Happy New Year!

From gang at South of 5 and 20:  Happy New Year to everyone in the Finger Lakes and beyond!

Merry Christmas!

Justice for Werner Foerster - Return Murderer JoAnne Chesimard

Werner Foerster 1938 - 1973

William Westhoven, writing in the Daily Record:

President Barack Obama's announcement Wednesday of a prisoner exchange with Cuba — and significant efforts to normalize relations with its six-decade communist foe — has not gone down well in some circles, particularly in New Jersey.

Following the historic deal, Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-Morris, led a cry for justice, responding with the demand that White House officials secure the return of fugitive JoAnne Chesimard — convicted of first-degree murder following a 1973 New Jersey Turnpike shootout in East Brunswick that left one New Jersey State Trooper dead and another critically wounded.

"To me, the New Jersey law enforcement community and many other Americans, one of the biggest impediments to improved relations between the United States and Cuba is the continued safe haven provided to the fugitive, JoAnne Chesimard," Frelinghuysen stated. "I would demand that the White House and the State Department work much harder to bring this murderer 'home' to New Jersey where she can face justice and serve out her sentence."

 Chesimard, a known member of the revolutionary Black Liberation Army who had been implicated in bank robberies and other violent crimes, was tried and convicted of murder in 1977 in New Brunswick, by a jury selected from Morris County after Chesimard asked for a change of venue for her trial.

Chesimard and fellow defendant Clark Squire also spent two nights lodged in the Morris County Jail in late 1973 during jury selection in Morristown. Chesimard's case was declared a mistrial at the time due to her pregnancy, but she was convicted in a 1977 retrial. Her defense team included the late William Kunstler, a civil-rights activist and attorney famous for defending unpopular defendants.

Following her conviction on two murder and six assault counts, she was eventually incarcerated at the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in Hunterdon County. She escaped custody on Nov. 2, 1979 in a brazen prison breakout by three armed BLA members. She eventually surfaced in Cuba, where she was granted political asylum by Fidel Castro.
She reportedly has lived there ever since, publishing an autobiography in 1987 while New Jersey and federal officials argued unsuccessfully for her extradition.

Frelinghuysen applauded the release of American Alan Gross, imprisoned in Cuba for the past five years, "However, we cannot forget that New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster will never return to his family and Cuba is harboring his killer," he stated.

New Jersey State Police Superintendent Col. Rick Fuentes also issued a statement, saying "Joanne Deborah Chesimard, AKA Assata Shakur, is on New Jersey's Most Wanted List and the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist List. We view any changes in relations with Cuba as an opportunity to bring her back to the United States to finish her sentence for the murder of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster in 1973."

Fuentes added the State Police are still working closely with the FBI to secure her return to justice in New Jersey, and that a $2 million reward is still on the table for information leading to her apprehension.

Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez, son of Cuban immigrants and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also denounced the deal with Cuba.

"Let's be clear, this was not a 'humanitarian' act by the Castro regime," he said of the prisoner exchange that freed Gross. "It was a swap of convicted spies for an innocent American. President Obama's actions have vindicated the brutal behavior of the Cuban government."

 

This is an undated file photo provided by the New Jersey State Police showing Assata Shakur - the former Joanne Chesimard - who was put on a U.S. government terrorist watch list on May 2, 2005. Shakur, 57, was convicted in 1973 of killing New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster as he lay on the ground. She escaped from prison in 1979 and fled to Cuba.(Photo: AP)

Happy Hanukkah!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Carole Landis carves.

Thank You, Veterans

Dad, USCG, 1942.

REPEAL!

STOP!

Astorino slams Cuomo's War on the Suburbs

REMARKS BY WESTCHESTER COUNTY EXECUTIVE ON

GOV. CUOMO’S BASELESS ATTACK ON COUNTY 

October 2, 2014

Andrew Cuomo says Hillary Clinton’s town is racially discriminatory. It’s not. It’s just expensive.

His comments made yesterday the most important day in the campaign.

Andrew Cuomo revealed who he is, what he stands for and where his allegiance lies.

Given the chance to stand up for our local communities, Andrew Cuomo put himself all in with HUD and its war on America’s suburbs.

In a short and rare unscripted moment before the press, New York’s governor did three remarkable things.

