Can you give us an example of the many things you’ve been chairman of? On a second thought, can you give us many examples?
Ultimately, she views herself as someone who is good at organizing systems and people…
Can you give us an example of one system “organized” by you? How about some people you have “organized?”
“Len did not want to be involved in politics — that wasn’t his thing,” she said.
Can you give us an example of any other thing which wasn’t Len’s? Just kidding…
Chairman Bernardo notes that she is known for working with people in different parties, most notably New Paltz Town Supervisor Susan Zimet; but she doesn’t know if that’s bipartisanship or simply cooperation.
Can you give us an example of a person who knows you for working with people in different parties? The keyword is “working” – scheming doesn’t count.
“One person’s bipartisanship is another person’s traitor,” she said.
Can you give us an example of one correct sentence you ever uttered? In case you wonder, a correct sentence would have been “One person’s bipartisanship is another person’s treason.”
While she isn’t seeking the office of County Executive for herself, “A lot of people have that aspiration for me.”
Can you give us an example of one person aspiring for you to become the County Executive?
“A lot of our community board members have come to me with frustrations,” she said.
Can you give us an example of one community board member and one frustration?
Other boards have had people leave citing strained relations or overly burdensome ethics requirements.
Can you give us an example of a burdensome ethics requirement?
She calls the position, “a bigger tool in my tool box. From here, I can get things done.”
Can you give us an example of a smaller tool in your box?
Terry, next time you have an itch to sneak an article in Shawangunk Journal, you’ll be better off scratching.
Her first foray into politics came in the sixth grade when a gym teacher planned on canceling a softball game to which “I had looked forward to all my life.”
Not until she met John Bonacic at Skate Time 209, the roller rink she owns with her husband Len, did politics come up again.
“I couldn’t have told you I was registered as a Republican — when you’re working in Manhattan, all you do is work — but he and Sue Cummings knew, and they asked me to run for county legislature,” she recalled.
“Len did not want to be involved in politics — that wasn’t his thing.”
Bernardo admits that she doesn’t easily escape politics at home.
“Some husbands and wives hunt together, or play tennis, but our hobby is politics,” she explained.
While she isn’t seeking the office of County Executive for herself, “A lot of people have that aspiration for me…”
“I only ran for chairman because my opponent goaded me,” she explained, noting how her fellow Rochester resident, and former councilwoman Manuela Mihailescu “said that if I won I would run for chairman, and she said it so many times that I decided, ‘Fine, if I win I will run.'”
What an amazing display of bull! Lenny had no interest in politics? Lots of people want her to be County Executive? And the one who takes the cake: Manuela made me do it! I’ve told you for years that Terry Bernardo is a liar: a few months in her first year as legislator she wanted to be the chairwoman.
Do not believe me. Ask David O’Halloran, and the rest of Town of Rochester Republican Committee, how the Bernardos worked diligently behind the scenes to oust then Legislature Chairman Fred Wadnola. Read the Freemanarticle:
Zimet, D-New Paltz, said Wadnola, R-Ulster, promised not to retaliate against Accord Republican Terry Bernardo for considering launching a challenge to Wadnola’s bid for a second term as the Legislature’s chairman.
Wadnola said he replaced Bernardo with Woodstock Democrat Brian Shapiro as Government Operations and Efficiency chairman because “I need to have a chairman that I trust and feel would do the best job for the residents of the county.”
All this scheming happened a full year before Manuela Michailescu pointed out the dangers of electing the politically ambitious Terry Bernardo to represent us in the Ulster County Legislature.
As anyone with an IQ higher than the district number agrees now, Manuela was right.
Wow! Finally, Ulster County Legislature Chairwoman Terry Bernardo posted her January 2nd speech on the legislature’s website! She told the Boodlehole Times:
“I am proud of the excellent service we provided to voters. We were very successful in posting my acceptance speech in only 26 days, while County Executive Mike Hein is still days away from posting his State of the County Address…”
Told that Mike Hein didn’t give his speech yet, Terry Bernardo retorted:
“I thought you said you were with the Boodlehole Times, not with Rochester Smoke Out.”
Scanning the comments on political blogs, you see this recommendation fairly often, from left and right alike: “Vote them all out!”
