NYC : News & Analysis

Friday, February 7, 2014

Mayoral election violated PFAW's call to end corruptive influence of Citizens United on politics

People for the American Way opposes the corruptive influence of Citizens United, but, in the recent mayoral election, PFAW endorsed Bill de Blasio, who helped to win the election with the benefit of help of several Super PAC's administered or employed by the campaign consulting and lobbying firm, The Advance Group. How real is the PFAW's commitment to overturning Citizens United ? Will PFAW pressure the new mayor of New York to close municipal campaign finance loopholes, so that the effort to overturn Citizens United can be established in New York -- and then copied by other municipalities across the nation ?

From: Overturning Citizens United (alerts@pfaw.org)
Subject: Grassroots unite! (against "the next Citizens United")
Date: 7 février 2014 12:33:21 UTC-05:00
To: LF (g-Male) (lflores22@gmail.com)
Reply-To: Overturning Citizens United (alerts@pfaw.org)

Louis,

Later this month, the Supreme Court could hand down a decision in a case many have called “the next Citizens United.”

February 24 is the Court’s next decision day and if the conservative majority rules broadly in McCutcheon v. FEC -- and in favor of powerful, moneyed interests, as is their penchant -- they could deal a massive blow to the few commonsense campaign finance restrictions we have left.

All the polls, as well as elections where the issue has been on the ballot, are clear: Americans want big money and its corrupting influence OUT of politics -- not more of it in, like the Court could allow in McCutcheon.

Our coalition of pro-democracy organizations and activists is gearing up to make sure there’s a grassroots response, in cities and towns across the country, to the Court’s McCutcheon decision the day it is handed down (on Feb. 24 or after).

Please sign up now to attend an event near you, or if there’s not already an event scheduled in your area, to help organize one.

Click here to indicate your interest on the Money Out / Voters In campaign site now, and organizers will be in touch with you leading up to the decision day.

Thank you to our friends at Public Citizen for leading this effort.

And thank YOU for continuing the fight to restore Government By the PEOPLE.

Sincerely,

Ben Betz, Online Engagement Director

VIDEO : The Most Amazing Mother-Son Wedding Dance EVER

At a wedding reception, a young man starts off a slow dance with his mother. They dance to "Unforgettable," and then for some reason the music cuts out. After a brief pause, what happens next will blow you away ! After the pair finish dancing, Aaron Turner from "So You Think You Can Dance" keeps saying, "WOAH !"

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Google Changes Sochi Olympics Home Page To Protest Russia's Violent Anti-LGBT Crackdown

Google has symbolically changed its home page to draw attention to the controversial enabling of the violent anti-LGBT crackdown in Russian by the International Olympic Committee.

RELATED : International Olympic Committee praises 'magnificent' Sochi venues, dismissing concerns over law banning gay propaganda

Google Sochi Olympics Gay Pride Rainbow Colors Home Page Smacking Russia's Violent Anti-LGBT Crackdown photo ScreenShot2014-02-06at200958_zpse0490b89.png

Google's Olympics home page cited a section from the Olympic Charter that forbids discrimination :

"The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play." – Olympic Charter

The change of the "doodle" was also made by Google to its Russian homepage.

Google Changes Russian Sochi Olympics Home Page To Protest Russia's Violent Anti-LGBT Crackdown photo ScreenShot2014-02-06at202044_zps5ae8ec7d.png

Google's digital action came on the day when activists in New York orchestrated their latest protest against the violent anti-LGBT crackdown in Russia. Activists acting in solidarity with the group Queer Nation NY staged a protest outside the Russian consulate in Manhattan one day before the opening ceremonies of the Sochi Olympics.

Ever since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a violent anti-LGBT crackdown in Russia, LGBT activists have been staging protests world-wide in the time leading up to the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

Taking out Melissa Mark-Viverito’s trash

Ethics watchdogs slam sanitation man for simple tip while ignoring speaker’s violations.

Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito broke a lot of rules, but paid no price.

From the Editorial Board of The New York Daily News :

Twenty-four years on the job couldn’t protect Sanitation worker Lenworth Dixon when he pocketed a measly $20 tip from a grateful homeowner last fall.

For taking the gratuity — a reward for helping to remove an extra-heavy load of furniture and wood — Dixon was forced by the Conflicts of Interest Board to retire, as well as to fork over a $1,500 fine. Rough justice.

Which brings us to Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito.

In her campaign for the speakership, Mark-Viverito accepted free services from the Advance Group, a political consulting firm that also maintains a lobbying practice. That’s a violation of the city’s gift ban as well as the ban on lobbyist giving.

When exposed, she switched to Pitta Bishop Del Giorno & Giblin, a lobbying law firm. While she paid them, did she underpay?

She also hid years of personal rental income from the conflicts board. The City Council didn’t care and still unanimously elected her as speaker.

Yesterday, the same City Council approved Mark Peters as the new Department of Investigation commissioner. A Friend of Bill (de Blasio), he served as the mayor’s campaign treasurer.

