WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER SETS RECORD VISITS FOR YEAR 7,017,658 VISITS! 2,098,003 VISITORS MADE 6 VISITS A DAY EVERY DAY. 63,330 UNIQUE VISITORS MADE 133,730 VISITS IN DECEMBER. WPCNR AVERAGED 17,284 VISITORS A WEEK, VISITING 31,270 TIMES.

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Presenters:  Leonard G. Townes, Commissioner, Westchester County Dept. of Social Services Blanca Lopez, Assistant Director of Operations for Westchester County Thursday, July 15th 11:00 AM -12:00 PM Register Now

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Today, Congressman Mondaire Jones (D-NY) released the following statement after Senate Republicans blocked debate on legislation to protect voting rights and save our democracy:

“Our democracy is in crisis. From the armed, white supremacist-led insurrection at the Capitol, to Donald Trump’s baseless attempts to overturn last year’s presidential election, to the racist voter suppression laws being enacted in states across the nation, it becomes clearer every day that the crisis we face is existential.

“Democrats understand this moment and are united in our commitment to protecting our democracy. That is why we passed the For the People Act in the House and why every Senate Democrat voted to begin debate on this legislation today.

“Republicans, on the other hand, no longer believe in government for the people, by the people. They’ve wholeheartedly embraced authoritarianism. It comes as no surprise that they have once again moved in lockstep to block the Senate from even debating the For the People Act. 

“Despite Democrats’ repeated efforts to seek a deal, and the fact that more than two-thirds of Americans support this legislation, Republicans in Washington have refused to engage in good faith. If our negotiating partners won’t even come to the table, there is no reason to compromise. We must instead do right by the American people. In this moment, the only path forward is to abolish the filibuster and pass the For the People Act with a simple majority in the Senate.

“My friend Chuck Schumer has said all along that when it comes to protecting voting rights, failure is not an option, and I couldn’t agree more. Today’s vote makes clear that the only way to avoid failure and protect the fundamental rights of all Americans is to abolish the filibuster.”

Today, Congressman Mondaire Jones (D-NY), along with Representatives John Sarbanes (D-MD), Nikema Williams (D-GA), Colin Allred (D-TX), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), and Senators Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) introduced the Preventing Election Subversion Act of 2021, legislation to promote free and fair elections and actively combat the attempts by Republican-run states to subvert elections. 

Currently, in states like Georgia, Republicans have been removing non-partisan local election officials, whose responsibilities include selecting precinct locations, establishing voting hours, and certifying elections, posing a threat to the integrity of our elections. The Preventing Election Subversion Act of 2021 will institute new federal safeguards that will help keep the foundations of our democracy strong by insulating state election administration from partisan pressure. 

“This year, the right to vote has been under the worst assault since Jim Crow,” said Congressman Mondaire Jones. “Republicans in state houses across the country have gone to outrageous lengths to silence Black and brown voters, introducing over 400 racist voter suppression bills and removing non-partisan election officials who oversee and certify elections. Our bill would protect the independence of local election officials and ensure that future elections are free and fair.”

Specifically, the Preventing Election Subversion Act of 2021 would: 

• Limit arbitrary and unfounded removals of local election officials by requiring a “for cause” standard to be met before suspension and provide a federal cause of action to enforce this standard; 
• Allow a local election official who has responsibility for federal elections and who has been subjected to removal proceedings by a state board of elections to remove that proceeding to federal district court for redress; 
• Make it a federal crime for any person, whether acting under color of law or otherwise, to intimidate, threaten, coerce, harass, or attempt to intimidate, threaten, coerce, or harass an election worker; 
• Establish a minimum buffer zone to limit how close a poll observer may come within a voter or ballot at a polling location during an early voting period or on Election Day; and 
• Require challenges to a voter’s eligibility to register to vote or to cast a ballot, other than from an election official, to be supported by personal knowledge with respect to each individual challenged.

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Due to the probability of rain for tomorrow, Tuesday, June 22, The Highlands Middle School Moving Up Ceremony is being moved to Thursday, June 24, at 5:00 PM

at Loucks Field at the High School.  All other details remain the same. 

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Zoom in at tinyurl.com/June22ERAP
or
Watch on Facebook Live at FB.com/ChrisBurdickAD93

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WPCNR THE SUNDAY  BAILEY. By John F. Bailey. Republished from The CitizeNetReporter of June 17, 2007:

This week celebrates a great American Father.

Charles F. Bailey.

He is my father. He was born November 17, 1918.

My father gave me four pieces of advice in life: Always drive an air-conditioned car. Always centrally air-condition your home. Stay out of court.

And, oh yes, don’t sit in traffic. Take the next exit and wing it.

Always take the service road on the Long Island Expressway. (He would have loved a Garmin.)

In retrospect, his advice has served me well.  I am always comfortable. I sit out traffic delays in comfort. I have not made lawyers rich.

He was not an emotional man. He was a banker and always wore suits to work. I have fond memories of going to meet him in the days of steam engines in Pleasantville – when train tracks were at grade with Manville Road at the old stone station.

I was most impressed as a young child by how he always smelled of coal cinders when he got off the train – like commuter’s cologne.

Sadly on today’s electric trains you do not get that. And you always heard those steam engines coming. Chuffing doing serious work.

You could see them: Clouds of very busy, inspiring industrious black smoke streaming at the horizon down the line. He’d get off the train.

My mother would move over and he’d drive the old Hudson Hornet home. He always spoke quietly. Never raised his voice. Drank scotch and soda in the winter. “G & T’s” in the summer, martinis with George and Howard two close friends. He smoked Chesterfield, Philip Morris, Marlboros, Kents with the micronite filter.

