Cronyism

Mayor Eric Adams Crony Nepotism Police Squad

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Mayor Swagger

Manhattan, New York

Mayor Eric Adams first week on the job was truly wild. The mayor promised to be a big presence in New York City and get shit stuff done, notably to bring proactive policing back and he wasn’t fucking around. Not even 12 hours into his mayoralty after being sworn in a minute after midnight in Times Square, he’s calling 911 while witnessing a street fight from a train station and doing most of his press conferences outside, showing more visibility and optical accountability than his Bill de Blasio did in his 8 abominable years as mayor. And during his publicity blitz, Eric Adams defiantly announced that he was going to bring swagger back to the city to get through the current rut that’s being induced by a rejuvenated pandemic.

Adams also fulfilled his promise to appoint a Black Woman as NYPD commissioner. And introduced her at the Queensbridge Houses where the new commish was raised up with great fanfare. Time will tell if the historic hiring of Nassau Chief of Detectives Keechant Sewell will return public safety to all New Yorkers big and small. Adams also decided to appoint a deputy mayor for public safety, a role resuscitated from the David Dinkins era that was made to bring down the high levels of crime that was plaguing the city at the time back in the early 90’s, a decision that actually makes sense considering that 100,000 index crimes were committed in New York City last year during de Blasio’s recovery for all of us.

But like his fiendish predecessor The Blaz, Adams has sadly tainted her moment and this city with the quickness by bolstering a close friend and his kid brother to official high brass NYPD positions practically right beside her. Even more warped that he pulled this machination stunt on a fucking snow day while Adams was working remote in his basement of the rowhouse he owns in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.  As the last sprinkles of the first snowfall of the year came down and while he was producing another stupid video about getting stuff done on the @NYCMayor twitter account, his longtime friend and mayoral campaign advisor Phillip Banks appointed himself as the new Deputy Mayor of Public Safety.

That’s right. A citizen appointed himself to an administrative position in the Mayor’s office, not Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City. And not just an ordinary citizen, but a citizen who was ensconced in a federal investigation while he was about to be appointed by the Blaz as deputy chief to Commissioner in cases involving bribery, pimping and money laundering with other top brass NYPD officers and two of de Blasio’s earliest and dedicated developer donors Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Reichberg.

And Phil Banks didn’t just do this on the down low, he announced this in a major private equity firm owned local newspaper The New York Daily News and was given editorial space by the print/digital publication in the opinion section to defend his self-hiring as well.

This can only be described as deranged. The NY Daily News actually published Phil’s editorial 6 hours before they reported it and erroneously headlined it as Eric Adams’s decision while hyperlinking the New York Times story of his crony’s hubris laden proclamation from a few hours earlier.

I don’t think I’ve never seen a major newspaper and journalism this compromised ever before. And to read Phil’s screed is like he thinks he’s doing the city a favor, and his claims that his self-appointment confirms his commitment to uphold law and order amplifies his hubris.

“The law is in my blood.”

But Banks blood was so low when he was officially promoted in 2014, he must have needed a transfusion or had anemia considering how deep he was in the pay to play access shenanigans he was pulling off with Jona and Jeremy, who were tremendously emboldened by de Blasio giving them a free pass for all their money bundling for him, as they were partying down and getting laid with the top echelon of the NYPD. When the feds started following his ass like Henry Hill catching Banks using multiple ATM’s, he didn’t have the swagger to continue his chief of departments role for Commish Bratton and abruptly stepped off. How Philty Phil managed to escape indictment is truly another one of the greatest stories of the naked city.

What’s not a mystery is how Banks had adjusted to his self-appointed position and how swift he grasped the power that came with it. When the NY Post reported that Commissioner Sewell  announced the termination  of the Internal Affairs Bureau Commissioner Joseph Reznick and deputy inspector Robert Ganley, who both were earning a salary and a pension while working in their respective roles. While most taxpayers and those who call for defunding the police think this would be a good thing removing two double-dipping bureaucrats off the city largesse, this move was truly rather sudden and erratic because Adams had no one to fill their positions. And considering the case of the IAB, it was confounding that the Mayor wouldn’t have an immediate replacement being after he told cops at the 103 Pct. in Jamaica that he will not tolerate abuse of the badge and the law. Even more confounding is how these two high brass cops got the boot for collecting two city salaries while Patrick Monahan is getting paid twice still working for the NYC Economic Development Corporation.

But there’s a reason for this shakeup, a nasty vindictive reason. Commissioner Sewell did not fire Reznick and Ganley, Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Phillip Banks did. And he fired them even though he doesn’t have the authority to, Sewell does. And he fired them when he wasn’t even appointed as Deputy Mayor yet, and Banks got some sweet revenge on Resznick because the IAB was investigating his criminal pay to play and money laundering operation while he was working for Bratton and de Blasio.

It’s really hysterical that Mayor Adams was rightfully being cautious about appointing his pal and adviser ever since it was announced he would be playing a role to reduce crime in NYC even though he assigned him the duty of vetting the next Black Female police commissioner, but to let him just invite and hire himself under the collective noses and behind the backs of his constituents and the press early in the morning on a fucking snow day is a good way to convey the swagger he promised to bring to City Hall. 

But not content with bring cronyism back to Park Row, Adams rode on that swagger momentum and hired his brother Bernard to be deputy commissioner of the NYPD on the next fucking day! Surely Mayor Swagger thought that since de Blasio made his tax boondoggle wife the co-mayor by making the First Lady a de facto municipal position and also how he hired his son to film b-roll videos of his parents (along with a college chum of his) that there would be no scrutiny or outrage about his nepotism hire, except that Bernie Adams was going to get paid $240,000 for his job whereas Chirlie and Dante (to my knowledge) worked for free so the Blaz wouldn’t violate city charter rules for hiring his relatives. Not the case with Adams, for swagger supersedes over all and justifies everything.

Or so he thought, because a few days later, the Mayor removed Bernie from that post and and appointed him to a manufactured a new position as head of his personal security, which also commands a hefty salary of $210,000. Hizzoner’s reason why he feels his brother is necessary and “qualified” for this role and why he broke his first campaign promise to not be flanked by cops everywhere he goes (while carrying a piece) is his perception and unconfirmed premise of white supremacist and anarchists in the city. Which sure sounds like he got this idea because of the actual rising resistance against him continuing de Blasio’s fascist vaccine extortion mandate in restaurants and entertainment and leisure venues and the workplace.

Especially when anti-mandate protesters came to his house.

It’s quite obvious how Mayor Adams is not blurring any lines between being professional and personal about his crony and nepotism hires, but the way he’s been defiant about his Bernie bro is truly batshit laughable. From describing his qualifications to lead an Executive Protection Unit team touting his leadership experience when in the last decade his brother was an assistant director of a Virginia college faculty parking (or maybe an assistant to the actual director) and how Bern’s presence will scare those nasty white supremacist anarchists out of town.

By the way, these are the white supremacists Adams is so worried about, which is why his NYPD won’t confirm this threat:

There also is another reason Hizzoner gave his brother a fat paycheck city job and it’s probably because Bernard needs the money after his involvement in a pyramid scheme while he was Virginia’s U glorified parking attendant. No wonder he was quick fast to come back to the city after his big brother won. And like Mr.  P. Banks, Bernie also made his presence and influence felt with immediacy given that the Mayor is considering removing the NYPD from his security detail and replace them with a private contractor, this not only will easily be rewarded to a donor Adams wants to reciprocate but also will make Bernard’s job easier considering being a rent-a-cop parking valet for nearly a decade by supervising a whole platoon of rent-a-cops protecting the Mayor wherever he goes. Can’t wait to see these hired goons on Citibikes!

But this is no fucking joke, these crony and nepotism hires are serious lapses of ethics and morals and a shit-stained middle finger at accountability, which was savagely emphasized by Hizzoner’s spox Stefan Ringel who told the press about Banks’ self-appointment that “we do things in a different way” in City Hall now, which got absolutely no follow up question from the press or any reaction from city officials.

Phillip Banks and Bernard Adams have also buttoned their lips since getting their plum positions, but it’s quite obvious that their presence has reduced the first Black Female NYPD commissioner in New York City history into a figurehead position, despite what Mayor Adams denials and protestations.

When Mayor Adams made his first speech to New Yorkers, he compared his constituency to Snapple soft drinks, saying they were made of the best stuff on earth. But in only a few weeks, Mayor Product Placement is already running the city like he’s the Burger King, because for the coming four years, he’s going to have it his way.

 

Mayor de Blasio’s NYPD Rideshare And Blackguard

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Mr. Mayor heading for his EPU ride

City Hall, Downtown Manhattan, New York

Current mayor Bill de Blasio has found himself in quite a hot mess of his own making with his brazen misuse of his NYPD executive protection unit. Ironically the only transparency he’s ever shown while governing this city since there were exposes of the Blaz treating the NYPD EPU has his personal chauffeurs and valets under the rubric of security provision of an elected officials notably using the cops to escort his son Dante to Yale U. on various occasions and helping move his daughter Chiara out of her apartment in Sunset Park at Brooklyn, which he hilariously gaffed during his daily presser claiming he had no knowledge about the move despite that she was being ordered back home to Gracie Mansion where he and his wife have been dwelling for the last 7 years and 9 months when he fielded a fusillade of questions about his latest scandal. This is what happens when you continue to try to gaslight when you run out of gas.

Another noteworthy thing about his Department Of Investigation report on his profligacy abuse with his NYPD detail and city resources is when he used them to accompany him on his farcical presidential campaign trail for 5 months in the spring and summer of 2019 which cost taxpayers a whopping $320,000. This corn dog he bought in Iowa in the first primary election probably cost $40,000 alone.

The Blaz treated this expose’ with self-aggrandizing self-justification during his taxpayer funded city presser by ludicrously proclaiming that his malfeasance was perfectly legal because as mayor he is a high profile target for terrorists. And by deploying his NYPD chief of “intelligence and counter-terrorism” John Miller to defend him for the entire line of questioning during his “media availability”, showing his constituents and journalists once again his whimsical use of city tax dollars and resources by using a cop again to act as his personal lawyer.

Miller repetitively pointed out how The Blaz in his position as mayor

along with his immediate family justifies the need for 24/7 protection no matter where they go because of his status as an elected official and also his immediate family requires it because of threats or even the prospect of threats by terrorists international or domestic, whether confirmed or not. But for the two years cited in the DOI’s report, the Blaz exploited this distinction by treating his NYPD EPU as his own personal Uber by having them ferry his minion staffers around town and to their residences, also denigrating these cops by having them to errands for them. The Blaz also deployed his EPU as valets and chauffeurs for his political allies and “guests” (agents of the city?) to shuttle them around town even while he wasn’t present with them, basically designating them all as extended family worthy of protection from dangers real or prefabricated.

But the main story in this way overdue scandal is actually not the Blaz, because this malfeasance is expected of him, but the man assigned to protect him, his relatives and his extended family of minions and guests of the city, and that’s Inspector Howard Redmond, chief of the mayor’s EPU unit for his entire mayoralty.

Inspector Redmond: “What’s it to ya punk”

 

According to the DOI report, when he was ordered to testify on the mayor’s behalf to about NYPD EPU services, he displayed hostile obtuseness and insouciance about the mayor’s wanton misuse of the unit which was used mostly for the convenience of his son Dante (who the Blaz is clearly grooming to his political heir) and even Redmond used them for himself, which he deployed the EPU cops to pick up a woman he picked up at a bar.

Redmond also dutifully covered the Blaz’s ass regarding this abuse of services and authority by refusing to give DOI his city government issue cellphones and when he did, he made sure to wipe out all correspondence data on them after he turned them in and in many instances had them “destroyed”. The last phone he willingly relinquished was a new cellphone he only had for a little over a month which was also thoroughly wiped cleaned.

