NYPD Arrest OWS Activists at Gracie Mansion

At a protest outside Gracie Mansion, over 50 activists from Occupy Wall Street participated in a demonstration late yesterday afternoon against Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Members of the #OWS Disability Caucus and #Queering OWS joined in this demonstration. Activists denounced Mayor Michael Bloomberg's "1% policies, which continue to marginalize New Yorkers of all backgrounds." According to reports on Facebook, NYPD disrupted the peaceful protest.

Protesters yelled "Shame !" to the police officers. "One of our members was arrested without warning for apparently not moving fast enough crossing the street," one of the activists posted on Facebook.

"Unlawful arrests are still happening." In a subsequent update, the same activists wrote, "They were demanding the mayor uphold the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) instead of ignoring it. People were also there demanding more wheelchair accessible cabs from Bloomberg. 7 or 8 were arrested in total. 3 or 4 protesters early on and after an almost hourlong standoff with police in the street, 4 protesters in wheelchairs . The 4 in wheelchairs were taken away in Access-A-Ride vans. There were livestreamers there ..."

La Cuccaracha es Carlos Slim !

Cerca de 100 activistas realizaron una protesta frente a la tienda Saks Fifth Avenue en Nueva York. Los activistas denunciaron los beneficios del monopolio de telefonía de Carlos Slim. El gordo es dueño de una gran parte de la empresa Saks Fifth Avenue.

#OccupySaks Fifth Avenue - Protest Against Carlos Slim #OWS

Carlos Slim is the world's richest man, the largest stakeholder in Saks Fifth Avenue, and has been accused of overcharging impoverished Mexicans by over $129 billion as owner of Mexico's largest phone company. Activists from Occupy Wall Street demonstrated outside the fancy and expensive retailer, before they snuck inside in a direct action against each of Mr. Slim and Saks Fifth Avenue.

Updated : Javier Soriano, a prominent freelance photographer and journalist, was shut out of the Monday's “Two Countries One Voice” press conference.

Stu Loeser Quits Bloomberg Administration

Stu Loeser has been Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s press secretary for over six years. Now, Mr. Loeser is quitting the Bloomberg administration next month, reports The New York Times. Mr. Loeser has had a lot of work to do, to keep the karmically-challenged mayor out of trouble. “It’s almost like an old married couple at this point,” Bradley Tusk, who managed Mr. Bloomberg’s 2009 mayoral campaign, told The NYTimes.

Espaillat-Rangel BOE Documents

New York City Board of Elections : What would Mayor Michael Bloomberg do ? Oh, that's right : he would hire ballot security political operatives through money funneled to the Independence Party.

Too bad nobody can count on Mayor Michael Bloomberg to lead the charge on electoral system reform. He's too busy recovering from having had to provide trial testimony against his formerly-paid "campaign volunteer," John Haggerty, Jr.

NYC BOE Regarding Unofficial Election Results

Here are the two relevant documents (above and below) regarding only the most recent Board of Election scandal, this time involving Adriano Espaillat and Charles Rangel.

Espaillat v BOE Et Al OSC - No 103155 - 6292012_00000

John Haggerty Motions Ruling

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Ronald Zweibel's decision on John Haggerty's motion to dismiss charges.

Decision on Haggerty motions

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Mike Bloomberg Is Best Friends With Bill Rudin

At NYUFASP book launch, Fran Lebowitz slammed New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Bill Rudin.

On July 15, 2012, Fran Lebowitz spoke out against the zone-busting over development that is destroying the special social fabric of New York City. The purpose of her speech was the book launch of 'While We Were Sleeping : NYU and the Destruction of New York' at McNally Jackson bookstore in SoHo.

"No one earns a billion dollars, you steal a billion dollars," said Fran Lebowitz about Mayor Bloomberg's self-made billions.

At 10:53, Ms. Lebowitz begins to speak about the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital. She describes Bill Rudin as one of the mayor's best friends.

Ms. Lebowitz goes on to mention about the countless hospital closings that have taken place in New York City.

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Michael Bloomberg John Haggerty Transcripts

Flashback Rewind : Trial testimony provided by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the Mayor's shady 2009 campaign finance crimes trial involving GOP operative John Haggerty.

HAGGERTY10-3-11_TK1_

HAGGERTY 100311 TK2

HAGGERTY10-3-11_TK3_

Christine Quinn Kickstarter Project

The activist and blogger Louis Flores has created a Kickstarter project to raise funds to publish his forthcoming book about the politics and ethics of New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

Make a pledge by visiting the Kickstarter link: Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn

“I am writing a book that will take a behind the scenes look at Christine Quinn's politics and ethics. I aim to show you how a politician, who claims to be transparent and ethical, has demonstrated herself to be just the opposite,” said Louis Flores.

