Haha.

Rep. Vito J. Fossella (R-N.Y.) was arrested overnight in Alexandria and charged with driving while intoxicated, court records showed today.

Reached by phone, Fossella's communication director had no immediate comment on the report.

Shocking, I know.

Alright, so everyone who hasn't been asleep for the last forty years must have seen this one coming: Sheldon Silver, Democrat of Manhattan, Speaker of the Assembly, refused to allow the State Assembly an up-or-down vote on congestion pricing.

The New York Times:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s far-reaching plan to ease traffic in Manhattan died here on Monday in a closed conference room on the third floor of the Capitol.

Democratic members of the State Assembly held one final meeting to debate the merits of Mr. Bloomberg’s plan and found overwhelming and persistent opposition. The plan would have charged drivers $8 to enter a congestion zone in Manhattan south of 60th Street during peak hours.

Mr. Bloomberg and his supporters, including civic, labor and environmental organizations, viewed the proposal as a bold and essential step to help manage the city’s inexorable growth.

Now, here's where it gets interesting. If the proposal didn't have the necessary votes, it could have been let to the floor and died there. Sheldon Silver didn't allow it to a vote - in the Stalinist system of Albany, only the leaders of the respective chambers, not individual legislators, in practical terms have the ability to bring legislation to a vote - because he did not want it to pass.

And there is no district in all of New York that would have benefited more from congestion pricing than Mr. Silver's own.

In normal years, residents of Silver's 62nd AD really don't have much in the way of leverage over their too-powerful Assemblyman, which is why Silver has completely escaped accountability in his marbled office in Albany. This time, however, things are different: there's a primary challenger, Paul Newell.

If the powerless voters in the 62nd Assembly District want to have a representative for their interests in Albany, this year, they have a choice.

Chris Bowers over at BlogPAC emailed over some really exciting news I'd like to share with the Progressive community.

First, some backstory. There's probably not a single soul in Progressive blogdom who has not at some point railed bitterly about Democrats. Weak-kneed, spineless, ineffectual Democrats who fail to stand up and do the right thing for their constituents, their party, and so on. These Democrats are one of two reasons there is even such a thing as a Progressive movement (the other, of course, is the republican party in its full murderous and corrupt incompetence).

The interests of the netroots and the party have often aligned closely, whenever the goal was simply the election of more Democrats. They often diverge when the goal is the election of better Democrats. When the goal is Red to Blue, we all tend to be on the same page.

It's time to expand that goals horizon, and get us some better Democrats. BlogPAC is launching From Blue to Bluer, a program designed to bring national attention and resources to bear on state-level Democratic primaries.

From Blue to Bluer seeks to first identify, and then help elect, progressive, grassroots candidates who are running in competitive Democratic primaries in blue districts around the country. The primaries can either be for open seats or against incumbents who are either too conservative for their districts, or who are simply corrupt, or both. The goal is to find a handful of proudly progressive primary candidates for local and state legislative races, and then provide them with the national support they need to help put them over the top. Through this program, we can show Democrats across the country that that a fifty-state strategy means blue districts too, and that all Democrats, no matter how local, can be held accountable for not representing their districts or for selling out progressive ideals.

If there was ever a state this program was made for, it's New York. Leave your suggestions (I've already made mine, privately, to Bowers, as has Phil Anderson) in the comments: which primary challenger in New York deserves help against an entrenched incumbent? Or drop BlogPAC a line here.

I can't stress enough what an awesome opportunity this is for Progressive Democratic challengers across the country. And I'd love - love! - to see one of the Blue to Bluer designees being here in New York.

Brownsox at Daily Kos posts the DCCC's 2008 target list in its entirety here; the DCCC, of course, is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party body charged with electing Democrats to the House.

The list for New York is long, grand, a thing of beauty.

NY-03 Peter King
NY-13 Vito Fossella
NY-25 Jim Walsh*# (Dan Maffei opposing)
NY-26 Tom Reynolds*
NY-29 Randy Kuhl# (Eric Massa opposing)

We're going to be very busy this year, because there's no reason why we shouldn't win all of those races. Get busy raising money, candidates.

If you thought you were incapable of being shocked anymore by the ongoing scandal that is your state legislature, it's time to rethink that.

Here's the scenario. Your young daughter applies for, and gets, an internship opportunity at the state Capitol. A great opportunity, obviously, and one that many young people across the state vie for, putting effort into the requisite qualifiers: good grades, public service, community volunteer work.

Once in Albany, until 2004, this is what happened to your daughter: she, along with all other female interns, was herded into a newsstand in the Capitol, where legislators would pick and choose their staff based on attractiveness, not résumé. There's a name for that: an auction.

Digby:

However, this truly is beyond the pale and should be a matter for investigation. If politicians who corralled a bunch of women into a newsstand to be chosen for jobs in legislators' offices based on their sexual attractiveness to the disgusting pigs they were going to work for are still in office today, they should be exposed. That's not consensual behavior, that's sex discrimination. This practice apparently went on until 2004, and there's no excuse for it.

