Stewart-Cousins Says Murtagh “Exploiting A Traumatic Incident”
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- October
- 13
It took almost a week, but Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins responded today to last Wednesday’s statement by her Republican opponent John Murtagh, who knocked Barack Obama through the McCain campaign for his alleged ties to William Ayers, a former member of the terrorist group the Weather Underground.
Stewart-Cousins offered harsh words for Murtagh, saying he is “becoming a ‘tool of swiftboat-politics’” and appears to suggest that he was involved in vandalism at her office earlier this year.
The Ayers group firebombed Murtagh’s childhood home because his father was a state Supreme Court justice presiding over the trial of the so-called “Panther 21,” members of the Black Panther party indicted in a plot to bomb New York landmarks.
“What I would like Senator Obama to do is level with the public about his relationship with a man who is responsible for multiple terrorist attacks against government targets – and in the case of my family home, where they attempted to kill us,” Murtagh said in the statement.
Stewart-Cousins said today Murtagh “began his campaign by exploiting a traumatic incident that occurred during his childhood. The McCain-Palin campaign enlisted him to tell his story to associatively smear Senator Barack Obama and divert attention from the issues that really matter to the American people.”
The rest of her statement:
“One has to question Mr. Murtagh’s judgment in becoming a ‘tool of swiftboat-politics’ and, certainly, in deciding to serve as a pro-bono lawyer for a leader of a group of anti-choice protesters that were alleged to have participated in physical harassment, bomb threats, and in four cases, the firing of bullets into windows.
“What happened to the Murtagh family in 1970 was reprehensible. It is surprising, given all of his statements, that Mr. Murtagh does not consider his efforts on behalf of an individual who led a protracted effort to terrorize women and their health-care providers a cause for concern to the voters of the 35th Senate District. It is not surprising that Mr. Murtagh continues to run a campaign that is contradictory and misleading.”
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on Monday, October 13th, 2008 at 4:12 pm by Joseph Spector.
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This woman is an embarrassment personified.
1. The owner of the building where Andrea’s office was “vandalized” has basically said that her window was like that before she even moved in.
2. Murtagh represented an old Catholic priest in a civil suit, who was being sued because he was praying on the sidewalk.
there is an old saying if you don’t open your mouth
people will not know how dumb you really are..clearly
andrea and her campaign advisors simply don’t know
when to be quiet,,there is no way to defend justify
or rationalize what happened to the murtaugh family
forty years ago so why even try…this makes
stewart cousins look insensitive and calous..
This is so unbelievably stupid I don’t know what to say-She makes Harry Reid look intelligent by comparison.
I wasn’t sure who I was voting for in this contest, especially after the Ayers nonsense, but Senator Stewart Cousins has lost my vote with her callous and reckless comments.
murtagh is a desperate individual with a failing campaign, to use a tragedy for political purposes
Hank Steinbrenner must be her campaign manager.
Stewart-Cousins makes a rock look intelligent.
Unlike that fake nonsense at her office, what happened to the Murtagh family was very real. It’s a miracle no one was killed that time by the William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn (Ayers’ wife) terrorists.
Nice alliance with the Black Panthers too. That alliance wasn’t a coincidence, either. It all leads back to Chicago, with other ties in NY.
stewart cousins should not be holding office at this
level..the fact that greenburgh knee jerk voters prefer
her is astounding..but listen up..their property taxes
are rising so fast that pretty soon they will change
their minds about who is best for their pecuniary
interests..but since i don;t pay property taxes
I just watch and laugh
You THINK you don’t pay property taxes. Unless you live in a field, your landlord is unlikely to be so dumb as to not add them in to your monthly nut which has now become for you non-deductible. If he doesn’t, he won’t be a landlord for long.
This woman is really unfit for any office, anywhere, anytime.
She is as dumb as a box of rocks.
