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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WPCNR MR. & MRS. & MS. White Plains Poll. March 29, 2008: In a humanitarian gesture, apparently quietly done because of the prolonged March “cold snap,”  the Mayor and the White Plains Common Council have scheduled an early morning vote on Monday to keep the extra capacity of the Open Arms Shelter and Samaritan House  in effect through April, to house the 25 or so “independent” homeless. City officials were not available Friday afternoon to indicate whether this “open arms humanitarian” attitude would be continued indefinitely. How do Mr. and Mrs. and Ms. White Plains feel? Should the extra capacity be maintained indefinitely  at the two shelters in White Plains to provide overnight shelter for the “independent homeless” who refuse to register with the Westchester County Department of Social Services?

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         WPCNR County Clarion-Ledger. From Westchester County Department of Communications. (EDITED) March 29, 2008: County Executive Andy Spano Friday joined county executives across the state in denouncing the state’s latest budget proposal. He said that the decisions now on the table as the State hastens to adopt an on-time budget will cause local property taxes to rise. 

           During a press conference call in which more than 100 people participated, including 11 county executives and their representatives, county leaders from Albany to Westchester today spoke about how the state’s latest budget would force them to raise local property taxes. Under the plan proposed by Gov. Patterson, counties across the state would suffer a 2 percent across the board cut in funding and at the same time be expected to pick up more of the cost of state-mandated programs like child welfare and caring for juvenile delinquents.                                                     

                                          

“Governor Spitzer’s proposed budget was bad enough causing Westchester to pay $6 million more for various state-mandated services,” said Spano.  “Now on top of this, Governor Paterson’s budget calls for a 2 percent decrease in state funding across the board. For us, that means an additional hit of over $2.8 million. Taken together, the state is imposing a property tax increase of almost 2 percent on our residents. It is unconscionable.”

 

Spano continued, “I know that the state has severe problems in this economy. But no one is hurting more than our local property taxpayers. Breakfast, lunch and dinner conversations are all about the price of gas, the cost to heat our homes, and worry over dwindling retirement funds. Our residents must not be asked to take on this additional burden. In crisis times like these, belts have to be tightened everywhere, not shifted. The State must reduce its own spending. There must be no more mandates, no expansion of current mandates and no cuts in state aid.”

 

            Spano said he and the other county executives are ready to stand with the governor and state legislature if they make hard choices to reduce spending.

 

“In times like this, Westchester County government makes it own hard choices and finds ways to reduce costs, and trim expenses,” he said.  “But what we don’t do is shift county costs down to our localities.  On the other hand, if the answer is state cost shifts and funding cuts, our residents will need to know that  future property tax increases are the result of the decisions Albany makes now.”

 

No cuts made, though.

 

Despite Mr. Spano’s statement issued today, to the contrary, Mr. Spano, did not lower the County Budget when county sales taxes totaled higher than expected at the end of 2007.  Instead, he raised it. Spano increased the budget to cover an expected $6 Million sales tax shortfall. However when the actual shortfall was just $1 Million no budget cuts were made by the county.

 

 It would appear the county could cover the expected $2.8 Million Governor Patterson’s budget now demands of the county with the unexpected sales tax money.

 

 The demands on the county budget made by Governor Patterson’s cuts  may, though,  hamper the county ability to increase salaries of County Legislators who have been lobbying hard for increased remuneration, which is now being studied by a citizen committee, appointed by Chairman Bill Ryan of the County Board of Legislators. That committee expects to deliver a report April 30 on the worthiness of the county legislators’ requests for pay increases and committee chair stipends.

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WPCNR Quill & Eyeshade. By John F. Bailey March 27, 2008: The  White Plains Commissioner of Finance reported to WPNCR Wednesday that the city 2008-2009 Budget will be delivered to the Common Council April 7. However, the budget has not been prepared with any input from the Budget & Management Committee, the group of citizens and councilpersons who in previous years used to suggest areas of concern and constructive criticism and warnings on city spending. That committee is chaired by  Councilman Benjamin Boykin. Mr. Boykin told WPCNR yesterday:

“I (and the Committee) have had no input into the budget process,” Boykin told WPCNR. Boykin said he has sent Paul Wood, the city Executive Officer five e-mails requesting such a meeting, and in the last e-mail, he said Wood told him that the budget was so close to being presented that it was best to wait until it was presented.  Boykin said the council would simply have to make changes in the printed budget after April 7, if necessary. WPCNR has put in a call to Mr. Wood to find out why there were no preliminary discussions before the budget went to print.

