McCain's $520 designer loafers put the 'elitist' shoe on the other foot

It's usually the Republicans who bash Democrats as being "out-of-touch elitists," but beer heiress Cindy McCain's husband, John, won't be able to go there this year, lest he put his foot in his mouth.

You see, John McCain, the real elitist in this presidential election, has been travelling the country wearing a pair of shoes that would make John Edwards haircuts look like they were done at BoRics.

Huffington Post blogger Isabel Wilkinson reported on Wednesday that Senator John McCain "has worn a pair of $520 black leather Ferragamo shoes on every recent campaign stop — from a news conference with the Dalai Lama to a supermarket visit in Bethlehem, PA."

I have personally never owned a pair of shoes that has cost more than $75 and even those shoes were a guilty pleasure. You can get a great pair of shoes for $40, I've done it several times (LL Bean clearances rock!). Now, the next time some GOP supporter whines that I'm a liberal elitist, I'll just look down at the worn soles of my shoes and tell him just how fiscally responsible and far from elitist I really am.

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America's richest, like Cindy McCain, are enjoying big tax cuts. And her husband wants more!

Did you enjoy your little government check back in May? Is it gone already? Do you need a real tax break? Well, it's real simple to get one, actually, but first you have to join Cynthia McCain in the ranks of the mega-rich.

From CBS's MarketWatch:

In a new sign of increasing inequality in the U.S., the richest 1% of Americans in 2006 garnered the highest share of the nation's adjusted gross income for two decades, and possibly the highest since 1929, according to Internal Revenue Service data.

Meanwhile, the average tax rate of the wealthiest 1% fell to its lowest level in at least 18 years. The group's share of the tax burden has risen, though not as quickly as its share of income.

The figures are from the IRS's income-statistics division and were posted on the agency's Web site last week. The 2006 data are the most recent available.

The figures about the relative income and tax rates of the wealthiest Americans come as the presumptive presidential candidates are in a debate about taxes. Congress and the next president will have to decide whether to extend several Bush-era tax cuts, including the 2003 reduction in tax rates on capital gains and dividends. Experts said those tax cuts in particular are playing a major role in falling tax rates for the very wealthy.

The middle class is continuing to fall behind. Many of us can't afford our homes or the taxes that we pay on them. Some of us can't afford our cars and the gasoline that we put in them.

Our incomes are dwindling. Prices are spiraling. The job market is shrinking (and if they counted the unemployed the way they counted it back in the 1970s, we'd be at a near 25-year high). Meanwhile, the richest Americans are paying a smaller percentage of their income in taxes.

You may say, however, that Bush is a lame duck, or that he'll be out of office soon. There will be new policies one way or another. Well, the man might be out of office, but if John McCain is elected, Bush's policies will live on. In fact, you can't count on McCain to pick up the mantle and charge ahead.

Sen. John McCain has proposed extending the lower [capital gains] tax rates of 15% on long-term capital gains and dividends that apply to most taxpayers, while Sen. Barack Obama has said he will seek to raise them to at least 20%, the rate before the 2003 cut, and possibly higher.

Again, with John McCain, it will only be more of the same. It's only the rich, like his heiress wife and her country-club set, that will enjoy even lower taxes, while the middle class gets screwed again. Oh, a McCain Administration might throw us a bone know and then, probably another useless stimulus check, but Barack Obama is talking about rewriting the tax code so that all Americans pay their fare share.

Again, Senator Obama is offering Americans change that they can believe in. Senator John McCain is offering us four more years of Bush policies.

Or as Cindy McCain might say, "Let them eat cake!"
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Vanderhoef screws up Rockland County's budget once again

On Thursday, Rockland County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef mandated that all county agencies freeze overtime and cut all non-essential spending, moves which Vanderhoef said that should save the county $4 million this year. Additionally, all county employees, with the exception of law-enforcement personnel, would have to give up the privilege of taking home county vehicles, which should save the county another $50,000. Also, some departments, notably the Department of Highways will cut back to a 4-day, 10-hour daily work schedule.

Unfortunately, Vanderhoef has failed in this test of his ability to govern the county. It's apparent the Republican county executive—and perennial candidate for other offices—did not plan for an economic downturn of this size and got caught more than $18 million short.

A small county, the size of Rockland, doesn't have $18 million deficits unless its budgeting processes are short-sighted and poorly thought out. Most notably, Vanderhoef over-predicted the revenues from sales and mortgage taxes over the last few years, and his unwise formulations didn't take into account the current recession.

This is an economic mess, not just a small budget deficit. If fiscal incompetence was a crime, we'd have a good case against Vanderhoef.

