Congressional candidate Eric Massa will announce an energy policy initiative Friday at the grand opening of his Corning headquarters, 79 W. Market St.

The event begins at 4 p.m., with a press conference scheduled for 5:15 p.m.

On hand will be Cindy Emmer, chair of the Chemung County Democratic Committee; Jim Hare, chair of the Elmira Democratic Committee; Elmira mayor John Tonello, candidate for the 53rd District in the New York Senate; and a group from "Students for Massa."

Food and beverages will be served from Holmes Plate.

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A rear window was recently smashed out of Eric Massa's minivan, leaving the congressional candidate wondering if the incident was politically motivated.

The incident occurred sometime Sunday night or Monday morning as the van -- which bears a Massa campaign bumper sticker -- was parked in front of the family's home on Delevan Avenue on the city's Southside.

Massa, a Democrat, is challenging U.S. Rep. John R. "Randy" Kuhl Jr. for his 29th Congressional District seat in November's election.

Massa was in New York City over the weekend, and flew back to the area Monday after hearing the news.

"This is what happens to candidates in close races," Massa said.... Full Story

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Military cremation procedures have been changed after a soldier complained that his buddy's remains were taken to what appeared to be a "pet crematorium," the Pentagon announced Friday.


An honor guard salutes war dead. Respect issues have been raised by the military's choice of crematoriums.

The Pentagon says that the facility had separate incinerators for animals and humans but that the signage and location of the facility in a warehouse district near Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, did not show the appropriate respect due military personnel who have died while serving their country. Full Story

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the senior commander on the ground in Iraq after the administration announced the end to major hostilities there five years ago, says post-war actions taken by the Bush administration resulted in the wounding and killing of American troops and "amount to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty."

Sanchez, in a new book being excerpted by Time magazine, said the Pentagon had but never implemented a 12- to 18-month plan that could have helped stabilize Iraq after Saddam Hussein's forces were defeated. Instead, it buried the plan, officially ended major hostilities, and permitted the Central Command staff that had overseen the war to walk away, he writes in Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story.

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By Bryan Roth, staff writer

Washington, D.C. - Chili resident Tiffany Love knows how hard it is to provide health care for her children Jason, 17, KeAuna, 13, and Kimmyah, 6. All three are enrolled in Child Health Plus, a state insurance plan for kids of needy families, which waives the usual required co-payments for the family's visits to the doctor and dentist.

For Love and many other parents around the country, that situation won't be getting much better. On Wednesday, Jan. 23, the House failed to garner enough votes to override a presidential veto that would have expanded the State Children's Health Insurance Program -- Child Health Plus is New York's version of the program -- to about 4 million children. The final vote was 260-152, falling 15 votes short of a necessary two-thirds majority. Along with Democrats, 42 Republicans voted to override the veto....
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Rochester City Newspaper
By Jeremy Moule

Democratic Congressional candidate Eric Massa has a simple question for his counterpart: Which is worse, costlier cigarettes or leaving millions of children without health insurance?

On January 23, the House of Representatives will decide whether to override President Bush's veto of a bill expanding the Children's Health Insurance Program (S-chip), the states' health insurance programs for children. If the veto is rejected, the program would expand to cover more low- and middle- income children. It would be funded through a new tobacco tax.

"Getting a child to see a doctor should not be a political decision," Massa said during a January 22 press conference. He challenged Republican Rep. Randy Kuhl, his potential opponent in the November election, to vote for a veto override. (Kuhl has not yet announced whether he will seek re-election.)

In previous statements, Kuhl criticized the expansion bills, saying they didn't meet the needs of low-income children first before extending coverage to children in middle-income families. He voted against the bills and also to uphold vetoes against them.

S-chip was set to expire last year, but Congress passed a bill extending it until March 31, 2009. Kuhl voted for the extension.

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Congress completed its session and left Washington this past week, but not before passing legislation to keep taxpayers from facing a bigger tax bite as a result of the alternative minimum tax, or AMT.

