Amazing Republican Talking Point

How many weeks in a row do I have to hear Susan Del Percio repeat the same ridiculous talking point that somehow it is the Democrats' and Governor Cuomo's fault that gay marriage may not pass the Senate again this year?  Sure, it would give some Republicans who might want to vote for the bill cover if all the Democrats jump on board, but ultimately, if the bill fails it will be because the vast majority of Senate Republicans vote against it.  They continue to oppose it overwhelmingly despite clear polling evidence that New Yorker's are solidly in favor of finally changing the law. 

The second part of this ridiculous talking point is that, if the votes aren't there and Cuomo never actually drops the bill that it is his "first defeat" and will hurt him in the eyes of the voters.  Which voters?  Pro-gay marriage voters will not hold him responsible for Senate intransigence and those that oppose it probably have no love for him to start with.

Seems like the Republican's would like New Yorkers to hold someone else accountable for the fact that they have yet to develop a social agenda that has evolved out of the 1890's. 

Yep, It's even more disgusting when it happens in your own state.

Sat down this morning to feed my kid and eat my Joe's O's when something on NY1 caught my eye.  It was an ad calling on New Yorkers to call their State Senators demanding that they oppose gay marriage.  It's an ad paid for by the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), and that fact that it's running is not really surprising.  What is hard to take is that the ad is clearly targeting African Americans.  I know that minority communities voted heavily for the Prop 8 proposal in California which ended legal gay marriage.  So NOM's strategy is to play on that same theme here in NY rather than focus it's energies on activating their more traditional cultural conservative base.  I've read about this type of effort to enlist specifically church-going minority communities against gay marriage in Ohio in 2004 and California in 2008 so it's not new...it's just more sickening when you see it up close for some reason.

I've avoided Saying "Ha ha!" To this point but...

Sure it's old news, but you've got to get a chuckle out of the lawsuit brewing against Mike Bloomberg over the Cathy Black hiring.  You can read about it here.  A few comments about this sloppy abuse of power:

1.  A few pundits have tried to give Bloomberg credit for realizing his mistake and moving expeditiously to correct it.  I suppose its true that he could have compounded the error by digging in his heels, but I find it hard to award points for correcting an error that was obvious to all before it was made.  How could her complete lack of knowledge about education -- even the basic nomenclature -- or her intemperate nature not have been a red flag?  Could no one on Bloomberg's staff talk him out of it?

2. It bothers me that no one has really considered why Black was chosen in the first place.  It seems that the press simply accepted the idea that, well, she and Bloomberg were close and she was supposedly skilled as a manager.  But it had to be more than that. There were numerous people in the Department of Education, including Dennis Wolcott, who were known to be both close with Bloomberg on policy and talented managers.  So why make a pick so likely to prove an embarrassment?   I don't pretend to know.  But I think the answer lies in Bloomberg's sympathies for the idea of privatizing public schools.  Just look at what became of his past Chancellor Joel Klein.  Perhaps he wanted to prove that any schlocky administrator from the private sector could be successful in education -- that's my crackpot theory anyway.