Brooklyn YD Feed

This evening, while waiting for a video to upload to YouTube, I finally sat down and listened to the latest episode of Brooklyn GOP Radio in which I was named Buffoon of the Week. Below is the audio of the segment.

I have to admit, it was legitimately entertaining. Firstly, for the first minute or so, there was a debate on how my name was pronounced (it is pronounced Shay-muss, for the record). It brought back funny memories for me on how many birthday cards and checks I have received wherein my name was spelled “Shamus;” the banks accepted those checks, for the record.

They listed their list of grievances against me and how I was being advantageous on calling David Storobin a white supremacist. Fine, whatever. They did predict a rebuttal coming (as found here), so props to them on their ability to predict the future.

However, right after they announced their pre-cognition, they said “This was written on the Brooklyn Young Democrats’ website, which we will not plug here” (for the record, they refused to link to my blog post in the once in which they condemn mine). Ironically, our site, the next morning had the most amount of traffic since April (which was caused, unfortunately, by the death of our Northern Regional Vice President Hope Reichbach -knowing her, she would be loving this free publicity).

Then, we were accused of having not much of an organization. Our organization is almost 2 years old (after a long hiatus), theirs is about 1 year old (after the former Brooklyn Young Republicans lost their charter and the current ones emerged in their stead, I should add). I cannot say how large their group is, but we do average 50 or so people at each meeting (which is caused by us rotating meeting locations to various parts of the borough) and our mailing list has about 200 names on it.

The best part, however, is that we were accused of being the Brooklyn Young Republicans chapter (which lost its charter). Interestingly, we have been accused of this before. The blog “The Jig Is Up Atlas” once used our logo (which I myself designed) in reference to the former organization (I would link to it, but the site no longer exists, thankfully, I do have a copy saved in my personal RSS reader and you can find it here). (As a side not, many of the officers of the former BYRs have donated to the current BYRs, look for yourselves (the NYS Board of Elections website is down currently -10:36 PM 1/29/11- I will post a link in the morning)).

Of course, my argument was never meant to call Mr. Storobin a racist, but simply to ask where all of his blog posts went. They say that asking why a user-generated blog post was taken down was a low. I was not attacking a single blog post that was deleted, but rather, 7 years’ worth of blog posts. If Global Politician was just some random site and one of their contributors was running for state senate, I could understand them taking down posts attributed to the contributor. It could be considered an in-kind donation to his campaign. I am not an expert in campaign finance law, but I do know that whenever Tom Allon, who is running for Mayor of the City of New York, is mentioned in any of the publications his company, Manhattan Media (publisher of City & State NY),he is mentioned as such as to avoid improprieties. Storobin was Editor-in-Chief; if a simple statement went out that said that no post was meant to be an endorsement and/or an in-kind contribution to his campaign and the stories continued to exist, this all would be a non-story. The story I am raising is why the posts were deleted. Seriously, that’s it.

Gene Berardelli say that the Brooklyn Young Democrats and Councilman Fidler owe an apology to Mr. Storobin. For the record, we, the Brooklyn Young Democrats, have no coordinated our activities with Councilman Fidler’s campaign. All we have done is endorse him (done by a majority vote of our Executive Board) and educate our membership on campaign events (which we do for any Democratic campaign that reached out to us). As for any statements I have made, again, I refer you all to the bottom of this web page: “The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of the Brooklyn Young Democrats, New York State Young Democrats, Young Democrats of America, Kings County Democratic Committee, New York State Democratic Party, Democratic National Committee or any related entity.” I have apologized for any false insinuation I have made, but, by no means, should things I say in my name, be construed to be representative of the Brooklyn Young Democrats or any other related organization.

Apparently, there is a “stronger” word that is meant to be used against me other than “buffoon,” but it was not uttered.

Or at least that is what can be inferred that David Storobin thinks based on this article by PolitickerNY’s David Freedlander.

He [Storobin] said that Mr. [Councilman Lewis] Fidler held rallies for gay groups that netted one $85 million in city funding, and another rally for a different group which netted them $3 million in funding per year.

