RochesterWriters

We spoke too soon about Republican county legislators not standing up to the Democrats' deceptive proposal to tamper with the number of county legislators.Just listened to yesterday's Bob Smith show on WXXI (courtesy of my AV Replay).

Announced late this morning.

Tomorrow night comes the County Executive's Ball for the Republicans.   The Mayor's Ball, for the Democrats, comes a week later, March 20.   Maybe. Each is the principal annual fundraiser for the respective parties.   It's unclear at this point whether the threat by the teachers' union and other unions to boycott and picket the Democratic event, over displeasure with the Mayor's proposal for the City schools, will force cancellation of the event or impair the party's fundraising.

Yesterday, Tony commented on the Democrat and Chronicle's editorial endorsement of a plan floated by county legislature Democrats to game the political system to increase their chance of winning the majority.   How?   By tampering with the number of legislators.

Continue Their Focus On Issues That Don't MatterInteresting that with all of the important issues out there, the politically motivated prosecution of Andy Moore,the need for Governor Paterson to resign, former Congressman Eric Massa's "tickle fights" with his staff, the Democrat and Chronicle editorial board decided to tackled the critical issue of reducing the size of the Monroe County Legislature.

Unshackle Upstate is proposing to step up its effort to win badly needed changes in dysfunctional New York State policies.   The policies that make New York one of the worst places in the country to do business.   Specifically, Unshackle plans to issue "report cards" to all members of the State Legislature, and to endorse a limited number of state legislative candidates in this year's election.Will this give traction, for the first time, to Unshackle's agenda?   Or will it prove to be another fruitless exercise by the group?

Enough, Already.The story that Democratic Congressional leaders forced out Eric Massa by leaking the ethics charge against him appears clearly to be false.   There are abundant reasons to recognize this, principal among them that Eric Massa said it happened that way.

Governor Paterson says he'll call a special election for the 29th Congressional District "as soon as possible."   But why would the Governor, who has discretion in the matter, call a special election when there's nothing in it but trouble for his party?Given that it's highly likely a Republican would win, that's one more vote against passing the Senate health care bill in the House.   The President and Pelosi want that?

Looks like Corning Mayor and Congressional candidate Tom Reed is taking some pre-emptive action against a possible Maggie Brooks run for the 29th District nomination.   A reader, a registered Republican, alerts us that she received a robo-call today from Reed.   She recorded the message from her answering machine:

Judge Richard Keenan held that prosecutors presented insufficient evidence to the grand jury to support the criminal misdemeanor charges against Andrew Moore, former Executive Director of the Monroe County Republican Party.This political prosecution was a farce from its inception, as Mustard Street has pointed out repeatedly.   A low-water mark for the office of District Attorney Mike Green; his Duke rape case.