If I were you, I might question my use of metaphors here, but I honestly just felt like drawing a stupid scarlet pimpernel type guy. Okay – got that off my chest.
Now, Rob Astorino just got elected to run Westchester County. He ousted twelve-year incumbent Andy Spano, for which he should be congratulated. Astorino (who is alarmingly, approximately my age) was elected ostensibly to cut the crushingly high property tax levels in Westchester. Problem is, it’s not an office that can really have much effect on tax rates. In the many conversations I had with Andy Spano, he complained like a stuck record of having his hands tied by “unfunded mandates” from Albany. Add to that the fact Astorino chose a political insider with close ties to major building interests – including Trump and Cappelli – to run his transition team, and it might appear that breathtaking amounts of change are, sadly, less than likely. Especially as the things that a County Executive can cut to reduce taxes, like services, are likely to also cause a blistering public outcry if touched.

5 cent deposit on water bottles goes into full effect in NY on Sunday. The deposit pretty much ensures that most of these idiotic plastic bottles won’t end up in landfills, as they do now. And it’s only an egregious and evil governmental financial overreach if you don’t bother to redeem your deposit.

This cartoon goes out to Dede Scozzafava, NY-23rd District, and all the other reasonable, ideologically impure Republicans who will be Tea Bagged out of the party.

I wish this wasn’t true. The cash for clunkers and first time home buyer credits appear to have enticed people who were on the fence to buy homes and cars, and the “growth” numbers for the third quarter reflected that – But it can’t possibly make up for massive job losses (which is why I am so pro-health reform) and underlying economic rust: Unsustainable growth fueled by half a decade of mindless, giddy borrowing. The economy cannot ever grow the way it did without a resurgence of vast commercial and private borrowing.
Although, even if we wanted to do that, the banks aren’t going to lend the all that money we gave them when there’s important executive bonus commitments to meet.

Perish the thought, but is it possible that in addition to housing, did we also inadvertently created an employment bubble?

Many apologies, friends – All my cartoons have been embargoed this week due to a lack of space on our editorial page. The editorial board has been writing candidate endorsements, and well, I can’t take it anymore. So here’s a sneak peek at tomorrow’s deeply ironic cartoon for my close inner circle of blog readers. I would’ve thrown Joe Lieberman in there but I drew it right before he said he wouldn’t support anything that remotely resembled a reasonable effort to repair the ludicrous farce we currently call a health provision system. Oh, and here’s My source for the 72% number to show I didn’t just pull it from that intimate place that people seem to pull much of their self-affirming information these days…

For the heaving masses of my blog readers that might not be aware of a big local issue – There was a recent fair housing settlement reached by the Feds with Westchester County, considered by many to be an important marker post in the post civil-rights act era. Surface racial tolerance is fairly advanced around here, but communities are nonetheless segregated racially. Many point to the segregation running along economic lines rather than racial, which is an issue raised in a recent debate between County Executive Andrew Spano and his challenger Rob Astorino. Astorino spoke negatively about the settlement (which called for the building of 750 affordable housing units in non-diverse areas) in terms of “economics” and “zoning” – and saying the opposition he represented was not about “race.” Andy Spano then raised hackles by calling him a “racist” for using codewords. Spano is the one whose integration policies the feds felt needed to be rectified, so he can’t lay claim to any moral high ground, but his point is not empty political rhetoric however. Like those who oppose affirmative action, many people get caught up in the economic arguments, but cruelly and deliberately ignore the historical reasons as to why our African American communities are still struggling to catch up. Sadly, the fact that we are even having this discussion shows there is still a long way to go before we reside in a post-racial society.