Vote them out? How, may I ask, when there are no challengers on the ballot? State Senator Bonacic ran unopposed. County Executive Hein ran unopposed. Legislators Fabiano, Loughran, Provenzano, Harris, Gerentine, and Ronk ran unopposed. They were “elected” the moment their name was printed on the ballot. Aren’t you curious to learn how much money was wasted on the pointless elections held in the Town of Rochester, where all candidates ran unopposed?
Without choice, there is no election. People see that their votes don’t make a difference, and a climate of political apathy sets in. An unopposed candidate is appointed, not elected. Before you know, people are losing one of their fundamental rights, the right to vote.
“Intelligence, respect and character are no longer the coin of the realm,” Dener wrote in a January 18 letter announcing his decision. “Meanspiritedness, greed, ego, duplicity and lack of any moral fiber rules the day.”
A commenter spells it out:
“The days of loyalty to ones own party and principles are gone. It is every man/woman for themselves, moral and ethical obligation be damned! The Ulster County political process is poisoned with selfish, power hungry people. The cross endorsement of candidates, especially the Independence party, have bastardized the election process by leaving the winners with the Independence endorsement beholden to people like Mrs. Len Bernardo just to keep her husband’s endorsement.”
Back to the article:
“Ulster County Republican Chairman Roger Rascoe said he was sorry to see Dener resign but understood Dener’s frustration with the political environment.”
Who created the current political environment, Mr. Rascoe? And what is maintaining it? Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this untenable situation the work of a small group of people either too greedy or too power-hungry? I’m giving you the pieces: Bonacic, He Bernardo, Independence Party endorsements, Catalano, O’Halloran, She Bernardo, Chapman, you and your wife’s job… Can you solve the puzzle?
Mr. Rascoe, stop the pretense, cut the non-sense… You know the facts. As Chairman of the Ulster County GOP, you alone can change its disastrous course, if you choose to look beyond self-interest.
As the town’s 2013 election nears, Dener said voters deserve to have more than one candidate running for any office, and he criticized the cross-endorsement by the GOP of Democrat Susan Zimet for town supervisor. He said the Republicans must find new candidates, raise money and do the grassroots work needed to get party members elected.
Problem is Mr. Rascoe, you hate primaries. It’s not your private party, but you only want your friends to “win,” while the people are losing, again and again.
The two videos on this page – each about one hour long – are about the last European dictator, and everything you’re going to see it’s true. I lived it for 33 years.
Dictatorship is the form of government in which one person or a small group possesses absolute power without effective constitutional limitations. If you take a close look at the political activity in Rochester, Kingston, Albany, and Washington, you should be able to see manifestations of dictatorship. The smaller the political unit, the easier is to not pay attention. I talk daily to people complaining about Kingston, Albany and Washington, yet they are in denial about the shenanigans in our town.
This is an AR-15 rifle. It is the most popular rifle sold in the United States today. Millions have been sold to American citizens since 1963.
The AR-15 is the most common example of what are sometimes called assault weapons. But what does this term actually mean?
First, it is important to understand what an assault weapon isn’t. The terms “assault weapon” and “assault rifle” are often confused. According to Bruce H. Kobayashi and Joseph E. Olson, writing in the Stanford Law and Policy Review:
Prior to 1989, the term “assault weapon” did not exist in the lexicon of firearms. It is a political term, developed by anti-gun publicists to expand the category of “assault rifles.”
If an assault weapon is not an assault rifle, what is an assault rifle?
This is a M4A1 carbine. It is a U.S. military service rifle. It is also an assault rifle.
The M4A1 is fully automatic. This means it fires multiple rounds each time the trigger is pulled. The M4A1 can fire up to 950 rounds per minute.
The M4A1 is fully automatic. This means it fires multiple rounds each time the trigger is pulled. The M4A1 can fire up to 950 rounds per minute.
The M4A1 and other fully automatic firearms are also called machine guns. In 1986, the Federal government banned the sale or transfer of new machine guns to civilians.
Like the majority of firearms sold in the United States, the AR-15 is semi-automatic. This means it fires one round each time the trigger is pulled.
The AR-15 can fire between 45 and 60 rounds per minute depending on the skill of the operator. This rate of fire is comparable to other semi-automatic firearms, but pales in comparison to fully automatic assault rifles, some of which can fire more than 1,000 rounds per minute.
