So, it’s been getting back to me that there’s lots of rumors about my demise.  Conspiracy theorists point to the fact that I’m barefoot on the cover of “Airbare8’s Greatest Posts” coffee-table book, or that stlo7’s posts frequently contain subliminal references about how “I buried btp”.

Some suppose that student_bee_reporter stung me with lethal rapier wit, or that ladkiddo drowned me in a big vat of Enfamil.

Sadly, it’s nothing quite so glamourous as all that.  After 5 months looking for a job, I went a little crazy when I finally found work– I’d done a massive amount of networking and a number of opportunities came through all at once.  I took many of them on and they proceeded to eat my life.  It was like my schedule by Reaganomics– 50% of my time was spent on one job, 50% on another job, and the final 50% on the third project.  I would wake up in the morning already behind on 5 different things.

Obviously not sustainable, especially given the toll it took on my fam, and unrelated family dramas that were happening concurrently.  Obviously not sustainable in any way.

I’m now in what I hope is the tail-end of all that craziness, as I’ve been forcibly prying the excess work from my cold, dead, hands and handing it off to others.  I miss being able to contribute and participate in other things, like RT (and sleeping).

I’ve been out of the loop, politically, for a few months now, and it has given me an interesting perspective on local and national politics.   It’s interesting to not be part of the hyper-informed set that writes and reads RT.  Frustrating, but interesting.

And after what happened with local elections this fall, as well as disappointments like the uphill struggle of proper healthcare reform, I truly believe we need to step back, ask “WTF”, and gain a better understanding of what makes people tick.  Or it’s going to continually be like we’re watching the horror movie, where everyone is going down to the unlit basement, and we’re like “DON’T GO DOWN THERE!!! CAN’T..YOU…HEAR…THE…MUSIC???  C’MON, PEOPLE!”

I will do my best to try to raise these “WTF” questions going forward, even if I don’t have time yet to offer any answers.

One last note– even though I’ve been out of the loop and off the grid politically, I have been keeping occasional tabs on what’s going on with all y’all here at RT.  The forced distance I’ve had to keep has given me more of the perspective of a reader as opposed to a highly-biased contributor. (Hint for those who are similarly time-constrained– go straight for the “In case you missed it…” posts by stlo7– they are the gateway drug that quickly directs you to the more detailed posts throughout the week.)

And I have to say, I’m amazed at the quality of what I read here, and the frequency, given that RT has been short-staffed for some time now.

I am proud to be a part of this, and I’m looking forward to easing back in as my life comes back into balance. Thanks all for continuing to write and read.  I believe we are part of something bigger here.  Spidey sense is telling me it’s bigger than politics, but it’s not saying much more than that at this point.  I guess I have to adjust my tinfoil hat and wait for more transmissions from the mothership or something to get a clearer picture.  (Ladkiddo, can you scoot 2 steps over?  Now move your arms just like so.  Ok  great, the signal’s coming in now…)

Remember that wonderful British family who spoke to us when we were Rallying for Single Payer in DC?  Well, they’ve been in touch and this is the latest, per Brendan Carroll, from England:

The health thing in the US is now big league stuff in England . It is in the main news bulletins rather than being in the overseas news section on the TV, radio and newspapers. There is some confusion as to how many people in the US have no health cover, and what actually happens to them if they were say run over by a taxi and were therefore injured through no fault of their own. I use the taxi example as we were carved up on the corners of streets on several occasions in New York. The other thing that has brought the subject to our attention is that a couple of UK members of parliament have said a few dodgy things on US television that the NHS has problems…….. I am sure you have heard about all this.

Well, I haven’t heard the UK parliament members directly quoted, but I am aware that the NHS is not perfect.  But, as imperfect as it is, it is not even close to the immoral system that we have here.  I ran into another woman from England last evening and had occasion to ask about her impressions of the health care coverage to which the people in the US have access.  She now lives in the US and has for several years.  This is what she had to say (paraphrased, I did not have the ability to take notes):

I am disgusted with the way the very rich have access with private companies, the very poor have access through medicaid and the people in the middle are left out and are forced to choose their employment based on the health care coverage offered. I, unfortunately am one of those people.

