Gillibrand stands with Obama

New York's junior senator may be backing a loser. Her official position:

Kirsten Gillibrand is doing everything she can to support New York's working families and help President Barack Obama achieve his vision for lasting change.

Gillibrand and Sharpton: "No Justice, No Peace!"

Arne Duncan's graduation rate scandal

Duncan ignores kids, consults with Sharpton

In the midst of Syracuse University Basketball's NCAA Tournament run, Barry Obama's "secretary of education," Arne Duncan, decided to attack the Orange and Coach Jim Boeheim:

Pittsburgh – After his team’s victory over UNC Asheville in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday, Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim took on another opponent.

Arne Duncan, the U.S. Secretary of Education.

Duncan singled out Boeheim on Wednesday in a conference call with news reporters about the graduation rates of NCAA basketball tournament teams.

Yes, so-called "educator" Duncan thought he could piggyback on the Tournament's publicity.

A story with Duncan’s comments ran in Thursday’s editions of USA Today and was accompanied by a column that chastised Syracuse for the academic performance within its men’s basketball program.

Coach Boeheim dosen't need our help to reject Duncan's forced shot.  In the post-Ashville press conference, the Coach explained:

Boeheim had one final jab left for Duncan, who played at Harvard.

“I don't think Harvard was punished when Bill Gates left early,’’ Boeheim said. “I don't think they were. I don't think he did too badly. We've also had five or six guys who left early, went to the NBA, played, and came back and graduated. We helped them graduate. We have two or three right now that are very close to graduating who are done playing with their NBA careers.

“So education is paramount to me,’’ he continued. “We want every guy to graduate, and we work very hard on that. So I think it's fair to say that I'm upset right now.’’

The bigger question here is: who is this annoying Duncan and why does have have anything to do with our children's education?  It turns out Duncan was raised among the swells in Chicago's exclusive Hyde Park neighborhood, the same side of the tracks where unrepentant terrorist William Ayers launched Four Dollar Barry's political career.

Duncan played basketball at Harvard University and had a brief professional hardwood career in Australia.  His time after returning to Chicago seems to have found Duncan involved in various non-profits, but Arne had never taught school for a single day at any level when second generation Chicago Democrat machine Mayor Richard M. Daley made him head of Chicago's failing public school system in 2001.  Even fellow Democrats recognize the destruction that Duncan left behind in the Windy City's schools.  New Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, former Obama chief of staff, has it in for Arne:

Rahm is still steaming about the contracts negotiated by Daley and Arne Duncan—who was then running CPS and is now the nation’s education secretary—which gave teachers hefty pay increases and a shorter school year. “I know what the teachers got, and I know what the politicians got,” he says, meaning no strike. “But I don’t know what the kids got.”

The Chicago public school system operates seven community colleges.  As head of Chicago's schools, Duncan was responsible for those seven institutions.  What about the graduation rate at Duncan's own legacy college system - why, it's seven percent!

If low graduation and student transfer rates at City Colleges of Chicago don’t start improving, the system’s leaders could lose their jobs. That’s because the formal job responsibilities of the chancellor, presidents and even trustees include graduation rate goals.

Cheryl L. Hyman, chancellor of City Colleges, began a “reinvention” of the system soon after her arrival in 2010. While the seven-college system has long welcomed urban, lower-income students who have few higher education options, Hyman argues that it hasn't done enough to help students graduate and get jobs...

“You cannot continue with a 7 percent graduation rate,” said Rahm Emanuel, Chicago’s mayor, at news conference last summer. “We owe the taxpayers – and most importantly the students – a better community college system.”

In light of the fact that non-educator Duncan is an expert on college graduation rates, we demand he abandon his war on success and resign from the federal government.  Seven Percent Arne needs to return to Chicago to deal with the disaster he left behind.

Sharpton pal Schneiderman conflicted on fracking

Sharpton under arrest, 2008

Back in April, we questioned New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's connection to race hustler  Al Sharpton, and wondered if most New York taxpayers realized that a leftist radical had become our state's highest legal officer.

