Assemblyman Brian Kolb recently introduced legislation calling for a constitutional convention to address certain matters. He's been pushing it in newspaper essays around the state. There's a website, full of noble purpose, at www.reformny.org.
Locally, journalist Chris Wilmot pushed the idea in the Smugtown Beacon earlier this week, citing all the right reasons for having a convention.
Convention backers should relax. A constitutional convention is never, ever going to happen in New York. At least not in the lifetime of anyone reading this.
That's because to have a convention requires a vote of the state legislature. The state legislature is the source, the guardian and protector, of all of the problems that make a constitutional convention necessary. It would never vote away its power to preserve New York's unique and debilitating status quo.
Aristocracies and oligarchies do not cede power voluntarily. The state legislature is wholly-owned by New York's aristocracy: public employee unions and a host of other special interest groups forming the core of support for the state Democratic Party. An aristocracy to which Republicans in Albany, especially the State Senate, have been sucking up for decades.
The rest of the populace works to support the aristocracy, as in feudal times. Which is exactly what New Yorkers do, paying among the highest taxes in the country.
The public employee unions spent millions in anti-convention TV advertising the last time it came up on the ballot in 1997. They won.
So it comes down to this: if New York had the kind of legislature that would allow a constitutional convention, we wouldn't need a constitutional convention. And, conversely, as long as we need a constitutional convention, we'll never get one.
Besides, any constitutional convention the legislature might approve would include current state legislators as delegates, and therefore would be a presumptive fraud.
No. The only way out for us is for the counties of western New York to coordinate and organize, draw up a plan of self-government, and apply to the federal government for statehood, citing the West Virginia precedent.
Supporters of such an effort of course will be ridiculed in the traditional media as extremists, for the sin of wanting jobs, and wanting to to live in a place with policies more like the 49 other states.
In any event, the effort would have to wait for a Republican congress. Because New York is the model of where national Democrats are now trying to drag the rest of the country. Wanting out of the poisonous brew of New York's state policies is an implicit rebuke to what national Democrats hold dear.
Until this happens, western New York remains, in economic terms, the Cuba of the United States: a dead economy, frozen in time.
Friday, October 9, 2009
State Constitutional Convention? No Way!
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Love Among the Ruins ...
...isn't going to be the title of the book Bus Authority CEO Mark Aesch is writing. Even if e-mails from bus company workers after our story on Renaissance Square said it could be.
We learned today that, through intermediaries, Aesch has wangled an introduction to his book by none other than Rudy Giulani.
Rudy's a good candidate for something, but backs the loser for state Republican Chair, now gives a book blurb to a guy disliked in a rare bipartisan way here in Rochester.
Rudy, I love ya, but get a grip on local situations before you go out on a limb.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Teeing Up the Next Indictment
With all the subtlety of a car bomb in Kabul, DA Mike Green hinted on the radio news today about an indictment "in another area" related to Robutrad.
Today he got government (Smith). Last month he hit the GOP political organization, with the fraudulent Moore indictment. So ... government ... political ... and what's the third leg of the tripod? Money!
Will we see an indictment of someone involved in GOP fund-raising? By next week?
For the Democratic election campaign, that would give them the media hit at the beginning of September, the media hit this week, and a media hit next week. To be followed by another surprise hit the week after?
By the way, we think this explains reports we've been getting about how little, compared to prior years, many of the Democratic candidates for County Legislature are doing the door-to-door leg work that's usually the deciding factor in these local elections. They know that this year, the District Attorney is doing their work for them.
The Estimable Exile
For no particular reason I got to thinking tonight about a blogger we don't hear from any more. "Exile on Ericsson Street" was a major presence on Rochester Turning, one of the blogs we link to, in its early years. He left it to blog for The Albany Project, but we haven't seen his work there in a while.
Exile thought very differently from us on many things, but he was thoughtful, principled and fair, with a sense of humor and what seemed to us to be a generous spirit. Our public discourse locally has been the poorer for his absence.
I hope we're just looking in the wrong place and he's still active. Whatever you're doing, Exile, we wish you well.
Right on Schedule
As we predicted last week, and right on schedule for the coming election, today brings another "Robutrad"-related indictment.
This time it's James Smith, former Deputy County Executive.
Amazing how, after sitting on it for months, the Democratic-controlled District Attorney's Office suddenly needs to bring these indictments just before an election!
And exquisitely timed for late morning, assuring coverage in both the Noon and evening local newscasts!
There's more to all of this than the individual indictments, the politically-motivated timing and the career ambitions of the District Attorney. We'll discuss it in an upcoming post.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Rahn Indicted
Though shamelessly timed to affect elections in Greece, the charges against Merritt Rahn appear to have at least enough substance to make indictment plausible. That, at least, departs from actions of the Monroe County District Attorney that we've criticized recently.
