State Sen. Malcolm Smith and New York City Councilman Dan Halloran arrested in 'bribery plot' to rig mayor race * Dem Smith schemed to run as a Republican * Faces corruption rap with Republican Halloran (NYPost)
State Sen. Malcolm Smith and city Councilman Dan Halloran were arrested this morning on charges they plotted to rig this year’s mayoral election through fraud and bribes.
The pols allegedly formed an alliance built on cash payments and fraud to get Smith — one of the state’s top Democrats — placed on the GOP mayoral ballot, sources said.
FBI agents arrested them both at their Queens homes shortly after 6 a.m.
The Appellate Court ruled that each of (i) the U.S. Attorney's Office headed by Preet Bharara and (ii) the New York City Department of Investigation headed by Rose Gill Hearn were sufficient supervision for Christine Quinn's use of fictitious accounts to hide her City Council slush fund.
But as we have seen, Preet Bharara and Rose Gill Hearn have done nothing to hold Speaker Quinn accountable for the slush fund scandal even though former New York City Council Members Hiram Monserrate (New York Post) Larry Seabrook, and Miguel Martinez were convicted for their role in the slush fund scandal (The Wall Street Journal) and political aides to former Council Member Kendall Stewart also pleaded guilty to charges in connection with the scandal (USA Today).
Preet Bharara is such a disappointment, and so is Rose Gill Hearn. Meanwhile, the corruption-enabler Ms. Hearn is one of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's main political puppets, and it is under her laissez-faire watch that Christine Quinn wants to bury the newly proposed Inspector General of the NYPD. Can we see how corruption is allowed to continue unchecked, when it is impossible for the Bloomberg-Quinn administration to police themselves when Ms. Hearn is fast asleep as a bought-and-paid-for watchdog ? Gimme a break.
At Thursday's rally by LGBTQ groups outside the U.S. District Courthouse at 500 Pearl Street, where the Floyd v. City of New York class-action, stop-and-frisk trial was in progress, only one mayoral candidate showed up to express solidarity -- and to renew a call for an end to stop-and-frisk. And it wasn't Christine Quinn.
Thank you, John Liu, for showing leadership, courage, and solidarity with the LGBTQ community.
Maybe New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has not been able to hear the pleas from the LGBTQ community, because her office is soundproofed ?
During Michael Bloomberg's three terms as mayor, over 5 million New Yorkers have been stopped and frisked. During the over-lapping time that Christine Quinn has been Speaker of the City Council, over 3.9 million New Yorkers have been stopped and frisked.
Many politicians act powerless in the face of the NYPD's use of brutality, discrimination, and excessive force, but the members of the City Council, which each year approve the NYPD budget, simply rubber stamp Mayor Michael Bloomberg's attack on due process, the Bill of Rights, other civil rights, and civil liberties. If the City Council actually stood up to the mayor in the budget process, then maybe the City Council could legislate change without having to use the court system, like what is happening right now in the Floyd trial, a lawsuit that is challenging the NYPD's unconstitutional stop-and-frisk practices.
The description at Thursday's rally by members of various LGBTQ groups of how the NYPD target, harass, and even falsely arrest LGBTQ New Yorkers was tragic, and the pleas for help were compelling. But one must wonder why Speaker Quinn was absent from the rally, why Speaker Quinn did not express solidarity with the LTGBQ community's efforts to end stop-and-frisk, and why the Floyd trial was being used as a backdrop for this demonstration ?
Because so many non-profits took part in Thursday's rally, one must wonder if an explanation of the lock-step could not be found in a demand for an election year political favour ? We know that how Mayor Bloomberg and Speaker Quinn manufacture political patronage support is by making private donations or distributing discretionary City Council funds, respectively. Were the members of the LGBTQ groups manipulated into showing up outside the Floyd trial in order to distract from the fact that Speaker Quinn supports stop-and-frisk and has expressed her desire to continue NYPD Commish Ray Kelly's policies of harassment, profiling, discrimination, and brutality ?
Indeed, last December, activists in Jackson Heights organised a demonstration to highlight Speaker Quinn's failure to end stop-and-frisk. Speaker Quinn is a high-profile LGBT leader, but she turns her back on LGBTQ New Yorkers, who are deliberately profiled and targeted for harassment and arrest by the NYPD, said activists during last December's demonstration.
In strategy sessions, Ms. Quinn can speak colorfully of other lawmakers, often saying, “I’m going to cut his balls off.”
In a profile published today by The New York Times, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is portrayed as a bully, who launches into tirades and vendetta's against elected officials in her own political party :
She has threatened, repeatedly, to slice off the private parts of those who cross her.
More than two dozen current and former city officials, lobbyists and political operatives recounted being berated by Ms. Quinn, but few would speak for the record, citing a fear of retaliation. They offered nearly identical accounts of their altercations, describing a rapid escalation of voice and vitriol, occasionally laced with vulgarity.
Ms. Quinn’s staff, concerned that angry tirades could be overheard by outsiders, added soundproofing to her City Hall office. Wary of her temper, they are known to ask one another: “Did she throw up on you today?”