So-called assault weapons are not machine guns or assault rifles. According to David Kopel, writing in The Wall Street Journal:
What some people call “assault weapons” function like every other normal firearm—they fire only one bullet each time the trigger is pressed. Unlike automatics (machine guns), they do not fire continuously as long as the trigger is held. … Today in America, most handguns are semi-automatics, as are many long guns, including the best-selling rifle today, the AR-15, the model used in the Newtown shooting. Some of these guns look like machine guns, but they do not function like machine guns.
The truth about assault weapons is that they function like
this ranch rifle…
…and this shotgun…
…and this pistol…
…and this double-action revolver.
All of these guns above fire one round each time the trigger is pulled.
But if that’s true, what makes this semi-automatic rifle a ranch gun…
…and this semi-automatic rifle an assault weapon?
The answer is perception. According to a 1988 report by the Violence Policy Center, an anti-gun lobby:
Handgun restriction is simply not viewed as a priority. Assault weapons … are a new topic. The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.
In the late 1980s, more than two decades after the AR-15 was first sold to the American public, the anti-gun lobby began a systematic campaign to conflate it and other “military-style” firearms with machine guns. The media followed suit, and soon the American public began to think that an assault weapon was, like the assault rifles it resembled, a machine gun.
This strategy came to fruition in 1993, when the Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) was introduced in Congress. The AWB would ban the sale of new assault weapons to American civilians.
However, since “assault weapon” was an invented term, it had no technical meaning. Before assault weapons could be banned, legislators had to define them.
Because assault rifles were already banned, and because an outright ban on semi-automatic firearms wasn’t considered politically feasible, the AWB defined assault weapons as semi-automatic firearms that shared too many cosmetic features with their fully automatic counterparts.
These banned “military-style” features included certain combinations
of collapsible stocks…
…flash hiders…
…and pistol grips, none of which actually made the firearms more lethal.
According to a Department of Justice study, the firearms that the AWB would ban were used in only 2% of gun crimes.
Nevertheless, the AWB’s passage was aided by the fact that many Americans believed the bill would ban machine guns and “weapons of war,” something that had, in fact, already been banned.
The AWB also banned magazines having a capacity higher than ten rounds. This restriction applied to all firearms, not just so-called assault weapons.
To secure enough votes to pass the bill, a sunset provision was added. After ten years, the AWB would end.
On September 13, 1994, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban went into effect. A Washington Post editorial published two days later was candid about the ban’s real purpose:
No one should have any illusions about what was accomplished [by the ban]. Assault weapons play a part in only a small percentage of crime. The provision is mainly symbolic; its virtue will be if it turns out to be, as hoped, a stepping stone to broader gun control.
When the AWB became law, manufacturers began retooling to produce firearms and magazines that were compliant. One of those ban-compliant firearms was the Hi-Point 995, which was sold with ten-round magazines.
In 1999, five years into the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, the Columbine High School massacre occurred. One of the perpetrators, Eric Harris, was armed with a Hi-Point 995.
Undeterred by the ten-round capacity of his magazines, Harris simply brought more of them: thirteen magazines would be found in the massacre’s aftermath. Harris fired 96 rounds before killing himself.
In 2004, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired. It was not renewed. The AWB had failed to have an impact on gun crime in the United States. A 2004 Department of Justice study report concluded:
Should it be renewed, the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement. [Assault weapons] were rarely used in gun crimes even before the ban.
Regarding large capacity magazines, the study said:
It is not clear how often the outcomes of gun attacks depend on the ability of offenders to fire more than ten shots (the current magazine capacity limit) without reloading.
Furthermore, legislators had misjudged the popularity of so-called assault weapons. In his memoir, Bill Clinton wrote that Democrats lost control of Congress in the 1994 midterm elections because of the AWB. Other Democrats have stated that the AWB may have cost Al Gore the 2000 presidential election.
At Virginia Tech in 2007, Seung-Hui Cho again showed the futility of regulating magazine capacity when he carried nineteen ten- and fifteen-round magazines in his backpack as part of a carefully planned massacre.
Cho used seventeen of the magazines and fired approximately 170 rounds — or ten rounds per magazine — from two handguns before killing himself.
