TrueNews: As Pols Delay Budgets: Cutbacks to Hit New Yorkers All At Once

Monday, June 21, 2010

As Pols Delay Budgets: Cutbacks to Hit New Yorkers All At Once

Breaking News Senate Passes Extender No. 12 (Updated)

As Pols Delay Budgets
Cutbacks to Hit New Yorkers All At Once

In an effort to stop bad news both Albany and City Hall has waited till the last minute to cut service. Now starting with the subway and bus cutback starting next Sunday New Yorkers will begin feeling the results of government corruption and dysfunctionalism. Albany raids funds for cemetery fixes (NYP) *More Reductions Proposed in Subway and Bus Service* D stands for dirty This subway line is "D" absolute pits! The D train, running from Brooklyn to The Bronx, took the steepest dive in car cleanliness from 2008 to 2009 (NYP) * Survey: M subway line is filthiest, whole system got worse * Chapter and worse: Libraries must $lash days (NYP) * Free city tours in danger (NYP) * Subway Grime Is on the Rise (WSJ) an 11th-hour sticking point in budget talks (NYP) * Public Advocate Bill de Blasio: Section 8 housing subsidies cuts will cost city (DN)
* City's budget woes shut down Douglas and DeGraw, Fort Totten, West Brighton and Wagner pools (DN) * Parks Department To Close Four City Pools (NY1)

Furor at budget's $18M for 'rabbis' An $18 million tuition subsidy devised by Gov. Paterson as a political gift to the city's Orthodox Jewish community has emerged as * Metro-North commute cuts (NYP) * Paterson Weighs School-Aid Deal Heading into the final lap of budget negotiations, Gov. Paterson is considering a deal that would roll back his proposed cuts in aid to schools. (WSJ) * Vote the cigarette tax: Rejecting tobacco levy is hazardous to N.Y.’s health (DN Ed) * Experts are not fans of Paterson’s one-man-in-a-room approach to budgeting. * If the state is going to try to collect the tax on cigarettes sold on Indian land, why doesn’t it go after other taxeshings, too? * MTA Outlines More Service Changes * The CBC slams pension sweeteners * State tests for elementary and middle school kids are on the chopping block * New York will have the highest cigarette taxes in all the land * Mind the Schmutz: Only 50 Percent of Subway Cars Rated Clean (WNYC) * Mr. Bloomberg goes to Washington in search of funds to avoid teacher layoffs

Ravitch Walks Away
'Crybaby' Ravitch skips Cabinet powwows, too (NYP) * Borrowing trouble Gov. Paterson says he can't understand why his handpicked lieutenant governor, Richard Ravitch, submitted a budget-balancing strategy that calls for $6 billion in borrowing when he knew the governor flatly opposed the idea. We wonder as well.(NYP Ed) *Somebody call a cop Allegations aginst Senate Leader John Sampson * Ravitch And Gov To Meet * David Paterson Shadow-Boxes Himself; Press Awards Him TKO (Village Voice)

Pay to Play Update Suspended PA cops still scoring OT pay (NYP) * Meeks: $55G in undisclosed loans an 'oversight' (DN) * Lawyer compares indicted Councilman Larry Seabrook to late President Kennedy (NYP) *Seabrook's Lawyer Notes a Possible Conflict * NYC Councilman Larry Seabrook’s attorney might have a conflict of interest with a potential witness.

Return of the 'hexed' SI Ferry (NYP) * NYC Crane Collapse Trial Begins Monday (WCBSTV)

NYT What About Political Corruption? With the AG office involved in some many corruption cases involving pols should the debate in the media focus on that issue or who said what when about a drug law that has already been reformed? The Times picks up the Rockefeller Drug Law debate in the AG’s race and finds “little evidence” that Nassau County DA Kathleen Rice voiced support for reforms debated in Albany last year.

