Tuesday, November 24, 2015

The "Affordable Housing" Hoax: Staten Island's North Shore


UP FRONT News      November 21, 2015
"The paper that won't be bought and can't be sold."
Published by Tom Weiss
Andrew Mazzone - Media Representative and Economics Advisor
Allen Smith - Economics Reporter
Steven Gradman - Internet Advisor
  The views expressed in UP FRONT News are those of the publisher or of the contributing writer and do not necessarily represent the views of staff.
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  THE "AFFORDABLE HOUSING" HOAX: KEEPING THE LOW INCOME PEOPLE OUT. STATEN ISLAND'S NORTH SHORE BECOMES "NOSHO".
  The fact that so-called "affordable housing" exists in New York City in and of itself implies that the City has "unaffordable" housing. In fact most of the housing in New York City, especially the stuff being built (check the Real Estate Section of the Sunday New York Times) is unaffordable. And the political reality that the profit-obsessed real estate developer lobby controls many "conservative" Republican and "liberal" Democrats  - many of the latter beholden to for example Hillary Clinton, whose relationship to Wall Street bankers and their developer pals domestic and foreign is a matter of record, Mrs. Clinton's opportunistic populist rhetoric notwithstanding - means that, in the absence of some heavy grass roots resistance, it's going to get worse.
   A "developing" gentrification war is taking place in the North Shore neighborhoods of the "forgotten borough" of Staten Island, the home to a mega-development expansion, with its nucleus the now under construction "world's largest ferris wheel" a few feet from the Staten Island Ferry terminal in St. George. While homelessness in Staten Island - and the rest of New York City - continues to spike, the acres of housing being rapidly built along the so-called Bay Street Corridor encompassing the neighborhoods of St. George, Tompkinsville, Stapleton (where I live) and Clifton (where police victim Eric Garner lived) will not reduce homelessness in any way. What it will do is alter the nature of the referenced working class neighborhoods in ways similar to what has happened in the erstwhile "affordable" Lower Manhattan neighborhood now known as TriBeCa, where I lived, a neighborhood now "affordable" to such working class heroes as Billy Crystal, Mariah Carey, Gwyneth Paltrow, Deron Williams, Jay-Z and  Beyonce, et. al.
   A advertisement in a New York City newspaper recently announced  that "applications are now being accepted for 142 rental apartments" at a project "being financed by NYS Homes and Community Renewal (HCR)" at 625 West 57th Street, between 11th and 12th Avenues in Manhattan - only a few blocks from Carnegie Hall and some of the world's most expensive and "unaffordable" skyscraper apartments.
  Fourteen studio apartments at that location are available at a certainly reasonable $565 monthly rent. Here's the catch. The maximum allowable income is $24,200 annually. That means Alex Rodriguez or Hillary Clinton (her complaint about being "broke" notwithstanding), and ex-NYS Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver can't get in. Pity! The minimum income is $19,622 annually. That means that I am one of a lot of low income people who also can't get in.
 Some months ago I had a meeting with some staffers at the office of New York State Assembly member Walter Mosley (D.-Bklyn.). During that meeting I emphasized that there is something unacceptably ironic about "affordable" housing that excludes the poor. They did not disagree. Presumably Governor Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Bill de Blasio, the very adequately "compensated" electeds in the NYS Legislature and the NYC Council - none of whom are presumably on the cusp of homelessness - can rectify this situation.
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Thursday, November 19, 2015

A SALARY INCREASE FOR THE NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL - AND DEBI ROSE? THE POLITICAL THEATRE OF THE ABSURD!


                                                                            UP FRONT News    November 19, 2015
                                                                   "The paper that won't be bought and can't be sold."
Published by Tom Weiss
Andrew Mazzone - Media Representative and Economics Advisor
Allen Smith - Economics Reporter
Steven Gradman - Internet Advisor
 The views expressed in UP FRONT News are those of the publisher or of the contributing writer and do not necessarily represent the views of staff.
