Charles Pierce as Bette Davis (Part One)

An enthusiastic audience stamped their feet and clapped the moment they saw the wisps of cigarette smoke coming from off-stage at the 3,190-seat Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Many of them already knew most of the lines to Charles Pierces irreverent impression of Bette Davis. He had already regaled the mostly gay audience with Mae West (Warden, show me a hardened criminal.), Katharine Hepburn (You old poop) and the rhinestone-throwing Carol Channing (Im so cutesy-pie I could puke!). Pierce always saved the irreverent Davis impression for last. His devoted audiences would not let him off stage until he smoked at least one cigarette in the nervous and distinctive style of the temperamental star of All About Eve and Now, Voyager. There had to be at least three or four cutthroat remarks made about legendary rival Joan Crawford. Then there was the moment when he asked the audience to recite along with one of the campiest lines in Whatever Happened To Baby Jane. The musical director is Michael Biagi. Pierces life story, From Drags to Riches: The Untold Story of Charles Pierce was written by a former collaborator and friend, John Walraff. Haworth Gay & Lesbian Studies published it in 2002. Before his death, Pierce donated his papers to the Billy Rose Theatre Collection of the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center. For more tributes, go to http://www.bochynski.com/charlespierce

Paul Ryan: 'We're not going to give up on destroying the health care system'

Paul Ryan: 'We're not going to give up on destroying the health care system for the American people.'

LICH is Open for Care

A Brooklyn judge prevented the closure of Long Island College Hospital, because officials from the State University of New York plotted in private to close the facility, according to court documents made public last Thursday, according to DNAinfo.

Michael Bloomberg Grumpy Cat Meme

New York City mayoral candidate John Liu is the "only candidate who has called for eliminating the Police Department’s stop-and-frisk practice, and increasing the minimum wage to $11.50 per hour, significantly higher than the $9 supported by President Obama. He is also the harshest critic of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg ; he describes Mr. Bloomberg as a 'grumpy' man who 'checked out a long time ago,' ” reported The New York Times.

Strike Debt Rolling Jubilee Abolishes Over $1 Million in Medical Debt

Last night members of Strike Debt and the Healthcare for the 99 Per Cent. Working Group of Occupy Wall Street were advocating for healthcare as a human right. Their demonstration was coördinated with the announcement of a spectacular medical debt relief initiative by the Occupy Wall Street offshoot known as Strike Debt.

OWS offshoot buys and wipes out more than $1 million in medical debt

Over 1,000 randomly-selected patients in Kentucky and Indiana will receive letters in the mail stating that their emergency room debt has been forgiven by the OWS offshoot known as Strike Debt.

The purpose of the "debt buy" is to call attention to “predatory” lending aspects our debt-ridden healthcare system, according to their Web site. Strike Debt refers to its debt relief program as the "Rolling Jubilee," a reference to a Biblical era event in which all debts are cancelled and all those in bondage are set free.

If a hospital is unable to get patients to pay their medical debts, the hospital usually sells this debt to a collection agency. And since the chances of a collection agency actually receiving payment in full are pretty low at that point, the collection agency is able to snatch up the bad medical debt for a much lower price than the original amount on a patient’s bill. The collection agency then begins hounding the debtor for money non-stop in often abusive and predatory methods.

Strike Debt funded their Rolling Jubilee campaign through donations, reported The New Daily News.

On April 1, 2012, members of the Healthcare for the 99 Per Cent. Working Group of Occupy Wall Street participated in a six month anniversary of the first OWS Brooklyn Bridge march. The theme of the April 1 march was likewise planned around healthcare issues and efforts to stop hospital closings.

A year ago, healthcare and Occupy activists were concerned about the direction of healthcare under Gov. Andrew Cuomo, according to The Brooklyn Daily Eagle report.

Spirits were high and the music was spirited, but the theme of the anniversary march was sobering -- the dire state of health care for Brooklyn residents, especially those served by five hospitals in crisis: Brooklyn Hospital Center, Interfaith Medical Center, Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center, and Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center.

Wall Street financier Stephen Berger, appointed by Gov. Cuomo to be in charge of restructuring health care in Brooklyn, is recommending that New York change its laws “to allow for-profit investors to invest in financially-distressed public hospitals.”

In spite of the protests and opposition during the year that has passed, Gov. Cuomo and Mr. Berger remain as obsessed as ever with their shady plans for the introduction of for-profit healthcare in New York City.

We collectively pay billions in healthcare premiums to insurance companies, but their profit motive denies our community hospitals of resources, forcing hospitals to treat patients as debtors.

Strike Debt has planned a week of actions in connection with debt relief. One affinity action will focus on how our market-driven, debt-ridden healthcare system drives hospitals to closure.

