It has just been reported that former Councilwoman Helen Sears has declined the GOP offer of political reassignment surgery to elect her to the NY State Senate as a Republican.

Apparently the chances of surviving an operation of that nature at such an advanced age without debilitating side effects (like complete and total loss of integrity) are almost nil.

Godspeed to you Helen.

Will someone please give this woman a no-show job (though not as a Councilwoman again)?

With Sears in the race, Democrats were left no choice but to go after the independent petitions being filed by former Senator Hiram Monserrate, lest Monserrate divide the Latino vote and ensure Sears‘ election.

In a Brooklyn special election for City Council taking place in March, a candidate named Joseph Lazar is attempting so sell himself by telling voters (or at least certain voters) that he is “running against [Kings County Democratic Leader] Vito Lopez.”

Given Lazar’s almost unbroken history of support for Lopez‘s candidates, and the donations to Lopez‘s County organization by principals of the Lazar Family consulting firm, the assertions of Lazar’s independence are pretty laughable on their own terms, but it cannot be denied that Lazar is not Lopez’s preferred candidate in this race, although Lazar’s sponsors surely wish, and tried to ensure, that this was otherwise.

Dateline: 2/16/10--Boynton Beach Florida (and yes, I will be visiting Maurice Gumbs)

Life is too short, and those unfortunate enough to be living in communities like East New York cannot be blamed if they decide to derive their entertainment through their elected officials, whether it be Councilman Chuckles Barron or their former Assemblywoman, Diane "House of the Rising Sum" Gordon.

When City Council Speaker Christine Quinn forced the firing of Councilman Barron’s Chief of Staff, Viola Plummer, for advocating an attempt on the life of another Council Member, I was shocked and bothered.

The Select Committee concludes and believes that sanctions against Senators should only be imposed in cases of serious misconduct. Expulsion should be considered only in the most egregious circumstances. Having considered the available evidence and evaluated the facts relating to the conduct that provided the basis for Senator Monserrate’s conviction, the Select Committee finds that this case is serious enough to warrant a severe sanction. In doing so, we are mindful that ultimately, the voters of Senator Monserrate’s district, where he plans to run for re-election, will decide whether or not he is returned to office…

What Wall Street cursed FDR for was his temerity in insisting upon setting up some rules to ensure that Wall Street’s man-made disaster would never occur again, and that the third-party victims of their depravity were allowed the basic sustenance necessary for survival. The rules Wall Street so objected to save them from disaster for more than a half century, until they were rendered obsolete by new technology and more advanced and clever forms of self-destructive avarice…

As I noted last fall while sifting through the vat of offal known as the Comptroller’s race, Councilman (as he was then) David Weprin, never bunched my panties. He reminded me of Rupert Pupkin in “The King of Comedy;” and came off as a parochial outer-borough pol, utterly lacking in vision, who appeared poised to restore the model of Abe Beame.

PAUL MCCARTNEY: …Too Many Reaching For A Piece Of Cake
Too Many People Pulled And Pushed Around
Too Many Waiting For That Lucky Break
That Was Your First Mistake
You Took Your Lucky Break And Broke It In Two
Now What Can Be Done For You
You Broke It In Two

Too Many People Sharing Party Lines
Too Many People Never Sleeping Late
Too Many People Paying Parking Fines
Too Many Hungry People Losing Weight…

…Too Many People Preaching Practices
Don't Let Them Tell You What You Wanna Be
Too Many People Holding Back, This Is
Crazy And Maybe It's Not Like Me

That Was Your Last Mistake
I Find My Love Awake And Waiting To Be
Now What Can Be Done For You
She's Waiting For Me”

RESHMA SAUJANI: This is a new decade and we need a new direction…We need to put aside the policies of the past and start building the future because we are the future. That's going to take new ideas, new leadership and new bridges.

Translation of message to Carolyn Maloney:

MARLENE DIETRICH (in Orson Welles’ “Touch of Evil”): …Your future is all used up. Why don’t you go home?

or maybe

ROGER DALTREY: Why dontcha all f-f-f-fade away...talkin bout my g-g-generation  

Since the sole reason for the existence of this Department is to make sport of such people, I am happy to report that the problem continues unabated.

It is perhaps emblematic of the depths of despair currently implicating those of us to the left of center that not only have our factions begun firing upon each other, but among themselves.

A dedicated fan (except when I am writing about matters affecting Carroll Gardens) writes:

SHAMES: I think it is generally good to remind the "progressives" that progress is taken in successive steps and that incrementalism is a related concept of increase and no more a dirty word than progress. They don't seem to understand that they share their country with a lot of people who don't agree with them on everything and who also believe that they are right.

BERNSTEIN: Thatcher! That man was the biggest darn fool I ever met. 

THOMPSON: He made an awful lot of money.

BERNSTEIN: It's no trick to make an awful lot of money if all you want is to make a lot of money.

---From CITIZEN KANE

The proof of the intellectual bankruptcy of Wall Street is their inability to learn. Rescued in the thirties from the depths of their own self-created degradation, they spent the next decade cursing the President who’d rescued them, and possibly capitalism itself, as “that man in the White House.”

It is quite clear that the New York Post’s Charles Hurt thinks his readers are stupid.

Certainly, he has good reason to believe this--after all, they do read the New York Post.

On Sunday Morning he published the following:

“Call it smear by association.

It appears to be -- literally -- the only hope Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has to pull off a slender victory here, in one of the most Democratic states in the country, for a seat so long owned by one of the most beloved liberal lions America has ever known.

If it passes.

Sadly, I have major doubts that after last night, the Senate Bill can win a majority in the House. First, with or without last night, doing such a deal would require a level of trust that may be lacking under the best of circumstances. Secondly, a lot of balls got shrunk last night. Finally, there are still the Kucinich types who will vote to kill Health Care Reform in order to save it, even though starting all over again will not result in a more liberal bill, and probably won’t result in any bill at all.