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A SALARY INCREASE FOR THE NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL - AND DEBI ROSE? THE POLITICAL THEATRE OF THE ABSURD!
      Some years, when the New York City Council was a de facto colony of then New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, with autocratic control exercised by his close ally Council Speaker, Queen Christine Quinn,  Ms. Quinn surreptitiously introduced a bill backed by Bloomberg to have give salary increases to the City Council and a handful of already excessively "compensated" Bloomberg aides. I found out about the required public hearing via a small article in an inside page of the Daily News by then reporter Frank Lombardi (no connection to "Frank Lombardi" of the motorcycle shop on Bay Street in Stapleton, Staten Island).
 I decided to testify in opposition to what was of course a done deal under the "Quinnberg Dictatorship."
 It was at that hearing that I first met then NYC Council member Tony Avella (D.-Queens), who has since been elected to the New York State Senate.
 Mr. Avella, who was not a member of the Quinn-controlled Council Committee holding the hearing, came to testify as to his opposition to a resolution that correctly depicted as a greedy maneuver grossly inappropriate in the City of the Homeless and the Marginal. The Council, which under Queen Quinn operated not unlike the Spanish Cortes under fascist dictator Francisco Franco in Spain or the Soviet Duma under Stalin, of course passed the bill. As far as I am aware, Mr. Avella refused to accept  the salary increase, which may have reduced his budget for Christmas presents.
   The Daily News and other media recently reported that, as reporter Jennifer Fermino of the News put it, some members of the City Council "have been quietly plotting to raise their salaries from the current $112,500 base to $192,500." And we wonder why anarchism is so appealing to some New Yorkers?
 To her credit unlike Queen Quinn, current NYC Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito (D.-East Harlem) has expressed her opposition to such a ripoff of the public.
  Speaker Viverito is also now in a position of dealing with the Council member who may be among the most dishonest and ethically compromised in an already corruption-tainted New York City Council. Debi Rose (D.-S.I.), whom I made the mistake of supporting when she ran for the Council in 2009, is under the entirely mistaken impression that her job is to help her political friends and to deny services to those, such as me, who are politically independent and actually politically challenge Machine Democrats such as Hillary Clinton, the actually Mob (Chief of Staff Robert Cataldo)-linked New York State Senator Diane Savino and the lamentable Machine puppet Assembly member Matthew ("No Saint") Titone, all of whom are corrupt to the core and, their often populist rhetoric notwithstanding, are directly involved in the "legal" and political coverup of the police lynching of Eric Garner and other human rights matters.
   Some Jews have sometimes accused ex-NYC Council member and now NYS Assembly member Charles Barron (D.-Bklyn.) of being "anti-Semitic." Those Jews, some of whom are much too quiet about anti-Semitism in Staten Island, are wrong. I have disagreed with some if Mr, Barron's statements about Israel and I believe that Mr. Barron is not as strong on international issues as he is on domestic matters. He understands the noxious power of the real estate/banker lobby. Her understands that Hillary Clinton represents that lobby. And when Mr. Barron warned me some years ago that Debi Rose as not as "independent" as she sounds, he showed me that he understands Debi Rose!!!
 When it comes to anti-Semitism in the New York City Council the person to look at is Debi Rose.
 For years Ms. Rose's closest political advisor has been the now indicted ("grand larceny") David Jones, who in his capacity with the grouplet somewhat euphemistically calling itself Peace Action of Staten Island, has become notorious for demonizing Israel and and defending such beacons of peace and democracy as the Holocaust-denying Israel-bashing theocracy in Iran and the sadistic regime in charge in the slave state of North Korea. David Jones is known in the Jewish community in Staten Island as "the Israel basher." He is also known as "Hitler Eyes." Here's why.
   Despite the continued news suppression by New York City's most politically corrupt newspaper, the multibillionaire Donald Newhouse-owned Staten Island Advance, which as been protecting the politically corrupt of both parties in S.I. for decades, a great many readers of UP FRONT News now know that David Jones is a also an attempted Tom Weiss basher, having perpetrated a number of "Hitler Eyes"-blazing explicit threats of violence against me over the years, including one frightening attempted assault on me at a candidates forum several years ago in the parking lot at Rev. Dr. Demetrius S, Carolina's First Central Baptist Church in Stapleton, S.I.
