To insider politics "in" in the race for Governor of New York

October 18, 2010 00: 04 EDT

New York voters are much colère.Mais apparently, they are not so comfortable with "scary angry" and potentially cost Republican candidate for Governor Carl Paladino support, The New York Times reports.

According to a New York Times poll released on the eve of their debate Monday night, Democrat Andrew Cuomo has opened a large advance on Paladino, 59% to 24%.

Fifty - nine percent of voters said Paladino lacked good temperament and personality to be a good Governor Cinquante-cinq for percent said the developer who has never held public service do not have the right experience.

"We're all upset in New York State to how it is executed, but I don't think it's a good thing for a candidate to be colère.Il is scary angry, indeed, Michelle Sullivan, independent, told the Times interview monitoring."

Cuomo, Attorney General of New York and the son of former Governor democratic Mario Cuomo, was considered a favorite in advance of the election on November 2 in the heavily democratic State.

A month ago Paladino, a candidate supported by Tea Party had fired to six percentage points of his Democratic opponent in a poll from Quinnipiac University.

Its position in the new poll October 10 - 15 respondents qualifying may have been affected by recent public relations Paladino, The New York Times said.

Paladino made headlines after his remarks on homosexuals and the comments that children should not be "indoctrinated in the thought that homosexuality is a valuable option and success."

End of month, Paladino was captured on tape for a public confrontation with a journalist from the New York Post said the reporter: "I am you out, buddy."

Photo credit: REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi (Paladino marches in Columbus Day Parade in New York City)

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Footnote in terrorism ruling brings politics to the courtroom

The trial in New York of Ahmed Ghailani, the first suspect from the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba prison to face a jury in a U.S. criminal court, is being closely watched as a template for future terrorism cases and by those who think those suspects should be in military courts instead.

Ghailani, a Tanzanian, is accused of participating in the 1998 al Qaeda-sponsored bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, which killed 224 people. He was arrested in 2004 in Pakistan, and was subsequently taken into CIA custody for two years before going to the Guantanamo prison.

Many Republicans and some Democrats have said civilian courts are not up to the challenge of prosecuting terrorism suspects and favor the military commissions.

That fiery debate made its way into the trial on Thursday in the form of a lengthy footnote near the end of a 60-page ruling that barred a key witness, Hussein Abebe, from testifying. He is believed to have sold Ghailani the TNT explosives used in the bombings.

Judge Lewis Kaplan, defended his decision to bar the witness — because he had only been discovered after Ghailani was coerced to reveal his identity — and said a military commission judge would likely have made the same call.

“It is very far from clear that Abebe’s testimony would be admissible if Ghailani were being tried by military commission,” the judge said, adding that the laws governing military trials may bar or restrict evidence obtained from torture, cruel or inhumane treatment.

“Even if they did not, the Constitution might do so, even in a military commission proceeding,” he wrote.

When the judge first announced this last week, critics pounced. They said the loss of Abebe was a clear sign the civilian courts couldn’t handle important cases such as Ghailani.

“The notion that a military commission is going to be favorable to the prosecution is not necessarily true,” said Col. Morris Davis, a former prosecutor at the early Guantanamo military trials. “So I tend to agree with the judge.”

He acknowledged that in military commissions the “rules are broader than in federal courts,” but he added that the individual judges tended to adhere to stricter than minimum standards.

Proponents of military commissions argue they are more reliable at securing convictions and are more appropriate for suspects who they say don’t deserve the full panoply of legal rights afforded U.S. citizens in federal courts.

Ben Wizner, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, disagreed.

Although there is no way to know how a military commission would have handled the Abebe question, Wizner said, “there is reason to be wary that a military commission might have allowed this witness to testify.” Judges in the military system have “a lot more discretion.”

As to why Kaplan brought up the issue in the first place, Wizner couldn’t say. “Judge Kaplan has no reason to be defensive of his ruling,” he said, because “the possibility that military commissions might have reached a different outcome is not a critique of the federal courts but a rising endorsement of them.”

- Photo credits:? Christine Cornwell/Reuters (courtroom sketch of Ghailani during his arraignment); Pool photo (Guantanamo Camp Justice where military commissions are being held)

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