In previous years,  Boykin recalled, prior to the departure of former Budget Director Eileen Earl, the Budget & Management Committee received detailed forecasts of the budget, making the Budget committee aware of the changing complexion of the city finances. This year the Budget committee did not receive any information on wage increases which they had requested, but were told could not be put together before mid-February. Boykin said he was given no reasons why the Budget Committee could not be convened.

 Capital spending for 08-09 was gone over with Common Council observers, and the Council was informed of certain spending plans that were postponed and those that were kept in the capital plan.

The 2007-2008 budget stands at $154.5 Million with the city tax rate at $141.93 per $1,000 of assessed value.

Last year the city raised the budget 5.1%, resulting in a 7% property tax increase. The median White Plains home valued at $700,000 on the market, paid $2,622 in city property taxes in 2007-2008.

The city expects a quarter per cent increase in the sales tax expected to bring in approximately $5.5 Million. The quarter per cent is expected to be approved by the State Legislature.  On the strength of the quarter per cent tax increase alone the city can fund most likely a 4% to 5% increase in the police, fire, teamsters, and CSEA contracts. A raise of 4% across the board was granted three years ago, and to solidify union happiness with elected officials, and to make union leaders look very good, a 5% increase (in a time of approximately 3% plus inflation), is attractive to a politically sensitive labor-appreciative Common Council. But, you never can tell perhaps the union heads will be conservative, show restraint and in the best interest of the city, accept a 4% raise.

Escalating electric rates will raise the budget. Rising health benefits of 5%, possible further demands from the state in pension fund contributions, and pay back of previous pension fund bonds, and pension fund shortfalls  due to Wall Street woes, and a steady but not overwhelming increase in the present sales tax would seem to indicate budget pressures not present last year.

What could the budget be? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the inflation rate from February of 2007 to February of 2008 was 3.5%. That would take the budget increase automatically to $159 Million. Add to that a 5% increase in salaries ($3.5 Millon added to current $70.7 Million) and a 5% increase in health care benefits (the increase projected by the White Plains Schools) $1.7 Million added to $33,312,043  and that takes the budget to $167 Million.  If the city grants 4%-ters across the board, it will be about $166 Million.

The present Sales Tax surplus should deliver a $3 Million surplus to feed into the budget, and add this to the $6 Million quarter per cent tax increase, and the city will have an additional $9 Million in revenue to defray effects of inflation and the salary increases. There is the mortgage tax that could put the city over the top to a balanced budget, barring substantial softening of the condominium market, allowing the possibility that White Plains could keep the property tax where it is – if it were not for certiorari settlements that continue to plague the city to the tune of $200,000 to $500,000 a month in tax refunds.

A third payment from LCOR for the Bank Street property  could be set aside for the certiorari refunds –  and the city keep the property tax increase to only a few pennies.

But this is contingent on the city’s commitments coming up for infrastructure, capital improvements, and open space acquisition.

Last year the city increased the property tax 7%  ($9.28 – to $141.93) without any wage increases or the inflationary pressures now affecting the area.  

Will the city keep property tax increase flat – no increase, which seems possible – based on just rough numbers? Or will they raise it as insurance – against more certiorari refunds?

If Mayor Joseph Delfino can persuade Assemblyman Adam Bradley to increase the sales tax another quarter per cent, bringing in another $6 Million, as Delfino had originally requested this would deliver insurance against more city budget surprises. The $10 Million a full ½% sales tax increase would have brought in would have easily stopped any need for a property tax increase this year.

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White Plains remembered and grieved the loss of Sonny Katz this morning at the revered City Marshal’s funeral at the Hebrew Institute that drew over three hundred persons paying their final respects. Judges, lawyers, former city officials, and many who knew him gathered to absorb and contemplate just how much they – and White Plains had lost with Mr. Katz’s passing.

City Hall flew its flag at half-mast today in respect for Sonny Katz, its City Marshal forever.

His family of four children, his grandchildren shared remembrances and sense of loss – which you could feel — recounting personal memories, his gentle mentoring, his support of their endeavors, and humor, and how much they loved him. The sense of loss was so eloquent.