Senator Stewart-Cousins brings nothing to our district and it looked like she was going to ride on Obama’s coattails into the election. Now she has sent up a flare – perhaps Obama is worried about his campaign and John Murtagh’s questions. I expect we will see more of Senator Stewart-Cousins nationally in the next few weeks.
Ed 1 I dont pay property taxes because i dont own property
Jesus, Mary and Joseph! And Abraham! I KNOW you don’t own property. My point was, well, let’s simplify this – If you were to rent out your old house, you would surely include in the monthly rental fee the taxes you pay on the property. In essence, the renter is paying taxes, albeit non-deductible, as included in the rental price. And you talk about ME not understanding the nuances of finance and business? I certainly don’t mean to insult you, but sometimes I think you just type without thinking. I await your reply which I anticipate as saying: “You just don’t get it, Ed.”
Cousins is right on target with her comments.
You left out your middle initial, “I”
What do “The Consultant” and “John McCain” have in common? They are both yesterday’s news!
ed….you are saying that I indirectly pay property taxes
if I pay rent….however if rent is fixed for 5 years for
example it is the landlord that has to be concerned with
rising taxes..not the renter ..maybe why so many renters
are democrats…
and thanks mike…but I think I will hang around a bit
just to annoy people like you
Find great information about Albany
bars at 518fever.com
If a Republican had said something as inane as Stewart-Cousins just did, it would be on page 1 of the Journal News. Watch the editorial board ignore her stupidity and miserable record, and give her the paper’s endorsement any way.
Murtagh clearly believes surfacing this issue at this time is going to help him. Murtagh would not be discussing this issue if he thought it was going to hurt him. Murtagh is using this unfortunate and heinous issue from the past for political gain. All politicians do the same thing, they weight the pro’s and con’s of an issue before they move forward with it. Murtagh thinks this issue will play to his favor. I would respect Murtagh and the issue if he surfaced it when he was not seeking to be elected to higher office. It appears that Murtagh is using this terrible situation as a political tool.
Murtagh’s ego is beaming that he is being thrown in the Presidential race with his past. The unfortunate thing about Murtagh is he is being used by McCain and Mccain will throw him to the wolves, Murtagh is a bleep on the radar for the McCain campaign.
On election day remember, McCain, Murtagh and Bush all have the same political beliefs when it comes to the American people.
Murtagh is being a partisan lamb like so many. his op ed pieces are disgusting. Look I am no fan of Bill Ayers or what and how he did it but this is a junk argument. The Weather Underground did not try to kill people. It was fear they wanted to spread. The bomb on Murtagh’s porch caused little damage. The messages written show they expected the family to come out.
Again I am not condoning the action but don’t tell me that Ayers tried to kill you. This is purely for political gain and it is as lame as Liebell’s grand standing of mandating police protection around his house for week because some residents got his home number.
So Murtagh hates Ayers. Thats understandable. But I am sorry, Obama has nothing to do with any of that.
Where has Murtagh been for the past 3 decades while Ayers has been a prominent figure in Chicago Education reform circles and working with hundreds of Democrats AND Republicans. Ayers was never convicted and rule of law allows him to actively engage in whatever he wishes. Where was Murtagh when one of McCain’s top endorsers, Leonore Annenberg was appointing Ayers to his prominent positions?
Nowhere…
It took a Democrat Presidential Candidate to bring his hatred out. How ironic. Johnny boy doesn’t even care about Ayers. his criticisms are of Obama and Obama only. he is a partisan schmuck who thinks he was so important that a glorified molotov cocktail that was doused by a small snowman was intended to kill him.
Obama has nothing to do with Ayers? What rock are you living under.
And sorry Andrea, but Murtagh has every right to come out and denounce someone (Obama) with ties to Ayers. Murtagh and his family were VICTIMS to Ayer’s and his wife and the rest of their oohorts. And the bomb was not just on their front porch. And how do you know it wouldn’t have set the entire house aflame?
