Thursday, June 26, 2008

UNION SQUARE SPEAKOUTS. THE LAROUCHE-ITES ARE BACK.DR. HECKLE (ME) AND MR. HIDE (JOEL MEYERS) KUCINICH-ITE "KIM" LOSES IT. IT'S GEOFFREY BLANK IN DRAG

UP FRONT News June 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 bi-weekly (Thursdays and Sundays, starting at 5:00 PM) speakouts in Union Square, at least somewhat liberated from the toxic direct presence of the terrorism-friendly neo-fascist Lyndon LaRouche-ite psychopath Geoffrey Blank, are drawing steadily increasing numbers of observers and participants.

Organized in small "d" democratic, First Amendment-friendly, fashion by a loosely knit group including Eric Rassi, Roman Shusterman, Richie Degen, and myself, there have been open discussions on a range of issues, including the presidential election of 2008, the NYC election of 2009, 9/11, tenants rights, civil liberties, the LaRouche infiltration of the left (e.g. the Green Party, the Nader campaigns, "9/11 Truth", the speakouts), gentrification, capitalism, communism, fascism, Zionism, Palestinian rights, and other subjects.

The "rules" are minimal. Participants are given the use of the bullhorn (the permit-free use of which is granted under the U.S. Supreme Court's Saia Decision in 1948) for up to seven minutes at a time and are asked not to use profanity, racial or ethnic slurs, or personal insults.

Following the speakouts those interested have been meeting informally at nearby Toastie's to discuss continuing plans. Subjects discussed at the meetings have included taking on a name (e.g. Free Speech Coalition), fund raising, social events, political organizing, etc.

The events have not been without some controversy. For example, more than a few people who experienced the Geoffrey Blank dictatorship were surprised to find Blank's most persistent flunkie, Joel Meyers, show up in recent weeks. I have compared the idea of Meyers par- ticipating in a free speech event to Adolf Hitler's presence at a bar mitzvah. Meyers was one of those who quite openly backed up the fascist Blank's threats against me back in the days when the several times criminally convicted (former?) lifeguard from Rockaway Park, Queens
tried to convert Union Square into the central square in Nuremberg, Germany. The cowardly Meyers, the only organism I know of who openly defended convicted 9/11 terrorist Zachariah Moussaoui, was fond of playing Josef Goebbels to Blank's Hitler and to denounce me as a "government agent."

Joel Meyers, whose mustache looks as if he had literally plucked it off the corpse of his role model Joseph Stalin, showed up a couple of weeks ago and, facing some First Amendment- protected heckling from me, claimed that I had "provoked" him into libeling me as a "govern- ment agent." In fact Hitler had always found the Jews to be as provocative as the partly Jewish Francisco Franco had found leftists to be.

Meyers, who appears to be at least 11 months pregnant (twins?), showed up again on June 22. Roman made it known to me that Meyers was interested in speaking, a development that, at best, would induce boredom among listeners and presumably enable observers to catch up on their sleep. Stalinism, even camouflaged as "anti-Bush" or "anti-War" rhetoric, is at best boring. Under any circumstances, Hitler (and maybe even Hitler wannabe Blank) was a much better speaker than Meyers. I told Roman that, unlike Meyers and Blank, I live by the First Amendment and that I had no objection to Meyers speaking, although I had every intention of heckling this hypocrite. Meyers changed his mind and tried to hide behind his belly. This is a case of Dr. Heckle (me) and Mr. Hide (Meyers).

No doubt the most divisive presence at the speakouts has been the rather bombastic Hillary Clinton/Evita Peron impersonator "Kim." Kim, an acqaintance of Eric Rassi from Cleveland (the city that has given us "left" LaRouche mouthpiece U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich),
gets to the bullhorn and inevitably gives a speech that has now become predictable. Like Mr. Kucinich (whose presidential candidacy vote totals are not much better than perennial candi-date LaRouche), she calls for the impeachment of George W. Bush. And then she goes into ritual denunciations of the Council on Foreign Relations, Henry Kissinger, and Bush. As soon as she is done, she separates herself, thereby making certain that she will not hear any rebuttals to her dubious wisdom.

