@carolynryan #vitolopez #mediablackout

@carolynryan continues @nytimes #mediablackout on #VitoLopez redistrictingtruenewsfromchangenyc.blogspot.com/2012/11/happy-… #Bloggers Won't Give Up @unitednyblogs

— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) November 26, 2012

When will it be too late for Christine Quinn to block Vito Lopez ?

When will it be too late for Christine Quinn to block Vito Lopez? via @azipaybarah: bit.ly/T9PkZX

— Dana Rubinstein (@danarubinstein) November 23, 2012

Christine Quinn Is Politically Married To Vito Lopez

In 2006, when she was elected to become Speaker of the New York City Council, Christine Quinn turned to help from Vito Lopez in Brooklyn, for the votes of Brooklyn councilmembers, in an effort to thwart Bill De Blasio, who (no surprise) failed in his campaign to become Speaker. Like then, Speaker Quinn is now turning to extending favours to Mr. Lopez. Only now, what is at stake is not the speakership, but the mayoralty.

Speaker Quinn needs to pump the political machine in Brooklyn for votes, because she has angered so many voters in her own City Council District over community-crushing development that is allowing New York University to overwhelm the special social fabric of Greenwich Village, that closed St. Vincent's Hospital, and that is going to destroy the character of Chelsea Market.

And, in exchange, Speaker Quinn is being suspected of delivering to Mr. Lopez a redistricted seat in Brooklyn, to give him a soft landing, once he gets kicked out of the New York State Assembly.

Does Carolyn Ryan At The NYTimes Protect Christine Quinn From Critical Journalism ?

Does Carolyn Ryan, an editor at The New York Times, prevent any journalism that is critical of New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn from being published by the newspaper ?

Instead, we get fluff pieces, like the one that the bloggers Gary Tilzer and Suzannah B. Troy refer to as the "Betty Crocker story," the main point of which was to show that Speaker Quinn knew how to bake pies.

Meanwhile, nobody knows exactly how much taxpayer money Speaker Quinn has given to Brooklyn political boss, Vito Lopez.

For more information, please visit the blog : Christine Quinn Sold Out.

Are Campaign Endorsement Promises Being Made In Exchange For Council Redistricting Favours ?

Are Quinn and Bloomberg Engaged In An "Endorse-to-Play" Quid Pro Quo Over The City Council Redistricting ?

Council Redistricting Corruption Silence

From True News From Change NYC, written by Gary Tilzer :

Many of his fellow reformers felt that Citizens Union puppet general Dick Dadey sold out last year when he supported Albany's compromise to put off independent redistrict for 10 years. But nothing can compare to Dadey and the rest of the goo-goos, editorial boards', and reformers' silence on the corruption going on with the City Council redistricting operation. For starters, the appointed council redistricting commission is controlled by two people supporting Quinn for mayor in 2013 : the council speaker herself and her puppet master the mayor. Although the redistricting commission work has just begun, there are already reports that county bosses Crowley and Lopez, ethic and minority leaders are already dealing with Quinn operatives to cut districts favorable to them or those they support in exchange for their endorsement for Quinn's 2013 mayoral bid.

Quinn Slush Funds Exposed (Again)

Christine Quinn Uses City Council Funds (aka Taxpayer Money) to Reward Political Bosses

After City Council Speaker Christine Quinn got fluffed by NYTimes reporter David W. Chen, now comes Michael Powell, a columnist for the Gray Lady, who pulls back the curtain on Speaker Quinn's slush fund-tinged campaign for mayor.

Mr. Powell reports that Ms. Quinn was appointed Speaker of the City Council after she "charmed" political bosses from Queens, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. At her coronation ceremony, she put Vito Lopez, the notorious Brooklyn political boss (who is the target of several ethical and corruption investigations) in the front row. Speaker Quinn has also scratched Mr. Vito's back in exchange for his political support. "The fates have smiled on Mr. Lopez’s social-service empire, the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council ; this year the Council sent more than $4 million its way," reported the NYTimes.

In a statement posted Facebook, a government integrity watchdog activist questioned why the latest NYTimes article stops short of probing the status of the federal investigation into Speaker Quinn's slush fund scandal.

"Instead of reporting on Quinn's criminal activity, the NY Times merely raises questions about her ethics and leadership: "But there are questions to be asked about her leadership, and not all cheery." Is it a fear of Bloomberg that prevents the Times from reporting on the well-documented budget and campaign corruption ?" Donny Moss posted on the social network.

This is how the NYTimes article ends :

Last year, a Council majority favored mandatory sick days for New Yorkers with less than a week of vacation. The mayor opposed it. Ms. Quinn killed it.

Some suggest that she has gotten lost in the game, that she can no longer recall the questions she once asked as an advocate. That sounds too definitive. Her arc is not done.

She affects nonchalance when described as a mayoral puppet: “You can call me Mini-Me. I don’t really care.”

The rub is that voters might care a lot.

Quinn's Political Slush Fund Tricks

Christine Quinn Continues Her ''It Get's Bitter'' Slush Fund Retribution Campaign Against Progressive Liberal Democrats.

