Sunday, August 17, 2014

Activists calling for complete overhaul of NYPD face dreadful reality : Is de Blasio blocking reforms ?

PUBLISHED : SUN, 17 AUG 2014, 04:30 PM
UPDATED : MON, 18 AUG 2014, 11:57 AM

In an Orwellian twist of tongue, de Blasio said last week that New York City has a long history of "peaceful protests."

Although Mayor de Blasio has promised to confront the NYPD's illegal use of chokeholds, he's remained quiet about his OEM head, the former NYPD Chief Joseph Esposito, who has been documented to have used chockeholds against Occupy activists

In 2012, former New York Police Department Chief of Department Joseph Esposito placed a petite blonde Occupy activist in an illegal chokehold. Chief Esposito approached the young lady from behind, squeezing the backside of her body up against his front side. Despite this obviously illegal use of brute force against an otherwise innocent citizen activist, Chief Esposito was appointed to be the head of the Office of Emergency Management by Mayor Bill de Blasio. Not even the political, social, and legal fallout from the NYPD's use of a chokehold, which caused the death of Staten Island resident Eric Garner, has caused the mayor to comment on Chief Esposito's violent use of chokeholds.

Furthermore, when the mayor said last week that, "For decades and decades we have had the tradition in this city of respecting and properly managing peaceful protests, and the right of people to express themselves," he was blatantly lying, because the NYPD have a notorious history of engaging in violent attacks against peaceful protesters. Has the mayor aged so much in office that his brain has deteriorated to the point that he cannot recall how NYPD responded to each of the 1988 Tompkins Square Park riot, the 1998 Matthew Shepard memorial march down Fifth Avenue, the 2002 World Economic Forum protests at the Waldorf-Astoria, the 2003 antiwar protests against the invasion of Iraq, the 2004 Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden, and the recent Occupy Wall Street movement ?

RELATED


Former NYPD Chief of Department Joseph Esposito locks Occupy activist in chokehold (The New York Daily News)

Why Broken Windows Policing Is So Broken (Gawker)

NYPD Chief Anthony Bologna - OWS Chokehold photo anthony-bologna-nypd-chokehold_zps71d3d05e.jpg

Not only did NYPD Deputy Inspector Bologna lock a young Occupy activist into an illegal chokehold, but he also pepper sprayed a group of innocent young ladies, who were participating at an Occupy demonstration, as well.

Is this what Mayor de Blasio meant when he said that the NYPD has a history of "properly managing peaceful protests" ?

After Dep. Insp. Anthony Bologna was publicly excoriated for having pepper sprayed the young ladies on video, the corrupt Manhattan District Attorney, Cyrus Vance, decided not to prosecute Dep. Insp. Bologna. What kind of miscarriage of justice does this foreshadow for other New Yorkers, who have been assaulted and battered at the hands of officers, who have used brute force against civilians in police custody ?

RELATED


OWS Pepper-Spray Cop Anthony Bologna Will Not Be Prosecuted (DNAinfo)

NYPD Eric Garner Chokehold photo eric-garner-chokehold-ground_zps8a6b99e0.jpg

Mayor de Blasio defends his administration's approach to policing, even as its discriminatory impact on minority communities is being blamed for police harassment that led to Eric Garner's death.

In a report report last week, The New York Daily News reported the NYPD Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and the mayor's "approach to policing have been under scrutiny since the death of Staten Island man Eric Garner."

The de Blasio's approach to fighting crime, known as the Broken Windows theory of policing, targets very minor infractions and low-level crimes on the premise that more severe crimes can be prevented if people get locked up early. This approach has resulted in the "mass criminalization of the poor," wrote Alex Vitale in The Gotham Gazette, noting that, "Hundreds of thousands of mostly young black and Latino men are put into the criminal justice system for mouthing off in class, taking up two seats on the subway, and possessing marijuana."

In communities of color and in low-income sections of the city, residents have come to view the de Blasio administration's treatment of minorities in a discriminatory manner, a violation of the mayor's central campaign promise to end police discrimination and police brutality.

RELATED


Mayor de Blasio: 'Idiotic' and 'ludicrous' to think I'd dump Bill Bratton (The New York Daily News)

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio walks thin blue line in Eric Garner's chokehold aftermath (The Christian Science Monitor)

The Neoconservative Roots of the Broken Windows Theory (The Gotham Gazette)

NYPD Rosan Miller Chokehold photo rosan-miller-in-chokehold-pregnant-woman_zps153f8e29.png

Even a woman, in her seventh month of pregnancy, has been placed in an illegal chokehold by NYPD. And the mayor still does nothing about the illegal and brute use of force by police.

NYPD officers are apparently free to assault and batter innocent New Yorkers while they are being placed in police custody.

Last month, Rosan Miller, 27, drew the brutal ire of police for grilling food on a sidewalk. The de Blasio administration's Broken Windows approach to policing is out of control if Ms. Miller can be arrested for preparing her meal outdoors during the summer.

What made Ms. Miller's arrest all the more shocking was that she was in the late term of pregnancy. In spite of being seven months pregnant, that didn't stop police from placing her in an illegal chokehold, a move that could have denied the precious flow of oxygen not only to Ms. Miller, but to her unborn fetus.

RELATED


Pregnant woman apparently put in chokehold by NYPD cop during dispute over illegal grilling (The New York Daily News)

How Dare Mayor de Blasio Tell New Yorkers To Submit to the NYPD (Vice)

Video of NYPD cops arresting man in Bronx goes viral photo VideoofNYPDcopsarrestingmaninBronxgoesviral_zpsb22a5cc2.png

Mayor demands that New Yorkers submit to arrests, even though police knowingly use brute force and make false arrests all the time, even when people are only seeking public accommodations on mass transit, a blatant violation of the Civil Rights Act.

In February, a man was violently arrested after he deboarded a Bronx bus, after police accused the young man of failing to have paid his fare. Police made the arrest in compliance with Commissioner Bratton's Broken Windows policy of aggressive policing.

To add insult to injury, Mayor de Blasio scolded New Yorkers last week, saying, "When a police officer comes to the decision that it’s time to arrest someone, that individual is obligated to submit to arrest,” adding, “They will then have every opportunity for due process in our court system.”

As Mayor de Blasio becomes more and more tone deaf to the cries for a complete overhaul of the corrupt NYPD, he is going to keep sticking his foot in his mouth, proving the predictions of some political bloggers, who have said that the mayor risks losing support amongst minority voters, and eventually ending up, due to mounting discontent over other issues, as a one-term mayor.

