John Miller, CBS Correspondent, to Join New York Police Dept. Again
By VIVIAN YEE
After a career spent toggling between television and law enforcement,
Mr. Miller is leaving CBS News to work in counterterrorism, the network
announced on Thursday.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
In Announcing Unfavorable News, Timing Is Everything
By LIZ ROBBINS
The timing of disclosures on Christmas Eve by two New York political
families followed a pattern by newsmakers hoping to minimize unwanted
publicity.
In Final Weeks, a Push to Put Bloomberg’s Stamp on Major Legal Cases
Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press
Michael A. Cardozo, corporation counsel for New York City, has had a busy few weeks.
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr. and BENJAMIN WEISER
New York City’s Law Department has been trying to settle or define its
position on some of its longest-running court battles, with the
corporation counsel, Michael A. Cardozo, fighting on behalf of Mayor
Michael R. Bloomberg’s agenda.
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Stan Brooks, a Familiar Voice on 1010 WINS, Dies at 86
By PAUL VITELLO
Mr. Brooks’s tenure and prolific output on New York’s first all-news
radio station made him one of the most recognized voices on the radio
for more than 40 years.
Monday, December 23, 2013
Scalia Calls "Duck Dynasty" Decision Unconstitutional
Phil Robertson, of the A&E hit reality series 'Duck Dynasty,' has angered the gay rights group GLAAD with comments he made about homosexuals in the January issue of 'GQ.' (photo: A&E)
22 December 13
The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, "The Borowitz Report."
upreme
Court Justice Antonin Scalia lashed out at the cable network A&E
today, calling its decision to suspend Phil Robertson, the star of the
TV series "Duck Dynasty," unconstitutional, and demanding that it be
overturned at once.
Speaking at a press conference with fellow Justice
Clarence Thomas, a visibly angry Scalia told reporters that Robertson
was "exercising his First Amendment right to express an opinion-an
opinion, I might add, that many other great Americans agree with."
He warned that the suspension of the "Duck" star would
have a "chilling effect" on freedom of speech in America: "If Phil
Robertson can be muzzled for expressing this perfectly legitimate view,
what's to prevent the same thing from happening to, say, a Justice of
the Supreme Court?"
He added that, while he was a huge "Duck Dynasty" fan
who never misses an episode, his objection to Mr. Robertson's suspension
was "purely on Constitutional grounds."
Declaring that A&E's decision "will not stand,"
Justice Scalia said he would ask the Supreme Court to meet in an
emergency session to overturn it: "This offensive decision by A&E is
a clear violation of the Constitution, and I'm not the only one on the
Court who feels that way. Right, Clarence?"
Justice Thomas had no comment.
Friday, December 20, 2013
Open Letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks to the media during a news conference. (photo: Reuters)
19 December 13
our callous response to the deeply troubling series The New York Times did on Dasani, the homeless child in Brooklyn,
highlights everything that’s wrong with your style of leadership. As
mayor of the largest city in the richest country in the world, the
conditions she described, like standing guard outside a dingy shower
while her mother bathed to protect her from sexual assault, and having
to use toilets clogged with vomit, should prompt you to take action."City and state inspectors have repeatedly cited the shelter for deplorable conditions, including sexual misconduct by staff members, spoiled food, asbestos exposure, lead paint and vermin. Auburn has no certificate of occupancy, as required by law, and lacks an operational plan that meets state regulations. Most of the shelter’s smoke detectors and alarms have been found to be inoperable."
-New York Times, Invisible Child
Any decent human being should be horrified about such
conditions and want to do everything in their power to change them. And
many people of much lesser means than you do so. But your response to
her troubles was simply, “That’s the way God works.”
I’m not sure if you’ve studied the Bible much, but I have, and I’d love
to tell you a little bit about the way God actually works.
In Luke, Chapter 3, verse 11, Jesus instructed his disciples, “If you have two coats, give one away. Do the same with your food.” You own a $7 million, AgustaWestland SPA AW109SP helicopter through your company, and The New York Times mentions how you keep it with your private jets. Jets, as in more than one.
If you have more than one private jet AND a helicopter, why not sell
off all of your flying vehicles except one, and use the money to create
more spaces for homeless families like Dasani’s?
Another one of Jesus’ parables – in Matthew, Chapter 25, verses 31 through 46
– is another example of how God really works. In the parable, Jesus
tells the story of a king who says to his people that when the good ones
fed the hungry, clothed the cold and healed the sick, they did the same
to him, and would be blessed with eternal life. The king likewise tells
the wicked among his people that when they did not feed the hungry,
clothe the cold or heal the sick, they also didn’t do those things for
him. The wicked are then condemned to eternal punishment. Regardless of
your religious beliefs, I think it’s safe to say that your decision to stop food donations to homeless shelters in your city qualifies you to be among the wicked.
In Mark, Chapter 10, verses 17 through 25,
Jesus is approached by a rich ruler, who proudly tells Jesus that he’s
followed all the commandments and seeks eternal life. When Jesus tells
him to give away his possessions to the poor, the rich man leaves sadly,
refusing to part with his wealth. Jesus then reminded his disciples
that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than
for a rich man to enter heaven. Under your leadership, New York City
became the city with the highest income inequality in the United States.
One in five people in your city are below the federal poverty line,
even though the median income in New York is over $60,000. That means in
a city of approximately 8,000,000 people, roughly 1,600,000 of them are
starving and desperate.
You could take a lesson in how God really works by
looking to the examples set by Pope Francis. In November, he blasted the
worthlessness and greed of financial speculation, the profession your
city is perhaps best known for, and the source of your billions of
dollars. He wrote:
“As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems.” -Pope Francis
As one of your last acts as mayor, you could impress
the hell out of me and everyone else if you would lift your ban on food
donations to NYC shelters, come out in favor of tighter regulations on
Wall Street, and support a financial transactions sales tax that would
raise billions, dedicating that new revenue stream to more spaces and
aid for the homeless population of your city.
Kicking the most vulnerable when they’re down isn’t
how God really works – that’s how bullies work. Will you be remembered
as a former class warrior who repented and worked to help the less
fortunate, or as a greedy bully who fed the overfed by starving the
masses?
Keep up with US Uncut!
Web: usuncut.org
Twitter: twitter.com/usuncut
FB: http://www.facebook.com/usauncut
Keep up with US Uncut!
Web: usuncut.org
Twitter: twitter.com/usuncut
FB: http://www.facebook.com/usauncut
Carl Gibson, 26, is co-founder of US Uncut, a
nationwide creative direct-action movement that mobilized tens of
thousands of activists against corporate tax avoidance and budget cuts
in the months leading up to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Carl and
other US Uncut activists are featured in the documentary "We're Not
Broke," which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. He currently
lives in Madison, Wisconsin. You can contact him at
carl@rsnorg.org, and follow him on twitter at @uncutCG.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for
this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a
link back to Reader Supported News.
Woman in the News | Melissa Mark-Viverito
A City Councilwoman Not Afraid to Take On Inequality
By KATE TAYLOR
In lobbying for Melissa Mark-Viverito to become speaker, Mayor-elect
Bill de Blasio will get a legislative partner whose outspokenness
against inequality matches, if it does not sometimes exceed, his own.
New York Council
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Wanted: Schools Chief Who Has Never Crossed de Blasio on Education
By DAVID W. CHEN and AL BAKER
Katherine Frey/The Washington Post, via Getty Images; Kris Connor/Getty Images; Jennifer S. Altman for The New York Times
From left, Joshua Starr, Kaya Henderson and Carmen Fariña have all been mentioned as candidates for schools chancellor.
Two weeks before he takes office, Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio has yet to
pick a schools chancellor to carry out his education agenda in New York
City.
