Peninsula Hospital Closing Protest

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.

CityTime Special Bloomberg Prosecutor

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.

Mayor Bloomberg Was Booed At The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Ceremony

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg was booed at the 100th Anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire ceremonies today.

NEW YORK - At a ceremony commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, Mayor Michael Bloomberg was loudly booed by labor activists and union supporters, Agence France-Presse reported.

Mayor Bloomberg had been delivering a speech about fire safety when activists began to boo the unpopular mayor. The ceremony took place in Greenwich Village, outside the building where the fire broke out on March 25, 1911. The building is now owned by New York University.

Since he changed the term limits laws to run for a previously impossible third term as mayor, Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire, has been on a scorched-earth campaign to shut down firehouses all across New York City. Critics allege that the closing down of firehouses and the layoffs of firefighters would put the city at risk should a large fire take place.

Today's ceremony was marking the deaths of 146 people at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company ; the outrage following the fire and deaths resulted in reforms in labor laws in New York and around the nation.

As His Popularity Sags In This Tough Economy, Mayor Bloomberg Spends $1 Million On Desperate Campaign Commercials

Mayor Michael Bloomberg launches a major TV advertising blitz to fluff his ''reputation,'' even as his goodwill amongst voters shrivels up.

Mayor Bloomberg has reportedly made a media buy of almost $1 million worth of TV commercials that tell the story that he has been ''fighting for New York,'' instead of trying to close firehouses, shut down senior citizen centers, cut childcare, layoff teachers, avoid missing votes, build luxury condos on the hallowed ground of St. Vincent's Hospital, make money from government information, and end Progressive Era reforms. It should come as no surprise that, consequently, Mayor Bloomberg is falling in popularity amongst voters. It's almost as if Mayor Bloomberg's legacy has been flushed down the toilet.

Bloomberg-Quinn Budget Cuts

Stringer Snipes at Quinn Over Budget Cuts

In the wake of the announcements that Mayor Michael Bloomberg plans to layoff 6,000 teachers, cut daycare and senior citizen centers, and cut the budgets of independently elected officials, like the offices of the public advocate and the borough presidents, politicians and community leaders are decrying the mayor's cuts as politically-motivated.

For example, The New York Post questions why Mayor Bloomberg is blaming Gov. Andrew Cuomo over the loss of $600 million in state funding. In an NY1 broadcast, the mayor even called Gov. Cuomo ignorant about the city's budget.

Meanwhile, in respect of the proposed budget cuts to the offices of the public advocate and borough presidents has outraged Scott Stringer, the Manhattan borough president.

“It is outrageous that we are part of this political budget dance that impacts our ability to do our job effectively,” Stringer said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “And both the mayor and the council leadership have been complicit in this attempt to silence independent elected officeholders by going after our budget.”

Mr. Stringer told The Journal that under the twin administrations of Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the annual process for setting the budgets for the borough presidents and the public advocate has become the “most politicized” in a generation.

Moreover, that the mayor seems obsessed with laying off public school teachers has worried others whether the mayor is, indeed, making biased budget cuts.

"His complete insistence on teacher layoffs seems bizarre to us at this point. We think it's more of a political game and scaring people," Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, told NY1 television, according to Yahoo! News.

Separately, proposed budget cuts to public libraries have triggered a backlash : is Mayor Bloomberg attacking freedom of expression, education, and access to information ?

2009 Campaign Payments Fraud - Update

The New York Times reported :
''Suit Suggests Political Party Knew of Fraud''

UPDATED !
In contradictory new developments in the trial against GOP operative John Haggerty, prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney's office allege that ''Mr. Haggerty lied to the Bloomberg campaign to get it to pay $1.2 million to the Independence Party,'' according to court documents released on February 17 and reported about by The Times.

How did Mr. Haggerty lie to the Bloomberg campaign to get it to pay $1.2 million to the Independence Party, if the campaign to reëlect the mayor (CREEM) knowingly used Mayor Bloomberg's private banking accounts to ''wash in'' money in order to deliberately funnel the Independence Party donations to Mr. Haggerty ?