Election 2010 Litmus Test in Primary: Overhauled Drug Laws (NYT) *Pension Funds Harry Wilson is in Albany to “unveil disturbing questions about the fiscally reckless pension borrowing scheme” in the budget that is the “brainchild” of Democratic state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli. (1:30 p.m.; Rm. 130, LOB).* Sean Coffey and his former law firm made big campaign contributions to pension fund powerbrokers – including $16,000 to disgraced former state Comptroller Alan Hevesi – and landed big contracts in return.* Poll-watching is politics' dirty little secret (Newday) * Sean Coffey is hitting A.G. frontrunners Kathleen Rice and Eric Schneiderman over their respective ties to Pedro Espada. (second item) * NYS Dems Target GOP Comptroller Hopeful Harry Wilson On Personal Finance: Updated * Lawyer compares indicted Councilman Larry Seabrook to late President Kennedy * 'Up, You Mighty Race,' Barron Tells Crowd at Campaign Kick-Off * Eliot Spitzer was an issue at this morning’s Democratic AG candidate forum.

Law and Order Four city slays in single night (NYP) * Teenager Is Among 4 Killed in Span of a Few Hours (NYT) * Georgia store sold nine guns that made their way to New York (DN) * Probe warranted: Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes needs to check top aide (DN Ed) * Cops shoot machete-wielding suspect in Brooklyn (WABCTV) *Schumer: Close loopholes in sex offender law

Terrorism NY Good judgment on terror: U.S. courts making wise rulings on security cases (DN Ed)* Al-Qaida warns of new attacks deadlier than before... * Arraignment Set For Times Square Bombing Suspect * Iran bans 2 nuclear inspectors (Wash Post) * SI Residents Fight Conversion Of Convent To Mosque (WCBSTV) * * Bail Hearing For Accused Temple Bombers (Fox 5) * Times Square car bomb suspect Faisal Shahzad faces terror, weapons hearing (SI Advance * Supreme Court Affirms Ban on Aiding Groups Tied to Terror (NYT)

Knock off golf, baseball and Beatles until Gulf oil crisis is resolved, GOP's Steele tells Obama (DN)* Rahm will quit Obama post: report (NYP) * It’s All About the TimingEthics rules allow lawmakers to raise money from industries they oversee in committee roles, yet blanch at the embarrassing timing — like holding fund-raisers while working on financial reform. (NYT Ed)

Oil Leak: The Gift that Keeps On Giving
Failure of Rig’s Last Line of Defense Tied to Myriad Factors (NYT) * BP estimates spill up to 100000 bpd in document * BP taps a well of lobbyists (Wash Post)

Neighbors Raise Stakes on New Jersey Gambling With the chips already down for Atlantic City's recession-scarred gambling industry, New Jersey's neighbors are bolstering their casino operations. (WSJ)

Madoff's hidden booty Tells of $9B he socked away with friends before Ponzi arrest: prisonmate (NYP) Wall Street Banking Lobbyists Make a Run at Reform Measures * Now and LaterThe government needs to spend now, while the economy is depressed, and save later. But politicians seem determined to do the reverse. (Krugman, NYT) * Yuan Rises to Highest in Modern Era (WSJ) * New Effort to Fight Financial Fraud (WSJ) *Downturn and debt swamp cities (Wash Post)

Media and New Tech Lawmakers Increasingly Annoyed By Ambush Interviews - The Hill * Andy Rooney: I Will Work At '60 Minutes' Until I Die *Investigative Reporting Increasingly Outsourced To Nonprofits *Will Google Steal Rupert Murdoch's Thunder? News Corp. Meet Newspass *Arthur Brisbane is the Times' New Public Editor (Updated)

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Other Views

On October 15, 1958, veteran broadcaster Edward R. Murrow delivered his famous "wires and lights in a box" speech (VIDEO) The Last Lion of Tammany HOW JIMMY McMANUS, MANHATTAN’S LAST GREAT TAMMANY DISTRICT LEADER, HELPED TO REVIVE HELL’S KITCHEN AND THE THEATER DISTRICT c By James S. Kaplan f On January 13, 2011, the law firm of Proskauer Rose moved into 11 Times Square, which is located on 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues. In moving west to the final building of the City’s Times Square redevelopment, the Proskauer firm joined such other major law firms as Cravath, Swaine & Moore, Covington & Burling, Roberts & Holland, and the advertising firm of Ogilvy & Mather. That such major professional firms, along with a number of newly constructed luxury apartment buildings on 42nd Street from ninth to eleventh avenue and trendy restaurants and off Broadway theaters would be located west of 8th Avenue in midtown would have been almost inconceivable fifty years ago. Tammany Last Stand Continued

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