Bill de Blasio and the politics of race suicide ...

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2013/12/26/de-blas...mate-sex-bash/

De Blasio’s child-welfare pick was criticized for inmate ‘sex bash’
By Beth DeFalco
December 26, 2013 | 12:35am


Gladys Carrion
Photo: Theodore Parisienne


Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio’s choice to head up the city’s child-welfare agency allegedly once allowed an X-rated party for juvenile inmates — part of her “therapeutic” approach to rehabilitating violent thugs.

Gladys Carrión found herself in the middle of a scandal in 2010 when it was reported that under her watch as state commissioner of children and family services, violent juveniles at a facility in Goshen were allowed to have female guests over for a “social.”

But as The Post reported at the time, the December 2009 event turned into a wild sex party complete with lap dances and other lewd acts seen on surveillance cameras and involving an underage girl and a suspected hooker.

Four male inmates, including several violent gang-bangers, under the age of 21 attended the event, and each was allowed to invite a guest.

The guests included a 15-year-old girl and the suspected prostitute, who had been paid $100 by one of the inmates.

Republicans called for Carrión to be fired, but then-Gov. David "Blinky" Paterson refused, saying “she’s done an excellent job.”

And a spokesman for Carrión defended the socials at the time as “part of our way of incentivizing good behavior.” But the state later banned such parties after an overhaul of the juvenile-justice system.

A de Blasio spokesman claimed that reports of the sex party “were found to be baseless,’’ adding Carrión has been “widely praised’’ for her leadership.

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2013/12/26/de-blas...pal-lis-smith/

De Blasio eyes change after Lis Smith outed as Spitzer’s gal pal
By Tara Palmeri, Beth DeFalco and Bruce Golding
December 26, 2013 | 9:09pm



Lis Smith may need to polish up her resume.

Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio is looking for a new communications director to take to City Hall now that Smith, his current spokeswoman, has been outed as Eliot Spitzer’s girlfriend, The Post has learned.

Top de Blasio aides interviewed several possible replacements this week after The Post ran exclusive photos of the 54-year-old ex-governor ducking in and out of the 31-year-old Smith’s Soho walk-up, sources said Thursday.

Smith, who was de Blasio’s mouthpiece during his general-election campaign, is one of five p.r. people on his transition team.

De Blasio’s other representatives wouldn’t say whether Smith was working this week.

She did not respond to a Post reporter’s e-mail Thursday on a matter unrelated to her affair with Spitzer.

De Blasio — described as having been blindsided by the news of the relationship — said at a press conference Monday that he hadn’t decided whether he would keep her on staff.


Lis Smith leaves her apartment with Eliot Spitzer.
Photo: New York Post/ William C. Lopez


Smith was absent from the conference, and sources said Thursday that her future with de  Blasio was uncertain.

De Blasio has been critical of Spitzer, who resigned in 2008 over a prostitution scandal.

In August, a month after Spitzer launched his bid for comptroller, de  Blasio called the real-estate scion a “child of the elite.”

He also praised Spitzer’s rival in race, Scott Stringer, for his “real integrity” and said the Love Gov’s hooker habit had disqualified him from politics.

“Dare I say he invalidated himself by his actions when he was in public office,” he told The Huffington Post.

The exposure of the affair prompted Spitzer and his estranged wife, Silda, to announce late Tuesday that their marriage was officially over. They have three grown daughters together.

The next day, Smith brought Spitzer to a Christmas party at her parents’ home in the tony Westchester village of Bronxville.

Outside the Fifth Avenue apartment building where Spitzer has been staying since his split, a female worker called his behavior deplorable.

“I’m a believer in ‘to each his own,’ but in my opinion, it’s ridiculous. And the age difference? Come on!” she said. “At least date somebody closer to your own age.”

“Can you imagine that Christmas-dinner conversion yesterday?” she added. “And she works for the new mayor — what is she thinking?

“The whole thing is just ridiculous.”

[The Bobster]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ork-mayor.html

Bill de Blasio to embark on battle against inequality as New York mayor
Democrat who takes office on New Year's Day has become a new national voice for liberal causes


New York City mayor-elect Bill de Blasio waves as he exits his home with his son Dante and his wife Chirlane McCray in Brooklyn, New York, last month Photo: BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS

By Philip Sherwell, New York
3:58PM GMT 28 Dec 2013

Bill de Blasio, New York’s incoming mayor, is a towering figure not just because he stands at 6ft 5in but also for his unbashedly liberal politics at a time when the battle between the Centre and the Right dominates the polls.

New York’s first Democrat leader in 20 years will be sworn in to replace Michael Bloomberg on New Year’s Day, having won a landslide victory promising a major change of style and substance for America’s biggest city.

His Dickensian “tale of two cities” campaign mantra is already being echoed by liberals well beyond New York, to the alarm of centrist Democrats who fear that a populist progressive agenda could drive the party outside the political mainstream.

In a sign of the national focus on the new mayor, it was announced on Saturday night that Mr de Blasio will be sworn in by Bill Clinton, the former president, accompanied by his wife Hillary, the early frontrunner for the party’s 2016 stakes.

While Mr Bloomberg, 71, a pro-business media mogul, is a reserved bachelor who was occasionally accompanied on official engagements by his long-term girlfriend, his Left-wing successor will move into the Gracie Mansion mayoral residence with his mixed race family.

Chirlane McCray, his wife and closest adviser, is a black poet who identified as lesbian before their marriage; their daughter Chiara, 19, a college student, has just revealed that she received treatment for drink and drug abuse; and their 15-year-old son Dante turned into the star of the campaign with his telegenic manner and memorable Afro hair-cut.


