Pending the outcome of the absentee and paper ballot counts, congratulations to Bill de Blasio on his apparent win of the Democratic mayoral primary. Like Pat Boone covering Little Richard, he covered John Liu’s message, repackaged it in black and white, and the voters were presented with it like it was something new. Now we look forward to seeing how much of the substance behind the message will he use as well. Will de Blasio push to charge insurance companies the General Corporation Tax ($310 million), have private equity firms pay an Unincorporated Business Tax for carried interest ($200 million), call for personal income tax reform for the 1% ($1.2 billion), and use any of the other revenue-generating proposals in the People’s Budget that will bring equity into the system and allow the city to care for the people and the infrastructure that make all of this possible.
Congratulations to Ken Thompson on his win over Charles Hynes for the Democratic nomination for District Attorney. In handily defeating a longtime incumbent, he accomplished a rare feat, particularly for a first-time effort. According to the Wall Street Journal, he is the first candidate in more than a century to defeat an elected district attorney in the borough and is about to become Brooklyn’s first black D.A. In his speech acknowledging the win, Thompson said, “We have an opportunity to transform our criminal justice system in this city. As DA, I will advance a smart-on-crime agenda to keep our streets safe and our communities whole”. And in his concession speech, Mr. Hynes acknowledged that the voters saw a need for change and “that is something I can accept.”
As another example of every vote counting, Robert Cornegy in District 36 is holding a 94 vote lead over Kirsten Foy. The paper and absentee ballots will decide this one.
Syria
President Obama has stumbled badly with Syria, and I wonder if there could be something in the water at the White House that makes presidents believe that war is always an option (although president Obama says it’s not war, just the “modest” firing of a few missiles at a sovereign nation). With the strong majority of American people, the Congress, the United Nations and most of the nations of the world against a military response to the alleged use of poison gas by the Assad regime, the president has had to backpedal in his rush to attack. He was aided in this by Secretary of State John Kerry’s seemingly spontaneous suggestion that Syria allow international oversight of its chemical weapons. Now the Russians are grabbing at that as a serious proposal and Syria seemingly embraces the idea. Whether the Syrians or Russians are sincere or not, once you stumble on the way to war, we can only hope it’s hard to pick that pace back up. No one should have to die so that Obama can follow through on his mistaken utterance about a “red line”.
This past Sunday, the NFL made its long-awaited return and there is plenty to look forward to in this upcoming season. Besides all eyes being on Lions receiver Calvin Johnson and Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, there are a few 2nd-year and rookie quarterbacks to watch out for. Jets QB Geno Smith is one of them. Smith made his NFL debut this past Sunday and he played well. After stellar performances last year by rookie quarterbacks such as Andrew Luck , RGIII and Russell Wilson, Smith is expected to raise the bar this year for rookie QB’s around the league. Sure, he had highs and lows during the game, but he settled in and seemed to get more comfortable as the game went along, going 24 for 38 (63%) passing for 256 yards with a touchdown and an interception. He also led the team in rushing with 47 yards on 6 carries. When your quarterback leads the team in rushing, that alone tells you one problem the Jets will have to deal with this season. Smith’s performance was very impressive, especially with it being against a superb defensive team in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who now have former Jet cornerback Darrelle Revis, who is still considered one of the best corners in the game.
Right away, we see that Smith has found his go-to target. He is developing great chemistry with tight end Kellen Winslow. Winslow caught seven passes from Smith for 79 yards and a touchdown. The most important statistic to look into is Smith’s accuracy. In his first game, Smith delivered the ball with more accuracy than last year’s starter Mark Sanchez, who completed just 55.1 percent of his throws. One advantage is his mobility. Smith has the ability to run for yards and get first downs on his own if need be. This is a totally different quality that Sanchez does not have in his game. When it appeared Smith’s hard effort would go to waste after Bucs’ kicker Ryan Lindell booted a 37-yard field goal with 34 seconds to go and the Jets being down by two, Geno responded by leading the team on a 50-yard drive. Smith showed his intelligence to run out of bounds as he was hit, moving the Jets up 15 more yards after a personal foul penalty. Jets kicker Nick Folk knocked in a field goal with two seconds left and ultimately sealed an 18-17 Jets victory.
