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The Political ECG Lead Has Flatlined When It Comes To Saving Hospitals In New York City

2012-01-30T19:16:00.003-05:00

In the 21 months since St. Vincent's Hospital has closed, our political leaders have showed no activity to prevent hospital closings in New York City.

A Beth Israel ambulance was stuck in traffic in front
of a closed hospital in the West Village of Manhattan.

Five hospitals in Brooklyn are in danger of closing, according to The New York Times : Interfaith Medical Center, Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center, Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, and Brooklyn Hospital Center.

In the case of St. Vincent's Hospital, which closed in 2010, leaving a hole in public health in the Lower West Side of Manhattan, activists are seizing on the irresponsible hospital closings as a way to organise for a single-payer healthcare system : "How can we bring a hospital back to our community ? How can we get true universal healthcare ? Come Join the Discussion ! RSVP at the Facebook page for the St. Vincent's Community Assembly."

Sept. 11 Hero Richard Sheirer Dies

2012-01-21T07:31:00.001-05:00

"Mr. Sheirer was driving to work from his home on Staten Island when he began having chest pains, pulled over at 14th Street and 10th Avenue and called 911. He was taken to Beth Israel Hospital, where he died," reported The New York Times.

Richard J. Sheirer, the former director of New York City's Office of Emergency Management during the September 11th attacks, fell ill a few blocks away from St. Vincent's.

St. Vincent's Community Assembly

2012-01-19T23:20:00.001-05:00

Join us on Tuesday, Jan. 31, at 6 p.m. at the LGBT Community Center at 208 West 13th Street in the West Village.

With St. Vincent’s closed, the West Side still has no hospital beds below 57th Street. How can we bring a hospital back to our community ? How can we get true universal healthcare ? Come Join the Discussion ! RSVP at the Facebook page for the St. Vincent's Community Assembly.

This "town hall" is a consensus-based conversation facilitated by HEALTHCARE FOR THE 99%, an OCCUPY WALL STREET working group.

2012-01-31 St Vincents Community Assembly - Luxury Condos Cant Do CPR

Mayor Bloomberg Defends Beyoncé's VIP Treatment at Lenox Hill Hospital

2012-01-18T22:57:00.005-05:00

Mayor Bloomberg Defends Beyoncé's VIP Treatment at Lenox Hill Hospital Even As Inequality and Injustice in Healthcare Becomes More and More Pronounced in the Aftermath of the Closing of St. Vincent's Hospital.

From DNA Info :

MIDTOWN — Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s VIP treatment at Lenox Hill Hospital Tuesday, arguing big spenders like them help subsidize other patients' care."
The power couple and their little bundle of joy, Blue Ivy Carter, have been under fire from angry parents who’ve complained about being blocked from seeing their newborns thanks to airtight security measures for the superstar couple, who reportedly rented out the fourth floor of the hospital for $1.3 million. ...
“If [the hospital] got paid a lot of money and it let them provide services to other people who don’t have insurance or can’t afford it, I’m not so sure it’s a bad thing," he said.

Mayor Bloomberg said during a press conference celebrity or luxury hospital suites can be "an enormous revenue source" at a time when the Mayor keeps cutting the budgets of public city hospitals.

Mayor Bloomberg had more to say about whether celebrities and rich people should get better "services" than lower-class patients. “I don’t think you should keep people from seeing their babies, or whatever, but have different services for people who are full-paying patients," he said. “It’s easy to go and criticize, but somebody’s got to pay.”

Activists from the Healthcare for the 99 Per Cent. Working Group of #OWS gathered in Union Square on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day.

Advocates for a true universal healthcare system "for all" gathered at Union Square on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, to call attention to what they said was the inequality in the provision of healthcare in New York City, New York State, and in the United States.

Advocates were joined by members of PNHP (Physicians for a National Health Program), HC499% (the Healthcare for the 99 Per Cent. Working Group of #OccupyWallStreet), and by St. Vincent's Hospital activists.

In 1966, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and most inhuman."

Lenox Hill Hospital Eviction

2012-01-10T04:22:00.000-05:00

Lenox Hill Hospital evicts the 99% to accommodate the 1%.

The luxury Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan's exclusive Upper East Side closed one of its wings to accommodate Beyoncé Knowles' celebrity birth.

Bloomberg Philanthropies : What A Joke When It Comes To St. Vincent's Hospital

2012-01-01T10:13:00.002-05:00

After Going on a Decade-Long Spree of Hospital Closings, New York City Michael Bloomberg is Launching a New Desperate Campaign Blitz to Resuscitate His Public Image.

Mayor Bloomberg has launched a Facebook advertising propaganda campaign to counter his growing image of a reckless chief public officer of New York City. He likes to tout his anti-smoking campaign, but how about his record on hospital closings ? If the Rudin Family's Luxury Condo Plan is approved for St. Vincent's by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, then Mayor Bloomberg would be saying that it is O.K. for an entire section of New York City to have no full-service hospital. How can this be a responsible public health care policy ? Mayor Bloomberg needs to stop the Rudin Luxury Condo Plan for St. Vincent's Hospital until a full-service hospital is created.

St. Vincent's Christmas Caroling Video

2011-12-27T21:26:00.002-05:00

Mic Check : Christmas Caroling in front of St. Vincent's Hospital

Protestors gathered on Christmas Eve in 32 degree weather -- and some spent all night on the frigid sidewalk to symbolize the patients "Left Out In The Cold" after the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital. Activists and community members modified a classic Christmas Carol, "Here Comes Santa Claus" in this YouTube video.

St. Vincent's Hanukah Protest

2011-12-27T21:20:00.000-05:00

Rudin-Quinn HANUKAH Christmas Protest St Vincent's Hospital

"Praying for miracle -- very windy used Occupy Wall Street signs to protect candles," wrote Suzannah B. Troy.

Sleep-Out at St. Vincent's Hospital on Christmas Eve : Stop the "Pottersville" of New York !!

2011-12-22T00:13:00.001-05:00

2011-12-24 St Vincents - Christmas Eve Caroling and Sleep Out

John Haggerty H. R. Haldeman Jail Time

2011-12-19T19:44:00.003-05:00

NYDaily News : John Haggerty was sentenced to 1 1/3 to 4 years on each of two counts of supposedly "stealing" money from Mayor Michael Bloomberg. After being sentenced, Mr. Haggerty was taken into custody.

From The New York Daily News :

The Queens political operative who stole nearly $1 million from Mayor Bloomberg is heading to the slammer.
A judge dismissed pleas for leniency and sentenced John Haggerty to one and a third to four years in state prison.
Probation was not enough, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Ronald Zweibel said, “in order to restore the public confidence in the electoral process and to serve as a deterent.”
Also, Haggerty will have to return the $900,000 or so he stole from Bloomberg, the judge said.
That means Haggerty will likely have to sell the $1.6 million Forest Hills house he grew up in — and which he ripped off the mayor to buy out his brother’s share. ...

Mayor Bloomberg's shady campaign finance scandal is an outrage, not to mention the fact that Mayor Bloomberg was hiring political operatives to suppress the vote through "thinly-veiled ballot security operations," but, just like the Watergate scandal, only the aids to the executive politician go to jail, not the crooked politician, who gets blanket immunity/pardon.

St. Vincent's Christmas Eve Protest

2011-12-16T22:32:00.005-05:00

It's a Wonderful Life : Christmas Caroling for St. Vincent's Hospital

On Christmas Eve night, joins us as we welcome local residents, who are walking from house to house, singing Christmas Carols.

Activists will be standing outside the closed Bailey Savings and Loan -- I mean, the closed St. Vincent's Hospital -- where we will be singing Christmas Carols and handing out band-aids, because band-aids will be all the healthcare you'll get from the new first aid clinic that will replace St. Vincent's.

You see, old man Potter -- I mean, old man Rudin -- has bought the old St. Vincent's for pennies on the dollar, and he now awaits the New York City Council to give final approval for the luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's. Some activists will spend the entire evening outside to demonstrate first hand how emergency care patients have been "left out in the cold" by the Rudin luxury condo conversion.

2011 St. Vincent's Protest Flyer (Dec 20 and Christmas Eve Caroling) Left Out in the Cold - Pottersville

SAIC CityTime Write Down

2011-12-08T00:00:00.000-05:00

Billion-dollar defense contractor SAIC posted a quarterly loss due to its continuing CityTime fraud scandal. The troubled company wrote down the value of its assets to account for a growing allowance it is pooling to refund New York City taxpayers for the fraudulent over-billing on the failed CityTime payroll project.

UNC Students reject B&T Bloobo Dicto

2011-12-07T23:08:00.001-05:00

UNC-Chapel Hill students launch online petition to overturn University's decision to invite Mayor Michael Bloomberg to serve as the 2012 commencement speaker.

"Students at UNC Chapel Hill are trying to convince the university to change speakers for this spring's commencement. They've started an online petition protesting New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg as the commencement speaker," reported News 14 Carolina.

Bill Rudin Bird Dogging Viral YouTube

2011-11-29T22:18:00.003-05:00

St. Vincent's Hospital activist bird-dogs billionaire Bill Rudin over controversial luxury condo conversion plan.

Artist and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy confronts Bill Rudin on West 12th Street. Community anger towards Mr. Rudin has inspired many protests, including a sustained protest and vigil outside the sales office of the new luxury condos. Mr. Rudin has ruthlessly ignored the community’s need for a full-service hospital. Mr. Rudin paid pennies on the dollar to buy St. Vincent’s real estate, and Mr. Rudin now stands to sell luxury condos and townhouses that, once constructed, are expected to have a combined fair-market value of over $1 billion.

Michael Bloomberg Michael Powell Parody

2011-11-24T15:42:00.001-05:00

Is the Rudin Family the Mother Teresa of real estate ? Really ?

The artist and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy has fun with Michael Powell, a reporter for The New York Times, about how the Bloomberg administration exerts control over the press.

'' At least since the Republican National Convention of 2004, our police have grown accustomed to forcibly penning, arresting, and sometimes spraying and whacking protesters and reporters. On Monday, The New York Times and 12 other organizations sent a letter of protest to the Police Department. 'The police actions of last week,' the authors said, 'have been more hostile to the press than any other event in recent memory,' '' wrote Mr. Powell.

Joel Bondy CityTime Deposition

2011-11-24T10:28:00.000-05:00

CityTime Depositions

2009 12 18 Joel Bondy CityTime Hearing Transcript

Michael Bloomberg Pepper Spray St. Vincent's Stop Rudin Petition

2011-11-24T00:19:00.004-05:00

Health Petition : Mayor Michael Bloomberg : Stop the Rudin Luxury Condo Conversion Plan

Sign Our Petition ! The Rudin Luxury Condo Conversion Plan will set a dangerous public health precedent. City politicians would be saying that a top 1% real estate developer can make hundreds of millions of dollars in private profit by converting the charitable public real estate buildings of the former St. Vincent's Hospital, whilst the 99% have no replacement Level One Trauma Center or Full-Service Hospital. If Rudin's Condo Plan is approved, Mayor Bloomberg would be saying that it is O.K. for an entire section of New York City to have no full-service hospital. How can this be a responsible public health care policy ? Mayor Bloomberg needs to stop the Rudin Condo Plan for St. Vincent's Hospital until a full-service hospital is created.

Brookfield Properties Homophobia Video

2011-11-16T21:37:00.000-05:00

No comment from openly lesbian New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to the homophobic comments and attitude by the private security guards employed Brookfield Properties. An unidentified security guard used the pejorative epithet of ''faggot'' against Joey Boots.

Note that at 0:24 appears Deputy Inspector Edward Winski, the chief of the First Precinct of Manhattan. An anonymous source said that many of the private security guards that work for Brookfield Properties are off-duty or retired officers from the NYPD. And because Brookfield Properties hires off-duty and retired police officers, it gives Brookfield the inside line of being able to pick up a cellphone and reach a direct line to NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly. For his part, Mayor Michael Bloomberg appealed a favourable gay marriage ruling in 2005, because he opposed marriage equality for LGBT New Yorkers.

St. Vincent's Speak-Out Die-In

2011-11-15T23:00:00.002-05:00

2011-11-17 St Vincents - OWS - Speak-Out and Die-In

Impeach Mayor Michael Bloomberg Petition

2011-11-15T22:30:00.001-05:00

WE THE PEOPLE, of the city of New York and citizens of America, demand the immediate resignation of current mayor Michael ''Mike'' Bloomberg due to gross negligence in handling of Occupy Wall Street, thousands of protestors have been denied their 1st amendment right. Mayor Bloomberg continually turns a blind eye to the abuse being brought by the NYPD.

Association for a Better New York ?

2011-11-08T22:47:00.000-05:00

Activists Expose that the Association for a Better New York is a front group for billionaire real estate empire.

Activists that support a new hospital to replace St. Vincent's have exposed that William Rudin and his so-called ''civic'' group that operates under the name of the Association for a Better New York only to further the real estate development opportunities for the Rudin Management Company. What do you think ? Please post your comments.

Rudin Gang Are Crudely Laughing At Our Healthcare Disparities

2011-11-07T23:27:00.001-05:00

Bill Rudin Gang Laugh at Us ; Meanwhile, We Still Need A Hospital

Activists and community members showed up for the first day in an on-going protest and vigil outside the Rudin Management Company's luxury condominium sales office at 120 West 12th Street, at one of the Manhattan buildings that used to comprise the campus of St. Vincent's Hospital.

