Rousing 2011 #OWS speech reminds us of role of St. Vincent's Hospital on 9/11

Read your lipservice on 9/11, but we have no full-service hospital below 14th Street since St. Vincent's closed. #Rudin @Partnership4NYC

— Louis Flores (@maslowsneeds) September 11, 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

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) Michael Hayes, LMT, has practiced massage for more than 20 years as a licensed massage therapist in New York City.

Cuomo to be in Buffalo today, as ex-Moreland Commission figure testifies before a federal grand jury

Andrew Cuomo's obstruction of the Moreland Commission : a moment of truth for New York's political reporters

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is scheduled to speak at 10 a.m. this morning at the University of Buffalo, his first public appearance since a damning article in The New York Times last week accused the governor of directing criminal investigations away from his political allies. The governor's appearance is timed to overshadow the Grand Jury testimony of Heather Green, who was the assistant to the former Executive Director of the now-defunct Moreland Commission, Regina Calcaterra.

To further establish Gov. Cuomo's obstruction of the Moreland Commission's investigations, will the media examine allegations of corruption by Cuomo allies : the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), the Partnership for New York City (PFNYC), and the now-shuttered Committee to Save New York (CSNY) ? If Gov. Cuomo truly obstructed the corruption investigations by the Moreland Commission, what were his motivations ? By all accounts, the media has reported that Gov. Cuomo was acting to hide the questionable fundraising and other activities of his big money campaign contributors and other political supporters -- people, who had business before the state. If true, the actions of Cuomo administration officials to carry out Gov. Cuomo's obstructive orders will undoubtedly become the focus of some of today's Grand Jury testimony. What light can Health Green show on Cuomo administration officials' backchannel communications with Ms. Calcaterra, the former Moreland Commission executive director, who was Gov. Cuomo's plant on the investigative panel ? Whose pay-to-play activities were the governor trying to hide ? So far, we know that the Cuomo administration was sensitive to the activities of REBNY, the Extell Development Company, the campaign commercial-related firm Buying Time, and the Committee to Save New York (and its funders) from coming under scrutiny. As the press looks for angles to keep alive this complicated story of obstruction of justice, will the press have the guts to further investigate the apparent pay-to-play implications of the questionable fundraising and other activities of Gov. Cuomo's big money campaign contributors ? We know how whistleblowers have had to deal with intimidation and retaliation from the Cuomo administration. How do intimidation and retaliation of the press factor into allegations of obstruction ? In a roundtable of reporters on last Friday's Inside City Hall on NY1, Senior editor for Politics and Policy at WNYC Radio, Andrea Bernstein, spoke about the hostility that reporters must put up with from Cuomo administration officials over criticisms in the press. Will reporters back down under the Cuomo's retaliatory mode in the fallout of the Moreland Commission scandal, or will reporters find the courage to finally report the whole truth about the years of pay-to-play corruption in New York State politics ? Stay tuned.

RELATED Cuomo’s Office Hobbled Ethics Inquiries by Moreland Commission (The New York Times) Cuomo should shoulder blame for defunct anti-corruption panel, say irate commission members (The New York Daily News) Cuomo, Astorino to Be in Western New York as Fallout from Corruption Report Continues (Time Warner Cable News)

There's More Left, If You're Hungry (For Change)

PUBLISHED : SAT, 12 JUL 2014, 06:25 PM
UPDATED : MON, 14 JUL 2014, 07:45 PM

Response to "Nothing Left" by Adolph Reed, Jr.