With one week and one victory in the bag, Geno Smith is currently “The Man” in New York right now. One thing in his game that has not been seen yet in the 23-year-old rookie his how he is able to adapt to pressure on the road. He’ll get his first crack at it when the team heads to Foxboro to face the division rival New England Patriots. If Smith can have another quality start against Tom Brady and the Pats, it will be very tough for Rex Ryan to reinsert Mark Sanchez (when healthy) at any point during the season. This will certainly be something fun to watch.
Sports Notes: (Basketball) Knicks guard J.R. Smith re-signed with the Knicks this summer for 2 years for about $24 million dollars. How did he thank the Knicks’ front office? By receiving a 5-game suspension at the start of this season for failing the leagues’ substance abuse policy. (Baseball) The Yankees look to make one last push for a wild card spot. In order to do that, they must take care of business against the Boston Red Sox (in Boston) starting tomorrow night. (Football) It’s big brother vs. little brother as Peyton and Eli Manning go head-to-head for just the second time in their careers when the Broncos visit the Giants, who are coming off a 6-turnover game in Dallas.
As of this writing, President Obama is frantically pleading with members of Congress, the American people and heads of state of other nations to follow his lead in “punishing” the Assad regime in Syria for unleashing chemical weapons on his own people. Having drawn a “red line” in the sand regarding the use of chemical weapons, Obama apparently feels obligated to attack Syria as a matter of personal and national pride even if it means going it alone — a blunder which could damage his presidency. It is difficult to resist pointing to the irony of this president standing where Martin Luther King stood in 1963 to extol the virtues of this great apostle of peace while obviously contemplating a unilateral and ill-advised military strike against a nation that poses no direct threat to the United States. Similarly, it was ironic to hear the president at a press conference in Sweden, where he received the Nobel Peace Prize, feverishly attempting to drum up support to bomb Syria.
Ironies aside, individuals, the United States and the world should take seriously the use of chemical weapons. They are so horrific in terms of the inescapable pain, suffering and excoriating death they inflict that the vast majority of nations have banned them since World War I. But there are several issues which should deter President Obama from launching a military strike against Syria. First, despite the “evidence” that has been presented that chemical weapons were used, it’s still not clear exactly who (in fact) used them. I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist, but something about this incident does not pass the “smell test.” Granted, Assad is a ruthless dictator, but is he totally insane? Why would he order the use of chemical weapons against his people when U.N. inspectors were in the country? No one has been able to answer this question to my satisfaction.
However, even if Assad gave the order to use what are almost universally condemned as banned weapons, the United States cannot be the “good cop” on the world scene, self-appointing itself to punish bad actors. There are lots of bad actors in the world, and unfortunately, other atrocities occurring in the world as well – the millions of Africans who have been killed in Congo is a case in point. The U.S. and its allies do not seem to feel much urgency about this human calamity. Moreover, while Syria’s use of chemical weapons is a violation of international law, there is no identifiable threat to the U.S. that justifies a unilateral strike; you can’t break international law to enforce international law!! And China and Russia’s obstructionism in the U.N. Security Council notwithstanding, there appears to be no appetite among the Arab League, America’s Western allies or Third World nations to form a “coalition of the willing” to punish Assad. Hence, Obama is standing virtually alone in his singular determination to defend America’s “word” on the international stage. This stance clearly flies in the face of his pledge as candidate Obama to abandon unilateralism in favor of multilateralism as an axiom of U.S. foreign policy. In addition, many who supported Obama also saw him as the anecdote for the kind of muscular, testosterone approach represented by George Bush. It appears those perceptions were inaccurate.
Finally, and of paramount importance, the American people seem to have learned something from the costly and ill-conceived wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The war in Iraq was launched as an egoistic exercise by George W. Bush based on the outright lie that an already-militarily-defanged Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Afghanistan has proven to be an enormously costly nation-building commitment, despite the fact that Osama bin Laden is dead and the claims that al-Qaeda has been decimated. The words and warnings of Dr. King should have reverberated through President Obama’s consciousness as he praised him on August 28th on the National Mall. These wars have been like a “demonical destructive suction tube”, draining trillions of taxpayer dollars from addressing critical human and infrastructure needs in this country.
