Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric
There are portions of Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric are just painful to watch. There is no way she is ready to be VP, let alone president.
Stories from
Sarah Palin going to school, avoiding questions
Sarah Palin is on the fast track in foreign policy education. Tuesday, she meet with heads of state at the U.N. and was briefed by non-other than Henry Kissenger.
Yet, she continues to duck reporters.
The candidate's staff carefully choreographed her debut onto the international stage, starting each meeting with a brief photo opportunity and allowing no questions. Unscripted moments were kept to a minimum.
At first, the campaign wanted to keep reporters out altogether. But after the five major television networks threatened to boycott coverage of the Palin meetings, a pool that included a print journalist eventually was allowed in.
Palin's press shyness is odd, because John McCain's entire career has been built on candor and openness with the press. He is popular with reporters because he's never been afraid to hang out at the back of the plane, or the back of the bus and tell war stories and answer questions. He's been known as one of the most accessible senators.
Yet, Palin hides. Why? Or, what is it that John McCain has to hide?
There's only one reason you don't answer questions: You're afraid.
Los Angeles Times blogger Elizabeth Snead calls it "the cone of silence" around Palin.
McCain's camp has put a force field around the Alaska governor in recent weeks, and some in the media speculate that this is to keep her from dealing with unscripted questions from voters and reporters.
And it was even worse during these diplomacy sessions. Reporters were actually banned from the start of the meetings to stop them from asking questions of Palin.
Before Palin's first meeting with Karzai, campaign aides told the pool reporters that followed her they could not go into meetings but that photographers and a video camera crew would be let in for pictures.
President Bush and members of Congress routinely allow reporters to attend photo ops, and the reporters often ask questions at the beginning of private meetings before they're ushered out.
Not this time. Two or more news organizations, including the Associated Press, objected to their reporters' exclusion and were told that the decision was not subject to discussion. When aides backed down, campaign spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt said the reporter ban was a "miscommunication."
Finally, one reporter was let in.
Is this any way to run a campaign in a democracy?
Episcopal priest dismissed after sexual harrassment claim can proceed with lawsuit
Somehow, we missed this story when it hit the Buffalo News a few days ago: A judge has rulled that Rev. Simon B. Howson, 42, the former rector of Batavia’s St. James Episcopal Church, can proceed with his lawsuit against the Diocese.
Howson claims that he was dismissed from his job after making a sexual harrassment claim against another priest.
Fleming on Friday said the job dispute involves attempts earlier this decade by an admitted homosexual Episcopalian priest now serving in Massachusetts, who used Howson as a spiritual adviser in Batavia, to have sex with Howson, who is heterosexual but unmarried.
Diocesan attorney Brendan P. Kelleher asked the judge to summarily dismiss Howson’s lawsuit on the claim that the dispute is a purely religious controversy to be handled only by church authorities. Fleming argued that Howson’s dispute involves the state Human Rights Law.
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Howson was suspended in October 2004 because of allegations about stealing church funds, forging church documents and misrepresenting himself. In August 2007, the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York announced that his priestly rights were revoked and he was removed from the priesthood. Thursday, Fleming stressed to Michalek that all the allegations the bishop lodged against Howson were “false” and called the bishop’s actions against Howson “crazy, outrageous and disingenuous.” Fleming told the judge he personally deposed the admittedly homosexual priest recently in Massachusetts and confirmed that priest’s “sexual harassment” of his client.
Howson, "now a hospital chaplain with limited religious duties in the Fresno, Calif., area," is seeking $300,000 in restitution and reinstatment as a priest.
McCain has long history of blocking open investigation into missing POWs
Author and Vietnam War expert Sydney H. Schanberg has been following John McCain's fight against full disclosure on missing POWs from Vietnam for decades. He supplies a full write up on the history for AlterNet.