How soon will it be, before voters realise that the mayor's support of Broken Windows policing can be traced back to a backdoor non-agreession pact he made with large real estate donors, as evidenced by the mayor's obsession with checking in with lobbyists and political insiders -- as opposed to the voters, themselves ?

RELATED


Disturbing Facebook video raises question: Police brutality or resisting arrest? (PIX 11)

The NYPD Keeps Coming Up With Ways to Arrest Poor People (Gawker)

Friday, August 15, 2014

Longtime brutal foe of OWS, NYPD Dep Insp Ed Winski back to old tricks again

Deputy Inspector Ed Winksi, known to aggressively arrest activists for exercising Freedoms of Assembly and Speech, was present for questionable arrests during #NMOS14 NYC

Promoted up the NYPD ranks from Captain to Deputy Inspector in reward for his tactics and methods to suppress activists, Winski has earned the ire of advocates for free speech

New York Police Department Deputy Inspector Ed Winski was present for at least one false arrest of activists taking part in the Manhattan event in coordination with last night's National Moment of Silence in remembrance of the victims of police brutality. The #NMOS14, as the national events were tagged on Twitter, inspired similar demonstrations across the United States after police in Ferguson, Missouri, shot an unarmed Black teenager, Michael Brown, on Aug. 9. Mr. Brown's murder by police was preceded by the murder of another Black man, Eric Garner, this time by NYPD, on July 17. Both cases have stirred passions for an overhaul of discriminatory and militarized policing tactics.

Dep. Insp. Winski can be seen in the above Vine video as the "white shirt" police officer, who is standing behind another white shirt officer on the left. Ironically, Dep. Insp. Winski oversaw what activists are now calling a false arrest during the #NMOS14 NYC demonstration that was meant to draw attention to racially-motivated policing tactics.

Dep. Insp. Winksi was first identified in a blog post by the political blogger Suzannah B. Troy in the above viral video originally uploaded to the Vine account of ReQ Cartier.

Deputy Inspector Winksi is the subject of a Change.org petition started 2 years ago, calling for the mayor of New York City to fire the out-of-control police officer.

Many police reform activists have decried the fact that the city's new mayor, Bill de Blasio, has kept Dep. Insp. Winksi amongst the NYPD's top ranks. Mayor de Blasio campaigned last year on a promise to overhaul the NYPD, but since his election last November, the then-mayor-elect made the regressive appointment of William Bratton as police commissioner. The mayor further raised raising questions about his commitment to overhauling the NYPD when he defended Commissioner Bratton's use of a disputed theory of policing known as Broken Windows, which targets people of color and low-income communities for over-policing. Many police reform activists view Commissioner Bratton's use of Broken Windows as a replacement for the discredited NYPD tactic of stop-and-frisk, which was recently ruled to be unconstitutional. Commissioner Bratton's controversial appointment flew in the face of Mayor de Blasio's promise to end racially-motivated policing tactics that target people of color and low-income communities.

That Dep. Insp. Winski is back to his old tricks only adds to the impression being made by police reform activists that Mayor de Blasio basically exploited his bi-racial family, most prominently his son, Dante, in a focus-group tested campaign commercial just to win last year's mayoral election, and that Mayor de Blasio never had any serious intention to overhaul the NYPD, much less to either end the pattern of false arrests of activists, to end the over-policing of people of color and low-income communities, or to establish a commission to investigate corruption by the NYPD including its Internal Affairs Bureau.

RELATED


Petitioning Bill de Blasio : Fire Deputy Inspector Ed Winski and Call For an Independent Investigation of NYPD (Change.org)


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Tuesday, August 12, 2014

USAO mum on new revelation about Cuomo's e-mail deleting policy

PUBLISHED : TUES, 12 AUG 2014, 11:21 AM
UPDATED : TUES, 12 AUG 2014, 02:41 PM

As Gov. Cuomo was forming the Moreland Commission, he instituted a new policy that would purge state employees' e-mails

Did Gov. Cuomo have something to hide ?

In a shocking new report, ProPublica reporter Theodoric Meyer raises new questions about an e-mail deletion policy instituted by the Cuomo administration for state employees. The new policy, rolled out last year, automatically deletes state employees' e-mails after 90 days if they are not deliberately and methodically saved for various reasons.

Under new rules for archiving e-mails as records, if state employees don't make the extra, tedious effort to code e-mails under a maze of classification options, then state e-mails are left to be automatically purged, a default move that violates the spirit of government transparency and public records access that are intended to keep elected officials and state government accountable to voters. The revelation of the e-mail deleting policy comes atop of known Cuomo administration paranoia over the use of electronic communications. Two years ago, The New York Times reported that top Cuomo aides routinely communicated with the governor through unarchivable Blackberry PIN messages, to enshroud the work of running the state government's business in secret.

In an Orwellian move, the New York State Archives under the Cuomo administration determined that most e-mails "are not records in need of preservation."

The timing of the new e-mail deleting policy, announced under a memorandum, which the Cuomo administration kept secret for over one year, is suspect. The memorandum was dated June 18, 2013 -- just two weeks before Gov. Cuomo announced on July 2, 2013 the formation of a corruption-fighting panel named the Moreland Commission. The Moreland commissioners were deputized as assistant attorneys general and were conferred subpoena power to investigate corruption across New York state government.

That Cuomo accelerated the state's e-mail deleting policy just as he was launching the doomed Moreland Commission has raised concerns amongst government reform activists. Gov. Cuomo disbanded the Moreland Commission after a host controversies, chief amongst them the coordinated activities by his own top aides to obstruct the investigative work of the Moreland commissioners and their staff, earning the ire of the powerful federal prosecutor, Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for New York's southern district. Mr. Bharara sent a warning letter to Gov. Cuomo after it appeared that Gov. Cuomo was possibly engaging in witness tampering. A press official in Mr. Bharara's office was asked this morning how could voters count on the integrity of the federal investigation into the Cuomo administration's controversial acts that led to the premature closing of the Moreland Commission if Gov. Cuomo instituted a policy of deleting e-mails, but the press official refused to comment.

