Testimony during Bruno's trial "suggested the Senate often looks over its shoulder in the same way the mob does," writes Danny Hakim(NYT)
1. Hidden Books Federal prosecutors said the absence of recordkeeping in the Senate was an impediment in their recent investigation of Joseph L. Bruno, the former Senate majority leader, which used subpoenas to try to pull back the veil on the notoriously secretive Legislature Prosecutors Assail Albany Record Keeping (NYT)
Lawmakers can hide their role in making politically motivated grants — known as “member items” . . . They are required to disclose almost nothing about their outside business interests
“You would think for the amount of money that’s being handed out,” said Andrew T. Baxter, the acting United States attorney for the Northern District of New York, in Albany, “there would be a process that was a little easier to sort out where the money was going and why, and who was causing it to happen.
2. Documentation Missing Lawmakers dole out hundreds of millions in grants each year, but it was often not clear which lawmaker was responsible for a particular grant. And at times there appeared to be deliberate distortions in the Senate’s records. One senator, Elizabeth O’C. Little, an upstate Republican, testified at the Bruno trial that she had no idea how she came to be listed as a sponsor of two large legislative grants in her district. The grants, totaling $250,000, went to a union local that invested pension money with a company that employed Mr. Bruno.
3. No Records The U.S. Attorney said “there is a lot of information, or a lot of decisions being made, without any paper follow-up, without any type of documentation that would allow us to say, ‘O.K., this individual has business with the state, and this individual has personal business with this part-time legislator.’ ”
4. Paying Off the Cops Michael Cherkasky, New York State’s top ethics regulator said the Assembly proposed changes to overhaul legislative ethics oversight was “doomed to fail,” in part because it would leave the Legislature to police itself. Regulator Criticizes Ethics Plan (NYT)
5. Goo Goos Clueless or Pay Off Mr. Silver’s plan has support from civic groups . In 2005 Good Government groups worked with Bruno to passing lobbying and ethic reform at the same time he was using his government position to rip off the tax payers according to federal prosecutors. It is clear that the goo goos because they support reforms proposed by legislatures are a hindrance to real reform in Albany.
More Media Blinders How did the rating firms miss the deal going on at the bankrupt Lehman Brothers or a Bear Stern, Citibank or the dozens of other banks and financial houses who destroyed the nations economy. Have these rating firms every heard of a derivative? With California and now Ohio suing the rating companies it real amazing that there is not more media coverage of what caused the economic melt down Ohio Sues Rating Firms for Losses in Funds
James Madison famously wrote in the Federalist Papers (#51), "If men were angels, no government would be necessary."
We've learned the hard way, most starkly in the Great Depression and now in the Great Recession, that men and women are anything but angels, and that government first and foremost must protect the American people from the unmitigated avarice of the private sector.
Quinn's Democracy? The city has not increased it payment to the MTA despite rising costs since the Giuliani administration. Copenhagen Mike see the bus pass crisis as a way to implement congestion pricing Seeing Politics in Plan to Cut Student Transit Aid. Sen. Brian Foley proposes a way to cut the MTA payroll tax, as the agency faces massive deficits. (Newsday$). Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, denounced the authority’s decision-making as “undemocratic.” Would it be democratic for the city to pay it fair share of the student's bus pass costs? She did not mention at her press conference or was not asked by our aggressive press about former Councilman Martinez statement "I was able to engage in these schemes because I was a New York City councilman." after he got 5 Years for Stealing $100,000 The press enables corrupt in the council when it allows the pols to continue their version of the cop's "Blue Wall of Silence," about corruption in their ranks. “Martinez betrayed his office and violated his oath of office, and did so over a prolonged period of time,” the Judge Crotty said. Would it be interesting to know what the speaker feels about Martinez and the dozens of other councilmembers who used the city's slush fund and member items to pay family members and get themselves elected. The City Council Dishonor Roll - The Shame of New York * Ex-Councilman Miguel Martinez Sentenced to 5 Years in Theft of $106,000 (NYT) From True News: Member Item Slush Fund Cover Up * Cover Up At City Hall Continues * Controlling the News: What Happen to the Council Slush Fund Investigation?]
Anyone for A City Council Member Item Slush Fund Investigation?
