Showing posts with label Michael Bloomberg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michael Bloomberg. Show all posts

Monday, June 16, 2014

Sal Albanese Begins Examination Of Last Year's NYC Mayoral Race

Sal Albanese : "My opponents represented the who's who of political hacks, ineffective city officials, and faux progressives."

Sal Albanese photo Sal-Albanese_DeborahYun_2939-2012213_zps9bd815a0.jpg

RELATED


Sal Albanese :
"Can a campaign of substance prevail ?" (Sal Albanese : "Swinging for the Fences : How and Why I Decided to Run for Mayor" * The Huffington Post)

In a suspensful introductory examination of last year's mayoral race in New York City, former Councilmember Sal Albanese hurtles a proverbial cannon shot across the political bows of the permanent government insiders.

"... Can a campaign of substance prevail ?

In posts to follow, I'll discuss why that question went unanswered and why the issues debated and the people debating them are so relevant to the future of the five boroughs."

Read the whole thing for a promising overview of the need to overhaul the broken political system in New York City.

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

With Haggerty seeking retrial and Hynes using drug money for campaign consultants, will campaign finance laws ever be reformed ?

State Sen. Malcolm Smith goes to trial for trying to buy the GOP ballot line just days after Gov. Andrew Cuomo "secures" the Working Families ballot line.

A strange convergence of four different election scandals is taking place this week. Former Queens GOP operative John Haggerty, Jr., requested a new trial on technical ground for stealing $750,000 from former Mayor Michael Bloomberg during the 2009 mayoral election as it was revealed that former Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes was using the seized criminal assets in the District Attorney's Office to pay for a campaign consultant.

As if it couldn't get any worse, two politicians are being treated different by prosecutors for essentially having done the same thing.

Why is State Sen. Malcolm Smith facing a corruption and bribery trial for making deals and proposing bribes in order to make a "deal" to get his name on the GOP ballot line in last year's mayoral race, at the same time that newspapers widely reported that Gov. Andrew Cuomo made his own "deal," including offering to contribute to a possible $10 million election fund, to get on the Working Families Party ballot line on this year's gubernatorial race ?

The pattern of corruption in the Haggerty-Hynes cases show how political operatives and elected officials themselves are so starved for corrupt campaign finance money that they will go to great lengths to misuse other people's money. Mr. Haggerty was already convicted in a trial, whereas Mr. Hynes is said to be awaiting possible criminal charges. While State Sen. Smith faces trial over his efforts to buy the GOP line, there's not even a hint that Gov. Cuomo may face criminal charges for trying to possibly buying his way onto the WFP line.

The apparent similarities in these cases, but the unequal application of the law, seem to point to even added corruption in how prosecutors decide which politicos to charge with election and campaign finance crimes.

Monday, May 12, 2014

In the face of dooms-day science, The New York Times continues to publish pro-fracking editorial propaganda

PUBLISHED : WED, 30 APR 2014, 09:56 AM
UPDATED : MON, 12 MAY 2014, 03:30 PM

Science keeps showing mankind that we face of a dooms-day once the West Antarctic ice sheet collapses and melts, but The New York Times keeps publishing pro-fracking propaganda in its editorial pages, making one wonder if the newspaper's new angel investment objective must secretly involve investing in oil and gas companies as a way to make money, because obviously its editors have decided that it can't turn a profit while remaining objective about the environmental catastrophe caused by fracking and other environment-destroying industries. The newspaper's latest installment is an editorial co-written by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Environmental Defense Fund veal pen "Yes Man" Fred Krupp in which both men advocate fracking without one single mention of the earthquake consequences of the controversial and poisonous gas extraction procedure.

After many European nations panicked over Russia's hostility toward the Ukraine, threatening Russian petroleum sales and shipments to Europe, editors of The New York Times jumped on the opportunity to again advocate for more fracking in North America, so that gas could be shipped across the Atlantic to Europe, going so far as portraying fracking as a tool of diplomacy and rendering a financial windfall to the dirty and dangerous fracking industry.

In spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary available in 2012, reporters for The New York Times proclaimed in January 2013 that fracking was safe in New York state.

Burning more fossil fuels will only further cause more greenhouse gases to build up in the atmosphere, leading to global warming, warns the National Wildlife Federation.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

In radio interview, Gov. Andrew Cuomo bemoans bloggers and 24-hour news cycle

24-Hour News Cycle Makes Government More Transparent, An Aspect That Gov. Cuomo Apparently Dislikes

In a radio interview conducted this morning by John Catsimatidis, Gov. Andrew Cuomo complained about the scrutiny that social media, bloggers, and the 24-hour news cycle place on elected officials, a problem that his father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, never had to face.

“I don’t believe it raises the quality,” Gov. Cuomo said during the radio interview. “As a matter of fact, I think it lowers the quality, but it increases the frequency. These 24-hour blogs. Everybody’s in a competition. They have to get it up first. They have to get it up fast. So you have this constant chatter, that is not necessarily the most credible, the most insightful. But it’s constant and that dictates a rhythm to the governmental dialogue, which again is fast, and quick and facile, but not necessarily intellectual or correct.” (via The New York Daily News)

Bloggers are notoriously difficult to control. Each one is independent, and bloggers strenuously defend their autonomy. Perhaps this independence is a cause of concern for Gov. Cuomo. The armies of lobbyists and campaign consultants employed by elected officials and big business interests are always calling newspaper, radio, and TV reporters to control the daily talking points that elected officials want to see advanced in the mainstream media. But bloggers generally find the motivations of the backroom class of political insider operatives more suspect than mainstream media reporters, who are more resigned to go with the flow. Witness how reporters basically failed to vet -- and refused to accept responsibility for vetting -- Bill de Blasio in last year's mayoral race. If it weren't for bloggers, nobody would have covered the shady, undeclared lobbying that corrupted the race for New York City Council speaker.