RELATED


Why is the Cuomo Administration Automatically Deleting State Employees’ E-mails ? (ProPublica)

New Cuomo e-mail retention policy kills e-mails after 90 days (The Times Union)

E-mail retention memo raises new questions about the state's rationale for its deletions policy (ProPublica)


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Monday, August 11, 2014

Voters not keeping up with Moreland scandal, and some sick reporters celebrate this as good news for Gov. Cuomo

PUBLISHED : MON, 11 AUG 2014, 12:21 PM
UPDATED : TUES, 12 AUG 2014, 06:40 AM

A new poll shows that 86% of voters say that corruption in government is out of control.

However, 67% of people polled claimed that they were uninformed about the federal investigation into Gov. Cuomo's obstruction of the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption, perhaps the state's biggest corruption scandal of the last decade.

Many high profile political reporters keep defending Gov. Cuomo's obstruction of justice. Others predict that Gov. Cuomo will easily win reelection -- all, in contradiction to the legal realities of a federal criminal investigation into the apparent coordinated activities of the Cuomo administration that may add up to obstruction of justice charges, or worse. With a wayward press, it should come as no surprise that voters keep reelecting corrupt incumbents.

A top incumbent party leader, like Gov. Cuomo, oversees a state-wide army of elected officials, their staff, permanent government insiders, and other political operatives to work in orchestrated efforts to deceive the press, and, by extension, the voters.

The bias in the media favoring Gov. Andrew Cuomo's reelection is becoming more and more apparent, as the legal and political risks of a federal investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office into the Cuomo administration's obstruction of the Moreland Commission shows no sign of ending. Yesterday, former Missouri state Sen. Jeff Smith wrote in Politico that federal prosecutors are seeking Gov. Cuomo's scalp, in stark contrast to many high-profile press reports that predict no legal ramifications for the corrupt governor. Besides meddling in the Moreland Commission's investigation of political and campaign corruption cases, the Cuomo administration has overseen a corrupt state government that has been rocked by seemingly endless indictments of state politicians.

Mr. Smith, who himself had to serve a prison sentence in connection with charges of obstruction of justice for an underlying campaign finance violation, has courageously provided a public service to voters by speaking truthfully about the complexities of federal criminal law. Before Mr. Smith's editorial, many of New York's political bloggers have complained that voters have been being kept in the dark about Gov. Cuomo's legal and political scandals. Mr. Smith's editorial for Politico was released on the eve of a new Siena College poll showing that only a scant percent of voters are closely following the governor's Moreland scandal.

Only 11% of voters have been closely following Gov. Cuomo's Moreland Commission scandal.

That number has to radically increase by multiples, in order for voters to cast informed ballots. Will the press do its job ?

The low number of voters paying attention to Gov. Cuomo's legal and political scandals inspired Capital New York's Blake Zeff to celebrate that the Moreland scandal had done "little significant damage to Cuomo’s re-election effort." Last month, Maggie Haberman concluded that the federal investigation into the Cuomo administration "may ultimately amount to nothing." A misled public undermines the foundation of America's republican form of democratic government, which relies on its citizens to cast informed votes. This year, more and more citizens are scaling up their blogging activities, like the publisher behind the Perdido Street School blog, in order to independently inform voters by circumventing the compromised, corporate-controlled media.

Last year, the major New York City-based political reporters admitted during a post-Democratic primary forum that they had failed to scrutinise the then-presumed mayor-elect Bill de Blasio. This failure to vet for the city's electorate the eventual winner of last year's mayoral election may explain why Mayor de Blasio rapidly lost support from White voters after only a few months in office. Now, Mayor de Blasio is on the verge of seeing his last base of polling support, the minority community, turn their back on him. With Gov. Cuomo and his top aides facing the very real prospect of federal criminal indictments, will New York's political press fail voters again ?

Will Gov. Cuomo be investigated for campaign finance corruption ?

About two weeks ago, The New York Daily News reported that in preparing his legal responses to the on-going federal investigation into the Cuomo administration's reported obstruction of the Moreland commission, Gov. Cuomo had "sought advice from several lawyers." Frightened at the prospect that voters would retaliate if taxpayers had to foot the bill for Gov. Cuomo's own criminal defense attorneys, the governor indicated that his campaign committee would pay to defend Executive Branch officials in the federal investigation into the Moreland scandal. However, in his campaign committee's latest finance filing with the state's corrupt Board of Elections, only one legal invoice, in the amount of $10,000, was submitted by only one attorney, Elkan Abramowitz. What happened to the legal invoices of the "several lawyers" with whom the governor consulted ?

Many political bloggers also point out that the amount of experienced lawyering needed by Gov. Cuomo to fight back the serious charges being reportedly pursued by the U.S. Attorney's Office could not reasonably be performed for $10,000. The complexities of possible federal criminal charges range from plain witness tampering to the seriousness of obstruction of justice to, some political bloggers believe, racketeering, under which witness tampering, obstruction of justice, and now possible campaign finance violations could be added as lesser, included charges. In the past weeks, the governor has seen Heather Green, the assistant to the former executive director of the Moreland Commission, testify before a sitting Grand Jury. Larry Schwartz, the hand of the governor, has negotiated a voluntary appearance before federal prosecutors conducting the investigation into the Cuomo administration's obstruction of the Moreland Commission. And the governor was the target of a warning letter issued by federal prosecutors after one of the governor's staff members reportedly cajoled former Moreland commissioners into issuing controversial statements to possibly undermine the federal investigation. As these and other legal proceedings move forward, Gov. Cuomo faces a steady drip of embarrassing political setbacks that require the need for multiple legal consultations, research, analysis, and second opinions, given federal prosecutors' legal practice closing in around Gov. Cuomo. It's inconceivable that the cost of all of the necessary criminal defense work the governor needs right now could be done for only $10,000. Under state law, any discounts or gifts of services to campaign committees must be recorded as in-kind campaign contributions, something that wasn't reflected in the governor's last in-kind contribution schedule of his campaign committee's finance disclosure statement.

RELATED


MEDIA BIAS : With shoddy legal analysis, Blake Zeff somehow concludes that Cuomo’s obstruction of Moreland acts as a prosecutorial gift to Bharara (Capital New York)

MEDIA BIAS : Besmirching U.S. Attorney as rogue cowboy, Wall Street reporters describe Bharara as "confrontational" (The Wall Street Journal)

MEDIA BIAS : Easily manipulated by Cuomo operatives, one columnist predicts that Cuomo will probably walk (The New York Daily News)

PAYING OFF MEDIA : Fending off Moreland scandal, Cuomo campaign spent more than $1.1 million on TV ads (The New York Daily News)

REAL TALK : Cuomo’s Slow-Mo Disaster : The New York governor is in deeper legal trouble than other press is willing to admit (Politico)

Friday, August 8, 2014

As Mayor de Blasio faces fallout from relentless NYPD brutality, the mayor's standing with minority communities is on shaky ground

PUBLISHED : FRI, 08 AUG 2014, 04:41 PM
UPDATED : SAT, 09 AUG 2014, 02:02 PM

Will GOTV gimmicks from 2013 election come back to haunt Mayor de Blasio ?