Once again, the Dems have no sympathy for VICTIMS unless they are democrat victims.
and she should be ashamed for her remarks chastising a VICTIM who is now standing up against the people who VICTIMIZED him and his family and Obama who has multiple ties to him, but is hiding those ties.
And she is chiding Murtagh for representing a priest who prayed for those who were chosing between life and death..
And Andrea has done absolutely NOTHING for her district, I repeat NOTHING..
You know, Andrea, you just make Murtagh look better and better.
Barrack had noting to do with Ayers bombings. Obama and dozens of others including Republicans worked with Ayers on those education reform boards too. Several Republicans in Chicago said that their paths had to cross. Obama has nothing to answer too. We know what they were doing. Obama has denounced Ayers radical past.
From 1999 to 2001, Mr. Murtagh served as a pro-bono lawyer for the Rev. John T. Murphy, a leader of a group of antiabortion protesters who spent years picketing outside Long Island Gynecological Services in Garden City, N.Y. Rev. Murphy ran a charity called “Save the Babies,” records show.
Murtagh’s friends-
According to a 1995 Nassau County, N.Y., court decision involving the clinic, the Nassau County Police Department was called to the premises at least 17 times in 1994 and 1995 to investigate reports of physical assault, harassment, bomb threats and in four cases, the firing of bullets into windows.
A 72-year-old woman who worked for another business in the building told police that two protesters grabbed her from behind, dragged her down a hall, and slammed her into a wall before running off, leaving her with bruises and back pain. She told police she believed the protesters had mistaken her for a clinic employee because she had been wearing a white nurse’s uniform.
Threatening notes were left at the clinic, including one stating “Danger” and “This is a war zone.” A protester threw a piece of lead at a building manager, missing the man but breaking the car window of the building’s owner, the police records cited by the New York court show.
Why is Murtagh associating with these wackos?
Police reports showed that minor fire damage was caused to the porch of Murtaghs home. The fire under the car was doused by a snowman. Serious stuff.
Those who would minimize the attacks of Ayers and the Weather Underground forget that this same group killed two police officers and a security guard during a bank robbery in Rockland County.
If the bomb under the Murtagh gas tank had exploded, there would be other victims too.
Uh don’t know what you are getting at Sandra. Bill Ayers had long since been dealt with and was no longer in hiding. The Rockland case you are referring to is one in which an ex-member of the group robbed a bank. The WU led by Ayers never killed anyone.
And it’s unlikely that the bomb under the car would killed anyone had the gas tank ignited. Having seen a car burn myself it is not like in the movies. Unless the car was very near Murtagh’s upstairs bedroom. I don’t really know what you or Say it ain’t so are getting at but I do agree John Murtagh is hyping this up to hurt Obama.
Ayers association with Obama in Chicago is no worse than McCain’s association to ex-Nazis in the Iran Contra affair which relied on Death squads to kill entire villages in South America to fight Communism.
To expand. The Brinks Robbery was in 1981. Ayers turned himself in to authorities in 1980. Had Ayers and Dohrn had anything to do with Brinks they could have been tried for it. They never were. In fact Ayers became the legal guardians of some of the children of those who were.
SR…you are forgetting the dead cop in Calfornia. Blown up at his desk. And Dorhn did jail time over Brink’s because she refused to cooperate with the Grand Jury.
It’s disgusting to see people making excuses for Ayers, Dorhn and the vicious Weather Underground.
That means you and others.
It is obvious to me that Murtagh has several skeletons in his closet. If he wants to raise issues about the past then he should answer questions about his association with those extremist from the “Save the Babies” group. The only reason Murtagh surfaced the issue with Ayers is because he thought it would give him some political mileage. Murtagh did not realize that most people would see right through his political maneuver.
How could you New Yorkers elect someone as patently stupid as Stewart-Cousins?
I hope that Mr. Murtagh is successfull in replacing this dimwit.
