POLITICAL WARFARE IN STATEN ISLAND. WAGNER COLLEGE (TWICE) HARASSES A JOURNALIST (ME).
UP FRONT News September 6, 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/
POLITICAL WARFARE IN STATEN ISLAND. WAGNER COLLEGE (TWICE)
HARASSES A JOURNALIST (ME). THE SILENCE OF "ARTIST" APRIL (AKA ALEX) HART. IT'S POLITICAL. THE GEOFFREY BLANK (LAROUCHE) AND BETSY GOTBAUM/STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE ANGLES. ROBERT MORGENTHAU, MATTHEW TITONE, DIANE SAVINO, AND MICHAEL McMAHON CONTINUE TO COVER UP.
By Tom Weiss
A couple of years ago as a journalist I attended an "anti-War" event at Wagner College in Staten Island. Among the participants were members of Peace Action of Staten Island (PASI), a small but recurrently visible group that has both sincere peace advocates and some very hotheaded political extremists. Indeed, on November 12, 2005 at a so-called PASI Peace & Justice Festival in Tappen Park, not far from my home in the Stapleton neighborhood of Staten Island, I had a loud confrontation with invited guest speaker Geoffrey Blank, a known criminal and neo-fascist from Queens who promotes the extremist ideologies of people like Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., Lenora Fulani and Saddam Hussein.
The clearly psychopathic Blank is guilty of a number of politically motivated crimes, some of them against me, mostly in connection with his attempted hijacking of Union Square, Manhattan speakouts conducted by a leaderless free speech group called the No Police State Coalition. While Blank was for a time the beneficiary of some puff media attention in The New York Times, The Villager, and WBAI, the full story of his pseudo-left demagoguery and criminality appears in several issues of UP FRONT News. Blank became quite notorious for bellowing about "free speech" through a bullhorn in Union Square and simultaneously threatening those, in particularly me, who dissented from his views, which, couched in "anti-Bush" language, bore a remarkable similarity to the rhetoric of Al Qaeda. Blank in fact is linked to a group calling itself the Freedom Socialist Party that, according to an unrebutted article by Niles Lathem in the New York Post on December 26, 2005, is under international investigation for ties to terrorism in Iraq. Indeed, the FSP spokesperson, a Geoffrey Blank associate named Stephen Durham, is on record in that article is condoning the hostage beheadings perpetrated by the late Musab al Zarqawi.
Geoffrey Blank had been invited to speak at the PASI event by PASI organizer, self-described "anarchist" Mike May. Indeed some months before, when I was a Democratic write-in peace candidate against the militaristic Hillary Clinton for the U.S. Senate, activist college teacher Giovanni Marinelli, no doubt unaware of May's ties to Geoffrey Blank, had introduced me to May at the Staten Island coffeehouse/nightclub then known as The Muddy Cup (now The Cup). Indeed Mr. Marinelli had suggested that I might be a speaker at the event. Mike May's response could fairly be described as cool. May failed to respond to a couple of polite e-mails from me. When I learned of the Blank invitation, I sent May a couple of more e-mails containing some facts about Blank, a racist, sexist, and violent individual whose full list of crimes has not yet been prosecuted. No response.
When I ran into May handing out flyers at the St. George Ferry terminal a few days before the November 12, 2005 event, I politely approached him about my e-mails. May reacted with a sudden and loud outburst of anger and, when he literally leaped in my direction, I pulled back and a policeman nearby came to separate us. I told the cop about Geoffrey Blank and Mike May and got on the ferry while May continued to hand out flyers, almost all of which wound up in ferry trash cans.
I invited No Police State Coalition activist Roman Shusterman, a man very knowledgeable about Geoffrey Blank, to the Staten Island event. When Blank arrived, I unleashed a barrage of expose-style heckling not unlike what Blank had to face from me in Union Square, but only long after he had suppressed my right to speak and criminally harassed me (and sometimes others) on multiple occasions. It soom became apparent, first to me and later to others - including many UP FRONT News readers - that Blank was an ideological stalking horse for the convicted felon, racist and megalomaniac LaRouche. Whenever I would ask Blank about the connection, he would respond with silence and his trademark satanic grin.