However, it's my fear is that service cutbacks will soon be coming whether we want them or not. Of course, there isn't a single government department—local, state, or federal—that can't benefit from a nip here and a tuck there, but county services cannot be slashed. County services have already been cut severely under Vanderhoef's tenure.

Remember, this is the same C. Scott Vanderhoef that attempted to give himself an outrageous 9.3 percent pay raise for himself and seven of his cronies last year as the county faced another budget shortfall. This shows us just how little Vanderhoef thinks of this county: While taxpayers have to suffer by paying more and county departments had to cut back last year, Vanderhoef thought he deserved a $14,200 per year raise. It was only a little outrage from the cash-strapped voters that stopped him from getting his windfall.

When Vanderhoef put that raise in his 2008 budget back in November, he already knew the county was in trouble. Our property taxes were increasing mostly because his previous budget, for 2007, was also flawed and overestimated the revenue from taxes by millions. Does this sound like a politician that cares for his constituents?

History will remember C. Scott Vanderhoef as Rockland County's own King Nero that fiddled as the Rockland County budget burned.
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State Senate race should be the Rockland Dems priority

Good news came across the transom today. The Rockland County Democratic Party has fielded a full slate of candidates and two of those candidates, State Assembly member Kenneth Zebrowski, Jr., and one of either Assembly member Ellen Jaffee or Chris Sampson, her primary challenger, will run unopposed by the Rockland County Republican Party.

The failure of the Republicans to field candidates for the assembly seats and to again field some weak candidates in some other races shows just how strong the Democratic Party has become in the area, especially in the eastern part of Rockland County.

That's why, in addition to getting Sen. Barack Obama elected President, the Rockland Democrats have got to give their all in defeating one of the big stalwarts of the Republican controlled State Senate.

I worked on Nancy Low-Hogan's State Senate campaign two years ago and I'm giving advice, when I can, to Greg Julian. Nancy was a great candidate in 2006: Spending very little money, she ran a very scrappy campaign and nearly got 40 percent of the vote against State Sen. Thomas P. Morahan. While I wouldn't say Nancy gave Sen. Morahan a scare, he spent six figures defending his seat and Nancy's campaign cost less than a new roof on a house.

But I don't think it was money that kept Low-Hogan from Albany; I believe it was the lack of support from the County's Democratic leaders, most notably from Alex Gromack, the Supervisor of Clarkstown. Gromack even went so far as to financially contribute to Sen. Morahan's campaign and to publicly endorse him. I feel this was party disloyalty on Gromack's part.

There are other Rockland Democrats, who have been less vocal, but have still had Morahan's back in past elections. They did not back their own party's candidate because they were waiting for the Morahan "Gravy Train" to make a stop in their village. One Democratic river-village mayor even displayed an obscenely large simulacrum of a six-figure check from Morahan's slush fund in his village's hall...this supposedly Democratic mayor, in turn, gave Morahan a fat campaign contribution.

Quid pro quo. There is nothing sleazier in politics.

And then there are the Democrats who think that Morahan is a "moderate" or almost a Democrat, let me remind them about who Tom Morahan really is:

Morahan is anti-choice. If Rowe v. Wade is ever reversed and the matter of choice ever goes to the states, Morahan would be part of a majority that can potentially block women's health initiatives, which could make it difficult or impossible for women to get the proper care and to make the proper choice. Remember, this is the same Morahan who, as a member of the Senate health committee, has worked to block the poor from receiving access to pregnancy testing.

Morahan is against the best interests of women. A few years ago, Tom Morahan had the power to move a women’s health initiative out of committee that would have provided access to emergency contraception, instead he chose to let the legislation die and without explanation. Morahan is no friend of women.

Thomas Morahan also did not support the Healthy Teens Act, which would have provided a needed, comprehensive sex education program for New York Teenagers. This act, if passed, it would have taken New York a great step forward in preventing venereal disease and unwanted pregnancies. It would have helped mitigate the instance of abortion and prevent potentially life-threatening health problems for teenagers.

Thomas Morhan stood against the State False Claims Act. It would have put the brakes on corporate Medicaid fraud, which had been bleeding New York taxpayers by billions a year. It's no wonder: his candidacy is always strongly supported by big pharmaceutical companies like Wyeth and Pfizer. New York spends a third more per Medicaid enrollee than any other state, and much of this goes right to the corporations that funded Morahan’s campaign without any oversight by the State Senate Health Committee.