In 2010, Peters, put on the state ethics panel by his friend Gov. David Paterson, voted to impose a record $62,125 fine on Paterson for taking Yankees World Series tickets worth $2,125.

Peters rightly hit Paterson for soliciting and receiving a gift from a lobbyist with business before the government — just like Mark-Viverito did.

Will Peters and conflicts board Chair Nick Scopetta hammer a trash hauler while letting a powerful speaker skate?

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Bill de Blasio : Vision Zero on Dissent and Checks-and-Balances

Dissent is one way for voters to keep a check on the power of Mayor Bill de Blasio's new administration.

No ranking city official can keep a check on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio keeps repeating that he is a "progressive." It's as if the more times he says it, the more likely voters will believe him without demanding from him the fundamental reforms we voted for in the change election of last November.

Left to his own devices, the mayor will only answer to his small group of political insiders, as he demonstrated with the controversial appointment of William Bratton to succeed Ray Kelly as NYPD police commissioner. Meanwhile, voters have expectations that the mayor will fulfill on his campaign themes of being the anti-Bloomberg mayor. Three top areas where voters are still waiting to see reforms enacted are at the NYPD (such as ending controversial tactics, such as the use of excessive force) ; the provision of adequate funding that will save all of New York City's full-service hospitals ; and ending the corruptive role of money and lobbyists in local elections.

Nobody is asking why, for example, does it seem that under the mayor's new traffic safety plan known as Vision Zero, the mayor seems to want to achieve lower traffic accidents by trading up for more police brutality. The city agencies charged with overseeing investigations into possible wrong-doing by lobbyists, including the lobbying firm The Advance Group, answer in part to the mayor and to City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito -- two officials who have close political ties to The Advance Group. Because of this inherent conflicts of interest such as these, there's no way for the city to regulate lobbyists that do business with elected officials. City government must adopt realistic reforms to restore integrity to campaign finance and to elections. One way to do that, for example, would be for the city to legally challenge the application of Citizens United to local elections. On top of that, true separation of powers and checks-and-balances must exist in city government. Dissent, a form of political speech that is crucial to the full representation of all citizens, is discouraged by the de Blasio-Mark-Viverito administration. After Councilmember Rosie Mendez backed the wrong candidate in the Council speaker race, she was punished by a demotion that stripped her of a committee leadership post. Councilmember Mendez should not be penalized for speaking up for political convictions.

Just this week, the mayor announced that he will allow uniformed city employees to march in the discriminatory St. Patrick's Day parade, even though the parade organizers discriminate against LGBT participants. Allowing city employees to mark in their uniforms lends the city's approval to the anti-LGBT discrimination by the parade, and it allows city employees, notably firefighters and police offices, to propagandize the parade with official presence. Separately, LGBT groups have begun protesting against the controversial new police commissioner -- even though he serves a "progressive" mayor ! To LGBT New Yorkers, their experience of police attitudes remains today eerily similar to the harsh attitudes of the last police commissioner. Even on the day of his ceremonial inauguration, Mayor de Blasio was the subject of a protest by members of the AIDS advocacy group ACT UP over his refusal to meet with activists to create a city-wide AIDS agenda. And New York City community hospitals remain in dire straits, the same as they did under the previous mayor, conditions for which Mayor de Blasio previously faulted former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. There is no oversight or call for accountability for the new mayor to address the issues that he is neglecting.

RELATED : Watching the Political Chess Pieces Move on the $10 billion New York State Medicaid Waiver

Everybody, including the federal prosecutor, is looking to the media for help to keep elected officials accountable. But one major reporter admitted that the media did not fully scrutinize the mayor during last year's campaign. Who can keep the mayor accountable ? Voters can.

Already, one group of activists have formed a protest group, New Yorkers Against Bratton. If you want to organize to increase political pressure on the mayor and the NYPD commissioner to adopt meaningful police reforms, this is a great group to join. Some police reforms that remain outstanding include recommendations made by the NYCLU following the massive 2003 anti-war protest and the 2004 Republic National Convention.

Voters need to be proactive about getting informed on issues, staying involved with government, and demanding the reforms they thought that they were voting for in the last election. If no ranking city official will dissent from the mayor's blatant power grabs, then the voters must come forward and express their displeasure. Dissent is one way to keep a check on the new administration's power.

Mannequins Modeled After People with Scoliosis and Brittle Bone Disease

Inspirational video showing a body form maker producing new mannequins modeled after people with missing limbs or with bone maladies. These new mannequins were put on display in the windows of a fashion store in Zurich, Switzerland. How the models and window shoppers reacted to the new mannequins tells us a lot about human nature. The touching video was made by Pro Infirmis as part of its «Because who is perfect?» campaign.

My Facebook account was hacked

One of my Facebook friends posted a link that showed how you could tell if your Facebook account has been hacked, and I checked my privacy settings, and, sure enough, my Facebook account was nominally logged into in an unauthorized session from some mysterious town in Texas.