The sum of the secrets McCain has sought to hide is not small. There exists a telling mass of official documents, radio intercepts, witness depositions, satellite photos of rescue symbols that pilots were trained to use, electronic messages from the ground containing the individual code numbers given to airmen, a rescue mission by a Special Forces unit that was aborted twice by Washington and even sworn testimony by two defense secretaries that "men were left behind." This imposing body of evidence suggests that a large number -- probably hundreds -- of the US prisoners held in Vietnam were not returned when the peace treaty was signed in January 1973 and Hanoi released 591 men, among them Navy combat pilot John S. McCain.
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Throughout the Paris negotiations, the North Vietnamese tied the prisoner issue tightly to the issue of reparations. Finally, in a February 1, 1973, formal letter to Hanoi's premier, Pham Van Dong, Nixon pledged $3.25 billion in "postwar reconstruction" aid. The North Vietnamese, though, remained skeptical about the reparations promise being honored (it never was). Hanoi thus held back prisoners -- just as it had done when the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and withdrew their forces from Vietnam. France later paid ransoms for prisoners and brought them home.
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On November 11, 1992, Dolores Alfond, sister of missing airman Capt. Victor Apodaca and chair of the National Alliance of Families, an organization of relatives of POW/MIAs, testified at one of the Senate committee's public hearings. She asked for information about data the government had gathered from electronic devices used in a classified program known as PAVE SPIKE.
The devices were primarily motion sensors, dropped by air, designed to pick up enemy troop movements. But they also had rescue capabilities. Someone on the ground -- a downed airman or a prisoner on a labor gang -- could manually enter data into the sensor, which were regularly collected electronically by US planes flying overhead. Alfond stated, without any challenge from the committee, that in 1974, a year after the supposedly complete return of prisoners, the gathered data showed that a person or people had manually entered into the sensors -- as US pilots had been trained to do -- "no less than 20 authenticator numbers that corresponded exactly to the classified authenticator numbers of 20 US POW/MIAs who were lost in Laos." Alfond added, says the transcript: "This PAVE SPIKE intelligence is seamless, but the committee has not discussed it or released what it knows about PAVE SPIKE."
McCain, whose POW status made him the committee's most powerful member, attended that hearing specifically to confront Alfond because of her criticism of the panel's work. He bellowed and berated her for quite a while. His face turning anger-pink, he accused her of "denigrating" his "patriotism." The bullying had its effect -- she began to cry.
After a pause Alfond recovered and tried to respond to his scorching tirade, but McCain simply turned and stormed out of the room. The PAVE SPIKE file has never been declassified. We still don't know anything about those 20 POWs.
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It's not clear whether the taped confession McCain gave to his captors to avoid further torture has played a role in his postwar behavior. That confession was played endlessly over the prison loudspeaker system at Hoa Lo -- to try to break down other prisoners -- and was broadcast over Hanoi's state radio. Reportedly, he confessed to being a war criminal who had bombed a school and other civilian targets. The Pentagon has copies of the confessions but will not release them. Also, no outsider I know of has ever seen a nonredacted copy of McCain's debriefing when he returned from captivity, which is classified but can be made public by McCain.
Before the election, before John McCain can become president, if he's fortunate enough to win, shouldn't all of his service records be released?
Jermaine Curtis HR caught on video
Just found this video from he first game of the NY-P Championship in Jamestown. The only real interesting part is at 2:35 in or so and you can see Jermaine Curtis hit his game-winning home run.
Here's another video of the final out of the championship.
Interview with coordinator of DWI Victim Impact Panel
Found on YouTube, two-video interview with Mike Laycock the VIP coordinator of the DWI Victim Impact Panel.
NOTE: If you are your community group do a video like this and want to share it with the community, you can upload your video to YouTube and then create your own blog post on The Batavian.
Proposed trail would connect Byron and Churchville
The town of Riga and the village of Churchville have developmed a comprehensive plan for the communities' future. That wouldn't be of much interest locally, accept for this bit from the D&C story:
One interesting proposal is the development of a trail system along the Westshore Railroad right of way. Riga and Churchville have teamed with Monroe County and Byron and Bergen in Genesee County in a joint effort to secure funding for a feasibility study. The new trail would begin at the western townline of Byron and end in the central business district of Churchville. The money for the study is coming from the Genesee Transportation Council, a regional organization that oversees the administration and funding of all federal aid transportation projects.