He showed his blind allegiance to an overreaching federal government.

Demonstrated his disdain for the communities he was elected to protect.

And put his ambition ahead of the truth.

I am not sure which one shocks me more, but let’s look at all three.

Blind allegiance to HUD.

When asked if agreed with the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s assessment that New Castle, the town where he and Hillary Clinton live, was discriminatory, his incredible response was: “I have no reason to disagree with the federal findings.”

This is the Governor of New York, whose Constitution embodies the principle of home rule. And yet he couldn’t even give his hometown the benefit of the doubt.

The response showed complete disdain for local communities. Did he ever take time to think that there might be another side to the story? Did he ever ask to see those “federal findings?”

Apparently not.

Because there are none.

One of the things that is so frustrating in dealing with HUD is that it doesn’t issue its own findings. The governor should know that – he ran HUD.

HUD’s approach is for others to do all the work and then the agency criticizes their findings endlessly, hoping they will eventually capitulate from exhaustion, legal threats or the withholding of federal funds.

To try to satisfy HUD, the county has submitted eight separate versions of a document called an Analysis of Impediments, or AI. No other county or municipality across the United States has done as many AI’s or been as thorough in its research as Westchester. These documents examined all 853 zoning districts in Westchester County and run into hundreds if not thousands of pages.

(Here they are right here.)

Eight different times, they reached the same conclusion: there was no evidence of exclusionary zoning in Westchester.

And eight times HUD rejected the county’s AI’s. Each time because the county refused to bend to HUD’s pressure to find exclusionary zoning where none existed.

HUD has made it abundantly clear that it will only accept an AI that concludes Westchester’s zoning is exclusionary.

But don’t take the county’s word for it.

Last week HUD also rejected the zoning report by the Monitor it has hired to oversee the settlement. HUD wrote, and I quote from agency’s September 24th letter:  “All statements purported to absolve individual communities from having practices that can potentially exclude blacks and Hispanics should be deleted from the Monitor’s Analysis.”

HUD also faulted the monitor for using the most up to date information saying, and again I quote from the letter: “Data regarding demographic changes between the 2000 and 2010 census can be removed.” In other words, HUD does not want to know what has happened in Westchester during the last decade.

But this is the group the governor “no reason to disagree with.”

Instead of blindly agreeing with HUD, the governor should be supporting his local communities.

Where’s the governor’s outrage that HUD has taken millions away from some of our neediest communities. The county is in court fighting to get the money back.

The legal battle over the money has been going on for years and never once has the governor, despite repeated requests, offered to help the county.

Not only is the governor rooting for HUD. He also has a problem with the truth.

The most troubling thing he did yesterday was to continue to smear Westchester County, his home, saying it is violating the fair housing act.

Now I can see the response already. It is not me saying it. It is the federal government. But that’s not true either.

In 2009, my predecessor Andy Spano reached a settlement with Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Justice over an allegation that the county under Spano and Larry Schwartz – Spano’s deputy at the time and now Cuomo’s senior advisor – had failed to adequately consider race as an impediment to fair housing.

The settlement was a way to avoid costly and protracted litigation and address the issues that had been raised to the satisfaction of all the parties.

But there was never a finding of fact against the county or an admission of guilt. And Larry Schwartz will tell you that.

So to smear Westchester County by saying the county is in violation of fair housing act, when he knows it is not true, is an insult to everyone in Westchester of every race and ethnicity.

Cuomo opened his campaign by attacking me as a racist. The commercials he ran with Jim Crow references were beyond the pale.

The governor portrays himself as a progressive. But there is nothing progressive about race baiting. Racism will never be eradicated if those in leadership positions put their ambition above the truth and cynically deal the race card for political gain.

Westchester is a welcoming place to all who seek to live and work here. Discrimination will not be tolerated in Westchester, and I have said repeatedly, and say it again today, allegations of discrimination will be investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of the law while I am county executive.

But we also need to have an honest discussion of what racism is and is not. Zoning and discrimination are not the same thing. Zoning restricts what can be built, not who lives there.

I opposed the settlement 2009 because I was afraid it would open the door for the federal government to overpower the decision making authority of local communities.

As it turns out my fears have been realized.

