Monroerising.com

Gentle Reader:

After a brief hiatus, I am pleased to be back with you, the readers of Monroerising.com.  I came across this article and had to share it with you.  We are all aware of a program that has the taxpayers pick up the tab for their Congressman’s car.  This is good news for Democratic candidate Jon Powers — I think he might even get a LEGAL housing allowance if he were to win.

Cincinnatus told you about Louise Slaughter driving a buick on our dime back in December. This story from wcbstv.com shows how some Congressman from NYC are living it up at our expense:

Congressman Charles Rangel was recently seen getting out of his Cadillac DeVille, which he leases for $774 per month. Then there was Congressman Jose Serrano, getting out of his Buick LaCrosse, which he leases for $317 per month. And how about this one: Congressman Gregory Meeks was recently seen waiting for Congressman John Conyers to step out of Meeks’ Lexus LS460, which Meeks leases for $998 per month. [Read more →]

Tags: Articles, Federal Officials, Louise Slaughter, Prudence Izguhde by Prudence Izguhde
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I see that Congresswoman Louise Slaughter weighed in on Ren Square the other day. Appearing on RNews, Louise’s first public comments in Rochester since she politicized that veteran’s event in Brighton last month, said it all:

There are some doubts on the future of the largest project in downtown Rochester. Congresswoman Louise Slaughter said the federal money for Renaissance Square is in jeopardy. Slaughter has never supported the project. The $230 million plan includes an MCC satellite campus, a bus station and a performing arts center at Main Street and Clinton Avenue downtown; $28 million in federal money for Renaissance Square will expire in the fall.

(snip)

Slaughter called the project absurd. She would rather rebuild the railroad station and include a new bus station there.

She said the Renaissance model is an antique idea that is no longer used in other parts of the country. Well, if anyone knows about antique ideas it would be Louise.  As we’ve posted before, Louise Slaughter will be turning 79 years young this summer. [Read more →]

Tags: Articles, Federal Officials, Louise Slaughter by Cincinnatus
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While Obama dances around the growing racial land mines, and Clinton ratchets up her seen and unseen efforts to paint him as unelectable, John McCain has been quietly rising in the polls. See this report at Real Clear Politics that shows him overtaking Obama in the wake of, well, let’s call it Wright-Gate. You’ll see there that a recent Rasmussen poll has McCain leading Obama by seven points among likely voters. Then there’s this one that shows his recent rise against Clinton. Note the Rasmussen poll that has him up 10 points among likely voters. I guess there’s nothing more presidential than staying out of the news.

Tags: Articles, Federal Officials, MisterF, Presidential Politics by MisterF
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Our friends over at Mustardstreet had an interesting post in light of Congressman Tom Reynolds announcement that he will not seek re-election this year.  Conventional wisdom seems to indicate that Senator George Maziarz will be the Republican pick to run for the seat.  But hold on — not so fast. What about Greece Supervisor John Auberger?

If he is interested, Auberger would be an excellent choice.  As Mustardstreet points out:

A far better pick for the GOP would be Greece Supervisor John Auberger.   While his constituency holds down the far eastern corner of the congressional district, Auberger is one of the very best and brightest in the local political world, with the political skills and sophistication to run a winning campaign and to make the most of the office for his constituents.   We can see him rising in the Congressional Republican leadership once he got there

Auberger is widely admired within his own party for ability, smarts and hard work.   He is admired, in particular, by those other senior Republicans who themselves are considered among the best and brightest in their party.

Auberger is the head of the best local Republican organization and there is little doubt that he could mobilize an army of volunteers to work on his campaign.  Maziarz could be tagged with the dysfunction of Albany, while Auberger could highlight his record and tap into a number of cultural conservatives who would be very happy about his decision to stand up to the ACLU on their attack against Jesus.

Time will tell. We’ll be watching.

Tags: Cincinnatus, Federal Officials by Cincinnatus
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This afternoon, U.S. Congressman Tom Reynolds announced his retirement today to the residents of the Monroe County portion of his district.  He shared that one of the reasons for making the decision was his wish to spend more time with his family, namely his two grandchildren whom he says he rarely has the opportunity to see due to his position. 

Hopefully, you can still watch this video from 13WHAM for coverage on the Reynolds press conference here in Monroe County.

Earlier in the day, Reynolds made the announcement at a fire hall in the Buffalo area.

No one can deny that serving in elected office does indeed place a strain on a person’s family life, especially at the national level.  I don’t know many people that could handle this, or that would even want to.  The time spent away from your loved ones while you’re away.  Even when you’re back home, you’re still traveling across a large district meeting with groups of people and attending community events.  It’s easy to criticize these people and treat them like they’re not regular people, but they had everyday lives before they got into public service.  Walk a mile in their shoes.