There's a way forward, to break through the stranglehold that neoliberals have over the Democratic Party, but, to do it, leftists need to leave the Democratic Party. In "Nothing Left," an essay by Adolph Reed, Jr., in the March issue of Harper's, Mr. Reed, described how the Democratic Party fails leftists in American politics. More or less, he described a Democratic Party that believed in working within a broken political system that affirms neoliberalism over the party's former New Deal politics. There are too many payoffs in the current broken political system for the Democrats to want reforms. Following is a response and commentary to Mr. Reed's essay. For years, activists in New York City have been trying to fight back against the influences of Big Business interests in local politics, but activists are stopped by party politics that want to see the correct Democrat elected into public office. Activists play a greater role in trying to bring about reforms, precisely because most voters do not participate in government, much less vote. In the mayoral election won by Bill de Blasio, only 24 percent of registered voters turned out to cast ballots, a rate of participation described as a record low by The New York Times. This compares with a 25 percent voter turnout in Detroit, a city in bankruptcy. A sense of voter powerlessness to fight back against the corruptive influence of money and lobbyists in politics is succeeding in suppressing voter turnout. "Three other cities showed an even deeper level of apathy. Atlanta had 17.2 percent turnout, Houston only 13.2 percent and Miami just 11 percent,” according to one report. This compares with an incredible recent peak in voter turnout of 93 percent in the 1953 New York City mayoral election. Voters have come to believe that their participation doesn’t make a difference, and in the age of the corrupt Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, they are almost right. The lack of voter participation means that activists play a larger than normal role in how political, legal, and economic issues get put on the social agenda. We know that activists are passionate, because they are driven by motivations to change the system when they take up causes. One consequence to how how we compensate for the lack of voter participation is that the same activists keep showing up over and over again for a variety of issues. In the face of such great voter apathy, some activists speak of inactive voters as uneducated, because if voters truly appreciated what was at stake in the broken political system, voters would get involved. Voters need to become activated, so that they can claim their rightful role in overhauling the broken political system. Otherwise, going forward, as in for the past decades, some activists (or, some political operatives is more like it) will take for granted that only activists or political operatives will know what reforms are needed, because only activists and political operatives know the lay of the corrupt political landscape. A huge contributing factor that keeps such super-majority percentages of voters inactive is the failure of mainstream media to fully report the truth about the depths of corruption in how elected officials run the business of government. And activists and political operatives know the truth about how corrupt the system is, but they don't do much of anything to challenge the press to fully report the truth about corruption. Somehow, the same small numbers of activists and political operatives have yet to overcome the limitations imposed by the failed mainstream media, and this keeps inactive voters in the dark. Compounding this dysfunction is the fact that some activists readily accept some aspects of the corrupt political landscape, and these activists adjust themselves accordingly to the corruption, as opposed to fighting it. Once they play by the rules of the broken political system, some activists adopt downsized scopes of reforms to make nice-nice with the power players of the broken political system. To varying degrees, Mr. Reed and others have previously described this phenomenon. Where is the Democratic Party in all this ? Democrats only care about winning elections, not rolling out fundamental reforms to overhaul the broken political system. Brining back online the inactive voters doesn't matter to Democrats, because elections can be still be won without the participation of inactive voters. Making matters worse, the Democratic Party uses what Jane Hamsher describes as "veal pens" to proverbially lock-up activists and nonprofit organizations in a state of atrophy to deescalate demands for political reforms from the political left. Except for a few brave souls, the mainstream media buys into these and other deceptions of the Democratic Party for several reasons. Some politicians, their political operatives, and their lobbyists employ teams of people to feed the media only approved talking points. Some reporters make the mistake of thinking that they have become "friends" with politicians and their enablers, losing their objectivity in the process. The influence of of corporate owners and editors slant reporting coverage according to suitable idealogical packaging. The media has often been describe to move with a pack mentality, they themselves not wanting to appear to be dissenting from their peers. And sometimes, the few brave souls, who do report the truth about government and political corruption, face a loss of access to each of sources, political gossip, or other professional privileges. Many times, this retaliation plays out privately, as the spurned reporter tries to do damage control out of the view and judgement of their peers and possible future employers. Given that Democratic Party insiders and political operatives know this, it is not difficult for Democrats to try to control the media. In respect of the media, several important things have happened in the time leading up to, and since, Mr. de Blasio was elected as mayor that can act as reality checks on the City Hall press corps. First, while LGBT activists were rejecting the "identity politics" of former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn in favor of substance, Mr. de Blasio rolled out his family, offering a "biographical narrative" to take center stage in his cornerstone promise to "end the stop-and-frisk era," a promise that was devoid of truth, in turns out, when Mr. de Blasio move the goal posts to "stop the over-use of stop-and-frisk" with the subsequent appointment of William Bratton as police commissioner, a move which the media largely did not challenge as being incongruent with Mr. de Blasio's campaign promises. At a lengthy public forum of some of the city's top political reporters held after last year's Democratic mayoral primary election, some reporters openly disavowed any duty to vet candidates for public office. As a consequence of this attitude, many reporters admitted that they had failed to scrutinize Mr. de Blasio before last year's Democratic primary race. For those few New Yorkers planning to vote, relying on the press for information was a dangerous proposition, because the city's top political reporters were saying that voters were on their own to make sense of the broken political system. Resistance to reforms that borders on needing to keep the system corruptible Who can forget Rep. Nancy Pelosi's three-part interview (Part 1 ; Part 2 ; Part 3) revealing interview on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, in which Rep. Pelosi refused to come clean about the Democratic Party's reliance on Big Money campaign contributions, amongst other controversies. Gov. Andrew Cuomo promised to clean up Albany of corruption, but he refused to close a gaping loophole through which Big Money campaign donors funnel campaign contributions to elected officials as a way to control the government's agenda. One of Mayor de Blasio's closest political operatives, Scott Levenson, faces what has been described as multiple possible investigations due to allegations of campaign finance violations, but the mayor refuses to update the city's campaign finance laws, as he promised he would during last year's mayoral campaign. Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito hired lobbyists in a shady campaign to become the City Council speaker, pledging to turn the page from the corrupt record of her predecessor, but, now that she's in power, she's waging an effort to take control over the city's Board of Elections, "giving her power and control of a host of patronage jobs," according to The New York Daily News. Other issues, like how Gov. Cuomo was carrying out a state-sponsored plan to close hospitals across New York City, were never reported in the mainstream media with the full truth about what was truly happening. Even when Mr. de Blasio was reportedly described as trying to save Long Island College Hospital when he was only a candidate for mayor, he never fully tied the wave of hospital closings back to Gov. Cuomo's Medicaid Redesign Team. When the media did work itself up into a frenzy, like when one of the mayor's political supporters, Bishop Orlando Findlayter, was let out of jail on account of alleged intervention from City Hall, the mayor blocked the release of possibly damaging (or incriminating) evidence. At the conclusion of last year, The New York Times opined that no matter the real reason former Council Speaker Quinn lost the mayoral race, it wasn't because of any "major ethical lapses," contrary to the multiple examples of ethical lapses chronicled in Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn. One way or another, the corrupt system finds a way to keep the truth from being reported. Whenever the media is interested in covering a story, like with Bishop Findlayter's arrest, the government denies requests made under freedom of information laws. Some political bloggers and government reform advocates believe that Mayor de Blasio's denial of freedom of information law requests for Bishop Findlayter's arrest report, for example, is in keeping with the Obama administration's pattern of denying requests made under the federal Freedom of Information Act. Amongst the many outstanding FOIA requests pending before the Obama administration is a request for records about the government's vindictive prosecution of activists, including the prosecution of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal hero, Lt. Daniel Choi. It's easier for the press to politically report that the Obama administration is denying FOIA