   For years Debi Rose has responded to my requests for constituent assistance with machinations. In 2012 it took a strong letter from Ed Josey, the President of the S.I. branch of the NAACP, sent to her at my request, before she agreed to meet. There were two meetings. The first was taken up by Debi's filibuster, perhaps one of the longest such action since of the the days of U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond. The second meeting, again with Mr. Josey present, wound up with Ms. Rose rudely walking out of the meeting room as I offered her documentation of misconducts against me at several NYC-contracted senior citizens centers and at the NYC Department for the Aging, as she went to her office to call the Chief of New York Council security to threaten me with arrest (which he did), she left me with her staffer, Antonio Whitaker, who used the opportunity to advance menacingly to within a centimeter of my face and, in a Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier pre-Round One face-off, whispered a threat and made non-accidental physical contact with me. Under the law that kind of behavior is known as "criminal harassment." The perps in my complaint to the NYPD are New York City Council member Debi Rose and Antonio Whitaker. I've reported everything to the NYC Department of Investigation.
  Ms. Rose also later collaborated with her pal Queen Quinn to have me "banned" from Council offices at 250 Broadway, as I learned on September 22, 2012 when I arrived there with my invitation from then NYC Council member James Gennaro (D.-Queens) to testify against fracking at a public hearing of his Council Committee on Environmental Protection.
  A few months ago Ms. Rose resumed sending me her emails, including inviting me to attend her "Community Fair" on October 24 in Tappen Park in  Stapleton. I replied with an acceptance of her invitation and in my reply email requested an appointment with her, which would include Rabbi Gerald Sussman of Temple Emanu-el in Port Richmond, S.I. I saw her at the event and told her about my email and that Rabbi Sussman would be present at an appointment. Ms. Rose gave me a Cheshire Cat smile and told me to send an appointment request email to her scheduler Stephanie Layne.
 Ms .Rose and her scheduler, the sometimes polite and sometimes rude Stephanie Layne, have for several weeks had two emails from me and one from Rabbi Sussman. No reply.
   Some years ago during one of my face to face conversations with one of Staten Island's most important African-American religious and civil rights leaders he diplomatically acknowledged that, to use his words, "Debi Rose does not hire the best people." He got that right, a reality substantiated by complaints I've received from others about constituent service refusal and inadequate assistance.
  I've sent all the information - including the evidence of anti-Semitic sentiment on her part - to Speaker Viverito.
 A couple of years ago when then Republican U.S. Congressman started getting into serious trouble, Ms. Rose contacted her pal Tom Wrobleski, arguably one of the worst political reporters in America, and at the time the Political Editor of at the Staten Island Advance, to let him know that she was interested in becoming a member of Congress. That resulted in Wrobleski's banner headline, reporting that Ms. Rose was "mulling" a run for Congress. that trial balloon wound up like the German Hindenburg dirigible in New Jersey. In a recent conversation with me about the 2016 congressional election Rabbi Sussman said without hesitation that Debi Rose has "no chance.": He got that right! 
  In any event a raise for Debi Rose?  Maybe it's time to consider merit-based pay for (s)elected officials in the New York City Council. That could save a lot of money!
  Debi's Rose's term ends - at the latest - on December 31, 2017. "Praise the Lord" for term limits.
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Sunday, November 15, 2015

CHINA VS. TIBET. "COMMUNIST" CHINA IS FASCIST. THE DALAI LAMA'S "MIDDLE WAY" WILL NEVER WORK. IT'S TIME FOR BERNIE SANDERS TO SPEAK UP!


UP FRONT News  November 14, 2015 
"The paper that can't be bought and can't be sold."   
