Haber Calls Out Gillibrand

The inimitable Ben Haber calls out Senator Gillibrand in a letter to the Queens Chronicle-and hits her on her phony small business stance:

"If U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is serious about helping small businesses (“Small business bill pushed,” Aug. 23, multiple editions) she could hit a home run, and help herself in her re-election bid, by:

• opposing the destruction of hundreds of small businesses in Willets Point for the benefit of fat cat real estate moguls;

• opposing the use of eminent domain to take private property for the benefit of private for profit real estate developments; and

• not only supporting but pushing the U.S. Senate to enact HR1433, The Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2012, passed twice by the U.S. House of Representatives, which would make a serious preventive inroad in government’s attempts to use eminent domain for private commercial development.

Failure to pursue the above would suggest the good senator does not really consider the poor, middle class and small businesses her true constituents. I hope I am wrong, since the senator does have time to make clear where she stands on this important issue."

We think that the senator's small business sympathies are purely theoretical-and in the months since we wrote her office suggesting that she support HR 1433 we have yet to hear any positive response.

This is all too typical of some liberals who love humanity in the abstract but don't really like people. Her actions at Willets Point would upset some powerful Democrats and what we have learned in her two years in the senate is that is a bridge too far for the all too politically cautious Gillibrand.