Saturday, May 31, 2008

AFRICAN-AMERICAN BLACKOUT ON RACIST GENOCIDE IN TIBET BROKEN. STATEN ISLAND CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER REV. DEMETRIUS CAROLINA SPEAKS OUT

UP FRONT News May 14, 2008
Published by Tom Weiss
Editorial Advisor: Willard Whittingham
"The paper that can't be bought and can't be sold."
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http://www.tomsupfrontnews.blogspot.com/

AFRICAN-AMERICAN BLACKOUT ON RACIST GENOCIDE IN TIBET BROKEN. STATEN ISLAND CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER REV. DEMETRIUS CAROLINA SPEAKS OUT AND DENOUNCES "MURDER" OF TIBETANS. EXODUS REVISITED. STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE CONTINUES COVERUP.

By Tom Weiss

While numerous other African-American leaders - including Al Sharpton, State Senator Bill Perkins and Barack Obama (all of whom have been made very directly knowledgeable by me about the racist genocide against the "black people of Tibet") - continue to remain silent, Staten Island's most vocal civil rights activist, Rev. Demetrius Carolina, pastor of the First Central Baptist Church in Stapleton, has spoken out loud and clear.

In the context of a number of discussions with me (I am a member of his his steadily in- creasing in size largely African-American church) UP FRONT News reader Rev. Carolina at his May 11 Mother's Day service, accused the Chinese Communists of perpetrating "Genocide" in Tibet and specifically stated that the Red regime is guilty of "murder." Rev. Carolina and I agree that the racist genocide against the dark-complexioned Tibetans by the light-complexioned Chinese is in certain ways comparable to the Old Testament slavery imposed on the Jews by the Egyptians.

Rev. Carolina thus helps break the ongoing political and media coverup of what may be the longest running genocide in the world today. That coverup is widespread and includes most directly the power and profit-obsessed Bill and Hillary Clinton (and, until he speaks out, Barack Obama) as well as the entire decaying Cheney/Bush Administration. On a media level, while, as far as I am aware, no mainstream media has reported the fact of the genocide (reporting on anti-China demonstrations is not the same as reporting the fact of a genocide), aside from the absolutely awful and China-obsequeous NBC News ("Today's" Matt Lauer being perhaps the worst apologist on behalf of the Beijing Olympics to be broadcast by his employer) the most guilty media outlet is the abject and, as Rev. Carolina correctly puts it, "controlled" Staten Island Advance, owned by the aging media plutocrat multibillionaire Donald Newhouse.

The Staten Island Advance is without question the most politically censored and slanted newspaper in New York. Indeed, not too long ago, after Mr. Newhouse predictably failed to respond to several of my e-mails that went directly to him, I talked with him on the phone. I now know what it must be like to actually talk to someone like Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. Although I have never met Donald Newhouse face to face, he presents over the phone as a soulless robot.

That explains why the political editor at the Advance is Tom Wrobleski, a guy who should really be working directly for the media-influential fascist LaRouche. Wrobkleski is the guy who sat on the story of my Democratic write-in candidacy against Hillary Clinton (visit http://www.tomweissdemocratforussenate.blogspot.com/) for months until he got scooped by Dan Janison at Newsday. That happened when, in a media splash arising when the paranoid NYC Public Advocate Betsy ("CIA") Gotbaum (with whom I've been personally acquainted via a member of my family) defamed me on television, Mr. Janison accurately reported my side of the story (NYC Newsday August 26, 2005), also informing readers of the fact of my U.S. Senate candidacy. Wroblelski, hurriedly calling my UP FRONT News associate Willard Whittingham for an "exclusive", got his error-riddled pro-Gotbaum story out on August 27. Indeed, far more accurate accounts of the Gotbaum vs. Weiss dispute appeared in the Daily News (Celeste Katz) and The New York Times (Jonathan Hicks) on August 27.

Advance editor Dan Balsamini's assurances to me that the numerous and willful errors in Wrobleski's story would be corrected went unfulfilled. Deputy Editor Stevie Lacy-Pendleton, after asking me to write a letter to the editor, refused to publish even one of the two I sent and refused to give a reason. The Staten Island Advance would make Tom Paine and Patrick Henry throw up.

Wrobleski immediately resumed his pattern of not responding to my calls and e-mails and so I wrote a story about him referring to him as a censor named "Wrongleski." That got Balsamini quite upset and he apparently directed Wrobleski to write an article about my campaign. Wrobleski's article appeared on the front page of the Advance on August 21, 2006.

Wrobleski, who should have been paid by the corrupt and human rights-hostile Hillary Clinton, devoted about 85% of his article to the mechanics of running as a write-in candidate and about 5% to my very heavy issues against the Republicrat narcissist Clinton. In fact, as he did in his really bad piece on the Gotbaum vs. Weiss matter, he mentioned my allegation about Mrs. Clinton's involvement in the coverup of the Genocide in Tibet. And that makes Tom Wrobleski and the Staten Island Advance guilty of perfunctorily reporting a genocide and not following the story up. Lovely! That is precisely how the western media allowed Hitler to get away with his Holocaust.

Only this time it is what I call the Himalayan Holocaust.

Wrobleski, Balsamini and day editor Marjorie Hack not only know the facts of the Tibet Genocide and the very direct Clinton involvement in the coverup (I and a few others have copies of the smoking gun fax to me from Bill Clinton secretary Betty M. Currie). They are also covering up the facts of the LaRouche involvement in New York and Staten Island politics (via a so-called "peace" group here) and the fact of major negligence and corruption by in particular State Assemblyman Matthew Titone ("the worst state legislator in 'the worst state legislature in the country'").

Among the newspapers, aside from UP FRONT News, that have not covered up the Genocide in Tibet is The Knight News, the Queens College student newspaper. Reporter Herman Araya has done two solid stories, focusing on my activities (reasonable since I am a Queens College graduate). Mr. Araya's most recent story also focuses on the Tom Weiss-initiated NYC Council Resolution #1299, introduced by Councilman (and mayoral candidate) Tony Avella (D.-Queens), which cites the Tibet Genocide and calls for the removal of the 2008 Olympic Games from China.

The highly paid Wrobleski, reportedly a favorite of recurrent right-winger Curtis Sliwa, could learn a lot about journalistic integrity from Herman Araya.

And the political and "civil rights" establishments can learn a lot from Rev. Demetrius Carolina.
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THE CITY COUNCIL RACE ON STATEN ISLAND'S NORTH SHORE...THE GENTRIFICATION ISSUE...REV. TONY BAKER CAN WIN.

UP FRONT News May 29, 2008
Published by Tom Weiss
Editorial Advisor: Willard Whittingham
"The paper that can't be bought and can't be sold."
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http://www.tomsupfrontnews.blogspot.com/

THE CITY COUNCIL RACE ON STATEN ISLAND'S NORTH SHORE. HOW DEBI ROSE IS HELPING TO EXTEND THE REPUBLICRAT LEGACY OF MICHAEL McMAHON.
THE DAVID JONES EXTREMIST FACTOR. THE GENTRIFICATION ISSUE. REV. TONY BAKER CAN WIN.

By Tom Weiss

It is only in part because of the Fall of Fossella (another "family values" guy with a very extended "family") that Staten Island is likely to be in the center of politics here in 2008 and 2009. While much attention is being given to the post-Fossella feeding frenzy (at the trough are the opportunistic Reagan Democrat City Councilman Michael McMahon and it appears Staten Island Advance editor-censor Tom "Wrongleski" Wrobleski pal Republican Curtis Sliwa, both of whom do not want to see a progressive Democrat like Steve Harrison win), the City Council race (49th district) is going to be heavy.

The first announced City Council candidate was African-American activist and College of Staten Island faculty member Debi Rose. Ms. Rose ran in 2005 and lost a close race in the Democratic primary to the incumbent McMahon. In the general election she ran as a Liberal and was predictably crushed by the Democratic Party machine.

Some months ago Ms. Rose invited me to a campaign meeting which (perhaps in violation of election law) was held at the Staten Island Museum. Ms. Rose's first problem emerged almost immediately.

That problem is named David Jones, who ran the meeting as I imagine Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. must run his meetings. Ms. Rose delivered a summary of her platform. She mentioned not a syllable about what I and many others consider to be a major issue: gentrification/overde- velopment/affordable housing. When I sought to ask a question the very, very autocratic Jones declared that my issue was "not on the table." Fortunately Ms. rose, not seeking to alienate a journalist-voter as Jones had already done, gave a vague statement on housing. It then took her weeks to finally respond to my calls and an e-mail requesting more detail. That response was also vague.

And so Ms. Rose appears weak on the major issue of gentrification, which will be large in North Shore Staten Island, a part of New York City that has the developers and their friends in politics - e.g. Michael Bloomberg, McMahon pal Christine ("Slush Fund Queen") Quinn - salivating as they plan to convert downtown Staten Island (St. George, Stapleton, Tompkinsville, Clifton into another Soho.

As far as David Jones is concerned, as long as this episodically violent guy (last April 5 he almost assaulted me at a Peace Action of Staten Island event in the parking lot of the First Central Baptist Church, pastored by Rev. Demetrius Carolina, of which I am a member) is in any meaningful way involved with Ms. Rose's campaign, she cannot win and can only help to extend the Republicrat legacy of Michael McMahon (whose Chief of Staff, Kenny Mitchell, is reportedly a candidate).

David Jones is the armor of Peace Action of Staten Island (PASI), whose Chairperson is his wife Sally. PASI understandably has little in the way of grass roots support although, thanks to the neighborly friendship between PASI honcho John Bostrom and Staten Island Advance political editor/censor Wrobleski, they get more (puff) press than they deserve.

A key figure in PASI is self-described "anarchist" Mike May, who has a temper not unlike that of Jones. It was reportedly May who in 2005 had the incredible chutzpah and stupidity to invite as a speaker to the November 12, 2005 Peace & Justice Festival in Tappen Park in Stapleton, not far from my home, a known extremist and neo-fascist Geoffrey Blank. Blank, thoroughly covered in UP FRONT News but not in the censored Advance (aka the Staten Island Retreat) is the guy who tried to politically hijack the Union Square, Manhattan speakouts organized by a free speech group known as the No Police State Coalition. Blank would stand in Union Square, spewing various conspiracy theories and preaching "free speech" and then threatening others (in particular me) who sought to exercize that right. Blank and his 30+ year old baby brother Jason have refused to discuss their ties to the convicted felon/racist megalomaniac LaRouche, who, in recent years, has again made made infiltration inroads into the left, via surrogates such as the African-American racist Lenora Fulani and others. For more on LaRouche/Fulani get to know the work of investigative reporter Dennis King.

When Blank showed up in S.I. at May's invitation, I heckled Blank into submission while May stood there dumbfounded. Speaker Norman Siegel, with whom I am quite well politically acquainted, came to my defense in his speech.