Dante de Blasio campaign commercial was focus group tested.

Minority support for de Blasio is tenuous, at best, because of the political machinations used to win over the Black vote in last year's mayoral election.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is reportedly fuming that the Rev. Al Sharpton voiced sharp criticisms of the NYPD at the mayor's round table discussion, which was staged last week, The New York Post reported today.

City Hall insiders, grappling with growing minority discontent and criticisms of the mayor over the homicide of Eric Garner at the hands of NYPD officers, are trying to insulate the mayor from minority unrest about the relentless instances of NYPD brutality and the police department's record of intentionally targeting and discriminating against low-income and minority communities.

Two months ago, the last Quinnipiac University Poll revealed that the mayor had lost support amongst White voters and that his sole base of support remained amongst minority voters. Political bloggers have since been predicting that the mayor's regressive appointment of William Bratton as police commissioner, the mayor's embrace of Commissioner Bratton's discriminatory Broken Windows theory of policing, the militarized raids of public housing developments, the endless and sometimes violent police arrests that target people of color seeking public accommodation aboard mass transit, the summer policing offensive ordered by Commissioner Bratton, and recent examples of police brutality, including the choking homicide of Mr. Garner, would cost the mayor popularity amongst minority voters. This appears to be coming true.

That Rev. Sharpton has moved from an obedient supporter of City Hall machinations to squash minority discontent to becoming a vocal critic of the de Blasio administration's handling of the community anger arising from the long, over-due overhaul of the NYPD, shows that even some of the mayor's most visible "Yes Men" may be distancing themselves from the mayor. It's been reported that the mayor wants to take a centrist approach to policing that still defends aspects of the NYPD's tactics that voters find brutal and discriminatory, a tortured position that critics believe is the mayor's payback to wealth real estate developers, who view Broken Windows policing as a key driver of gentrification.

For the mayor, the political ramifications of fraying minority relations are fraught with consequences. If he loses support amongst minority voters, some political bloggers believe that he will become a lame duck, one-term mayor. Mayor de Blasio has been caught unawares, because the mayor, advised by a team of tone-deaf lobbyists and political campaign consultants, were operating under the misconception that they had already instructed the city's minority leaders to toe the party line following the election of the city's first Democratic mayor in 20 years. For instance, when then mayor-elect de Blasio first announced his appointment of Mr. Bratton as police commissioner, the mayor's team of lobbyists worked behind the scenes to strong-arm many of the city's minority leaders to issue to journalists statements approving of Mr. Bratton's appointment as police commissioner in a manipulative, preemptive move to prevent any criticisms of the thin-skinned mayor-elect. The mayor and his advisors were nervous that Mr. Bratton's embrace of the discriminatory Broken Windows approach to policing and past scandals of police brutality would become a source of division, which the mayor's advisors largely succeeded in neutralizing, except for ongoing protests by police reform activists affiliated with the protest group, New Yorkers Against Bratton, which the mayor's operatives have been downplaying -- until the NYPD killing of Mr. Garner opened the public eyes to what New Yorkers Against Bratton had been saying all along : that the mayor was not fully committed to overhauling the NYPD. But manipulating minority leaders into supporting the Bratton appointment wasn't the first time when the mayor and his advisors twisted race issues to his advantage. Let's look back to how race was a factor in the mayor's election.

Mayor de Blasio's police relations round table was limited to only Whites and Blacks. You may not like the reason why : Blacks played an outsized role in the mayor's campaign win.

Political power brokers generally predict spikes in the the percentage of Black voter turn out if enough Black candidates run for office in contested races, creating an advantage for Black-favored candidates. In the last municipal election, the lawyer Ken Thompson, a close friend of Mayor de Blasio, waged a political campaign to unseat Charles Hynes as the Brooklyn District Attorney. Despite Mr. Thompson’s denials, it was widely reported that Mr. Thompson’s campaign was advised by former Brooklyn Democratic Party chair Clarence Norman, with Masa Moore in some other role, meaning that old-line Brooklyn Black leaders were siding with Mr. Thompson's insurgent candidacy to unseat D.A. Hynes. To help Mr. Thompson win, Mr. de Blasio campaigned for him, and Mr. Thompson had the endorsement of the Working Families Party.

As a result of the allegations of prosecutorial misconduct in the Brooklyn District Attorney's office and D.A. Hynes' reputation for refusing to challenge NYPD cases based on the unconstitutional tactic of stop-and-frisk, D.A. Hynes was seen as vulnerable to minority voters. In New York City, the two power centers of Black voting power are Harlem and Central Brooklyn. Whilst Mr. Thompson, Mr. Norman, and Mr. Moore were energizing Black voters to turn out to defeat D.A. Hynes, a potential existed to inflate the pool of minority voters for the primary election, an opportunity that could be exploited by the de Blasio campaign if his advisors could find a way harness a larger minority vote turn-out to his advantage.

Meanwhile, D.A. Hynes was relying on campaign support from Scott Levenson, George Arzt, and Mortimer Matz. One of those advisors, Mr. Levenson, became involved in a conflict of interest during last year's election when it was reported that the lobbying and campaign consulting firm he heads, The Advance Group, was paid to manage Yetta Kurland’s City Council campaign during the same election cycle when The Advance Group was paid to help Corey Johnson, who was Ms. Kurland’s opponent in her City Council race. In last year’s elections, The Advance Group also worked to defeat several LGBT City Council candidates as a backroom favor, the details of which remain undisclosed, to an unnamed political operative to benefit City Action Coalition PAC, a controversial political action committee dedicated to right-wing causes, such as "traditional marriage." The Advance Group gave conflicting statements about the nature of the favor it was doing for the unnamed operative connected to City Action Coalition PAC, first describing the work as a "favor" and then describing its decision as one made in the "heat of the moment," adding that the firm hadn't performed its "due diligence." The New York Times noted that the normally left-leaning firm, The Advance Group, represented candidates "backed by the Real Estate Board of New York and candidates vigorously attacking that board" in last year's election cycle. Although D.A. Hynes had earned the ire of minorities, he was relying upon Mr. Levenson's unprincipled firm as one of the three underpinnings key to his reelection. Mr. Levenson, a longtime advisor to some of the founding leaders and institutions of the Working Families Party, overlaps with Mayor de Blasio's political background, since some of the founders of the Working Families Party have been described to be operatives and organizations with close ties to the mayor.

