Nation's Mayors Forsee Drastic Cuts To Their Budgets

 

D.C. Mayor Sends Donald Trump A Bold Message

From NBC News:

District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser on Friday had "Black Lives Matter" painted on the street that leads to the White House where protesters have been demonstrating following George Floyd’s death in police custody.

"There was a dispute this week about whose street this is," John Falcicchio, chief of staff for Bowser, a Democrat, said in a tweet. "Mayor Bowser wanted to make it abundantly clear that this is DC's street and to honor demonstrators who (were) peacefully protesting on Monday evening."

People were seen painting the words "Black Lives Matter" on Friday morning in large block letters in yellow across 16th street, which leads to Lafayette Square and the White House.

Bowser tweeted later in the morning that that particular section of 16th Street has been renamed "Black Lives Matter Plaza.". . .

This comes several days after Trump ordered the U.S. Park Police and National Guard troops forcefully removed demonstrators who were peacefully protesting outside the White House on Monday evening. The crowd was dispersed so Trump could walk out of the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church for a photo-op in which he held up a Bible.

Bowser blasted Trump for what occurred, tweeting, "I imposed a curfew at 7 pm. A full 25 minutes before the curfew & w/o provocation, federal police used munitions on peaceful protestors in front of the White House, an act that will make the job of@DCPoliceDept officers more difficult. Shameful! DC residents — Go home. Be safe."

The painting of the phrase Black Lives Matter came as Bowser shared a letter addressed to Trump from Thursday in which she requested that he withdraw "all extraordinary federal law enforcement and military presence from Washington, D.C." now that she has ended the state of emergency for the city and the Metropolitan Police Department didn't make any arrests on Wednesday night.

In Defense Of Removing Confederate Statues

Recently, New Orleans just removed the statues of Confederate heroes. This angered many racists throughout the country. But the mayor of that beautiful city, Mitch Landrieu (picture by Derek Bridges), gave a passionate speech in defense of removing those statues. He said:

The soul of our beloved City is deeply rooted in a history that has evolved over thousands of years; rooted in a diverse people who have been here together every step of the way – for both good and for ill.

It is a history that holds in its heart the stories of Native Americans: the Choctaw, Houma Nation, the Chitimacha. Of Hernando de Soto, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, the Acadians, the Islenos, the enslaved people from Senegambia, Free People of Color, the Haitians, the Germans, both the empires of Francexii and Spain. The Italians, the Irish, the Cubans, the south and central Americans, the Vietnamese and so many more.

You see: New Orleans is truly a city of many nations, a melting pot, a bubbling cauldron of many cultures.

There is no other place quite like it in the world that so eloquently exemplifies the uniquely American motto: e pluribus unum — out of many we are one.

But there are also other truths about our city that we must confront. New Orleans was America’s largest slave market: a port where hundreds of thousands of souls were brought, sold and shipped up the Mississippi River to lives of forced labor of misery of rape, of torture.

America was the place where nearly 4,000 of our fellow citizens were lynched, 540 alone in Louisiana; where the courts enshrined ‘separate but equal’; where Freedom riders coming to New Orleans were beaten to a bloody pulp.

So when people say to me that the monuments in question are history, well what I just described is real history as well, and it is the searing truth.

And it immediately begs the questions: why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame … all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans.

So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission.

There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it. For America and New Orleans, it has been a long, winding road, marked by great tragedy and great triumph. But we cannot be afraid of our truth.

As President George W. Bush said at the dedication ceremony for the National Museum of African American History & Culture, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”

So today I want to speak about why we chose to remove these four monuments to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, but also how and why this process can move us towards healing and understanding of each other.

So, let’s start with the facts.

The historic record is clear: the Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard statues were not erected just to honor these men, but as part of the movement which became known as The Cult of the Lost Cause. This ‘cult’ had one goal — through monuments and through other means — to rewrite history to hide the truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity.

First erected over 166 years after the founding of our city and 19 years after the end of the Civil War, the monuments that we took down were meant to rebrand the history of our city and the ideals of a defeated Confederacy.

It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America, They fought against it. They may have been warriors, but in this cause they were not patriots.

These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, and the terror that it actually stood for.

After the Civil War, these statues were a part of that terrorism as much as a burning cross on someone’s lawn; they were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city.

Should you have further doubt about the true goals of the Confederacy, in the very weeks before the war broke out, the Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, made it clear that the Confederate cause was about maintaining slavery and white supremacy.

He said in his now famous ‘Cornerstone speech’ that the Confederacy’s “cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

Now, with these shocking words still ringing in your ears, I want to try to gently peel from your hands the grip on a false narrative of our history that I think weakens us and make straight a wrong turn we made many years ago so we can more closely connect with integrity to the founding principles of our nation and forge a clearer and straighter path toward a better city and more perfect union.