Asked in an interview what he was referring to, Mr. Storobin said that he gleaned the information from YouTube [emphasis mine] and suggested The Politicker search the website for Mr. Fidler’s name. The rallies he is referring to could not be located.

You know who also considered YouTube a legitimate news source? Pastor Terry “Burn A Quran Day” Jones.

NEW YORK, NY, January 27, 2012: The Downstate Young Democrats, an organization that comprises the New York State Young Democrats chapters of Brooklyn, Manhattan, Nassau County, Queens and Staten Island, released the following statement regarding the proposed redistricting plan for the New York State Senate released yesterday by the Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (LATFOR).

“We vehemently oppose the proposed State Senate maps released yesterday. This is gerrymandering at its absolute worst, a petty and cynical attempt by the Republican-controlled Senate to maintain its majority at all costs. There was clearly no care given to the goals of reform that countless legislators pledged to uphold in the 2010 election cycle. This proposal tears apart neighborhoods, ignores demographic trends and actively seeks to diminish the voice of young progressive voters. Furthermore, through blatant manipulation of district size, Republicans have weakened the voting power of New York City residents in comparison to their upstate counterparts. This transparent charade threatens to undermine the progress Albany has made in the last year of restoring the public’s faith in our democracy. We applaud Governor Cuomo for stating publicly he will veto these proposed district lines, and it is our hope that he will keep to this promise for the good of New York State. We as Young Democrats will not stand idly by during this debate. We will continue to fight for an independent redistricting commission that will ensure fair and representative voting for all New Yorkers, regardless of party affiliation.”

That is correct, Brooklyn GOP Radio has named yours truly their Buffoon of the Week. I suggest you read their piece before you continue on this one.

The arguments they raise in their blog post are valid, but not relevant to the argument I have been making. No one has denied that David Storobin was Editor in Chief of Global Politician. Russel Gallo, in the post states “Campbell “demands” to know why the article that prompted Fidler’s contemptible comments was removed by the source website – like Storobin or anyone else is supposed to know! The Storobin campaign does not run the website. The website has an editorial board and accepts online submissions. Clearly, there can be any number of reasons!” I never asked why one post was deleted. I wanted to know why ALL of Storobin’s posts were deleted. The site is 7 years old. By letting people see the posts Storobin wrote, there would be a more well-rounded picture of him as a person, how he thinks, and his stances on the issues (which would probably HELP him influence voters). Taken out of the larger context, one post by itself could invoke different connotations about how the writer thinks. Thus, having all of the posts there helps the public understand the broader context. (As I like to say, in the past 50 years, the average soundbyte in the press has gone from 40 seconds to 8 seconds and how much can really be said in 8 seconds?)

I never said or meant to imply that I thought he had white supremacist views, I quoted Crain’s Insider’s story which, at one point, stated “Storobin had founded and written for a website whose articles have been picked up by white-supremacist chat rooms.” I will admit that I misspoke when I ever implied that Mr. Storobin held pro-white supremacist views. I meant to imply that if those chat rooms picked up articles that were either in his name or not, it could be construed, since he is Editor-in-Chief, that he and/or his editorial staff endorsed pro-white supremacist views. I should note that I could not find any statement on GP that said that the views on the site were those of the writer themselves (on this site, on the bottom of every page is a statement “This communication is not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of the Brooklyn Young Democrats, New York State Young Democrats, Young Democrats of America, Kings County Democratic Committee, New York State Democratic Party, Democratic National Committee or any related entity”). I never meant to say or imply that Mr. Storobin held such views and I do apologize. I never intended to put words in his mouth or make false claims, obviously, I have and I am sorry. I sympathize with what Mr. Storobin has had to endure as a Soviet immigrant, my Irish-Catholic family had to endure a lot just a century ago to get themselves established in society; though I wasn’t alive then, family stories have lived-on.