The Advance reporter covering the event, Deborah ("Much Too") Young, censored the entire incident out of her very superficial story that appeared on November 13, 2005.

Geoffrey Blank had to hurry off to keep a speaking engagement in Manhattan with the convicted lawyer Lynne Stewart at the Freedom Socialist Party. The FSP, according to an unrebutted storty by Niles Lathem in the December 26, 2005 New York Post, is under international investigation for ties to terrorism in Iraq. The FSP spokesperson, a Blank associate named Stephen Durham, is on record as condoning the hostage beheadings perpetrated by the late lunatic Musab al-Zarqawi. Lovely!

I am not aware that PASI hitman David Jones, who nearly exploded again when I arrived at a recent meeting of the Staten Island Democratic Association, expressed any opposition to the neo-fascist demagogue Blank.

I do recall, however, David Jones getting inappropriately angry with me one evening at the PASI-sponsored First Friday Film event at the Staten Island Unitarian Church when, after a Middle East-focused movie, I expressed my opposition to the the insane violence of Hamas and Hezbollah. (As Jones is well aware I am opposed to the concept of a Zionist state and oppose the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.)

As far as I am concerned, my impression is that City Council candidate Rev. Tony Baker, Pastor of the St. Phillip's Baptist Church in the diverse and foreclosure-belaguered community of Port Richmond, is a much stronger candidate. He has made it clear for one thing that he will not stand by while the developers try to gentrify the North Shore of Staten Island, like they are doing on the very developer-beleaguered Lower East Side of Manhattan and in the new Yankee Stadium-dominated South Bronx.

At this point it appears that the only beneficiary of Ms. Rose's no-chance David Jones-saddled candidacy may be McMahon-man Kenny Mitchell. I've dealt very directly with McMahon and his Chief of Staff, the very arrogant Mitchell. Mitchell's chances of getting my vote are about as good as John McCain's chances.

And if Debi Rose wants to be an elected official and help in the long overdue ending of the white monopoly of Staten Island elected officials in Albany, she should shed David Jones and perhaps run against the incompetent and very beatable assemblyman Matthew Titone, properly labeled in UP FRONT News as "the worst legislator in 'the worst legislature in the country'." Or maybe even State Senator Diane Savino, who has a very serious Chief of Staff problem of own, the hothead Robert Cataldo.
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SOHO-IZING STATEN ISLAND.

UP FRONT News May 21, 2008
Published by Tom Weiss
Editorial Advisor: Willard Whittingham
"The paper that can't be bought and can't be sold."
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http://www.tomsupfrontnews.blogspot.com/

SOHO-IZING STATEN ISLAND. DOWNTOWN STATEN ISLAND COUNCIL "URBAN
DESIGN PLAN" MEANS GENTRIFICATION AND ECONOMIC ETHNIC CLEANSING FOR STAPLETON, ST. GEORGE AND NORTH SHORE STATEN ISLAND. HANDS OFF CANAL STREET (S.I.)! POST-"FOSSELLA FALL" POLITICS. DEMOCRAT STEVE HARRISON IN FRONT (?)

By Tom Weiss

The May 21 meeting of the Staten Island at Scott's Armory Inn in Westerleigh got off to a very tense beginning because, as I arrived, local "peace" hothead David Jones (whose wife Sally is the Chairperson of Peace Action of Staten Island (PASI), a group with some extremism- related problems), made what would be his second attempt at getting physical with me.

On April 5 Jones had to be physically restrained by First Central Baptist Churchmember Marilyn Averett from assaulting me on Wright Street in Stapleton at a so-called "peace" event in the FCBC parking lot. Jones became blazingly incensed because I had been criitical of his wife's rather secretive (mis)handling of the event-scheduling arrangements and the evidently arbitrary PASI decision to invite one Democratic congressional candidate (Steve Harrison) to speak and not another candidate, City Councilman Dominic Recchia.

Indeed, certainly in light of some previous near hostilities between me and PASI (which once, thanks to the dubiouis political wisdom of "Green"-oriented "anarchist" Mike May, invited a neo-fascist criminal named Geoffrey Blank to speak at one of their events in 2005) and because of the violent nature of Jones' behavior on April 5, it became necesary for me to make an official complaint of criminal harassment with the NYPD.

As I arrived at the SIDA meeting, Jones literally jumped out his chair, moved in my direction and demanded that a SIDA officer throw me out. Fortunately cooler heads prevailed and, with the assistance of a SIDA veteran name "Mark", who reminded Jones that I had every right to be in at the meeting, Jones scowlingly took his seat next to Sally.

As far as David Jones is concerned, his temper makes John McCain appear pacific by comparison. Mr. Jones needs to understand that if there is to be "peace" with me, he will have to chill in my presence, whether at PASI events at the Staten Island Unitarian Church, at Steve Harrison events and anywhere else. A repeat of any threats from Mr. Jones or if he so much as lays a finger on me will result in my pressing charges and he can wind up looking politically somewhat like Vito Fossella, perhaps even sharing a jail cell with his alter-ego outgoing congressman.

The meeting was devoted primarily to a presentation by Dan C. Marrotta, Esq. of the Downtown Staten Island Council (DSIC) of the so-called "Urban Design Plan" for downtown Staten Island. "Downtown" in the plan includes the North Shore Communities of St. George, Tompkinsville, Stapleton (where I live) and Clifton.

It soon became apparent that the plan, described in one of the publicity pieces as a "vision for the future of downtown Staten Island", is in fact a blueprint for over-development, gentrifi- cation and, certainly in connection with very ethnically diverse Stapleton, a form of economic ethnic cleansing. Indeed, the plan includes a proposal to extend the borders of Tappen Park at least one block eastward toward the waterfront and the real estate magnet known as the Homeport. The park would go through the easternmost block of Canal Street and would dis- place an entire block of residents - including me - and some small businesses.

When during a lively Q&A I asked Mr. Moratta what would happen to the residents, e.g. me, his response was direct. He said, "I don't know." My response, which will be echoed by lots of other people from Stapleton and other communities in Staten Island and beyond (UP FRONT News is widely read in all the boroughs and beyond), is "fuhgeddaboudit!."

The plan is a classic Michael Bloomberg/Christine Quinn-style "green"-camouflaged pre- scription for the upscale transformation of several working class communities in increasingly real estate-"hot" Staten Island. I told those present about my close involvement with communities such as the East Village, the Lower East Side, Tribeca, Soho and Noho, which, thanks to a series of mayors of both political parties, have experienced repeated tsunamis of over-development and gentrification. Those interested might read my UP FRONT News accounts of the efforts of people like Lower East Side musician/activist Rebecca Moore. Ms. Moore, with whom I have been personally acquainted for several years, is the founder of the Ludlow/Orchard Community Organization (LOCO) and an organizer of the anti-gentrification network known as "Take It to the Bridge." Indeed, Ms. Moore and her group recently got some unexpected mainstream media coverage in The New York Times and the New York Post for a demonstration against the offensively upscale boutique "Varvatos" that replaced the legendary CBGB on the now increasingly glitzy Bowery.

Mr. Marrotta manifested at best a superficial awareness, certainly of Stapleton, which he described as a crime-ridden backwater full of nothing but poor people and in need of some upscaling. He cited NYPD statistics reporting a "spike" in crime in Stapleton and St. George. There is no question that there is more street crime in Stapleton than perhaps in Sutton Place (where the off-street crimes often escape the attention of the NYPD). As far as I am concerned, the NYPD is not always a reliable source, especially taking into account the reality
that what the NYPD considers "crime" tends to be race and class-based.

I was very glad that among those in attendance was Democratic City Council candidate
Rev. Tony Baker, Pastor of the St. Phillips Baptist Church in Port Richmond, another ethnically diverse community and one very much victimized by subprime lender predators. In my brief conversation with Rev. Baker (who can be expected to end the white monopoly of elected political power in Staten Island) he expressed agreement with my views on the "plan" and assured me that it is not one of those "done deals."

As far as I am able to tell, the anti-gentrification movement in Staten Island can expect the support of one of the most important human rights forces in Staten Island (who was not at the meeting) Rev. Demetrius Carolina, Pastor of the aforementioned First Central Baptist Church, of which I am a member.

As might be imagined there was much discussion of the "Fall of Fossella." What emerged at this meeting is that peace activist Steve Harrison is definitely the popular front runner among progressive Democrats. Harrison drew 43% of the vote against Fossella in 2006 while being substantially outspent by the Bill Clinton romance-emulating "family values" Republican.

Mr. Harrison is backed by several Democratic clubs including the potent SIDA. In his talk at the event, he stressed not only his opposition to the Iraq War but also his readiness to take on the real estate developers and other corporate predators (only he didn't say "predators").

I just did something I rarely do and that is to essentially throw away 50 cents and purchased a copy of the multibillionaire media mogul Donald Newhouse-owned Staten Island Advance, New York's most politically censored and, as Rev. Carolina once succinctly put it, "controlled" paper. The resident censors include political editor Tom ("Wrongleski") Wrobleski and editor Marjorie Hack. This is a newspaper that, aside from suppressing the story of my Democratic write-in candidacy for the U.S. Senate against Republicrat Hillary Clinton (visit http://www.tomweissdemocratforussenate.blogspot.com/), is directly involved in the political (e.g. Bill and Hillary Clinton) and media coverup of the Genocide in Tibet. The Advance (aka the Staten Island Retreat) also protected the reactionary and uncaring Vito Fossella for years and now Wrobleskli is journalistically jumping on Fossella's political grave.

Wrobleski, who consistently cowtows to the Staten Island poliitcal establishment, is trying to breathe life into to the opportunistic aspirations of others such as Slush Fund Queen Christine Quinn's representative in Staten Island, City Councilman Michael McMahon, a very ambitious guy with a record of putting politics ahead of principle. Wrobleski also gives State Senator Diane Savino some free publicity. Until Ms. Savino does something about her anger-management-challenged Chief of Staff Robert Cataldo, who is under the totally mistaken impression that the voters elected him to the State Senate, she should abandon any higher political aspirations and do a better job constituent services-wise in her current position.

Perhaps, from a somewhat personal standpoint, the most startling development was that the man who gave me a ride back to Stapleton and then helped return to me my dropped cell phone was Staten Island Democratic Party leader Chris Bauer, who is about to become Chief of Staff to my State Assemblyman Matthew Titone. That has to be an improvement over the mercifully departing Keith Parascandola, whose negligence with regard to my very serious constituent needs has caused Mr. Titone considerable embarassment in the pages of UP FRONT News.