Mexico Protests ; Media Blackout

According to YouTube videos and bloggers, there are as many as 15 million Mexicans, who have been participating protests in different cities around Mexico. Critics of the Mexican government charge that there is a deliberate media blackout of the protests. Activists and protesters are tired of the corruption with government officials, organized crime, drug trafficking, gun violence, and taxation, among other crimes.

HHC Plans To Privatize Dialysis Services : At Huge Risk To Patients -- All Thanks To The City Budget Deal Approved By Bloomberg, Quinn

Join us in opposing New York City's Health and Hospital Corporation's 4 Year Plan of Healthcare Cuts

URGENT: Call to action : Tell Alan Aviles, President of the NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation to stop putting profits before patient care.

The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) wants to sell off in-patient and outpatient dialysis services to a private company to operate at nine HHC facilities.

PATIENTS WILL SUFFER. By cutting corners to make profits for their shareholders, for profit dialysis centers unnecessarily putting the lives of our loved ones at risk.

WORKING PEOPLE WILL SUFFER. The for-profit company that takes over dialysis services will likely hire non-union workers at lower salaries and with less benefits.

THIS CONTRACT IS CLEARLY NOT IN THE BEST INTEREST OF HHC PATIENTS OR NEW YORK CITY. HHC claims that it will save $178.5 million. Yet it has not taken the time to assess the impact on patient care of the dialysis services recently contracted out at Bellevue Hospital prior to this new initiative.

THERE IS A BETTER WAY. HHC can work with the affected unions to come up with alternatives to contracting out the renal dialysis services at the affected nine HHC hospitals and continue to provide the care using dedicated public employees with public dollars.

YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. Click here to sign a petition calling the city to stop putting profits before patient care.

BOE Misconduct : Election Fraud ?

Troubling actions by Board of Elex members :
Rangel-Espaillat vote-count odyssey continues

''Troubling signs have now emerged that some officials at the board crossed the line in an all-out effort by the Democratic Party establishment to ensure a Rangel victory, and that the board’s staff wrongly disqualified hundreds of paper ballots,'' reported Juan Gonzalez in The New York Daily News.

Gary Tilzer, on his blog True News From Change NYC, wrote that :

Those who benefit from the BOE want the Rangel race over that is why they were counting until late into Friday evening. They hope questions raised by the election like other major corruption stories about the board are lost in the media's limited attention span and unwillingness to follow up on corruption stories. The question unanswered include: Why were 79 district recorded as zero on election night. The result of those zeros was an election night blow out of Espaillat has turned into a 2% squeaker? Why did BOE deputy chief Tim Gay meet with team Rangel and the district leaders that were supporting the congressman? Were Dominican poll workers and translators prevented from working in the primary to help Rangel? Ballot fixing by the former head of the BOE and Bribery by the HANC representative on the board involving the purchase of new voting machines are long forgotten.

Does Quinn Use NYPD To Thwart Protesters ?

Stop and Frisk ; Hypocrisy and Kiss

One week after Christine Quinn marches in protest against Mayor Michael Bloomberg, she kisses both his cheeks (twice). No surprise.

Yesterday, "Mr. Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christine Quinn, surrounded by many members of the council, sealed the deal with a traditional handshake and four kisses at a news conference at City Hall," reported The Wall Street Journal.

It was only last week, though, that Mayor Bloomberg was the target of a massive protest, which called out the billionaire mayor for defending a racist police policy known as ''stop and frisk,'' which targets Black and Hispanic men.

All the way in the U.K., The Guardian newspaper published a major news report, which embarrassed Mayor Bloomberg.

One week, Speaker Quinn will march against the mayor for supporting a racist police policy, which ruins the lives of Black and Hispanic men who are innocent, and, in the very next week, Speaker Quinn is shaking the mayor's hands, smiling for the obligatory photo-op, and kissing the mayor four times.

If Speaker Quinn really wanted to do something about ending ''stop and frisk,'' she would subpoena the NYPD to disclose the annual cost of the police department's controversial racist police, and then she would cut the NYPD's budget by that amount. But only a political leader, who really cared about solving social issues, would take on a practical strategy. Instead, we have Speaker Quinn going along to get along.

This is what situational ethics looks like.

NYPD Violate Freedom of Assembly

NYPD Continue To Arrest Protesters Engaged In Acts Of Free Assemblies.

NYPD arrested numerous protesters Wednesday night during a march organised in New York City to show solidarity with the student strikes in Quebec.

''One of the men arrested was kicked in the head by an officer while he was being held on the ground, two witnesses said. The police said that five people were arrested, all on charges of disorderly conduct, though this reporter saw at least seven people who appeared to be arrested,'' wrote the reporter Colin Moynihan, for The New York Times.

