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Gov. George Pataki has nine weeks remaining in his final term, and a sizable number of Western New Yorkers are ready to say goodbye. Thirty-one percent of local adults consider Pataki to be New York's worst governor since 1959, according to a new Business First-Goldhaber Research Associates Poll. That's the highest negative rating for any governor since Nelson Rockefeller. The runner-up in the survey, Mario Cuomo, received about half as many unfavorable votes as Pataki did. "At the end of the day, if people are unhappy, they're going to blame someone. Many Western New Yorkers are unhappy today, and they're...

As pre-ordained, Mayor Bloomberg was voted in as chairman of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation yesterday. While waiting for the inevitable, my mind wandered back to late last year and this. Following the 9/11 money (from a New York Daily News editorial, originally published on December 10, 2005) No one knew how much money the city was going to need and for what purposes. Sen. Chuck Schumer presented the best guess to Bush in the Oval Office, and the President said, "You got it." So programs were created, and grants, loans and tax incentives began arriving to meet immediate...

Instead of someone who actually cares about 9/11—its dead and living victims and heroes—and remembrance of the day America was attacked, someone with less interest, without the time, and with an obvious conflict of interest is about to be left in charge of the memorial and museum at Ground Zero. Mayor Bloomberg’s choosing culture over remembrance, arrogant indifference for human remains, sabotaging all prior fundraising for the memorial, and callous disregard for thousands of living victims of 9/11 renders him unfit to serve as the chairman of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation. More than five years after 9/11, a...

Reader Scot Silverstein alerts us to the rally for Israel outside the United Nations earlier this week: Some 35,000 people rallied across from the United Nations to protest Ahmadinejad’s presence at the world body. The crowd also wanted to show solidarity for Israel and implore the United Nations to enforce Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended Israel’s war this summer with Hezbollah and calls for the release of three Israeli soldiers taken hostage by Hamas and Hezbollah. Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Presidents Conference, referred to Ahmadinejad’s Tuesday night speech to the General Assembly, in which he portrayed...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — State worker unions could get "significant leverage" in contract negotiations with Albany under a bill passed by the Legislature with little notice, a government watchdog group said Wednesday. The bill was one of many agreed to in the waning days of the legislative session that is scheduled to end Thursday. The labor bill passed last week says that if the state is proven to stall or otherwise fail to bargain "in good faith," the state — and its taxpayers — must automatically award a 1-percent raise to union members. If the state continues to stall, an...

TVC ASKS PATAKI TO STOP HARASSMENT June 21, 2006 - Washington, DC – The Traditional Values Coalition asked New York Governor George Pataki to rein in a state agency which is threatening legal action against an Accord, New York skating rink because it plays Christian music during a “Christian Music Skate” party. The New York Division of Human Rights threatened Len and Terry Bernardo, owners of the Skate Time 209 rink in Accord, with an investigation because the rink plays Christian music during certain hours. The agency also threatened to charge a local newspaper which advertised the event for “aiding...

May 29, 2006 -- TOP backers of former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld's bid for the Republican nomination for governor are increasingly pessimistic about his chances of defeating John Faso, The Post has learned. One prominent Weld backer conceded yesterday that the once-front-running candidate has yet to line up the 51 percent of the vote he'll need to emerge from this week's GOP convention as the party's official choice for governor.

Gov. George Pataki remained hospitalized Monday nearly a week after undergoing a surgery to correct a postoperative complication related to an emergency appendectomy. Pataki, 60, continued eating some food Monday but also remained on intravenous nutrition and antibiotics to reduce the risk of an abscess... `The governor's doctors have indicated that there has been a slow return of normal digestive function because of the ruptured appendix,'' ... Pataki was originally to be released two days after the Feb. 16 appendectomy. ``The governor continues to be in good spirits and is reading, walking around and conducting state business,'' ...

Gov. George Pataki, showing no improvement five days after surgeons removed his appendix, was transferred Tuesday to a New York City hospital and underwent another operation. Doctors operated to alleviate a blockage in Pataki's digestive system, said his spokesman, David Catalfamo. Afterward, the governor was "awake, alert and resting comfortably," ... A blockage following abdominal surgery is relatively rare, said Daniel Herron, an assistant professor of surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan.

