Monroerising.com

Wow!  What a shock.  One of the most powerful men in the nation brought down by a scandal with a high priced whore.  I thought someone was pulling my leg until I checked out Internet reports and saw it was true.

The picture on the front page of the D&C says it all.  It looks like soon to be former first lady Silda was punched in the stomach and her family held hostage. How could your heart not go out to her and their three teenage girls, who are probably not that much younger than “Kristen” (the high priced prostitute)?

This really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone though.  Proof of Spitzer being a bad person has been around before day one .  During the campaign two years ago, there were all kinds of charges that he ran roughshod all over people he prosecuted when he was Attorney General, but who could feel sorry for millionaire Wall Street types? 

He showed very early on he couldn’t play by the notoriously lax rules of Albany protocol.  He outwardly tried to buy off as many people as possible with jobs so he could take over the Senate and get his way without having anyone stand up to him. He abused the power of his office in Troopergate. He constantly attacked political opponents, i.e. Mayor Bloomberg, as morally wrong because he did buy Spitzer non-sense that giving licenses to illegal aliens was going to lower our car insurance rates.

Yet despite this evidence, the Democratic establishment was falling all over themselves to get on this guy’s good side because it was apparent he was going to be Governor. 

But now there is no way the Steamroller — or client #9 as he will now be know, can carry on.  The D&C says that 58% of the public thinks he should resign — I’d like to know who the 32% who think he should stay are (my guess is that our friend Prudence Izbad falls into this category).  They should forfeit their right to vote in my opinion.

We will watch today’s events with great interest and we will keep you posted. Who thought we would be longing for the old days when George Pataki was Governor?

Tags: Articles, Cincinnatus, Elliot Spitzer, New York State by Cincinnatus
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Elliot Spitzer did not deny that he was involved with a high priced prostitution ring.  This basically means one thing, Elliot Spitzer very well broke the law and engaged in sexual acts with a prostitute.  The New York Times is now reporting that Spitzer was identified as Client #9 in a federal wiretapping investigation into The Emperors Club VIP, an expensive prostitution service that charged between $1000-$5000 an hour. 

Here is a snipet from the article:

The man described as Client 9 in court papers arranged to meet with a prostitute who was part of the ring, Emperors Club VIP, on the night of Feb. 13. Mr. Spitzer traveled to Washington that evening, according to a person told of his travel arrangements.

The affidavit says that Client 9 met with the woman in hotel room 871 but does not identify the hotel. Mr. Spitzer stayed at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on Feb. 13, according to a source who was told of his travel arrangements. Room 871 at the Mayflower Hotel that evening was registered under the another name.

Here is a link to Spitzer’s statement at the press conference as well as some additional reporting.

And the actual statement here:

Over the past nine years, eight as attorney general and one as governor, I’ve tried to uphold a vision of progressive politics that would rebuild New York and create opportunity for all. We vowed to bring real change to New York and that will continue. Today, I want to briefly address a private matter. I have acted in a way that violated the obligations to my family and that violates my — or any — sense of right and wrong. I apologize first, and most importantly, to my family. I apologize to the public, to whom I promised better. I do not believe that politics in the long run is about individuals. It is about ideas, the public good and doing what is best for the State of New York. But I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard that I expected of myself. I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family. I will not be taking questions. Thank you very much. I will report back to you in short order. Thank you very much.

In the audio, you can clearly here a reporter asking him to actually make the apology to his wife who was standing next to him at the press event.

In addition, reports are stating that Governor Spitzer had an account with The Emperors Club VIP and actually still owed on the account.  The federal complaint includes the taped conversation between “Client #9″ and the prostitute setting up the specifics for the encounter at a Washington D.C. hotel on February 13th.  News reporters are now asking about Spitzer’s money trail and how he made payments to The Emperors Club VIP.  Also noted are supposed e-mails regarding interaction between Spitzer and the club.

We had heard that Spitzer was going to announce his resignation at the press conference.  That didn’t happen, but word around the capital is that this may indeed still take place.  Some are intimating that it may have already, but quietly, occurred and that another announcement may take place later today or tomorrow. 