Like Eric Harris before him, Cho demonstrated that a magazine’s capacity was incidental to the amount of death and injury an unopposed murderer could cause in a “gun-free zone.”
Although the Virginia Tech massacre was and remains the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, it resulted in relatively few calls for new gun control, possibly because so-called assault weapons were not used.
But after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the AR-15 and other so-called assault weapons were widely depicted as military weapons whose only purpose was to rapidly kill large numbers of people.
In reality, so-called assault weapons are commonly used by hunters and competi
However, Senator Feinstein’s own facts do not support her agenda. The truth about assault weapons is that they are underrepresented in gun crimes.
Photo 14
It has been estimated that at least 3.3 million AR-15 rifles were sold in the United States between 1986 and 2009. In its ubiquity, the AR-15 is a modern musket—the default rifle with which law-abiding Americans exercise their right to keep and bear arms.
The AR-15 is particularly favored for its modularity, accuracy, light weight, and low recoil—attributes that make it ideal not only for shooting sports but also armed self-defense:
As such, it is the epitome of what America’s founders sought to protect when they wrote the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
Nevertheless, on December 17, 2012, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the author of the original AWB, announced her intention to introduce another Federal Assault Weapons Ban in Congress.
According to Senator Feinstein, so-called assault weapons have been used in 385 murders since the AWB expired in 2004, or about 48 murders per year. But there were 8,583 total murders with guns in the United States in 2011, meaning so-called assault weapons were used 0.6% of the time.
Further illustrating the small role so-called assault weapons play in crime, FBI data shows that 323 murders were committed with rifles of any kind in 2011. In comparison, 496 murders were committed with hammers and clubs, and 1,694 murders were perpetrated with knives.
Insofar as the AR-15 is used in crimes, the rifle’s popularity must be considered.
Besides the AR-15, James Holmes used a best-selling and arguably more lethal shotgun at the Aurora movie theater shooting.
At the Virginia Tech and Tucson shootings, Seung-Hui Cho and Jared Loughner used a best-selling handgun.
All else being equal, a gun that is common is more likely to be used for legal or illegal purposes than a gun that is rare. Outlawing guns that are popular today will only make different guns popular tomorrow.
The truth about assault weapons is that there is no such thing. So-called assault weapons are semi-automatic firearms — the guns most commonly used by millions of law-abiding Americans.
Banning firearms because of their cosmetic features is misguided.
Contact your legislators, and tell them the truth about assault weapons.
At the Ulster County monthly legislative session held on January 22, 2013, more than fifty speakers demanded Ulster County legislators to reject a proposed resolution calling on Congress to adopt stricter gun control laws. Powerful messages were delivered by these Town of Rochester residents:
Last week, Hugh Reynolds’ column was easy to read but hard to understand:
Apparently county legislature Minority Leader Dave Donaldson didn’t get the memo that last week’s Ulster County organizational meeting was for the purpose of swearing in legislators, not swearing at them.
Are the legislators sworn in at mid-term? I had no idea. What? They are not? Oh, well…
Donaldson, in an anti-Republican rant against legislature Chairwoman Terry Bernardo, shocked some legislators, amazed others and maybe even disgusted a few. Mostly, they looked uncomfortable.
Donaldson’s speech was not anti-Republican, it was strictly anti-Bernardo. Somebody didn’t pay attention to what he said: “I ask one of you [Republicans] to stand up and offer yourself to serve. Don’t continue to let the tail of an Independence Party oligarchy wag the Republican Dog. I realize the Chairman of your party is beholden to this oligarchy, but don’t let him take you personally down that path. As a lifelong Democrat I never thought I would say that we need a strong Republican Party, but we do.”
Mr. Reynolds went on:
One result of Donaldson’s attack — which might have been calculated — was to render Bernardo’s acceptance speech, where she outlined her legislative agenda for the coming year, pretty much forgettable.
If Hugh Reynolds is right, then Donaldson did Terry Bernardo a huge favor. She does not want that acceptance speech to be remembered. Don’t take my word for it, read the transcript yourself.
Last week I published Terry’s speech, and people left anonymous comments; see if you would like to sign them:
It says little except I am going to make a few subcommittees of handpicked Legislators (1 or 2) who will study things my way and help to make my opinions seem like they are agreed to by others. And we have to band together to get back at that mean man Hein because he is making us look like idiots. Otherwise it was pure oatmeal. (Well sorry to put oatmeal down as oatmeal is healthy for a person and this speech certainly was not.) Said nothing and was a rambling no purpose speech. Bet all those in attendance were riveted to their seats.