But for bloggers, few would read information, for example, about how Gov. Cuomo's Medicaid Redesign Team has been a front group to make wholesale cuts to healthcare by closing entire hospitals, a furtherance of austerity measures begun by former Republican Gov. George Pataki's Berger Commission, a view you wouldn't get from, say, Anemona Hartocollis, the metropolitan healthcare reporter for The New York Times. A Web site administered by the housing activist and blogger John Fisher contributed to the years-long, grassroots effort to vote former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn out of office. The Atlantic Yards Report blog has published a wealth of information about the real estate corruption and community betrayals that took place in the furtherance of Forest City Ratner's zone-busting development for the Atlantic Yards section of Brooklyn. And many mainstream reporters are said to check in daily on the Queens Crap blog for news tips that regularly show up as full-fledged reports on local New York City TV news broadcasts. Since bloggers aren't afraid to tell the political truth, no matter how unflattering it may be to elected officials, the followers of certain political blogs will actually learn about how voters get short-changed by the shortcomings of the political expediency that elected officials practise.

But the steadfast independence of bloggers hasn't stopped politicians from trying to control bloggers. Concerned about parental backlash to administration attacks on charter schools, New York City Mayor de Blasio recently announced an effort to subvert bloggers' independence by spoon-feeding parent bloggers with campaign-styled messaging on his universal pre-kinder program. Mayor de Blasio had to scurry into the arms of parent bloggers after he angered the City Hall press corps by restricting their access to him, hiding appointments from his public schedule, and by walking away from reporters' questions. His predecessor, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, was king of his own media empire, and he didn't need bloggers. Hence, Mayor Bloomberg once derided all bloggers as lawless partisans.

This is a breaking-news post. Please check back for possible updates.

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Scurrying Off, In Secret, Away From The Press

Francois Hollande - Sneaks off to meet Mistress at Secret Apartment

Mayor Bill de Blasio has secret rendezvous with American-Israeli group behind closed doors ; French President has secret rendezvous with Julie Gayet behind closed doors

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was "forced to defend himself Friday after a Thursday speech to the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee was left off his public schedule," The New York Daily News reported, adding, "A reporter from the website Capital New York who found out about the event and tried to cover it was ejected by security, the outlet said."

Separately, Capital New York reported that Mayor de Blasio blamed AIPAC for refusing entry to the reporter, noting that, "The mayor insisted AIPAC wanted the dinner to be closed to the press, but agreed he should have informed reporters regardless."

This isn't the first time that Mayor de Blasio has locked out reporters from covering a controversial event. Last month, Capital New York reported that then the mayor-elect attended a fundraiser for New Yorkers for Clean Livable & Safe Streets (NY-CLASS), the backers of a controversial $1 million Super PAC that exceeded Campaign Finance Board restrictions to defeat the mayor's chief challenger, Christine Quinn. The NY-CLASS fundraiser was also closed to reporters. (And all the behind-the-scenes lobbying that the mayor did to select Councilmember Mellisa Mark-Viverito as the new Council speaker hasn't been exactly transparent, either.)

During the aftermath of the post-Christmas 2010 blizzard, then Public Advocate Bill de Blasio excoriated Mayor Michael Bloomberg for being absent while the city lay buried in unplowed snow.

"The City Council is calling for an investigation into why so many neighborhoods were still buried in snow, and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio sent a letter to Bloomberg demanding to know what happened," the local ABC News affiliate reported at the time.

So much for a real progressive reform agenda when it comes to government transparency and openness. Mayor de Blasio's secretive disappearing acts remind us of embattled French President François Hollande, who took to a motor scooter to travel to a secret rendezvous now and then with his mistress, the actress Julie Gayet.

Does the First Lady have anything to worry about ?

Bill de Blasio - Sneaks Into Pro-Israel Lobby AIPAC photo Bill-de-Blasio-TA132a1pp_w860_h617_zps03889c0d.jpg

Friday, January 24, 2014

Bill de Blasio's staff had role in determining City Council leadership posts

Mayor de Blasio violated checks-and-balances

Given to how much control Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to have over the City Council, like picking its new speaker, the mayor also wants to have a say in who would lead the various Council leadership posts.

And when Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito announced this week the new leadership posts for the City Council, her deputy, Councilmember Brad Lander, told reporters, “A lot of people were consulted." When pressed further by reporters about the role of the mayor's administration in selecting the new Council leadership posts, Councilmember Lander admitted that, “Yeah, I guess I did talk to members of the administration ...." (Bill de Blasio aides consulted on New York City Council committee assignments * Capital New York)

Mayor de Blasio's efforts to subvert the will of the City Council in determining its own leadership flies in the face of all the criticisms he hurled at his chief rival in last year's mayoral race. Previously, Mayor de Blasio had excoriated the former Council speaker, Christine Quinn, for serving as a rubber stamp for the former mayor, Michael Bloomberg.

