Like many gay and bi men, I watched pro wrestling as a child, instinctively seeing it for what it really is: softcore gay/bi porn. So, I couldn't help notice with amazement the "USA! USA!" chants at the bin Laden death parties that have been happening in this country.

Those voice on the radio today remind me of how that chant started. Pro wrestling promoters would dress people up as foreigners from countries that the US ruling elites were in conflict with. The "foreigners" would do all sorts of dastardly deeds, and the American wrestlers would fight back while the crowd would chant "USA! USA!"

This country gets more and more bizarre.

During the Olympics in Atlanta (a hotbed of pro wrestling), I noticed how American crowds kept chanting "USA! USA!" They had no respect for athletes from other countries. All home country audiences are somewhat nationalistic, but other host audiences showed appreciation for athletes from other countries, which is a huge part of what the Olympics are supposed to be about.

I am convinced that this rude behavior is part of why NYC and Chicago lost their Olympics bids, though perfectly reasonable opposition in those cities played a huge roll too. (I still haven't forgiven Mayor for Life Bloomberg for misappropriating city money for political ads trying to get New Yorkers to support a hugely inappropriate Olympics bid in a city that just can't handle the disruption.)

Now, with people using chants from pro wrestling to celebrate the killing of an unarmed human being outside of the rule of law, I can't help but think that our country has become a cheesy parody of itself. We largely wrote the international laws that the Bush and Obama regimes have routinely violated, but we also have written the pro wrestling scripts that their acolytes have played out in surreal death parties.

Maybe Linda McMahon will be President someday.

BTW: Here are the real names of some of those eeeebilll "foreign" wrestlers.

Abdullah the Butcher: Larry Shreeve
Boris Zhukov: Jim Darrel
Ivan Koloff: James Parris
Kamala: James Harris
Killer Karl Krupp: George Momberg
Kwang: Juan Rivera
Mongolian Mauler: Peter Miller
Mongolian Stomper: Archie Gouldie
Nikita Koloff: Scott Simpson
Papa Shango: Charles Wright


 

"Welfare Reform"
"Free Market Reforms"
"Pension Reform"
"Tenure Reform"
"Tax Reform"

What do all of these have in common? All of them are rightist, deceptive, and harmful to society. Most importantly, all are efforts to roll back reforms in the name of "reform."

Let's look at "welfare reform." Welfare was a reform that was put into place to take some of the suffering out of an economic system where there never was enough employment for everyone. Yet, while Bill Clinton reappointed a Federal Reserve Board Chair who used monetary policy to keep unemployment even higher than it otherwise would be under capitalism, he also pushed through a set of cutbacks in welfare payments that served as a punishment for women, children, and for people of color which made them pay the price for this needlessly high unemployment.

Non Western countries had put in place numerous reforms to keep their economies from being completely dominated by their own wealthy elites and by foreign corporations. Rightist US governments, using economic leverage through the World Bank, IMF, and private banks, pushed through policies that significantly reversed the reforms that those governments had put into place, all in the name of "free market reforms."

"Pension reform," often called "Social Security Reform" here in the US, follows a similar pattern. Social Security and pensions are reforms that have done a lot to relieve poverty and misery among the elderly. Wealthy elites have decided they are done tolerating this, since they want all the money and wealth for themselves. So, they looted most private corporate pensions in the late 20th Century. Now, they are trying to loot Social Security and public employee pensions, all in this Orwellian use of the word "reform."

Then, there's tenure reform. Sleazy politicians like Michael Bloomberg and Scott Walker are trying to engage in the same age discrimination that private sector employers use. They private sector has been laying off older workers disproportionately and hiring younger workers disproportionately because older workers' experience has put them in a position where their work is worth more in terms of productivity, giving them higher salary scales. Also, older workers cost more in terms of health insurance. So, what do these sleazebags do? They create phony "budget crises" in order to justify massive age discrimination in the name of "tenure reform." Public school teachers have tenure to keep corrupt practices from determining who gets those jobs. While the original corruption tenure was meant to fight was patronage, tenure is an equally valid reform to prevent massive age discrimination.

Then, there is the right's biggest Orwellian phrase of them all, "tax reform." The graduated tax is the most important economic and political reform in US history. It is based on the fairest view of taxation. Those who are wealthier benefit more from society, so they owe society higher tax rates as compensation. Graduated tax rates also reduce social stratification, and make the upward mobility inherent in the American Dream a possibility outside of the world of fiction. Yet, the phony "tax reform" movement is attacking this reform by trying to cut taxes for the rich and raise them for the middle class and the poor through the flat tax.

