The Day After: GOP still in control

I figured that if I was to chose a day to get back into things it had to be this one.

Wow… what happened in Albany last night was crazy.  For those of you out of the loop the GOP regained control of the Senate via two Democratic Senators (Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens) switching sides and calling for a change in leadership.  This leaves Long Island’s own Senator Dean Skelos as majority leader of the Senate.

Another post to follow describing what this means for Long Island

State of the Blog: A Long Overdue Update

Wow Spring Semester 09 essentially over (barring some final papers and exams) and thank god.  This is the first time in a long time that I that I was busy beyond belief during the school year and obviously that sowed in the amount of posts to the site.  Sorry about that but as My mother would like to me say (BTW Happy Mothers Day) school comes first.

Anyways expect normal posting to start up again some time soon.  I cannot make promises since I have the LSAT’s coming soon but posting should go back to normal any day now.

Again as always,  The Political Gentleman is looking for writers so if you are interested on commenting and reporting on LI Politics email me.

Thanks for reading

-thepoliticalgentleman

Jake DeSantis is an American Hero

Dear AIG, I Quit!!

not necessarily related directly to Long Island but it must be noted.

Schumer caught in lie on Meet the Press

According to the Cato Institute Senator Chuck Schumer misled the public with this statement concerning his support of the stimulus bill:

Those on the hard right say, “Cut government spending, let’s go back to
the old Reagan days.” Well, the last president who did this when we
were in this type of situation was Herbert Hoover.  Herbert Hoover said
the government should do nothing when we were in a recession, not a
depression.  We did nothing and it related [sic] to a depression.

Question Chuckie: Did Hover really do nothing or does that common fallacy only help you get through all those earmarks?

The fact of the matter is Senator Schumer lied to America and all of Long Island in order promote his policies.  I’m not posting this because I find it surprising however if you feel compelled to act please contact his offices and ask him why he did this.   Also feel free to tact this up in the column of “why I should not re-elect Chuck Schumer”

In case you missed it here is part of Schumer on Meet the Press

Follow The Political Gentleman on Twittter

After a small exploration of the services provided by Twitter I have decided to intergrate this blog onto it.

You can find The Political Gentleman on twitter by searching (or clicking on the hyperlink):

politicalgent

Thanks for following

- thepoliticalgentleman

Writers Needed

Okay so here is the official:  The Political Gentleman needs your help as a writer, post:

After some consideration I have decided that this blog would most suffiencient if one writer would dedicate their talents toward the following categories:

Nassau County Politics

Suffolk County Politics

Federal Politics Concerning Long Island

New York State Politics concerning Long Island

Long Island appearance in the Media (meet the press, sixty minutes)

Long Island Politics concerning the Economy (Trump on the Ocean, Wang Lighthouse, other related articles)

If anyone is interested in writing on any of these topics please email me (thepoliticalgentleman@gmail.com)

As I have mentioned before I envision this website as the place to go for a summation of all political news concerning Long Island.  In order to achieve this vision I need help.  I think that if this blog gets up at running as I want it to be it can serve as an invaluable tool to the Long Island community when attempting to understand the political ongoings of this area.

Thank you for reading and I look forward to any response I may receive.

-thepoliticalgentleman

State of the Blog

My apologies for the lack of posts.  I have been sick with the flu and sick with an extrangeous amount of work.   Anyways it is now spring break and I have a couple other projects that I need to dedicate my time to so needless to say do not expect the amount of posts to grow exponentially however I will attmept to post as much as possible.

One of my goals in creating this blog was to inform others of the political ongoings of Long Island.  Being the sole contributor to this website has made this task insurmountable.  Therefore like always I am looking for writers to help me accomplish the goals as enumerated in the about page.

If anyone is interesting for blogging for The Political Gentleman please contact me at: thepoliticalgentleman@gmail.com

More details to follow.

-thepoliticalgentleman

Lucero’s Mother faces her sons Murderers

According to an article by Newsday Marcelo Lucero’s mother, Rosario, was escorted by a community outreach officer to a Riverhead court room in order to view two of seven teens charged with murdering her son.