My view, openly expressed at the speakouts, is that, while Bush, Cheney, et. al. probably belong in prison, impeachment is a waste of time because there is no way that the U.S.
House of Representatives will vote to impeach (which is nothing more than an indictment) and even less that the U.S. Senate will convicted Bush, thereby removing him from office.
I also remind people that, if a political miracle occurred and Bush were removed from office that would bring (Big Dick) Cheney into the White House perfectly legally - and also set up the frightening possibility of Cheney as president for two more terms (since he would not be bound as president to the term limits that force Bush out as of January 20, 2009). It is also a fact that, if there were an impeachment trial, the Congress, as was the case during the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky circus, would be monopolized by the impeachment proceedings. That would effectively end any meaningful effort to end the war.

Frank Giallombardo, an acquaintance of mine from Staten Island, and an avowed Ayn Rand-style conservative (who plans on voting for John McCain), has at my invitation, attened several speakouts. He just sent me an e-mail describing his conversation about the impeachment issue with "the crazy left-wing blonde lady." Mr. Giallombardo, who is no fan of George W. Bush, described his conversation about the impeachment issue with Kim. According to Mr. Giallombardo, who by the way has a rather encyclopedic knowledge of in particular the music of The Who, he attempted to suggest to her that my point of view bears consideration. According to him, she responded with insults, suggresting that the entire issue was over his head and then flung a two word profanity at him totally seven letters. He claims she then tried to throw some water from a bottle at him and that she then left. If Frank Giallombardo thinks that Kim is a leftist he is wrong. He is being manipulated in the same way that people perceived the notorious "socialist" Hitler. "Conservatives" denounce the left. Fascists impersonate the left. Hitler, Mussolini, Lyndon LaRouche, Fred Newman, Lenora Fulani, Geoffrey Blank, Frank Morales, Paul Zulkowitz, Gerald Kann, Howie Hawkins, Jonathan Tasini, Charles Lenchner, Pete Dolack and Staten Islander Gary Phaneuf, et. al. are all cases in point.

Every week, as the speakout group makes ready to head to Toastie's, which has a large seating area in the back suitable for both eating and meeting, Kim demands that her friend Eric Rassi eat at a vegetarian Japanese place that has no such seating. Mr. Rassi has made it clear to her, Cleveland loyalites notwithstanding, that he has a meeting to go to and that he prefers Toastie's.
Kim's constitutionally protected demagoguery at the speakouts does not fool me for a minute. One can get the same propaganda on any Lyndon LaRouche website or listerning to someone like the LaRouche-ite clergyman Frank Morales or his cult partner Les Jamieson at "9/11 Truth." Politically speaking Kim is Geoffrey Blank in drag.
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Thursday, June 12, 2008

THE STATEN ISLAND AFRICAN-AMERICAN POLITICAL ASSOCIATION. LOTS OF CAPITAL "D" DEMOCRATS BUT LITTLE SMALL "d" DEMOCRACY.

UP FRONT News June 10, 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 STATEN ISLAND AFRICAN-AMERICAN POLITICAL ASSOCIATION. LOTS OF CAPITAL "D" DEMOCRATS BUT LITTLE SMALL "d" DEMOCRACY. CITY COUNCILMAN MIKE ("MACHINE") McMAHON GETS HIS FACTS WRONG. STATE SENATOR DIANE SAVINO: THE FILIBUSTER QUEEN OF STATEN ISLAND. TENANTS RIGHTS AND GENTRIFICATION ISSUES IGNORED.

By Tom Weiss

Several days before the June 7 legislative breakfast sponsored by the Staten Island African-American Political Association, I called the SIAAPA President Dora Berksteiner to let her know that I was planning to attend and to get some specifics in case others might want to attend. She expressed gratification at my plans to attend. She said although she expected most Staten Island elected officials to attend, as I recall she mentioned only Assemblywoman Janele Hyer-Spencer. (As it turned out Ms. Hyer-Spencer was among those who did not attend.)

I asked Ms. Berksteiner about Q&A. She told me that questions should be submitted beforehand and that they would be read to the politicians for response by the meeting chairperson.