When confronted about this blatant act of unaccountabilty by his NYPD EPU leader and apparent closest confidant, the Blaz had nothing but effusive praise for Inspector Redmond and continued his obtuse insouciance about his deliberate act of wrong doing protecting the current mayor’s craven exploitation of city cops for his selfish wants and needs and for his entitled family, municipal sycophants and unnamed political cronies and allies.

Even though this is another case of The Blaz being a monstrous sociopath, his statement belies a lot a truth to it, because Redmond sure is fucking devoted. Redmond exhibited extreme devotion to hizzoner after a cop in one of the vehicles in his NYPD EPU motorcade decided to drive in the wrong direction and wound up crashing into a boiler truck because Mayor Big Slow was late for a scheduled event on his itinerary (or the cop was most likely ordered to). Being that this happened around the time the Blaz initiated the city’s Vision Zero program and surely sensing blowback criticism of the rank hypocrisy of the Mayor violating his own traffic calming and enforcement policy, Redmond made sure the DMV’s report of the accident was instantly abolished from the city’s records. As is wont of the Blaz, he also abolished the incident from his delusion addled brain despite being in the EPU unit vehicle at the time of the wreck.

Before this memory holing of NYPD EPU’s reckless incompetence,one of the mayor’s vehicles transporting Blaz’s tax boondoggle wife Chirlie to some event or doing some personal errand got into accident with two civilian vehicles on the FDR Drive only weeks before but instead of vanquishing it into the abyss, this report was fabricated to make it look like the crash was entirely the fault of the first civilian driver that was in the wreck. Two lawsuits by the civilian drivers were filed against the city, nothing is known if the city won the cases or had to settle with the other driver

The Blaz’s enabling of Redmond’s recidivism of destruction of the public city records also translated into a culture of crony corruption, immoral hierarchy abuse by higher brass and rampant discrimination led by his devoted soldier and fixer. One retired cop and former EPU officer was in an incident involving another EPU supervisor who showed up drunk to work and attacked him right in front of Gracie Mansion while the Blaz and his wife were home over an issue about the staffing of the security detail. Redmond conveniently never reported the incident to internal affairs because of NYPD’s claims there was no video record of the fight in front of the heavily surveilled elected official public housing building. A Black EPU officer was relegated to working double shifts guarding Gracie Mansion  in freezing conditions during the winter and wouldn’t allow him a break when nature called and claimed that White EPU officers were given plum assignments while he was relegated to escorting and protecting the Blaz’s offspring wherever they went and also was pass up for promotion for 3 years straight. Another veteran cop assigned to the EPU was subjected to xenophobic remarks about his Muslim faith by other supervisors and was relegated to working shitty shifts and subjected to demotion. Two more EPU cops complained they were subjected to ageist and bigoted remarks that led to shit assignments. This culture fomented by Redmond’s unchecked power has led to nearly $20,000,000 in lawsuits against the city.

Current Mayor de Blasio thinks all this malfeasance along with his haughty sense of entitlement is not a big deal and is only standard procedure to protect officials like him, as he continues to administer contempt for the free press who asks him how he doesn’t see the brazen impropriety of his actions, which even has been chastised by former indicted and incarcerated high ranking police official Bernie Kerik, who also exploited the security rubric for his own benefit and convenience. But this heinous abuse of power by Blaz and Redmond belies the continuing dark trend of government secrecy in the name of government security. Redmond’s arrogant defiance of the DOI investigation was made possible because of this and his enabled rogue actions and elevation of his position and power resemble more like internecine tactics of federal government intelligence agencies than that of a local police force like the NYPD. No wonder the Blaz brought out John Miller to literally exonerate him and Redmond of their exploitation of the EPU officers, because Miller previously did public relations for the FBI before the Blaz suddenly hired him to be his “Intelligence and Counterterror Chief” for the NYPD after he won the election in 2013, a bureaucratic position that sounds entirely and presciently made up for this in plain sight coverup. Miller’s career resume also shows him transitions from corporate news and high brass executive city police positions for 3 decades, showing that Miller has acquired a certain set of skills throughout his career to put favorable spins on questionable policing and governmental policy decisions.

With less than 3 months to go in the Blaz’s abominable reign as mayor, Howard Redmond still seems untouchable after this, he could just say he was following orders after all, which he was, especially given the Blaz’s own contempt for transparency with his recidivist redacting of his city planning programs for parks, health and infrastructure hazards at NYCHA buildings and his segregation derived “affordable housing” program. Redmond’s defensive protectionist tactics against accountability at the service of de Blasio is just and apparently always has been the natural order of things as this way belated DOI report confirms. This corruption is so established that the Blaz doesn’t need to even try to fire DOI commissioner Margaret Garnett like he did to the last one.

Even though Inspector Howard Redmond has been exposed as a power tripping, unaccountable elitist, political loyalist, scumbag dirty ass cop it’s dubious this guy is ever going to get indicted or even resign since his case as been sent to Manhattan D.A. Cy Vance, who couldn’t even indict de Blasio for using his 501 C 4 Campaign for One New York as a slush fund inside City Hall and giving favored lobbyists and donors with city contracts access to policy making decisions. The best Cy could do is proclaim that the Blaz broke “the spirit of the law” and then let the unindicted mayor walk and run for mayor, getting re-elected with less than 10% of registered voters and continue running the city into the ground to this day. So the hopeful chance that Redmond will be going to Rikers is pretty much nil (would have love to see the decarceral cult demand his release).

The day before the DOI investigation of the Blaz’s police escort joyride service came out, news came out that he and his tax boondoggle wife were renovating one of their houses in Park Slope where they also misused the EPU to do recon checks of their high valued properties. So even in the face of DOI’s repot and their demand to reimburse the 320 large that was frivolously spent, Blaz and Chirlie still have tons of money to give their three story house a make over, presumably to flip it for more cash for the Blaz’s run for governor. Maybe this is how he plans to pay back the city for his and also Chirlie’s gross abuse of their NYPD security and maybe the 300,000 clams he owes the white shoe law firm the Blaz hired to defend him in his pay to play corruption trial that devastatingly never materialized.

At least now the Blaz and his trusty blackguard Redmond will have to ride alone together and the EPU will have to now have to find other things to do to pass the time. I hear there’s more guns on the streets, maybe redeploying these officers to stop daily rampant shootings will be more resourceful than shlepping around Dante de Blasio in the tri state area.

 

 

 

The Inaugurations Of Co-Mayor Chirlane McCray de Blasio* And The Night Mayor

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Chirlane McCray is just dying for you to hear from her. (telling pic by James Messerschmidt, NY Post)

Last week the city of New York (your city remember) was foisted upon with two new additions to the current administration by our self-exalted mayor de Blasio for appointees no one, sane or insane, brained or brainless, even asked for.

The first one while not actually official was revealing enough and actually conveys total confirmation and the mayor did not even hold back considering how weak, intellectually bereft and dependent he comes off. It wasn’t even a Freudian or regular slip of the tongue, but it sure was inappropriate. And it was announced after he announced the hiring of the new Schools Chancellor a few days after his first pick dropped him like a brick during a press conference.

The mayor’s wife is now the pseudonor Co-Mayor Charlene McCray!

“I want to thank Chirlane for the many, many hours she has put in this effort,” de Blasio said in a statement before adding, “I want to thank First Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan, as well. The three of us acted as a team.’’

McCray, City Hall revealed, also sat in on meetings all weekend between her husband and his top aides discussing the appointment. And the first lady was there when de Blasio made Carranza an official offer.

A quote from McCray was included in the press release, too.

“I look forward to working closely with [Carranza] to help all of the inner cities’ children and their families,” she said.

But political observers say that there’s more to McCray’s input in official city business than meets the eye — that it is a bid to elevate her political standing for a possible run for office herself.

“There’s a concerted effort to get her as much exposure as possible,” said a source familiar with McCray’s role at City Hall.

“There’s a clear understanding . . . that these are joint announcements, and Chirlane is going to have a presence and a voice every time one of these appointments is being made.”

NY Post

So this is what the minuscule amount of voters and a majority of non-voters signed up another four years for in addition to de Faustio slacking off, fucking around and lying like a rat since January. Let’s also add being an arrogant self-righteous douchebag too, because he insulted journalists and anyone left in the constituency with common sense by scoffing off any accusations of nepotism by accusing them of being idiots and sexists.
The mayor’s insecurity regarding the news media’s collective intellect is a regular thing but charging them with sexism is a new pathetic low and the Blaz has as much understanding of the term as Spinal Tap did. 

But this is about Chirlie after all. And in her first week as co-mayor, she’s not off to a good start. For her influence in the chancellor pick, Richard Carranza, has not been quite a ladies man or a gentlemen when it comes to dealing with women in the workplace. Since it took less than 24 hours and on International Women’s Day, which the Blaz clearly cited to lash out at the press, to find out that while as the board superintendent in San Francisco he was cheating on his wife at the office and destroyed a female educators career when she confronted him about his salacious affair and later had the school district pay her a $75,000 settlement for the torment and undermining he put her through for exposing the cheating greaseball.

Maybe the Blaz came out inaugurating his wife so he can again deflect blame for his stupid governmental policies and decisions on someone else but that might have been the case all along, although this guy seems a perfect fit for the corrupt cronyism environment in city hall being that Carranza feels he was abdicated from the charges because he didn’t have to pay the settlement out of his wallet but the school district and taxpayers did. Which is in uncanny resemblance of the mayor’s warped justification for using his constituents tax dollars for his expensive personal lawyers for his pay to play court hearings. Because a month before choosing a letch for a schools chancellor they got together and appointed another deputy mayor to de Faustio’s confederacy of useless syncophantic hacks. This one is being used specifically for his fucking wife’s $850 million dollar mental health program THRIVENYC, which to chagrin of the citizenry nobody knows what it is or what it’s even accomplished, judging by the majority of mentally ill homeless people wandering around the streets and subway and the emotional duress everyone struggling to afford living in this city is going through. Although it’s backed by six non-profit groups of which consists of four sorority groups.

Apparently de Faustio and Chirlie are aware of the lack of recognition of THRIVE too. In recognition of the Parkland School Massacre but not of the movement and revolution galvanized by the students there, the mayors arranged to have a town hall meeting with high school students to discuss ways to secure their school’s environment and ensure safety. As the kids were making suggestions for improvements, notably the lack of student counselors and the selective disbursement of metal detectors and addressing their current tribulations, de Faustio kept shutting them down so his wife can impose her THRIVE agenda on them. The kids were not impressed or amused but were thoroughly insulted and undermined. Which will make adapting to the new schools chancellor’s inevitable underwhelming existence much easier.

“I think he disregarded the whole point of this meeting, which was to hear the students out, and I don’t think he did it to the full extent that it should’ve been,” said Ayobami Olabode, 16, a student at Scholars’ Academy in Queens.

“He didn’t really hear us out the way he should have,” Andrea Colon, 17, who had asked the mayor to invest in counselors instead of school safety agents and metal detectors, said. “He was sort of dismissive in a way.”

“I actually hadn’t heard of the Thrive program before,” said Colon, a senior at Rockaway Park High School For Environmental Sustainability. “He kept on bringing that up. But my school definitely does not have that.”

NY Daily News

So instead of hearing out the kids, de Faustio devoted most of his attention to pimping his wife’s program and her freeloading political career. And exploiting a tragedy to promote the expensive THRIVE program to boot and vainly trying to justify it’s existence by blowing off the kids questions just because they didn’t fit the narrative.

For dominating the narrative is the only thing de Faustio has done with aplomb right behind using his office for fundraising and taking bribes for civic services for scumbags. As he recently addressed the idiotic sexists (his words) in the news media by demanding that Chirlie should get a salary for her work which she surreptitiously volunteered for. As if the 300 grand to pay her personal aides and her multiple free ride jaunts to other national cities on the actually elected mayor’s constituents tax dollars is not enough compensation, giving her ample opportunity to boost her national profile and inspiring her intent on running for political office. Which no one fucking asked her to do and no one is fucking interested. And her reported presence (and interference) in over 80 meetings gives the impression that she is not only co-mayor but an agent of the city.