In the UK, everyone gets the same coverage, regardless of income.  Everybody is covered.  No one is left out.

I have asthma, when I first moved here I had no coverage.  I got sick with a cold and should have received medical attention, but unable to afford it I waited two weeks until the cold had progressed from bronchitis to pneumonia.  Then, I was able to go to the emergency department.

So, there you have it folks.  Everyone in the US is covered if they’re falling down dead.  Everyone has access to the emergency room.  A very efficient way to deliver health care, don’t you think?

For all you enlightened people out there who say that everyone in America has access to health care, I say, “Really?” Is this really what we have been reduced to?

Brendan Carroll ended with this:

Anyhow hope you are well and keep those banners well designed and waving furiously.

I’m trying, Brendan…

From Politicker:

State Senator Jim Alesi spent $18,750 of his campaign fund toward the (entirely legal) purchase of a Cadillac, a review of campaign records shows.

I know it’s legal, and it’s his campaign money– Alesi rebuts that “it’s not taxpayer money”– but let’s remember where that “campaign money” came from:

Fun With Funding

By btp ( March 24, 2009 at 5:47 pm) · Filed under Fairness, State Races, btp · Edit

sbr’s article about the Jazz Festival reminded me that I’d made much the same observation last year.  Included is a handy visual to make clear what’s going on. I’ve re-posted it below for old time’s sake:

This is actually quite a clever, if sneaky, way of getting you and I to contribute to Alesi’s campaign twice. Here’s how it works:

1) We pay taxes

2) They go into a slush fund, out of which, Alesi gets $3.9 M (for 2005-2006, which is the latest I could find from The Albany Project’s very handy pork spreadsheet)

3) Alesi gets to look like a hero for funnelling some of that ca$h to various high-PR value interest groups (like the Jazz festival), and gets his name on things

4) The interest groups kick back money directly to Alesi’s campaign fund

And this diagram is just talking about the Jazz festival. Multiply this by many other interest groups, and that kind of money (and free PR) starts to add up. Robach does the same. Nozollio has been doing the same as well. Just standard operating procedure to keep the NY State Senate in GOP control.

It’s pay-to-play, and it’s a dishonest way of supporting the “incumbant protection racket”. It’s clever, but unfair that our tax dollars goes to support Alesi.

Pay-to-play. Just an everyday part of the local GOP playbook (and funding model), from Senators Alesi and Robach on down to County Exec Maggie Brooks.

Thanks to RottenChester for the tip.

For years, Joe Robach (R), state senator representing Rochester, Brighton, and part of Greece, has been able to fuzzy up his stance on gay marriage, “Rainbow-Washing” by putting out mailers like this:

The town of Brighton just voted to endorse gay marriage.  Although it has no real legal standing, they also asked Robach to support gay marriage when it comes up for a vote in Albany.

It’s coming to a point where he can no longer dance between the raindrops, especially when he won’t be able to buy the love he did in the past– the slush fund the minority gets in the senate is much less than he’s used to when part of the majority.

It will be interesting to see how he handles this.

Two are pro-public option, one fear-mongers using the standard “healthcare rationing” smear about Canada. Read them here.

They must not have read about how popular, low-wait, and effecient Canada’s healthcare is, especially in Quebec.

And speaking of rationing:

The U.S. already rations care. Rationing in U.S. health care is based on income: if you can afford care, you get it; if you can’t, you don’t. A recent study by the prestigious Institute of Medicine found that 18,000 Americans die every year because they don’t have health insurance. Many more skip treatments that their insurance company refuses to cover. That’s rationing. Other countries do not ration in this way.

Health Insurance companies are spending $1.4 M a day to convince you that they’re awesome and that Medicare for All sucks.  They’re scared.  Wonder why?