At a news conference outside court, Rosario Lucero made an emotional plea for justice, saying the attackers hadn’t just killed her son but had also taken away the family’s source of financial and emotional support.

“As a mother, I feel this pain of loss,” she said in Spanish, her face nearly hidden by 16 microphones. “The parents of these children must be feeling a sense of loss, too, seeing their children in these circumstances. We are all human beings, and it is not right to take anyone’s life.”

As most of you may know Marcelo Lucero was beaten and stabbed to death by 7  teenagers on his way home from work.

The article also mentions that County Executive of Suffolk County Steve Levy, after arguably mishandling the initail situation has made sure to reach out the the Lucero family.

I know this is somewhat “old news” but I haven’t commented on this situation and felt it imperative that I do.  I want to first say that this is not an immigration issue.  This is a human rights issue.  Obviously if I sneaked into Canada via the Buffalo border I would not expect to be beaten to death by 7 Ontarian with hockey sticks.  Whether or not Lucero was in this country illegally or not is irrelevant.

However the one gripe I do have about this case is the implementation of the “hate crime” statute.  I don’t believe another individuals race should play any factor in a court of law.  If justice were truly blind the only details of this case that would be relevant would be the brutal way in which Lucero was killed which I am sure would be enough to lock these confused, albeit young, perpetrators up for a long time.  I mean lets think about this “hate crime” statute.  Lets hypothesize that there is a serial killer about that only kills women victims would he then in turn be slapped with a gender crime.  Or what about someone who kills someone while they are mowing there lawn, would this be a “gardener crime”.

I guess I have just never gotten this “hate crime” business.  If anyone whats to justify it please feel free to comment.

Nassau Budget Cuts

Last night on Newsday, on its website, published an article describing the worst case scernio of what budget cuts would bring to Nassau County. Newsday highlights three possibilities if County Executive Thomas Suozzi and union officials cannot come to an agreement.

“Some 320 employees [of state parks and museums] will be laid off to save $10 million”

“the layoff of 250 police and 100 corrections officers for a savings of $21.7 million”

“Suozzi has also proposed $12 million in social service cuts if the state does not approve several revenue plans he has proposed. The cuts would eliminate salary enhancements for day care teachers and aides; youth-oriented after-school and gang violence intervention programs, county-funded contracts to provide mental health and chemical dependency services and a $300,000 subsidy for Cornell Cooperative Extension.”

I think it would be smart for some of these officials and Suozzi to reach some sort of agreement.  Altough it seems as if current union leadership does not understand that in a time of financial difficulty sacrifices must be made by all, not just by those you do not pay union dues.  However I am sure a deal will eventually be met.

Since this is the first related post about the impending economic crisis that I have wrote I feel as if I should make some general comments in order for my readership to understand were I stand on this issue.

To be honest, if there is one thing that time immemorial has taught economist it is that when a free market is not allowed to be a free market bad stuff is going to happen.   This upcoming bailout from Washington is only going to make matters worse (by the way did you know Long Island is receiving $0 of the $780billion being spent by Congress) (oh and by the way Puerto Rico is receiving 18 billion.)  Anyways throwing money at this problem will not make it go away it will only augment it.  The only real saving grace and preventative measure would be to start to deregulate the marketplace (a/k/a less taxes = more money for everyone to spend).

Anyways what Suozzi is doing here is highly commendable.  Admit your mistakes and do not borrow more money to repay old debt.

On a realted note: Click here to read the Stimulus Bill.  As the website says “someone needs to read it”.

State of the Blog

Wow… It has been a long time.  Anyways that should change.  I’m finally altogether at SUNY Oswego and blogging should resume soon.

On a unrelated note check out this website: http://www.stimuluswatch.org/ for a complete look at the projects in the upcoming stimulus bill.  Some rather interesting and infuriating things.

Also as always I am looking for any potential blogger who wants to help me out with this blog.  In order to fully realize my ideas as to what this blog can be I really need someones help.

-thepoliticalgentleman