life in the sonic age

Before you say that I should’t be impressed with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I think you should realize what he did took real nerve.
To think that he could put this message into a veto letter, knowing that
everyone who sees it will get it.

Maybe it’s the joker in me that wishes, even though it won’t happen, that
every politician should make the attempt at doing this type of thing.

This poster is right outside Yassky’s office on Court Street. There’s an old saying (which you’d think Mr. Yassky would know): Sh*t or get off the pot.

David, WAKE UP!

First the disclaimer: Devin Cohen is a friend of mine. However, everything I am writing is factual. Thankfully, I don’t have to embelish anything.

Several months ago I had lunch with Roger Adler and two other people. Roger wanted to have lunch with us because of our roles in IND (Independent Neighborhood Democrats). I am the Chairman of the Executive Board of IND, however, what I am writing here is my personal opinion. Roger told us he wanted to run for a judgeship. His plan was to run against an incumbent. That’s an uphill battle in any election, but against a sitting democratic judge, it’s almost unheard of and almost impossible to win. His pitch was simple, support me or I’ll run against Devin Cohen for Civil Court (he actually said it that way). He also said he was prepared to put several hundred thousand dollars of his savings into this race and he would outspend Cohen. We explained to Roger that the way IND works is that everyone gets to vote. We don’t tell people who to vote for. It’s a democratic process.

Several weeks later Roger announced that he was running for the same seat as Devin. He has no experience with Civil Court so it’s a poor fit. But it’s also what Roger has done in the past as a lawyer that makes me uncomfortable. For example:

Adler worked pro bono for the Conservative Party on its legal brief against same sex marriage in New York. He also made financial contributions to the Conservative Party (remember, he’s is a member of the Democratic Party).

Adler represented (jailed) former Democratic Party boss Clarence Norman during his various corruption trials, something he neglects to mention on his flyers.

He has put over $200,000 of his own money into this race! To be blunt, he is trying to buy a judgeship!

Here’s my last point:

You walk into a court room. You are suing the city because you were walking across the street one night and there was a large pothole in the way. You didn’t see it because the street light was out. You fell and broke your ankle. You are suing the city asking them to pay your medical bills. Sitting behind the bench is either Roger Adler (top left) or Devin Cohen (pictured below). You know Adler’s record (see above), and you’ve been told that Devin Cohen is a volunteer EMT, who has been working in the

community for years and is a past chair of the Environmental Protection Committee of Community Board 6.

Who do you want deciding your case?

It’s that simple!

Turnout will be very light - so you’re vote really counts. And you’re vote will make a difference in the lives of a lot of people. So what are you going to do?

The Brooklyn Papers has written about the shameful way Roger Adler is trying to lie-buy-win a Civil Court Jusgeship.

Mike McLaughlain writes:
Civil Court candidate Roger Adler was once a lawyer for disgraced former party boss Clarence Norman. He claims that he is a political outsider.

This week, Adler blanketed voters in Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens and other Brownstone Brooklyn barrios that make up the Civil Court’s first district with an attack ad that painted Cohen as (cue the horror movie music) “president [of] a Democratic Political Club.”

“Will political clubs control the judicial election process or can a nonpolitically experienced lawyer with deep bar association experience succeed?” Adler told The Brooklyn Paper. “I come out of a nonpolitical milieu.”

Adler might not have been affiliated with a club like Cohen’s reform-oriented Independent Neighborhood Democrats, but he was the lawyer for jailed former Democratic county boss Clarence Norman, who has been convicted of embezzling campaign funds and accused of extorting kickbacks from judicial candidates.

Adler’s legal advice came in handy when Norman and an ally were charged in 2004 with demanding $100,000 from two incumbent judges to retain the Democratic party’s support of their campaigns.

Those candidates didn’t pay — and they weren’t re-elected. But Adler maintained that the entire case against Norman boiled down to “a bunch of sore losers who wanted to blame someone,” he told the New York Post back then.

Read the entire article here.