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Democrats on Thursday distanced themselves from Gov. Cuomo’s eye-popping remark that America “was never that great.” City Council Speaker Corey Johnson called the comment “inartful” and “clumsy.” “We are a great country and a great city — we could even be greater,” Johnson said in an interview on WNYC radio. Upstate Democratic Congressman Paul Tonko claimed ignorance. “I haven’t heard about it,” Tonko told Albany’s WNYT TV.

House Dem: Climate change bigger health threat than AIDS, malaria By Andrew Restuccia - 04/06/11 12:25 PM ET Just hours before a vote Wednesday on a GOP plan to block Environmental Protection Agency climate regulations, Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) called climate change a bigger public health threat than AIDS, malaria and pandemic flu. Capps and several other liberal Democrats spoke out Wednesday morning in opposition to the legislation, authored by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.). The lawmakers, who were joined by officials from the American Lung Association and the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the Upton...

A top building trades union is launching a midterm-election assault on House Democrats who oppose construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. A letter distributed Friday by the Laborers' International Union of North America (LIUNA) to the districts of 27 House Democrats calls for union members to make sure their representative "feels the power and the fury of LIUNA this November." Their crime: signing a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry last month urging him to reject Keystone, which would carry oil sands from Canada to Gulf Coast refineries.

Democrats in House of Reps. joined J Street in supporting Obama administration's attempt to force Israel into making painful concessions Seventy-four Democrats in the House of Representatives have joined the dovish J Street organization in supporting the Obama administration's attempt to force Israel into making painful concessions to the Palestinian Authority. “In our view, support for a two-state resolution is inseparable from such support for Israel, its special relationship with the United States, and its very survival as a democratic homeland for the Jewish people,” the letter said. Seven Jewish members signed the letter, including Reps. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), John...

Puppet Pork: If you wonder why it's hard to cut spending, consider the throng of U.S congressmen lining up with Arthur the Aardvark to defend PBS funding from budget cutters. A $14 trillion deficit doesn't tickle us, Elmo. It wasn't an episode of "Sesame Street," but it might have been. There on the Capitol steps was Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., accompanied by fellow Democratic Reps. Paul Tonko, Bill Owens and Nita Lowey of New York and Betty McCollum of Minnesota, with a bevy of Muppets to fight against cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's budget. "This is an ideological...

Keith Ellison, widely hailed as America's first Muslim congressman, could more accurately be described as CAIR and Hamas' man in Congress. Congressman Ellison has been a regular presence at CAIR fundraisers and at pro-Hamas rallies in the United States. As a former member of Farrakhan's Nation of Islam , Ellison has enough anti-semitic and Islamist credentials to satisfy anyone, and had expressed openly anti-semitic beliefs in the past. Since Ellison got his start with CAIR , his attempt to provide support for Hamas is completely unsurprising. Both Hamas and CAIR are projects of the Muslim Brotherhood, which also helped...