THE CLINTON/QUINN/GOTBAUM MACHINE IN STATEN ISLAND, MATTHEW TITONE, AND ME. JANELE HYER-SPENCER, AN INDEPENDENT DEMOCRAT?
UP FRONT News June 29, 2007
Published by Tom Weiss
Editorial Advisor: Willard Whittingham
“The paper that can’t be bought an can’t be sold.” http://www.tomsupfrontnews.blogspot.com/
Some months ago a respected peace and gay rights activist in Staten Island urged pro- gressives, such as those who attend services at the Staten Island Unitarian Church, to vote for Democratic New York State Assembly candidate Matthew Titone, who is now one of a few openly gay elected officials in New York. Although I am not gay, I am for gay rights - including marriage. I would not vote for a Republican under any circumstances, except perhaps under torture. The Greens, quite heavily infiltrated by Independence Party persona non grata and Lyndon LaRouche ideologue/racist Lenora Fulani, are no factor in Staten Island. And so, like a good registered Democrat, I voted for Matthew Titone. Indeed on my way to Manhattan after voting I told him so when we shook hands at the St. George terminal at the ferry. I also told him that if he won I would need his help as my Assemblyman because of a number of very serious constituent issues involving several agencies, all of them involving major violations of my human rights Mr. Titone, acknowledged knowing of me from news accounts, smiled, and said okay.
Based on what is now several months of non-response and delaying tactics by Mr. Titone, he was less than truthful at the time. Matthew Titone, you see, is a part of a Democratic Party machine in Staten Island, very tightly controlled by among others Hillary Clinton, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and quite conspicuously the mega-ambi- tious NYC Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, with whom, via a family member of mine, I have been acquainted since 1979. It is by no means a political stretch to suggest that, even as they have their respective power ambitions on their respective minds, Clinton, Quinn and Gotbaum do not like me at all.
Hillary Clinton has known about me since possibly as early as 1993 when, at the obvious behest of incoming President Bill Clinton & Co., I was arrested at the U.S. Capitol on January 19, 1993, the day before his first inauguration when I came to testify before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in opposition to Clinton’s choice of Warren Christopher as Secretary of Tibet. Why? Because Christopher and Clinton, among others, had suppressed the documents I had gotten to them via Clinton secretary Betty M. Currie about the Chinese Communist Genocide in Tibet. Clinton was in the process of totally folding to the corporate lobby, which wanted unfettered trade with and investment opportunities in China. She also knew that for a brief period I was a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1993 as reported in the Gannett owned Binghamton Press & Sun Bulletin in an article which emphasized the Tibet Genocide issue.
Some years ago, after Hillary Clinton became Senator, on one occasion when, via a political connection involving Daniel Serrano, the Chief of Staff of State Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV, I got access to a Clinton staffer named Yajaira Yepez, who happened to be his wife, I got some urgently needed assistance from Mrs. Clinton in obtaining an expedited Social Security check. On a subsequent occasion when I was homeless and had been robbed of my rent hotel rent money and again needed her help in getting an expedited check, Mrs. Clinton’s office refused to return calls. Mrs. Clinton personally took steps to have me placed under surveillance and had an investigator named Zimmerman make an explicit threat to me over the phone. That was followed by a threatening letter about me faxed by Jepez to my brother.
I then went for assistance to my State Assemblyman John Lavelle, a Democrat. His staffers, Dorothy Crimmins and then Keith Pascandarola, mishandled everything by first accessing the wrong Social Security official and the failing to follow up on a letter, as required by law, sent to the Commissioner of the U.S. Social Security Administration. I then got an appointment with Robert Cataldo, the Chief of Staff for my State Senator, Democrat Diane Savino. When I came for the appointment at her district office at 36 Richmond Terrace, only Cataldo was there. He burst out of his chair and, approaching me in a menacing way, bellowed, “Get the f—k out of here or I’ll have you arrested!” Shortly thereafter I spoke to Savino on the phone. She said, “Don’t worry about Cataldo – and then totally mishandled the Social Security matter. I have since filed a criminal complaint against Robert Cataldo.
It was because I have come to regard Hillary Clinton as a power and wealth-obsessed
phony who, aside from profiting (China) from Genocide (Tibet) has a legislative record that brands her as a militarist and enemy of in particular the poor, that I decided t run against her for the U.S. Senate.