All this chicanery by co-mayor de Faustio is enough to drive you crazy if you let it. So maybe THRIVE will be there for every citizen in the five boroughs to depend on as they try to follow this fugazi mayoral partnership. Maybe Chirlie can get her mental health initiative off the ground now assuming she is running the city for the next few days as her husband has went on another ego trip out of the city for the next few days in four cities as the self-appointed arbiter/activist for progressive policies and politics. And yes, nobody fucking asked him to do that either.

As if two mayors are not enough to tolerate, especially two absolutely shitty oblivious and arrogant mayors, it was announced on a snowy and blustery Wednesday when all networks were reporting on the weather that the new night mayor has been appointed. And she’s a boozy doozy.

https://assets3.thrillist.com/v1/image/2752021/size/tmg-article_default_mobile;jpeg_quality=20.jpg

That’s Ariel Palitz. The new nighttime mayor. The mayor from happy hour to closing time. She’s the mayor when Bill and Chirl go to sleep. And she loves New York, although not it’s residents. She ran a niteclub for 10 years and sat on Lower East Side district community board. Though not experienced in running a political office, she’s pretty adept at political tactics and machinations and exploiting her position of power for selfish means for the benefit of herself and her night club entrepreneur peers. In the last few years she has worked with an event firm specializing in what they dubbed “real estate integrated hospitality services”

Considering it took 5 months since the announcement of this new waste of bureaucracy, besides THRIVE, without a doubt that this pick was thoroughly sought and vetted. This girl is player and she fits this corrupt administration to a dirty T. For her time simultaneously running a club and a chair on the board, the Lower East Side has transformed in the last decade to what is currently a nightly Gilded Age bacchanalia with a bar anywhere you turn your head and take a step christened as Hell Square, an environmental noise and health hazard area that was revolutionized by the new Night Mayor herself being that she ran (and bragged about having) the loudest bar in the district.

Prior to what the drunken radius has devolved to, night mayor Palitz made a ghastly prophecy of what she now will have the humble solemn duty to remediate:

“The East Village is ripe for the picking right now. There’s an opportunity to change the culture and the makeup of the neighborhood from the underground nightlife experience to a high-end clientele.”

Here’s some of that high-end clientele that has changed the makeup of the neighborhood. As documented by the L.E.S. Dwellers, and there’s more where that came from.

And being her recent consulting gig, she will be tasked to handle complaints, ameliorate any disgust by or stem displacement of longtime residents of areas with similar party bar oversaturation, as the NY Times notes:

In her first interview since accepting the post, Ms. Palitz suggested that her stint as the Nightlife Mayor would be slightly more sober and focus less on carousing than on conflict mediation. In today’s New York, gentrification has pitted partygoers against the settled residents of neighborhoods like the Lower East Side of Manhattan and Williamsburg in Brooklyn. In her first official act, Ms. Palitz promised to hold a series of listening tours and entertain the gripes of those who are bothered by the vomit on their streets or the noise at 3 a.m..

Now in charge of a mayoral office with a 12-person advisory board, a $300,000 budget and a salary of $130,000 a year, Ms. Palitz seems to have realized that even a doyenne of New York night life must make a few concessions when joining city government.

What de Blasio and Chirlane has done with hiring Ariel is akin to Trump’s picks to head departments in his plutocabinet in that they hired a woman who has obvious conflicts of interest regarding the nite life industry. And also like relying on a flipped mobster for intel because he knows where the bodies are buried, or in Ariels case where the bodies are puking and pissing and of course, according to her consultant bio, proclaimed ties to real estate. It’s going to be fascinating how that hospitality/real estate integration is going to play here, for it sure as had an effect on the environment of the LES when she was on the board going by the exorbitant rent hikes and new glass towers. And providing an outsourced predatory developer tactic with all the alcoholic idiots yelling and puking in front of residential buildings with idling app driving service cars and limos clogging the streets driving everyone nuts.

Ariel has got a sweet ride going here with a new cushy six figure salary and a budget to finagle with anyhow she pleases. Now with the night mayor officially assigned where it used to be under the purview of the actual elected mayor, de Faustio and Chirlie can focus on the issues of the day in the daylight hours. Well the afternoon hours for he still wastes his entire morning for his daily motorcade two borough trek to Park Slope and then to City Hall. Maybe this short inning middle relief pitching style of governing might have some stability. Have Chirlane govern in the morning, de Faustio in the day, and Ariel at night into the wee hours.

Maybe the city and the citizenry will be able to THRIVE somewhat. Or it will just turn into CrazyTown while it tries to be Fun City 2.0.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Governor And Aspiring President Andrew Cuomo’s Sneaky Political Patronage Hires Gets F.B.I. Attention

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https://workerslawwatch.gelmanmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2017/04/sad_cuomo.jpgThe governor of New York, expressing victimization from his latest visit from the feds.

Albany, N.Y.

Looks like Mario’s son Andy Cuomo is having another ethics debacle and again abusing his position giving to him by the voters who entrusted him with it.

The Times Union: FBI probing Cuomo office’s hiring practices

The FBI is investigating the Cuomo administration’s practice of hiring employees to work in the governor’s office while actually paying them through various state agencies and public authorities, the Times Union has learned.

Hiring pricey political appointees to work for the Executive Chamber — but paying them through other entities — has allowed Cuomo and prior governors to increase the size of their staffs while escaping criticism for inflating the Executive Chamber budget.

One type of evidence being explored by the FBI, sources said, are the written notifications that are sent by agencies or authorities to the governor’s office informing them of a new hire.

An analysis by the Times Union a year ago found that more than 40 percent of the Executive Chamber staff was actually on the payroll of public authorities or agencies. At the time, 89 of 209 Executive Chamber employees were on agency or authority budget lines.

That trend accelerated when Cuomo announced 27 new hires or promotions last March. All but a handful went to Executive Chamber jobs, but the Executive Chamber was actually paying just five of those people.

Many of the well-paid new political appointees announced in March were veterans of the Obama administration or Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful presidential campaign that needed new employment. The moves also sparked further speculation about Cuomo gearing up for a 2020 presidential run.

Under Cuomo, in some instances the positions held by Executive Chamber officials have had a correlation with the entity paying them. In other instances there seems have been little link between the work being done and an employee’s source of income.

Take well-paid Cuomo speechwriters, Tom Topousis and Jamie Malanowski. Although paid to pen speeches for the governor, Topousis was hired in 2015 at a $125,000 salary as a “special assistant” at the Office of Children and Family Services, a child protective services agency.

Malanowski’s $120,000 salary, meanwhile, has been paid by the Affordable Housing Corp., a quasi-governmental agency that helps subsidize affordable housing projects.

One of the March hires announced by Cuomo was Joel Wertheimer, who in his prior job in the Obama White House was coordinating and reviewing briefing materials sent to the president.

In his new post as staff secretary for Cuomo, Wertheimer was hired at a $120,000 salary on the budget of the Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services, an agency which helps people recover from addiction. He left the Cuomo administration in September, seven months after being hired, payroll records show.

In March, Cuomo also announced the hiring of Robert Gibbon, a former state Republican Senate staffer and an attorney. He was retained as assistant counsel to the governor for transportation at a salary of $105,000.

Yet Gibbon was hired for a budget slot on the payroll of the Justice Center, an agency meant to investigate allegations of abuse and neglect at homes for the disabled. After the Times Union inquired about Gibbon’s status, a Cuomo spokesman said he would be moved to the payroll of the quasi-governmental Thruway Authority.

These hires from the wracked DNC forms quite the cabal. Mario’s son again proves adept at spreading tax dollars like it’s coming out of his ass like diarrhea on patronage hires. How these generously well overpaid officials qualified for these positions absolutely don’t matter to a man with such lofty goals beyond his horrendous two terms as governor.

Nothing strange or unusual considering where these dubiously talented folk came from considering how much campaign money was accrued and spent by the partisan political organization. In fact lots of it by Figurehead Obama in his 2012 campaign virtually bankrupted it with the over-staffing of all this primo talent and candidate Manifest Hillary 2016 campaign ethically bankrupted it according to Donna Brazille and Wikileaks.

It’s an absolute certainty that the positions and the policies they are tasked with as not resulted in any proactive or positive gains or progress at all when it comes to services the constituency relies on. Like transit, transportation and housing. Even a basic thing to keep governing functioning honestly and efficiently like ethics. For these appointees seem more distracted with primping the Prince Andy for the high office than with the conditions of the roads, the subways, schools, elderly care and stemming the crises of cost of living and rental affordability, child abuse, homelessness and heroin and fentanyl addiction. The only thing these hacks specialize in is boosting their clients hollow profiles and watered-downed disingenuous promises and policies. No need to wonder why these problems still exist and persist.

As for ethics, these career politicos said fuck all to that certainly when they started their careers in government service. For it’s has always been about survival of the fittest, and have found a nice safe place from the man who betrayed his promise to stifle in house corruption and abolished the Moreland Commission when it was found to be in his palatial office.

All this falls in direct line with his atypical lousy judgement when it’s comes his choices of funding programs and of course the people he’s willing to associate with, like his honorary brother Joe Percoco, just recently busted taking bribes from a developer and hooking up his son with a plum job:

The Cuomo hiring practice is also a sidebar to the January corruption trial of former top Cuomo aide Joe Percoco and three others.

The Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office alleges Percoco accepted bribes from Syracuse developer Steven F. Aiello, a co-defendant in the upcoming trial. One government favor done in exchange for bribes, according to prosecutors, was Percoco facilitating a $5,000 raise for Aiello’s son in a new job in Cuomo’s office in 2015.

The son, Steven L. Aiello, was actually paid his $62,000 salary through the Division of Military and Naval Affairs, which manages New York’s military forces, records show. He has since left the administration.

Clear to see a pattern there. But with Mario’s son’s unquenchable appetite for more loftier heights and stupidly distracted with it that he let his shithead friend engage in nepotism hiring, he recklessly went into overkill with his executive office hires, leading to this FBI investigation.

And Andy is clearly feeling the heat up his ass as he’s in snowflake victimization mode.

NY Post

Team Cuomo called the Times Union’s report “absurd” and said the practice has been going on for decades.

“‎The agencies are all part of the same executive branch, and this administration follows the exact same lawful hiring process we inherited from previous administrations stretching back decades. If there are questions about it, call George Pataki,” said Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi.

“In this environment, anyone can ask about anything, but the fact is the longstanding practice of detailing staff from agencies to work in the Executive Chamber dates back over 50 years to at least the Rockefeller administration and extends to the White House and the federal Department of Justice,” he said.

Or we can ask Governor Andy’s dad.

“Given that the Federal Department of Justice and the White House have a long history of utilizing this practice, perhaps the FBI can investigate them when this is charade is over.”
The paper reported that some employees do have some connection to the agencies or authorities they are paid by while in others they do not.

NY Daily News

“Have you been in Albany?” Cuomo sternly asked the reporter who asked the question. “Have you covered government? Do people who have political experience get hired by government or is it a new fact for you?”

“You have it going on in journalism,” Cuomo said. “What are you going to do different?”

Nothing like good old deflection and projecting. And the classic childish antidote of “they did so we can do it too”. With a sprinkle of the pervasive fascist trend of bashing and intimidating journalists.

The pressing thing about this for Andy is that he is the only one left from all those previous corruption cases in the last few years serving the state. Which makes him the only target or in his mind an easy scapegoat. The timing is pretty shitty considering his comfy seat in Albany is up for grabs this year, but it serves him right for having such shitty judgement in the first place.

