Memorial Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May (May 30 in 2011). Formerly known as Decoration Day, it commemorates men and women who died while in military service to the United States.[1] First enacted to honor Union and Confederate soldiers following the American Civil War,[2] it was extended after World War I to honor Americans who have died in all wars.
Oswego County Clerk George Williams and Bernard Owens, the owner of Info Quick Solutions, Inc., of Liverpool have both acknowledged a 30-year friendship and that relationship now appears to have the attention of federal investigators.Oswego, NY -- The FBI has subpoenaed the Oswego County Clerk’s office for a decade’s worth of records detailing the relationship between the office and Info Quick Solutions, a Clay company that has done hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of business with the county.
An FBI agent came in May 13 with a subpoena, said County Clerk George Williams. Williams said he was out when the agent arrived but Deputy Clerk Georgiana Mansfield accepted the subpoena.
WASHINGTON -- A new poll released Saturday by the Siena (College) Research Institute on the upcoming special election in New York's 26th Congressional District shows Democrat Kathy Hochul leading Republican Jane Corwin by four percentage points (42 to 38), with independent candidate Jack Davis trailing at 12 percent.
The election will choose a replacement to Rep. Chris Lee (R), who resigned earlier this year after Lee was caught sending topless photos of himself to a woman on Craigslist.
Republicans have a party registration advantage in the 26th District and the slight Democratic edge on the Siena poll is a big change from the elections of 2008 and 2010 in which Lee defeated Democratic opponents by margins of 14 and 48 percentage points respectively. The race is complicated by a third candidate, former Democrat candidate and businessman Jack Davis who is running on the Tea Party line on the special election ballot.
Yesterday evening, Republican opposition prevented the Senate from moving forward with a bill to eliminate $4 billion-a-year tax breaks for the most profitable oil and gas companies in the U.S. By a vote of 52-48, Republicans sank this measure that would have ended taxpayer funding for companies that obviously know how to turn a profit without government help.
The vote represented a line drawn in the sand. As American families continue to pay record prices at the pump, Democrats are fighting for tax fairness, responsibility in government spending, and relief for those who need it. And Republicans also made their allegiance clear – they stand with oil and gas companies.
Officials from the office of Rep. William Owens, D-Plattsburgh, will have mobile office hours this week in Oswego and Madison counties. Residents will be able to stop into the mobile offices to discuss issues at the following times and places:
Oswego County: 9 a.m. to noon May 18, Hannibal town clerk's office, 824 County Route 34, Hannibal; 1 to 4 p.m. May 18, Fulton Public Library, 160 S. First St., Fulton.
WASHINGTON -- The House of Representatives has signed a contract to pay a law firm up to $500,000 (and possibly more) to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in federal court. But there's a problem with this arrangement: No one seems to know where that money is going to come from, and at least one lawmaker believes House Republicans may be violating federal law. In March, the House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group (BLAG) voted along party lines to defend DOMA, the federal law that defines marriage as between one man and one woman. Its decision came after Attorney General Eric Holder announced the administration would no longer argue in support of the law after it concluded that the law is unconstitutional.
At the behest of Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), the House General Counsel has signed a contract with former solicitor general Paul Clement to pay his firm, Bancroft PLLC, at a rate of $520 per hour for the case. If expenses go above the cap of $500,000, there is the opportunity to raise it.
But where is this money coming from?
PLATTSBURGH — North Country Congressman Bill Owens is as frustrated about high gasoline prices as many of his constituents.
He says he is working on a solution.
"The prices keep going up, and it doesn't appear to be connected to anything. But what may be even more unnerving is that it goes down for no reason, too."
WASHINGTON — Facing continued public unhappiness over gas prices, President Barack Obama is directing his administration to ramp up U.S. oil production by extending existing leases in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska's coast and holding more frequent lease sales in a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska.
Obama said Saturday that the measures "make good sense" and will help reduce U.S. consumption of imported oil in the long term. But he acknowledged anew that they won't help to immediately bring down gasoline prices topping $4 a gallon in many parts of the country.