I should mention that I spoke to an acquaintance of mine, who is a Democrat and a Russian Jew as well, two days ago about this story. He did point out that much of the story was driven by claims of guilt by association, I did agree. In fact, I was considering writing a post about how much guilt by association claims influence our political rhetoric. In the draft I had in my mind, I was going to mention this story and Newt Gingrich’s connections to Freddie Mac. In all honesty, I got caught up in something and writing the blog post took a back burner in my list of priorities.

But, the argument that I tried to drive home and, unfortunately, tangents by both myself and the opposing side caused this to happen, was that we live in a democracy where our leaders are accountable to us. We deserve to know how they think and how they feel on this issues. My argument was why would someone who had a chance at free media exposure (via a site he controlled from long before he was a senate candidate) and give his constituents a chance to see how well-versed he was on a variety of topics allow posts to be taken down? Mr. Gallo states that there could have been a variety of reasons why the posts were deleted. I have been saying that all along. Yes, I did imply that the fact that they were deleted just before he announced his candidacy looked suspicious. But, I did say time and time again that since GP was a database-driven website, likely, the database would be regularly backed-up. If there was some problem, technological, human, or otherwise, that caused the posts to vanish, why wasn’t the database just restored? I have asked that question time and time again to no response.

The argument, made by Mr. Gallo to me via Twitter, that started all of this, was “dvid [David Storobin] is a jew. Not many white supremacist jews out there brother.” The point I tried to make which really caused all of this to snowball is that being part of a group, any group, does not make you exempt from holding beliefs contrary to those of the members of the group or hating the group altogether.

I am being accused of using smoke and mirrors and reading directly from “page 57″ of the Southern Brooklyn Democratic “playbook” (three problems with that accusation: I live in North Brooklyn, if such a playbook actually exists, I don’t own a copy, and also, what’s so important that is written on page 57?). But they are doing the exact same thing. I said, here is the accusation, they tried diverting to their Twitter story, I kept hitting at them on why ALL of the posts were deleted, they said the accusation was oxymoronic, a debate on ethnic heritage ensued; once that was done, I re-asked my original question, they said they didn’t know, I asked why they didn’t restore the posts from their database backups, they didn’t respond and then they say a variety of reasons why the post (NOT plural) vanished. They are playing smoke and mirrors as much as they are accusing me of doing.

I asked two questions: why were the posts deleted and why weren’t the posts restored from backups. I was told that they didn’t know what happened to the posts and they haven’t responded to my backup question. If they said that no backups to the site were ever made, that is an answer and I would take them at their word.

I am being accused of being in cahoots with Fidler because he and I have been echoing each other’s rhetoric. However, the first and, so far, only time I have met Fidler or any member of his staff was last Wednesday. I do not work on the campaign and I do not speak for the campaign. The only person I speak for when I blog in my name is myself. For the sake of transparency and accountability in our democracy, I demanded to have some questions answered and a game of smoke and mirrors was played against me and construed me into a type of person I myself would revile. This is not fair to any of us. All of us say and imply things we do not mean when we try to save our own hides and/or try to side-step a topic of contention. It is just fact. I joke that if I was a television interviewer, I would lock myself and the interviewee in the studio until I was given concrete answers because seeing talk show guests avoid a question is one of my biggest pet peeves.

I want all campaigns, not just political ones, to be of ideas and transparency. We all have done and said things that we are not proud of. They say it is never the crime, always the cover-up that does someone in. Since I was little, my parents had a rule for me: if I told the truth, I would not get in trouble. How often do we see our elected officials have to leave office in disgrace and how many of those occasions were made worse by trying to cover-up the act? I truly baffles my mind that our leaders do not trust in how forgiving the public can be.

I have done dumb things in the past and said things that I shouldn’t have. But I don’t run away from my past. I don’t blog under an alias and I know that I have some tweets and Facebook posts that would make most people think less of me. I don’t delete them, I man-up to them and explain what I meant and/or the greater context. If I was wrong, either by self-reflection or by new facts coming to light, I will admit I was wrong. I am human, I have made mistakes, but is in falling that we rise up even higher. If that all makes me a buffoon, then name me “Buffoon of Eternity.”