Published by Tom Weiss
Andrew Mazzone - Media Representative and Economics Advisor
Allen Smith - Economics Reporter
Steven Gradman - Internet Advisor 
  The views expressed in UP FRONT News are those of the publisher or opf the contributing writer and do not necessaily represent the views of staff.
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CHINA VS. TIBET. "COMMUNIST" CHINA IS FASCIST. THE DALAI LAMA'S "MIDDLE WAY" WILL NEVER WORK. IT'S TIME FOR BERNIE SANDERS TO SPEAK UP!
     The late Rev. Dr. Timothy P. Mitchell of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Flushing Queens, a close friend an associate of Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. (and a friend of mine) during an interview in 1993 with me for my article for Downtown Magazine (no longer published), describe the Chinese Communist occupation of formerly independent Tibet as "genocide" and an attack on the Tibetans' "faith." Dr. Mitchell was of course 100% correct.
   It is relevant to point out here that Dr. Mitchell remains one of the relatively few African-American leaders to have spoken out about a human rights disaster that is racist to the core, as it involves the oppression of the ethnically, culturally and linguistically distinct relatively dark-complexioned Tibetans by the light complexioned Han Chinese. Other African-Americans who have spoken out include Dr. Cornel West, with whom I am acquainted and who has told me privately and said publicly that he is for self-determination for Tibet. U.S. Congressman John Conyers (D.-Michigan) has been very critical of the totalitarian governnmrt of "Communist" China on the Tibet issue. Rev. Dr. Demetrius S. Carolina, Sr. of the largely African-American First Central Baptist Church in Staten Island, after discussing the issue with me and reading UP FRONT News, in a very well attended sermon several years ago, denounced the Chinese government and later sent me his statement calling for independence for Tibet.
  It is also relevant to identify some African-American "leaders", such as NYC Councilmember Debi Rose (D.-S.I.) and the politically entrenched Rev. Dr. Tony Baker/Rev. Agnes Baker/"Deacon" John McBeth of St. Philips Baptist Church in Staten Island, who have been made fully aware of the Tibet matter by me and who have chosen to remain silent. I do not know if Rev. Al Sharpton, with whom I've been acquainted for some years since he and I were introduced by his close friend Dr. Mitchell, has spoken out on Tibet.
  In the Congress the most vocal person on this issue is U.S. Representative Chris Smith (R.-N.J.), who is the Chair of the Congressional Executive Commission on China (CECC.gov). (One of his constitents is Dr. Carolina.) I have met on several occasions in Washington with CECC Staff Director Paul Protic, who has responded warmly to my proposal for a congressional resolution that would have the U.S. formally acknowlege the nationhood of Tibet and call for the withdrawal of all foreign (i.e. Chinese) military and police personnel from Tibet. The leading U.S. Senator on the CECC is Marco Rubio (R.-Fla.), who may well be the must human rights sensitive Republican candidate for President  - and as such the Republican with the best chance of defeating empress-wannabe Hillary Clinton, should Mrs. Clinton and her pals on Wall Street succeed in purchasing the Democratic Party nomination. I met Sen. Rubio briefly last July 23 in Washington after he spoke eloquently on the subject of Chinese Communist religious oppression of Christians, Muslims and (Tibetan) Buddhists at a CECC public hearing I attended. I've also met on several occasions with Rubio appointee Elyse Anderson, the CECC Deputy Director.
  In New York City the most outspoken elected official is New York State Senator Tony Avella (D.-Queens) who, when he was a member of the New York City Council, at my behest introduced NYC Council Resolution #1299, which called for the removal of the 2008 Olympic Games from China because of the occupation of Tibet. Among the co-sponsors of  Resolution #1299 was then NYC Councilmember Letitia James, who is now NYC Public Advocate. The resolution was killed by the Wall Street/Hillary Clinton ambassador to the New York City Council, then Speaker Christine Quinn.
   On May 21 after a bunch of phone calls and emails from me to U.S. Senator Bernard Sanders, his then Press Secretary Jeff Frank sent me Mr. Sanders's statement, which calls for "self determination for the Tibetan people" and adds that "approximately 150 Tibetans live in Vermont."