Although it’s wishful thinking, an indictment against Andy would be sweet but it’s a long shot considering the precedence of a century of entrenched unethical political wheeling and dealing in New York. It is nice and karmic that he is feeling the same frustration and aggravation that his policy decisions have levied on his constituents, especially in the 5 boroughs, who continued to be subjected to it day after day, year after year.

Here’s hoping charges materialize, that way a new precedence can begin to get money and marketing out of politics and government. But mostly drop the bomb on this jerk’s deluded higher office ambitions.

If not, at least the nation can be secure in the knowledge that Mario’s son appointed a bunch of political mercenaries that couldn’t get their megalomaniac candidate Manifest Hillary to beat a boastful ignoramus manchild like our current President Figurehead Trump.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shola Olayote: NYCHA’s Replicant Chief And Wolf In Fox Clothing

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https://static.politico.com/dims4/default/07a3ec6/2147483647/resize/1160x%3E/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.politico.com%2Fcapny%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fa%20-%20shola%20.pngPartners in lying, and cultivating environmental hazard conditions and damaging child development.

New York, N.Y.

Shola Olatoye, the commissioner of NYCHA, the real affordable housing program, has been exposed of lying to the city and federal officials for the avoidance of mandatory lead testing in various project apartment buildings and the obfuscation of information about the status of the inspections.

In the last 3 years since appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio and optimistically promising accountability and better service for the 400,000 tenants of the buildings in an op-ed in the NY Daily News, she compromised the safety of them by being willfully deceitful along with her deputy staffers in a conspiracy of obfuscation and neglect.

And now it includes the recently re-elected mandate claiming mayor. For after initially acknowledging the damning D.O.I. report for the egregious behavior and his unwavering support for his appointed commissioner delivered through the mouth of one of his numerous spokespersons since he is currently on paid leave in Connecticut with his wife, his spokesperson cavalierly revealed that the mayor previously knew all along that Commissioner Shola and her NYCHA underlings avoided their responsibilities and lied to H.U.D. about their mandatory appointed duty to their tenants.

For with this vile discrepancy, Shola lied to the federal agency and was aided and abetted by the Mayor of New York City when she sent in a form which she notarized certifying that inspections went on as scheduled. Fostering and continuing decades of systemic futility of the federal, state and local government funded program to help the under-payed and unprivileged with safe secure homes.

More importantly, a vast majority of apartments remain dilapidated, in disrepair and toxic. In addition to the lead contaminated paint remaining and chipping off the walls, there are other perpetual problems of rodent and roach infestations, broken door buzzers, understaffed or lousy security personnel, broken elevators and smoke detectors, widespread growing mold, and strangers loitering in the halls, staircases and playgrounds, ranging from drug dealers to homeless and the other casualty of lousy, indifferent and fraudulent inspection reports, the perpetual leaking roofs.

This is not some forgetful bullshit that got bandied about during the Rivington House deed lifting and property plunder conspired by appointed officials and craven lobbyists and developer donors to the mayor. This shit happened with people already living in these wasting buildings and with the shitty conditions that come with it.

There are reasons for this quite obvious willful and criminal indifference once you consider the actual programs the supposed clueless commissioner and her amoral boss mayor were more concerned with. The Mayor and Shola’s offices made sure the proper repairs went down for 3 project buildings when a private real estate consortium took control of housing project for privatization, betraying the feigned promise Shola made to the public about these certain groups that private interest will go to fund all repairs all of the buildings.

And of course there is the ghoulish plan to bulldoze over a playground to build a taller luxury tower in front of the Holmes Houses for the benefit of a developer donor to Mayor de Faustio. This awful century lease was doled immediately after the mayor had his case dismissed for his  pay-to-play 501 (c) (4) he ran in his City Hall office, more commonly and notoriously known as the Campaign for One New York (Shhh!).

Shola Olatoye really comes off like the definitive corporate tool. A yes woman. Her delivery when she explains and describes these plans is robotic. She’s basically a replicant for the agency and the corporate interests. With the blatant, brazen way she lies and fraudulently signed about bogus inspections is reminiscent of that corrupt soulless murderous counselor Karen Crowder arranging to put a hit on a whistle-blower who discovered toxicity in a her employer corporation’s weed killer from the movie Michael Clayton.

Ultimately, she is the classic idiom of the fox in the hen house, or in this case houses. But more a shifty wolf in fox’s clothing.

This mendacious scandal also proves how the oft-described pragmatic yet immoral de Faustio is no different than any of the slumlords recently convicted, fined and put on Letitia James’ Hot 100 list since he has basically used the same tactics and the agency’s sordid history to keep NYCHA underfunded in contrast to his long bullshit plan to preserve affordable housing. He is also proving that he’s no different and a carbon copy neoliberal version of his reason for winning re-election, Donald Trump, by having his aides gaslight reporters with denials and considering firing the guy who’s investigating him.

And like Figurehead Trump, also for his continued contempt for and passive aggressive mild repression of the press corps. For the day after the breaking news of Commissioner Olatoye’s deception, she was spotted walking to a fancy restaurant with a uniformed NYPD officer by her side.

This picture might come back to haunt her because of her unconscionable, enabled egregious decision, the next time she gets an armed escort like this it will be two armed men or women in suits holding her arms with cuffs on her wrists. Because this stooge broke the law with her deception. Federal law. Because as law professor from Fordham U. noted about the legality of this:

Under federal law, a knowing and willful false statement to the government is a felony that carries up to five years prison.

Fordham University law professor Jim Cohen called Olatoye’s conduct “clearly a false statement within the meaning of the statute,” and put the odds at “better than 50-50” she’d face charges.

“This is sort of ready-made,” Cohen said of a potential case.

NY Post

While a glut of elected officials, by Public Advocate and in the near future mayor Letitia James and even some liberal and fauxgressive City Council people are demanding Shola to step the fuck down, the Mayor they all endorsed is standing behind her and supporting her still, and hilariously accusing outraged officials of political ambition (more odious Trump-like projection and hypocrisy) probably on the scant hope that his heinous good luck evading indictments will rub off on her.

Even if, this will not even be bittersweet, for the cost of the inevitable class action suit will be astronomical and will be added to the monstrous debt the NYCHA agency already accrued after almost a half-century of willful neglect and indifference from the organization’s administrative offices to city hall, the state house and naturally the federal government. And this will get even worse with that idiot savant Ben Carson running HUD and Trump’s daughter-in-law’s party planner running the east coast division of the housing dept.

Which will leave NYCHA truly vulnerable for privatization and to all involved in the Gentrification Industrial Complex. So if anything does get finally fixed or even marginally improved, and if there is more of effort to curb crime on the projects, the original and future lower income tenants will unable to reap the benefits of this long standing program and even the right to have a roof over your head if you have the economic means to make the rent. It will also probably mean a much longer wait than there already is now to get an apartment there. But with the encroaching and plundering budget plan on its way, there might not be any programs like section 8 or rent stabilization at all.

And there won’t be any help for the kids and adults poisoned from Olatoye’s and de Faustio’s brazen obfuscations.

This is not going to end well at all for the working poor and even the shrinking middle class. But if these two don’t get indicted for their illegal acts, it won’t end well for even society and justice for all. All at the bottom that is. Unless justice is finally meted out, if any still exists, and arrest warrants will be thrust upon this diabolical duo and her two recent aides forced to resign in a lame effort of optical reactive measures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Senior Editor And Daughter Of The Owners/Publishers Of The Washington Post Throws Fucking Obscene Lavish Party In The Hamptons.

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https://hollywoodonthepotomac.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/The-Trumps-with-Lally-Weymouth-pre-dinner.jpgHello, Lally Weymouth. By herself and with Figurehead Donald Trump and his wife Melania in 2011. Old friends.

 

 

Last Saturday, the divided and distracted people of this nation had officially become a sideshow when this event happened in Southhampton, Long Island, N.Y.

On that day, this country had become another interdimensional colony from another realm when this party collective of widely diverse supposed ideological differences optically feuding with each other came together for the hostesses pre-birthday and upcoming movie release party of an upcoming potentially Oscar regaled Steven Spielberg film.

From the White House, super senior advisors to the President: Sort Of Secretary of State Jared Kushner and First Daughter/Lady and now seat filling de facto President Ivanka Trump, Chief Counselor, Goebbels reincarnate and bullshit artist Kellyanne Conway, unofficial Plutocabinet member Carl Icahn and deputy national security advisor Dina Powell. Senator and member of the new “resistance” Charles “Chucklenuts” Schumer . Billionaires and financiers for the partisan political establishment, Charles Koch for the right and George Soros for the left. NYPD commissioners and bitter rivals William “broken windows” Bratton and Ray “stop and frisk” Kelly. And various big name journos for the Washington Post, tasked with keeping democracy dying in darkness.

In these times of utter confusion, cynicism and abject cruelty among the citizenry, earlier revered by the inaugurated Trump as you, the people, this party cannot be more untimely, tone-deaf, insensitive and offensive. The Washington Post has been railing against the antics and widespread corrupt connections of Figurehead Trump for the past year and a half with such zeal that that at times most of their reports had to be corrected for missing major facts, contributing to Trump’s and the public’s disdain and his own desired physical abolishment for the proclaimed fake news medium. With this shindig, it’s clear to people why that may be and it should be clear now that Trump’s ongoing social media spats is just the same distracting fodder that he used to provide the WWE with in his time as a pro wrestler feuding with the Small Business Commissioner Linda McMahon’s husband.

This party, although obviously not the first of it’s kind if you just go on any digital search engine for images of our money betters soirees, is the 10th circle of hell manifested. This happening is veritable proof that life as we know it in it’s current form is a joke and a lie if you don’t have obscene amounts of wealth, whether earned or inherited (mostly the latter). These lavish party people don’t give a goddamn, a shit, a fuck or a flying fuck about the concerns and problems of the middle class and the working poor that they feign (with now underlying mockery and contempt) to represent and inform. As George Carlin once proclaimed and prophesied just a few short years before his way to soon death, “it’s a big club, and you ain’t in it”. A quote which may now have to be inscribed in the nation’s constitution.

This party makes Marie Antoinette’s notorious and dismissive words to the suffering proles in 18th century France sound like a charitable suggestion for single payer health care and affordable housing and free college for all. This event happened despite the acrimony and polarization going on in the streets and the justified fury of the people confronting their elected representatives at town halls.

This blatant display of apolitical crapulence comes on the heels of the recent shooting of Republican elected officials at a field during a baseball practice. Is this party what was meant about the bipartisan unity demanded by all those effected by that day of terror and by Figurehead Trump. And wouldn’t this party trigger and inspire another disgruntled mentally ill citizen to consider this a proper target for his or her sense of immediate vigilante justice?

Mostly, this party put together by a major publisher of journalism, by one of the giants of the fourth estate, flies in the faces and insults the intelligence of the public and the right to be informed. And solidifies the rotten state of class division and widening wealth disparity overwhelming towns and cities as public services are being denied them to enrich people like Ms. Weymouth and her wealthy sociopath guests with generous tax cuts.

Certainly, they all had a good time and will continue to do so, even as it comes at the expense of the people’s growing fears and the concept of reality. Unless something happens to make people like Lally think twice about her next gathering of uber-equals. Say a revolution. With that prospect, it’s more likely she will hire military contractors to fortify her next one.

 

 

 

Executive Carnage And Anarchy In 100 Plus Days: The President Embraces Dictators And Becomes A Lame Ass One-Sacking His FBI Director And Investigator And Establishes And Parades A Criminal Conspiracy In Plain Sight In The Oval Office

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https://i0.wp.com/mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/shared/npr/styles/x_large/nprshared/201705/527773655.jpgThis guy here, this is the guy helping me destroy morality, trust and normalcy.

Washington D.C., U.S.A.

Looks like President Trump has gone full time gangster on the nation. And revealing some disturbing though not surprising characteristic traits.