Queens Crap Exposes New Yorkers For Parks As Shady Co-Opted Group

How phony park groups, the press and elected officials are conspiring to develop FMCP (QUEENS CRAP)

From Queens Crap :

You may have read in various articles that representatives from New Yorkers for Parks have been testifying at Community Board meetings against the USTA plan to expand inside Flushing Meadows-Corona Park and have been working with Council Member Julissa Ferreras and other elected officials to come up with "concessions" from the USTA in exchange for their alienation of public parkland.  Who are "New Yorkers for Parks" and should we trust them?

Holly Leicht

Holly Leicht:
Before becoming Executive Director of NY4P in March 2011, Holly served under Bloomberg as Deputy Commissioner for Development at the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), Prior to joining HPD, she was a Director at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, another so called public/private slush fund.
Up until now, this community/advocacy group associated with FMCP has not been going after some of the key people who are hurting the efforts to protect the park.  Let's examine why. READ MORE

Fake Christine Quinn Web Site Pushes for Paid Sick Leave

Fake Quinn Web Site Pushes for Paid Sick Leave

From True News From Change NYC :

At 11:28 a.m., an email from "Christine C. Quinn" was sent from an email address linked to a QuinnforNewYork.org. The email and that .org site are fakes. You can tell because both of them argue for passing the Paid Sick Leave bill, which the real-life Quinn is blocking from being voted on in the City Council, even though it has more than enough supporters to override a mayoral veto.(Capital New York) * Rival Campaign Capitalizes on Internet Prank Mocking Christine Quinn (NYO) * "It's not clear who was behind the fake site." [Dan Hirschhorn and Tina Moore] * In the WNYC article, the hyperlinks to both the real and fake Web site point to the fake Web site. (Fake Website Mocks Christine Quinn’s Paid Sick Leave Stance)

Christine Quinn Looks Other Way As NYPD Arrests LGBT New Yorkers With Condoms

Are NYPD violating Griswold v. Connecticut ?

Please sign our petition : Commish Kelly : Stop arresting people for carrying condoms !

Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), is a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution protected a right to privacy. The case involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives. (Wikipedia) This case overturned the 1879, Victorian era law in Connecticut that banned the use of prophylactics by couples. Fast-forward to 2013, and we find the NYPD is arresting people for carrying prophylactics. What's going on here ?

Are NYPD violating Griswold v. Connecticut ? christine-quinn-sold-out.blogspot.com/2013/03/Would-… Police arrest LGBT for carrying condoms. @glaad@nationalnow @nytimes

— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) March 11, 2013

Discriminated Against and "Profiled" by NYPD, Transgenders in New York Fear Carrying Condoms. Would Heterosexual New Yorkers be Arrested for Carrying Birth Control ?

Please sign our petition : Commish Kelly : Stop arresting people for carrying condoms !

The NYPD profiles average law-abiding New Yorkers based on age, gender, race, religion, and sexual orientation. That's nothing new.

We already know that the NYPD targets transgenders for stop-and-frisks at more than double the rate of rest of the population in some neighborhood.

The harassment of innocent people carrying condoms has now reached absurd levels that some claim that the NYPD's discriminatory use of stop and frisk and arrests over the carrying of birth control may pose a risk to public health.

"Those who have been targeted by the police, or who know people who have, are so afraid of carrying condoms that they often don't," The Village Voice has reported.

"In a 2012 study by the Sex Workers Project and the PROS Network, a New York City coalition of sex workers, organizers, and service providers, close to half of the participants reported not carrying condoms at some point out of fear of police repercussions. Among participants who identified as either transgender female or another gender identity besides male or female, the rate was a staggering 75 percent," The Village Voice has reported.

"The New York City Department of Health has been giving away free condoms since 1971, and has made condom distribution a centerpiece of its public-health program over the past six years," added The Village Voice.

"The Department of Health is flooding the city with free condoms, and the police department is using those very condoms to make the quality-of-life arrests that are clogging the courts. It is difficult to avoid the impression that the NYPD is deliberately seeking to increase quality-of-life arrests—perhaps even meet quotas—with arrests that are blatantly at odds with the city’s own public-health policy," The Village Voice has reported.

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn looks the other way, because she wants to stay in good standing with Police Commish Raymond Kelly. She puts political expediency over privacy and civil rights.

Related : SCOTUS justice Antonin Scalia suggests women have no right to contraception

Read more : Christine Quinn Betrays LGBT New Yorkers

Demonstration against hospital closings on Palm Sunday - St. John's Queens Hospital

Healthcare activists are holding a demonstration and speak-out against the debt-ridden healthcare system that drives hospitals to closure on Palm Sunday at the former site of St. John's Queens Hospital in Elmhurst. RSVP at the official Facebook event for the St. John's Queens Hospital demonstration against hospital and medical debt.

The spree of hospital closings has become an issue in this year's campaign to be New York City next mayor.

Last year, the newspaper publisher Tom Allon made news when he took out a full-page newspaper advertisement questioning the leadership of New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn during the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital.

But for all the discussion about the need to save hospitals, the conversation never seems to lead to the underlying issue of how the market-driven healthcare system leaves hospitals debt-ridden, thereby driving hospitals into bankruptcy.