   Since then, however, although Mr. Sanders references Tibet on his presidential campaign website, he has remained silent on that issue in his campaign. That is potentially a huge mistake, as Mrs. Clinton's silence on that issue (I know because I ran against her for the U.S. Senate in 2005-06; visit www.tomweissforussenate.blogspot.com) is a reflection of her ties to the (China Lobby) billionaires that Bernie blasts in his campaign. Bernie Sanders's strategy of avoiding criticism of Mrs. Clinton - manifested in his really foolish expressed sympathies for her regarding the email mess she created in her devious obsession with secrecy and lying - is creating the unseemly possibility that he will snatch defeat from the jaws of an upset victory. But, as I've suggested, if Mrs. Clinton becomes the Democratic Party nominee, and the Republicans don't implode by picking Trump/Carson/ Cruz Bush/Paul/
Fiorina/Christie/Huckabee/Pataki or maybe even Napoleon Bonaparte or Pontius Pilate, an articulate and apparent human rights-oriented conservative such as Marco Rubio would probably make Hillary a two time loser.
 The November 12 edition of the NY Times - whose columnist Maureen Dowd requested my UP FRONT News articles and other information on how the China Lobby-linked Bill and Hillary Clinton have covered up the Tibet issue, which I've sent to her but whose assistant Alex Thompson plays hide and seek when it comes to sending emailed acknowledgements - contains a story out of Beijing by reporter Edward Wong under the headline "Party to 'Punish' Followers of Dalai Lama in Tibet." The "Party" is the Chinese Communist Party.The Communist Party Chief in Tibet, Chen Quanguo - the political and administrative equivalent of the Nazi "gauleiter", such as the Reinhard Heydrich, Hitler's guy in occupied
Czechoslovakia - has started a campaign to "seek out" Party members who fake atheism and who secretly "worship" the Dalai Lama. Punishment under the de facto fascist government of China, can lead to imprisonment, torture and death. 
 That is China's answer to the Dalai Lama's "Middle Way" proposal, a response which amounts to the Chinese Communist version of "The F Word."
 The Chinese Communist occuapation of formerly independent Tibet has led to the deaths of an estimated 1.2 million Tibetans. The Chinese Communists have a record of the wide use of the most gruesome tortures, which they inflict on Tibetan monks and nuns and on the followers of Falun Gong (Falun Dafa).
  Rabbi Gerald Sussman of Temple Emanu-el in Staten Island, who has also spoken out about Tibet, in a recent sermon described the super-violentHamas people who want to
 annihilate Israel as "the new Nazis."
  That term certainly applies to the Chinese Communists.
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Friday, November 06, 2015

THE STATEN ISLAND DISTRICT ATTORNEY (S)ELECTION: THE METS LOST BECAUSE OF ERRORS - AND SO DID JOAN ILLUZZI

UP FRONT News   November 5, 2015
"The paper that won't be bought and can't be sold."
Published by Tom Weiss
Andrew Mazzone - Media Representative and Economics Advisor
Steven Gradman - Political Consultant
Allen Smith - Economics Reporter
www.tomsdupfrontnews.blogspot.com  tomfreejournalist@gmail.com  tomsupfrontnews@yahoo.com
  The views expressed in UP FRONT News are those of the publisher or of the the contributing writer and do not necessarily represent the views of staff.
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THE STATEN ISLAND DISTRICT ATTORNEY (S)ELECTION: THE METS LOST BECAUSE OF ERRORS - AND SO DID JOAN ILLUZZI
     Key errors by some extravagantly "compensated" New York Mets contributed in a major way to their loss to the Kansas City Royals in the recent World Series. The analogy with the "contest" for Staten Island District Attorney between Democrats Machine candidate Michael McMahon and Republican Machine candidate Joan Illuzzi, however, goes no further because the Royals were more qualified professionally for the championship than was election winner McMahon for his new job.