Wow Jiminy chiming in with an entirely hypocritical viewpoint??? Never…
SR –
Do you have “How can I help a criminal today?” tatooed in reverse on your forehead or do you just chant it all day as you go about advancing the cause of evil?
whats funny is andrea and suzi are riding obama’s coattails and he doesnt even know who they are
Nonaubiz…Good one. You also have figured out SR.
As for RP…”save the babies” is a bad thing…extremist, eh? But killing them is alright. OK, whatever you say.
nonabiz,
I’m sorry I forgot there is no constitution or rule of law in this country and when someone works on an issue as noble as education reform with a guy who he had no control over I just don’t find anything wrong with that. I would have done exactly what Obama did.
Obama did not help Ayers do the horrible things he did
Obama did not put Ayers on that board
Ayers did not put Obama on that board
Dozens of people including Republicans were involved.
Murtagh is using the issue as a campaign tool.
Sorry facts are facts.
I am sure you have some criminal associates yourself. Some you may not even know about. Many people have ghosts in their closets. Go lynch yourself before casting stones.
What education reform? Summerhill? Let the children decide the curriculum? The entire money-burning Annenberg experiment proved a disaster except for those “intellectuals” who reaped income from it. Historical research since the 1940’s has shown that these kids “educated” (rather, experimented with) under the Summerhill philosophy have been ill-served. Something “as noble as educational reform?”
SR, you advise someone who disagrees with you to go “lynch” himself? No one knows who Obama is because he won’t tell you who he is. He mentions incessantly, the “middle-class” and what he is going to do for them. Anyone making under 250 grand is going to be golden, he tells us. He rarely, if ever, mentions what his voting record reveals – and it ain’t about helping the middle class. How in hell can anyone be so naive as to think that he is the champion of the middle class? What’s his real agenda? Like Bill Parcells used to say: “You are what your record says you are.”
“Save the Babies” as it relates to trying to stop a woman from her constitutional right to choose is a bad thing. A woman by law has the right to terminate a pregnancy in its early stages if she chooses. People under the banner of “Save the Babies” do not have the right to interfere with that right.
You are what your record says you are. Right. And Obama’s record says he is an ultra-liberal who never sided with the middle class, and who also voted “present” about a million times in the Illinois legislature. He also has a string of radical associates and supporters.
Rashid Khalidi is another one of those. A Columbia U. prof, and he also was in Chicago. A PLO guy in the past. Obama admits he knows him too.
Summerhill? In NYC years ago, some very weird folks were involved with Summerhill. Many of them are still around.
The only thing abortion has done for any of us is to keep the crime rate down. Rudy, wily as ever, took credit, claiming he took the window washers off the corner. Fact is, in NY abortion has given us right here a million or two less yahoos running wildly in the streets.
SR-
Nice line about lynching. Were you one of the founding members of planned parenthood as they were very familiar with those terms?
non
Zyskander would do better if he used paragraphs. But what he says about Obama’s comment to the plumber is correct, and it is a scary remark that reveals a lot about Obama’s ideas. They mirror those of William Ayers —communist.
Ayers readily admits he is still a Marxist/communist. Obama might as well do the same. His comment to the plumber speaks volumes and really shouldn’t be surprising. There is a considerable list of Obama’s radical associates.
Wow, prime the pump is Communist. Wow I should be scared. But oh wait the US has employed the concept several times already. Most notably after the Great Depression.
So no it shouldn’t be surprising because it has been a common strategy for almost a century.
Communist no…socialist..maybe…but hey its like
a salmon swimming upstream…the conservative president
has just nationalized the banks…so Obama is not even
suggesting something that would appear radical..
he is giving tax breaks to a majority of the
voters..because they are the ones making under 250m
per year…and right now its got to be very
appealing to them and to most retirees who also
live on under 250m a year…as we dive into a prolonged
recession very few are willing to make this an
ideological battle including george w bush
I must admit that I admire the cloudy success of the cynicism and machiavellianism of a candidate who can lump the 40% of the nation who pays no taxes at all with those who pay a pittance and those who make 250 grand a year against everyone else who’s left in the minority who actually pay the bulk of the taxes. Hugo Chavez, anyone?