Last year, President Barack Obama echoed these sentiments about the need to contextualize and remember all of our history. He recalled a piece of stone, a slave auction block engraved with a marker commemorating a single moment in 1830 when Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay stood and spoke from it.

President Obama said, “Consider what this artifact tells us about history … on a stone where day after day for years, men and women … bound and bought and sold and bid like cattle on a stone worn down by the tragedy of over a thousand bare feet. For a long time the only thing we considered important, the singular thing we once chose to commemorate as history with a plaque were the unmemorable speeches of two powerful men.”

A piece of stone – one stone. Both stories were history. One story told. One story forgotten or maybe even purposefully ignored.

As clear as it is for me today … for a long time, even though I grew up in one of New Orleans’ most diverse neighborhoods, even with my family’s long proud history of fighting for civil rights … I must have passed by those monuments a million times without giving them a second thought.

So I am not judging anybody, I am not judging people. We all take our own journey on race. I just hope people listen like I did when my dear friend Wynton Marsalis helped me see the truth. He asked me to think about all the people who have left New Orleans because of our exclusionary attitudes.

Another friend asked me to consider these four monuments from the perspective of an African American mother or father trying to explain to their fifth grade daughter who Robert E. Lee is and why he stands atop of our beautiful city. Can you do it?

Can you look into that young girl’s eyes and convince her that Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her? Do you think she will feel inspired and hopeful by that story? Do these monuments help her see a future with limitless potential? Have you ever thought that if her potential is limited, yours and mine are too?

We all know the answer to these very simple questions.

When you look into this child’s eyes is the moment when the searing truth comes into focus for us. This is the moment when we know what is right and what we must do. We can’t walk away from this truth.

And I knew that taking down the monuments was going to be tough, but you elected me to do the right thing, not the easy thing and this is what that looks like. So relocating these Confederate monuments is not about taking something away from someone else. This is not about politics, this is not about blame or retaliation. This is not a naïve quest to solve all our problems at once.

This is, however, about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile and, most importantly, choose a better future for ourselves, making straight what has been crooked and making right what was wrong.

Otherwise, we will continue to pay a price with discord, with division, and yes, with violence.

To literally put the confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor is an inaccurate recitation of our full past, it is an affront to our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future.

History cannot be changed. It cannot be moved like a statue. What is done is done. The Civil War is over, and the Confederacy lost and we are better for it. Surely we are far enough removed from this dark time to acknowledge that the cause of the Confederacy was wrong.

And in the second decade of the 21st century, asking African Americans — or anyone else — to drive by property that they own; occupied by reverential statues of men who fought to destroy the country and deny that person’s humanity seems perverse and absurd.

Centuries-old wounds are still raw because they never healed right in the first place.

Here is the essential truth: we are better together than we are apart. Indivisibility is our essence. Isn’t this the gift that the people of New Orleans have given to the world?

We radiate beauty and grace in our food, in our music, in our architecture, in our joy of life, in our celebration of death; in everything that we do. We gave the world this funky thing called jazz; the most uniquely American art form that is developed across the ages from different cultures.

Think about second lines, think about Mardi Gras, think about muffaletta, think about the Saints, gumbo, red beans and rice. By God, just think. All we hold dear is created by throwing everything in the pot; creating, producing something better; everything a product of our historic diversity.

We are proof that out of many we are one — and better for it! Out of many we are one — and we really do love it!

And yet, we still seem to find so many excuses for not doing the right thing. Again, remember President Bush’s words, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”

We forget, we deny how much we really depend on each other, how much we need each other. We justify our silence and inaction by manufacturing noble causes that marinate in historical denial. We still find a way to say “wait, not so fast.”

But like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “wait has almost always meant never.”

We can’t wait any longer. We need to change. And we need to change now. No more waiting. This is not just about statues, this is about our attitudes and behavior as well. If we take these statues down and don’t change to become a more open and inclusive society this would have all been in vain.

While some have driven by these monuments every day and either revered their beauty or failed to see them at all, many of our neighbors and fellow Americans see them very clearly. Many are painfully aware of the long shadows their presence casts, not only literally but figuratively. And they clearly receive the message that the Confederacy and the cult of the lost cause intended to deliver.

Earlier this week, as the cult of the lost cause statue of P.G.T Beauregard came down, world renowned musician Terence Blanchard stood watch, his wife Robin and their two beautiful daughters at their side.

Terence went to a high school on the edge of City Park named after one of America’s greatest heroes and patriots, John F. Kennedy. But to get there he had to pass by this monument to a man who fought to deny him his humanity.

He said, “I’ve never looked at them as a source of pride … it’s always made me feel as if they were put there by people who don’t respect us. This is something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime. It’s a sign that the world is changing.”

Yes, Terence, it is, and it is long overdue.

Now is the time to send a new message to the next generation of New Orleanians who can follow in Terence and Robin’s remarkable footsteps.