The Rabbi officiating the service compared Mr. Katz to Mordecai, the hero of the Old Testament Book of Esther as  “popular with the multitude of his brethren, for he sought the welfare of his people and spoke peace to all his people.”

Good Times: The beloved Mr. Katz,  far right, helped so many people in his life in White Plains,  is shown on the eve of his 86^th birthday one year ago in one of his last public appearances, presentation of the first WESTCO Sonny Katz Scholarships to Helen Hess and Kirsten Smayda. A big band singer and entertainer in the 30s, and an actor himself,  he reminisced about his own days on the stage and encouraged the audience “to get the autographs of these young ladies today (Helen Hess and Kirsten Smayda) because they’re going to go far.”  

Mr. Katz had a way of making all around him feel good. It was the way he was — always with just the right words — a natural raconteur.  

 Mr. Katz is shown at the podium with his daughter, Susan Katz, who reminisced this morning that she used to introduce herself when she was a child as, “I’m the daughter of the City Marshal.” In recent years, she said, her father touchingly returned the favor,  in a very special way introducing himself as “I’m the father of Susan Katz of Westco Productions.”

The Rabbi described Mr. Katz as standing for the good like Mordecai, (who, the scriptures recount,  took in Esther and raised her as his own daughter).

Whether it was Mr. Katz easing the pain of persons being evicted from their apartment;seeing that those at the ends of hope got a few extra weeks to pay their rents, and the services they needed or Mr. Katz doing that little something extra that turned life’s most stressful moments into a positive outcome in the long run,  Mr. Katz did not just do his duty. He went beyond the call of duty to see that in doing his duty, he did not do harm.

The good that Sonny Katz had done all through his life was celebrated in tears and admiration, and warmth.  Silent tears and sniffs were prevalent through the ceremony which lasted over an hour.

What came through was Mr. Katz’s ablity to make everyone feel they mattered. He genuinely cared about them, and his willingness to take a personal interest far beyond your typical bureaucrat or official.

In the business of law and court decisions, often impersonal and brusque,  where procedures  are served on persons because it is ordered and it is the law, Mr. Katz was the exception.

He put a human constructive touch into the harshness of law.  In his hundreds of eviction proceedings over 37 years as City Marshal, Mr. Katz carried out his duties with compassion, creativity, poise and common sense. Going into countless situations involving all walks of life, Mr. Katz handled personalities at the end of their ropes with a tact and constructive approach that never resulted in violence, but positive outcomes. 

Mayor Alfred  Del Vecchio, next to last to speak, delivered a glowing and uplifting portrait of Mr. Katz, who spent many Sundays with the Mayor over the years over bagels. The Mayor’s description of Mr. Katz’s genuine liking for people, his sense of wisdom, and sound advice – echoed previously by his daughter Susan Katz, his granddaughter Melanie, his grandson, an uncle –  what the Mayor recalled as Mr. Katz’s  appreciation for life lifted the melancholy and sent all out into the sunshine with Sonny Katz in their hearts and minds.

Perhaps no public servant ever touched and helped more persons more effectively, more warmly, and without guile than Sonny Katz.

The “Mordecai of White Plains”  is an appropriate epitaph:

 “popular with the multitude of his brethren, for he sought the welfare of his people and spoke peace to all his people.”

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WPCNR NEWS AND COMMENT. By John F. Bailey. March 22, 2008 UPDATED, March 24, 2008, 12:45 A.M. E.D.T. March 25, 2008 10:30 AM EDT: The proof that the  New York Democratic Party continues to promote candidates to key positions on its ticket based solely on their merit, achievement and know-how to use taxpayers’ money to the party’s and their own personal benefit continues to pour in to dazed reporters this week.

 Don’t these guys ever read a book or study information at night? If I had to juggle women, cats, and news every night, the truth would never get out.

This week’s New York Governor of the Week, David Patterson, took only five days to reveal he is a true democrat.  A real bona fide Democrat.  He fumbled, bumbled, mumbled, obfuscated, misremembered, and could not come clean on his second big policy statement on his romantic life — which he introduced.

Now late Sunday evening, 24 hours after I  first posted this commentary, the plot has thickened.  It appears Mr. Patterson has not told all according to Cable News Network’s 10 P.M. Newsroom hour. Cable News Network reported Sunday evening that the New York Post  is set to break a story alleging that Governor Patterson had considerably more affairs with New York state employees in the past then he admitted last week.  Some of the women involved apparently advanced in positions afterwards, though it is not clear  if the women allegedly  involved exchanged favors with Mr. Patterson with the understanding they would be promoted. A New York Post reporter was interviewed on CNN confirming this story is about to explode all over Albany.