Real tax reform would involve getting rid of tax loopholes used by the rich and corporations. It would involve raising the tax rates for the rich and corporations. It also would involve luxury and windfall profits taxes. Yet, the corporate shills and the corporate media never talk about real tax reform. They just want to distort "tax reform" as a spin term to divert more and more of this nation's income and wealth to the rich.

"Reform" sounds great. Real reform is great. However, the way the rightists abuse the word to attack important reforms is truly reprehensible. The middle class and the poor need to take back the word reform and make sure that it is no longer acceptable to attack real reform in the name of "reform."

 

This is downright scary. (NY Pop Culture and Politics 2/11/11)

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has found enough state grant money to save Long Island College Hospital, NY1 reported. Because of the deal, 2,500 employees, who work at the Brooklyn hospital, will be able to keep their jobs.

In the time that Christine Quinn has been Speaker of the New York City Council, at least eight city hospitals have closed :

- North General Hospital in Harlem declared bankruptcy in 2010 ;
- St. Vincent's Hospital in the West Village was shut down in 2010 after shady backroom meetings ;
- St. John's Queens Hospital in Elmhurst went bankrupt in 2009 ;
- Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica went bankrupt in 2009 ;
- Parkway Hospital in Forest Hills decided to close in 2008 ;
- Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan closed in 2008 ;
- Victory Memorial Hospital in Bay Ridge closed in 2008 ; and
- St. Vincent's Midtown in Manhattan closed in 2007.

Three things struck me right away on this one.

1) Bloomberg has been mayor during this period and hasn't lifted a finger to save any hospital.

2) Before they were cash poor from the child molestation lawsuits, the Roman Catholic clergy were buying up hospitals so they could deny women patients access to birth control and abortion. As you can see, they have an execrable record in terms of managing hospitals.

3) "Policy experts" here and in other parts of the country have been babbling on about "excess hospital beds" for at least a couple of decades. If they had IQs over 60, they would realize that it is necessary to have extra hospital capacity in case of disasters. This includes terrorist attacks in NYC. These "efficiency experts" have no clue about the role that hospitals are supposed to play in the security of their cities, towns, and neighborhoods. You would think that NYC would learn from 911, but Bloomberg obviously has not.

Penny pinching HMOs and health insurers along with cutbacks in government funding for healthcare over the years have had devastating effects on hospitals and the people who need them. We need Medicare for All ASAP. What we don't need is what we have: a government that makes big money campaign contributions, reprehensible wars, other subsidies for corporations, and tax cuts for the rich higher priorities than human needs.

Photo: Edwin Martinez1

 

Photo: Kenny Miller

Mayor for Life Michael Bloomberg has thrown a fit because parents didn't passively go along with his plan to close public schools so he can replace them with useless, for profit charter schools. (From CBS New York 2/4/11)

The educational panel was given a tongue-lashing Thursday night by an angry crowd. Another tongue-lashing came on Friday, this time from an irritated mayor who accused the crowd of overstepping its bounds, reports CBS 2′s Sean Hennessey.

Before the hearing about the school closures even began, parents, students and teachers chanted, help up posters insulting new Schools Chancellor Cathie Black.

Schools Chancellor Cathie Black, who mixed it up with a crowed during another schools closure meeting earlier this week, was again drowned out by shouting protesters. Black has come under withering criticism since Mayor Michael Bloomberg tapped her to succeed former Chancellor Joe Klein.

That's right. Parents, mostly poor, dared to stand up to the rampant corruption of the Bloomberg administration and its past two Schools Chancellors. According to Mayor for Life Bloomberg, that is unacceptable.

The mayor said what happened wasn’t one of the city’s finest moments. “This is embarrassing for New York City, for New York State, for America,” Bloomberg said.
...
“This is not democracy. Letting people yell and scream, that’s not freedom of expression,” Bloomberg said. “That’s just rying to take away somebody else’s rights.”

Obviously, these are deeply classist and racist lies by our pathetic excuse for a mayor. They also are the height of hypocrisy. Bloomberg is in no position to lecture anyone else about democracy when he has used hundreds of millions of dollars of money from his personal fortune and from his fascist Bloomberg media empire to buy the mayor's office three times in a row. Not only has Bloomberg repeatedly shown his fanatical hatred of middle class and poor New Yorkers, he has shown an equally uncompromising hatred of democracy and everything else America stands for.

Under the grossly unqualified and incompetent previous Schools Chancellor Joe Klein, the public schools in NYC fell further behind private schools that educate the children and grandchildren of Bloomberg's parasitical rich friends. Under Bloomberg's direction, Klein kept his focus away from educational improvement and pushed for poorly run but profitable charter schools. Klein also followed the Mayor for Life's instructions to change our city's public schools from educational institutions to test taking academies. That has been profitable for educational testing corporations, but it has damaged a school system that needs improvement, not corporate raids and hollowing out under The Shock Doctrine.