I immediately sent Ms. Berkensteiner an e-mail with two questions. The first asked the politicians as to their views on a proposed mega-garage for the new courthouse to be built in St. George. My view is that a garage of that size in an area that is very well served by public transportation (bus, train, ferry) can only add to air pollution and to the traffic crunch on the Verrazzano Bridge. As far as I am concerned, the garage, essentially built to that size for the comforts of judges and lawyers, is an example of environmental racism. The garage needs to be substantially downsized, no matter what the pro-establishment Staten Island Advance might suggest. My second question asked for their views on the "Urban Design Plan" recently put forth by the Downtown Staten Island Council. As far as I am concerned the plan which covers the communities of St. George, Stapleton, Tompkinsville and Clifton, is a thinly disguised plan to in effect "Soho-ize" these ethnically and economically diverse neighborhoods. In fact the plan contains, among other examples of de facto ethnic cleansing, the totally idiotic idea of expanding Stapleton's Tappen Park eastward along Canal Street toward the Homeport so that the corridor will be nice and "green." It just so happens that I am one of a number or residents living there, along with some small businesses. Indeed, when at a recent meeting of the Staten Island Democratic Association I asked plan promoter Dan Marrotta of the DSIC what would happen to me and the other residents and businesses, he said, "I don't know." Well, Mr. Marrotta, I do know and you can, in my best Brooklynese, "fuhgeddaboudit!"

I got to the meeting in New Brighton before it began. Ms. Berksteiner said she hadn't gotten my e-mail. I immediately gave her one of the many printout copies I had brought with me.
She gave a copy to the chairperson.

As it turned out, while there were plenty of capital "D" Democrats present, the meeting was less than small "d" democratic. As happens recurrently for example at dictatorially controlled meetings of the "left", my question was perhaps the only one (or maybe one of a very few) that didn't get asked because the order of the questions was selected by the chair.

The chair also willfully avoided exercizing her prerogative of enforcing the speaker time limits she announced on several occasions.

That gave the more verbose panelists - e.g. State Senator Diane Savino, City Councilman Michael McMahon (Democratic candidate for congress) and McMahon's Democratic opponent Steven Harrison - a lot more time than allotted. Indeed Diane Savino, one of the more corrupt and negligent politicians around (perhaps still employing as Chief of Staff the sometimes blatantly physically menacing Robert Cataldo), seems to have a Strom Thurmond-like filibustering capacity that enables her to express in several thousand words what more succinct politicians like the quite engaging City Councilman, Republican James Oddo, can express in a few hundred. And so there was no time to get to my question as the chair made several references to the rising nervousness of SIAAPA Vice-President Kelvin Alexander about closing time.

It is also interesting that one challenger (Mr. Harrison) was seated at the front with the elected officials and had tons of speaking time, while several other challengers, e.g. Rev. Tony Baker, a Democrat who is running for the City Counil seat that I am glad to say is finally being vacated by Michael (Machine) McMahon, sat in the audience and got only a few moments of time near the end of the meeting.

As far as the substance of the meeting is concerned, I am glad to report that they are all against evil, sin, traffic, overcrowded schools and child molesters in the living in the neighborhood. They all appear to like trees. Maybe some of those in the front of the room attend houses of worship. In consideration of all the official propriety in the front of the room, it is appropriate to report that such enviable unanimity could not have taken place had "Big" Dick Cheney pal Vito Fossella interrupted whatever other business he may have had in order to attend.

There was at least one blatant untruth uttered by one of the panelists. McMahon had the gall to claim that he has worked with everyone in his district. I have his December, 2006 e-mail to me refusing to assist me on some urgent matters because I had exercized my constitutional right to criticize his political mother superior, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (now wallowing deep in the slush fund scandal, which is in fact only the tip of an iceberg of Quinn corruption and negligence). I had to remind Mr. McMahon of the facts. That got an SIAAPA hothead sitting near me very angry. For some reason the even more constituent-negligent Assemblyman Matthew Titone showed up, late, looking as if he had interrupted a round of golf. Better late than never? As far as I am concerned, in Titone's case, better never than late.

The SIAPPA needs to do something about small "d" democracy and certainly about the manners in public of some of its members.

There were plenty of Democrats there but not enough democrats. No wonder there are so many Republicans and "independents" in Staten Island.

One of those "independents" is a man named Richard Thomas. He states that he is running against Diane Savino as an "independent" - a term with weird connotations in New York because of the long history of Independence Party of New York's (past?) dictatorial rule by the racist Lenora Fulani, a surrogate for the megalomaniac and convicted felon Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., some of whose agents remain in positions of power in Staten Island. I don't know what party the African-American Richard Thomas belongs to but he told me that he plans to run as a Republican.

Over my many years of political experience there has been one (now former) Republican who earned my respect. He is former U.S. Congressman Joe DioGuardi, who represented a district in Westchester and the Bronx for four years during the Reagan years in the 1980's.

Mr. DioGuardi was elected as a conservative Reaganite. At the time I was working at a homeless shelter in Westchester and served as the legislative representative of the Coalition for the Homeless of Westchester (CHOW). To make a long story short, strongly influenced by me, Mr. DioGuardi became one of the strongest advocates for the poor and hungry in the U.S. Congress. He and I became friends.

