Free Republic

Wow. On the heels of his possible congressional opponent, Rory Lancman, bowing out of a run for Congress, Queens/Long Island Rep. Gary Ackerman is now bowing out too, according to a press release I just got from Ackerman’s office. I am told the Queens Dems are meeting tomorrow to nominate congressional candidates, but two people I’ve spoken to close to the Queens Dems were unaware of Ackerman’s retirement. I also have heard rumors that Rep. Joe Crowley would be interested in this seat, since this would be a favorable district for him, but I have no idea if that’s actually...

The headlines last week were filled with outrage over the revelation that former Philadelphia School Superintendent Arlene Ackerman has filed for $573 a week in unemployment compensation, the maximum amount in Pennsylvania. Ms. Ackerman, who was contracted to receive a $348,000 salary through 2014, was bought out of it for a $905,000 lump-sum payment plus $83,000 for unused vacation and personal days.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation dropped in on my doorstep. It seems that the piece we did on Monday about Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Carnation), the boutonniered New York congresscritter, and his smarmy, PETA-friendly critiques of Rep. Jeff Landry’s fundraising tactics ruffled some feathers inside the Beltway.

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – A Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge today granted a temporary restraining order against the School District of Philadelphia, putting a halt for now on the school district’s plan to lay off 1,500 teachers. (Philadelphia schools superintendent Arlene Ackerman. Photo by Mike DeNardo) Philadelphia schools superintendent Arlene Ackerman confirmed on Monday that the district was sending out layoff notices to 3,024 employees, including the teachers. She said teachers at the district’s worst-performing schools (dubbed “promise academies” by the district) would not be subject to the layoffs because she wanted to minimize disruptions at those failing schools. The Philadelphia...

Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., chairman of the Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, called Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's address "a sadistic tease" and predicted that demonstrations could turn violent. "He just lit the final fuse," Ackerman said in an interview on MSNBC TV. "And now I think the situation is going to verge on the explosive over the next 24 hours."

OBAMA'S POLL NUMBERS DOWN, IMAGINARY RACISM UPJuly 21, 2010 The Democrats are depressed about their collapsing poll numbers, so it's time to start calling conservatives "racist." As we now know from the Journolist list-serv, where hundreds of liberal journalists chat with one another, and which was leaked to Daily Caller this week, journalists cry "racism" whenever they need to distract from bad news for Obama. (Ironically, this story did not make headlines.) When the Rev. Jeremiah Wright scandal broke during the 2008 campaign, the first response of Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent was to demand that they start randomly...

Republican Liz Berney, Esq., 2010 candidate for U.S. Congress (NY District 5) has done everything right to run a formidable campaign against Democrat Rep. Gary Ackerman’s sixteen-year incumbency. District 5 encompasses parts of two counties at lower New York State, from the town of Elmhurst at Queens County to the Town of Greenvale at the North Shore of Nassau County. Even before Liz Berney ran for Congress in 2008, she was laying the groundwork for her campaign by working within the Republican and Libertarian parties and other organizations building a team of supporters who advocate fiscally sound principles in government...

Didn't Nancy Pelosi say that this will be the cleanest congress in history? Pelosi may have had noble dreams but when you look at her tenure and the scandals by Chris Dodd, Charlie Rangel, John Murtha and others she has not followed through on their scandals. In fact she has allowed the ethics process to drag out in these cases. There is a new Senior Democratic Party congressman who is drawing attention of the ethics committee, Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) a 27 year year veteran Representative of NY's 5th district may have broken House ethics rules with no-money-down stock deal....

UTICA, N.Y. (WKTV) - A comment in the New York Post from Queens / Long Island Congressman Gary Ackerman regarding the replacement of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as a U.S. Senator after her appointment as Secretary of State, has left many locally, including officials, angry, and disappointed. The New York Post reads "Ackerman also joked that he had taken himself out of the running for the Senate in a way that appeared to highlight (Caroline) Kennedy's lack of statewide experience. He said he wouldn't want to replace Clinton, 'because I don't do Utica, and that's a qualification for the job."

Protesters blockade Rep. Ackerman's houseboatBY JANIE LORBER | janie.lorber @newsday.com 9:31 AM EDT, July 9, 2008 WASHINGTON - A flotilla of peace protesters in canoes and rafts attempted to blockade the houseboat of Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Jamaica Estates) early Wednesday morning in reaction to legislation he submitted that would impose sanctions on Iran. The Queens Democrat emerged from his home on the Potomac River smiling and clapping after the demonstrators, known as Code Pink, had been chanting for nearly 30 minutes. They want Ackerman to withdraw the legislation because they believe it symbolizes the first step on a path to...

A closed-door retreat in Newport Beach for Senate Republicans has turned into a leadership battle, with state Sen. Jim Battin challenging Minority Leader Dick Ackerman for the top job - again. Battin has collected seven votes, one shy of the eight votes needed to assume the leadership of the 15-member Senate Republican Caucus, sources told Capitol Weekly. Several senators did not attend the retreat, and another closed-door vote was planned Monday morning in the Capitol--on the same day that new members of the 2006-07 Legislature are scheduled to be formally sworn in. The challenge mounted by the "Battinistas" against Ackerman,...