Now, Mayor for Life Bloomberg has put in another unqualified corporate shill, Cathie Black, in charge of slowly bleeding the public schools and trying to keep the vast majority of New Yorkers so horribly educated so that they won't be able to figure out Bloomberg and other super rich, corporatist parasites are doing to them and our society.

Bloomberg sees those of us who live in NYC as his personal serfs, who better be grateful for the abuse his administration heaps on us. He reminds me more and more of Hosni Mubarak and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali every day.

 

Providing some needed comic relief, Hizzego Michael Bloomberg has actually attacked President Obama as "arrogant"? (Times of India 11/6/10)

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg had once said that a conversation with Barack Obama was "like verbal ping pong" and that the US president was the "most arrogant man" he had ever met, according to a media report.

Bloomberg had called on Obama, during the latter's vacation at Martha's Vineyard in August. He played a round of golf at the Vineyard Golf Club, along with a few other officials.

Regardless of party or ideology, anyone who lives in NYC knows that Bloomberg shouldn't have gone there. Michael Bloomberg is the most arrogant person in the history of this city, and that would be quite the accomplishment, even if this wasn't such an old city and it didn't have such an enormous population.

Giggle.

What's Next?

Is Sarah Palin going to accuse someone else of being shallow?

Is Glenn Beck going to say someone else is crazy?

Is Martha Stewart going to attack someone else for being anal?

Is John Boehner going to slam a political opponent for being elitist?

Is Linda McMahon going to accuse the UFC of being too violent?

Is Ayn Rand Paul going to call someone else "selfish"?

Is Rush Limbaugh going to start making fun of other peoples' weight problems?

Am I going to start criticizing other bloggers for having too long of postings?

Photo: Edwin Martinez1

 

The thing that pisses me off the most is that my tax dollars subsidize this heterosexist bullshit. (New York City taxpayers have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to the Yankees, even though it is a profitable business that needs no help.)



I will never vote for any politician that gives a dime of city or state money to that homophobic, greedy organization again. I will never forgive ultra homophobic Mayor Bloomberg for pushing the last stadium subsidy through.

 

Parody Video of Meg Whitman's Efforts to Buy California Governor's Office

Donna Smith community organizer with the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, American SiCKO and is a national single-payer healthcare advocate. She has a wonderful commentary comparing the Blagojevich office selling controversy with the routine practice of the super rich buying political offices. The full commentary can be found on Michael Moore's website.

Forgive me for being a tad confused. I am finding it difficult to understand why one person goes to jail for privately selling an appointment for elected office while others have a legal right to buy their elected positions. The U.S. Supreme Court says corporations are persons in terms of exercising free speech through political contributions. Other persons who behave more like corporations than persons are spending personal fortunes buying positions of power in the public sector.
Meg Whitman is working hard to buy the governorship of California. Rick Scott is doing the same in Florida. Millions and millions of dollars of their own personal fortunes have already been spent in their primary battles and both plan to spend “whatever it takes” to win. In both states, the good that could be accomplished with what these two corporate born and bred candidates are spending to win their elections points to how insane our election process has become.

In contrast, former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich faces another trial and millions in public funds will be spent trying to convict him of selling his favor in the appointment of a new U.S. Senator to Barack Obama’s seat after the 2008 Presidential election.

We call selling a political office a crime; we don’t seem to mind buying those same seats.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like what Blagojevich purportedly did. In fact, I am annoyed beyond what is probably reasonable that the former governor of my home state of Illinois makes the appointment process seem so ugly and tawdry. Illinois just doesn’t need any more corruption scandals. There are millions of wonderful, honest people in Illinois who deserve the best of governance.

Is it acceptable if a corporation contributes huge amounts of money with the intent of gaining political and policy favor? It certainly is legal. In fact, the Supreme Court said we violate the “corporate person’s” First Amendment rights to free speech if we limit their spending on campaigns and issues.

But wait. Suggest that the same political or policy favor will be granted during a private phone conversation and you may go to prison? More...

Ms. Smith is in California, so it is hardly surprising that she is focused primarily on Meg Whitman's jihad to use her dirty EBay money to buy the governor's office there. Meg Whitman certainly is incredibly evil. However, those of us in NYC have seen the disastrous effects of Michael Bloomberg using tens of millions of dollars from his personal fortune (plus millions more in Bloomberg Financial's charitable donations) to buy the mayor's office here three times. Bloomberg is doing everything to destroy everything distinctive about a city he despises and to drive out middle class and poor residents. He sees giving money to his rich friends to be the main purpose of the city's treasury.

