It’s over.
Turns out New York’s “Accidental Governor” is no more capable of understanding the responsibilities that come with the job than his predecessor. But while Eliot Spitzer’s fatal flaw is hubris mixed with a wee bit of sex addiction is seems, David Paterson’s problem is simply ineptitude.
Paterson and his supporters have been making the claim for months now that he has been unfairly targeted by the media, and certainly the ugly coupling of sloppy bloggers and immoral tabloids produced a pathetically irresponsible miasma of “a rumor from a single unconfirmed …

If you want some advice about marriage — same-sex or otherwise — I can’t think of anyone better to ask than convicted girlfriend-batterer, ex-cop, and current New York State Senator Hiram Monserrate. Monserrate was one of eight Democrats in the state’s “upper” chamber who voted against allowing people of the same gender to marry yesterday.
(Irony alert! Four of the eight ‘no’ votes came from members who represent Queens — but apparently not queens.)
Although I’m sure he had very good reasons for his decision (the word in Albany and his Elmhurst …

So the Albany soap opera has come to a close. Crystal and Alexis will live to catfight another day. Serena and Blair will return in the fall. And Malcolm and Pedro will assuredly be ready for more battles next session. In the meantime let’s figure out the winners and losers from the month of madness.
Losers
We’ll start with the losers because it’s easier.
Republicans
Already in a deep state of disarray and on the wrong end of the demographic pendulum, New York Republicans came thisclose to pulling off a miracle. The problem is …

Ok so the easy mea culpa today would go to David Letterman for his apology in the case of his lame and insulting Sarah Palin joke. But we prefer to reward the truly brave: A journalist admitting she was the one who made news in an Albany courtroom this morning.
Daily News uber-blogger-reporter Liz Benjamin was in the courtroom today for yet another hearing with Supreme Court Justice Thomas McNamara on the “Who’s in Charge of the Senate” case. You’ll recall the Dems and Republicans have been in McNamara’s court seemingly …

There’s big news about Tom Golisano.
The formerly upstate billionaire (he’s still got the money but he moved to Florida) is dating former tennis star Monica Seles. So reports Page Six. Oh, and the three-time candidate for New York Governor  just loves the circus. How else to explain his recent quarterbacking of the quasi-Republican coup in Albany?
Golisano has always been an odd bird in New York politics. In his three runs for Governor as an independent (94, 98, 02) he always seemed to have it out for Republican George Pataki (who …

The headline in Friday’s Boston Globe would not have been out of place in the Post or Daily News: MBTA plans for drastic cuts in bus, rail service. Hmmm. And it gets even more familiar once you start reading the front-page article.
The MBTA would halt all evening and weekend commuter rail service, eliminate six Green Line stops, discontinue lightly used bus routes, and lay off 805 employees if the agency does not get legislative help with its $160 million deficit, according to a state document.
The agency has delayed making the …

Add State Comptroller to the very very long list of people who think the budget agreed to by Albany’s “3 men in a room” sucks. In fact, other than the three men in the room (Governor David Paterson, Senate Majority ‘Leader’ Malcolm Smith, and Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver) and their respective lackeys, the list includes pretty much everybody.
Here’s what Comptroller DiNapoli — himself a former Assembly member who then-Governor Spitzer feared would go too easy on the Albany power trio — has to say:
New York faced an extraordinary challenge to …

The latest Get Real video is a history lesson that Albany’s Democrats seem never to have learned. Turns out their self-destructive behavior now is eerily similar to what happened in 1913 — the last year (other than one year during the Depression) that the party controlled all three levers of power in state government. Could they be sowing the seeds of their own destruction again?

Get Real: Dem History Forgotten from Jay DeDapper on Vimeo.

Do we need a “millionaire’s tax” to solve New York’s budget crisis? Advocates of the tax say we do because New York doesn’t make the rich pay their fair share.
Opponents say that is not true and counter that hiking taxes on the very wealthy will only cause them to move out of state, depriving Albany of hundreds of millions, if not billions in tax revenue.

So who’s right? Get Real cuts through the crap and tells the truth:

New York State taxes are too regressive meaning the rich don’t pay their fair …

New York’s budget hole is huge and growing as Governor Patterson reminded us all on Wednesday but if you want to see how bad things can get, go west.
As the LA Times lays out in painful detail, California’s budget woes are much worse than ours. New York faces a $14 billion gap this coming budget year while California’s deficit is $42 billion over the next 15 months.
Paterson has repeatedly warned that if Albany’s legislative leaders don’t agree to structural spending changes New York “might end up like California.” Here’s what …