New trails are good.
Graham Corp. board member donates $1 million to Rochester art gallery
Helen H. Berkeley, the widow of Frederick D. Berkeley III, the former CEO of Batavia-based Graham Corp. (AMEX: GHM) has donated $1 million to the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester.
The donation is intended to transform the gallery's antiquities collection into a showcase of Near and Middle Eastern treasures.
"I've traveled a lot in the Middle East," said Berkeley, former president of the museum's Gallery Council, a volunteer fundraising organization. "You could call me a frustrated archaeologist. I'm delighted to have the opportunity to help with this gallery."
Her gift is one of the largest that the museum has ever received from a single donor.
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The future Berkeley Gallery of Ancient Art probably won't debut until November 2009, said chief curator Marjorie B. Searl. Most of the construction will take place next summer — new cabinetry, lighting, humidity controls and alterations to the ceiling and walls. The space already is heavily trafficked by Rochester students on field trips.
"We're looking to provide better interpretation for these ancient collections," said Searl. "In the new gallery, students will understand more about their significance. These user-friendly displays will be integrated into their school programming."
Helen H. Berkeley is a member of the Graham Corp. board of directors.
Lowe's set to open next month
From the D&C:
Lowe's will open its sixth area store in Batavia, Genesee County, on Oct. 18.
The new home-improvement store, at 4180 Veteran's Memorial Drive, has 117,000 square feet of retail space, with an adjacent garden center.
Alice Kryzan's position on financial crisis and bail outs
We asked both canidates for the 26th Congressional District for their positions on the Wall Street bail outs.
First to respond is Alice Kryzan. Her campaign sent over the following press release:
Amherst, NY – The financial markets have undergone a severe shock in the last few days. Risky speculation in a deregulated market led to a crash, bringing calls from Washington to have government bail out financial institutions. But where have these same voices been while millions of hardworking Americans have suffered through their own financial crises, facing stagnating wages and fewer jobs with rising housing and energy costs?
As she has from the beginning of her campaign, Alice Kryzan, Democratic Congressional Candidate for NY-26, decried this ‘same old same old politic’, calling for political leaders to start putting the people’s interests first;
“We don’t need oil lobbyists writing our energy policy, insurance companies making our medical decisions, or financial institutions taking huge risks and then asking Americans to foot the bill. We can’t have two more years of these failed Bush policies, two more years of fewer jobs, stagnated wages and work sent overseas. We need someone ready to help us realize our future, not cling to the knee-jerk deregulation rhetoric of the past.”
Alice called on Congress to act quickly to stabilize the market in order to ensure hardworking Americans don’t lose their homes or other assets. But she also insisted that any legislation include accountability measures to improve financial regulation and ensure this disaster is not repeated. Furthermore, taxpayers should receive their fair share of any profits these companies make after being bailed out, CEO compensation should be limited, and Congress should give homeowners the assistance they need to protect their homes. And, of course, any efforts to stabilize the market should have independent oversight to ensure the job is done right.
Alice expressed disappointment that so many politicians refuse to grapple with the serious issues facing our country;
“People are tired of candidates who only offer platitudes and quick fixes. Whether it’s offshore drilling that increases oil companies’ profits without lowering gas prices or writing a blank check to the financial market to protect CEO’s record salaries, the public has had enough. We need people with real solutions who we can trust to go to Washington and get results.”
We left off the final paragraph, which characterizes Republican Chris Lee's position. We'll let Chris Lee speak for himself, if he chooses to do so.
Two links worth reading related to financial crisis
Here's two interesting perspectives on the current financial crisis. Both articles spread the blame around -- both administrations, the Fed, Wall Street and Congress.
- Alexander Cockburn writing for CounterPunch.
- In the Washington Post: Calling Out the Culprits Who Caused the Crisis
UPDATE: Contrary to positions put forth in the two links above is this post from Megan McArdle. She shoots down the notion that repeal of Glass-Steagall is a root cause of the current crisis.
