Yesterday's Newsday article about political blogging in the NYC area was picked up today by the National Journal's Beltway Blogroll!  Quoted once again was UE founder Scott S(c)ala who might need to get a name change at this point.

On April 30, 2007, at the offices of the Queens County Republican Party in Glendale, the Party’s Judicial Nominating Committee will meet at 6:00pm. All party lawyers who are admitted to practice in NY for at least ten years and are in good standing, are encouraged to submit their resumes and be interviewed on that date. This is a great opportunity for the "grassroots" of the party to step up to the plate and participate in the electoral process. For more info call 718.440.4011.

The recent agreement between the City of New York and the Council of School Supervisors & Administrators (Local 1: American Federation of School Administrators, AFL-CIO) seeks to encourage the best and the brightest principals to take positions in the most challenging city public schools. What is the inducement to take one of these newly created “executive principal” positions? It is the additional remuneration of $25,000 a year to lead a “high-needs” school for a minimum of three years. Indeed, the tentative contract goes even further by permitting the Chancellor to pay any principal a “performance-based” bonus of $25,000 for improving the school they run.

These “market-based” type incentives to persuade top-notch school administrators to take jobs in the most under-performing schools as well as the offer to every principal in the system of a substantial monetary award for significantly improving the skills of the schoolchildren they supervise are a new concept for New York City public schools. Yet these are encouraging signs in reforming a school system in ways that put children first while rewarding those most responsible for creating the innovative ideas that result in such skills improvement.

As those of us in Northwestern Queens still wait for relief, i decided to pen this article. It ran in this weeks Astoria Times:

Mom and Pop Businesses still wait for Con Ed

After months of arguments and public relations efforts, two separate reports - one by the Public Service Commission and one by the state Legislature - have shown that it was clearly Con Edison who was at fault for the July 2006 blackout.

Nearly a year later, the small business community of Northwestern Queens, which lost millions of dollars in sales and profits, has yet to be compensated at all by the multibillion-dollar utility giant.

According to a new poll covered in today's LA Times, Rudy Giuliani is polling at twice the support of his next closest rival - among Christian conservatives.

Nationwide, he is the No. 1 choice of white conservative Christians for the Republican nomination. A Times poll this month found 26% of them favor Giuliani — more than double the portion supporting either of his top rivals, John McCain or Mitt Romney.

This shocking revelation is in spite of the fact that these voters know Rudy is pro-choice and disagree with that position, but support him anyway.

In conversations with Republicans here in the first state to vote in the 2008 presidential race, the more striking thing is how evangelicals Carolyn Vande Voort, Joy Milby and Mike Brown see Giuliani: They disagree with him on social issues, but lean toward him anyway.

.... Giuliani's improbable appeal to these culturally conservative voters suggests that they may pose less of a threat to his quest for the nomination than widely assumed. His lead among those voters is partly circumstance; no other Republican has consolidated their support.

According to this reporter, and most other indicators tend to point to the same thing, that Rudy's strong leadership is winning over people who nevertheless disagree with him on some serious issues.

Urban Elephants was (once again) featured in the local media -- this time in Long Island's Newsday.

Say it five times fast. Partisan bloggers are blogging on the bloggings of other bloggers - and Long Island is the battlefield.

"Urban Elephants" is a New York City Republican-oriented Web site. A recent post expresses concern about "energetic liberal bloggers setting up space online targeting specific Republican elected leaders," that is, "blogs dedicated solely to one person."

As examples, Elephants' Scott Scala [sic] cites Democratic-oriented sites that target Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), Nassau Legislature Minority Leader Peter Schmitt (R-Massapequa), the Nassau GOP - all of a piece. Another such site, called "Veto Vito," whacks Staten Island Rep. Vito Fossella, the five boroughs' only Republican congressman.

(Source - AP)
Caption or photoshop this scene, top entries will be posted on Monday (4/30). 

Click on Read More for previous contests.

Runner Up (1 point) - "Just a spoon full of sugar makes my tax increases go down, makes my tax increases go down, makes my tax increases go down!" - Robert

Click on Read More for the Winning entry!

President George W. Bush will visit Harlem on Tuesday, April 24, 2007 to speak at the Harlem Children's Zone located at 35 East 125th Street, New York, New York.  The specific time of the event remains to be announced. All Republicans – as well as Urban Elephants – are invited to attend this affair. The President will speak on Charter Schools. 