But the day I took office on January 1, 2010 – which was the day I inherited the settlement – I made the point as clearly and as forcefully as I could that as County Executive I would fulfill my responsibilities to make sure Westchester met its obligations under the settlement.

The county’s record of compliance has been outstanding. We are ahead of schedule in meeting the benchmarks for building 750 units of affordable housing by the end of 2016 in 31 Westchester municipalities, which were selected because they are mostly white. Think about that – a government project that is ahead of schedule.

Ironically, the only agency, besides HUD that has put up roadblocks to us building the affordable housing is the Hudson Valley Regional Board of Review, which is part of the New York Department of State and reports into the Governor.

We are also becoming increasingly diverse. The minority populations of the 31 settlement municipalities increased by 56 percent between 2000 and 2010, according to the U.S. Census.

That compares to a 25 percent increase for Westchester as a whole, which is ranked as the fourth most diverse county in terms of African Americans and Hispanics, behind only Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx and tied with Manhattan.

Of course none of that is good enough for HUD.

HUD will not be satisfied until it finds a way to take away zoning decisions from local elected officials. Why? Because its national ambitions depend on it.

HUD was hoping Westchester would be its “grand experiment” for rolling out its new rules for ‘Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing.’ Use statistics to find the county guilty of exclusionary zoning – and then let HUD’s bureaucrats take it from there. The only problem is that Westchester and New Castle are not guilty of anything.

So the choice is defend the innocence of our communities or throw in with HUD to let its bureaucrats make decisions about the future of our local communities.

Governor Cuomo thinks New York should be run from Washington.

I think New York should be run for and by the people of our state.

Zoning may seem obscure. But it provides the framework for how cities, towns, villages, and neighborhoods are developed, our families are safeguarded and our environment preserved.

The stakes are high and now we know how Governor Cuomo cast his vote.

Against the people of New York.

Local zoning will never be outsourced to HUD if I am the next governor.

To anyone who has invested their life in their home and struggled to make a mortgage payment, please know I have got your back.

I live in the next town over. Truth is I can’t afford to live in New Castle, next to the Cuomo’s and Clinton’s. But that is ok.

I love my quarter acre in Mount Pleasant, a town where I grew up, served on the school board and town board. My first job wasn’t Secretary of HUD.

But on the small stage of government, I learned that when you get into office, you have to understand the limits of power. You can’t be all things to all people. You have to be willing to make tough calls, And you have to say ‘no’ to people – even when they are bigger and stronger than you – if you think you are right.

This situation with HUD is simply saying to our government – you have gone too far. Your intentions may even be good. But a bad idea is a bad idea and someone has to be the voice of the people to say so.  I have spoken out for the people. Governor Cuomo has taken side of the bureaucrats who make findings.

That’s the choice.

Cocktail hour starts now!

Take It Back

Independence Day

Click for larger

Pluckemin, NJ, 1924.  We are the luckiest people who ever lived.

KATKO: NO NEW GAS TAX

With No Price Relief at the Pump in Sight, Challenger Questions Why
Incumbent Against Increased Domestic Production

Syracuse, New York – Republican, Conservative, and Independence candidate for U.S. Congress John Katko (NY-24) today called on current Congressman Dan Maffei to oppose growing efforts in Washington, DC to raise the federal gas tax.

“Central New York families and small businesses continue to struggle to keep up in this Obama economy,” said Katko. “The last thing my neighbors and I need is to pay more at the gas pump just to feed new spending in Washington. We currently pay over 68 cents per gallon in state and federal taxes.i A nickel more here and a dime more there ends up adding up to quite a bit for most households at the end of the month. Now is not the time to raise the federal gas tax.”

After Maffei publicized his plan for spending billions of dollars in new infrastructure projects in Central New York early last week, Katko questioned why he failed to include any suggestions to pay for it. The construction of Dan Maffei’s fast train across Upstate New York alone could cost upwards of $14.7 billion.ii To date, Maffei has offered no plan to pay for any of his new infrastructure spending plans.

