Anti Quinn Activists Marched In Heritage Of Pride Parade

Class picture of @NYCIsNot4Sale @NYCLASS @defeatquinn and #QueersAgainstChristineQuinn @suzannahbtroy pic.twitter.com/zrjDZMkuCK

— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) June 30, 2013

2013-06-29 Heritage of Pride Parade - Press Release

Will Thompson Family Save LICH ?

Last week-end, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn closed on the 2014 city budget without making any provisions to save Long Island College Hospital (LICH). Because she has abdicated all sense of municipal leadership over the collapse of strategic public resources, such as hospital closings, to a laissez-faire belief that she's adopted from her close associations with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the right wing group Partnership for New York City, she is creating opportunities for other leaders to step forward in this political and leadership vacuum.

And that's exactly what happened yesterday, when the father of one of her challengers for this year's Democratic mayoral primary election, Bill Thompson, was appointed by a court to serve as a monitor over LICH.

Let's see if the Thompson family's political ambitions will be strong enough reason for New York City's leaders to perform the political triage necessary to save LICH. If the Thompson family succeeds, it will only draw attention to how Speaker Quinn has stood idly by and allowed 10 New York City hospitals to close or downsize during her speakership, including the spectacular 2010 closure of St. Vincent's Hospital in Speaker Quinn's very own City Council district.

Lack of political triage to save LICH forces court to appoint Bill Thompson's dad as monitor over Brooklyn hospital. http://t.co/QdpUSFYz5o

— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) June 28, 2013

As a side note, what does it say about the disfunction of our political system that we must seek justice over the management of strategic community resources, such as community hospitals, from court-appointed monitors ? How much more of a sign do we need that New York City's political leadership are incompetent and/or their abdication of their political responsibility is so dangerous that the judicial system is called forth to intervene on behalf of public health ?

Roots of Betrayal : It's Better Than Cats !

Yesterday, the blogger and artist Suzannah B. Troy starred in a humorous YouTube video promoting the publication and sale of Volume I of Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn. Ms. Troy says in the video, "This book is better than Cats!" -- a reference to a campy commercial for a Broadway show that was often parodied.

Roots of Betrayal, written by the LGBT blogger and activist Louis Flores, examines the arc of Christine Quinn’s political career, which nominally began as a hero’s journey before it morphed into a tale about political betrayals. The entire book will be serialized this summer in four volumes reminiscent of pamphleteering done in our tradition of bringing about political change.

“Before the advent of blogs and digital social media, political pamphlets allowed activists to mobilize voters,” said Flores. “My hope is that Roots of Betrayal will educate voters offline about how Christine Quinn is the worst mayoral candidate this year.”

Volume I of Roots of Betrayal will become available for sale at Book Thug Nation in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and at St. Mark’s Bookshop in Manhattan.

Christine Quinn's Mayoral Campaign Seen Slumping In Polls

Slump in Polls Puts @ChrisCQuinn in Tight Spot http://t.co/nRPf18XDkm @Quinn4NY @defeatquinn @DNDailyPolitics @powellnyt @SallyGold

— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) June 27, 2013

"She is in trouble," said Costas Panagopoulos, director of the Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy at Fordham University. "There's been a steady erosion in the level of support for her candidacy as other candidates, or the possibility of other candidacies, have emerged. And, so, it seems to me that New York City voters are looking for an alternative to Christine Quinn."

Volume I of "Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn" has been printed !

"Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn" Vol. I has been printed ! Look for an update later this week ! pic.twitter.com/Cj6zUm6CZ3

— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) June 25, 2013

If Christine Quinn Wants To Save Her Mayoral Campaign, She Will Use Slush Funds To Save LICH

Supreme Court of the State of New York Hearing Transcript June 19 2013 Re: Long Island College Hospital by SaveLICH

Suzannah B. Troy 911 ECTP Testimony at City Council

The blogger and political activist Suzannah B. Troy produced a YouTube video today, introducing the audio recording of her City Council testimony today about the 911 ECTP emergency call system failures.

