Showing posts with label smoke and mirrors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label smoke and mirrors. Show all posts

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Skepticism Meets Mayor de Blasio, Commish Bratton Announcement on Disbanding of Illegal NYPD Muslim Spying Unit

Another slight of hand press release tricks The New York Times, but not the rest of us.

Last week, Mayor Bill de Blasio authorised NYPD Police Commissioner William Bratton to disband an unconstitutional police unit that stalked New York City's Muslim community. Predictably, The New York Times fawned over this token public relations move, but other media have expressed doubt whether the New York Police Department would voluntarily end its use of racial and faith-based profiling to surveil innocent citizens.

The mayor and the police commissioner made such a public display of their "progressive" reforms to a police force battered by never-ending charges of unconstitutional tactics. "However, talk has circulated that the NYPD has little intention to stop deploying officers into Muslim areas in the city — it merely plans to do so without an official label," reported Washington Square News.

The true intention of the police department's continued violations of the Handschu Agreement is worrisome. Based on the mayor's other cosmetic changes in policy, the fact that some large, entrenched mainstream media outlets continue to accord the mayor and his police commissioner with the liberty to propagate so much political spin should raise serious concerns amongst government reform activists.

Monday, July 29, 2013

Christine Quinn Michael Bloomberg Annual Budget Dance

The King And Quinn : "Shall We Dance ?"

2013 City Budget Kiss-In Between Michael Bloomberg and Christine Quinn

At the conclusion of each and every year's budget negotiation, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn shakes Mayor Michael Bloomberg's hand and kisses him on both cheeks (on his face) in a City Hall ceremony that is much more about their close working relationship than merely reaching an accord on the city's $70 billion budget. Political games with severe consequences are played by Mayor Bloomberg after he announces proposed cuts to city programs, only to give Speaker Quinn the opportunity to portray herself as a champion of the people by restoring those cuts.

According to a WCBS report, the annual "budget dance" leads to serious instability in critical social programs :

"Advocates from the Campaign for Children were particularly pleased with the deal on preserving child care services, particularly since Bloomberg’s earlier budget proposal had called for cuts to 47,000 slots from the child care and after-school systems. But the organization said the city needs to quit threatening to put child care on the chopping block. But the cuts to day care and after school programs are not off the table permanently. They have only been averted for a year.

"Stephanie Gendell of the Citizen’s Committee for Children said the city has engaged in a budget dance where the city threatens nightmare scenarios then saves the day. She said the status quo seem like a victory, when it’s only temporary.

" 'It creates real instability for the programs, and the families to not know if the programs will be open next June,' she said."

When Speaker Quinn says that she uses her close working relationship with Mayor Bloomberg to the betterment of all New Yorkers, she misrepresents the danger that the budget games she's engaged in have on city agencies and on community groups. Is she taking into account how the annual budget dance leaves critical safety net programs at perpetual risk of being unable to adequately plan their future budgets ?

Read more : "City Budget Agreement: Some Expanded Services, No Tax Hikes"