This letter was too important not to print in it’s entirety:

Vietnam vets need our attention

This is to honor more than 500,000 sea-based veterans who fought for their country in the Vietnam War. Many of these veterans are now dying prematurely from an unseen wound. That wound is cancer. Cancer causes great pain, as do the side effects from chemotherapy and radiation. These veterans served in the Blue Water off the coast of Vietnam , in the harbors of Vietnam , in the jungles of Laos and Cambodia , and at our air bases in Thailand . Scientific evidence has shown their cancer rates to be as much as 20% higher than in-country Vietnam veterans. Their lives are no long measured in years, but in months, days and minutes.

In 1991, the Congress of the United States of America created the Agent Orange Act to grant benefits and relief to those affected by cancercausing herbicides used in Vietnam . This legislative body, believing that all veterans of war are to be treated equally, intended to help those who were failing from this unseen wound.

The intent of this legislation has now been twisted, denying veterans their earned benefits by red tape and regulations that have no scientific evidence to support them

These 500,000 veterans have been singled out as not eligible for the benefits given to other American veterans even though they all pledged their lives for their country.

In military tradition, there is sacred credo: No one left behind. The DVA has made a mockery of this tradition. These 500,000 Vietnam veterans are waiting for the voice of the American public to bring them home. Won’t you please help?

Contact Representative Randy Kuhl; Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer and ask them to sponsor the “Agent Orange Fair Compensation Act” located at this website: http://vnvets.blogsport.com/2007/11/agent-orange-fair-compensationact.html.

Willard Hughes
Bath

After GA’s pictures from the returning Afghan Vets today, I felt it would be a good opportunity to point out the need to continue to support our troops, even after they come home. Appropriate health-care is key to their acclimation back into civilian life whether their injuries are physical, mental, or emotional. They have offered up the greatest risk and sacrifice for our benefit. It is criminal to do less than what is needed. Let’s make those phone calls and write those letters. (The link at the end of the letter does not work-if you would like information on writing a letter regarding Agent Orange, try here.)

Randy Kuhl

Washington, D.C. Office

1505 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
202 225-3161 (phone)
202 226-6599 (fax)

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton

Washington, D.C.

United States Senate
476 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4451
General Fax: (202) 228-0282

Senator Chuck Schumer

Washington, DC
313 Hart Senate Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-6542
Fax: 202-228-3027
TDD: 202-224-0420

Welcome-Home-May-2008

I woke up this morning around 5:40 unable to sleep—I didn’t want to miss greeting fifty-five Reservists returning from Afghanistan. I arrived at the Armory in Henrietta (42 Patriot Way) around 9:15 a.m. The air was weighted with anticipation. Young children were squirming as their exhausted mothers tried to soothe them with tiny flags and hushed assurances that “Daddy will be home soon.” Elderly veterans were walking around impatiently in their uniforms, some with patriotic bowties, others with signs held in hands that have felt war before.

The hangar was precisely proportioned, orderly and vacuous, making all those inside seem tiny and insignificant, like Lilliputians in a Swift story, smaller than the machinations that make the place tick. An incongruous reverie followed me into the cold, cement-floored room in the form of brightly colored helium balloons with giant smiley faces painted on the front, as if to say “War is over, at least today.”

Well wishers had adorned their bodies and the walls with flags. Patriotic music was beginning to seep in, although slightly drowned out by babbling children and the occasional plane landing in the distance. Suddenly, sirens sounded and fire trucks lined the pavement, spewing geysers into the sky. Then around the corner came three buses driving under the water and an American flag that had been hoisted up on a tall fire truck ladder. The crowd began screaming, arms thrusting red, white and blue into the air. Our soldiers were home…safely.

As I was watching it all, snapping photos and feeling like it was a movie instead of real life, it occurred to me that this scene was America all at once: young, old, black, white, enlisted, civilian, conservative, liberal, punk, prude, spontaneous, methodical, hippie, straight-laced, rich, poor, naive, wise, happy, sad, energetic and tired. It was all there—America in cross-section.

War has affected us all and for about an hour on this gray Saturday morning, we all came together for the same thing. We didn’t care about our differences. We just cared about seeing our soldiers come home safely. And one more thing: we all wanted this war to be over.

Some people have asked me why the Working Families Party endorsement of Rick Dollinger in SD-56 is big news. First of all, WFP endorsed SD-56 incumbent Joe Robach in 2004 and and 2006. Secondly, WFP is a major player in Monroe County politics. Their candidate for county exec got a third of the vote in 2007 and their canvassing efforts on behalf of Democratic county lej candidates are among the major reasons why Dick Beebe won in Greece last fall.