I personally think Reynolds was going to have another tough election this year.  Last time he ran, the Democrat organization sunk to one of their lows in trying to smear mud on him in the form of the inappropriate actions of another congressman.  If the Democrats forced Reynolds to be “his brother’s keeper” back then, then the Democrats had better be prepared to make the same apologies for their top dog, the disgraced former Democratic Governor of NY Eliot Spitzer.  I seem to recall that it was Republicans who shouted the loudest for the resignations of both individuals.

To Reynold’s credit, he made the trip to Monroe County to let his constituents here, know of his intentions to retire.  Many others would very well have made their announcement close to home and called it a day, leaving the media to spread it across the district.  This speaks volumes to Reynold’s character.  He spent more time in EVERY portion of his district than Louise Slaughter ever did.  People in Greece, for example, will tell you that they saw Reynolds in town more during his first year representing them than they did, or have, Louise is all her many years.  Does anyone even know that she still represents a portion of north Greece?  Of course not.

And Reynolds delivered big time to the communities in western Monroe.  Funding we here at Monroerising.com doubt we’ll ever see here again if one of the Buffalo Democrats win this seat.  At least we know that state Senator George Maziarz (mentioned as a possible candidate for the seat) would care about us here.  He currently represents western Monroe towns and portions of the City of Rochester as part of his Senate district.  IMO, we’ll never see that with one of the Buffalo Dems.

Bottom line, Congressman Reynolds is a stand up guy who despite the nasty and malicious attacks made against him by the Democrat machine, truly cared about his constituents and his district.  Even in his retirement, the Dems still feel the need to smear him and his name for their own political gain.

Tom, if you happen to read this, we at Monroerising.com thank you for your many years of elected service to your constituents, we thank you for your hard work and personal sacrifice, and we wish you and your family the very best as you go back to having a normal, personal, family life.  Godspeed.

Tags: Articles, Federal Officials, Mr. Peabody by Mr. Peabody
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Channel 13 is reporting Congressman Tom Reynolds is expected to announce he is retiring.

Formal announcement this afternoon. It appears that Congressman Tom Reynolds is retiring.  This morning, multiple sources are reporting that Reynolds will make it official this afternoon. I reached Reynolds’ press secretary LD Platt just before 6 am this morning (a little early to be up and available by blackberry, doncha think?) and he chose not to deny the reports.  He said the only thing he could officially say was that Reynolds would hold a formal press conference in Greece at 2 this afternoon.

Tags: Articles, Cincinnatus, Federal Officials by Cincinnatus
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On September 16, 2001, I was driving through Chicago with my wife. We were on our way back from visiting family in Wisconsin for a week. Obviously, this vacation was more than marred by the events of 9-11. As we drove through a toll booth outside of the city, I was struck by what I saw on the electronic signs. They said simply, “God Bless America.” There was very little traffic that day, in part because of the fact that it was late on a Sunday morning, but much more because of the horrors that had occurred just days before. A Major League Baseball game I was supposed to attend the day before had been canceled. The NFL games scheduled for that week had also been canceled. It was as if the whole world had stopped. The country was shocked, and it was united. Bitter congressional rivals stood outside the Capitol Building, singing “God Bless America.” Little did I know at the time, that just a few short miles from where I sat marveling at how the country seemed to be of one mind, Rev. Jeremiah Wright was delivering this message to his congregation at Trinity United Church of Christ:

We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.

Of course we all know that Wright has become significant now because he has been Barack Obama’s pastor for 20 years, marrying Obama and his wife Michelle and baptizing their children. Wright was also an adviser to Obama until this story broke. Now Obama has distanced himself from Wright and denounced these statements and others that have been well documented.

From the passage above, you can see that Wright found it prudent to blame America for 9-11, even as the towers smoldered and rescue workers searched for survivors among the thousands of casualties. What you don’t get from that passage is the bitter anger and hatred in this man’s voice. I think it’s Wright’s tone that will end up hurting Obama even more than his actual words. This man has clearly been spewing hatred for America and for whites for decades, and his tone and words will be echoing in the ears of many white voters in this Democratic primary and the general election if Obama is the nominee.

It seemed like Obama was well on his way to overcoming the biggest obstacle that any minority presidential candidate faces: convincing the majority of Americans that he speaks for them and not just the grievances of his minority constituents. That’s why Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton could never be serious presidential candidates. Obama’s tone has been different. He’s been open and conciliatory and seemingly genuinely so. Now his opponents (and more importantly their surrogates) have the opportunity to paint him with the hateful brush of his former pastor’s words.

In his recent speech on the matter, I think Obama really pegged Wright’s rhetoric perfectly:

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old — is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past.

Those are powerful words, but will they drown out the hate speech of Jeremiah Wright in the minds of voters? I doubt it.

