This is a book review of Kate Menken's English Learners Left Behind, which details the difficulties faced by "English language learners" under the testing regime faced by NCLB, with special emphasis upon problems the author observed and researched in New York State.

(crossposted at Docudharma)

This will be a quick diary.

The other day, I wrote a diary titled: Four Years Ago, I was Leaving Iraq.

I talked about the sacrifice soldiers' families have made over the past five years and the lack of planning from Washington to execute the war in Iraq.

I also spoke about new leadership by example.

I want to talk a little now about the kind of leadership and enthusiasm that I found last year at YearlyKos. That's the kind of energy and power we need to change Washington.

I Want to send my best wishes to all the attendees at the convention and to tell you that I will be in Austin on Friday and hope to see as many of you as possible.

It's not news that "clean coal" isn't, well, clean.  But clean coal made the news today not for environmental reasons but for financial ones when the New York Power Authority scrapped its plans for the Huntley plant, a "clean coal" facility in western New York State.  From Crain's Business News:

NYPA officials say the electricity produced by the Huntley plant, in Tonawanda, N.Y., would be too expensive, requiring some $150 million a year in subsidies to compete with more conventional sources of generation. In a letter to New Jersey-based NRG Energy, which owns the Huntley plant, NYPA executives said they were not able to overcome the "substantial" financial hurdles.

The announcement calls into doubt the construction of a similar clean coal plant in Jamestown, New York, which is supposed to receive $6 million in state funding.

Finally, College Democrats of NY are a PAC and are on Act Blue! Plus, we've had great success expanding our operations and have increased our total number of college democrat chapters.

On June 18, 49-year-old Esmin Green was admitted to the Kings County Hospital Center psychiatric ward.  After waiting to be seen for 24 hours, she fell to the floor, began to convulse and then passed out.  Two security guards and one doctor walked into the waiting room, looked at her and then walked away.  After one hour, a nurse finally came over, kicked Ms. Green, and then proceeded to get a stretcher.  Shortly afterwards, Ms. Green was pronounced dead.  The entire incident was documented on a security camera, and is now on YouTube, thanks to the Associated Press.

During a July 2nd meeting of the Pawling, NY town board. Republican town supervisor Beth Coursen called town republican chairman Glenn Carey a "faggot" and said "everybody knows it". The town of Pawling sits about 70 miles North of New York City. This wouldn't be the first time Ms. Coursen has used such language against Mr. Carey.

       Lucy Watson, wife of Democratic Councilman David Watson, said, while she did not hear the July 2 exchange, it was familiar to her.
       
       Watson said she was present in late 2007 at a restaurant and in May 2008 in town hall after a board meeting when Coursen referred to Carey in the same manner.

Cross Posted at Political Newsline

2-1/2 years ago, I wrote a diary about how I grew up in a suburban Long Island, New York Republican family and yet eventually became a Democrat. I followed up with a second one two months later about how I further changed later in life, but want to return to my family upbringing as I think it makes for an important discussion about one’s political leanings over a lifetime.

Today, I had a very odd search.  Now, you do know that site meter does tell me what you are searching for when you find my Uniongal blog site.

You see a company in New York search for

can I fire someone who threatens to kill himself

So, you must be wondering how in the hell anyone found uniongal from this search, well, it’s because I blogged about Wesley N. Higdon, 25.

Who’s Wesley N Higdon? He’s the reason there are 6 dead in Kentucky

Let’s look at some the events of the last few days, to see what they have in common:

1. Dennis Kucinich introduced a single new article of impeachment against the president, for his and his administration’s lying us into a disastrous and illegal war;

2. Karl Rove not only failed to appear before the HJC on Thursday after being subpoenaed, but he skipped the country without notifying Congress(!);

3. Nancy Pelosi, in her signature style (vague, ambiguous, and vague again), made a statement which seemed to leave the door open for impeachment hearings hearings (back on the table?);

4. I, Adam Sullivan, filed well in excess of the number of required petition signatures to gain ballot access for the Democratic primary here in NYC, where...

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. Jacob saw his first real fireworks display and loved it at first. We were watching from the 12th floor of a building right on the waterfront, so it was spectacular. Unfortunately, he was coming down with a fever and by the end was pretty unhappy. He is fine again now.

This was a big week, both locally where my friend qualified for the ballot for NYC's Sept. 9th primary election, and nationally where Obama's surge continued even as the Democrats once again showed less spine than we would like them to. More below.