A message about the future, about the next 300 years and beyond; let us not miss this opportunity New Orleans and let us help the rest of the country do the same. Because now is the time for choosing. Now is the time to actually make this the City we always should have been, had we gotten it right in the first place.

We should stop for a moment and ask ourselves — at this point in our history, after Katrina, after Rita, after Ike, after Gustav, after the national recession, after the BP oil catastrophe and after the tornado — if presented with the opportunity to build monuments that told our story or to curate these particular spaces … would these monuments be what we want the world to see? Is this really our story?

We have not erased history; we are becoming part of the city’s history by righting the wrong image these monuments represent and crafting a better, more complete future for all our children and for future generations.

And unlike when these Confederate monuments were first erected as symbols of white supremacy, we now have a chance to create not only new symbols, but to do it together, as one people.

In our blessed land we all come to the table of democracy as equals.

We have to reaffirm our commitment to a future where each citizen is guaranteed the uniquely American gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

That is what really makes America great and today it is more important than ever to hold fast to these values and together say a self-evident truth that out of many we are one. That is why today we reclaim these spaces for the United States of America.

Because we are one nation, not two; indivisible with liberty and justice for all, not some. We all are part of one nation, all pledging allegiance to one flag, the flag of the United States of America. And New Orleanians are in, all of the way.

It is in this union and in this truth that real patriotism is rooted and flourishes.

Instead of revering a 4-year brief historical aberration that was called the Confederacy we can celebrate all 300 years of our rich, diverse history as a place named New Orleans and set the tone for the next 300 years.

After decades of public debate, of anger, of anxiety, of anticipation, of humiliation and of frustration. After public hearings and approvals from three separate community led commissions. After two robust public hearings and a 6-1 vote by the duly elected New Orleans City Council. After review by 13 different federal and state judges. The full weight of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government has been brought to bear and the monuments in accordance with the law have been removed.

So now is the time to come together and heal and focus on our larger task. Not only building new symbols, but making this city a beautiful manifestation of what is possible and what we as a people can become.

Let us remember what the once exiled, imprisoned and now universally loved  Nelson Mandela and what he said after the fall of apartheid. “If the pain has often been unbearable and the revelations shocking to all of us, it  is because they indeed bring us the beginnings of a common understanding of what happened and a steady restoration of the nation’s humanity.”

So before we part let us again state the truth clearly.

The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery. This is the history we should never forget and one that we should never again put on a pedestal to be revered.

As a community, we must recognize the significance of removing New Orleans’ Confederate monuments. It is our acknowledgment that now is the time to take stock of, and then move past, a painful part of our history. Anything less would render generations of courageous struggle and soul-searching a truly lost cause.

Anything less would fall short of the immortal words of our greatest President Abraham Lincoln, who with an open heart and clarity of purpose calls on us today to unite as one people when he said:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to do all which may achieve and cherish: a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Thank you.

NYPD Dishonored Their Job, Their Uniform, And Their City

(The cartoon image above is by Matt Wuerker at Politico.com.)

I spent more than 30 years working for the state of Texas -- and nearly 30 years of that service was in law enforcement. And throughout that service, there was a hard and fast rule that all state employees were required to adhere to -- they could not engage in any kind of political action while on duty, or while wearing a uniform designating them as a state employee. The reasoning behind that was that, while on duty or in uniform, we were representing the government (not ourselves) and government employees must be seen as being neutral on political matters. They must not give the impression that the government has taken sides in any political or social matter.

I always liked that rule. Because, especially for law enforcement, government employees must be perceived as treating every individual or group fairly -- and expressing any kind of political or social view destroys that perception and creates unneeded problems.

This does not mean a law enforcement official cannot express a political or social view. They have the same right as all other citizens to speak out or demonstrate (i.e., petition their government for a redress of grievances). They just must do that only when they are off duty and out of uniform. That makes it clear they are expressing their own personal opinion -- not the view of the city, state or federal government.

Many thousands of New York City Police Officers violated this basic principle of fairness in governing. They did it by turning their backs on the mayor at the funeral of a fallen officer. And many did it again at the funeral of the second fallen officer -- even after the Police Commissioner has requested (but not commanded) them to show respect for their job, their uniform, and their city by not repeating the action (an action that was very political). And it also showed a disrespect for the families of the fallen officers. The event was held to honor and mourn the fallen officers. It was NOT the time for a political demonstration.

Don't get me wrong. In my years of service, I met and worked with many honest and competent law enforcement officials -- men and women who adhered to the highest professional standards of conduct. And those men and women earned my respect and should have the respect of the community at large. But those NY officers who engaged in that political conduct while in uniform violated those professional standards -- and in doing so, they showed no respect for their job or the many thousands of law enforcement officials across the country. They should be ashamed of their conduct.