Chiara De Blasio (MARK LENNIHAN/AP)


For visitors to New York, the most immediate visible impact of the new era may by the disappearance of an iconic mode of transport - Central Park’s horse-drawn carriages.

Mr de Blasio has pledged to ban the carriages in response to concerns about the horses’ welfare, a stance that won him valuable support from the powerful animal rights lobby in the hard-fought Democratic primary.

Mr Bloomberg and Mr de Blasio have exchanged thinly-veiled jibes in recent days about the city’s financial future.

Mr Bloomberg has also gone out with a ban rather than a whimper as the city has introduced two final prohibitions — on electronic cigarettes and Styrofoam take-away packaging — in what critics call his “nanny state” focus on public health and the environment.

He has made clear that he will focus on philanthropic work as well as his national policy interests such as immigration reform and gun control after he leaves office.

What Mr de Basio has in common with his predecessor is that the new mayor will use the bully-pulpit of New York’s top job to advocate for a nationwide platform.

In the home of Wall Street, the de Blasio campaign focused relentlessly on the yawning income gap between most New Yorkers and the very rich. And he emerged from recent White House meeting between President Barack Obama as a new national voice for liberal causes.

“There’s a progressive movement in this country that’s having a real effect,” Mr de Blasio said. “It’s clear that something is happening around this country and that the inequalities we’re facing are becoming just fundamentally unacceptable.”

De Blasio aides are privately pointing to the president’s new focus on income inequality as an issue to kick-start his second term — it will be a key theme for Mr. Obama’s State of the Union address next month — as indicating the resonance of that message.

But centrist Democrats at the Third Way foundation are fighting back, arguing that trumpeting talk of income redistribution will shackle the party’s national electoral prospects. “Nothing would be more disastrous for Democrats,” Third Way leaders Jon Cowan and Jim Kessler wrote recently.

Most immediately, Mr de Blasio is championing a tax increase on those earning more than $500,000 a year to pay for universal all-day pre-kindergarten programs, expansion of paid sick leave and allowing undocumented immigrants access to state tuition assistance and driver’s licences.

The “top priorities” list that he released last week also included an overhaul of the police department’s controversial policy of widespread “stop-and-frisk” searches, a tactic championed by Mr. Bloomberg as crucial to cutting crime.

The new mayor has however sought to defuse criticism of his policing agenda with his choice of replacement for Ray Kelly, Mr Bloomberg’s police chief. He has brought back Bill Bratton, the “supercop” who made his name in the 1990s as New York’s police commissioner when he pioneered the “broken windows” school of “zero tolerance” for even minor crimes.

In another appointment that has balanced pragmatism with populism, Mr de Blasio named a Goldman Sachs executive to a key position overseeing the financial services industry.

Mr de Blasio faces the challenge of matching his progressive politics with proof that he can run the city and its sprawling workforce. “His big challenge is to show he can lead the city responsibly at the same time as trying to make it more equitable,” said Dan Gerstein, a centre-left political consultant and advisor to former presidential candidate Joe Lieberman.

“Bill de Blasio ran his campaign as the un-Bloomberg candidate and benefitted from a terribly weak group of opposing candidates in the primary and the election,” said Mr Gerstein. “He is very like Obama in 2008. He ran a very good campaign but it was also extremely lucky in terms of timing and rivals.”

Like the president, he assumes office having promised much. “There are those who have said our ambition for this city is too bold ... [but] we are New Yorkers,” he declared in a victory speech.

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2013/12/30/cuomo-p...mark-viverito/

Cuomo pushing to block de Blasio speaker pick Mark-Viverito
By Fredric U. Dicker
December 30, 2013 | 4:42am


TOP BILLED: Melissa Mark-Viverito (left) is Bill de Blasio's pick for speaker, but Gov. Cuomo (right) is backing her opponent.
Photo: Dennis A. Clark (left) and AP (right)


Gov. Cuomo, in his first major battle with Bill de Blasio, is engaged in a last-ditch effort to block leftist Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito from becoming council speaker, Democratic insiders have told The Post.

Cuomo has been working behind the scenes with city Democratic leaders, including Assemblyman Carl Heastie, the Bronx party chair, and US Rep. Joseph Crowley, the Queens chair, to line up support for Councilman Dan Garodnick, the other candidate in the race, the insiders said.

“It’s clear to many of us that Cuomo and his people are working to stop Melissa because it’s not in his interest to have her in there,” said a prominent Democrat involved in the speakership battle.

“It’s certainly not in Cuomo’s political interest to have another left-wing activist along with de Blasio running the city. The sense is that Cuomo wants to see de Blasio defeated on this one, so that he’ll start off as mayor weaker and not stronger, relative to the governor.”

Added a longtime political observer close to the speakership fight, “The governor, who wants to run for president, doesn’t want to see the city turned into a People’s Republic of New York at the same time he’s trying to make the state at least look like it’s business friendly.”

Mayor-elect de Blasio, whose call for higher taxes on the wealthy already put him on a collision course with Cuomo — who wants tax cuts to boost his re-election — unexpectedly endorsed Mark-Viverito for speaker this month, angering Heastie, Crowley and other party leaders.

Cuomo, a Westchester resident, is publicly neutral in the council contest, expected to be decided Jan. 8.

Insiders say Cuomo, elected as an economic moderate pledged to reverse the state’s hostile-to-business reputation, fears he’s falling out of favor with the Democrats’ left-wing voting blocs, which have enormous clout in primary elections.

“Cuomo’s dilemma is that he wants New York City Democrats to like him, but they’re all way to the left on economic issues, and at the same time, he wants suburban and upstate voters to like him, but they’re moderate to conservative,” said a longtime Democratic strategist.

While Cuomo has recently sought to win over the left with his own program of higher taxes on the wealthy, his re-election strategy for 2014 is to present himself again as an economic moderate — at variance with de Blasio’s agenda.