What a nice way to start my day, even if it was a very, very early start :)

It was so wonderful to be in a room with a couple thousand (mostly) Women for Obama.

I have to run shortly, but wanted to get a few photos posted and give some impressions.

One of the funniest people in America will be in New York City tonight, holding a fundraiser for a long-shot Democratic candidate waging a primary battle against an entrenched incumbent.

Rep. Edolphus Towns narrowly survived arguably the greatest scare of his career in Congress in 2006. Towns defeated City Councilman Charles Barron and Assemblyman Roger Green in the Democratic primary with just 47% of the vote, capping off a series of close elections for the incumbent, who has served in Congress since 1983.

All things considered, there are a lot of worse Democrats in Congress than Ed Towns, but none of them represent D+41 districts (yes, you read that right). As NY-10 is the third-most Democratic district in the country, it is perhaps not surprising to see primary campaigns against an incumbent who voted for the bankruptcy bill, the estate-tax cut, and has been questionable at best in pursuing revitalization in his district. Towns has generally been solid on foreign affairs, but holds a few positions that are just bizarre, like when he lobbied the Clinton Administration to declare the Republic of India a "terrorist nation":

In July, Towns published a list of attacks on Christians indicating "the pattern of Indian terrorism against its minorities" and demanded that "India should be declared a terrorist nation." Towns, who is regularly provided material by the Council of Khalistan headed by Gurmit Singh Aulakh, alleged that the Chattisinghpora massacre was the handiwork of the Indian government. (The White House dismissed the allegation saying there is absolutely "no credible evidence" of any government involvement in the massacre.)

With Barron opting against another run, choosing instead to run for Brooklyn Borough President, the man opposing Ed Towns this year is Kevin Powell.

Powell is a former contestant on MTV's "Real World", activist, writer, and hip-hop authority. He staged an aborted campaign for the seat in 2006, and dropped out due to a slow fundraising pace and lack of campaign infrastructure.

He has also blogged several times at Huffington Post, on such issues as FISA, and ending violence against women (referencing his own history of four domestic-violence incidents between 1987 and 1991).

He has raised about $100K so far for the campaign, which he began in April. He hopes to raise and spend about $400K by the time of the September 9 primary, which will be a tall order, but he'll have the assistance of comedian Dave Chappelle, who will hold a fundraiser with Powell on Tuesday.

Towns has apparently come under fire for having endorsed Hillary Clinton (as did every other member of the New York Democratic delegation, of course). It seems that Powell's supporters are hoping to exploit this:

For Mr. Towns in Brooklyn, leftover tensions from the Clinton-Obama battle seem especially strong. An emerging young black political class is seeking to assert the neighborhood's power against what it sees as an older establishment, based in Harlem, that has long exercised disproportionate influence in New York. The younger Democratic activists link Mr. Meeks and Mr. Towns, the son of a North Carolina sharecropper and a 25-year veteran in Congress, to that structure.

Mr. Towns cannot afford to take the challenge lightly. Two years ago, he won with less than 50 percent of the vote in a three-way race. The man who is running against him now, Kevin Powell, is a community organizer who has the backing of celebrities like the comedian Dave Chappelle, who is scheduled to headline a fund-raiser for Mr. Powell.

Jordan Thomas, who led the organization Brooklyn for Barack, and Arthur Leopold, a fund-raiser for the Obama campaign, are backing Mr. Powell, as are several Democratic clubs, including the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats, in part because of members' disappointment after Mr. Towns backed Mrs. Clinton.

Personally, I'm not especially persuaded by the argument that one should target their Representatives for having endorsed one Democratic candidate over another, except in extreme cases. Clinton is not Lieberman, obviously, plus she's the Senator from New York, and anyway it isn't as if there aren't a number of perfectly valid reasons to look at primarying Towns. Nevertheless, this particular issue has been fairly frequently bandied about in criticism of Towns (as with other New York Reps like Yvette Clark, Greg Meeks and even Charlie Rangel), and it could factor into Powell's long-shot upset bid.

So how strong a candidate will Powell be? It's difficult to say. He has a good bit of celebrity support, like Chappelle and George Soros, and that ought to help him raise money. He seems very intelligent, ambitious and has a fascinating personal story.

On the other hand, he has no existing political base in the district, as Barron and Green did last cycle. He has worked as a community organizer in the past, and seeks to register thousands of new voters for this election (Towns won with fewer than 20,000 votes last time), but given that he entered the race just four months before Primary Day, he has not given himself very much time in which to do that.