Geoffrey Blank's younger brother Jason, however, pretty much let the crypto-fascist cat out of the bag in a conversation some years ago with No Police State activist and bicyclist and photographer Tomas Melchor. In response to Mr. Melchor's inquiry of Jason (who, despite being in his 30's and only a few years younger than Geoffrey, openly functions as his older sibling's indentured servant) as to the UP FRONT News-reported LaRouche/Blank ties, the baby brother replied, "I'd rather not answer that question."
Lyndon LaRouche, now a once again politically hyperactive septuagenarian, has been described by investigative reporter Dennis King as "the most dangerous man in America." LaRouche, who masquerades as an FDR-worshiping Democrat, is an admirer of Hitler and similar personalities but is well disguised - using Mr. King's characterization - as a "nazi without a swastika." LaRouche, who spent seven years in a couple of federal penitentiaries after his conviction for mail and credit card fraud, is notorious for his dramatic ideological shifts from the ultra-left to the ultra-right - and, more recently (as the Bush presidency has imploded), back to the ultra-left. Mr. King's very unauthorized biography of LaRouche, properly titled "The New American Fascism", writes about LaRouche's efforts to ignite a race war in America by collaborating with the KKK and simultaneously with rabidly anti-white elements among the Black Muslims. These days LaRouche has become something of a poster-boy for genocide-perpetrating Communist China and Jihadist Iran.
LaRouche, who is despised by most people aware of him, runs a cult and actively spreads his venom through surrogates, perhaps the most prominent of whom is the African-American racist Lenora Fulani, herself a protege of the racist Jewish cult leader "psychotherapist" "Dr." Fred Newman, creator of the politics-and-sex-with-your-therapist hoax called "social therapy." Lenora Fulani, quite successfully using her rhetorical gifts, has for years presented herself as a populist and black nationalist. At the same time, for years, capitalizing on the widespread dissatisfaction among Americans with both the Democratic and Republican Parties, she has been singing the siren song of "independent" and "third party" politics. As the LaRouche/Newman-created pseudo-left fraud known as the New Alliance Party (NAP) folded (after being exposed first in UP FRONT News and later in the Boston Phoenix, the Village Voice and elsewhere), NAP mouthpiece Fulani tried to politically seduce third party presidential candidate Ross Perot in the 1990's. She made a similar attempt with right winger Pat Buchanan. As they recognized the neo-fascist in their midst and separated from her, she created the Independence Party of New York which, partly due to her propagandistic gifts, became the third largest political party in New York State.
The IPNY's main operative in Staten Island is long time Fulaniite Sara Lyons. (Since I am running for congress and the IPNY has endorsed Carmine Morano for Congress, Lyons, Fulani and LaRouche will be campaign issues.)
Selling herself to the highest bidder, Ms. Fulani endorsed Republican Michael Bloomberg and gave him the Independence Party ballot line in 2001, enabling Bloomberg to squeeze by Democrat Mark Green in a very close election. Fulani did the same thing in 2005, helping Bloomberg defeat Democrat Fernando Ferrer in a less close contest. In return the Bloomberg-controlled Industrial Development Agency awarded Fulani's front organization, The All Stars Project, with major tax breaks. Ms. Fulani does not talk about her political godfather LaRouche in public.
Fulani also operationalized LaRouche's Hitler-conceptualized split-the-left strategy by infiltrating the Green Party, in fact generating and controlling the Ralph Nader presidential candidacies, which have given us eight years of Cheney/Bush. Green Party crypto-fascist operatives using "fifth column" disguise tactics include Gerald Kann (still with Nader), Paul ("Zool") Zulkowitz, a violent thug named George Tatevosyan, Cathy Sadell, Cathy Stewart, et. al. This year LaRouche and subjects have widened their split-the-left efforts as, even while people like the Kann (a Blank associate) have stuck with Nader, the Green Party, seeking to sink Barack Obama while breathing leftist anger at McCain, has endorsed former U.S. Representative Cynthia McKinney for president. And like Nader, although Ms. McKinney did tell me that she has discussed her presidential candidacy with Fulani, she has remained tight-lipped about the LaRouche connection.
And now, back to the peace event at Wagner College. I attended the event as an observer/journalist for awhile, taking care not to interact with the PASI element there. As I was later sitting outside for a break, I was approached by two Wagner security officers and ordered to leave the campus under penalty of arrest. When I asked why, they made a general reference some kind of complaint from someone at the peace event.