Each part of this speech makes me more ill than the last one. She is killing me with dumbness. I think she talks just to hear herself talk. She has no plan, just half-cooked ideas.
What a freaking joke, and I don’t just mean the speech.
I leave you with a few paragraphs from Hugh Reynolds’ this week’s column:
On the table for the legislature’s Law Enforcement and Public Safety Committee was the kind of routine after-the-fact executive request legislative committees had been rubber-stamping for years. The well-publicized and oft-lauded “shared services” exchange between Dutchess and Ulster counties of public-defender lawyers, dealing in cases of conflicts for home-grown attorneys, would in the opinion of both executives save perhaps $200,000 a year.
How could anybody vote against something like that?…
Also by legislative rules, the legislature chairman acts as an ex-officio member of all committees, with voting rights. Her vote proved decisive; had Bernardo not attended the committee meeting, the measure would have passed…
Not that Hein needs any help with the hatchet, but he dragged in on-again-off-again ally Dave Donaldson to remind his “Republican colleagues” that “the failures of Terry Bernardo were not going to get any better with time.” Republican colleagues had all voted for her reelection as chairperson the week before.
“What we have here is another of her glaring mistakes the legislature will have to fix,” Hein quoted Donaldson as saying. Donaldson also reminded his readers that he and Ronk were on the same side on this one.
What a difference a week makes!
– Jon Dogar-Marinesco
Chairwoman Terry Bernardo’s 2013 acceptance speech transcript.
Audio recording below, speech begins at 35:48.
This is the last installment of Terry Bernardo’s speech, and I’m speechless:
Chairwoman’s Address delivered by Terry Bernardo on January 2, 2013 – Part 6
Last year I promised our Committees would be places of substantive debates. They were.
One thing which has frustrated me and I know I’m not alone is the fact that our rules have not been consistently applied or followed.
Last year we had a group of legislators led by Legislator Kevin Roberts’ Committee Laws and Rules, working on the rules of Legislature and the schedules, and personal circumstances stopped that work which has been proceeding in good faith.
I am asking leaders Donaldson and Ronk to designate one person from each of their caucuses to sit down and finish this work which was well on the way.
And I’m directing Legislative Counsel and asking Leader Donaldson to ask Minority Counsel to work with these legislators and finish this so we can have a first reading preferably by February meeting but no later than the March meeting.
I never want to have the situation where we become disagreeable over process when it is the policy being considered that should be our focus.
To Legislator Provenzano: you served with distinction on the Golden Hill Local Development Corporation’s board. From all reports and what I know personally, I know that your compassion for that facility and the work that you did served all of Ulster County well.
I also want to thank our two non-legislative appointments, Michael Bernholz and doctor Michele Iannuzzi for their tremendous expertise.
The sale of Golden Hill is closing on us and we need to clearly ensure that the promise of patient quality is fulfilled and that our workers are respected in the transition.
I am asking Legislator Provenzano to work with Legislator Fabiano on a Special Committee on Golden Hill oversight over the transition process, and after the transition to ensure that our seniors are cared for and our workers are respected.
As we shared in our successes we shared in our frustrations, communication has been difficult at times and non-existing at others.
Government can not be about personalities, it has to be about the people.
Our citizens are desirous of better communications, as we heard for example on the night of the budget vote from our friends at the Catskill Mountain Railroad.
For all of us excellence in service is a goal, but it is not just my goal, I know it is all of yours, but politics is sometime reality for all legislators, from Congress to local boards.
I remember and I know that you do as well, the public service is what brought us all here.
If it ever were a year to put politics aside and move the mountains… (unintelligible) …good government, now is the time!
Whether you voted for me or not, I’m honored that each of you are my colleagues and look forward in partnering with you for the people of Ulster County this year. Thank you.
Now that you read the whole speech, what do you think?
– Jon Dogar-Marinesco
NOTE:If I missed a few letters from the speech, the remedy is simple: let Terry Bernardo post the actual speech, and I will correct my mistakes, if any.
Rochester Smoke Out 