TrueNews: Goodfellow Vito Lopez : Political Party Corruption More Like Organized Crime

Friday, September 24, 2010

Goodfellow Vito Lopez : Political Party Corruption More Like Organized Crime

Goodfellow Vito Lopez
Political Party Corruption More Like Organized Crime

Amid allegations, city, state examine $100M annual funding to Bklyn Dem boss Vito Lopez's empire

Vito's reign Brooklyn Assemblyman Vito Lopez, who's also Kings County Democratic boss, has steered mountains of taxpayer cash over the years to a social-service center he founded in the '70s -- and that has served as his political base. (NYP Ed) * Senior on Vito's payroll paid to show up, sign papers (DN) * Cohn Ahead In Brooklyn District Leader Race * Quinn Responds to Lopez Nonprofit The City Council will not freeze funding for the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council * Attorney General Candidates Squabble Over Investigation Of Brooklyn Leader * Probe finds Brooklyn Dem Vito Lopez's non-profit empire riddled with fraud * I'd take Vito on: Donovan * This summer, Vito Lopez may have finally pushed Mayor Bloomberg too far * Friends of Vito Lopez have a leg up when it comes to jobs as judges, even if 'unqualified' (DN)

NY Political Parties for Sale: Ballot Corruption by Political Mob Bosses

The leaders of New York’s Political Mob are the City’s party leaders who exist with the Tammany Hall power control template, unchallenged and unaccountable to the voters in New York’s broken down election system. Their soldiers are campaign consultants who also operate as lobbyists and are as accountable to the voters as Bernie Madoff was to his investors. In this war the 4th estate has limited itself to covering only the horse race and simply reprinting the candidate’s press releases. The press coverage of politics is amazingly similar to the SEC reviews of Madoff’s records over the years. New York’s Political Mob Wars

Pay to Play Indy Party
Indy Party chief in jam over wife loan The wife of the chairman of the state Independence Party solicited and received a $10,000 business loan from a candidate who got the party's coveted endorsement days later. (NYP) * MacKay and Co. overturned local recommendations in Western NY, favoring incumbents over challengers. * MacKay Under Fire * Frank vs. Frank, Take II

Pay to Play Liberal Party
Ray Harding, former head of NY Liberal party, pleads guilty to taking $800K in pension fund scandal

Pay to Play GOP
Indictment Over Bloomberg Campaign Funds (NYT)

Working Families Party
Working Families Party Documents Subpoenaed - NYTimes.com * All In The Family Part 1 * Cuomo declines Working Families ballot line - Crain's New York ...

Ballot Corruption
True News has been reporting that ballot lines are for sale for two years while the good government groups have hidden from the issues. Organized Crime Politics Ballot Lines for Sale (TN) * Tammany’s Ballot Control Again and Again (TN) * Organized Crime Politics - Episode Two: The Rigged Election System

Pay to Play Lopez Vito power! Lopez got big campaign cash from winning G’point Hospital bidder (Brooklyn Paper) More on Vito's Corruption from True News

Pay to Play Crowley Queens Crap: Rep. Crowley under investigation *
Another New York Party Leader Under Investigation
Congressman and Queens Democratic Leader Joe Crowley

Qns. Rep. Crowley faces Wall St. donation probe (NYP)

Is Haggerty the E. Howard Hunt of the Bloomberg Operation? Frank Morano wants the Board of Elections to investigate the Indy Party.

City Program for Homeless Is Criticized The city comptroller, John C. Liu, says a program that delivers subsidies for housing suffers from lax oversight. (NYT)

Political Organized Crime - Part I (True News)

Everyone recognizes that bid rigging of cement or traffic light contracts are the work of organized crime. However when elected and party officials rig our state and city elections to ensure that every incumbent gets reelected, no one calls their deliberate strategy criminal and organized.

Election 2010

Marist: Cuomo Up 19 Pts., Bolstered By ‘The Lazio Factor’

In TV Ad, Cuomo Levels First Attack on Paladino (NYT) * Cuomo Takes A Swing At Paladino With New Ad (NY1) * Spitzer Calls Cuomo 'Dirtiest' Player(WSJ) *Kindler, gentler Cuomo? I don't think so, Spitz says * Bloomberg, Cuomo Seek Rapport * Bi-Polar Governor Surveys Is the governor's race a brewing upset for insurgent Republican Carl Paladino or is it a runaway for Democrat Andrew Cuomo? It depends upon which of the state's leading independent pollsters you believe. (WSJ) * Race for governor heats up: Andrew Cuomo unveils TV ad ripping Carl Paladino's business dealings (DN) * Kindler, gentler Cuomo? I don't think so, Spitzer says (DN) * The Amsterdam News’ Elinor Tatum writes in an open letter to Cuomo: “You have proved nothing to us. You have showed us nothing that makes us want to stand strongly behind you. We feel as though all too often, you have taken us for granted and you have less than 40 days to turn this ship around.” * Sampling differences behind wide range of poll results - City & Region - The Buffalo News

Twitter Azi Paybarah ‎"@AndrewCuomo's office approved 10 leases @CarlPaladino holds." via @JimmyVielkind #nygov http://icio.us/d351go

DiNapoli playing dirty: rival (NYP) * Harry Wilson’s campaign accused state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli of using his public office for political work.

New York Economic Meltdown "The recession pushed nearly 100,000 additional New York City residents into poverty last year, according to an analysis by the Fiscal Policy Institute to be published on Monday."