He set up a Lionel train set in our basement – perhaps our unspoken connection. When I was sent in by train for the first time to meet him at the office during Christmas time, He’d have his secretary Margie greet me at Grand Central Terminal which still is a very big and scary place to me .

He would take me to lunch at Jack’s Monte Rosa Restaurant on 49th Street – which I thought was a very great place. Hub bub, tinkling glasses. Sharp-dressed waitersin white jackets black bow ties.

When I first went to it with him, I was a little disappointed that it was not more glamorous but I was really impressed that Jack the owner greeted him by name. I thought that was great that my Dad was greeted with respect.

When I first started working in Washington, D.C. in 1968 I ate regularly at a restaurant below the television station WMAL-TV where I worked, it was called Marty’s Italian Village.  Marty, the owner (who looked like Humphrey Bogart, the only thing missing was the white sport coat) started calling me when I came in around 7 PM, ‘Hi John, how are you?” People would look at me. They thought I was big.  I liked that. Feeling big in my small world.

When my father came to visit me in Washington where I worked. I took him around town. I told him when he got off the plane. “Hi, Dad, welcome to my town.” I wanted to impress him. We’re always trying to impress our fathers. At least I was.

Another Father time was when my Dad came out for Dad’s Day at college. I mean this was a big thing to me. He watched me do play-by-play of a football game from atop the press box in 15 degree weather. It was cold. But he watched. Acted impressed. He hated cold weather. No watching from the warm press box for him.

Another time he impressed was when I lost a job where I was working at the television station that I was being considered for. I told him how unfair it was, he put things in perspective:

“Puggy, he said,  “The film manager wasn’t going to put you in as his Assistant if you were going to be bucking him all the time.” It put things in perspective. No false sentiment. No making me feel better, he was tough enough to teach by being realistic while telling me not to feel sorry for myself.

Then later in my career, I was fired out of a job completely blindsided. He again intervened, saying to me he thought what the agency head had done was a terrible thing. I needed that at the time.

He also, in a very supportive move, told me if I could make $1,000 a night writing a free lance direct mail package, I should keep trying to do that.

Dads are there to say the right things to you at the right time. Sometimes it is not always the right thing, but they try. Often, if you’re lucky, as I was, they say the right thing. Always — when you really really need it. Not the wrong thing.

With my father, who was not really my father, since I was an adopted child, it was never all about him, it was all about you. Making me better, even when it hurt him to say things that were the truth.

When I bought my first house in White Plains. He never criticized the house. But when I sold it, he complimented me, “I think it’s great how you came out of it (the crummy first house).” He was a personal trainer.

The good ones  train you to run a race. If you stumble, no one hurts more than they do. When you succeed, no one is prouder. The good ones push you in front of the cameras, they say interview her or him. They did it.

They know what you should do, but they can’t tell you, because you won’t do it if you’re a kid.

But the more subtler of them tell you any way in hopes it will sink into the rebellious offspring mind. My dad was subtle.

Another fond memory: My father took me camping once at a friend’s cabin in Pennsylvania. Funny thing was there was such a great comic collection we wound up sleeping in sleeping bags on the porch of the cabin. That was funny.

Another time when I was being threatened in college over a position at the radio station, I asked him if I should just abdicate and assign a play-by-play position to the person who was being forced on me. He advised me to “stick to your guns,” so I reported the threat to the Dean.

The position was compromised, but I was never threatened again.  He never shared my love for baseball and sports. In fact he never played catch with me all that well or that often.

I mean I could have made the big leagues (pipe dream) if he played catch with me more. But that’s a small criticism.  I wish I had more of his financial acumen. But I do not.

As you grow into your 30s and 40s, little things they say to you you begin to understand. My father never struck me, but always disciplined me with quiet words. I have not always been that way as a parent myself, being somewhat volatile. I wish I had his even temperament. He always asked me to take care of my mother. And the only time he really got mad at me was when I had made my mother upset with me.

He was a little like Humphrey Bogart in movie roles in the way he disciplined, I remember he would say admonitions quietly. Such as when I got an F in an English course at college. He told me, that was the last F I would get at Ohio Wesleyan, because the next one he would stop paying my tuition.

That had an effect. And that was when tuition was only $3,000 a year.

I have taken to, after my children have grown, telling them always “Be careful,” “Don’t do anything stupid because someone suggests it,” “Do not go anywhere alone without telling people where you are going,” “Don’t lose your temper,” “Don’t tailgate.” In hopes that when I am not with them, they will remember it when they need it.

I think of him every day of my life. I become more like him every day. He is always lingering in the background of my thoughts. I do not know what he would think of what I am doing now.  But, he’d say — “If that’s what you want to do. Do it.” He also would say, “You have to make yourself happy.”

I also think, even today of what advice (laconic as always) he’d give me in a situation. I wish I could discuss property taxes with him. Banking today and how it has become a predator system.

I especially have to salute him, because I am an adopted child.

That alone makes me appreciate his love and acceptance with a sense of awe to this day. He loved me like his own son. Because in his mind, I was. He took responsibility.

You never outgrow your need for Dad. The good ones are immortal, alive and with you in your head when you need them. They are ghosts that comfort always.

Immortality is leaving a good memory of you with the ones who knew you.

Because what you give them, lives on for generations.

Your children will talk of you because of the good things and behaviors you gave them when you needed them and you never lose those tools Dad gave you.