Bloodless Coup

Buried deep in this article about Halliburton's treatment of its retirees is a bit about how Amo Houghton arranged for regulatory agencies to investigate. Apparently, the company engaged in some murky legalism that would reduce emplyee pension benefits, hid the fact from their employees, and then encouraged employees - without explaining the change - to take early retirement knowing it would offer a windfall to the company and cut employee benefits. Lovely. On Amo, it's an admirable action to have taken, considering it probably didn't go over big with the adminstration.

While it's easy to single out Halliburton these days (i.e. lots of people are looking, so it's likely that they'll find something) it seems doubtful that this is a practice that has been isolated to their subsidiaries. Of course, this is the kind of thing that might get investigated by a Labor Department which actually involved itself in the welfare of the American workforce.

Let's look also at his worthy(!?) opponent, Sammy Bare-end. Word from locals on the scene report that her campaign manager allegedly sent a flunky out to get the "sealed" divorce records from the county clerk's office. A possible bribe was made to the local clerk servant to get the supposedly "sealed" records. The clerk employee now states it was an "accident"

Of course the data, instead of being returned once the "accident" was discovered, the files were copied to anyone and everyone that they could think of. When asked about this publically, Sam Bare-Butt stated that neither she nor anyone on her staff had anything to do with it. What a bald-faced lie!

Instead of apologizing for the dirty politics and firing her manager, she threw shots back at Kuhl in a lame attempt to get the heat off of her. This is supposedly a person of character who is complaining about Kuhl's character? This girl, while good-intentioned perhaps has no record to talk about. Her "work" on the Route 89 freeway conversion was just gopher work for Senator D'Amato, nothing that she really accomplished, othering than borrowing his name and work as her own accomplishment.

Let's get back to the Kuhl documents: They are the rambling allegations of a possibly alcoholic wife in a bitter divorce battle. It is well-known that they will say anything, as it does not have to be proven. Her standing with Kuhl today to denounce the release of the documents shows that her animosity towards Kuhl has lessened. This seems unlikely if he had threatened to kill her with two(2!) shotguns. (What did he look like? a gun in each arm like Yosemite Sam?)

It seems reasonable and moderate to take all that she said with a grain of salt. No doubt that Kuhl had an alcohol problem. Another well-known NY Democrat from the area, Susan John had a well-publicized DWI charge, which they wrist-slapped her for. And Susan John was on a task force to rewrite tougher DWI laws! What hypocracy!

I think the best one could possibly say about Sam Bare-end is that she is the lessor of two evils. Kuhl's documents are allegations, unproven. It is proven that Sammy is a liar who will say anything to get elected. Is she the kind of person I want to support? How can a reasonable person think so? Is she better than Kuhl? Maybe? Is that enough? Not bloody likely. If she is the best that the local Democrats can move into the area to replace Amo Houghton, then the Democrats in the 29th district are in a sad state of affairs. I would be willing to not vote for Kuhl based strictly on his record in Albany. I didn't need to know about his wife problems, any more than I needed to know about Bill Clinton getting sloppy BJs in the Oval Office. But I do know that Clinton lied about it. And now everyone knows Samara Barend is an opportunistic liar as well. She does not deserve the vote at all. Vote for anyone as long as it is not him or her, but vote for the truth and for honor and dignity, not politics and personal gain.