But now, it seems, Mayor de Blasio is seeking from Speaker Mark-Viverito that which he formerly charged Mayor Bloomberg from seeking in Speaker Quinn : a doormat.

Friday, January 3, 2014

Homeless Youths File Federal Lawsuit Against New York City

"Homeless youths sue city for not providing enough shelter" : NYPost

The Legal Aid Society has filed a federal lawsuit in the Eastern District of New York, in Brooklyn, against the City of New York on behalf of several homeless youths. The plaintiffs fault New York City for failing to provide sufficient shelter.

"The Brooklyn federal court lawsuit claims that while the city is legally obligated to provide beds for all homeless people ages 16 to 20, it turns away hundreds of applicants every night," The New York Post reported earlier this week, adding, "With 3,800 kids currently homeless in the city and only 253 shelter beds available, the waiting lists are growing, the suit states."

A coalition of LGBT organizations, including the Ali Forney Center headed by Carl Siciliano, created the Campaign for Youth Shelter, which would press the city to provide additional funding in a lockstep rate of "$3 million in annual funding to create 100 new shelter beds every year," according to a report in The Advocate.

Perhaps the Legal Aid Society's lawsuit was inspired by the activism surrounding the Campaign for Youth Shelter, as one insider said, but the lawsuit has a larger ambition : seeking the resources to provide shelter for every homeless youth today. If successful, the Legal Aid Society's lawsuit would appear to be the answer to this social issue. If so, now would be the time for the Campaign for Youth Shelter to update its plans for how a larger shelter system could be created once all the resources become available.

In the past, Mayor Bloomberg would seek budgetary cuts to homeless LGBT youth programs, but these cuts would get restored during the budget negotiations.

2013-12-30 Legal Aid Society USDC EDNY NYC Complaint Re Homeless Youth by Connaissable

Some noted the irony that the lawsuit would not be defended by the Bloomberg-Quinn administration, which was largely responsible for growing inequities between a new guilded generation of the very wealthy and the famous 99%, a term coined by Occupy Wall Street to describe everybody else. But the flip side to former Mayor Michael Bloomberg always playing the boogyman was the fact that the City Council, headed by former Speaker Christine Quinn, was always comprised of a supermajority of Democrats, yet the City Council never confronted the mayor to demand the resources to fully address any social ill. By the same token, the Public Advocate's office was never visible in the fight for full budgetary resources, either.

This lawsuit seeks to address the deprivation of homeless youths, who have nothing. One activist noted that Mayor Bloomberg's successor, Bill de Blasio, will now have to put his newly-confessed economic sensibilities about "A Tale Of Two Cities" to the test : it will be incumbent upon Mayor de Blasio to fully fund the resources that homeless youth community groups need to provide adequate shelter to homeless youths.

That litigation is being brought now is a sign that the Legal Aid Society means to force the city's hand, and that homeless shelters would no longer be willing to engage in the annual, farcical "budget dance" -- the cut-and-restore budget negotiation process that leaves important community groups unable to adequately plan long-term operating budgets. Based on how the former Public Advocate failed to champion the cause of homeless shelters, the Legal Aid Society seems to not want to take chances now that the former Public Advocate has become mayor.

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Major Snow Storm To Hit NYC, But de Blasio Has Yet To Name Sanitation Commissioner

Do you remember the last time we had a major, who didn't take a major snow storm seriously ? Sanitation trucks got stuck in the snow, because they started too late, and some side streets in Queens looked like barricades of snow got dropped down on us, with no way of possibly getting out.

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Pay-To-Report News Brainwashing : The Effect Of Endless Political TV Ads

It is only through a full debate of ideas that all sides can come to an appreciation for one another, an informed participation by voters, and the hope of an agreement on issues.

Citizens-United-Campaign-Commerical-Media-Control-News-Ethics-Electioneering photo town-hall-media-spoonfeeding-cartoon-campaign-commercials-citizens-united_zpse02455f0.jpg

But that's not what's happening now.

From True News From Change NYC :

Pay to Report Local TV News Control. Spending on advertising has fueled the increase in TV lobbying costs. Well-funded special interests funnel millions to lobbyists for public campaigns to sway lawmakers on hot-button issues. (TU) Local News which is mainly weather, traffic, cooking and dog segments is making millions in lobbyists spending. Union and business interest like the pro fracking interest are also spending millions on ads to local stations. All this money is coming in as local news dumbs down.