Let me add one more thought. The police expect the community to respect their authority when they are performing their legitimate duties. But how can that happen when they show public disrespect for the authorities in their city -- authorities who are just trying to perform their own legitimate duties?

NYC Poised For A Democratic Landslide

As the mayoral race in New York City draws near, Democratic candidate Bill de Blasio is looking at a landslide win he currently leads his Republican opponent, Joe Lhota, by about 45 points. Mr. de Blasio leads in all the boroughs of the city -- having 76% support in Manhattan and Bronx, 66% in Brooklyn, and 64% in Queens. He also leads among both genders, all age groups and ethnicities/races, and all education and income levels. here are those numbers:

Men...............64%
Women...............72%
18 to 29...............77%
30 to 44...............68%
45 to 64...............72%
65 & over...............62%
Whites...............55%
Blacks...............90%
Hispanics...............76%
College degree...............69%
No coll. degree...............67%
Under $50k...............75%
$50k-$100k...............72%
Over $100k...............63%

Mr. de Blasio is undoubtably a popular politician in the city, having a 62% favorability rating. But part of his huge lead could be due to the damage the Republican Party did to themselves in shutting down the government recently. About 47% of the NYC electorate said that had an effect on their decision, and the Republican Party is very unpopular in New York City right now.

All of the numbers used above are from the recent NY Times / Siena College Poll (conducted between October 21st and 26th of 701 likely New York City voters, and with a margin of error of 3.7 points).

Democrat Has Huge Lead In NYC Race

There's still a few weeks to go, but the first two polls show Democrat Bill de Blasio has a huge lead in the New York City mayor's race against Republican Joe Lhota and Independence Party candidate Adolfo Carrion. In the NBC/WSJ/Marist Poll (done on September 15th and 16th of 930 registered voters -- with a 3.2 point margin of error), de Blasio has a 43 point lead over Lhota and a 59 point lead over Carrion.

The Quinnipiac University Poll (done between September 15th and 18th of 891 likely voters -- with a 3.3 point margin of error) verifies that huge lead by de Blasio. Quinnipiac has him with a 41 point lead over Lhota and a 64 point lead over Carrion. I have included the demographic breakdown for the Quinnipiac poll to show that deBlasio leads by a large margin with every race, income level, gender, educational level and age group.

Lhota (and Carrion) have a very large mountain to climb just to get back in this race.

NYC Democrats Choose Their Candidates

(This beautiful image of New York City is by Daniel Schwen.)

The Democratic primary is over in New York City, and the mayor's race has come out just as predicted by the polls. Bill de Blasio is the big winner, and may even be able to avoid a run-off by getting 40% of the vote. With 97% of the precincts reporting, he has 40.2% of the vote. Here are the totals:

DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY (MAYOR)
97% reporting

Bill de Blasio...............255,265 (40.2%)
William Thompson...............165,540 (26.1%)
Christine Quinn...............98,168 (15.5%)
John Liu...............44,711 (7.0%)
Anthony Weiner...............31,161 (4.9%)

Meanwhile, in the race for NYC Comptroller, Scott Stringer has defeated Eliot Spitzer in a squeaker. Stringer's margin of victory was about 23,000 votes out of more than 540,000 votes cast. This gives some credence to the Quinnipiac University Poll, which had Stringer leading by a small margin going into the final days of the election. By comparison, the usually accurate Public Policy Polling had given the edge to Spitzer. Here are the numbers in the Comptroller race:

DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY (COMPTROLLER)
97% reporting

Scott Stringer...............283,152 (52.2%)
Eliot Spitzer...............259,740 (47.8%)

I must admit, I was a little surprised at the Comptroller race (even with the Quinnipiac numbers). I sort of expected Spitzer to pull it out. I was wrong.

But I was right about another prediction. I said it wouldn't surprise me if John Liu beat Anthony Weiner, even though Liu trailed him in the polls for the whole campaign -- and that's exactly what happened (by a pretty decent margin).

NOTE -- Joe Lhota won the Republican primary for mayor with 53% of the vote.

Last Polls On NYC Primary Races

Today the NYC Democrats will decide who they want to represent them in the races for mayor and comptroller -- and two final polls have come out on those races. The Quinnipiac University Poll was done between September 6th and 8th of 782 likely Democratic voters, and has a margin of error of 3.5 points. The Public Policy Polling survey was done on September 7th and 8th of 683 likely Democratic voters, with a margin of error of 3.8 points.

Both polls show that Bill de Blasio has a commanding lead in the mayor's race. The only question at this point is whether he will get 40% of the vote and avoid a run-off, or whether he will have to face Thompson or Quinn in a run-off election. Either way de Blasio looks like he will be the Democratic candidate for mayor (since he is far ahead of both his nearest competitors in proposed head-to-head match ups).