U.S. Seeks Pensions of 4 Convicted of Corruption
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan filed papers against three former New York City councilmen and a former Yonkers councilwoman.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Vive la Bronx! Locals say French pols are wrong, boro is safer than ever
French
pols compare Paris to Bronx to highlight surge in crime in the City of
Lights. Bronxites offended by Parisian mayoral candidates using old
stereotypes of borough.
Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. said it was offensive that
French pols were comparing Paris to the Bronx to highlight a crime surge
in the French capital.
Comments (6)
By Jennifer H. Cunningham AND Joey Scarborough / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, December 16, 2013, 7:10 PM
Viorel Florescu/for New York Daily News
Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. said it was offensive that
French pols were comparing Paris to the Bronx to highlight a crime surge
in the French capital.
The Bronx is burning...with indignation.
Paris made a grand faux pas when mayoral candidates there debated the sources of a spike in crime in the City of Light.
Now, Bronxites are all fired up.
“Paris resembles the Bronx,” said former National Police chief Frederic Pechenard, who’s running for mayor of Paris’ 17th arrondissement, according to the website Quartz Daily.
Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. has led the terse rejoinder, aiming an appropriately tart Bronx jeer in the direction of Gay Paree.
“Enough already,” the beep said on Monday. “While we may not be home to the Eiffel Tower, we are the home to 1.4 million hardworking people who are proud of their hometown, and how far the Bronx has come.”
RELATED: SUBWAY FELONIES DOWN
Pechenard, whom the site called a “right-wing vote-bundler,” made his
gauche claim by way of arguing that Paris is in the midst of a downward
spiral.
His opponents waded into the cesspool, with Rachida Dati, a member of
the European Parliament, noting that “The Bronx is lawless.”
“Paris is not the Bronx,” Dati added, her nose presumably turned upward.
Well, ain’t that a kick in the old Pinstripes.
We’ve come a long way since the Summer of Sam, officials and residents said Monday.
Crime rates last year were among the lowest the borough has ever recorded, Diaz noted, and the borough boasted the strongest private-sector job growth in the five boroughs, according to a report from the city Economic Development Corp.
RELATED: VIDEO: INSTAGRAM PICS CREATE PARIS TO NEW YORK TRIP
Just last week, the City Council approved plans to turn the long-vacant
Kingsbridge Armory into the world’s largest ice-skating center.
“Yet here we are, once again, forced to defend our hometown from the slanders and libels of politicians thousands of miles away,” Diaz railed.
Bronxites Monday said it was jejune — and wrong — for French pols to politicize the borough and advance ugly stereotypes in a ploy to sway voters.
“No one anywhere in the state or the country or internationally should classify us in the Bronx as having the highest crime statistics,” said Sarah Caliman, 71, who has lived in the borough for more than 50 years and said the comment made her skin crawl.
“It absolutely offends me,” she added. “Read the right information and statistics if you are able to be in a glass house and throw stones. It’s discouraging.”
Another resident, Kevin Williams, concurred.
The 38-year-old has lived in the Bronx all his life, and he wanted to know if the French candidates had ever even visited uptown.
“I don’t see much crime here,” he said. “I hope people eventually stop seeing the Bronx as a dangerous place. It has gotten safer.”
jcunningham@nydailynews.com
Paris made a grand faux pas when mayoral candidates there debated the sources of a spike in crime in the City of Light.
Now, Bronxites are all fired up.
“Paris resembles the Bronx,” said former National Police chief Frederic Pechenard, who’s running for mayor of Paris’ 17th arrondissement, according to the website Quartz Daily.
Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. has led the terse rejoinder, aiming an appropriately tart Bronx jeer in the direction of Gay Paree.
“Enough already,” the beep said on Monday. “While we may not be home to the Eiffel Tower, we are the home to 1.4 million hardworking people who are proud of their hometown, and how far the Bronx has come.”
RELATED: SUBWAY FELONIES DOWN
Howard Simmons/New York Daily News
Yankee Stadium is a huge tourist attraction in the Bronx, a borough of some 1.4 million people.
“Paris is not the Bronx,” Dati added, her nose presumably turned upward.
Well, ain’t that a kick in the old Pinstripes.
We’ve come a long way since the Summer of Sam, officials and residents said Monday.
Crime rates last year were among the lowest the borough has ever recorded, Diaz noted, and the borough boasted the strongest private-sector job growth in the five boroughs, according to a report from the city Economic Development Corp.
RELATED: VIDEO: INSTAGRAM PICS CREATE PARIS TO NEW YORK TRIP
JACQUES BRINON/AP
French mayoral candidates are under fire for comparing Paris to the Bronx to highlight a surge in crime in the French capital.
“Yet here we are, once again, forced to defend our hometown from the slanders and libels of politicians thousands of miles away,” Diaz railed.
Bronxites Monday said it was jejune — and wrong — for French pols to politicize the borough and advance ugly stereotypes in a ploy to sway voters.
“No one anywhere in the state or the country or internationally should classify us in the Bronx as having the highest crime statistics,” said Sarah Caliman, 71, who has lived in the borough for more than 50 years and said the comment made her skin crawl.
“It absolutely offends me,” she added. “Read the right information and statistics if you are able to be in a glass house and throw stones. It’s discouraging.”
Another resident, Kevin Williams, concurred.
The 38-year-old has lived in the Bronx all his life, and he wanted to know if the French candidates had ever even visited uptown.
“I don’t see much crime here,” he said. “I hope people eventually stop seeing the Bronx as a dangerous place. It has gotten safer.”
jcunningham@nydailynews.com
Rare Monument to a New York Mayor
By SAM ROBERTS
Fiorello H. La Guardia got an airport named for him, Edward I. Koch a
bridge and, now, John V. Lindsay a street. But New York’s mayors are not
usually afforded such honors.
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Past residents of Gracie Mansion offer Bill de Blasio's kids advice, share their memories
As Chiara and Dante de Blasio prepare to move into the 18th century East Side mansion, the children of some former mayors give them an idea of what they should expect.
Comments (10)By Heidi Evans AND Larry Mcshane / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Sunday, December 15, 2013, 10:59 AM
New York Daily News
Legendary Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, who reigned from 1934-1945, holds
his two children, Eric and Jean, while heading for a swim.
The de Blasio kids already have tackled the first order of business at Gracie Mansion, their new home: Picking their bedrooms.
Duncan Wagner, a son of late Mayor Robert Wagner, hopes they chose well.
A rueful Wagner, 66, still recalls his brother’s prime roost overlooking the East River — and his own less-than-scenic view of a police guard booth after his father’s 1953 election.
“I think my brother got first pick because he was older,” Wagner recalled.
When Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, his wife, Chirlane McCray, and their two children swap their humble Brooklyn rowhouse for the elegant East Side mansion next year, the teens will become members of an exclusive club.
The landmark house, which became the official mayoral residence in 1942, has served as home to only 10 other children across the seven decades since Fiorello LaGuardia and his family first arrived.
RELATED: BILL DE BLASIO MOVING TO GRACIE MANSION
Dante, 16, will live in the mansion full time while finishing his last two years at Brooklyn Technical High School.
Sister Chiara, 19, attends college 3,000 miles away but will share the historic space for summers and holidays. (And no more family fights over the one shared bathroom in Park Slope. Each of the four Gracie Mansion bedrooms upstairs has its own bathroom.)
The mayor-elect announced the move last Wednesday, after lengthy deliberations and a secret family visit to the rambling home over the Thanksgiving weekend.
The Daily News reached out to the surviving mayoral children — including Eric LaGuardia, now an 83-year-old retired English professor in Seattle — for advice and anecdotes about their days at Gracie.
