Dinowitz Caught Bullying New Community Board Member

Here is a wacky story from the blog Your Free Press, exposing an incident of Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz trying to intimidate a new member of Community Board No. 8 into not posting on a blog. Apparently, the Assemblyman called the board member at home and told her "a blog of this nature would not be conducive to my position as a Community Board member." Don't they have a $100 billion budget to pass in Albany? This guy has way too much time on his hands.

Dinowitz Ducks Taking Out Espada

Daily News reports that Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (referred to in the artice as a "Bronx Democratic honcho") will not be taking any action to remove Pedro Espada from the Democratic Party as requested by State party leaders last month. Dinowitz is quoted as saying "There is no pressing reason to do this now,". Really? Now that is a profile in courage!

Challengers Emerge to Take On Espada

Great piece in the Gotham Gazette on the race to unseat Pedro Espada. Goes into a lot of good detail on the relative strength of the strongest challenger, Gustavo Rivera. Here is another interesting nugget from the piece -- the Ben Franklin Club endorsement shows a total vote of 48 people. Not bad but certainly not the powerhouse club that Assemblyman Dinowitz likes to tout? I also wonder how many of that 48 person turnout were paid staff members of the local politicos?

Schneiderman's Bumper-Gate

It's not Chappaquiddick, but is certainly a bone-headed driving incident by someone running to be the chief law enforcement officer for NY State. State Senator (what else) Eric Schneiderman, who is running for NY Attorney General, failed to stop after his aide bumped another car. The damage to the other car was minimal, but the damage to his reputation was priceless. This goes in that special category where the cover-up is worse than the crime.

Run-Down of Bronx Elections

The Bronx News Network has done a great job of reviewing all the races in the Bronx this year. Unfortunately, there are very few competitive races in our borough so look for most incumbents to return to work.

Ed Koch Calls Out Deadbeats

As part of his campaign to reform Albany called NY Uprising, Ed Koch has given us the names of those who would not sign his pledge to help clean up Albany. The list reads like a who's who in Bx. politics and includes those great reformers such as Assemblymembers Dinowitz, Heastie, Rivera (all 3 of them). Let's just say our borough is well represented.

Another Pol Helps His Friends

The NY Post recently reported that Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat is following in the footsteps of a lot of his follow pols by providing funding to a not for profit that keeps many of his good friends employed. And this guy wants us to trust him and put him in the State Senate? His opponent in that race, Mark Levine, has hit him hard on this one.