In attendance at our Welcome to 2012 Party last week was Ned Berke from Sheepshead Bites who interviewed Senate candidates Councilman Lewis Filder and Andrew Gounardes and Councilman Dominic Recchia. Videos are below:

Based on the input have I received from the Constitution Rewrite Committee, in particular, our Northern Regional Vice President Jason Otaño, Esq., and my fellow Executive Board members, I, Seamus Campbell, in my capacity as Brooklyn Young Democrats Constitution Rewrite Committee Chair and Secretary have written a new Constitution and Bylaws. I, now, do hereby submit my proposed new Constitution and Bylaws for the Brooklyn Young Democrats. I ask my fellow members to read through the document and provide proper feedback in the comments section and to bring those opinions to our next meeting on February 8, 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 20, 2012

General Contact: BrooklynYDs@gmail.com

BROOKLYN YOUNG DEMOCRATS ENDORSE LEW FIDLER IN UPCOMING SENATE SPECIAL ELECTION

Brooklyn – The Brooklyn Young Democrats is proud to formally endorse Councilman Lewis Fidler in his run for the New York State Senate Seat recently vacated by Carl Kruger.

“I live in the 27th senatorial district and my council district neighbors Councilman Fidler’s,” said Brooklyn Young Democrats President Amanda Pizzuti. “He is a strong progressive and common-sense voice in government. I know that he will properly represent me and the other 150,000 other residents of the district. My neighborhood got a hard blow last September with Bob Turner’s election with his out-of-touch and draconian beliefs; but I am confident that the seat will stay Democratic and we will have an advocate for our values.”

Fidler, earlier this week, was formally endorsed by the Kings County Democratic Committee as their official nominee for the special election. Fidler will run against Republican David Storobin in a special election to be held on March 20.

###

For the past week, I have been co-covering the story that GOP State Senate candidate David Storobin posted pro-white supremacist blog posts on a web site he created called Global Politician. For anyone who follows me on Twitter, you likely, this morning saw a debate I had with Russell Gallo (Brooklyn Young Republicans President), Gene Berardelli (BYR Assistant Secretary/Chair of Publicity and Communications) and Jacob Kornbluh (BYR Special Advisor to the President) over the story. Personally, I would have let this pass. Then, I read this story this evening in City & State NY. (Full disclosure, the video was taken at the Brooklyn Young Democrats’ Welcome to 2012 Party last night; I recorded the exact same video, yet the-powers-that-be chose to use the video recorded by Sheepshead Bites.)

In case you didn’t read the tweets (and I am sure 90% of you didn’t), let me sum up: last night, I inquired about why Storobin’s blog posts on Global Politician were deleted. First, early this morning, I was told that since Storobin is Jewish himself, he could not be a white supremacist. I countered that Adolf Hitler was one-quarter Jewish. I was, of course, (and rightfully so) attacked for that. I later made another metaphor: Voldermort (from the Harry Potter books) was 1/2 “mudblood” (a witch/wizard that is born to non-magical parents and/or a witch/wizard that has one magical and one non-magical parent), yet he aimed to eliminate all mudblood and partial-bloods. (In my opinion, their argument is like saying that since I am an Irish Catholic, I have to espose pro-IRA views because they are my kin, which I do not.)

However, whenever I asked why the blog posts were deleted, I was referred to a story City & State NY reported on last week on Storobin’s former Twitter account (@Storobin4Senate; in that story, Kornbluh said that he gave Storobin his account which had 800 followers at the time of the transfer. Twitter is VERY good at preventing its posts from being archived (except from the Library of Congress, but I don’t feel like traveling down to Washington to just look up a tweet). So, I will give Kornbluh the benefit of the doubt.

Notice the deflection, though. They are equating the tweets with the blog posts. They are not the same thing. I want to know, and I feel that the American people deserve to know why the posts were deleted. I asked the BYRs, in the Twitter debate, if the website’s database back-end lost the posts for whatever reason and, if so, why wasn’t the database restored. (It is common practice in database-powered websites to have a backup of the data, in a Structured Query Language (SQL) format, be automatically generated on a regular schedule. For example, I get a backup of this site’s posts and pages sent to me via email one per week for in case something goes awry.) I was never given an answer. The posts STILL EXIST. I linked to them in a previous post.

