Albany ‘Crime Wave’ Seen After Charges Against Assemblywoman
The indictment of a Brooklyn assemblywoman, Diane Gordon, on bribery charges yesterday makes her the seventh member of the 80-person New York City delegation in Albany to face charges from prosecutors in the past three years.
It’s prompting some watchdogs to call for more policing of state lawmakers, who […]

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Reforming - and Not Reforming - the Budget Process
Each summer, State Assemblymember and Brooklyn Democratic party boss Vito Lopez throws a massive summer picnic, busing 4,000 senior citizens from Bushwick to Sunken Meadow State Park in Long Island for live music, dancing, and a steak and chicken dinner.
It is also one of the most […]

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Silver’s law firm seeks to represent people hurt at state parks
ALBANY, N.Y. Government watchdogs are asking why the personal injury law firm where state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver practices is pitching its services to people injured at New York parks.
Silver has a say over how state parks are run and financed.
But his spokesman says Silver […]

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Redrawing district lines
Most state lawmakers have a stranglehold on their seats in the Legislature by design. It`s called redistricting.
The way redistricting works in this state is that after the U.S. census results are tabulated every 10 years, state lawmakers redraw district lines for themselves and congressional representatives. To no one`s surprise, those lines […]

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Faso beats Spitzer, on foot - Newsday.com
UTICA, N.Y. — Democrat Eliot Spitzer and Republican John Faso briefly suspended the race for governor Sunday to compete in the Utica Boilermaker 5K race.
The 53-year-old Faso beat the 47-year-old Spitzer by about 14 seconds after 24 minutes of running on 3.1 miles of hot city asphalt. Both finished […]

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The Saratogian - Chip-maker will be a huge help to the economy
The announcement that Advanced Micro Devices, the No. 2 chip-maker in the world, is coming to Saratoga County is huge, any way you look at it.
It means a huge number of jobs — well-paying jobs, the kind that enable the workers to live here, […]

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Put pork barrel spending up for a public vote — Page 1 — TimesUnion.com
Shame, shame on the Times Union. For such a prestigious arm of the media to have the colossal nerve, nay, the unmitigated gall to dare question the “pork barrel” spending (excuse me, that’s called “discretionary funds”).
Discretionary tends to give an air of […]

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More legislative giveaways
Albany cares only about re-election, not the citizens who foot the bills
This fall, state legislators will tell you they understand the problems of upstate and acknowledge that New York’s government is the main source of the problem and insist that they are committed to reform. The proof is otherwise.
In a decade when tens […]

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Bad Taylor Law revisions
Albany lawmakers could help taxpayers without hurting their union friends
New York’s Taylor Law governing public-sector employment has long needed reforming, and this year legislators went to work, making significant changes that in every instance moves it in exactly the wrong direction.
Say what you will about New York’s lawmakers, they are consistent. Given […]

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Arutz Sheva - Israel National News
Ahmadinejad: Conditions for Removal of Israel Are at Hand
Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, clearing up any ambiguity in previous calls to “wipe Israel off the map,” now used an Arabic word for the removal of body hair to describe his plans for Israel.
“All the conditions for the removal of the Zionist […]

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