Corruption Non Starter If we have to depend on the City's DA to end political corruption that wait will be very long in parts of the city. The corruption comes from the same elected officials and political machines who get the DA elected. If Troopergate was not the clearest sign that we need independent prosecutors to end corruption how about the fact that the Queens and Bronx DA have never had a corruption trial. All the pols put into jail in there boroughs have be done so by the feds.Not one DA has send a council member to jail for using member items to help themselves and family member. The Feds have.Taking out the political trash: Thanks to DA Cy Vance, N.Y. could get a real public corruption law * Federal Judge to Sentence Joseph Bruno in Fraud Case
Daily News's Middle Class Schizophrenia It is no wonder the Daily News has lost 14% of its circulation in the last 6 months. Some days the editorials shout they are for keeping keeping the middle class in the city and others they attack the NY Court of Appeals for siding with the middle class tenants against being push out of building they have been living in for decades just so corporate owners can make a profit from the high pre Wall Street melt down prices they purchased they building for. The News Should be hitting Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac for giving the owners of Stuy town 1.5 billion or hit the owners for using their political power to waste middle class pension funds. Which is more important keeping the world of speculators who buy middle class building going or keeping 540,000 reads? A court out of control: Jurists impose their screwy judgment on city's rent rules ***
OTB Bankrupt: One Year Ago Paterson Claimed OTB was Permanently Fix
"The agreement ensures that the 1500 employees of the New York City OTB will keep their jobs and that the New York racing industry will continue to receive the critical financial support it gets from the New York City OTB. It is distressing to hear of the City's objection to an agreement that will meet the Mayor's long-stated demand for a permanent fix that would ensure that the City not have to subsidize New York City OTB. " June 13, 2008
Horse Head in Bed Message Again In 2007 Eliot Spitzer ruled that that the New York Racing Association (NYRA) continue to do what it’s done for more than 50 years—run thoroughbred racing at Saratoga Race Course, Belmont Park and Aqueduct. Many members in the legislature had their own campaign contributors who they want to run the state's racetracks. This split campaign contributor pay to play perks for New York's elected officials has continued with into the Paterson administration and is the main reason why a vendor for slot machines has not been chosen for Aqueduct, while the state continues to lose about a million a day in need tax revenues . State comptroller chosen by the legislature has delivered the horse head right into the bed of the NYRA, with the hope of removing them from running the tracks. This fight is about serious money, where the only winner are the elected officials on the winning side and they campaign contributors who get the contract. The public spin fight is about control. The NYRA says it was running out of cash and may be forced to cancel the storied Belmont Stakes set for June 5. DiNapoli is skeptical and wants to know what happened to the millions of taxpayer dollars the financially ailing group got while waiting to open video lottery terminals at Aqueduct. New York Racing Association will receive subpoena to turn over books to auditors in Belmont crisis *** State Comptroller Subpoenas Racing Association More Play to Pay for Albany and the lobbyist Hurdles remain for NY tribe's Long Island casino***PMNYRA responds to DiNapoli
Michael Bloomberg: “That was as close to a mandate as I think you can possibly come in a very difficult time.”
11.7% of all the registered voters voted in the city voted for Bloomberg on Tuesday. Before the paper is counted, the mayor received 548,660 out of the 4,657,516. The recent runoff does make Tuesday's vote look like a mandate. In New York the Democratic Primary is the real election, for most elective officers.. In the primary our new Comptroller John Liu received 127,173 or just 4% of the registered Democrats in the city (3,177,740) in the runoff. De Blasio did a little better with 138, 736, he got 4.4% of the city's democratic voters. John Liu was elected with just 2.7% of all the city's registered voters casting their vote for him.
How can you have a mandate when registered voters feel or become disconnected, that they don't vote? If the numbers of people participation in recent New York elections occurred in the third world, Jimmy Carter would be demanding to bring in UN inspectors.