In a separate action, started by LGBT civil rights activist Alan Bounville, the community is being asked to take part in a phone zap against Rudin Management Company. Mr. Bounville is asking that everybody contact John Gilbert, the COO of Rudin Management Group by calling 1-212-407-2400 and by e-mailing : jgilbert@rudin.com

"Please join the masses and flood Rudin Management Company's phone and email this week so they are aware of the growing wave of public disgust with them stealing a hospital from the community!" urged Mr. Bounville.

Record your phone calls, upload the sound files, and copy and paste your e-mails and links to the Rudin Phone Zap Facebook event page.

The economics of the Rudin luxury condo conversion plan for St. Vincent's is proving to be a very lucrative real estate development plan. Rudin paid $260 million for the St. Vincent's campus, and it obtained $525 million in construction financing for the project. If you combine these two figures, then the total cost going into the luxury condo conversion is about $785 million. If Rudin sells the luxury condos and townhouses for a combined value of over $1 billion, then it would be very easy for Rudin to net well over $200 million in profit from the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital.

The lure of profit well in excess of $200 million during this Great Recession may be one reason that Rudin has spent easily over $200,000 on hiring the real estate lobbyist Melanie Meyers and made a bundle of approximately $30,000 in donations to the 2013 mayor campaign of Christine Quinn.

The lure of profit well in excess of $200 million during this Great Recession has also triggered a possible fraud probe. Two months ago, The New York Post reported that the Manhattan District Attorney was investigating whether hospital executives intentionally let St. Vincent’s fail, so that the Rudin could buy the hospital’s real estate on the cheap.

No wonder that William Rudin and City Council Speaker are laughing all the way to the bank, while community members are stuck in crosstown traffic or suffering through long Emergency Room wait times in order to get emergency medical attention.

Robert Fiedler SAIC CityTime

2011-11-03T22:01:00.000-04:00

Who is Robert Fiedler, and what is his connection to SAIC ?

[PDF]
Manpower vs. Equipment - Defense dollars will get prioritized
www.roa.org/site/DocServer/0905_officer.pdf?docID=15781
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
ROBERT FEIDLER • DIRECTOR, ROA strategic defense education ...... SAIC Makes Next. Generation of Maps. Rivada Networks specializes in the ...

[PDF]
Strategic Reserve Still Required - Reserve Officers Association
www.roa.org/site/DocServer/0902_officer.pdf?docID=12261
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
out of ROA's education efforts as Robert Feidler, director of. ROA strategic defense education, and Eric Minton, Officer editor, profile an ROA-hosted forum on ...

[PDF]
September 2008 - Reserve Officers Association
www.roa.org/site/DocServer/0809_officer.pdf?docID=10061
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat -

Google Censors Louis Flores - Update

2011-11-01T21:49:00.001-04:00

Google Issues Apology ; Tries To Explain Away Censorship As ''A Processing Error.''

Following the censorship of the No Third Term blog, which triggered the suspension of all of my blogs, I spread word about the censorship and asked all my friends to write to Google, asking that they restore my blogs and reïnstate my account. Following is a great YouTube video by Suzannah B. Troy :

I also received help and support from Queens Crap, who posted a blog post about the occurrence of political censorship.

The suspension of the blogs took place before 5 a.m. this afternoon, and the blogs were fully restored shortly after 1 p.m. this afternoon. Here is Google's apology, with no other explanation :

Hi Louis,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We have reviewed the account and determined that the blogs were removed due to a processing error. The blogs have now been reinstated. We are sorry for any inconvenience or misunderstanding this may have caused.
Best,
Rachel
Google press team

Thank you to everybody, who contacted Google, to ask them to restore my blogs. I am very grateful to you.

#OccupyWallStreet Need Police Permits To Protest

2011-11-01T14:39:00.008-04:00

The requirement for "protest permits" in New York City, which bedevils the #OccupyWallStreet movement, can be traced back to Christine Quinn.

On September 24, 2011, what was then the eighth day of the #OccupyWallStreet protest, about 1,000 protesters went on an unpermitted march from Zuccotti Park to Union Square Park in Manhattan. Along the way, 80 people were arrested for various reasons, according to Gothamist :

The majority of the arrests, which were for disorderly conduct, obstructing governmental administration, blocking vehicular traffic, and one assault on a police officer, occurred around Union Square yesterday afternoon after nearly a thousand demonstrators marched down Broadway. Videos show NYPD officers corralling women with nets, indiscriminately discharging pepper spray, and tackling protestors.

How New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn figures into the arrests of what now numbers well over 1,000 #OccupyWallStreet protesters is a matter of historical record : just take a look at who approved the protest permit requirement in the first place. Not surprisingly, the development of protest permits in New York City can be ascertained by following the course of how Speaker Quinn sold out her liberal roots in pursuit of mayoral electability.

According to a discussion topic posted on September 15, 2007, by David S. Cohen on the Queer Mutiny's Facebook account, Speaker Quinn is responsible for the protest permit requirements in New York City :

In 2006, multiple courts ruled the City’s assembly rules unconstitutional, and City Council was charged with fixing them. Instead of conducting public hearings and placing the matter into the hands of City Council, Speaker Quinn abdicated her responsibilities and allowed the NYPD to write these rules behind closed doors.
In February 2007, she rubberstamped the new rules into effect. Suddenly, it became illegal for 50 or more people to gather and process through New York City—unless they request and are given prior permission from the police.
Of course, the NYPD has a long history of attacking political groups, and one of their favorite tools is to deny permit requests of groups—like the organizers of the 2007 Trans Day of Action—who they don’t like.
Why do police decide who can assemble and who cannot? And since when do the police write rules? And why is all of this okay with Quinn?
Quinn so desperately wants to be mayor that she has sold the queer community and her constituents down the historical river for her own political gain. We’ll remind Quinn that she has her pot of gold, but she better not forgot the rainbow that led her to it!

A political enabler with aims to minimise, and even silence, dissent.

It should come as no surprise that Speaker Quinn "abdicated her responsibilities." When Speaker Quinn is faced with the dilemma between doing the right thing and picking what renders her with an immediate political advantage, Speaker Quinn always picks what is most politically expedient. Even those, who should be her most ardent base of support, leftist LGBT radical activists, know that Speaker Quinn cannot be counted upon to stay true to her liberal roots.

Speaker Quinn has a reputation for bluffing her way through critical public policy issues, like the hole in public health caused by the impending luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital. As has been written on this blog before, Speaker Quinn has mastered the art of the non-answer answer : "She likes to be evasive, but she is definitive about giving you the run-around. She doesn’t have to give you either a proverbial bait-and-switch or back-pedal, provided she never has to first give you any policy position with which to lure you."

But Speaker Quinn's evasiveness begins to wear thin amongst radical activists, who know that the only way to make our elected politicians deliver a tangible solution to a societal problem is by keeping them politically accountable. Here is where direct action protest organisers enter into the political equation.

A Gay City News news report, which is no longer available online, was copied on the Radical Homosexual Agenda's website :

PRIDE AT CITY HALL
by Jefferson Siegel
Gay City News
6/21/2007
On Wednesday night over 500 people filled the City Council chamber for a celebration of "LGBT Pride and the Journey to End Violence and Hate." Among those honored were NYPD Detective Kevin Czartoryski, the Rashawn Brazell Memorial Fund, established in recognition of the brutal 2005 murder of a 19-year-old gay man from Brooklyn, and the Gay-Straight Alliance at Port Richmond High School in Staten Island.
Tony-winning actor Stephen Spinella opened the evening, and Speaker Christine Quinn, the first openly lesbian or gay leader of the Council, flanked in the front row by her partner, Kim Catullo, and her father Lawrence, recalled the city's decades-long struggle to achieve gay rights.
In the midst of her speech, half a dozen protesters from ACT UP and the Radical Homosexual Agenda unfurled protest banners from the balcony. They were criticizing a new police regulation requiring groups of 50 or more to first obtain a police permit. "You've criminalized the Dyke March and the Drag March," Tim Doody (pictured with Nina Resnick) of ACT UP yelled. Quinn allowed the protesters to have their say [for one minute], after which they were escorted from the building. There were no arrests.
Councilwoman Rosie Mendez, the chamber's other out lesbian member, who has been a vocal critic of the regulation, spoke up on Quinn's behalf. "My speaker cannot do anything until the Council is behind her," Mendez told the chamber.

''A Council Speaker Who Tightens the Purse Strings on Dissent''

Back on June 20, 2007, when activists with the Radical Homosexual Agenda were targeting Speaker Quinn over the NYPD's anti-assembly rules, activist James Wagner charged that Speaker Quinn had "made herself inaccessible" to activists, who had been seeking to meet with her about the requirement for protest permits. Mr. Wagner wrote that after the activists had been removed from the City Council Chambers, following their banner drop, Speaker Quinn said that she was "willing to meet with anyone who disagreed with her on the question of Police rules for assembly." But, as Mr. Wagner further wrote, Speaker Quinn's expression of willingness turned out to ring hallow : "For the record, I have been assured several times by those who know groups that have tried to engage her that she has repeatedly refused to do this in the past."

Sometime between the mass NYPD arrests during the 2004 Republican National Convention and the 2008 revelation of Speaker Quinn's slush fund scandal, Speaker Quinn decided that the best way to campaign to become mayor of New York City was to hitch her wagon to Mayor Michael Bloomberg's gravy train. But because she does not have Mayor Bloomberg's billions, she was going to use taxpayer money to buy her way into higher office. When even The New York Times, with its many puff and fluff articles about Speaker Quinn's career, dares to report about how Speaker Quinn uses taxpayer money to stifle political dissent, you know that Speaker Quinn has begun to tread on thin political ice.

And now that activists with #OccupyWallStreet are confronting the use of excessive force of, and even brutality by, NYPD, those very activists are going to question Speaker Quinn's role in approving the restrictions on civil liberties caused by her rubber stamp on the NYPD’s anti-assembly rules. And once again, here comes another time when direct action protest organisers enter into the political equation.

Bloomberg Beats Dead Horse

2011-10-27T23:16:00.000-04:00

From The New York Times :

Days after a carriage horse collapsed and died in Midtown, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Wednesday dismissed calls for a ban on the carriage industry, saying he could not imagine why “anybody wants to destroy something that is part of New York’s heritage and that tourists love.”

Paying Lip Service To St. Vincent's

2011-10-27T22:12:00.002-04:00

Activists from and allies of #OccupyWallStreet participated in a march to St. Vincent’s Hospital to highlight the greed and corruption that lead to the hospital’s devastating closure in 2010.

''The whole planet pays homage to Ground Zero, but they pay lip service to the hospital that was on the front lines that day,'' said a man named Christopher, who spoke at a rally at the end of the march, at St. Vincent's Hospital. Because St. Vincent's was a Level 1 Trauma Center, it was the hospital designated to receive those injured by the September 11 attacks.

St. Vincent’s was a Catholic-run hospital, which had a charity mission to serve the under-insured and uninsured. St. Vincent’s lacked the corporate clout to negotiate fair reimbursement rates from profit-driven insurance companies, leading to financial instability. Moreover, the short-term focus of the highly-paid executives and consultants pushed St. Vincent’s into bankruptcy – leading to a public health emergency: there is now no hospital on the Westside below 57th Street.

Politicians ranging from New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to Manhattan Community Board 2 Chair Brad Hoylman to Mayor Michael Bloomberg did nothing to save St. Vincent's.

Two months ago, The New York Post reported that the Manhattan District Attorney was investigating whether hospital executives intentionally let St. Vincent’s fail, so that the Rudin Management Company could buy the hospital’s real estate as part of a controversial luxury condominium development project.

Rudin paid pennies on the dollar to buy the hospital’s real estate, and Rudin now stands to sell luxury condominiums and townhouses, once constructed, that are expected to have a combined fair-market value of over $1 billion.

Anger towards the Wall Street-controlled healthcare system inspired today’s march, which is set to also target Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield and WellCare. The march was initiated by a working group of Occupy Wall Street called Healthcare for the 99%, which is composed of healthcare workers and people who seek to end inequality in our healthcare system and our society.

#OccupyWallStreet Police Brutality Protest and Term Limits Rally Invitation

2011-10-23T08:10:00.002-04:00

YouTube video of #OWS protest against NYPD police brutality and use of excessive force, plus an invitation to the three-year anniversary of the term limits extension rammed through the City Council in 2008 by Speaker Christine Quinn.

Term Limits Anniversary Protest

2011-10-22T09:16:00.000-04:00

Protest to mark the Third Anniversary of the Term Limits Extension

2011-10-23 Term Limits Protest - Third Anniversary

Bloomberg and Quinn sold the lie that they would save the economy. Have they helped you with the economy ?

Taxpayers and voters are gathering at City Hall Park on Sunday, Oct. 23, at 2 p.m., to commemorate the three-year anniversary of “The Day That Democracy Died” : when Speaker Christine Quinn strong-armed the City Council to extend term limits, allowing herself, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and others to run for a third term in office.

“Since they changed term limits, more people are living in poverty in New York City. Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg’s wealth has grown over three-fold while has been in office,” said Louis Flores. “With Christine Quinn’s help, Mayor Bloomberg has been laying off police, firefighters, and teachers ; closing senior citizen centers ; cutting childcare ; and closing hospitals – just basically shredding the social safety net. Also, how is Mayor Bloomberg allowed to make money from inside information through his new company called Bloomberg Government ?”

Protesters will hold a rally, make speeches, and distribute voter registration applications, so that Speaker Christine Quinn and other City Council Members, who passed the term limits extension, can be voted out of office in 2013.

Luxury Condos Won't Save Lives

2011-10-18T09:11:00.000-04:00

The Rudin Luxury Condos won't save lives. Likewise, a new parking garage won't treat heart attacks.