Education

City Reports Nearly Fivefold Increase in Students Repeating a Grade (NYT) * More Students Held Back This Year, DOE Numbers Show (NY1) * 'Superman' is super: Film tells it like it is about public education and teachers unions (DN Ed)

Restaurants Rap State on Tipping Rules(WSJ)

Dozens of taxi-cads dodge rap (NYP)

ACS workers suspended for not monitoring child who died (DN) * Two Child Services Workers Suspended On Heels Of Girl's Death

Number of serious fires is growing in city (DN)

Illegal Apartments
City Says Investigation Uncovers Illegal Apartments (NYT) * City Conducts Undercover Sting On Illegally Converted Apartments * Sting finds lots of apts. dangerously sliced, diced (DN)

Terrorism Pakistani Sentenced to 86 Years for Attack (NYT) * Poll: Majority Of New Yorkers Want Developer To Move Mosque
Imam att'y in slum blame game (NYP)

Law and Order NY prison guard charged with rape (NYP) * Qns. rapist gets 42 yrs. (NYP)* A Nicaraguan Official Is Found Slain in the Bronx (NYT) * Police Investigate Double Homicide In Queens (NY1) * 18 women claim Brooklyn cop illegally strip-searched them (DN) * Brave victim confronts rapist: 'You're less than a man' (DN) * Former Officer Begins Sentence On Manslaughter Charges (NY1)

Media and New Tech Tuning Out Cable(WSJ) * Jonathan Klein to Leave CNN
* Zucker Announces He’s Leaving NBC (NYT) * Layoffs at Newsweek Today * Unrelatedly, Stephen Colbert made a rather (your adjective here) wisecrack while talking about "packing corn" during a House Subcommittee hearing

National News

Hidden Under Tax-Exempt Cloak, Political Dollars Flow (NYT)

Dems' dismal, detached design: I thought Team Obama knew branding (DN)

Democrats Punt On Tax Cut Debate Until After Midterms

Warren Buffet: “We’re Still In A Recession

Why Donate to True News Keep Real News Alive. Put simply, True News -- and the truth – cannot do more and could even end without financial help from the people who want to hold the government accountable for their actions. As you know True News, without any support, has fought to keep the real NYC’s investigative and analysis reporting era of great journalism alive. True News is a living memorial to publisher John Peter Zenger who was jailed in 1733 by the King for reporting to New Yorkers what was going on in their city. It is also in the tradition of the Ben Bradlee generation that believes that all reporters would not be doing their job if they did not follow the story until they got to the truth. Today’s reporters copy press releases from elected officials and lobbyists hired by the special interests who want to control the message. The lost circulation of newspapers has created a generation of young reporters who not only rely on elected officials and lobbyists for stories, but don’t even Google to find the historical context or, more importantly, the truth behind the stories they write. In this era of sell-out journalism, the public has become disconnected, powerless and trapped by a permanent government that has turned against them. The media blames an apathetic public for not voting even after democratic consultants act like an Orwellian 'Big Bother' threatening them to vote or be looked into. True News reports that the reason for the decreasing turn-out is the public no longer feel their votes matter. If you value hard hitting Investigative Journalism, don't let True News go the way of the Passenger Pigeon. The Newfield, Barrett, Kempton, Hammel of yesteryear are no more. Local TV news limits itself to good looking women and men reading about breaking fires and crimes, with few exceptions. What's left that isn't tabloid is a wasteland of superficial news, driven by political and corporate PR machines, sowing the fertile seeds of corruption public and private hand in glove. Despite the soft news we see, standard bearers play a significant albeit vestigial role. Newspapers constantly pick up stories from True News (without crediting us of course) avoiding the costs to investigate themselves. Without True News, the New York Press and this blog's over one and half million readers will be utterly lost in the wilderness. Only True News is explaining: How Blacks, the Poor and the Middle Class are Being Pushed out of Brooklyn Because of Albany's Tax Breaks for Luxury Developers and Apartments Gives Details How Lobbyists and Developers Run A Secret Shadow Government that Also Controls Elections With Big Money and Their Control Over the Media Investigates How Political Party Bosses Have Been Replaced By Lobbyists' Privatization of the Tammany Hall Machine Reports How the WFP and the Elected Officials Who Are Supported By Them Have Abused and Aggressively Broken Campaign Finance Laws. True news is not funded by special interests like the other news blogs. True News has been self-funded all these years. True News does not make nice with sitting politicians, developers, lobbyists to fund it or to provide its young clueless reporters with story ideas. True News wants nothing more than to scratch out a modest living in its aim to investigate, connect the dots, and get to the truth of every newsworthy story. To carry on in this mission, True News needs funding from people like you -- People Who Want Better Journalism in order to learn what is really going on in their government and fight the corrupt politicians. It's been written about True News Those of you who have an involvement in the dangerous game of politics, it may be of interest to know who’s telling the truth these days, and, whether the articles we read are real or imagined disinformation, emanating directly out of a governmental PR department. No genuine journalist would ever rely on such a source for the truth. As publisher of the SoHo Journal, through personal experience, take it from me that it is possible to become a political target for simply writing about the truth. And the mainstream media and writers eat their own for sales— as well as take orders from their masters— corporate, financial and political masters. Always pay attention to the agenda. Read between the lines. That is the basis of real reporting and political comprehension. Not the rehashing of a press release. OWS had a handle on this reality as well. Pay attention to the current daily blog written by Gary Tilzer. His True News is one of the few remaining sources for political investigative reporting. His fearless reporting of the truth in political circles is worth noting. Contributors names are confidential

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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