Like recent reports that he gets an extra scoop of ice cream after dinner every day, like a petulant brat having a birthday.

Like that red button he installed on his desk in the oval office that brings him a Coke. Clearly put there to freak out invited domestic and international dignitaries, cabinet aides and most certainly ideologue wealthy individuals when he presses it. The stupid asshole.

Like telling Face The Nation his warped rationale that having a sore knee or a bad back is not as important than launching missles, which shows that he definitely knows what’s in the Expendable American Health Care Act.

Like congratulating recent victories and the treacherous exploits of despots of other nations, dictator scumbags like Al-Sisi in Egypt and Erdrogan in Turkey. No word yet if Trumpy called the victor of the election in France who beat that dirty money-bundled douchehag Marnie Le Pen though.

Like inviting that extrajudicial mass killing vigilante asshole Duerte from the Philippines, probably for advice that made AG Jefferson Sessions, that mutant herpes boil, bring back excessive sentences for drug offenses.

https://keithandthemovies.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/deliverance-boy1.jpg

Attorney General Jeff Sessions*

But mostly, and most defiantly egregious and boastful, the firing of the FBI director James Comey. The man leading the investigation into alleged Russian influence and interference in the democratic process of last year’s election in the final months. Surely, after the Figurehead and aspiring Dictator had been whining on his social networking account for months there was no link at all, in addition to denying ever meeting Putin and even advisors with ties to Russian oligarchs in his inner circle. And the perceived massive favor the former FBI director did to dismantle the campaign of Manifest Hillary in the final week before election day, it certainly looked as if Comey’s job was safe and Trump was eager to let the investigation roll on, with the assured, by Trump, outcome to go in his, Trump’s, favor. It would have been another thing to brag about incessantly, which where the President is an artisan.

But it was all too much. And like something out of the Godfather, recent reports have shown that since his pathetic inauguration, Trump has been putting the screws on the top law enforcer of the nation. Needling Comey to pledge his loyalty to him to end the investigation of the alleged and yet to be proven Russian ties. It’s like Trump thought that firing Gen. Flynn for his 45 large payday would be enough to let it go so he can run the country into the toilet, enact arbitrary laws and regressive policies, plunder the treasury and continue to run the Trump Organization at the same time.

It’s still amazing that Flynn got the ax. I can only imagine the amount of bullshit Trump told him when he assigned him to the NSA position, which did not need congressional approval. Like how safe the general thought he would be because of Trump’s debts of billions of dollars to his properties and, as recently noted by a sportswriter, golf courses, and most omnipresently, Trump’s familial advisers and the Secretary Of State Rex Tillerson’s ties to the obscenely wealthy in Mother Russia.

The problem, for the President, is that Comey, despite his flaws and his humiliating recent testimony at the last hearing involving this burgeoning scandal, is a true public servant and did not sell out to the lame ass aspiring dictator. So Trump fired him like the coward he is. And in the heinous way of manipulating the analysis of recently appointed deputy attorney Rod Rosenstein and using the blatantly illegal advice of A.G. Sessions who a day after his confirmation, recused himself from this case for speaking briefly with a Russian diplomat. Of course, being the glory hog and ignorant jerkoff that is his nature, the President/Godfather bragged to Lester Holt that he was going to can Comey anyway. With this national display of hubris and shit-talkin’, Trump did the same thing Flynn did to Vice President Pence when he lied about taking cash from a Russian TV network featuring Putin and undermined his defense of Comey’s firing by the advise of his top cabinet members by lying to him. (as well as members of congress and his doormat press secretary, forcing him to hide in the dark by some bushes). This amoral admission by Trump solidifies his impulsive power tripping firings of interim AG Sally Yates concerns of Russian compromising and DA Preet Bharara’s similar investigations and actual charges of Russian money laundering in NYC luxury apartments (although Preet might have actually been canned for delving into the misdeeds involving a nefarious pal of the fiendish President of Turkey currently held in a prison cell in Manhattan)

This of course led to an uproar in D.C. and the nation, (and probably the Deep State, but they will probably adapt if Trump remains in power), despite all the conflicting outcry from both political parties that have called for Comey’s removal in the past 8 months. But all that was put to rest when the following day, the subject and catalyst of the Comey investigation, Russian Diplomat Sergei Klysiak  was invited to the White House and Oval Office with the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov. And kept out the fourth estate from the meeting but permitted a Russian government owned media photographer to the oval office.

That is some gangsta shit.

And now it turns out that Trump, in a total display of boastful hypocrisy, revealed pertinent information and classified intelligence to the Sergeis about the Islamic State provided by staunch and perennially trusted ally Israel. And he followed this up with bilious aplomb that he had the right, as President, to do it. The same bilious aplomb when he said that the President never has a conflict of interest and how he can go out on the streets of New York, shoot a guy, get away with it, and still be adored.

That is something that is learned and ingrained indefinitely in a person. In a person that had relied on illicit mob money and manpower to build his empire as a young scion who inherited his dad’s wealth and empire, and who has relied on free flowing and unregulated Russian (and Chinese, Indian, and Arabian) money to grow his empire, market his name and spread his tower pestilence and fabricated worth and reputation around the world.

Image result for trump bribes here

The aftermath of the Tuesday Night Sacrifice (one person doesn’t make a massacre), The Godfather/President has made a bunch of power moves.

First he gave an address to Liberty University, a college founded by evangelist, sinner and philander Jerry Falwell, a symbolic gesture to his only base, the wealthy hypocritical christian minority. Overlooking the fact that religion is the last refuge of a scoundrel, he enlightened the audience of recent graduates that we are a nation that worships god more than government, which jibes with his recent moronic and redundant executive order to promote free speech and religious liberty. And his recent EO on instituting a commission on voting integrity, based on his lunatic belief that he should have won the popular vote, but scholars and experts rightly claim is just a harbinger for more voter oppression.

But nothing can be more gangster than what happened on May 16, 2017 in the nation’s capital in the United States Of America, when the recently and grossly empowered President Recep Tayipp Erdogan came to the White House. Erdogan, with the aid of sycophants and patsies in his nation’s parliament and a very shady electoral process, took over control of all branches of government in his country. This has led to strife and unrest in his nation. It’s also reached out to Turkish citizens of this nation, as a small group showed up at the Turkish embassy in D.C. to protest Erdrogan’s presence there.

It did not go well at all. Unless you were part of Tayipp’s crack security team of violent oppressors.

These motherfucking lowlifes basically committed an attack on a sovereign country. America. These bags of dicks and shit in suits and possessing loaded guns oppressed the 1st amendment rights of those people, Kurdish people whom this nation is allied with in War On Terror. And they did this with total impunity and the salient fact that they have virtual permission since their leader has the respect and sympathy of our President.

These are the days, hours, minutes and seconds of reckoning of liberty and justice in this country and even though he refuses to acknowledge it, President/Godfather Don “Senza Valore” Trump, now that Comey’s predecessor and fellow New Yorker Robert Mueller has been tapped to assist in the independent investigation. Although the above video is reason enough to demand justice for the victims and spur solidarity among the hundreds of elected officials, the fact that the nation is at the mercy of a gangster is arguably worse.

This power hungry, power mad, stupid, greedy man in the White House has to go. And he has to go to prison like the gangster he kept company with and the dictator he aspires to be. No more, no less. There is no way to condone his behavior and his decisions. There are no more chances. This is over. President Trump truly has become the living embodiment of two words that don’t belong together.

There is not enough time left. He has to be removed before his disastrous budget, foreign and domestic policies and his dismantling of the constitution becomes official.

Mostly, he has to be charged with high crimes, that way if that sinner Vice President “Lying” Pence takes over, his presidency will be undermined and will not get any of his fundamentalist Christian acts effecting the economies and beliefs on the majority of citizens.

These acts of sedition will not and cannot stand. And cannot wait.

Lady Justice has been raped
Truth assassin
Rolls of red tape seal your lips
Now you’re done in
Their money tips her scales again
Make your deal
Just what is truth? I cannot tell
Cannot feel

The ultimate in vanity
Exploiting their supremacy
I can’t believe the things you say
I can’t believe
I can’t believe the price we pay
Nothing can save us

Justice is lost
Justice is raped
Justice is gone
Pulling your strings
Justice is done
Seeking no truth
Winning is all
Find it so grim
So true
So real

                                     “…And Justice For All”, Metallica

Update:

I kinda partially regret writing this post. Because Comey, Mueller, Rosenstein and all the other resisters in the FBI turned out to be discredited in their investigation of President Trump. But I don’t regret at all citing his financial ties of these foreign wealthy adversaries and that he is continuing to abuse his power and the government to enrich himself, which is still going on in plain sight.

 

 

 

THIS Was The Moment Donald J. Trump Became President

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Donald Trump was seen patting a Marine on the back after saying goodbye to Argentine President Mauricio Macri and his wife, Juliana Awada. The Marine had tended the limousine doors for the Argentine couple's departure

Washington, D.C., United States Of America Under Trump

On April 26, 2017, with the announcement of the nation’s tax plan, This was the moment Donald Trump became President.

(In deference and disagreement to prior arguable proclamations by professional wealthy pundits Van Jones and Fareed Zakaria.)

The Executive Producer and Figurehead of the nation’s government, announced by proxy from his two equally avaricious plutocabinet members, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Chief Economic Adviser Gary Cohn (there to make sure Spicer doesn’t fuck it up), both who certainly concocted this legislative Lufthansa Airlines heist, laid out the economic tax plan for the country.

This was the moment Donald Trump became President.

This tax plan is exactly what he ran on, aside from being immune from conflicts of interest with his businesses around the world that extends to his daughter and son-in-law. Since his burgeoning days as a inherited real estate magnate in NYC, he always found ways to mine and plunder government funds to obscenely enrich himself and in the process, like the media generated coverage of John Gotti, turn himself into a celebrity doing it.

This is precisely the only motivation why he ran for office. Ripping off people from all professions, blue collar, small business, or investor, is where Donald is a viking, a master. That is all he did his entire adult life, manipulate and rob off the backs, blood and sweat of people. Even recent history shows this with his settlement involving his criminally fake college. Especially since the most viable avenue to achieve billions is through equally conniving and avaricious yet weak officials holding influential positions they were elected to.

Everything about this budget plundering proposal is designed to benefit the former populist firebrand elected to run the country, in addition to all his appointed sociopath oligarchs in his cabinet.

From the hacking of the corporate tax rate from 39 to 15%, focusing on the phenomenon of a money hoarding loophole called “pass-through” income, a great boon to all the hedge funds, private equity and venture capital firms, which will be great news for all those who profit from real estate, think LLC’s where partners can remain practically anonymous, and brand recognition, say google and apple, or Trump who has 500 of these particular businesses and partnerships.

The repeal of the estate tax, which will liberate the Figurehead’s precious daughter and greedy bastard sons from the burden of contributing to the fiscal health of the country they never had to apply for a job in. The destruction of the alternative minimum tax, so Trump and like minded evaders can hoard millions more from creative deductions.

With this blatant diabolical plan, supposedly all those who store their piles of festering stinking dirty wealth in off shore tax havens to avoid contributing to the health and security of this country, arguably an act of financial treason, will suddenly repatriate their savings back here at a lower rate and with all that money saved, an mass influx of businesses will rise and jobs will insue. History shows that it’s unadulterated bullshit.

Sure, the Figurehead had to get to fulfilling the desires and needs to the people that voted for him, mostly to the motivated angry throngs that attended his campaign rallies. The Muslim travel ban, cracking down on illegal immigrants and defunding sanctuary cities, all which subsequently led to failure for under unconstitutional grounds, and the lowball estimated border wall, which has now been put on hiatus to avoid a shutdown of the government. Certainly, this won’t pass either because of the psychotic redistribution of wealth and loopholes the size of the Milky Way to easily take advantage of by our wealthier betters.