The 1940 census reported the population of New York City to be 7,454,995. The most recent estimate from the City Planning Commission, as of July 1, 2009, gives the population of New York City as 8,363,710.Two decades before that Mayor John Francis Hylan(1921) Jimmy Walker(1925) both received 200,000 thousand more votes than Bloomberg on Tuesday. In 1921 the City's population was 620,000. The Village Voice's Wayne Barrett wonders if Bloomberg will get the message why New Yorkers are not voting? Barrett: Just How Strange and Pathetic was Bloomberg's Victory? (Village Voice)"The key question coming out of this election is whether Mike Bloomberg got the message. Can he listen to voters he'll never face again? If Bloomberg L.P took a hit like he did Tuesday, wouldn't the company take stock and make real changes?" Barrett thinks the mayor's spin operation is impenetrable as witnessed by the spin reported in today's NYPMike is psyched despite thin win . . . “The Democratic Party is winning elections by reducing turnout,” says Fred Siegel, a historian at the Cooper Union. Siegel would be more accurate by saying incumbents and what left of the political parties love light turnout so they can used their small core of loyal voters to control the vote or the political party. The NYP and the NYP have articles how the democrats are blaming each other for Paterson narrow defeat Gov blew it for Thompson: labor big(NYP) Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, said he offered Paterson and state Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs union funds to hire "a Howard Wolfson-like strong advocate" to take on Bloomberg, but that the offer was refused by Paterson Obama team goes on defensive over tepid support for Thompson*** The Morning After, Democrats Regret Lost Chances to Win(NYT) *** Thousands Failed to Vote, for Just as Many Reasons(NYT) *** Daly from the Daily News saysBloomberg won because he did what the governors of New Jersey and Virginia failed to do. Bloomberg actually made people's lives better *** The Daily News continues it tend of support for Bloombergtheir editorial talks about anger of the voters in NJ and says New Yorkers are mad also but does not attribute the closeness of the mayoral race to voter anger or quite frankly tell us how New York's election system allows voters to express anger. How can voters vote out Albany elected officials next year when most of them will not have an opponent, let alone the millions in slush fund member items that uses tax payer money to buy votes for their reelection? None of the stories today talked about how much of the media coverage was about inaccurate polls or greatly influenced by information in those polls, one of which said the mayor would win by 18%. This lack of accurate poll data allowed Democrats to line-up to endorse the mayor or stay out of the race all together, Pollsters Hit And Miss On 2009 Elections
Best and the Brightest Wasn't Voted rejected mayor's money and muscle and selling charade . . . His sophisticated strategy and tech advanced GOTV seems to be all smoke and mirrors (turnout was the lowest in modern city historyBloomberg Campaign Adds a Get-Out-the-Vote Tactician - NYTimes.com. Spending the 100 million lost the mayor votes. Voters did not buy mayor's intimidating tactics, seemingly at odds with Mr. Bloomberg’s image as a nonpolitician, like elbowing out of Representative Anthony D. Weiner . . . . Bloomberg talked about post racial city but the mayor won with the white vote . . . embarrassingly close results trickled in . . . Bloomberg's rebuke . . . $157.27 per vote for Bloomberg.” . . . Buying silence . . . Mayor's spinning continues Campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson, who can spin any failure into smashing success, declared it was "the most difficult environment for incumbents since 1994" and called Bloomberg's narrow win "an enormous victory." The mayor's victory speech made no mention of his narrow escape. Campaign kept all news off the TVs in the ballroom, even avoiding showing Thompson's concession speech. As an 11-piece band played soul and rock tunes, and Ed Koch kept the crowd going, while tuxedoed waiters passed trays of minisliders and regular hot dogs, which must have been the city's priciest - beating even Yankee Stadium's wieners. . . Hillary's people almost destroy another one Bloomberg spokesman Howard Wolfson shrugged off the close total, saying, "Whether the Yankees win in four or five or six or seven games, they are still the world champions." Jake Tapper doesn’t think Joyce Purnick’s story reads well a day later*** Bloomberg Spends $18.6M on Campaign, Feeding Staff -- Daily Intel *** Welcome to Camp Bloomberg | The New York Observer
No matter how they spin it Bloomberg did not win by 5-points, he won, so far in round numbers, 51% so obviously 49% of voters who showed up voted against him and a lot of voters voted with their feet
Bloomberg Improves his MTA Economic Forecasting Abilities Since the campaign billionaire seem to have sharpened his MTA budget forecasting skills, he now see the structural multi years problem with that agency. During the campaign he thought there was enought money to pay fo free crosstown bus service, even with the rejection of his revenue generating but not to popular in the outer boroughs congesting pricing plan. Mayor Proposes Free Crosstown Buses - NYTimes.com Now the campaign is over the Mayor got his economic grove back. On his weekly radio show Bloomberg said "People are screaming about what they do now; wait until they see what happens in March," Bloomberg told WOR's John Gambling, reiterating that this all probably could have been avoided if Albany had seen fit to go along with his congestion pricing plan. We suggested it two years ago," the mayor said. "And I don’t know the MTA would have had all its problems solved, but it would have a lot of money and could have used most of that to get more bus lines, make the subways run faster, make the subways safer." Will the MTA Destroy NYC?