To go on a small tangent, I find it mildly amusing how the Brooklyn Young Republicans are equating tweets with blog posts. Any media studies student can tell you that in the past 50 years, the average sound-byte has gone from 40 seconds to 8. How much can be said in 8 seconds? Similarly, how much can be said in a tweet versus a blog post. I go on this tangent because by only 140 characters to express a much larger point causes some details to be missed; thus, tweets could be easily be taken out of context and the tweets could be justifiable. But a blog post serves as an essay-format of a tweet. Blogs are to essays as thesis statements are to tweets. Why, then, would a possible source of context be deleted? If anything, it would give the public a stronger understanding of how Mr. Storobin feels on the issues.

Back to the story at hand, I will admit that I sometimes put my foot in my mouth. However, when I am wrong or I misspeak or my views on an issue change, I will man-up to it. People correct me all the time on Twitter and Facebook. When they are right and I realize my fault I admit it. Similarly, I will say when I agree or disagree with someone I normally wouldn’t based on arguments made. I know what I stand for as a politico, I am willing to defend or condemn views that, respectively, I continue to hold or no longer hold. If there is a smear campaign against me (EVER), I am willing to sit down with my accuser and give my side of the story and detail my opinions. To be cliche, “I am an open book.” I have, to date, NOT asked why Mr. Storobin has (or has not) held views promoting white supremacy. I am just asking why the posts have been deleted.

I have never met a person alive that has advocated for a less transparent and a less accountable government. Our elected officials report to us. Why would someone, seeking to represent us, try to hide something from us? His constituents are looking for someone to trust, yet he could be lying to them? Though I do not live in the district, many close friends of mine do; I would be ashamed of my government to have a single representative that was not speaking for his or her constituents.

So, I implore David Storobin, his supporters, the Kings County Republican Committee, and/or the Brooklyn Young Republicans to answer one simple question: Why were the posts written by Mr. David Storobin, Esq. deleted from GlobalPolitician.com prior to when he announced that he was planning to seek the state senate seat vacated by Carl Kruger?

Earlier today, I blogged about Brooklyn GOP candidate David Storobin’s website Global Politician, which has been criticized for promoting sentiments of white supremacy. I included a link to the GP Internet Archive page, which proved that Storobin’s posts, though deleted, still are available for viewing.

The almost laughable pro-Brooklyn GOP blog The Jig Is Up Atlas has been promoting Storobin’s senate run. Correction: has.

One of the first stories that appeared on my Facebook News Feed this evening was one by Gatemouth that reported that TJIUA has become a private blog. For all intents and purposes, the blog is dead. I cannot say which was the final nail in the coffin for TJIUA, Gatemouth reporting the story in the first place or me posting links to the questionable content which would make Storobin face his past. But, all I can say is: #WINNING!

This morning’s Crain’s Insider had an interesting story about David Storobin, the Republican slated to run for the State Senate seat vacated by Carl Kruger (I added the links):

Brooklyn Republicans this week tapped David Storobin to run in the special state Senate election to succeed Carl Kruger with—they claim—no knowledge that Storobin had founded and written for a website whose articles have been picked up by white-supremacist chat rooms.

Storobin, a Brighton Beach attorney and vice chairman of the Brooklyn GOP, served as editor-in-chief of the site, Global Politician, and published scores of articles over several years, blogger Gatemouth recently revealed on the Room Eight politics site. Brooklyn GOP Chairman Craig Eaton said that was news to him.

…

Storobin’s postings on the site recently vanished. Storobin said he has no idea who took down the postings or why, but he stood by his work. “My views have evolved over the years, but there’s nothing I’ve been ashamed of,” he said. “I’m very proud of the stuff I’ve written.”