Mr. Levenson's left-leaning bona fides were all the more incongruent with his firm's representation of D.A. Hynes, since the other key advisor to D.A. Hynes’ reelection campaign was Mr. Arzt, an establishment campaign manager, who is more politically aligned with mainstream Democrats, who can be described as old-guard, whereas Mr. Levenon saw himself as more supportive of "insurgent candidates." Why would the more radical Mr. Levenson work with old, stodgy Mr. Arzt on D.A. Hynes’ troubled reelection race ? Mr. Levenson, with his close ties to the Working Families Party, was advising Mr. Hynes, even though Mr. Hynes’ opponent, Mr. Thompson, had been endorsed by the Working Families Party, another shady arrangement.

In order for Mr. de Blasio to win last year’s mayoral election and prevent a costly and bruising primary-run off election against his rival, Bill Thompson, Mr. de Blasio needed to win the Black vote, and he needed for political operatives loyal to him to take down the campaign of his chief political rival, former Council Speaker Quinn. Separate from The Advance Group's controversial involvement in the take-down of former Speaker Quinn's mayoral campaign, the role of The Advance Group in race politics cannot go unexamined. The winner in the Brooklyn District Attorney race was going to depend on Black voter turn-out, predicted The New York Times. A large turn-out of Black voters, needed by Mr. Thompson, the Brooklyn District Attorney candidate, could conceivably have a positive spill-over effect for Mr. de Blasio’s mayoral campaign, given the close associations the two political races shared. For Mr. Thompson to win, Mr. Hynes' reelection campaign had to be taken down. In the end, the advise and counsel of three seasoned political consultants failed D.A. Hynes.

Against this backdrop, Mayor de Blasio released the political campaign commercial featuring his bi-racial son, Dante de Blasio. The warm and fuzzy campaign commercial resonated with voters, who were looking to turn the page on, I hate to say it, a rich White billionaire, who reprimanded New Yorkers like a nagging nanny. However, the younger Mr. de Blasio's campaign commercial did more for his father : it was created to inspire Black voters to see Mr. de Blasio as one of them, setting the stage for a crafted perception of Mr. de Blasio as having sensibilities of what the minority experience was like in New York precisely because his own wife and children were minorities. This perception would only hold together, though, so long as the machinations that created this perception could hold together.

Mayor de Blasio's support amongst minority voters, critical to his defeat of Bill Thompson in the primary, was made possible by so much background work that Mr. Thompson, the mayoral candidate, was unable to break a tie with Mr. de Blasio in respect of Black voters, according to exit polling results reported by The New York Daily News. During an election when the LGBT community rejected identity politics and voted former Speaker Quinn out of office, Mr. de Blasio was engaged in a war to tug the identity politics strings of Black voters.

Some of the background political operative machinations that helped the de Blasio campaign win the mayorship included having the support of Rev. Sharpton. As was revealed this week, Rev. Sharpton said that he and his supporters “won the election.” Although the Rev. Sharpton framed the win in terms of having brought racial issues, such as the demand to end the police tactic of stop-and-frisk, to the fore, political bloggers could not overlook the fact that the Rev. Sharpton also failed to make an endorsement in last year's mayor's race, a crucial decision that may have cost Mr. Thompson, the mayoral candidate, the race. Returning to the present, this revelation could have only been made possible, because of growing minority discontent over police relations with minority communities in the wake of Mr. Garner's choking death. As the minority community looks to its duplicitous leaders to press the de Blasio administration for an overhaul of the NYPD, as the Rev. Sharpton comes under blowback criticisms from police unions, and as the de Blasio administration contorts itself to continue support of the discriminatory Broken Windows approach to policing, the system is turning on itself in search of a resolution. Only when the system turns on itself can the public expect the press to finally pull back the curtain on the corrupt backroom machinations that drive how politicians manage our government -- and on how complex elections are actually won.

Mayor de Blasio's support amongst the minority community was built upon a foundation of a campaign commercial, which political bloggers across the city believe was tested before focus-groups to craft the most politically-appealing message. Behind the scenes, political operatives loyal to the mayor were counting on each of Mr. Thompson, the Brooklyn District Attorney candidate, to create a spike in Black voters in Central Brooklyn and on the Rev. Sharpton to withhold any endorsement in the mayor's race, striking a blow to the hopes of Mr. Thompson, the mayoral candidate, of receiving the positive impact of the Reverend's endorsement. As the mayor wades through the fallout of relentless NYPD controversies, which the public rightly sees to be race- and income-based, the campaign machinations may give way to a new set of perceptions that the public form of their own accord, meaning that viral social media videos of NYPD brutality and murder will supplant slick campaign commercials in shaping public opinion.

If the mayor really cared about resetting his own minority relations, much less the community relations between minority groups and the police department, he'd end the discriminatory Broken Windows approach to policing, he's replace Mr. Bratton with a police commissioner with real credibility with the minority community, he'd support a federal prosecutor to investigate the homicide of Mr. Garner, and he'd institute the long, overdue police reform recommendations of such esteemed civic reform leaders as Margaret Fung, Michael Meyers, and Norman Siegel, including the call to invite all minorities in the broader conversation about police reform -- as a start.

RELATED


Rev. Sharpton Says He’s Earned Right To Advise On Police Policy (CBS 2 New York)

A mayoral summit in black and white : Learn from past efforts to improve cop-community relations (The New York Daily News)

Mayor de Blasio furious that the Rev. Al Sharpton showed him up at City Hall (The New York Post)

To unite communities ravaged by NYPD brutality, mayor turns to anti-choice, anti-marriage equality bigot (The New York Times)


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Thursday, August 7, 2014

Broken Windows focuses law enforcement resources on 50 cent cigarettes, meanwhile Moreland Commission gets disbanded

Mayor de Blasio defends the NYPD's controversial and discriminatory approach to policing, known as "Broken Windows," whilst federal investigators probe whether Gov. Andrew Cuomo intentionally obstructed the work of a corruption fighting panel's investigations of political corruption.