State arbitrators decided the raises based on what other unions have got -- specifically, the city's DC-37. Last fall (a month after Lehman Bros. fell), Mayor Bloomberg awarded DC-37's 100,000 workers the same generous wages as the TWU later got (albeit for two years, not three) *** Bus fuss in BronxCuts to strand 1000s
No Recession in Campaign BloombergThe mayor's team ran a campaign where the city's economy almost never came up. They had the help of a willing press and a poorly run campaign by Thompson and Avella. In the NY1 debate questions about the economy were never asked. They were able to run a campaign that promised more services. For that already well paid they we get bonuses. The press will get to stay in the Blue Room and Room 9. Mike's campaign bonus babies Despite the recession and an unexpectedly slim margin of victory, Mayor Bloomberg is paying out larger bonuses to campaign staffers this year than he did in 2005 *** Bloomberg’s Election Aides Said to Get Customary Bonuses (NYT) *** Bloomberg gives $1 million in bonuses to campaign staff
Bloomberg Improves his MTA Economic Forecasting Abilities Since the campaign billionaire seem to have sharpened his MTA budget forecasting skills, he now see the structural multi years problem with that agency. During the campaign he thought there was enought money to pay fo free crosstown bus service, even with the rejection of his revenue generating but not to popular in the outer boroughs congesting pricing plan. Mayor Proposes Free Crosstown Buses - NYTimes.com Now the campaign is over the Mayor got his economic grove back. On his weekly radio show Bloomberg said "People are screaming about what they do now; wait until they see what happens in March," Bloomberg told WOR's John Gambling, reiterating that this all probably could have been avoided if Albany had seen fit to go along with his congestion pricing plan. We suggested it two years ago," the mayor said. "And I don’t know the MTA would have had all its problems solved, but it would have a lot of money and could have used most of that to get more bus lines, make the subways run faster, make the subways safer." Will the MTA Destroy NYC?
Coming Lower Manhattan WH Level Security Zone What has been localized security zone in lower Manhattan will eventually turn into a virtual lock down of the entire downtown area City blocks are locked & loaded
Gambling At Rick's Place? Yes Virginia (NYP) There is Corruption in Albany
The NYP Editorial Board continues to be clueless that the public already gets it that Albany is corrupt. The problem is New York's Afghanistan style election system designed by the leaders of Tammany Hall to keep the permanent government incumbents in power has never been reformed. As the past election proved, most city voters have just given up on changing New York's thug government and don't vote. Today the Post said " Has there ever been a more revealing clinic on public corruption than the ongoing trial of former Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno? None comes to mind."A window on the swamp. What about yesterday's NYPNearly half of Albany's pols have 2nd jobs. Not to mention wives, children or other family members on the government payroll or working for those funded by government. None of these elected officals are flipping fries at McDonalds. There working at jobs they got by using their elective office as the pleas of Brian Mclaughlin and Tony Seminario and trial of Bruno prove. There has been no reaction in the legislature, and the News writes that "the pols' silent acquiesence is yet another reason why New Yorkers must throw the bums out next fall."Update Marist Poll Voters Want Change in Albany…Senate and Assembly Approval Ratings LowSeventy-one percent of those polled said major changes are necessary at the state Capitol, while 11 percent don't believe state government can be fixed at all
Jobless New York Teflon' Pols We just gone through a mayoral campaign with almost no talk of what to do about New Yorkers losing their jobs. We now have the highest unemployment in the city in 25 years without a single pol coming up with a solution to the growing problem. Now the city is cutting jobs out of media and public sight City Hall Budget Maneuver Quietly Encourages Job Cuts
McDonalds No: Pay to Play Institutionalized Extortion in AlbanyToday's NYP says Nearly half of Albany's pols have 2nd jobs. Not to mention wives, children or other family members on the government payroll or working for those funded by government. None of these people are flipping fries at McDonalds. There working at jobs they got by using their elective office as the pleas of Brian Mclaughlin and Tony Seminario and trial of Bruno prove. "Former state Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno allegedly pitched a friend Jared Abbruzzese on a $30,000-a-month consultant job because he saw Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver making big bucks as a lawyer -- and he too wanted in on the side-gig action. "He started talking about Sheldon Silver and how Sheldon Silver was getting paid 40, 50, 60 thousand a month from the trial lawyers association," Abbruzzese, whose relationship with Bruno kicked off a far-flung FBI probe, said on the stand Pal says Bruno wanted his own 'Shel game', Clients really do Shel out $$ , Joe Bruno golf outing with Cablevision's Jim Dolan may have derailed West Side Stadium plan