What is more, the reporter Aram Roston from PolitickerNY has raised questions about Mayor Bloomberg's pattern in using private donations for campaign-related activities. Indeed, in court filings made on December 15, 2010, in the criminal trial against Mr. Haggerty, defense attorneys made assertions that CREEM "intentionally chose the least transparent way possible to conduct ballot security....It was Mr. Bloomberg who chose to hide payments, not Mr. Haggerty," reported The Wall Street Journal. The Journal's article added :

Mr. Haggerty's attorneys suggested the district attorney's office should "commence an investigation immediately" into the possibility that the mayor violated laws by transferring personal funds to the Independence Party for the direct purpose of helping his campaign with a ballot-security operation. If Mr. Bloomberg "made the contribution directing how it should be spent, he would be in violation of both the New York State Election Law and the New York City Campaign finance Law," Mr. Haggerty's attorneys allege.

According to New York State law, contributions in excess of $94,200 to a state political party are prohibited from being used to promote a candidate, The Journal reported. Furthermore, New York City law requires politicians' electoral campaigns to report and disclose campaign-related expenditures, and The Journal added that Mayor Bloomberg's ballot-security operations expenditures were not reported or disclosed by CREEM.

Adding to the lack of transparency about Mayor Bloomberg's intent in structuring the expeditures by transferring personal funds to the Independence Party is the fact that the Mayor's Office refuses to release all related e-mails about campaign-related activities. After The New York Post filed a Freedom of Information request, demanding more information about Mr. Haggerty's involvement with the Mayor's Office, the Mayor's Office release only "nine e-mail exchanges" between Mr. Haggerty and "mayoral aides" during 2008 and 2009. "There were other e-mails that the mayor's refuses to release on the grounds of 'personal privacy,' " The Post reported.

Meanwhile, back to The Times's own report about the February 17 court documents : this is the first time that prosecutors have said the Independence Party may have known about the alleged fraud. But The Times seems to be continuing with the storyline that the ''fraud'' committed was that the act that Mr. Haggerty used the CREEM payments for personal use, not that CREEM failed to disclose Mr. Haggerty's work as campaign-related activities.

''An extensive review of records and campaign documents by The Observer, as well as interviews with witnesses, indicate that Mr. Bloomberg funneled money to Mr. Haggerty, who claimed to be a 'volunteer,' sidestepping the political committee the mayor had promised to use to finance his election campaign. By deploying Mr. Haggerty and an unrelated political party, the mayor's team avoided drawing attention to a controversial election day tactic. But even more serious, experts say Bloomberg may have broken campaign finance laws,'' reported Mr. Roston.

The way that CREEM structured the payments to Mr. Haggerty allowed CREEM to avoid having to legally disclose the payments (and controversial activities), and the structure troubles some legal experts. "This is clearly an attempt to evade the purpose of the law," John Moscow, a former white-collar prosecutor in Manhattan, told Mr. Roston.

Meanwhile, the artist and blogger Suzannah B. Troy offers a slightly different political analysis. Mr. Haggerty is a "fall guy," she wrote. ''I have been saying all along Haggerty is innocent ! John Haggerty is as innocent as Mike Bloomberg,'' wrote Ms. Troy. ''Technically there is no doubt Haggerty broke the law but so did Mike Bloomberg by wiring money from his personal account, 1.1 million dollars the day before the election !''

The controversial campaign reëlection-related services that Mr. Haggerty was hired to provide have been described as a ''ballot security operation.'' In Mr. Roston's article, the impression of the ballot security operation was to presumably discourage or fend off the voters of Mr. Bloomberg's opponent, Controller Bill Thompson (D), an African-American. Although alluded to, left unsaid was whether the ballot security operation was intended to deliberately turn away Mr. Thompson's African-American voters from the polls.

Bloomberg Testified Against Haggerty

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg provided secret grand jury testimony in the case against his own reëlection campaign worker, John Haggerty, Jr.

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.

During public proceedings in the criminal trial against John Haggerty, Jr., Assistant District Attorney Eric Seidel, one of the prosecutors in the case, told Judge Ronald A. Zweibel that Mayor Bloomberg had testified before a grand jury, and that the grand jury evidence supported the state's case against Mr. Haggerty.

In June 2010, Mr. Haggerty was indicted for allegedly stealing $1.1 million in campaign related payments funneled by Mayor Bloomberg through his private banking accounts to the Independence Party of New York State.