This is the natural and unavoidable consequence of the Albany system of legislators who draw their own district lines and who are more likely to die in office than to lose an election: they prey on your children, because they know that you can't do anything about it.

And there's not a damned thing you can do about it, because you're just going to keep on voting these people back into power. Given the glacial turnover in Albany, the people who bid on your daughter based on her fuckability - your teenage daughter - are all still in office.

The New York Times, front page, this AM: Slow Economy Likely to Stall Atlantic Yards.

The slowing economy, weighed down by a widening credit crisis, is likely to delay the signature office tower and three residential buildings at the heart of the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, the developer said.[...]

But Mr. Ratner has yet to secure an anchor tenant for the Miss Brooklyn building, and now plans to phase in the residential buildings slowly.

When this bill of goods was sold to the public, it was as a shot in the arm for downtown Brooklyn's economy (which is why a lot of public money is being thrown into the hole). The displacement of residents was to be offset by new construction, including a (debatably defined) number of affordable units to maintain some cohesion between existing neighborhoods and new construction. That's now being delayed, but you'll still get that arena, grateful Brooklynites.

Another one bites the dust. Liz:

GOP sources confirm that Rep. Tom Reynolds, a Western NY Congressman since 1999 and ex-NRCC chairman, will announce around noon tomorrow in Buffalo that he will not seek re-election this fall. Reynolds spokesman LD Platt did not return an e-mail seeking comment. [...]

But the recent NRCC fraud scandal - some of which took place on his watch - has made his re-election effort that much more difficult in an already tough year (increasingly Democratic state, presidential election etc).

That makes things a lot easier for this guy:

The question now becomes whether Jack Davis, the guy who ran for the seat last time - and couldn't defeat Reynolds despite the latter's role in the Foley scandal - will now run as a Democrat in a primary against Jon Powers, or as a republican against likely contender George Maziarz.

Another bit of irony: if Reynolds is retiring over the NRCC scandal, it will prove once and for all that while you can get away with molesting underage boys in the GOP, you had better not lose their money, or you're toast.

On the web: Jon Powers for Congress

Democratic Congressional candidates around the country - Darcy Burner, Eric Massa, Steve Harrison, Donna Edwards, and many more - are embracing the Responsible Plan, an effort to get American troops out of Iraq while preserving regional stability, United States interests and restoring American moral leadership. Every Progressive should read this document. If there is a way forward, this is it.

Here's Steve Harrison, running for Congress against Bush lap dog Vito Fossella in New York's Thirteenth District, speaking on why he was one of the ten original supporters of the Responsible Plan.

On the web: Steve Harrison for Congress
Donate: Steve Harrison's ActBlue Page

The American Revolutionary War lasted, by the most generous estimate, eight years, from 1775 to the Peace of Paris in 1783. The Civil War took four years from Sumter to Appomattox. World War One was fought with American participation for a year or so. World War Two, from Pearl Harbor to the instrument of surrender on the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo harbor lasted less than four, punctuated by the German surrender in Reims and Karlshorst even sooner.

And here we are, entering the sixth year of our awful engagement in Iraq, with neither an end nor victory in sight. It's telling that we don't even know what victory looks like anymore. A Federal Iraq held together by force of arms or some new tyrant? An Iranian fiefdom that, for the sake of appearances and our prestige, tries to be somewhat discreet about its subservience to Tehran?

Meanwhile, we've lost close to four thousand American dead, tens of thousands grievously injured, trillions of dollars, and uncounted numbers of Iraqis. Literally uncounted, because nobody keeps statistics on their dead.

Meanwhile, here at home, the idea that we could wage war on the cheap, with borrowed money and while shifting the tax burden to the middle class, is a cruel, tragic joke. The dollar has lost a bit less than half of its value. Banks are folding. We've entered, in mood if not yet perhaps fact, the third Bush recession. The newest term in the lexicon is jingle mail; homeowners are mailing the keys to homes they can no longer afford to their mortgagers.

Dear Media,

yes, we get it, he had some fun on the side. Yes, people understand that since he told you the story first, you have to report it. Yes, of course, this is an awesome, titillating story so soon after that other unpleasantness. And absolutely, his wife did some dallying too, as we now know. This matters, to someone, I'm sure.

Sure, it's understandable that you'd overlook the fact that the Patersons - like the Spitzers - have children, children who are probably being traumatized into years of therapy even as we speak.

But seriously, is this what you really have to give wood to on his first full day day in office? And by wood, I mean frontpage hundred and twenty point type?

Can't you every once in a while, instead of telling us who's up and who's down, who's doing who for how much and how often, report on stuff that matters? There's a budget to be produced. That matters. That budget has a 4.4 billion dollar gap. That matters, too, and even more, what matters is how it gets closed.

There's more to cover, no question. Our legislature is a laughingstock. Upstate is rotting before our eyes. The Senate is about to flip - what does that mean? Why is this important?

So much to write about, and this - this! - is what consumes the entire news cycle? Come. On. Seriously?