And so politics in this so-called "forgotten borough" has its "mysterious ways." Under any circumstances, Staten Island, which has a grass roots cultural and art life that Manhattan could learn from, is really interesting.
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EX-POST FOSSELLA: THE STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE VS. STEVE HARRISON. "DON'T TRUST CORPORATE MEDIA"

UP FRONT News May 23, 2008
Published by Tom Weiss
Editorial Advisor: Willard Whittingham
"The paper that can't be bought and can't be sold."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UPFRONTNewsdiscussionforum
http://www.tomsupfrontnews.blogspot.com/

By Tom Weiss

The essentially soft-core but yet reactionary and establishment-protecting multibillionaire Donald Newhouse-owned Staten Island Advance (aka the Staten Island Retreat) is already going all out editorially to prevent a dramatic shift to left-oriented progressivism in the no longer "forgotten" borough.

That, however, should not be at all surprising for a paper that qualifies, even with Rupert Murdoch's quite censored and Paris Hilton-promoting New York Post in town and the China-censored NBC News (courtesy of, among others, Nightly News staffer Charles Riggs III), as the most censored newspaper in New York.

As reported in some detail in UP FRONT News, the Advance is the most guilty of the continuing political and media coverup of the Chinese Communist Genocide in Tibet. In fact, all the editors there, Brian Laline, Dean Balsamini, Tom ("Wrongleski") Wrobleski, Marjorie Hack, Ken Paulsen, Stevie Lacy-Pendleton, and several reporters including Sally Goldenberg, Judy Randall and Tevah Platt, have received the facts from me. Those facts include the provable reality that among the politicians fully knowledgeable (from me) about the genocide for years are Bill and Hillary Clinton. The Advance also knows about the history of threats against me by the Clintons and some of her local elected surrogates.

The Advance is fully knowledgeable about the details of my very serious difficulties with in particular my State Assemblyman Matthew Titone, whose mercifully outgoing Chief of Staff, Keith Parascandola defines why the New York State legislatute has been properly labeled as "the worst state legislature in the country." The Advance also knows about the rather threatening behavior perpetrated against me by Robert Cataldo, the very anger management-challenged Chief of Staff for State Senator Diane Savino (who, at least in my opinion, should abandon any ambitions for the seat being involuntarily vacated by the fallen Vito Fossella, until she does something about Cataldo, who apparently remains under the delusion that the voters elected him to the State Senate).

It is pretty much axiomatic that the Advance has also been protecting Vito Fossella for years. It is interesting to note that at least some of the people in Fossella lover Laura Fay's neighborhood in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. (which, at least as far as adultery is concerned, is becoming the Las Vegas of the East, except for the fact that, unlike Vegas, what happens in and around D.C. doesn't necessarily stay there) knew all about him - but the Advance knew nothing. And if Fossella had not allegedly engaged in life-threatening behavior by driving smashed (which, should he be found guilty, should warrant not only a jail term but his immediate resignation) and getting caught, the Advance's puff journalism about him would have continued.

With the Advance and me things are quite politically personal because it was "Wrongleski" who for months suppressed the news of my Democratic write-in candidacy for the U.S. Senate against the Republicrat Hillary Clinton. In fact Wrongleski, who, as reported previously here, deserves an Olympic gold medal for not responding to e-mails and calls, wrote nothing until one of his politician friends NYC Public advocate Betsy Gotbaum (with whom, via a family member of mine, I've been personally acquainted since 1979; she is paranoid) made a defamatory reference to me during a televised campaign debate in 2005. Wrobleski, after allowing his newspaper to get scooped by NYC Newsday (Dan Janison) on August 26, 2005, wrote an error-riddled, slanted, somewhat defamatory article about me that appeared with a front page lead in the Advance on August 27. The Daily News (Celeste Katz) and The New York Times (Jonathan Hicks) published articles that appeared in their respective papers on August 27 that were far more honest and objective than Wrongleski's piece.

After that, with Balsamini and others promising me published corrections but reneging, Wrongleski reverted to full censorship mode. I then wrote an article that was widely distrib- uted and appeared at http://www.tomweissdemocratforussenate.blogspot.com/ accusing him of censorship and, for the first time (re?)-Christening him as "Wrongleski." During my subsequent telephone conversation with Mr. Balsamini, who read my article on his computer as we spoke, he became quite upset and said, "You're trashing my reporter." I agreed and suggested that my reporting along those lines would continue as long as Wrobleski either wrote nothing about my campaign against Mrs. Clinton or continued to write trash about me.

Not too long after that Wrobleski contacted me and we did a telephone interview. His article, headlined "With the stroke of a pencil, vote for anyone", appeared on the front page (probably Balsamini's decision) on August 21, 2006, about 1 1/2 years after I had announced my candidacy and had met with him in his Borough Hall office for over an hour.

As I have reported previously, his article may have gotten at most a C+ in journalism school. His grammar was acceptable. He focused about 85% of the story on the technicalities of running as a write-in candidate and about .01% to the fact of the Tibet Genocide and the fact that I can prove that Hillary Clinton and her husband are directly involved in the coverup of that genocide every bit as much as the media and the politicians covered up the developing Nazi Holocaust against the Jews in the 1930's. The Conde Nast-connected Donald Newhouse (how much money does he have invested in the profiteering paradise known as "Communist" China?)-owned Staten Island Advance is maybe the only newspaper anywhere to report the existence of a genocide (Wrongleski mentioned it in both his articles about me) and then not follow it up.

That is known as censorship.

In a full column editorial that appears in the May 22 issue of the Advance, the paper urges that the next congressman, in a district that is about 2/3 from Staten Island and 1/3 from Brooklyn, be from Staten Island. I am one of what may be a relatively small number of people to have lived in all five boroughs of New York City (as well as upstate, in an around Binghamton) - certainly making me more of an authentic New Yorker than the carpetbagging Hillary Clinton. I have become a strong Staten Island advocate. I think that Staten Island is both a leader in the civil rights movement (e.g. Rev. Demetrius Carolina's First Central Baptist Church and Rev. Tony Baker's St. Phillip's Baptist Church) and in the performing arts world (e.g. Snug Harbor, The Cup, the Everything Goes Bookstore Cafe). That certainly doesn't mean that our congressperson needs to be from Staten Island. Look what we got with Fossella.

And as far as some other North Shore and Mid-Island politicians are concered, e.g. City Councilmember Michael McMahon, Diane Savino, Matthew Titone, and State Assembly-member Janele Hyer-Spencer (quite progressive but less than ideal as she takes much too long in responsing to some important e-mails), Ms. Hyer-Spencer seems relatively independent of the Party machine(s) that the Advance continues to protect. Indeed, some months ago, before Fossella fell, Ms. Hyer-Spencer told me that she was contemplating a race against him in 2010.

At this point, to the obvious chagrin of the Advance (which, using in its May 22 editorial the code-word of "centrist", is trying to push Staten Island back to the right) progressive anti-War Democrat Steve Harrison (who, heavily outspent, lost to Fossella in 2006) is the leading Democrat. Mr. Harrison, a man with strong ties to what passes for the "peace" movement in Staten Island, is also backed by several important Democratic political clubs. If he can get the support of the tradionally marginalized African-American community (which has lots of UP FRONT News readers, such as the Reverends Carolina and Baker and churchmembers), he could become the Democratic candidate and the Republicans, regardless of their candidate, can attempt again (as Fossella did) to rely on the diabolical charisma of Big Dick Cheney and the militaristic wisdom of John McCain.

The Advance, in urging that the next congressman be from Staten Island, is doing nothing more than trying to bolster the Republicans and their de facto allies among the Democrats and perhaps even the still Lenora Fulani/Lyndon LaRouche-tinged Independent Party here. The Advance is trying to generate a retreat by Steven Harrison.

As far as Steven Harrison is concerned, I voted for him in 2006.

My view is that a significant threat to Harrison's political future lies not so much with the Party of Cheney/Bush but rather from what lies within the "peace" movement here. Indeed, since I am told that Peace Action of Staten Island (PASI) power John Bostrom is a neighbor of and well acquainted with Tom Wrobleski, it is not surprising that some of the politically unsavory (Mike May and the the LaRouche-ite neo-fascist from Queens, Geoffrey Blank) and indeed violent (David Jones) aspects of the group are covered up by the Staten Island Advance.

PASI "anarchist", wildman Mike May, who shares some personality traits with Fossella, has apparently been staying in the political background. That is not, however, the case with the explosive Jones, whose more pacific wife is PASI Chairperson Sally Jones. Jones once tried to assault me at a PASI event on April 5 in the parking lot of Rev. Carolina's First Central Baptist Church. Read "Davey Jones' Shocker..." April 8, 2008, in UP FRONT News.) Indeed, Mr. Jones had to be physically held back by FCBC churchmember Marillyn Averett. That necessitated my filing an official complaint of criminal harassment with the NYPD. Apparently Jones, whose take on the concept of "peace" appears to be theoretical and essentially propagandistic, did not learn his lesson and on May 22 made another aggressive move against me at a meeting of the Staten Island Democratic Association. On this occasion he had to be chilled by a SIDA veteran I only know as "Mark."

David Jones apparently remains as an important official in the campaigns of both congressional candidate Harrison and the announced City Council candidacy of African-American activist Debi Rose (who seems to be in second place behind candidate Rev. Baker).

The Republicans would be happy to tar Mr. Harrison with an "extremist" or "ultra" brush.
David Jones certainly would provode them that opportunity. And the Staten Island Advance would again retreat and cover up and first censor and then misreport the whole story.

The moral of the story is, as per the bumper sticker slogan of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), the NYC-based organization that monitors censorship and slanted reporting in the media, "Don't Trust Corporate Media."
* * * * * * *

IS THE DONALD NEWHOUSE-OWNED STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE "THE MOST RACIST DAILY PAPER IN NEW YORK?"

UP FRONT News May 27, 2008
Published by Tom Weiss
Editorial Advisor: Willard Whittingham
"The paper that can't be bought and can't be sold."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UPFRONTNewsdiscussionforum
http://www.tomsupfrontnews.blogspot.com/

IS THE DONALD NEWHOUSE-OWNED STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE "THE MOST RACIST DAILY PAPER IN NEW YORK?" IT CERTAINLY IS THE MOST POLITICALLY CENSORED, CHECK OUT THE EVIDENCE. ALL ABOUT TOM ("WRONGLESKI") WROBLESKI, MARJORIE HACK, ET. AL. IS TEVAH PLATT WORKING FOR THE WRONG NEWSPAPER? COVERING UP FOR HILLARY CLINTON, COVERING UP RACIST GENOCIDE IN TIBET, COVERING UP FOR VITO FOSSELLA AND COVERING UP SOFT CORE ETHNIC CLEANSING IN STATEN ISLAND.

By Tom Weiss

Some months ago well known Staten Island African-American political activist expressed to me the view that the Staten Island Advance is "the most racist daily paper in New York." At the time, and in a number of UP FRONT News articles, I expressed my disagreement with that assessment, indicating that in my opinion that honor should go to Rupert Murdoch's New York Post.