Now we find Schneiderman, who ran for office promising to prevent the use of hydrofracking to recover New York's vast shale gas reserves, in the position of having to defend the practice in court.

Whe n Attorney General Eric Schneiderman was on the campaign trail last year, he released an environmental agenda with seven major initiatives he intended to take up in office.In red type, the document listed his top priority when it comes to protecting New York's land, air and water: "Sue to Prohibit Hydrofracking."

"He will make sure that no drilling took place until it was deemed to be safe and regulated by the DEC and EPA," the document reads, citing his "proven record of fighting against this new and unproven technology."

Fast forward to 2011, and Schneiderman now will likely face the task of defending a set of regulations proposed by the state Department of Environmental Conservation that would allow for high-volume hydraulic fracturing, with a bevy of restrictions, to move forward in New York.

While it might appear that New York is slowly inching toward possibly allowing limited horizontal drilling at some point in the distant future, analysts should try applying logical analysis to to Schneiderman's official position:

But Schneiderman, the former Democratic state senator from Manhattan, said he'll be able to balance his concerns about natural gas drilling with his duty as the state's top lawyer. Legal challenges are widely expected at some point, and Schneiderman has said he'll represent the state, as the law requires him to do.

"I think we're going to end up with a set of regulations that are designed to ensure that fracking is only done safely, and that has partly to do with how you regulate the process and partly to do with the areas that you allow fracking," Schneiderman said in a recent interview with Gannett's Albany bureau.

"That's an ongoing process with the DEC. They are my client, and we're hopeful that we're going to come up with a good set of regulations."

So we have a radical leftist, openly influenced by Al Sharpton, as New York's designated defender of shale gas.  Don't hold your breath.

Sharpton's pal Schneiderman

Schneiderman and Sharpton

Even way up here in the Finger Lakes, most folks have heard of race hustler Al Sharpton.  But many of you are reading this and wondering "who is this Schneiderman fellow?"

Eric Schneiderman works for you.  He's the career politician who replaced Andy Cuomo as New York's attorney general.  Scheiderman wants you unemployed, freezing in the dark.  Today's New York Post:

Critics of hydraulic fracturing were quick to pounce on last week's well blowout in Pennsylvania as proof that the controversial method of extracting natural gas is an environmental threat.

That includes state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who just days earlier rashly overreached and vowed to sue the federal government unless it commits within 30 days to conducting a full review of regulations that would allow natural-gas drilling in the Delaware River Basin.

At issue is fracking -- the controversial process in which a high-pressure mix of water, chemicals and sand is used to extract natural gas from rock formations.

And, Schneiderman notwithstanding, a federal review of fracking is under way -- and is just one of several.

Which is fine. Nobody is advocating reckless action.

But it remains that a good way to kill fracking is to study it to death -- which appears to be Schneiderman's real goal.

 Where does the track-suited troublemaker Sharpton appear?

The AG's activism is no surprise, of course. It's what he said he would bring to the job -- along with "an annex" in the AG's office for Al Sharpton.

An annex for Sharpton?  WTF?  The Post, September 9, 2010:

Sharpton's National Action Net work is in such fiscal disarray that an internal audit just five months ago concluded that its very continued existence is in "substantial doubt," as The Post reported this week.

But Sharpton isn't worried about losing his headquarters.

That's because state Sen. Eric Schneiderman has publicly promised that if he's elected attorney general, Sharpton & Co. "will have an annex in Albany for the first time in the history of the state."

Indeed, Schneiderman boasts that Sharpton's endorsement means he's now gotten "the Good Housekeeping seal of approval from the man from the House of Justice" -- whose notion of justice is a model that the AG wannabe says he will "seek to follow."

In October of that year, Syracuse grad Al D'Amato got right to the point:

D’Amato: Vote For Schneiderman Is Vote For Sharpton

Did you know who Eric Schneiderman is?  Do you support an "annex for Sharpton?"