Monday, February 3, 2014

Watching the Political Chess Pieces Move on the $10 billion New York State Medicaid Waiver

UPDATED : $10 billion truth serum (The New York Daily News * 03 Feb 2014)

The political machinations at play over Cuomo's reëlection pork slush fund

Last month, New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo insulted Republicans by saying that "extreme conservatives" of the GOP had no place in New York state. How can Gov. Cuomo insult the political party that controls the House, which controls federal funding ? Ideological differences aside, the political reality is that Gov. Cuomo should keep the state on good terms with Republicans in order to "work the system," seeing as he is such a political insider, especially given how Gov. Cuomo is waiting on $10 billion in federal Medicaid funds to divert into pork projects in this year's budget to fluff his reëlection campaign. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is absolutely correct is not wanting to cross the GOP on this Medicaid waiver, because setting the frank realities aside (Like, who exacerbated the hospital closing crisis but Cuomo himself !!), why would the GOP want to see the Obama administration give a $10 billion re-electioneering slush fund to Gov. Cuomo after Gov. Cuomo just trashed the GOP ? If Obama/Sebelius have total discretion over approving this waiver, then President Obama may pay the price with amped-up vitriol from the GOP. It seems like Gov. Cuomo was flat out stupid to insult the GOP. Unless he was trying to score cheap political points by just using extremist talk, like one of my friends told me the other day . Even then, it was stupid.

RELATED : Washington Politics Threaten 10 billion Cuomo Reelection Pork Slush Fund Spending (New York magazine * 29 Jan 2014)

There could be more than just normal beastly Washington politics causing the delay in the Medicaid waiver. If you want to really look behind the curtain, you might find former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's people causing the delay, too. President Obama supports Mrs. Clinton in her presumed campaign for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, so the last thing President Obama would want to do is to help prop up Gov. Cuomo's reëlectioneering pork plans with the $10 billion Medicaid waiver that Gov. Cuomo plans to turn into a slush fund. These monies are purported to be "savings," but they are in fact money that was gutted from Medicaid from the poorest people, preventing them from being able to access full-service hospital, comprehensive medical, or Level 1 Trauma care in times of emergency. Cuomo's plans for these monies have nothing to do with helping to fund Obamacare expansion plans, but, instead, to dole out for his reëlection campaign purposes. He is sleazy like that, and there's no way to expect that Gov. Cuomo will do the right and honorable thing with this kind of windfall. And Mrs. Clinton's people know that, too, and if you were Mrs. Clinton, why would you want to see your primary challenger make use of a $10 billion slush fund like that ? Mrs. Clinton's machine is slowly taking back control of the DNC, so there's that added motivation to block/cut the waiver, too.

UPDATED : New York may have to give back some Medicaid funding (Capital New York * 03 Feb 2014)

Added to the political pressures on the $10 billion waiver is New York City mayor Bill de Blasio's tax hike for the rich. If the $10 billion is delayed or cut, then Gov. Cuomo will not have the money to fund the mayor's expansion of pre-kinder classes as he had promised, making it easier for Mayor de Blasio to argue that he needs his tax increase. Mayor de Blasio is also doing his best to see to it that Mrs. Clinton comes out on top of Gov. Cuomo, so the mayor has a partial motivation to see to it that the Medicaid waiver is delayed or cut, even to the detriment of NYC hospitals.

Bill de Blasio says Hillary Clinton would make a GREAT President.
— Gloria Pazmino (@GloriaPazmino) January 30, 2014

RELATED : Friction Between de Blasio, Cuomo is Early Posturing for 2016 (Battery Park TV * 22 Jan 2014)

At the joint appearance by the mayor and governor, the governor and the mayor only committed to preserving emergency care in Brooklyn -- (the same bait-and-switch talk that former Council Speaker Christine Quinn shifted to regarding St. Vincent's) -- and the governor and mayor specifically refused to say that they'd save "full-service" hospital care. So, that $10 billion isn't going to be used to save Interfaith Medical Center or Long Island College Hospital as we would all like to see. The only way that Mayor de Blasio would go along with pressuring Secretary Sebelius to make good on the whole $10 billion waiver is if Gov. Cuomo promised to share some of that slush fund with NYC -- which we already know will not be used to save Brooklyn hospitals. The mayor is under tremendous budgetary pressure to deliver on approximately $7 billion in union contracts, and he needs all the money he can get.

The dark side question is : are "Leftists" really trusting the governor and the mayor to let some of that $10 billion trickle down to voters ? It's been my argument that, since I saw James Capalino campaign for BDB, the de Blasio administration would be controlled by lobbyists. Lobbyists are going to instruct the governor and the mayor on how to spend that money. My darkest fear is the people will not benefit from the money at all. Maybe the unions will get better contracts, but people who don't have lobbyists working for them will get nothing. As it is, the karma of this money is already questionable, since it represents Medicaid healthcare cuts to the poorest New Yorkers.