When George Pataki became governor in 1995, he ordered the name of Mario Cuomo, the man he had just defeated, be removed from all highway signs — saying they shouldn’t be used to promote a governor.

Now, Andrew Cuomo, in an unprecedented move, is doing just the opposite — putting his name on the state Capitol Building, the neighboring Empire State Plaza, and other state buildings in the Albany area.

Cuomo’s aides claim it’s part of his effort to recognize the state’s significant buildings and said posting the governor’s name is merely “protocol” for new signs, an obvious falsehood given Pataki’s action.

“What this is about is the governor’s ego growing even larger as he approaches re-election, and you have all these political flunkies tripping over themselves to try to show how they’re working to promote his image,’’ said a longtime Democrat who knows Cuomo well.

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2013/12/30/cabbies...ing-tlc-gains/

Cabbies worried about de Blasio reversing TLC gains
By Rebecca Harshbarger
December 30, 2013 | 6:12am

City cabdrivers are ready to battle Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, who raked in thousands in campaign donations from an exploitative taxi honcho — causing concern among hacks that he will unravel all of the progress they’ve made under the current Taxi & Limousine Commission.

“We are preparing ourselves to go to war,” said veteran cabby Beresford Simmons, 60.

“I think he will be for the brokers and owners, not the drivers. He’s gotten a lot of money from them.”

Cabbies are considering boycotting New York City tourist areas to show just how important they are to the city’s economy.

The de Blasio campaign took donations from crooked taxi-fleet boss Gene Freidman, who was slapped with a $1.2 million penalty by state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and the TLC for ripping off drivers.

Freidman bundled more than $50,000 in funds to the campaign, making him one of de Blasio’s biggest donors.

His four companies own almost 900 medallions, which go for about $1.2 million a pop.

During the campaign, de Blasio said he would immediately fire current TLC Commissioner David Yassky — and Yassky is officially stepping down Tuesday.

“It’s very bad news for the drivers,” said Simmons. “
I’ve never seen a commissioner so responsive to the drivers.”

Yassky was hailed by cabbies. In the four years he headed up the TLC, Yassky adjusted regulations so drivers could take home more money from their fares and cracked down on fleets cheating drivers.

“We’ve done a lot to make driving a taxi a better job,” Yassky said during an exit interview with The Post.

“I do think it’s a better job than four years ago.”

He said the green outer-borough taxi program is a major part of his legacy, as is new technology like e-hail apps.

Yassky also doubled the number of TLC inspectors, who go after dangerous illegal cabs.

But Yassky said his four years “were not without flaws.” He wished he had rolled out the outer-borough taxis sooner and was disappointed that a judge struck down the TLC’s power to make the Taxi of Tomorrow the uniform car throughout the city.

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2014/01/02/spitzer...e-blasio-team/

Spitzer gal pal Lis Smith, de Blasio split
By Beth DeFalco and Bob Fredericks
January 2, 2014 | 8:52am


Smith (left) is rumored to be seeing Eliot Spitzer (center). Smith joined the De Blasio team after Spitzer's campaign was unsuccessful.
Photo: Robert Kalfus ; David McGlynn ; Riyad Hasan


Eliot Spitzer’s gal pal Lis Smith won’t be sticking with Team de Blasio, sources told The Post Thursday.

Smith, the new mayor’s spokeswoman following his come-from-behind primary campaign and during the transition, is going back to work for the Democratic Governors Association and Maryland Governor commie Martin O’Malley.

Smith, 31, disappeared from de Blasio’s staff after The Post published exclusive photos of the former Luv Guv coming and going from her SoHo pad.

Spitzer, 54, also spent Christmas with the Dartmouth grad and her folks at their posh Westchester abode.

The stunning brunette’s last day on the job was Wednesday, when her ex-boss was sworn in as mayor, though she was nowhere in sight.

And she took to Twitter Thursday to bid farewell to the campaign.

“I’m so proud to have worked on @Billdeblasio’s historic campaign and I’m looking forward to seeing what he does as mayor,” she wrote.

Smith also offered a cryptic New Year’s wish: “Happy New Year. Here’s to spending 2014 with the person (or ppl) you love,” with a photo of what appears to be a lone woman lounging on a tropical beach.

Others quickly mocked the tweet and photo.

“@Lis_Smith Looks like Client #9 has bought quite a spread for you. Congrats on your ethics,” tweeted Mysterion3000, referring to Spitzer’s nickname in the prostitution scandal that forced his resignation as governor.

Sources claimed the move was planned all along, and that Smith only had a contract to work for de Blasio during his campaign and the transition.

After news of the creepy May-December romance broke, de Blasio insisted that the previously high-profile Smith was on ”vacation.”

Laura Santucci, the mayor’s chief of staff, said Thursday morning that Smith did a great job while she was on board.

“Lis was contracted to work with our team through the transition. She did exemplary work and we are grateful for the support she provided. Now that the transition is concluding, she is returning to her work as a political consultant,” Santucci told The Post.

And Spitzer won’t have to travel to DC -as he did for some of his dalliances with high-priced hookers – to keep love alive.

Sources said Smith plans to continue living in Manhattan.

Sources also said Smith wasn’t gung ho about working for de Blasio because she would have to give up her lucrative clients and that she also wants to get in on the 2016 election action.

Smith, who is known for her aggressive Twitter comments, was Obama’s director of rapid response in 2012.

Instead, she plans to grow her consulting business from Manhattan working for DC, national and New York City clients.

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2014/01/03/de-blas...ted-bloomberg/

De Blasio stands by speakers who blasted Bloomberg
By Carl Campanile and Yoav Gonen
January 3, 2014 | 3:27am



He doubled down on divisiveness.