I subsequently made a complaint to the president of Wagner and, via an administrator there, was advised that the matter would be investigated. I recall no further communication with Wagner.
In April, 2008 I attended a performance event at the Everything Goes Bookstore Cafe (ETG) in Staten Island. Among the performers was Alex Hart. Ms. Hart also announced that she was a painter and mentioned her upcoming exhibit at Wagner. After the performance, I introduced myself to Ms. Hart as a journalist. She readily invited me to the May 9 opening at the Horrmann Library and wrote down the information for me and, at my request, gave me her e-mail address.
I arrived at Horrmann perhaps a 1/2 hour before the opening. After I identified myself as a journalist there for Ms. Hart's exhibit opening, the library person asked me for a picture ID, which I gave her. After a few moments and after consulting a document on her desk, she ordered me to leave, stating only that my name was on a "list." When I asked her the source of the list, she did not reply, headed for a phone and called security. A few minutes later a short and surly female security guard showed up, angrily ordered me to leave and, as had the librarian, ignored my assurances that I was there on invitation from Ms. Hart. As two other security people arrived on some kind of politically correct mini-vehicle I left. I later called a police officer with the NYPD's Intelligence Division to advise him that I had (again) been criminally harassed at Wagner College.
I subsequently got on touch by telephone with Wagner College President Frank Guarasci and was referred to his Chief of Staff David Martin. It took him awhile to follow up on his promise to reply to the e-mail he requested of me. Some time later in a somewhat apologetic e-mail to me, he made reference to having read an article in 2005 in the Staten Island Advance about my very public dispute with my acquaintance (via a family member of mine) of many years, with the seriously paranoid and CIA-linked NYC Public Advocate Betsy Got-baum. Ms. Gotbaum, a wealthy and ambitous power-seeker (she wants to be mayor), has a closetful of skeletons, some involving the CIA and some involving adultery. (Ms. Gotbaum is reportedly a card-carrying member of the Elliot Spitzer/Vito Fossella/John Edwards/Bill Clinton anti-monogamy society.) Her anxiety about me as a reporter, who sometimes covers events she has been at, led her to once suggest on television that she was being victimized by a "stalker." Since she had once privately made such a defamatory reference to me in a communication to her Public Advocate opponent Norman Siegel, with whom I am quite well politically acquainted, I knew her "stalker" comment referred to me. I went to the papers. In fact on August 26, 2005 NYC Newsday's Dan Janison broke the story and, in so doing, also broke the story of my U.S. Senate candidacy against Hillary Clinton. On August 27, the Daily News (Celeste Katz) and The New York Time (Jonathan Hicks) also published articles accurately reporting my side of the story.
Bringing up the rear was Tom Wrobleski of the Staten Island Advance, who had been willfully suppressing the news of my U.S. Senate candidacy for months. Seeing Newsday's story, Wrobleski hurriedly called me asking for an "exclusive." On August 27, with a front page lead, Wrobleski's story appeared. It was so riddled with willful errors and so pro-Gotbaum-slanted that one attorney said it constituted defamation. His article also contained totally false and defamatory comments about me made by State Senator Diane Savino (D.-S.I.) and by the corrupt and competent political hack Keith Parascandola, then Chief of Staff to Assemblyman John Lavelle and, following Lavelle's death, Assemblyman Matthew Titone. Titone has since earned the UP FRONT News award for the being the worst state legislator in what has been rated as "the worst state legislature in the country." (Gotbaum, in her pathologically secretive way, later telephoned an apology for her "stalker" defamation to my UP FRONT News associate and friend Willard Whittingham.)
It was Wrobleski's article and Savino's and Parascandola's comments that Wagner's David White cited as a reason for the security call. White also made reference to the earlier incident involving the peace event. Mr. White, apparently not wishing to further interfere with my First Amendment rights, suggested that, if and when I wish to return to Wagner, I should contact security.
In order to expedite the clearing up of the harassment against me at Wagner on May 9, I sent Ms. Hart an e-mail advising her of the incident and, since I did not have a written invitation at the time, asking that she send me an e-mail confirming that invitation. Ms. Hart did not reply. I do not know why.
