Kirsten Gillibrand has become the first US Senator to formally call on the House of Representatives to return from their August recess and pass the state fiscal aid bill, which will officially get through the Senate by tomorrow night at the latest. In a statement, Gillibrand stresses the importance of getting the money into the [...]

The last possible competitor who could make a race of the Senate seat previously held by Hillary Clinton just announced he wouldn’t run. Former New York Republican Gov. George E. Pataki has decided not to mount an election challenge against Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand this fall. Instead, he said in an interview Tuesday that he [...]

Harold Ford’s record-setting rollout (for awfulness) was punctuated today with his non-announcement speech, in the form of an op-ed he faxed to the New York Times. In this petty screed, cribbed from Evan Bayh’s resignation speech even though Ford doesn’t have the gravitas of even HIM, he reckons that the reason everyone rejected his candidacy [...]

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand described tonight the Congressional strategy to end the military discharges of gay and lesbian service members under the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, saying that a repeal or an 18-month moratorium would move inside the defense authorization bill later in the year. Gillibrand spoke on a conference call for supporters of the [...]

Harold Ford is upset that Kirsten Gillibrand, the incumbent and announced candidate for the US Senate seat in New York, is doing what announced candidates do, by seeking endorsements. This is very underhanded, Ford says, and clearly Gillibrand should cease all campaign activities until her opponent decides whether or not to run. That would be [...]

Here’s a nice Friday news dump. Tim Geithner just announced support for a full cancellation of Haiti’s debt, and the IMF will join him: WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of the Treasury today announced the United States will work with its partners around the world to relieve all debts owed by Haiti to international institutions [...]

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen are testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee right now, and shortly, that hearing will shift from a discussion of the Quadrennial Defense Review and the DoD budget to a review of the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. The top-line [...]

Michael Bloomberg stuck the knife in the Justice Department’s plan to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of the 9/11 plotters, in New York City. Bloomberg’s main concerns appear to be costs and disruption to Lower Manhattan. The mayor’s reversal was a political blow to the White House’s efforts to resolve a landmark terror case a [...]

This is positive. Responding to activist and Congressional calls for granting Temporary Protected Status to Haiti in the wake of the massive earthquake, the Obama Administration has done so. The Obama administration says it will allow Haitians already in the U.S. illegally to remain because of this week’s catastrophic earthquake. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano [...]

Marist polled the New York Senate primary shaping up between Harold Ford and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. 43% of registered Democratic voters in New York State say they would back Gillibrand in this fall’s Democratic primary while 24% would cast their ballot for Ford. Although Gillibrand has a double-digit lead over Ford, a notable proportion — [...]

It’s a testament to the brazenness of Wall Street financiers that they are making their rationale for Harold Ford’s candidacy this obvious: “We bonded with him years ago and he is one of our friends,” said Robert Zimmerman, another influential fundraiser and Democratic National Committeeman. But according to several of these bundlers, it’s not all [...]