Christine Quinn's Political and Literary Platforms

The symbolism of guardian lion statuary

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's political biography has sold about 100 copies in its first week on sale. Whilst this must be personally devastating to Speaker Quinn, who admits in the memoir that she suffers from something bordering on Irish Catholic guilt, this is a sign that Speaker Quinn's book was troubled from its inception.

Christine Quinn's political biography, With Patience and Virtue, was named after the two lion statues that sit outside as guardians to the main entrance of the great New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, you know, the one that is being gutted and destroyed.

This was one part of Michelle Goldberg's review of Speaker Quinn's book, which was published by The Daily Beast :

"It’s hard to figure out just what Quinn is doing here. Sure, her book’s sentimentality and self-deprecating girlishness might leaven her image as a brash virago, a woman whose friends and colleagues described her in a New York Times cover story as 'controlling, temperamental and surprisingly volatile, with a habit of hair-trigger eruptions of unchecked, face-to-face wrath.' It does very little, however, to demonstrate executive competence or show us what Quinn hopes to do in office. It’s more a chatty recovery memoir rather than a campaign manifesto, as if Quinn thinks that New Yorkers will vote for her as long as they can sympathize with her."

Much has been, and continues to be, made about Speaker Quinn's ascendance into the position as the first woman and first openly LGBT Speaker of the City Council, as if that was some kind of a remarkable LGBT achievement in 2006, as if that event should have been an important cultural touchstone for average New Yorkers.

To write a political biography means that a great public traveler amongst us must have had a huge impact on our lives, or else that there are inspiring and compelling experiences in the traveler's metaphorical voyage in life that need to be shared, to inspire other travelers in our own journeys through life.

There are many reasons that Speaker Quinn's book has been failing to resonate with the reading public. As we link to reviews of her political memoir, let's focus on the symbolism invoked by the guardian lion statuary referred to in the book title.

Speaker Quinn has been so closely linked with supporting and enabling controversial policies of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration, which critics describe as supporting a 1% agenda, to use Occupy Wall Street language.

What does it mean when the great traveler amongst us, who writes a book, is so tone deaf to her critics -- she had her City Hall office sound-proofed -- that she would pick the name of immobile, ineffectual guardians that basically are only there for show, whilst the New York Public Library is receiving an expensive $350 million renovation that will ruin its research and antiquarian assets during a time that the city government, over which Speaker Quinn has administered, has slashed it support for other public libraries ?

It's not just that the book's title serves as a reminder of Speaker Quinn's failure to stand up for all libraries -- for all programs that benefit the 99% -- but the title also serves to remind voters that Speaker Quinn herself is tone deaf to her own insensitivity and betrayals. The only worse book title could have been to name it after St. Vincent's Hospital. Many residents in the community formerly served by St. Vincent's blame Speaker Quinn for doing nothing to save the hospital from closing in 2010, much like many Progressive activists blame Speaker Quinn for doing nothing to save social and cultural institutions from being decimated under Mayor Bloomberg. It was as if Speaker Quinn was a mere marble statue, there for show, only a symbol of being a guardian, but, in reality, just an immobile witness to the gutting of the social safety net in New York City. That willful indifference and insensitivity was what doomed her political memoir from the start. That energy is what infuses Speaker Quinn's character, and somehow Speaker Quinn's publisher thought that she was going to somehow come across as being endearing or compelling to book buyers ? Let's look at how others have reviewed Speaker Quinn's book :

From The Politicker :

"Ms. Quinn spends thousands of words, for instance, describing every aspect of her nuptials–from the rejected hair styles and Wedding Day SoulCyle outing, to the full text of her and wife Kim Catullo’s vows. Meanwhile, as the New York Times noted, there is precious little space devoted to the political aspects of her time as speaker, with not a single reference to the damaging slush fund scandal, just two pages and little reflection on her decision to overturn term limits to allow Mayor Bloomberg to run for a third term, and no insights whatsoever on her relationship with the current mayor."