Mayor de Blasio said he takes no issue with the harsh critiques of his predecessor’s administration at Wednesday’s inauguration — including by a government worker who called the city a “plantation.”

Department of Sanitation Chaplain Fred Lucas Jr. made the derisive remark about the state of the city with ex-Mayor Michael Bloomberg seated just feet away on the dais at City Hall.

“The individuals, the clerics who gave remarks . . . I respect each and every one of them and their right to say that which they feel is appropriate,” de Blasio said Thursday when asked specifically about Lucas’ words. “I am very comfortable with everyone’s remarks yesterday.”


US Senator Chuckie "The Kike Vulture" Schumer, Diana Taylor, former mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sandra Lee and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo watch during Bill de Blasio’s public inauguration for the mayor of New York.
Photo: Reuters/Carlo Allegri


A top Bloomberg deputy took to the airwaves to push back against the attacks.

Requesting airtime on WNYC radio, former Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson took issue with entertainer Harry Belafonte’s claims Bloomberg had contributed to the nation’s high lockup rates of minorities.

In fact, Wolfson said, the incarceration rate plummeted in the city — even as crime was dropping.

“We reduced incarceration by about a third. We did substantially better than the rest of the nation. We didn’t lock more people up. We substantially locked up fewer people,’’ Wolfson pointed out.

Meanwhile, the street outside de Blasio’s Park Slope home was closed for a few hours Thursday afternoon while an NYPD guardhouse was installed. Cops are expected to staff it 24 hours a day to protect the mayor.

But de Blasio’s next-door neighbor Lourdes Leong isn’t happy.

“This is the worst thing. It’s an eyesore!” she said. “I used to like living here but not today.”

“I know the mayor needs security,” Leong said, but added, “Tell him to sell the house! It just doesn’t fit in Park Slope. That’s one less parking spot.”

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2014/01/04/loser-p...a-curse-on-me/

Loser pol: Rival put a Caribbean hex on me
By Julia Marsh
January 4, 2014 | 3:14am


'COCK' FIGHT: Gwen Goodwin (right, above) says misfortune befell her after an arts program headed by Melissa Mark-Viverito (right, below) painted this mural of a rooster on Goodwin’s East Harlem building.


A rival of Melissa Mark-Viverito filed a million-dollar lawsuit against the front-runner for City Council speaker — claiming she put a Caribbean hex on her while the two were running for the same council seat, in the form of a black-magic mural on her building.

Gwen Goodwin, 52, who spectacularly lost the Democratic primary to Mark-Viverito in September, says her nemesis targeted her East 100th Street building as the canvas for a five-story image of a bodiless rooster atop wooden poles.

The head is just below the window of the apartment where Goodwin has lived since 1997.

Mark-Viverito is expected to be voted in as the next City Council speaker on Thursday.

“According to neighbors of Puerto Rican and other backgrounds, in the Caribbean culture, this constituted a curse and a death threat, as a swastika or a noose would symbolize typically to many Jews or African-Americans,” Goodwin alleges in a Manhattan Supreme Court suit she filed Friday.

Many New York Puerto Ricans practice a hybrid religion called Santeria, which is based on Catholicism but includes voodoo-like ceremonies and animal sacrifices. East Harlem even boasts a specialty shop dedicated to the religion called Justo Botanica, at East 104th Street and Lexington Avenue.

Mark-Viverito was the head of an urban-art campaign launched last summer called Los Muros Hablan (“the walls speak”). The effort celebrates Latino culture by painting murals on walls across the five boroughs.

She partnered with Goodwin’s landlord, Eastside Managers Associates, for the East Harlem project, which was dedicated on Sept. 1.

But Goodwin claims her rival’s motives were pure evil.

“This is supposed to be a professional politician who came and graffitied the side of my building,” Goodwin told The Post.

“I really felt that people needed to understand who they were giving power to as the next most powerful person behind the mayor of New York City,” she said.

Mark-Viverito has also faced criticism for taking taxpayer subsidies meant for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers for an interest-free mortgage, even though her net worth is estimated at more than $1.5 million.

Goodwin said she endured “emotional distress” from the alleged spell that distracted her from running a winning campaign.

“This intimated me and caused me fear. I’m a Christian. I don’t believe outside my religion, but strange things were happening,” Goodwin claimed.

She said that she suddenly got a blood clot in her foot and that a close friend began “acting crazy” right after the mural went up.

The landlord did not return calls for comment.

Eric Koch, a spokesman for the councilwoman, blasted the suit.

“These desperate and *ridiculous allegations by a failed political opponent of Melissa are false, absurd and a waste of the court’s precious time. It’s sad but expected that Melissa’s *opponents are resorting to these kinds of tactics,” Koch said.

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2014/01/05/new-sch...e-blasios-pay/

New schools boss to collect double de Blasio’s pay
By Susan Edelman
January 5, 2014 | 4:20am


Carmen Farina
Photo: AP


Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña will collect both a city salary and her pension for a total income of $412,193 a year — nearly twice as much as Mayor de Blasio is being paid.

Farina is getting a Department of Education salary of $212,614 — the same as her predecessor, Dennis Walcott, officials told The Post.

But she will also continue to collect her $199,579-a-year DOE pension, which she received upon retiring in 2006 after a 40-year career in the city schools.

“She’s earned her pension, and she’s worth every dime of her salary,” said Phil Walzak, a spokesman for de Blasio.

A Jan. 1 letter offer by de Blasio, signed by Farina, states she will additionally get the DOE’s managerial-benefits package, including vacation and sick-leave allowance.

She can take a $1,000-a-year bonus to opt out of health and welfare benefits, which she already gets as a city pensioner.

She also gets a car and a driver.