Democrats and Republicans engaged in a weeks-long standoff that threatened to derail the annual AMT "patch" because of differences over whether Congress should make up the lost revenue. Without the legislation, some 25 million taxpayers would have faced an average $2,000 increase in their tax bills next year, but the bill will add $50 billion to the national debt. Rather than risk infuriating millions of taxpayers, House Democrats eventually retreated from demands that Congress raise taxes to offset the cost of the patch.

The debate over how Congress should pay for lower taxes foreshadows a bigger battle that looms: whether Congress should make permanent President Bush's 2001 tax cuts.

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By ROB MONTANA - SPECTATOR EDITOR
Published: Saturday, December 15, 2007 8:57 PM CST

The alternative minimum tax was devised in the late 1960s as a way to make the richest of the rich pay their taxes.

The problem arose when the decision was made not to adjust that for inflation, resulting in increasing numbers of people being caught in the AMT web. Congress has traditionally taken care of the matter by approving temporary fixes to prevent that from happening.

That has hit a snag this year, as the potential for as many as 25 million people, many of them in the $75,000-$200,000 income bracket, to see an average tax increase of $2,000.

Congress has not been able to come to an agreement on a bi-partisan bill that keeps that from happening due to the $50 billion in lost revenue that would result from the fix....

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13WHAM Investigates Congressman's Trip to Brazil

Evan Dawson (Rochester, N.Y.) -- How much did it cost taxpayers for U.S. Representative Randy Kuhl (R, N.Y.) to spend six days in Brazil?

His staff says they don't know and Kuhl apparently didn't ask how much it would cost before accepting the invitation.

The trip was organized by U.S. Representative Eliot Engel (D, N.Y.) of the Bronx. Engel's office said it could take several weeks before anyone releases the bill.

A bi-partisan delegation consisting of nine Democrats and Republicans studied Brazil's bio-fuels industry, which has made that country a model of energy independence.

When 13WHAM asked for a list of places the delegation stayed, neither Kuhl nor Engel's office has produced that list, but Engel's office said the maximum nightly room cost was $189, arranged by the government.

The Washington Post reports that the itinerary included a number of luxurious places. Among them--the Convento Do Carmo Hotel, The Ariau Amazon Towers Hotel, which is built atop trees overlooking the Amazon--and another five-star hotel overlooking Iguazu Falls....

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By ROB MONTANA - STAFF WRITER
Published: Friday, December 7, 2007 9:46 AM CST

An energy bill approved by the House Wednesday isn't how U.S. Rep. John "Randy" Kuhl, R-29, would proceed.

Kuhl voted against the legislation, which passed by a 235-181 margin. President Bush has indicated he would veto the bill, and it still needs approval from the Senate before being passed along to the White House.

During his weekly telephone press conference call Thursday morning, Kuhl took issue with the 1,055-page bill being handed to him at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, less than 24 hours before the vote was to take place.

"This is disgraceful," Kuhl said. "Record-high gas prices and increasing costs for home heating this winter have put a real strain on family budgets - giving this Congress an opportunity to help American families by passing energy legislation that makes sense."

Eric Massa, the Democratic challenger for Kuhl's 29th District seat, said Kuhl is able to see the pieces of the bill as the legislative process moves along. He said Kuhl may not have seen the whole bill until Wednesday night, but that's no excuse for not knowing what's in it.

"It may be the first time he could look through it as a single document, but there are no surprises," Massa said....
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Contributor: Katie Graham
Email: KGraham@wetmtv.com
Last Update: 12/07 9:43 pm

Five anti-war protesters who refused to leave Congressman Randy Kuhl's office in Bath won't have to serve their sentences until next year. A Steuben County judge put a stay on their appeal Friday, meaning they won't have to serve their sentences until April.

Four of the protesters were sentenced last week to do community service and pay a 300-dollar fine. The fifth protester, Mark Scibilia-Carver, refused to do community service, and spent two days in jail. The protesters say the judge made the right decision, because they feel criminal trespassing is too harsh a charge for what they did.