For his efforts he earned the enmity not only of "liberal" Democrats but also of Reagan Re- publicans. The liberal Democrats tried to unseat him by having Bella Abzug of Greenwich Village carpetbag her way into a residence reportedly in White Plains to run against DioGuardi. Abzug was among the world's most loudmouthed "liberals" and, anticipating Hillary Clinton, certainly among the rudest and most arrogant. Some of my friends got angry at me for giving the UP FRONT News endorsement to Mr. DioGuardi. Abzug, like her political offspring Hillary, was the early heavy favorite but Joe DioGuardi sent Bella packing back to Greenwich Village.

Ultimately since DioGuardi refused to play ball with the reactionary Reagan team, the Re- publicans refused to back him for a third term, picking an early neo-con, Sue Kelly. Mr. DioGuardi, a man with a strong libertarian streak (his hero is Tom Paine), joined the Con- servative Party. Most of his work however is as the president of the Albanian-American Civic League and he has emerged as perhaps the most important spokesperson in this country for the life of Kosovo.

One of the legislative issues that, thanks to the way the meeting was run, was not addressed was tenants rights, "rent-flation" and gentrification. These issues should have priority in Staten Island, especially since the North Shore is now in the crosshairs of the mega-developers and their friends in what I call the Quinnberg Administration. Aggressive developers like Casandra and Massey-Knakal are attempting to gentrify Stapleton and adjacent communities and the acreage at the Homeport has the developers salivating.

As the many readers of UP FRONT News are aware, I have lived in all five boroughs of New York City (as well as upstate, in and near Binghamton) and I have long been involved with the communities in Lower Manhattan where the mega-developers have run wild. I have long been a supporter of independent activists such as the musician Rebecca Moore, the founder of the Ludlow-Orchard Community Organization (LOCO) and an organizer in "Take It To the Bridge", which recently had a surprisingly mainstream media (New York Times, New York Post) covered demonstration opposing the offensively upscale boutique Varvatos that replaced the displaced CBGB's rock club. Ms. Moore and allies on the Lower East Side and in Chinatown have for years been battling in mayoral-controlled Manhattan Community Board 3 to stem the tide of luxurization that has transformed a once somewhat troubled working class community into a still very troubled monarchy for the rich. The same holds true in Tribeca, where I used to live, even before Robert DeNiro moved in as rents and condo purchase prices went through the high-rise roofs.

Staten Island's North Shore is one of the new battlegrounds and, as far as I am concerned, the so-called aforementioned "Urban Design Plan" is something of a declaration of political and econmic war on the poor. I do not see much in the way of resistance at Staten Island's Community Board 1.

One way to keep working class communities viable is for there to be meaningful rent pro- tections devoid of the kinds of loopholes that characterize the euphemism known as "rent stabilization." Rent stabilization is a joke because under the existing system there is no way to clearly check the validity of landlord claims of indigence, which always accompany the landlord lobby's demand for unjustifiable rent increases at the rent stabilization law-created NYC Rent Guidelines Board. New Yorkers are very familiar with the circus atmosphere at RGB hearings, which afford both landlord lobbyists and self-appointed and corrupt tenant "leaders" such as the landlord lobby-colluding Christine Quinn pal Mike ("The Knife") McKee the opportunity to manipulate the public.

What is needed is legislation that would require any landlord or landlady seeking a rent increase for any reason to open his or her books for auditing to prove need. In fact, late in the last millenium such legislation was repeatedly introduced. It was known as the Flynn-Dearie Rent Protection Act. It was introduced by State Senator John Flynn (R.-Yonkers) and State Assemblyman John Dearie (D.-Bx.). The fact that a principal sponsor was a veteran
and "conservative" Republican meant that Flynn-Dearie could have passed. The problem was that it was torpedoed repeatedly by the sinister combination of the landlord lobby working in collusion with fifth columnist McKee, who broke off from the Flynn-Dearie supporting-New York Metropolitan Council on Housing to form the divisive New York State Tenants and Neighbors Coalition (NYSTNC). McKee helped bury Flynn-Dearie before it ever came to the floor of the legislature by claiming that the "open the books" provision was "too cumbersome." And then he would go on and denounce the Republicans, even as a key Republican leader was lining up for tenants rights.

I've asked both Matthew Titone and Diane Savino to look into the possibility of introducing Flynn-Dearie-style legislation. They have said they would get back to me. Sure!

