As someone who has been accused of being too obsessed over complaining about corruption in Brooklyn politics, I sometimes forget that the Queens Democratic machine is also quite corrupt. I just don't have the same ties with Queens reformers that I do in Brooklyn. Today the Brooklyn Optimist takes a peek over the border in Queens and has a good rundown on the sleaze going on over there and the near silence from both the Working Families Party and the Democratic mainstream about this sleaze. Some excerpts:

Brian McLaughlin...is the former Queens Assemblyman and New York City AFL-CIO Central Labor Council President, who plead guilty on March 7th to federal racketeering charges, so that instead of facing 30+ years in prison, he'll likely only end up with 8 to 10...  read more »

We've all heard about that Obama surge in voter interest and more tangible measures of participation, such as registration and voting. It's real. The campaign of Jim Gennaro, the City Councilman who's running against odious reptilian wingnut Frank Padavan in SD-11, just emailed some astonishing numbers.

(Gennaro, with Democratic super-activist and City Council candidate Steve Behar to his immediate stage left)

Newly Registered Voters Provide Dems, Gennaro With Strong Advantage
New Voters in Northeast Queens, Excited by Prospect of Change at State and Federal Levels, Are 6-1 Democratic

FLUSHING, NY (Sept. 23, 2008) – State Board of Elections records for Northeast Queens show a wave of new voters registering for this year's state and federal races, with the overwhelming majority of them enrolling as Democrats. The new voters, clearly eager for change in the upcoming presidential and state legislative races, give a distinct advantage to New York City Councilman Jim Gennaro, a Democrat who is running to replace 36-year Republican incumbent Frank Padavan in State Senate District 11.

Between January and August of this year, 6,859 new voters enrolled in Senate District 11, according to the Board of Elections. Of them, 711 are Republicans and 4,083 are Democrats, giving the latter party a nearly six-to-one advantage with these voters.

Democrats also overwhelmingly outnumber Republicans in Senate District 11's overall enrollment, 88,494 to 33,123 (a nearly three-to-one advantage).

Conscious of this disadvantage, Padavan is not noting his party affiliation anywhere on his literature or Web site.

Yeah, if I were a republican, I'd try to hide that too. Unfortunately, there's that pesky thing called a voting record.

This is the last of the videos I shot at Elizabeth Upton's class at LaGuardia Community College. They are recent (and not so) immigrants who are in her English as a second language class (or the CUNY Language Immersion Program).

Here is part one of the series.

Then mozie on to part two.

Sultana asks the questions we all've been waiting for:

The students worked hard at coming up with questions. Sultana is actually asking the question for another student, Malva, who knocked it out of the part but was too shy to get on camera to speak her own words.  read more »

Here are more of Elizabeth Upton's student submissions to 10Questions.com. They are in the CUNY Language Immersion Program at LaGuardia Community College.

The previous videos are here.

Maria has a simple question about Iraq:

Magdalena is worried about the internet :

Elizabeth wants to know about how they will handle violence in schools:  read more »