A May 2005 Storobin piece that resurfaced on another website is an interview he conducted with an official from Freedom Front, a white-separatist group in South Africa. The group supports a whites-only colony there called Orania and accuses the South African government of using affirmative action to keep whites out of the job market.

If Storobin is not ashamed of the articles, why have they disappeared? Well, they say that once something is published on the Internet, it exists forever. It does. Ladies and gentlemen: I present the Internet Archive‘s collection of ALL postings ever on Global Politician: http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://www.globalpolitician.com/.

I have not (and likely will not) go through the 7 years of articles. Unfortunately, the website does not have a digest of articles filtered by author. If you find any articles of interest, please comment with a link.

Moral of the story: be careful what you post on the web.

This has not been a good week for State Senator Marty Golden (R-Bay Ridge). Nothing seems to please him anymore. Nothing is up to snuff for him it seems.

Yesterday, City & State reported that Golden has procured more than $770,000 to the Bay Ridge-Bensonhurst Beautification and Preservation Alliance. The non-proft “held a summer concert series and ran a free bus service for neighborhood seniors – both named for Golden.” One problem: Golden founded the Bay Ridge-Bensonhurst Beautification and Preservation Alliance; in fact, Golden himself registered the non-profit with the New York State Department of State. This is not good news since many New York politicians have lately been under scrutiny for having non-profits as their pet-projects on the side and use the organizations for political means (or at least give the impression to do at first glimpse). Being lumped into the same pile as ex-Sen. Pedro Espada’s ethics problems with his Soundview Healthcare Network must not be fun for Marty.

Then, yesterday afternoon, Colin Campbell of the New York Observer (formally of The Brooklyn Politics blog) reported that “Marty Golden is ‘Disappointed’ by Cuomo’s State of the State Speech.” You gotta feel bad for Golden, he had to travel all of the way up to Albany, start the 2012 Legislative Session, and head over to the Empire State Plaza Convention Center to hear Governor Cuomo’s State of the State, all just to be “disappointed.” Golden said in a statement

As a former New York City Police Officer, I am disappointed by the Governor’s failure to focus on an agenda to keep New York’s citizens and families safe. One of the most basic fundamentals New Yorkers must enjoy is a safe State in which to live, work and raise a family. We can’t ignore the fact that there are areas of criminal justice that must be addressed.”

Oh dear, Governor Andrew Cuomo didn’t address public safety in his State of the State Address? Please tell us that that was the only issue Governor Cuomo failed to address.

The Governor also failed to mention efforts to eliminate Medicaid and auto insurance fraud in our State. The longer we allow such acts of fraud to continue, the longer we will suffer financially as a government and as consumers.

But wait, didn’t Governor Cuomo, when he served as New York State Attorney General make one of his key policy issues trying to eliminate such frauds? Okay, I guess Golden can make one mistake every now and then. Wait, that wasn’t the only other thing he got wrong?

Colin Campbell reported this morning that Golden challenger Andrew Gounardes said that Golden is being disingenuous. “Unfortunately, Marty Golden strangely chose to criticize our Governor for being weak on public safety, despite the fact that the Governor proposed expanding the DNA database to cover all crimes,” Gounardes said in a statement. Uh-oh. This just in: it gets worse:

Mr. Gounardes then digs up the past and calls Senator Golden’s criticism “hypocritical and disingenuous,” due to a 2010 vote on legislation to require ammunition to have traceable microstamping. Senator Golden had missed the vote, but said he would have opposed the bill anyway.

(Gatemouth has an interesting piece on these aforementioned stories.)