Her total income will far exceed that of de Blasio, whose salary is set at $225,000.

But Farina’s new DOE salary is less than the $250,000 a year paid to two prior chancellors, Cathie Black, who resigned after three months, and Joel Klein, who served eight years.

Under state law, retired members of the NYC Teachers Retirement System under age 65 need a special waiver if they return to public service and are paid more than $30,000.

But there are no salary restrictions or waivers required for those age 65 or older. Fariña is 70.

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2014/01/05/speaker...ve-by-critics/

Speaker hopeful Mark-Viverito called vindictive by critics
By Kate Briquelet
January 5, 2014 | 2:25am


HANDS ON POL: Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito — expected to become the next speaker of the City Council after backing de Blasio for mayor — plays with former Assemblyman Guillermo Linares.
Photo: Robert Kalfus


It was supposed to be a friendly talk about an East Harlem art space.

But when board members of the nonprofit Casabe Housing Development Fund met with Melissa Mark-Viverito, now front-runner for the City Council speakership, they faced a lashing out of left field.

“You used the occasion to rant against [board member Yolanda Sanchez] . . . because she had not actively supported you the first time you ran for City Council,” Casabe directors wrote in a February 2011 letter to Mark-Viverito. “The clear implication that your office engages in ‘quid pro quo’ practices . . . completely shocked us.”

The senior-housing group also wrote, “In your vitriolic rant, you voiced dismay that the African-American constituents consider you a racist and that the Puerto Ricans dislike you.”

Many activists interviewed by The Post said they feared what would happen if Mark-Viverito headed the council — claiming that advocates who stand up to her are often blacklisted.

For Casabe, it all started when Fernando Salicrup’s arts group, Taller Boricua, was evicted from a city-owned cultural center in 2011 after more than a decade.

Mark-Viverito said Salicrup wasn’t running the space properly and asked the Economic Development Corp. to find a new operator. Casabe stepped in to propose their ideas, which the angry lawmaker rejected. The center now languishes vacant.

Salicrup could not be reached for comment, but a source said he was booted in retaliation over his support of now-Assemblyman Robert Rodriguez.

“Everyone in our neighborhood is afraid of Melissa,” said Gwen Goodwin, an East Harlem activist who ran against Mark-Viverito for City Council last year. “It brings into question the discretion of the person you’re asking to be the next-most-
powerful person in the city.”

The lefty lawmaker was the first council member to support the bid of Mayor de Blasio, who in return has been pushing her for speaker.

“It’s too much power to put in her hands,” said Jo Ann Lawson, who claims Mark-Viverito booted her from the community board in March 2013 after 10 years of service in order to add more Latino members.

Lawson said Mark-Viverito would often call board members and tell them how to vote.

Neighborhood resentment deepened in 2012, after the lawmaker helped cancel a city contract held by a Puerto Rican nonprofit for 20 years for the Leonard Covello Senior Center — giving it to an Upper East Side group.

While the wealthy councilwoman donned “99%” T-shirts during Occupy Wall Street protests, she’s come under fire for taking advantage of tax breaks reserved for the poor.

The Puerto Rico-born politician, the daughter of a rich hospital administrator, owns $1.5 million in real estate. Yet she obtained an interest-free loan under a city program to help low-income people buy homes.

“It’s a shame that Melissa has not only gotten [into office] but that she really is a fraud,” said Goodwin, who last week filed a million-dollar suit against her.

Goodwin claims the councilwoman put a grotesque mural of an impaled rooster on her building while they ran for district leader last year. She says the painting is a “death threat.”

Still, Mark-Viverito lavishes money on supporters, giving $65,000 in the past two years to low-income advocates Community Voices Heard and helping to push $160,000 in council funds to Picture the Homeless, run by her ally Lynn Lewis, according to budget data.

Franklin Plaza, a 1,632-unit co-op, received a $1-million grant from Mark-Viverito. The board posted flyers requesting residents re-elect her.

But Army veteran Sgt. Jose Sanchez, who lives at the co-op, says he hasn’t been able to get the lawmaker to help fund a children’s boxing club. The councilwoman canceled the last three meetings scheduled with El Barrio Boxing Association, he said.

“I was asked to vote for her,” Sanchez told The Post. “I felt disgusted about it. She can give my building $1 million but not $40,000 for our group? This is for the kids of East Harlem.”

A rep for Mark-Viverito called claims against her “false.”

“While she can’t help fund every group, Melissa has an outstanding . . . relationship with the overwhelming majority of community groups,” said spokesman Eric Koch.

“It’s demonstratively false to claim otherwise.”

[Thomas Edward]

I'm a born and raised NYer (we're out of the city now). This all breaks my heart.

Semper Fi...

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2014/01/09/cantor-...nst-de-blasio/

Cantor may launch charter school probe against de Blasio
By Geoff Earle
January 9, 2014 | 4:47am



WASHINGTON — Mayor de Blasio’s anti-charter school pronouncements could get him investigated by Congress before he even moves into Gracie Mansion.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a strong school choice proponent, laced into de Blasio Wednesday and hinted he’d use his office to try to discourage a rollback of New York City’s education reforms.

“Mayor de Blasio should abandon this plan and allow New York’s charter schools to continue to flourish,” Cantor said in a speech at the liberal Brookings Institution, which found New York finished second in the nation in a study on school choice and competition..

Then he appeared to dangle a threat.

“Our committees in the House will remain vigilant in their efforts to ensure no one from the government stands in the schoolhouse door between any child and a good education,” he said.

De Blasio has called for a moratorium on new charter schools and wants to charge rent to the wealthier ones located within public buildings.

Cantor mentioned de Blasio’s comments, saying “To me that’s in direct conflict to federal programs that exist.”