But now that this is officially and mortally threatening imminent policy, it’s safe to state the obvious. Because of the reason that this is Trump. He has always been obvious. There is no subtlety with the Figurehead.

In fact, the main reason this greedy bastard wanted the honor to represent you, the people is to get out of his documented deep shit debts he has to international banks.

So forget all this nonsense about conflicts of interest, emoluments clauses and his personal tax forms from the past 20 years, including last year, that he refuses to release to the public, his employer, that demands it from him. Forget about his defiant hypocrisy and his gas lighting defense of it. And forget the way he talks to journalists, especially after that maddening interview he gave to the Associated Press that was released on Monday, an interview with audio that is being suppressed by the government we keep running with our tax dollars. And for fucks sake, forget about his stupid twitter social networking defecations.

For with this odious and inherently evil tax plan. Donald J. Trump is now President Of The United States Of America.

Executive Carnage at 13 Weeks: Committee Malfeasance, Alternative Complicity And Beautiful Nepotism, And Cake And Armaments

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     Thanks, Keith

Mar-A-Lago Country Club, The Weekend White House, Miami, Florida

It is now officially the 13th week of the Figurehead Trump Presidency and it has culminated in a modern day missile crisis with a fellow jackass leader that had a country handed to him by inheritance, riots in the streets over Trump’s evasiveness about his personal taxes in the past 2 decades, deluding federal investigations over his election victory and what’s close to looking like Russian influence and acts of treason by wealthy campaigners, and shoddy foreign policy making by the Figurehead’s son-in-law and daughter and incompetent bombing missions by his appointed generals.

It’s looking clearer minute by minute that machinations behind the revolting successful presidential campaign of Don Worthless of shady Russian ties with the hapless shenanigans of David “Nunbnuts” Nunes.

While the FBI way belatedly figured out that the hacking of Hillary’s campaign staffs and the DNC’s phones, laptops or pads were from sources connected to Russian spy agencies and used world renowned hacker Glucifer 2.0 as a channel as they were combing North,Central and South America searching for Tom Brady’s stolen Super Bowl jersey, Our Figurehead got the word that his 5th avenue ugly ass skyscraper home tower was under surveillance by the feds for some reasons. At the bequest of our complicity and corruption prone leader, he wanted to know why there was so much surveillance in his luxury monolith and wanted concrete evidence that it was at the behest of the last president so his social media feeds would have validity.  David did his best Maxwell Smart/Ace Ventura impression and hid from his colleagues in the Intelligence Committee to get whatever incriminating intel or discussions of interest of the wiretaps like a good lapdoggie to his voter-elected boss. Supposedly, Nunbnuts got this intel from leaks in the White House, which Trump usually frowns upon when similar venues get used to expose flaws and burgeoning rivalries among his cabinet and staff. Because of this idiocy, Nunbnuts has been deposed and relieved of his duties to this allegedly independent and tax payer money wasting committee which found no truth to another one of the Figurehead’s twitter troll screeds.

As another one of Trumpy’s conspiracy theories was debunked as with his prior fever delusions and mass media distractions of inauguration day crowd size and those millions of illegal citizen votes in blue states, his offspring and protege son-in-law have taken on bigger roles in their lives revolving around their father’s (and father-in-law) prior and new responsibilities in enriching himself even more.

After the massive failure in his attempt to implode or explode the Affordable Care Act, content with letting the program kill itself leaving mass casualties, and in way punish his young ward Jared “8 up” Kushner for going skiing as him and everyone in D.C. was bickering over the offensive replacement to ACA, Skipper Trump symbolically punished his figurative Gilligan to new assignments involving drug addiction and foreign policy and relations, the latter basically picking up slack or undermining real Secretary Of State Rex Tillerson so he can avoid going to nations that are deemed a threat and probably didn’t have prior deals with his current former business Exxon. Apparently this seemingly royal appointment to the Figurehead’s son in law has turned out to be an executive power move and gave Jared more influence and authority.

But the optics of Trump’s decision isn’t making good impressions for the U.S. as a superpower.

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.3026609.1491517774!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_1200/vest7n-1-web.jpgThis looks like an ad for a Banana Republic skinny jacket. The need for a vest seems superfluous as Gilligan/Jared looks so gaunt that even a hawkeye sniper would have difficulty grazing him. That garb is so tight he looks like a artisanal cocktail weenie. He has come a long way from his East Village scumlord days.

As with everything involving this shitswirl labyrinth administration, Kushner, close advisor to his daddy-in-law and now virtually a one man staff of the state department, had ties and held talks with a Russian banker with a background in military intelligence and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kilsiak during the transition phase to the White House. But since he’s married to the first daughter/second lady and not General Mike Flynn, according to our opportunistic elected leader, the convenience of being the President not having a conflict of interest can easily be applied to those who he chooses. Ahh, the beauty that is nepotism, right blind trust holder co-executive Eric Trump?

The younger Mr Trump recently faced a barrage of criticism for arguing that nepotism was a “factor of life” but, instead of retracting this assessment, he goes further by arguing it was completely logical for his father to appoint him to look after the family’s business interests.

“You trust the people who are closest to you. Who is he going to trust most to run a company? He is going to trust somebody who he trusts implicitly,” he says.

“He knows I care about the family. He knows I care about the brand. He knows I deeply care about the properties, our amazing teams. And he knows I’m going to do everything I can humanly possible to take care of that.

 

“Is that nepotism? Absolutely. Is that also a beautiful thing? Absolutely. Family business is a beautiful thing. The same applies for Ivanka. Ivanka is by his side in Washington.”

Mr Trump argues that a family member was more likely to tell the President “no disrespect but you might want to think about this” or “maybe you crossed the line here” rather than someone who “will say yes just because you happen to be the boss.”

          The Telegraph UK

Beautiful. And with this defiant arrogant justification and lame attempt to show encouraging transparency, and also showing a display of genetic brashness and stupidly incriminating himself (if that’s possible now) and his dad, he recently announced that he is giving quarterly reports to the commander-in-chief Figurehead about the businesses that he falsely divested himself from since taking over the reins of the nation’s economy and nuclear codes.

Being a layman when it comes to running a business, but aren’t distributing these reports the usual process for evaluation by a chief executive of a company or companies? Emoluments and complicity be damned. Aren’t laws being broken and conflicts committed in plain sight being brazenly committed here?

“The President can’t have a conflict of interest” said Donald J. Trump to Lesley Stahl on 60 minutes. He also said he can shoot somebody on the street and nothing would happen.

Speaking of incriminating one self and others related to you and the uncertainty of the and current lack of consequences, Ivanka extolled some similar bullshit in an attempt to whitewash all the blatant civic and political malfeasance going on in the White House and everywhere in the free and non-free world the Trump brand is laid, now that her poppop has given her an official advisor role in the plutocabinet:

What we have here, in a nod to the now hardly visible game show model presenter Kelly Ann Conway, is alternative complicity.

That should temporarily put the nation to rest easier, knowing that the kakistocracy and kleptocracy that will further enrich all under the Brand Of Trump and all those elected refusing to investigate these blatant violations in the House and Senate by the Cesspool On The Potomac, will keep the nation’s economy remaining robust and security remaining strong, right?

Wrong.

After assurances by the real Secretary Of State Tillerson, top UN diplomat Nikki Haley, and months after a secret meeting in the winter with the dictator of Syria by Congresswoman and either future Defense Secretary or Vice President Tulsi Gabbard, our nation decided not to interfere with the government process and ongoing civil wars of that nation.

Then a day later, chemical weapons were disbursed in a rebel held city causing the deaths of hundreds of citizens. So with all this diplomatic leeway, the next day President Assad decides to commit genocide.

The reaction by the general public was furious, and according to kid brother Eric, so devastating and upsetting to sis and new advisor Ivanka that Trump, during an opulent dinner and dessert featuring, reverentially detailed by the Figurehead as the biggest piece of chocolate cake he’s ever seen, so big and delicious that he flustered to remember what country he was attacking, ordered his military to drop bombs on Syria’s war plane air fields. This was the second time Trump ordered a military mission during dinner, the last being the disastrous raid in Yemen that killed civilian women and children and a Navy Seal.

187313-Big-Piece-Of-Chocolate-Cake
Dramatization of cake described by Don

Despite the perceived success of the mission and the aesthetics described by discredited anchorman now drooling M.I.C. stenographer sycophant Brian Williams as he butchered Leonard Cohen lyrics, the beautiful and costly weapons ($54,000,000) only hit less than half of it’s targets and Assad was able to send planes on bombing missions the next day. Speaking of sycophants, none worse than our elected members of congress, whom were not even counseled about this attack as standard procedure is to get congressional approval to order them, the majority of them praised the decision made by our determined leader anyway.

                                                                                  be-yoo-ti-ful

So much for all the rhetoric by these established and college educated officials about the mental capacities of their chief executive.

The reasons are plentiful and not at all cynical for this attack. That Trump may have personally profited yet again from his policies. That this was a vain attempt to bolster his approval rating. That this was just an arbitrary reaction because of the weapons used since regular bombs that destroy villages and kill civilians, especially children and babies are basically permitted, especially by royal empirical dictators we like and have businesses in their wealth segregated cities there. That this was spurred by what is now being determined as a false flag attack comparable to the Gulf Of Tonkin, since Assad is claiming he never sent planes with sarin bombs and the actual bomb was and I.E.D. set off in the ground by an Al Qaeda squadron. And despite Trump’s proclaimed strategy of not giving the enemy warning or a schedule when he would strike, him or his staff informed Russia that they were attacking so they can move any troops they have stationed there. So much for further legitimization for impeachment hearings.

Then during the high holy week of the Catholic, Christian, Baptist and Jewish faiths, Figurehead Trump orders to drop the biggest, the baddest and the motherist of all bombs on a camp in Afghanistan on an Isis faction, killing close to 100 of them. Reportedly, the Taliban felt temporarily relieved although not much grateful, they are still our adversary there as our nation is approaching 20 years in combat in that mountainous and lucrative poppy and natural gas filled nation.

https://ibankcoin.com/flyblog/files/2017/04/1457529041_moab-bomb-david-lee-thompson.jpg
This should answer your question, Pink

Ultimately it’s turning out that this is an attempt, and in the wake of confirming the nation’s draconian budget coming in May filled with billions more for more beautiful weapons and cuts to the American infrastructure, science, culture and livelihoods, to intimidate and diminish the military might of North Korea. A nation like us now who for decades prioritize the preparedness for war and who has nuclear capabilities, and like us (more extremely though) is willing to starve it’s citizens to maintain the M.I.C. there.

I don’t want to undermine the severity of the geopolitical climate right now, but with Pence making this announcement while Trump golfs every weekend in his chill out resort and attends an easter egg hunt obnoxiously arranged by his resurfaced wife in Mar-A-Lego for their wealthy clientele instead of the traditional White House, it can’t be any more clearer who is really running this country right now. Especially after the recent decision to defund Planned Parenthood.

Is this what the people asked for when they entrusted Trump with their vote, as with the recent decision to give up their 1st and 4th amendment rights and personal privacy for their internet usage for telecom corporations to sell and profit from?

And what of the fourth estate of what passes for responsible journalism, as with the lobotomized responses and observations of Brian Williams and Fareed Zakaria, the latter who basically called the Figurehead full of shit a week earlier, is now praising him for changing his mind and opinions on everything he espoused to pander and garner votes from the people.

And now we got disparate ideological groups rioting in the streets just for rightfully demanding to see Trump’s tax returns

And so this existential madness rambles on as if to normalize every cynical thing about the recent historical and current workings of governmental process. And possibly that the Trump presidency is just a spin off reality show bred from his NBC series. The position of chief executive is now officially the Chief Executive Producer. Every time he announces some proposal he does it to build suspense as if to get people to stay tuned for the next episode.