Lastly, I want to point out that President Obama himself may want to delay or cut the $10 billion. The president's administation has been a complete disaster. His last saving grace is to try to take credit for the rise of the (fake (read : no-reform)) progressivism that's emerging out of the new crop of (poser) politicians in New York City. President Obama himself may want to delay or cut the Medicaid waiver so that he can take credit for an income tax hike on the 1% for which the mayor is lobbying. The tax hike is a good thing, but all these backroom machinations and other mixed-motivations are what are at play. There's no way to predict what will happen, because these pieces keep moving....

SIDEBAR : If Staten Island Congressman Michael Grimm leaves office, the GOP will have less reason to care about New York. I hate myself for thinking like this, but we actually need a powerplayer GOP politician in New York to help focus the GOP on the dire economics of New York state. If we go completely blue, why would the GOP-controlled House care about us anymore ? President Obama's too weak to lead the Democrats to take back control of the House this November, so we are stuck with the GOP for the next few years. Insulting them doesn't work, not when Gov. Cuomo has his hands out, begging for a slush fund.

Sunday, February 2, 2014

"Putin" protest song by Dolly Bellefleur adds to global LGBT YouTube campaign against Russia's violent anti-LGBT crackdown

The performer Dolly Bellefleur sang a protest song "Putin" in Amsterdam last year mocking the violent anti-LGBT crackdown taking place in Russia. The song, with lyrics set to the music from the hit song "Rasputin" by the world-famous European band Boney M, substitutes Putin for Rasputin using some clever turns of phrases. Nobody can bring ingenuity and creativity to protest songs like the LGBT community.

I think some santorum is leaking out of Vladimir Putin's Sochi !

A musical act calling itself "Potpourri of Pearls" has released a song and an accompanying music video that sets to appropriate a gay sex definition to the term "Sochi," the Russian resort town site of the controversial Winter Olympics. Makers of the music video apparently hope to bring media attention to the violent anti-LGBT crackdown taking place in Russia under President Vladimir Putin in a fashion similar to how LGBT activists used the Internet in a neologism campaign to appropriate a new meaning to the word "Santorum," the latter in an effort of Internet protest against anti-LGBT bigot Rick Santorum, the former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania.

Makers of the video now hope to redefine the name of the host Olympics city as :

Sochi (sô′chĭ) n. A delightful anus v. To do butt sex

Ever since President Putin launched a violent anti-LGBT crackdown in Russia, LGBT activists have been staging protests world-wide in the time leading up to the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

NYC Political Reporters Admit They Didn't Scrutinize Bill de Blasio, Still Give Themselves High Journalistic Marks

You believe that there's nothing wrong, because that's what the media tells you in the newspapers. But watch them in this frank panel discussion, to hear some backchannel realness.

CUNY journalism director Greg David moderated a panel discussion on Nov. 19, 2013, amongst several reporters about the quality of the journalism coverage during the 2013 New York City mayoral campaign. The reporters, who took part on the panel, were Brian Lehrer of WNYC, Errol Louis of NY1, Joel Siegel of The New York Daily News, Kate Taylor of The New York Times, and Maggie Haberman of Politico. They were joined by two political insiders : Stu Loesser, the former spokesman for outgoing Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Scott Levenson, a lobbyist who administered a controversial $1 million Super PAC.

The self-congratulatory media panel, embedded with two political operatives to keep reporters in check, tell you that the media did a good job of reporting the truth during the mayoral campaign, even though the consensus that night was that the media failed at scrutinising Bill de Blasio's candidacy.

These major political reporters were asked to grade their own coverage of the 2013 NYC mayoral election, and their shocking answers will give you an idea about why voters are kept in the dark about serious problems with the corruptive influence of money and lobbyists in politics, as well as the growing problem of public corruption in city government. The reality is that voters are kept in the dark about these issues, and the media admits it doesn't scrutinize politicians. They even hate the word "vet."

Watch as Mr. Siegel says, "I think, collectively, the media saw 20 years of Republican and Republican/Independent rule and thought that was the norm -- where the norm really is this is a city that voted 80% for Barack Obama. It's a very liberal city, and we all sort of -- I believe -- misread how serious a contender Bill de Blasio really was from the very beginning. I don't think he got the scrutiny from the beginning that Chris Quinn got or Bill Thompson got."

Here are now the reporters scored their own political journalism :

REPORTER (OR POLITICAL OPERATIVE)	SCORE OF JOURNALISM PERFORMANCE (10 BEING THE HIGHEST)

Brian Lehrer, WNYC	7.0

Errol Louis, NY1	8.0

Joel Siegel, The New York Daily News	5.5

Kate Taylor, The New York Times	8.0

Maggie Haberman, Politico	7.0

Sue Loesser, former spokesman to Mayor Michael Bloomberg	9.0

Scott Levenson, political operative	9.0

Mother Russia : Anti-LGBT Crackdown Parody Musical Video

Dimitri and Mikhail, two Russians, narrate a hilarious musical parody of the violent anti-LGBT crackdown in Russia. The video is going viral, and it lampoons the Sochi Olympics, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and even Russia's macho national sport : ballet.