Then late last week, Maffei voted against bipartisan legislation that would help ease the pain at the pump by expanding production of America’s own energy resources. Maffei voted against H.R. 4899, the Lowering Gasoline Prices to Fuel an America That Works Act,iii which would expand U.S. energy production by reopening offshore drilling locations previously closed by Obama, eliminating onshore production red-tape, and accessing National Petroleum Reserve deposits in Alaska to provide Central New York families with some relief at the pump.

According to AAA, the national average price of gasoline is $3.67 per gallon of regular unleaded, with a Syracuse Metropolitan average of $3.82 per gallon.iv Even more, AAA reports that the turmoil in Iraq will continue to push prices up through the remainder of the summer.

“Dan Maffei says he’s for the middle class, but his actions speak otherwise,” added Katko. “Our Member of Congress should refuse to raise the federal gas tax and fight to increase domestic gas production to provide Central New York families and small businesses the relief they need at the gas pump.”

70 Years Ago Today - June 6, 1944

US paratroopers attach static lines before pre-dawn jump, D-Day, June 6, 1944.

Cuomo and Obama Strike Out in Cooperstown

Anti-SAFE Act activist Al Belardinelli reports from Cooperstown

To recieve Al's updates, send an email, subject line:"sign me up" to albel1@aol.com

The Shocking Fact:

A Presidential visit combined with the Governor of New York Draws Fewer Than 200 supporters to Cooperstown, NY.

On May 22, 2014, the president of America and the Governor of New York came to The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY on a mission to promote tourism and baseball. Yes, on a bright spring day – at the start of the baseball season – at the Baseball Hall of Fame the 2 most influential elected officials were the stars of an utter failure. Even a trumped up media cannot spin it into a major positive event.

The True Facts:

There were more media reporters attending than spectators who came to see the president and the governor; and the Protestors outnumbered everyone combined by at least 7 to 1.

One would expect huge crowds, traffic jams, parking problem, stores filled and hordes of activity to occur. NONE of that happened:

• The village was deserted
• Businesses and shops were absolutely empty
• The streets were void of even normal traffic
• Parking lots were empty
• NO baseball stars, sports stars or baseball enthusiasts were in attendance.
• NO baseball paraphernalia was to be seen .
• There was NO joy, celebration or “tourism” to be seen anywhere in the area

Ford sets the fashion

Happy Easter!

Missing Plane Located?

SAFE Act Forum Tonight - Mayville

Live Better Electrically

St. Patrick's Day Greetings

South of 5 and 20 St. Patrick's Day office party is under way. 

St. Patrick's Day Parade, Newark, NJ, 1936.  Frank O'Hara himself is in front, right side of photo.

2A Rally Saturday - Horseheads, NY

Jumpin Jive

Cab Calloway and the Nicholas Brothers.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Family Car For The New Ice Age

Perfect for January in the Finger Lakes.

Tom O'Mara on SAFE Act - Jan.26

First they came...

American Digest

Runaway

Bonnie Raitt, Burt Sugarman's Midnight Special, 1977.

Big voice, big guitar, big hair - we all had that hair...

Will You Love Me Tomorrow?

Linda Ronstadt, Johnny Cash TV show, 1970. 

44 years ago!  Even then, Linda could knock you out of your seat.

Never!

Click image to enlarge, print, distribute.

"sheer idiocy"

“This bill was written with the saving of one, and only one, life in mind. The political life of a Governor who wants to be President. Level headed professionals, including those within the law enforcement community, have pointed out the sheer idiocy of enforcing this political ploy. I am glad to hear that the federal court has ruled that the seven bullet limit, instituted by the NY SAFE Act, is an arbitrary number and therefore unconstitutional. The entire law is an affront to our second amendment and our constitutional freedoms. Passed in the dark of night, this law was rushed through the legislature and did not go through the typical airing which would have allowed the public and my fellow legislators to see the obvious flaws in the wording and structure of the bill. The seven bullet limit was idiotic at best and turned law abiding law enforcement officers, veterans and soccer moms into criminals. Glad that the court saw through this charade, but the fight must continue to overturn the entire law,” said Senator Greg Ball. “This is a huge win for our constitutional freedoms and for the second amendment community. However, we will continue our fight against this gun grab until this draconian law is a bad, distant memory.”

 Senator Greg Ball (R, C, I – Patterson), Jan. 2, 2013

Happy New Year!

Enjoy the future, it's here now.