Sunday, January 16, 2011

True News Sunday Update: Mayorial Election 2013 Has Begun

A Cry for Attention

Today running for mayor means name recognition and image. Nobody has Bloomberg's Billions so they need to start now to build public support. Forgetabout a having the best plan to balance the budget without hurting New Yorkers with service cuts, higher fees and taxes. Up until last week shooting we had Weiner on the cable almost every day blasting the GOP. Today we have Manhattan Borough Presidents in the WSJ Stringer Is Sprinting in 2013 Race(WSJ). And there are others who are running already running hard

Candidate Quinn: Uncharacteristically Yells At MTA

Apologizing, M.T.A. Admits Blunders During Blizzard(NYT) * Snow Hearing Turns Up Heat on MTA(WSJ) * Ax New York's bungling transit leaders, says City Council(DN) * MTA: Mistakes Were Made With Blizzard Response (NY1) * Quinn Grills MTA, Calls Blizzard Breakdown ‘Beyond Shocking’(WCBS) * Council Speaker Calls MTA Blizzard Response "Ridiculous"(WNBC) * Christine Quinn - Corruption Protest - 13 January 2011

Candidate Liu: Hits Mayor on CityTime Contract Letter found by Liu reveals shady CityTime job offer pitch in '02 ... * Liu Hits at Mayor On CityTime Fraud * Mr. Comptroller? Try Mr. President * Budget hawk dropped ball on CityTime (NYP)

Candiate de Blasio: Demands the Mayor Boycott Glock Guns

de Blasio Wants NYPD To Ban Glocks, Bloomberg Doesn't‎ - Gothamist * Public Advocate de Blasio calls for NYPD Glock boycott* Bloomberg Knocks Down Public Advocate's Call for NYPD Glock Boycott (WNBC) * Mike ducks push for clip boycott(NYP) * Mike's Glock duck(NYP)

Sen. Chuck Schumer: Major Gun Control Legislation Doesn’t Have The Votes

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" We're Gonna Be in the Hudson" 2 Years Ago

When Flight 1549 Hit the Hudson(NYT) * Hudson River Rescue Still Defines Upgrade of Fire Dept.’s Marine Unit(NYT) * Fire Dept. Revamps Approach to Emergencies on the City’s Waterways, or Nearby(NYT) * Pilot recalls events of landing plane in Hudson(WSJ) * Two Flight 1549 Passengers Remember Their "Miracle On The Hudson"(NY1)

Saturday Night Live

Give It to Spitzer & Paterson

CNN Spitzer Auditions

"Everything Changes From Day One" SNL Imagines Parker/Spitzer With Twice The Disgraced Former NY Governors (Mediaite)

Black's Birth Control Joke Backfires

Parents fume over 'birth control' quip about overcrowding(NYP) * Put a lid on it, Cathie(NYP ED) * Solution to Crowded Schools? How About Birth Control? (NYT) * NYC schools chief's solution to overcrowding: 'Birth control'(DN) * Queens kids at Jamaica High School cheer on ex-Chancellor Joel Klein's 'Greek tragedy' (DN) * Chancellor Black's Wisecrack On School Overcrowding Falls Flat(NY1) * Harlem Success Academy Seeks To Open Brooklyn School(NY1) * Schools Chancellor In Hot Water Over ‘Sophie’s Choice’ Comments (WCBS) * NYC Schools chancellor regrets birth control joke (WABC) In truest & worst sense of the word, Black's a chancellor(DN) "It would really help us if Schools Chancellor Cathie Black would abstain from making insensitive jokes," writes Michael Daly in his Sunday Daily News column.

Pay to Play Rivera

Rivera's pork store Albany pol shoveled state funds to dying group as feds closed in

"A Bronx assemblyman on Gov. Cuomo's transition team attempted to shower his pet organization with hundreds of thousands in taxpayer cash even as federal investigators were closing in on the questionable group. Democrat Peter Rivera steered almost $2.2 million in government dough to Neighborhood Enhancement for Training and Services since 2000, including nearly $400,000 in member items after the feds launched a probe in 2008 that led to last week's indictment of NETS Executive Director David Griffiths." (NYP)

Pay to Play The Late Fat Tony Seminerio

Queens' Plaza College is known for its links to crooked politician and bribes(DN) For seven years, prosecutors say, the for-profit Plaza College paid bribes to Seminerio totaling $170,000. In return, Seminerio repeatedly - though unsuccessfully - sponsored a bill that would have hurt Plaza's for-profit competitors.

