis of defaulting on roughly 40 percent of our federal debt obligations and influenced two of the three major credit rating agencies - Moody's and Fitch - to preserve our country's AAA credit rating. It was important to take action to avoid the chaos of the Obama Administration trying to sort through which bills to pay and which not to pay - leading to widespread panic across our country and the world. The consequences of this chaos would have been severe, resulting in a double-dip recession and possibly worse - our chances at an economic recovery wrecked. Without question, this bipartisan agreement fell short of what we needed to address our long-term debt crisis, but it was the best agreement that could be reached in a period of divided government. However, with S&P's downgrade of our credit rating to AA+, the Senate and White House must face this new reality and reassess their willingness to implement more comprehensive deficit reduction..."

Really, Congressman Gibson? President Obama was the one who created "chaos"? The fact that the GOP, fueled by the Tea Party, linked raising the debt limit with budget issues had nothing to do with it, right? It was the Democrats who refused to pass a clean bill to only raise the debt limit like it has been done every time before, right? It was Democrats who previously voted to raise the debt limit every time it came up without a peep who suddenly got religion and couldn't raise it again without taking a meat cleaver to social programs?

Reading statements like Congressman Gibson's makes one think they are in Superman's Bizarreo world -where everything is the opposite of reality on Earth.

And the Gibson gets away with it because his Tea Party supporters are low-information voters who believe what they want to believe.

Gibson gets spanked by the Times Union

In its July 27 editorial, the Times Union has called for Rookie Congressman Chris Gibson to “put down the gun and govern.”

The TU, like the all but the most radical of his constituents, wants Gibson to stop being the Tea Party/Corporate Representative and start representing his whole district.

But it seems Gibson will have none of it, falling in line with the radial far-right freshman class in Congress; voting to kill thousands of FAA jobs in an attempt to strip transportation workers of their collective bargaining rights, focusing on symbolic votes like “light bulb free choice” and the absurd “Cut Cap and Balance” fake vote.

The TU notes that President Obama and the Democrats (much to their Progressive supporters’ dismay) have bent over backwards to meet the GOP’s demands. But as with the rest of the GOTeaParty, Gibson can’t take “yes” for an answer.

In short, the TU has called Gibson what he is – a partisan, ideological hack who will do anything, including bringing the country he claims to love, to the brink of economic disaster.

Here is the full text of the Times Union editorial:

Get off the brink; time to govern

July 27, 2011 at 6:00 am by TU Editorial Board

Our opinion: The House Republicans’ all-or-nothing approach to debt and deficit talks isn’t a negotiating position, but a prescription for gridlock.

If President Obama had come out a few months ago and said that he was willing to reduce federal spending by trillions over the next decade and cut back key social programs like Medicare and Social Security in exchange for ending some tax breaks for the wealthiest individuals and corporations, many in his own party might have wondered if he had cut some secret deal with Republicans.

Yet even as Mr. Obama and many Democrats in Congress are ready to accept those very terms, compromising on many of their core positions just to secure a deal to keep this country from defaulting on its debt, House Republicans continue to dig in. While the President has been willing to risk alienating many in his party’s liberal wing, House Speaker John Boehner and his more mainstream colleagues appear to be cowed by a minority of radical freshman whose influence far exceeds their numbers.

They refuse to budge from an anti-tax, anti-government position, holding the nation and its economy hostage. The gun to America’s head is the threat of its first default in history, with potentially disastrous consequences for this country and the world.

With just days to go before the nation reaches its debt limit, it is time for them to end the brinkmanship.

It’s time for them to remember — or perhaps come out of their self-absorption and realize for the first time — that Americans didn’t elect them alone. They didn’t vote to hand the reins of government over to a relatively small bloc of ultra-conservative armchair economists.

Instead, in 2010 they left the Democrats in charge of the Senate and gave the Republicans a majority in the House of Representatives. They elected liberals, conservatives, moderates. They elected newcomers and incumbents. They elected people with different ideas of what the Constitution means, what government is for and how best to fix the economy and create jobs.

In short, they gave no one an absolute mandate.

It is time for intransigent House Republicans, from the tea partiers to the Capital Region’s Chris Gibson and the Hudson Valley’s Nan Hayworth, to accept that nobody gets to win their most extreme position in a negotiation.

It is time for them to heed conservative voices like Mickey Edwards, a former House Republican leader during the years of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Mr. Edwards has looked at what Democrats have offered and said that “If I was there, I would say, ‘My God, declare victory.’”

It is time for them to accept a plan that puts the debt limit battle to rest at least through the 2012 elections, not just patch it up for a few months and thrust it into the election season for political gain. 

And if they could stop shouting anti-tax slogans for just a little while, they might see that it’s also time to take advantage of the opportunity before them, right now, to cut the deficit that they supposedly went to Washington to trim.

That would be the responsible thing to do.

But if the Republicans aren’t up to that — if they’re determined to spend this entire session and the rest of this President’s first term doing nothing but campaigning for the next election — next year’s budget deliberations certainly offer another chance to engage in that debate, and in plenty of brinkmanship.

Right now, though, it’s time to put down the gun, step away and govern.