“Her eyes get really wide, she points her fingers,” one official said. “She gets really close to you. It’s really in your face.”
A former campaign donor who had been called to Ms. Quinn’s office to discuss a legislative proposal said: “She screamed at me for 10 minutes, uninterrupted, and used the ‘F’-word at least 20 times. I was just so startled, I didn’t know what to do.”
New York City mayoral candidate John Liu is the "only candidate who has called for eliminating the Police Department’s stop-and-frisk practice, and increasing the minimum wage to $11.50 per hour, significantly higher than the $9 supported by President Obama. He is also the harshest critic of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg ; he describes Mr. Bloomberg as a 'grumpy' man who 'checked out a long time ago,' ” reported The New York Times.
Why do New York liberals support conservative Christine Quinn ?
The politics columnist for The Guardian, a newspaper based in the U.K., has published a report in which he questions the liberal and Progressive commitment by New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. No surprise.
"... I'm surprised that progressives support Quinn so much – I've never thought of her as much of a liberal," wrote
Harry J. Enten.
Mr. Enten's report refers to Speaker Quinn's close association with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, her involvement with the term limits scandal, her horrible human rights record, and her blockage of the paid sick days bill, among other issues.
Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), is a landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Constitution protected a right to privacy. The case involved a Connecticut law that prohibited the use of contraceptives. (Wikipedia) This case overturned the 1879, Victorian era law in Connecticut that banned the use of prophylactics by couples. Fast-forward to 2013, and we find the NYPD is arresting people for carrying prophylactics. What's going on here ?
Discriminated Against and "Profiled" by NYPD, Transgenders in New York Fear Carrying Condoms. Would Heterosexual New Yorkers be Arrested for Carrying Birth Control ?
The harassment of innocent people carrying condoms has now reached absurd levels that some claim that the NYPD's discriminatory use of stop and frisk and arrests over the carrying of birth control may pose a risk to public health.
"Those who have been targeted by the police, or who know people who have, are so afraid of carrying condoms that they often don't," The Village Voice has reported.
"In a 2012 study by the Sex Workers Project and the PROS Network, a New York City coalition of sex workers, organizers, and service providers, close to half of the participants reported not carrying condoms at some point out of fear of police repercussions. Among participants who identified as either transgender female or another gender identity besides male or female, the rate was a staggering 75 percent," The Village Voice has reported.
"The New York City Department of Health has been giving away free condoms since 1971, and has made condom distribution a centerpiece of its public-health program over the past six years," added The Village Voice.
"The Department of Health is flooding the city with free condoms, and the police department is using those very condoms to make the quality-of-life arrests that are clogging the courts. It is difficult to avoid the impression that the NYPD is deliberately seeking to increase quality-of-life arrests—perhaps even meet quotas—with arrests that are blatantly at odds with the city’s own public-health policy," The Village Voice has reported.
New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn looks the other way, because she wants to stay in good standing with Police Commish Raymond Kelly. She puts political expediency over privacy and civil rights.
Man who claimed cops beat him during gay pride party says police made multiple return visits to his home and conducted illegal searches of his apartment.
Christine Quinn, the openly lesbian Speaker of the New York City Council, used to be the director of the Anti-Violence Project. Back when she was head of AVP, Ms. Quinn used to advocate on behalf of victims of violence.
But now that Speaker Quinn is running for mayor, she is afraid to aggravate her close relationship with Raymond Kelly, the commish of the NYPD.
If LGBT New Yorkers get beat up by haters, you can count on Speaker Quinn to elbow her way in for photo opportunities. But if the haters are NYPD officers, you can count on Speaker Quinn to look the other way.
Jabbar Campbell — a Crown Heights man who claimed cops disabled his apartment’s security camera before beating him during his gay pride party in January now says 77th Precinct cops have since made multiple return visits to his home.
Campbell, who had already filed a notice of intent to sue the city, said plainclothes cops illegally searched his place last week. Campbell said he turned over the footage to investigators.
The Internal Affairs Bureau is investigating both incidents, police said.
"The mass incarceration of African American men may have made us safer, but it leaves us with generation after generation of broken families that are uneducated that have multiple barriers to employment," said Doe Fund founder and Republican mayoral candidate George McDonald this morning at a Crain's forum. (Capital New York)
What do you think of Mr. McDonald's statement about the mass incarceration rates of African American men ?
Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, seated next to Quinn during a lively forum in Harlem on poverty issues, also ripped into the Council Speaker for helping pass a “watered-down” living-wage bill.
Controller John Liu consistently drew the loudest cheers from the largely minority audience, as he went further on several issues than his Democratic rivals – Quinn, de Blasio, ex-City Controller William Thompson and former Councilman Sal Albanese.
For one, he called for the minimum wage to be raised to $11.50 — the current rate is $7.25 in New York — while his opponents said they favored President Obama’s preferred figure of $9.
Liu also repeated a previous demand to have the NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy halted. “It makes everybody less safe,” he said. The other candidates argued to keep the practice but reform the way it is applied.
Publisher Tom Allon was the only GOP candidate to attend ; three others, including former MTA boss Joe Lhota, declined invitations.
