Dr. Scott Noren (Photo: Noren For Senate/Thomas Hoebbel Photography)

For the past few weeks, longshot "Occupy" Senate candidate Scott Noren has been at war with the state politics blog and TV show Capital Tonight with angry ads on Albany politics sites and supposedly plans to fly a plane over the capitol. Today, Mr. Noren published a series of emails he claims inspired the feud. Mr. Noren became enraged with Capital Tonight host Liz Benjamin, one of the pre-eminent reporters on the Albany beat, after receiving what he described as a "less than professional" response from her following "several attempts to get media coverage on Capital Tonight."

"You have come across as the most arrogant local newscaster I have ever encountered," Mr. Noren wrote in the missive he released today.

Mr. Noren, who is running as an independent against Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, responded to the exchange by launching an "Occupy Liz Benjamin" website in mid-January that linked to his main campaign page. He also purchased ad space for the "Occupy Liz Benjamin" site on the Albany Times Union's Capital Confidential blog. Time Warner Media owns Capital Tonight and, last Friday, Mr. Noren announced his intention to escalate his campaign by purchasing a plane to fly over Albany for 35 minutes while towing a banner proclaiming "The Occupation of Time Warner Cable." We reached out to Ms. Benjamin to discuss the emails and she declined to comment.

The first email published by Mr. Noren was one he sent to Ms. Benjamin on the evening of Friday, December 2 after she interviewed Ms. Gillibrand's Republican challenger, George Maragos on her show. In the email, Mr. Noren, who is a religious Jew, promised to mount a campaign against Ms. Benjamin when the Sabbath ended the next day.

"You have now really irritated me by slapping me in the face politically. When Shabbos ends, I will fight back so obnoxiously it will surpass your snotty blow off of me as the only Democratic challenger to Gillibrand. This is in response to your Maragos interview," Mr. Noren wrote. "It's the public that suffers when media decides to manhandle who gets covered. ... I will now start the Occupy part of my campaign starting this coming week. Good Shabbos."

It is perhaps worth noting that, by sending a Friday night email, Mr. Noren seems to have violated Jewish Sabbath laws prohibiting the use of electronics during Shabbos.

According to Mr. Noren, Ms. Benjamin responded with an email noting she correctly referred to Mr. Maragos as "the only Republican challenger to Gillibrand. She allegedly went on to blast him for his "anti-woman piece of shit email" and vow to bar him from Capital Tonight until he apologized.

"If you think this is an appropriate way for a would-be senator to speak to anyone, I suggest you re-examine your beliefs," she wrote. "This is, hands down, the most disrespectful, anti-woman piece of shit email I've ever received, doctor, and if you think I will ever have you as a guest or take you seriously until you apologize, you are sorely mistaken. Good shabbos indeed, you don't even begin to comprehend the meaning of this day of rest."

About 45 minutes later, Mr. Noren said Ms. Benjamin sent him a second email promising to forward his "threats to the appropriate authorities."

The next day, Mr. Noren sent another email to Ms. Benjamin

"My threats as you call them can be picketing, writing letters to the editor. ... You have come across as the most arrogant local newscaster I have ever encountered," he wrote. "I have just as much right to campaign and be heard as your rich crony politicians that make it on your show. It just shows how closed the process is when you shut out grassroots politics. Pretty disappointing."

Mr. Noren's campaign has little chance of success. Ms. Gillibrand is currently well ahead of all her potential Republican rivals in the polls. In a recent projection, New York Times pollster Nate Silver put her chances of re-election at 95 percent.

Updated (8:15 pm): The original version of this post said Mr. Noren purchased his ads on Capital Tonight rather than Capital Confidential.

"To to establish a connection is one thing. To out the guy is another" said YNN host Liz Benjamin. "Why does it ever matter?" she asked later.

"His relationship to his alleged lover matters," said Daily News City Hall bureau Chief Adam Lisberg. But he noted that the NY Post story "didn't go there." Lisberg said he was "glad the Daily News didn't make that leap."

Lisberg added, "People have accused [Kruger] of being gay. He's denied it. Where do you go without proof otherwise?"

Capital New York's Tom McGeveran made a similar point, saying The Post threw around the eye-catching words, but didn't have as much detail on that part of the story as the New York Times and Daily News, which, McGeveran said did a better job of helping us "understand what the relevance of it all might be."

The other two members of the roundtable - Edward Isaac-Dovere of City Hall News and Milton Allimadi of Black Star News - agreed that the NY Post story didn't do as good a job of driving home the relevance of Kruger's sexuality to the corruption case. The Post, for their part, was not represented on the roundtable.

Since losing the governor's race last year by landslide proportions, he's seems to have stuck by two notions: 1) keeping his vow never to run for office again and 2) ignoring the adage that says you don't pick fights with people who buy ink by the barrel.

At issue now is a March 5 Buffalo News story about two properties Paladino owns that, according to Jim Heaney, have fallen into disrepair.

"You lied about Greystone," Paladino writes. "The building is and has been secure. I can't control what happens on the sidewalk."

Paladino warns, "Don't think for a minute that I won't haul you into court and subpoena every e-mail and document you, spineless and Evans ever wrote about me. I can't wait to depose the three of you."

It's unclear who will take over the Daily News blog. (My nomination? Former Politicker scribe Jimmy Vielkind!)

The best part of Benjamin becoming a television anchor, I think, is the fact that she doesn't own a television.

It's a big hit for the News. Liz Benjamin was Ben Smith's replacement after he left the News to go to Politico, so they'll be in the market for a replacement right away.

The Daily News is moving out of the small, open-topped cube in the center of the press room that it has occupied since (best as anyone can remember) the early 1970s. They're going into a corner to accommodate the presence of Glenn Blain and Liz Benjamin, who currently has to work in the office with her laptop actually on her lap. Bureau chief Ken Lovett and columnist Bill Hammond will also be out in the open.