Our corrupt US Supreme Court, our lax and hypocritical anti corruption laws, and our complicit corporate media have completely obliterated any real democracy in America. I strongly admire Michael Moore's long standing commitment to supporting democracy in our country, and I also admire his efforts to provide a platform for others doing the same.

Photos: whiteafrican

Edwin Martinez1

 

Illustration: Rex Lameray

In titanic news, Rush Limbaugh finally has sold his huge Manhattan apartment. (Visit the link to see some of the most comically tacky decor north of the Mason Dixon line.) Limbaugh committed the first act of public service in his life after throwing gargantuan tantrums at the mere thought of paying slightly closer to his fair share in taxes.

Locals are relieved to longer experience his gravitational field. Lines at all you can eat buffets should get shorter as well. The moving van won't need to handle loads as wide as the taxicab dumping Mount Limbaugh at the airport.

Now that the poster child (landscape not portrait) of the obesity epidemic is heading elsewhere, it will be an enormous relief to New Yorkers and will have a huge impact of improving morale here. We will be delighted that he will bounce his man boobs all the way out of our fair city.

Mayor Bloomberg should declare a city wide day of celebration, but his dishonor is too much of a far right Republican at heart to do it.

Now, can Rush leave the USA entirely? Antarctica would be good. I think there would be enough room for him. He certainly has a sufficiently weighty layer of protective blubber.

 

Last Monday, there was a rally for homeless queer youth organized by the Ali Forney Center and other queer organizations, that was partly in response to a hate crime in Queens. Here's the promo Queers United ran:

A rally to protect and advocate on behalf of homeless LGBT youth will occur tonight in Manhattan. This rally is in response to the recent hate crime against the Ali Forney LGBT homeless youth shelter. There are too many issues LGBT youth who are homeless go through to be ignored and while the the NYC Commission on LGBTQ Runaway and Homeless Youth came out with a report of suggestions, action needs to follow for implementation of change.

Monday June 14th, 6:30PM, Union Square
(Special guest-speakers Sandra Bernhard and Lt. Dan Choi)

Our execrable Mayor Bloomberg created the commission while at the same time planning to cut $6 million of city funding for homeless youth. He loves to pretend to be pro lgbt while stabbing us in the back when it counts. Some of us are not fooled by his bullshit.

The hate crime that triggered this particular rally was described by Kicked Out Anthology:

I am shocked and angered by the vandalism that occurred at the Ali Forney Center’s NYC shelter in Queens. Yesterday morning youth living at the shelter woke up to find the words “”We don’t want gay people here” scrawled on the walls, and “gay shelter” on the door of a place that is intended to provide them safety and security. Take a moment and think about what that must have felt like “we don’t want gay people here” the majority of homeless LGBTQ youth have left home because of their parents and guardian’s reaction to their sexual orientation and/or gender identity, how bitingly cruel to wake to find those same words on the door of a place offering them sanctuary.

Sandra Bernhard was good, but Lt. Dan Choi was amazing. He is the most passionate and moving queer speaker since Harvey Milk. Like Milk, he sees queer issues in a broader social justice context. If Choi ever starts working on coalition building like Milk did, Choi could be the kind of queer leader our movement desperately needs.

However, the most important speakers were the queer youth themselves. Putting human faces on a social ill, homelessness, that our society prefers to ignore is terribly important.

The speaker from Fierce made some excellent points about how youth homelessness disproportionately effects the queer community. She said that over 40% of homeless youth in NYC acknowledge being LGBT. Many more are understandably reluctant to say who and what they are to strangers trying to gather statistics.

Some queer youth run away from homophobic parents, but most of the queer youth who are homeless are kicked out by their parents. There are far fewer beds here in NYC than there are queer youth who need them. However, things are better here than in most of the country. Most places have zero beds for LGBT youth.

Some of the things speakers at the rally called for include:

- A queer nondiscrimination policy for all federally funded youth shelters.

- An end to Mayor Bloomberg's efforts to cut funding for homeless youth.

- Making youth issues a priority for the LGBT community.

- The creation of a queer youth center at the pier in the West Village.

Some elected officials showed for the event, including City Controller John Liu. Conspicuous by her absence was openly lesbian City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. I guess she has been too busy with her hateful crusade to "honor" Mother Teresa, the homophobic bigot who denied visits from same sex lovers in AIDS hospices, avoided providing pain medication to all patients, used highly questionable medical practices, and lavished praise on Savings and Loan crook Charles Keating even after he got caught. Considering how much Quinn panders to our viciously homophobic and horribly corrupt Mayor Bloomberg, serious questions about Quinn's loyalty to the queer community need to be raised.

 

Photo: Muffett

Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire who has spent hundreds of millions of dollars buying the last three mayoral elections here in NYC, is continuing his jihad against accountability and integrity on Wall St.