It appears that may have been wrong and that the multibillionaire Donald Newhouse-owned Advance wins the gold medal not only for racism but for some of the most persistent and blatant political censorship and slanted journalism I've ever experienced.

While the entertainment and crime coverage in the Advance is not bad and while, as I have suggested previously, the supermarket and other advertising may be of Puliltzer Prize quality, the political reporting is really, really bad. (As reported in UP FRONT News, aside from all their other censorship, the Advance has covered up for Vito Fossella, et. al. for years.)

Those responsible are primarily an editorial staff that includes political editor Tom ("Wrong- leski") Wrobleski, Marjorie Mack, Ken Paulsen, Dean Balsamini and, near the top of the censorship hierarchy, editor Brian J. Laline, Managing Editor William A. Huus and Deputy Editorial Page Editor Stevie Lacy-Pendleton.

Since a good deal, but not all, of the history of Advance censorship and slanted reporting with regard to me, as been covered in UP FRONT News, I won't go into all the details again here.

It is a fact that, in early 2005 after I announced my candidacy as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate against the Republicrat Hillary Clinton I met for over an hour with Tom Wrobleski in his office conveniently located in the Staten Island Borough Hall. I answered all his questions and gave him a wealth of previous news stories on me in various newspapers going back to 1978, when I was on the front page of the Queens Edition of Newsday for having blown the whistle on a Koch Administration coverup of budget cut-caused patient deaths at City operated Queens Hospital Center, a story that was also, albeit less thoroughly, covered in other mainstream media. I gave Mr. Wrobleski the facts on Bill and Hillary Clinton's direct involvement in the coverup of the racist Chinese Communist Genocide in Tibet as well as the details of the Clintons' Chinese Communist corporate connections that explain their participation in that coverup. I gave him the details of Mrs. Clinton's anti-tenants rights and generally anti-poor and anti-human rights record. I gave him the names and contact information for a number of prominent leaders (e.g. Rev. Dr. Timothy P. Mitchell, a Martin Luther King friend and associate and Pastor of the Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church in Flushing, Queens, of which I have been a member for years), and a number of elected officials and various activists who could be contacted about me.

I have also advised the Advance of the papework-provable history of threats against me by Hillary Clinton, not to speak of all sort of criminal harassments me by surrogates of mega-fascist political extremists Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. and Lenora Fulani, including the Staten Island-connected multiple offender and demagogue from Queens Geoffrey Blank.

At the end of the interview Mr. Wrobleski became very evasive as to coverage of my campaign. He said he would see how my campaign "develops" and asked me to stay in touch with him by telephone and e-mail.

I did so and I am again reporting that Tom Wrobleski should have his fare to the Olympic Games (no matter where the Games are played) paid by the Advance since he is a favorite for the Olympic gold medal in not responding to calls and e-mails.

The first call I got from Wrobleski occurred in late August, 2005 when my UP FRONT News associate Willard Whittingham received a rather desperate call from Wrobleski regarding the matter of NYC Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum having made a defamatory reference to me in a televised campaign debate. I've been personally acquainted with the apparently increasingly paranoid Gotbaum via a family member of mine since 1979. Ms. Gotbaum is not happy about my status as a very free lance investigative reporter because she has a closetful of political skeletons, some involving her (at least marital) ties to the CIA. And, when it comes to adultery, she may have served as something of a role model for people like Bill Clinton and Vito Fossella.

And so Ms. Gotbaum once tried to have me arrested at her office some years ago when I was there for my scheduled appointment with her Chief of Staff at the time, Scott Coccaro, to discuss staff abuse of homeless people in drop-in centers and shelters. Fortunately the police officer called to bust me, Sgt. Al Fiore, of the NYPD's Intelligence Division, is considerably more psychologically stable and competent than mayoral wannabe Gotbuam and handled the situation appropriately.

Gotbaum made things worse when, as retribution for my decision to support NYC Public Advocate Norman Siegel over her, she contacted Mr. Siegel and complained that I was "stalking" her. Mr. Siegel later brought that to my attention and we had something of a mutual chuckle over that. My response to that Gotbaum delusion has always been the same as I cite one of my favorite country songs by Dwight Yoakum, "I Ain't That Lonely Yet." I've never stalked anyone and, if Gotbaum were the last woman on earth and I was desperate, I would do everything possible to revert to celibacy.

In any event, Gotbaum, in refusing her opponents' insistences that she reveal the contents of her past appointment schedules, claimed that she was being "stalked" by a homeless person. That was clear reference to me since, in part thanks to some of her political friends, I had been homeless and also tacitly acknowledged the fact that I was one of the people in her appointment book since the appointment had been made with her secretary.

On August 26, 2005 NYC Newsday's Dan Janison - then the City Hall reporter and now a major ("Spin Cycle") columnist at Newsday - reported my side of the Gotbaum vs. Weiss story and took care to report the fact of my U.S. Senate candidacy as well as my history as a whistleblower.

That's when Wrobleski, trying to catch up, since he had allowed his newspaper to get scooped by a Long Island/Queens-based paper, called Mr. Whittingham - asking for an "exclusive." Any notion of an "exclusive" was wishful thinking on Wrobleski's part since I had already spoken to Mr. Janison. In any event, Wrobleski interviewed me over the phone - and then esentially blew the story.

Wrobleski's story, appearing with a front page lead on August 27, 2005, was filled with willful errors and was as slanted as some of the stuff that appears about Tibet in the Communist Chinese media.

He misquoted me and printed a defamatory comment about me made by Gotbaum and Hillary Clinton pal State Senator Diane Savino. He had no choice however to report my U.S. Senate candidacy and even mentioned my complaints about Sen. Clinton as regards the Genocide in Tibet.

I complained to the paper and Editor Dean Balsamini promised me that the necessary cor- rections would be printed. He reneged. I spoke to Stevie Lacy-Pendleton - at the time a shill for Mrs. Clinton (I think she is now for Obama). Ms. Lacy-Pendleton suggested that I write a ltter to the editor. I wrote two. When, after the usual non-response, I called an asked her if either or both of them would be printed she said, "No." When I asked why, the silence at the other end of the line was proverbially deafening.

Wrobleski and the Advance hardly felt any better when far more accurate accounts of the Gotbaum vs. Weiss matter appeared in the Daily News (Celeste Katz) and The New York Times (Jonathan Hicks) both on August 27.

Wrobleski then reverted to his Dick Cheney impersonation and stopped communicating entirely. I wrote a campaign article at http://www.tomweissdemocratforussenate.blogspot.com/ which circulated widely that reported censorship and slanted reporting at the Advance and (re)-Christened Wrobleski as "Wrongleski."

I then talked to Balsamini by phone. As we talked he read my article on his computer and complained that I was "trashing" his reporter. I not only agreed with Balsamini but advised him that my reporting along those lines would have to continue as long as Wrobleski censored and/or wrote trash about me.

Not too long after that I got a communication from Wrobleski asking for an interview. The
interview was, at his request, done by phone. (Perhaps he has the same narcisstic anxieties manifested by his insecure political pals Gotbaum and Savino.) His front page story on my campaign appeared in the Advance on August 21, 2006 about 1 1/2 years after I announced my candidacy.

As I've written previously, an easy grader in journalism school would have charitably given Wrobleski a C+. Wrobleski spent most or the article reporting the technicalities of running as a write-in candidate and a miniscule percentage to my very heavy issues with the corrupt and anti-human rights Clinton. He again mentioned my complaints about the Genocide in Tibet.

The Staten Island Advance may well be the only newspaper anywhere to report a genocide and then not follow it up.

Last year Staten Island Advance reporter Tevah Platt did a story on a Jena 6 demonstration organized and led by my pastor Rev. Demetrius Carolina of the Stapleton-based First Central Baptist Church. I sent Ms. Platt an e-mail stating that her coverage of Rev. Carolina was good but advising her of the fact of serious censorship and slanted reporting at her paper and providing some specifics.

To my surprise Ms. Platt sent me an e-mail expressing some difference of opinion with respect to my claim of censorhip and asking me for some more information on my issues. She even wrote that she would not work for a paper that practices censorship. I think that, if Ms. Platt meant what she wrote, she should strongly consider looking for work elsewhere.

I replied to Ms. Platt and, in response to several e-mails, she referred me to a number of Advance editors, all whom whom at Ms. Platt's suggestions I called and sent e-mails to. Not one of them responded.

The only "response" I got came after I called the paper and ended up speaking by phone with editor Marjorie Hack. She asked me for an e-mail to her; I sent it to her. No response. I called again and she responded asking for more information, including references to local angles.
I sent her an e-mail with a wealth of information of a local nature involving Tibet and the NYC Council and even more information regarding major (and possiblly criminal) negligence by my State Assemblyman Matthew Titone, even advisng her that, among others, Rev. Carolina is very knowledgeable about the Titone matter. I never heard from her again.

I did manage to get quoted by Advance reporter Maura Yates in her story a few weeks ago about one of the rather insufferable and inconsiderate Ferry preachers. (I said he was creating a "boatload of atheists.")

A few weeks ago I spoke at some length by telephone with Stefhanie Boyd, the Executive Assistant to Advance owner Donald Newhouse at what was then his office at the Newhouse- owned Newark Star-Ledger. I descrbed the problems at his newspaper in Staten Island.
She asked that I send my e-mail to her since he does not have a direct e-mail address. I did. No response. I few weeks later I spoke by telephone with Ms. Boyd again, this time at Newhouse's new office at Conde Nast in Manhattan and, at her request, sent a second e-mail. No response.

The last time called, Ms. Boyd put me right through to Donald Newhouse. The "conversation" lasted perhaps three minutes. Referring to my quite detailed e-mails, which Ms., Boyd had given to him personally, I made reference to the censorship of the Tibet Genocide and the Titone matters. I also referred to the fact that the paper had covered up the local angle relating to the ties between the Independence Party, the racist Lenora Fulani (often reported on superficially by Wrobleski) and the political extremist Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

Several times Donald Newhouse robotically repeated, "I have very confidence in my staff at the Staten Island Advance."

A few weeks ago, the media knowledgeable public relations professional Frank DeLuca, who has been serving as my Media Consultant on a pro bono basis, suggested, in light of LaRouche's long history of infiltration into the mainstream media (e.g. NBC News), that perhaps Newhouse is (journalistically of course) "in bed with LaRouche." Hmmm.

As far as Tevah Platt is concerned, she is now assigned to community reporting on the North Shore of Staten Island. In that capacity it appears that she is acting as a de facto shill for the developers and their political friends in City Hall, Borough Call, the NYC City Council and Staten Island Community Board 1 in what I have called in UP FRONT News the planned "Soho-ization" of the ethnically diverse St.George, Stapleton (where I live), Tompkinsville and Clifton communities of the North Shore of Staten Island. As far as I am concerned, the announced Downtown Staten Island Plan, which if implemented would displace African-Americans (and me) is racist.