The Upper Manhattan Fighting 69th Republican Club supports Charter Schools and will be present at the event. District Leader Lolita Ferrin believes that “This is a golden opportunity for Republicans who believe in Charter Schools to show support by attending” this event.  Anyone interested in attending should contact Lolita Jackson at (212) 735-6887.  Please identify your club affiliation (if any) when you do and, in deference to the President, be there on time. 

Remember there will be significant security arrangements at this event. Travel light.  

Star Parker, a former welfare mother and the founder and president of CURE (the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education), was the shining star of the New Jersey Right to Life dinner on Friday, April 20th.

Ms Parker, who has appeared on Hannity and Colmes, and Rush Limaugh, discussed her opposition to abortion, as the destroyer of the black family, and to welfare. "The 1992 Los Angeles riots destroyed her business but served as a springboard for her focus on faith-based and free market alternatives to empower the lives of the poor." She told the listeners how she turned her life around after she allowed God into her life.

Also present was the always wonderful Ann Coulter, who discussed the legal implications of the egregious Roe v. Wade decision ("people in the courtroom were actually laughing when Sarah Weddington argued in favor of legalized abortion by claiming imaginary rights in the Constitution") and how the liberal media bashes right to lifers (as do Democrats and RINOS who paint us as extremists).

Other speakers included presidential candidate, Senator Sam Brownback, who talked about his adopted children, and former Giants football player Chris Godfrey, the president of Life Athletics. What was so striking about this wonderful banquet was the number of Republican politicians who were there. Only one Democratic pro life politician showed up proving, once again, that the Democratic Party is the Party of Death. Congratulations to Traude Barbiero, the President of NJ RTL and to Marie Tasy, its executive director. Kudos also to the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal and the members of Priests for Life for their service to the needy.

Over at the confirm them blog:

“A lot of us wish that Alito weren't there and O'Connor were there.”
"That’s Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s puzzling reaction—at a press conference—to today’s Supreme Court decision upholding the federal partial-birth abortion ban. This remark from a man who voted for the partial-birth abortion ban found constitutional today and against an amendment to the bill declaring that “Roe v. Wade was appropriate and . . . should not be overturned.”

From http://holdthesenate.blogspot.com/

I've moved that squeezed conversation over here.

Probably written by Hamilton, this explains the Founder's intended role of the federal public official and the relationship they would have to the governed public...

It is a just observation that the people commonly intend the public good. This often applies to their very errors. But their good sense would despise the adulator who should pretend that they always reason right about the means of promoting it. They know from experience that they sometimes err; and the wonder is that they so seldom err as they do, beset as they continually are by the wiles of parasites and sycophants, by the snares of the ambitious, the avaricious, the desperate, by the artifices of men who possess their confidence more than they deserve it, and of those who seek to possess rather than to deserve it. When occasions present themselves in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests to withstand the temporary delusion in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection. Instances might be cited in which a conduct of this kind has saved the people from very fatal consequences of their own mistakes, and has procured lasting monuments of their gratitude to the men who had courage and magnanimity enough to serve them at the peril of their displeasure.

Serving at the "peril of their displeasure" is what is absent in today's political world. Not to say it was abundant at any other time in American history, but it did occur.

Although not too popular on this site lately, Mayor Guiliani's effort to cut the Welfare rolls fits the 200 year old description. In NYC, it clearly was "at the peril of their displeasure" that the Mayor took that fight on, but it worked.

The question i'd like to hear input on:
Is there a need for "enlightened statemen" (or "stateswomen") for America to survive or can America flourish with the whims and desires of the recently growing support for majority rule?

In today's New York Sun:

ALBANY — Despite ending the year with a $1.5 billion surplus, Albany is considering what could come to be known as the Paw and Claw Tax, a 3% sales tax on pet food and pet supplies.

Under a bill introduced by Republican [Frank Padavan] from New York City this week, pet owners would pay a little more for milk bones, squeaky toys, hamster wheels, catnip, birdbaths, and other supplies for their loyal companions. Owners of ferrets and potbellied pigs should not be concerned; the statewide tax would be slapped on wholesale products for the following animals: dogs, cats, gerbils, hamsters, rabbits, and caged birds.

I was talking to my mom - a Padavan supporter - and she said this is ridiculous. Many pet owners in NYC are seniors on fixed incomes and can't afford more money spent in taxes. I told her that if this tax goes through, then maybe she should finally consider voting against the senator.
Republicans proposing tax increases. Do New Yorkers live in some mirror universe with the rest of the country?

From WNYT/AP:

The former head of the New York state Republican Party says he's an official candidate for the eastern New York congressional seat currently held by freshman Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand.