Cantor was deliberately vague about what actions Congress might take, mentioning possible Education Committee hearings. Beyond the leverage of the “power of the purse,” there isn’t much Congress could do to stop a city from dialing back charter schools.

De Blasio hit back hard.

“I don’t particularly look for education advice from Eric Cantor. We have a real difference on how this country should go going forward. I respect him as a member of Congress, but I think he’s dead wrong on this issue.”

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2014/01/09/melissa...will-ruin-nyc/

Melissa Mark-Viverito: A millionaire hypocrite who will ruin NYC
By Andrea Peyser
January 9, 2014 | 4:41am


Newly elected New York City Council Speaker Melissa "Zelda Gilroy" Mark-Viverito
Photo: James Messerschmidt


She’s in. We’re toast.

Melissa Mark-Viverito is the Queen of Taxpayer-Paid Subsidies. She is also Mayor de Blasio’s BFF and kindred spirit, a tax-and-spend hard leftist and bona-fide millionaire who protested with the goons at Occupy Wall Street in 2011, treated herself to a cut-rate house purchased with the help of taxpayers, and lobbied for the gentle treatment of jailed Cuban spies.

And — silly! — she plumb forgot to declare rental income from her East Harlem property to municipal ethics authorities.

In short, she’s bad news for hardworking, taxpaying and patriotic working stiffs who increasingly exist on life support in this city.

Yesterday, as easily as one might order lunch from underpaid fast-food workers, Mark-Viverito, a councilwoman from East Harlem who grew up in Puerto Rico, was elected by her peers to serve as council speaker — the second-most powerful position in the city behind our ultra-leftist, tax-and-spend mayor, de Blasio.

But while Mark-Viverito’s camp stresses that she’s the first Latina to serve as speaker, this political sleight-of-hand merely detracts attention from who she really is and what she might do.

And that would be this hypocrite to exert her newly awesome control over the city and its $70 billion annual budget — pushing the council to rubber-stamp the most ruinous elements of de Blasio’s agenda.

These include passing a law requiring employers to pay sick pay to workers, plus forcing companies that receive government aid to pay employees a living wage (how high?) — both of which are small-business killers.

But will she calm down now that she’s got the power?

The most cuckoo elements of Mark-Viverito’s personality came to the fore when she was just a normal member of the 51-person City Council. She was best known for standing atop the steps in front of City Hall and trash-talking Washington Republicans for no apparent reason.

“After 20 years of Republican economic policy, I think it’s a policy that has really left a lot of people behind,” she once said. “We have an opportunity where people have clearly indicated that they want a new direction.’’

The only direction the city has to go under Mark-Viverito is down.

Mark-Viverito pretends to be like you and me. She isn’t. She’s a lot richer.

She and her family inherited more than $6.7 million in holdings that her doctor father left when he died. And, as The Post reported, knowing that she was soon to get her hands on abundant loot, Mark-Viverito still received a no-interest loan in 1998 from the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development to help buy a $240,000 East Harlem town house under a program designed to provide cheap digs to low- and moderate-income New Yorkers.

Surprise! Mark-Viverito, who makes $112,500 a year as a council member, today is worth more than $1.5 million. Her town house’s value has skyrocketed to $1.2 million. This woman of the people is a member in good standing of the top-earning 1 percent.

So, why didn’t she (much like Mayor de Blasio) disclose rental income on her property on a city financial-disclosure form?

It was an “unintentional mistake,’’ said her spokesman.

As The Post reported exclusively Wednesday, the incoming speaker wrote a letter to the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva in 2009, saying that the so-called “Cuban Five’’ were “unjustly imprisoned in the United States for trying to prevent terrorist attacks against Cuba.’’ Hardly.

The quintet had infiltrated a naval base in Florida and were convicted in 2001 of espionage conspiracy against the United States. One of the five was convicted of murder conspiracy — for providing information about the flight plans of two small planes shot down by the Cuban government in 1996, killing four.

Mark-Viverito wanted the prisoners to spend more time with family. Are milk and cookies next?

The Queen of the Subsidies marches on.

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2014/01/09/melissa...aunces-tavern/

Melissa Mark-Viverito backed FALN bomber of Fraunces Tavern
By Philip Messing
January 9, 2014 | 3:41am


City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito
Photo: AP


The son of a man killed 38 years ago in the infamous FALN bombing of Fraunces Tavern in lower Manhattan says he’s incensed that Melissa Mark-Viverito — who lobbied for the parole of an imprisoned ringleader of the terrorist group in 2010 — has been elected City Council speaker.

Joe Connor, 47, a bank vice president, said it was “disgraceful” that Mark-Viverito supported a parole bid for FALN leader Oscar Lopez Rivera.

“I would like to ask her how she could possibly expect to have the second-most important position in our city, while advocating for a terrorist whose group attacked and murdered New Yorkers,” Connor said. Connor’s dad, Frank, was among four people killed in the 1975 lunchtime bombing by the Puerto Rican separatist group.

In 1981, the majority of the FALN terrorists were sentenced to 50- to 70-year prison terms. In 2010 Mark-Viverito asked her council colleagues to sign a petition supporting Rivera’s parole bid, describing him as a political prisoner.

[Gordon Green]

De Blasio’s Handpicked City Council Speaker Blocked Brooklyn Bridge With Occupy Wall Street Leftist Radicals… http://dailycaller.com/2014/01/13/de...-wall-street/#!

Originally Posted by PATRICK HOWLEY

Democratic New York City mayor Bill de Blasio’s handpicked City Council speaker was arrested for blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge while participating in a union-organized Occupy Wall Street protest.


The incident occurred a little more than two years before de Blasio railed against the “immoral” and “not mature” actions of New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s aides in conducting a disruptive “traffic study” on the George Washington Bridge for apparently political reasons.