Join us for a protest to stop hospital closings : 1 p.m., Sunday, March 24, 2013, at the former site of St. John's Hospital Queens : 90-02 Queens Blvd.

Subway Directions : Take the R train to Woodhaven Blvd.

This is a demonstration in affinity with #strikedebt. Fore more information about Strike Debt, please visit : http://strikedebt.org/lifeordebt/

Christine Quinn no longer advocates for LGBT liberation from de jure discrimination

Man who claimed cops beat him during gay pride party says police made multiple return visits to his home and conducted illegal searches of his apartment.

Christine Quinn, the openly lesbian Speaker of the New York City Council, used to be the director of the Anti-Violence Project. Back when she was head of AVP, Ms. Quinn used to advocate on behalf of victims of violence.

But now that Speaker Quinn is running for mayor, she is afraid to aggravate her close relationship with Raymond Kelly, the commish of the NYPD.

If LGBT New Yorkers get beat up by haters, you can count on Speaker Quinn to elbow her way in for photo opportunities. But if the haters are NYPD officers, you can count on Speaker Quinn to look the other way.

From The New York Daily News :

Jabbar Campbell — a Crown Heights man who claimed cops disabled his apartment’s security camera before beating him during his gay pride party in January now says 77th Precinct cops have since made multiple return visits to his home.

Campbell, who had already filed a notice of intent to sue the city, said plainclothes cops illegally searched his place last week. Campbell said he turned over the footage to investigators.

The Internal Affairs Bureau is investigating both incidents, police said.

Related : Crown Heights man : Cops raided my pride party and assaulted me with fists and anti-gay epithets (NYDN) * Jabbar Campbell files paperwork to sue the city for what he says was a hate crime at his gay pride party Sunday (NYDN)

Read more : Christine Quinn Betrays LGBT New Yorkers

St. John's Queens Hospital - Protest Flyer

2013-03-24 St. John's Queens Hospital - Flyer

Shane Koyczan : "To This Day" ... for the bullied and beautiful

By turn hilarious and haunting, poet Shane Koyczan puts his finger on the pulse of what it's like to be young and ... different. "To This Day," his spoken-word poem about bullying, captivated millions as a viral video (created, crowd-source style, by 80 animators). Here, he gives a glorious, live reprise with backstory and violin accompaniment by Hannah Epperson.

Shane Koyczan makes spoken-word poetry and music. His poem "To This Day" is a powerful story of bullying and survival, illustrated by animators from around the world.

Nanny Bloomberg Taiwanese animation satire viral YouTube video

Published on Mar 7, 2013

Michael Bloomberg nanny state: when will the mayor of New York City stop his madness?

At first Michael Bloomberg came for the trans fats. But we didn't eat at fast food restaurants, so we didn't say anything.

Then Michael Bloomberg came for the salt. But we only use pepper, so we didn't say anything.

Then Michael Bloomberg banned food donations to city homeless shelters. But we are not homeless, so we didn't say anything.

Then Michael Bloomberg came for the baby formula because he wants moms to breast feed. But we are not newborn babies, so we didn't say anything.

Then Michael Bloomberg restricted painkillers at city hospitals. The poor will just have to suffer a bit, he said.

Then he came for our 16-ounce sodas, forcing everyone to buy two. What a jerk!

What's next Michael Bloomberg? Let's ban all cars from the street. After all, walking is healthier than driving.

FOR MORE NEXT MEDIA ANIMATION, GO TO:
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Protest against debt-ridden healthcare system at St. John's Queens Hospital

Join us for a protest to stop hospital closings : 1 p.m., Sunday, March 24, 2013, at the former site of St. John's Queens Hospital : 90-02 Queens Blvd.

RSVP on Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/events/223995181075326/

Subway Directions : Take the R train to Woodhaven Blvd.

This is a demonstration in affinity with #strikedebt. Fore more information about Strike Debt, please visit : http://strikedebt.org/lifeordebt/

St. John's Queens Hospital has been closed for about 4 years now ; it is an example of how our debt-ridden healthcare system drives hospitals to closure. At the time of its closing, St. John's and its sister hospital had debts and losses in excess of $110 million. The healthcare infrastructure at the former St. John's Queens Hospital was lost, and it was not replaced. Meanwhile, the Emergency Room of nearby Elmhurst Hospital is overwhelmed.

Our debt-ridden healthcare system drives hospitals into closure.

Join us on Sunday, March 24 at 1 p.m., to demand that healthcare, hospital, and medical debt be absolved, so that medical emergencies stop driving hospitals -- and people -- into bankruptcy.

Please support a single-payer healthcare system, which would be a stable way to fund hospitals and healthcare.

Follow these hashtags on Twitter : #lifeordebt #strikedebt

Follow us on Twitter : @StopNYMRT

FBI ''secretly spying'' on Google users

The FBI used National Security Letters -- a form of surveillance that privacy watchdogs call “frightening and invasive” -- to surreptitiously seek information on Google users, the web giant has just revealed. (FOX News)