Now there are just two months before the election, and Powell's profile is still relatively low in the district, plus he has raised only a quarter of his target amount for the primary. It's never easy to knock off a 13-term incumbent - Towns has survived tough primary challenges in 1998, 2000 and 2006 - and the odds are against Powell here. It remains to be seen if he has the political skills to overcome them.

Regardless, this race is well worth keeping an eye on, if only to gauge Towns' vulnerability for 2010.

Race tracker wiki: NY-10

(X-posted in modified form from The Albany Project.)

Our spring intern at The Albany Project is beyond awesome. Many of you read about him in the many diaries about the DFA scholarship program to Netroots Nation as I mercilessly flogged his candidacy at every opportunity. Young Robert harding has been tirelless in his efforts to help us build netroots infrastructure in New York and has proven himself to be a peerless asset to the New York blogosphere. Through the efforts of many of us here in the Empire State and many of you around the country, Robert was awarded one of those scholarships. Now we need your help once again to make sure he gets to use it.

How you can help on the flip...

I will be hosting NY-26 Democratic candidate Jon Powers on my show, The Robert Harding Show at 11 a.m. EST today.

You can listen live to the show and ask questions. You can leave questions in the comments section of this post or call in at 1-646-716-8492.

One of the questions I will ask initially and one of the more popular questions that people have asked me to ask Jon is regarding FISA and the recent legislation that has drawn the ire of our netroots base. I will get Jon on the record about FISA.

Today is the one year mark since my first encounter with Jon Powers. I was an intern for The Journal-Register and had asked Powers for an interview. He was going to attend the Orleans County Democratic Party's picnic in Albion and said that we could meet there and conduct the interview.

My first impression of Jon Powers was that he was just an average guy. He was sporting a Powers for Congress polo shirt, khakis and a smile. All I knew about him was that he was an Iraq War veteran and a Democrat ready to challenge Tom Reynolds. After I sat down with him and profiled him for the newspaper, I learned that Powers is incredibly smart, down-to-earth and he understands the issues affecting our district.

After an easy drive out to Sterling I had a little difficulty finding the venue, but like most things that are hard to find it was worth the search.  The "gate" consisted of two large trees on either side of the road with some friendly faces there to greet you.  Eric, the Arts Director came out and introduced himself, gave me some background on the venue, musicians and layout of the property.

I was lead to my spot, right in the middle of Vendor Row, quickly unpacked my things and set up my tent.  Stan, my neighbor in a big white converted bus, was the first to say hello, he gave me a tour of his bus and introduced me around to his travel companions.  Stan sells rocks, crystals and anything terrestrial and was going to head to Herkimer to get some more Herkimer Diamonds right after the show.

I exited the bus and was asked if I'd be willing to paint a sign for the Family Village area, a small hollow that sits away from the rest of the venue where things are quieter.  I said sure and was handed a beautiful piece of wood that had been reserved for just this purpose. I broke out my paints and started in on it. People walking by asked what I was doing and who I was and it was a good way to meet new people.

It is difficult to feel good this 4th of July given the mess the Bush/McCain Republicans have led this nation into. This year alone 438,000 people who lost their jobs. We are well into the Bush's SECOND recession (first president ever to preside over two recessions) with almost no recovery between them. We are officially in a bear market. Food prices are rising worldwide. Oil is at record highs suggesting Americans will have a very, very tough winter. The deficit is WAY above where it has ever been before and no end in sight. And I am not even going into the inept, idiotic and completely useless Bush/McCain Iraq war.

I've always seen the continuing hole at Ground Zero as symbolic of the last 8 years of political leadership. With the full weight of New Yorkers & the American people behind them to do what's right after a terrible tragedy, instead the reconstruction at what used to be the World Trade Center has been plagued with cronyism, flawed engineering, piss poor aesthetics, numerous design revisions, cost overruns and general ineptitude that has left more or less a 16 acre hole in Manhattan 7 years after the attack. It's basically the same quality of judgment exemplified with Iraq & the rebuilding of New Orleans.

To pour more salt on the wound, this week a report by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey said the project may go as much as 20% over its $15 billion dollar budget. Also, construction at the site, originally slated to be done by this year, may not be completed until as late as 2014. That would make the rebuilding process at Ground Zero longer than the time it took NASA to put men on the Moon.