requests than it is to show how the Obama administration has been targeting activists for vindictive prosecution. The political climate facing government reform activists within the Democratic Party is so severe, that pressuring the Democratic Party for reforms routinely involves backlash, sometimes in the form of political retaliation. This environment of hostility is indicative that the Democratic Party doesn't stand for reforms. That is why you see political operatives, a/k/a "Yes Men," ring fence Democratic Party politicians from criticism. When grassroots activists make demands for reforms, the Yes Men deceptively water-down those demands for reform into downsized requests that can be easily met with empty rhetoric. Given this reality, how can voters mobilize to overhaul the broken political system, if some political operatives downsize their demands for reform -- at the same time when the press refuses to report the whole truth about corrupt elected officials ? The fairytale life of elected officials Part of the never-ending election strategy for the Democratic Party, indeed for any political party, is to establish and then maintain their leaders as likable characters. And so begins the requirement that followers can never question leaders, for, if one makes this irreconcilable error of questing a leader, then one gets shown the door. The Democratic Party spends millions on campaign consultants, lobbyists, focus groups, opinion polls, other messaging, and public relations that the party will not tolerate insiders, who undo these expensive media machinations. This is why voters get duped into buying the party line. Activists, who think they can operate an inside strategy, must first pledge to operate from a place of compromise -- there can be no criticisms of elected officials. This is why there is no room for dissent in expensive modern-day politics. Even when most progressives support immigration reform, for example, the Democrats, under Mayor de Blasio, go to such extremes as only allowing supporters of the city's new identification cards speak at official City Council hearings. Free speech and open debate go out the window. Regrettably, whole classes of nonprofit executives and activists sell-out their communities in exchange for insider access privileges. Even before Mayor de Blasio took office, former Council Speaker Quinn had established new norms of what it meant to be a neoliberal Democrat in New York City. Her relationship with real estate developers, chambers of commerce-like groups like the Partnership for New York City, and big money campaign donors like Rudin Management Company, have served as a pattern for Mayor de Blasio to follow as he seeks constant approval from Big Business interests. Moving in the same Big Business interest circles of former Speaker Quinn, Mayor de Blasio perpetuates the corrupt nexus of insider access and and a culture of backroom power deals for which activists once criticized former Speaker Quinn for having embraced, but the press doesn’t report things this way. Having made his Black family the core of Mayor de Blasio's identity prevents critics from raising race as an issue, even as some of Mayor de Blasio's policies have unfair racial overtones. Look at how easily Mayor de Blasio sold out on his pledge to reform policing in New York City when he authorized the police to undertake military-style invasions of public housing projects -- public housing projects -- and blaming some of the poor for the desperate lives that some of them live on account of the broken political system that never addresses the underlying conditions, which cause that desperation, a broken political system which Mayor de Blasio so very well represents. Police raids are sinister forms of behavior modification that blames victims for being poor, and that the targets of these policing actions are largely people of color goes unexamined by the media and by long-time activists, who have, by now, adapted to the new political realities of no expectations of reforms under the Democratic mayor. That the new police commissioner has promised to keep using the racist and classist "broken windows theory" of policing means that the mayor was all talk about police reform. Now that race is not a safe subject for examination, the media fails to look at how political operatives undertook efforts last year to manufacture a spike in voter turn-out in Black voting districts as a way to help elect the next mayor. Whenever the mayor does find himself under criticism from his political left, he relieves the pressure by spouting the right buzzwords, talking points about how he's a "progressive." Mayor de Blasio likes to tout his record of having signed new labor contracts with the municipal unions. NEWSFLASH : Any Democratic mayor had to give the unions new contracts. It's not rocket science to do what the unions, which elected you, tell you to do. The left, whom Mayor de Blasio will not accommodate, gets "trashed" the way activists in other social movements were once rolled over for not adapting to the corrupt status quo. Seeing the political landscape for what it is, first ; and then organizing for reforms, second One can most visibly see this dysfunctional dynamic play out between the Democratic Party, the mayor, nonprofit groups, political operatives, lobbyists, and activists in the police reform movement. Inside this dysfunction, nonprofit organizations and their executives play by the rules of the broken political system. They lock themselves -- and others -- up in "veal pens," where the goal of the broken political system goal is for activists to atrophy and waste away. If one tries to expose how some nonprofit groups are duplicitous in this dysfunction, then it is as if one has kicked a proverbial hornets' next -- one is going to get stung for pulling back the curtain on this political charade. And the veal pens and the stingings are very effective to condition activists to obey the rules of the broken political system. The totality of this dysfunctional political dynamic is given to us by a broken political system in which Democrats fully participate, that goes to great lengths -- indeed, any length -- to avoid reforms. Besides Big Business interests, the Democratic Party has become beholden to a class of "professional" political operatives, campaign consultants, and lobbyists, such as Patrick Gaspard, Scott Levenson, George Arzt, Jonathan Rosen, Dan Levitan, and others, making it impossible to enact reforms within the Democratic Party given these co-opting political gatekeepers. Matters are so corrupt that this class of consultants and lobbyists become entrenched and form a permanent, unaccountable form of backroom government insiders. Helping these permanent government insiders stay in power is the fact that that they have learned to exploit the campaign regulations that are meant to make electoral contests open and fair. When one accounts for the added role of fundraising and bundling of campaign donations by these permanent government insiders, one can see how figures with significant political power operate in backrooms, with no accountability to voters. These permanent government insiders are also largely responsible for removing the ethic of public service from those serving in public office. And those activists, who blog or write about these truths, are labeled fringe activists as a way to marginalize and disenfranchise muckraking bloggers. At every point, the broken political system tries to discredit critics, who are only calling for an overhaul to end government and political corruption. One of the major reasons why leftists cannot reform the broken political system is that the Democratic Party has instituted a culture that prevents leftists from holding Democratic officials accountable for reforms. Activists are marginalized by the Democratic Party, a viewpoint more or less shared by Mr. Reed, forced into the political fringes, then accused of running outside pressure political tactics against corrupt or inept Democrats -- when an outside pressure politics strategy is the only approach that the broken political system leaves activists. The system blames activists for exhibiting disenfranchised behavior when it is the broken political system that causes this disenfranchisement in the first place ! The only hope for overhauling the broken political system, in my opinion, is for all of the inactive voters to become activated. The current system, where the same small pool of activists, some of whom organize from a place of privilege, move from one issue to another, in "solidarity," after each "crisis moment," as Mr. Reed pointed out, isn't enough to overhaul this system. It's not just the numbers that a successful overhaul needs, but new ideas, new voices, and enough of them -- so that the people represent themselves in the process to bring about necessary reforms. If activists need to come in out of the fringes, then voters, too, need to come in out of dormancy. People need to dial-up their civic engagement. Contrary to what Democrats, Big Business interests, and permanent government insiders would have voters believe, it will be O.K. if voters participate in their own reform movement. And there's more to civic engagement than just voting, as it should be. People need to find more and more ways to have a say in how the government conducts business on our behalf. Voters need to create new groups, new organizations, through which they can exert new pressures on the system for reform. These groups must be new, in order to circumvent the stranglehold that Democrats have on unions, nonprofit organizations, and other political clubs or groups. The first step to start organizing is to vote out the highest figurehead neoliberal Democrat, which would be New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and vote in a Green Party candidate, Howie Hawkins, who can break the corrupt two-party hegemony in American politics. Voting in a Green Party governor would demonstrate that the government can survive the loss of a center-right Democrat to a true leftist. Considering the corrupt political landscape, this is actually the only way our government can survive. The second step to start organizing is for voters to establish a new relationship with how they get the real truth about government and political corruption. This either means challenging reporters to fully report the truth, or else it means supporting new platforms or structures of muckraking-reporting that can come in out of the fringes and fully go mainstream.