From The New York Times :

Still, much of the prose can be flat and unadorned; some passages offer curiously little insight. On why she chose to be in government: 'I really like being with people and doing things with them, and it has always made me feel good to get things done.' "

From Bob Hardt of NY1 :

"Ultimately, With Patience and Fortiude is Oprah-lite. We hear much about Quinn's challenges in her life and how she's overcome them. But the only reason why people are reading her book rather than someone's random blog post is because of what she's accomplished – and that she's running for mayor. And on both of those fronts, the normally-talkative Quinn is remarkably silent."

If Speaker Quinn's book has failed to meet sales expectations, it could be because book buyers sensed that there was something wrong with the energy behind how the book came to be. The journey that everybody was expecting Speaker Quinn to tell was how she enabled the collapse of infrastructure for the 99% -- everything from the closing of 10 hospitals under her watch, to the closings of senior citizen centers, child care centers, and now public libraries. But this memoir goes against this great expectation, and instead it has the feel of something more calculating.

Indeed, the NYTimes reported that Speaker Quinn's political campaign consultant, Josh Isay, helped to package this book deal. Critics have suggested that the memoir was conceived as part of a sinister machination to shore up support for Speaker Quinn's mayoral campaign. If this book was only meant to deceive voters, then maybe that miscalculation turned out to be every bit much of a mistake as was naming the book after "make-believe" guardians that failed to protect the New York Public Library from ruination.

The mistakes with Speaker Quinn's book could only be made by a politician, who had stood as silently as the fabled lions after which the memoir are titled, while Mayor Bloomberg and his 1% political doctrine enablers gutted and destroyed New York City for three terms from the inside out. Just as those lions, Speaker Quinn has arguably stood deaf, impervious, and unmoved by the decay being wrought from within.

Maybe the larger lesson to metaphorical travelers is that Speaker Quinn's fable offers us the cautionary tale that some modern epic journeys involve proverbial turbulence, screaming babies on planes, lost luggage, yucky food, missed connections, stolen credit cards, and bad weather -- all rolled up into one horrible vacation experience.

How is this an inspiring and compelling story to feed our imagination, if we already lived through this horror story under the Bloomberg-Quinn administration ?

Quinn’s History of Throwing Leaders and Activists Under the Bus

The New York Times Reviews Facts In "Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn"

We should be grateful that the The New York Times published this article. The work I have done in collecting research from almost two decades ago in "Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn" corroborates the reporting in The NYTimes. You have done the voters a great service in exposing Christine Quinn as a ruthless self-promoter. Note how Speaker Quinn still maintains the storyline that she had to "professionalize" the Anti-Violence Project and how she chose to side with watered-down recommendations when she served on a police brutality commission under Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Even after decades have passed, Speaker Quinn still throws Matt Foreman, Norman Siegel, and the activism work of many LGBT leaders under the bus. The true nature of Speaker Quinn's lack of political ethics is beginning to emerge.

Read more : Quinn’s History of Throwing Leaders and Activists Under the Bus

Read also : NY Times: Christine Quinn Has No Principles

Christine Quinn's Political Ethics TV Bars No Signal

Did NYC Politicians Enable Violations Of Civil Rights Act By Enabling Stop And Frisk ?

In the Department of Justice's brief filed with the Stop and Frisk trial court judge, attorneys for the federal government stated that the DOJ has an interest in the outcome of the Stop and Frisk trial, because Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits "discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, or national origin by police departments receiving federal funds." Why couldn't anybody in a position of authority in the City Council make a determination that Stop and Frisk represents discrimination that is prohibited by the Civil Rights Act ? In its filing, the DOJ, which has generally been impotent and misguided in its prosecutions under the Obama administration, has somehow managed to put the City Council to shame with this filing. This is a stinging assessment of Christine Quinn's failure as a leader of the City Council. Now, will the other Councilmembers demand any City Council hearings into the NYPD's violations of the Civil Rights Act ?