Weekly Tracking of Each Elected Official

azipaybarah azipaybarah

y does't every local paper do this? track each legislator, week by week? (kudos capitol dispatch) http://bit.ly/heFtiV #albany #opengov (Twitter)

More Education News

Anatomy of a School Crisis A student’s drowning and a principal’s firing over the last year have revealed divisions at Columbia Secondary, a four-year-old Harlem school with Ivy League ties. (NYT) Amid Cuts, Public Colleges Step Up Appeals to Alumni(NYT) Beware! Trade schools like Franklin Career Institute have funky finances, empty promises Despite unprecedented financial pressures, "a group of 970 UAlbany staffers last month shared $1.2 million in 'discretionary raises,' on top of the 4 percent base pay increases they received last July." (T-U) Assemblywoman Deborah Glick OpEds against the SUNY/CUNY Empowerment Act.

Pols Fleecing of New Yorkers Never Ends Even with the Middle Class Moving Out

Double Dipping Cash for Crash

FDNY is ready to ho$e you Would bill crash vics(NYP)* Pols call crash fee a wreck - may nix it completely(DN)

Property Taxes Going up

Big Property-Tax Increases on Horizon 7.5% Rise for Co-Op Owners, 9.6% for Condos; City Denies Charges That Assessments Were Raised to Boost Tax Collection(WSJ) * Yay: Property values rise -- Boo: So will your city taxes(DN)

TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads

NY'S Pension Funds Love Walmart

Easier to take pols' anti-Walmart activism seriously if city pension plans owned less of its stock

Cuomo Going Around the Albany Blockade

Will the special interests fold or say NUTS to the new gov?

It's Cuomo vs. special interests in the Battle of the Budget(DN) * Gov's bipartisan pitch(NYP) * Andy pulls pay hikes for State Police bigs(NYP) * It 'ads' up: Cuomo calls for cash to battle unions (NYP) * Cuomo Crisscrosses New York, Repeating His Call for Action(NYT) * Gov. Cuomo has a many-headed monster to slay as he tackles Medicaid waste, corruption, overspending(DN Ed) * Gov. Cuomo’s Medicaid Task Force Sets Public Meetings (WCBS) * It's Cuomo vs. special interests in the Battle of the Budget(DN) * The TU accuses Gov. Andrew Cuomo of sending mixed messages on pay raises.

New York's Top Cop Cut From a Different Cloth Eric Schneiderman ran for attorney general on a platform of cleaning up Albany, the state judicial system and the environment. But he won't shy away from Wall Street either.(WSJ)

Cable Know It Alls

Political Pundits Surprisingly Good At Getting Inside Mentally Unbalanced Shooter's Head (The Onion) * The Tucson Witch Hunt Within hours of the massacre in Arizona last week, there was a rush to link the shooter to the rhetoric of the right.(Blow, NYT)

The New York Times Loses It - P.J. O'Rourke, The Weekly Standard * No One Listened to Gabrielle Giffords - Frank Rich, New York Times

More Snow Job Blame Game Crap

Wrath of Khan: Kelly taking heat Snow-job blame game* Mayor Bloomberg is working on a comeback. (City Hall News)

Joseph Mercurio
Trouble in Bloombergland. DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan is criticizing the Police Department for not declare a weather emergency www.google.com (Facebook)

There were built for Lux housing . . . Became hotels when the market crashed ... Now after city crackdown against illegal hotels become homeless shelters

Concern Over Law on Apartments as Hotel Rooms A building that was stopped from operating as a hotel is now being turned into a homeless shelter for 200 men.(NYT) * Bronx Tenants Shiver In Building Without Heat, Hot Water(NY1)