Melissa Mark-Viverito, who became Council speaker last week after de Blasio and his aides lobbied Council members on her behalf, was arrested on November 17, 2011 while sitting with a group on the approach to the Brooklyn Bridge chanting “We are the 99 percent” and “All day! All week! Occupy Wall Street!”


Mark-Viverito, an eighth-district City councilwoman, and her group only remained in their position for a “few minutes” before they were arrested, but Mark-Viverito noted that “we probably would have been there you know 16, 17 hours.” SEIU 1199 president George Gresham was also part of the group.


“I was more than happy to participate in this action,” Mark-Viverito said after spending approximately five hours in jail.


The protest was part of a nationwide effort by unions and others to block bridges on November 17 in various cities.


“It was an act of civil disobedience which was meant to send a very clear message to Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Cuomo and other elected officials in government that the issues which aren’t being talked about, like income inequality, are serious, and so are they,” said a spokesman for Mark-Viverito’s fellow Councilman Jumaane Williams, who was also arrested in the protest.


Mark-Viverito pledged her firm support for Occupy Wall Street’s fight “against the one percent.”


“We really want to thank Occupy Wall Street for what it has done to really move the discourse, to demand justice and equity for the majority in this country and speaking out against the one percent that continues to dominate the discourse and dominate our government. We want our government back. That’s what this is about,” Mark-Viverito said at a November 5, 2011 Occupy rally at Zuccotti Park.

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2014/01/18/de-blas...-at-city-hall/

De Blasio’s nigger lesbian wife wants office, role at City Hall
By Beth DeFalco and Yoav Gonen
January 18, 2014 | 1:06am


INFLUENCE: Chirlane McCray, here at her inaguration ceremony Jan. 1, is looking to play a policy-setting role at City Hall.
Photo: Wireimage


Mayor de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, wants her own office inside City Hall — and to play a hands-on, policy-setting role in her husband’s administration, sources told The Post.

Officials have been scouting space for New York City’s new first lady, who described herself as a “sounding board and partner” to her husband during his campaign and transition to mayor, a source said.

And the administration has been working on a portfolio of issues for McCray to tackle, *another source said.

McCray would also like a staff — and her top pick to head it up is Rachel Noerdlinger, a longtime spokeswoman and confidant for the Rev. Al Sharpton, NY1 reported Friday.

Noerdlinger, who lives in New Jersey with her teenage son, did not respond to requests for comment on the possible chief of staff gig.

Sharpton danced around the issue Friday.

“Whatever Rachel does, I will support her,” he told The Post, declining to elaborate.

Administration officials declined to comment on Noerdlinger and said no final decisions have been made on whether McCray will get the coveted City Hall office space.

McCray is primed, sources said, to be the city’s most involved first lady in decades.

She has rarely left de Blasio’s side since he won the election on Nov. 5, and the mayor makes reference to her — often in unabashedly loving terms — at every public appearance.

It’s no secret de Blasio wants McCray, to whom he has been married for 19 years, to have an advisory role. He curiously noted her absence at a press conference Thursday, indicating she may have been an important factor behind two administrative appointments.

“My wife could not be here,” de Blasio said, “but I will express her deep enthusiasm about the appointments today.”

If McCray does score an office and staffers, she will be the first New York mayor’s wife to have City Hall perks.

The wife of Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Donna Hanover, had office space in Gracie Mansion but focused on charity and social issues and was not involved in setting policy.

Hanover had a staff of four — including an administrative manager, press secretary, public-affairs coordinator and chief of staff — at an annual cost to taxpayers of $300,000.

Hanover lost those perks when she and Giuliani split up.

McCray, 59, has worked as a speechwriter for a number of elected officials, including former Mayor David Dinkins, for whom de Blasio worked as a City Hall aide.

She also worked in public relations at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn and briefly held a similar role at Citigroup.

Meanwhile, voters don’t seem to share mayor’s enthusiasm about his wife’s role.

A new Quinnipiac poll revealed that just 27 percent of voters think the mayor’s wife should have a major part in shaping public policy.

McCray is scheduled to participate in a public discussion on immigration policies and their impact on black Americans at a forum in Brooklyn next week.

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2014/01/18/de-blas...sinesses-foes/

De Blasio’s sick-day plan will hurt small businesses: foes
By Aaron Feis and Jeane MacIntosh
January 18, 2014 | 2:16am

Steamed politicians slammed Mayor de Blasio Friday as he moved to make good on a campaign promise to require even the city’s smallest businesses to foot the bill for employees’ sick days.

Accusing Hizzoner of “rushing through potentially devastating legislation,” City Council Minority Leader Vincent Ignizio and Councilman Steven Matteo (R-SI) urged him to “wait and see” how the city’s already-approved sick-leave plan pans out before changing it.

The new law is scheduled to kick in on April 1.

“Why are we expanding the paid-sick-leave bill when the original bill has not even taken effect?” the Staten Island pols demanded, contending de Blasio’s proposal would cripple already struggling small businesses.

De Blasio’s plan, unveiled with Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito at a Bushwick restaurant, would make another 500,000 city workers eligible for paid sick days.

Businesses with as few as five employees would have to offer five paid sick days a year. Previously approved legislation applied only to businesses with 20 or more workers this year and 15 or more next year.

De Blasio’s revised proposal also takes away exemptions for the manufacturing sector and strikes a provision that gave some businesses until 2015 to *offer coverage.

The more generous plan also extends beyond parents taking tiem off to care for sick kids to include grandparents, aunts, uncles or siblings who act as caregivers.

“Families will be strong*er and more stable because they will have paid-sick-leave coverage,” the mayor said.

