Rochester Smoke Out

A few years back, one of the reasons given by the Rondout Valley School District for increasing the budget was the need to buy about 125 saxophones.

Now watch this:

Happy Holidays!

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco

Down with the Independence Party: a Daily News campaign in print – published on
CapitalNewYork.com – makes a few good points about the Daily News‘ investigation into the practices of New York State’s Independence Party.

• The editorial board of the Daily News has a successful past as an investigative reporting operation, having won a 1999 Pulitzer Prize. The paper is clearly gunning for prize-worthy work here with its investigation into the Independence Party’s shenanigans.
• The investigation found some of the voters who the party claimed to have registered with them, only to discover most had no idea they’d registered.
• The paper goes on to show how participation on the Independence party line in elections has at times been larger than the margin of difference in important races, raising the question of whether certain office holders owe their positions to a willingness to participate in what amounts to an electoral scam.
• Even for people who follow New York politics closely, the machinations of the freakish Independence Party are sometimes hard to take seriously, and the fact that they continue to exist and exert a degree of influence over local elections is just taken as a kind of stupid fact of life.
• The Daily News explains why they should be taken seriously, and why they shouldn’t be accepted as a fact of life.

Len Bernardo, the Ulster County Independence Party Boss.

As a first order of business, the party’s name must be changed.

Read The Daily News article published Monday, December 10, 2012.

HIGHLIGHTS:

• Far more than anyone else, Gov. Cuomo has the power to push Independence Party leaders to stop the deceptions by which they have undeservedly placed candidates on the ballot and altered the course of the vote.
• Cuomo must not be the candidate of a party that has built its enrollment through voter error.
• Cuomo must not be the candidate of a party whose election results are boosted by voter error.
• Cuomo must not be the candidate of a party whose very name — in this case IndependENCE, so easily mistaken for independENT — violates New York’s policy of eliminating all confusion at the polls.
• Cuomo must not be the candidate of a party that has stocked its governing structures with unwitting New Yorkers so as to appear to meet the legal requirements for placing candidates on ballots.
• Cuomo must set an example to be followed by other officeholders and would-be officeholders.
• Commonly, statewide candidates have explained signing on with the party by saying that its leaders represent more than 400,000 voters. This is now proven false. Instead, the party is dominated by a small clique of faux powerbrokers the shunning of whom must be complete.
• Independence Party founders saw value in the word “independence” from the very start.
• The confusion engendered by the Independence name is their primary asset. Without its pulling power, they would be forced to compete honestly for support.
• They would have to adopt a title that makes clear to voters and would-be voters that the organization is, in fact, a party and not a catchall for people and candidates who want to exercise the franchise free of political labels.

Read The Daily News article

Len Bernardo, the Ulster County Independence Party Boss.

Change the misleading form that draws in thousands of unsuspecting voters

Read The Daily News article published Tuesday, December 11, 2012.

HIGHLIGHTS:

• As chairman of News Corp., Rupert Murdoch heads a global media colossus that owns television, movie and publishing enterprises — all requiring sophisticated expertise in fields ranging from finance to law to technology. Yet Murdoch made the mistake of registering to vote in New York as a member of the Independence Party when he had intended to enroll in 2010 as independent of a political organization.
• As anchor of CNBC’s “Closing Bell” business program, Maria Bartiromo delves into the details of corporate balance sheets and Wall Street fluctuations in order to present them precisely to viewers. Yet Bartiromo, too, signed up with the Independence Party when she had wanted to register as an independent voter “to maintain my impartiality” as a journalist.
• Murdoch and Bartiromo are among the legions who have fallen prey to the close similarity between the words IndependENCE and independENT.
• Their errors exemplify voter confusion that has enabled Independence Party leaders to posture as chiefs of a sizable organization while misleadingly attracting votes for their candidates on election days.
• The Daily News has called on New York officials — most importantly Gov. Cuomo — to shun the Independence Party unless its leadership changes the organization’s name so as to make clear that the party is, in fact, a party and not a general repository for independent voters.
• The New York State Board of Elections must redesign its voter registration forms to reduce the Independence Party’s ability to exploit voter error. It’s imperative for the board to stop aiding and abetting the Independence Party’s deceptions.

Read The Daily News article

Len Bernardo, the Ulster County Independence Party Boss.

Meet the brains behind the fraud that is the Independence Party

Read The Daily News article published Monday, December 10, 2012.

HIGHLIGHTS:

• Until his death in 2011, Fred Newman was an avowed Marxist, a Jew who was given to anti-Semitic ravings and the inventor of a form of psychotherapy that encouraged patients to have sex with him.
• He practiced “social therapy,” which teaches patients to cope with psychological issues by getting involved in politics — which meant backing his causes.
• Former followers have said Newman led people to give up careers and family, and to support his organization financially.
• Newman founded the International Workers Party – blending radical leftist politics with his psychological theories.
• When he set his sights on becoming a force in a newly formed, mainstream organization, first he implanted his agents in the Perot-inspired Patriot Party and then he targeted New York’s fledgling Independence Party.
• Newman gained important power over awarding the party’s ballot line to candidates for offices up to governor and U.S. senator.
• As the Independence Party rolls swelled with the names of unwitting voters who surely share few of the Newman’ obsessions, his troops systematically fulfilled their late founder’s vision by constructing a fantastic illusion of grass-roots support.

Read The Daily News article

Len Bernardo, the Ulster County Independence Party Boss.

Citizens who meant to register as unaffiliated voters
find themselves party members

Read The Daily News article published Tuesday, December 11, 2012.