Tuesday morning, it was revealed by The New York Post that Mr. Patterson, who owns a home 20 minutes from Albany, rented a number of hotel rooms in downtown Albany for overnight stays.  Reports stated he spent $2,000 on 12 Albany hotel rooms since he became Lieutenant Governor in January 2007. Gannet News Service Tuesday morning reported that he billed his Campaign fund over $3,500 for 17 different hotel rooms in Albany after he purchased his home 20 minutes from Albany. Aides were reported by Gannett to have explained these rentals as renting rooms reception, fundraisers and political meetings.

It brings to mind that changes are needed in how we choose people to run for office.

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On Day 2, “Governor of the Week” David Patterson said in his first big policy statement was we need to cut the budget. The second big policy statement was that he had had an affair or two and so had his wife. Mr. Patterson put this out because he had learned that the reporters were looking into his past. Ok.

He then told the stunned zombies of the Albany press corps later in the week in a Rochester appearance, that he had never spent government funds or party funds on the affair(s).

He volunteered this.

Then on Day 5, Friday, Mr. Patterson paid back to his campaign fund, $253 in hotel bills he had charged on his Friends of David Patterson  Credit Card. The attorney, asked to look into party expenses, said Mr. Patterson could not remember what the rooms were rented for.

He could not remember. He could not remember?

The attorney said to The New York Times, that in paying the two bills, Patterson was not admitting the rentals were used to conduct an affair.  The Times reported at this news conference the exchange became testy when reporters asked about payments of expenses to women.

Mmmmm. If I were a young woman, I’d think twice about going to work in politics, wouldn’t you? Unless of course you have a taste for the high life. I mean the occassional skirt-chasing story in  the Albany state house and environs indicates a culture there that indicates a lack of  responsible focus.

 Governor Eliot Spitzer lasted 439 days. How much longer will Mr. Patterson last? How many women were there in his past who worked for the state? We are sure the FBI is taking guys off the Al Queda assignment  to move on up there to Albany and grill Mr. Patterson, and the rest of the sorry legislature at this very moment.  

This calls for a task force!

Politicians are so funny, if the money they run through wasn’t killing us.

The Democratic party is such a rich source of material. You cannot make this up.  Thank God for the jackals of the press. Obviously the jackals up in Albany haven’t been watching Eliot and the gang the last eight years.

 This new round of Lieutenant Governors not having enough to do, could mean a new litmus test should be created for politicians everywhere, especially those hard riding libidorados of the “Demerotic Party.”  

Who knew?

Thanks to Eliot Spitzer and David, la dolce vita of Democrat office holders may have to be sharply curtailed until the heat dies down. Politicians deprived of their extra curricular activities may become even more surly in the budget fight beginning next week.

 So far the Republicans in Albany appear to be real straight arrows, if not a little frustrated. Stiff upper lip Republicans!  You are to be admired for your moral fortitude in the Sodom and Gomorrah of the Empire State – Alluring Albany – and the House of the Rising Sun, the State House.

Any Republican Assemblymen want to step forward and confess any wrong doing? Remember once Hil and Bil chill Obama – and win the White House, the FBI is going to be investigatin’ you.

At least the Democrats are not all asking for pay raises – yet.

Those  frisky Senators and glamor Assemblymen of Albany not caught yet,  or gripped by the new spirit of candor in carnality  (up to a point), will have to curl up with the state budget next week.

I knew an Assemblyman about 30 years ago who won a seat in the Carter election to go to Albany. He spent four days a week in Albany. He told me “It’s like not being married.” I wonder what he meant by that?

But the signs have been there all along.

There are no sexy Republicans, however. We can be thankful most of them are all card-carrying Christians, right?  With the occassional fall from grace.  

Arnold Schwarzenager definitely does qualify as sexy, I guess – and perhaps Rudy Guiliani and Mayor Bloomberg.   Perhaps the only sexy Republican I remember from the past is Governor Nelson Rockefeller, another New York Governor, by the way, who ended his life in the saddle, after he had resigned from the governorship. OK, so that’s 4 possibly sexy Republicans I remember. But I am a man, so am not a great judge of what makes a man sexy to a woman. It can’t be just money and power and hands is it?

