So here I am taking a break from some pretty heavy efforts to head off an imminent return of Bush-republicans to office to comment on the most recent, and extremely predictable, scandal here in NY State.

As I scan most of the country, including NY State, I see a Republican Party awash in corruption, scandals, racism and intolerance. When Carl "Horse Sex" Paladino and Christine "Mouse Brain" O'Donnell are your poster children, you have serious problems and whatever happens November 2nd, the bulk of the Republican Party candidates this year are either scandals in progress or scandals waiting to happen. And the thing is this has been the case now for more than a decade and it was these scandals that led to Republicans taking such a beating throughout the country in 2006 and 2008 and I believe will deliver them a beating again soon. It seems corrupt Republicans cannot or will not learn their lesson. (for a nice rundown on Republican Corruption, visit the good folks at Liberals Like Christ).

Unfortunately, here in NY State it seems Democrats and other leftists also have trouble learning the same lesson.  read more »

It is now official. Lincoln Restler is the new District Leader/State Committee member from the 50th Assembly District, beating Vito Lopez's candidate by 120 votes. The reform movement wins another one and the Vito Lopez machine loses a tad more control.

Lincoln Restler with Councilwoman Diana Reyna (from the New Kings Democrats Website)

(Yes, I like the photo because it shows two people who stood up to Vito and won)

Vito Lopez has had a REALLY bad September.

Lincoln Restler is one of the founders of the New Kings Democrats, which was specifically founded to chip away at the Vito Lopez machine in exactly the way they just did. From the Village Voice:

Williamsburg's young political upstart, Lincoln Restler, walked into the offices of (currently embattled) Brooklyn Democrat party boss Vito Lopez's office a while back, wanting to get involved with politics on a local level and help institute changes he believed in. Lopez tossed him out and told him to kiss the ring of his establishment. Well, Restler just told Lopez to kiss his ass, by winning an election, and possibly putting him out of business for good...

fter the counting of absentee ballots, Lincoln Restler has defeated he pro-Lopez Warren Cohn -- son of legacy state committeeman Steve Cohn -- by a count of 3639 to 3519: 120 votes. The results will take a week to be certified, but the significance of this election is that Restler may end up, incidentally, being the tipping point for the end of Vito Lopez's iron reign on Brooklyn's democrats.

For those who are interested, the next meeting of the New Kings Democrats is:

Wed, October 6, 7pm – 9pm
St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, 334 S. 5th St. (btwn Keap & Rodney St.), Brooklyn, NY

And if you REALLY want to help keep the reform coming, give New Kings Democrats a small donation."

Since 2004 my wife and I have had the dubious pleasure of being elected (let me emphasize elected, not appointed) members of the Kings County Democratic County Committee and been privy every 2 years to the circus of the Brooklyn Machine's inner workings...or should I say the shoddy facade to those inner workings which are actually reserved mainly for the Party Boss and his Cronies alone.

Our first County Committee meeting was then Party Boss Clarence Norman's last before going to jail. My son, Jacob, was nearly born during those proceedings. He was already overdue and my wife went into labor soon after. My wife regrets that Norman's last County Committee meeting wasn't upstaged by her going into labor...she imagines the machine chastising her for not following the script (yes, there is a real script people read off of).  read more »

Newly elected District Leader and State Committee member Chris Owens is already proving his worth, publicly calling Vito Lopez's latest scandal "obscene."

Seems Vito Lopez is running his so-called no profits for the personal gain of his cronies. Of course this should surprise NO ONE familiar both with Vito Lopez and with the way these highly politicized "non-profits" are run in NYC. From the Brooklyn Paper:

Vito’s ‘Money Honeys’ get big salaries — subsidized by you
By Aaron Short - The Brooklyn Paper - 9/16/10

Assemblyman Vito Lopez, Brooklyn’s powerful Democratic party leader, steered more than three-quarters of a million dollars to both his campaign treasurer and his girlfriend, who work at the nonprofit he founded.

The treasurer, Christiana Fisher, is also the executive director of Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, a Bushwick-based social services organization that Lopez founded. Last year, she nearly tripled her salary, earning $659,591 compared with $234,234, almost six times the amount of her peer executive nonprofit leaders in Brooklyn.  read more »

Over the years I have cataloged the decline and then recovery of corrupt Party Boss Vito Lopez. His big ticket judicial candidates (e.g. both Surrogate Judge positions) lost to candidates backed by the reform movement that seeks to be Vito's nemesis, though probably is usually more of a nuisance to Vito because it serves as its own nemesis. Vito's prominent judicial race losses seemed to signify a decline in his fortunes. That decline seemed halted last year when self-nemesising reformers basically handed Vito one of their city council seats right in the heart of reform territory. Vito's boy Steve Levin seemed to lead a Vito comeback. Of course behind the smiles at Levin's win for the corrupt side was Vito's big loss when he tried to take out former ally turned independent-minded woman Diana Reyna. He lost that one and I bet it still rankles. His hatred for his former ally was so great he even endorsed the WFP candidate over the Democratic candidate (Reyna) even though he is SUPPOSED to be the Democratic Party leader. His hatred for Reyna was even so great he began to threaten other allies who didn't follow his lead against Reyna (like Lew Fidler) with challenges.  read more »