Spin Cycle

House Speaker John Boehner helped Congressional GOP candidate Randy Altschuler bring in $75,000 at the tony Nissequogue home of local insurance man Steve Louro earlier this month.

The $250 a head event held Oct. 10, drew 175 donors, according to Louro, some of whom paid $1,000 to get a photo with the speaker and a dozen who paid $5,000 each for more a little more exclusive face time with the...

For the invocation, at the LIA in Woodbury on Friday, the Rev. Calvin Butts, president of the State University of New York College at Old Westbury, read from a 1938 Langston Hughes poem, “Let America Be America Again,” which evokes “that ancient endless chain of profit, power, gain.”

The guest interviewee for the afternoon was former VP Dick Cheney, whose role in the oil business and the Iraq...

Gerry Twombly, who served as communications director for former Nassau Democratic legislative leader Diane Yatauro of Glen Cove, says he began working this month for Republican County Executive Edward Mangano as public information officer in Nassau’s emergency management office.

Twombly said he will be paid $90,000. He had been making $95,000 under Yatauro but he said his salary was cut “drastically”...

Suspicions about the sanctity and fairness of the national vote are nothing new. Heard of Florida 2000? Illinois 1960?  In an age of “voter ID” laws pushed by Republicans, the suspicions run both ways across the political spectrum. Under the aegis of the Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism, there’s a meeting at noon Monday on E. 30th St. in Manhattan at the “Open Center” where one...

As if setting the table for tonight’s Alfred E. Smith Dinner — the annual New York Archdiocese charity event where presidential candidates exchange jokes and light cross-partisan banter — the overall atmosphere proved palpably warm and nonconfrontational at the Long Island Association’s fall luncheon featuring former VP Dick Cheney.

Which is not to say that Cheney wasn’t taking his partisan...

In Wednesday’s debate, Republican Wendy Long accused Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of flip-flopping on gun control, changing her approach when she went from Congress to the U.S. Senate — a fact the incumbent didn’t contend.

Gillibrand said when she became a statewide officeholder, she learned of “gun-violence issues in New York State that weren't as prevalent in my old district.”

Long, who...

Nassau Legis. David Denenberg’s golf outing Thursday was oversubscribed with 138 golfers at the Lido Golf Club in Lido Beach, according to event co-chairman Jeff Toback, a former county legislator.

Golfers paid $300 each to play at the fundraiser for the Merrick Democrat. Dinner tickets cost $150 each, with sponsorships running as high as $2,400 each

Nobody is saying, however, what office...

 New York’s highest court dismissed a reverse-discrimination lawsuit Thursday filed by the town of Oyster Bay over two special housing zones.

  In a 7-0 ruling, the Court of Appeals said Oyster Bay officials first had to pursue the case administratively, through the state Division of Human Rights, before it could file suit.

   The ruling puts an odd twist on the case:...

In a minor ruling, New York’s highest court Thursday sent the lawsuit over the legality of the controversial MTA payroll tax to a midlevel court.

The case centers over a claim by Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano that the law created the tax — paid by employers in the 12 counties served by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority — was legally defective.

A trial court ruled in...

A local lawmaker is calling on the NHL and its players union to bring an immediate end to the hockey lockout.

On Wednesday, Assemb. Charles Lavine (D-Glen Cove) sent letters to National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman and Players Association Executive Director Donald Fehr, calling on both sides to save the hockey season for Long Islanders.

“Unfortunately, the potential loss of...