Pols and Interests Groups Use Local News By Pushing Their Paid Ads To Win Support For Their Issues

News Brainwashing. The only real news on dumb down local TV are in the paid ads which are not news but bias views of the pol or interests group who paid for the ads to gain public support. Local TV stations stand to profit from boom in super-PAC spending (The Hill) * CSNY’s budget blitz: $3.9 million (updated) (TU) * Save NY airing tax cap ad (TU) * Budget opponents up their ads and mailers (TU) * Bloomberg Blames Negative Ads For Poor Showing In Education (Politico) * Save NY now airs ad on school money (TU) * NYC's Bloomberg Pays for TV Ads Backing Cuomo's Pension (Bloomberg News) * Bloomberg Defends His Administration With TV Ad (NY1) * Local TV News For $ale: How Special Interests Control News Content and Public Opinion (True News)

What Has Happen to the Watchdog Groups of Government or Politics ? An explosion of online news sources in recent years has not produced a corresponding increase in reporting, particularly quality local reporting, a federal study of the media has found.Coverage of state governments and municipalities has receded at such an alarming pace that it has left government with more power than ever to set the agenda and have assertions unchallenged, concluded the study. “In many communities, we now face a shortage of local, professional, accountability reporting,” said the study, which was ordered by the Federal Communications Commission and written by Steven Waldman, a former journalist for Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report. “The independent watchdog function that the Founding Fathers envisioned for journalism — going so far as to call it crucial to a healthy democracy — is in some cases at risk at the local level.

Because newspapers have always served as tip sheets for local television reporters and for reporters on the national level, newspapers cutbacks because of the loss of readership to the Internet have had “ripple effects throughout the whole media system." With fewer reporters available to tackle in-depth topics, news releases from politicians and policy makers end up having more influence in some cases, he said, contributing to a kind of power shift toward institutions and away from citizens. * Local News : The Dumbing Down of Journalism (True News)

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Bill de Blasio and Melissa Mark-Viverito : Checks and balances are for stooges

Bill de Blasio Prods City Council to Elect Puppet as Speaker

Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito said on Wednesday that she had lined up enough support to win the speaker's post, thanks to the intervention of mayor-elect Bill de Blasio. By Saturday, the editorial board of The New York Daily News has now published another denunciation of the conflicts of interest that are giving rise to Ms. Mark-Viverito's speakership : "Keep the bums out." This follows a prior editorial published last month in which the same editorial board expressed their opposition to Ms. Mark-Viverito's speakership campaign : "No to Mark-Viverito."

RRELATED : Melissa Mark-Viverito Lobbyist Firm Never Quit, Continued Lobbying Despite Investigations

Friday, December 20, 2013

Bill de Blasio Prods City Council to Elect Puppet as Speaker

Checks and balances are for stooges.

Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito said on Wednesday that she had lined up enough support to win the speaker's post, thanks to the intervention of mayor-elect Bill de Blasio.

How soon before somebody makes a "puppet show" video about Ms. Mark-Viverito ?

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Ray Kelly Booed Off Stage During Brown University Talk

Ray Kelly Booed Off Stage During Speech at Brown University in Boston : "Racism is not for debate"

A student-led backlash to NYPD Police Commish Ray Kelly speaking at the Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University had been brewing for days, The Wall Street Journal reported. Several student groups and Providence residents attempted to get the university to rescind Mr. Kelly's invitation, which was denied. "Mr. Kelly has been heralded for bringing crime in New York City to the lowest point in more than 50 years, but he has also been in the spotlight after a federal judge ruled that the NYPD's stop-and-frisk practice was unconstitutional because it disproportionately targets minorities," The Wall Street Journal report added. Watch the video of the heckling. One student shouts, "Racism is not for debate !"

During the recent Democratic primary race for the next mayoral administration in New York City, Mr. Kelly became the intense focus of criticism when former primary front-runner Christine Quinn expressed her unflinching support for Mr. Kelly's unconstitutional policies of racism and police brutality. Controversies over police procedures has been a hallmark of the Bloomberg-Quinn administration.

Monday, September 16, 2013

Will Christine Quinn Hold Public Hearings Investigating "Worthless" $95 Million BOE Electronic Scanners ?

Christine Quinn votes September 10, 2013 Democratic Mayoral Primary Election photo 2013-09-10christine-quinn-votes-NYDN_zps85fb8eb4.jpg

Will Christine Quinn Hold Public Hearings Investigating "Worthless" $95 Million BOE Electronic Scanners ?

The editorial board of The New York Times will call for in an editorial to be published in tomorrow's newspaper a call for a reform effort to revamp the inept and patronage-laden New York City Board of Elections.

"Perhaps a good, civic-minded project for Mr. Bloomberg, Speaker Christine Quinn and Mr. Thompson — all of whom know how to run big operations — is to take on reform of this abysmal system," the editors write.

Earlier today, Democratic mayoral candidate Bill Thompson conceded loss to his rival, Bill de Blasio, after political pressure had been escalated from Mr. de Blasio's camp. Before today, Mr. Thompson had said that he had wanted to stay in the race, after he had finished in second place, to see if the counting of 80,000 paper ballots would force a run-off between he and Mr. de Blasio.

“We don’t know how many votes I got, or even how many votes were cast,” said Mr. Thompson, adding that he was frustrated with the slowpoke mishandling of the vote count by the Board of Elections, “When are they going to finish?” Mr. Thompson further noted that the Board of Elections had denied him -- and voters -- a final count of the votes cast on primary election day : “it’s such a disadvantage — it just isn’t fair.”

Will Christine Quinn redeem her failed political career by holding public hearings into the "worthless" $95 million electronic scanners that the Board of Elections had to scuttle in order to run the primary election day ?

Monday, September 2, 2013

Christine Quinn and Michael Bloomberg File for Divorce

For 15 years, voters had to suffer through Christine Quinn's self-interested dealings as she hitched her political wagon to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Speaker Quinn's close working relationship with Mayor Bloomberg is turning off voters from supporting her mayoral campaign. Now that Speaker Quinn is desperate to rescue her political future, she is about to throw Mayor Bloomberg and his legacy under the bus. Her efforts to divorce herself from Mayor Bloomberg may be too little, too late.

Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn - Copyright 2013 by Louis Flores - Uncorrected Proof Not... by Connaissable

Christine Quinn Six-Part Term, Limits Flip-Flop Chronology

Term Limits research from "Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn" reaches The Guardian newspaper

The Guardian reporter Harry Enten tweeted a link to the free Scribd preview of the book, Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn.

His tweet was in connection to a five-part series of tweets sent by the book's author, Louis Flores, that document Christine Quinn's series of flip-flops on term limits.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Christine Quinn - 8 Years of City Budget Slush Funds @NYCCouncil Schedule C

 photo slush-fund-tweets_zps805e5192.jpg

Some of the fake charity groups Christine Quinn used to divert discretionary funds for personal political gain.

  • American Association of Concerned Veterans received $422,763 in slush funds.
  • Association of Community Partners received $400,000 in slush funds.
  • Coalition for a Strong Special Education received $400,000 in slush funds.
  • Community Development for Stronger Neighborhoods received $300,000 in slush funds.
  • Firewood Senior Services Center received $300,000 in slush funds.
  • Immigration Improvement Project of NY received $300,000 in slush funds.
  • Rockwood Regional Development Foundation received $300,000 in slush funds.
  • Moving Up, Building Bridges received $250,000 in slush funds.

FY 2007 City Council Adopted Expense Budget Schedule C

As a follow-up to yesterday's post (that FY 2007 Schedule C was missing), we have turned up a copy, and now all eight years' worth of Schedules C's during Christine Quinn's speakership of the New York City Council are now uploaded onto Scribd. These are public documents, yet FY 2007 was not publicly available. Maybe it was because the FY 2007 Schedule C was used by The New York Post to expose the fact that Speaker Quinn had used fake charity groups to hide a political slush fund to dole out to her supporters. (This $$ Is Hers For The Faking * NYPost)

FY 2008 City Council Adopted Expense Budget Schedule C

FY 2009 City Council Adopted Expense Budget Schedule C

FY 2010 City Council Adopted Expense Budget Schedule C

FY 2011 City Council Adopted Expense Budget Schedule C

FY 2012 City Council Adopted Expense Budget Schedule C

FY 2013 City Council Adopted Expense Budget Schedule C

FY 2014 City Council Adopted Expense Budget Schedule C

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Did Mayor Bloomberg Select Christine Quinn As Speaker In 2006 ?

 photo michael-keogh_zps40d31f4d.jpg

Did Mayor Bloomberg Select Christine Quinn As Speaker In 2006 ?

After Christine Quinn was named speaker, she appointed Michael Keogh to become the City Council finance director. In that position, Mr. Keogh would help the City Council negotiate the budget with City Hall. The appointment created a conflict of interest, because it was not known if Mr. Keogh's former role with the Bloomberg administration would compromise the City Council's independence in the budget process. Mr. Keogh had previously served as a member of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Office of State Legislative Affairs. In 2008, Mr. Keogh resigned after he was implicated in the slush fund scandal.

Mr. Keogh's initial selection followed a pattern of politically-motivated appointments that were seemingly made to reward the powerful political supporters, who had helped to broker Quinn's speakership. For example, after the party bosses in the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn, had each helped Quinn to cinch the speakership, Quinn announced that powerful City Council committees would be chaired by members from the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn delegations.

  • Joel Rivera from the Bronx became chair of the Health Committee.
  • Melinda Katz and David Weprin from Queens remained chairs of the Land Use and Finance Committees, respectively.
  • Erik Dilan from Brooklyn was named chair of the Housing & Buildings Committee.

Voters often cite Speaker Quinn's subjugation to Mayor Bloomberg as one reason citizens are promising to vote for "Anybody But Quinn." Now, Flores asks in Chapter 8 of his book, Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn : when did Speaker Quinn make the deal to become Mayor Bloomberg's chief enabler in the City Council ? Did the deal get made during the time Quinn was negotiating her speakership with the political power brokers in late 2005 and early 2006 ? Was Mayor Bloomberg among the power brokers with whom Quinn negotiated her speakership ? Was Mr. Keogh's appointment as the powerful City Council finance director a way to reward Mayor Bloomberg for his support of Quinn's speakership ?

2013-08-28 Roots of Betrayal - Mike Bloomberg Speakership Press Release by Connaissable

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Explication of The New York Times Mayoral Endorsement of Christine Quinn

The New York Times Mayoral Endorsement : Christine Quinn, the Democratic Choice

Following is a line-by-line explication of editorial in which New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is endorsed by the Editorial Board of The New York Times :