RELATED Nothing Left : The long, slow surrender of American liberals By : Adolph Reed, Jr. (Harper's)

Lobbyists Plan to Fix the 2013 Election For New York City Council Speaker

The Shifting Balance of Power in the NYC Council Speaker Race ; On One Side Are County Party Bosses and Big Business, On Other Side Are Lobbyists And Special Interests

The issues discussed at the docile City Council Speaker candidate forums have nothing to do with the backroom deals and the lobbyists jockeying to pick the next Council Speaker. The flood of money into politics from Citizens United is creating a "clash of the titans" between the County Political Bosses and Big Business, on one side, and Lobbyists and Special Interest Money, on the other. With campaign finance law failing to keep up with the changes in money in politics, the voters are being kept in the dark about the true way that the speaker is selected.

New York City Council Speaker Race : Clash of the Titans

• RELATED : Melissa Mark-Viverito Lobbyist Firm Never Quit, Continued Lobbying Despite Investigations (NYC : News & Analsyis)
• RELATED : Proposed NYS public matching dollars at risk of being gamed, just like with ''model'' NYC campaign finance system (NYC : News & Analsyis)

The Shifting Balance of Power in NYC Municipal Politics ; On One Side Are County Party Bosses and Big Business, On Other Side Are Lobbyists And Special Interests

Backroom Deals Update : Despite Denials, De Blasio Team Met With Weprin and Mark-Viverito About Speakership http://t.co/EG6unJLyuE

— Informed Voting (@informedvoting) November 26, 2013

The issues discussed at the docile City Council Speaker candidate forums have nothing to do with the closed-door interviews, back room deals, and the lobbyists jockeying to pick the next Council Speaker. The flood of money into politics from Citizens United is creating a "clash of the titans" between the County Political Bosses and Big Business, on one side, and Lobbyists and Special Interest Money, on the other. With campaign finance law failing to keep up with the changes in money in politics, the voters are being kept in the dark about the true way that the speaker is selected. (NYC Council Speaker 2013 - Citizens United and Lobbyists * YouTube)

Both Sides Play By The Same Playbook Of The Broken Political System : Flouting or Even Breaking The Rules : Both Sides Exploit Citizens United ; The Kraken Bears Down On Democracy

A veritable ''Clash Of The Titans'' is playing itself out in this year's race to become City Council speaker.

Big business groups and labor unions are exploiting a loophole in New York City campaign finance regulations to pour money and influence into the determining who will replace Christine Quinn as the next City Council speaker.

Big Business Interests/County Party Bosses. For example, because the preferred candidate, Christine Quinn, who was supported by Partnership For New York City, failed in the Democratic primary, big business interests are in a panic. Since they lost the mayoralty, they are now trying to influence the Council speakership. (Pro-Business Group Tried to Push Ferreras Into Speaker’s Race * Politicker)(Election Big Loser Kathy Wylde * NY Pop Culture & Politics) Other entrenched political operatives and lobbyists are trying to form a coalition with some of the county party bosses, to hold off the insurgency being waged by the Working Families Party and labor unions. (The Parkside Group's Citizen's United Invisible Campaign Consultant/Lobbyist Operates in Dark Pools * NY Pop Culture & Politics)

WFP/Unions. Challenging the big business interests are the Working Families Party and labor unions. Bill Lipton, Bill de Blasio, and Scott Levenson anchor the opposition to big business interests and the permanent government, but the problem is that the WFP and labor union coalition is playing by the same playbook of the broken political system, which activists say needs to be reformed. (Big player in her corner : The Advance Group is pushing Melissa Mark-Viverito's speaker candidacy * Politicker)(1199 Leads Effort Boosting Mark-Viverito * Politicker)

Both groups are pushing their own candidates, spending their own money, coordinating their campaign efforts, and exploiting loopholes in reporting their activities, disbursements, and fundraising.

When contacted about the loophole in oversight, reporting, and regulations in post-Election Day political campaigning for City Council leadership posts, representatives of the Campaign Finance Board have been accommodating of the flow of money and the use of lobbyists.

Meanwhile, in the press, a few journalists have been reporting bits and pieces of the post-Election Day politicking, and the analysis that is emerging of the City Council speakership race points to a new era of political bossism in New York City : where campaign consultants have been able to overcome the traditional political party county bosses as power brokers.

Where are all the "good government groups," the "get money out of politics groups," the "reform activists," and "investigative journalists" ?