And so, it seems, is the Staten Island Advance.
* * * * * * *

THE PROPOSED ST. GEORGE, STATEN ISLAND COURTHOUSE MEGA-GARAGE IS ENVIRONMENTALLY HOSTILE.

UP FRONT News May 7, 2008
Published by Tom Weiss
Editorial Advisor: Willard Whittingham
"The paper that can't be bought and can't be sold."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UPFRONTNewsdiscussionforum
http://www.tomsupfrontnews.blogspot.com/

THE PROPOSED ST. GEORGE, STATEN ISLAND COURTHOUSE MEGA-GARAGE IS ENVIRONMENTALLY HOSTILE. FAIT ACCOMPLI OR FATE ACCOMPLI? WHO IS "THE COMMUNITY?"

By Tom Weiss

A major part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's at least outwardly environmentally friendly ("green") revitalizing and development program is focused on the North Shore of Staten Island.

Last Monday for the first time I attended a meeting of the Land Use Committee of Staten Island Community Board 1. The major item on the agenda was a presentation by a repre- sentative of the Bloomberg Administration and by an architect of the planned new courthouse project for St. George, the community closest to the ferry terminal. The project will substantially change the character of a neighborhood that is very diverse, economically ethnically. St. George is commercial and residential and contains most of the Island's government buildings. It has some luxury high rises, middle class housing and a drop-in center for homeless people. It has very good mass transit access and simultaneously vehicle-created very bad air.

And it is the air pollution reality that highlights the apparently Bloomberg Administration and Community Board 1-caused irony of creating a "green" project with a garage component that will only make the environmental problem worse. Garages attract motorized vehicles and motorized vehicles cause cancer and are bad for asthmatics and other living beings.

The project includes a plan for a huge garage facility next to the court building. Increasing the irony is the fact tha the project includes space for a bucolic memorial garden for people to sit in the shade of trees and perhaps even meditate. The problem is that if an asthmatic chooses to meditate there he or she might next be medicating in an emergency room.

I raised that question with presenter mayoral representative Scott Sigal at the CB meeting.
In his very cordial response he immediately acknowledged that I had a very good point. He added however that, as far as he was aware, I was the first person to express objection to the size of the garage. He also made a general reference to "community" support for the garage.

I have since communicated in more detail with Alison Silberman, the Construction Coordinator of the Mayor's Office of the Criminal Justice Coordinator. In response to my e-mail to her asking her about the nature of "community" support, she identified several groups such as the Rotary Club, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, and the Brighton Heights Reformed Church as being in support of the project as a whole although she made no reference to the garage in particular.

I spoke by phone also with Mary Bullock, the treasurer of the St. George Civic Association, which has been described as supportive of the garage. Ms. Bullock, while stating that many merchants favor the garage, said that she will take up my concerns with the Civic Association's Land Use Committee.

During my conversations with Ms. Silberman and Ms. Bullock I stated some realities about community outreach. The presenters had mentioned that there had been coverage and related announcements in the Staten Island Advance. My reply to that is that the Staten Island Advance may have something of a mainstream media monopoly here but the fact is that many people (including, as she acknowledged, Ms. Bullock) do not read the Advance. That is entirely understandable since, politically speaking, the Advance is perhaps the most censored and news-slanted daily paper in New York. And the perception of the Advance in Staten Island's African-American community is understandably negative even if (a la the Republican National Convention of 2004) they hire some black reporters and even if they do occasional stories on Rev. Demetrius Carolina, perhaps the most important civil rights leader on the Island, and a man I respect greatly. I happen to be a member of Rev. Carolina's largely African-American First Central Baptist Church in Stapleton, a very short breathing distance from St. George. While I regard the Advance as censored Rev. Carolina's char-acterization of the paper as "controlled" is certainly accurate. But then what would one expect in a newspaper run by a Republicrat clique and owned by a billionaire mogul like Donald Newhouse, a guy who makes New York Post owner Rupert Murdoch appear journalistically libertarian by comparison?

The point here that that coverage and hearing announcements in the Staten Island Advance
are no measure of community outreach. That is certainly true in a community with many African-Americans, (the black population in general having repeatedly been victimized by by environmental racism, e.g. a pollution-spreading recycling plant which George Pataki once tried to dump into East New York that was stopped by a coalition led by community activist and now City Councilman Charles Barron).

My experience with community boards is that they are largely extensions of the political establishment. On the heavily African-American North Shore of Staten Island the Manhattan-run lily-white political establishment consists of City Councilman Michael McMahon
(a close ally of the Slush Fund Queen City Council Speaker Christine Quinn), State Senator Diane Savino and Assemblyman Matthew Titone, a man whom I have described as the worst legislator in what has been labeled "the worst state legislature in the country." (Read more about Titone, not in the Tom Wrobleski/Marjorie Hack-censored Advance, but rather in my newspaper UP FRONT News.)

Although I now live in Stapleton I may be one of the few people around to have lived in all five boroughs of New York City (as well as upstate, in and around Binghamton). I have some familiarity with Community Boards. Manhattan CB1 did little to prevent the tsunami of over- development and gentrification that led to the displacement of thousands of working class loft tenants and small businesses in Tribeca, easily affordable now to the likes of Robert DeNiro.

In recent years I have recurrently attended the meetings of Manhattan CB3 (East Village, Noho, Lower East Side) which I describe as the Ground Zero of the community vs. developer wars. The fact that the the gentrification-related alteration of drug activity in that neighborhood (now cocaine powder rather than crack rocks) may have reduced street crime ignores the fact that working class people are being pushed out as the sterile high rises and luxury hotels give the the neighborhood the feel of corporate districts in White Plains and Long Island. It is also true that CB3 is accused by many surviving residents there of a selective version of outreach and community involvement.

I am not aware that CB1 in Staten Island has done much outreach in my neighborhood. Should that unnecessarily gargantuan garage be built as threatened, I will have to inhale the bad courthouse garage-generated air also. No inhalation without representation!

Ms. Bullock of the St. George Civic Association told me that Staten Islanders have a deep attachment to their vehicles. Well I have an even deeper attachment to my lungs.

The garage needs to be sharply downsized. I can understand the importance of adequate parking for mechants and delivery people. Judges, lawyers, jury members, etc., however, can use public transportation of which there is plenty in St. George, rendered even easier by virtue of the fact that the ferry is free while the toll on the pollution-generating Verrazzano Bridge is exhorbitant.

Downsizing the proposed mega-garage will also save the City money as the construction costs (which translate into profits for another one of our lovely politically connected contractors) will diminish. We can then use the money where it is really needed.

Mr. Sigal, while acknowledging the merits of my point at the CB meeting, suggested that the garage project, not scheduled to start construction for several months, may be a fait
accompli. Fate accompli? That is what in October of 2004 the sports pundits were saying when the New York Yankees had a 3-0 lead in games over the Boston Red Sox in the American League Playoff.
* * * * * * *

TOM ("WRONGLESKI") WROBLESKI, CENSOR/EDITOR AT THE STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE, HAS BEEN LETTING FOSSELLA AND THE POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT OFF FOR YEARS.

UP FRONT News May 19, 2008
Published by Tom Weiss
Editorial Advisor: Willard Whittingham
"The paper that can't be bought and can't be sold."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UPFRONTNewsdiscussionforum
http://www.tomsupfrontnews.blogspot.com/

TOM ("WRONGLESKI") WROBLESKI, CENSOR/EDITOR AT THE STATEN ISLAND
ADVANCE, HAS BEEN LETTING FOSSELLA AND THE POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT
OFF FOR YEARS. HOW WROBLESKI AND "THE STATEN ISLAND RETREAT"
PROTECT ASSEMBLYMAN MATTHEW TITONE, "THE WORST STATE LEGISLATOR IN 'THE WORST STATE LEGISLATURE IN THE COUNTRY." COVERING UP FOR HILLARY
CLINTON AND THE COVERUP OF THE CHINESE COMMUNIST GENOCIDE IN TIBET.
COVERING UP FOR ROBERT MOPRGENTHAU, WAN YUN, GEOFFREY BLANK,
LENORA FULANI AND LYNDON LAROUCHE

By Tom Weiss

Although the the overly insular and heavily politically censored Staten Island Advance has far fewer readers in Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and beyond than UP FRONT News, it remains a paper of record in the so-called "forgotten borough." Indeed, the Swiss Cheese-style, slanted, generally establishment-protecting journalism of people like political editor Tom ("Wrongleski") Wrobleski, editor Marjorie Hack and timid reporters such as Sally Goldenberg and Judy Randall (who think that by not responding to my e-mails, UP FRONT News will disappear) is partly responsible for the fact that the citizenry has been "Fossalla-ized" for decades.

It is noteworthy that Fossella lover Laura Ray's neighbors were quite well aware that this "family values" pal of Big Dick Cheney was a frequent flier at her home but the Staten Island
Advance new nothing. And it would not have come out had the egotistical Fossella not allegedly engaged a life-threatening crime by driving while drunk. (And this is a guy who preaches "homeland security.")

The Staten Island Advance (increasingly widely known as the Staten Island Retreat) has a record of covering up corruption and negligence ranging from Democratic State Assemblyman Matthew Titone ("the worse state legislator in 'the worst state legislature in the country'', to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to Hillary Clinton. Interestingly many Staten Islanders remain unaware that the Advance is one of the media holdings of multibillionare mogul Donald Newhouse, whose views, as regards the First Amendment (as far as I am able to tell from my brief telephone conversation with him a few weeks ago) are presumably not unlike the late Arab hating Meir Kahane's views regarding the Koran.

The Staten Island Advance continues to knowingly suppress conclusive evidence that Mr. Titone is guilty of at the least politically motivated negligence with respect to my efforts to look into the willful mishandling by New York County District Attorney Robert Morgenthau of the prosecution of a defendant named Wan Yun (Docket # 2005 NY 047906) who perpetrated a politically motivated violence assault on me on April 7, 2005. Mr. Titone is fully aware that an unindicted conspirator is a terrorism-linked violent political extremist and multiple offender named Geoffrey Blank. He is also aware of Blank's links to both a so-called Staten Island "peace" group and to the the racist Lenora Fulani and to her political mentor the convicted felon and megalomaniac Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

Mr. Titone has been of no help in addressing major post-operative negligence at Bellevue Hospital Center following a major assault that has left me hearing impaired. Wrobleski is fully aware of the details of Titone's game-playing not only with me but also with the person who may well be my most steady and potent supporter, Rev. Demetrius Carolina Pastor of the First Central Baptist Church, of which I am a member.

Wrobleski and his Advance colleagues are also aware that, because of Titone's seriously neurotic fears about me, it has become necessary for me to accept an offer of constituent assistance from State Assemblywoman Janele Hyer-Spencer on matters involving the bureaucratic nightmare known as the Department of Motor Vehicles and the (still?) drug trafficker hangout otherwise known as the St. George branch of the New York Public Library.