But the comptroller's race is a horse of a different color. This is still close, and either Spitzer or Stringer could win it. In fact, the two polls disagree on who is ahead. The Quinnipiac poll has Stringer ahead by 7 points, while the PPP poll has Spitzer ahead by 4 points. I guess the undecideds will decide this race when they finally make up their minds.

Latest Numbers In NYC Mayor Race

The latest Quinnipiac University Poll is out, and it is showing yet more movement in the race for mayor in the coming Democratic primary. The survey was done between August 28th and September 1st of 750 likely Democratic voters (with a 3.6 point margin of error) and 101 likely Republican voters (with a 9.8 point margin of error).

A week ago, Bill de Blasio had jumped in to lead in the Democratic race with 36% (to 21% for Quinn and 20% for Thompson). This latest poll shows he has now extended his lead to 43%, while Thompson has remained steady at 20% and Quinn has dropped another 3 points to 18%. Even if the poll's margin of error is considered, it looks like de Blasio now has a very good chance of avoiding a run-off by getting 40% of the vote. But even if a run-off is needed, the survey shows de Blasio would easily beat either of his closest competitors (with a 30 point lead over Thompson and a 41 point lead over Quinn in a two-person run-off).

This Quinnipiac University Poll, released yesterday, did not include any new numbers for the Democratic primary race for City Comptroller. But that doesn't mean nothing is happening in that race right now (which the last Quinnipiac poll had as dead even at 46% each between Eliot Spitzer and Scott Stringer).

Stringer has been trying to make hay out of Spitzers past dalliances with prostitutes, but last week the Spitzer campaign struck back. They revealed that Stringer had voted in the past to protect the tax-free status of Zymurgy. The problem with that is that Zymurgy is a front for the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) -- a group that promotes sexual relations between adults and children. In short, Stringer voted to continue tax-free status for an organization promoting pedophilia. Stringer spokeswoman Audrey Gelman tried to defend Stringer's vote by saying:

“He . . . voted on constitutional grounds that the Legislature should not be freely and subjectively revoking the nonprofit status of groups, (believing) it would be a slippery slope that could lead to targeting of group based on their political views.”


That may or may not be the real reason for the vote, but I can't believe the voters of New York City are going to approve of that. That revelation may be a lethal blow for Stringer's campaign. While visiting prostitutes, as Spitzer did, may not be approved of by voters, it is not nearly as bad as voting to give tax-free status to a group of pedophiles.

Meanwhile, on the Republican side, the poll shows that Joe Lhota leads the mayor's race by a large margin -- doubling the popularity of his nearest competitor, John Catsimatidis (48% to 24%). Lhota has led the race from the beginning, and looks to be the easy winner.

If I was a betting man (and fortunately I'm not), I wouldn't bet against de Blasio and Spitzer at this point -- or Lhota.

NYC Races Still Changing

There's just a little more than a week to go before the Democratic primary in New York City, and the races for mayor and for comptroller are still changing, according to the latest Quinnipiac University Poll (done between August 22nd and 27th of 602 likely primary voters -- with a margin of error of 4 points).

In the mayor's race, Bill de Blasio has once again extended his lead while his major opponents (Quinn and Thompson) seem stuck in the low twenties. Mr. de Blasio now has 36% of the likely vote, and with the 4 point margin of error, could actually reach the 40% level (which would give him the nomination without a run-off). But even if he does have to have a run-off with Quinn or Thompson, the Quinnipiac poll shows he would easily defeat either one -- 59% to 30% over Quinn, and 52% to 36% over Thompson.

But while a clear favorite is emerging in the mayor's race, the exact opposite is happening in the comptroller's race. It has devolved into a dead heat between Eliot Spitzer and Scott Stringer. Just two weeks ago, Spitzer had a 19 point lead and it looked like he was heading to a fairly easy victory. But all of that lead has disappeared, and the two candidates are now in a tie with 46% each. It looks like the 8% of undecided voters will decide the winner.

Both of these races have been very interesting to follow, and I can't wait to see how they come out on September 8th.

NOTE -- Anthony Weiner has now dropped down into single digits (8%) in the mayor's race. It wouldn't surprise me to see him get even less than that on election day (and possibly even lose to Mr. Liu, who has trailed him since he entered the race).

NYC Mayor Race Is Very Volatile

At this point there are a couple of things that can be said about the Democratic side of the New York City mayor's race. First, it is very volatile. There have been three different leaders in that race just since July 24th, and all of them had a lead larger than the Quinnipiac  University Poll margin of error (4.1 points). And the person who seems to be benefitting the most from the fall of Anthony Weiner is Bill de Blasio.

The latest Quinnipiac University Poll, taken of 579 likely Democratic primary voters between August 7th and 12th, shows de Blasio has now taken the lead (see top chart). Bill de Blasio now has 30% of the vote, while Christine Quinn has 24% and Bill Thompson has 22%. Anthony Weiner trails far behind with 10%, and John Liu has about 6%.