Given the State of Emergency in America’s “dark ghettos”, Black people in particular should have no use for a billion here and there dispensed to defend America’s ego. Indeed, the biggest threat to America’s stability and security today is massive inequality, the desperate plight of low-wage workers, the kind of individual and structural racism that led to the tragic death of Trayvon Martin, Stand Your Ground laws that encourage vigilantism with Blacks being the primary victims, Supreme Court decisions severely diluting affirmative action and decimating the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and voter suppression laws calculated to undermine Black voting power. These are the “clear and present dangers” President Obama should be focused on, not a “lone ranger”-style incursion into the quagmire in Syria!
Dr. Ron Daniels is President of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century and Distinguished Lecturer at York College (City University of New York). His articles and essays also appear on the IBW website (www.ibw21.org) and www.northstarnews.com . To send a message, arrange media interviews or speaking engagements, Dr. Daniels can be reached via e-mail at info@ibw21.org.
Robert Cornegy holds 94-vote edge over Kirsten Foy amid reports of voting machine irregularities
By Stephen Witt
On the morning after the election, Bed-Stuy residents remained in flux as to who will represent them in the City Council after Robert Cornegy declared victory after squeaking out a slim 94-vote victory over his nearest opponent Kirsten John Foy in the 36th District race.
And following a count of absentee and affidavit ballots later this week, the outcome of the election could possibly be settled by lawyers and a judge in the courts instead of by voters.
According to the unofficial tally, Cornegy received 4,138 votes to Foy’s 4,044 votes. Also receiving votes in the four-person race were Robert Waterman with 2,988 votes, Conrad Tillard with 1,858 votes and Reginald Swiney with 797 votes.
“The last time I checked you only need to win by one vote and we had more votes,” said Cornegy, who is the area’s district leader and has the backing of the term-limited current City Councilman Al Vann.
But Foy, who benefitted from the Real Estate Board of New York, who spent $274,852 in mailings for his campaign, including several negative mailings, said he is not conceding the election.
“It’s a very close race and it’s not over,” said Foy. “There are hundreds of absentee ballots and affidavit ballots, and reports of broken voting machines all over the place. My wife and I had to fill out affidavit ballots. It’s irresponsible for anyone to claim victory. We won’t know who won until next week.”
Cornegy responded that he was aware of problems with the voting machines, but most of the problems were at polling places that favored him.
“After the paper ballots are counted, I am relatively confident the vote will be the same,” said Cornegy, adding the matter should not be decided in the courts.
“This election should not be decided by any other entity but the people of the 36th City Council District, and anything at this point forward is a legal battle,” he said.
Both Waterman and Tillard conceded defeat and pledged to work with whoever ultimately wins for the better of the community.
Meanwhile, there were several reports of not only voting machine breakdowns, but of longtime polling places being closed. Among these was at PS 21, 180 Chauncey Street.
One district resident said her husband, who is a police officer, had voted at this polling place for years and when he arrived he found that it was no longer a polling place.
There were no signs or anything of where to go and he wound up not voting because he had to get to work, the resident said, adding it was the first time that her husband didn’t vote.
Several calls to the city’s Board of Elections were not returned at press time.
For the first time in living memory a challenger has defeated a sitting Brooklyn District Attorney. Ken Thompson received 92,358 (55%) votes against Charles Hynes, who got 74,292 (44%). “When we announced this campaign months ago, I said that I am running for Brooklyn District Attorney because I believe there is no higher honor than serving you in the pursuit of justice,” said Thompson during his victory speech. “I have never backed away from a tough fight. As DA, I will root out corruption without regard to political or special interest influence, and I will do what’s right even when it’s not politically popular. As district attorney, I will fight to bring transparency, honesty and accountability to the public sector to give Brooklynites the government we deserve. Ken Thompson defeated incumbent District Attorney Charles Hynes – one of New York City’s
Longest-serving top prosecutors – with an aggressive barrage of criticism for a series of wrongful prosecutions that led to several innocent men languishing in prison. Unlike Thompson, Hynes had a 24-year career to selectively attack. But Hynes had his own share of campaign missteps, including being forced to apologize during an editorial meeting with Hamodia, a Jewish newspaper, for (on occasion) referring to those who pressure sex abuse victims and their families within Orthodox communities as behaving like the “Mafia.” (During recent years, a split was growing in the Jewish community between those who support the prosecution of child sex abusers and those who abhor the prosecution of pedophiles among them. The split was evident by select endorsements and support for Thompson’s campaign.) In another misstep, a published report on that same editorial meeting quoted Hynes as saying, “The black community, by and large, is mine. Every black Assembly member, every black state senator, every black council member, all of the district leaders, all support me.”