One of the participants at last night's "mass civilian trauma exercise" at St. Vincent' Hospital asked, "Where is Christine Quinn ?"

As part of the "mass civilian trauma exercise," many participants wore surgical masks and paper signs around their neck. The signs indicated what accidents, diseases, or emergencies they "have." Then, the "sick" participants "waited" for emergency medical treatment on the sidewalks outside St. Vincent's. No emergency help ever came, precisely because there is no longer a hospital in the Lower West Side. Some participants did not "make it." After the "mass civilian trauma exercise" came to an end, team of "survivors" marched to Grace Church, 86 Fourth Avenue, Tuttle Hall, to ask for help from Jason Mansfield, the chair of CB2's Environmental, Public Safety & Public Health Committee.

NYPD Rush Horses Against #OWS Protesters in Times Square

2011-10-16T07:59:00.001-04:00

NYPD charge horses into peaceful #OccupyWallStreet protesters in Times Square.

At many times, protesters can be heard saying to the horse-mounted police officers : ''Get those animals off those horses.''

This is not the first time that NYPD have used horses against protesters. During the mass protests against President's Bush deadly mistake to invade Iraq after the September 11 attacks, police officers from NYPD also used horses to intimidate peaceful protesters.

"HOW can the NYPD even FATHOM bringing horses into this mess? Not only is this an enormous safety hazard for ALL involved, but this is the exact opposite of conditions that are safe for a horse," wrote an animal rights activist on his Facebook page.

Rudin Family #OccupyCB2 YouTube Documentary

2011-10-10T23:59:00.002-04:00

Michael Bloomberg #OccupyCB2

2011-10-10T11:07:00.002-04:00

2011 10 17 RE ACT OccupyCB2 Flyer
2011-10-17 Stop the Rezoning of St. Vincent's Hospital Flyer #OccupyCB2

672 School Lay Offs

2011-10-07T23:32:00.000-04:00

Bloomberg Lays Off 672 School Employees in Largest Firing in Three Terms

The school employees, who were laid off today by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, had worked as school aides, parent coordinators, family workers, and other support positions at roughly 350 schools, The New York Times reported.

The union representing the workers, District Council 37, had ''made three proposals to the city that included giving up paid holidays and reducing the maximum number of hours school aides were allowed to work as ways to save money,'' The NYTimes reported. Mayor Bloomberg rejected each of the union's proposals.

Mayor Bloomberg is on a rampage to bust all of the municipal workers' unions before his third term is up.

Bloomberg Official Is Arrested For Taking Bribes

2011-10-06T22:30:00.001-04:00

New York City Housing Official Is Accused of Taking Bribes

'' ... Wendell B. Walters, the assistant commissioner at the Department of Housing Preservation and Development responsible for new construction, was arrested on charges that he took money from developers involved in building about $22 million in moderately priced housing overseen by the agency in the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn since 2002,'' reported The New York Times.

It was alleged that Mr. Walters awarded contracts to developers in exchange for cash. He was charged with racketeering conspiracy, extortion, bribery, wire fraud, and money laundering, according to The NYTimes.

The charges against Mr. Walters further calls into question the pattern of corruption under the Bloomberg administration. Under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, we have seen multiple cases of fraud and corruption, from the overbilling of several high tech deals, most notably in connection with CityTime, in addition to the investigations and indictments under the City Council slush fund scandal.

Not only that, but The NYTimes reported that the charges against Mr. Walters ... ''represented another black eye for the administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, whose third term has been clouded by controversies involving senior officials. They include the tumultuous tenure of Cathleen P. Black as schools chancellor and the abrupt departure of Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, who said in August that he was leaving to work in municipal finance, but had been arrested in Washington on a domestic violence charge days earlier, a fact that neither he nor the mayor had mentioned in their announcements.''

After all these cases of corruption or official misconduct, you would think that we would need to protect the progressive era reforms, not roll them back, the way that Mayor Bloomberg has been trying, ever since he came into power.

Like Putin, Like Bloomberg

2011-10-06T07:25:00.001-04:00

From The New York Times :

Like Putin, Like Bloomberg

October 4, 2011, 8:44 AM
By CLYDE HABERMAN

Political ploys under way in Russia could almost serve as an instruction manual for the leadership at either end of New York’s City Hall. You have to slap your forehead in wonder that the New Yorkers didn’t think up comparable high jinks for themselves.
In case your idea of foreign news is a revised menu at the International House of Pancakes, allow us to explain.
Dmitri A. Medvedev, who is Russia’s president but not the guy in charge, plans to step aside so that his place can be taken by Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, Mr. Medvedev’s predecessor and still the true power. Once Mr. Putin is installed anew as president, Mr. Medvedev will move in as prime minister. In some countries, leaders swap political favors. In Russia, it seems, they swap jobs.
The reason for this folderol is that Mr. Putin, though not thrilled with the idea, yielded the presidency three years ago in accordance with a constitutional provision limiting him to two consecutive terms.
In other words, this former K.G.B. man, known for strong-arm tactics, was more scrupulous about observing the niceties of term limits than were New York’s political leaders: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his Medvedev equivalent, Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker.
You will recall that Mr. Bloomberg and Ms. Quinn could not bother themselves with observing the letter, let alone the spirit, of a voter-imposed city law limiting them to two terms. With the help of complaisant council members, they simply changed the law to reward themselves with third terms. Generally speaking, it’s not a good idea to look less faithful to democratic formalities than Vladimir Putin.
There is no need to belabor the wobbly nature of this third term. Names and phrases like Cathleen P. Black, the 2010 blizzard, Stephen Goldsmith and the CityTime scandal tell you at a glance how things have often gone.
For the privilege of presiding over all that, Mr. Bloomberg distorted campaign financing beyond all recognition — yet again — by spending $108 million in 2009.On Monday, he was forced to testify at the trial of a political consultant accused of stealing $1.1 million from that campaign. Theft, if proved, is bad, of course. But Mr. Bloomberg tosses around money so freely that his losing a million dollars is like an average person’s having coins slip between the sofa cushions.
Nor are finances the only area of distortion. The normal balance between the executive and legislative branches in this city has been knocked askew in the Bloomberg-Quinn era. Theirs is not quite the Putin-Medvedev relationship, but it bears a certain resemblance, sort of a second-rate Moscow on the Hudson. Not unlike the Russians, Mr. Bloomberg and Ms. Quinn are trying to make sure that power remains within their alliance.
He leaves no doubt that he wants her to take his place after 2013. His administration goes out of its way to include her in news conferences even when the Council’s role is close to nonexistent, whether the issue is Hurricane Irene or, as was the case last week, an announcement that New Yorkers were eating more fruits and vegetables.
In turn, Ms. Quinn often acts as if she were not the Council speaker but, rather, the deputy mayor for legislative affairs. The latest example came a week ago when she bottled up a bill loathed by the mayor. It would have required mayors, including the wandering, Bermuda-loving Mr. Bloomberg, to let the rest of us know when he strays far from the city — certainly when he leaves the country, as he did before the 2010 blizzard. Ms. Quinn made sure that the Council would not even debate this proposal.
There is, however, such a thing as excessive coziness. A NY1-Marist College poll last week confirmed that, for now anyway, Ms. Quinn is the Democratic front-runner in the 2013 mayoral election. But it also showed that nearly half of Democratic voters would be less likely to vote for a candidate who had Mr. Bloomberg’s support.
How does that aphorism go about being careful what you wish for?

Bloomberg Administration Oversaw Wasteful NYCAPS Tech Deal

2011-10-03T21:03:00.004-04:00

The New York Times exposes another failed tech deal under the Bloomberg administration's mismanagement of large taxpayer-financed tech deals.

The New York Times reporter David Halbfinger spoke with Brian Lehrer from WNYC about Mr. Halbfinger's recent article about the New York City Automated Personnel System (NYCAPS) and the problems with the Bloomberg administration's wildly over-budget personnel tracking system. Nine years after work began, the Bloomberg administration has spent $363 million on the NYCAPS tech deal — and the work is far from done.

Bloomberg Carries Out Mass Arrests -- Again

2011-10-02T18:47:00.001-04:00

Live Mass Arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge #occupywallstreet - Streaming Video by We are Change

In a flashback to the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, >police rounded up and arrested over 700 activists on the Brooklyn Bridge during a political demonstration.

Police said that those activists, who impeded vehicular traffic on the bridge were were arrested. But The New York Times reported that "many protesters said they believed the police had tricked them, allowing them onto the bridge, and even escorting them partway across, only to trap them in orange netting after hundreds had entered." Look at this independent video :

Some of the activists, who were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge, had their hands bound with plastic ties that the NYPD has used at other mass demonstration. Separately, the NYPD admitted that they police force had taken their own videos of the protesters, who had taken part in the demonstration, deliberately and intentionally tracking and monitoring the peaceful activists.

Attorney Wylie Stecklow, whose law firm represents many of the activists, who were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge, said that the pattern of the NYPD's behaviour toward the Occupy Wall Street protesters was reminiscent of the mass arrests that police made during the 2004 Republican National Convention.

Haggerty Lawyers Accuse Bloomberg of Suppressing Vote

2011-09-27T19:16:00.001-04:00

Defense Lawyers for John F. Haggerty, Jr., attack Mayor Michael Bloomberg over Campaign Finance Scandal.

In shocking opening statements by John Haggerty's defense attorney, Raymond R. Castello, it was said that Mayor Michael Bloomberg hired Mr. Hatterty to conduct a voter suppression campaign, in order to ensure that Mayor Bloomberg would win a previously illegal third term in office.

Mr. Haggerty, a GOP operative, is accused of stealing over $1 million of secret campaign-related payments made by Mayor Bloomberg from one of his private banking accounts. By making the campaign-related payments from his private, personal monies, Mayor Bloomberg was able to funnel the payments to Mr. Haggerty via the Independence Party, thereby circumventing and violating the spirit of campaign finance disclosure requirements. For his part, Mr. Haggerty used a majority of the secret campaign-related payments to buy out his brother's interest in a house.

“The story here is not about theft,” Mr. Castello said. “There was none. This case is about winning at all costs. That’s what Michael Bloomberg is all about, and that certainly is what he was all about in 2009.”

Mayor Bloomberg -- this is all according to The New York Times' article about the opening day of Haggerty Trial -- is expected to testify against Mr. Haggerty.

Meanwhile, even though Mayor Bloomberg has accused Mr. Haggerty of saying anything to avoid prison, Mr. Haggerty has nonetheless found prominent political consultancy work after the accusations of the Bloomberg campaign finance scandal, including serving as an advisor to failed 2010 GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino. Stay tuned.

Mr. Haggerty, right, escorts 2010 GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino during the Columbus Day Parade in New York City on October 11, 2010. Photo by Anonymous.

Women Pepper-Sprayed by NYPD

2011-09-25T17:38:00.000-04:00

Peaceful Female Protesters Penned on the Sidewalk and Pepper-sprayed by the NYPD in a Show of Excessive Force.

Is Mayor Michael Bloomberg going to denounce the NYPD for their use of excessive force against unarmed women ?

Troy Davis NYPD Excessive Force

2011-09-25T00:07:00.001-04:00

Video of the flashmob protest last Thursday night -- one day after the execution of Troy Davis, a man believed to be innocent of the crimes charged against him. Protesters were harassed by NYPD, pushed and shoved, and one protester was peeled away from the crowd, shoved the floor, and arrested.

Is Mayor Michael Bloomberg sanctioning this kind of behaviour by the NYPD ? What is City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's opinion about the NYPD's use of weapons and vehicles against passionate citizen assembly in protest of the death penalty ? Activists worry that Mayor Bloomberg will again resort to mass arrests, the same way he wholesale violated due process and civil liberties during the 2004 Republican National Convention.

Mayor Bloomberg Endorses Quinn ; That's Enough to Vote Quinn Out !

2011-09-23T14:05:00.000-04:00

The Day Democracy Died : On Oct. 23, 2008, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn strong-armed an extension of term limits through the City Council in exchange for Mayor Bloomberg's endorsement. Join us for a protest to mark the third anniversary of this egregious act -- help us to register new voters.2011-10-23 Third Anniversary Term Limits Extension Protest - City Hall Park

Jeffrey Kraut North Shore-LIJ

2011-09-21T22:54:00.007-04:00

After William Rudin's giant scheme to take over St. Vincent's Hospital real estate properties has triggered an investigation by prosecutors, the Rudin Family went to great lengths to make sure that its luxury condominium conversion plan would be fast-tracked, pulling out all the stops.

But new information came to light this week : one top official of the North Shore-LIJ hospital system, Jeffrey Kraut, is chair of the committee, which will recommend or deny North Shore-LIJ's application for a Department of Health license to operate a controversial stand-alone Emergency Department.

The so-called ''Emergency Department'' is a consolation prize to the community of the Lower West Side of Manhattan after the loss of a full-service hospital and Level 1 trauma center when St. Vincent's Hospital closed on April 30, 2010. Thus far, Mr. Kraut's actions has not been referred to the Attorney General's office, which oversees the ethics of the State's executive agencies, such as the Department of Health.

Mr. Kraut's conflict of interest in having influence over his own company's financial contracts and government licenses provide fresh evidence about the lack of integrity in the Rudin condo version plan.

In order to build its luxury condos, the Rudin Family encouraged North Shore-LIJ's application for the stand-alone Emergency Department. Because the Rudin condo conversion plan depends on the approval of North Shore-LIJ's application before the Department of Health, community members question Mr. Kraut's influence on other members of the Committee on Establishment and Project Review Meeting and Public Hearing, which will determine the outcome of North Shore-LIJ's permit application.