John Lindsay Jr. went through his adolescence in the mayoral mansion, arriving at age 5 in 1966 and departing at age 13. He remembers playing football on the lawn, trick-or-treating in the neighborhood — and sneaking cigarettes in the attic.
The last didn’t go over very well with his father, two-term Mayor John Lindsay.
RELATED: YORKVILLE VS. PARK SLOPE: SEE HOW NYC 'HOODS STACK UP
“My father was saying, ‘It’s one thing to try it, but in the attic? The house would go up like a tinderbox,’ ” recalled Lindsay, 53, a retired Florida landscaper.
Duncan Wagner, now retired from the Department of Education, recalled his own tobacco experiment: “One of the policemen took me to buy a pack of cigarettes.”
The Gracie detectives also offered Wagner occasional homework aid — until his parents got wind of it “and sent me away to boarding school.”
The mansion was named for its first owner, 18th century Scottish merchant Archibald Gracie, whose guests at the wood-frame “country home” included Alexander Hamilton and Gov. De Witt Clinton.
Gracie sold the home in 1823 after falling on financial hard times,
with two other families moving in. The city foreclosed on the property
in 1896 to settle an unpaid tax debt.
Kathy Lindsay Lake, the eldest of the four Lindsay kids, was a high
school student like Dante when her family settled in from 1966 through
1973.
RELATED: BILL DE BLASIO PLAYS LEADING ROLE AT WHITE HOUSE GATHERING OF MAYORS-ELECT AND PRESIDENT OBAMA.
The then-19-year-old was married in June 1970 at a Gracie Mansion ceremony, with guests gathered beneath a yellow and white tent on the lawn.
“I think the most important thing I would say — not necessarily to Dante, but more to his parents — is that they make every effort to make this a family home and not a showcase,” said Lake, a former Daily News writer and mother of two.
She credited her mom, Mary, with turning the official residence into a cozy spot for the family of six.
“She made it into a real family home, as well as a place my father
could work,” she recalled. “And people could feel welcome in there.”
Her brother John recalls meeting some bold-faced names at the mansion, including comedic genius Charlie Chaplin and Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie.
There were plenty of other less-memorable encounters.
RELATED: DE BLASIO NAMES BARRIOS-PAOLI AS DEPUTY MAYOR FOR HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
“You’d shake hands, bow, say ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you’ — and you would go about riding your bicycle,” he recalled. “They’d go back to politics.”
Wagner recalled an embarrassing mansion run-in when he was 11 years old and met humorless Gov. Averell Harriman at a cocktail party.
“Gov. Harriman was in the kitchen, doing something in the pantry,” he
recounted. “He had a tux on. I was a kid, I didn’t know . . . I went up
to him and said, ‘Are you our new butler?’ He was stunned!”
Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy was another Gracie Mansion guest. Wagner recalled his excitement at meeting the handsome, charismatic politician.
“My mother showed him my bedroom,” he recounted. “Yup, that figures — it was a total mess.”
Eric LaGuardia, who moved into the mansion with his family, including his sister Jean, from their apartment at 1274 Fifth Ave., said he still enjoys following Big Apple politics.
RELATED: DE BLASIO PICKS UP INAUGURATION FUNDING AT TIMES SQUARE NIGHTCLUB
But when asked for his memories about growing up Gracie, or advice for the de Blasios, he politely apologized.
“I don’t give interviews,” he told a reporter over the phone. “Why don’t you try the Wagners?”
De Blasio becomes the 10th mayor to reside in Gracie Mansion, where there has been none of the noisy hum of family life during the three terms of Mayor Bloomberg.
The billionaire businessman used Gracie for official business and receptions but opted to stay in his tony Upper East Side townhouse.
Last year, he suggested all future mayors should pass on using the mansion as their home — even though he donated $5 million of his fortune to spruce the place up.
Former Mayor Ed Koch, a bachelor who spent 12 years there, initially felt the same way. The incoming mayor couldn’t imagine leaving his cozy Greenwich Village apartment — until sharing dinner with family members in the house.
RELATED: ALEX P. KEATON FOR MAYOR
“It was so wonderful I said to myself, ‘You’d have to be a fool not to
move in,’ ” Koch said in the book “Gracie Mansion: A Celebration of New
York City’s Mayoral Residence.”
“I moved in.”
The Giulianis, with son Andrew and daughter Caroline, were the last family with kids in the two-story home with its parlor rooms, million-dollar kitchen, sprawling front porch, blooming magnolias and East River views.
Andrew, now 27, stressed that kids in the mansion are under the media microscope — a situation that’s only grown worse in the dozen years since his dad, Rudy, left office.
“Make sure that you think through your decisions and understand that your actions will be scrutinized to a much greater degree than your friends’,” he advised.
But he, like the rest, said living in Gracie Mansion was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to be cherished.
RELATED: NYC WILL APPRECIATE BLOOMBERG IN TIME: GIRLFRIEND
Giuliani, only 8 when his family moved there in 1994, urged the de Blasio kids to get friendly with the day-to-day workers at the mayoral residence.
“You can develop life-long friendships with some wonderful people,” he said.
All the ex-residents advised the incoming kids to enjoy the house, the cook, and grounds, and to also show the venerable home a proper amount of respect.
“Don’t use magic marker on the wall,” offered Kathy Lindsay Lake.
“Don’t try to hit a flop shot over any of the chandeliers, no matter how good your golf game is,” said Giuliani, now a golf pro.
The 24-hour news cycle isn’t the only thing that’s changed since the Lindsays lived there in the ’60s. John Lindsay Jr. recalled the Cold War days when the mansion included a bomb shelter.
“When we were kids,” he said, “we’d go down there to play hide and seek.”
hevans@nydailynews.com
Duncan Wagner, a son of late Mayor Robert Wagner, hopes they chose well.
A rueful Wagner, 66, still recalls his brother’s prime roost overlooking the East River — and his own less-than-scenic view of a police guard booth after his father’s 1953 election.
“I think my brother got first pick because he was older,” Wagner recalled.
When Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, his wife, Chirlane McCray, and their two children swap their humble Brooklyn rowhouse for the elegant East Side mansion next year, the teens will become members of an exclusive club.
The landmark house, which became the official mayoral residence in 1942, has served as home to only 10 other children across the seven decades since Fiorello LaGuardia and his family first arrived.
Mayor LaGuardia votes at 109th St. and Madison Ave. as his wife and kids look on.
Dante, 16, will live in the mansion full time while finishing his last two years at Brooklyn Technical High School.
Sister Chiara, 19, attends college 3,000 miles away but will share the historic space for summers and holidays. (And no more family fights over the one shared bathroom in Park Slope. Each of the four Gracie Mansion bedrooms upstairs has its own bathroom.)
The mayor-elect announced the move last Wednesday, after lengthy deliberations and a secret family visit to the rambling home over the Thanksgiving weekend.
The Daily News reached out to the surviving mayoral children — including Eric LaGuardia, now an 83-year-old retired English professor in Seattle — for advice and anecdotes about their days at Gracie.
John Lindsay Jr. went through his adolescence in the mayoral mansion, arriving at age 5 in 1966 and departing at age 13. He remembers playing football on the lawn, trick-or-treating in the neighborhood — and sneaking cigarettes in the attic.
Kevin P. Casey/AP
Eric LaGuardia, son of former Mayor LaGuardia, in Seattle in 2009.
RELATED: YORKVILLE VS. PARK SLOPE: SEE HOW NYC 'HOODS STACK UP
“My father was saying, ‘It’s one thing to try it, but in the attic? The house would go up like a tinderbox,’ ” recalled Lindsay, 53, a retired Florida landscaper.
