The Fakest Outrage

This is pretty funny. Michael Steele, who just got off accusing every Democrat in America of playing the race card for a week, goes ahead and... plays the race card:

Michael Steele said it was “curious” on why the White House would ask New York Gov. David Paterson (D) not to run for reelection in 2010.

“I found that to be stunning, that the White House would send word to one of only two black governors in the country not to run for reelection,” Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), said on CBS’s Face The Nation.

Indeed it is stunning, letting someone with a 20% approval rating know that he can't win.

I don't really want the President meddling in any of these state elections, at least not publicly. But these are obvious political decisions to set up the party well for an election year. Paterson isn't just polling badly, he's done 50 and 60 points to opponents. He's micro-polling.

And despite this supposed iron fist from the White House, Paterson is still running for Governor. And I'm sure he appreciates Michael Steele's endorsement. Will Steele apologize to Rudy Giuliani or whoever is running for Governor in New York State for breaking with the party and endorsing the black man for purely racial reasons?

Make My Day

It will be fun to have St. Rudy of 9/11 to kick around again.

Nineteen months after ending his disastrous run for the presidency, Rudolph W. Giuliani is clearing a path for a possible race for governor in 2010, believing public anger at an ineffectual Albany and unease over the economy could create ideal conditions for a Republican to reclaim the governor’s mansion.

Mr. Giuliani has told associates that he will decide on a candidacy within 30 to 60 days, as he weighs whether he can be elected statewide and what impact another campaign would have on his business interests.

He is already laying the groundwork. On Friday he traveled to Long Island to encourage the state Republican Party chairman, Joseph N. Mondello, to step aside, a maneuver that party insiders viewed as the former mayor’s most concrete step yet toward a run.

On Monday, Mr. Mondello announced his resignation, and Mr. Giuliani’s lieutenants were working the phones to drum up support for the replacement they prefer, the Niagara County Republican chairman, Henry F. Wojtaszek, a longtime supporter of Mr. Giuliani’s.

Giuliani revealed himself to not only be a bad candidate, but a national embarrassment, during his Presidential campaign. And the "Sex on the City" revelations, where state law enforcement personnel were walking his mistress' dog, would be sure to pop up again.

David Paterson has basically lost New York State, so the sad part of this is that Giuliani, despite being one of the most loathsome candidates in modern memory, would have a chance to beat the incumbent. But Andrew Cuomo would slay Rudy, and not break a sweat doing it. Hopefully this can get the Democratic leadership to push him into the race.

Drug War Backlash

The last thing we need in these economic times is to waste resources putting in jail people who have medical problems and need treatment. It would save money, time, and opportunity cost. New York State is looking to roll back the Rockefeller drug laws that have not made the streets safer and serve only to create a permanent underclass.

The Times reports Sheldon Silver says "the stars are aligned" (translation: the votes are in the bag) for Bill A06085, which would restore judges' discretion in sentencing and allow minor drug offenders to get supervised treatment instead of lengthy prison terms. The vote's today and the state senate will conference tonight; if it goes through, Governor Paterson is expected to sign. When that great day comes, we're gonna run out and score a dime bag to celebrate.

This may not help David Paterson get re-elected, but it would certainly make the world a little better place. Drug offenders in jail only leads to more repeat drug offenders. Drug offenders in treatment can lead to a return to productive society. Between this and the Justice Department stopping the raids of medical marijuana outlets in California, you're finally starting to see a backlash to the drug wars. They haven't worked and need a reboot.

Caroline's End

According to one report, the health of the family patriarch Teddy disables her from serving. According to another, it was a face-saving maneuver because Gov. Paterson wasn't planning on choosing her. Whatever the reason, the press won't have Caroline Kennedy to kick around anymore.

Kennedy's decision removes the highest-profile name in the ring to step into Clinton's now-vacant seat, as she departs after getting confirmed today as President Obama's Secretary of State.