Again, is this the candidate some of the Democratic leaders in Rockland County want to support? I'm looking forward to every one of our county's Democratic leaders to get behind Greg Julian...and mark my words, I'll make a big stink about it if they don't.
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Chain-letter follies

I recently received an e-mail from a distant relative. In the dozen or so years that we've both been online, he's never e-mailed me once: Not to tell me how his family is doing nor to ask me how mine is faring. But he made sure that I got this one: He sent it to both my e-mail addresses and even to an address that I abandoned some years back. His subject line read:

BARACK OBAMA IS A MUSLIM

The contents of the e-mail were your basic chain-letter rant and real tin-foil hat stuff, which included:

Barack Obama was raised as muslim, attended muslim schools during his childhood.


His middle name is Hussein.


Both his father and step-father were muslim and his father was "a radical."


He attended a madrassa, or radical Muslim school.

My cousin, unfortunately is letting his ignorance and his intolerance get the best of him. Nowhere does he acknowledge that Sen. Obama has consistently and openly professed his personal relationship with Jesus Christ for more than 20 years. And yet, my cousin is trying to convict a man of "being muslim" without a shed of evidence (there was also more than a hint of a generic hatred of muslims in that letter, which I believe borders on racism).

There are no accounts of Barack Obama praying in the direction of Mecca, no pictures of him entering a mosque to worship, and no records of donations to Islamic charities. The unfortunate e-mail exaggerates Sen. Obama's own accounts of his life from his two books to slander the Senator. The circumstantial evidence, that his middle name is Hussein and that his father was born in Kenya, where he was raised as a Muslim is just that, circumstantial.

Nowhere in this letter does it reveal that Obama's father was a confirmed atheist and that his stepfather was not a religious man. Nowhere did it discuss the influence of Obama's mother and grandparents.

When Obama's mother and step father lived in Asia, they sent young Barack to what schooling was available, and included Catholic and Muslim schools. The Muslim school he attended was not a madrassa, as it was not sponsored by Wahabbism, a radical branch of the Sunni muslim sect. In fact, when CNN finally tracked down the school in question, they found that this supposed madrassa was actually a public school and it had no particular religious agenda.

Case closed? Maybe not. Some people are dead-set on believing what they want to believe, despite any evidence to the contrary.  

So, what has happened to our society? When did gossip and slander become such hard political currency, but a man's actions and words mean nothing in judging his character? When did conjecture, ignorance, and rumor become treasurable qualities, but the truth become a detrimental accent? When did liars become heroes and honest people become pariahs?

I am saddened that so many people are spending so much energy trying to smear Sen. Obama and his family. However, I am even more saddened that so many people have lost all their decency and common sense because their hate is truly the stronger element of their psyche. It truly is a pity.

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McCain's unbelievable Social Security rant

You've got to love this quote by Senator McCain today:

Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that's a disgrace. It's an absolute disgrace, and it's got to be fixed.

Fixed? Isn't that the way Social Security has always been run? Isn't that how any type of insurance is run?

People pay in, other's take out.

In fact, isn't this how any type of financial service where people make contributions and receive payments is run? Is banking a disgrace when one person contributes to savings and another person takes out a loan? Are taxes a disgrace when you pay them and they use them to fix a bridge that you'll never drive over?

I just can't believe that anyone running for President would say something so unbelievably stupid. This is the best that the GOP could do? Nominate this guy?

The more you listen to John McCain, the more you learn that he's not exactly the brightest politician in Washington.

Sen. Obama no longer has to prove to the public that judgment trumps experience, McCain is proving it for him.

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Barack Obama on the "Middle Class Squeeze"

Barack Obama gave a very serious and powerful speech about the country's dire economic problems in Powder Springs, GA today.

As always, when Sen. Obama talks about the economy, he doesn't talk about juiced job numbers and unrealistic inflation figures. Obama talks about the suffering of real people.

As grim as his speech sounded, it is refreshing to hear a politician—a presidential candidate, even—speak about the economy in the way that real Americans see it and are affected by it. I have seen too many politicians give speeches that sound like they were reading from a blotter of statistics. Many others sound like corporate prospectuses. Numbers don't suffer, indexes don't suffer, people suffer—Obama gets that.

The one thing I like the most about Sen. Obama, he's not about Wall Street or Easy Street, he's about Main Street.

It's a 21 minute video, but worth the time to watch.

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Can we afford Riverspace's vision?

Today I read an opinion piece written by Nyack resident JC Brotherhood in the Journal News. I don't necessarily agree every point he makes, but I think JC brings up some valid concerns.