Duncan Wagner, now retired from the Department of Education, recalled his own tobacco experiment: “One of the policemen took me to buy a pack of cigarettes.”
The Gracie detectives also offered Wagner occasional homework aid — until his parents got wind of it “and sent me away to boarding school.”
The mansion was named for its first owner, 18th century Scottish merchant Archibald Gracie, whose guests at the wood-frame “country home” included Alexander Hamilton and Gov. De Witt Clinton.
The Wagner family. Robert Wagner was mayor from 1954-1965.
RELATED: BILL DE BLASIO PLAYS LEADING ROLE AT WHITE HOUSE GATHERING OF MAYORS-ELECT AND PRESIDENT OBAMA.
The then-19-year-old was married in June 1970 at a Gracie Mansion ceremony, with guests gathered beneath a yellow and white tent on the lawn.
“I think the most important thing I would say — not necessarily to Dante, but more to his parents — is that they make every effort to make this a family home and not a showcase,” said Lake, a former Daily News writer and mother of two.
She credited her mom, Mary, with turning the official residence into a cozy spot for the family of six.
Bill Meurer
John Lindsay, who was mayor from 1966-1973, with his family.
Her brother John recalls meeting some bold-faced names at the mansion, including comedic genius Charlie Chaplin and Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie.
There were plenty of other less-memorable encounters.
RELATED: DE BLASIO NAMES BARRIOS-PAOLI AS DEPUTY MAYOR FOR HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
“You’d shake hands, bow, say ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you’ — and you would go about riding your bicycle,” he recalled. “They’d go back to politics.”
Wagner recalled an embarrassing mansion run-in when he was 11 years old and met humorless Gov. Averell Harriman at a cocktail party.
Richard Corkery
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and wife Donna Hanover give daughter Caroline a lesson in the fine art of making the bat meet the ball on the lawn at Gracie Mansion.
Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy was another Gracie Mansion guest. Wagner recalled his excitement at meeting the handsome, charismatic politician.
“My mother showed him my bedroom,” he recounted. “Yup, that figures — it was a total mess.”
Eric LaGuardia, who moved into the mansion with his family, including his sister Jean, from their apartment at 1274 Fifth Ave., said he still enjoys following Big Apple politics.
RELATED: DE BLASIO PICKS UP INAUGURATION FUNDING AT TIMES SQUARE NIGHTCLUB
But when asked for his memories about growing up Gracie, or advice for the de Blasios, he politely apologized.
Richard Corkery
Mayor Giuliani with daughter Caroline, son Andrew, wife Donna Hanover and their dog, Goalie.
De Blasio becomes the 10th mayor to reside in Gracie Mansion, where there has been none of the noisy hum of family life during the three terms of Mayor Bloomberg.
The billionaire businessman used Gracie for official business and receptions but opted to stay in his tony Upper East Side townhouse.
Last year, he suggested all future mayors should pass on using the mansion as their home — even though he donated $5 million of his fortune to spruce the place up.
Former Mayor Ed Koch, a bachelor who spent 12 years there, initially felt the same way. The incoming mayor couldn’t imagine leaving his cozy Greenwich Village apartment — until sharing dinner with family members in the house.
RELATED: ALEX P. KEATON FOR MAYOR
Julia Xanthos/New York Daily News
Dante and Chiara de Blasio get a big, new temporary home.
“I moved in.”
The Giulianis, with son Andrew and daughter Caroline, were the last family with kids in the two-story home with its parlor rooms, million-dollar kitchen, sprawling front porch, blooming magnolias and East River views.
Andrew, now 27, stressed that kids in the mansion are under the media microscope — a situation that’s only grown worse in the dozen years since his dad, Rudy, left office.
“Make sure that you think through your decisions and understand that your actions will be scrutinized to a much greater degree than your friends’,” he advised.
But he, like the rest, said living in Gracie Mansion was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to be cherished.
Marcus Santos/New York Daily News
Dante and Chiara will be the first kids to grace Gracie Mansion since Giuliani's children lived there.
Giuliani, only 8 when his family moved there in 1994, urged the de Blasio kids to get friendly with the day-to-day workers at the mayoral residence.
“You can develop life-long friendships with some wonderful people,” he said.
All the ex-residents advised the incoming kids to enjoy the house, the cook, and grounds, and to also show the venerable home a proper amount of respect.
“Don’t use magic marker on the wall,” offered Kathy Lindsay Lake.
“Don’t try to hit a flop shot over any of the chandeliers, no matter how good your golf game is,” said Giuliani, now a golf pro.
The 24-hour news cycle isn’t the only thing that’s changed since the Lindsays lived there in the ’60s. John Lindsay Jr. recalled the Cold War days when the mansion included a bomb shelter.
“When we were kids,” he said, “we’d go down there to play hide and seek.”
hevans@nydailynews.com
Bloomberg’s legacy takes shape as three-term mayor prepares to leave office
As New York prepares for its first new mayor in 12 years, debate has begun over what city residents will most remember of their soon-to-be-ex leader.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sunday, December 15, 2013, 12:08 PM
Richard Drew/AP
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg dramatically reshaped the city, from its government to its skyline.
When Michael Bloomberg
took the oath as mayor nearly a dozen years ago, he was a political
neophyte faced with a city still smoldering from a terrorist attack that
crippled its economy, wounded its psyche and left a ragged scar across
lower Manhattan.
Bloomberg is now poised to leave office Dec. 31 having dramatically reshaped the city, from its government to its skyline. He steered it through a series of crises, both natural and man-made, and his innovative public health policies appear to have added years to residents’ lives. The city has never been safer or cleaner, a teeming metropolis transformed into a must-see attraction for more than 50 million tourists a year.
But Bloomberg’s approach to governing as the billionaire businessman he is, employing hard data and the free market to drive much of the city’s renaissance, sometimes left him without an ability to connect with those who felt left behind. Income inequality grew during his years. The number of homeless has soared. And some ethnic and religious minorities complain that a steep drop in crime has come at the expense of their civil liberties.
As Bloomberg’s three terms trickle down to their final days, he leaves as a singular figure with an unquestioned impact but as one whose legacy is still being debated. Polls show his policies are far more popular than the man.
“He is a public-spirited and visionary man of great wealth who took advantage of the failure of politics as usual to deal with extraordinary circumstances,” said Kenneth Sherrill, a retired political science professor at Hunter College. “He largely succeeded doing what he pleased and he didn’t damn well care what you thought of it.”
RELATED: BLOOMBERG VOWS TO KEEP FIGHTING GUN VIOLENCE
Despite that power, it was improbable that Bloomberg became mayor at all.
He made his fortune — now estimated at $31 billion — from the global financial data and media company that bears his name and had switched his political party from Democrat to Republican to run for mayor. He was down more than 15 percentage points in the polls on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
Lame duck Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s popularity soared after the terror attacks, and his endorsement of Bloomberg, combined with panic among voters about the city’s safety and fiscal future, propelled the businessman to a narrow win.
He took immediate action to stabilize the city’s economy, including raising taxes, which sent his popularity tumbling. The economy stabilized and a tone was set for Bloomberg going forward, a former adviser said.
“He believed you get the data, and you do what you believe is right,”
said Bill Cunningham, the mayor’s former communications director. “It
was really like an experiment. Will people like someone who does what
they believe in and not based on polls?”
RELATED: VIDEO: BLOOMBERG GIVES THANKS ON ‘LATE NIGHT WITH JIMMY FALLON’
Though diminutive in stature, Bloomberg thought big. The same ambition and innovation that fueled his business was applied to the public sector, and no idea was deemed too bold to try.