WHAT THE NYTIMES WROTE WHAT THE NYTIMES MEANS
Mayor Michael Bloomberg is almost gone. Real estate developers and big business interests are worried about who is going to carry out Mayor Bloomberg's policies for the next eight years.
At year’s end there will be nothing more he can do to shape, alter or improve the City of New York. The Editorial Board has been tasked by Mayor Bloomberg to help elect Christine Quinn.
It’s the end of 12 years of governing under one man’s singular, often inspiring, sometimes maddening priorities, which were as big as a rising ocean and as small as your soda cup. The Editorial Board is afraid of calling out Mayor Bloomberg for the dictatorial ways that he has run New York City. He wouldn't have made it to three terms, unless Christine Quinn violated the two voter referenda that imposed term limits, something the Editorial Board is trying to cover up.
It was a vision that succeeded brilliantly, but incompletely. The Editorial Board believes that Mayor Bloomberg should have done more to help the 1%.
But don’t worry, New York. The Editorial Board doesn't want the Real Estate Board of New York or the Partnership For New York City, our last two groups of major advertisers, to worry.
Mr. Bloomberg’s is hardly the only way to run a city, and the excellent news is that there is a candidate who is ready to carry on at least as well as he did. The Editorial Board is going to help Mayor Bloomberg anoint his own chosen successor.
She is one of seven Democrats who have been toiling for months in the primary race, standing before voters day and night in a marathon of civic engagement. The Editorial Board believes that even through Christine Quinn has been in public office for 15 years, she has had to hurry up and do her "wawk and tawk" tour to try to introduce herself to the taxpayers paying for her political slush fund.
A common complaint is that this year’s candidates look small, like dots on the slopes of Mount Bloomberg. The Editorial Board thinks that even though the crop of candidates are not billionaires, if we have to do with peons, we can accept Christine Quinn, because she's proven to have sold her soul to big business interests, which is the only thing that the Editorial Board cares about, frankly.
But that isn’t fair; all but a few are solid public servants running substantive campaigns. The Editorial Board has to give lip service to the other candidates, so voters could fool themselves into thinking the editors might possibly consider a candidate other than Mayor Bloomberg's heir apparent.
Though the race was crashed, and distracted for a few irritating weeks, by the unqualified Anthony Weiner, it has since sobered up, and voters are paying attention. The Editorial Board did its best to keep focusing on Anthony Weiner in a negative light, so that the editors could dispatch him as quickly as possible, so that the editors could focus on fluffing Christine Quinn's sagging campaign.
It is clear by now — and last Wednesday’s debate made it even clearer — that the best in the group is Christine Quinn. The Editorial Board is trying to make this hard sell of Christine Quinn, so we will go to any lengths to push her campaign on voters.
Ms. Quinn, the City Council speaker, offers the judgment and record of achievement anyone should want in a mayor. The Editorial Board believes that Christine Quinn has a corrupt enough record that she will nicely fit into the broken political system.
Two opponents — Bill de Blasio, the public advocate, and William Thompson Jr., former comptroller — offer powerful arguments on their own behalf. The Editorial Board wants to give these two fools more lip service, yadda-yadda-yadda.
But Ms. Quinn inspires the most confidence that she would be the right mayor for the inevitable times when hope and idealism collide with the challenge of getting something done. The Editorial Board believes that Christine Quinn will be a perfect puppet to her REBNY and PFNYC masters.
Ms. Quinn has been an impressive leader since her days as a neighborhood advocate and her early years on the City Council. The Editorial Board believes that Christine Quinn has fully sold out and betrayed her activism roots by now. She's gotten that shit out of her system, and she is a complete "Yes Woman" to her campaign contributors and special interests.
We endorsed her for the Council in 1999 as someone “who can both work within the system and criticize it when necessary” — a judgment she has validated many times since. The Editorial Board analyses this as meaning that Christine Quinn will do what she is told by big business, and she will continue to undermine democracy and shred the social safety net when instructed.
She has shepherded through important laws protecting New Yorkers’ health, safety and civil rights, including measures banning public smoking, protecting tenants and small businesses, and battling slumlords. The Editorial Board wants to remind big business interests that Christine Quinn has a record of doing what Mayor Bloomberg told her to do.
She sponsored the sweeping 2007 legislation that made the city’s exemplary campaign-finance laws even stronger. The Editorial Board is only telling you a half-truth here, because Christine Quinn also weakened campaign finance laws this very year to benefit outside groups being able to spend unlimited amounts of money to further corrupt political campaigns.
She pushed successfully for a state law making kindergarten mandatory for 5-year-olds — giving thousands of poor and minority children a better start on their educations. The Editorial Board likes it when Christine Quinn focuses her campaign on childish issues, because that helps voters forget her betrayals on term limits and her corrupt record with slush funds.
As speaker, Ms. Quinn has been a forceful counterpart to Mr. Bloomberg, and has turned the Council from a collection of rambunctious, ill-directed egos into a forceful and effective legislative body. The Editorial Board believes that Christine Quinn subjugated herself to Mayor Bloomberg, and she used her slush funds to reward and punish her political allies and enemies like a good political boss should do.
In wrestling with budgets she has shown restraint that runs counter to lesser political instincts. The Editorial Board is most impressed that Christine Quinn was able to focus on a political agenda that favoured the 1%, even when it meant driving up poverty and homelessness in New York City during the Bloomberg-Quinn administration.
She fought, for example, for a Bloomberg plan to keep a year’s surplus as a rainy-day fund. The Editorial Board liked that Christine Quinn didn't use surplus funds to fight poverty or homelessness.
There was fierce opposition from Council members who wanted to spend the money. The Editorial Board congratulates Christine Quinn turned her back on the needy, especially LGBT homeless youth, which is not an easy thing to do, given her identity. Let's give her some credit for that !
Ms. Quinn was right, and the city had a cushion when the recession hit. The Editorial Board is impressed that Christine Quinn found ways to prevent tax hikes on the 1%.
Mr. Bloomberg has raised expectations that hard decisions should be made on the merits — that the city needs a mayor who is willing to say no. The Editorial Board is endorsing Christine Quinn in part because Mayor Bloomberg told us to, and plus we may need to be bought out by Mayor Bloomberg if the newspaper business keeps losing money.
More than with the other candidates, that description fits Ms. Quinn. The Editorial Board believes that Christine Quinn is the most corrupt candidate, and the extremes that she will go to embrace corruption is why Mayor Bloomberg respects her so much, that's what he told the Editorial Board during our back room meeting.
As an early leader in the campaign, with a target on her back, she has faced anger and derision without wavering. The Editorial Board has tried to keep extending political cover to Christine Quinn, so that she wouldn't suffer such a steep drop in the polls.
We admire her staunch support for the city’s solid-waste management plan, which is good for the whole city but bitterly opposed in some neighborhoods. The Editorial Board picked this lousy issue to focus on, because the editors didn't want to touch the slush fund scandal.
She has been willing to challenge the mayor’s misjudgment and insensitivity, as when he tried to require single adults to prove their homelessness before they were allowed to use city shelters. The Editorial Board mentions the only thing Christine Quinn has done to address a small part of the homeless problem, so that the editors could keep running the façade of a "liberal newspaper."
Mr. de Blasio has been the most forceful and eloquent of the Democrats in arguing that New York needs to reset its priorities in favor of the middle class, the struggling and the poor. The there is no way that the Editorial Board could ever support a candidate that wants to help the poor.