The NY Senate Republicans are backing away from their promise to pass legislation that would create an Independent Redistricting Commission. Tell your Senator to keep their promise and pass the pledge. http://passthepledge.com
The liberal guerrilla video group Brave New Foundation on Wednesday began what it says will be a prolonged political attack against the industrialist Koch family, which has become synonymous with the anti-Obama conservative movement.
The campaign marks yet another step toward conspicuousness for a family whose political activity was largely in the shadows until last year, when a New Yorker article outlined the support David H. Koch and his brother Charles ave given to various conservative research institutes and groups, including some associated with the Tea Party movement.
During last fall's Senate campaign, Patty Ritchie chastised her incumbent opponent for getting rid of a property tax rebate check. Like many Republicans, the then-St. Lawrence County Clerk made restoring the rebate a plank in her campaign platform.
This spring, that goal collided with a blunt reality.
New York faced a $10 billion deficit. Legislators could not afford to return $1.21 billion in revenue to more than 3 million taxpayers - as it last did in the fall of 2008 - to keep a campaign pledge.
They also changed the formula in the adopted budget to provide less to taxpayers.
Morris Peters, a Division of the Budget spokesman, said STAR - which provides property tax exemptions - is a $3.3 billion commitment in 2011-12.
While that's a $65 million, or 2 percent, increase over prior funding levels, Peters said the program was due to receive a $190 million, or 5.7 percent, increase before the formula was changed.
When I asked Ritchie last week why her conference hadn't restored the rebates in lieu of their collective campaign pledge, the senator said that the $10 billion deficit gap had required many "tough" choices.
Yet Ritchie knew - as did Democratic opponent Darrel Aubertine - when she was a candidate that New York was going to face at least an $8 billion deficit at the onset of 2011.
When Aubertine asked Ritchie during an October TV debate how she planned to help close a deficit and also provide rebate checks, the then-candidate replied: "I told you. There's going to be tough cuts."
Congressman Bill Owens, who represents Oswego County, introduced a resolution earlier this week on the House floor to honor the troops and intelligence officers who carried out the successful mission to kill Osama bin Laden Sunday in Abottabad, Pakistan.
Jude Seymour (WWNY) has an interesting article (click here) on how Senator Ritchie has now reneged on yet another campaign promise.
Christopher Cannizzaro was still in diapers when his firefighter father was killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11. Yesterday, the 10-year-old wanted President Obama to know his daddy died a hero. "I was talking to him about my dad and my necklace," said the Staten Island fifth-grader, showing a small medallion with a photo of his father, Firefighter Brian Cannizzaro, in uniform in front of an American flag. (NYDN)
Obama said he didn’t want to spike the ball celebrating Osama bin Laden’s killing — but he’s not denying himself a low-key victory tour. Obama’s visit to Ground Zero was, by most accounts, a success, a combination of commemoration and celebration that earned the praise of even his longtime critics, especially former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who accompanied him around the city. (Politico)
The effectiveness, he said, came from President Obama's decision to send a Special Forces team to kill bin Laden--something he said, citing news reports, that none of the president's military advisers had thought of doing.
"Our military wanted to go in there and just scorch the earth...but President Obama single-handedly understood what was at stake here. He alone understood the need to get DNA to prove the death...it was President Obama single-handedly and alone who came up with the strategy that brought about the effective assassination of Osama bin Laden," he said, adding, "thank God for President Obama."
WASHINGTON -- As he announced the death of infamous terrorist Osama bin Laden on Sunday night, President Barack Obama struck an extraordinary contrast with his predecessor, George W. Bush. That was to some degree unavoidable. Bush’s consistent failure to respond appropriately to bin Laden -- as a potential threat, as a fugitive, or as a public enemy no. 1 -- represents one of the greatest shortcomings of his presidency.
Obama has now succeeded where Bush failed. And it was impossible to hear Obama declare that "justice has been done" without thinking about how long it went undone.