Read also : ''A Possible Changing of the Guard On Who Picks the Council Speaker, Sunday Update'' (True News From Change NYC)

• For the First Time, There is A Real Fight to Influence the Press, Public and Councilmembers in the Speaker's Race
• On One Side, You Progressives, Unions, and the Working Families Party ; On the Other Side, You Have County Party Bosses, Big Business Groups Like The Partnership For New York City, and Lobbyists and Operatives From the Permanent Government
• The Death of the Party Machine ?

The Progressive Caucus Distraction

Some press reports indicate that some of the County Bosses, for example Brooklyn's Frank Seddio, are losing power to the Progressive Caucus of Councilmembers, but that is an incomplete portraiture of what is behind the growing influence of the Progressive Caucus in this year's Council speaker race. Another press report shows that the Queens County Political Boss, Rep. Joe Crowley, is "warming to the idea of backing Mark-Viverito." Is the power of County Bosses collapsing ?

In City & State, Seth Barron again repeats that the Progressive Caucus is responsible for undermining the County Boss system.

Historically, the election of the Speaker, arguably the second most powerful political office in the city, has been even less democratic than it might appear, because more than half of the members of the Council essentially do not have free will over their votes. The county political organizations of the Queens, Brooklyn and Bronx Democratic parties have traditionally directed the votes of its members, and thus the Speaker and the key committee chairmanships have been divvied up through a series of negotiations and compromises among the party bosses.

With the advent of the council’s Progressive Caucus, some have argued that the heyday of the bosses is over and that a new bloc of reform-minded Council members will dominate the legislature of the city. The members of the caucus have vowed to vote as a unit in order to leverage the votes of their roughly 20 members into a powerful counterforce to the dominance of the county organizations. (Council Watch : Twilight Of The Bosses ? * City & State)

But this narrative doesn't tell the whole story of the Progressive Caucus.

The Progressive Caucus has also hired its own lobbyist, to hold closed-door meetings and to broker backroom deals in an effort to rival the County Bosses. Look at how Crains Insider has described some of the tensions causes by the competing forces to hold closed-door meetings :

A recent negotiating snafu demonstrates the conflict between the city's old and new political forces. About three weeks ago, council members from Queens who are part of the Progressive Caucus scheduled a meeting at the Queens office of law firm Sweeney Gallo Reich & Bolz. The firm's partners run the day-to-day operations of the borough's Democratic Party, and the progressives hoped to persuade them to partner in lining up the 26 votes needed to elect a speaker.

Just hours before the meeting, the leaders of the Queens Democratic machine learned that Ms. Hirsh of 32BJ would attend in her capacity as lead negotiator, according to multiple sources. The Democratic leadership, whose executive director declined to comment, demanded that only elected officials be allowed in the room.

The Progressive Caucus refused, and the meeting was canceled, sparking tensions between the two most powerful forces in this year's speaker race. A flurry of phone calls seeking to mend the rift has ensued, according to sources.

Indeed, even some "progressives" are critical of the Progressive Caucus's use of a lobbyist to lobby for the next year's Council speaker. "Ms. Hirsh is a well-connected operative who helped hammer out the deal to elect Ms. Quinn in 2005 on behalf of then-Brooklyn Democratic leader Vito Lopez. Still, her role this time as lead negotiator struck a number of lawmakers as highly unusual because of her dual role as a powerful lobbyist," Capital New York reported.

If there was ever an anti-labor speaker, it was Christine Quinn, who watered down two important labor-backed bills : the living wage bill and the paid sick leave bill. How could the Progressive Caucus turn to a Quinn-supporter to pick the next supposedly-"progressive" speaker ?

Other progressives have other criticism of the Progressive Caucus. City Councilmember Rosie Mendez has "declined to join the Progressive Caucus, the growing group of left-leaning Council members who are hoping to sway the speaker's race, because she said she found the process 'not to be transparent or inclusive,' " reported Sally Goldenberg for Capital New York.

The media's fear of confronting lobbyists

"Council speakers have historically been selected by leaders of borough political machines lining up votes and getting patronage jobs and plum committee chairmanships for friends and allies. But as their power to elect or unelect council members has waned, unions have filled the vacuum, with the labor-backed Working Families Party playing a part in electing much of the council," reported Chris Bragg for Crains Insider.

But few dare to confront the army of lobbyists working for the Working Families Party, the Progressive Caucus, and other special interests in the recent past municipal elections. And few are daring to look at the corruptive role of money these lobbyists are having on democracy.

Time was, party bosses decided @NYCCouncil leadership. Now, consultants do. But @NYCCFB laws have not kept up. @ChrisBragg1

— Informed Voting (@informedvoting) November 15, 2013

Big player in her corner : The Advance Group is pushing Melissa Mark-Viverito's speaker candidacy. (Politicker)	Who is paying Advance Group for helping Melissa Mark-Viverito ? (Bill de Blasio Sold Out)
Union power play in council speaker race (The New York Post)	In race for City Council speaker, Labor's influence is on the rise. (Crains)
Examining the role of consultants in the speaker race, and more (Crains)	Political consultants, who work to elect lawmakers, are turning around and lobbying them on behalf of private clients. (The New York Daily News)

There's no enforcement of Campaign Finance Board Regulations

Bonny Tsang, a public affairs officer with the CFB, responding to my inquiries by stating that, "The Council speaker race is not considered a separate election that needs to be reported to the CFB. If a candidate makes political expenditures, or accepts in-kind contributions, they should be reported in a future filing," adding, "We would have to review all facts or documentation regarding any candidate’s expenditures before we may make any kind of determination."

Separately, Matthew Sollars, the press secretary for the CFB, shared a link to the agency's November 2013 "Tip of the Month," which is a very relaxed form of "guidance." The note on post-election spending stated, "If your campaign received public funds, you are permitted to make only very limited post-election expenditures for nominal costs associated with the winding down of a campaign and responding to the Campaign Finance Board’s post-election audit. The longer it takes to wind down your campaign, the longer you continue to make expenditures, or the more you spend post-election, the more scrutiny those expenditures will receive."