This is where Betsy Gotbaum comes in. Gotbaum, an ambitious politician with CIA
skeletons in her closet, very uneasy that my cousin was for years her closest friend and that I do investigative reporting, once tried to have me arrested at her office when I was there for a scheduled appointment to discuss staff abuse of homeless people in drop-in centers. The police officer she called, obviously in better mental shape than Gotbaum, handled the situation well, and, after asking me a few questions, suggested that I go home and leave Gotbaum alone for awhile. I most certainly did.
Gotbaum, a politician every bit as secretive as Dick Cheney, once claimed to civil rights
attorney and Public Advocate candidate Norman Siegel in 2001 that I was “stalking” her. She made that same reference in the 2005 Public Advocate race when she refused to reveal the contents of her appointment book (which had my name in it). This time, since she made the comment during a televised debate, it made the news and so did I when my response (I never stalked anyone in my life and that the CIA-linked Gotbaum is a liar and/or delusional) was reported in a variety of ways in NYC Newsday, The Daily News, The New York Times and, very conspicuously and inaccurately, by Tom Wrobleski in the Staten Island Advance. You see Tom Wrobleski, the political editor of the Advance had for months suppressed the news about my Senate campaign against Clinton. The Gotbaum vs. Weiss matter, already reported by NYC Newsday, which also reported my Senate candidacy, forced him to write about me and he did a very slanted job. And when Wrobleski continued to not report my campaign, I went over his head to News Editor Dean Balsamini who had Wrobleski do a story on my campaign which appeared on the front page of the Advance on August 21, 2006.
And so, after Matthew Titone became my assemblyman, replacing Lavelle, who died of a stroke, I called his office and left several messages on his voice mail in Staten Island and Albany. None were returned. One day the phone was picked up and answered by none other than Keith Pascandarola. He said he was not yet “set up” and asked me to contact him again the following week and we could arrange an appointment. He lied.
Since that time, there have been unanswered calls and e-mails from, aside from myself, my political advisor Steven Gradman. On one bright spring weekday afternoon, when I was on Forest Avenue, I went over to Mr. Titone’s district office there to find it locked with not even a posting of office hours. Jessica Loeser, a staffer for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, (and whose husband Stu is Mayor Bloomberg’s chief media spokesperson), spoke to Pascandarola, who then responded to me and said that I could only access him by e-mail. Mr. Titone is fully aware that the matters, all of which I have discussed with my attorney who says that the matters require the intervention of elected officials, cannot be dealt with by e-mails and require a meeting. Sgt. Fiore, who has officially cleared me as a security risk, e-mailed and called Titone urging a meeting at which he said he would be present and was rebuffed.
Some weeks ago I met at length with newly elected State Assemblywoman Janele Hyer- Spencer, a Democrat who represents the district adjacent to mine. While one of her staff members seems to be a bit anxious about me, Ms. Hyer-Spencer handled my visit with calm and agreed at my request to “call Matt” and urge him to meet with me. On June 28
she informed me that Mr. Titone is willing to meet with me and that he suggests that the meeting take place at the 120th precinct.
I have replied via Ms. Hyer-Spencer, asking her to let Titone know that I prefer civilian settings and that any meeting taking place in either a police precinct or his district office would, as my lawyer insists, have to be preceded by a written guarantee that I will not be harassed or arrested.
A few weeks ago at an event renaming Linden Park in Brooklyn after Sonny Carson, I met civil rights activist Kelvin Alexander, who has run for elective office in Staten Island. He is Deputy Chief of Staff for State Senator Eric L. Adams (D.-Bklyn.) He said that the Staten Island Advance is the “most racist” paper in New York. (Considering Wrobleski’s slanted reporting and his often serving as a mouthpieice for the very white ruling group in Staten Island, Republican and Democratic, Mr. Alexander has a point. My vote, however, for racist journalism goes to Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post). I asked Mr. Alexander about the other Democratic politicians. About Savino he made a disparag- ing facial gesture. About City Councilman Michael McMahon (a true Clinton/Quinn machine politician who, citing my criticism of Quinn, sent me an arrogant and angry e-mail refusing to assist me) he expressed open contempt. About Hyer-Spencer, he said, “She’s a nice lady.” She will need that if she is serious about her plans to run against Republican Congressman Vito Fossella. (Ms. Hyer-Spencer told me she would not run until 2010. One peace activist I spoke to, no doubt aware that Fossella is Dick Cheney’s man in New York, expressed dismay at Hyer-Spencer’s apparent willingness to give Fossella possibly two more years in office.) About Matthew Titone Kelvin Alexander had no comment.
One thing about Matthew Titone is apparent. Like many politicians (some, e.g. Clin- ton/Quinn/Gotbaum, with plenty to hide) when it comes to dealing with me, he feels insecure.