Ms. Hyer-Spencer, apparently to spare Titone from what he complains to me about as "embarassment", to date seems to prefer to keep the specifics of her assistance to me off the written record.

Unlike Fossella, other than Titone's announced status as a gay person, I don't know much about his views or practices as regards monogamy. As an assemblyman his level of integrity is at the Hillary Clinton/Dick Cheney/Eliot Spitzer level. He is a fraud.

Titone's (criminal?) negligence has been referred to the NYC Coordinator of Criminal Justice and to the NYC Department of Investigation. It also explains why, following my long telephone conversation about Titone with Melissa Ryan, the Executive Director of the New York state Commission on Legislative Ethics, I expect to be filing a complaint against Titone.

Tom Wrobleski is the journalist who in 2005 for months suppressed the story of my Democratic write-in candidacy for the U.S. Senate against Republicrat Hillary Clinton, who, along with her recurrently wandering husband (apparently one of Fossella's behavioral role models), is directly involved in the coverup of the Chinese Communist Genocide in Tibet.

It is Tom Wrobleski who allowed his newspaper to get scooped not only by UP FRONT News but also by NYC Newsday, in his belated and error-riddled account of the televised defamation against me by the paranoid NYC Public Advocate, Betsy Gotbaum, with whom via a family member of mine I've been personally acquainted since 1979. Dan Janison of Newsday quite accurately reported my side of the story, as well as the fact of my U.S. Senate candidacy on August 26, 2005. Wrobleski, after desperately contacting my editorial advisor Willard Whittingham asking for an "exclusive", interviewed me by telephone and came up with a front page lead piece in the Advance on August 27 that was slanted, full of errors and would have tested the tolerance of any professor of journalism. Indeed both the Daily News (Celeste Katz) and the New York Times (Jonathan Hicks) published articles on August 27 that were far more objective than Wrobleski's slanted account that even misreported the specifics I had provided him regarding Gotbaum's links to the CIA.

Wrobleski then reverted to his well-established pattern of not responding to my calls and e-mails. And so I wrote an article on my campaign blog accusing Wrobleski of censorship and referring to him as "Wrongleski." That led to an uneasy telephone conversation between myself and Advance editor Dean Balsamini. As we were on the phone, Mr. Balsasmini read my article on his computer. He became upset and said that I was "trashing" his reporter. I agreed and assured him that unless Wrobleski started reporting the news, at least with respect to my campaign against Mrs. Clinton, he could expect more exposure.

Not too long thereafter,Wrobleski contacted me and we did a telephone interview. (Like the insecure Titone, Wrobleski is scared of me.) That resuled in a page one (I guess Balsamini made that decision) story on my campaign that appeared in the Advance on August 21, 2006. Wrobleski spent most of his story describing the technicalities of running as a write-in candidate. He devoted a very few lines to my rather heavy issues against Mrs. Clinton, such as her direct involvement in the coverup of the Genocide in Tibet. Indeed, as he has in his bad piece on August 25, 2005, he mentioned the Tibet Genocide.

All this make Tom Wrobleski and the Staten Island Advance perhaps the only journalist and newspaper anywhere to report a genocide, and then, in order to protect politicians like Hillary Clinton, not to follow up.

I few weeks ago I had an unscheduled meeting with a staffer at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) a New York City-based organization that monitors censorship in the media. They expressed clear interest in what passes for political journalism at the Staten Island Advance.

And as far as Vito Fossella is concerned, he is one of several elected officials in the duopoly that runs Staten Island that, in coordinaton with the vengeful Hillary Clinton (who has made two rather explicit threats against me, one by phone and one via a staff e-mail to my brother in upstate New York) who knowingly left me homeless some years ago when I had been robbed of my hotel rent money and was in urgent need of an expedited Social Security check.

Now that Fossella has joined Eliot Spitzer in the sexual political sauna, Wrobleski, who has let Fossella (and most of the powers that be or powers that were) off easy for decades, is masquerading like some kind of muckraking journalist.

That's comparable to Hillary Clinton's heroism under sniper fire in Bosnia.
* * * * * * *

A TALE OF TWO COMMUNITY BOARDS: MANHATTAN CB 3 AND STATEN ISLAND CB 1.

UP FRONT News May 14, 2008
Published by Tom Weiss
Editorial Advisor: Willard Whittingham
"The paper that can't be bought and can't be sold."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UPFRONTNewsdiscussionforum
http://www.tomsupfrontnews.blogspot.com/

A TALE OF TWO COMMUNITY BOARDS: MANHATTAN CB 3 AND STATEN ISLAND CB 1. FIGHTING ECONOMIC RACISM IN MANHATTAN AND ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM IN STATEN ISLAND. NO INHALATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION!
By Tom Weiss

Although my decision to attend Community Board meetings in two New York City neighborhoods on consecutive evenings was not, at least on a conscious level, an act of political masochism, the experience turned out to be somewhat painful to someone, such as myself, who believes in true small "d" democracy. The reality is that the Community Board system, as currently constituted, is a sham. If the realities at Manhattan Community Board 3 (Lower East Side, East Village, Noho) and Community Board 1 (Staten Island North Shore) are indicative of the system as a whole citywide, it is clear that the Boards are little more than vehicles to legitimize the Mayor Michael Bloomberg/City Council Speaker Christine Quinn agenda of over-development, gentrification, economic displacement and, certainly in the case of Staten Island, environmental racism.

Community Board members are not, as they should be, elected by those whom they are supposed to represent. They are appointed by borough presidents, who, regardless of some sensitivities (e.g. in the case of the Manhattan BP Scott Stringer) to for example tenants rights and the rights of ethnic minorities and poor people, are a part of the real estate industry-dominated political establishment, which certainly includes much (but not all) of the New York City Council, whose members influence Community Board choices. And the ethnically diverse North Shore communiites of Staten Island are in particularly disenfranchised shape because the borough is run by a lily-white bi-partisan duopoly, essentially loyal to what I refer to as the Quinnberg Administration.

The system is undemocratic and self-perpetuating and the fact that a symbolic number of occasional dissidents, e.g. City Council wannabe Debi Rose from Staten Island, get appointed to the Board means little. In the case to be discussed here, when push came to shove, Ms. Rose folded to the powers that (for the time being) be.

As far as I am able to tell (outgoing) Staten Island CB 1 Chairman Sean Sweeney handles the non-Board member public less autocratically than Manhattan CB 3 Chairman David McWater, who is described by one experienced Lower East Side anti-gentrification activist as a "bully."

When I arrived early for the Manhattan CB 3 meeting on May 12 at P.S. 20 on Essex Street there was a large crowd of protesters, mostly from Chinatown, gathered outside, watched closely by several police officers. Many of the protesters attended the meeting to express their intense opposition to the NYC Department of City Planning rezoning proposal, which threatens to displace many low income residents of Chinatown. It seems that the Chinatown people are very aware of the fact that, under a series of real estate developer-friendly mayors of both major parties (and in Bloomberg's case, including the so-called Independence Party, once ruled by the racist Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. ideologue Lenora Fulani) over decades, the LES and the East Village are transforming into neighborhoods for the high rise rich and other condomaniacs.

The confrontation at CB 3 was immediate as McWaters attempted to arbitrarily veto the demand by community activist Wing Lam that there be interpreters (for Chinese and Spanish) to translate the report in English made by the DCP representative there. With hundreds of people shouting in unison, "We are not for sale!", there was a near early walk-out before McWaters (who has a streak of Dick Cheney/Hillary Clinton rigidity in him) relented and volunteer translators were recruited from the audience.

As the DCP guy, using a lot of zoning nomenclature unfamiliar to many in the audience, began talking about potential high rise development in the CB 3 district, the chorus of "We are not for sale!" resumed and most of those at the meeting walked out.

Among those at the meeting were people such as Rona Lu from the broad-based grass roots Coalition to Protect Chinatown. They brought with them what they said were petitions with many signatures opposing the DCP re-zoning plan. Perceiving that the CB was merely participating in a "done deal", they left with their petitions.

Also present was community activist Susan Howard of the Norfolk Street Block Association and an anti-gentrification and anti-bar proliferation veteran - along with (not at the meeting)
musician/activist Rebecca Moore of the Ludlow/Orchard Community Organization, aka LOCO and "Take It to the Bridge." It is apparent that the historically politically separated LES and Chinatown communities are getting together.

I spend much time in Lower Manhattan and am a former loft tenant, having lived in Soho, Noho, and Tribeca, now thoroughly gentrified thanks to developer greed and sellouts by self-appointed fifth column tenant "leaders" such as Mike ("The Knife") McKee and Chuck ("Ol' Loophole") Delaney and their "liberal" politician friends. CB 1 in Manhattan essentially rolled over and let the developers have their way to make Tribeca a neighborhood for the Robert DeNiros of this world.

I've been to a number of Manhattan CB 3 meetings and have seen how people such as Ms. Howard and Ms. Moore, even when they are allowed to exercize their constitutional rights, have been marginalized.

It may however be more difficult to marginalize a politically aroused Chinatown.

On Tuesday May 13 I attended a meeting of Staten Island CB 1 at the All Saints Episcopal Church at 2329 Victory Blvd. in the Willowbrook neighborhood. I recently also attended a meeting of the Board's Land Use Committee, chaired by Christopher Rooney. That meeting, held at the Board's offices at 1 Edgewater Plaza in Clifton, featured a presentation by the Mayor's people of a major project for St. George for the construction of a new courthouse - and a mega-garage for up to 600 hundred cars.

At the Land Use Committee hearing, during the public comment section, I expressed the view that there is absolutely no reason for a garage of that size in an area easily accessed by mass transit, including the ferry, the train, and a plethora of buses. I reminded the people there that garages attract motorized vehicles, that motorized vehicles cause air pollution and that air pollution causes cancer and other diseases.

One of the presenters, Scott Sigal, agreed that I had made a good point but added that the garage proposal had already received what he vaguely referred to as "community" support.
I later learned that among a modest number of groups (representing how many people?)
supporting the garage were the St. George Civic Association and the Ancient Order of Hiber-nians. (I don't know if that is the same group as the Hibernians who organize the Manhattan St. Patrick's Day Parade. If it is, then taking into account the Hibernian's refusal to permit gays to march in their parade, perhaps gay politicians such as the otherwise human rights-hostile Quinn and her pal State Assemblyman Matthew Titone - aka "the worst state legislator in 'the worst state legislature in the country'" - should refuse to park in the garage out of protest.)

Community outreach in Staten Island, as it turns out, is as selective as it is in Lower Man- hattan. Garage defenders suggest that the Staten Island Advance has publicized garage-re- lated meetings. So what? The reality is that the Staten Island Advance (a property of an apparently human rights and First Amendment-hostile billionaire media mogul named Donald Newhouse) is the most politically censored daily paper in New York. It is not widely read in Staten Island's communities of color (except maybe for its supemarket ads which, I must confess, are of Pulitzer Prize quality) and is understandably regarded in very negative terms by much of the African-American community, much of which lives in North Shore, including my neighborhood of Stapleton, within easy breathing distance of the planned garage.