Smoking was banned in all bars and restaurants, the first in a series of health innovations that helped change policies nationwide. A hotline, 311, was created to provide real-time information to residents. He wrested control of the city’s school system, placing it under City Hall, though his education record remains decidedly mixed.
He gunned for the 2012 Olympics and, failing to land them, commissioned new billion-dollar stadiums for the Yankees and Mets and returned professional sports to Brooklyn with the Nets. Changes in the zoning laws and the falling crime rates sent gentrifiers scurrying into the far reaches of Queens and especially Brooklyn, breathing new life into formerly downtrodden neighborhoods but displacing some resentful longtime residents.
“He’s done a good job protecting the city,” said Medwin Rodrigues, a security guard from Brooklyn. “You can’t please all the people, but he’s done a good job.”
His public health plans, which banned trans fats and tried to do the same for large sodas, have been credited with helping to increase New Yorkers’ life expectancy by three years since 2002, though they drew criticism for creating a “nanny state.”
RELATED: NYC WILL APPRECIATE BLOOMBERG IN TIME: GIRLFRIEND
“He shouldn’t have been here 12 years,” said Zachery Miller, a cook from the Bronx. “He became a dictator. Who is he to tell me what I can drink?”
Cranes dotted the ever-expanding skyline, as one massive development project after another was built. He green-lit scores of public arts projects, including the saffron gates that dotted Central Park and became a tourist bonanza.
“He understood that the economic engine of New York was changing, and
it was going to be international: tourism, real estate, economic
investment by the world’s rich,” said Wendy Schiller, political science
professor at Brown University. “It’s a must-visit place, like London or
Paris.”
Though fiscally conservative, he was a social liberal and one of the leading forces behind New York state’s move to legalize marriage equality. And while not known as an eloquent speaker, he delivered a powerful speech on religious freedoms that defended the right of a mosque to be built near ground zero.
His own fortune was also a political game changer, as he used it — sometimes anonymously — to reward allies, silence foes and support needy institutions.
RELATED: BLOOMBERG HAS BEEN QUIETLY CALLING THE FAMILIES OF FALLEN CITY WORKERS
Projecting an air of competence and control, Bloomberg elevated the position of New York mayor further on the world stage, becoming a leader on immigration, climate change and especially gun control, a crusade he has vowed to continue after he leaves office.
Largely apolitical, Bloomberg stayed out of petty partisan fights until the recession of 2008 prompted him to push to overturn a rule that limited mayors to serve just two terms. He first succeeded in overturning the city charter and then won narrowly at the ballot box in 2009, but his reputation with a large swath of the city never recovered.
His sometimes-angry defense of the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk tactic, which allows police to stop anyone deemed suspicious, has also hurt. Though crime has fallen to record lows and the city has avoided another terrorist attack, blacks and Hispanics say they have been unfairly targeted by the tactic. Civil liberties groups also criticized the NYPD’s Muslim surveillance program, which was revealed by The Associated Press.
The rising gap between the very rich and the very poor became a central theme of Bill de Blasio’s successful mayoral campaign, which was widely viewed as a repudiation of Bloomberg’s time in office.
“He’s not a people person, and he’s not perceived as a regular New Yorker because of his wealth,” said Norman Siegel, a civil rights lawyer and frequent Bloomberg critic. “He’s arrogant and not compassionate. With him, it’s always, ‘We know what’s best for you.”’
Bloomberg fought with the unions, frequently griped at reporters and often displayed little patience for those with whom he disagreed. But he tried, at times, to connect with New Yorkers, sometimes riding the subway and speaking with grace at the funerals of fallen city workers.
The 71-year-old Bloomberg, who declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this story, has said he will never again seek public office. He has vowed to not criticize de Blasio but made it clear he thinks the incoming mayor is inheriting a strong city.
“We still face great challenges and we always will,” Bloomberg said in a speech last week. “But I think it’s fair to say that we have never been better positioned to meet those challenges.”
Bloomberg is now poised to leave office Dec. 31 having dramatically reshaped the city, from its government to its skyline. He steered it through a series of crises, both natural and man-made, and his innovative public health policies appear to have added years to residents’ lives. The city has never been safer or cleaner, a teeming metropolis transformed into a must-see attraction for more than 50 million tourists a year.
But Bloomberg’s approach to governing as the billionaire businessman he is, employing hard data and the free market to drive much of the city’s renaissance, sometimes left him without an ability to connect with those who felt left behind. Income inequality grew during his years. The number of homeless has soared. And some ethnic and religious minorities complain that a steep drop in crime has come at the expense of their civil liberties.
As Bloomberg’s three terms trickle down to their final days, he leaves as a singular figure with an unquestioned impact but as one whose legacy is still being debated. Polls show his policies are far more popular than the man.
“He is a public-spirited and visionary man of great wealth who took advantage of the failure of politics as usual to deal with extraordinary circumstances,” said Kenneth Sherrill, a retired political science professor at Hunter College. “He largely succeeded doing what he pleased and he didn’t damn well care what you thought of it.”
RELATED: BLOOMBERG VOWS TO KEEP FIGHTING GUN VIOLENCE
Despite that power, it was improbable that Bloomberg became mayor at all.
He made his fortune — now estimated at $31 billion — from the global financial data and media company that bears his name and had switched his political party from Democrat to Republican to run for mayor. He was down more than 15 percentage points in the polls on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
Lame duck Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s popularity soared after the terror attacks, and his endorsement of Bloomberg, combined with panic among voters about the city’s safety and fiscal future, propelled the businessman to a narrow win.
He took immediate action to stabilize the city’s economy, including raising taxes, which sent his popularity tumbling. The economy stabilized and a tone was set for Bloomberg going forward, a former adviser said.
Adrees Latif/AP
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, left, and Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio seen attending a 9/11 Memorial ceremony marking the 12th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.
Though diminutive in stature, Bloomberg thought big. The same ambition and innovation that fueled his business was applied to the public sector, and no idea was deemed too bold to try.
Smoking was banned in all bars and restaurants, the first in a series of health innovations that helped change policies nationwide. A hotline, 311, was created to provide real-time information to residents. He wrested control of the city’s school system, placing it under City Hall, though his education record remains decidedly mixed.
He gunned for the 2012 Olympics and, failing to land them, commissioned new billion-dollar stadiums for the Yankees and Mets and returned professional sports to Brooklyn with the Nets. Changes in the zoning laws and the falling crime rates sent gentrifiers scurrying into the far reaches of Queens and especially Brooklyn, breathing new life into formerly downtrodden neighborhoods but displacing some resentful longtime residents.
“He’s done a good job protecting the city,” said Medwin Rodrigues, a security guard from Brooklyn. “You can’t please all the people, but he’s done a good job.”
His public health plans, which banned trans fats and tried to do the same for large sodas, have been credited with helping to increase New Yorkers’ life expectancy by three years since 2002, though they drew criticism for creating a “nanny state.”
RELATED: NYC WILL APPRECIATE BLOOMBERG IN TIME: GIRLFRIEND
“He shouldn’t have been here 12 years,” said Zachery Miller, a cook from the Bronx. “He became a dictator. Who is he to tell me what I can drink?”
Cranes dotted the ever-expanding skyline, as one massive development project after another was built. He green-lit scores of public arts projects, including the saffron gates that dotted Central Park and became a tourist bonanza.
Richard Drew/AP
As Mayor Bloomberg’s three terms trickle down to their final days, he leaves as a singular figure with an unquestioned impact, but as one whose legacy is still being debated.
Though fiscally conservative, he was a social liberal and one of the leading forces behind New York state’s move to legalize marriage equality. And while not known as an eloquent speaker, he delivered a powerful speech on religious freedoms that defended the right of a mosque to be built near ground zero.
