Eideard

Pedro Espada
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

New York state Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada and his family looted more than $14 million from a Bronx not-for-profit organization over five years, the state attorney general said on Tuesday.

Cuomo said his office sued Espada and 19 current and former executives of the Comprehensive Community Development Corporation, called Soundview.

“The lawsuit alleges Espada diverted Soundview’s charitable assets and used the money for himself, his family, his friends and his political organization,” according to the attorney general’s statement…

Both Cuomo and Espada are Democrats…

Cuomo, in his statement, said: “Siphoning money from a charity would be egregious under any circumstances, but the fact that this was orchestrated by the State Senate Majority Leader makes it especially reprehensible.”

Reprehensible, yes. Surprising? Uh, no.

Dede drops out – and the national Republican Party was no real help

While GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava’s abrupt withdrawal Saturday from the Nov. 3 House election in upstate New York came as a surprise, it shouldn’t have — over the past decade or so the New York Republican Party has emerged as the political gang that couldn’t shoot straight, an operation so inept that it’s sometimes hard to believe it exists in the nation’s third-largest state.

The collapse of Scozzafava’s campaign—and the quick rise of the national conservative revolt sparked by her nomination—is simply the latest calamity to befall the New York GOP and an illustration of the utter ruin into which the state party has fallen. In just a few short years, the party’s presence in state politics has dwindled to the point of extinction-or irrelevance.

Little more than a decade ago, Republicans controlled the governor’s mansion, the state Senate, one of two U.S. Senate seats, 13 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and the New York City mayor’s office.

Since then, though, the GOP has declined at a steady and accelerating pace. Today, the party has virtually no presence in the congressional delegation-it controls just two of the state’s 29 House seats at the moment. It lacks a single statewide elected officer and represents only a minority in both chambers of the state Legislature-the first time since the New Deal that New York has had a Democratic governor and legislature. In 2006, in an open governor’s race, the Republican nominee failed to win even 30 percent of the vote…

Former Rep. Sherry Boehlert, an upstate centrist who saw his seat flip to the Democratic column after he retired in 2006, sounded a bleak note earlier this week when asked about the special election.

“It probably says to a lot of people who are registered Republicans, maybe I should reconsider my registration,” Boehlert said. “I think, from a Republican standpoint, it would provide further evidence for some that there doesn’t appear to be any room in the Republican Party for people who are moderate in their thinking.”

No surprise to me. New Mexican Republicans retained exactly NO seats in our Congressional delegation during the Obama election. The only moderate Republican trying to stay incumbent was beaten in a primary by a right-winger – who proceeded to lose to a Democrat.

Republican candidates for the next governor’s race have included the former overseer of Guantanamo Bay prison.

UPDATE: Dede endorses the Democrat, Bill Owens, and Newt indulges his hindsight.

The perfect students for this school

Matthew Whalen is an Eagle Scout, on the honor roll, taking Advanced Placement classes, and never been in trouble with the law. He’s received commendations from the City of Troy and the Boy Scouts of America for saving a woman’s life, and this past summer, he completed Army basic training. All of it was accomplished before the age of 17.

He’s also been suspended from high school by Zero Tolerance idiots!

But the dream could be in jeopardy, thanks to a two-inch pocket knife that officials at Lansingburgh Senior High School found in Matthew’s locked car last month. The pocket knife was a gift from his grandfather, Robert Whalen, who’s the Hoosick Falls Police Chief. Matthew says he kept the knife in a side compartment and never tried showing it off or threatening anyone with it. Instead it was a part of the survival kit that was his car.

“My car is designed in a way that if I ever broke down, I’d be OK,” Whalen explains. “I have a sleeping bag. I have bottled water. I have an MRE. I believe it’s better to be prepared and not need it than need it and not have it.”

Matthew says school officials approached him on Sept. 21, asking if he had a weapon on him. When Matthew answered he did not, he says the officials asked if he had a knife in his car. Matthew said it was a pocket knife, and took officials to his car when asked. He also turned over the pocket knife when asked.

The Lansingburgh Central School District has a zero-tolerance policy on weapons. According to the district’s Codes of Conduct, students are not allowed to have “a weapon of any kind” on school grounds. Even though a pocket knife is not considered a weapon under New York State penal code, the district also prohibits students from possessing anything “that reasonably can be considered a weapon.”

The cowardice, fear of decision-making, bonehead stupidity required to promulgate, accept and enforce regulations like this illuminates the decline of American society.

They provoke only contempt!

The state of New York plans to sue the social-networking site Tagged.com for allegedly using deceptive e-mails in order to gain new users, said the Office of the Attorney General.

From April through June, Tagged sent 60 million e-mails to people saying that members of the site had tagged them in photos but the photos did not exist. The e-mails that people received appeared to come from their friends but did not, which constitutes spam. The recipients were forced to become members of Tagged if they wanted to access the purported photos, the office alleges.

Tagged, which has been around for five years, would then illegally get access to those new users’ e-mail address books and send out more messages without those users’ knowledge. Tagged will be sued for deceptive e-mail marketing practices and invasion of privacy.

“Simply put, it was too easy for people to quickly go through the registration process and unintentionally invited all their contacts,” Tagged CEO Greg Tseng wrote on his blog. Tagged halted the new registration scheme on June 7. It also e-mailed new members telling them how to quit Tagged.

The Attorney General’s office said it would seek to stop Tagged from engaging in fraudulent practices and pursue fining the company.

Go get ‘em, Andrew!

Gov. David Paterson of New York has told state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages performed in states and countries where they are legal, his spokeswoman said Wednesday.

The governor’s legal counsel told state agencies in a May 14 memo to revise policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in California and Massachusetts as well as Canada and other countries that allow gays and lesbians to marry, said Erin Duggan, the governor’s spokeswoman.

The memo informed state agencies that failing to recognize gay marriages would violate the New York’s human rights law, Duggan said.

Slowly, gradually, as each timorous reactionary whimper dissipates, another class of 2nd-class citizenship continues to end in this land.