As the New York Times reported today, the office of Bronx district attorney Robert Johnson subpoenaed Ben Smith and Gur Tsabar, the co-founders of Room Eight, looking for someone who wrote unflattering posts about D.A. Richard Johnson and forbidding the recipients from making public the fact that they had been subpoenaed.

The prosecutor's demands - which were for the I.P. address for a blogger writing under the name "Republican Dissident," who had been critical of Johnson and the Republican Party in the Bronx -- were eventually withdrawn. (Johnson has run with Republican support and is generally seen as an ally to the party even though he himself is a Democrat.  read more »

New York State Senator Bill Perkins, one of Barack Obama's most prominent supporters in New York, says that the Clinton campaign is to blame for injecting the issue of race into the contest for the Democratic nomination.

When asked about the recent remark from Clinton supporter and Black Entertainment Television founder Robert Johnson that Hillary was working hard for black Americans while "Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood" Perkins responded "It's outrageous."

"People keep making these insinuations and then keep dismissing them as mistakes or misunderstandings," Perkins said. "The reality is everyone gets it. So we have a string of apologies that are starting to sound hypocritical and hollow. Obviously the intention is to fight below the belt. And I think the backlash will be obviously for people to recognize what is going on."

Perkins thinks it's concerted, and suggested that Bill Clinton was complicit in pushing that message.  read more »

Last week, remarkably, the City Bar Association declared that incumbent District Attorney Robert Johnson was “not approved” to hold office.

This may simply be a procedural spat: this year, as before his unopposed election four years ago, when the same thing happened, Johnson declined to meet with the group to seek its approval.

Here's part of his reponse to the "not approved" rating:

“Your request for me to appear before your committee would have accomplished nothing, while taking away from the operation of my office, communicating with the citizens of the Bronx, and spending quality time with my family.”

Johnson goes on to reference an earlier correspondence with the head of the Bar Association, which, Johnson says, “confirms my belief that what the Association is actually seeking to have candidates ‘kiss its (proverbial) ring.’ I, for one, will never do that.”

Approved or not approved, it doesn’t matter. Johnson is unopposed for re-election and he has $32,168.24 in the bank, just in case.

The New York City Bar Association has just come out with its rating of district attorney and judicial candidates in the upcoming general election, and it ruled that incumbent Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson is not qualified to hold office.

Johnson, according to the Bar Association’s press release, is “Not approved by reason of the candidate’s failure to affirmatively demonstrate that he possesses the requisite qualifications for the court for which he is a candidate.”

The group also found Brooklyn judicial candidate Noach Dear not qualified to hold office.

The decision on Johnson may have had something to do with the fact that he declined to meet with the City Bar Association, a process that most other candidates for legal positions submit to.

I'm still waiting for Johnson's statement on the rating.

The association's press release is after the jump.  read more »

The key quote from a Clinton advisor about Obama: "He's not built to be the black candidate."