    Some UP FRONT News political predictions actually do come to pass. Whereas the Staten Island Advance predicted a close race in the 2014 race for Congress between Democrat Domenic Recchia and Republican Michael Grimm, in the wake of articles in the Daily News and UP FRONT News reporting Recchia's favor to a convicted mobster and his unsatisfactory voting record on human rights issues in the New York City Council, I predicted that Grimm would win easily. It was a near landslide. And when it comes to landslides I predicted that my (Temple Emanu-el, Staten Island) acquaintance, the amiable Democrat Gary Carsel, one of a number of "liberal" Democrats ("The Reticence of the Jews" in UP FRONT News) who have chosen to remain silent about major corruption and Mob (Robert Cataldo/SenatorDiane Savino) influence in the S.I. Democratic Party, would lose the 2014 Senate race to Republican Andrew Lanza (whom I endorsed) by an even greater margin than happened 2012. The results: Lanza 81%, Carsel 19%.
   Several weeks ago I had a friendly meeting with Ms. Illuzzi in her New Dorp campaign headquarters and discussed with her my problems with Mike McMahon and suggested that she consider addressing the Eric Garner killing by publicly calling upon P.O. Daniel Pantaleo, video-witnessed fatally choke holding Eric Garner, to come clean with the public and issue a statement as to what took place that day in Tompkinsvile. Certainly Pantaleo is in a position to comment not onlyy about his reported use of a "seat belt maneuver" to bring down Mr. Garner but also whether Mr. Garner was in fact selling untaxed cigarettes on that occasion. Ms. Illluzzi told me that she'd think about it.
  I filled her in on then NYC Council member Mike McMahon's demonization of the late African-American activist Sonny Carson and also about the very dangerous mobster Robert Cataldo, the Chief of Staff to Senator Savino, Cataldo being identified as a "member of the Sicilian Mob" by a quite prominent and somehat less than "reticent" Jew, Mendy Mirocznik, who is a major official in the S.I. Democratic Party and also the President of the Council of Jewish Organizations of S.I.
  I also suggested that Ms. illuzzi would do well to reach out to the African-American communuity in North Shore neighborhood as Stapleton, Clifton,
Tompkinsville, Port Richmond, Mariners Harbor ,New Brighton, et. al.  I recall a recent conversation I had with Council of Jewish Organizations member Rabbi Gerald Sussman of Temple Emanu-el in Port Richmond - who tends to be more outspoken on, for example, antisemitism and human rights violations overseas than he is about similar problems in Staten Island - and he confessed to me that he didn't even know about Joan Illuzzi. It is also true that Rabbi Sussman understandably has a low regard for the political reporting in what Rev. Dr. Demetrius S. Carolina, Sr. of the largely African-American First Central Baptist Church describes as the "controlled" Staten Island Advance.
 In several emails I sent to Ms. Illuzzi I suggested that her campaigning with Rudy Giuliani would shore up right wing Republican votes she would get anyway but would have the effect of alienating, among others, black voters.
  One of her campaign workers, ex-Mike Grimm staffer Joe Shikhman, assured me that I would get an emailed reply to my suggestions. I didn't. I never vote for a candidate who makes promises and reneges.
  Ms. Illuzzi ignored the Eric Garner killing civil rights issue. She ignored the Mike McMahon vs. Sonny Carson issue, She ignored the Democratic Machine Mob issue. She ignored the identified ethnically diverse North Shore neighborhoods of the 61st Assembly District - and that's where McMahon's Democratic Party Machine pulled the most votes.
  Mets pitcher Matt Harvey over-extended himself in the ninth inning in game five against the Kansas City Royals. Joan illuzzi overextended herself with Rudy Giuliani and under-extended herself in Staten Island's North Shore. They both paid the price.
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Monday, November 02, 2015

HALLOWE'EN (S)ELECTION IN "THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF STATEN ISLAND." MIKE McMAHON "VS" JOAN ILLUZZI: TRICK OR TRICK

UP FRONT News       Hallowe'en, 2015
"The paper that won't be bought and can't be sold."