 Let’s face it Democrats are sexy guys, though. 

All those touchy feely issues, it stands to reason they are touchy feely guys. They can’t help themselves. Is this an inbred Democrat trait?

 Bill, Eliot, and now, David are just following the long Democratic tradition of Gary, Wilbur, Earl,  Jack, Bobby, Teddy, Franklin.  They set a long tradition of high profile Democratic hijinks that were winked at and condoned by the press of the time.  On occasion, though the peccadilloes went tawdrily morbidly wrong. But, even then they were forgiven because they were Democrats and couldn’t possibly be doing anything really wrong, just a victim of circumstances, a dark night, a misunderstanding, an unsafe bridge.

Is having an affair with a woman who works in the Albany offices OK if you tell about it?

Is taking advantage of a woman half your age O.K. because you can, O.K.? We love candor in politicians.

But what I like most is politicians who work very hard and take their work seriously.

No wonder I do not have much respect for most politicians.

Now with Eliot and David’s unfortunate experiences, perhaps the ever-sensitive Democratic Party may set new standards in candidate selection, new screenings to prevent these bad apples rising to the top of the barrel and bobbing away ineffectually.

To wit —

1.       We must vet, for the survival of the republic, Americans, the quality and political correctness of future Democratic candidates’ pastors of the past positions on important issues – so as not to nominate a candidate who may have been subconsciously influenced by sermons of a rogue priest, rabbi, pastor, monk, mullah, rector, minister, guru, evangelist, televangelist, or cult leader – so we can be sure he or she heard no evil.

Had such a litmus test been in place the “Getting Obama” Campaign this week which shows no abatement,  would never have to have been launched to save the Clintonistas’ bacon.

Perhaps we should look into Mrs. Clinton’s home church and Mr. Clinton’s too, and Mr. McCain’s to see what fire and brimstone came down from those pulpits to create such two people of irreproachable character.

Perhaps this background search should extend to the teachers and professors possible candidates have had in elementary and high school, and the college professors (always a dangerous influence on young persons’ lives teaching all those libertine ways). Why not? Obviously any politician spends far more time in schools than he or she does in church.

Or how about business associates? Could we vet them on these corruptors of the politicians’ souls?

This has even more of an influence on how politicians react. Look at how contributors are rewarded by Democratic and Republican politicians with very lucrative deals. Could we vet these people?

Like the $110,000  (when a $110,000 was a $110,000 – today it only gets you affordable housing) John McCain got from the crooked financier, John Keating in the 1980s S & L scandal, the Enron of its time. Perhaps that contribution had an influence on Mr. Straight Talk at that time when he was just starting out in politics. What influence – who can say?

But that Keating moment was the past. It does not matter now. Or, does it? 

John McCain will obviously, after he is elected develop an environmental policy on global warming that is more than one paragraph long; subsidize oil price hikes or freeze oil prices to ease the pain on Mr. and Mrs. and Ms. White Plains; fund experimental cars to lower CO2 emissions; crack down on Wall Street financial instrument creators who scam millions daily; remove Halliburton as the Official Contractor of Free and Independent Iraq; rebuild New Orleans—finally; stop wiretapping Americans and start wiretapping more politicians.

Is any reporter even asking Mr. Straight Talk about that? What victory in Iraq constitutes? What he would do on the economy?  Not on the networks I watch.

I’d really like to know who the pastors of  Mr. McCain’s youth were – I think their views of blacks and Hispanics might matter don’t you?

2.       We should apply  a code of personal conduct for the Democratic politician just to let them know what’s expected of them, and to assure the party is not continuing to add sexual loose cannons onto the party decks of the Democratic Party Frigates as they sail the seas of state.

However, this standard for personal conduct need not be applied to Republican candidates.

Apparently, the last Republican to have an affair was Nelson Rockefeller who died in the saddle. It has been about five decades since I believe an elected Republican has had an affair – oh, there is a speaker of the House, I’d forgotten about him.

But, since it is a well-known fact that the Republican Party candidates never tell the truth  (we have eight years of evidence of that), never investigate themselves, and simply create cover stories for a living – you cannot vet them. Does not make sense to do that since they are going to lie and we believe the lies to our everlasting discredit. It is easier to believe the lies than deal with the ugly truth.

So vet the Democrats to make them better Democrats who pay attention to the issues, instead of just jaw-boning. (Where was that stimulus package, last year guys? And who are we stimulating now the directors and officers of Bear Stearns?)