To those who don’t follow Monroe County politics, it may be surprising that third party endorsements are meaningful and that progressive third parties sometimes endorse Republicans. But the fact is, the third party lines are extremely important, often accounting for as much as five percent of the vote, even in races where there are strong candidates from both major parties. And Republicans in Western New York like to portray themselves as progressives. In the very first line on the Monroe County GOP website, the group describes itself as “one of the most proactive, creative, and progressive political organizations in the United States.” See for yourself — I’m not making this up. While you’re at it, try finding the word “conservative” anywhere on their web page.

The WFP endorsement of Dollinger is the most important development in this race so far. And this race is one of the most important in the whole state. It’s really big news.

We’ll have much more about an equally important race — SD-55 — over the next few days.

While I was looking for more info on the MCC faculty vote of no-confidence in MCC’s All-GOP Board of Trustees, I started looking over the Do The Right Thing MCC site, which has really got a lot of stuff in it, including news articles and a blog. A lot of work and love went into that site.

One of the questions posed on their blog was this:

Do you think that the inclusion of Maggie Brooks as a reference on Bill Smith’s MCC application is a plus or minus?

A neutral question, but a good one. The answers in the comments are funny/sad, just like everything about the MCC prez selection process. Here’s a sampler:

Clearly it held clout with the Republican oriented Board of Trustees. But after after all of the taxes already spent on a Renaissance Sq. project that is still shrouded in secrecy, a mishandled Fast Ferry episode, and a subverted process leading to the political appointment of Public Defender, her reference carries little weight in the community. It will be unfortunate if the board does not listen to the community who desperately want to head off another debacle lessening the stature of Monroe County.

Ouch. Here’s another:

I do not consider Maggie Brooks a friend of education. I would therefore consider it a minus.

Must be one of the majority of Monroe Countians burned by the Brooks/Minarik FAIR plan.

Plus or a minus? How about a joke!

Bwah hah ahahah! Talk about cutting to the chase!

Maggie Brooks was chosen to follow Jack Doyle because the boys in the back room deemed her “electable”. She has been and continues to be of service to them.Her recommendation is really that of the powerful players in the community who have done so little to help this area. It would be surprising if anyone who is familiar with local politics did not realize that and therefore discount any recommendation she might make . Definitely a minus!

What?!?!??! Someone dares notice the man behind the curtain? Watch GOP boss Steve Minarik plead innocence yet again, as he’s been doing so frequently lately. Which leads me to ask, if he’s as uninvolved as people would like him to believe, why does he collect a yearly salary from Maggie Brooks’ campaign war chest that approaches $100 grand? (In 2007– not counting the nearly $450,000 she gave his media company that year.)

A few days ago, we wrote about how McCain’s chief economic adviser — former Senator Phil Gramm — was a lobbyist for UBS (one of the main companies that stands to benefit from government bail-outs of mortgage lenders) until April 18. I ask two friends who are managing directors at big Wall Street banks what they thought of this and they replied “not good!” and “this is really, really horrible.”

It turns out that things have gotten worse for UBS — one of their executives just pled guilty to corporate tax evasion their top management has been advised to stay away from the United States in order to avoid possible indictment (the bank is based in Switzerland).

But, believe it or not, Gramm’s lobbying on behalf of UBS isn’t even the biggest story here. It turns out that Gramm was the architect of legislation that many believe caused the entire subprime crisis to begin with(!):

As Congress and the White House were hurriedly hammering out a $384-billion omnibus spending bill, Gramm slipped in a 262-page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Written with the help of financial industry lobbyists and cosponsored by Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the chairman of the agriculture committee, the measure had been considered dead—even by Gramm. Few lawmakers had either the opportunity or inclination to read the version of the bill Gramm inserted. “Nobody in either chamber had any knowledge of what was going on or what was in it,” says a congressional aide familiar with the bill’s history.