* * * * * * *
Published by Tom Weiss
Editorial Advisor: Willard Whittingham
“The paper that can’t be bought an can’t be sold.” http://www.tomsupfrontnews.blogspot.com/
Some months ago a respected peace and gay rights activist in Staten Island urged pro- gressives, such as those who attend services at the Staten Island Unitarian Church, to vote for Democratic New York State Assembly candidate Matthew Titone, who is now one of a few openly gay elected officials in New York. Although I am not gay, I am for gay rights - including marriage. I would not vote for a Republican under any circumstances, except perhaps under torture. The Greens, quite heavily infiltrated by Independence Party persona non grata and Lyndon LaRouche ideologue/racist Lenora Fulani, are no factor in Staten Island. And so, like a good registered Democrat, I voted for Matthew Titone. Indeed on my way to Manhattan after voting I told him so when we shook hands at the St. George terminal at the ferry. I also told him that if he won I would need his help as my Assemblyman because of a number of very serious constituent issues involving several agencies, all of them involving major violations of my human rights Mr. Titone, acknowledged knowing of me from news accounts, smiled, and said okay.
Based on what is now several months of non-response and delaying tactics by Mr. Titone, he was less than truthful at the time. Matthew Titone, you see, is a part of a Democratic Party machine in Staten Island, very tightly controlled by among others Hillary Clinton, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and quite conspicuously the mega-ambi- tious NYC Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, with whom, via a family member of mine, I have been acquainted since 1979. It is by no means a political stretch to suggest that, even as they have their respective power ambitions on their respective minds, Clinton, Quinn and Gotbaum do not like me at all.
Hillary Clinton has known about me since possibly as early as 1993 when, at the obvious behest of incoming President Bill Clinton & Co., I was arrested at the U.S. Capitol on January 19, 1993, the day before his first inauguration when I came to testify before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in opposition to Clinton’s choice of Warren Christopher as Secretary of Tibet. Why? Because Christopher and Clinton, among others, had suppressed the documents I had gotten to them via Clinton secretary Betty M. Currie about the Chinese Communist Genocide in Tibet. Clinton was in the process of totally folding to the corporate lobby, which wanted unfettered trade with and investment opportunities in China. She also knew that for a brief period I was a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1993 as reported in the Gannett owned Binghamton Press & Sun Bulletin in an article which emphasized the Tibet Genocide issue.
Some years ago, after Hillary Clinton became Senator, on one occasion when, via a political connection involving Daniel Serrano, the Chief of Staff of State Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV, I got access to a Clinton staffer named Yajaira Yepez, who happened to be his wife, I got some urgently needed assistance from Mrs. Clinton in obtaining an expedited Social Security check. On a subsequent occasion when I was homeless and had been robbed of my rent hotel rent money and again needed her help in getting an expedited check, Mrs. Clinton’s office refused to return calls. Mrs. Clinton personally took steps to have me placed under surveillance and had an investigator named Zimmerman make an explicit threat to me over the phone. That was followed by a threatening letter about me faxed by Jepez to my brother.
I then went for assistance to my State Assemblyman John Lavelle, a Democrat. His staffers, Dorothy Crimmins and then Keith Pascandarola, mishandled everything by first accessing the wrong Social Security official and the failing to follow up on a letter, as required by law, sent to the Commissioner of the U.S. Social Security Administration. I then got an appointment with Robert Cataldo, the Chief of Staff for my State Senator, Democrat Diane Savino. When I came for the appointment at her district office at 36 Richmond Terrace, only Cataldo was there. He burst out of his chair and, approaching me in a menacing way, bellowed, “Get the f—k out of here or I’ll have you arrested!” Shortly thereafter I spoke to Savino on the phone. She said, “Don’t worry about Cataldo – and then totally mishandled the Social Security matter. I have since filed a criminal complaint against Robert Cataldo.
It was because I have come to regard Hillary Clinton as a power and wealth-obsessed
phony who, aside from profiting (China) from Genocide (Tibet) has a legislative record that brands her as a militarist and enemy of in particular the poor, that I decided t run against her for the U.S. Senate.
This is where Betsy Gotbaum comes in. Gotbaum, an ambitious politician with CIA
skeletons in her closet, very uneasy that my cousin was for years her closest friend and that I do investigative reporting, once tried to have me arrested at her office when I was there for a scheduled appointment to discuss staff abuse of homeless people in drop-in centers. The police officer she called, obviously in better mental shape than Gotbaum, handled the situation well, and, after asking me a few questions, suggested that I go home and leave Gotbaum alone for awhile. I most certainly did.
