how about seeing that ny const art 1 sec 3 is not violated?
ever heard of the orthodox church?
Thanks for the help. The item’s below. I’d be happy to mail you a copy, if you give me a mailing address.
Claude Solnik
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
How 4 congresswomen came to
be called “the Squad”
The term is making headlines, but Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Pressley, and Tlaib have their own definition.
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Sometime in the past few months, four members of Congress came to be referred to in mainstream media outlets as “the Squad.”
The story of how that happened says a lot about politics in America today.
Back in November, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, then a representative-elect from New York, posted a photo of herself with three progressive women of color who, like her, were soon to be members of Congress — Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). The caption: “Squad.”
The photo went viral, with a raft of positive media coverage. But the term “the Squad” became more widespread in media earlier this month when New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd used it in an interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in which Pelosi took the four to task for voting against a border funding bill.
Then President Trump got involved, with racist tweets that didn’t name the four congresswomen of color specifically but seemed clearly directed at them, telling them to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
Ever since then, “the Squad” has been cropping up in headlines. And critics on the right have begun using the term in a pejorative way, with White House counselor Kellyanne Conwaysaying “these four people in the so-called squad that have done squat in Congress.”
At this point, “the Squad” has become a term whose meaning depends on who’s using it. For some critics, it can be a way of targeting and demeaning female politicians of color who “represent everything that stands against the status quo,” as Kelly Dittmar, an assistant political science professor and scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics, told Vox.
But for the representatives themselves, using the term can be a way to express solidarity not just with each other but with supporters around the country, Dittmar said. As Pressley put iton Monday, “our squad is big.”
The media started using “the Squad” more widely after Trump’s racist tweets
The idea of Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Pressley, and Tlaib as a “squad” unto themselves emerged slowly. When she Instagrammed a picture of herself with her four future colleagues shortly after the 2018 midterm elections, Ocasio-Cortez was using a common social media expression of friendship and solidarity that has its roots in hip-hop.
A squad is “a self-chosen group of people that you want to identify with,” whether you’re just going to the pool or doing civic activism, said Nadia Brown, an assistant professor of political science and African American studies who studies black women in politics.
For Ocasio-Cortez, using the term “squad” showed the common language she shared with her younger constituents. As a millennial herself, Brown said she found the use of the term “spot-on.”
“You understand the terminology and you’re using it in the correct way,” she said. “It’s a shorthand,” showing that “you might be someone who sees the world the way that I do.”
Others didn’t necessarily use the word “squad” to refer to the congresswomen right away. But opponents have been singling out the four from the beginning — Fox News host Laura Ingraham called them “the four horsewomen of the apocalypse” in a segment last November. And criticism of them as a group kicked into a higher gear in June after the four broke with Pelosi and the rest of their party to vote against a bill providing $4.5 billion in border funding.
Pelosi had cast the bill as the best way to improve conditions for children and other migrants at the border. But opponents on the left argued that giving the administration more money for the border would make the problems worse. “Throwing more money at the very organizations committing human rights abuses — and the very Administration directing these human rights abuses — is not a solution,” Omar said.
Then in early July, Pelosi called out the four to Dowd in the Times for voting against “our bill.” “All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world,” Pelosi told Dowd. “But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”
In her column, Dowd referred to “the Squad, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts are known.”
Trump soon joined the conflict, issuing a series of racist tweets that seemed clearly directed at the four. “So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run,” Trump wrote.
Coverage of those tweets and their aftermath typically referred to the congresswomen as “the Squad.” A headline in USA Today read, “‘The Squad’: These are the four congresswomen Trump told to ‘go back’ to other countries.” One in CNN read, “Here are the 4 congresswomen known as ‘The Squad’ targeted by Trump’s racist tweets.” Vox referred to “the Squad” as well.
The congresswomen are expanding the definition of their “squad”
Today, what “the Squad” means varies based on who’s using the term. Opponents of the congresswomen, like Kellyanne Conway, have begun using “the Squad” in a dismissive way.
“Because this is a sort of term that has come from social media and pop culture,” Dittmar, the Center for American Women and Politics scholar, explained, “those who are in opposition try to use it to demean the seriousness of not only these women but also what they’re doing.”