Sources said the reason Paterson had decided not to tap the daughter of John F. Kennedy was her poor performances in media interviews and in in private sessions with various officials.

Aides to Kennedy couldn't be reached for comment.

Maybe the press can get "I Killed the Appointment" T-shirts now.

To be clear, I didn't really support her bid, but not because she hadn't "earned" it. It was because I don't support a process where one man or woman makes decisions affecting millions of constituents instead of the more American scenario of the people choosing their own representatives. The process was wrong, not Kennedy's inclusion in it per se. And, furthermore, it's still wrong.

...or not. Honestly, I don't really care. But it's appalling to be that the neanderthal Johnny Isakson (R-GA) just made perfect sense on Hardball saying that, in light of the Senate appointments this year, the country would be better off having special elections, and Debbie Stabenow, maybe because she felt she had to defend Democratic governors, took up the opposite side, saying that appointing Senators and making them run within two years was a "good combination." Which is saying nothing at all, and not responding to the problem of a Governor touched by scandal making an appointment, for example.

Secretary of State Clinton

I thought that John McCain was trying to dispense with the roll call, but the Senate just confirmed Hillary Clinton as the next Secretary of State of the United States by a 94-2 vote. Freedom Fighter Jim DeMint and David Vitter voted no. Vitter is up for re-election in 2010, and it seems to me that the PUMAs now have their activism target.

Now, of course, David Paterson has to actually pick a successor. He says he has someone in mind but wants to think it over for a little while longer. Hey, no hurry!

New York Signs On To Marriage Equality

I don't know if Eliot Spitzer would have done this, but good for David Paterson:

ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson has directed all state agencies to begin to revise their policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions, like Massachusetts, California and Canada.

In a directive issued on May 14, the governor’s legal counsel, David Nocenti, instructed the agencies that gay couples married elsewhere “should be afforded the same recognition as any other legally performed union.”

The revisions are most likely to involve as many as 1,300 statutes and regulations in New York governing everything from joint filing of income tax returns to transferring fishing licenses between spouses.

In a videotaped message given to gay community leaders at a dinner on May 17, Mr. Paterson described the move as “a strong step toward marriage equality.” And people on both sides of the issue said it moved the state closer to fully legalizing same-sex unions in this state.

That's about as much as a governor can do without actually legalizing gay marriage inside the state. And DOMA makes this a barrier at the federal level. But we're seeing things move very quickly among some states; in effect, they're catching up with history.

UPDATE: This is awesome:



I've been doing that joke about not reading the entirety of the Bible for years. I don't see evangelicals picketing a Bubba Gump's yelling "GOD HATES SHELLFISH! GOD HATES SHELLFISH!"

One-Upping The Sex Stories

So, Eliot Spitzer had an affair and he paid for it. David Paterson had some affairs and he didn't pay for it. His wife had affairs, too. And the McGreeveys were having three-ways with a staffer.

Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell needs to step it up. The tri-state area demands all its governors have sexual histories!

...and by the way, this shows nothing but that humans have desire. It's such a non-issue.

Actual Audacity of Hope

Now that the Spitzer nonsense is over (although, in a very important sense, it isn't, more on that below), I have to feel heartened by the swearing in of a blind man in one of the most populous states in the nation to become the governor. From everything I've heard from people in New York, he's a good man and very progressive, who will use a different governing style to achieve similar goals as Spitzer, and who will command respect and admiration for succeeding through his own struggles. Here's a show of support from the New York net/grassroots:

The Progressive community of New York State - activists, bloggers, fundraisers, organizers, ordinary men and women from all walks of life - welcomes our new Governor, David Paterson, as he assumes our state's highest office. We recognize that Governor Paterson is the first person of color to hold the office of Governor of New York and the first legally blind person to ever hold the office of Governor in the history of the United States. We are inspired by his life achievements to date, by his impressive and daring record of reform, and we are supremely confident that he is ready to lead our state.