So, this morning's The New York Post finally gets to the bottom of what we have already reported on this blog, namely, that Speaker Christine Quinn's slush fund scandal isn't just about misappropriating taxpayer money for personal use, but also about using the secret member items as a way to reward political operatives like indicted political boss Vito Lopez and punishing progressive, liberal Democrats, like Councilman Peter Vallone, Jr.

Here is the text of The NY Post's latest editorial about the latest corruption developments in respect of Quinn's slush fund scandal, with our ''special'' editorial commentary following :

It was noted in this space last week how well Brooklyn Democratic boss Vito Lopez fares in City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s annual tax-dollar giveaway.

There have been developments.

Lopez, a state assemblyman and the subject of a federal corruption investigation, needed a front-end loader to haul away the so-called member-item cash lavished on him in the new city budget by Quinn — who used four pliant council members as cutouts.

But it turns out that Quinn took a fire ax to Queens Councilman Peter Vallone’s share of the boodle.

Vallone is a truly singular council member, in the sense that he has thus far managed to avoid attracting the attention of federal prosecutors, and it seems unlikely that he ever will.

But he irked Quinn by vocally opposing the renaming of the Queensboro Bridge in honor of former Mayor Ed Koch — so the speaker slashed his member-item take by 42%, or roughly $600,000.

Let’s be clear: Nobody should be getting member-item money.

These are lump-sum appropriations that corrupt the political process by giving incumbents cash to curry unfair favor with constituents; simultaneously, these cash goodies give bullying council bosses undue leverage over their underlings.

And Vallone — who apparently irritated Quinn and had his cash yanked as an example — proves the point.

Yet Quinn is cool with Lopez, who attracts the FBI like overripe pork attracts flies. Quinn channeled $4.4 million this year to his Brooklyn power base — the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council — through Brooklyn council members Domenic Recchia, Erik Dilan, Stephen Levin and Elizabeth Crowley.

While some $3.75 million is earmarked for alleged “capital construction,” the rest neatly covers salary and benefits for:

* Chris Fisher, Ridgewood executive director/Lopez campaign treasurer ($607,000).

* Angela Battaglia, Ridgewood’s housing director/Lopez girlfriend ($282,940).

(Quinn also managed to find $2 million for the United Federation of Teachers’ academically shaky charter school — but that’s a tale for another day.)

One final note: Quinn is many things — brash, personable, ambitious, maybe New York City’s next mayor.

But we’ve never thought her to be petty.

Until now.

Because she wasn’t content with punishing just Vallone for his temerity. She also took it out on the councilman’s father — former Council Speaker Peter Vallone Sr., arguably the last person to perform the office’s duties with decorum and dignity.

Cut from the budget was $6 million for a City University public-policy program named in his honor.

That’s the Vallones’ loss, to be sure.

But mostly it’s the city’s.

Christine Quinn should be ashamed.

Meanwhile, check out what other blogs are saying about this latest disgraceful turn about Speaker Quinn's slush fund scandal :

• Suzannah B. Troy : The NY Post Finally Figures Out Christine Quinn Petty, How about corrupt?
• True News From Change NYC : Quinn's Council Slush Fund Cover Up Into 4th Year, Its DOI Fault
• Queens Crap : Quinn cuts Vallone funding over bridge flap

The fact that former mayor Ed Koch is the reason that Speaker Quinn chose to lash out at Councilmember Vallone just goes to show you that there is a quid-pro-quo going on between Quinn's mayoral campaign, the Rudin Family, Ed Koch (Mayor Koch was hired to be the Rent-A-Hire-Spokesman for the luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital ; For his astro-turfing work for the Rudin Family, Mayor Koch earned the distinction of being the ''Snooki'' of New York City Politics, a term specially created for Mayor Koch by political blogger and artist Suzannah B. Troy.) In exchange for lobbying for the luxury condo conversion on behalf of the Rudin Family, who are large contributors to Quinn's mayoral campaign, Mayor Bloomberg and Speaker Quinn rewarded Mayor Koch with the renaming of the Queensboro Bridge after him, even though Mayor Koch is a poor choice to honor as a closet LGBTQ leader in the city, especially given that Mayor Koch had a bad record of responding to the AIDS epidemic.

Op-Ed Bonus ! What a disgrace. How does Christine Quinn find hundreds of thousands of dollars for an indicted political slime ball, and millions in aggregate monies for member items, but she could not find $1 to save St. Vincent's Hospital in her very own city council district? This is sick and twisted. When are the over-taxed, over-fined, over-ticketed, over-tolled, over-run people of New York City going to wake up and vote Christine Quinn out of office? I realise that LGBTQ people want to rally around a leader, but damn, can't we pick one with a little bit of integrity? How about just a minimal standard of integrity? Is there a lowest common denominator of integrity we can demand out of LGBTQ leaders? How about a lowest expectations of integrity? If we scraped the bottom of Christine Quinn's diluted soup pan of weakened integrity broth, would we find any integrity sediment at all?