Frederick R. Bedell Jr., Grand Knight of St. Anastasia Knights of Columbus Council #5911 and a member of the Queens Village Republican Club, wrote the following letter to our local and regional newspapers.
Emergency officials gather near Bronx housing project where two police officers were shot. Photo: AP
Our February General Club Meeting was billed as a Public Forum on Education Reform, and successfully delivered what was promised to a packed meeting hall about fixing our broken education system and breaking the hold of the teachers union on their government school monopoly. The focus of the meeting was on one of the hottest public policy issues facing parents, teachers, taxpayers and legislators today: School Choice.
Members: Please call your local NYS Assembly Representative and ask them to push to get Assembly Bill# A02551, “education investment incentive act” passed. We have a small window of opportunity to help our fellow taxpayers by passing this piece of legislation.
This bill establishes the “education investment incentives act”; provides credits against income and corporate franchise tax for various qualified education investments including scholarships, education funds and instructional materials.
This bill, which already has passed the Senate, enjoys support from both sides of the political spectrum. However, it is being held up until the Assembly leadership observes a groundswell of support from YOU!
Honoring Captain James Văn Thạch (Ret.) U.S. Army. Honorary Staff Brigadier General and Purple Heart recipient. Veteran’s Advocate with Canine Companions for Independence. Recipient of the Rabbi Morton Pomerantz Veteran of the Year Award at the 141st Anniversary Lincoln Dinner, February 28th, 2016. The upcoming Lincoln Dinner will shine the light on our Veterans and their plight in America today. Join us at the Lincoln Dinner in honoring Captain James Van Thach, an American Hero.
Tickets to the Lincoln Dinner available ONLINE HERE. Print FLYER and MAIL-IN RESERVATION FORM.
Our annual Lincoln Dinners are the glorious milestone events that infuse the lifeblood of conservative principles into the hearts and minds of fellow Republicans and all New Yorkers.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has been taking a lot of flak recently for bashing “New York values.” Of course he was not referring to New Yorkers who cherish conservative values, though we are in the minority in New York City. Cruz explained that “everyone understands that the values in NYC are socially liberal, pro-gay marriage, pro-abortion and focus around money and the media,” to distinguish them from “Iowa values.”
Retired U.S. Army Captain James Van Thach
We are proud to announce that Captain James Van Thach, U.S. Army (Ret.), a highly decorated United States Army veteran, will be honored at the 141st Anniversary Lincoln Dinner for his courage, service and sacrifice to our nation. He will be this year’s recipient of the Rabbi Morton Pomerantz Veteran of the Year Award. Rabbi Pomerantz, the deceased Marine Corp and Navy chaplain, and venerated advocate of Veterans and Republican causes, was memorialized forever in the name of this esteemed award which has been presented annually to heroic Veterans from our community.
For this year’s Lincoln Dinner on February 28th, at the famous Antun’s of Queens Village, the recipient of the award is a brave young soldier who was wounded twice in the line of duty in Iraq. Captain James Van Thach is a Bronze Star and Purple Heart recipient, and is the first Vietnamese-American to become an advisor to the New Iraqi Army, and given the honorary title of Brigadier General by the Iraqi government. Today Captain Thach is a Veteran’s Advocate with Wounded Veteran Initiative of Canine Companions for Independence (CCI) and tours the nation speaking out about the plight of our Veterans as a Suicide Prevention Counselor.
By Frank J. Russo, Jr.
Everyone wins with school choice—parents, children and taxpayers. The opposition comes primarily from public school teacher unions which want to keep their government school monopoly. Half the states have passed legislation to provide some measure of choice in education, but not New York.
The question is: will our state legislature act to get this bill passed or will they yield to the teacher unions who oppose even this small step in the direction of justice, providing school choice for parents and tax relief for hard-pressed taxpayers? Well, this bill has overwhelmingly passed the Republican controlled NY Senate many times, but has never even been allowed a vote in the Democrat controlled NY Assembly, even though many Assembly Democrats and Gov. Cuomo supported the bill. The reason is obvious—the Democrat leaders of the Assembly fear the teacher unions, who are major financial donors to their Party, and place the teacher union interests above those of low and middle income students who would benefit with this legislation, and also above the interests of taxpayers. What’s sad, too, is that most minority voters, who want school choice even more than white voters, are not aware that the Democrats they vote for place their children’s educational interests below those of the teacher unions.
James Trent, our club’s board chairman and president and founder of the Queens County Farm Museum, gave the lowdown on Mayor de Blasio’s bogus zoning plan ostensibly for the purpose of building housing for the poor.
In this video presentation at the January QVGOP Club meeting, Trent articulated how this mayor, under the guise of getting more affordable housing built, wants to change the zoning of residential communities to allow taller buildings, limited parking, reduced size apartments, and higher density. The mayor’s zoning plan is only a windfall to developers, and he is doing this largely as payback for the developer’s help in getting him elected. The rents charged in these so-called affordable developments, are hardly affordable, being upwards of $3000 a month.
Ken Abramowitz gave a great speech about saving our civilization at our January Club meeting which was a forum on National Security.
Ken Abramowitz is co-founder of NGN Capital, a $450 million worldwide healthcare venture capital fund. Formerly he was a Managing Director for the Carlyle Group. He is a writer, speaker and freedom activist for saving Western Civilization. He is the founder of SavetheWest.com, which is dedicated to saving Western civilization, based upon the fundamentals of individual rights, free enterprise and limited constitutional government which is under assault, and we are losing the battle.
Former U.S. Congressman and Fox News contributor John LeBoutillier spoke about national security at our January 2016 monthly meeting. It was a public forum and John delivered a riveting, inspiring presentation that articulated the politics behind Barack Obama’s failed leadership and his destructive foreign policy. Here is his videotaped presentation. It is a MUST SEE!
John LeBoutillier is a renowned political commentator, columnist, radio and TV personality, author and public speaker. He is a former Republican Congressman who served in Northeastern Queens and was elected in 1980. He served on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Special House POW/MIA Task Force. One of his books he co-authored with Ed Klein “The Obama Identity”. He appears every Sunday on Harris Faulkner’s Fox News show, Political Insiders.