One legislator who is at least on record via an e-mail to me that he is interested in the idea is State Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh, (D.-Manh.) (He may be a little uncomfortable about this like his relatively Democratic machine-independent colleague from Staten Island Assemblywoman Hyer-Spencer because they are among those who, no matter what they may say in public, know how negligent Matthew Titone and Diane Savino are.)

Another legislator who has expressed at least initial interest verbally is State Senator Andrew Lanza (R.-S.I.), who attend the SIAPPA event and who also has the merits of being less tiresomely verbose as Savino. Mr. Lanza's State Senate predecessor, John Marchi, by the way, thanks to my lobbying efforts with him in the 1970's and 1980's, played a key role in the passage of the Loft Law (although the law was critically weakened by the nefarious "tenants rights" combo of Mike McKee and self-appointed loft tenant "leader" Chuck ("Ol' Loophole") Delaney. Mr. Lanza and I do not agree on anti-gun legislation but at least he didn't talk the subject to death Savino-style.

Mr. Lanza and I talked briefly at the meeting and I have been in telephone contact with his district and legislative office, both apparently run much more professionally than has been my experience with the really, really bad Titone and with Savino, where constituents should consider bringing bodyguards with them in case Cataldo loses it again.

Lanza is a "conservative." I hope that he is ready to do what may be necessary to "conserve" the working class communities in Staten Island and to "conserve" the rights of tenants.

In any case, although I am a loyal Democrat, when it comes to ethics there are most certainly higher loyalties. Diane Savino should not get any more smug that she already is.

And she needs to observe time limits. Unfortunately for Staten Islanders on the North Shore there are no term limits (yet) for state legislators.
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GEOFFREY BLANK REDUX? "COMMUNIST" CRYPTO-FASCIST JOEL MEYERS SHOWS UP AT UNION SQUARE SPEAKOUT.

UP FRONT News June 9, 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/

GEOFFREY BLANK REDUX? "COMMUNIST" CRYPTO-FASCIST JOEL MEYERS SHOWS
UP AT UNION SQUARE SPEAKOUT. A SLANDERER ADMITS TO FEELING "PROVOKED." DEFENDS CHINA, NORTH KOREA, AND IRAN. THE STATEN ISLAND AND BINGHAMTON ANGLES

By Tom Weiss

The revived Union Square speakouts, now apparently liberated from the presence of the criminal and neo-fascist demagogue Geoffrey Blank and his 30+ year old baby brother Jason, are attracting steadily increasing numbers of observers and, very importantly, speaker-participants.
Newcomers are presumably unaware that the "No Police State Coalition" speakouts previ- ously taking place in Union Square became little more than a sounding board for Blank, a total pseudo-"left" fraud who spouted "free speech" and threatened others, particularly me, who sought to exercize that right. Blank made things worse by declaring himself "president" of the NPSC, a group that has no officers at all. Indeed, Blank has hoodwinked some in the so-called "alternative" media (e.g. the quite censored in itself WBAI) and the apparently less censored Manhattan Neighborhood Network, to allow him to promote himself as the "president" of the NPSC. Blank's "presidential" style had a remarkable similarity to those of at least two of his role models, Saddam Hussein and Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.

Blank, aside from his direct criminal harassments against me (all reported to the NYPD and law enforcement at all levels of government), was involved as a co-conspirator in an April 7, 2005 politically motivated violent assault upon me by his acquaintance Wan ("Oddjob") Yun.
That assault caused an injury that required over three hours of surgery in the Bellevue Hospital Center emergency room. Bellevue subsequently seriously fouled up my post-operative care.

Indeed, it is apparent that Blank, a man with documented connections to international terrorism, has been handled with kid gloves by the very political and almost obsolete Robert Morgenthau, the New York County District Attorney, whose office willfully mishandled the prosecution of Wan Yun. This is a coverup that now involves at least two members of the New York State legislature, State Assemblyman Matthew Titone (D.-S.I.), State Senator Diane Savino and one member of the NYC Council, Michael McMahon (D.-S.I.).

Geoffrey Blank and his brother have consistently refused to respond to questions from NPSC people about their ties to the convicted felon and Hitler-emulating demagogue LaRouche. LaRouche is a Leesburg, Va.-based Jew-hating white supremacist who for years has been using his racially and otherwise camouflaged surrogates (e.g. the African-American racist Lenora Fulani, the Jewish neo-fascist Paul Zulkowitz, and ethnic and species unidentifiables such as Gerald Kann and Gary Phaneuf) to infiltrate the left, particularly in New York. For more on LaRouche, visit websites connected to the investigative reporter Dennis King.