The information about Mr. Kraut's conflict of interest is another negative blight on the Rudin Family, who have also tried astroturfing, lobbying, and distribution of propaganda by mail. The Rudin Family has also been criticised for opposing freedom of information requests that might be useful in investigations.

Separately, the Department of Health has been criticised for its inaction in saving other hospitals from closure, and for the absence of any investigation or prosecution of individuals, who were involved in the hospital closure crisis. In the time that Christine Quinn has been Speaker of the New York City Council, at least eight city hospitals have closed. In 2010, North General Hospital in Harlem declared bankruptcy and St. Vincent's Hospital in the West Village shut down after shady backroom meetings. In 2009, two hospitals in Queens – St. John's Queens Hospital in Elmhurst and Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica – went bankrupt. In 2008, Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan, Parkway Hospital in Queens, and Victory Memorial Hospital in Bay Ridge closed. And in 2007, St. Vincent's Midtown in Manhattan was closed. Separately, one other hospital in Brooklyn, Long Island College Hospital, was recently saved : it had been on the brink of closing, and the only way the hospital was saved was by merging it with SUNY Downstate. (And all this is not counting the bankruptcy filing made by Peninsula Hospital Center of Queens.)

Campaign Slush Fund Scandal

2011-09-03T10:18:00.000-04:00

The New York Times Editorial to Christine Quinn : Shut Down Your Slush Fund !

Last week, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was hand-picking Christine Quinn to be his heir to the mayoralty of New York City, because Quinn's use of a taxpayer slush fund for political corruption reminded him so much of Bloomberg's three-tiered campaign finance scheme.

Quinn, who is the Speaker of the City Council, is the openly-lesbian politician, around whom many LGBT New Yorkers are rallying around, even though Quinn has had one of her friends diagnose LGBT civil rights activists with ''confusion,'' and this on top of the fact that Quinn has done nothing to investigate the illegal NYPD raid on the Eagle Bar, just some of the many examples of how Quinn has thrown valid LGBT issues under the bus.

Is Christine Quinn going to hold the NYPD accountable for raiding the Eagle on the very night when marriage equality became law ? What kind of an LGBT leader is she, if she does not fight for our LGBT civil rights ? Join our Facebook page : Gays Against Christine Quinn.

Quinn NYPD Eagle Raid

2011-08-27T12:59:00.002-04:00

Hurricane Irene Evacuation Zone

2011-08-25T21:05:00.002-04:00

Due to Hurricane Irene, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has ordered the evacuation of all patients from senior centers and hospitals in low-lying areas in the Evacuation Zone. Too bad Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn have been closing senior centers and closing hospitals all across the city, leading to a mass shortage of senior centers and hospitals during natural disasters or other mass public health emergencies.

Quinn Bloomberg Puppet Update

2011-08-23T05:55:00.008-04:00

Christine Quinn Uses City Council Funds (aka Taxpayer Money) to Reward Political Bosses

After City Council Speaker Christine Quinn got fluffed by NYTimes reporter David W. Chen, now comes Michael Powell, a columnist for the Gray Lady, who pulls back the curtain on Speaker Quinn's slush fund-tinged campaign for mayor.

Mr. Powell reports that Ms. Quinn was appointed Speaker of the City Council after she "charmed" political bosses from Queens, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. At her coronation ceremony, she put Vito Lopez, the notorious Brooklyn political boss (who is the target of several ethical and corruption investigations) in the front row. Speaker Quinn has also scratched Mr. Vito's back in exchange for his political support. "The fates have smiled on Mr. Lopez’s social-service empire, the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council ; this year the Council sent more than $4 million its way," reported the NYTimes.

In a statement posted Facebook, a government integrity watchdog activist questioned why the latest NYTimes article stops short of probing the status of the federal investigation into Speaker Quinn's slush fund scandal.

"Instead of reporting on Quinn's criminal activity, the NY Times merely raises questions about her ethics and leadership: "But there are questions to be asked about her leadership, and not all cheery." Is it a fear of Bloomberg that prevents the Times from reporting on the well-documented budget and campaign corruption ?" Donny Moss posted on the social network.

This is how the NYTimes article ends :

Last year, a Council majority favored mandatory sick days for New Yorkers with less than a week of vacation. The mayor opposed it. Ms. Quinn killed it.
Some suggest that she has gotten lost in the game, that she can no longer recall the questions she once asked as an advocate. That sounds too definitive. Her arc is not done.
She affects nonchalance when described as a mayoral puppet: “You can call me Mini-Me. I don’t really care.”
The rub is that voters might care a lot.

St. Vincent's Rudin Inquest

2011-08-21T21:41:00.001-04:00

Manhattan District Attorney is investigating St. Vincent's ''go-for-broke plan'' that has supposedly enriched the Rudin Managedment Company, which has been waiting in the wings for the hospital to flatline.

St. Vincent's Hospital is under investigation by the Manhattan DA's office for allegations that the Rudin Management Company has been planning a real estate harvesting/luxury condo conversion plan of the shuttered hospital.

St. Vincent's closed on April 30, 2010, after it laid off many of its employees. Many employees later learned that the hospital was not paying into the state's unemployment fund, so those who were laid off were not eligible for unemployment benefits.

Ever since it closed, the impacted community of the Lower West Side of Manhattan has been calling for investigations into what lead to the hospital's sudden closure. The hospital failed to file a closure plan, as it was required to do, with the New York State Department of Health.

From an article in The New York Post :

Going broke allowed the hospital to get an OK from the state Health Department to sell to the Rudin family, which is building luxury housing on the site. Without bankruptcy, state officials would not have been permitted the hospital to shut down, the sources said.
"This was a well-thought-out plan," said Tom Shanahan, a lawyer for a group of former St. Vincent doctors and nurses suing St. Vincent's. "They wanted out and had to justify it to the state. They were running it into the ground."
DA Cy Vance's team is looking into whether vendors double-billed for services, gave kickbacks for contracts and hired relatives of hospital employees, sources said.

Napoleon dictator putz

2011-08-18T06:59:00.000-04:00

From this morning's City Hall News e-mail alert : New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie privately called Mayor Michael Bloomberg "Napoleon," "a dictator" and "a putz" for not asking former New Jersey Gov. Donald DiFrancesco to speak at next month's 9/11 anniversary ceremony, the Post reports: http://nyp.st/nXoOUw

Bloomberg Approval Ratings Plunge

2011-08-17T08:41:00.000-04:00

Seeing as how we live under a weekly threat that he is going to close down firehouses, layoff teachers, flush more taxpayer money down the toilet with the CityTime project, and look the other way as the MTA and PATH jack up our fares, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's popularity has hit record lows. Isn't it about time that New York City voters opened their eyes ? Will they do the same about Christine Quinn ?

Quinn NYT Infomercial Fluff

2011-08-16T22:57:00.000-04:00

To find out how real journalists assess City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's record, one needs to look no further than the sensibility expressed in this blog post on True News From Change : NYT Sets the Definition on How To Judge and Pick the Next Mayor and It Fits Quinn

In his blog post, the journalist Gary Tilzer makes many astute observations about David W. Chen's infomercial fluff piece about Speaker Quinn, and perhaps this is the most sharpest of Mr. Tilzer's criticisms : ''It was the publisher of the NYT, along with the NYP and Daily News, that used their papers to support changing the term limits law to allow Bloomberg and Quinn to run for a third term. Mr. Chen does not challenge Quinn when she brushes off her term limits and other critics as 'naïve' ideologues.''

It's already been documented how Christine Quinn bluffs her way through important social issues.

What Speaker Quinn is doing by making her ''unapologetic'' ''move to the middle'' is selling out the working class families of New York City. Her policies favour real estate developers -- and come to the detriment, suffering, and mass displacement of working class New Yorkers. Speaker Quinn's vision of New York City is a continuation of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's vision : more glass and steel luxury condos and less hospitals, firehouses, public schools, and senior centers. Speaker Quinn wants to make life so unbearable to the average wage-earning New Yorker that we all pick up and leave town.

How do we know that Christine Quinn has sold out her values and beliefs and still find herself to be in a place of denial about it, so much so that she accuses her critics of being “naïve” ideologues ?

Speaker Quinn's ideas about leadership in New York, by supporting the luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital, which used to be the only full-service hospital with a Level 1 Trauma Center below 14th Street, is like GLAAD publicly supporting the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger. Not only would AT&T be in an even stronger position to undo net neutrality, but what is GLAAD doing by meddling in a telecom merger approval process with the FCC ? Likewise, why is a ''supposedly!! celebrated LGBT third-term politician like Christine Quinn rushing toward the ''middle'' of the political spectrum, if it means that she has to abandon her idealistic beginnings and instead now oppose paid sick leave and a living wage bill ?

"AT&T was one of the companies whose local representatives sits on the board of directors of the Tennessee chamber of commerce," wrote John Aravosis at Americablog. "You remember them, the group that endorsed and actively lobbied for the measure repealing gay and trans rights ordinances in the state, mandating it so that no trans person can ever change their birth certificate gender in the future, and banning any future civil rights ordinances for anyone in the future. That AT&T."

What does the intersection of St. Vincent's Hospital/Rudin Family Luxury Condo Conversion and the GLAAD/AT&T T-Mobile mega deals have to do with Christine Quinn and New York City politics ?

In each case, you see the erosion of core values of fighting for an activist's central reason for being : serving their constituency. But once you get to be so big, you can blow off you constituency as “naïve” ideologues (or drop the F-bomb on them, the way that one of her administrative assistants did).

If, throughout our nation's history, our goal has been to distribute power and authority equally among voters, then the voters, who have less choices on election day, get their voices muffled. Who is going to challenge GLAAD to focus once again on its original intention ? Who is going to put pressure on Christine Quinn to deliver on the community’s demands to stop all the hospital closings that are happening across New York City ?

It is not too much to expect that the people, who you elect to City Council, start to deliver something tangible for New York City voters.

If you disliked how City Council members extended term limits without a voter referendum, then let her know : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us
If you agree, that Speaker Quinn needs to hear the voices of communities, who are demanding that hospitals stop closing all across the five boroughs, then let her know : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us
If you can no longer accept a weekly threat by Mayor Bloomberg to layoff teachers and firefighters, and to close schools and firehouses, then let her know : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us
If you want Speaker Quinn to shut down her $50 million slush fund, then let her know : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us
If you refuse to settle for City Council members, who take tens of thousands of campaign donations from real estate developers in exchange for what seems like pay-to-play real estate development deal approvals, then let her know : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us
If you believe that Speaker Quinn betrays the LGBT community, then let her know : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us
If you have your own issue, that you'd like to bring to Speaker Quinn's attention, then let her know : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us

Speak now, or forever hold your peace.

Christine Quinn Eats Dinner Inside the Plaza Hotel, While a Homeless Man Collects Cans on the Red Carpet

2011-08-11T20:17:00.001-04:00

Christine Quinn - Plaza Hotel - Gays Against Quinn (Protest Video)

Over 20 activists gathered outside the Plaza Hotel in a demonstration against City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Watch as protesters speak against Christine Quinn to former Mayor David Dinkins' entourage and hand anti-Quinn literature to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

One of the Speaker Quinn's fellow guests was patronising to protesters, and did you notice how a homeless man was collecting aluminum cans on the red carpet of the Plaza Hotel, while Speaker Quinn dined inside the Plaza Hotel ?

Some of us were there because of Speaker Quinn's use of a $50 million slush fund during a time when we live under constant threat by Mayor Bloomberg, that he is going to lay off teachers and close down fire houses. Others were there, because Speaker Quinn pushed through a controversial extension of term limits, allowing Mayor Bloomberg, herself, and others, to run for a third term in office. Still yet others were there because of Speaker Quinn's complete abdication of full civil rights for LGBT New Yorkers, do-nothing record over hospital closings, horrible animal rights record, and use of city staff for campaign work.

Please join us for a Third Anniversary Protest of the Term Limits Extension at 2 pm on Sunday, October 23, at City Hall.

Please also join our Facebook group : Gays Against Christine Quinn.

Peninsula Hospital Closing Protest

2011-08-04T07:46:00.001-04:00

Peninsula Hospital Center - Protesters Take Over Lobby - Hospital Closings in NYC

Approximately 200 union employees, residents of Far Rockaway, in Queens, and local officials, gathered in the rain outside Peninsula Hospital Center, across the bay from JFK Airport. Peninsula Hospital Center has filed a plan to shut its doors. The hospital’s owner is embroiled in a political and financial scandal, but employees and residents are worried about the threat to public health, should the hospital’s closure plan be approved.

Attendees of the rally braved the rain, then, once the rally had ended, stormed into one of the lobbies of the hospital, until hospital officials called the police, to clear the lobby of its own employees.

In the time that Christine Quinn had been speaker of the City Council, eight hospitals (not counting Peninsula) have closed. If Peninsula closes, it would mark the ninth hospital to close under Speaker Quinn's watch.

This week, President Obama agreed to severe budget cuts to social safety net programs, that underpin the social contract we make with our government and amongst ourselves. More budget cuts to Medicaid and Medicare will lead to a further collapse of our healthcare system. Is Christine Quinn in Bermuda with Mayor Michael Bloomberg each time a hospital closes in New York City ? Is President Obama surfing in Hawaii each time a hospital closes in America ?

If we obediently listen to people, who are in power (the same people who work for us, the very same people who are closing our hospitals), telling us to leave the lobby of a closing hospital, then it just makes it that much easier for the New York State Department of Health/Christine Quinn to keep closing hospitals.