You know, this whole fight over healthcare reform is getting ridiculous.  Watching the clip of Eric Massa, where he talks about being for Medicare for All, but that the Dem leadership is saying it’s off the table? It’s like a scene from a freakin’ Star Wars movie.

The force is with Massa.

So, the GOP in the county legislature refused to participate in debate over ROBUTRAD, hiding beind cries of “partisans!”

Just like every inquiry into the excesses and lawlessness of the Bush administration was called a “partisan witch hunt”.

It reminded me of a county legislature meeting a few months ago, where Dem inquiry into a GOP-brokered deal revealed a disturbing fact:

Monroe County taxpayers pay $700,000 in utilities annually for an asset the government sold in 2003, lawmakers learned Tuesday before they approved a 2009 spending plan.

…

The revelation that utilities at the Civic Center parking garage are being billed to taxpayers five years after the sale to a local development corporation was made at the prompting of Legislator Paul Haney, D-Rochester.

…

“Somebody’s making a lot of money here,” Haney said.

In a nutshell: the GOP leadership of the county, in a series of desperate attempts to plug holes in our county’s mismanaged budget, has been selling off assets in “one-shot” deals, trading ongoing revenue for one-time payments of cash.

In one of these deals, they were so excited that they forgot to transfer the utility bills to the buyer.  It took Dems in the legislature engaging in “partisan” debate to uncover this fact, five years after the fact.

$700,000.  A year.  That kind of money adds up after a while.

And who knows how many other parts of the county finances have been mismanaged over the years?  Or how many sweetheart deals with corrupt companies have avoided scrutiny?

“Bitter, partisan debate”? If I recall correctly, our founding fathers had another name for the concept. Something or other called “checks and balances”.

The D&C explains the CYA move at last night’s leg meeting:

The Monroe County Legislature on Tuesday voted 28-0 to put restraints on the creation of another Robutrad-like organization, but not without much debate, which at times became bitter.

Better late than never.  It’s no wonder it took this long, though, since many of the GOP folks quoted in the article were beneficiaries of ROBUTRAD’s ethics-challenged focus, according to the federal charges in the scandal.

And why was the debate “bitter”?

Democrats used the bill as a way to push a debate on the wider issue of Robutrad, saying the arrests are part of a wider problem, but Republicans fought them, saying they were making partisan attacks.

So, seeking the truth on a massively unethical misuse of taxpayer dollars is partisan?  I guess I’m “partisan” then.

As interesting as the GOP’s answers to the Dems questions may have been, I would find even more interesting the questions they tried to dodge.  If you were there and can tell me, please email me at btp (at) rochesterturning.com.

While researching info for Medicare for All, I came across the Finger Lakes Physicians for National Healthcare site, and what did I see on their front page, but stlo7’s great video “A Century of Healthcare reform in 8 minutes”.

Nice to see wider use of video taken by RT’s vidcam (which our readers helped pay for– thank you!!)

When stlo7 noted Maggie Brooks’ grandstanding about designs for RenSquare, it seemed to be a presser that was quickly orchestrated once she discovered that City Council was calling her on the carpet to discuss the project this week.

It felt like she was trying to upstage the bad news, without much substance and it reminded me of last year, when GOP County Clerk Cheryl Dinolfo did the same thing.  She knew that news of  her own managers campaigning for her on the county dime was about to break on the TV, so she quickly called a glitzy, splashy press conference to announce that she’d taken all the thousands of exposed Social Security Numbers off the Clerk’s website.

Except they weren’t.  But she didn’t care.  The sole purpose of the presser was to try to upstage the news about the unethical nature of her staff/campaign crew.

Very similar to the unethical mingling of county employee / GOP campaigner that the current ROBUTRAD scandal is revealing.

Of course, Ren Square spokesfolks are fear-mongering (via City Paper):

“It is time to make sure our community doesn’t lose $24 million and 3,700 jobs,” [Renaissance Square spokesman Mike] Power says.