It now looks like it will come down to a run-off between two of three candidates -- deBlasio, Quinn, and Thompson. But with this race being so volatile, I'd be loath to pick which two will face off. There's still about three more weeks to go before the primary -- and that's an eternity considering how quickly the lead has been changing in this race.

As an admitted political junkie, I love these kind of contests.

Weiner Drops Like A Rock In NYC Race

For a while it looked like ex-congressman Anthony Weiner might be making a political comeback. A Quinnipiac University Poll in the middle of July had him leading the race for New York City Mayor -- three points ahead of his closest opponent, Christine Quinn. It seemed like the two would be battling it out in a Democratic primary run-off, since William Thompson and Bill de Blasio were both double-digits behind the two leaders.

But three weeks later, the bottom has fallen out of Weiner's campaign. NYC voters were turned off after learning that Weiner had continued his sexual peccadilloes after resigning his congressional seat. An August 8th New York Times/Siena College Poll shows Weiner has dropped from 25% to only 10%, and is currently trailing all three of the other leading candidates. It is only his obstinance that is keeping him in the race, since he has no chance of making any run-off now. There's still a month to go before the primary in early September, but it's hard to see Weiner making another comeback after the recent revelations.

Interestingly enough, Weiner's drop out of contention doesn't seem to have helped Ms. Quinn very much. She now leads the race, but is headed for a run-off with either Thompson or de Blasio -- both of whom benefitted from Weiner's fall from grace.

Bloomberg On Guns

I am not a big fan of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and if I lived there I seriously doubt that I could ever bring myself to vote for him. For one thing, he's all over the map politically -- going from being a Democrat to a Republican, and then when the bloom came off the Republican rose he started calling himself an Independent. But the main problem I have against him is his concerted efforts to deny the Wall Street Occupiers their constitutional rights to freedom of assembly and free speech.

But every now and then, this rather strange political animal and die-hard member of the 1% does something to make me think he may not be a totally hopeless case after all. Just a few days ago, Bloomberg reacted to the politicization of the Komen Foundation by donating $250,000 to Planned Parenthood. That's just a drop in the bucket compared to his total wealth, but it was still a good and decent thing for him to do -- and I applaud his gesture.

Another area where he comes off sounding like a reasonable human being is when he talks about guns. This is what he had to say about guns on Meet The Press:

You’d think that if a congresswoman got shot in the head, that would have changed Congress’ views. I can tell you how to change it, just get Congress to come with me to the hospital when I’ve got tell tell somebody that their son or daughter, their spouse, their parent is not going to come home again. This past, this week, even though the murder rate in New York is so much lower than almost every big city, we still had a cop shot last week with a gun that somebody had even though the federal laws prohibited that person from having a gun.


You know, the federal laws say you can’t get a gun if you have a drug problem, psychiatric problems, criminal record or [if you are] a minor. And yet Congress doesn’t give moneys to make sure we can have a background check. They have too many loopholes. The background databases aren’t up to date. Private sector sales of guns are something like 40 percent and they don’t do background checks, I don’t know who has to get killed for people to start saying ‘wait a second, this is enough.’

What he has to say is very reasonable. He's not calling for changing or eliminating the Second Amendment. He's not even asking for any new laws that might restrict the rights of the average American to own a firearm. He's just asking that the nation (and the states) enforce the laws that are already on the books, and fully fund those enforcement efforts.

I have to agree with Mayor Bloomberg on this issue. Laws are useless unless they are enforced, and they cannot be enforced until the funds for enforcement are available. Our nation has decided (and even many NRA members agree) that there are some Americans who should not be allowed to own guns -- like convicted felons and the dangerously mentally ill. But while a structure has been put in place to accomplish this, it is not fully enforced. This must change.

A failure to enforce the laws already on the books doesn't just put political leaders in danger -- it puts all Americans in danger. That is inexcusable.

REPENT AMARILLO Leader Is Crushed In City Election

David Grisham is a self-appointed preacher (and unemployed security guard). He is also the leader of a tiny organization called Repent Amarillo. He and his few followers have received national news coverage for trying to burn a Quran (he failed) and for a YouTube video showing them shooting a blow-up Santa doll (he thinks Santa is a heathen). They have also picketed (and threatened) community people, bands, and organizations they think are "sinful".

Recently, Grisham (pictured) became a candidate for mayor of Amarillo. Several national blogs and others got upset at this. They seemed to think that in an area as conservative and religious as the Texas Panhandle Grisham would actually have a chance of winning the city election. They need not have worried. While Amarillo is a very red area (and very religious), it is not filled with people as insane as Grisham.

