Talk Bronx New York

Gov. Paterson Thursday joined a growing chorus saying the upcoming trial of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed should be moved.

 As protests grow louder over holding the 9/11 trial in lower Manhattan, a Long Island congressman introduced a bill Thursday that would keep the prosecution out of civilian courts.

Republican Peter King’s bill would prohibit the use of Justice Department funds to try Guantanamo detainees in civilian courts.

“On top of having to provide security for three or four years, we’re talking about an area that is already congested and will have to be closed off,” King said. “It’s bad for traffic and business.”

The Obama administration announced last month that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others would be tried in Manhattan Federal Court.

The move angered many business leaders, who argue it would cripple real estate and commerce in the area, and frightened downtown residents.

King called the plan “one of the worst decisions ever made by any president” and insisted Mohammed should be tried by the military.

Mayor Bloomberg, who first supported the plan, reversed himself Wednesday and said it would be glad to see it moved somewhere else.

Gov. Paterson said Thursday there needs to be “some suitable alternatives that would fall within the court’s jurisdiction but for the public at large would be a better place to hold the actual trial.” Read more..

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Gov. David Paterson insisted the $750 million in scheduled payments to schools and local governments that will be withheld tomorrow are not a “cut” or an “impoundment.”

“The state has run out of money,” Paterson declared. “…We think we are well within the bounds of legal authority.”

NYSUT is reviewing its legal options.

Paterson defended his actions in a Plattsburgh Press-Republican OpEd.

One in five legislators have staffers who do double-duty as their campaign treasurers - an arrangement good government advocates warn could present a conflict of interest.

“Albany’s entrenched pay-to-play culture doesn’t get much more naked than this,” the DN says.

The relationship between the governor and the Legislature is so bad that Senate Democratic Leader John Sampson is refusing to attend formal events with Paterson.

Tired of living on the 32-30 knife’s edge, Senate Democrats are negotiating to make Republicans committee chairs in hopes of improving relations with the minority.

The MTA unveils its new austerity budget this morning, and drastic service cuts are expected.

Paterson said his “hands are tied” when it comes to the MTA because the state has no money.

Andrea Peyser thinks Eliot Spitzer, “whose cast-iron ego will outlast the cockroaches in a nuclear war,” has a good shot at success if he tried for a 2010 comeback.

Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum was once so close to ex-state Comptroller Alan Hevesi that she hired three people close to him, including one of his sons.

Chris Smith marvels at the “indomitability” of New York’s elected officials, writing: “They refuse to go away, even when the law, the voters, or sanity says they should.

The state’s system of juvenile prisons is so riddled with problems the agency overseeing them wants all but the most dangerous of youthful offenders to stay out of them.

The Post likes the idea of letting AG Andrew Cuomo have subpoena power to go after corrupt state lawmakers.

Cindy Adams is standing by her story about Paterson saying he wanted to piss “on” the Legislature.

It’s D-Day for the Kingsbridge Armory project, and so far things are not looking good.

Jordan Moss says Bronx officials can “proudly cross the finish line or meekly toss the keys back to Mayor Bloomberg.” Read more..

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“It is beyond anybody’s imagination when I started that a Puerto Rican could ascend to that position, to the Supreme Court,” said Edwin Torres, who in 1959 was hired as the first Puerto Rican assistant district attorney in New York

In the summer of 1959, Edwin Torres landed a $60-a-week job and wound up on the front page of El Diario. He had just been hired as the first Puerto Rican assistant district attorney in New York — and probably, he thinks, the entire United States.

He still recalls the headline: “Exemplary Son of El Barrio Becomes Prosecutor.”

“You would’ve thought I had been named attorney general,” he said. “That’s how big it was.” Read more..

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Sonia Sotomayor has a Wikipedia page, so in just a few minutes you can know more about Obama’s pick to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court than we do. You probably already know that she is a homegirl, born in the South Bronx.

You may get a glimpse of the conservative case against her at National Review’s Bench Memos, where Ed Whelan tells us some of Sotomayor’s decisions on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit have been reviewed by the Supreme Court, and that her nomination to her first big job by the first George Bush is no guarantee against right wing attack, because her nomination was engineered by the hated arch-liberal Pat Moynihan. Read more..

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New York judge Sonia Sotomayor is president Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court. She’s 54 years old and, if confirmed, she would be the third woman ever to serve and the first ever Hispanic. Sotomayor is a self-described “Newyorkrican” and grew up in a Bronx housing project after her parents moved to New York from Puerto Rico.

CUNY Law School professor Jenny Rivera worked with Sotomayor in the Manhattan federal prosecutor’s office and joins us now. Read more..

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