He threw a tantrum just because members of Congress made some token efforts to retrive the stolen bonuses of the banksters and brokesters. (New York Magazine 4/21/10)

"I just find it sort of ironic that congressmen, senators who make more than double what the average person working in finance makes — they're the rich ones and they're talking about trying to restrict bonuses and taxing the industries that are our lifeblood," he said back in January. "Maybe we should hold back their salaries for a decade or so and see whether the laws they pass work out."

This is highly misleading, given the fact that the Wall St. goons make astronomical, unearned salaries in addition to the outlandish bonuses they have received for destroying a significant portion of the world economy.

Cracking down on the banksters and brokesters will help our economy here in NYC in the long term. The only things to prevent more events like the Crash of 2008 are ending excessive bonuses based on short term financial gains, massive regulation of the financial disservices industry, and breakups of its biggest corporations.

Bloomberg doesn't care about the long term. His evil media empire preaches short term profits over corporate sustainability and pressures every company to toe the line. He already has many times over the wealth that any one person could possibly earn in a dozen lifetimes, but that doesn't satisfy his insatiable greed or the avarice of so many other speculators.

Our not so Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer isn't exactly strong on getting the banksters and brokesters under control, but even he isn't kissing butt enough to satisfy Daddy Bloombucks (Politico 4/21/10).

In an April 12 meeting in Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s spacious office overlooking the National Mall, Bloomberg said that Schumer has been “AWOL,” that “this is a real problem for New York City” and that “our senators who are normally in the middle of it aren’t there,” according to a Republican senator briefed on the meeting.

Another person familiar with the meeting said Bloomberg was simply agreeing with criticism of Schumer leveled by McConnell and didn’t lash out pre-emptively: “They said that Chuck was not doing anything, that he was very unhelpful, that he wasn’t providing the ballast for New York,” the source said, adding, “Bloomberg didn’t disagree.”

Bloomberg is fond of using the talking point that cracking down on Wall St. is somehow attacking New York. This is typical of a Mayor who has worked tirelessly to drive middle class and poor people out of this city to make it an exclusive gated community of the rich. His attitude is that what is good for the banks, the brokerages, and the speculators is good for New York, or at least for the only people in New York he thinks count for anything.

This is an example of why we need public financing of campaigns and to make it illegal for rich people to buy elections through "self financing" (a ridiculous euphemism if I've ever read one). Plutocrats like Bloomberg must be made to respect real democracy.

Instead, he seems determined to prove Marxist right about class warfare.

 

I got this email yesterday:

Hate Crime Against the LGBT Community Center

Hello Center Supporters,
I am writing to tell you about a disturbing incident that happened at the Center. This morning our building staff arrived and discovered a burned rainbow flag hanging on one of the poster display cases outside our building. We called the NYPD, and they immediately dispatched detectives from the hate crimes unit and our local precinct. We also contacted the Anti-Violence Project, and the crime is currently under investigation.

We at the Center strive everyday to be a safe space for our community and a beacon of inclusion and hope for the entire city. It is sad that these incidents still happen in this day and age, but rest assured we will do everything in our power to make sure our community is safe. We have contacted our elected officials and are working closely with them to raise awareness in our community and to unite together against this hate-fueled action.

Most importantly, we will not stand for anyone who thinks they can come to the Center and try to intimidate us. Hate and intolerance against LGBT New Yorkers will not be accepted, and we as a community must stand strong and together in the face of these hateful incidents. We are asking anyone who has additional information about this crime to contact the police directly at 1-800-577-TIPS.
Thank you all for your continued support.
For more information and photos please visit our website.
Sincerely,
Glennda Testone

Ms. Testone is the Executive Director of the New York LGBT Center.

This is a hostile environment for queers. The so called "Catholic League" and the Vatican are trying to scapegoat gays for the rampant child molestation in that church's clergy. Never mind the fact that the rape of girls also is rampant among RCC priests.

The economy sucks, and bad economies result in all sorts of scapegoating of minority groups. The Obama administration isn't helping on this area by bailing out the rich while doing very little to help the middle class and the poor.

Our execrable Mayor Bloomberg isn't helping either. Under his "leadership," the NYPD has had a two faced approach to heterosexist hate crimes. If the victim is famous or killed, the NYPD will do something about it. Otherwise, the policy is to ignore it. Bloomberg also has used the NYPD in part of his drip by drop approach to closing gay bars and bathhouses.

Bloomberg also has used the NYPD to engage in a jihad of entrapment against gay and bisexual men.

Queer City Council Speaker Christine Quinn makes impassioned speeches against hate crimes, but she refuses to confront and condemn ultra homophobic Mayor Bloomberg for his roll in causing them.

This is unacceptable.