Ms. Tsang says that there is basically no oversight of post-Election Day spending, whilst guidance provided by Mr. Sollars states that campaigning that benefitted from matching funds must wind down. There is no consistency in regulations, and thus this begets a gaping loophole that allows campaign consultants, unions, big business interests, and lobbyists to exploit the lack of supervision and regulation. Indeed, in his e-mail to me, Mr. Sollars wrote, "Disclosure of candidate campaign committee activities for the 2017 cycle through the CFB will begin in July 2014. However, committees making political expenditures should disclose that spending through the state Board of Elections by January 15, 2014," adding that, "The city’s independent spending disclosure rules require groups or individuals to disclose when they pay for public communications with voters."

Another possible loophole in the post-Election Day loophole in Council speaker campaigning is that the new incoming speaker oversees appointments with the next mayor over the CFB. How rigorous will the CFB be in investigating their next supervisors ?

2013-November-XX New York City Campaign Finance Board - Post Election Spending Guidance

Even though there are questions about double-dipping, possible two-timing on the part of The Advance Group, what we get from the mainstream media are essentially stories about the rise of the next Camelot : a fictitious narrative of the ascendancy of "progressives," who made the upward climb exploiting the same broken rules that reform activists claim need to be fixed ?

Political Insider Corruption In a Different Media World

According to True News From Change NYC, the City Source-Parking Violations scandal led to the imposition of real reforms, namely, the drafting and enactment of campaign finance laws and public money matching system. Perhaps by letting big business interests, lobbyists, and unions fully exploit every rule and flout every law in desperation, voters will again be able to benefit from the coming political scandals from this year's election cycle ? Let's wait and see how desperate the political campaign consultants and lobbyists become ....

What's a Campaign Debt Between Friends ? http://t.co/wrNMEzB84N @RobHalperin @nycgov @NYCCouncil @BKcolin @commoncauseny @NYCCFB

— Informed Voting (@informedvoting) November 13, 2013

The Advance Group, providing political consulting services for "free" to Melissa Mark-Viverito, was paid to defeat LGBT City Council Candidates

Will LGBT Groups Protest Scott Levenson for Anti-Gay Attack Ads ? (YouTube)

@boldprogressnyc @HRC @maslowsneeds Are you asking if Democrats overlook behavior in Democrats for which they'd pillory Republicans? Yes : (

— Charmian Neary (@CharmianNeary) November 21, 2013

The Advance Group, which is providing unpaid consultants to Mark-Viverito, worked for the City Action Coalition PAC, which lists 'traditional marriage' as its platform and supported opponents of gay City Council candidates. (The New York Daily News)

Did Scott Levenson sabotage LGBT civil rights attorney Yetta Kurland's political campaign ? (Scott Levenson : Biggest Loser Of The Week * NY Pop Culture & Politics)

Sign our Change.org Petition : Bill de Blasio : Do not attend NYCLASS fundraiser to benefit Scott Levenson

… the Advance Group's work on behalf of City Action Coalition-backed candidates conflicted with its work for two of its own council clients. And the outside work for the teachers union raises another potential conflict: the Advance Group not only produced mailers promoting Manhattan council candidate Yetta Kurland for the NYCLASS independent expenditure, but Strategic Consultants produced mailers touting her opponent, Corey Johnson, that were paid for by the teachers union. Mr. Johnson won the primary. (Teachers union paid $370K to fake consultant * Crain's Insider)

Why aren't the LGBT civil rights activists protesting against Scott Levenson and his "anti-gay agenda" ? And how can LGBT civil rights activists stay quiet while Ms. Mark-Viverito uses a political consulting operation that hires itself out to work against candidates specifically based on their identity ? This is discrimination and prejudice. How can Mr. Levenson and Ms. Mark-Viverito call themselves "progressives," yet enable bigotry ?

Election Big Loser Kathy Wylde, reports True News

Kathy Wylde had one job, and she blew it ! How long will she remain as head of the Partnership For New York City ?

(Revised : Thursday 7 Nov 2013 1:05 p.m.)

Beaten By The Working Families Party, The Flack For The 1% Kathryn Wylde Fights To Keep Her Job

CYA Statement from Wylde : “I keep telling my members that the Bloomberg era was an aberration,” said Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a leading business group. “Bill captured the disconnect for many New Yorkers between the fact of the city’s prosperity and the reality of their lives in this increasingly unaffordable city.”

The election of Bill de Blasio and the take over by the Working Families Party has more to do with the city's corrupt election system and an elite media, which most New Yorkers no longer follow. In the past, the 1% made it possible with great schools, hospitals for the poor, and good jobs for the 99% of New Yorkers to move themselves and their children up the social and economic ladder. Most New Yorkers today face an economic crisis as big as the crime crisis of the 70's and 80's.

The change voters were looking for in the exit polls was good jobs, good educations for their children, and an affordable place to live. The job of the Partnership For New York City, which Kathryn Wylde has run for the last decade, was to keep that social contract the rich always had with the other New Yorkers. Wylde sat there in her fancy office and collected her fat pay check while her real estate partners pushed the city's poor and middle class out of New York. Wylde lunched with her rich partners at the city's best, trendy restaurants in Manhattan, while record high numbers of New Yorkers went without jobs. Wylde visited her friends penthouses on Park Avenue, where their children pay $50,000 for private schools, while most New Yorkers parents send their kids to failing schools, destroying their children's future. Wylde sold her rich and media partners that the way to keep her fellow looters in power was through Bloomberg's puppet, Speaker Christine Quinn. It's not so much that the Working Families Party grew powerful and took over, so much as that the clueless Partnership-backed Joe Lhota did not even put up a fight. Wylde and her elite partners in government and the media allowed the protectors of the poor and middle class to be run by a bunch of bottom feeders. Elected officials and party leaders, who only care about growing rich and getting jobs for their friends. A media who tries to control New Yorkers rather than further their Bill of Rights mission to inform to protect. If Wylde stays in power and the Partnership does not end it class war in NYC, then so will the Working Families Party and Bertha Lewis.