No matter how much they try to normalize this in order to keep the people undistracted from such established widespread bullshit so to keep working and contributing a fifth of their paycheck to keep this systemic farce running…

About Judge Johnathan Lippman, The Alpha Guy Who Initiated The Unrealistic Gradual Shutdown Of Rikers Island

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https://i0.wp.com/ww3.hdnux.com/photos/41/22/32/8726146/3/rawImage.jpgJudge Johnathan Lippman (Ret.)

Queens, N.Y.

The gears are now getting oiled for the delusional and inevitable to fail, crash and burn plan to close Rikers and transfer them to new structures to be built, supposedly near to each boroughs nearest district court house to avoid pissing off the natives. Although not realizing, or refusing to realize that there are residential areas near courthouses. Since there has been a steady but not yet ample amount of constructive and virulent criticism towards the two self-enlightened self-righteous assheads, Speaker Mark Viverito and Mayor Big Slow De Faustio, it would be sorely remiss if the one who spearheaded this stupid, alienating and dividing and conquering plan would escape unscathed, and that’s the Honorable Judge Johnathan Lippman (Ret.)

He is currently employed at the mega power white shoe and collar firm Latham & Watkins. It is pointed out at the end of his bio of his expertise in civil rights issues. But it conveniently neglects his other diabolical skill sets and the company he once kept.

NY Post: Feds investigating Silver’s influence over civil court

The country’s most important civil court is under federal investigation, an insider says. The probe is focusing on the state Supreme Court’s civil division at 60 Centre St. in lower Manhattan, where many tentacles reach to disgraced Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, the court source said.

Silver was arrested last month on corruption charges, and Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara warned the public to “stay tuned” for more developments. The case against Silver centers on his freelance legal “work” and the millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks he hauled in from real-estate and asbestos claims, the feds say.

Many of these cases landed in the courtrooms at 60 Centre St., presided over by judges with ties to Silver and his lifelong pal, Jonathan Lippman, the chief judge of the state Court of Appeals.

Both men grew up on the Lower East Side, and Silver has been Lippman’s political godfather, pushing him to reach New York’s top judicial post. “The appointment of Sheldon Silver’s childhood friend, Jonathan Lippman, as the state’s chief judge based on his administrative experience made about as much sense as the Yankees making their accountant the manager of the team,” said Charles Compton, former president of the Supreme Court Officers Association. He added that Lippman was appointed “to protect and promote Silver’s interests.”

The indictment accuses Silver of steering billionaire developer Leonard Litwin, the state’s largest political donor, to the firm, along with another unnamed developer. In exchange, Silver reaped referral fees. Litwin owns a rental building, The Fairmont — the same high-rise where Lippman and his wife rented a one-bedroom apartment between 2007 and 2010, The Post found. And Lippman’s son, Russell, a Harvard-educated lawyer, rented an apartment there between 2003 and 2005, public records show.

Lippman, who earned $156,000 in 2010, moved into the rent-stabilized building in 2007 shortly after he was appointed presiding justice of the Appellate Division in Manhattan and was required to live in The Bronx or Manhattan. He had lived in Westchester.  Lippman did not know Litwin owned the property.

And!

As The Post reported Sunday, US Attorney Preet Bharara is now investigating the state Supreme Court’s civil division in lower Manhattan.

Its courtrooms handled many of the asbestos and real-estate claims that provided Silver with much of his outside income. The stink here is that it isn’t just the plaintiffs Speaker Silver had ties to. He was pals with the judges as well.

The most prominent is Jonathan Lippman, whom Shelly has known since childhood. Shelly helped engineer Lippman’s appointment as chief judge of the state Court of Appeals.

In that post, Lippman appointed Arthur Luxenberg — yes, of the same Weitz & Luxenberg that was paying Silver — to a committee that helped decide which judges are appointed to the division handling the asbestos cases that are among Weitz & Luxenberg’s specialties.

There are also the two landlords who are being represented in the same courtrooms by Silver’s other law firm, Goldberg & Iryami.

Their case is being heard by Judge Martin Shulman. Not only does Silver live in the same building and go to the same synagogue as Shulman, Silver helped get Shulman his appointment.

No one besides Silver has yet been charged with any wrong-doing. But with a state court now under federal investigation along with the governor’s office and the Legislature, Bharara now has all three branches of New York government in his crosshairs.

In other words, a state trifecta. And not one New York should be proud of.

It figures given his recent past in appointing a commission of slithery like-minded thinkers that he would be the go-to guy in writing up a speculative report on such a utopian project like ending the existence of Rikers.

It should also be noted that although L & W is a massive firm with thousands of clients in hundreds of industrial and corporate fields, that one of them that will surely come into play is the Real Estate and REIT divisions. REIT’s have been a major financial resource behind the rash (or scourge or pestilence, whichever you prefer) of the majority of hyper-development that has enveloped the city and the coastlines of the boroughs in the past 10 years, maybe even the last 3 under De Faustio. Most of these creative investments are through mysterious LLC’s which don’t actually divulge the identities of the partners that are profiting.

A lot of these REITs reportedly also go to warehouses, hospitals and hotels. Which brings the recent interest in occupying dormant space in Sunset Park and the shutdowns of LICH in Brooklyn, Rivington House and the recent modernization of Beth Israel to mind. And most disturbingly, the proliferation of hundreds of hotels built in the past 10 years designed for the massive influx of tourism and the hyping of Queens as a destination, only to be used mostly as indefinite homeless shelters

It doesn’t say on his bio if he specializes in real estate at his new workplace, but judging with his prior experience and his binding friendship to the disgraced, convicted “Shelly Shady” Sheldon Silver, he does seem to have an obvious inkling how to dole favors and shekels to certain real estate overlords. And he got a nice hook up pad to boot.

The irony behind the closure of Rikers by a self-righteous conspiratorial hypocrite leading it and the prospect of releasing prisoners to alleviate the transfer and the recent decision to let Shelly Shady walk free as he awaits his sentence or acquittal is just too nauseatingly glaring. And why this plan must be stopped with furious condemnation and persistence.

This is a fucking land grab, nothing more nor less. And they are doing this under the rubric fallacious guise of human rights and the memory of Kalief Browder. De Faustio, Speaker Missy, Lippy, and whoever else is on this academic panel most likely lobbyists than scholars, are avaricious bullshit artists, who don’t give a fuck about communities and care only about their portfolios and bank accounts. This is as dumb, distracting and obvious as Figurehead Trump’s dumb ass wall that will never see one bag of cement reach the Mexican border.

This must fail also. Preferably in a comical fashion.

The Class Action Lawsuit Against de Blasio’s CONYgate ally Two Trees: The First Strike At The Gentrification Industrial Complex

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Brooklyn Goddamn*, NY.

https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/170201-walentas-split.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=664&h=441&crop=1Predator Developers and corporate welfare cheats, Jed and David Walentas

NY Post: Billionaire landlords extorted tenants ripped off city: lawsuit

The billionaire real-estate dynasty behind Brooklyn’s hipster DUMBO neighborhood bilked struggling tenants out of a fortune in rent, a new lawsuit alleges. The Walentas family — whose ties to Mayor de Blasio have been scrutinized in the investigations into the city’s pay-to-play scandal — allegedly filed false statements to help land $92 million in city tax breaks and other subsidies, the suit says.  Then patriarch David, son Jed and associates used “extortion’’ and other alleged forms of deceit to jack up the rents at downtown 125 Court St. over the years and illegally pocket $10 million, according to the residents’ lawyer and the document, which was filed in Brooklyn federal court Tuesday. “This is a racketeering enterprise — it’s basically organized fraudulent activity,’’ the tenants’ lawyer, Matthew Berman, told The Post.

The plaintiffs even claim to have a company mole as a witness. That person is a former rental agent and Two Trees worker who acknowledged that the defendants “intentionally sat down and agreed in advance to take part in an unlawful scheme to illegally charge inflated rents to rent-stabilized tenants,” the suit says.

According to the suit, the family’s powerhouse company, Two Trees:

  • Duped the city and state to net lucrative tax breaks meant for rent-stabilized and affordable-housing properties.
  • “Committed extortion’’ by allegedly tricking tenants into shelling out more than they owed in monthly rent by sending phony notices saying rent was due.
  • “Coerced’’ the cheaper-paying residents into vacating their apartments so the developer could charge new tenants 20 percent higher rents.

The lawsuit suggests that government officials turned a blind eye to the allegedly illegal shenanigans because they were “influenced no doubt by campaign contributions made by Defendants and their associates.

“It is a matter of public record that seven developers wrote checks totaling $245,000 to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Campaign for One New York before de Blasio announced plans for a streetcar along the Brooklyn waterfront, with stops near the developers’ projects, including $100,000 from Defendant Jed Walentas,’’ the suit says. De Blasio has denied any connection between the big bucks and pushing his street-car plan.

Court papers describe the Walentases as a $4 billion family empire “known for its singular role in transforming the Brooklyn neighborhood of “DUMBO” (an acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) where the company’s holdings include 12 buildings comprising more than 3 million square feet of commercial and residential real estate.’’ The family also is behind the $3 billion conversion of the old Domino Sugar factory in Williamsburg into luxury pads.

Two Trees bought the 125 Court St, property at Atlantic Avenue in 2003 for $16.5 million, according to reports. They then went after millions of dollars in public funding by promising to provide rent-stabilized and affordable housing, the suit says. But over the years, the developers knowingly misrepresented the market value of units so they could illegally inflate rents, the court papers say.The lawsuit adds that “despicably, Defendants even perpetrated this fraud upon the low-income tenants of the units designated as ‘affordable housing.’ ” The tactics led to a 300 percent tenant turnover rate at the building between 2005 and 2013, or 10 times the citywide figure, the suit says.

Finally. Even though this lawsuit is in it’s nascent stage, let this be the absolute confirmation of the superficial intentions and broken false promise to end the tale of two cities Mayor de Faustio exhorted on his public inauguration ceremony 3 years ago, and the horrid existence of the gentrification industrial complex of avaricious real estate and venture capital interests, compromised government officials and an complicit apparatus of public relations firms, housing website services and a fawning news media to drive up combined fabricated speculations of rental and housing market rates.

These two repulsive maggots are just a few of the enabling predatory developer cabal that is the Real Estate Board Of New York, of whom Dad and Boy Walentas are members, which is beyond any doubt where the last word on whatever legislation regarding what areas get re- and up-zoned, what exemptions are dealt and how the hardhats will get compensated for the difficult and at times perilously hazardous work they will do to build their unsightly out of scale behemoths in established hurricane flood zones.

As this damning lawsuit states, they allegedly utilized the dirty tactic exploiting the perennially outlandish trendy status of the borough of Brooklyn via following the constant refraining bogus real estate speculation derived from the news media (none more garrilous than the NY Times real estate section) and various apt. rental service providers and blogrolls like Streeteasy and Propertyshark. They also got millions in tax breaks from the 421a law to provide a sliver of affordable housing and reneged on that state contract by raising the rents on the rent-stabilized tenants on their building on 125 Court St. in downtown Brooklyn.

This pilfering of tax payer and tenant dollars and their collective sanity and dignity is akin to other odious ploys to drive out poorer and even modest salaried tenants who are deemed unworthy and uncool. Like those who offer lowball buyouts and gut renovations of neighboring apartments. The refusal of basic utilities and maintenance requests; The denial of check payments; And the use of hired goons to intimidate residents by stalking and violating their privacy. These fiendish tactics are bit more sophisticated than the days when slumlords used the dregs of society; gangs and rodents and the use of arson to free up their buildings and properties. Although the latter tactic might be making a not so subtle comeback. Not to be overlooked is the neutered, weak and borderline indifferent enforcement of the Department of Buildings officers.