In 2009, Mayor Bloomberg was on pace to spend over $100 million dollars in declared campaign expenses through his committee to reëlect the mayor (CREEM). Because there was a backlash at Mayor Bloomberg's outrageous reëlection campaign spending, there must have been some sensitivity within CREEM to substantially exceed $100 million in declared reëlection campaign expenses, ergo the use of millions of undeclared campaign-related expenses from Mayor Bloomberg's personal and private banking accounts.

In 2008, Mayor Bloomberg made private donations to the Independence Party of New York State totaling $1.2 million. Around this time, the New York City Council changed the term limits law without a voter referendum. Then, in 2009, Mayor Bloomberg was endorsed by the Independence Party of New York City.

Ostensibly, Mr. Haggerty was to provide ballot security operations, which is a reëlection campaign activity, for Mayor Bloomberg. Which campaign laws did Mr. Haggerty break, if CREEM knowingly used Mayor Bloomberg's private banking accounts to ''wash in'' money in order to funnel the Independence Party donations to Mr. Haggerty ? What is more, the reporter Aram Roston from PolitickerNY has raised questions about Mayor Bloomberg's pattern in using private donations for campaign-related activities.

Bloomberg Insults Irish

Irish Eyes Not Smiling Over Mayor Bloomberg's Inebriated Insensitivity

Mayor Bloomberg described Irish New Yorkers as being ''inebriated,'' and he added that he was accustomed to seeing drunken Irish ''hanging out the windows'' of the American Irish Historical Society in their drunken state.

The mayor's insult came during a speech he gave at the American Irish Historical Society, and his disparaging remarks triggered boos from the audience.

In an article about the insult, The New York Times quoted John Dunleavy, the chairman of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, said the mayor’s words were “outrageous and totally uncalled for.”

Bloomberg Campaign Spending Scandal Update

The New York City Campaign Finance Board is suspending its investigation into whether the committee to reëlect Mayor Michael Bloomberg violated disclosure rules ; the suspension is coming on the orders of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, sources have told The New York Post.

Presumably because oral arguments in the District Attorney's criminal case against John Haggerty are being heard tomorrow, Manhattan DA Cy Vance's office has asked the Campaign Finance Board to hold off its review of Mayor Bloomberg's financial disclosures in connection with his 2009 reëlection campaign.

Mr. Haggerty is accused of misusing approximately $1.1 million in undisclosed money from Mayor Bloomberg's personal-private accounts, which had been paid to the Independence Party ; it has been reported that Mr. Haggerty bought a house with most of the proceeds of Mayor Bloomberg's political donation.

Meanwhile, one questions why Mr. Haggerty is being charged with misusing a political client's money, if he can continue to be hired for his political and campaign services. If Mr. Haggerty was, indeed, a thief, then he would not have been hired to work for 2010 GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino.

If the intention for Mr. Bloomberg's off-committee donation to the Independence Party was always meant to be a way to funnel money to Mr. Haggerty, then it was Mr. Bloomberg, who failed to disclose the campaign payment, not Mr. Haggerty, who misused the proceeds.

That Mr. Vance has asked for the suspension of the Campaign Finance Board's investigation makes one question his motive. As The Post reported, ''If the CFB decides the mayor was trying to hide spending that benefited him directly, he could face a significant fine.''

John Liu Stops Technology Contract

Outrageous Cost-Overruns With CityTime Contract Lead Comptroller's Office To Scrutinise NYC's Emergency Telephone System Contract

The CityTime technology contract scandal has cast many doubts on Mayor Michael Bloomberg's other expensive IT programs. The Gothamist has reported that suspicion has grown in connection with the out-of-control costs associated with a technology upgrade to New York City's 911 emergency telephone system.

''The City Time scandal had already been a point of contention between the Bloomberg administration and City Comptroller John Liu, and now their fight has spread to the City's emergency services. Yesterday Liu's office rejected a $286 million contract request for the city's Emergency Communications Transformation Program, (ECTP), an effort to update the city's 911 system—a project that, incidentally, was initially budged at $380 million and has since ballooned to $666 million.''

Now that the Comptroller Liu has finally started showing up to the office as Comptroller and not a candidate for mayor, maybe he will expose other black holes in the city budget ?