True News's Biggest Loser of the 2013 Election : The Partnership's Kathy Wylde

From True News From Change NYC :

If you think the Giants are having a bad year check out the head of the Partnership. Wylede allowed the Working Families Party to take over the mayor's and Public Advocate's office. She now must count on Virginia resident Corrupt Queens' Boss Joe Crowley to line up enough councilmembers to elect Mark Weprin as Council Speaker. As long as Wyde is in power there will never be reform of the city's corrupt party leadership or Board of elections.

OFFICIAL DISPATCH from Lhota's closed-door meeting yesterday, via Kathy Wylde of the Partnership for NYC: "Joe Lhota met with about thirty members of the Partnership for New York City today to detail priorities he would focus on as mayor including support for job creation, making the city more affordable, and ensuring that it remains safe. the big question was whether there is a path to victory for a Republican in an increasingly Democratic town. Joe argued that most New Yorkers agree with him on big issues if he can get his name known and his message across. Those attending included CEOs from finance, real estate, media and law. The Partnership has met with all mayoral candidates, but does not make endorsements. Joe was introduced by Loews CEO Jim Tisch."

(Original : Friday 11 Oct 2013 3:10 p.m.)

Amanda The People's Clueless Burden AKA Gentrification Enabler

'What We Haven't Figured Out Is the Question of Gentrification'

From The Atlantic :

Maintaining enough affordable housing and keeping income diversity in a city as it prospers are two of the most contentious and perplexing questions in U.S. urban policy today. In a CityLab panel on urban expansion, economist and New York University professor Paul Romer decried rent control and argued that affordability is a problem for the free market to solve — and met with objections from Amanda Burden, director of New York City’s department of city planning.

"I had believed that if we kept building in that manner and increasing our housing supply … that prices would go down," Burden said. "We had every year almost 30,000 permits for housing, and we built a tremendous amount of housing, including affordable housing, either through incentives or through government funds. And the price of housing didn’t go down at all. That’s a practitioner’s point of view."

"What we haven’t figured out is the question of gentrification," Burden added. "I have never, since I had this job, come up with a satisfactory answer of how to make sure everyone benefits. It’s a question I would welcome more answers as to how to make this a more equitable city. Because that’s how we continue to attract people from all over the world, is people perceive the city as an equitable city, and a city with opportunity for all. It’s not just those poetic words. But I really wonder how we can do it."

Good Government Group Lashes Out At Cuomo Over Interfering With Moreland Commission

Can't Anyone Investigate Corruption Anymore ?

The Moreland Commissioners Should Stop Making Noise and Instead Build A Case, Like the Senator Sam Ervin Hearings Did, Forcing Nixon to Resign After They Exposed the Watergate Scandal, According To True News From Change.

The editorial board of The New York Daily News has some advice to the members serving on Gov. Andrew Cuomo's anti-corruption Moreland Commission, which is headed by three different co-chairs : William Fitzpatrick, Kathleen Rice, and Milton Williams :

First, their job description does not include bluster, even delicious bluster. While his thrust was right, Fitzpatrick was off the dial in explaining why the Legislature must be the commission’s central target as follows: “Thirty members of the governor’s staff haven’t been walked out in handcuffs in the last five years.” Second, they should stick to facts. Fitzpatrick justified subpoenaing legislators’ law firms with speculative innuendo: “We’re talking about six-figure retainers from people that as far as we know never go to court. I suspect the real problem is going to be for those who have to answer it and say, ‘You know what, in all honesty, I don’t do anything for this massive amount of money I get.’ "

They need to become far more transparent. As a first step in that direction, they should drop any notion that the commission is a law enforcement authority. It’s a fact-finding operation, not a prosecutor’s office, and must be subject to full public scrutiny. As such, the panel should disclose every subpoena. They must shut the door to negotiating potential reform laws with the Legislature. The panel’s primary mission is to present specific case histories and information that can inform a debate among elected officials about legislative fixes.

From : Reform the reformers : Cuomo's anticorruption commission must get its act together (The New York Daily News)

Meanwhile, The New York Times is concerned that after a promising start, Cuomo’s Commission to Investigate Public Corruption is becoming little more than a branch of the governor’s political network: (Will New York’s Political Watchdog Pass the Test ?)

Common Cause New York sent a letter to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman saying that any interference in the Moreland Commission would be a “shocking waste of momentum for meaningful change,” according to Capital New York.

Looks Like Cuomo's Inept Fake Poser Moreland Commission Is About To Get Fucked

Constant Updates From True News From Change NYC :

Cuomo's Plan B : Cuomo Seeks to Resurrect an Ethics Deal (WSJ). Members of a state panel investigating New York political corruption are involved in talks between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders to craft a new package of ethics laws, said people familiar with the discussions.

Moreland Abortion : New York's Fake Press Will Give Cuomo A Pass For Aborting Moreland, But Not The National Press Based In Washington

Cuomo denied that he personally ordered his anti-corruption Moreland Commission to quash subpoenas bound for his allies. Spokeswoman Melissa DeRosa says the ‘governor did not advise’ the commission on subpoenas — didn’t say if any of his aides did. (NY Daily News) * NYC housing advocates are losing hope that the Moreland Commission will dig deeply into the state’s politically-corrupt real estate industry. (The Gotham Gazette) * Cuomo chickens out on corruption. Never mind. That’s the message Gov. Cuomo just sent about his vow to clean up Albany. (The New York Post) * (Gov. Cuomo Denies Ordering Subpoenas Be Killed, But More Vague On If He Advised It : The New York Daily News)

Is Gov. Cuomo in a situation that may sink his political ship ?