... For the most part, the mood of the two-hour march, which wound through Greenwich Village as far north as 14th Street, was calm, but there were a few moments of conflict, as police officers arrested people who they said had stepped off sidewalks at various spots and gone into roadways.

At one point, the marchers crossed streets several times as they circled from sidewalk to sidewalk at Mulry Square, where several streets intersect, tying up traffic, including police scooters. After more than five minutes of circling, a police commander prevented the group from continuing its tactic, and the marchers moved west with little complaint.

Moments later, though, according to two witnesses, an officer kicked a man who had been flung to the ground and was being arrested. ...

Bloomberg : NYPD Don't Need Oversight

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New York City Mayor Said That The NYPD Do Not Need Supervision Or Monitoring. Yeah, Right....

From Reuters :

By Chris Francescani
Wed Jun 13, 2012 6:14pm EDT

(Reuters) - New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will oppose planned legislation to create independent oversight of the New York Police Department, a measure introduced by city lawmakers as the NYPD comes under growing criticism for controversial policies.

Two members of the City Council introduced legislation on Wednesday that would create the position of inspector general, an independent auditor with subpoena power and broad investigative authority to monitor the 35,000-member NYPD. The measure has found support among civil libertarians.

"If you can have an inspector general at the FBI and the CIA, why can't you have an inspector general at the NYPD?" said Councilman Jumaane Williams, a co-sponsor of the proposed bill.

Like his predecessor Rudy Giuliani, Bloomberg has resisted calls for independent oversight of the police department.

The NYPD "is the most regulated department in the entire city," Bloomberg said on Wednesday. "I think we've got enough supervision and oversight. We've got to focus on just getting the bad guys off the street and getting the guns out of their hands."

Even with crime rates falling, the police department has come under fire in the past year for increased use of its stop and frisk program, which whistleblower cops and police union officials say is driven by an illegal quota system.

NYPD surveillance of Muslim communities in and outside of New York has also been condemned by critics, who say it constitutes racial profiling.

The legislation's sponsors would need a two-thirds majority - or 35 of the 51 members - to override a mayoral veto.

Currently, about a dozen council members have expressed support for the bill, according to Williams, who said he believed "that probably within weeks we should be close to or at a veto-proof majority."

Critical support for the measure from Christine Quinn, the powerful City Council speaker and likely 2013 mayoral candidate, remains uncertain. She declined to comment Wednesday on the legislation, which she said she hasn't yet reviewed.

"That said, a lot of this bill comes out of the stop and frisk debate," Quinn said. "I think I've been very clear that the number of stop and frisks is simply too much... we have to have even more reform of the stop, question and frisk program."

NYPD spokesman Paul Browne called the measure redundant, noting that the department was already overseen by two U.S. attorneys, five district attorneys, a Civilian Complaint Review Board, and the NYPD's 750-member Internal Affairs division.

"The NYPD's Internal Affairs department is bigger than most police departments," Browne said.

Some city council members and the New York Civil Liberties Union say an inspector general is necessary to review department-wide policies, programs and operations.

Under the proposed legislation, an inspector general would be appointed by the mayor to a seven-year term, which could be renewed once.

(Reporting By Chris Francescani; Editing by Eric Walsh)

Bart Schwartz SAIC Fraud Enabler

Did former federal prosecutor Bart Schwartz enable SAIC to continue its fraud and racketeering ? Recent comments to "SAIC RICO Bloomberg Protest - Suzannah B. Troy Speech" YouTube Video question Bart Schwartz's association with SAIC's CityTime scandal :

Artist, blogger, and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy gave a speech on July 14, 2011, 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.

Emergency 911 Computer Crash

The 911 emergency telephone system in New York City crashed yesterday. The IT budget for the 911 EMS computer system has been increased many times, with only problem after problem to show for it. The last municipal IT project, to get this out of control, was revealed to involve a $600 million racketeering scandal, and that project went by the name of CityTime.

Ganja Nanny Bloomberg Hospital Closings Hypocrisy

Nanny Bloomberg suspends her ''war on sugary drinks'' in order to bake space cakes.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is supporting a proposal to decriminalize the open possession of small amounts of marijuana (up to 25 grams), as a way to appease progressive Democrats, who have been outraged over the illegal NYPD program known as ''stop and frisk.'' The mayor's surprise announcement comes only days after he launched a new image campaign to brand himself as ''Nanny Bloomberg,'' a sick and twisted marketing campaign that aims to ban large servings of soda pop.

How Would FDNY Put Out A WTC Fire In The Aftermath Of Firehouse Closings ?

A bad omen at the new World Trade Center building.

Weeks after Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed major FDNY budget cuts, which included the mayor's annual threat to close firehouses, a dangerous fire on the 89th floor of 1 World Trade Center reminded everybody about the threats to public safety that the mayor's reckless budget cuts would cause.