We’ll continue to keep you posted on any breaking events with regards to this story.

Tags: Articles, Elliot Spitzer, Mr. Peabody by Mr. Peabody
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The NY Times broke the story and CNN is reporting now that Governor Elliott Spitzer is about to hold a press conference discussing his involvement in a prostitution ring.

Oddly enough, he’s running late for his press conference which was supposed to start at 2:15 PM today.

We’ll keep you posted with more details.

Tags: Articles, Elliot Spitzer, Mr. Peabody by Mr. Peabody
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We at Monroerising.com have served in the unfortunate role of reporting on how bad Elliott “I’m a F***ing Steamroller” Spitzer’s proposed budget will be for the Rochester area and Upstate New York. 

Sadly, our local media has been mostly lackluster in it’s reporting on Spitzer’s cuts to the Rochester community.  Since the NYS Budget is such an important issue, I’m going to focus my attention here for the next few weeks.

We’ll begin our “Elliott Spitzer’s Budget Hurts… (fill in the blank)” series with a look at it’s impact on local taxpayers. 

First, let’s recap coverage we’ve reported and seen about school Funding.

“Elliott Spitzer’s Budget Hurts Schools and Children”

Prudence reported earlier on Spitzer’s $21 million in cuts to all of the school districts in Monroe County and the City of Rochester, just so he could funnel our funding to New York City.  So far, we’ve found that only State Senator Joe Robach has held a press conference calling on the Governor to restore these cuts to our schools.  Last year, Spitzer and the state legislature passed a 4-year school aid bill that provided a stable school aid funding formula for schools across all of New York State. 

Then, less than 1 year later, Spitzer throws the formula out the window and cuts the funding to all of the schools… well… not quite all of them.  Instead of cutting all schools across the board, Spitzer cuts the funding for all schools, except New York City.  Spitzer’s budget actually takes the funding he cut to everyone else (including all Monroe County and City of Rochester schools) and redirects it to NYC.  Apparently, Rochester’s high needs school districts don’t matter to Spitzer.

“Elliott Spitzer’s Budget Hurts Local Taxpayers”

The New York State Association of Counties points out how Spitzer’s budget will harm local taxpayers throughout New York.  But, instead of working to lessen burden he’s placing on these Counties, Spitzer is having his people basically call them all liars.  

County Executive Maggie Brooks is also taking on King Spitzer for cuts he’s making to Monroe County.  On a side note, I have to laugh at the 1 or 2 forum comments on the D&C article from people who believe Monroe County taxpayers deserve Spitzer’s funding cuts.  Who in their right mind would say we deserve what he’s doing to us?  They must be from New York City or as I like to call it - The Land of Plenty… of OUR Tax Dollars!

Stay tuned to find out who gets hurt by Spitzer’s Budget next.

Tags: Articles, Elliot Spitzer, Mr. Peabody, NYS Budget by Mr. Peabody
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I can’t believe it.  The New York Times had an article on Governor Steamroller’s fundraising tactics violating the spirit of the much hyped “reforms” he announced shortly after day one. 

A review by The New York Times found that the governor raised more than $1 million from at least 50 individuals or business entities that donated $10,000 to Spitzer 2010, the governor’s campaign fund, and then far more than $10,000 through the state party. The two entities are housed in the same Manhattan office, one floor apart and connected by a spiral staircase.

In a number of cases, donors wrote consecutive checks to the two organizations. For instance, on July 7, Eric D. Hadar, a real estate developer, wrote a $10,000 check to Spitzer 2010 — check No. 4032 from his account — and then gave $94,200 on check 4033 to the state party, formally known as the New York State Democratic Committee.

We had an earlier post on Sheldon Silver’s ethics conflict:

March 1, 2008 — Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver insisted yesterday there was “no conflict at all” in his naming the head of his personal-injury law firm to a 13-member state judicial- screening panel.

The Post reported yesterday that Silver and Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith tapped Arthur Luxenberg for the bar committee that recommends to the governor candidates for the Appellate Division, Court of Claims and State Supreme Court.