Published by Tom Weiss
Andrew Mazzone - Media Representative and Economics Advisor
Steven Gradman - Political Consultant
Allen Smith - Economics Reporter
www.tomsupfrontnews.blogspot.com    tomfreejournalist@gmail.com   tomsupfrontnews@yahoo.com
 The views expressed in UP FRONT News are those of the publisher or of the contributing writer and do not necessarily represent the views of staff.
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HALLOWE'EN (S)ELECTION IN "THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF STATEN ISLAND." MIKE McMAHON "VS" JOAN ILLUZZI: TRICK OR TRICK
   The late great investigative journalist I.F. Stone understood politics. He made that clear when he coined the axiom, "Governments lie."
    It is also true that the often overpaid politicians in those governments do not lie all the time. Even Adolf Hitler, the master of what he called "The Big Lie" (which, if repeated often enough, Hitler theorized, will be believed by the masses), included some truths in his rants and writings. A politician who lies  consistently becomes predictable and thereby vulnerable to exposure and ultimately dis-empowerment. Richard ("I am not a crook") Nixon was both paranoid and predictable.
  Among those occasions when competing politicians opportunistically tell the truth is when they accuse the opposition of lying and other sins. During the Hurricane Katrina disaster, major government negligences by Democratic President Bill Clinton and his Republican successor George W. Bush contributed to a major loss of life in New Orleans, with each party correctly blaming the other. Bill Clinton found better things to do with public federal dollars rather than build up the barriers around below sea level N.O., leaving the city vulnerable to a tsunami experience. The Bush Administration's response was hesitating and lots of poor people died.                           
  In the contest for Staten Island District Attorney between the Democratic and Republican Party Machines that, over the years, have given Staten Islanders crooks such as the late Congressman Democrat John ("Abscam") Murphy, Republicans Vito Fossella and Michael Grimm, and currently Diane (Cataldo) Savino, Democrat Mike McMahon and Republican Joan Illuzzi accuse each other of lying. They're both right.
  Mike McMahon's literature emphasizes his "integrity" and "fairness." As far as I am concerned that claim is a lie in itself. As a Democrat McMahon campaigns heavily in the African-American communities mostly in neighborhoods such as Stapleton, Tompkinsville, Port Richmond, et. al. on Staten Island's ethnically diverse and rapidly gentrifying North Shore ("NoSho"). I am quite certain that he mentions not a syllable from his oration when he was a member of the New York City Council denouncing the late and quite confrontational black activist Sonny Carson in connection with a City Council resolution to rename several blocks of a street in Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn after Mr. Carson in acknowledgment of his work in fighting drug traffickers in the neighborhoods and his major involvement in the creation of Medgar Evers College. I attended the Council meeting where the debate and vote took place. From my perspective the issue was one of community self-determination, a position accepted by then NYC Council member, and now NYS Senator Tony Avella (D.-Queens), whom I urged to vote for the resolution, which he did.
  Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his ally, the autocratic Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and Ms. Quinn's very very very close ally Mike McMahon didn't merely oppose the resolution but went to the lengths of demonizing Mr. Carson in a way that would have the uneducated conclude that Carson was a black Adolf Hitler. (The resolution was defeated, albeit by a much closer vote than anticipated given the quite dictatorial power of the Bloomberg/Quinn axis.
  McMahon, a fervent supporter of Hillary Clinton in her unsuccessful battle with Barack Obama for the 2008 Democratic Party nomination, quickly attached himself to Obama's coattails in the general election and got elected to the Congress in 2008.
  When McMahon ran for re-election in 2010 against Republican challenger Mike Grimm, in a talk before a full house at the largely African-American First Central Baptist Church in Stapleton I reminded voters of Mike McMahon vs. Sonny Carson. I went into more detail in an article in UP FRONT News. McMahon was one of the very few incumbents to lose, as he was upset by Grimm in a close election. I very much doubt that (m)any African-Americans voted for Grimm. McMahon, who, as Machine Democrats have done traditionally, expected lots of black votes. I went into more detail in UP FRONT News, a paper understandably read by plenty of African-Americans who pretty much boycott the multi-billionaire Donald Newhouse-owned Staten Island Advance, correctly described by First Central Baptist Church Pastor Rev. Dr. Demetrius S. Carolina, Sr, as a "controlled" newspaper, and by Staten Island African-American political activist Kelvin Alexander as "racist." McMahon did not get the black votes he anticipated and as a result he lost.