At 11:03 the Consultant said, “communist no, socialist maybe.” Here is William Ayers in 1995….
“I am a radical, leftist, small ‘c’ communist. Maybe I’m the last communist who is willing to admit it. The ethics of Communism still appeal to me. I don’t like Lenin as much as the early Marx.”
That was William Ayers, 1995. And who would he be working with in an attempt to radicalize Chicago schools? And who was he throwing a fund-raiser for? Obama.
HEH sr OR SHOULD THAT BE ‘COMRADE’ – youse a good ‘useful idiot’ boy!!! they were ‘commies’ in 1919 – they were ‘commies’ in the 20’s-30’s-40’s-50’s-60’s-70’s – AND THEY ARE STILL HERE – AND NOW WE WILL HAVE A FRIGGIN COMMIE AS PRESIDENT!!! SEE YOUSE + YOUR ILK HOPEFULLY IN THE GULAG – MORON.
Ms. Cousins
Ms Cousins,
What do you mean by your statement the “so called panther 21” are you suggesting that there was no such group?
Good comment, Larry. It seems that might be just what she is suggesting.
Cousins doesn’t seem to realize there were buttons, shirts, posters and whatever for the very real “Panther 21.”
The Consultant also seems not to have noticed he was WRONG again, this time about communism and Ayers.
Ms. Cousins,
I can not imagine that anyone would vote for you.
Obama sides with radicals like Ayers.
NY has become a sad, sad state of affairs.
There was a debate tonight on cable TV. Cousins spent all her time saying absolutely nothing. Murtagh is no knight in shining armor, but compared to Cousins he’s Abe Lincoln.
Jiminy,
Kenseyan Economics, it’s an American thing employed after the Great Depression. Thats what Obama is talking about. It is not a Communist ideal. Consultant cleared that by saying, “socialist, maybe.” It had nothing to do with Ayers.
communism is a political system it has two components
a totalitarian goverment..and a centrally controlled
economy…no private ownership of anything..and the
government controls the means of production
socialism can exist in a democracy..it implies goverment
control over the economy..but does not exclude private
owenership of business…
since we have already have the government taking large
equity postion in the banks redistribution of wealth
is what we already do in the tax code so Obama
is simply rearranging the way we redistribute..
the radicals that have damaged this country presently reside in the white house.
They are the ones with a radical ideology that has driven this country to the edge of ruin.
. fighting the cold war and arguing against communism make about as much sense today as railing against the dangers of the monarchy. In 2008 the world is recognizing that the economic mythology that vested interests have perpetuated in this country to grow their personal wealth at the expense of others and their own country is a lie, that unhindered, free market systems without controls, (and we all know who has to set the rules, TO PROTECT US), creates a unsustainable economy, disproportional wealth and ultimately chaos. It’s not called communism, or socialism it is called having rules. A system that favors the rich and is then constantly called in so the government and our tax dollars can bail out their folly is an elitist form of socialism. How an intelligent person can even reference trickle down as an economic policy is beyond me. It is hard to admit you have been dupped.
I have known andrea for more than twenty year. she is one of the impressive people I have ever met.
I agree! Andrea is great. How dare that Murtagh fella be upset that the Weathermen were in bed with the Black Panthers and then tried to blow up his house with him in it!
Who cares? Just pay your taxes like me and move on, move on.
Charlie Wrangle
murtagh knows about taxes, he has continuously voted to raise taxes, fees and water/sewer rates.
WHEN is this woman going to be charged with filing a false police report?
She has attempted to suppress the freedom of speech of opponents to a bill she introduced by FILING A FALSE POLICE REPORT.
Cousins is a CRIMINAL.