His own fortune was also a political game changer, as he used it — sometimes anonymously — to reward allies, silence foes and support needy institutions.
RELATED: BLOOMBERG HAS BEEN QUIETLY CALLING THE FAMILIES OF FALLEN CITY WORKERS
Projecting an air of competence and control, Bloomberg elevated the position of New York mayor further on the world stage, becoming a leader on immigration, climate change and especially gun control, a crusade he has vowed to continue after he leaves office.
Largely apolitical, Bloomberg stayed out of petty partisan fights until the recession of 2008 prompted him to push to overturn a rule that limited mayors to serve just two terms. He first succeeded in overturning the city charter and then won narrowly at the ballot box in 2009, but his reputation with a large swath of the city never recovered.
His sometimes-angry defense of the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk tactic, which allows police to stop anyone deemed suspicious, has also hurt. Though crime has fallen to record lows and the city has avoided another terrorist attack, blacks and Hispanics say they have been unfairly targeted by the tactic. Civil liberties groups also criticized the NYPD’s Muslim surveillance program, which was revealed by The Associated Press.
The rising gap between the very rich and the very poor became a central theme of Bill de Blasio’s successful mayoral campaign, which was widely viewed as a repudiation of Bloomberg’s time in office.
“He’s not a people person, and he’s not perceived as a regular New Yorker because of his wealth,” said Norman Siegel, a civil rights lawyer and frequent Bloomberg critic. “He’s arrogant and not compassionate. With him, it’s always, ‘We know what’s best for you.”’
Bloomberg fought with the unions, frequently griped at reporters and often displayed little patience for those with whom he disagreed. But he tried, at times, to connect with New Yorkers, sometimes riding the subway and speaking with grace at the funerals of fallen city workers.
The 71-year-old Bloomberg, who declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this story, has said he will never again seek public office. He has vowed to not criticize de Blasio but made it clear he thinks the incoming mayor is inheriting a strong city.
“We still face great challenges and we always will,” Bloomberg said in a speech last week. “But I think it’s fair to say that we have never been better positioned to meet those challenges.”
Suggested Reading for de Blasio
By SAM ROBERTS
Here are 10 books that Bill de Blasio could find helpful as he prepares to take office.
Record for Worst Congress of All Time so Close Boehner Can Taste It
Speaker of the House John Boehner. (photo: AP)
11 December 13
The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, "The Borowitz Report."
ith
six fingers of Johnnie Walker swirling in his favorite tumbler, John
Boehner speaks with the quiet assurance of a man on the brink of
something big.
Just three workdays remain until Congress packs it in
for 2013, and the House that Boehner presides over is about to set the
record for the least productive year in its history - a quixotic goal
that the tawny Ohioan set for himself when he arrived in Washington, in
1991.
"Like most of us, I came to this town hoping to make
history," he says, refilling his tumbler. "And, damn it, that's what I'm
about to do."
Downing his glass in one gulp, he reflects upon "all
the little things that had to go right" to make the year of epic
underachievement possible.
"There were the Benghazi hearings, of course, and all
the votes to repeal Obamacare," he says. "But when we shut down the
government in the fall, I started thinking, Jesus, the record - it could
happen."
During those heady shutdown days, Boehner didn't dare
speak about the record he had long dreamed of setting - "didn't want to
jinx anything" - but with Congress's work year set to end on Friday, he
now admits, "I'm so close I can taste it."
Yesterday, when members of his caucus came up with a
bipartisan budget deal, Boehner "had a little come-to-Jesus meeting with
them," he says. "I told them, I've worked too long and hard for this
record, damn it. Don't mess it up at the last minute by accomplishing
something."
So with the record for worst Congress seemingly in the
bag - "I can cross that off my bucket list," he says - what does John
Boehner do for an encore?
"It's going to be tough to make next year's Congress
even worse," he says, pouring himself another tall one. "But it's going
to be fun trying."
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Bloomberg Focuses on Rest (as in Rest of World)
By MICHAEL BARBARO
Angel Franco/The New York Times
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg with his girlfriend, Diana
L. Taylor, at an Association for a Better New York event. Mr.
Bloomberg’s consulting group will include many of his best-known
deputies.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will take much of his City Hall team with him
as he creates a consulting group to help him reshape cities around the
globe.
When We Were Poor Before
By ALMUDENA GRANDES HERNÁNDEZ
For those who lived through the Spanish Civil War, today’s troubles would be a
mere inconvenience.
Social Services Chief
By DAVID W. CHEN
Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio on Thursday tapped Lilliam Barrios-Paoli,
commissioner of the Department for the Aging, to help shape policies on
issues like homelessness.
Obama Tells New Mayors He’ll Help Fight Inequality
By PETER BAKER
President Obama vowed on Friday to join Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio and
newly elected leaders in an effort to combat growing inequalities.
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Montefiore Faces Neighborhood Opposition to Medical Complex in Bronx
By WINNIE HU
Montefiore Medical Center says an 11-story ambulatory care center would
help meet Riverdale’s needs. But many in Riverdale say it would hurt the
community.
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Don't Be Evil? Google Funding a Slew of Right-Wing Groups
Heritage Action, the advocacy arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, is a recipient of Google's funding. (photo: Walter Bieri)
08 December 13
oogle,
the tech giant supposedly guided by its "don't be evil" motto, has been
funding a growing list of groups advancing the agenda of the Koch
brothers.
Organizations that received "substantial" funding from
Google for the first time over the past year include Grover Norquist's
Americans for Tax Reform, the Federalist Society, the American
Conservative Union (best known for its CPAC conference) and the
political arm of the Heritage Foundation that led the charge to shut
down the government over the Affordable Care Act: Heritage Action.
In 2013, Google also funded the corporate lobby group,
the American Legislative Exchange Council, although that group is not
listed as receiving "substantial" funding in the list published by
Google.
US corporations are not required to publicly disclose
their funding of political advocacy groups, and very few do so, but
since at least 2010 Google has chosen to voluntarily release some limited details
about grants it makes to US nonprofits. The published list from Google
is not comprehensive, including only those groups that "receive the most
substantial contributions from Google's US Federal Public Policy and
Government Affairs team."
What Google considers "substantial" is not explained -
no dollar amounts are given - but the language suggests significant
investments from Google and, with a stock value of $330 billion, Google
has considerably deep pockets.
Google has a distinctively progressive image, but in
March 2012 it hired former Republican member of the House of
Representatives, Susan Molinari as its Vice President of Public Policy
and Government Relations. According to the New York Times,
Molinari is being "paid handsomely to broaden the tech giant's support
beyond Silicon Valley Democrats and to lavish money and attention on
selected Republicans."
New "Substantial" Right-Wing Google Grants in Past Year
CMD examined the information released by Google
for the years 2010 to 2013. The voluntary disclosures indicate that the
following groups are either new grantees of Google since September
2012, or have been listed as having received a "substantial" Google
grant for the first time:
- American Conservative Union
- Americans for Tax Reform
- CATO Institute
- Federalist Society
- George Mason University Law School Law and Economics Center
- Heritage Action
- Mercatus Center
- National Taxpayers Union
- R Street Institute
- Texas Public Policy Foundation
Detailed information on each of these groups can be found at CMD's Sourcewatch website.
Google Funding for Anti-Government Groups
Heritage Action, the tea-party styled political
advocacy arm of the Heritage Foundation, is perhaps the most surprising
recipient of Google's largesse.
More than any other group working to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Heritage Action pushed for a sustained government shutdown in the fall of 2013, taking the country to the brink of a potentially catastrophic debt default.