The piece is in regards to Riverspace, a not-for-profit arts center in downtown Nyack. Riverspace which is a spin-off of Friends of the Nyacks, bought the failing Helen Hayes theater a few years back and wants to buy up adjoining land, and then tear down its building—which is nothing more than a local eyesore—and a nearby bank. In its place, the group intends on creating a block with old-style row buildings that match the existing architecture in the village. Within that area, they also plan to build two parking structures and a park. The whole project will be non-profit and exempt from taxes. It would be funded through grants, bonds, and public funds from the private sector, county, town, and perhaps the river villages. It should cost, in all, more than $100 million (I haven't seen real concrete numbers yet).

Needless to say, when taxpayers learn that they may foot a good part of the bill, the project becomes controversial.

Here's JC's take below the fold:

First there was the Helen Hayes Theater on Broadway in Nyack. Next came Helen Hayes Two on Main Street, which failed largely due to lack of interest. Now we have Riverspace Arts-Nyack Revitalization, which the developer-Riverspace board members want us to commit to without revealing what the final plans are or the real costs will be. This is a pretty standard sales tactic: real estate, used cars, you pick, get the mark to sign on the line before he really knows the price tag. Take the $27 million for a parking garage; is that before or after the bonding costs? See my point? Smoke and mirrors may work in the theater but beware when it's applied to real estate (or used cars).
It's just new rubber on old tires.

First, how much is 4 acres in downtown Nyack worth? Nobody seems to know (or more cynically, they know quite well, they just don't want to tell you). Second, what does it cost the taxpayers to "freeze revenues at current levels" in a village that can't pay for the maintenance of its existing infrastructure, (seen the sidewalks lately or the marina?) let alone pay for the additional infrastructure proposed by this "not-for-profit development"?

"Local and state elected officials have said they will support public financing and tax breaks for Riverspace because the long-term economic and cultural benefit will be worth the investment," according to a June 26 article, "Riverspace aims to remake downtown." OK, show me.

It is what Riverspace board member Josh Goldberg likes to call, "revenue neutral"; I ask, neutral for whom, exactly? Is it going to be neutral for the existing shops or tenants in the village who will essentially subsidize the new shops? Own your place or not, landlords will simply pass the increase through to the occupant. Frankly it's a race to the bottom when our politicians promise tax incentives when they know very well that it's a zero-sum game and the money still has to come from somewhere. I know one thing for sure, it won't be neutral for you or me.

The somewhere is the pocketbook of the lowly homeowner or tenant who is being offered nothing except the vague promise of higher property values and the attending higher tax bill. I'm just guessing here (why not? Everyone else is) but it will add between $400 and $600 to the average homeowners local tax bill.

Many of us are faced with the same dilemma, at this rate we can't afford to retire here and our kids can't afford to live here when they finish school.

I agree with many of Mr. Brotherhood's points. I am close to being taxed out of my house. And nobody is a bigger liberal or a lover of the arts than I am. I'd love to revitalize the area and have a wonderful venue for music and theater, but I've got to draw the line somewhere.

I get a 3.5 percent raise every year and it's eaten up by 8-percent tax increases, 30-percent food bill increases, and 200 percent gasoline price increases.

A lot of us aren't living on Easy Street anymore. I've talked to a lot of people around town and they're worried that if we don't find a way to cap or reduce our property taxes, they'll have to move away.

So what good is an arts center when residents that have saved and scraped away their whole adult lives to live here now have to leave? What is more important, the dozens or hundreds of homeowners that are on the verge of putting up "For Sale" signs or even "Foreclosure" signs or a non-profit experiment (experiment being the operative word) to further revitalize an already vital downtown?

I'm also not a big believer in mixing corporate, or even not-for-profit group interests with government interests. When you create such a mixture, you create an oligarchy. Quasi-public projects like Riverspace, would force us, as area residents, to give up some of our representative power and authority. What is essentially public policy would now be dictated by groups and boards that are not vetted by or rejected or approved by a Democratic process. In the end, we pay the taxes, but we don't decide how our tax dollars are used.

However, I think the concept of revitalizing that block is not a bad one and I think a flourishing arts center would be boon to local businesses, particularly area restaurants. That is, I like the pie, I just don't care much for how it's sliced. Read More......

Dems backing Bush's Iran blockade should expect to be "primaried" in 2010

Congress, including our own rep, Eliot Engel, is calling for BushCo to ban all exports of refined petroleum going into Iran to help stop its nuclear program. House Res. 362 sets up a naval and aviation blockade, which is internationally recognized as an act of war, in it's language. The bill states that there be "stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran."

Keep in mind that Iran, while having one of the world's largest reserves, relies on imports for more than 40 percent of its refined fuel.

Congress could not come to an agreement for desperately needed legislation in regards to climate change, the subprime loan crisis, and keeping Medicare affordable, so they just shelved the tough stuff and did what was easy for them. Our so-called Democratic leaders had no problems rattling their sabers again during an election period, even though there is no substance or justification for them to do so.