The already-approved version of the bill was passed last year under then-Council Speaker Christine Quinn, after much debate and revisions to appease various business sectors.

Ignizio and Matteo argued that de Blasio was asking too much, too soon.

“Under the mandate of a potentially devastating financial burden, many small businesses may be forced to lay off employees or stop hiring altogether,’’ the pols said in a joint statement.

De Blasio said he had no intention of waiting, saying “For a lot of families, losing one day’s pay can set them back.”

De Blasio’s proposed bill needs the approval of the City Council. A large contingent of council members showed up to support the mayor’s changes, making passage likely despite the opposition.

Also Friday, de Blasio identified changes to child-protective-services practices in the wake of the brutal death of a 4-year-old Myls Dobson at a Midtown apartment.

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2014/01/21/cuomo-p...iversal-pre-k/

Cuomo preempts de Blasio, pledges $1.5B for universal pre-K
By Carl Campanile
January 21, 2014 | 9:46am


Andrew Cuomo pledged $1.5B for universal pre-kindergarten classes, preempting Bill de Blasio' soak the rich tax.
Photo: Reuters


Gov. Cuomo will throw cold water on Mayor de Blasio’s plan to soak the rich on Tuesday by promising $1.5 billion in state money to fund universal pre-kindergarten classes for any New York district that wants them.

Cuomo’s plan – to be announced during his annual budget address Tuesday afternoon – would likely kill de Blasio’s vow to fund pre-K classes citywide by hiking taxes on wealthy city residents.

Cuomo, who is running for reelection and is also mulling a possible bid for the White House, has vowed to not raise taxes.

The mayor was expected to respond to Cuomo’s proposal later Tuesday morning.

De Blasio throughout his campaign and again since his landslide election victory has repeatedly called on tax hikes on the rich to pay for a $340 million plan to provide pre-K over five years.

Cuomo’s plan would give the city more than $340 million without the tax hike, which needed Albany’s approval.

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2014/01/21/upper-e...ium=SocialFlow

De Blasio ‘getting back at us’ by not plowing: UES residents
By Jennifer Gould Keil and Frank Rosario
January 21, 2014 | 6:07pm


Photo: Anne Wermiel/NY Post


It really is a tale of two cities — this time with the tony Upper East Side getting the shaft!

Huge swaths of the city’s wealthiest neighborhood had been not been plowed by early Tuesday evening, leaving 1-percenters out in the cold, according to the city’s own map of snow-plower activity.

“He is trying to get us back. He is very divisive and political,” said writer and Life-long Upper East Sider and mom Molly Jong Fast of commie Mayor de Blasio.

“By not plowing the Upper East Side, he is saying, ‘I’m not one of them.’ But we have everyone in this area on the Upper East Side. We have rich people, middle class people, and housing projects. We have it all.”

There appeared to be no snow plowing between East 59th and 79th Streets and between Second and Fifth Avenues.


The plow map as of 2:45 pm.


“I can’t believe de Blasio could do this. He is putting everyone in danger,” said Barbara Tamerin, who was using ski poles to get around 81st Street and Lexington Avenue.

“What is he thinking? We’re supposed to get up to a foot of snow and nobody on the Upper East Side is supposed to blink an eye? I can barely get around and I’m on snow shoes! All of the buses are stuck and can’t go anywhere. He’s crazy. We need Mayor Bloomberg back!”

Martin Cisse, 45, who works at a flower shop near 85th and Lex, said he can’t understand why the city would fail to plow the UES.

“De Blasio is trying to hurt the more wealthy people by ignoring us but there’s no logic to that,” Cisse said.

“There are a lot of blue collar working people out here driving trucks and trying to get around too.”

Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty, at an evening press briefing, defended the handling of the Upper East Side — claiming that one spreader had a busted GPS and was not reporting progress to the PlowNYC Web site.

“The GPS was not working,” he said. “Also, traffic created a lot of problems for us in that area.”

At the same press conference de Blasio stood by his performance. “All city agencies are acting [like] usual very, very effectively and in a coordinated fashion.”

[The Bobster]

http://nypost.com/2014/01/22/top-cuo...r-taxing-sake/

Top Cuomo aid questions de Blasio’s ‘tax for taxing sake’
By Carl Campanile
January 22, 2014 | 1:04pm


Bill de Blasio has been pushing for a tax on the rich to pay for universal pre-K classes.
Photo: Getty Images


A top aide to Gov. Cuomo is questioning whether Mayor de Blasio wants to “tax for taxing sake” as he keeps pushing higher taxes on the rich to fund universal pre-K classes.

“The state is paying for what Mayor de Blasio wants. Why tax for taxing sake?,” Larry Schwartz, secretary to the governor, said Wednesday on WNYC radio.

“If the money is there, why raise taxes on anybody? The money is there.”

It’s the strongest statement Cuomo’s office has made against de Blasio’s tax-the-rich proposal, which would impact those earning $500,000 or more.

In his budget address Tuesday, Cuomo offered to have the state foot the bill to expand early education statewide, including in the city.

But de Blasio claimed he has a mandate to raise taxes on the city’s highest income earners, arguing tha would provide a more reliable revenue stream to fund pre-K than what the governor is proposing.

Schwartz said that argument is fill with “fallacies.”

He pointed out that any tax increase could be modified or repealed, as happened with the MTA payroll tax in 2011.

“There is no guarantee. What’s going to happen after five years?” Schwartz asked.

Cuomo, who is seeking re-election this fall, has proposed a $2 billion tax cutting plan over three years to provide relief to homeowners, renters and businesses.

Schwartz also took after de Blasio’s signature fight against income inequality.

“It’s not about income inequality,” Schwartz declared. “It’s about equal opportunity . . .It’s about providing equality of opportunity for everybody.”