Monty, 71 Monty Diamond was born in 1946, but he didn’t come out of the closet until 1980. He warns me his experience of being gay might not be typical — he considers himself an odd duck and thinks the interview might not produce what I expect. People’s stories are never typical. Monty attended The…
“Anything not strapped down will fly.” Alexa Kissinger, Gareth Rhodes’ girlfriend, twisted her head around from the front seat of the campaign Winnebago to warn me as I attempted to fasten myself against one of the vehicle’s threadbare benches. The Winnebago was bought by Rhodes off Craigslist, and it looked like it was bought off…
I slowed down to pass Dave Clegg as he biked the last stretch of Route 9 into the Village of Kinderhook a couple minutes after noon this Friday. “Hey, DAVE!” I bawled out of my window, narrowly avoiding striking the congressional candidate. In retrospect, this sounds like something a motorist would shout before throwing an…
A Super-PAC has entered the 19th District democratic primary in support of Pat Ryan, enlisting a firm to call voters and test negative information about one of his opponents, Antonio Delgado, and gauge their reactions. With Honor Inc., a recently-formed Super-PAC that supports both Republican and Democratic candidates who are veterans, paid Global Strategies Group…
Scaling Blackhead Mountain and Black Dome Mountain not only allowed me to cross the third and fourth highest peaks in the Catskills off my list, it marked one of the few hikes in recent memory where I did not get lost. I set off early one weekday morning with my friend Ellen, who is making…
Brian Flynn spoke about legalizing pot, rehabilitating prisoners and punishing opioid dealers during an in-depth interview on a criminal justice system he called “corrupt.” The Greene County resident is competing against six other Democrats in the 19th District Primary to see who will take on Republican Congressman John Faso in November’s mid-term elections. The racial…
Brian Flynn’s former business associate at his manufacturing company is being sued in civil court for fraud and civil conspiracy stemming from his involvement in a company he helped lead before being recruited to work with Flynn. Douglas Constable, who was CEO of AccuMED while Brian Flynn was the manufacturing company’s President, was formerly the…
This article is part 3 in a series examining how the democratic primary candidates in New York’s 19th Congressional District have served the public — not since they announced their runs, but in their lives as a whole. Dave Clegg, Brian Flynn and Gareth Rhodes were examined in the first article, which can be found…
About two-thirds of democratic Congressional candidate Erin Collier’s Twitter followers appear to be fake. However, there is no evidence the followers’ profiles originate from within the Collier campaign, or that Collier is in any way complicit. Collier is one of seven candidates facing off in next month’s democratic Congressional primary to see who will challenge…
This article is part 2 in a series examining how the democratic primary candidates running in New York’s 19th Congressional District have served the public — not since they announced their candidacies, but in their lives as a whole. Dave Clegg, Brian Flynn and Gareth Rhodes were examined in the first part of the series,…
The Casino Trail to Mount Beacon is a popular hike to a popular destination. Both are not as popular as they were in the early 20th century, when one had to simply hop on the Mount Beacon Incline Railway to ascend the mountain, and there was a resort waiting on top. But that’s good. I…
I was driving down a stretch of road in Columbia County when I went into Hudson Valley tour guide mode and decided to point out to my down-state passenger the Catskill Mountains to our west and the Taconic Mountains to our east. “Taconic Mountains?” the other passenger in the car snootily quipped, “…more like hills.”…
BEFORE I could enter the bathroom, a teen with chemical-green hair and cadaver-white facepaint swung the door ajar holding a pistol. The pistol was pointed at the ceiling, as though he wanted to avoid discharging it into someone’s stomach, but the orange tip showed the only thing it would be shooting was airsoft pellets. I…
A straw poll surveying an online group of activists and political junkies shows Gareth Rhodes leading the seven democratic primary candidates in New York’s 19th Congressional District, with Dave Clegg taking second. The poll was open to the members of the Facebook Group “Listen to us, John Faso,” a community board that has become a…
Amtrak plans to install a series of gates and more than a mile-and-a-half of fencing along the east side of the Hudson River to keep “trespassers” seeking to enjoy the river off its land. The construction is planned in eight locations in five communities — Rhinebeck, Tivoli, Germantown, Stockport and Stuyvesant — to “keep pedestrians…
A friend of mine was mid-way through a rant about President Trump when he brought up an interesting point. “You have to wonder about the motivations of someone who has never held political office before, or done anything for the country, when they suddenly decide to jump into the political ring when they’re like, 70,”…
An analysis of congressional candidate Jeff Beals’ campaign finance reports shows potential errors involving contributions through the fundraising site ActBlue. Beals, one of seven democrats looking to unseat Republican Congressman John Faso in New York’s 19th District, has received most of his contributions though ActBlue, a website allowing democrats from across the U.S. to easily…