"Its our duty as citizens and Americans to stand up for what we believe in. That's what this country is all about. I would do it again in a second," says Chris Tate, a defendant.

"I guess it's a little bit of a relief not to have to pay the fine until the appeal goes through. We expect to win the appeal," says Todd Saddler, a defendant.

A judge will take up the protesters appeal on April first. They were convicted of criminal trespassing after they wouldn't leave Kuhl's office earlier this year. Full Story

By MARY PERHAM
Published: Friday, December 7, 2007 10:56 PM CST

BATH | Five anti-war protesters sentenced last week for staging a sit-in at the office of U.S. Rep. John R. "Randy" Kuhl Jr. in August have had their sentences delayed.

Supreme Court Judge Marianne Furfure suspended the sentences for 120 days so the defendants could appeal their convictions.

The defendants, Daniel J. Burns, 47; Ellen Grady, 44; Richard "Tadd" Saddler, 42; Mark C. Scibilia-Carver, 54; and Christopher Tate, 46; are expected back in court on April 1.

The defendants are all from the Ithaca area and were found guilty of criminal trespass, a misdemeanor,...

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(December 3, 2007) -- There has been much predictable partisan sniping lately about Rep. Randy Kuhl's trip last week to Brazil.

The Republican congressman's challenger, Democrat Eric Massa, and his supporters have been leading the chorus. They called Kuhl's trip a "junket" that "does not in any way help anyone" in his district.

Well, the trip to a warm climate in late November certainly looks like one of those taxpayer-financed so-called fact-finding tours that citizens have rightly grown skeptical of.

But Massa's assertion that learning more about ethanol production in Brazil doesn't help Kuhl's constituents, who include Monroe County residents, is wrong....

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Massa accuses congressman of being on six-day vacation
December 2, 2007
By Erin Kelly
ekelly@gns.gannett.com.
Star-Gazette Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Rep. John R. Kuhl Jr. has defended his participation in a six-day congressional trip to Brazil last week that has been denounced by his opponent as little more than a taxpayer-funded vacation to a warm clime.

Kuhl, R-Hammondsport, said Thursday in a conference call from Brazil with reporters that he wanted to see firsthand how the South American nation has weaned itself from its dependence on foreign oil by using ethanol made from sugar cane....

...But Eric Massa of Corning, Kuhl's Democratic challenger, said Kuhl could have learned just as much about ethanol production by taking a cheap trip to Iowa, where the fuel is made from corn.

"Going on a taxpayer-paid junket to Brazil does not in any way help anyone in this congressional district," Massa said.

"You can't grow sugar cane in New York state."...
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Erin Kelly
Washington bureau

(November 30, 2007) -- WASHINGTON -- Rep. Randy Kuhl on Thursday defended his participation in a six-day congressional trip to Brazil this week that has been denounced by his opponent as little more than a taxpayer-funded vacation to a warm clime.

Kuhl, R-Hammondsport, Steuben County, said in a conference call with reporters from Brazil that he wanted to see firsthand how the South American nation has weaned itself from its dependence on foreign oil by using ethanol made from sugar cane....

...But Eric Massa of Corning, Kuhl's Democratic challenger, said Kuhl could have learned just as much about ethanol production by taking a cheap trip to Iowa, where the fuel is made from corn.

"Going on a taxpayer-paid junket to Brazil does not in any way help anyone in this congressional district," Massa said. "You can't grow sugar cane in New York state."...


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By ROB MONTANA - STAFF WRITER
Published: Thursday, November 29, 2007 10:02 AM CST

Eric Massa took the opportunity to take some shots at U.S. Rep. John "Randy" Kuhl, R-29, while the congressman was out of town - visiting Brazil for the week.

Of course, the Democratic challenger for the 29th Congressional District seat in the 2006 election and upcoming 2008 contest, made his issue of the day about Kuhl's trip.

"There's no reason for a member of Congress to go on a junket tour for six days and believe it serves anybody in this district," Massa said. "He made headlines saying he wasn't brought to Congress to raise taxes, now he's spending taxpayer money on a chartered luxury military jet and five star hotels.

