Continuing our series of retrospectives - Here is January 2007. fasten your seatbelt for a quick trip back to January 2007. It was new year and it started with real hope and promise in the form of Inaugurations. Nationally - Congress, a Congress with A Democratic Majority was being sworn in.

State Stories

12 years of George Pataki finally ended. with Governor Spitzer being sworn in. Check out the Joe Bruno’s reflection on the Pataki era. I suppose dysfunctional is a matter of perspective. Spitzer issued executive orders and, with his first official action, curtailed the ethical lapses that persisted under previous administrations. But check out this media attack by Bruno Albany’s problems are really the media’s fault. See how often the the State Legislature meet. Oh want to learn more about member item spending by party?

Spitzer, determined to flip the State Senate, appointed a Republican Senator to an administration position setting up a special election for a downstate senate seat, which was won by Dem Craig Johnson.

Finally we saw a precursor to Jim Alesi’s lack of logic - something evident in many of his essays or legislative bills. Gerrymandering anyone? Check out Jim Alesi’ non-sense over why it is unfair to redistrict?

Federal Stories

A year after Rudy lost his campaign plans he was quitting the GOP Presidential race. John Edwards had his first local meet-up, while both Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama announced their Presidential campaigns.

We even Praised Randy Kuhl for urging dialogue with Iran. He came out against the stop-loss,The Democratic Majority starting pushing needed legislation though Congress giving the opportunity our local Congressional Representatives put their vote where their mouth isn’t. Tom Reynolds voted against an increase in the minimum wage (Walsh for it), while John “Randy” Kuhl voted against funding stem cell research. Heck, Randy even gets promoted to Deputy minority whip position.

Bush was talking escalation in Iraq. Check out Oberman’s take - riveting. The “surge” debate started. Hey, it was only a year ago. Feel safer yet? Stlo7 was duped in this post as well. Check out the excitement as I wrote how Bush will use FISA courts and not have warrantless wiretapes. Well - how did that work out for us as we debate in January 2008 - if we should give telecoms retroactive immunity and what about those signing statements. Oh, gas prices were about $2.40. Since it is January We had out 6th Bush state of the Union. Check out what hasn’t changed - it is worth it. Finally a year ago we were learning that it is more than an emperor- it was about the procession. We need to stop the procession.

Monroe County

Meanwhile, in Jan 2007 the D&C launched their very first political blog. First words off of Lawrence’s (Yes, that James Lawrence) blog was recalling how Clinton people trashed the White House before Bush came in. We, of course, remind Mr Lawrence about the facts. Happy to help.

In Monroe County, the Dem party chair, Joe Morelle, was in the running for the recently vacated state comptroller’s office - remember that guy Hevesi? Morrelle resigned as MCDC Chair. In the meantime, Jim Vogel took over as temporary MCDC Chair. If Morrelle didn’t get the job did anyone really think he wasn’t coming back to MCDC?

There was the strike - 14 years and counting members of the Newspaper Guild who work at the D&C were looking for something as basic in a large company as a 401K. The comments were lively and we did a follow-up. We are in year 16 now?

Remember the weather? The weird warm weather in Jan 2007?

We were were also looking closely at Monroe County. The County GOP voted down a Dem proposal to lower taxes. (reread that sentence again). We wondered why ECC was recommended to get a contract to market the sale of electricity generated from the Mill Seat Landfill. They are an Information Technology company. Oh, check out the D&C follow-up. Can you say pay to play? I guess Cornell Cooperative doesn’t pay and their budget, like this year, was cut a year ago. COMIDA and 5Linx? There was lots of questions about this business. Why doesn’t the D&C write about it or the rest of the oddness going in Monroe County.

A year before Maggie would be sworn in 2008 in we asked questions - what kind of leadership should we have in Monroe County? Has anything really changed in a year?

Short Takes

Rightwing radio gets called out, We discussed Battery operated cars - yeah the ones that existed 100 years ago. Jeanine Pirro - is investigated - again. Darn it Paul Wolfowitz read this post.

January 2007 also brought the loss of a progressive powerhouse: Molly Ivins. It’s hard to believe she’s been gone almost a year. Please, take a few minutes to read more about her, as she was truly one of our strongest voices. Here’s the link to the last column she penned.