Luxenberg is co-founder of Weitz & Luxenberg, one of the state’s largest trial law firms.

Silver has been “of counsel” to the firm since 2002, leading critics to question whether he couldn’t have found someone else for the panel.

I wish the D&C would do a better job reporting what’s going on in Albany.  If they did, Joe Bruno and the Republicans would have a fighting chance in November.

Tags: Articles, Cincinnatus, Elliot Spitzer, New York State by Cincinnatus
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Here’s some fair and accurate reality reporting that you will rarely find in New York State.  With such little effort placed on investigative and in-depth reporting these days, it was nice to come across this article in The New York Sun on Governor Eliot ‘Steamroller’ Spitzer’s odd show of support for his endorsed presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. 

Kudos to NY Sun reporter Russell Berman who actually takes some time to digest a Spitzer comment and offer suggestions as to why he’d say such a thing.  Read Berman’s interesting report on what looks like a Spitzer misspeak and his thoughts about the Steamroller’s possible easing away from what appears to be the quickly floundering presidential campaign of Mrs. Clinton.

As Spitzer informs the press that he will not be participating in an upcoming Hillary event, Berman hits on what might be the phrase that foretells of bad things to come if Clinton continues to falter:

…Mr. Spitzer is not headed to Ohio for the event, though he said he hoped to get out on the stump for Mrs. Clinton “maybe later in the week, or next week, if this continues.” He did not specify what he meant by “this,” but there is a widespread belief that Mrs. Clinton will end her campaign if she does not win Texas and Ohio on Tuesday.

Now, I’ll go one step further on this story by asking the follow up question that the reporters didn’t ask Spitzer after his now soon to be infamous “…if this continues” comment.

Are you not helping Clinton in the upcoming primaries of your own accord, or were you asked by her to stay away?

Could Hillary be upset over Spitzer’s licenses for illegal aliens mess up or is he staying put in Albany Manhattan to work on his approval numbers?

I’d love to hear the answer to that question and I’d welcome everyone’s thoughts on this.

Tags: Articles, Elliot Spitzer, Mr. Peabody by Mr. Peabody
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It is fun and satisfying to pick on local political figures, and my fellow citizen journalists here at MonroeRising have done a commendable job as of late.  And as much as I would like to pile on, I need to bring some attention to an unrelated story that seems to have slipped through the cracks.

 You probably were not aware that Governor Steamroller created the Empire State Stem Cell Board last year to use taxpayer dollars ($600 million over the next 10 years) to fund stem cell research.  Some have questioned the wisom of spending so much money on such a narrow category of research.  Even more important, however, are the serious moral implications of creating embryos in a laboratory for the sole purpose of experimentation.  

Clearly, intelligent and well intentioned individuals reside on both sides of the debate regarding embryonic stem cell research.  However, it is a failure of a representative government to fund practices that a significant proportion of the population find to be abhorrent.  Why should my taxpayer dollars be spent to fund research over which I have serious moral qualms?

The story only goes downhill from here.  Recognizing the moral implications involved (or at very least, paying lip service to those who do), the Stem Cell Fund legislation created an Ethics Committee to review grant proposals submitted to the Board for funding.  However, the Ethics Committee only has the power to make nonbinding recommendations.  Thus, if the Board wanted to fund attempts to create a  super-intelligent race of monkey men, the Ethics committee would be powerless to stop the money from flowing.  But at least the Ethics committee could recommend that this was a very bad idea. 

 Apparently, even that is too much power.  A few weeks ago, a member of the Ethics Committee wrote a scathing editorial in the New York Post, where he reported as follows:

“At the first ethics-committee gathering on Nov. 30, we were given just two hours to suggest ‘interim ethical guidelines.’

Despite this pressure, we developed a reasonable plan: Delay funding for controversial practices to allow time for ethical review, while awarding grants for non-controversial practices (such as research on stem cells from adults and from umbilical-cord blood, as well as on stem-cell lines already derived from embryos).

Ethics-committee members hold diverse views on the controversial kinds of stem-cell research. Nonetheless, the committee unanimously recommended that the board hold off on funding these practices for six months so that the committee could examine these thorny ethical issues carefully and recommend guidelines.

