Don't take Skelos, Silver, or Cuomo too seriously. All lawyers and all politicians and all individuals motivated by self interest and who do not care one iota that, Nassau OTB, a PUBLIC BENEFIT CORPORATION, is closed only on Roman Catholic Holidays eg Easter Sunday and Palm Sunday in preference to the same holy days observed on other Sundays by the Greek Orthodox Church. See NY Const. Art 1, Sec. 3.
The schedule also included a number
of visits to religious sites, including the Western Wall, where Mr.
Cuomo, as tradition dictates, inserted a prayer he had written earlier
that morning on a small piece of paper. And the trip took Mr. Cuomo, who
doesn't often speak of his own faith, to the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, where Jesus is said to have been both crucified and buried.
"As a Catholic, it is a very, very powerful relic," Mr. Cuomo said.
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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.
NY Politics
Foreign Policy at Fore in Cuomo Israel Trip
Governor and His Delegation Meet With Netanyahu
Aug. 13, 2014 9:17 p.m. ET
New York Gov, Andrew Cuomo visits the Western Wall in Jerusalem on day one of his Israel visit Wednesday.
Reuters
JERUSALEM—The first day of New York Gov.
Andrew Cuomo's
first international trip since he took office gave him a chance
to bolster his foreign-policy credentials alongside Israeli Prime
Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu.
On a visit that other ambitious
governors have made in years past, Mr. Cuomo also revisited some deeply
personal ground after flying into Tel Aviv around noon local time
Wednesday.
From the moment he landed
through the next nine hours, Mr. Cuomo and a delegation of state
legislative leaders sprinted through a series of meetings with world
leaders and visited with Israeli citizens and New Yorkers living in the
country.
The highlight of the itinerary was a
meeting with Mr. Netanyahu in his office in Jerusalem, where he spoke
with Mr. Cuomo and the delegation for more than an hour.
Following
the meeting, Mr. Netanyahu said that he had reinforced for Mr. Cuomo
the importance of rejecting a "false symmetry" between Israel and Hamas.
"Just as you wouldn't put American and
ISIS on the same moral plane, you'd never put Israel and Hamas on the
same moral plane," Mr. Netanyahu said. "Remember that Hamas celebrated
9/11. They celebrated the murder of thousands of innocent people and
thousands of New Yorkers.…They were standing on the roof cheering while
all the people of Israel grieved with the United States."
The
prime minister also recalled "how strongly and firmly" the governor's
father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, also stood with Israel. "And this is a
tradition that continues with you and your delegation."
Mr.
Cuomo, a Democrat, said later at a news conference that he was struck
by how moved Mr. Netanyahu appeared by his and the delegation's public
support for and willingness to visit Israel during a period of intense
conflict. And Mr. Netanyahu's words seemed to resonate with the
governor, who expanded on the prime minister's outrage over moral
equivalency to espouse his own vision of the broader threat of Hamas
across the globe.
Andrew Cuomo at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Wednesday.
Reuters
"This is not about Israel versus
Hamas. This is bigger than that," Mr. Cuomo said at the news conference
at the David Citadel Hotel.
"This is
extremism. This is ISIS and Hamas and Hezbollah. This is Syria and this
is Iran, this is an expanding Middle East situation and this is a war
against democracies," he said. "Take a look at the big democracies, and
you'll see that you come up pretty soon."
When
pressed about how he would respond to those who criticize Israel for
Palestinian casualties, Mr. Cuomo was more circumspect.
"Everyone
will say the loss of life is tragic. And the one thing everyone wants
is peace. And there's been too much bloodshed on both sides of the
border," he said. "The question becomes, when, from Israel's point of
view, when you are attacked, you have to defend yourself. Well, Israel
is good at defending itself.…But Israel's point is, we want a cease
fire."
And asked whether he would visit
Gaza, Mr. Cuomo was less direct still, saying: "Well, I'm not that big a
world traveler, and I think this is going to be my last trip for a
while."
Earlier in the day, the governor and legislative leaders, including Assembly Speaker
Sheldon Silver
and Senate Coalition co-leaders
Jeffrey D. Klein
and Dean Skelos, met with Israeli President
Reuven Rivlin
at his residence, where Mr. Cuomo presented him with a carved wooden box.
The governor kneels to kiss the Stone of Unction,
traditionally claimed as the stone where Jesus' body was prepared for
burial.
Reuters
The schedule also included a number
of visits to religious sites, including the Western Wall, where Mr.
Cuomo, as tradition dictates, inserted a prayer he had written earlier
that morning on a small piece of paper. And the trip took Mr. Cuomo, who
doesn't often speak of his own faith, to the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, where Jesus is said to have been both crucified and buried.
"As a Catholic, it is a very, very powerful relic," Mr. Cuomo said.
For
the Queens-born Mr. Cuomo, perhaps the most welcome sight of the long
day was a pizza joint, Big Apple Pizza, where he ditched his suit jacket
and sat outdoors to eat a slice with several Hebrew University students
originally from New York.
"So how's it
been the past few weeks to be here? How does it feel on the ground when
this is going on? Can you tell?" Mr. Cuomo said as he devoured his pizza
in seven bites.
"It's palpable," said Grant Hartman, from West Hempstead, who is studying Hebrew at the university.
While
the visit was arranged as a press event, Mr. Cuomo appeared to relish
some informal downtime, at one point even good-naturedly shooing away a
television reporter who was trying to shoot a segment on the event
("Dave, do you have to do that here?").
Mr.
Cuomo's presence appeared to resonate with the students. Mr. Hartman in
particular, who criticized "the weakness of the American response" to
Israel's current struggle with Hamas, said of Mr. Cuomo: "I really think
just coming here says a lot."
Write to Erica Orden at erica.orden@wsj.com
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