The LaRouche infiltration has gripped the Green Party (via Zulkowitz, Kann, Sander Hicks, Howie Hawkins, George Tatevosyan, et. al.), "9/11 Truth" (Les Jamieson, Frank Morales, Harvey Newman, Webster Tarpley, Ralph Schoenmann), World Can't Wait (Jamieson, Zulkowitz), the Democratic Party (Jonathan Tasini, Charles Lenchner, Charlene Barker, and perhaps Tracy Denton) and most certainly the fifth column operations known as the Ralph Nader for President and Cindy Sheehan for Congress campaigns.

Geoffrey Blank, even if he has returned to his reportedly native Uranus, remains an important cog in that "left"-spewing neo-fascist semi-underground. Indeed last year he lost almost all his followers in and around New York City - especially after having been heckled by me in Union Square so mercilessly that he ended up making a super-Freudian slip and suggesting that he may have an incestuous relationship with his brother, with whom he used to share his apartment in Rockaway Park, Queens. Geoffrey Blank is known to thousands for what he is, a self-hating Jewish "person", a de facto Jewish nazi or "Jewzi."

Indeed, Blank, desperate for an audience, some years ago reportedly dragged his narcissistic "Defend Geoffrey Blank" banner upstate to Binghamton, where he used to go to
college. (Brooklyn College now has the honor of having a two-bit terrorist in its student body.) I lived in and around Binghamton for years and look forward to some more contacts with the Binghamton University and mainstream media there. Indeed when I ran for the U.S. Senate in 1993, the Gannett-owned Binghamton Press & Sun Bulletin (a far better paper than for example the heavily corporate censored billionaire Donald Newhouse-owned Staten Island Advance) did a good story on my candidacy, accurately reporting on the major Tibet issue, that appeared in the paper on May 25, 1993. Also some years earlier when Mike Gormley, now with the Albany bureau of the Associated Press, worked for the Binghamton paper, he did a very good story on my efforts on behalf of the oft-buried Flynn-Dearie Rent Protection Act, the passage of which would have possibly ended "rent-flation", a major ingredient in gentrification. Also when I ran for the U.S. Senate against Republicrat and serial truth offender Hillary Clinton (who, even with the apparent gender distinction, has a character not unlike Blank as regards her disregard for the truth), I was interviewed as a candidate on a couple of Binghamton University radio talk shows. The June 7 speakout, however, reminded us that, while Geoffrey Blank may be in Uranus or Queens, his toxic inflluence sometimes returns to Union Square.

No doubt the most sycophantic member of Blank's LaRouche-style cult has been the "Communist" Joel ("Stalin") Meyers. Meyers, a living example of the perils of combiniong habitual lying with habitual over-eating, turned up at the Union Square speakout on June 8.
Meyers is a guy who could make the convicted influence peddler-lobbyist Jack Abramoff look honest by comparison. In order to please his neo-fascist overlord Blank the Stalinist/
Maoist/LaRouche emulator Meyers used to threaten me and accuse me in public of being a "government agent."

One of the personality traits of fascists, open or crypto, is that they denounce what they are. It is a version of Adolf Hitler's "Big Lie" strategy.

It was NPSC activist, the sometimes bombastic but very insightful Dennis Griggs, all too familiar with Blank and Meyers, who first suggested that either or both may be government agents. My initial skepticism about that assertion has diminished considerably.

I would be interested in knowing what kind of deal Joel Meyers had to cut with the government authorties while he was in Danbury Federal Penitentiary (after being convicted for refusing military service during Viet Nam, reportedly not as a conscientious objector but perhaps because he didn't want to face his pals in the North Viet Namese military and the Viet Cong on the battlefield) in order to address his reported complaints about ill treatment.

Meyers, who really looks to be in an unusually advanced state of pregnancy (this time he could get out of military service - and perhaps get an interview on Jerry Springer and/or Maury Povich - on health grounds), asked to use the bullhorn at the speakout, something he and his fascist pal Blank consistently refused to permit me to do in the old Union Square "Nuremberg Rally" days.