Solving Two Problems at Once
According to WCBS-TV in New York (via Drudge), state Democrats are contemplating what do do about scandal-ridden Rep. Charles Rangel and what to do about 2010 ballot albatross David Paterson.
The solution under consideration? Get Rangel to step down after this term, and have Paterson run for his seat next year as a graceful way out of the governorship.
Interesting. Can they pull it off? Here, we're guessing that nothing could convince Rangel to retire.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Update on NY Times News Scrubbing
Newsbusters shows the New York Times scrubbing embarrassing Obama and Emanuel quotes from its original piece on the Olympics trip was anything but routine revision of a story.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
NY Times Scrubs Quotes Embarrassing to Obama and Emanuel
Like we said yesterday, "President Obama gets a free pass from the media on lots of things." Proving the point, today the New York Times removed Obama's claim that he'd cap off his "second term" with Chicago Olympics from its original story. Scrubbed Rahm Emanuel's boast that White House will make sure Republican critics "get some good seats once Chicago does host the games.”
Blog Weasel Zippers shows original and scrubbed stories back-to-back.
Our fearless, independent press. Ever vigilant! Speaking truth to power daily! Times editors must have interned at the Democrat and Chronicle.
Friday, October 2, 2009
The President in Copenhagen
Can anyone explain to us why it was such a terrible thing for the President to have gone to Copenhagen to plead the case for the Olympics in the USA? Sorry, folks, but we just don't get it.
He didn't have to go. Politically it would have been a lot safer to have done nothing. That way, you don't risk being turned down.
But he was willing to put himself on the line. Given the possibility of failure, that's courageous. How many other political figures can you name who have done anything courageous lately?
President Obama gets a free pass from the media on lots of things, but he's subject to some of the most ridiculous and unreasonable criticism on many others.
We know this is heresy to many of you who follow our rantings here on Mustard Street, but we're proud of our country when this President represents us abroad.
A feeling we never, ever, had about his predecessor.
The Election Indictments
With local elections just a month away, the next political indictments from the Democratic District Attorney's office will be coming shortly. Not today. Today's Friday, and you don't get as good publicity on a Friday. People go out Friday nights; many are too busy on weekends to watch or read the news.
The federal authorities brought their Robutrad indictments many months ago, in the ordinary course of their investigation. The feds identified the people who appear to have committed actual wrongdoing: some county employees who, effectively, stole from taxpayers.
But the ostensibly Robutrad-related indictments from the Monroe County DA's office are election-driven. That imposes a timetable geared to election day, November 3.
So the next indictments can't wait beyond next week -- about as close to the election as County Democratic headquarters can get and still have time to design and print the brochures and mail pieces, and to prepare the broadcast material, that will repeat headlines about the coming indictments to be provided by the party's partner, the Democrat and Chronicle.
Showing a headline saying "Joe Blow Indicted" is much more effective than just saying "Jow Blow's been indicted," since it shows that somebody else is saying it. All just in time to hit mailboxes and airwaves in the weeks before the election.
District Attorney Mike Green has additional reason to move quickly. His farce of an indictment against Republican official Andrew Moore has left Green hanging out there for a month, subject to criticism for abuse of office by Nifonging Mr. Moore.
The Moore indictment makes Green, once respected as a straight-arrow, look more with each passing day like the disgraced and disbarred Duke rape-case prosecutor. Amazing how lust for a lifetime appointment can disfigure conscience and character.
Green needs to obfuscate his disgrace over the Moore matter by bringing quickly some additional indictments bearing claims of wrongdoing that, this time, are at least superficially plausible.
So we have two dynamics at work here, mutually complementary. Democratic Chairman Joe Morelle wants to indict his way to the County Legislature majority that the political process so far has denied him. District Attorney Green, hoping for a federal judicial appointment, wanted to curry favor with his party by bagging a scalp from Republican Party headquarters; hence the indictment of GOP Executive Director Andrew Moore. An indictment described by a professor of criminal law as a joke. Except, as the prof said, for the person who has to go through it.
The next election indictments are coming next week.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Memo to Chairman Reilich
You need to fire the person at County Republican Headquarters who instructed your candidate for County Legislature in Henrietta, John Howland, to refrain from going door-to-door to Independence Party voters in the month before the Independence Party primary, and to stick instead with the door-to-door plan tailored for the general election. We just learned of this today.
Howland followed the advice from Headquarters and lost the Independence line to his Democratic opponent. Knowledgeable political types tell us the Independence line is worth 300 - 600 votes in the general election in that district.
Just a reminder: candidates need to go to where the votes are. In an Independence primary, that means Independence Party voters.
If you lose the County Legislature by losing the Henrietta seat, and if you lose it by fewer than 600 votes or so, you won't really have lost it. Your own side will have thrown it away.