In a 6-way Democratic Primary, Bill de Blasio emerged the front-runner with 259,753 votes (40%), normally enough to prevent a runoff. Bill Thompson, who received 169,361 votes (20%), has not yet conceded and called for every vote to be counted. Every voice in New York City counts and were going to wait for every voice to be heard,” said Thompson on Election night. We’re going to wait for every voice to be counted.”
Any potential runoff is contingent upon thousands of ballots yet to be counted from mailed absentee ballots, from those in the military and those whose names were not in the voter rolls. Affidavit and emergency ballots will be collected from the lever mechanical voting machines on
Friday and the Board of Elections will start counting on Monday. Council Speaker Christine Quinn experienced a spectacular defeat. Quinn was effusive with thanks to her family and campaign staff and volunteers in her concession speech, but what she neglected to do was apologize to the entire city for creating a contentious atmosphere after partnering with Bloomberg to engineer a third term for citywide offices despite two referendum (at the time) in favor of term limits. Public Advocate will see a runoff between Council member Letitia James (175,780,- 30%) and State Senator Daniel Squadron (161,113 – 33%), generating a runoff at a cost that will be higher than the entire annual Public Advocate budget.
Comptroller candidate Scott Stringer (287,168 – 51%) eked out a narrow win over Eliot Spitzer (255,297 – 48%). Despite his “steamroller” approach to destroying African-American institutions like the Black United Fund of New York, Spitzer was able to enter the race during the last week of petitioning and went on to generate a significant portion of the Black vote.
Spitzer spent millions self-financing his campaign and in a rare sign of genius, contracted with a new political consulting organization with ties to businessman Clarence Norman, former Brooklyn Democratic County Leader. Norman had demonstrated he retains his expertise and connections despite a relentless political prosecution from DA Hynes.
Former Brooklyn Democratic County Leader who was forced to resign from that post and his Assembly seat over sexual harassment allegations, Vito Lopez’s campaign for City Council and what remained of his political career went down in flames.
The 35th Council District remains too close to call between Robert Cornegy (4,138 – 20%) and Kirsten Foy (4,044 – 20%) with a 94-vote difference between them and may end up in court. Assemblywoman Inez Barron (43%) won election to her husband’s council seat, opening the door to her husband running for her seat, something Our Time Press predicted almost two years ago. This year’s slate of 6 challengers is no different than previous years when numerous candidates fight among themselves for the anti-(either) Barron vote. They’ll learn. Or maybe not.
Laurie Cumbo won with 35% of the vote to succeed Letitia James in the 36th Council seat.Darlene Mealy, Jumaane Williams and Mathieu Eugene won reelection with healthy margins.Haitian-American Mercedes Narcisse lost her bid to represent the increasingly Caribbean Canarsie district to Assemblyman Alan Maisel. During the final weeks of the campaign, Narcisse had charged that Jewish voters in the district were receiving campaign literature that depicted her in a negative racial light. On the Republican side, mayoral candidate Joe Lhota (29,905 – 52.63%) defeated John A. Catsimatidis (23,053 – 40.57%). Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 6-1 but Democratic primary voters are not representative of the whole city as evidenced by 8 years of Republican Rudy Giuliani and 12 years of Republican-turned-Independent Michael Bloomberg.
As Dr. Esmeralda Simmons, Executive Director of the Center for Law and Social Justice predicted, the old mechanical lever voting machines generated widespread voting problems across the city. At the PS 23 polling site, machine #93682 in the 11ED 56AD broke at 6:30pm with 106 votes on the counter. 52 voters had to use paper ballots to vote.