The guy who had introduced Ms. Hart at her performance at Everything Goes was the emcee Mister Mark Davis (he insists upon being addresses as "Mister"), who told me that he and Ms. Hart are good friends. I told him about the incident and he acknowledged that he had heard about it from Ms. Hart, who was "sorry" that it had happened. When I told him that I had not received a reply to my polite e-mail to her, he became visibly somewhat nervous but said he would bring it up with her again. Receiving nothing, I called Mr. Davis who was not responsive during our brief weekday 10:00 AM conversation. In response to my subsequent e-mail to him, he sent me an angry, nervous reply complaining that I had awakened him and asserting that he would not help any more (as if he had already been of help).
I am a write-in candidate for the U.S. Congress in the 13th congressional district, which includes all of Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn. And so, as a candidate, journalist and law-abiding citizen, I expect to visit Wagner and I expect Wagner to end its suspension of my civil rights. For more on my candidacy please visit http://www.tomweissforuscongress.blogspot.com/
And so when I saw Mister Mark Davis at the ETG open mic August 30, I carefully brought up Ms. Hart's non-response. Indeed on August 30 some of Ms. Hart's paintings, under the name April Hart (two names, two personalities?), were on exhibit at ETG. I reminded him that the matter of the Wagner harassment against me is known to law enforcement and that there is therefore the possibility that Ms. Hart could be contacted as part of a criminal investigation. An e-mail from her to me confirming the invitation could considerably simplify matters, certainly for me. Davis rather blithely said that Ms. Hart is "fine" with a contact from law enforcement. I replied that I think that, especially since I went to the lengths of showing up at her exhibit, perhaps to do a review, Ms. Hart would do well to show some consideration toward me and send me an e-mail. At that point Davis got very nervous and said only, "I can't discuss this any more." And I told him I'd wait a few days for an e-mail from Ms. Hart and, in the absence of an e-mail from her, she can expect some honest coverage in UP FRONT News, and perhaps (if the Staten Island Advance and the college paper The Wagnerian, et. al. pick up the story) elsewhere.
Artistic talent and good character are not synonymous. Alex ("April") Hart is covering up something. UP FRONT News has been exposing coverups for decades.
And when it comes to other political crimes against me, at least one very violent one involving Geoffrey Blank and not yet prosecuted, New York County District Attorney Robert Morgenthau and the entire political establishment in Staten Island, including City Councilman Michael McMahon, Diane Savino and Matthew Titone are covering up also.
* * * * * * *
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/
POLITICAL WARFARE IN STATEN ISLAND. WAGNER COLLEGE (TWICE)
HARASSES A JOURNALIST (ME). THE SILENCE OF "ARTIST" APRIL (AKA ALEX) HART. IT'S POLITICAL. THE GEOFFREY BLANK (LAROUCHE) AND BETSY GOTBAUM/STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE ANGLES. ROBERT MORGENTHAU, MATTHEW TITONE, DIANE SAVINO, AND MICHAEL McMAHON CONTINUE TO COVER UP.
By Tom Weiss
A couple of years ago as a journalist I attended an "anti-War" event at Wagner College in Staten Island. Among the participants were members of Peace Action of Staten Island (PASI), a small but recurrently visible group that has both sincere peace advocates and some very hotheaded political extremists. Indeed, on November 12, 2005 at a so-called PASI Peace & Justice Festival in Tappen Park, not far from my home in the Stapleton neighborhood of Staten Island, I had a loud confrontation with invited guest speaker Geoffrey Blank, a known criminal and neo-fascist from Queens who promotes the extremist ideologies of people like Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., Lenora Fulani and Saddam Hussein.
The clearly psychopathic Blank is guilty of a number of politically motivated crimes, some of them against me, mostly in connection with his attempted hijacking of Union Square, Manhattan speakouts conducted by a leaderless free speech group called the No Police State Coalition. While Blank was for a time the beneficiary of some puff media attention in The New York Times, The Villager, and WBAI, the full story of his pseudo-left demagoguery and criminality appears in several issues of UP FRONT News. Blank became quite notorious for bellowing about "free speech" through a bullhorn in Union Square and simultaneously threatening those, in particularly me, who dissented from his views, which, couched in "anti-Bush" language, bore a remarkable similarity to the rhetoric of Al Qaeda. Blank in fact is linked to a group calling itself the Freedom Socialist Party that, according to an unrebutted article by Niles Lathem in the New York Post on December 26, 2005, is under international investigation for ties to terrorism in Iraq. Indeed, the FSP spokesperson, a Geoffrey Blank associate named Stephen Durham, is on record in that article is condoning the hostage beheadings perpetrated by the late Musab al Zarqawi.
Geoffrey Blank had been invited to speak at the PASI event by PASI organizer, self-described "anarchist" Mike May. Indeed some months before, when I was a Democratic write-in peace candidate against the militaristic Hillary Clinton for the U.S. Senate, activist college teacher Giovanni Marinelli, no doubt unaware of May's ties to Geoffrey Blank, had introduced me to May at the Staten Island coffeehouse/nightclub then known as The Muddy Cup (now The Cup). Indeed Mr. Marinelli had suggested that I might be a speaker at the event. Mike May's response could fairly be described as cool. May failed to respond to a couple of polite e-mails from me. When I learned of the Blank invitation, I sent May a couple of more e-mails containing some facts about Blank, a racist, sexist, and violent individual whose full list of crimes has not yet been prosecuted. No response.
When I ran into May handing out flyers at the St. George Ferry terminal a few days before the November 12, 2005 event, I politely approached him about my e-mails. May reacted with a sudden and loud outburst of anger and, when he literally leaped in my direction, I pulled back and a policeman nearby came to separate us. I told the cop about Geoffrey Blank and Mike May and got on the ferry while May continued to hand out flyers, almost all of which wound up in ferry trash cans.
I invited No Police State Coalition activist Roman Shusterman, a man very knowledgeable about Geoffrey Blank, to the Staten Island event. When Blank arrived, I unleashed a barrage of expose-style heckling not unlike what Blank had to face from me in Union Square, but only long after he had suppressed my right to speak and criminally harassed me (and sometimes others) on multiple occasions. It soom became apparent, first to me and later to others - including many UP FRONT News readers - that Blank was an ideological stalking horse for the convicted felon, racist and megalomaniac LaRouche. Whenever I would ask Blank about the connection, he would respond with silence and his trademark satanic grin.
Geoffrey Blank's younger brother Jason, however, pretty much let the crypto-fascist cat out of the bag in a conversation some years ago with No Police State activist and bicyclist and photographer Tomas Melchor. In response to Mr. Melchor's inquiry of Jason (who, despite being in his 30's and only a few years younger than Geoffrey, openly functions as his older sibling's indentured servant) as to the UP FRONT News-reported LaRouche/Blank ties, the baby brother replied, "I'd rather not answer that question."
Lyndon LaRouche, now a once again politically hyperactive septuagenarian, has been described by investigative reporter Dennis King as "the most dangerous man in America." LaRouche, who masquerades as an FDR-worshiping Democrat, is an admirer of Hitler and similar personalities but is well disguised - using Mr. King's characterization - as a "nazi without a swastika." LaRouche, who spent seven years in a couple of federal penitentiaries after his conviction for mail and credit card fraud, is notorious for his dramatic ideological shifts from the ultra-left to the ultra-right - and, more recently (as the Bush presidency has imploded), back to the ultra-left. Mr. King's very unauthorized biography of LaRouche, properly titled "The New American Fascism", writes about LaRouche's efforts to ignite a race war in America by collaborating with the KKK and simultaneously with rabidly anti-white elements among the Black Muslims. These days LaRouche has become something of a poster-boy for genocide-perpetrating Communist China and Jihadist Iran.
LaRouche, who is despised by most people aware of him, runs a cult and actively spreads his venom through surrogates, perhaps the most prominent of whom is the African-American racist Lenora Fulani, herself a protege of the racist Jewish cult leader "psychotherapist" "Dr." Fred Newman, creator of the politics-and-sex-with-your-therapist hoax called "social therapy." Lenora Fulani, quite successfully using her rhetorical gifts, has for years presented herself as a populist and black nationalist. At the same time, for years, capitalizing on the widespread dissatisfaction among Americans with both the Democratic and Republican Parties, she has been singing the siren song of "independent" and "third party" politics. As the LaRouche/Newman-created pseudo-left fraud known as the New Alliance Party (NAP) folded (after being exposed first in UP FRONT News and later in the Boston Phoenix, the Village Voice and elsewhere), NAP mouthpiece Fulani tried to politically seduce third party presidential candidate Ross Perot in the 1990's. She made a similar attempt with right winger Pat Buchanan. As they recognized the neo-fascist in their midst and separated from her, she created the Independence Party of New York which, partly due to her propagandistic gifts, became the third largest political party in New York State.
The IPNY's main operative in Staten Island is long time Fulaniite Sara Lyons. (Since I am running for congress and the IPNY has endorsed Carmine Morano for Congress, Lyons, Fulani and LaRouche will be campaign issues.)
Selling herself to the highest bidder, Ms. Fulani endorsed Republican Michael Bloomberg and gave him the Independence Party ballot line in 2001, enabling Bloomberg to squeeze by Democrat Mark Green in a very close election. Fulani did the same thing in 2005, helping Bloomberg defeat Democrat Fernando Ferrer in a less close contest. In return the Bloomberg-controlled Industrial Development Agency awarded Fulani's front organization, The All Stars Project, with major tax breaks. Ms. Fulani does not talk about her political godfather LaRouche in public.
Fulani also operationalized LaRouche's Hitler-conceptualized split-the-left strategy by infiltrating the Green Party, in fact generating and controlling the Ralph Nader presidential candidacies, which have given us eight years of Cheney/Bush. Green Party crypto-fascist operatives using "fifth column" disguise tactics include Gerald Kann (still with Nader), Paul ("Zool") Zulkowitz, a violent thug named George Tatevosyan, Cathy Sadell, Cathy Stewart, et. al. This year LaRouche and subjects have widened their split-the-left efforts as, even while people like the Kann (a Blank associate) have stuck with Nader, the Green Party, seeking to sink Barack Obama while breathing leftist anger at McCain, has endorsed former U.S. Representative Cynthia McKinney for president. And like Nader, although Ms. McKinney did tell me that she has discussed her presidential candidacy with Fulani, she has remained tight-lipped about the LaRouche connection.
And now, back to the peace event at Wagner College. I attended the event as an observer/journalist for awhile, taking care not to interact with the PASI element there. As I was later sitting outside for a break, I was approached by two Wagner security officers and ordered to leave the campus under penalty of arrest. When I asked why, they made a general reference some kind of complaint from someone at the peace event.
I subsequently made a complaint to the president of Wagner and, via an administrator there, was advised that the matter would be investigated. I recall no further communication with Wagner.
In April, 2008 I attended a performance event at the Everything Goes Bookstore Cafe (ETG) in Staten Island. Among the performers was Alex Hart. Ms. Hart also announced that she was a painter and mentioned her upcoming exhibit at Wagner. After the performance, I introduced myself to Ms. Hart as a journalist. She readily invited me to the May 9 opening at the Horrmann Library and wrote down the information for me and, at my request, gave me her e-mail address.
I arrived at Horrmann perhaps a 1/2 hour before the opening. After I identified myself as a journalist there for Ms. Hart's exhibit opening, the library person asked me for a picture ID, which I gave her. After a few moments and after consulting a document on her desk, she ordered me to leave, stating only that my name was on a "list." When I asked her the source of the list, she did not reply, headed for a phone and called security. A few minutes later a short and surly female security guard showed up, angrily ordered me to leave and, as had the librarian, ignored my assurances that I was there on invitation from Ms. Hart. As two other security people arrived on some kind of politically correct mini-vehicle I left. I later called a police officer with the NYPD's Intelligence Division to advise him that I had (again) been criminally harassed at Wagner College.
I subsequently got on touch by telephone with Wagner College President Frank Guarasci and was referred to his Chief of Staff David Martin. It took him awhile to follow up on his promise to reply to the e-mail he requested of me. Some time later in a somewhat apologetic e-mail to me, he made reference to having read an article in 2005 in the Staten Island Advance about my very public dispute with my acquaintance (via a family member of mine) of many years, with the seriously paranoid and CIA-linked NYC Public Advocate Betsy Got-baum. Ms. Gotbaum, a wealthy and ambitous power-seeker (she wants to be mayor), has a closetful of skeletons, some involving the CIA and some involving adultery. (Ms. Gotbaum is reportedly a card-carrying member of the Elliot Spitzer/Vito Fossella/John Edwards/Bill Clinton anti-monogamy society.) Her anxiety about me as a reporter, who sometimes covers events she has been at, led her to once suggest on television that she was being victimized by a "stalker." Since she had once privately made such a defamatory reference to me in a communication to her Public Advocate opponent Norman Siegel, with whom I am quite well politically acquainted, I knew her "stalker" comment referred to me. I went to the papers. In fact on August 26, 2005 NYC Newsday's Dan Janison broke the story and, in so doing, also broke the story of my U.S. Senate candidacy against Hillary Clinton. On August 27, the Daily News (Celeste Katz) and The New York Time (Jonathan Hicks) also published articles accurately reporting my side of the story.
Bringing up the rear was Tom Wrobleski of the Staten Island Advance, who had been willfully suppressing the news of my U.S. Senate candidacy for months. Seeing Newsday's story, Wrobleski hurriedly called me asking for an "exclusive." On August 27, with a front page lead, Wrobleski's story appeared. It was so riddled with willful errors and so pro-Gotbaum-slanted that one attorney said it constituted defamation. His article also contained totally false and defamatory comments about me made by State Senator Diane Savino (D.-S.I.) and by the corrupt and competent political hack Keith Parascandola, then Chief of Staff to Assemblyman John Lavelle and, following Lavelle's death, Assemblyman Matthew Titone. Titone has since earned the UP FRONT News award for the being the worst state legislator in what has been rated as "the worst state legislature in the country." (Gotbaum, in her pathologically secretive way, later telephoned an apology for her "stalker" defamation to my UP FRONT News associate and friend Willard Whittingham.)
It was Wrobleski's article and Savino's and Parascandola's comments that Wagner's David White cited as a reason for the security call. White also made reference to the earlier incident involving the peace event. Mr. White, apparently not wishing to further interfere with my First Amendment rights, suggested that, if and when I wish to return to Wagner, I should contact security.
In order to expedite the clearing up of the harassment against me at Wagner on May 9, I sent Ms. Hart an e-mail advising her of the incident and, since I did not have a written invitation at the time, asking that she send me an e-mail confirming that invitation. Ms. Hart did not reply. I do not know why.
The guy who had introduced Ms. Hart at her performance at Everything Goes was the emcee Mister Mark Davis (he insists upon being addresses as "Mister"), who told me that he and Ms. Hart are good friends. I told him about the incident and he acknowledged that he had heard about it from Ms. Hart, who was "sorry" that it had happened. When I told him that I had not received a reply to my polite e-mail to her, he became visibly somewhat nervous but said he would bring it up with her again. Receiving nothing, I called Mr. Davis who was not responsive during our brief weekday 10:00 AM conversation. In response to my subsequent e-mail to him, he sent me an angry, nervous reply complaining that I had awakened him and asserting that he would not help any more (as if he had already been of help).
I am a write-in candidate for the U.S. Congress in the 13th congressional district, which includes all of Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn. And so, as a candidate, journalist and law-abiding citizen, I expect to visit Wagner and I expect Wagner to end its suspension of my civil rights. For more on my candidacy please visit http://www.tomweissforuscongress.blogspot.com/
And so when I saw Mister Mark Davis at the ETG open mic August 30, I carefully brought up Ms. Hart's non-response. Indeed on August 30 some of Ms. Hart's paintings, under the name April Hart (two names, two personalities?), were on exhibit at ETG. I reminded him that the matter of the Wagner harassment against me is known to law enforcement and that there is therefore the possibility that Ms. Hart could be contacted as part of a criminal investigation. An e-mail from her to me confirming the invitation could considerably simplify matters, certainly for me. Davis rather blithely said that Ms. Hart is "fine" with a contact from law enforcement. I replied that I think that, especially since I went to the lengths of showing up at her exhibit, perhaps to do a review, Ms. Hart would do well to show some consideration toward me and send me an e-mail. At that point Davis got very nervous and said only, "I can't discuss this any more." And I told him I'd wait a few days for an e-mail from Ms. Hart and, in the absence of an e-mail from her, she can expect some honest coverage in UP FRONT News, and perhaps (if the Staten Island Advance and the college paper The Wagnerian, et. al. pick up the story) elsewhere.
Artistic talent and good character are not synonymous. Alex ("April") Hart is covering up something. UP FRONT News has been exposing coverups for decades.
And when it comes to other political crimes against me, at least one very violent one involving Geoffrey Blank and not yet prosecuted, New York County District Attorney Robert Morgenthau and the entire political establishment in Staten Island, including City Councilman Michael McMahon, Diane Savino and Matthew Titone are covering up also.
* * * * * * *
posted by Tom Weiss at 1:50 PM
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