All this was made possible to make the branding of the hottest borough in the world (but not the world’s borough, that was dubiously regaled to Queens) that made it the faux luxury resort theme park, and upscale bar and food court that it is today. With the help of dispensing a few hundred large to a 501 (c) (4) kitty run in a government office in City Hall.

The devious philanthropy provided by the Walentases towards our whoring and now troubled mayor also led to minor to non-existent monitoring of their new developments, like the former Domino sugar plant and the hastening process of the idiotic BQX trolley line that happens to traverse their Blade Runner towers of glass properties. The latter giving them access to the offices of city hall via a shady group concern or how they are more commonly know as “friends of the BQX”, not at all as pathetically opaque as the “agents of the city”.

Speaking of those “agents”, the wormtongue adviser firm, BerlinRosen that was illegally loitering in the conference rooms of city hall during meetings regarding city services and planning represents Two Trees. And also the abominable Forest City Ratner, who for the past decade and a half has been destroying and rebuilding the downtown Brooklyn area to the detriment of the residents who don’t reside in their towers and the sunlight that used to shine there. The BQX, not so coincidentally will run by the streets by Ratner’s synthetic metropolis.

The slithering machinations the Gentrification Industrial Complex has done to reshape the shorelines of Brooklyn has wreaked havoc on the rest of the borough, causing rents to ludicrously skyrocket even in still high crime risk areas like Bushwick, Bed-Stuy and East New York, in still middle class and poor areas like Crown Heights and Sunset Park, and is now bleeding into the middle class enclaves in Queens, none more apparent than the hastening out-of-scale tower development in Long Island City.

It also is having a pernicious effect on the area median rates for affordable housing, influencing the fabricated speculative market rates that the Walentas duo engaged in, even leading low level slumlords to exploit this hustle in addition to devaluing their buildings and denying tenants rights and demands for maintenance. Which may have not only led to the further tax paying sanctions of public funded condo housing, but also the incredible record rise of the homeless consensus, which includes working families and veterans.

This lawsuit, long overdue and looks pretty cut and dry, cannot be more timely since it’s coinciding with the impending hearings with D.A. Preet Bharara and the meltdown of their of their long time pal and personal aide, Mayor “Big Slow”” de Faustio” de Blasio and his merry band of neo-liberal deputies and staffers, who still insist on claiming legality for their chicanery and that they have committed no wrong-doing. They will probably cite precedent by mentioning when Donald Trump was buying elected officials and exploiting similar loopholes back in his baby predator days building hotels and a shrine tower to himself in the 80’s

This may be a stretch and maybe hoping too much, but these subhumans might actually see hard time for their twisted ties and underhanded nefarious acts. Maybe it will bring a semblance of closure to all those choosing between eating and paying rent, all those trying to transition from a crappy existence in an apt. filled with mold and vermin, a room with barely any privacy and security, or shacking up in hotel room with no kitchen at the mercy of security contractors and subsiding on shitty city provided sandwiches for lunch and dinner as they wait to win the lottery for that sliver of 20 % affordable housing because of the greed for money and land of Two Trees and the concentration and control of power for our corrupt mayor and his staff.

*apologies to Nina Simone

All Of The Mayor’s Legal Aid Consiglieries.

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https://i0.wp.com/www.theyeshivaworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/deb.jpgThis is going to come back to haunt him

New York, New York, New York

NY Daily News: Mayor de Blasio proposes $84.67B budget with more money for streets, schools, homelessness

Mayor de Blasio proposed a $84.67 billion city budget Tuesday, pumping more money into streets, schools, and homelessness amid fears about federal funding cuts under President Trump. De Blasio said his spending plan does not factor in reductions in federal money, which are still widely unknown. Instead, the city has socked away more cash in reserves to prepare for the worst.

The financial plan contained few flashy new initiatives, but funded new projects to bolster street safety, education and the NYPD. There’s $317 million for projects in the Vision Zero push to cut traffic deaths — including street redesigns, new lighting, and traffic signal retiming — as well as another $12 million to repaint crosswalks. Meanwhile, spending on homelessness has surged — up $70 million in the current fiscal year and $150 million for next year as record numbers of homeless New Yorkers continue to pack shelters.

The city is also spending another $6 million more on outside lawyers, including to represent de Blasio’s administration in several corruption probes, on top of $6.5 million in legal costs added to the budget in November.

The NYPD is installing bullet-resistant window inserts in 3,813 cop cars — paying for the plan with $10.4 million in asset forfeiture funds. There’s $16.4 million to provide faster internet at city public schools, on top of plans for more school seats and summer classes. As the Daily News first reported, the city is also pledging $1 billion over 10 years to replace roofs at hundreds of NYCHA buildings.

NY Times: Contracts to Defend de Blasio and Aides May Cost City $11.6 Million

The bill for defending Mayor Bill de Blasio and other city officials in state and federal criminal investigations into fund-raising practices has grown, with six city contracts for outside law firms now totaling more than $11.6 million. Taken together, the contracts contain a constellation of white-collar criminal defense and trial lawyers from law firms big and small, as well as the maximum they can bill the city: Debevoise & Plimpton, $10 million; Carter Ledyard & Millburn, $750,000; Walden Macht & Haran, $350,000; Lankler Siffert & Wohl, $250,000; Cunningham Levy Muse, $200,000; and Paul B. Bergman, P.C., $99,000.

NY Post: De Blasio defends spending $11.7M on city’s legal bills

Anything related to city employees — and I’m not talking about myself, I’m talking about all the other city employees who have been a part of this process — they need representation. It’s an American right,” Hizzoner said on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show. “Obviously they shouldn’t have to pay for it out of their own pockets in regards to their city responsibilities.”

The mayor also insisted the probes are a huge waste of time and money because everything his administration has done has been above board. The mayor raised $4.3 million for a political non-profit that backed his agenda — including six-figure donations from entities with business interests before the city — but he has maintained that no one got special treatment for their financial support. “A lot of money is going to end up being spent here and I wish it wasn’t because I’ve said 100 percent consistently, no one did anything wrong,” de Blasio said.

At one point in the 30-minute interview, de Blasio grew irritated when Lehrer suggested city funds were being used to defend the mayor’s political campaign work — which is also under law enforcement scrutiny. “That’s entirely inaccurate,” de Blasio shot back. “That’s just crazy.”

Is it now?

Crazy is precisely what this pay for play scheme was. And under the guise of a superficial progressive  fauxgressive agenda.

So in order for the constituency to get services due to the people, Mayor de Faustio and his confederacy of neoliberal dunces, through government and taxpayer largesse for their upscale defense teams, whom specialize in vast white collar criminal cases, insist that they remain in city hall. Apparently, the germane logic behind this is that because of loopholes in campaign fundraising along with the heinous Citizens United supreme court decision and the jolly good intentions of their programs justifies their unscrupulous actions. They think with all the cheap whoring they’ve done for the predatory developer cabal/pogrom of REBNY and even from strict conservative types, it would be prudent to just let them ride it out to a second term.

Never mind the gross and arrogant misallocation of funding of the city’s budget for their eventual day in court. Actually do mind it. It’s hard to overlook the hubris of Team Big Slow when the cost to defend these cretins is going to be more than the amount this year going to crucial fixes and improvements to NYCHA buildings suffering from persistent mold and rodent infestations, and mostly from their dilapidated and perilous roofs. And the sudden yet selective frugality in denying money for those struggling to keep pace with affordability with denying fare breaks for poor commuters, free school lunches (how Milton Friedman), and modest raises for younger and newer cops.

But maybe 11.5 million may not even be enough to properly defend this shitshow. For this has been going on since day one. And even though he won decisively in a low electoral turnout, he kept his campaign office open and moved it from Park Slope to Park Row. From the campaign for the mayoralty to the Campaign for One New York. Taking his prior experience campaign managing for Manifest Hillary’s initial senate run to consume his time neglecting his duties being elected to run the city.

And it started with Universal Pre-K. Mayor De Faustio and CONY spent a year fundraising for the implementation of that, even though it got the funding approved by his vindictive glory hogging rival Mario’s son Governor Andrew anyway. After that long slog, Mayor Big Slow decided to get affordable housing done (why he didn’t do that first seemed a mystery, considering the rise and now record high of the homeless population…or maybe isn’t much of a mystery at all now). There had to be a key to make it easier, to get state senate seats upstate to swing the ideological pendulum leftward, and get a majority rule in getting more money downstate from Albany for his plan to build and preserve 200,000 affordable units. So to assure victory and leverage in Albany under the guise to help the poor get proper shelter, the mayor, his aides and his crack farm team continued to use CONY to raise money through nefarious means like accepting donations over the limit caps of $4950 and from straw donors, and the recent revelations about the use of money laundering.

As is the way of the world, life and karma, the diminished returns of high expectations, and just plain skullduggery / douchebaggery from fucking amateurs, all of these efforts went to naught. Those senate candidates lost. Pre-K is an abysmal failure. And affordable housing is still unachievable for the majority of citizens in need of it. The ugly obvious irony about both of those programs is that they are detrimental to the poor and they are being staffed on the cheap. Universal Pre-K pays it’s teachers low salaries, is centers are located in richer areas which leaves poor working families to rely on unregistered day care centers,    and the labor for the 80-20 buildings are non-union, which has led to a disturbing uptick in worker injuries and deaths and as previously mentioned the amount of units reserved is not commensurate with the consensus amount of lower and even middle class people that populate the areas they are built in.

Of course there are the deed flips and plunder of medical centers, Rivington House on the lower east side and the LICH in Brooklyn (otherwise known as Crooklyn). This where the deputy mayors and a certain wormtongue lobbyist come in. A combination of brazen obfuscation and deceit and willful defiant ignorance made these deals possible, done with the morals of a mobster and the deftness of an oaf. The Rivington plunder was so obvious that even Alicia “The Fixer” Glen realized it was a huge mistake and pathetically attempted to undo it by giving the seller, the Allure Group, it’s money back for the original deed, which was officially and legislatively dead. Both predatory developer deals were arranged by James Capalino, a fundraiser and long-time friend to our corrupt mayor.

 

 

       James Capalino, Super Lobbyist from his humbler activist times.

Needless to say, Capalino, has seen a lot of good fortune along with his peers like Berlin/Rosen, assisting in the stratospheric and super dense hyper-development of this city and enriching himself in the process. And why wouldn’t our Mayor and his minions trust him, considering his prior dalliance of turning the St. Vincent’s Hospital into a luxury multi-million dollar condo/ pied a terre off shore bank deposit box complex. That’s some progress made there since a certain historic tragic and somber day of our nation.

This progress has also seen the expansion of the city’s skylines, continued unabated from the prior Mayor “fun size” Bloomberg’s blitzkreig signing of rezoning and upzoning permits, the out of scale suffocating tower development in northeast Brooklyn and Queens, the odious rise of app driven business ventures like Airbnb, Uber and the cult-like We Work and the bland and marked up costs of cultural outputs of designer fast food, faux speakeasies and beer gardens. All of which contributed to this slush fund farce monikered for and have made the cost of living grossly overblown for the majority of residents of this fraudulently proclaimed One New York. And has led to the plain sight integration of the real estate market and government depicted here as the Gentrification Industrial Complex.

So now they are going to have to convince the federal courts of their persistent claims of innocence and not the most craven and insidious abuse of the use of government office since the city for sale days of Donald Manes and Stanley Friedman, and probably an equal to the days of Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall a century ago. It’s a bit of a disappointment and discouraging that the Blaz is meeting with D.A. Bharara without being frogmarched out of city hall in plasticuffs like he did for the vote pandering show at the hospital he sold out the medics, nurses and the future sick and injured for (hmmm, that’s were that 11.5 million can go to also, funding non-invested hospitals), but here’s hoping these are just formalities like when Lenny Briscoe and Rey Curtis from Law And Order confronts a skel for info.

Other than that, it will be either the establishment, a temporary halt to or the end of Honest Graft.