Imagine being A fly on the wall hearing Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno telling Jeanine Pirro that she can't beat Hillary Clinton, seeing her camera-ready profile melt into a curt smile. Or a bug on the windshield last week as Pirro drove to a quiet power breakfast with outgoing Governor George Pataki, who endorsed her just two months earlier. "Right now, I am a candidate for United State Senate," Pirro declared after the meeting, with all the confidence of someone asking to be drafted into another race. (PirroforAg.com directs visitors to her Senate campaign website. Hmm.) In a pink suit...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Lawyers for 12 sex criminals who are being held in mental hospitals after their prison sentences ended complained to a judge Wednesday that the state is holding them illegally, a charge the state's lawyer denied. The sex offenders were ordered held by Gov. George Pataki, who had sought for years to get a law passed that would allow civil confinement of sex offenders when their sentences end. Pataki's plan extends the state's involuntary commitment law, normally used for the mentally ill, to sexual predators. It requires offenders nearing the end of their sentences to undergo an...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Gov. George Pataki will veto legislation that would allow women to buy the "morning-after" pill without a prescription, a decision described by abortion rights advocates as "sheer political expediency" to build conservative support for a 2008 presidential run. Pataki disclosed his plans Sunday night through spokesman Kevin Quinn. "Consistent with his record on women's reproductive issues, the governor plans to veto the legislation primarily because it provides no protection whatsoever for minors," Quinn said. "If this and other flaws in the bill are addressed, and a responsible version of the bill is advanced, the governor would...

Note to Republican presidential primary candidates: Don't underestimate George Pataki. There was a time when the pundits said he couldn't win a freshman's run for mayor of Peekskill. They also said that about him when he ran for the Assembly and then the State Senate. In each instance this quiet, thoughtful man proved himself an astute politician who could read his constituents far better than the pollsters and the political analysts. Not only did he run and win but he was able to position himself in such a way that an expanding circle of voters genuinely welcomed him as a...

New York's Medicaid program pays more than a million claims a day, feeding a $44.5 billion river of checks to radiologists and ambulance drivers, brain surgeons and orderlies, medical centers and corner pharmacies. Many who get those checks pocket more money than they deserve, and millions of taxpayer dollars are believed to be lost every day to theft and waste. Skip to next paragraph Andrea Mohin/The New York Times Falling Behind: Boxes of cases in the attorney general's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, where the size of the staff has failed to keep up with the program's growth. PROGRAM DISORDER High...

In a heartening advance with national reverberations, the Republican-led New York State Senate approved a bill on Wednesday that will permit local pharmacists to dispense emergency contraception to women who do not have a prescription. The surprising 34-to-27 vote, which followed easy approval by the Democratic-led Assembly, catapults the issue to a noncommittal Gov. George Pataki. Mr. Pataki has no principled course but to sign it. Skip to next paragraph Readers Forum: Today's Editorials The measure is a necessary response to the ideological gridlock at the Food and Drug Administration. The F.D.A. is still stalling over granting all American women...

The Free Muslims Coalition (FMC), a leading American Muslim organization is proud to announce that Kamal Nawash, President of FMC was named by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as part of a U.S. Delegation to a Conference on combating intolerance against religious groups, including Muslims, Jews and minority Christians among others. The conference is sponsored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, June 8-9, 2005 in Cordoba, Spain. George E. Pataki, Governor of the State of New York, was chosen to lead the delegation and represent the United States in recognition of his leadership role as governor of...

In the days following the announcement that the ill-fated Freedom Tower was being scrapped due to security reasons, advocates for a taller and stronger twin towers suddenly began to see faint streams of light in a dark, three-and-a-half year old tunnel to nowhere. Believing that perhaps the fickle finger of fate had at last emerged to leave its print upon Ground Zero, notables such as the great New York Post columnist Nicole Gelinas, National Review’s Deroy Murdock (both of whom have long supported the rebuilding of the towers), and the maker of apprentices himself, Donald Trump, were among many who...

DES MOINES, Iowa - Potential White House candidates are calling Iowa's top political operatives. Trips to the Midwest are on the schedule. Personal notes to the state's top Democrats and Republicans are in the mail. AP Photo   In the realm of nonstop presidential politics, this is the slow time, when 2008 hopefuls are putting out early feelers in Iowa, a state critical to any White House aspirant. The calendar may show two years and 10 months to the next round of caucuses, but the courting continues. Consider the experience of John Norris, who worked as a field director for...

If the 2008 election were held today, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton would handily defeat three of the top Republicans being touted as possible candidates, a startling new survey by Fox News Opinion Dynamics shows. In a race between Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Clinton, the New York Democrat would win by 7 points, defeating Frist 40 percent to 33 percent, according to Fox Dynamics figures cited Sunday by Angus Reid Consultants. Matched against New York Gov. George Pataki, Clinton's margin of victory drops by 1 point, but she'd still win 41 percent to 35 percent. The former first...

Thank you, delegates and friends. I have been governor of this state for ten years, through challenge, and triumph, and tonight is a great New York night. I'm going to be brief, because tonight we hear from President George W. Bush. The past few evenings we have spoken of September 11th, of our heroes and of those we lost. But there's a part of this story that has never fully been told. I'd like to tell it. After September 11th our tourism industry was hit hard. Do you know what the people of Oregon did? A thousand people from Oregon...