His stature has grown as his message has taken root — voters leery of stark and growing inequalities have embraced his message of “two cities.” The Editorial Board endorsed Christine Quinn so that we could shift the campaign conversation to be about identity politics, not about income inequality.
He has ennobled the campaign conversation by insisting, correctly, that expanding early education is vital to securing the city’s future. The Editorial Board picked early education as an issue for Mr. de Blasio, because that's an issue that provides the editors with some political cover in the Christine Quinn endorsement.
And yet, Mr. de Blasio’s most ambitious plans — like a powerful new state-city partnership to make forever-failing city hospitals financially viable, or to pay for universal prekindergarten and after-school programs through a new tax on the richest New Yorkers — need support in the State Capitol, and look like legislative long shots. The Editorial Board has brought back Anemona Hartocollis to continue to write shoddy and entirely biased reporting to undermine Mr. de Blasio's platform on saving community hospitals.
Once a Mayor de Blasio saw his boldest ideas smashed on the rocks of Albany, then what? The Editorial Board was told by Mayor Bloomberg that he would pull strings with the state GOP politicians up in Albany to undermine any candidate other than Christine Quinn.
Mr. Thompson, meanwhile, who nearly defeated Mr. Bloomberg four years ago, has run a thoughtful campaign grounded on the insights he gained in important elective and appointed posts in New York City. The Editorial Board can't take Bill Thompson seriously. His wife has taken millions in charitable donations from Mayor Bloomberg. There's no way that the Thompson family isn't already indebted to Mayor Bloomberg, even the editors would figure out this much.
A former president of the old Board of Education, Mr. Thompson argues that he is the best candidate to fix the city schools, but his close ties to the United Federation of Teachers, not always a friend of needed reforms, give us pause. The Editorial Board was told by Mayor Bloomberg that the next item on our political agenda is to bust up the teachers' union.
The teachers’ union is one of the municipal unions itching for retroactive pay raises in contracts that expired under Mr. Bloomberg and need renegotiating. The Editorial Board is going to start a campaign to deny the teachers' union any pay raise.
For all the growing testiness of the campaign, the Democrats share much common ground. The Editorial Board believes that enough real estate and big business campaign donations have steered the Democratic candidates into adopting campaign platforms that embrace an ideology of neoliberalism.
All agree on equality, opportunity and fairness. The Editorial Board doesn't give a shit about equality, opportunity and faireness -- except as it would apply to our dwindling list of advertisers.
They concede that the best of the Bloomberg years — the economic diversification and growth, the astounding drop in crime, the transit innovations, the greener and cleaner public spaces, and big plans for the future — must be preserved. The Editorial Board wants a mayoral candidate that will continue Mayor Bloomberg's policies of gentrification, stop and frisk discrimination, higher transit fares for commuters, the sale of more parks for sports stadiums, and more zone-busting real estate development.
And they agree that the worst must be corrected — starting with the Police Department’s unconstitutional use of stop-and-frisk, which has abused and humiliated hundreds of thousands of innocent New Yorkers. The Editorial Board believes that stop and frisk should be ended in the outer boroughs, but its use should continue in Manhattan, perhaps even increased.
Ms. Quinn has no specific plan to require the richest New Yorkers to pay more in taxes in service of important civic goals (she says she will raise taxes as a last resort), but neither has she made a long list of unrealistic promises. The Editorial Board is happy to see that Christine Quinn will keep sparing the 1% from having to pay their fair share, and, even better, Christine Quinn isn't making any promises to the poor or working classes of New York City. If low-income New Yorkers can't afford to live in New York City, they can always move to New Jersey.
The biggest challenge has not been talked about much — next year the new mayor will have to confront a budget crisis with no money to spare and all those expired municipal contracts to settle. The Editorial Board is salivating at the opportunity that Christine Quinn will have to bust up a few municipal unions.
The mayor we will need then will not be the police reformer or education visionary, but a skilled and realistic negotiator. The Editorial Board doesn't want Christine Quinn to reform the police department. As stated, the editors prefer to continue stop and frisk discrimination and police brutality as a way to drive out undesireables from the five boroughs, or from Manhattan, at least.
Some positions Ms. Quinn has supported are unwise or objectionable. The Editorial Board is thrilled that Christine Quinn so readily adopted neoliberal and racist policies without complaint.
She has been too strong in supporting Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, the architect and stoutest defender of stop-and-frisk. The Editorial Board expects that Christine Quinn will expand the use of stop-and-frisk.
She has supported, too blindly, Mr. Kelly’s practice of spying on Muslims at prayer, a similar false choice of public safety over the Constitution. The Editorial Board finds this kind of discrimination excusable, and notice how the editors didn't mention how the NYPD also menaces people of color and LGBTQ and gender non-conforming New Yorkers. Basically, the editors don't care about civil rights and civil liberties violations.
She can become mumbly when talking about things that the real estate industry opposes, like changing zoning laws to require construction of affordable apartments. The Editorial Board likes that Christine Quinn won't bite the hand that feeds her.
She has a reputation for shouting, but has shown a capacity to listen, and to be persuaded to change her mind — attributes we will count on seeing more of if she is elected. The Editorial Board is already receiving estimates and bids for the installation of sound proofing in Gracie Mansion.
We had already made up our own minds in favor of Ms. Quinn, but the Wednesday debate would have clinched it anyway. For years, the Editorial Board has been instructing reporters to write their articles from a point of view of bias that fluff's Christine Quinn's image and her campaign.
Candidates were asked what legacy they wanted to leave after two terms. The Editorial Board has arranged it for fix to be in so that Christine Quinn can serve two terms as mayor.
“More people in the middle class,” Ms. Quinn said. The Editorial Board helped Christine Quinn with this lip service.
It was a perfect answer, and she could have left it there. The Editorial Board told Christine Quinn to shut her mouth and not ruin her interview with the editors.
But, Quinn being Quinn, she threw in supporting details. But being the big mouth that she is, Christine Quinn went on tawking and tawkig and tasking, so much so that many editors put on their earphones and started listening to the latest Lady Gaga song on their iPhones.
She wants 40,000 more apartments the middle class can afford to live in. The Editorial Board did hear that Christine Quinn has a plan to help funnel tax breaks and low-cost loans to developers, so that taxpayers could subsidize real estate profits to some of her campaign donors.
She wants to repair crumbling public housing, providing “quality conditions” for 600,000 people. The Editorial Board promised to help support Christine Quinn carry out Mayor Bloomberg's plan to allow the development of luxury high rises on the last little bit of open space in NYCHA housing projects.
She wants to make the school day longer and replace textbooks with electronic tablets. The Editorial Board also liked what it heard when Christine Quinn said that she wants to outsource teachers to a series of computer learning modules in 45 minute segments.
At the buzzer, she threw in: make the city “climate-change ready.” The Editorial Board is looking forward to finding out how Christine Quinn has funnel more tax dollars to real estate developers that keep wanting to build along the rivers and beaches of the five boroughs. The editors view this as a risky proposition, but Christine Quinn seems to be obsessed with making more and more back room deals with real estate developers. The editors want to see how much she can get away with.
A lot of good ideas that, in Ms. Quinn’s case, add up to an achievable vision, and one we would be glad to see come to pass. The Editorial Board is going to help Christine Quinn win by running more fluff pieces about her new luxury condo, her week-end home, her cooking skills, her favourite café, and her love of animals.