Mosque sheik-up Imam replaced at Ground Zero center (NYP) * Amid Rift, Imam’s Role in Islam Center Is Sharply Cut(NYT) * Park51 Taps Imam(WSJ) * Key backer of NYC Islamic center takes lesser role(WSJ) * Imam behind 'Ground Zero mosque' is replaced (DN)

For Water Tunnels, Age Is Just a Number

Odd Jobs: Keeping the Sewage Flowing Most New Yorkers don't think too hard about what happens after they flush. For Dennis Fischetti, the post-toilet process is his profession.(WSJ)

Slain Journalist's Ashes Poured Down Subway Grate

Cheers to Brooklyn Brewery for doubling production of its beers and ales with a boost from the state(DN Ed)

No Pols Are Talking About Taking Guns Away From Nuts

What about the Virginia Tech Shootings?

From Scene to E.R., Life-Saving Choices(NYP) * Arizona 'killer' Loughner posed for photos wearing G-string and holding weapon(NYP)* Loughner on YouTube: "This is My Genocide School" * Looking Behind the Mug-Shot Grin of an Accused Killer(NYT)* Man Shot in Rampage Arrested at TV Taping(NYT)

* No One Listened to Gabrielle GiffordsIn March 2010, few of our leaders wanted to see what Giffords saw — that the vandalism and the death threats were part of a tide of insurrectionism that had been rising since the final weeks of the 2008 campaign.(Rich, NYT) * Bill Maher: We Should "Use" Arizona Shooting, Not Let It Go To Waste (Video) * The tragedy indicates the country needs to drastically overhaul the way it addresses mental illness, Giuliani said.

BREAKING: Giffords taken off ventilator (CNN)

Giffords’s Condition Is Upgraded to ‘Serious’ (NYT)

Law and Order 93-Year-Old Mob Figure Gets 8 Years(WSJ) * 93-year-old mob boss gets eight years for strip joint shakedown(DN) * Five shot in B'klyn (NYP) * Douglas son set to sing (NYP) * 'Puff' the lifesaving jacket (NYP) * Rage of 'not gay' hotel slay(NYP) * New Jersey Police Officer Is Shot Dead During an Encounter With a Pedestrian(NYT) * Prison Suicides A troubling increase in prison suicides in the State of New York suggests that inmates may still be falling through the cracks.(NYT Ed) * Accused sex fiend raped girl while she was in shackles at courthouse, alleged vic says(DN) * Slay witness warned to zip it - or else, say goons(DN) * Educrat denies rape, torture of wife he suspected of cheating(DN) * Qns. hubby admits guilt in wife's fatal stabbing(DN) * Four Wounded In Brooklyn Shooting(NY1)* Five shot in B'klyn (NYP)*** Sunday Shootout after high school basketball game over designer hat * SI cop in bloody slashing(NYP) * B'klyn student stabs classmate dead: cops(NYP) * Bloods put bounty on NJ cops: report(NYP) * Breaking News Sources: Lakewood Cop Shooting Suspect Under Arrest(WCBS) * Brooklyn Community Outraged Over Gun Violence (WPIX) (Video)

Rex channels Broadway Joe, guarantees win, calls it '2nd biggest game' in Jet history

Jets Beat Patriots, 28-21, to Reach A.F.C. Title Game

Daily Beast Gallery: The Week in Viral Videos

G.O.P. Elects a New Chairman as Steele Drops Out(NYT) * GOP ousts Steele, picks Priebus to head party(WSJ) * Who is Reince Priebus? (DN)

The Zeitgeist

47.5%	Obama Average Job Approval
51.8%	Obama Favorability
32.0% / 57.1%	Right Direction / Wrong Track
14.4%	Congressional Approval
+35,000	Initial Weekly Jobless Claims
-4,592	Newly foreclosed properties in October
9.4%	Unemployment

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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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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.”

"Through the years of the 20th century even the most mercenary of newspaper owners were, above all, conscious of their duty to inform the public and they backed their reporters to the hilt. It was not just a matter of right or wrong---but common sense. The ethics of good journalism in this era, alas, seems to have been forgotten." Gabe Pressman

"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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