Spin Cycle
News, views and commentary on Long Island, state and national politics
Rick Brand
Rick Brand, a Newsday reporter for nearly three decades, writes about politics and government on Long Island.
The veteran reporter has covered a variety of assignments for Newsday in Washington, Albany and around the country and was part of the Long Island staff that won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for the paper’s coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.
During his career, Brand has been the paper’s lead reporter covering Suffolk county government, and spent three years as the paper’s beat reporter covering LILCO during the height of the controversy over the Shoreham nuclear power plant. He has also headed the paper’s East End bureau and even spent a summer doing a gossip column on the Hampton’s social whirl.
Brand had also worked several stints in Newsday’s Albany Bureau during the Carey and Cuomo administrations. He covered the upset victory of Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, Long Island’s first woman congresswoman, and the 1997 U.S. Senate battle between Alfonse D'Amato and Chuck Schumer and part of the marathon Senate campaign that led to the election of Hillary Clinton.
Before joining Newsday, Brand, a graduate of St. Bonaventure University, worked as news editor of Suffolk Life Newspapers and as a reporter for the Long Island News and the Buffalo Courier Express.
Vito Lopez will resign June 20 - but Assembly to push for expulsion
Photo credit: AP
Embattled Assemb. Vito Lopez said Friday he will resign from office not because of the sexual harassment allegations against him but to run for New York City Council.
The announcement sparked outrage from both sides of the political aisle and a vow from the Assembly leader to begin procedures Monday to expel Lopez from the chamber.
Lopez (D-Brooklyn) said he would continue in his Assembly...
Read more »Suffolk's Calcaterra moves on to state housing division
Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone’s former chief deputy, Regina Calcaterra, is moving to a new job in state government, as chief operating officer for the Division of Housing and Community Renewal, serving under the commissioner.
Calcaterra left county government late last year, to become executive director of the governor’s Moreland Commission on Utility Preparation and Response.
The...
Read more »Schumer touts Irish visa, but King doesn't bite
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) held a telephone conference call Friday to tout his success at beating back a challenge in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday to a special E-3 visa to bring 10,500 Irish workers to the United States each year.
Sen. Charles Grassley (D-Iowa) had filed an amendment to alter the measure, but withdrew it after seeing no support for it on the committee.
Schumer...
Read more »Weiner's mayoral preening puts wife, Clinton back on hot seat
Whether he’s bothered to take the five seconds needed to realize it, text-vexed-but-ambitious former Rep. Anthony Weiner has put his wife — again — into the public spotlight, in an undoubtedly unwelcome way, along with her longtime boss and mentor Hillary Rodham Clinton.
As first reported by Politico, Weiner’s personal disclosure leads to the revelation that Huma Abedin, while still on the...
Read more »In case you forgot ... more from the Weiner lying tour of 2011
Just for preparation, in case this Weiner-campaign-for-mayor buffoonery is really, truly going to happen:
Listen to how sanctimoniously and condescendingly the disgraced former congressman delivers a sermon on June 7, 2011, to Jonathan Karl on ABC about public responsibilities when asked about his tweets to young women.
"It's outrageous," the since-proven liar lectures Karl...
Read more »The question is whether Lopez 'eeeuwww' moves NY forward
For the moment, the only sensible question is whether you wish to call Albany’s ethical sewer pipe half empty or half full.
Is this new gush of revolting detail about a state lawmaker’s behavior just that -- or does it mark a step on some hard-to-detect path to higher-minded backroom conduct?
Reading a state ethics panel’s 64-page report on Assemb. Vito Lopez (D-Brooklyn) evokes the...
Read more »Haber calls on Suozzi to return catering hall campaign contributions
Photo credit: Anthony Lanzilote
Nassau County executive candidate Adam Haber has called on Tom Suozzi, his rival for the Democratic nomination, to return thousands in campaign contributions from catering companies he is representing in a case against current and former employees over the nonpayment of tips.
In a letter to Suozzi on Wednesday — the first direct engagement between the two candidates — Haber said the former...
Read more »Charges continue to fly in Nassau over contributions
Spokesmen for Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano and Looks Great Services, a Huntington tree removal firm, are suggesting that Nassau Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs is a hypocrite for demanding Wednesday that Republican Mangano to return about $75,000 in contributions from eight Superstorm Sandy contractors, including Looks Great.
“The facts remain that the Democrats accepted nearly the...
Read more »Boyle: I'm pushing VLTs, not casinos, for Long Island
Though he’s pushing for Long Island off-track betting parlors to add video slot machines, Sen. Phil Boyle said a bill he recently introduced doesn’t propose a major casino.
"It would not be – in any stretch of the imagination – a major casino. Or a casino at all,” said Boyle (R-Bay Shore).
Instead, his legislation, co-sponsored by Assemb. Steve Englebright (D-Setauaket)...
Read more »Lopez: Gross details fuel the scandal, rather than end it
Two women have allowed their names to be used as victims in the Vito Lopez scandal, and his actions read revoltingly in the state ethics commission report. An Associated Press summary is here.
One headline talks of how an aide had to touch his neck and "wear skimpy clothing."
Another speaks of Lopez being "shielded" by the leadership of the Assembly, per the report.
A...
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