Although I resisted the urge to try to induce Meyers to physically take the bullhorn from me (he and Blank made similar offers to me back in the days of Manhattan's Third Reich) I did not miss the opportunity to ask Meyers a few questions about "government agents." I also asked him about another one of his role models, the convicted terrorist Zachariah Moussaoui. An NPSC person years ago reported getting at least politically nauseous at a 9/11-related meeting at the Community Church of New York (Unitarian-Universalist) when Meyers got up and said that Moussaoui was wrongly convicted and that he should be exonerated and released.

Meyers, who avoided direct answers to my questions, claimed that I "provoked" him into calling me a "government agent." He also defended three of his favorite governments, China (in fact the world's greatest perpetrator of Genocide, most directly in occupied Tibet), North Korea and Iran. Like Blank, the totalitarian and human rights-hostile Meyers is easily "provoked." Indeed, while he physically resembles a badly out of shape Stalin, when it comes to provokability, he may be the Mike Tyson of "the left."

Like Geoffrey Blank he needs to see a good proctologist and - in his case - maybe a specially trained obstetrician.

For Joel Meyers to turn up at a free speech event is like Hitler showing up at a Bar Mitzvah.
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Saturday, June 07, 2008

DON'T BLAME THE COURT, WHICH CANNOT CLOSE A LEGISLATIVE LOOPHOLE. BLAME THE NEW YORK STATE LEGISLATURE AND MIKE ("THE KNIFE") McKEE

UP FRONT News June 5, 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 (This is a reply to the e-mail below)
The decision of the NYS Court of Appeals in the "owner occupancy" case was inevitable. It is a fact that one of the many Mike McKee-style loopholes in the loophole-riddled euphemism known as rent "stabilization" allows landlords to displace rent "protected" tenants for the purposes of "owner occupancy. Indeed, a lower court made it clear that this loophole can only be closed by an act of the New York State legislature, a body that has properly been rated as "the worst state legislature in the country."

And, with the possible exception of the at least outwardly progressive Assemblywoman Janele Hyer-Spencer, my home borough of Staten Island, with State Assemblyman Matthew Titone and State Senator Diane Savino, may well have the worst legislators of all. The fact is that the ethnically diverse North Shore of Staten Island is run by a Staten Island Advance-protected lily-white autocratic and corrupt Democratic Party machine that gives jobs to negligent drains on taxpayer money such as (former?) Titone Chief of Staff Keith Parascandola and the recurrently abusive and violent Robert Cataldo, the dishonest and seriously anger-management-challenged Chief of Staff for Savino. As one well known African-American Staten Island civil rights leader once said to me about the Hillary Clinton-style populism-spouting Savino, "She only comes around when she wants something." It's a good thing Savino controlled her Hillary-style ambition and decided not to run for the Congress seat being very involuntarily vacated by the local "family values" Lothario and Big Dick Cheney's man in New York Vito ("Cheato") Fossella.

What does all this have to do with tenants rights? Titone and Savino, who in a stretch of the political imagination, "represent" me, are two of the politicians who have promised me to my face that they would look into legislation closing such loopholes and write to me. They lied. These two are so willfully negligent that they are now directly involved in an increasingly high-level coverup of a major miscarriage of justice against me involving a violent neo-fascist named Geoffrey Blank and the corrupt and negligent Office of New York County District Attorney led by the apparently doddering Robert Morgenthau.

The biggest loophole of all, one that was literally put into the rent stabilization laws by the landlord lobby colluding with the likes of self-purported tenants rights leader (and slush fund Queens Christine Quinn pal) Mike ("The Knife") McKee, allows landlords to raise rents (as approved by the owner-biased NYC Rent Guidelines Board) without opening their books to prove need.

That problem could have been eliminated decades ago with the enactment of the oft-intro- duced Flynn-Dearie Rent Protection Act. That bill, which contained the critical "open the books" requirement, was repeatedly introduced in the last millenium by State Asssembly- man John Dearie (D.-Bx.) and State Senator John Flynn (R.-Yonkers). The fact that a sponsor was a high ranking Republican meant that it could have passed. The bill was repeatedly aborted before ever coming to a vote by the combination of the landlord lobby and Mike McKee. McKee pulled out of the Flynn-Dearie-supporting New York Metropolitan Council on Housing to set up his so-called New York State Tenants and Neighbors Coalition (NYSTNC) and declared the "open the books" provision "too cumbersome." In fact Mike McKee (who has refused to discuss his reported ties to the right wing Manhattan Institute) is as responsible for "rent-flation", gentrification and economic displacement as the worst developers.