That city election was held yesterday, and Grisham finished in tenth place out of eleven candidates. He could not even get 100 votes (and you know his followers all went to the polls). In a city of nearly 200,000 people that's a pretty pitiful showing. In fact, the transgendered woman who ran for mayor got about four times as many votes as Grisham did. You know that has to chap his bigoted butt!

Here are the results of the mayoral election:

Paul Harpole...............11,428 (77%)
(establishment candidate)

Roy D. McDowell...............1,867 (13%)

Sandra Dunn...............387 (3%)
(transgendered candidate)

Drew Alexander...............300 (2%)

Steve Dawson...............221 (1%)

Jim Brokenbek...............141 (1%)

Rodney Johnson...............125 (1%)

Ryan Vigil...............116 (1%)

Grady Traves...............104 (1%)

David Grisham...............98 (1%)
(Repent Amarillo nut-job) 

William Jean...............23 (1%)

So anyone who was worried that Grisham and his Repent Amarillo cohorts were some kind of growing social movement can rest easy. They are far closer to social outcasts, and the election has exposed just how tiny and ineffectual they really are. They basically had their heads handed to them by the people of Amarillo.

In other election news, it looks like the city's monied establishment had a very good night. Their candidate, Paul Harpole, won the mayor's race easily with about 77% of the total vote. I can't say that was unexpected since there really wasn't a strong candidate in the field to oppose him.

I was disappointed in the "single member districts" proposition outcome though. Amarillo is far too large to still be electing city commissioners at-large, but the proposition to create single-member districts was badly defeated (11,116 to 3,517). The establishment had run TV commercials with the mayor saying property taxes would double if single-member districts were created. It was a lie and made no sense, but evidently the scare tactic worked. It looks like it's going to take a court order to get this changed and spread the political power to all parts of the city.

And of course, the election was held on electronic voting machines with no paper trail. So there's no way to know if the votes were counted as cast (and no way to do a recount). That needs to be changed. It'll probably have to take a court order to change that too, since the Republican city leaders see no problem with it (because they control it).

Bigotry In Mayoral Race ?

A few days ago I posted about a new candidate that entered the race for mayor here in Amarillo. That candidate was a transgendered woman named Sandra Dunn -- at least that is the name she is living under and the name she is called by all her friends and acquaintances. But it seems that that name is not acceptable to the powers that control Amarillo elections.

It seems that while Ms. Dunn is living as Sandra Dunn she has not completed the legal court process to officially change her name. Now the election officials are saying she must use her old name on the ballot. They said it was a state law and they tossed her off the ballot. OK, maybe that's true. Ms. Dunn complied with their wishes and completed new paperwork to get on the ballot. She filed as F.E. (Sandra Dunn) Dunaway.

But that was not good enough for the election officials either. Now they don't like the space between Sandra and Dunn. What the hell!? They don't like a space? That sounds more than a little picky to me. If she takes the space out, which she probably will do, what are they going to find to complain about next?

This is one of the reddest cities in Texas, and its chock full of right-wing fundamentalists (who are probably horrified at Dunn's candidacy). I hope this isn't just the start of repeated efforts to keep her off the ballot. I may be wrong, but it's starting to have the rancid smell of bigotry.

Transgendered Woman In Amarillo Mayor's Race

It took a little while, but it looks like the race for mayor in Amarillo has finally gotten interesting enough to pay some attention to it. When Mayor Debra McCart announced nearly a month ago that she would not be running for another term, only one candidate instantly jumped in the race to replace her. Car salesman Paul Harpole announced he would be running only days after McCart's announcement.

Harpole looks to be the establishment candidate. He is an ex-member of the city commission, and he supports the actions of the current city commission (and mayor). He is also opposed to Amarillo going to a system of electing city commission members by single member districts. He wants to keep the current system where all members are elected at-large (and therefore all wind up coming from the same wealthy and white part of town -- even though non-Hispanic whites only make up 52% of the city's population, and that percentage drops sharply again when you consider many of the city's whites are not wealthy). He is happy with a small group of people controlling the city government.

For a couple of weeks it looked like Harpole might be the only candidate. But last week David Grisham, security guard and head of the tiny ultra-fundamentalist group Repent Amarillo, tossed his hat into the ring. You may remember him as the nutjob that tried to burn a Quran in a local park last September. He was dousing it with lighter fluid when a man walked up and snatched it away -- ruining Grisham's publicity stunt and making him look like the fool he really is.

The only good thing I can say about Grisham is that he supports single-member districts for the city commission (which is badly needed in a city the size of Amarillo). But Grisham is such an ultra-fundamentalist religious nut that he makes normal fundamentalists look downright liberal. There is little doubt that he would try to turn the city government into a mini-theocracy, and get the city involved in some costly and futile court battles.

Things were looking pretty grim. I didn't want to support the establishment candidate who wanted to keep the status quo, but I couldn't vote for the religious nut either. Thank goodness a third candidate entered the race yesterday, and it looks like a reasonable candidate that I can happily and whole-heartedly support.