   Among the groups that have endorsed Mike McMahon is the Patrolman's Benevolent Association, whose president, the much less than "benevolent" Patrick Lynch, is on record as praising P.O. Daniel ("Chokehold") Pantaleo as a great cop. One of the iconic lines of The Who's political rock 'n' roll anthem about dictatorship urges us, "Don't get fooled again!"
   Some weeks ago I spent about 20 minutes with Republican candidate Joan Illuzzi and her campaign manager ex-Congressman Grimm staffer Nick Iacono at her campaign headquarters in New Dorp and expressed my view that, while the grand jury testimony in the Eric Garner case is remaining secret - at least for the time being - there is nothing to prevent P.O. Pantaleo, who as far as I am aware, lied in claiming that he did not use a choke hold on Eric Garner and instead brought Mr Garner down with a "seat belt maneuver", from releasing his own statement as to what took place that day in Tompkinsville. I'd also like to know if any of the cops there witnessed Mr. Garner selling untaxed cigarettes on that occasion. I suggested to Ms. Illuzzi that she issue a statement calling upon Pantaleo to do release a statement accordingly. She told me that she'd think about it I of course left all the email and telephone contact information for me and for UP FRONT News Media Representative Andrew Mazzone .
  A couple of weeks later, getting no communication from Ms. Illuzzi I dropped in at her campaign HQ again an spent about 15 minutes with campaign worker Joe Shikhman, also a former Grimm staffer. I reviewed the detail of my conversation with Ms. Illuzzi, stating that I hadn't gotten a reply regarding my suggestion. He assured me that I'd get an e-mail. He lied!
 My followup e-mail and call have generated only silence. 
  Ms. Illuzzi is under the illusion that she can get elected by relying on "conservative" votes from the largely white and Republican neighborhoods in Mid-Island and the South Shore. And so she has Rudy Giuliani in the pages of the Advance promoting her. Giuliani beat David Dinkins for the mayoralty in the last millennium with a lot of Republican votes from Staten Island. Ms. Illuzzi does not take into account the passage of time and history. Giuliani gave us a corrupt police commissioner, made some very bad guesses regarding document storage at the World Trade Center and saw his presidential aspirations evaporate.
Rudy Giuliani was popular in Staten Island long before Eric Garner was killed.
  I've spoken to very politically knowledgeable people in North Shore S.I who do not even know who Ms. Illuzzi is. I've spoken to Democrats who will not vote for McMahon and for whom Joan Illuzzi is a political phantom McMahon and his Democratic Party machine are outspending Illuzzi by a large margin. The trash cans at the S.I. Ferry terminals are full of McMahon literature.
 Experienced S.I. political activist Dennis Dellangelo has sent me an e-mail stating his agreement with my assessment that Ms. Illuzzi, who has essentially ignored the black vote, and the North Shore in general, will probably lose.
  In any event it is an indication of the fundamentally corrupt nature of Staten Island politics, buttressed by a corrupt mega-corporate newspaper, also known as "The Staten Island Retreat", that an election for District Attorney is taking place in a borough which is home to what is probably the only police lynching in a northern state in many decades and also home to a (s)elected official, NYS Senator Diane Savino, whose Chief of Staff, Robert Cataldo, is a criminal and, as succinctly stated to me by Democratic Party official and President of the Council of Jewish Organizations of Staten Island Mendy Mirocznik, "Is a member of the Sicilian Mob."
  And from Mike McMahon and Joan Illuzzi nothing but dead silence on the killing of Eric Garner and the political mob in Staten Island.
  This is a good election to boycott.
  Happy Hallowe'en! McMahon "vs." Illuzzi? Trick or trick.
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