via the New York Post

Disgraced former Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been identified as a long-standing client of a second high-priced call-girl ring, The Post has learned.

The ex-governor regularly patronized Wicked Models, the Manhattan-based operation taken down Tuesday, according to financial documents and other evidence unearthed in a yearlong prostitution in vestigation, law-enforcement sources said.

(more)

via the New York Times

Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer was deeply involved in his administration’s efforts last year to discredit the State Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, holding detailed discussions with senior aides, ordering damaging information about Mr. Bruno released, and calling an aide at home repeatedly to check on the progress, according to several people with direct knowledge of the investigation.

Waiting Game Must End
Resignation In Hours
Resignation Day?
Silda's Preference: Shit
Rep. Gillibrand's Preference: Get Off the Pot
Tax Paid Hookers?
Aides Provided Classical Music to Set the Mood
Cost to Hillary
Nabbing Spitzer: The Timeline

Spitzer Announcement at 11:30am

Governor Paterson

The Wall Street Cheers
What the Comics Had To Say
Note to Silda: Take the Kids and Run
Suspicious Money Movements
Criminal Charges Ahead?
Weighing Resignation
Fall From Grace
New Yorkers: Time to Resign
Impeachment Threat
Client 9 T-Shirts on Sale Now
Resignation Forthcoming?
Paterson Waiting
Long John Spitzer
$80,000 Worth of Prostitutes

via the New York Times

Gov. Eliot Spitzer has informed his most senior administration officials that he had been involved in a prostitution ring, an administration official said this morning.

(more)

Update: Spitzer to Resign?

via Siena

Nearly 60 percent of New York voters who have read or heard about the Attorney General’s "troopergate" report believe that Governor Eliot Spitzer needs to be more forthright about what he knows, compared to only one-quarter of the voters who believe that he has been honest with the public, according to a new Siena (College) Research Institute poll of registered voters released today. The Siena New York poll also shows that 70 percent believe Spitzer should publicly testify under oath about everything he knows about troopergate. Sptizer, who still maintains a better than two-to-one favorable rating but carries a negative job performance rating, beats Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in a hypothetical gubernatorial primary 47-24 percent.

via the New York Post

This is a sad follow-up to the open letter I sent you in November in the exciting, hope-filled hours before a historic landslide victory gave you a popular mandate to carry out the reforms you repeatedly promised you were all about.

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Maybe if you had taken some of my suggestions you could have avoided the disturbing, business-as-usual mess that engulfed and embarrassed our state during the past week - as you desperately abandoned your reform pledges in an unsuccessful effort to get an on-time budget.

Frankly, the price paid for your failure - in terms of the public's money and the severe damage to your reputation - could hardly be higher.

via the New York Daily News

We live in the Age of Addiction. Our nation is addicted to oil. Our people are addicted to junk food. And Albany is addicted to secrecy.

Just ask Eliot Spitzer. The man who promised that Day One: Everything Changes is the latest "reformer" to fall victim to secrecy's sway. Maybe we need a 12-step program instead of elections. Or maybe we need to move Albany to a warm-weather state so sunshine can find its dark and dirty corners.

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When I said it was my opinion he had given into the Legislature's usual scams of secrecy, he shot back: "I'm the governor of the state. I'll be Lyndon Johnson. I'll craft the deals and I'll get the job done. You will write and I will do. That's why you're there and I'm here."

Lyndon Johnson? Wow. Twelve steps may not be enough to cure our new governor.

(more)

via Empire Zone

Gov. Eliot Spitzer continued his attacks on Democratic legislators this morning. His latest target: Assemblyman George S. Latimer of Westchester County.

“I had supported George for the Assembly because I thought he supported reform, and I’m terribly disappointed to see both what he did, how he voted and what he has said,” the governor said this morning, during a stop in Mr. Latimer’s district. “We’ll see what happens down the road. I’m sure there are candidates out there who do support reform. That’s what I said up in Syracuse that’s what I’ll say in Buffalo, that’s what I’ll say wherever I go across the state.”

via the Daily News

Here are the names of legislators from Brooklyn and Manhattan who voted for the unqualified Thomas DiNapoli for state controller. Remember how they broke their word and betrayed the public.

Brooklyn: Peter Abbate, William Boyland, James Brennan, Alec Brook-Krasny, Karim Camara, William Colton, Steven Cymbrowitz, Marty Golden, Diane Gordon, Dov Hikind, Janele Hyer-Spencer, Rhoda Jacobs, Hakeem Jeffries, Joseph Lentol, Vito Lopez, Alan Maisel, Felix Ortiz, Nick Perry, Annette Robinson, Darryl Towns, Helene Weinstein.

via the New York Post

“There’s nothing like losing a skirmish that leads me to want to win the next round more,” Spitzer told a group of donors at a breakfast in Manhattan, according to a source at the event.

“The knockout blow is coming very soon,” he threatened - hinting at a possible coup against Silver.

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“I don’t think tactics that impugn our integrity work,” Canestrari said. “We need to deal with these things in a rational, unemotional manner.”

Another shocked Assembly Democrat said, “He’s f- - -ing nuts. He’s like a maniac. . . I first thought his aggressive thing was a posture, a strategy to make us the enemy, but I no longer think that. Now I think he’s got a very serious temper management issue.”

(more)

Forget steamrollers. We're on to a new metaphor.

A source who attended this morning's breakfast with Eliot Spitzer at the Grand Hyatt -- a thank you event for some donors -- reports that Spitzer briefly touched on his confrontation with the legislature.

"You win some, you lose some," my source reports Spitzer said. "But those you lost to should know that a knockout punch is coming."

There's a lot riding on how Eliot Spitzer responds to his first real defeat in a while.

Writes a reader:

"If he's gracious, he gets it. If not, could be an ugly four years."

via Empire Zone

The Democratic-led State Assembly dealt a setback today to Gov. Eliot Spitzer by agreeing to elect Assemblyman Thomas P. DiNapoli as the next state comptroller, reneging on a deal it made with the governor to choose only from candidates deemed qualified by an outside screening panel to succeed Alan G. Hevesi.

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Speaker Sheldon Silver said after the closed-door meeting on Wednesday wards that “I think the members thought he was the most qualified member, and the most qualified candidate, and they chose to nominate him.’’

On LunchBox today, host Adam Green on: Barack Obama, Sam Brownback, John Edwards, John McCain, Tom Tancredo, Comptroller Candidates, Eliot Spitzer, Shelly Silver, Joe Bruno, Chris Callaghan and more...