 

Photo: Muffett

Meg Whitman, former CEO of the reprehensible EBay corporation is trying to turn the California governor's race into an auction. (San Jose Mercury 4/5/10)

Whitman, the front-runner for the Republican nomination for governor, will announce today that she contributed $20 million more to her war chest late Monday, the Mercury News has learned.

That means the former eBay chief executive has donated $59 million to her campaign so far, with two months to go before the primary and seven months left before the general election.

The $39 million Whitman donated previously had already set a California political record for self-funding. But her ubiquitous radio and TV ad campaign led to her spending $27.2 million in the first 11 weeks of the year — an average of $358,439 a day. So her campaign kitty had been running on empty.

Whitman has vowed to shell out as much as $150 million in her quest to become California's next governor. The current record for political self-funding is held by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who ponied up $108 million of his own money for his 2009 re-election bid.

When Whitman was CEO of the infamous EBay, the corporation allowed scam artists to keep doing auctions because sellers were the one who paid the fees. Now, she is trying to turn the California governor's race into a sleazy EBay deal.

I'm surprised that she isn't paying for the governorship on the EBay subsidiary, PayPal.

Here in NYC, we have seen what a pathetic excuse for a Mayor Michael Bloomberg is. All he does is cut services and fine the middle class and the poor so he can give city money to his rich friends. He hasn't made a significant contribution to any of the biggest problems facing the city: inadequate public transportation, poverty, AIDS, and the housing shortage. With housing, he has shifted money that was supposed to go to building affordable housing towards subsidizing luxury condos that were going to be built anyway.

Rich people who buy offices use them as their personal playthings, trying to enhance their social standing among their rich peers, screwing over the rest of us in the process.

 

 

Ugh.

The only good news for NYC tonight is that Michael Bloomberg is 67 years old.

I've admired John Liu for some time now. He has done a lot of oversight of the MTA and stood up for transit riders on the City Council. Mayor Bloomberg and his appointees to the MTA board have done little but use the MTA as a cash cow for Bloomberg's rich friends. Here's the text of the email.

Election Day is Tuesday.

Do you know where your polling site is located?

Click here to find out.

Nearly a year ago, Republican Mike Bloomberg disregarded the will of the people when he overturned the term limits law we voted for twice.

Meanwhile, our City continues to become more unaffordable because of sky-high rents, taxes, fines, fares, and fees.

We can do better.

I have known Bill Thompson for many years. He has the vision and the experience we need to make our City more affordable for working families.

On Election Day -- Tuesday, November 3rd -- come out and vote for Bill Thompson. Together, we can shape a new direction for New York City and tell Mike Bloomberg that eight is enough.

Click the link below to find out where your poll site is and do your civic duty: vote!

http://www.thompson2009.com/pollsite

Thank you.

Sincerely,

John Liu
Democratic Nominee for New York City Comptroller

If you wonder why I think Michael Bloomberg is such a terrible mayor, my previous postings on him should give you many of the reasons.

Michael Bloomberg has run NYC like a failed bank or brokerage firm. The Thompson campaign is fond of saying "Eight Is Enough" referring to Bloomberg's broken promises on term limits. I say, "Eight is way, way, too many."

Photo: Edwin Martinez1

EMTs at Bill Thompson Rally
Photo: Edwin Martinez1

City Comptroller is running a courageous campaign against NYC's abysmal Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Here are some blogs of people supporting Thompson. (If you know of more, please do mention them in the comments.)

Blabbeando

Bloomberg Watch

Education Notes Online

Fed Up New Yorkers

Justice Not Change

Lost in the Ozone
- lists in detail the disastrous shape our city is in

Mole's Progressive Democrat

No Th3rd T3rm for Micha3l Bloomb3rg!

Pauline Park

---

Some Other Endorsements:

Gay City News

Civic Center Residents Association NYC

DC 37

El Diario

Jonathan Tasini

Lambda Independent Democrats

Manhattan Young Democrats

NYC Kids PAC

Out People of Color Political Action Club

Stonewall Democratic Club

Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York
(It must really be awful for them to see people dying in front of them because Bloomberg closed fire houses.)