Ever since President Putin launched a violent anti-LGBT crackdown in Russia, LGBT activists have been staging protests world-wide in the time leading up to the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

Friday, January 31, 2014

On Checks-And-Balances and the Disappearance Of Dissent in NYC Politics

The Sheriff in Town is Looking for Deputies, but No Deputies Agree to Step Forward. It's Almost Straight Out of "High Noon."

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara is Gary Cooper in "High Noon," the 1952 Western film that happens to be one of the best American movies ever made. In the film, Mr. Cooper portrayed a small-town sheriff, who just got married and was about to go on his honeymoon when a band of thieves ride into town with corrupt plans to unite with another bandit and then set out to attempt to murder the town's law enforcement.

As with Mr. Cooper in the movie, Mr. Bharara finds that he's the sole law man in this dust bowl with an intention to fight corruption. How long before Mr. Bharara becomes dispirited and just plain ditches his tin badge into the dirt road and climbs into a carriage and rides off into the sunset ?

Last fall, Mr. Bharara had noted that investigative journalism had been on the decline by the old, established media. Counteracting this trend was the spread of online news Web sites, which were acting to revive the investigative journalism needed to combat corruption.

Here in New York City, enterprise journalism is easily slain with rigorous daily news conferences on snow removal. @Mediaite
— de Blasio Sold Out (@deBlasioSoldOut) January 22, 2014

The power of the press to hold elected officials accountable is one of the most powerful gears in the political machine that runs our government ; it's the reason the media has come to be known as the fourth estate. The power of the press can compliment his own work to fight corruption. Wise as he is beyond his age, Mr. Bharara knows the limitations of his office. Three months after Mr. Bharara expressed optimistic views of online journalism, he complained about the budget cuts imposed on the U.S. Attorney's Office that deny federal prosecutors the full resources to fight public corruption.

In a strange twist of fate, one of the Editorial Board members of The New York Times groused that a state corruption investigation panel didn't do the kind of thorough investigative journalism typically expect from The New York Times itself. What a zany Catch-22 ?

If the sheriff of New York City is counting on the media to investigate corruption, and some of the establishment media is counting on a state panel to investigate corruption, and the government is cutting the budget of the dust bowl's sole sheriff, where does that leave us ?

Ostensibly, Mr. Bharara isn't the sole sheriff in town. There are also city and state agencies that have some authority to investigate public corruption. When it comes to the undue influence of money and lobbyists in politics, the city is supposed to turn to the Campaign Finance Board, the Conflicts of Interest Board, and possibly the Department of Investigations. But the board members of the Campaign Finance Board and the Conflicts of Interest Board are appointed either by the mayor, the Council speaker, or the City Council, or a combination thereof. The nominee to head the Department of Investigations, Mark Peters, is a long-time close personal friend of the mayor, so close, in fact, that he has been the mayor's long time campaign treasurer. If campaign corruption involves any of the elected officials, who appoint these panels' board members, then there's no way to independently investigate allegations of misconduct, because these three city agencies answer in some form to either the mayor, the Council speaker, or the City Council.

When one of the lobbyists connected to Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito became implicated in managing a controversial $1 million Super PAC at the same time when the lobbyist was managing independent campaigns, which appeared to be benefiting from the Super PAC's spending, the Campaign Finance Board was sign to be investigating the circuitous flow of campaign money. But when the same lobbyist firm provided free lobbying services to Councilmember Mark-Viverito's speakership campaign, The New York Daily News urged the Conflicts of Interest Board to investigate the relationship. When it became apparent that The Advance Group had close ties to the mayor and the new Council speaker, both of whom have oversight over both the Campaign Finance Board and the Conflicts of Interest Board, the matter was referred to the U.S. Attorney's Office for review. The article, by the enterprising reporter Jill Colvin, followed other articles in which Ms. Colvin examined the role of big business interests and lobbyists in the new mayor's gargantuan $2 million transition team funding.

More and more, the media, in whom the last sheriff standing relies, is waking up to the blatant power grabs, conflicts of interest, and lack of oversight in the de Blasio-Mark-Viverito administration. Earlier this week, Morgan Pehme wrote an editorial column for the publication City & State casting doubts about the independence of the mayor's nominee to head the Department of Investigations. At the DOI nominee's hearing, Councilmember Inez Dickens pulled out the City & State editorial, saying that "serious issues" raised in the column make her believe that Mark Peters, the nominee, would not be independent enough from the mayor. Mr. Peters has had a close working relationship with the mayor for two decades.

Further complicating Mr. Peters' role at DOI will be the fact that under the Community Safe Act bills passed last year to reform, in part, the scandal-laden New York Police Department, the DOI chief will need to appoint an Inspector General, who is expected to independently oversee the NYPD.