I am a member of the largely African-American First Central Baptist Church in Stapleton.
The Pastor, Rev. Demetrius Carolina, although he lives in New Jersey, spends much of his time at his jobs at the church in Staten Island and as a college teacher in Lower Manhattan.
In his pastorial capacity he could probably write a biblical book to follow Lamentations and
call it "Inhalations." In my brief discussion with him on the garage matter he immediately concurred with my views as regards "environmental racism", which involve the willful concen- tration of pollution-generating facilities in communities of color. Indeed the current issue of the New York Press has a front page article headlined, "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx is Choking", about the devastating health consequences of environmental racism in the
South Bronx.

I got a lot of applause in response to my statement before a very well attended Staten Is-
land CB 1 meeting. On my way to the meeting by coincidence I shared the Bus #62 ride with First Central Baptist Church member Marilyn Averett, who is also a member of the CB. For some reason she was under the impression that the garage had already been built. At the very least Ms. Averett, a St. George resident who seemed most concerned that she would have a parking space, needs to do her CB research. I told her that I think that a much smaller garage should take into account the needs of community residents, merchants and delivery people. The judges, lawyers, politicians (including those appearing as charged offenders) and jury people can take mass transit.

During my perhaps two minute presentation, as I mentioned the relevance of the environ-mental racism aspect, I noticed African-American activist Debi Rose nodding in agreement. When, however, it came to speaking up as Mr. Rooney's Land (Ab)Use Committee was about the railroad through the garage endorsement (sort of like a Land Use committee in Beijing in connection perhaps with the Olympic Games, an enterprise that has led to the displacements of a reported 2 million people, or one in Lhasa relocating Tibetans out of their land), both Ms. Rose and Ms. Averett were silent.

At this point, as far as I am aware, none of the governmental environmental agencies, federal, state, or city, have conducted an impact examination.

The proposed St. George Courthouse garage is an example of environmental racism in the service of the comforts of some judges and high fee lawers. It needs to be significantly downsized.
And the Community Boards need to be democratized.
No inhalation without representation!
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UP FRONT News PUBLISHER TOM WEISS IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME VILLAGE VOICE PHOTO (P)OP

UP FRONT News May 22, 2008
Published by Tom Weiss
Editorial Advisor: Willard Whittingham
"The paper that can't be bought and can't be sold."
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By Tom Weiss

The Village Voice (May 21-27, 2008) has an article about the recent tumultuous meeting of Manhattan Community Board 3, an event covered also in my newspaper, UP FRONT News Indeed, as the Voice photo shows, I was close to the action, which featured a heavy political con-frontation between Chinatown anti-gentrification activist Wing Lam and the rather autocratic Chairman of CB 3, David McWater. Also in the Voice photo is Lower East Side anti-gentrification activist Susan Howard.

The over-development/gentrification agenda of the Michael Bloomberg/Christine Quinn (no matter how parasitically she tries to take credit for saving demolition-threatened St. Brigid's Church on the LES) regime theatens in particular the North Shore of Staten Island's working class communities such as St. George and Stapleton (where I live). Thus far Staten Island CB1 has shown little readiness to protect us from the developers and from the Quinnberg Administration.

As noted, the Voice article with photo appears at the following link. http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0821,border-war-in-chinatown,446668,2.html
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CLAYTON PATTERSON'S CAPTIVATING "CAPTURED": CLASS WARS ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE.

UP FRONT News May 6, 2008
Published by Tom Weiss
Editorial Advisor: Willard Whittingham
"The paper that can't be bought and can't be sold."
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CLAYTON PATTERSON'S CAPTIVATING "CAPTURED": CLASS WARS ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE. BUT GENTRIFICATION ENGINE BOB HOLMAN CAMEO? FROM BAD TO VERSE.

By Tom Weiss

Lower East Side historian/activist/photojournalist Clayton Patterson, whose brutalization by the NYPD police some years ago in and around Tompkins Square Park and at police headquarters is depicted in his documentary "Captured", is a brave guy. Having been myself politically arrested by police departments working for various mayors, as well as by the U.S. Capitol Police in 1993 (on the apparent orders of, at the very least, Bill Clinton's hitman Warren Christopher (who tried to silence me about the Chinese Communist Genocide in Tibet, covered up by Clinton, et. al) I am very sensitized to violations of human rights. While I have been the victim of police excess, I didn't get it as badly as Mr. Patterson did.

"Captured", shown recently to a not quite standing room only audience at Cantor Film Center 200 in Greenwich Village, will be of interest to Lower East Siders and heartland Americans alike. There is plenty of indigenous street scene footage and lots coverage of people hurling themselves into the sweaty moshpit at the late CBGB's while the Bad Brains stretched the definition of "music" well beyond the breaking point.

In 1988 Mayor Ed Koch, one of a series of gentrification engines disguised as mayors who have beleaguered working class communities across at least two millenia, decided to clean up Tompkins Square Park, which had become home to many homeless people. The Mayor remained conveniently unmindful of the fact that at least some of those people were the victims of over-development and gentrification-enhancing policies put into place by him. The mayor, seeking to make New York a place for the rich, offered as a solution concentration camp-emulating shelters and drop-in centers, the latter run by profiteering "non-profits" such as the very politically connected Paternership for the Homeless. Taking into account the
often human rights-hostile conditions in these facilities, many homeless opted for the streets and the parks.

When there was resistance to Koch's effort at clearing Tompkins Square Park of people with nowhere else to go, the NYPD decided to give something of a preview performance of what, about one year later, the Chinese Communists would impose in Tiananmen Square. Mr. Patterson's footage of the bloodletting is in some ways as dramatic as the footage in a documentary titled "Cry of the Snow Lion" of a 1989 uprising by against the Chinese Com- munists by Tibetans in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa and the Chinese suppression of the re- bellion.

Aside from what I thought was too much Bad Brains moshpit footage, my only problem with Captured is the unfortunate decision to give poetry impresario Bob Holman a couple of cameo appearances in which the generally self-aggrandizing Holman presents himself as a voice of anti-gentrification. As I've suggested elsewhere, that is somewhat analagous to having Dick Cheney serve as a commentator on pacifism and/or the rights of quails.

I won't go into my entire personal and political relationship with a fine poet who used to be a friend other than to suggest that from my perspective, the double-talking Holman is a gentri- fication engine and worse, in consideration of some of the stuff that goes on at his hipster magnet known as the Bowery Poetry Club. In truth, the story goes "from bad to verse."

It was Bob Holman who has employed as his sound man an emaciated looking but violent character who called himself "Lucky Dave." Lucky Dave, whose other job at the BPC was as a drug trafficker (as one insider advised me, if you want some coke go to "Lucky Dave"), did not like poets around who happened also to be journalists. That is presumably why, although I had been a frequent guest at the Bowery Poetry Club for years (and Mr. Holman had read at some events I produced elseswhere), Lucky Dave willfully tried to physically injure me at the BPC while I was there one day as a guide for the blind poet Steve Cannon (founder and Executive Director of "A Gathering of the Tribes") during a BPC "Howl" event. Dave willfully stepped on my arm, which was leaning on the fire escape-style stairway that leads from the floor to the elevated sound room. Moments later, with Holman nearby but out of earshot, Dave whispered to me, "This is a threat." He and I had some words and when I walked outside Dave decided to follow me. As was easily visible from my vantage point on the traffic island on the Bowery, a few feet from the club, Dave reached into his left pocket and pulled out a knife. Although he did not unleash the switchblade, he held the knife up for several seconds, smiled, put it back in his pocket and went back inside, maybe to listen to some more poetry and make some more sales.
Holman, who then became inaccessible to me, 86'd me from the premises. He backed that up through one of the thugs, "Kibble" (sp.?), he employed as a bouncer, who would hurl threatening insults at me as I passed by and sent me one e-mail that is not suitable for quoting in a family newspaper. Among the number of employes who quit working for Holman was a woman who told me that she got gotten tired of Kibble's sexual advances and Bob Holman's inaction.

Holman later unofficially lifted the 86 when he allowed me to return if I "behaved." That offer lasted until the evening when, at the invitation of poet belly dancer Evie Ivy, I arrived with her to attend her performance there. Within a few moments, as I was talking with her - and mo-ments after I noted the presence of extremist poet Pistol Pete Dolack, a pal of the violent psychopath and Lyndon LaRouche ideologue Geoffrey Blank (and who once tried to have me arrested at a poetry event) - Holman's bouncers threw me out.

Some years ago, when I was visiting the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, of which Holman was a founder and where he came to some fame as the creator of the phenomenon known as the Poetry Slam, I made the innocent mistake of mentioning his name to respected Nuyorican staffer. I was advised in no uncertain terms never to mention Holman's name on the premises again. The complaints had not only to do with what was described as a pattern of psychologically abusing others there but also his reported walking off with several thousand foundation-donated Nuyorican dollars.

It is apparent that Bob Holman, one of those voices of leftism and populism who lives in a luxury loft in Tribeca that had seen more proletarian pre-gentrification days, has both a "nice" and poet-supporting side but also, when it comes to matters of money and power, a dark side.

As far as the Bowery Poetry Club is concerned, Holman's response to my efforts to resolve our problem was to insist that I could only be there in his presence. "Yes or no", he stridently demanded when we crossed paths at the January 1, 2008 Poetry Marathon at St. Mark's in the Bowery Church. Since he was in fact abdicating responsibility for the behavior of his staff in his absence, I said "no." Most of then time I can't afford his cover charges anyway. As I've suggested elsewhere, presumably at least some of the upscale poetry lovers who pay their way into the Bowery Poetry Club fashion themselves up at the very nearby Varvatos boutique, a part of the gentrification engine recently protested by Lower East Side musician/activist Rebecca Moore and some others from "Take It to the Bridge."

Holman's Bowery Poetry Club has entered into a partnership with "Vox Pop", a Brooklyn-based political coffee house owned by Green Party honcho and publicity stuntman Sander Hicks. Hicks became well-known when he published James Hatfield's "Unfortunate Son", a very unauthorized biography of George W. Bush, which included the accounts of Bush's fondness for cocaine back at Yale. The book became a bestseller but Hatfield wound up dead in a heartland motel. The official story was "suicide." Hicks chronicled the whole thing in a documentary "Horns and Halos" - starring Sander Hicks.

Hicks was for a time the Green Party candidate for governor but, some time after I became an anti-War Democratic write-in candidate for the U.S Senate against Hillary Clinton, Hicks decided to run for the Senate. When I asked him why, he became uncharacteristically silent. The reality is that the Green Party in New York functions essentially as a front organization for the "left/right/left" megalomaniac and convicted felon Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. and his surrogates such as the racist Lenora Fulani. For more information, read UP FRONT News and visit http://larouchewatch.org/ and http://www.dennisking.org/.