That candidate is 53 year-old Sandra Dunn (pictured above). Dunn is a transgendered woman, but says she hopes her lifestyle choice doesn't become a distraction during the campaign (and she has no intention of forcing her choice on others). She just wants the city run in a reasonable progressive fashion.

Dunn is in favor of single-member districts. She also supports the renovation of the downtown area but with a few changes -- like less uniformity. She said she supports real sex education, and wants to try and reduce teen pregnancies. And she opposes a city-wide smoking ban (which Amarillo voters have rejected at least twice in the recent past). Frankly, that sounds like a platform I can support without reservation. She is undoubtably the best of the three candidates.

Dunn doesn't have a lot of money to spend on her campaign, and will probably be vastly outspent by the establishment candidate. Instead, she is basing her hopes on a city-wide door-to-door campaign. I wish her well. It probably doesn't mean much, but Sandra Dunn has the support of this blog.

Sex Offender Mayor Does It Again !

Last November, I wrote about the mayor of the Texas city of Poteet, a small town of 3600 people about 30 miles south of San Antonio. The mayor, Lino Donato, had just pled guilty to two counts of Indecency By Exposure (Child) and one count of Indecency By Contact (Child). He was given deferred adjudication, placed on probation and required to register as a sex offender.

Although Donato had pled guilty and was now a registered sex offender, the county attorney ruled that he didn't have to resign because he was given deferred adjudication instead of a final verdict. Doanto refused to resign. At that time, I called upon the people of Poteet to remove this pedophile with a recall election.

I don't know why, but the mayor was not recalled. Maybe the people felt sorry for him, or maybe they felt he was innocent (even though he had pled guilty). In any event, they allowed him to remain mayor of their city. Now, it looks like that was a mistake.

The mayor has done it again. On Monday, a grand jury in Atascosa County indicted Mayor Donato on three new child sex offenses -- all of them felonies. He is now charged with Aggravated Sexual Assault, Indecency By Contact (Child) and Attempted Indecency By Contact (Child).

The mayor's term does not expire until 2009, but I again call on the citizens of Poteet to petition for a recall election. Do you really want a pedophile as your mayor? Do you enjoy being the laughingstock of the Lone Star State?

Sex Offender Running For Mayor

The city of Wilmer has a population of about 3,500 and covers 6.3 square miles in southern Dallas County, just south of the city of Dallas. This suburban community is not a place you would expect to find a registered sex offender running for political office. But that is exactly what is happening.

James Brian Sliter, 42, is running for the office of mayor of Wilmer. He says his friends talked him into running for public office. But Sliter is a registered sex offender who is currently serving out a 10-year probation.

Back in 2004, Sliter arranged to have sex with what he thought was a 15 year-old girl. But when he showed up to consummate the illegal act, he was arrested by police. He had been caught in an internet "sting" operation.

You may ask how a registered sex offender who is currently on probation could be running for office. If he had been convicted of the offense, he couldn't. But he accepted a deferred adjudication and agreed to the 10-year probation (and agreed to register as a sex offender).

The deferred adjudication does not count as a conviction -- but rather a deferral of his trial for the crime. That means he can run for mayor, even though he is a registered sex offender on probation. Technically, he has not been convicted of a crime.

He may not have been technically convicted, but I can't believe the residents of Wilmer want a registered sex offender serving as their mayor -- especially one who must report regularly to a probation officer!

The election is set for May 10th, and Sliter has two opponents, including current mayor Don Hudson. We'll have to keep an eye on this one.

Registered Sex Offender Won't Resign As Mayor

It looks like the city of Poteet has a problem. Poteet is a city of about 3600 people located about 30 miles south of San Antonio. Although it's not a large city, it does have a rather large problem. Its mayor is a registered sex offender.

Last week, Mayor Lino Donato pled guilty to two charges of Indecency by Exposure and one count of Indecency by Contact. The victims of his crimes were children. The mayor was given deferred adjudication and placed on probation. He is required to register as a sex offender.

It originally looked like he was going to do the right thing. He called a meeting for Wednesday to announce his resignation. But then he changed his mind and cancelled the meeting. Now he says he is not going to resign. Unbelievably, the City Attorney said he doesn't have to resign since he got "deferred adjudication", and technically that doesn't count as a conviction.

This whole thing is just sick. He stopped the trial and pled guilty to prevent the details of his sex abuse of two young girls from becoming public. Now he wants to sweep it under the rug, and go on like nothing happened. But deferred adjudication or not, the man is a REGISTERED SEX OFFENDER!

I can't believe the citizens of Poteet want to have a registered sex offender (and pedophile) as their mayor. If he will not do the decent thing and resign, then he should be removed. It's not like he was innocent -- he pled guilty!

Looks like it's time for a recall election in Poteet.