"In the middle of winter, Randy Kuhl is on a summer vacation in Brazil," he added.... Full Story

Joseph Spector
Albany bureau

(November 26, 2007) -- ALBANY -- Political leaders across New York are already gearing up for 2008 races that could play a critical role in determining control of Congress and the state Legislature.

As many as six competitive U.S. House seats in upstate New York could prove pivotal in whether Democrats can retain control of Congress in 2008, political observers said....

...

Congressional races

Meanwhile, congressional campaigns are well under way.

In western New York, Republican incumbents -- Reps. Randy Kuhl, James Walsh and Thomas Reynolds -- have opponents.

Eric Massa, who narrowly lost to Kuhl last year, is running again in the 29th District, which stretches from Monroe County into the Southern Tier....

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Corning officials had hoped for '08 building start to facility like Elmira's.

By Larry Wilson
lwilson@stargazette.com
Star-Gazette Corning Bureau

CORNING -- Excitement ran high in 2005 when the city of Corning learned it would receive $4.2 million in federal funds to build a new transportation center.

It was to be much like the one built in downtown Elmira and opened in 1998.

But more than two years after being notified of the funding approval, Corning has not received a dollar of the federal money or turned a single shovel of dirt.

Now, says James Goodling, the city's director of planning and economic development, it looks like it will be the spring of 2011 at best before construction of the transportation center begins.

"This is a glacial process," Goodling said. "There are months of reviews and mandatory comment periods. We had no idea it was going to take this long."

U.S. Rep. John R. Kuhl Jr., R- Hammondsport, obtained the federal commitment for the grant.

"I know Randy is very passionate about ensuring that the transportation center gets their funds, and he is looking into speeding up the process," said Kuhl spokeswoman Meghan Tisinger. ...
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ALMOND - Four homeschooled children got a Kuhl lesson in politics Monday.

Lauren, Jessica, Natalie and Tom Norris attended a town hall meeting in Almond, held by U.S. Rep. John "Randy" Kuhl, R-29, as part of a field trip.

"These meetings that we hold are meant to be opportunities for you to actually interact with me and tell me how I can do my job better," Kuhl said. "It's an opportunity that we provide to people to kind of let me know what they're thinking about what's going on in the world or in this country."

Kuhl said there are 145 towns in his district, and he tries to hold a meeting in each town. He said he represents an area about 6,000 square miles - larger than the state of Connecticut - and there are about 650,000 people in the district.

Lauren Norris asked Kuhl if he has ever met the President. Kuhl said he works with the President to make laws and put them into effect.

"We all work together," he said. "I don't see him every day. He's a really busy man, got a lot of things to do." ...
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On April 9, Spc. Jon Town was featured on the cover of The Nation, in an article that told how he was wounded in Iraq, won a Purple Heart and was then denied all disability and medical benefits. Town's doctor had concluded that his headaches and hearing loss were not caused by the 107-millimeter rocket that knocked him unconscious but by a psychological condition, "personality disorder," a pre-existing illness for which one cannot collect disability pay or receive medical care.

Soon Town became a national figure, the human face of the 22,500 soldiers discharged with personality disorder in the past six years. His story was picked up by the Army Times, Washington Post Radio and ABC News's Bob Woodruff. It was dramatized in a May episode of NBC's Law & Order. And rock star Dave Matthews began discussing Town's plight at every stop in his spring concert series.

Further investigation by The Nation has uncovered more than a dozen cases like Town's from bases across the country. All of the soldiers interviewed passed the rigorous health screening given recruits before being accepted into the Army. All were deemed physically and psychologically fit in a second screening as well, before being deployed to Iraq, and served honorably there in combat. None of the soldiers interviewed during this eleven-month investigation had a documented history of psychological problems.

Yet after they returned from Iraq wounded and sought treatment, each was diagnosed with a pre-existing personality disorder, then denied benefits. As in Town's case, Army doctors determined that the soldiers' ailments were pre-existing without interviewing friends, family or fellow soldiers who knew them before they were wounded in combat. Full Story