Bit by bit the power of Party Boss Vito Lopez is slipping. This was evident in this year's Democratic County Committee meeting this last Monday where what seemed to me to be some three, maybe four, groups of insurgents disrupting the scripted farce.

This was our third County Committee meeting. The first was when Joy was already overdue with Jacob. We had kind of hoped she would go into labor right then and there and disrupt the script. That would have been especially satisfying because it would have disrupted former Party Boss Clarence Norman's last hurrah before he went to prison. But Jacob debut came days later, so he didn't manage to upsatge Clarence Norman. That first meeting was also our entry into the insurgency as we saw what a farce it was, nothing more than a rubber stamp to the Party Boss's power with no real democracy as part of the Democratic Party in Brooklyn. The highlight was Ken Diamondstone's efforts to expose the farce for what it was. Diamondstone's efforts were ineffective, but they were both entertaining and illustrative. Sometimes the only way to fight a farce is with farce.  read more »

File this one under: “Predictions from the Rock”. Watch it blow up and then come back to me later. You see, this is the month that Diane Gordon goes on trial over her alleged bribery caper. Remember the video tapes, where we saw Ms. Gordon seemingly attempt to bribe a developer into building her a dream house in some gated community in Queens; well unless they postpone the trial she will be soon getting her day in court. So what are my predictions?

Firstly; I predict that Diane will be going to jail, not passing go, and not collecting the 200 dollars from passing (monopoly). This of course opens up her assembly seat in a special election. And cousins, this is where it gets sexy (politically speaking, that is).

You see, when Charles Barron announced earlier this summer that he was running for Brooklyn’s borough presidency, he also said some rather interesting things. No; I am not talking about his pledge to finally, “take care of black folks”; I am talking about his observation that no other black could win that race once he is in it. He is correct; profoundly so. Yet, Charles is also quite pragmatic when he is backed into a corner. He must know also that the corollary is just as true: if other blacks run, he too will lose. So what is a man to do here folks?  read more »

I could write scores of Marty Markowitz stories; but I won’t; at least not right now. It would be fun though; it really would be. For full disclosure, let me state upfront that for many years, I was one of quite a few in the Crown Heights/ Flatbush community, committed to taking Marty Markowitz out of his senate seat (20 SD). We failed.

Marty was in office for about 20 years or so, in a district where minorities made up about 80% of the residents-with more than half of them either born in the Caribbean, or of parents so born. Some called Marty a comedian, others snidely remarked that he was a clown; lore has it that one Easter Sunday, he even ran around the black community in a white Easter-bunny suit. Needless to say: many of the more militant-black types thought he was an embarrassment. Well; I am not sure that those comments can hold up any more folks; Marty has been and continues to be: a winner (politically speaking).  read more »