As many people are aware, the phony fifth columnist McKee tried to give a militant Geoffrey Blank-style speech over a year ago at a rally in support of the 47 East 3rd St tenants, who have in fact been victimized as a result of McKee's toxic influence in Albany and City Hall. As those present, including rally speaker Lower East Side tenant activist Monte Schapiro, recall, McKee (like Blank) had to face some rather withering heckling from me before he pulled his baseball cap ove his shifty eyes and retired to the back of the rally to chat with his colleague (another tenants rights fraud) Julie Miles.

Mr. Schapiro, who has his hands full as a tenant of the rather avaricious Ben Shaoul on East 5th Street in Manhattan, is among those who, along with Rob Hollander (to whom this letter is a reply) started the Union of New York Tenants (UNYTE), as a hopefully New York- wide organizing group necessitated by the reality that a tenants movement "led" by the likes of Mike McKee can only make things worse for renters who are not rich.

As far as I am aware, UNYTE, which has held several public meetings, remains in a state of de facto suspended animation as a result of largely internal organizational problems.
Any time Mr. Schapiro, who has written a solid statement of principles (to which I added some proposed additions), is ready to work with me, I am ready to meet with him at a mutually convenient time and place.

At this point, presumably to McKee's satisfaction (he sent his poorly camouflaged spies
into UNYTE meetings) we remain dis-UNYTE'd.

I am also awaiting the promised followup correspondence from the progressive State Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh (D.-Manh.) who did send me an e-mail in response to mine, expressing interest in perhaps introducing a Flynn-Dearie style bill, which would require land- lords seeking rent increases to open their books and would close the "owner occupancy" loophole.

And also, since given the fact of the loophole, there was no way that the 47 East 3rd Street tenants were going to win in the courts, I think their lawyers should return any monies paid them by the tenants. It's only fair.
* * * * * * *
rob hollander wrote:
Friends and neighbors,The NY State Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that a landlord may evict all the rent-stabilized tenants of a tenement to convert the building into a private mansion. The ruling leaves tenants unprotected and will lead to a decrease in the number of stabilized apartments.
http://gothamist.com/2008/06/04/from_tenement_t.php

QC Alumnus Raises Awareness of Tibet

The Knight News
www.qcknightnews.com
May 8, 2008 Volume 13 Issue 12
Queens College's Official Award-Winning Student Newspaper Since 1937
QC Alumnus Raises Awareness of Tibet
By Herman Araya
Staff Writer

While protesters around the world denounce China'shosting of the 2008 Olympic games, one Queens College alumnus has helped bring a New York City Council resolution into the furor.

Thomas Weiss, 65, a Staten Island resident, who graduated from Queens College in 1965, personally lobbied Councilman Tony Avella, who is a mayoral candidate, to sponsor resolution #1299 before its introduction on March 12.

Besides advocating for this resolution, Weiss also arranged a meeting with the Board of Directors of the U.S. Tibet Committee.

Avella publicly thanked Weiss for "getting me involved" during a rally held on March 10 - the 49th anniversary of a Tibetan uprising. Footage is available in a YouTube video that can be seen at www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXuufkOdB34.

The resolution calls "for the removal of the 2008 Olympic Games from Beijing" and makes reference to"acts of genocide" committed by the Chinese government. More strongly, however, the resolution calls "upon all American businesses and corporations who have their headquarters in New York City or do business in New York City to review their financial dealings with China to ensure compliance with international human rights standards and to withdraw sponsorship or support of the 2008 Olympic Games if they are held in China."

"It was my idea," said Weiss, who believed "going after the Olympic Games" was a very productive way ofraising awareness of the "acts of genocide" in Tibet, as it has been called by the International Commission of Jurists.

Weiss' passion over the issue of Tibet "goes back to my childhood," says Weiss. His mother was friends with Heinrich Harrer, the author of "Seven Years in Tibet." Weiss can recall her reading parts of the book and showing him pictures of the Dalai Lama - things that made him interested in Tibet.

It was when he worked with the New York Association for New Americans (NYANA) that he learned of "an actual genocide situation," he says. "People don't know that it's a genocide," he says.

Weiss ran as a write-in candidate for U.S. Senate in 2006. In a previous article, which discussed his candidacy, he said, "Tibet is the quiet genocide." Weiss once worked as a social worker at Queens Hospital Center.

Weiss is the publisher of UP FRONT News, available online at www.tomsupfrontnews.blogspot.com. He is also a member of the First Central Baptist Church in Staten Island, whose pastor is the Rev. Demetrius Carolina.