Now, Celeste Katz of the Daily News is reporting that Senator Golden is upset that a new safe-sex PSA is using slang language (i.e. “raw dogging” as a euphemism for non-protected sex) and promotes safe-sex via satire (the PSA shows what the possible side-effects of unprotected sex are like pregnancies and various STDs). Golden said in a statement

I believe that such an improper advertisement, paid for by the New York taxpayers, should be shown only in age-appropriate high school classroom settings. The fact that this video is available for people of all ages to view on the internet is alarming. . . In this day and age, it is dangerous to indirectly advocate for safe sex. This campaign has the potential to confuse our youth and encourage them to actually engage in unsafe sex. This advertisement campaign must be reevaluated as it is my belief that it could actually cause unintended consequences, such as a rise in teen pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

Is this true? Let’s see what raunchy language and innuendos this PSA has

Oh no, I don’t know if unprotected sex is safe or not. Hold on, there is more to Kazt’s article

[Daily News reporter Simone] Weichselbaum reported that state DOH spokesperson Peter Constantakes defended the tax-dollar sponsored videos as not “obscene” or “x-rated,” while students said using teen talk instead of medical jargon is a most effective way to get their safe-sex message across.

Brooklyn state Assemblyman Rafael Espinal said the videos “capture the realities of what is happening in inner-city neighborhoods like the ones I represent” — although he cautioned that the videos are “too raw” to be viewed by kids under 13.

Yikes, I guess Marty Golden is batting 1,000 when it comes to being out-of-touch of the needs of the people of Brooklyn. I just hope for his sake that this is the only bad press that he gets this election cycle.

(I got $10 on Senator Golden making another out-of-touch statement in the next week. Any Takers?)

Notoriously anti-gay State Senator Rev. Ruben Diaz is at it again. In a Spanish-written essay, he criticized co-habituating politicians; namely, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor Andrew Cuomo.

From Politicker NY:

I, for my part, don’t want to offend anyone, but the Bible, the word of God; calls it fornication to live as husband and wife without having made this union a wedding officially blessed by God and man,” Senator Diaz wrote in remarks translated from the original Spanish.

For a Pentacostal minister, it seems Diaz forgets two important Bible passages: “Let he without sin cast the first stone” and the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14).

2 weeks ago, I blogged about how George Allen appearing in Christmas Every Day could have been considered an illegal campaign contribution. The other day, it recalled that in Allen’s cameo appearance, he supports the protagonist’s efforts to stop a Wal-Mart type store from coming to a small town.

For the hell of it, I decided to check the Federal Election Commission’s website to see if any big-box store has donated to Allen. Lo and behold, it seems that Wal-Mart donated $5,000 in Allen’s 2000 race and two sets of $5,000 in his 2006 Senate race.

So, George Allen is against big box stores when he is an actor but not a legislator? Okay.

http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/can_give/2005_S8VA00214

In case you were worried, the Federal Aviation Administration has cleared Santa Claus for his flight today. http://fastlane.dot.gov/2010/12/faa-certifies-santa-one-for-global-delivery-mission.html

On this date, last year, White House Director of New Media, Macon Phillips, announced that then White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs would be taking Twitter questions. Since the Zadroga 9/11 Health Care Bill had just been passed, I tweeted to Gibbs to see when the bill would be signed by President Obama. I blogged the encounter on the College Democrats of Fordham University blog.

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As you already know, the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Bill is close to my heart. (Yesterday, I chose to read the Congressional Record in order to see what the stated opposition to the bill was. Other than the tax on foreign companies, there was concern that money would go to illegal immigrants. Of course, I took exception to that. The heroes of 9/11 didn’t ask the people they saved if they were legal or not; we should not do the same to them.) That is why I was concerned yesterday when I heard that the President will be staying on vacation in Hawaii until January 2nd.

Once a bill is passed by both Houses of Congress, the President has 10 days to sign, veto, or do nothing to the bill. If he does nothing, after 10 days, the bill automatically becomes a law. However, if a session of Congress expires before those 10 days expire and the President fails to take any action, the bill does not become law. This is called a “Pocket Veto.”

The Zadroga Bill passed Congress on December 22. The 111th Congress expires at the beginning of the new year. Thus, I was concerned when and where the President would sign the bill.