The ethics committee thought that ethics mattered.

But perhaps ethics doesn’t matter much in New York. The board’s funding committee, composed almost exclusively of scientists and advocates for embryonic-stem-cell research, agreed on ambiguous guidelines that permit all the controversial practices noted above: cloning, chimeras, parthenogenesis and creating human embryos solely for research.

The ethics committee’s sensible plan of ethical due diligence proved intolerable to the funding committee. It argued that even temporary limits would ’send the wrong message to scientists.’ “

Since that time, the Board spent $14.5 million to fund its first round of grants, and more spending will follow.  Unfortunately, no one seems to care that the Board steamrolled over the objections of the Ethics Committee.  Who cares what the state health commissioner, the Dean of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse, and the President Emeritus of Roswell Park Cancer Institute think about these issues; I’m sure they’re just religious extremists.

It goes without saying that the Democrat and Chronicle failed to even address this story (even the sub-par Albany Times Union ran a story just last week.).  To be fair, there are much more weighty issues to addess - like yesterday’s front page story, titled “Ready for Takeoff,” about how local “airline passengers are getting the message about how to pack carry-on luggage correctly.”

Tags: Articles, Democrat and Chronicle, Elliot Spitzer, New York State, Occam by Occam
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The Democrat and Chronicle has an article about Richard Dollinger resigning his seat on the Brighton Town Court to explore a run against state Senator Joe Robach.  I have to admit, I’m very surprised by these events.  Rick Dollinger has already told us that he didn’t want to be a state Senator — a couple of times.

There is only one explanation that makes sense — Governor Elliot “Steamroller” Spitzer and his ethically challenged henchmen must have promised Dollinger something too good to pass up.

Throughout his political career Dollinger has shown an aversion to hard work.  Think about it — here is a guy who was in the Senate for 10 years — feasting on a diet of cream puff opponents during everyone of his re-election campaigns.  As soon as Joe Robach announced he was running — Dollinger (after announcing twice he was going to run) bails out at the 11th hour because he doesn’t have the fire in the belly.

He tried twice for judicial office and was soundly defeated.  Several of my Democratic friends swear they will never forgive him for abandoning their party right after he was elected party chair so he could run for Brighton Town Court.  Unless Dollinger has a love of hearing traffic violations, the only explanation for that is to beef up a resume for a possible run for higher judicial office.

So why run for the Senate? Why now?

Does he need the money? I doubt it — he always struck me as a son of privilege. 

If he were to win a senate race he would have to work harder than he ever has before.  The people of that district are going to demand that he show up at events and be involved.  Robach has set the bar very high in this department and people won’t accept a no-show senator.

It is really important that the media ask Dollinger if he was promised anything by the Steamroller and Company.  Given this guys track record of having his “eyes on the prize” – I could see him resigning for state judicial office before his term was over, if he was elected to the Senate. They ought to ask him if he would pledge to serve a full term.

Seeing how the Steamroller has been trying to buy off Republican Senators with jobs — how could you think otherwise?

One final note — if the rank and file Democratic Committee members get to vote on their party’s nominee, and Willa Powell or Sandy Frankel challenge Dollinger at a party convention, our money at Monroerising.com is on either of these ladies.  I don’t think the Democrats will allow Dollinger to use them again for his self interest. 

Tags: Articles, Cincinnatus, Democrat and Chronicle, Elliot Spitzer, Joe Robach, New York State, Richard Dollinger by Cincinnatus
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You have to be blind (or a liberal Democrat) to not see the hypocrisy of the special interest wackos (Metro Justice, NYSUT, Alliance For Quality Education, etc.) regarding school education funding in Monroe County.

Last week these social misfits held a meeting in Greece hosted by Monroe County Legislator Richard Beebe (you remeber him — he was the recipient of all that Working Families Party cash that wasn’t reported until 75 days after the legal deadline) complaining about the FAIR plan (you remember that — Maggie Brooks’ plan to save Monroe County taxpayers $10’s of millions of dollars in Medicaid cost) that reduced school funding. 