Peninsula Rudin Condo Conversion

2011-08-03T06:11:00.006-04:00

Is the Rudin Family eyeing their next real estate harvesting operation on the dead carcass of the Peninsula Hospital Center in Queens ?

After he's done with St. Vincent's Hospital, it has been heard on the street that William Rudin is considering another real estate harvesting operation, this time at the Peninsula Hospital Center in Queens.

Murdoch Joel Klein DOE Contract

2011-08-01T08:11:00.000-04:00

LO AND BEHOLD ! Joel Klein awarded a no-bid $27 million Department of Education contact in apparent conflict of interest.

News Corporation head Rupert Murdoch, through a subsidiary controlled by former New York City Chancellor Joel Klein, has snatched a $27 million New York State Department of Education contract without a public bidding process, The New York Daily News has reported.

No surprise, but The Daily News also reported that the Murdoch subsidiary, known as Wireless Generation, paid as much as $5,000 a month to the lobbying firm Public Strategies, Inc., to gain "agency support" for a no-bid contract, The Daily News reported.

Playing dumb, the spokesman for the State Department of Education, Tom Dunn, said that he was not aware of any "lobbying."

Late last year, Murdoch's News Corp. decided to go after a bigger slice of corrupt government tech deals by agreeing to buy data firm Wireless Generation for $360 million in cash, The New York Post reported in November 2010.

Wireless Generation builds large-scale, out-of-control data systems that nominally "help educators and parents keep track of student progress," but which News Corp. hopes will help it fluff its profits.

Amy Clayton SAIC Blame Game ?

2011-07-27T09:02:00.002-04:00

Are Systems Test Analysts, like Amy Clayton at SAIC, responsible for the monitoring the rollout of complex information technology projects like CityTime, or should the fall guys be the people at the top, who kept submitting the inflated invoices -- and then approving their payment ?

Is there an update that the Department of Justice can give us ?

After 9 Hospital Closings Under Speaker Quinn, City Will Drop Dead

2011-07-25T21:38:00.001-04:00

Queens' Peninsula Hospital Center set to close ; New York Downtown Hospital putting patients on stretchers in the hallway to accommodate unmanageable influx of emergency patients.

"Sources say the Far Rockaway, Queens, hospital will shutter after owing millions to vendors and falling behind on its union benefits funds payments; the closure would cost the area about 1,000 jobs," reported Crain's.

The Queens Crap blog published a post today, indicating that Peninsula Hospital Center had filed a 90-day closure plan, a requirement under the law that was violated when St. Vincent's Hospital closed on April 30, 2010.

Is our social safety net not too big to fail ?

Does nobody in City Council have any concern about the financial collapse of so many hospitals across all five New York City boroughs ?

Does Mayor Michael Bloomberg not care, either ?

Meanwhile, following the illegal closing of St. Vincent's Hospital last year, there reamins only one hospital south of 16th Street in Manhattan, New York Downtown Hospital, which The New York Post has reported as being ''overwhelmed,'' and is leading to an ''emergency-care crisis,'' the newspaper reports.

Bloomberg Funds LGBT Haters

2011-07-24T11:28:00.001-04:00

From The New York Post :

Gay-nup foes got Mike $$ : Politics over principle
Two Republican state senators who voted against gay marriage are collecting the same hefty campaign contributions from Mayor Bloomberg as the four who bolted their party to pass the historic law that takes effect today.
Campaign records show that Bloomberg, who castigated opponents of same-sex nuptials as "obstructionists," delivered $10,300 to Brooklyn state Sen. Marty Golden on July 11.
That represented nearly 20 percent of the $54,550 Golden's campaign took in over the last six months.
Not only did he steadfastly oppose the new law, but Golden even tried to overturn an executive order that permitted New York to recognize gay marriages performed in other states.
"I believe personally it shouldn't be done here in the state of New York," he declared in May.
A mayoral aide said Bloomberg would also be sending a $10,300 check to Staten Island state Sen. Andrew Lanza, another Republican in the anti-gay-marriage column.
Last week, The Post reported that the mayor gave $10,300 to each of the four Republicans who took the political risk of backing marriage equality.
That put him in the funny position of rewarding both backers and opponents of the law.
"No one agrees on everything," a mayoral aide commented.
Golden and Lanza, as the only two Republicans representing the city in the Senate, are frequently called upon to push the administration's agenda in Albany, the aide said.
"While there was no quid pro quo, Marty Golden carried the taxi bill for us. I'm saying there are lots of issues."
The bitterly contested taxi legislation -- which Gov. Cuomo has yet to sign into law -- would establish a new system of metered cabs serving the outer boroughs.

NYC Slush Fund Update

2011-07-22T07:31:00.000-04:00

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer Blasts Mayor's Race Opponent Chris Quinn

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer took an apparent swipe at his mayor's race opponent, calling for an end to pork spending by local lawmakers.
JULY 20, 2011 4:09 PM
Our Reuven Blau reports:
Stringer criticized City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and the other 50 members for their $49 million in earmarks that neglects to reach the city's poorest neighborhoods.
"We have a system where some districts get a lot more than others and politics is the only reason," Stringer told reporters yesterday.
Quinn is an early frontrunner in the mayoral election with the largest war chest of more than $4 million. Yet one of her major challenges in her expected run is the so-called slush fund scandal that erupted in 2007.

-- Excerpted from the Daily Politics blog by Celeste Katz on The New York Daily News.

2011 07 Xx Christine Quinn Slush Fund Member Items Report

Citizen Bloomberg

2011-07-21T07:59:00.000-04:00

The Village Voice Exposé : Citizen Bloomberg : The Dirty, Rotten Business of Mayor Michael Bloomberg

''New Yorkers who have received city, campaign, or Bloomberg bucks in one form or another and who expect to do business again in the future agreed to speak anonymously with the Voice about the mayor's personality, the intersection of his political and private interests, and the goals he aims to achieve.''

Barbara Ricci Racist Anti-Semitic

2011-07-16T23:22:00.002-04:00

OP-ED : Barbara Ricci called Mayor Bloomberg a "Jewish" "Racketeer" -- what does the mayor's religion have to do with anything ? Is this a case of a racist/anti-Semitic/bigoted attack ?

Barbara Ricci has used my YouTube video to justify her attack of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, based on him being Jewish, and then Ms. Ricci went one step further with her offensive writing by trying to sexually-shaming the artist and blogger Suzannah B. Troy. As much as I support free speech, and as much as I have criticised Mayor Bloomberg for his corruption, I cannot support racisim or anti-Semitic comments. Plus, I do not understand why Ms. Ricci would personally attack Ms. Troy. None of Ms. Ricci's blog post makes any journalistic sense.

SAIC RICO Triple Damages

2011-07-14T22:09:00.003-04:00

SAIC RICO Bloomberg Protest - Suzannah B. Troy Speech

Artist, blogger, and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy gave a speech today outside the New York City offices of SAIC to demand a RICO refund of triple damages against SAIC for their role in the organised crime that took place to rob taxpayers of over almost $1 billion in CityTime project costs.

Union representatives from Local 375 and DC 37, community activists, New York City taxpayers, and others gathered at 1250 Broadway in a demonstration against the technology company known as SAIC.

For years, newspaper and television reporters, bloggers, and whistle blowers have been reporting details of a massive taxpayer fraud perpetrated by New York City officials, by employees of SAIC and of another company known as Technodyne, and possibly by lobbyists in connection with the scandalous CityTime project.

The CityTime project began with an original budget of approximately $60 million, but has since ballooned to over $700 million.

The U.S. Attorney's Office has begun an investigation, but nobody yet knows how high this scandal, and other technology consultancy contract scandals, may go up the Bloomberg administration.

Stay tuned.

CityTime Protest Rally

2011-07-13T21:16:00.002-04:00

Gino Menchini Technodyne Telecom Commish

2011-07-11T07:02:00.006-04:00

Gino Menchini, Technodyne Lobbyist, and former NYC Telecom Commissioner

Agostino Cangemi's lobbying partner on the Technodyne-CityTime deal is Gino Menchini ; both men now work for National Strategies, LLC, a lobbying firm that performed recent lobbying work for Technodyne, one of the subcontractors implicated in the CityTime fraud scandal.

According to Mr. Menchini's biography, he was : "appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) and New York City’s Chief Information Officer (CIO). As the City’s CIO and DoITT Commissioner, he reported directly to Mayor Bloomberg and was responsible for the oversight and direction of IT and telecommunications activities for all of the City’s agencies."

In 2004, Mr. Menchini oversaw the motherload of IT contracts for that time : a $1 billion telecommunications and internet contract for the entire city. The amount of money tied to that telecom contract was described as a ''BONANZA'' (in all capital letters, according to The New York Daily News headline).

Naturally, Mr. Menchini is a very close and personal friend of Mayor Bloomberg. In 2005, Mr. Menchini was among those who attended the wedding of Miss Emma Bloomberg, Mr. Bloomberg's older daughter.

After he left his job as telecommunications commissioner, Mr. Menchini worked for a time with Northrop Grumman, one of the subcontractors on another controversial $2 billion Unified Call Taker-911 dispatch and emergency call system that is also known as the Emergency Communications Transformation Program (ECTP) -- a deal that has already become the subject of review by New York City Comptroller John Liu.

Feds Investigate Bloomberg Administration

2011-07-10T19:38:00.002-04:00

When ?

Technodyne Doe Fund Lobbyist

2011-07-08T21:52:00.001-04:00

Agostino Cangemi worked as a lobbyist for Technodyne LLC, and while he was representing Technodyne, Mr. Cangemi was pimping Technodyne to the following New York City government agencies : Comptroller's Office, Department of Buildings (DOB), Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS), Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DOITT), Department of Sanitation (DSNY), Department of Social Services/Human Resources Administration (HRA), Fire Department, Office of Management & Budget (OMB), Office of The Mayor (OTM), Police Department (NYPD)

Mr. Cangemi also worked as a lobbyists for The Doe Fund, Inc., the charity that received millions of dollars in donations from Mayor Bloomberg's charity during the time leading up to the change of term limits.

Information courtesy : http://www.nyc.gov/lobbyistsearch/index.jsp

Agostino Cangemi CityTime

2011-07-08T07:18:00.000-04:00

Who is Agostino Cangemi ? He used to work under both the Bloomberg and Giuliani administrations in the IT Department, and he negotiated IT contracts. But what has been his role with CityTime ? What does Rose Gill Hearn know about him ?

St. Vincent's Document Shredding

2011-07-07T22:56:00.008-04:00

Bankruptcy Judge Cecelia Morris has let the management of St. Vincent's avoid Freedom of Information requests and has let the Rudin Family to gut St. Vincent's and is about to let the Family take a wrecking ball to it. Now, Judge Morris is going to let the Management and the Family destroy evidence.

Management of St. Vincent's Asks Bankruptcy Court to Approve Document Destruction, So That No Investigation Can Ever Determine Why the Hospital Closed Abruptly And Without Any Legally-Mandated Closure Plan.

No politician -- not CB2 Chair Brad Hoylman, not City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, or Senator Tom Duane -- is willing to do anything to prevent the luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's. With the shredding trucks about to pull into the ambulance bays of St. Vincent's, the obstruction of justice will be complete : there may be no more hope to ever investigate the shady decisions that lead the hospital to close on April 30, 2010. It's exactly as Sarah Jessica Parker said : ''The community needs a hospital — and I think there’s been some clever obfuscation.''

1782-Motion Re Info Mgmt Services and Trust Ageement and Document Retention Plan

Deborah Lee James CityTime

2011-07-07T21:48:00.001-04:00

Who is Deborah Lee James ? She works at SAIC. But what has been her role with CityTime ? What does Rose Gill Hearn know about her ?

Deborah James Biography

William Mahoney CityTime

2011-07-07T21:25:00.001-04:00

Who is William Mahoney ? He works at SAIC. But what has been his role with CityTime ? What does Rose Gill Hearn know about him ?

Bloomberg Discrimination Update

2011-07-06T07:33:00.000-04:00

City Workers’ Discrimination Lawsuits Rise under Bloombo Dicto's Thr33 T3rms, Reports NYT

From The New York Times :

"The number of discrimination cases filed by city employees in New York has risen even as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has adopted a far less adversarial tone than his predecessor did in dealing with the city’s vast work force.
"During Mr. Bloomberg’s first two terms in office, the number of lawsuits by employees accusing the city of discrimination was 12 percent higher than the number during Rudolph W. Giuliani’s two terms as mayor, according to government data furnished under Freedom of Information Law requests. ...
"Workplace discrimination has been an awkward issue for Mr. Bloomberg. The financial services firm he founded and led, Bloomberg L.P., has been battling a long-running lawsuit contending that Mr. Bloomberg and top managers created a hostile workplace for pregnant employees. Mr. Bloomberg testified for about eight hours over two days in 2009; the case is expected to go to trial next year," reported The Times.

Role of Lobbyists in CityTime Fraud : What did SAIC and Technodyne want ?

2011-07-05T20:19:00.008-04:00

Keeping in mind that Mayor Bloomberg is skilled at funneling campaign money in many ways that go undetected and undisclosed, a skill he shares with Speaker Quinn, who still maintains her shady City Council slush fund. These experts at funneling and slushing money around in opaque structures and technicalities are the ones, who never detected the massive $600 million CityTime Fraud. Really ?

During the 3 terms of the Bloomberg administration, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn kept approving each year's city budget, which included all the approvals and sign-offs on the CityTime cost over-runs.

During the Bloomberg-Quinn administration, lobbyists for the primary CityTime contractors, Scientific Applications International Corporation and Technodyne, kept teams of expensive lobbyists on their payroll to do exactly what ? Were lobbyists being paid to prevent any government agency to investigate the 2003 Richard Valcich letter ?

