It's official: The Public Authorities Control Board has green-lighted the Atlantic Yards mega-project. After blocking the West Side stadium and the Moynihan Station project, Sheldon Silver has finally found a development proposal he can get behind.

This was the last major official hurdle Atlantic Yards had to clear . . . but why do I get the feeling that the fight is not even close to being over yet?

WCBS reports (video link) that the investigation does appear to be related to Bruno's close, strictly-horse-based relationship with Jared Abbruzzese.

They also note the particularly unfortunate timing for the state's soon-to-be highest-ranking Republican. With Spitzer riding a wave of reform in and Hevesi riding a wave of scandal out, Bruno may find himself particularly vulnerable.

Hank Sheinkopf: "Senator Bruno seemed to be away from the problem, now he’s right in the middle of it. The calls for reform will only increase, and there’ll be more attacks on the Albany politicians."

Meanwhile, it's up to us to find a proper name for the emerging scandal. Saddlegate? The Horse Pork Affair? Albany Cowboys? I got nothin'.

In a comment at Daily Kos, one of the good folks from Take 19 reports that the rumors of Ari Fleischer's political suicide may be greatly exaggerated.

No definitive word, but we may be getting all giddy for nothing.

Oh well, we'll still have this to amuse us.

Update: As Take-19 points out, consider the source: Human Events Online isn't exactly a collection of the brightest tools in the political shed. They couldn't even get the district right, referring to it as the "24th".

Chickens coming home to roost?

Mr. Bruno, 77, who will be the state’s top Republican when Gov. George E. Pataki leaves office in less than two weeks, offered few details about the nature of the inquiry, which he said he was announcing because it had been leaked to reporters.

He said that he has known of the inquiry since late spring, and that he recently retained a lawyer. He said the investigation “appears to be related to my outside business interests,” but added later that he was “not sure” if it involved any official actions he has taken as Senate leader. He said he was told that he was not a target of the investigation.

Republicans sweating it:

Several Republican state senators said that they were unaware of the federal investigation when they re-elected Mr. Bruno as their majority leader just last month.

“Did we know?” asked one Republican senator, who spoke anonymously because of his close ties to Mr. Bruno. “We didn’t. Would it have changed things if we’d known? Maybe. I would have definitely had more questions if I’d known this.”  read more »

Thanks to Bouldin for pointing out E.J. Dionne's delightful analysis of the decline of the conservative movement. It reminds me of a column I read just after the 2004 election, by a venerable conservative writer - unfortunately I can't find the link, but I think it was either Buckley or Safire - in which he mentioned that, were he just starting out in politics today, he'd be a Democrat, because that's where the next generation of exciting new ideas will come from.

As Dionne points out:

In 1984 three exit polls pegged Ronald Reagan's share of the ballots cast by Americans under 30 at between 57 and 60 percent. Reagan-style conservatism seemed fresh, optimistic and innovative. In 2006 voters under 30 gave 60 percent of their votes to Democratic House candidates, according to the shared media exit poll. Conservatism now looks old, tired and ineffectual.

Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg makes headlines for a kind of political innovation of its own. Daniel calls it "anemic and mean-spirited," and certainly it does seem to be an oddly retro- (think Moynihan) approach to poverty: locating the root of poverty in the "behavior" of the poor.  read more »