Gotbaum, a politician every bit as secretive as Dick Cheney, once claimed to civil rights
attorney and Public Advocate candidate Norman Siegel in 2001 that I was “stalking” her. She made that same reference in the 2005 Public Advocate race when she refused to reveal the contents of her appointment book (which had my name in it). This time, since she made the comment during a televised debate, it made the news and so did I when my response (I never stalked anyone in my life and that the CIA-linked Gotbaum is a liar and/or delusional) was reported in a variety of ways in NYC Newsday, The Daily News, The New York Times and, very conspicuously and inaccurately, by Tom Wrobleski in the Staten Island Advance. You see Tom Wrobleski, the political editor of the Advance had for months suppressed the news about my Senate campaign against Clinton. The Gotbaum vs. Weiss matter, already reported by NYC Newsday, which also reported my Senate candidacy, forced him to write about me and he did a very slanted job. And when Wrobleski continued to not report my campaign, I went over his head to News Editor Dean Balsamini who had Wrobleski do a story on my campaign which appeared on the front page of the Advance on August 21, 2006.
And so, after Matthew Titone became my assemblyman, replacing Lavelle, who died of a stroke, I called his office and left several messages on his voice mail in Staten Island and Albany. None were returned. One day the phone was picked up and answered by none other than Keith Pascandarola. He said he was not yet “set up” and asked me to contact him again the following week and we could arrange an appointment. He lied.
Since that time, there have been unanswered calls and e-mails from, aside from myself, my political advisor Steven Gradman. On one bright spring weekday afternoon, when I was on Forest Avenue, I went over to Mr. Titone’s district office there to find it locked with not even a posting of office hours. Jessica Loeser, a staffer for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, (and whose husband Stu is Mayor Bloomberg’s chief media spokesperson), spoke to Pascandarola, who then responded to me and said that I could only access him by e-mail. Mr. Titone is fully aware that the matters, all of which I have discussed with my attorney who says that the matters require the intervention of elected officials, cannot be dealt with by e-mails and require a meeting. Sgt. Fiore, who has officially cleared me as a security risk, e-mailed and called Titone urging a meeting at which he said he would be present and was rebuffed.
Some weeks ago I met at length with newly elected State Assemblywoman Janele Hyer- Spencer, a Democrat who represents the district adjacent to mine. While one of her staff members seems to be a bit anxious about me, Ms. Hyer-Spencer handled my visit with calm and agreed at my request to “call Matt” and urge him to meet with me. On June 28
she informed me that Mr. Titone is willing to meet with me and that he suggests that the meeting take place at the 120th precinct.
I have replied via Ms. Hyer-Spencer, asking her to let Titone know that I prefer civilian settings and that any meeting taking place in either a police precinct or his district office would, as my lawyer insists, have to be preceded by a written guarantee that I will not be harassed or arrested.
A few weeks ago at an event renaming Linden Park in Brooklyn after Sonny Carson, I met civil rights activist Kelvin Alexander, who has run for elective office in Staten Island. He is Deputy Chief of Staff for State Senator Eric L. Adams (D.-Bklyn.) He said that the Staten Island Advance is the “most racist” paper in New York. (Considering Wrobleski’s slanted reporting and his often serving as a mouthpieice for the very white ruling group in Staten Island, Republican and Democratic, Mr. Alexander has a point. My vote, however, for racist journalism goes to Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post). I asked Mr. Alexander about the other Democratic politicians. About Savino he made a disparag- ing facial gesture. About City Councilman Michael McMahon (a true Clinton/Quinn machine politician who, citing my criticism of Quinn, sent me an arrogant and angry e-mail refusing to assist me) he expressed open contempt. About Hyer-Spencer, he said, “She’s a nice lady.” She will need that if she is serious about her plans to run against Republican Congressman Vito Fossella. (Ms. Hyer-Spencer told me she would not run until 2010. One peace activist I spoke to, no doubt aware that Fossella is Dick Cheney’s man in New York, expressed dismay at Hyer-Spencer’s apparent willingness to give Fossella possibly two more years in office.) About Matthew Titone Kelvin Alexander had no comment.
One thing about Matthew Titone is apparent. Like many politicians (some, e.g. Clin- ton/Quinn/Gotbaum, with plenty to hide) when it comes to dealing with me, he feels insecure.
* * * * * * *
posted by Tom Weiss at 4:27 PM
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