2003 02 19 Richard Valcich Letter SAIC CityTime Corruption Scandal

In 2003, Mr. Valcich was the Executive Director of the Office of Payroll Administration. In his 6 page letter to SAIC, Mr. Valcich questioned the motivations behind SAIC's poor performance on the CityTime contract ; SAIC kept dragging out deadlines and delivering product that Mr. Valcich described as "below acceptable standards."

As of the time of the writing of Mr. Valcich's letter, New York City had spent $35 million thus far on the doomed CityTime project. Current cost estimates put the price tag at over $700 million, of which $600 million has been described as "fraud."

During all this time, though, the principal outsourced companies working on CityTime were dispatching teams of lobbyists, to keep the cost over-runs being paid, and maybe for other motives.... The newsroom of WNYC, the public radio station, cannot pinpoint the exact role of the shady CityTime lobbyists.

"What prosecutors have yet to publicly discuss is the role played by former city officials from both the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations that acted as lobbyists on behalf of SAIC and subcontractors such as New Jersey-based Technodyne. ...
"The city's lobbying database shows a small army of former prominent city officials who did work for SAIC and Technodyne. Defense contractor SAIC has retained former City Comptroller Liz Holtzman, Peter Powers, who served as Mayor Giuliani's top deputy Mayor for operations, and Seth Kaye, who worked in both the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations. Technodyne's lobbyists include former Bloomberg Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications Commissioner Gino Menchini and Agostino Cangemi, who also held key posts in both administrations.
"National Strategies, the lobbying firm that employs Menchini and Cangemi, says the firm had no role in CityTime and discontinued working "on general business procurement" for Technodyne as soon as the criminal allegations surfaced. (Another Technodyne lobbyist of record, Sal Salamone, was director of the Mayor’s Office of Computer Planning and has worked for SAIC.)"

No journalism outlet has yet to report the extent of lobbying by other CityTime subcontractors, such as Spherion and Gartner. If the lobbyists were trying to thwart any investigation into the $600 million CityTime fraud, would those lobbying activities rise to the level of obstruction of justice ?

Bloomberg St. Vincent's Medical Malpractice

2011-07-04T09:55:00.000-04:00

Eileen Dunn, R.N., tells residents of the Lower West Side of Manhattan that Mayor Michael Bloomberg put the ''knife to the chest'' of St. Vincent's Hospital, and that the mayor is responsible for blocking the restoration of a hospital to the Lower West Side.

Nurse Dunn also said that the municipal governments in Miami, Florida, and Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, either forbid ambulances from taking emergency patients to the kinds of first aid clinics that Lenox Hill plans to build at the O'Toole Building in the West Village, or forbid to license such first aid clinics altogether.

Too bad we can't count on Mayor Bloomberg to do the right thing -- and fight for a full-service hospital to replace St. Vincent's.

William Rudin St. Vincent's Hospital

2011-07-04T09:29:00.001-04:00

Community Activist Yetta Kurland presented a stack of over 7,500 signatures on a petition to a representative of the Rudin development family. The petition demands that the Rudin Family must be blocked from undertaking a luxury condominium conversion of the former site of St. Vincent's Hospital. In her presentation, Ms. Kurland explained the history of a prior deal that gave the Rudin Family use of a hardship exemption, but, which Ms. Kurland said, no longer applies. As William Rudin salivates over the condo conversion deal, Jane Jacobs is turning in her grave.

Bloomberg Lenox Hill CB2 Meeting

2011-07-04T08:57:00.002-04:00

Under the cover of darkness, over a holiday weekend, and in usual opaque fashion, Community Board 2 announced with very short notice a meeting for tomorrow that will keep pushing a first aid clinic to replace St. Vincent's Hospital.

In spite of the Lower West Side's united demand that North Shore-LIJ open a hospital to replace St. Vincent's, Community Board 2 keeps its head buried up the ass of the Rudin Family.

JOINT LANDMARKS & PUBLIC AESTHETICS & ST. VINCENT’S OMNIBUS : Tues., 7/5 @ 6:30 PM– NYU Silver Building, 32 Waverly Pl. Room 208 - 30 Seventh Avenue (O’Toole Building) - Application for façade changes and new entrances. For more information go to: http://bit.ly/iNUSWj

Bloomberg CityTime Ethics Investigation

2011-07-04T07:39:00.006-04:00

If the U.S. Attorney General won't appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the CityTime scandal, can we ask Public Advocate Bill De Blasio to launch an independent ethics investigation into the Bloomberg-Quinn administration ?

Michael Bloomberg, our control-queen mayor who is famous for fighting for more and more mayoral control over everything, including public education, is spinning the tall tale that he was never in control over the fraud being committed during the cost over-runs during the CityTime payroll system scandal.

"The fraud-riddled CityTime payroll system is being transferred to the city's control in the wake of indictments, guilty pleas and the public demand by Mayor Bloomberg that he wants $600 million back from the company in charge of the project.
"Rather than rely on contractors caught up in the corruption scandal to oversee the system, the city will assemble a team of roughly 70 technicians under its own control -- including many who worked for the companies now under investigation," reported The New York Post.

Just a week ago, Mayor Bloomberg was defending the hundred million dollars in cost over-runs in the CityTime project. (As if mayoral control hadn't yet been exposed to be a joke (take, for example, the Cathie Black appointment) Mayor Bloomberg is now trying to extend mayoral control from public education to the juvenile justice system.) And if that wasn't enough, now that Mayor Bloomberg claims that ''control'' over CityTime is being transferred to City Hall, one wonders who is the man behind the curtain, who is pulling all the levers, flipping all the switches, and turning all the dials ? Meanwhile, to no one's surprise, now that the CityTime milking project has gone bust, the Bloomberg administration is now on the prowl for another "new" payroll system.

"Buried in the agency's resolution was the surprising announcement that, come January, the city will seek new proposals for computerized payroll management," The Post report added.

During these three terms of Bloomberg mayoral control, he and Deputy Mayor Christine Quinn have complete and total control over the city budget, including approving appropriations of most, if not all, of the cost over-runs on the CityTime project. Will Mr. de Blasio do the right thing -- and launch an independent ethics investigation ? For more coverage, please visit the CityTime cover-up reporting by True News From Change. For more coverage, please visit the CityTime cover-up reporting by True News From Change.

CityTime Special Prosecutor Bloomberg

2011-06-29T22:28:00.003-04:00

Ask United States Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a federal special prosecutor to investigate the Bloomberg Administration and the City Council for the massive CityTime fraud.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Wednesday called for an almost complete $600 million refund of the fraudulent CityTime automated payroll system, reported Celeste Katz of The New York Daily News.

Mayor Bloomberg made his request for a refund in a letter addressed to Walter Havenstein, CEO of Science Applications International Corporation ; the letter has been released to the public.

2011 06 29 Michael Bloomberg Letter Saic Citytime 600M Refund

For months now, political commentator, artist, and blogger Suzannah B. Troy has also been calling for a complete refund of the taxpayer money wasted on CityTime.

The U.S. Congress also has some power to appoint a special prosecutor or special investigator, if Mr. Holder doesn't have the guts to investigate the Bloomberg-Quinn administration.

We need to take this investigation out of the hands of any city official, whose investigation budget depends on Mayor Bloomberg's or City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's oversight.

Mayor Bloomberg has previously attacked the budgets of the Manhattan District Attorney and of the Public Advocate.

For her part, Speaker Quinn still likes to use the city budget to dole out her politically-motivated special member items.

SAIC CityTime Legal Discovery

2011-06-22T21:25:00.012-04:00

Evidence, Documents, Response to Requests for Production : Growing Collection for Preetinder S. Bharara :

In addition to Suzannah B. Troy's detailed blog post about the criminal fraud involving the CityTime tech contract, check the following documents, which will be supplemented here from time to time :

2009 12 18 Joel Bondy CityTime Hearing Transcript

Waste-Abuse at the City of New York..an Insider Story - CNN iReport

2003 02 19 Richard Valcich Letter SAIC CityTime Corruption Scandal

SAIC SEC 8-K Date of Report : June 2, 2011

UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
__________________________________

FORM 8-K
__________________________________

CURRENT REPORT
Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of The
Securities Exchange Act of 1934
Date of Report (Date of Earliest Event Reported): June 2, 2011
__________________________________

SAIC, Inc.
(Exact Name of Registrant as Specified in its Charter)
__________________________________

Exhibit 99.2

Regulation FD Disclosure

Timekeeping Contract with City of New York

Since 2000, the Company has performed under a systems development and implementation contract relating to an automated time and attendance and workforce management system (CityTime) for certain agencies of the City of New York (City). The Company has billed approximately $635 million under the contract through May 31, 2011. During fiscal 2011, the Company and the City entered into a contract amendment that provided for, among other things, modified performance requirements for the Company to complete the contract. The Company believes it has substantially completed its performance obligations under the amended contract and has outstanding receivables of approximately $40 million as of May 31, 2011, reflecting the amount owed by the City to the Company under the terms of the amended contract and prior amendments to the contract.

In the course of conducting an internal investigation of the CityTime program, the Company discovered that it could not validate all the time recorded to the contract by its CityTime program manager. As a consequence, the Company could not determine the extent to which any time may have been incorrectly overbilled to the City for this employee. The Company then informed the City on May 23, 2011 that it had terminated the employment of this employee and offered to voluntarily refund approximately $2.5 million, representing all of this employee’s time directly billed to the City. The Company recorded a liability of approximately $2.5 million as of April 30, 2011, associated with its offer to refund this amount.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York is conducting a criminal investigation relating to the CityTime program. In December 2010, the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed a criminal complaint against six individuals who were employees of the quality assurance vendor that was under a direct contract with the New York City Office of Payroll Administration, or were principals of staffing firms that provided staff to the CityTime program as second-tier subcontractors to the Company, or were otherwise relatives of those individuals. On February 10, 2011, a federal grand jury indicted four of the individuals and added another individual defendant. On May 27, 2011, a criminal complaint was filed against the former Company employee whose time charges were subject to the refund offer. The complaint alleges that this former employee conspired to defraud the City into extending the duration of and overpaying for the CityTime project and personally received kickbacks totaling $5.6 million. It also alleges that he defrauded the Company by depriving it of his honest services, and charges him with money laundering to conceal proceeds of the fraudulent schemes. The Company is continuing to cooperate with the U.S. Attorney’s investigation but cannot predict its outcome.

Statements have been issued from the City’s Office of the Mayor and Office of the Comptroller indicating that the City’s Department of Investigation would conduct a more extensive investigation regarding the CityTime contract, and that the City would withhold payment of amounts owing to the Company until the investigation was complete. In addition, these statements have also indicated that the City intends to pursue the recovery of costs associated with the CityTime program that the City’s investigation reveals were improperly charged to the City. The City has not filed any claim against the Company or otherwise requested reimbursement or return of payments previously made to the Company and the Company has not recorded any liabilities relating to this contract other than the approximately $2.5 million it offered to refund. However, there is a reasonable possibility of additional exposure to loss that is not currently estimable if there is an adverse outcome. An adverse outcome of any of these investigations may result in non-payment of amounts owed to the Company, a demand for reimbursement of other amounts previously received by the Company under the contract, claims for additional damages, and/or fines and penalties, which could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s consolidated financial position, results of operations and cash flows.

Peter Powers

Peter Powers update : his company was a lobbyist for SAIC.

2011 06 29 Michael Bloomberg Letter Saic Citytime 600M Refund

Faith-Positive Marriage Equality Rally

2011-06-13T12:57:00.000-04:00

Faith-Positive Marriage Equality Rally at New York City Hall

Following a week with multiple religious leadersissuing statements in support of marriage equality in New York State, two prominentgroups, the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club and Queer Rising, are endorsing a faith-positive LGBT rally organized by Connecting Rainbows in support of marriage equality at New York City Hall on Tuesday, June 14, 2011, at 11:30 am.

Everybody is asked to meet at the East Side Security Gates outside City Hall. (This is the area right outside the fenced-in parking lot.)

2011-06-13 Marriage Equality Connecting Rainbows -- City Hall Demonstration

Marriage Equality Rally City Hall

2011-06-11T18:44:00.002-04:00

Marriage Equality Rally at City Hall on June 14 :
It's a Civil Rights Issue

Join the growing number of voices, who are saying that Gov. Andrew Cuomo should pull out all the stops -- and get marriage equality passed through the state legislature.

LGBT New Yorkers, who have faith or who follow a different spiritual journey, should not be the targets of religious rhetoric. Yet, a group of extremist and right-wing religious organisations are holding a press conference on Tuesday, June 14 from 11:30 am - 12:30 pm on the steps of New York City Hall. These extremist groups are asking all believers in the Lord to join in a day of fasting and prayer to invoke ''divine intervention'' to prevent the passage of Marriage Equality in New York State.

Connecting Rainbows, an LGBT civil rights group, is inviting all community groups, activists, and allies to join us -- and to spread the word to others -- about a counter demonstration that supporters of Marriage Equality are holding at the same time and at the same place : on Tuesday, June 14 at 11:30 a.m. on the steps of New York City Hall ! Please RSVP to the Marriage Equality Rally Facebook Event.

Connecting Rainbows is asking for a similar and powerful coälition of Marriage Equality groups to show up -- and to send a message that these religious organisations should be protecting the sanctity of LGBTQ lives, too. We are each somebody, and we each deserve full equality.

Michael Bloomberg : ''Don't be an obstructionist, like I have been.''