[....]

the Enron loophole was small potatoes compared to the devastation that unregulated swaps would unleash. Credit default swaps are essentially insurance policies covering the losses on securities in the event of a default. Financial institutions buy them to protect themselves if an investment they hold goes south. It’s like bookies trading bets, with banks and hedge funds gambling on whether an investment (say, a pile of subprime mortgages bundled into a security) will succeed or fail. Because of the swap-related provisions of Gramm’s bill—which were supported by Fed chairman Alan Greenspan and Treasury secretary Larry Summers—a $62 trillion market (nearly four times the size of the entire US stock market) remained utterly unregulated, meaning no one made sure the banks and hedge funds had the assets to cover the losses they guaranteed. In essence, Wall Street’s biggest players (which, thanks to Gramm’s earlier banking deregulation efforts, now incorporated everything from your checking account to your pension fund) ran a secret casino. “Tens of trillions of dollars of transactions were done in the dark,” says University of San Diego law professor Frank Partnoy, an expert on financial markets and derivatives. “No one had a picture of where the risks were flowing.”

[....]

These unregulated swaps have been at “the heart of the subprime meltdown,” says Greenberger. “I happen to think Gramm did not know what he was doing. I don’t think a member in Congress had read the 262-page bill or had thought of the cataclysm it would cause.” In 1998, Greenberger’s division at the cftc proposed applying regulations to the burgeoning derivatives market. But, he says, “all hell broke loose. The lobbyists for major commercial banks and investment banks and hedge funds went wild. They all wanted to be trading without the government looking over their shoulder.”

So let’s get this straight…John McCain’s chief financial adviser:

1. was until recently a lobbyist for a bank with major legal problems and a vested interest in multi-billion dollar bail-outs of mortgage lenders;
2. was the man behind the legislation that led to what may be the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Why is this not a bigger story than what various preachers with no formal role in either campaign are saying?

If you want to understand, why the last seven years have gone as badly as they have, why we’ve blown 3.5 trillion dollars on an unnecessary war, why millions of Americans still don’t have health care, and why the public’s trust in the government and the media are at historic lows, look no further. The media’s refusal to write about this issue tells the entire story.

WXXI in Rochester is currently showing Body of War on Bill Moyers. It started at 10:00PM. Turn it on.

Today, in a NYT’s editorial, the governor is praised for his decision on same-sex marriages, and encourages him to take it to it’s natural conclusion and force a vote in the NYS for legalizing gay marriage in New York State. Already passed in the Assembly, Joe (the goon) Bruno is all that stands in the way of the “golden ring”

While most Democrats in Albany have pushed for legislation to legalize gay marriage, most Republicans have argued that it is enough to adjust state laws to make them more equitable for same-sex couples. These half-measures have not worked.

[snip]

After one of the most vigorous and emotional floor debates in recent Albany history, the Democratic-controlled Assembly has passed a bill allowing same-sex couples to marry in New York. The Republican-controlled Senate has refused, so far, to act.

Governor Paterson has worked hard to promote comity in Albany — we fear at the cost of many essential reforms. He should use his influence with the Republican Senate leader, Joseph Bruno, to get the Assembly version of the marriage bill passed this year.

Again, why am I not surprised that Bruno, a Republican, is the obstacle that keeps the carousel turning, but stands in the way of the ring?

From MCDC:

Monroe County Democrats Set to Announce Senate Candidate In the 55th District
On Monday, June 2, 2008, Monroe County Democratic Chairman Joe Morelle will hold a press conference to officially announce the Party’s Senate candidate in the 55th district.

WHO: MCDC Chairman Jo Morelle
Candidate for State Senate
Democratic Leaders & Elected Officials

WHAT: Press Conference

WHEN: Monday, June 2, 2008 at 9:00AM

WHERE: Monroe County Democratic Committee
1150 University Ave. Bldg. 5
Rochester, NY 14607

Rumor is the candidate will be David Nachbar, who’s an absolutely terrific candidate for this post.

I chatted with Dave Garretson of Greece, who will officially announce he is running for the 134th Assembly at a press conference on Sunday, June 1, 2008 at 4:15 PM at Ezzy’s Restaurant on 1260 Latta Rd in Greece.

Here are some excerpts of the interview:

Why are you running?

“We have an incumbent, Mr. Reilich, and in that time he has failed to perform. [He introduced] no major initiaves, no projects, no important bills and we can do better than that. I think I have the right combination of skill and talent in that direction and that is why I’m running.”

Any specifics that you want to change or introduce?

“The biggest work that’s ahead of us in Albany is the reforms that we need and the higher level of honest and ethical behavior that we need in government.”

If elected, do you have plans for bipartisanship?

“In order to have rules reform in the Assembly that’s gotta be done in a bipartisan fashion.

People have been in the game longer than me but I’m not a mindless partisan. People who’ve been in the game longer than me tend to be for their team. I believe we’re all in this together.”

What is your background?

