Saturday is the best day to read the newspaper

Saturday is the best day to read the newspaper, since this is the day that the fewest people read the paper, and is the day when the politicians try to hide the worst news. Today is a good day for Saturday News.

In local news, County Executive Tom Suozzi held an "emergency" press conference late Friday afternoon to reveal that receipts from sales taxes would be dramatically lower than his budget people had forecasted, blowing "by his administration's estimates," a $100M - $150M dollar hole in a county budget which was already called for real estate tax increases. As an institution, Newsday appears to be a publication which tries its best to serve as the de facto public relations company for the County Executive, and indeed, its "spin zone" columnists in the online edition noted Suozzi's "bravery" for confronting this issue head on, when most reasonable people would agree that Suozzi was angling for Saturday coverage in the print edition.

Today's Saturday Print edition was interesting on the Suozzi LI Sales Tax story made Page 2, but was overshadowed by stories which reflected the malaise of the national economy in general, as well as a front page story on the finances of the Long Island Power Authority, an entity which only a decade earlier, Newsday championed as a savior of the Long Island energy market. Now, in the aftermath of a recent unpopular rate increase, Newsday focuses its attention of what it considers "excess spending at the authority."

The LIPA story and the Suozzi story share a common thread, and that is the formative role of Newsday in the creation of both the authority and the politician. Newsday knew, for example, that the public authorities in New York have traditionally been used for patronage hiring by politicians of both parties, and that LIPA, as a State agency, would be managed by a board of trustees selected by the major players in NY State Government, namely the Governor, and the leaders of both Legislative houses. Newsday also knew LIPA would not be subject to the routine scutiny of the New York State Public Service Commission, which oversees public utilities which are run by private businesses. Finally, Newsday knew that LIPA had a management agreement with Keyspan (now National Grid) to oversee the daily operation of the transmission and distribution system, and that LIPA purchased power from Keyspan generation plants. Now, they are shocked by the level of these contracts?

That in my books is a load of horse manure! My personal suspicion is that Newsday purposefully timed the reporting on the LIPA story to overshadow what they knew would be a difficult story for their fair haired politican when the actuals on the Sales Tax receipts were reported. They knew he was having a tough time with his budget through his real estate tax hike, and that his forcast for sales tax receipts, which comprise 40% of the county's revenue, would be off by quite a bit. And that is a an election year for their fair haired and ambitious Democratic County Executive.

My other favorite Saturday story is a bit more frightening. An edited version of an AP release somehow found its way onto the bottom of page 21 of Today's New York Post. Vice President Elect Joe Biden's brother James Biden and son Hunter Biden was settled through "a confidential agreement."

The lawsuit invovled an allegation that the Bidens attempted to take control of hedge funds controlled by Pardigm Companies, and the plaintiff claimed that the Bidens "cheated him" out of money. Prior to working for Paradigm, Hunter Biden had earned seven figure salaries working as a lobbyist for the securities industry. A more detailed account of the background for this lawsuit is described in a Washington Post article from several months ago.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/23/AR2008082302200.html

The Washington Post story describes alawsuit filed by against the Bidens by their former partner Anthony Lotito Jr. in which a the deal was crafted to get Hunter Biden out of lobbying because his father was concerned about the impact it would have on his bid for the White House. Biden was running for the Democratic nomination at the time the suit was filed.

Hunter Biden was made president with an annual salary of $1.2 million, despite his inexperience in the hedge fund industry, the lawsuit said. Before that, he had been part of the Washington law firm Oldaker, Biden & Belair, which earned $1.76 million in lobbying revenue in the first half of 2006, according to Congressional Quarterly's CQ MoneyLine. One of its biggest clients is the National Association of Shareholder and Consumer Attorneys, a District-based group representing law firms specializing in investment and corporate law.

It would appear that the lawsuit against the Bidens should have been one of the biggest stories in 2008, especially since it was a campaign year in which Joseph Biden was focused on becoming our Vice President, a quest in which he would eventually succeed. It is amazing that in a year in which Sarah Palin was poked for even the most minor "offenses," Joe Biden was allowed to skate on this issue of his son's employement, both as a lobbyist and in the hedge fund industry. A Republican with this kind of baggage would have been forced from office.

Instead the resolution of this matter becomes another anonymous story to be found in some newspapers under advertisements for cat litter.

No wonder why Sarah Palin is pissed off. She should be.