2011-05-27T05:41:00.003-04:00

OP-ED : My prediction for how history will judge the New York State politicians, who are blocking marriage equality :

‎''You should not be inbetween on equality,'' to quote Iana Di Bona.

CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964 *	NEW YORK MARRIAGE EQUALITY **

The bill came before the full Senate for debate on March 30, 1964 and the "Southern Bloc" of 18 southern Democratic Senators and one Republican Senator led by Richard Russell (D-GA) launched a filibuster to prevent its passage. Said Russell : "We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would have a tendency to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our (Southern) states."	The bill has yet to come before the full Senate for debate and already the notorious hate group National Organization for Marriage (NOM) has forged an alliance with Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr. (D-Bronx), to prevent its passage. Diaz and NOM sponsored a hate rally in the Bronx on the same day as AIDS Walk New York. Said Diaz : "We're sending a message to the governor that the Hispanic community is against gay marriage."

The most fervent opposition to the bill came from Senator Strom Thurmond (D-SC) : "This so-called Civil Rights Proposals, which the President has sent to Capitol Hill for enactment into law, are unconstitutional, unnecessary, unwise and extend beyond the realm of reason. This is the worst civil-rights package ever presented to the Congress and is reminiscent of the Reconstruction proposals and actions of the radical Republican Congress."	The most fervent opposition to the bill came from Senator Martin Golden (R-Staten Island), who introduced a hostile "defense of marriage" bill that would declare same-sex marriages entered into outside of New York void under New York law : "I am sending the message that there is some normalcy in this great state when it comes to the principled idea that marriage is between a man and a woman."

Michael Rubens Bloomberg attended Johns Hopkins University, where he joined Phi Kappa Psi, and graduated in 1964 with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in electrical engineering.	In 2005, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg appealed a landmark marriage equality ruling and has been providing financial support to right-wing Republican legislators, including Senator Golden.

Christine Quinn was not yet born when the Civil Rights Act was enacted.	In 2008, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn changed the term limits law to reward Mayor Bloomberg with a third term in office.

Joseph P. Addabbo, Jr., was born in 1964.	Sen. Joe Addabbo (D-Queens) voted against marriage equality in 2009 and is sitting on the fence as to whether he will support or oppose the pending marriage equality bill.

Carl Kruger was a teenager when the Civil Rights Act was passed into law.	Sen. Carl Kruger (D-Brooklyn) voted against marriage equality in 2009, even though Sen. Kruger has recently been outed as being gay. Yet, he still has the gall to yet say whether he will support marriage equality in 2011 for other LGBTQ New Yorkers.


President Lyndon B. Johnson, who wanted the bill passed as soon as possible, ensured that the bill would be quickly considered by the Senate. Normally, the bill would have been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Senator James O. Eastland, Democrat from Mississippi. Given Eastland's firm opposition, it seemed impossible that the bill would reach the Senate floor. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield took a novel approach to prevent the bill from being relegated to Judiciary Committee limbo. Having initially waived a second reading of the bill, which would have led to it being immediately referred to Judiciary, Mansfield gave the bill a second reading on February 26, 1964, and then proposed, in the absence of precedent for instances when a second reading did not immediately follow the first, that the bill bypass the Judiciary Committee and immediately be sent to the Senate floor for debate.	Governor Andrew Cuomo, who wanted the bill passed as soon as possible, has not yet ensured that the bill would be quickly considered by the Senate. Normally, the bill would have been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Senator John J. Bonacic, Republican from Mount Hope, New York. Given Bonacic's firm opposition to marriage equality, it would seem impossible that the bill would ever reach the Senate floor. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Long Island) has backed away from initially signaling that senators should "vote with their conscience" on the bill and has now, instead, threatened to not allow a vote on marriage equality. Thus far, excepting for intense lobbying and some major political demonstrations, the bill has not progressed within the state legislature after having been first introduced in the Assembly on May 10, 2011, by Assemblyman Daniel O'Donnell.

Shirley Huntley participated in the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery.	Sen. Shirley Huntley (D-Queens) marched in Selma and didn't learn a thing.

Key :

* Quoted entirely from Wikipedia, excepting for the references to Speaker Quinn's birth, Sen. Addabbo's birth, Sen. Kruger's age, and Sen. Huntley's march in Selma.

** Quoted from other sources over the Internet.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall. Who's the Fairiest One of All ?

2011-05-08T11:29:00.008-04:00

''Who's that woman? I know her well,
All decked out head to toe.
She lives life like a carousel:
Beau after beau after beau.
Nightly, daily,
Always laughing gaily,
Seems I see her everywhere I go.
Oh!''
-- ''Who's That Woman?'' from Follies

After the Cathleen Black hiring and firing, the constant threat to close firehouses, shut down senior citizen centers, cut childcare, layoff teachers, the fake surprise that votes don't go missing, his support to build luxury condos on the hallowed ground of St. Vincent's Hospital, the audacity to make money from government information, and end Progressive Era reforms, after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day booing, St. Patrick's Day Parade booing, the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire booing, the St. Vincent's Rally booing, after his record on rounding up the homeless and undertaking mass deportations, and even after his opposition to marriage equality, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is under the delusion that history is going to be kind to his legacy.

We know he is out of touch with reality, but when did he go off the deep end ?

Bloomberg Booed at St. Vincent's Rally

2011-05-01T05:39:00.004-04:00

At One Year Anniversary Rally of the Illegal Closing of St. Vincent's Hospital, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn are Booed by the Crowd.

Yesterday, it was almost like a repeat of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day booing, St. Patrick's Day Parade booing and the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire booing. Only the trigger that made the crowds boo at the unpopular mayor and city council speaker was the mere mention of their names.

At the one year anniversary of the hospital's closing, several speakers spoke at a rally, demanding that a hospital be restored at the site of the former St. Vincent's. Nurse Eileen Dunn worked for 25 years at St. Vincent's Hospital -- right up until the time that the hospital was closed after shady meetings between the hospital's management, politicians, potential buyers, and officials with the Department of Health.

Watch the booing beginning at 2:37 :

In this video, which was recorded on 30 April 2011, at the one year anniversary of the hospital's closing, Nurse Dunn asked if the crowd was angry at Mayor Michael Bloomberg or New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn for not doing a thing to help save a full service hospital for the Lower West Side in Manhattan.

Caroline Murphy dedicates to St. Vincent's her latest Music Video

2011-04-29T07:14:00.001-04:00

Caroline Murphy's St. Vincent's Music Video : New Single : ''Waiting This Out'' is a ballad about the community's fight for a new hospital to replace St. Vincent's in New York City.

Join us for a rally at 2 PM on Saturday, April 30, 2011, to restore a hospital to the Lower West Side of Manhattan. The greedy Rudin family luxury condo conversion is not a done deal, yet. Join us in the struggle to protect the social safety net that is under attack by extremist billionaires.

Shirley Huntley Gay Marriage Protest

2011-04-28T07:12:00.001-04:00

Senator Shirley Huntley Marched in Selma and Didn't Learn a Thing : Epic YouTube Video of Daring Protest in Jamaica, Queens, in Support of Marriage Equality

At noon on Wednesday, LGBTQ activists demonstrated in front and visited the office of Queens Senator Shirley Huntely in Jamaica Queens calling upon her to be a champion for full civil rights, including marriage equality for LGBTQ Americans.

Protesters handed out a scathing flyer, calling Sen. Huntley, ''Dreamless,'' and unfurled a 20' banner that stated, "Sen. Shirley Huntley Marched in Selma and Didn't Learn a Thing," while blaring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, giving her a much needed wake-up call.

In 2009, Senator Huntely voted "No" on the marriage equality bill, which would grant same-sex couples the same 1,324 legal protections that opposite-sex couples already have. When asked the reason for her vote, she explained that she was speaking on behalf of her constituency in district 10.

Shirley Huntley - LGBT Marriage Equality Protest Flyer - Connecting Rainbows

This protest was organised by members of Connecting Rainbows. LGBTQ activists are protesting several New York state legislators who voted ''No'' to marriage equality in 2009. Who will be the next target for marriage equality activists ? Stay tuned....

Bloomberg Maternity Leave Discrimination Update

2011-04-16T10:38:00.004-04:00

Mayor Bloomberg Bares His Fangs to Female Attorney During Testimony in a Major Federal Lawsuit Alleging the Mayor's Company Was Sexist and Discriminated Against Scores and Scores of Women, Who Took Maternity Leave.

In the summer before the 2009 mayoral election, Mayor Michael Bloomberg was deposed twice -- for a total of almost 8 hours -- in connection with a major federal, class-action lawsuit brought by 65 employees of the mayor's media empire. The employees have accused the mayor's company of systematically discriminating against pregnant women, who took maternity leave.

To no one's surprise, the details of the mayor's shocking deposition testimony were somehow suppressed before his embarrassingly little win in the November 2009 election.

During some of his testimony, the mayor gave a lot of nasty attitude to a female attorney, Kam S. Wong, who worked at the time for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and who questioned the mayor. It is not clear from an article about deposition excepts published by The New York Times if Ms. Wong questioned the mayor in both of the depositions.

The Times describes the mayor's attitude toward the female attorney as ''patronizing,'' ''unsympathetic,'' as well as ''sarcastic,'' and, at ''one point in his testimony,'' Mayor Bloomberg also ''mocked'' Ms. Wong.

The Times reported that excerpts of the mayor's deposition testimony showed numerous examples of ''moments of thrust and parry, irritability and self-assuredness bordering on cockiness,'' which ''are perhaps the most striking parts of Mr. Bloomberg’s deposition in a federal discrimination lawsuit against Bloomberg L.P., the giant financial services and media corporation that he founded.''

At one point, when Ms. Wong read a portion of Mayor Bloomberg's memoir into the record, which was about how the mayor held grudges against employees who took leave from his company, the mayor became patronising and belittling to Ms. Wong. Instead of addressing the subject of how the mayor's company treated employees, who took leave from his company, the mayor was sarcastic about how Ms. Wong actually read the portion of the book.

“Your reading is good,” the mayor retorted, according to The Times.

The federal, class action lawsuit covers a period of time in his company's office culture after Mr. Bloomberg had already become mayor. The Times reported that recent legal filings by the E.E.O.C. indicate what the commission ''asserts to be a pattern among company executives, not only of bias, but also of outright hostility toward women who took maternity leave, with some executives suggesting that they did not deserve to work for Bloomberg L.P.'' In his defense, the mayor said that he ''lost track'' of what was going on at Bloomberg L.P., after he became mayor, in spite of the fact that Mayor Bloomberg is an infamous control queen, who is obsessed with mayoral control over everything that he gets involved with, be it snow removal or the CityTime project.

In spite of his supposed defense, Bloomberg L.P. has a reputation for being a good old time ''boys’ club.'' In one example, The Times reported that Mayor Bloomberg was alleged to have compared women taking maternity leave with men wanting to take time off from work to play golf -- in other words, in the mayor's mind, maternity leave was a foolish expectation that pregnant women had, namely, to get paid for goofing off. In another example, whilst Mayor Bloomberg still controlled his company, Mr. Bloomberg was outright sued by an employee. The employee alleged that after she became pregnant, Mr. Bloomberg personally made a demand that she have an abortion. The Times reported that, at the time, Mr. Bloomberg told her to just, “Kill it!” Supposedly, Mr. Bloomberg adamantly denied any wrongdoing in the abortion case, and The Times reported that the abortion case was settled ''out of court for an undisclosed amount.''

Are Mailings by Westside Healthcare Coalition a Nasty Trick ?

2011-04-11T19:47:00.002-04:00

''West Side Healthcare Coalition is a Lie''

In a sneaky marketing ploy, the backers of the first aid clinic that is being proposed to replace St. Vincent's Hospital has been mailing deceptive brochures to residents of the Lower West Side of Manhattan. The brochures indicate that they are being mailed by a group calling itself the Westside Healthcare Coalition.

A WhoIs search on Network Solutions today showed that the website for the front group is registered to Mehigan, Bellone & Associates, Inc.

According to a press release distributed by angry residents, ''The practice of setting up seemingly grassroots groups to lobby for corporate or political interests is known as astroturfing. The stealth-style marketing technique is banned by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR).''

The real group that has been ﬁghting to restore a hospital to our community is the “Coälition for a New Village Hospital.”

West Side Healthcare Coalition is a Lie

Don't be fooled by the suspicious mailings by the front group calling itself the Westside Healthcare Coalition. They are just as fake as the claims being made by North Shore-LIJ, namely, that the first aid clinic that the Rudin family is proposing to install in the O'Toole Building will be able to treat real medical emergencies. And even in the face of all this deceptive literature that is being sent through the U.S. Postal Service, still no word from City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

Sarah Jessica Parker Is Interviewed About The Need To Replace St. Vincent's Hospital

2011-04-11T17:18:00.004-04:00

Sarah Jessica Parker endorses a Full-Service Hospital to replace St. Vincent's.

In an interview with The Villager newspaper, Sarah Jessica Parker expressed her support for a full-service hospital to replace St. Vincent's.

''Asked what she thought of the latest post-St. Vincent’s proposal, for an emergency-care facility at the site of the former hospital’s O’Toole building, the Sex and the City star looked skeptical. 'I’m concerned, let’s put it that way,' she said. 'The community needs a hospital — and I think there’s been some clever obfuscation.' As a parent of three young children, she noted, she’s especially concerned about local healthcare. 'I would like to see a proper, functioning [hospital] — not a walk-in,' she stressed. She said she had spoken to Council Speaker Christine Quinn about the issue.''