There has been at least $1 billion in cost overruns on New York City's failed ECTP 911 emergency call system upgrade project, bringing the total cost to over $2 billion, and the system still doesn't work as it was envisioned. City officials find no criminal fraud in this failed $2 billion project, but NYPD administer an instant death penalty to Eric Garner for allegedly selling 50 cent cigarettes ?

Political blogger and artist Suzannah B. Troy, who holds the world record of writing blog posts about the CityTime technology contract scandal, which cost the city over $600 million in cost overruns for an employee timekeeping system that failed to work, again leads local journalists in drawing the public's attention to the city's failed ECTP 911 emergency call system upgrade, which has now cost taxpayers over $2 billion, even though that technology system, too, still does not work.

In her latest YouTube video, Ms. Troy compares and contrasts the scandalous ECTP 911 cost overruns against each of the death of Eric Garner, which has been ruled as a homicide by the city's Medical Examiner's office, and her own case of injustice in an attack, in which she was assaulted and battered, in the SoHo medical offices of Dr. Andrew Fagelman. Ms. Troy asks : Why does law enforcement forcus on ridiculousness -- and overlook major crimes ?

In the broken justice system in New York, as pointed out by community activists and by activists informed by the Occupy Wall Street movement, cost overruns on a $2 billion failed IT project do not result in fraudulent criminal charges just like the corruption of Wall Street, which caused the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the resulting global recession. Yet, the police can apparently instantly murder Eric Garner on the scene, according to some activists, for reportedly selling single cigarettes for 50 cents a piece in "untaxed transactions," and Ms. Troy's attacker can go unprosecuted. One day after Ms. Troy posted her video on YouTube, the growing outrage over this "tale of two justice systems" has driven Mayor Bill de Blasio and his NYPD Commissioner William Bratton to throw Police Chief Philip Banks III under the bus in an apparent attempt to make him the fall guy for the community anger over Mr. Garner's murder.

Selling a cigarette for 50 cents in an untaxed transaction is justification for police to administer a death-inducing chokehold, the police union head says, but the corrupt $2 billion ECTP 911 emergency call system upgrade escapes prosecutors. Adding to the controversy of Broken Windows policing is that the big money crimes are not being committed by people of color or people with low incomes ; rather, the crimes that rob society of its resources are being committed by Big Businesses and corrupt politicians and their lobbyists-enablers, which do not receive the scrutiny that they really deserve.

Extell Development Company paid over $300,000 to Gov. Cuomo's campaign committee in apparent exchange for $35 million in tax breaks for a luxury condo skyscraper worth $2 billion. Big Businesses and special interests seeking similar or larger favors from New York State government have contributed to Gov. Cuomo a $35 million war chest. How large is the corruption at stake for Big Businesses if $35 million is the down payment for anticipated favours ?

Against the backdrop of the injustice, and, ultimately, the murder, Mr. Garner endured, is a political "Game of Thrones" playing out up in the state's capital. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who oversees a cesspool of political and campaign corruption in Albany, apparently commissioned a panel of corruption-fighting prosecutors to investigate criminal conduct by elected officials only to decommission the panel, once the panel, known as the Moreland Commission, began to investigate the apparent pay-to-play of his own campaign donors. Using corrupting political machinations to steer a state investigation commission away from his own political supporters, Gov. Cuomo has been thwarting law enforcement probes into corporate and campaign corruption, while NYPD Commissioner Bratton is left unchecked to over-police the sale of untaxed cigarettes for 50 cents.

In respect of Gov. Cuomo's role in corrupting the state's law enforcement, the U.S. Attorney's Office, led by Preet Bharara, is reviewing the unfinished investigations by the Moreland Commission and is also examining the governor's machinations that may have obstructed the Moreland Commission from its critical work. What has yet to happen, Ms. Troy has been pointing out for years, is for federal prosectors, such as Mr. Bharara, to examine the corruption in the CityTime and ECTP 911 projects for criminality by elected officials. Ms. Troy and other activists in New York City have been raising the issue that real estate interests may be behind the spree of hospital closings that have taken place in New York City, even as state health officials do everything in their power to sabotage the fragile economics of hospitals in a scorched earth campaign to make radical cuts to the state's Medicaid program.

In respect of Mayor de Blasio, the civil rights and activist communities have begun to lose patience with the mayor's close alliance with Big Money real estate donors, who apparently are keen on keeping the Broken Windows policing tactics, as it directly supports real estate developers' goals of further driving up escalating real estate prices by forcing people of color and low-income communities out of neighborhoods intentionally targeted for gentrification by developers. Activists have called out the corrupt use of nonprofit and government grants and other political machinations, which deescalate community pressure for a complete overhaul of the corrupt police department, effectively locking these community groups in what has been referred to as "veal pens," and by the duplicitous racial politics now at play by the de Blasio administration, which aims to steer the public away from any serious roll-out of reforms that have been long called for by such civic leaders as Margaret Fung, Michael Meyers, and Norman Siegel, whose past work on overhauling the NYPD are once again coming back into focus. The calls for reforming law enforcement go unheard, meanwhile, White Collar pay-to-play corruption continues in government.

Former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn received approximately $30,000 in campaign contributions from the Rudin family, owners of Rudin Management Company, in the time leading up to the city's approval of Rudin's $1 billion luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital. Similarly, Gov. Cuomo received campaign contributions from the Kestenbaum family, founders of the Fortis Property Group that won the bid to convert Long Island College Hospital into a luxury condo complex, of at least $17,500. Allegations have been made that each of St. Vincent's and LICH, as Long Island College Hospital is known, had been intentionally driven into the ground to facilitate billion-dollar luxury condo conversions. The Fortis-LICH scandal comes atop of the $300,000 that another developer, Extell Development Company, made in campaign contributions to the governor in exchange for $35 million in tax breaks for one of Extell's projects, media reports indicate. The appearance pay-to-play is everywhere in government. If federal prosecutors are aiming to stop public officials from selling out our government in exchange for campaign contributions, then let's hope that the federal corruption investigations look to elected officials, and their corrupt lobbyists, for full accountability of these massive scams of public resources : from CityTime, the ECTP 911 project, to what happened at each of St. Vincent's, LICH, and other hospitals, to other alleged campaign corruption involving The Advance Group, which has already been referred to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

In post-Occupy America, voters want to see a complete overhaul of government that goes to the very roots of corporate and campaign corruption.