But, I digress.

The reason the Democrats must institute this two-step vetting process is that the present candidate selection is assuming too much and the party is getting some very erratic leaders elected at key positions. Remember the President who indulged in morning workouts in the oval office with a personal “trainer”?  The Spitzer and now Patterson revelations continue this Hugh Hefner syndrome. However, Hugh’s organization makes money. 

 Is this a trend in Democrats? Are they virility without limits? Or are they all natural hacks?

Across New York State, despite these revelations by Eliot and Davis, the Democratic Party can be proud and not worried, because, in fact Patterson on Day 5 has shown that just like the rest of the Senate and the Assembly and all the Democrats on down, he is a certified, card-carrying, Democratic hack. 

Friday he showed his hackability credentials by paying back his campaign fund for the money he used to rent a hotel in New York, allegedly  to enjoy an intimate private evening with a colleague.

But, wait, if they discussed party business, he may not have to pay it back! Is Mr. Patterson acting too hastily here? Perhaps he should say he was strategizing? Got to brush up on your ability to create cover stories, Governor.

Where is the moral indignation?

This is not smart of the new Governor of the Week.

I can see the FBI racing up I-87 right now, impounding Democratic Party records right and left. I can hear the Albany shredders humming in the Capitol as I write.

Perhaps other Democratic hacks have done the same.

Do I feel a statewide probe coming on?

Gee, if I were a U.S. Attorney looking to make a name for myself, and I were the State Comptroller I’d start auditing every member of each state house on expenses and see what I could find.

Question of Succession.

However, what if more is forthcoming on Mr. Patterson, and a similar outcry about Mr. Patterson develops quickly.

After all what might be coming on Day 8 of the Governor Patterson’s term?

If Mr. Patterson suddenly has to exit, too?

Who is next…

Our next Governor of the Week stands to be Joe Bruno, the Senate Leader. However, Mr. Bruno though energetic and dynamic at 78 – could, you never know, drop dead.

Then the next Governor of the Week could be Sheldon Silver, and beyond that if Bruno and Silver carry us to the end of year – who might be next? Suzi Oppenheimer? Adam Bradley? We can only wonder.

In fact, since no one has really been paying attention to the job  of being Governor the last 444 days, we could rotate it weekly like the Chicago Cubs of 1962 – who had 10 coaches manage. Governor of New York could become a guest position.

Think of the possibilities a Governor of the Week system could bring!

Perhaps the Sullivan County Executive could run New York one week and grease approvals for Louis Cappelli’s casino. Then the next week, Andy Spano could take over and  transfer all the mandates back to the state by executive order. Then Scott Vanderhoef of Rockland County could take over for a week and create a Tappan Zee funding Enterprise Zone and we can start this bridge already.

 Mayor Delfino could go up and be Governor for a week and put in a 2% sales tax increase and make White Plains solvent for the next 20 years. There’s a thought.   

Thank you Democrats for making New York State the laughing stock of the country. If a New Yorker is nominated to run for President, this is going to really hurt them, these little scandals, that are being explained away as just personal.

The more I think about it – retracing the movements and calendars of all politicians in the Assembly and Senate sounds like a very juicy idea.

It is only fair.

But how about a window of amnesty here?

Politicians for a limited time can voluntarily come forward, and,  (like turning in handguns), voluntarily return moneys spent from party funds and state funds for personal use, and disclose the number of affairs they have had.

These affairs could be  broken down between paid professional services and unpaid, mutually consentive indulgences, separating out the number of state employees with whom they have consorted from civilian personnel.

But it’s all personal, it does not affect their job. The heck it does not!

Tip to the U.S. Attorney – there’s a career here to be made in investigating New York politicians!

And the government is sending $30 Billion to Bear Stearns? There’s something that needs investigation, too. (Sorry, this keeps sticking in my mind for some reason.)

If you can arrange a $30 billion gift to Bear Stearns in a week, you could have helped out with a few extra billion for the persons losing their homes last year. It should have been sent to Tennesee and Michigan last summer where the banks were turning people out on the street because they could and wanted to.

Let Wall Street get pinched just a little and they are first to squeal and beg for aid — the first to go on the dole – because they are so important to the country. Well, their incompetence and greed is one of the three things that are killing this country: corrupt finance, politicians on take, no leaders with vision.