Devastating Antii-McCain Ad
It wouldn't be devestating if it weren't true.
Patrick Buchanan: Watching the end of empire
For years, we Americans have spent more than we earned. We save nothing. Credit card debt, consumer debt, auto debt, mortgage debt, corporate debt -- all are at record levels. And with pensions and savings being wiped out, much of that debt will never be repaid.
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Up through World War II, we followed the Hamiltonian idea that America must remain economically independent of the world in order to remain politically independent.
But this generation decided that was yesterday's bromide and we must march bravely forward into a Global Economy, where we all depend on one another. American companies morphed into "global companies" and moved plants and factories to Mexico, Asia, China and India, and we began buying more cheaply from abroad what we used to make at home: shoes, clothes, bikes, cars, radios, TVs, planes, computers.
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At home, propelled by tax cuts, war in Iraq and an explosion in social spending, surpluses vanished and deficits reappeared and began to rise. The dollar began to sink, and gold began to soar.
Yet, still, the promises of the politicians come. Barack Obama will give us national health insurance and tax cuts for all but that 2 percent of the nation that already carries 50 percent of the federal income tax load.
John McCain is going to cut taxes, expand the military, move NATO into Georgia and Ukraine, confront Russia and force Iran to stop enriching uranium or "bomb, bomb, bomb," with Joe Lieberman as wartime consigliere.
Who are we kidding?
What we are witnessing today is how empires end.
The Last Superpower is unable to defend its borders, protect its currency, win its wars or balance its budget. Medicare and Social Security are headed for the cliff with unfunded liabilities in the tens of trillions of dollars.
New commercials from Lee, Kryzan in race for the 26th
New Alice Kryzan commercial:
New Chris Lee commercial:
At least they're not attacking each other. Yet.
This Week: Round table on economy and presidential race
Here is a portion of the This Week round table on Obama, McCain and the financial bail out. Watch for conservative pundit George Will to slam McCain.
Bringing back Nation and World
We tried this once before: A secton on the site for blog posts about issues in the nation/world outside of Genesee County.
It didn't get a lot of traction, but then I didn't configure it right and it was hard to post to and leave comments.
But we've done some political posts recently that have gotten a good deal of attention, so I thought -- let's see if we can do it better this time.
There is once again a "Nation and World" tab on the top navigation. First post: About Barack Obama's foreign policy.
If you want to post something in that category, tag your post "nation and world" and it will show up on that page as soon as you save the post.
We used to do some headline aggregation on the home page of nation, world and political headlines. It doesn't seem to have been missed since we dropped it, but we might give the same idea a try on the "Nation and World" page, but this time the headlines will appear mixed in with posts. I'll do a couple shortly so you can see what I mean.
Why would a locally focused site include such non-local news and commentary. Well, three reasons:
- The Batavian readers have shown some interest;
- Studies/survey's show that people who are interested in local news are almost always interested in non-local news, also;
- When we say "Online News. Community Views." we mean that we think when people sharing the same community are interested in what fellow community members think on a broad range of topics.
Graham Corp. receives $50,000 grant from state
Batavia-based Graham Corp. (AMEX: GHM) received a $50,000 grant from the Empire Development board this week, according to a press release.
No word on the grant will be used. We'll see what we can find out Monday.
The grant was part of $67 million package of funds handed out by the agency. The funds are intended to spur economic growth.
Other area grants include:
- One Aid to Localities grant, totaling $150,000, to World Trade Center Buffalo Niagara for salaries and wages associated with outreach and service efforts in the twelve-county Western New York and the Finger Lakes region
- $50,000 to the Livingston County Agricultural Society and Fair
- $50,000 for Erie County Industrial Development Agency (Erie County)
- $25,600 for Qualicoat Inc. (Monroe County)
Graham was recently named one of Business Week's top 100 small companies. In Q2 2008, Graham reported $27.5 million in revenue and a 20 percent net profit margin. Graham employs 281 people. It's stock currently trades at $69.63.