Working Families Party

---

Full List of Union Endorsements:

Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU, UFCW), Allied International Union, Amalgamated Transit Union Locals 1056 & 891, International Union of Operating Engineers, District Council 37, New York Metro Area Postal Union (APWU), Public Employees Federation (PEF), Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1180, UAW Region 9A, Fire Alarm Dispatchers Union, District Council 1707, BCTGM Local 50, Uniformed Firefighters Association (UFA), National Association of Letter Carriers: Branch 36, National Association of Social Workers, Local 2507, Uniformed EMT's and Paramedics, Local 3621, Uniformed EMS Officers Union, Local Union No. 3, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association (COBA), Local 74, USWU, Teamsters National Black Caucus, New York State Chapter, Professional Staff Congress (PSC), Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) Local 1000, Communications Workers of America (CWA) District 1, International Association of Machinists District 15, International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 808, Local 94 of the International Union of Operating Engineers, The Associated Musicians of Greater New York Local 802 AFM, Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100

---

Elected Officials:

President Barack Obama

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

Senator Chuck Schumer

NY State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo

Governor David Paterson

City Council: Charles Barron, Gale Brewer, Leroy Comrie, Elizabeth Crowley, Bill de Blasio, Inez Dickens, Erik Martin Dilan, Mathieu Eugene, Julissa Ferreras, Lewis A. Fidler, Helen D. Foster, Daniel Garodnick, Vincent J. Gentile, Eric Gioia, Sara Gonzalez, Robert Jackson, Melinda Katz, Letitia James, John Liu, Melissa Mark-Vivento, Darlene Mealy, Rosie Mendez, Annabel Palma, Christine Quinn, Joel Rivera, Lawrence Seabrook, James Vacca, Albert Vann, David Weprin, Thomas White

US House of Representatives: Yvette Clarke, Joseph Crowley, Gregory Meeks, Charles B. Rangel, Jose Serrano, Kendall B. Stewart, Ed Towns, Nydia M. Velazquez, Anthony Weiner, David Yassky

State Legislature: Assembly Member Peter J. Abbate, Senator Eric Adams, Senator Joseph P. Addabbo, Assembly Member Jeffrion Aubry, Assembly Member Inez Barron, Assembly Member Michael Benedetto, Assembly Member Michael Benjamin, Assembly Member Jonathan Bing, Assembly Member William F. Boyland, Assembly Member James F. Brennan, Assembly Member Alec Brook-Krasny, Assembly Member Karim Camara, Assembly Member Vivian E. Cook, Assembly Member Marcos Crespo, Assembly Member Michael DenDekker, Senator Martin Dilan, Assembly Member Jeffery Dinowitz, Senator Thomas Duane, Assembly Member Adriano Espaillat, Assembly Member Herman Farrell, Jr., Assembly Member Michael N. Gianaris, Assembly Member Vanessa Gibson, Deborah J. Glick, Assembly Member Richard Gottfried, Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson, Assembly Member Carl E. Heastie, Assembly Member Andrew Hevesi, Assembly Member Dov Hikind, Senator Shirley Huntley, Assembly Member Janele Hyer-Spencer, Assembly Member Hakeem Jeffries, Assembly Member Brian Kavanagh, Assembly Member Micah Kellner, Senator Jeffrey Klein, Senator Liz Krueger, Assembly Member Rory Lancman, Councilmember Jessica Lappin, Assembly Member Joseph R. Lentol, Assembly Member Alan Maisel, Assembly Member Margaret M. Markey, Assembly Member Nettie Mayersohn, Assembly Member Grace Meng, Assembly Member Joan L. Millman, Senator Velmanette Montgomery, Assembly Member Catherine T. Nolan, Assembly Member Daniel O'Donnell, Assembly Member Felix W. Ortiz, Assembly Member Jose Peralta, Senator Bill Perkins, Assembly Member Nick Perry, Assembly Member Audrey I. Pheffer, Assembly Member Adam Clayton Powell, IV, Assembly Member Peter M. Rivera, Assembly Member Naomi Rivera, Assembly Member Jose Rivera, Assembly Member Anette M. Robinson, Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal, Senator John L. Sampson, Senator Diane Savino, Assembly Member William Scarborough, Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, State Senator Jose M. Serrano, Senator Malcolm Smith, Senator Toby Ann Stavisky, Assembly Member Matthew Titone, Assembly Member Michele R. Titus, Assembly Member Darryl C. Towns, Assembly Member Helene E. Weinstein, Assembly Member Mark Weprin, Assembly Member Keith L. T. Wright

Please Vote for Bill Thompson on Tuesday!

The New York Times isn't exactly a bastion of journalism. They are corporate media shills just one step above Faux News and Lou Dobbs. So, their endorsements are not exactly representative of the interests of the majority of the people who live here.

Even worse, this paper is financially beholden to Michael Bloomberg. Some of Bloomberg's tens of millions of dollars spent to buy the election go to ads on the NY Times website. They also are desperate, since they are losing money. So, it isn't shocking that they gave middle class readers the finger by endorsing would be Mayor for Life Bloomberg.

What is surprising is the way they endorsed the Little Mayor That Couldn't. They practically drooled over the worst NYC Mayor since Jimmy Walker. Here's a paragraph so divorced from the reality we experience here in NYC that one can not help but think that writing the editorial was outsourced abroad.

