I am embarrassed by this diary. I live in a place where the DEMOCRATIC party is massively corrupt and that corruption is poised to continue far into the future. I fight REPUBLICAN corruption. How can I do that when I live in an area where the Democratic Party is so massively corrupt.

I grew up in Los Angeles. I remember a friend of mine from Chicago who was amazed that she couldn't find someone to bribe to hurry up her remodeling plans for her house. Los Angeles was the least corrupt place she had lived. That is my background.

I now live in Brooklyn. I am amazed that the national Democratic Party hasn't come to Brooklyn and kicked our asses because we are among the most corrupt party machines in America. We look like a third world country when it comes to corruption.

Our previous County Leader, Clarence Norman, served a full jail sentence for corruption. Our current County Leader, Vito Lopez, has done almost ALL of the same things Clarence Norman went to jail for, and is under active investigation by pretty much all levels of government for corruption. He ALSO recently was accused of sexual harassment by several women from his own staff...and apparently the NY State government settled some other sexual harassment suits against him at taxpayer's expense.

I spend a lot of time attacking Republicans for corruption. And nationally Republicans are FAR FAR FAR more corrupt than Democrats. But I find myself embarrassed by the local corruption in the Brooklyn Democratic Party.  read more »

Big media would have us believe, the dirty unorganized uninformed pinko commie spoiled brats camping, organizing and protesting at Zucotti Plaza don't know what we want. Well, here's sample of what we don't know what we want:  read more »

I want to go on record that both NYC charter amendments are bunk put out by Michael Bloomberg simply for his own personal reasons. Some aspects of the amendments are outright useless because they are superseded by state law and therefore would be knocked down in any lawsuit. Other aspects are pure hypocrisy on Bloomberg's part.

To quote reform Assemblyman Jim Brennan regarding the flawed and corrupt charter amendment process:

James Brennan, Assemblymember, Brooklyn
In January good government groups, recognizing the Mayor would create a Charter Commission, wrote him asking that any commission “be given sufficient time to do its important work…“ I also wrote the Mayor asking, “Will the Charter Commission be taking a serious look at the City government?”

Borough President Scott Stringer urged the Commission to put its questions on the ballot in 2011, and the New York Times urged the Commission to postpone placing questions on the ballot until 2012. The hope was for broad public engagement.  read more »

So here I am taking a break from some pretty heavy efforts to head off an imminent return of Bush-republicans to office to comment on the most recent, and extremely predictable, scandal here in NY State.

As I scan most of the country, including NY State, I see a Republican Party awash in corruption, scandals, racism and intolerance. When Carl "Horse Sex" Paladino and Christine "Mouse Brain" O'Donnell are your poster children, you have serious problems and whatever happens November 2nd, the bulk of the Republican Party candidates this year are either scandals in progress or scandals waiting to happen. And the thing is this has been the case now for more than a decade and it was these scandals that led to Republicans taking such a beating throughout the country in 2006 and 2008 and I believe will deliver them a beating again soon. It seems corrupt Republicans cannot or will not learn their lesson. (for a nice rundown on Republican Corruption, visit the good folks at Liberals Like Christ).

Unfortunately, here in NY State it seems Democrats and other leftists also have trouble learning the same lesson.  read more »

Since 2004 my wife and I have had the dubious pleasure of being elected (let me emphasize elected, not appointed) members of the Kings County Democratic County Committee and been privy every 2 years to the circus of the Brooklyn Machine's inner workings...or should I say the shoddy facade to those inner workings which are actually reserved mainly for the Party Boss and his Cronies alone.

Our first County Committee meeting was then Party Boss Clarence Norman's last before going to jail. My son, Jacob, was nearly born during those proceedings. He was already overdue and my wife went into labor soon after. My wife regrets that Norman's last County Committee meeting wasn't upstaged by her going into labor...she imagines the machine chastising her for not following the script (yes, there is a real script people read off of).  read more »