RT News Roundup - 2/14/08 Edition
Our local GOP will stop at nothing to increase and consolidate their hold on power, even as voters keep trying to pry it loose. Last night’s police state style handling of the County Leg meeting was both scary and ridiculous. Are we still in America? It keeps hitting me in waves.
I’m proud of those who continue to stand up for our rights and for ladkiddo, who did an awesome job of covering the whole fiasco, in spite of horrendous weather and intimidation.
Again, D&C and others, this is what happens when you want positive change and endorse people fighting to prevent it at every step. At least the GOP has a “can do” attitude, as in “We can do anything we want!”
Anyway, off my soapbox and on to other people’s soapboxes, most having to do with the PD selection fiasco:
- News of the GOP’s antics at the county leg Tuesday night has reached even ex-Rochesterians in North Carolina.
- DFE weighs in on the mess, which included a nun being manhandled and arrested:
Welcome to our police state, where Republicans set the rules, tap the phones and network connections, appoint the judges, appoint the prosecutors, decide for the governor what is and what is not enforcible at the DMV, rewrite fire codes and beat up nuns.
- Carla Palumbo also reports on her DFE blog about the situation:
Did power so totally corrupt my former colleagues on the Republican side that they have lost all sense and reason??? Don’t they see that their own actions in keeping the public out have exacerbated the situation — THEY have incited the crowds!! And please I do not want to hear that its all because the “Democrats made it about politics, that is complete BS. This is all about Republican power and control and Republicans getting their own way — period. The Democrats do not have a candidate; neither did the bar association nor David Gantt for that matter.
I believe it’s not just corrupting power that’s making the GOP act this way. It’s fear. They see the end of their dominance in the county (and the country) and they’re trying to get friendly folks in positions of power ASAP so they have islands to swim to when their ship goes down.
- Does the media want to “Teach The Controversy” about the Public Defender scandal? Or do they want to dig in and get at the underlying issues, like “Did we get a merit selection?” The D&C’s Tom Tobin:
Gantt smoked ‘em
Dave Gantt made the county legislative Republicans look like feckless, arrogant amateurs the other day by creating a situation in which he and some supporters were arrested and handcuffed while the lawmakers met in private to cut a deal on the appointment of a new public defender. Gantt became a man of the people fighting for First Amendment rights, even to the point of wearing handcuffs, while the legislators looked like let-them-eat-cake Antoinettes.
I agree, but I believe he’s missing the main point– say what you will about Gantt, he was part of the effort to de-politicize the PD’s office in the first place, plus his constituents are directly affected by that office. I’m not surprised he’d go as far as getting arrested.
- BuffaloPundit gives our County Leg the dubious distinction of being more dysfunctional than Buffalo’s Erie County Leg. Oh yay. We’re number one.
I learned that the Republican majority in the Monroe County Legislature had a “public hearing†in connection with its selection of an individual to replace the outgoing, longtime public defender there. Naturally, people wanted to attend the public hearing and find out how this person would be selected. Instead, they got a lesson in unconstitutional, antidemocratic, police-state type tactics that call for immediate and prompt reaction.
(snip)
To channel Peggy Noonan for a sec, our politics are not (right now) as poisonous as those in Rochester. Savor.
Related posts:
“Oh yay. We’re number one”
David Gantt was part of the effort to de-politicize the process?
You’re kidding, right?
The selection committee Wayne Zyra originally put togrther was perfectly acceptable to Leg. Democratic Leader Harry Bronson and Tom Smith of the Bar Association. They were contentedly on board with the process, until, that is, they got the call from Mr. Gantt, who alerted them to the fact that it was an evil Republican process they were participating in.
Properly chastized, Harry and Tom abandoned Zyra, as instructed.
Feel free to attack the GOP’s methods, but to claim that Mr. Gantt has not been politicizing the issue is absurd.
Total nonsense. The selection committee was stacked with a majority of Republicans - if memory serves, including the county attorney, the head of probation (Huh? What’s he doing helping to pick the PD?), the president of the leg, the majority leader and two judges - one who is a staunch Repub/Conservative tight with Cook, the other who’s a decent guy who also needs Cook to make his way. So on a committee of 9, there were, if memory serves, 6 votes. The rest was window dressing, and the Bar Association and legislators didn’t realize at first they were being duped. When they did, they decided not to play along. That didn’t have to do with Gantt - it had to do with math, and their lack of cynicism (which, unfortunately in this town, must become a finely honed trait).
Then word came that the appointment had been wired for a long time by Minarik. You know it, and we know it. The name was mentioned in November.
Gantt and the others helped create a process that allowed the PD office to become an office of professionals, instead of cronies and hacks. Think Water Authority. So of course they were devastated when they saw everything they had worked for become more grist for the Minarik mill.
But Quatro, and I guess you too, want to play the party line of claiming that those who said the emperor had no clothes on were partisans of nudity, while the rest of you who favor the mock clothing look were just looking out for the rest of us. We’re just partisans of honesty, and if that’s being partisan, I’m all for it.
Please don’t insult our intelligence this way.
Actually, Mr. DiCaro, Assemblyman Gantt was part of the effort to de-politicize the process over 30 years ago when a non-partisan screening committee was convened.
With respect to the current process, what was proposed by Zyra could not be adopted legally. The judges he called for to participate are prohibited by rules of judicial conduct from participating in a process that is orchestrated by elected officials controlled by one political party. I repeat, the panel Zyra called for originaly could not be seated. The judges (lindley, smith) understood that they could not participate. Then, instead of saying “ok, lets let the bar association convene a panel (non-partisan by definition) so the judges can participate”, Zyra says “too bad, we are picking the panel…community be damned.”