Tags: Federal Officials, MisterF, Presidential Politics by MisterF
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The Democrat and Chronicle had a great story on Monday about Samuel Rozella. He’s a WWII vet and was given the Chevalier Legion of Honor for his role in the liberation of France. There was a big crowd in Brighton — Congresswoman Louise Slaughter was there, as was NYS Senate candidate Sandy Frankel.

Mr. Rozella really seems like a class act.  No surprise I guess.  A schlub wouldn’t have the record of accomplishment that he has.  Tom Brokaw was right on the money when he called the WWII vet’s America’s greatest generation.

According to the D&C:

Moments earlier Slaughter pinned the Chevalier Legion of Honor to Rosella’s brown wool Army uniform, right beside the Bronze Star and Purple Hearts he had already been awarded for his service with the 82nd Airborne Division during the Battle of the Bulge.

“I cry every time I hear of a soldier getting killed” or wounded, Rosella said, as he broke into tears.

Sunday’s ceremony at the St. John’s Meadows senior community in Brighton marked the official presentation of the medal, which was awarded by the French government to commemorate Rosella’s role in the liberation of France.

At the moment of a lifetime, Mr. Rosella shared how he thought of others.  How he shared a family’s pain over the loss of a loved one.

Then look what Louise Slaughter had to say:

Speaking to Rosella and other World War II veterans in the audience, Slaughter said they did more than liberate Europe.

“You won for your country the affection, the respect and the love of everybody on this earth — until very recently,” she said. “We’re working very hard to get that back, but we owe you so much for what you did to make that liberation possible.”

Another person’s moment of a lifetime and Louise can’t help but make it about her and hard how she and Nancy Pelosi are fighting to restore America’s dignity.   

I know anone who runs for office — not to mention someone who started running for public office during the Nixon Administration and been in Congress for 20 years, must have a pretty big ego.  But even by these standards the Congresswoman’s comments were over the top! 

Tags: Articles, Democrat and Chronicle, Federal Officials by Rocky Rotundee
4 Comments »

You don’t have to listen all that hard to hear the ridiculously transparent “McCain/Bush” references by Obama, Clinton and their surrogates in a tepid attempt to link the Republican nominee with the record of a currently unpopular president. But while Hill and the gang try to taint McCain by trying to make him responsible for someone else’s record, it makes perfect sense to take a good look at Hillary’s actual record.

Now, we all know that there is enough dirt on the Bill Clinton presidency to fill up the headlines of every election cycle from now until Suri Cruise runs for Supreme Emperor of the Universe in 2052, but Hillary’s only experience has come as the junior senator from our great state of New York. When she first ran for the Senate in 2000, Hillary’s big promise to folks in our region was that she would create 200,000 new Upstate New York jobs. This is, of course, a ridiculous claim, as are all claims by politicians that they will “create jobs.” The only way a politician can “create” a job is to take more of your money through taxes to pay the salary. Politicians can encourage employment by keeping taxes and regulation to a minimum, but that really means that they just need to get out of the way of private enterprise. Hillary failed even at that, because not only did she not “create” 200,000 Upstate New York jobs, the region has actually seen a net loss of jobs during her time in the Senate.

When asked about this by Tim Russert (who clearly doesn’t care much for Hillary) at a recent Democratic debate, Hillary made the laughable excuse that she expected Al Gore to be president when she made that promise. Bush, she insists, is the one to blame for the region’s economic woes. She apparently didn’t have time to elaborate on the ways in which Bush foiled her many Upstate New York job creation initiatives.

Although the upcoming general election will include no incumbents, be prepared to hear a whole lot of “are you better off than you were four years ago?” nonsense from the Democratic nominee. If Clinton ends up being that nominee (or even the nominee’s running mate), I hope voters in this region will take a moment to ask if Upstate New York is better off than it was eight years ago.

Tags: Federal Officials, MisterF, New York State, Presidential Politics by MisterF
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13WHAM TV Reporter Sean Carroll broke the story tonight that several sources have informed him that 29th District Congressional Representative Randy Kuhl will indeed seek re-election to his seat.  Here’s a snippet from Carroll’s piece:

At least four Republican sources now tell me that Congressman Randy Kuhl (R-29th) is going to announce Friday that he will seek re-election.  This comes as rumors swirl that the second term Congressman from the Southern Tier will retire at the end of his current term.

Rumors as to Congressman Kuhl’s re-election intentions have been running rampant lately.  But if Carroll is proven to be correct, it means two things:

1. Sean Carroll, a relatively new reporter in the Rochester area, is really getting his ear to the ground and is quickly making a name for himself in Monroe County and the surrounding communities.

2. The political rumor mills are about as trustworthy as a grade school grapevine; a ladies’ sewing circle; or a men’s corner barbershop.

Regardless of Congressman Kuhl’s final decision, this is some darn good in-the-trenches reporting from Carroll and the folks over at 13WHAM.

Tags: Articles, Federal Officials, Mr. Peabody by Mr. Peabody
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