“My political background is kinda brief. I’m 55. I was active up until I got into my mid-to-late 20’s and was distracted by my work life in various businesses that I’ve owned. I own Futons & More. I’m a manufacturer’s rep, I sell furniture to furniture stores in a 3-state area, NY, PA, and NJ.

The one thing that I’ve noticed from my travels is that most of the places are doing better than we’re doing here in Western NY. The big concern that we’ve got here is jobs and economic development. This area is a shadow of what it was 20 years ago.”

Why?

“The decline of manufacturing here and the U.S. in general. Twenty years ago we had over 60,000 Kodak employees and today it’s around 10,000. [That] may not be the exact number. Kodak Park is in the 134th District and they’re now using a fraction of that space for Kodak manufacturing. Part of what we need to do is get a major initiative, similar to what NY did 200 years ago when the Erie Canal was conceived and the area exploded. I don’t have the big idea but I’ll support whatever it is. Maybe it’s green collar jobs, how the state can incubate that, I don’t know. I’ll recognize the right idea when I see it and I’ll be there to support it.”

What do you want voters to know about you?

“I would ask people to judge me by the positions I take on the issues I know well. Beyond that it’s about character and integrity. This is a small town, the greater Rochester community, and I would encourage anyone to ask anybody who knows me and I’d be willing to rise or fall under that answer.”

How can you affect change?

“We need to do away with these absurd gerrymandered districts. The day to day work of course will be the state budget. I’d like to change the phrase from “3 Men in a Room” to “213 People In A Room.”

This is huge. The Finger Lakes Chapter of the WFP, along with the WFP State Executive Committee, endorsed Rick Dollinger over Joe Robach in the SD-56 race. More soon, but let me just say that this shows the vision of choosing the future over the past, hope over fear. A little member item money spread here and there vs. a sweeping progressive agenda that will help working families across New York. Wow.

Remember, you heard it on RochesterTurning first.

Other endorsees (I’ll fix the typos later):

Eric Massa - NY 29

Jon Powers - NY 26

Tom Hasman - Monroe County Clerk

Joan Kouhout - Monroe county judge

Gail Gonofrio - Monroe County Judge

Geraci - judge

Cynthia Kaleh - Monroe County Leg

Paloma Capanna - SD 54

David Garretson - Assy 134

Noah Sargent - Assy 129

Susan John - duh, like there was a question

David Koon - Assy 135

Lynne Crawford - town council in Penfield

There’s a couple folks endorsed that haven’t announced yet, but they’re big freaking deals. So we’ll report on that later.

Wow.

Longtime readers will remember how we were upset about the GOP majority in the county legislature voting in favor of an unprecedented 12-year, $13 million contract with the corrupt Siemens corporation. For what? Copier management. For all the recent GOP bloviating about “hiring locally”, you’d think they would’ve found a copier company more local than Germany. I think I remember hearing about a document company with a huge presence in Rochester. Call me crazy.

Anyway, as with all other things, the GOP rammed this contract down the county’s throat, despite the Dems revelations of Siemens corruption. Why? Because they wanted to and they could. Elections and endorsements have consequences.

Why were they so intent on forcing this relationship with us? With the Siemens corruption trial underway, maybe we’ll find out. From the NYTimes article about the corruption trial:

blockbuster revelations at the trial will probably center on what more senior Siemens officials knew.

(snip)

In his testimony, Mr. Siekaczek painted a picture of a system in which Siemens employees, himself foremost among them, paid for nonexistent consultant services and then channeled the money into off-the-books slush funds. The money was then used to pay bribes to secure orders for major Siemens projects.

Boy, I’d hate to be a county that had signed up for what will ultimately be $100 million dollars in services from Seimens. Especially if the contract was for an unprecedented 12 year term. And especially if my name showed up on a list during testimony or in the evidence from a corruption trial. In fact, I pity the fool county who did that!

Holy crap. From the D&C:

Almost every Monroe Community College faculty and staff member who cast a “no confidence” vote Thursday said they could not trust the board of trustees to conduct a politically untainted search.

Of the 553 who voted, 546 supported a no-confidence statement saying they could not trust the board to “carry out a politically nonpartisan and effective presidential search process that meets the high standards established by SUNY guidelines.”

Faculty leaders say a large percentage of eligible voters did cast a ballot Thursday. There were just under 800 eligible MCC employees who could vote, said Faculty Association President Charles Clarke.