Sweeney, from Clifton Park in Saratoga County, hasn't ruled out running again.

by Jim Kouri, CPP

Abdelrahman Farhane, a/k/a "Abderr Farhan", was sentenced in Manhattan federal court to 13 years in prison on Monday. On November 9, 2006, Farhane pleaded guilty to a two-count indictment charging him with participating in a conspiracy to commit money laundering, the object of which was to provide money for jihadists in Afghanistan and Chechnya to purchase weapons and equipment, and with making a false statement to agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in connection with a terrorism investigation.

According to the documents filed in the case:

In 2001, the FBI became involved in an investigation involving the provision of material support to international and domestic terrorists and terrorist organizations, including fundraising, financing, and recruitment.

Democrat congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy doesn't understand her own anti-gun legislation: http://amerpundit.com/archives/773

"Could we make a deal in Washington? We don’t introduce legislation anymore, unless we know what it actually means. Is that reasonable? I only ask, because that’s apparently a problem. Representative Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) was on Tucker Carlson, to discuss her new attempt at repealing the Second Amendment, H.R. 1859. The Representative is apparently worried about barrel shrouds, considering it’s part of her legislation, controlling them, that is. Carlson thought it would be reasonable to ask McCarthy exactly what “barrel shrouds” are. She didn’t know."

UPDATE: Thanks for the correction! I've made it above.

From the New York Times:

The welcome for Fred Thompson wasn't just warm, it was effusive. The former Tennessee senator and actor is still weighing whether to run for the GOP presidential nomination but House Republicans who met with him Wednesday gushed over the prospects of Thompson candidacy. They called him presidential, a leader, a proven conservative, an exciting prospect and ''a breath of fresh air.'' ... Before ducking into a waiting vehicle, he shook his head no when asked whether he had a timeline for deciding whether to run for president. Thompson has appeared to move closer to a candidacy in recent weeks. ... Some 50 House Republicans attended the private meeting arranged by Rep. Zach Wamp of Tennessee, a Republican leading a draft-Thompson campaign. ...

Please come to the Queens County Young Republicans’ Cocktail Party and help begin a new chapter in Young Republican Clubs in New York State.

Benefiting The City Parks Foundation
Bourbon Street

40-12 Bell Boulevard Bayside, Queens (One Block from the Bayside LIRR Station)
Thursday, May 3, 2007 7:30-10:30 PM
Open Bar and Hors D’ Oeuvres
Invited Guests: Sen. Frank Padavan, Sen. Serf Maltese

Entrance: $35 dollars
Checks made payable to: Queens Young Republican Committee
(A portion of net proceeds will benefit City Parks Foundation)

For more information, click & print out the attached invite.
Or click on This PDF link

If you have relatives, friends, business associates or employees that are roughly between the ages of 18 and 39 (not strictly enforced!) and Republican or committed to City Parks, they are all welcome.

Feel free to print out a copy of the invite and share it with them. It is for a good cause and we are planning on having a good time.

For more information, visit the Queens County GOPwebsite or email QueensYR@gmail.com or call (718) 628-9522

Supreme Court Upholds Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
from Yahoo News

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court upheld the nationwide ban on a controversial abortion procedure Wednesday, handing abortion opponents the long-awaited victory they expected from a more conservative bench.

The 5-4 ruling said the Partaial Birth Abortion Ban that Congress passed and President Bush signed into law in 2003 does not violate a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.

The opponents of the act "have not demonstrated that the Act would be unconstitutional in a large fraction of relevant cases," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.

The decision pitted the court's conservatives against its liberals, with President Bush's two appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, siding with the majority.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also were in the majority.

It was the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over how - not whether - to perform an abortion.

***this entry has been edited by the administrator

The Gotham Daily Dish is reporting that Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno is backing legislation and a Constitutional Amendment to institute Term Limits on the State Level.

Senator Bruno says, "these measures will bring fresh voices and a different perspective to State government and at the same time will ensure a greater level of openness, transparency and accountability for the people of New York State."

...Senator Frank Padavan, who is also the Co-Chairman of the Senate Majority Task Force on Reform, said, "My colleagues and I have studied the problems that plague New York State government. Introducing term limits on statewide offices, chairmanships, and legislative leaders is a starting point to help make New York more accountable, better functioning and more representative of its population."

The Amendment would limit Statewide offices (Governor, Attorney General & Comptroller) to two terms. On the legislative level, it would limit them to eight years of service and to hold committee posts at a maximum of six years.

Elected Republicans and Republican candidates should all get on the same page with this, so it can be part of the Republican platform for state elections next year.