Yes, it seems that our Congressman, like others, seems more interested in making himself look "tough on terrorism" and getting elected than he is in doing the right thing. Again, Engel, who made a cold-blooded vote to authorize war with Iraq five years ago, hasn't learned from his previous mistakes.

Meanwhile, the same people and organizations that cautioned Congress about the dubious reasoning used in justifying the war with Iraq are now warning them about similar problems in this run-up to a war with Iran.

Gareth Porter, a historian and investigative journalist on US foreign and military policy analysis, says this resolution involves a series of charges about Iran's nuclear programs that are inaccurate. "They talked about 'covert, illicit' Iranian nuclear measures, such as importing centrifuges, manufacturing centrifuges. And things that are clearly not illegal under the non-proliferation treaty or under Iran's agreements with the IAEA," Porter says. Porter recalls that in 1982 and 1992, the Iranians declared their intention to master the nuclear fuel cycle and to have nuclear and uranium enrichment, and the IAEA publicly supported that.

But no, Congress isn't listening to the same sage wisdom that was offered five years ago. They are not listening to their constituents as poll after poll shows that the American public does not want to take an aggressive stance against Iran. Who is Congress listening to?

Congressional insiders credit America’s powerful pro-Israel lobby for the rapid endorsement of the bills. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) held its annual policy conference June 2-4, in which it sent thousands of members to Capitol Hill to push for tougher measures against Iran. On its website, AIPAC endorses the resolutions as a way to ''Stop Irans Nuclear Proliferation" and tells readers to lobby Congress to pass the bill.

AIPAC has been ramping up the rhetoric against Iran over the last 3 years delivering 9 issue memos to Congress in 2006, 17 in 2007 and in the first five months of 2008 has delivered no less than 11 issue memos to the Congress and Senate predominantly warning of Irans nuclear weapons involvement and support for terrorism.

Gustav Wynn, of OpEd News, also blames NORPAC, another pro-Israel lobbying group, for putting the pressure on Congress. Wynn says that NORPAC sent 22 busloads of their supporters to Washington, DC and flooded our Congress members with thousands of meeting requests on this issue. This helped get the bill fast-tracked through Congress while important domestic issues were shelved.

Any politician that can't learn from his or her past mistakes is worthless to me. Any politician that values the opinions of lobbyists over the opinions of his constituents is even more worthless. However, it's already too far into the election season to find a viable candidate to run in a primary against my congressman, and other real progressives from other districts are just as disappointed for the same reason.

However, this resolution, along with the recent FISA debacle, has inspired many of us to begin "blue-to-bluer" campaigns. Much like the way the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee releases it's "red to blue" list of top challengers for Republican-held U.S. House seats, many of us feel obligated to start a similar program for the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

This is our message to all the Blue Dogs and "New Democrats" out there: Keeping voting with the Republicans on the wrong issue and expect to be "primaried" in two years. And we're not talking about fanciful or Quixotic primary challengers, we're talking about using the netroots to run a national slate of well-known, progressive Democratic candidates to run against centrist Democrats that vote with the Republicans.

This year, our eyes is on the big prize, the White House, so we're spending all of our energy and resources getting Sen. Barack Obama elected. However, just wait until those midterm elections. You're going to see a flood of progressives coming out of the woodwork, going after the jobs of centrist Democrats.

These candidates won't win every primary, they won't even win a majority of them, but they'll take out a few wayward legislators. This Blue-to-Bluer campaign be enough to crush the DLC and to neuter the Blue Dogs. And that's precisely what legislators deserve that value lobbyists over constituents.

Another advantage of running primary challengers to centrist Democrats is to get them to change their votes. It's already worked:

[P]rogressives have utilized Democratic primaries as a means to successfully change Democratic behavior. So far this year, this strategy has worked in districts such as the Illinois 3rd where Dan Lipinski changed his vote on Iraq because of his primary challenger, the Iowa 3rd where Blue Dog Leonard Boswell has suddenly become a progressive on a range of issues now that Ed Fallon is running against him, and the Maryland 4th where Donna Edwards handily defeated the more conservative Al Wynn.

And Congressman Engel (NY-17), who prides himself in waiting for hours on the House floor to shake President Bush's hand (see photo above) should be concerned. He may be getting a free ride this year, but with this and his wrong-headed votes on Iraq, Teri Schiavo, the XM/Sirius merger, FISA, and his championing of Rev. John Hagee and a Columbian Free Trade Agreement, I guarantee a stiff challenge from members of his own party in 2010.
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