Friday, August 9, 2013

Christine Quinn NYPD Abner Louima Brutality Task Force Anniversary

Christine Quinn Watered Down Rudy Giuliani's Abner Louima NYPD Police Brutality Task Force Recommendations.

Quinn Then Went On To Enable NYPD Culture Of Racism And Brutality.

Before the evening of August 9, 1997, was out, NYPD police officers had brutalized and tortured Abner Louima inside a police station house in Brooklyn.

After the tremendous public outcry, then Mayor Rudy Giuliani appointed a police brutality task force, and among the task force members he named was Christine Quinn. She was one of the driving forces to weaken the task force's recommendations, and eventually her efforts lead to a split among the task force members.

The weaker recommendations, which Quinn championed, went on to be represented in a majority report of the task force, while a set of more aggressive recommendations were formulated in a minority report. Read this excerpt from a report published by The New York Daily News :

Norman Siegel, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union and a task-force member, spearheaded a dissenting report that made a connection between race and police misconduct. "On issues like police brutality and race, you never compromise," Siegel said. But Quinn said her strategy was to make it easier for Mayor Giuliani who called some of the report's recommendations unrealistic to adopt reforms quickly in the wake of the sodomy and torture of Abner Louima, allegedly by police. (NYDailyNews * Saturday, February 20, 1999, 12:00 AM)

On the anniversary of Mr. Louima's torture and brutality, let us not forget who Speaker Quinn sides with.