The interview given by Ms. Parker took place before information came to light about a deceptive political campaign brochure, which was mailed to residents of the Lower West Side by a front group calling itself the ''Westside Healthcare Coalition.'' A WhoIs search on Network Solutions today showed that the website for the front group is registered to Mehigan, Bellone & Associates, Inc. Whereas Ms. Parker was not directly speaking to the example of the campaign brochure as political subterfuge, you can see how she has already been concerned with the pattern of clever obfuscation.

North Shore-LIJ have a vested interest in installing a first aid clinic in the O'Toole Building in the West Village, so that the Rudin Family can build luxury condominiums on the former site of St. Vincent's Hospital. Meanwhile, watch this video about what having a full-service hospital in the Lower West Side means to one parent, whose child was treated by the live-saving emergency room at St. Vincent's Hospital :

North Shore-LIJ PR Campaign ?

2011-04-11T15:47:00.003-04:00

The community of the Lower West Side of Manhattan are outraged over a deceptive political campaign brochure that was mailed to residents in connection with a proposed first aid clinic that may replace St. Vincent's Hospital.

Community anger has reached a new high, such that one member has launched a new blog, Every Minute Matters, to counter the hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent by North Shore-LIJ and the Rudin family, to make sure that their greedy hundred million dollar condo conversion deal goes through.

The slick mass mailer is an act of political subterfuge, community residents say, because it is being mailed by a front group calling itself the ''Westside Healthcare Coalition.'' (A WhoIs search on Network Solutions today showed that the website for the front group is registered to Mehigan, Bellone & Associates, Inc.) The intention of this fake political brochure can only be to intentionally confuse the public between the front group and the real group called the Coälition For A New Village Hospital. The real group has been fighting for over one year to, at first, save St. Vincent's Hospital from closing. Then, once the hospital closed under shady conditions, the real Coälition has been fighting in court to save the hospital buildings and zoning, so that a new hospital can open on the location of the former St. Vincent's site.

Here is an anonymous line item review of what some community members describe as deceptive advertising that is printed on the controversial political brochure, which was mailed through the U.S. Postal Service :

West Side Healthcare Coalition is a Lie

The community isn't surprised that the axis of evil (aka North Shore-LIJ-Rudin Family) would resort to spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a sick and twisted public relations stunt ; the Rudin family stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars from the luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital. Even in the face of these deceptive political advertisements that are being mailed to city residents, the community continues to be likewise outraged by the veil of silence around City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who have taken no concrete actions to save St. Vincent's.

Civil Rights Route Map To Be Used By Connecting Rainbows During 2011 NYC Easter Parade

2011-04-10T12:34:00.001-04:00

Join us for an LGBT civil rights walk that is being organised by Connecting Rainbows. The walk will take place on April 24 during the 2011 Easter Parade in New York City. We need your help to create a mass movement to legally recognise LGBT civil rights.

Create profiles, form and join groups, and plan LGBT civil rights actions at our social media site at : Connecting Rainbows.

During Easter Parade, A Planned LGBT Civil Rights Walk

2011-04-10T08:24:00.001-04:00

You are invited to register to participate in the LGBT civil rights demonstration that is being planned by Connecting Rainbows to take place on April 24 during the 2011 Easter Parade in New York City. We need your help to create a mass movement to legally recognise LGBT civil rights.

Allison Jaffin-Haggerty Scam Witness

2011-04-09T08:44:00.011-04:00

05 Oct 2011 Update : Fiona Reid has been identified as the double-dipping mayoral aide, who carried out an affair with Mr. Haggerty.

Mayor Bloomberg pays Allison Jaffin two salaries, even though she works for New York City. Ms. Jaffin is now a key witness in the criminal trial about the secret campaign money funneled to Mr. Haggerty in the 2009 New York City Mayoral Campaign.

When it comes to getting paid, Allison Jaffin likes to ''double dip'' -- she gets her first paycheck from the City of New York and a second one from Mayor Michael Bloomberg's private checkbook.

Ms. Jaffin has been identified as a key witness in the criminal investigation and trial against John Haggerty, a Queens Republican political operative, who stands accused of misusing over $1 million in undisclosed campaign payments paid in 2009 -- not by the Committee to Reëlect the Mayor (CREEM), but by (again) Mayor Bloomberg's private checkbook. Ms. Jaffin is alleged to have helped arrange the large yet unreported campaign cash transaction between Mayor Bloomberg and Mr. Haggerty.

Separately, it has recently come to light that Mr. Haggerty has been accused to have been having an affair with an unnamed mayoral aide, who was also linked with CREEM, according to desperate and lascivious rumours mysteriously leaked to The New York Daily News.

For his part, Mayor Bloomberg asserts that there's nothing wrong for one of his female aids to make money on the side. ''Mr. Bloomberg said he saw nothing wrong with his paying government employees for private work,'' reported The Wall Street Journal.

Ms. Jaffin, The Journal reported, is on the city payroll, gets paid a second time from the mayor's ''private payroll,'' and, in 2009, she volunteered for CREEM. Separately, The New York Daily News has reported that Ms. Jaffin has also worked for the Bloomberg Family Foundation. It's not yet known who was the double-dipping mayoral aide, with whom Mr. Haggerty carried his torrid, extramarital affair. But artist and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy believes that the salacious rumours leaked to The Daily News was an underhanded way to bully Mr. Haggerty into keeping his mouth shut.

Cathie Black Resigns Awwwwwww

2011-04-07T22:19:00.002-04:00

Cathleen Black, Her Approval Ratings In The Dumps, Takes A Hike. Is Mayor Bloomberg Next ?

In a news analysis in The New York Times, today's resignation of the New York City schools chancellor is framed among other major failures of the stumbling and bumbling Bloomberg administration, such as :

The city's botched snow removal following the post-Christmas blizzard ;
The mayor's tin-eared suggestions that residents got to a Broadway show in almost 3 feet of unplowed snow ;
The hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money wasted on the scandalous CityTime payroll system ;
The tens of millions of taxpayer money allegedly stolen by CityTime contractors ;
The horrible death of an emaciated 4-year-old girl in child protective services ; and
The homicide charges against a child welfare worker and his supervisor in the death of the 4-year-old girl.

The above list, according to a conservative analysis by The NYTimes, points to a major setback for Mayor Bloomberg -- and it points to a bad omen for the mayor's th3rd t3rm.

''For his part, Mr. Bloomberg seems aware that symptoms of “third-term-itis” have manifested themselves. For weeks now, he has been using his own money to pay for campaign-style advertisements, nominally to bolster his battle with the teachers’ union, but widely taken as an effort to lift his sagging approval ratings,'' reported The NYTimes.

Maybe if she had billions, Ms. Black could have run endless loops of campaign commercials the way that Mayor Bloomberg does.

Kenneth Sherrill, a professor of political science at Hunter College, told The NYTimes, that voters are ''tired'' of Mayor Bloomberg.

Christine Quinn's ''Ma'am'' Meltdown

2011-04-07T07:21:00.002-04:00

Christine Quinn Has A Meltdown After She Is Called ''Ma'am'' By A Reporter

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn had a sudden outburst of anger on Wednesday by bursting into a verbal attack at Erin Einhorn, a reporter for The Daily News, who did not refer to Ms. Quinn by the courtesy title, ''Speaker.'' Instead, Ms. Einhorn had referred to Speaker Quinn as, ''Ma’am.''

“You can call me Speaker,” Ms. Quinn said in a testy tone, reported The New York Times. “It’s my press conference. I actually decide what words are necessary.”

Updated with video link ! ➔ NY1 has exclusive video of Speaker Quinn's hissy fit.

After her little temper tantrum, Speaker Quinn knew she had crossed the line, and Speaker Quinn said she was sorry. “I was nasty to you,” Ms. Quinn said to Ms. Einborn. “I apologize.”

A few weeks ago, Ms. Einhorn had reported that Speaker Quinn had had trouble paying her rent on time.

Meanwhile, Ms. Einhorn could just as easily have said, ''Deputy Mayor'' instead of, ''Ma’am.'' For all the times that Christine Quinn has gone along with all of Mayor Bloomberg's horrible plans for New York : all of the school closings and Cathie Black's controversial schools chancellor waiver ; the unequivocal insistence that more and more luxury condos and university dorms get built out of hospitals, churches, and landmark buildings ; denying us paid sick leave ; the shady way that the City Council changed term limits ; the way that Quinn will most likely deny us a living wage -- she goes along with Mayor Bloomberg rather than stand up to him.

It's almost like Christine Quinn is Mayor Bloomberg's puppet.

Bloomberg Pregnancy Discrimination Update ?

2011-04-06T08:19:00.003-04:00

Updated ! Read the shocking update about Mayor Bloomberg's deposition testimony.

New York Class-Action Pregnancy Discrimination Lawsuit Against Media Giant Bloomberg L.P.

A couple of years ago ago, it came to light that Mayor Michael Bloomberg was deposed in the pregnancy discrimination case against his company.

''The female employees allege that Bloomberg violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, by engaging in a pattern or practice of demoting and reducing their pay after they became pregnant and returned from maternity leave. Further, the female employees allege that pregnant women and new mothers were excluded from management meetings, denied promotional opportunities, and subjected to stereotyping about their abilities to do their jobs because of preconceived family responsibilities.''

Has anybody heard any updates on this case ?

John Haggerty Update - Is the Report of Mr. Haggerty's Alleged Affair Part of a Distraction Strategy ?

2011-04-03T19:31:00.004-04:00

The New York Daily News tries to shame John Haggerty by publicising an alleged extra marital affair Mr. Haggerty had in the time before Mayor Michael Bloomberg's 2009 reëlection. Artist and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy gives us her analysis of this latest tangential distraction from Mayor Bloomberg's campaign finance scandal. Does the fact that Mr. Haggerty had or did not have an affair have any bearing on the fact that Mayor Bloomberg used undeclared private funds for campaign-related activities ? Listen to Ms. Troy and decide for yourself.

In three-way North Shore-LIJ, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Deputy Mayor Christine Quinn Plan for St. Vincent's, a Fear of Union-Busting

2011-04-03T11:09:00.004-04:00

OP-ED : Update on Community Effort to Create a Hospital to Replace St. Vincent's in the Lower West Side of Manhattan

When a deal was announced for the transfer of bankruptcy assets from the 501(c)(3) charity that was St. Vincent's Hospital to the private real estate developer tycoon William Rudin at values that may not fairly represent the full market value, the bankruptcy assets transfer was hailed as a health care miracle, because it would replace the Level 1 Trauma Center that was St. Vincent's with a first aid clinic.

But just a mere examination, at first blush, of the beneficial transfer of assets to insider creditors, the jobs that it would create, and the services it would provide, show that this deal is fraught with potential legal challenges.

The transfer of St. Vincent's principal assets -- its real estate -- to the Rudin family, who has always had an ''inside track'' on condo-conversion plans -- may be fraudulent, if the transfer does not happen at full market value prices. There is also community concern that the North Shore-LIJ landlord taking over the first aid clinic is going to hire only non-union employees for the 400 jobs that are expected to be created at the first aid clinic, and that the new clinic will forbid any efforts at collective-bargaining ; presently, only approximately 36 per cent of North Shore-LIJ employees receive union benefits. The services to be provided by the first aid clinic will not be able to treat ''women in labor, patients with severe trauma such as gunshot wounds or open fractures, or those requiring immediate surgery or cardiac interventions.'' In the face of the lack of life-saving services to be provided by the first aid clinic, and even the dishonest comparison of ambulance response times between 2008 and 2009 (even though St. Vincent's closed in 2010), predictably Deputy Mayor Christine Quinn can still be ''encouraged'' by the flimsy outpatient center.

Meanwhile, here is a video of a press conference outside Friday's appellate court hearing in connection with a freedom of information lawsuit.

Why Are They Closing St. Vincent's Hospital? (Pt. 23) - Freedom of Information from g. sosa on Vimeo.

As Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Deputy Mayor Christine Quinn try to destroy the social safety net by trying to close firehouses, shut down senior citizen centers, cut childcare, layoff teachers, pretend like votes don't go missing, build luxury condos on the hallowed ground of St. Vincent's Hospital, make money from government information, and end Progressive Era reforms, we are left to wonder. When will the focus of irresponsible real estate development at the expense of the middle class spark a voter backlash, that will lead to mass protests at the city's legislature, or a revolution of the likes that have been happening elsewhere ? What will be the spark that will trigger mass protests in New York ?

(Christine Quinn is Speaker of the New York City Council, but she has made her bed alongside Mayor Bloomberg on many controversial issues that often times she acts more and more like his Deputy Mayor than an independent voice for Democratic Party ideals.)

Improbable As It May Seem, Mayor Bloomberg Dares to Call Albany Budget Cuts An ''Outrage''

2011-03-28T20:39:00.006-04:00

Readers' Comments : Bloomberg Calls State Budget Deal an 'Outrage'

''The mayor said the proposed budget was likely to require the city to make another round of cuts,'' reported The New York Times. Remember, this is the same mayor, who has, among other things, been trying to close firehouses, shut down senior citizen centers, cut childcare, layoff teachers, pretend like votes don't go missing, build luxury condos on the hallowed ground of St. Vincent's Hospital, make money from government information, and end Progressive Era reforms. Here's the best of readers' comments :

52.

Bob

Tribeca

March 28th, 2011

4:26 pm

hey Bloomberg, now you know what it feels like to feel outraged, and that's how we feel about you getting a third term, trying to bust our unions, and giving NYC away to your rich developer friends! attention all new yorkers, keep booing the mayor at all his public functions, you're doing a great job and it will prevent him from ever holding public office again! boo Bloomberg!

(Hyperlink added.)