HIGHLIGHTS:

• People checked the box beside the name Independence Party, believing they had filed to be independent of any party affiliation.
• The party’s leaders have ridden this confusion to power — despite backgrounds that would seem to qualify them as fringe political players.
• Independence Party leaders are trading on deception in voter registration and, surely and most seriously, at the polls. As the courts have clearly stated, both are intolerable in New York.
• The error rate flies in the face of New York’s policy of minimizing all possible voter confusion.
• Statutes and court decisions are clear about two commandments:
  Thou shalt not allow voters to be led into making unintended choices, and
  Thou shalt not gain political power by deception.
  These commandments must be enforced.

Read The Daily News article

Len Bernardo, the Ulster County Independence Party Boss.

Thousands of voters have been duped into enrolling in Independence Party

Read The Daily News article published Monday, December 10, 2012.

HIGHLIGHTS:

• The Independence Party counts on its rolls an astronomical number of people who had no intention of joining and who have no idea they’re listed as members.
• In fact, the Independence Party is a shell whose leaders have wielded undeserved influence over the ballot in New York City and State.
• There is evidence that the Independence Party has gone beyond reaping the benefits of inflated membership into orchestrated deception to keep power.
• By the thousands, the evidence shows, voters have mistakenly enrolled in the IndependENCE Party when they had intended to register as independENTS with no party affiliation at all.
• The Daily News interviewed 200 New York City residents who are carried on Board of Election records as having joined the Independence Party in 2010 and 2011.
  85% disavowed any knowledge of the Independence Party.
• The Daily News also interviewed 100 registered Independence Party voters who are listed by the Board of Elections as holding positions on Independence Party county committees. 64 of the supposed committee members said they were surprised to learn that records showed them as serving on the panels, and 23 reported no knowledge of belonging to the Independence Party at all.
• The Independence Party violates two principles of New York election law. The first is an insistence on absolute clarity at the polls. The second is a demand that political organizations demonstrate broad membership support to earn the privileges that come with official recognition — most importantly, the power to place candidates on the ballot.
• The Independence Party is capitalizing on widespread voter confusion
  to exert illegitimate influence over elections.
  They must be stopped.

Read The Daily News article

December 2, 2012
To clarify a misleading headline in Daily Freeman, Supervisor Carl Chipman posted a letter on Facebook. To which, as you can see below, Len Bernardo contributed two comments. For starters, he joked about the very serious issue of Skate Time 209’s unearned tax breaks, and tried to paint himself as a victim. In the second comment he makes his point about TAXES being the correct word for flow control fees. Please observe the use of caps.

Couldn’t resist letting in the third comment (above), totally off topic, posted by the pompous Imre Beke Jr. – the President of “Citizens United to Save America” – in an attempt to justify Len Bernardo’s tax breaks. It’s important to remember that, not too long ago, Imre Beke was on Len Bernardo’s payroll.

December 4, 2012
During the Ulster County Special Legislative Session (Budget Vote), Len Bernardo had something to say about one of Patricia Doxsey’s tweets on Daily Freeman website. See the sentence “Or is that a Tax?” Please observe the use of caps.

”

December 7, 2012
Mr. Anonymous posted this idiotic rabid rant on the Liberty Coalition blog. Look for the words “just another Tax,” on lines 4 and 7. Please observe the use of caps.

Do you have any doubt that Mr. Anonymous is Len Bernardo? Hates Robin. Hates Hein. Hates grammar. Hates math. And writes the word tax with a capital T. To use one of his trademark expressions: Get a clue!

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco

By changing the headline of Manuela Michailescu’s letter to Editor from Pride of Rochester? to Failure at the top of Legislature, Freeman underlines the connection between town and county politics. Chairwoman Bernardo failed at both.

Terry Bernardo is not supposed to vote as Madam Chair but as the Legislator from Rochester and East Wawarsing. She failed to represent her constituents – voted NO on a negative county budget, YES on casino!

As expected, she is also a miserable failure as the leader of the Legislature. She doesn’t care about anything which is not furthering her insane goal of becoming the County Executive.

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco

In February 2011, Ulster County Legislature Chairman Frederick Wadnola trashed Terry Bernardo after replacing her as Government Operations and Efficiency Committee chair: “I need to have a chairman that I trust and feel would do the best job for the residents of the county.”

Terry Bernardo said she was replaced for asking questions about the Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency. In truth – besides digging trash hoping to oust Chairman Wadnola – Terry Bernardo didn’t do much.

Forward to 2012. County Executive Michael Hein called on the Legislature – which is responsible for overseeing the trash agency – to look at the ballooning county subsidy, hoping that the new chairwoman will quickly address the issue in order to provide budgetary relief.

Chairwoman Terry Bernardo in Daily Freeman – July 23, 2012:

We don’t know what the right answer is going to be. It may be flow control, I don’t know. But we have to explore the other options before we can tell the voters “you’re going to be subject to flow control.”

Gosh, don’t you love the way she only sees voters? Kind of trashy if you ask me.

Chairwoman Terry Bernardo in Daily Freeman – August 23, 2012:

Ulster County Legislature Chairwoman Terry Bernardo said implementing flow control laws in the short term could protect county taxpayers from a potential multimillion-dollar subsidy of the Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency in the upcoming year.

And if – trash the thought! – UCCRA still comes short?
Chairwoman Terry Bernardo in Shawangunk Journal – September 20, 2012:

“You can just raise your transfer station fees,” Bernardo said with a smile.

Prior to voting on the 2013 budget, the Legislature adopted Local Law No. 12 of 2012 (Ulster County Solid Waste Management Law). This flow control law requiring haulers collecting trash to dispose of it at Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency’s facilities will bring lower property taxes but higher garbage removal fees.

Terry Bernardo voted against it. She’s just playing trashy games.

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco