We are awash with Presidential candidates and political ads since the NY Primary is April 19. But other more important issues are coming to light in state and local politics here. With the sentencing hearings looming large for our former State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and former State Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver, our intrepid US Attorney Preet Bharara has turned his sights on another NY political figure to investigation - Mayor Bill De Blasio.
It's been a bad few week for De Blasio. First it was reported that a few of NYC's top cops have had to resign or turn in their badges and guns because they have been taking "gifts" like diamonds and trips to exotic lands for doing special extra work as police escorts for wealthy business owners in NYC. Then it was reported that the De Blasio administration gave a tax break and rezoned a healthcare facility for a group that wanted to buy a building that they swore (not on paper, of course) that they would keep the facility. As I understand it, the property was valued at a low price, so that the group could buy it. But instead of keeping it as a healthcare facility as verbally promised, they flipped it for a $72million profit to a company that is turning it into condos.
Oh, but that's not really the bad part. Many of the people involved are in these various and sundry events have all been big money donors to one of de Blasio special campaign funds that he shut down - Campaign For One New York - before he knew any of this was going on that he didn't know was going on. De Blasio insisted that the group had simply accomplished its mission. Interestingly, the over $4 million in the now closed campaign fund have not been accounted for and is explained away that it has been dispersed to other campaign funds for De Blasio's reelection bid. And because it just ties so neatly together, some of the same donors were the ones who were giving diamonds and exotic trips to our top cops.
Somehow, Mayor De Blasio coincidently take up big causes when coincidently his big money donors need valuable real estate. The last time this happened was when a donor coicidently wanted the property that housed the horse stables occupied by the horse carriage trade De Blasio has spent much time and energy trying every way he can to close them down.
Smelling something fishy, our intrepid US Attorney Preet Bharara has now opened an investigation to see exactly what is going on -with all of Mayor de Blasio's funny money. Bharara has stellar track records of taking down elected officials who steal from the taxpayers and I doubt he would take this up, if he didn't see a clear reason.
I will keep you posted and add De Blasio's name to the other 25+ NY elected official investigated, indicted, jailed, and/or released from jail since 2010.
Please feel free to comment or change the subject...
It's been a bad few week for De Blasio. First it was reported that a few of NYC's top cops have had to resign or turn in their badges and guns because they have been taking "gifts" like diamonds and trips to exotic lands for doing special extra work as police escorts for wealthy business owners in NYC. Then it was reported that the De Blasio administration gave a tax break and rezoned a healthcare facility for a group that wanted to buy a building that they swore (not on paper, of course) that they would keep the facility. As I understand it, the property was valued at a low price, so that the group could buy it. But instead of keeping it as a healthcare facility as verbally promised, they flipped it for a $72million profit to a company that is turning it into condos.
Oh, but that's not really the bad part. Many of the people involved are in these various and sundry events have all been big money donors to one of de Blasio special campaign funds that he shut down - Campaign For One New York - before he knew any of this was going on that he didn't know was going on. De Blasio insisted that the group had simply accomplished its mission. Interestingly, the over $4 million in the now closed campaign fund have not been accounted for and is explained away that it has been dispersed to other campaign funds for De Blasio's reelection bid. And because it just ties so neatly together, some of the same donors were the ones who were giving diamonds and exotic trips to our top cops.
Somehow, Mayor De Blasio coincidently take up big causes when coincidently his big money donors need valuable real estate. The last time this happened was when a donor coicidently wanted the property that housed the horse stables occupied by the horse carriage trade De Blasio has spent much time and energy trying every way he can to close them down.
Smelling something fishy, our intrepid US Attorney Preet Bharara has now opened an investigation to see exactly what is going on -with all of Mayor de Blasio's funny money. Bharara has stellar track records of taking down elected officials who steal from the taxpayers and I doubt he would take this up, if he didn't see a clear reason.
I will keep you posted and add De Blasio's name to the other 25+ NY elected official investigated, indicted, jailed, and/or released from jail since 2010.
Please feel free to comment or change the subject...
Oh please please please let De Blasio go to jail!! :)
ReplyDelete"And add DeBlasio's name to the other 25+ NY elected officials investigated, indicted, jailed,and/or released from jail since 2010."
ReplyDeleteBut could they successfully get on the subway if they had to? BWUHAHAHAHAHAHA
GypsyTyger
Our City Council, many criminals in training themselves, passed an ordinance a few months ago making it illegal to ask someone about their criminal record before the 2nd interview. I'm thinking this has less to do with helping just plain released felons and more to do with all of those former elected officials/now inmates who will be needing jobs once they are on the outside.
ReplyDeleteAndrew - I am so with you on that! He has spent so much time trying to make a national name for himself that no one cares what happens to him. Of course, he's blaming the system for any perceived campaign fundraising issues. It's not him, it's the system, he is just a victim of the "way it is". Oh, and he knows nothing about it and will no longer be answering questions about this...seriously, he said that.
ReplyDeleteGypsy - Amazingly, he probably can't negotiate the subway turnstile either. [Take note because this may never happen again] In Hillary's defense, the turnstile swipey mechanism is so poorly designed, that it happens to all of us sometime. But then no elected official or member of the MTA would know this because they get chauffeured about in their giant black SUVs.
ReplyDeleteOT: In connection with yesterday's article, here's an interesting poll about the candidates. I don't take polls seriously at all, but right now this NBC poll says that Trump would lose to Hillary 38% to 36%, whereas Cruz would lose 37% to 32%. No word on Kasich.
ReplyDeleteThere is also another poll at the bottom asking who Trump/Cruz people would support in November if their guy lost the primary. It's similar except that more Cruz people than Trump people would vote for Hillary (6% v. 2%), whereas Trump people would more likely vote third party instead (28% to 26%) or not vote (15% to 9%). But more Cruz people would support Trump than Trump people would support Cruz (+3%). Make of that what you will. I'm voting Mickey Mouse.
Here's the link: LINK
Bev and GypsyTyger, Not knowing how to use the subway only matters when it's a Republican.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest difference in those polls between Trump and Cruz is where people get their impression. Trump is from all over the news and what you see is what you get-a narcissistic asshole. Impression on Cruz is mostly based what people have been told about him. I think as people start to listen to him more, they will see him more presidential. He has toned down his rhetoric from a few years ago and unlike the Trumpertantrum, he will take criticism and will discuss difficult issues. I also think he will also calmly, slowly, methodically tear Hillary apart in a debate.
ReplyDeleteKoshcat, I have to disagree on this.
ReplyDeleteImpressions, once made, are hard to break. And Cruz really doesn't do anything that will change the public's mind.
Also, I think Cruz's numbers are only this good (though they aren't good at all) because Trump has drawn all the media's fire. They've been trying to destroy him for months by turning anything, no matter how trivial into an Earth-shattering outrage. This isn't unusual, it's what they always do to GOP front runners, but Cruz hasn't been subjected to this yet. When they start highlighting his views and his crazier stuff, I think you're going to see his negatives shoot up and his support slip. My guess is that Cruz ends up losing to Hillary or Sanders 44-56 and only carries 12-14 states.
Stupid ad to run in NYC - Samder' Anti-Wall Street ad...yeah a place where much of the high end tax base earns a living.
ReplyDeleteBev, I don't think it hurts them because liberals love to criticize their own professions/class so long as it is understood that THEY aren't like the rest of those evil greedy people.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting article by David French.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nationalreview.com/article/433920/white-working-class-deaths-spiritual-crisis
This vision of the good old days is convenient for those who lament the present, but is it actually true? Yes, plants have closed in some communities, but factories have opened in others. Detroit has suffered, to be sure, but car manufacturing is thriving in the South. (For example, my own hometown – Georgetown, Kentucky – was transformed from a struggling farming community into a thriving industrial center when Toyota opened an enormous Camry plant there.) When you look past the heartstring-tugging anecdotal evidence, there is a clear, less pleasant reality: Today, we have less poverty and a stronger social safety net than we did in the idealized past — and our white-working class is dying in droves anyway.
-----
Life has always been hard for the poor, but it has not always been quite so lonely. Part of this is the legacy of the welfare state, which allows and even encourages lives of quiet desperation, cut off from the communities that used to sustain the less fortunate in their struggles. Part of this is the legacy of the sexual revolution, which devalued marriage and irreversibly cast off the “shackles” of self-denial. And, yes, part of it is economics. Losing a job is among the most stressful of all human experiences. The complex nature of the crisis should not be a license to avoid facing its ultimate truth head on: America’s working class is in the grips of a malady far more spiritual than material. We can spend trillions more, but safety nets won’t save the human soul.