Hicks later got dumped as a candidate by the Greens when one of his more outrageous publicity stunts was revealed. Hicks, a promoter of various conspiracy theories also promoted by LaRouche, decided to confront VP Cheney about 9/11. And so Hicks sent $5000 to the Republican National Committee to attend a fundraiser at which Cheney was speaking.
Cheney rather effortlessly blew Hicks off and when the Greens learned about it they got angry and dumped him as their candidate replacing him with the autocratic party boss from Syracuse Howie Hawkins.

Hicks and Holman will no doubt promote cover charge anarchism, peace and socialism with their poetry. These profiteers deserve each other.

During the Q&A after Mr. Patterson's film, I commented on the irony of Bob Holman as a voice against gentrification. Mr. Patterson somewhat uneasily responded by stating that Holman had done some good for the community. Choosing not to mention the problem of drug trafficking and related harassments (others have been vicitimized also) at the Bowery Poetry Club, I replied with a comment about cover charges. Mr. Patterson said something about occasional low cost or free events. Crumbs for the masses.

Bob Holman is an important person in the world of poetry. He is also an important person in the world of money. He is not a voice against gentrification.
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FREE SPEECH SPEAKOUTS RETURN TO UNION SQUARE

UP FRONT News May 23, 2008
Published by Tom Weiss
Editorial Advisor: Willard Whittingham
"The paper that can't be bought and can't be sold."
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FREE SPEECH SPEAKOUTS RETURN TO UNION SQUARE: POLITICAL WHEREABOUTS OF NEO-FASCIST GEOFFREY BLANK A MATTER OF SPECULATION (URANUS? BITBURG? TIKRIT?, LEESBURG, VIRGINIA?)

By Tom Weiss

The Union Square speakouts that for a time were hijacked by the self-appointed but since overthrown "president" of the No Police State Coalition, Geoffrey Blank, have resumed - even as the delusional pseudo-left crypto-fascist Blank continues to claim the presidency of the officer-less NPSC. (We may recall that one of Blank's role models, Saddam Hussein, went to the gallows claiming to be president of Iraq. Justice, presumably somewhat less harsh than what was imposed on Saddam, still awaits the criminal psychopath Blank.)

For the time being, the speakouts, loosely organized by a group including activists Eric Rassi, Roman Shusterman, Jason Kapoor, Richie Degen and myself, are taking place at the 14th Street end of Union Square in Manhattan on Thursdays and Sundays starting at around 5:00 PM and lasting until sundown.

It is encouraging to note that police harassment, while still occasionally occurring, may be a thing of the past. Blank, who terrorized others while preaching "free speech", provoked police responses by making often overheard references to "pigs" and with his Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.-taught tactics of encouraging others to "take an arrest" for him. Things became worse when in 2005 Blank's psyhopathic pal Green Party LaRouche/Fulaniite Paul ("Zool") Zulkowitz, set up what was essentially a not a speakout but rather a speakeasy in Union Square and called it "Camp Casey." On September 19, 2005 peace activist Cindy Sheehan, at Zulkowitz' invitation, came to speak there and the cops from the 13th precinct showed up in force. They let Ms. Sheehan finish her sound system-amplified talk and then busted Zulkowitz, nearly preciptating a riot.

As it turned out, the duplicitous Zulkowitz had lied to everyone and claimed he had a required sound device permit, when in fact he did not and, as I learned the following day from his late "Camp Casey" assistant "Totay", Zulkowitz had no permit and that he had staged his own arrest.
In order to prevent real NYPD harassment (Inspector McEnroy of the 13th precinct, as he once had me arrested, once made it known to me that, unless otherwise directed, he would continue to ignore the protections of the First Amendment) I have brought to the attention of top NYPD "brass" the fact of what is known as "the Saia decision." In 1948 the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case involving a bullhorm-utilizing street preacher from Niagara Falls, N.Y., ruled that a bullhorn is essential to the practice of free speech and that no permit is required for its use.

The problem with Geoffrey Blank was not the the bullhorn but rather another bull-generated product.

Recent speakouts have had a lot of participants including a fellow from Brooklyn named Eric Draitser, who made the very important point often willfully obscured by the totalitarian "left", such as the LaRouche/Fulani-influenced"World Can't Wait" and "9/11 Truth", that the U.S. is not (yet) a fascist country. The totalitarians at World Can't Wait, 9/11 Truth, in power positions in the Green Party, the International Action Cen-ter, ANSWER, et. al. are fond of declaring that we live in a "fascist" country. As Mr. Draitser correctly pointed out, if this nation were fascist, there would be no Union Square speakouts. Indeed, neo-fascism in Union Square ended with the political demise of Geoffrey Blank and his totalitarian clique. That cultlet perhaps still includes free speech enemies and terrorism apologists like Joel ("Stalin") Meyers, Pistol Pete Dolack, the Green Party's Gerald ("Can't") Kann and the Staten Island Sasquatch, missing link impersonator Gary ("Enough") Phaneuf. As far as I am aware, a LaRouche-style pseudo-left dictatorship led by the team of Les Jamieson and Frank Morales still persists at "9/11 Truth" meetings the St. Mark's in-the Bowery Church in Manhattan.

Free speech (which includes profanity-free politics, poetry, music, comedy), has, however, returned to Union Square.
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THE "9/11 TRUTH" BALLOT INITIATIVE IS A PRE-SELECTED FRAUD.

UP FRONT News May 27, 2008
Published by Tom Weiss
Editorial Advisor: Willard Whittingham
"The paper that can't be bought and can't be sold."
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THE "9/11 TRUTH" BALLOT INITIATIVE IS A PRE-SELECTED FRAUD. "9/11 TRUTH" IS A LYNDON LAROUCHE FRONT. LES JAMIESON AND FRANK MORALES ARE LAROUCHE SURROGATES. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LATE DAN WALLACE?

By Tom Weiss

The so-called "9/11 ballot initiative" pushed by Lyndon LaRouche surrogates Les ("Less") Jamieson and "Father" Frank Morales at St. Mark's-in-the-Bowery (aka "Our Lady of La- Rouche") Church, is a fraud. It is fraudulent to call for the creation of a so-called NYC"
"independent" commission, the members of which have already been picked. In fact one of the so-called "Commissioners" is LaRouche surrogate and self-purported 9/11 "expert" Ralph Schoenman. It was Schoenman who, at Jamieson/Morales' invitation, spoke at an April Fool's Day, 2007 meeting of "9/11 Truth" at St. Mark's from which "9/11 Truth" dissenters such as Luke Rudkowski and I, certainly arriving separately, were physically barred by Jamieson and Morales, who in fact called to police to back them up.

As the steadily increasing number of of UP FRONT News readers who no longer depend on rather censored newspapers such as The Villager for their Lower East Side and East Village news are aware, "9/11 Truth" dictators have threatened and harassed people such as myself who have tried to ask questions about the visible and deep laRouche infiltration exemplified by the idealization of "9/11 Truth" guest speakers such as LaRouche veteran Webster Tarpley and the Queens-based violent psychopath Geoffrey Blank.

People are also understandably leery of a church that seems to be connected to a number of premature deaths. UP FRONT News is the first paper to report about the unexpected demise of young Dan Wallace, a former "9/11 Truth" participant who witnessed some of the
harassments against me. A few weeks after Mr. Wallace did a video-interview of me outside St. Mark's (I was as usual barred by Jamieson/Morales) and after Wallace told me of having been harassed by LaRouche-ites, he was found dead in his bed in Queens. The official NYPD story is "drug overdose." His girl friend Sabrina Rivero, who told me that she woke up in bed to find him dead next to her, isn't talking according to reports.

To me this case has a gruesome similarity to that of young Jeremiah Duggan, a one-time LaRouche supporter who got mixed up with LaRouche's "Schiller Institute" (Webster Tarpley's base), became a dissenter and wound up prematurely dead under the wheel of a car in Europe. The German police ruled it a suicide but the London Metropolitan Police rejected that conclusion and declared the Schiller Institute "a political cult with sinister and dangerous connections."

And that is in fact what Jamieson and Morales are running out of St. Mark's Church.

It appears that the Episcopal Church is turning a blind eye to the very, very, very, very dubious history of pseudo-radical preacher Morales, who is described by one well known Lower East Side free lance journalist as the "disorganizer" and by others in the squatter community as an (erstwhile?) hard drug user and trafficker. I have never witnessed any drug activity by Morales but I have certainly been on the receiving end of some of his threats.

Among those participating in this LaRouche-ite "9/11 Truth" ballot initiative campaign is pro- fessional publicity stuntman Sander Hicks of the almost lily-white Green Party. Hicks owns the Vox Pop coffeehouse in Brooklyn, which is now a corporate entity with Bob Holman's contribution to Lower Manhattan drug use and gentrification known as the Bowery Poetry Club. Hicks made a lot of money off a dead man named James Hatfield by publishing Hatfield's very unauthorized biography of George W. Bush entitled "Fortunate Son." Hatfield, a very good journalist with a very checkered past, also died prematurely with the official determination being "suicide." Sander Hicks is also the guy who, after I became a well-known Democratic write-in anti-War candidate for the U.S. Senate against Republicrat Hillary Clinton, became the Green Party's "divide the left" candidate. He ended up getting dumped as a candidate by the Greens after it was revealed that he had donated $5,000 to the Republican National Committee so that he could attend an RNC fundraiser and ask Big Dick Cheney a question about 9/11. Cheney blew him off rather effortlessly. And so Hicks is going into profit-poetry with poet impresario moneyman Bob Holman, who runs an establishment with an (again erstwhile?) "sound man" named "Lucky Dave",who has run a cocaine racket there and once tried to physically injure me at a "Howl" reading there, featuring among others my friend, the blind poet Steve Cannon ("A Gathering of the Tribes"). Lucky Dave then pressed the point by pulling a knife out of his pocket. Holman, who is becoming something of a weapon of crass deception, responded by having his bouncer thugs threaten me and "86'ing" me from the Bowery Poetry Club. Lovely!

As far as the 9/11 matter is concerned. If there is to be an "independent" NYC commission, then it should have its members selected either by a duly elected body (e.g. the NYC Council, a very unlikely prospect) or by the voters of New York City. Not by the likes of the surrogates for a racist and convicted felon like Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

For more on LaRouche read UP FRONT News and get to know investigative journalists such as Dennis King and get to know Vyzygoth's "Beyong the Grassy Knoll" internet talk show - on which I have been a guest on this and other subjects, e.g. the Genocide in Tibet, twice, while the mainstream and "alternative" media coverups continue.

Impeach Les Jamieson and Frank Morales!
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