Laying the ground for that strategy, Heritage Action held
a nine-city "Defund Obamacare Town Hall Tour" in August 2013, providing
a platform for Texas Senator Ted Cruz to address crowds of cheering tea
party supporters.
For Cruz, increasingly spoken of as a 2016
presidential candidate, the government shutdown helped raise his profile
and build his supporter - and donor - base.
Notably, Heritage Action received $500,000
from the Koch-funded and Koch-operative staffed Freedom Partners in
2012. It is not yet known how much Heritage Action received in 2013 from
sources other than Google.
Perhaps surprisingly, Google has a history of
supporting Cruz. Via its Political Action Committee - Google Inc. Net
PAC - the PAC provided the "Ted Cruz for Senate" campaign with a $10,000
contribution in 2012. Additionally, despite being five years out from
the freshman senator's next election, Google's PAC has already made a
$2,500 contribution to the Cruz reelection campaign for 2018, the
largest amount that the PAC has given so far to any Senate candidate
running that election year, according to disclosures made by Google.
Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), the anti-government
group run by Republican operative Grover Norquist, was another new
recipient of funding from Google in 2013. ATR is best known
for its "Taxpayer Protection Pledge," and for its fundamentalist
attacks on any Republican who might dare to vote for any increase in
taxes. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, ATR received 85 percent of its funding in 2012 ($26.4 million) from the ultra-partisan Karl Rove-run Crossroads GPS, another dark money group.
ATR President Grover Norquist infamously said that he wants to shrink government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Google's position on the relative size of government versus bathtubs is not known, but according to a Bloomberg analysis
of Google's US corporate filings, it avoids approximately $2 billion
dollars globally in tax payments each year through the use of creative
tax shelters.
Bloomberg reported
in May 2013 that in France alone Google is in the midst of a dispute
over more than $1 billion in unpaid taxes that have been alleged. An
August 2013 report by US PIRG - "Offshore Shell Games"
- found that Google is now holding more than $33 billion dollars
offshore, avoiding taxes on these earnings in the United States.
National Taxpayers Union, headed by former eleven-year
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) Executive Director Duane
Parde, has a similar anti-tax, anti-government agenda, and it also received funding from Google in 2013.
Google Sponsor Event Honoring Justice Thomas
Google also recently sponsored a gala fundraiser
in Washington DC for the Federalist Society, a network of right-wing
judges and lawyers that includes Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito,
John Roberts, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Justice Thomas was the
guest of honor at that event, for which Google was listed as a top-tier
"gold" sponsor. Google names the Federalist Society on its list of groups receiving its most substantial grants in 2013.
The company is also funding state special interest
group operations. The Center for Media and Democracy, which publishes
PRWatch, recently posted a major national report
on the State Policy Network (SPN), a network of right-wing think tanks,
with at least one organization in every state in the country. SPN
groups typically promote a pro-corporate agenda, often at the expense of
the interests of ordinary working people.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), which is
part of SPN, also received money from Google in 2013. As Progress Now's
state affiliate and CMD have documented,
the legislative agenda promoted by TPPF includes opposing renewable
energy, blocking access to affordable healthcare and opposing state
minimum wage laws.
Google, which did not respond to a request for
comment, may argue that it simply funds groups on both sides of the
political spectrum, providing other grants to organizations that
advocate on behalf of values more closely associated with the
corporation's progressive image. Since Google does not release details
of all its grantees and the dollar amounts, it is hard to judge this,
although they do disclose
providing funding to some progressive groups including the American
Constitution Society, People for the American Way and the NAACP.
Although Google has funded both "conservative" and
"progressive" groups, it does not disclose the relative proportions
given to each, beyond the superficial symmetry, and the degree to which
the groups tilt to the right or left in their agendas.
However, as noted by CMD's Executive Director, Lisa
Graves, "there really aren't two proportionate sides to the facts about
the climate changes that are underway, as to whether working people
should be paid a living wage and whether corporations should have to pay
taxes just like working people do. By funding extreme groups on the
right under the guise of a false equivalency, Google is enabling groups
that seek to undermine government."
Google Membership in ALEC, Funding of CEI
Since CMD launched ALECexposed.org
in 2011, revealing the complete agenda of that corporate front group
that was secretly voted on by corporate lobbyists and state legislators
behind closed doors, corporations have been running to escape
association with the group. At least 50 corporations are known to have
dropped funding since 2011, including Walmart, Coca Cola and Pepsi.
Google - along with Facebook and Yelp - is bucking that trend having
quietly joined in 2013. Google does not list ALEC as being a recipient
of one of its largest grants, instead it separately names ALEC as an organization to which it has become a member.
There are many good reasons for brand-conscious corporations to stay away from ALEC. For example, its legacy of Stand Your Ground gun laws and bills to make it harder for Americans to vote, its work to repeal renewable energy laws and the ability of the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases and its efforts to privatize almost everything, are just a few of its extreme measures.
ALEC is a corporate-funded lobby group, and the businesses that fund ALEC do so hoping to move a legislative agenda. An ALEC publication
sent to corporate members in 1995, celebrated its legislative agenda to
members as a "good investment," stating clearly "nowhere else can you
get a return that high." As CMD's Lisa Graves has said, "It's a
pay-to-play operation."
Google joined ALEC just this year, and stepped up
funding to groups such as ATR, Federalist Society and Heritage Action in
2013, but under the radar it has been funding a handful of other
right-wing groups for several years. In 2013 Google provided a reported $50,000 sponsorship check
to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), another group trying to
thwart efforts to address climate change, but it has previously funded "Google Policy Fellows" at CEI for several years, and has listed the organization as one that it has supported financially on its "transparency" pages for at least three years.
Google states that its fellows
"work closely with CEI scholars to research and promote innovative,
pro-consumer solutions to the public policy challenges of the
information age." Whatever projects Google fellows end up working on at
CEI, the Google brand is now tied to an organization that has a
reputation strongly connected to the denial of climate change.
"Political spending for corporations is purely
transactional. It is all about getting policies that maximize
profitability," Bob McChesney told CMD. "So even ostensibly hip
companies like Google invariably spend lavishly to support groups and
politicians that pursue decidedly anti-democratic policy outcomes. It is
why sane democracies strictly regulate or even prohibit such spending,
regarding it accurately as a cancer for democratic governance."
Professor McChesney co-founded the media reform group Free Press in
2002, and this year authored Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy.
The policies advocated by some of the Google's
grantees are in stark contrast with the progressive image that Google
has worked to promote. It has publicly committed to invest
more than $1 billion dollars in renewable energy projects, reduce the
use of cars by its employees, power its offices with renewables and
otherwise green its buildings. The contrast between these promises, and
Google's funding of groups that deny or challenge the reality of climate
change - groups motivated by funding received from fossil fuel
companies - has led several organizations to launch campaigns calling
for Google to stop funding climate change deniers. Forecast the Facts
has a "Hey Google! Don't Fund ALEC's Evil!" petition, and Sum of Us has a
petition calling on Google to "never fund climate change deniers
again."
ALEC is holding
its next conference in Washington, DC, from December 4th through the
6th. A Google lobbyist will likely be there, celebrating ALEC's 40th
anniversary alongside legislators and other lobbyists. CMD will report
on the events of the conference through the week at PRWatch.org. To sign CMD's petition to Google CEO Larry Page, calling for him to publicly quit ALEC, click here.