You will also remember that David Gantt and company forced this plan on the community because of their opposition to raising the sales tax in Monroe County (after approving increases all across New York State) because it was too painless and they were trying to force local Republicans to raise property taxes.

What I found really interesting is that not one of these “concerned citizens” at Thursday’s meeting has said one word about Governor Steamroller’s proposal to cut the amount of money the state promised schools last year.  In Monroe County, schools will receive $21 million less than they were promised.

A reasonable person would expect to hear outrage “for the children.” But these these people haven’t said a word about Governor Steamroller’s proposal.  What makes this even more galling is that the Steamroller is proposing to increase school funding in New York City at the expense of Monroe County children.

Their silence on this issues shows them for what they are — special interest hypocrites with an agenda that isn’t in the best interest of Monroe County.  If their concern truly was “for the children” they would be holding hearings speaking out against Spitzer’s budget proposal.

And one more thing: someone should tell these folks that it is OK to bathe, trim a beard and get a haircut once and awhile. 

Tags: Articles, David Gantt, Dick Beebe, Elliot Spitzer, Maggie Brooks, Prudence Izguhde by Prudence Izguhde
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Over the past few months, the people of Upstate New York have been inundated with press conferences held by Governor Spitzer to announce various funding initiatives.  In Rochester, we first heard the promise of $50 million to tear down midtown plaza to make way for Paetec to relocate from the Town of Perinton to downtown Rochester.  Then there was an announcement for a promise of $50 million for a new transitional science center for the University of Rochester.

At first glance, it would seem that Upstate and our community are rightfully receiving much needed funding to help boost our lagging local economies.  Unfortunately, since the Governor announced his budget, we are learning each day that these promises are already coming with a steep price.

For instance, we learned recently that Governor Spitzer is pushing more of the costs associated with funding detention centers onto County taxpayers by cutting the state’s funding responsibility from 50% to 48%.  Cost to County taxpayers - $6 million.

In addition, Spitzer is cutting millions in funding for Rochester area schools, despite a four-year funding formula agreed upon by the Governor and the State Legislature.  Cost to City and suburban schools - $20+ million.

Add to that the aid cuts to community colleges, the forty-six different fee increases, $500 million in cuts to hospitals and nursing homes and finally (and perhaps the most intrusive ) the elimination this year of rebate checks for middle-class property taxpayers; and it would seem that the bad definitely comes with the ‘promise’ of good.

With baited breadth, Mayor Duffy waited to see how Rochester was going to fair with the Governor’s promised increase in state funding for large cities.  Senator Joe Robach held a press conference calling for an equal share of aid for Rochester, Duffy traveled to Albany to again lobby for an increase for his constituents and Assemblyman David Gantt has always pushed for more for our City (although I personally don’t agree with some of his actions on other things lately, I try to be objective).

Well, unfortunately, despite everyone’s efforts and pleas for funding fairness for Rochester, the Governor chose instead to continue to just dangle the proverbial carrot in front of us — meaning, no fair share for us.  Just a little bump to keep us all in line, but not enough to really solve the problem.  Bottom line, Rochester still faces a $20+ million deficit.

So what we know right now is that we have a few ‘promises’ on the table for a couple of projects, but many guarantees for funding cuts as well as aid that falls well short of the mark for our needs.

Once again, we all took the Governor at his word that he was going to come through for us and Upstate New York.  In less than two weeks from his State of Upstate speech, concerns are beginning to brew here at Monroerising that we might just be getting his “Day One” speech all over again. 

Let’s hope for our sake that we still get the money for Paetec and the U of R.   With all the promising going on all across the state lately, we find it hard to believe that the Governor is going to be able to deliver on it all. 

We had high hopes for our new Governor.  Unfortunately, that familiar voice of Shirley Feeney we hear singing in the background is beginning to quickly fade away.

Tags: Articles, Bob Duffy, City of Rochester, David Gantt, Elliot Spitzer, Joe Robach, Monroe County, Mr. Peabody, New York State by Mr. Peabody
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