We understand that Governor Paterson will face challenges and opportunities as he takes office. Our new Governor's long history of working with all stake holders will prove a valuable asset in delivering for New Yorkers. We believe that both houses of our legislature require drastic changes in their operations. Transparency and open government still elude our state, and too often, our citizens are shut out of decisions that affect our lives. The voices of too many New Yorkers still do not get heard in our state Capitol. These things must change. Governor Paterson's distinguished record of reform gives us great confidence that he will be an agent of this change.

The Progressive community of New York State is ready to support our new Governor in bringing about the change New York needs; the change that New Yorkers voted for in the 2006 election. After the trials of the recent past, we believe that New Yorkers want Governor Paterson to step forward with a bold plan for change that returns our government to our people and creates a better future for all New Yorkers. We look forward to working with our new Governor as we build a lasting Progressive majority, in Albany and around the state, conversation by conversation, vote by vote, district by district, until New York is again a beacon of Progressive governance bright enough to illuminate our entire nation.

As for the former Governor, his downfall was his alone and he must own it, but the way in which it was revealed does raise concerns about the extension of the national surveillance state into all walks of life.

These events offer a window into a much larger phenomenon, the National Surveillance State, in which the state increasingly identifies and solves problems of governance through the collection, collation and analysis of information. Governments have always used information, but today's techniques are made more powerful and more prevalent by lower costs of computing and data storage. This story also shows the important role played by private businesses in constructing and implementing the National Surveillance State. The Times report suggests that the banks in question volunteered more than the letter of the law might have required, because the transactions in questions were wire payments rather than coin or currency. The banks erred on the side of caution, seeking to assist the state in its efforts. Moreover, they already had their own pattern recognition systems designed to identify suspicious behavior. (Many people are probably familiar with the programs devised by credit card companies which analyze consumer transactions to calculate the probabilities that a card is being used fraudulently.)

If computing power increases enough, there is no reason why governments might not lower the threshold for reporting of suspicious transactions, or, indeed, require that every transaction over 100 dollars be reported. All this information could later be sifted through by data mining programs, in order to spot patterns of suspicious activity. The only limit is the technology and the manpower that law enforcement is willing to devote to analysis of financial transactions.

Read the whole thing, you'll be nervous by the end. The real problem I have with it is prosecutorial discretion. The NRCC, the campaign arm of House Republicans, had a treasurer who was a thief - he stole over a million dollars over the course of several years and deposited it into personal accounts. Eve Fairbanks gets this right.

...how is it possible that a ten-thousand-dollar Spitzer transfer to a prostitution ring tripped up authorities while the NRCC's treasurer stole one million dollars and nobody noticed anything?

It depends on who's doing the watching, I guess.

P.S. I don't understand why anyone running for Congress would react to this desperation move from the NRCC and give back contributions from Spitzer. If anything, I'd throw it right back in their face and ask every Republican candidate to give back money raised by the NRCC, who has a felon running their books.

QOTD

Gov.-in-waiting David Paterson just wrapped up a news conference in the governor’s Red Room (more on that shortly), but before he finished, the question that seems to hang over him this week finally got asked: Has he ever patronized a prostitute?

The uncomfortable question grew more uncomfortable in the silence that followed as Paterson paused, paused some more, and finally said, “Only the lobbyists.”

Is he from Harlem or the Catskills?

David Paterson will be playing all week.

Spitzer Resigns

Two things. I love when he said "the remorse I feel will always be with me." That must be why he only consorted with prostitutes for six years, because he knew it'd be so hard to live it down.

Second, I still can't get over the fact that a blind, black man from Harlem will now be the Governor of New York now. I hear extremely good things about David Paterson, but honestly, that's a Martin Lawrence movie.

OK, now that my jokes are out of the way, this is sad, as I thought Spitzer had a bright future.

UPDATE: Looking at this story, it appears clear that the feds were sitting on the wire, waiting for Spitzer to incriminate himself with audio evidence. They had enough information to bust the prostitution ring without Spitzer, but they had to bag the Democrat, or at least the high-profile john.