There's no way that Mark Peters can be independent. He's going to pick WFP or ACORN #yesman to be #NYPD monitor. Not good. @GloriaPazmino
— Louis Flores (@maslowsneeds) January 30, 2014

But at his confirmation hearing, Mr. Peters said he would let the mayor have “significant input” in the selection of the new NYPD Inspector General. The DOI's role is to be independent of the mayor, and yet here again (as with the Speaker's race), another source for checks-and-balances on the mayor is going to be corrupted.

Some activists to the Left of the mayor have been critical of the mayor's reappointment of William Bratton to be NYPD commissioner. (Many activists believe the controversial appointment was made in contravention to Mr. de Blasio's campaign promises to "end stop-and-frisk era" and possibly as a give-back to the big business establishment and real estate developers, who worry that any imaginary uptick in crime would lead to a collapse of the stratospheric, high-end real estate market for luxury condos in New York.) Now that the NYPD Inspector General is going to be picked with the mayor's blessing, activists wonder where's the independent oversight of the police department is going to come from ?

Many of the mayor's early enablers counter that the mayor campaigned to be the "anti-Bloomberg" "progressive" Democrat, but already in the mayor's first month in office, the relatives of innocent New Yorkers, who had been killed by NYPD officers, have joined activists to protest the Bratton appointment. These sets of early protests have brought to the fore the police department's refusal to examine the many other areas in need of reform : from the NYPD's overuse of brutality and unnecessary gun violence against civilians, the impotent Civilian Complaint Review Board, the conflicted Internal Affairs Bureau, the over-militarization of the police force, the continued religious profiling and stalking of innocent Muslims, among many other issues. What is more, on the same day when the mayor announced that he was dropping the city's appeal of the landmark stop-and-frisk ruling, approximately 100 LGBT activists protested the lack of justice in the hate crime beating death of Islan Nettles. Two weeks ago, the police department made global news when it was reported that the police used physical violence against an 84-year-old man for jaywalking.

One of the mayor's most visible enablers, besides the new Council speaker, is Tish James, the city's new publicly-elected Public Advocate. However, she owes her entire political career to the Working Families Party, the same political party co-founded by the mayor, and whose political operatives now double as lobbyists in their effort to silence or demobilise opposition to the mayor. Besides the Campaign Finance Board, the Conflicts of Interest Board, and the Department of Investigations, the office of the Public Advocate is supposed to be our last line of defense against the unchecked powers of the mayor. But she's already in his pocket.

When it's said that we need a check-and-balance on the mayor, it's necessary to understand what one's motivation is in wanting to place a restraint on the mayor. Right now, the big business community and their lobbyists want to hold back the mayor's plan to place a tiny tax increase on the most wealthy. To do that, you can see the chess pieces move, for example, as big business interests put pressure on our neoliberal governor to deliver a small amount of state tax resources to the wily mayor in order to make it politically convenient for the mayor to forego the tax hike for the very rich. But why would grassroots activists, at the opposite end of the political spectrum from big business interests, want to place a check on the mayor ? What possible motive could grassroots activists have ?

LGBT are protesting NYPD as if Ray Kelly were still commish. http://t.co/gYARs0ubCh Where is that progressive mayor ? #IslanNettles
— de Blasio Sold Out (@deBlasioSoldOut) January 31, 2014

Will the Mayor betray healthcare activists the same way he betrayed police reform activists ?

Without a public advocate-like government officials keeping a check on the mayor's powers, there will be no way to stop the mayor from carrying out the wishes of the permanent government players that always have a say in what government does, regardless of who holds elected office. Big business groups, sometimes organised like chambers of commerce-like groups like the Partnership For New York City, or organised like civic-minded groups like the Association for a Better New York, are pools of sharks infested with hacks and lobbyists for big business interests. You are already seeing their influence in some of the mayor's early actions because of the early start they got in helping to elect the mayor. As susceptible as former Speaker Quinn was to the influence of lobbyists herself, she was absolutely right in pointing out that when the mayor was only a candidate, he refused to release information about all the meetings he had with lobbyists. "Bill de Blasio has shown that he is quite consistent -- at talking out of both sides of his mouth," said Ms. Quinn's spokesman, Mike Morey, adding, "He rails against real estate and professes transparency -- except for when he is raising money from the industry and secretly meeting with its lobbyists." Another early indicator that the mayor's campaign had been compromised by lobbyists was their very role in his campaign. The corrupt real estate lobbyist James Capalino was an early supporter, raising warning flags about duplicity in the mayor's campaign about the controversial closing of St. Vincent's Hospital. As a candidate, the mayor denounced the closing of that hospital and others ; meanwhile, Mr. Capalino was handsomely paid by the real estate developers, who basically foreclosed on the hospital in order to raze it as part of a controversial $1 billion complex of luxury condominiums and townhouses. There was an even greater role for lobbyists to play in fundraising when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton helped to raise $1 million in campaign money for the mayor for his November general election at a tony fundraiser that took place at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Very powerful lobbyists served on the organizing committee of that fundraiser, which was unprecedented for the amount of money it raised. Later reporting showed that lobbyists, including the disgraced lobbyist Stanley Schlein, were also serving on or raising money for the mayor's transition team. The unrestricted flow of lobbyist money of this scale doesn't get given without strings attached. The influence that money from big business lobbyists is having on the mayor can be seen in how the mayor is altering his tune when it comes to saving two hospitals on the verge of closure : Long Island College Hospital (LICH) and Interfaith Medical Center, both in Brooklyn, that have been targeted for closure by Gov. Cuomo's healthcare cuts hatchet man, the Wall Street banker Stephen Berger.