Cuomo doing damage-control over anti-corruption commission — gets no favors from GOP (The New York Daily News) Cuomo may want to reignite talks with the Legislature on ethics reform, but Senate Republicans are letting him know, says an insider, ‘We may very well do it, but we’re not doing it on your time frame.' * The Moreland Commission has announced plans, amid mounting criticism from bloggers and reform activists to investigate the Democratic state party as "part of an inquiry into how political parties use loosely regulated fund-raising accounts, known as housekeeping committees. One area of interest is the use of housekeeping funds to pay for political advertising." Panel to Investigate State Democratic Party (NYTimes) * Cuomo’s Office Is Said to Rein In Ethics Board He Created (NYTimes) Some of the bloggers and reform activists that cheered the creation of the Moreland Commission are worrying that its investigative efforts are losing credibility.

Is Long Island Prosecutor Kathleen Rice's Reputation Going Down The Toilet ?

Critics question how deeply corruption panel co-chair Kathleen Rice would probe Sheldon Silver after campaign contributions. State government officials are questioning how aggressively Gov. Cuomo's corruption panel would investigate Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, after the law firm that employed Silver gave nearly $300,000 in campaign donations to co-chair and Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice. (The New York Daily News)* Governor’s Crusade Against Corruption Comes With Too Many Asterisks (NYTimes) * To Gut Independence of Moreland Commission, Cuomo appointed Kathleen Rice as co-chair. Rice had been Cuomo's favourite for Attorney General before Eric Schneiderman won the AG race. (Capital New York) * Cuomo's naming of Rice to co-chair of Moreland Commission was a way to cut out Schneiderman from Moreland investigation of political corruption.

An agent with all the ethics of Maître Karlsson investigating corrupt Albany ethics ? Rice, ostensibly the “face” of the commission, has served as Nassau County district attorney since 2005, and is currently running for reelection. A prolific fundraiser who had over $2 million in her campaign coffers heading into the her reelection battle, she also received $300,000 in donations from the law firm that employs Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Rice is a staunch Cuomo ally who ran for Attorney General in 2010. She was seen by many as Cuomo’s choice in the race over the winner, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. In a 2009 debate, she was the only Democratic candidate for attorney general to refuse a pledge to seek higher office in the next eight years if elected to the position. Rice’s name has also been linked to aborted Congressional runs. (Gotham Gazette)

This is exactly the way Maître Karlsson does business. Rice is now being criticized by Democrats for disposing of politically-motivating corruption allegations against former Nassau Police Commissioner Thomas Dale. It is said that, at the order of a political donor, the police commish ordered the arrest of a witness in a corruption case. Rice's finding of no criminality in the witness tampering case was reported to have been carried out with the intention to "protect political cronies." (The New York Daily News)

Moreland Not News to Local TV News

Paid TV Ads Run By Local TV Stations Act To Block Any TV News On Moreland Commission. Local TV Makes Millions Off Of Pro Cuomo Ads and Does Not Cover the Moreland Commission Killing of Subpoenas to Investigate Where The Money to Pay for Those Misinforming NY Good For Business Ads Came From . . . . Sources said the subpoena sought to seek information on the party’s spending from its “housekeeping” account — which raised millions this year used to fund ads promoting Cuomo’s legislative agenda. Cuomo's anti-corruption panel stops at investigating his own Democratic party (The New York Daily News). A subpoena that sought to seek information on the New York Democratic party’s spending from its ‘housekeeping’ account was never sent, sources tell the Daily News. NY Democrats say they raised $7 million (UPDATED) (Albany Watch) * Pro-Cuomo lobbying group disbands (The New York Daily News) * Pro-Cuomo Group Repeats as Top Spender on Lobbying (The New York Times)

TV Makes $$$ Telling Us NY is Open For Business While in Truth It is Closed Shut. How can TV run ads saying NY good for business when The Tax Foundation said New York has the worst business climate in the nation New York is the unfriendliest state for business (The New York Daily News)

Gov. Cuomo will pay a political price for killing the Moreland Commission

Even worse, doing so would destroy the confidence of an already wary public that anything meaningful can be done to curb the way money corrupts politics in Albany.* “What gives, Mr. Cuomo?” The Albany Times Union writes on the Moreland Commission. “As dismal as this all is, it may not be too late for this commission to succeed — if Mr. Cuomo can keep his hands off it, regardless of whose feathers get ruffled, and if the commissioners haven’t lost their vision of the original goal and their will to do something about it. If not, Mr. Cuomo should be prepared to own a failure as embarrassing as the system he vowed to fix.”

Preet Bharara : New Media Will End NYC's Journalism of Sheep. In testimony before the Moreland Commission, Mr. Bharara lamented the loss of investigative journalists, but he put high hopes on new outlets and revived old media. * U.S. Attorney To Commission : Political Corruption Is Out Of Hand In New York State (CBS New York) :

To repeat a longstanding lament, investigative journalists have become a dying breed, although there are still a few extraordinary practitioners, some of whom are here tonight. With each press outlet that closes or downsizes, opportunities to ferret out fraud and waste and abuse are lost.
And that is too bad because, as Edward R. Murrow once observed, 'A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.'
But maybe the thinning ranks of investigative journalists will be fortified :
Maybe Politico’s purchase of Capital New York and its planned infusion of staff and resources will mean more Albany muckraking.
Maybe Jeff Bezos’s purchase of the Washington Post and his reported interest in rejuvenating a storied history of eye-popping investigations will prove contagious.
And maybe fresh news outlets like BuzzFeed whose editors are said to be bent on doubling down on political investigations will provide grist for Commissions like this one.
We shall see.

Bharara Moreland Commission Testimony 9 17 13 by Casey Seiler

Freed from the bondage of Cuomo (for now)

Off the leash : Gov. Cuomo's anti-corruption Moreland Commission shows some teeth. Not until Gov. Cuomo was at risk of losing what little bit of credibility he has with progressive Democrats did he finally bless Kathleen Rice's subpoenas of the state Democratic Party's housekeeping accounts. (The New York Daily News)