The "smooth transition" of power over at the San Francisco school district is turning out to be anything but -- especially after a behind-closed-doors blowup between outgoing Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, her attorney and some school board members. Officially, the district is saying only that acting Superintendent Gwen Chan is now in charge -- and that henceforth Ackerman, who announced her departure come June and will get $375,000 if she sticks around till then, will be acting in an "advisory" capacity. Unofficially, however, Ackerman and the district could be on the verge of a very nasty split. It all has to...

<p>September 17, 2002 -- NEW Jersey voters already concerned about Sen. Robert Torricelli's low ethical threshold now learn that he's been a paid shill for a group the government identifies as a terrorist organization. Called on this by his Republican opponent, Douglas Forrester, in a debate Thursday, Torricelli said the group had been pulled from the State Department's global terror list and given a clean bill of health. Not true.</p>

WASHINGTON - The White House worked furiously yesterday to try to convince skeptics it had a grip on unrest in New Orleans and make the case that the federal response to Hurricane Katrina was finally pressing forward with a monumental recovery effort. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff tried to blame the feds' slow response on the disastrous breaches in levees a day after Katrina hit, even though various officials now claim they'd warned about the weaknesses in the levees for years. "The second catastrophe, frankly, added a level of challenge that no one has seen before," Chertoff said. Bush, however,...

Rep. Gary Ackerman blasted President Bush on Saturday for his handling of the New Orleans hurricane disaster, even as most elected Democrats kept political gamesmanship on hold. "The leadership of the president - and this has nothing to do with [him] being a Republican, it just has to do with, I believe, the whole administration including the president - has been totally inept," Ackerman told WABC Radio. The New York Democrat predicted that Congress "will have a lot of hearings" on the Katrina disaster. Ackerman was troubled, he said, by an apparent connection between the administration's slow response and the...

During the coming week, the US Senate will be struggling with a question that will affect the path of American constitutional law for decades. While senators are battling over Democratic efforts to filibuster George W. Bush's nominees to the courts of appeal, this conflict will set the stage for a larger struggle in June, when William Rehnquist is expected to announce his retirement as chief justice of the Supreme Court. Mr Rehnquist's retirement will be the first of a series. Eight of the court's nine justices are over 65. Depending on the new appointments, the court may continue down its...

A federal court ruled the city of Oakland had a right to bar two employees from posting a flier promoting traditional family values on an office bulletin board. Employees Regina Rederford and Robin Christy posted the flier in response to an e-mail to city employees announcing formation of a gay and lesbian employee association. The two responded with a promotion of their own -- the start of an informal group that respects "the natural family, marriage and family values." But supervisors Robert Bobb, then city manager, and Joyce Hicks, then deputy director of the Community and Economic Development Agency, ordered...

An aide to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was arrested on the West Front of the Capitol for disorderly conduct during President Bush’s inaugural address last week. The aide, Nathan Ackerman, is a television producer on the Senate Democratic Communications Committee — an organization that was folded into Reid’s new communications “war room.” About 20 minutes into Bush’s speech, Ackerman, 36, and another man held up a sheet that said “No War.” According to a Capitol Police report, Ackerman and another suspect “were blocking the view of the audience and they were engaged in a verbal dispute with members...

Planned character assassination Posted: December 11, 20031:00 a.m. Eastern By Dave Forman© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com Public-interest advocate Richard Ackerman is being brutally attacked by Planned Parenthood for filing suit against the pro-choice, pro-abortion chain of super clinics. The very court that he went to – seeking justice for the unprotected young people who foolishly turn to an organization that has made a huge business killing unborn babies – could become a willing partner in the attempted destruction of Mr. Ackerman. San Diego Superior Court Judge Kevin A. Enright threw out two counts of Ackerman's 15-count lawsuit against Planned Parenthood Federation of America and...

he's a strict vegetarian, while nothing makes him happier than a juicy rib-eye steak. Her father is a fiercely liberal congressman. His, a conservative, once campaigned against hers. She is Jewish. He is Roman Catholic. But Lauren Ackerman and Paul Forte are an easygoing pair and have similar tastes in humor and style. And both are ardent Mets fans. But more on that later. They grew up in Queens, where their families knew each other for years. But though Ms. Ackerman and Mr. Forte attended Ryan Junior High School in Fresh Meadows, they never got to know each other. Then,...

<p>Finishing up his first term as California's attorney general, Bill Lockyer is going through an election most politicians can only dream about.</p> <p>He has nearly $8 million in his campaign coffers, dwarfing the $130,000 his Republican opponent, Dick Ackerman, has scraped together. He's avoided bad publicity and political scandal throughout his term. He's mustered unusual law enforcement support for a liberal to moderate Democrat, gaining endorsements from most of California's district attorneys, many of them Republicans. And the polls show him with a double-digit lead over Ackerman.</p>

Dick Ackerman will be on The Eric Hogue Show this morning at 8AM for a full hour - callers welcome at 888-923-1380 during the show. Listen via web at www.ktkz.com.