Bloomberg CityTime Ethics Investigation

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.

Bloomberg Maternity Leave Discrimination Update

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.''

Bloombo Dicto Hosni Bloomberg

Maybe after #OpEgypt and #OpItaly, we'll have #OpCityHall or #OpCityCouncil ?

After Mayor Michael Bloomberg insulted parents who heckled Chancellor Cathleen Black, Michael Mulgrew, president of the teachers union, compared Mayor with Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, reported The New York Post.

Ms. Black's ''Awwwwwww'' moment came when she mocked parents, who were going to desperate measures to save several schools from closing, and her insensitive mocking and juvenile immaturity has inflamed the anger of parents and has shocked the conscious of even some school officials. In response to the despair of parents, Mayor Bloomberg has predictably unleashed a ridiculous backlash against Ms. Black's critics.

Mayor Bloomberg, who subverted a public referendum to run for a third term as mayor, went on to say that angry parents were acting unpatriotic. "This is not democracy -- letting people yell and scream. That's not freedom of expression," Mayor Bloomberg said. "That's just trying to take away somebody else's rights. And if we want to attract good people to come and work for the public, you don't do this."

Under his tight fist of ''mayoral control'' over the school system, Mayor Bloomberg wields totalitarian control over the Panel for Educational Policy, which votes to close schools ; the Panel operates under the appearance of independence, but in reality the Panel is ''entirely undemocratic'' and takes its ''marching orders only from Bloomberg,'' according to the Post Mr. Mulgrew noted that if the Panel doesn't vote the way that the Mayor wants, he retaliates against them. ''The last time they voted against him, he fired them,'' Mr. Mulgrew said.

Even The New York Times Agrees : the ''Fix'' Was In.

Meanwhile, at a meeting on Thursday night, where more schools were voted to be closed, City Councilmember Charles Barron said, “You will let us scream until we get hoarse, and then we know what will happen — you’ll shut all our schools down.”

''The closing of struggling schools has been a key piece of Mr. Bloomberg’s agenda, and his eight-person majority has stood behind him, phasing out more than 100 schools, often replacing them with small schools and charter schools,'' reported The Times.

Update on Christine Quinn

While Mayor Bloomberg spent the week closing schools, firing teachers, and getting rid of classrooms and school lunches, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was using NYPD as enforcers against activists outside a fundraiser for her presumed candidacy for Mayor in 2013.

Cathie Black is Unfit to be Schools Chancellor, say Activists

Mayoral Control Queen : Cathie Black Press Conference

Watch the YouTube video of the press conference held in front of Tweed Couthouse. Various speakers voiced their united opposition to the nomination by Mayor Michael Bloomberg of Cathleen Black to become the next New York City Schools Chancellor.