Sounds bad.  But I enjoyed our own rochester99’s good points in the article’s comments:

That is the threat that County Executive Maggie Brooks is projecting on the city, city council and the Mayor. Change anything and you will lose $24 million and 3,700 jobs! First of all, the $24 million is quite mobile…

And they go to town on the job figure:

And to toss around a highly exaggerated job figure (3,700 jobs) during a deep recession is irresponsible and distorts the facts. Any responsible public figure would use the term “full time equivalent for the life of the project” ‘ as a accurate assessment of direct jobs created. At most I would estimate 500-700 full time equivalent for the life of the project. But realize that any alternative plan would also have similar number of jobs created. The time frame and project scope may change but they would still create similar number of jobs.

And why aren’t folks talking about how sustainable this project is?

What never is discussed is the number of net jobs created AFTER construction. You could probably count them on your fingers!

And what are those jobs?  High-wage? Medium-wage?  Or McJobs that won’t really contribute much to our economy, long-term?

One can’t help but get the feeling that this is where it’s all going with Ren Square. Especially after reading stlo7’s report about the D&C article, then reading City Paper’s take on it:

REN SQUARE: Council unlikely to support the project ‘as is’

Duffy and Council members agreed this morning not to disclose their position until they meet with Brooks and Aesch, Council members say.

Will city officials insist on changes to the plan?

“I can tell you that as we’ve said consistently, the current plan is not something that we can fully support,” Council member Dana Miller said this morning.

Does anyone else feel like Brooks and Aesch are being called into the prinicpal’s office?

Moonbat Over Monroe continues to rock the mic, taking to task folks who complain about Dems having “absolute power” in Albany and say that they should share with the GOP.  These same folks are predictably silent about our own Monroe County government.

Once again I call upon the Republican lej majority to announce a plan to share power with the Democratic Caucus, which is only one seat away from controlling the place. Surely, whenever “absolute power” is held by ANY party, it must be diluted via voluntary sacrifice on the part of the controlling regime.

Well, how about it?  Especially since our county government appears to be completly unable to operate in a fiscally sound, or even ethical manner.

On Tuesday I wrote about how evidence in the Fed’s case against ROBUTRAD showed how GOP leaders, up to the top of Monroe County government, were in on the use of ROBUTRAD as a campaign tool.

Basically, our Monroe County taxes were used to pay for people to march in parades and donate to GOP candidates like Maggie Brooks.  If you read the email I quoted in my previous post, it makes you feel a little slimy all over. It’s basically Morone apologizing for not getting enough people to march in a parade last year (presumably with Cheryl Dinolfo).

The sharp-eyed stlo7 found this addition:

Monroe County: Corrupt All The Way To The Top

Remember, this email was directed to Bonnie Stein, secretary for Brayton Connard– Maggie Brooks’ campaign manager and Director of HR for the county.

Now in my work experience, if HR even got a whiff of an email like that, or that those kinds of activities were going on, the least that would happen is “Um, you can’t do that, you know.”  Most likely, the people involved would be severely disciplined or let go.

But in Maggie Brooks’ county government, HR is actually a conduit for unethical and illegal behavior, being a key touchpoint between GOP HQ and other GOP operatives within county government.  It’s baked into the Monroe county government’s culture.

Which may explain why Cheryl Dinolfo’s managers at the County Clerk’s office felt no ethical twinges last year while campaigning for her on county time.  I guess our tax money funded her campaign, as well as Brooks’.

Who else in the GOP ranks have we funded?  I mean, I’m all for publicly financed elections, but this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.

Ren Square had yet another setback. Via the City Paper (and the D&C):

As Renaissance Square approaches a key date, it’s sputtering once again.

Project planners were counting on City Council to vote on eminent domain proceedings and the sale of a piece of vacant land by July 14. But Council has not received legislation for either.

Instead, reports the Democrat and Chronicle, Council has requested a meeting with County Executive Maggie Brooks and Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Authority CEO Mark Aesch.

Brooks and crew were “expecting” City Council to vote in favor of this.  The longer Ren Square takes, the worse Maggie Brooks’ leadership looks.