Thankfully, this morning, I read this tweet by White House New Media Director (and one of my idols, in full disclosure) Macon Phillips:

Have a ? for @whitehouse Spokesman Robert Gibbs? *** Reply to @PressSec ***, w/your Q & he’ll answer what he can over the next half hourless than a minute ago via HootSuiteMacon Phillips (EOP)
macon44

So, I tweeted:

@PressSec When will President Obama sign the Zadroga Bill (because he only has 7 days to do so and he’s in Hawaii until 1/2/11)?less than a minute ago via webSeamus Campbell
SeamusCampbell

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responded:

On signing 9/11 bill, we haven’t decided yet when it will be signed – President might do it from Hawaii @SeamusCampbellless than a minute ago via webRobert Gibbs (EOP)
PressSec

I was relieved to know that the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Bill will become law.

As a side note, this is our 100th post. Merry Christmas!

Last night on <em>Rock Center with Brian Williams</em>, Harry Smith profiled New York City Transportation Comissioner Janette Sadik-Khan. The story also mentions the ongoing feud regarding city bike lanes, namely the bike lane on Prospect Park West.

I just wonder what the reaction and thoughts are for people watching this in, say, Iowa. Come to think of it, I am also curious to know what they think a Borough President is and does.

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This one will be short and sweet, the agency that was created and tasked with preventing another 2000 Election fiasco, the Election Assistance Commission, on Friday, was voted on almost strict party lines (1 Republican, Walter Jones (NC) voted against), to be eliminated. The EAC is also tasked with administering public financing of campaigns. In other words

Sources: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/01/public-funding-presidential-campaigns_n_1124436.html, http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/house-aims-to-ax-the-200-million-taxpayer-fund-for-presidential-campaigns/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Assistance_Commission

(If you clicked the link, I guess the title got your attention.)

The Holiday Season is upon us. No, this blog post isn’t about political correctness. At least, not really.

My two favorite Christmas movies are Home Alone 2: Lost in New York and Christmas Every Day. One of these films was part of the original “25 Days of Christmas” on The Family Channel. (For those of you that do not remember, Pat Robertson and the Christian Broadcasting Company owned The Family Channel which was fold to Fox and Haim Saban (which made it the Fox Family Channel) who then later sold it to ABC/Disney (which made it the ABC Family Channel). In case you were wondering, there is a provision in the licensing with CBN that “Family” always rename in the name; as well as The 700 Club and its telethons continue to air.) That same movie no longer airs (I believe the last time it did was 2005). Which movie is this? Christmas Every Day.

I have realized something in common about these two films. Something that did not occur to me until last year. They both feature politicians in cameo roles. Christmas Every Day features then-Governor George Allen (the movie came out in 1996, he was Governor from 1994 to 1996). Home Alone 2: Lost in New York features Donald Trump (the then-owner of The Plaza Hotel, where Kevin (the protagonist portrayed by Macaulay Culkin) stays).

Earlier this year, there was talk that Donald Trump would run for President (there is talk once again that he will). I realized something, if Trump ran for President, many networks could not air Home Alone 2: Lost in New York because it could be considered an in-kind contribution and/or be in violation of some equal-airtime laws. In case you are wondering what the scene is, it below:

I told friends and family this realization I made (many of them layers) and they realized I was right. Well, when “The Donald” announced that he was not running for President, I was relieved.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is aired year-round. I cannot find Christmas Every Day (starring Erik von Detten) anywhere to buy/stream/download (all within legal means, of course). I have not been able to find any sort of akin link or site in years.

Notice the year I said was the last time I recall seeing Christmas Every Day aired. It was 2005. The next year, Allen was running against Jim Webb for the United States Senate. Allen was notorious for calling a Webb operative a “macaca” (on video). I don’t know if there is some connection to the 2006 election and the discontinuance of Christmas Every Day. Webb, by the Christmas season, was named Senator-elect. I don’t know how the networks do their scheduling, but I cannot help but find a coincidence. I should note that I do not see Christmas Every Day listed to be aired any time in the near future. Further, Allen is running for his old seat against former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine

I am not trying to be a conspiracy theorist as much as I want to tell America that Christmas Every Day has a lot more to do with Christmas than the Harry Potter series (no offense to HP fans).