NY Times 10/23/09:

What makes the mayor stand out is not his political skill, although he has come a long way since his first clumsy days in office. He has run the $60 billion government with a keen attention to accountability and efficiency. He has chosen some of the best people in the country to work for him, and he has mostly let them do their jobs. As a result, many city services operate better than they have for years. The garbage mostly disappears on time. The police and fire departments respond quickly. Mr. Bloomberg’s 311 phone line allows New Yorkers to complain to a live human being. Often, they even see tangible results.

Let's compare this to the facts:

1) Outside of Manhattan, trash delivery is still spotty. Most people in NYC don't live in Manhattan.

2) It is generally difficult to impossible to get the NYPD to file a crime report, much less solve the crime.

3) The NYPD takes forever to show up when you call them, if they show up at all.

4) 311 is a terrible mess. It's as if it is run by the Deptartment Of Wrong Answers. Even worse, city agencies won't answer their direct numbers unless you are from a wealthy interest. Instead they insist you call 311, which gives incorrect information and misdirects calls.

5) Seldom do any people who are middle class or poor see any tangible results from the city government. The rich do get tons of taxpayer money shoveled at them, though.

The article goes on to say that Blomberg's efforts to spending millions of dollars to buy the election and his refusal to tolerate dissent are "small blemishes." That speaks volumes about the corporate media's hatred and contempt for democracy and civil liberties.

Whenever anybody says the Times is a liberal newspaper, I giggle.

If you like that funky, offbeat idea called democracy, you may be looking for someone else to vote for than Bloomberg. If you want something done about the execrable morass of NYC city government, you should definitely pick someone who won't run the city like a failed bank or brokerage firm. It's time for a decent mayor and a decent human being.

It's time for Bill Thompson for Mayor.



Photo (of Bloomberg at top): Edwin Martinez1

Bill Thompson, who is running against heterosexist bigot Michael Bloomberg, spoke out at the rally against the heinous homophobic hate crime that recently happened in Queens. Here's his speech.



Thompson has been a strong supporter of the queer community for years. He doesn't suddenly discover us around election time, like some politicians do.

Hundreds of people showed up to protest the hate crime, while a small number of bigots showed up to support the bashers.

No Th3rd T3rm for Micha3l Bloomb3rg! points out the following:

Whilst the community held the public demonstration against homophobia and hate crimes, reportedly, "Bloomberg was off campaigning with Giuliani. Telling, very telling."

It's especially telling, since the NYPD did nothing about homophobic hate crimes under Giuliani except when they went on a queer bashing spree during the Matthew Shepard Political Funeral March.

Bloomberg has got to go.

 

The music is from "Busom Buddies" by Ethel Merman Angela Lansbury and Bea Arthur. That should appeal to the mos reading this.

 

When I was looking for an opt out form on Michael Bloomberg's campaign website so I wouldn't get flooded with so much junk mail (none was found), I checked the endorsements page, and I was horrified to find out that Cecile Richards, President of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, had endorsed a vicious and fanatical homophobe like Michael Bloomberg for Mayor.

This really felt like a sucker punch because I had thought that Planned Parenthood was pro lgbt. I know better now, and I won't give those bigots any more money. Anyway, here's the text of the email I sent them.

I am shocked and horrified to learn that your President has deliberately promoted discrimination and violence against lesbian, gay, bi, and trans people here in New York City by endorsing a monstrous bigot like Michael Bloomberg for Mayor.

Bloomberg has been shutting down queer businesses. He has been engaging in campaigns of false arrest specifically targeting gay men, usually in predominantly gay neighborhoods. He has continued Giuliani's policy of the NYPD ignoring homophobic hate crimes unless the victims are killed or are famous. He has worked tirelessly to promote harassment and assault against queer youth in the New York City public schools. Bloomberg has deliberately discouraged HIV testing by starting contact tracing.

Of course, this isn't the only shocking thing about this endorsement. Bloomberg is a far right Bush/Cheney/Limbaugh Republican who has doled out bucket fulls of money from his personal fortune to finance the campaigns of far right GOP politicians who fight hard against reproductive rights. Bloomberg repeatedly committed criminal and unpatriotic acts during the RNC to keep the anti reproductive rights fanatic, George W. Bush, in the White House.

I cannot give money to an organization run by a vicious homophobe like this. The fact that she has deliberately sabotaged her own organization's mission by endorsing a monster like Michael Bloomberg is even worse.

I thought I could trust Planned Parenthood, but I obviously can't.

 

If you don't want NYC's incompetent Mayor to buy a third term with his tens of millions of dollars, please learn more at the Bill Thompson campaign site.

Thompson is the Democrat running against Bloomberg, who wants to be Mayor for Life.