The LCA voted last week to allow Susan Arbetter, who is moving to WCNY, to take over the cube and transform it into a broadcast studio. Arbetter said she will hopefully get things in motion next month.

I've been in that corner since November, and am moving across the room near the back door. There was an old Remington typewriter on the shelf that is both too heavy and cool to move. I'm hoping to add a string of white holiday lights around the archway above my desk. Eventually.

I took a desk that was occupied by Karen DeWitt, whose reports air on public radio stations around the state. She'll be moving upstairs to "the shelf" to occupy a desk vacated when the Watertown Daily Times retrenched earlier this year.

He huddled behind closed doors with lawyers representing both sides in the State Senate leadership dispute, before announcing in court that he was, for the fourth time, giving both sides more time to negotiate.

"During the course of that conference several issues were discussed, and based upon the discussions that were held, and my understanding of the negotiative process that is under way, the matter is going to be adjourned until one o'clock," he said from the bench.

Liz Benjamin giggled audibly in the back of the court room.

"The laughs that I hear are understandable. And I'll be honest with you: coming out here today and going through this ritual is not something I'm really getting enjoyment out of."

McNamara said he was satisfied that "progress is being made" and "the system that I represent is not being abused," justifying his continued refusal to get involved. In less than five minutes, he banged the gavel and the case was adjourned.

"At some point it's going to reach a position where, and I've told the attorneys this, I will do my job, but with the hope of a resolution that could be reached by the parties I am willing to allow it to continue to go forward, and Mr. McLoughlin I suggest you get hearing aids," he said to John McLoughlin, the long-tenured WTEN reporter. He retorted that the judge should speak up.

The Democratic lawyers--all nine of them, by my count--declined to comment leaving the court room. Republican attorney John Ciampoli did not comment substantively, deferring to his clients.

Peter Kiernan, David Paterson's counsel, said this: "We are calling the leaders, immediately, to try to get them to convene. The goal is to get an agreement on what we call a stipulated session, whereby the parties would come into session and pass legislation that has to be passed, without prejudice to their respective positions in the courts. And we're going to find out if that is something that the Republican leadership will agree to; the Democratic leadership has indicated that it might."

Today is the season opener for both the Yankees and the Mets; it's big enough news to crawl around the bend from the back sports page to the front, and the Post highlights a story about the pressure on C.C. Sabathia to make good on his enormous contract with the Yankees: "CC earns his stripes," reads the text over a background of Yankee pinstripes. But the refer only tells readers to "SEE SPORTS," which we think is just a way to ask the reader to flip the paper over and take a look at its backside. After all, today they might be able to grab some nonregular sports readers. And who knows, maybe Mr. Sabathia can be made into a tabloid star the likes of A-Rod or Derek Jeter? Umm, probably not.

Daily News: Today the News gratifies us by actually playing Wood War with the Post: this at least is how we take their front-page treatment for Liz Benjamin's story out of Albany this morning. "Top Dems' ultimatum on Gov. Paterson: SHAPE UP OR ELSE!" reads the copy. Beneath: "Elizabeth Benjamin exclusive." The news here is fairly straightforward: "'Top New York Democrats have privately set a deadline of early November for Gov. Paterson to turn his poll numbers around or they'll urge him not to run next year,'" the story leads. "'The idea is to let him get through the budget and get through the summer,' said a prominent Democratic donor who sees the fall elections as the cutoff for Paterson's improvement." But who are these "Top Dems?" Not completely clear. And what form did this deadline take? Was there a letter? A meeting? We're sure Ms. Benjamin knows the answer, but the reader won't if he turns to page three to find the story. Nevertheless, it's a big coup: This is the kind of thing the Post's Fred Dicker is supposed to have in the bag. And more importantly, Ms. Benjamin, whom we've liked a lot better than Mr. Dicker since she started this gig to begin with, is getting the star treatment. It's a direct provocation of the Post, and here the News has the goods to back it up. What's the rest of the News front page? Sports! "PLAY BALL" reads the top headline, in yellow on a red background. This sure stands out, and as we pointed out before, it's a good day to have some sports on the front. But sports and politics both skew to Mars—where is Venus on this front page? The lower left is a refer to a story about President Obama's condemnation of North Korea's rocket launch, which is only sexy by a weird sort of analogy. Something on this page had to give. The News had the Gisele and Tom story, too; and plenty else besides inside the paper to give this page some balance. Maybe today wasn't a good day to devote half the wood to sports after all?

General observations: We have to give some points to the News today for taking aim at a Post stronghold. But they were wrong about the season opener treatment on Page One: the back page could have sold sports with a tiny refer on the front, giving room for something besides sports and politics on the page. What might it have been? Well Gloria Vanderbilt would have been a bit of a stretch; the Post isn't selling Ms. Peyser with the piece, which they needed to do to make an 85-year-old's erotic ramblings a selling point. That Sabathia refer on the front page does nobody any good at all. But finally, that giant "SHOTGUN WEDDING" headline is a grabber, and nothing on the News front page can match it. It's a weird tale to be sure: will there be any fallout whatsoever for actually shooting at these photographers? It's pretty bad news for Tom and Gisele. We want to read more, and so "SHOTGUN WEDDING" wins the day.

Winner: The New York Post

Liz Benjamin, whose turf I'm gingerly tiptoeing on right now, has more on all this here.

Oh. And about rumor that state Senator Marty Connor, who was once Eliot Spitzer's election lawyer, had offered himself up as a compromise candidate?

His spokesman called with a response: No comment.

-- Azi Paybarah

From the Buffalo News:

[And thank Liz Benjamin for spotting this amazing item.]