cognitive dissonance : an inconvenient truth -vs- a reassuring lie : propaganda -vs- media ethics photo an-inconvenient-truth_zpsfed7b5e4.jpg

At a joint meeting, the mayor and the governor "carefully avoided saying that Brooklyn hospitals would be maintained at their current sizes," the biased reporter for The New York Times, Anemona Hartocollis, wrote, adding that Gov. Cuomo had said at the meeting that there were “excess hospital beds in Brooklyn” that needed to be eliminated. Even though her role in the community is as a reporter, Ms. Hartocollis appeared on a radio show in 2010 to oppose any deal to save St. Vincent's Hospital. The mayor campaigned for office on a promise to save hospitals from closing, and after he appointed the corrupt political opportunist Stanley Brezenoff to his inner circle of advisers, all of a sudden now the mayor is backing off his promise to save full-service hospital care in Brooklyn. Mr. Brezenoff has a checkered past and a controversial record. In the early 1980's, he served as chief of the city's Health and Hospitals Corporation under then Mayor Ed Koch when the city's hospitals failed to respond to the early outbreak of the AIDS pandemic. He milked LICH dry of its endowment fund, and he later opposed a deal to save St. Vincent's Hospital, too. "Under Brezenoff’s management, Continuum had a prior history of selling property of other hospitals under their jurisdiction," reported The Red Hook Star. It's painful to see how just a couple weeks following the announcement of Mr. Brezenoff's appointment, all of a sudden the mayor is turning his back on his past promises to save Brooklyn hospitals. But all this is a function of the undue influence of big business interests and their teams of political operatives that now guide the mayor's policies. With no check on the mayor, big businesses are already winning this early into the new mayor's term.

Even though consequences of hospital closings are longer transport, ER wait times, and even deaths. http://t.co/z398obZ5IO @anemonanyc
— StopNYMRT (@StopNYMRT) January 28, 2014

Adding to the Lack of Checks on the Mayor's Powers, the First Lady Will Oversee A Large Private Fund of Discretionary Civic Projects

The same Conflicts Of Interest Board, which one critic said was too close to the mayor to be an impartial arbiter of ethics compliance, has given the mayor's wife its approval, allowing her to serve as the unpaid chair of the board of directors of the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City.

Overseeing discretionary community funding seems ripe for politicalization, like Council slush fund. @maggiepolitico @SallyGold @Chirlane
— Bold Progress NYC (@boldprogressnyc) January 31, 2014

Chirlane McCray, the First Lady, will have oversight over a large private fund that will be "in substantial sense a surrogate for the mayor," The Conflicts of Interest Board ruled, excepting that there will be no oversight, real or pretend, of the First Lady's functions as board chair.

The Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City raises millions of private monies each year for civic projects that circumvent, for example, the transparency and other compliance regulations, such as they exist, for the Council speaker's slush fund. In past years, the Council speaker's slush fund has been a source of corruption charges where discretionary funds have been used, at times, for political retribution and even bribes, among other criminal intentions. That the First Lady will now oversee a similar fund, but with no oversight, should raise a red flag for possible politicalization of community project funding, as has been charged for some projects that have received allocations from the Council speaker's fund. But this far, none of the large good government groups have questioned the First Lady's role with the Mayor's Fund.

Wavering faith in the media, when political operatives and war rooms shepherd the news cycle, leaving voters uninformed at best, or deceived, at worst.

Good government groups won't challenge the potential for corruption in all of the unchecked power grabs by the mayor and his wife, but the media goes overboard in what appears to be a coördinated campaign to take down New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie, who is believed to be a prospective if undeclared candidate for the 2016 GOP presidential primary. Prior to the George Washington Bridge scandal, Gov. Christie had been a formidable rival to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is believed to be the presumptive 2016 Democratic presidential primary nominee. Another Republican political scandal, that in which Staten Island Congressman Michael Grimm was caught on tape assaulting and threatening battery to a political reporter, reveals that politicians make use of intimidation to shut down politically embarrassing or damaging reporting. Intimidation was seen as a motivation when the troubled lobbyist Scott Levenson telephoned an LGBT blogger and activist in what was seen as an attempt to thwart new media reporting of Mr. Levenson's questionable financial and political backroom dealings.

Which brings us back to Mr. Bharara's hopes that the spread of online news Web sites will carry the day. But that presupposes that voters are actually tuning in. As it is, the mayor has manufactured a low voter turn-out rate of 24% of an already low voter registration rate to represent a blank check political mandate that is now being translated into open power grabs at every turn.

