Sunday, December 19, 2010

True News Update All Weekend: Will Cuomo Take the Lead From the Feds in Corruption Fight?; Senate Repeals ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’

Breaking News

Senate Repeals ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’

All who make ultimate sacrifice are now equal (DN)

TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads

Cuomo Joins the Feds Fight

Department of Justice On Fighting Public and Financial Corruption In New York, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara Takes The Lead (City Hall)

City Time DOI, Comptroller Thompson, Bl;oomberg Cover Up

As scandal erupts and arrests are made, warning signs for CityTime fraud were there all along (DN)

In March 2008, a veteran city consultant working on a complicated project called CityTime complained to the Department of Investigation.

Former city Controller William Thompson's office shared joint oversight of OPA with the mayor, but never audited the project as costs exploded tenfold.

The Office of Payroll Administration, the obscure agency in charge of the CityTime project, learned 18 months ago it was paying for phony work - but never asked why.

Bloomberg's Corruption Public Relations Mess
City Time, Steve Rattner and the $700,000 paid to John Haggerty that violated ever campaign law, Caught the Mayor On the Wrong Side of the Ethics and Coming Corruption War.

City officials overseeing the scandal-scarred CityTime payroll project made a mind-boggling decision in 2003 -- they agreed to pay the company building the massive system on an hourly basis without having any idea how many hours it would actually take to complete. Behind $722M fiasco (NYP)

Bloomberg downplays slush fund scandal * More City Hall Slush, This Time From Mayor Bloomberg

Corruption in the Koch administration led to Term Limits and the City's campaign finance system CFB*

In Bloomberg's CityTime scandal, echoes of the '86 PVB fiasco that nearly toppled Ed Koch

Mayor drops ball! Bloomberg says $80M 'slipped thru cracks' (DN) * Mike's doozy: Bloomberg failed in letting CityTime payroll program waste millions in bloat and fraud (DN Ed) *That $80M fraud? It's just a slip * NYC Contractors Charged in Fraud myfoxny.com

Non Partisan Anger?

The Bipartisanship Racket The No Labels political organization is well intentioned, but its leaders seem utterly clueless about why Americans of all labels are angry. (Rich, NYT) * No Labels' Effort is Political Fantasyland - (George Will, Washington Post)

Pay to Play Meeks Probe eyes Meeks pal

Control of City Finances Attracts Corruption

It’s the latest -- but hardly the worst -- scandal in New York history. Back in 1871, Boss Tweed managed to take control of city finances. He arranged to have every contractor or merchant doing business with the city to kick back 15% of what they were getting to Tweed and his henchmen. Tweed soon was rolling in money, as millions poured in. City Hall Scandal Only the Latest Corruption by Gabe Pressman

Unions Already Fighting Back

Unions rip 'coward' Cuomo over tax cap (NYP)

Pension Shortfall is Wall Street’s Doing

The reason the city’s contributions to pension funds have risen has everything to do with the global economic crisis that cost state and city pension funds more than $100 billion in lost value. (UFT, City Hall) * $48 million in city pension investments 'tainted' (NYP)

New York's Economic Meltdown Study: New York's Income Equality Worse Than Chile's * Bloomberg rips court for FDNY overtime pay spike (DN) * Paterson must veto bill raising utility rates and hurting Business Improvement Districts (DN Ed)

Failed by the tests

What happens when Albany establishes public-school performance standards so low that they lose virtually all meaning? Well, it turns out that a staggering 74.4% of city public high school grads entering City University community colleges require remedial classes in at least one subject — and as many as three. CUNY tests newcomers in reading, writing and basic math. It found three-quarters of city grads weren’t ready for college — meaning they didn’t get much from their dozen years in public school.(NYP Ed)

Artists at Union Square say city is a portrait of hypocrisy with holiday market (DN)

Fish come first

City: Sharks Trump People

The city has found $49 million for improvements to Brooklyn’s New York Aquarium — one of which will be a shiny new shark tank. If you’re a New York City firefighter — or, more to the point, a New York City resident who might suddenly need the services of a firefighter — maybe the news is not so good.

The Tabloids Drag Themselves Out of Bed Today, Barely

Each day, the New York tabloids vie to sell readers at the newsstands on outrageous headlines, dramatic photography, and, occasionally, great reporting. Who is today's winner? (Capital)

Winners & Losers, Dec. 17 Edition City Hall

Sen. McCain rips 9/11 health bill push as 'fooling around' (DN)

Laid-Off OTB Employees Face the Future Apprehensively

Dan Collins: New York City OTB Finishes Dead Last (Huff Post)

E.P.A. Sets Tighter Rules for Hudson River Cleanup (NYT) * EPA Presses GE on Cleanup of River(WSJ)

Drunk Driving Arrest

Leandra's Law nets 661 drunk driving arrests

Terrorism Ex-Detainee Wants Judge to Dismiss Conviction on Single Count in Bombings (NYT)* Back to the Islamic Center (Gotham Gazette * Saudi king may want to move from Ground Zero to St. Vincent's site (NYP)

Law and Order Typical Drug Case, Except for Ivy League Address (NYT) * A Monsignor Is Defrocked for Abusing a Student (NYT) * Murder-for-Hire Scheme Targeted Crime Witnesses (WSJ) * Admits to killing rival, ordering hit on witnesses (DN) * Dark cloud from Heidi Jones scandal now hangs over women (DN) * Cops spent untold hours on Heidi Jones probe (DN) * Cop shot 3 times will be home for Christmas (DN) * More Charges Brought Against Brooklyn Man Accused Of Stabbing Parents (NY1) * Rapper confesses to murder from 17 years ago (NYP) * Channel 7 weather gal: I did not say 'rape' (NYP) * Fiend gets 25 yrs. in kid slay (NYP) * Cleared serial-slay john's pain (NYP) * Wiseguy's blue Christmas (NYP) Priest guilty of sex abuse, church tribunal finds (DN) One Dead, Another In Hospital After Shooting In Brooklyn (CBS) * Man Killed, Woman Injured In Brooklyn Shooting (NY1) *** Sunday Brooklyn Man Held in Death of His Mother * Brooklyn Shooting Leaves One Dead and One Inju * Giving up guns for safety - and cash (DN) * Minivan-driving pimp gunned down while driving prostitutes Mugger killed in traffic (NYP) Cold-case 'killer' discusses his regrets, reasons for turning himself in (NYP) * Bronx teacher busted in DWI (NYP) * Shot teen stuck in thugville (NYP) * 'Hit mom' kids' yule with dad (NYP) * Perv priest slaps probe (NYP) * Queens car stop leads to huge pot bust (NYP)

Media and New Tech Keep Tolls Off the Information Super Highway - Seattle Times

National

Senate nears repeal of military's curbs on gays The Associated Press

A Crisis of Banks Getting Too Big - Howard Schneider, Washington Post

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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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Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. ” -Thomas Jefferson

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In the beginning of the last century, Lincoln Steffens and Jacob Riis were the muck rakers. Steffens tried to rouse the public to take action against the misdeeds of government and corporate leaders. Jacob Riis, a Danish immigrant, was the pioneer of photo journalism. He took his camera into the miserable tenement slums of the city. Depicting the plight of the poor, he wrote a book called “How the Other Half Lives.”

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"A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues." Theodore Roosevelt

As a 19th-century Manhattan politician once observed, “no man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session.”

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Kempton once said, "There's no excuse for kicking somebody unless he's up." Murray Kempton used to kick people who were up all the time, and though he was half their weight and underpaid it was beautiful to watch. Quite beautiful.

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