City Council Approves an Ice Center for the Bronx
By WINNIE HU
The project is to open in 2017, and will eventually include nine ice
rinks, a 5,000-seat arena and space for community activities.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
John McCain: Shaking Castro’s Hand Is Appeasement
Hawks and doves alike are fond of boiling foreign policy down to
mindless historical tropes. But there is probably no historical trope as
mindless as the fascination of war hawks with Neville Chamberlain and
Adolf Hitler. Chamberlain's policy of appeasement failed to stop Hitler
from launching a war. And yes, though Hitler was a uniquely evil figure,
it may be possible to generalize this lesson to at least some other
cases. But we have reached a new nadir when one of those cases is
President Obama's decision to shake hands with Raúl Castro at the
memorial service for Nelson Mandela. Yet here is John McCain, respected
foreign-policy voice and recipient of 60 million votes for president, rambling bizarrely that he would not have shaken Castro's hand because "Neville Chamberlain shook hands with Hitler."
Well, okay, yes he did. And yes, Castro and Hitler are both dictators. Here are a few differences:
1. Cuba poses just a wee bit less of a military threat to its neighbors than Nazi Germany did in 1938.
2. The problem with Chamberlain's negotiating strategy was not that he shook Hitler's hand.
3. Castro is not promising that, in return for a handshake, he will refrain from invading our allies.
Apparently the lessons McCain has drawn from the failure of the
Munich Accords was not that offering territorial concessions to insanely
aggressive totalitarian dictators in return for unenforceable promises
is a questionable strategy, but that offering concessions of any kind, or even a public pleasantry, to any dictator is always
a betrayal. But, then, if a year from now, Raúl Castro sits atop a vast
empire of conquest, with Cuban troops burning and pillaging American
cities, I will concede that McCain saw it coming.
Obama and Raul Castro shake hands at Mandela funeral
The rare contact between the leaders of the rival nations came during a memorial service at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg that focused on Nelson Mandela’s legacy of reconciliation.
Comments (63)By Stephen Rex Brown / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Published: Tuesday, December 10, 2013, 7:29 AM
Updated: Tuesday, December 10, 2013, 1:08 PM
KAI PFAFFENBACH/REUTERS
President Obama shakes the hand of Cuban President Raul Castro at a memorial for Nelson Mandela.
Even in death, Nelson Mandela remains a powerful force for reconciliation.
President Obama shook hands with Cuban President Raul Castro Tuesday at a memorial service for Mandela — a rare instance of contact between the leaders of the rival nations.
PHOTOS: NELSON MANDELA MEMORIAL SERVICE
Castro smiled as Obama shook his hand on the way to the podium to deliver a rousing speech in memory of the former South African president and liberation icon who died on Thursday aged 95.
"Nothing he
achieved was inevitable," Obama said regarding Mandela. "In the arc of
his life, we see a man who earned his place in history through struggle
and shrewdness, persistence and faith. He tells us what's possible not
just in the pages of dusty history books, but in our own lives as well.
RELATED: OBAMA PRAISES 'MADIBA': 'WE WILL NEVER SEE THE LIKES OF NELSON MANDELA AGAIN'
Obama also noted that dictators are often quick to embrace Mandela's message — comments that could be taken as a criticism of Cuba under the Castros.
"Around the world today people are still in prison for their political beliefs...that is happening today!" Obama said.
RELATED: MOURNING MANDELA
"There are too many people who happily embrace Madiba's legacy of racial reconciliation but passionately resist even modest reforms that would challenge chronic poverty and growing inequality. There are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Madiba's struggle for equality but do not tolerate dissent from their own people," Obama said, using Mandela's clan name.
For his part Raul Castro hailed Mandela as "the ultimate symbol of dignity and unwavering dedication to the revolutionary struggle" during his speech.
RELATED: ELIAN GONZALEZ LEAVES CUBA FOR FIRST TIME SINCE 2000
He also recalled Mandela's visit to Cuba in 1991, when the South
African president said "The Cuban people have a special place in the
hearts of the people of Africa," according to Castro.
Unsurprisingly, at least one of Obama's critics back in the U.S. did not share the harmonious spirit of the moment.
RELATED: VAST AND UNUSUAL MIX OF WORLD LEADERS EXPECTED AT NELSON MANDELA’S MEMORIAL
"If the President was going to shake his hand, he should have asked him about those basica freedoms Mandela was associated iwth that are denied in Cuba," Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told The Hill. "(Cuba) continues to have close ties to terrorist organizations."
The handshake between the historic rivals at FNB Stadium in
Johannesburg came during a ceremony revolving around Mandela’s
remarkable dignity in his long struggle that brought a peaceful end to
apartheid.
RELATED: OBAMAS HEAD TO NELSON MANDELA MEMORIAL IN SOUTH AFRICA
The countries have been at odds since Raul’s brother, Fidel Castro, ousted the U.S.-backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista.
The U.S. and Cuba have recently taken small steps toward rapprochement, raising hopes the two nations could be on the verge of a breakthrough in relations. But skeptics caution that the two countries have shown signs of a thaw in the past, only to fall back into old recriminations.
The United States embargo against Cuba remains in place. It was first imposed in 1960.
Obama also shook hands with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who has clashed with Obama over spying by the National Security Agency.
With News Wire Services
President Obama shook hands with Cuban President Raul Castro Tuesday at a memorial service for Mandela — a rare instance of contact between the leaders of the rival nations.
PHOTOS: NELSON MANDELA MEMORIAL SERVICE
Castro smiled as Obama shook his hand on the way to the podium to deliver a rousing speech in memory of the former South African president and liberation icon who died on Thursday aged 95.
REUTERS TV/REUTERS
The handshake is a rare example of contact between the leaders of the Cold War rivals.
RELATED: OBAMA PRAISES 'MADIBA': 'WE WILL NEVER SEE THE LIKES OF NELSON MANDELA AGAIN'
Obama also noted that dictators are often quick to embrace Mandela's message — comments that could be taken as a criticism of Cuba under the Castros.
"Around the world today people are still in prison for their political beliefs...that is happening today!" Obama said.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
President Obama and Raul Castro exchange words as Obama makes his way to the podium at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg.
"There are too many people who happily embrace Madiba's legacy of racial reconciliation but passionately resist even modest reforms that would challenge chronic poverty and growing inequality. There are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Madiba's struggle for equality but do not tolerate dissent from their own people," Obama said, using Mandela's clan name.
For his part Raul Castro hailed Mandela as "the ultimate symbol of dignity and unwavering dedication to the revolutionary struggle" during his speech.
RELATED: ELIAN GONZALEZ LEAVES CUBA FOR FIRST TIME SINCE 2000
Matt Dunham/AP
Cuba’s President Raul Castro arrives for the memorial service for former South African president Nelson Mandela.
Unsurprisingly, at least one of Obama's critics back in the U.S. did not share the harmonious spirit of the moment.
RELATED: VAST AND UNUSUAL MIX OF WORLD LEADERS EXPECTED AT NELSON MANDELA’S MEMORIAL
"If the President was going to shake his hand, he should have asked him about those basica freedoms Mandela was associated iwth that are denied in Cuba," Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told The Hill. "(Cuba) continues to have close ties to terrorist organizations."
Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
President Obama delivered a rousing speech at FNB Stadium, thanking South Africans 'for sharing Nelson Mandela with us.'
RELATED: OBAMAS HEAD TO NELSON MANDELA MEMORIAL IN SOUTH AFRICA
The countries have been at odds since Raul’s brother, Fidel Castro, ousted the U.S.-backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista.
The U.S. and Cuba have recently taken small steps toward rapprochement, raising hopes the two nations could be on the verge of a breakthrough in relations. But skeptics caution that the two countries have shown signs of a thaw in the past, only to fall back into old recriminations.
The United States embargo against Cuba remains in place. It was first imposed in 1960.
Obama also shook hands with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who has clashed with Obama over spying by the National Security Agency.
With News Wire Services