Noam Chomsky photo Noam-Chomsky_zps93db4798.jpg

Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice, one of the co-chairs of the do-nothing Moreland Commission, is leaving law enforcement for the seeming glamour of DC politics in Congress. With the compromised situation that Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance finds himself, where for unexplained (and unreported) reasons he refuses to prosecute public corruption cases, the burden must be carried by our sole, courageous sheriff, Mr. Bharara.

The municipal elections of last November were the first time that the corruptive influence of Citizens United tainted local races. But the media has yet to fully examine the funneling of money into Super PACs. And, as we have seen, the media essentially left unchallenged the mayor's campaign theme of "a tale of two cities," even though the mayor's campaign contributors were virtually interchangeable for some of the city's most influential lobbyists and big business interests. We are only one month into the new administration of the mayor. There is still time for deputies to come forward, else continued voter complacency will only allow big business interests and lobbyists to complete their takeover of our government.

RELATED : Bill de Blasio, New York Liberals, and the Veal Pen (Updated)

Let's hope the voters of New York City care enough to get involved, come out from hiding in their "veal pens," and do not end up like the do-nothing townspeople in "High Noon."

You believe that there's nothing wrong, because that's what the media tells you in the newspapers. But watch them in this frank panel discussion, to hear some backchannel realness.

And so now we've come full circle : part of the reason that Sheriff Preet is relying on new media Web sites is that he partly needs new ways for voters to become informed about government corruption. Because if the old media won't tell you, who will ?

Thursday, January 30, 2014

What does dropping NYC stop-and-frisk appeal change about NYPD discrimination ?

From: Louis Flores
Subject: Stop-And-Frisk Appeal
Date: 30 janvier 2014 21:31:53 UTC-05:00
To: thecall@ny1.com

Before Bill de Blasio dropped the appeal today, he had said that stop-and-frisk was no longer a problem, because Bloomberg and Kelly had already lowered it. Dropping the appeal was good, but what really changed ?

Today's press conference overshadowed the nomination hearing of the new Department of Investigations chief, who said that the mayor will have an input in deciding who the new NYPD Inspector General will be. Also overshadowed today was a protest outside NYPD, calling for justice in the beating death of a Islan Nettles, a transgender woman of color.

The whole fight for NYPD reform began because we need independent oversight of the police. Dropping the appeal changes nothing, because it was already a fait accompli.

Bill de Blasio and Bill Bratton are already acting as if there will be no real police oversight, even as the community continues to demand justice for minorities.

Louis Flores
Jackson Heights

Jimmy Van Bramer Queens Public Library Corruption Backlash

Where have been your independent oversight and "very tough questions" in respect of @QueensLibrary ? http://t.co/opVe4ZErb1 @JimmyVanBramer
— Bold Progress NYC (@boldprogressnyc) January 27, 2014

Last week, New York City Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside) was interviewed by NY1 concerning his new appointment as Majority Leader for the City Council.

In the interview, the new Majority Leader bragged that he worked for 11 years for the Queens Public Library as a community organizer, adding that he "really, really believes in good government." In the interview, Councilmember Van Bramer added that he cared about libraries, noting that he considered cultural services "dear" to his heart and to the heart of Queens.

However, muckraking journalist Juan Gonzalez published a scathing report in The New York Daily News on Monday, detailing how the library's president Thomas Galante was paid more than $390,000.00 and wasted $140,000.00 to renovate his offices at the Central Library. Meanwhile, the library president cut nearly 130 library jobs over the past five years.

When Councilmember Van Bramer learned about the scandal at the Queens Public Library, he figuratively hit the roof, telling The New York Daily News on Tuesday that, "It hurts the library in so many ways to have this happen, which just infuriates me," adding, "We need to ask the tough questions and get the answers about the nature of this spending."

The New York Daily New report noted that the City Council planned to hold a hearing into the Queens Public Library's financial scandal.

But by Wednesday, Councilmember Van Bramer had triggered controversy in his own right over his demand for controlling the City Council hearing. Some of his fellow councilmembers from Queens "questioned whether his ties to the Queens Library would compromise his ability to conduct a hearing on the library's finances," The New York Daily New reported. Mr. Van Bramer used to work for the Queens Public Library president.

“Who are you to question my integrity ?” the new Majority Leader reportedly shouted at Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley (D-Middle Village) after she raised concerns about the Majority Leader's objectivity. “How dare you ?" Councilmember Van Bramer demanded before he accused Councilwoman Crowley of bieng out of line. "You’re out of place and out of order,” he said.

If Councilmember Van Bramer is allowed to conduct the City Council's investigation into the Queens Public Library's finance scandal, he will join the new Council speaker in a murky new world of conflicts of interest in the City Council.

In the time leading up to her selection as Council speaker, Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito created controversy herself over the possibility that she had violated city ethics rules after Councilmember Mark-Viverito had accepted free campaign lobbying services from The Advance Group.