RELATED


City Investigation Finds Faults, But No Crime, In $1 Billion In Cost Overruns On NYC ECTP 911 Upgrade Project (CBS 2 New York)

The Moreland Commission had 15 cases pending against lawmakers when Gov. Cuomo pulled the plug on it (The New York Post)

Shocker : How SUNY lost more than $100M mismanaging LICH, but SUNY Trustees face no criminal investigation (The Brooklyn Daily Eagle)

HOMICIDE: Medical examiner says NYPD chokehold killed Staten Island dad Eric Garner (The New York Daily News)

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Department of Justice had to approve federal investigation into Cuomo's interference with Moreland Commission

Department of Justice had to sign-off on Cuomo investigation : NYPOST

Andrew Cuomo - Moreland Commission Scandal - Commission Accomplished photo AndrewCuomo-CommissionAccomplished_zps2cbda66d.jpg

Preet Bharara’s investigation of Gov. Cuomo needed pre-approval from the Justice Department in Washington.

In today's column, Michael Goodwin of The New York Post reminded New Yorkers that U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara's investigation into the Cuomo administration's reported obstruction of the Moreland Commission needed to be signed-off by the Justice Department.

"Bharara’s office is sending public signals that the governor might even have a legal problem, a move the prosecutor wouldn’t make without a green light from the Justice Department, which holds veto power over high-profile criminal cases."

Mr. Bharara, who is leading the charge on a once-in-a-lifetime renewal of government integrity, testified last year before the first hearing of the Moreland Commission, a corruption-fighting panel appointed by Gov. Cuomo and deputized by state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. Mr. Bharara's testimony before the Moreland Commission took place one month after Kenneth Lovett of The New York Daily News reported that Gov. Cuomo's campaign committee had received $100,000 in campaign contributions from Extell Development Company in the time leading up to the governor signing into law tax breaks worth $35 million for one of the developer's projects. Eventually, Extell was reported to have contributed over $300,000 to the governor's campaign committee. These and other revelations forced the Moreland Commission to issue subpoenas to Extell and four other developers.

Even before Mr. Bharara delivered his testimony before the Moreland Commission on the evening of Sept. 17, 2013, the stage was set by journalists and Moreland commissioners, who had already begun to draw attention to Gov. Cuomo's involvement in the unscrupulous machinations that makes Albany a cesspool of corruption.

Leaving the only unanswered question : when did Mr. Bharara seek approval from upper level Department of Justice officials in Washington, DC ? Was it last September, as he walked into the Moreland Commission to make his entry of appearance, by which point it was already know that Gov. Cuomo was playing dirty, or was it only very recently, based on Gov. Cuomo's alleged witness tampering of Moreland commissioners, by which point it was already known that Gov. Cuomo was playing even dirtier ?

As Mr. Bharara proceeds full-speed ahead on completing his office's due diligence of the unfinished Moreland Commission investigations and the separate investigation into the Cuomo administration's reported obstruction of the Moreland Commission's investigations, he has the full faith and support of the Washington office of the Department of Justice, meaning that Gov. Cuomo has no friends in D.C. to whom he could possibly appeal to, in turn, tell Mr. Bharara, "Pull it back."

RELATED


Latest governor poll shows Albany needs to address the sleaze (The New York Post)

A government attorney should seek pre-approval if a case consists of violations of State law, but involves prosecution of significant or government individuals, which may pose special problems for the local prosecutor. (9-110.310 Considerations Prior to Seeking Indictment)


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Monday, August 4, 2014

With Cuomo's Moreland trouble, will leftists finally vote in a Green Party candidate for governor ?

PUBLISHED : MON, 04 AUG 2014, 11:50 PM
UPDATED : TUES, 05 AUG 2014, 07:10 PM

As the federal investigation heats up into Cuomo's interference with the Moreland Commission, will the governor's popularity with voters collapse, costing him the election, or will the governor resign in disgrace to avoid federal criminal charges ?

Gov. Cuomo is either a lame candidate or one facing impending resignation. Will activists from New York's political left finally wake up to the corrupt 2-party system that is owned by Big Business donors and their lobbyists ?

AS GOV. ANDREW CUOMO FACES A FEDERAL INVESTIGATION overlapping with the unfinished corruption probes by the now-defunct Moreland Commission, the race for governor falls to three possible contenders : Republican candidate Rob Astorino, Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins, and long-shot Democratic contender Zephyr Teachout, if she survives the challenge to her ballot qualification.

According to a new poll released today, Gov. Cuomo's favorability ratings plunged by 5% in the first poll to be taken after escalating reports that the Cuomo administration steered the corruption investigations by the Moreland Commission away from his political supporters, many press reports indicate. Several individuals associated with the failed corruption-fighting panel or the Governor's Office have either been subpoenaed to testify before grand juries, willingly volunteered to meet with federal prosecutors, or are actively cooperating with federal prosecutors. The steady drip-drip-drip of revelations only points to a sinking future for Gov. Cuomo.

The last time a big-name Democrat was an early front-runner in a campaign only to see her election thwarted was former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. But former Speaker Quinn's campaign was doomed by a controversial Super PAC managed by the lobbying firm, The Advance Group. According to reports, The Advance Group may have coordinated the activities of the Super PAC to elect Bill de Blasio as mayor. Consequently, several investigations are now probing the relationship between The Advance Group, the Super PAC it managed, and the de Blasio campaign.

The co-opting of the mayor's race to elect another closeted neoliberal Democrat as mayor resulted in the appointment of William Bratton, advocate of the neoconservative "Broken Windows" theory of policing, as police commissioner, the continued closing of community hospitals, and the blurring of the division of church and state with the mayor's reliance on churches to administer an expansion of universal pre-kinder, amongst a few examples of the conservative bent in the de Blasio administration.

As Gov. Cuomo's political future appears to be headed in the same direction as former Council Speaker Quinn, or worse, will activists from the political left vote another official from the Democrat Party into office ?

The Democratic Party is owned by some of the same big money donors as is the Republican Party. As soon as Democrats take office, they are swarmed by corrupt lobbyists and special interests, eventually forcing Democratic officeholders to keep exploiting the corrupt loopholes on special interest money. Witness the massive $35 million war chest that Gov. Cuomo has amassed from real estate and gambling interests. Campaign donations of that size only come with strings attached. Complicating matters for the Democratic challenger, Ms. Teachout, for example, is that she hails from the Working Families Party, itself the target of an investigation by a special prosecutor, who is probing into campaign corruption.

This could be the year when activists vote into office a third party candidate untethered to the corrupt machinations of the corporate-controled, 2-party system. Can activists from the political left overcome the dumbed-down, local TV news broadcasts and organize behind Howie Hawkins from the Green Party ?