That kind of demeaning language is part of a longstanding pattern on the right of targeting the four congresswomen. They are a convenient target for Trump and his supporters because they are young, progressive women of color representing progressive districts, Dittmar said. Trump and others are trying to send the message that “these people who are trying to change everything, and who are different, are dangerous,” she said.
Some have criticized media use of “the squad” as infantilizing or sexist. It can also feel appropriative. “It’s just like, we’re going to take something that people of color have been using and try to claim it or use it as our own without understanding where it comes from,” Brown said.
It’s also worth noting that just because Ocasio-Cortez once captioned a picture “Squad” doesn’t mean that the four congresswomen see themselves as a separate group from others in Congress, or in America. That’s a separation that’s been imposed upon them, by Pelosi and then by Trump.
In fact, the four have pushed back against the notion that “squad” is an exclusive term. “Our squad is big,” Pressley said at a press conference Monday. “Our squad includes any person committed to creating a more equitable and just world.”
When Vox asked Pressley how she felt about the use of the term, a spokesperson pointed to an interview with the Boston Globe in which the lawmaker made a similar statement: “If you share the values and believe in creating a more equitable and just world, you are part of ‘the squad.’” Ocasio-Cortez declined to comment for this story, and Omar and Tlaib have not yet responded to Vox’s inquiry.
Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez got into a joking back-and-forth with 82-year-old Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), inspired by an Onion article, and granted him membership in the squad.
She also conducted an open roll call:
For the four congresswomen, defining the squad as something inclusive and expansive may be a way to push back against efforts — whether they’re by Trump or Pelosi — to paint them as a small group that isn’t representative of America.
The way they’re using the term “squad” now is drawing support on social media and elsewhere, which in turn puts pressure on Democratic Party leaders to take them and their message seriously, Dittmar said. Voters, she explained, are saying, “that’s the squad I want to be a part of.”
THE LATEST
Conservative Tom Gargiulo suspends campaign for Suffolk legislative seat
Tom Gargiulo has suspended his campaign for the Suffolk County Legislature's 14th District seat. Photo Credit: Ed Betz
A Conservative Party candidate for the Suffolk County Legislature who lost his own party's ballot in last month's primary election has suspended his campaign, even though his name will stay on the Democratic ballot line in November.
Tom Gargiulo was designated as candidate for the 14th District as part of a Democratic-Conservative cross-endorsement deal to take on incumbent GOP Legis. Kevin McCaffrey, who had the minor party line in the past. McCaffrey waged a Conservative write-in campaign, winning the June 25 contest 186-146.
Gargiulo’s decision to suspend his campaign came to light after Rich Schaffer, the Suffolk County Democractic chairman, sent an email to party members last week announcing the cancellation of a $150-a-head Gargiulo fundraiser set for July 11 in Lindenhurst.
Schaffer said Gargiulo re-evaluated his campaign after the primary loss diminished his chances of winning on just the Democratic line.
Gargiulo was upset about the harshness of the political attacks during the primary especially on the issue of abortion, which he opposes because of his Catholic faith.
“It really hurt, and it was hard for me,” said Gargiulo, a retired teacher who is active in church work. He said he plans to send a letter to Conservative voters to make clear his stand.
McCaffrey said he has “no regrets” about his campaign, adding that Gargiulo — by accepting the Democratic ballot line — “had to expect some of the splatter” from the party’s liberal stands on such issues as late-term abortion and voting rights for felons.
“I never really wanted to campaign against Tom,” said McCaffrey, who has known Gargiulo for 30 years. “I’m just glad it came to this happy ending.”
He also said the move lets Democrats redirect resources to other tight races like the 8th District, where Republican aide Anthony Piccirillo also won his write-in bid against incumbent Legis. William Lindsay III (D-Oakdale).
Although he faces only token opposition, McCaffrey said he will keep knocking on doors.
“I may not out wear out another pair of shoes," he said, "but I’ll still be at the doors because that’s where you hear unfiltered what's on the minds of regular people.”
Gargiulo noted he also still has the Independence Party ballot line and he expects friends to vote for him.
“You never know,” he said.
Rick Brand has covered Suffolk life, government and politics for 37 years.
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