Based on my back-of-the-envelope math, that’s nearly a 70% turnout. That’s huge. With 98.7% voting no confidence. My suspicion: the 7 voters that thinks the board is doing an awesome job are

1. related to someone benefitting from this political patronage, or
2. among the <25% who still think George W. Bush is a great president (it has to be wayyy lower than 25% in NY state)
3. all of the above

The student government leadership also voted in support of the no confidence vote.

Faculty and staff decided after interviews with finalists that Smith was unqualified for the job. They did support Spraggs and Kessler before the trustee vote.

That’s great, but I agree with the county GOP leadership– go with the unqualified guy, who was rejected something like 4 times, and who kept getting slipped back in, like a trick candle on a birthday cake.

Look at the difference in the responses. From GOP coup-appointee Guon:

“While I am disappointed in the vote, I have great respect and admiration for the passion the faculty, staff and students have demonstrated over the last few months for this college,” trustee chairman Richard Guon said in a statement today. “Our focus now needs to be on the future, and on working together to find the right leader for Monroe Community College.”

Because remember, in GOPese, working together (and bi-partisanship) means, “do it our way”.

Compare to the Dems in the county leg, from their press release:

Democrats in the Monroe County Legislature offered their support to the Monroe Community College community after today’s announcement that they no longer have confidence in their Board of Trustees’ ability to conduct an independent, credible Presidential search. Democrats also called on the Trustees to hold a vote on the only remaining candidate-Laurence Spraggs-who was recommended by the independent search committees.

That sounds like a good solution to me– hold a vote for the guy who actually made it through the screenings, has educational experience, and git er done. Don’t waste a year hoping people will give up, while you try to figure out anew how to game the system. Let’s get MCC back on track, asap, please.

Jon Powers in Lakeville, NY

The Brookings Institution released a report that ranks Rochester as 14th and the Buffalo/Niagara Falls metropolitan region as having the 14th and 16th, respectively, lowest areas per capita in carbon emissions.

The environment and how it is affected by our energy use is of special interest to Jon Powers because he has seen firsthand the deleterious effects of our dependence on fossil fuels. From his campaign website:

Jon Powers knows from firsthand experience that energy independence is a national security matter. We must make energy independence and global warming top priorities and stop allowing big oil companies to continue business as usual.

Instead of voting to support the fuels of tomorrow, Congressman Reynolds voted to give nearly $9 billion in tax breaks to the big oil and coal companies, while opposing investments in sustainable energy and energy efficiency. Powers will take a different approach because he believes America can lead by example in the development of sustainable energy. As the pioneers of sustainable energy, Western New York can lead in the creation of a high-wage, clean energy economy.

Powers makes great points and shows that he is well-versed in the issues that affect us all and how those issues play out on the world stage.

(Robert Harding over at TAP has a good write-up on this as well.)

• Mayor Duffy’s been busy:

Mayor Duffy was estatic Friday about the presence of the city, county and Greater Rochester Enterprise at the Senior PGA Championship. All three got together and pitched a tent.
Duffy told me that on Friday alone, he and others in the tent at the Oak Hill Country Club talked to at least seven site selectors about bringing businesses to Rochester.

Lawrence goes on to use it as a proof point for city-county consolidation, but hell, I’d settle for a regional plan, please. One that doesn’t use COMIDA funds to shuffle business around from city to suburb to suburb.

• The D&C ed board, to their great credit, have not hopped on the bandwagon of other Traditional Media, in being shocked–shocked, I say!– about the “revelations” in former Bush spokesman Scott McClellan’s book:

What this book, titled What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception, provides is yet another window from a slightly different vantage point into a reality already well-documented. It is that the Bush presidency misled the public about Iraq and duped the press along the way.

• Good letters at the D&C: Social programs prove essential (pro affordable heathcare), Powers offers new direction for U.S. (the Iraq war is bad for the economy– duh!). Bad letters: drilling in ANWR will be awesome!!!!
• Changing Parma watches with horror as Parma’s GOP town board hires its own members and uses tax money to pay for them. What’s that called? Conflict of…something. Interest, maybe?
• Wow, another Dem smells blood in the water in NY-26 and jumps into the race. Now we got: Powers, Davis, Kryzan, and Konst. It will be very interesting to see how this primary goes. Either that, or really annoying. Stay tuned.
• My man Chris Bowers over at Open Left has some really good ideas for bringing non-partisan information about John W. McCain to the general public. You’ll be seeing some showing up here, shortly.
• Don’t forget to vote for Albany Project blogger Robert Harding to get a scholarship to the Netroots Nation conference this summer. Robert has been doing yeoman’s work over there at TAP.
• And check out this sweet vid of John McCain, in his own words.