RELATED


Crazed with anger, Cuomo fears the worst as first polls after scandal approach (The New York Post)

Cuomo's Approval Ratings Down, Poll Shows (The Wall Street Journal)

There's More ''Left,'' If You're Hungry -- For Change (NYC : News & Analysis)

State’s biggest G.O.P. donors migrated to Cuomo (Capital New York)

Special prosecutor issues new subpoenas in Working Families Party probe (Capital New York)

Saturday, August 2, 2014

The neoconservative and neoliberal Democrats corrupting NY's political left

"Both parties are fueled by rich people’s money."

The big money machine backing the Democratic Party wants Hillary Clinton to become the party's nominee for president, so that Hillary's big money supporters can keep control over her politics, as has been the case for decades. But she's not alone amongst the Democratic Party's dynastic marionettes, whose strings roll up into the hands of some of the same big money and corporate puppet masters that guide Republican politics.

Parallels between Gov. Cuomo's cover-up of the Moreland Commission scandal and former President Nixon's cover-up of his Watergate scandal

Andrew Cuomo with Richard Nixon photo Andrew-Cuomo-Richard-Nixon_zpsb5ceff48.jpg

Government reform activists in post-Occupy New York City are energized at the prospect of a Wall Street puppet Democrat, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, joining former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn by being removed from office. Gov. Cuomo faces an escalating federal investigation into actions by the governor's office over the closure of a corruption-fighting investigation panel known as the Moreland Commission. Last year, former Speaker Quinn was voted out of office in the Democratic primary in the race for New York City mayor. Differentiating between the two, Gov. Cuomo faces a Watergate-like corruption investigation that could lead to the governor to negotiate a non-prosecution agreement, which will allow him to resign before the end of his term, some activists speculate, whereas the defeat of former Speaker Quinn's mayoral campaign was aided by a controversial Super PAC with reported close ties to Mayor de Blasio and his supporters, itself the target of a possible federal investigation.

As federal prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office from New York's southern district delve deeper into the Cuomo administration's political machinations that were responsible for political corruption across New York State government, advocates for overhauling the broken political system wonder why is it so hard to muster public outrage for the lack of corruption prosecution on the local and state levels when local and state prosecutors seem to be inundated with the enforcement of minor infractions, like selling loose, untaxed cigarettes or dancing in the New York City's subways. While very low-level infractions and misdemeanors are met with over-policing, the law enforcement in the city and state levels overlook each of the apparent pay-to-play machinations in the Gov. Cuomo's massive fundraising operations that accepts donations from real estate developers seeking the governor's approval on multi-million tax breaks and the conflicts of interests in Mayor Bill de Blasio's fundraising for his nonprofit political arm from sources seeking to do business with New York City.

The answer for the dichotomy comes from the fact that local and state prosecutors, Democrats in the cases of Attorney General Schneiderman and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, avoid prosecuting political corruption cases, many good government reform activists believe, because cases consisting of violations of local or state law that involve the prosecution of elected officials or their political operatives pose special problems for local and state prosecutors, a fact known to federal prosecutors, because this complication actually falls under the discretion of federal prosecutors considering racketeering charges against corrupt political organizations, according to the federal criminal RICO prosecutors' manual. The special problems facing local and state prosecutors stems from the political reality that prosecutors, who run for public office, must do so with the consent and support of county Democratic Party chairs. The required approval of the Democratic Party machine acts as a backdoor deterrent on the prosecution of government corruption cases, because local and state prosecutors have to be mindful not to investigate corrupt officials, political operatives, and lobbyists, who are loyal to the county chairs, whose support are needed by prosecutors. Besides DA Vance, the deterrent of investigating government and campaign corruption has also been documented in the office of Erie County District Attorney Frank Sedita. Complicating matters is that prosecutors running for public office must fundraise from the same Wall Street and real estate donor base that wants to have a say in government policy, especially when it applies to the prosecution of business or government corruption. The state attorney general, for example, raises huge amounts of money from a real estate developer, who is represented in the leadership of the controversial real estate lobbying group, the Real Estate Board of New York, which became embroiled in the Moreland Commission scandal. In spite of federal prosecutorial discretion, local and state political corruption backed by big business donors has generally gone unchecked, whilst low-level misdemeanors and infractions by low-income people and people of color are over-policed and subject to police brutality.

The death of Eric Garner has brought to the fore a fundamental contradiction in Mayor de Blasio's progressive façade : the Broken Windows theory of policing has, at its roots, a neoconservative aim to oppress the poor and people of color.

The governor allows real estate developers to make large campaign contributions, which then therefore sets property tax rates for billion-dollar luxury condominium towers. This is no different than how the mayor allows real estate developers to insist on a "Broken Windows" approach to policing, which unfairly targets the poor and people of color. Lowering property taxes for the rich and over-policing low-income and minority communities to drive mass displacement and gentrification are the goals of wealthy real esate developers. These are Republican values. As the apparent big business corruption runs rampant across New York State, it's the little people, who pay with their lives. Former First Lady Mrs. Clinton, Gov. Cuomo, and Mayor de Blasio go on serving their big business donors, whilst police brutality, and even the imposition of a death sentence before apparently a suspect's Miranda rights can be read, are leading many government reform activists to question the priorities of New York's Democratic leaders. Are they just Republicans in Democrats' clothing ? Why are leaders of the Democratic Party silent about the miscarriage of justice that is readily apparent to voters ? And why do voters accept the failure of the Democratic Party to fully address the broken judicial system ?

From unfounded screeds written by Maggie Haberman, voters are left to read between the lines or to triangulate back to other journalism, to see for themselves how the ethic of public service has nothing to do with how the Democratic Party approaches government. Left unexamined is whether the political organizing now taking place in anticipation of Gov. Cuomo's resignation will yield to installation of another politician from the corporate-owned two-party system, or whether government reform activists are going to push back against the co-opting political machinations that led to backroom Super PAC's, corrupt lobbyists, and astroturf groups from driving this year's election outcome for governor, as was the case in last year's election of the mayor. Which begs the age-old question : why do activists from the political left still organize with the Democratic Party ?

RELATED


Is Hillary Clinton the true heir of Ronald Reagan ? (Salon)

A lesson of Watergate, 40 years on, for Andrew Cuomo (The Times Union)

The Neoconservative Roots of the Broken Windows Theory (The Gotham Gazette)