Read more : NYPD's Unchecked Authority May Be Coming To An End

Brief on NYPD Frisk Monitor by Colin DeVries

DOJ Advocates Appointment Of Independent Monitor For NYPD

To Christine Quinn's dismay, NYPD's Unchecked Authority May Be Coming To An End http://t.co/6ow7478kE5 #stopandfrisk pic.twitter.com/b6ZVjVIGiT

— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) June 14, 2013

Indeed, last December, activists in Jackson Heights organised a demonstration to highlight Speaker Quinn's failure to end stop-and-frisk. Speaker Quinn is a high-profile LGBT leader, but she turns her back on LGBTQ New Yorkers, who are deliberately profiled and targeted for harassment and arrest by the NYPD, said activists during last December's demonstration.

Is The Victory Fund Helping Christine Quinn Violate Campaign Finance Laws ?

Some government watchdogs are raising questions about a national PAC paying for Christine Quinn's out-of-town trips. online.wsj.com/article/SB1000…

— Michael Howard Saul (@MichaelHwrdSaul) June 13, 2013

Is the Victory Fund deliberately violating Campaign Finance caps on in-kind contributions to Speaker Quinn's mayoral campaign ? The Wall Street Journal reports that, "The Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, which endorsed Ms. Quinn and had collected $165,000 in contributions for her mayoral campaign as of last month, paid her to travel to the PAC's fundraising events in Houston, San Diego and Chicago. Records filed with the city's Campaign Finance Board show Ms. Quinn's mayoral campaign accrued more than $20,000 in contributions from dozens of donors in those cities around the same time as the PAC's events." The reporter, Michael Howard Saul, added that, "At issue here is whether Ms. Quinn's campaign is benefiting directly from these events by not recording expenses associated with the trips."

Read more : New York City Mayoral Candidate Quinn Raised Money on Paid Trips (subscription may be required)

@Quinn4NY Has More Sock Puppet Twitter Account Problems

Per a check by @gopjr, according to fakers.statuspeople.com, "@quinn4ny is followed by 22% fake accounts, 18% inactive, 60% 'good.'"

— NYDN Daily Politics(@DNDailyPolitics) June 13, 2013

Is Christine Quinn exploiting unpaid youth volunteer interns ?

Just before 5 p.m. today, mayoral candidate Randy Credico took this photograph in front of the Criminal Courthouse and the Social Security office in Brooklyn.

"Quinn exploiting black youth in Brooklyn. This girl and two of her friends were petitioning in a Black-concentrated area. They said they were interns and were not being paid," Mr. Credico posted in a rushed Facebook caption to explain the photograph.

Later, when asked to explain his sentiments about the photograph, Mr. Credico expressed outrage that New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn would be perceived to be exploiting youth volunteer interns, who Mr. Credico said were not being paid.

When asked about how could Speaker Quinn's mayoral campaign, which sits atop of several million dollars in reserve donations, would need to resort to unpaid youth volunteer interns, Mr. Credico said that it was outrageous.

"I find it really cynical that with her disastrous record on civil rights that she would find poor black 20 year olds to work" like in an unpaid capacity "for her campaign," Mr. Credico said.

Mr. Credico originally used harsh language to describe how Speaker Quinn's campaign was exploiting unpaid youth volunteer interns.

What do voters think about Speaker Quinn having millions in campaign donations, but using unpaid help for her campaign work ?

First Major Interview About Roots Of Betrayal Is Published In BQ Brew

In my first major interview to support Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn, I shared my opinions about the many ways that New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has betrayed the LGBT community, how she turned her back on St. Vincent's Hospital, and how she has become a predictable supporter of billionaire real estate developers.

Read more : Uncovering Quinn’s Political Roots with Author Louis Flores

Please read the interview and share your links with your friends.

Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn - Copyright 2013 by Louis Flores - Uncorrected Proof Not... by Connaissable

Will Christine Quinn Ever Take Any Action To Demobilize NYPD ?

Anti-LGBTQ police violence in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn, Sunday June 3, 2013. How many more times will NYPD harass, entrap, and use violence against New Yorkers before City Council Speaker Christine Quinn stands up to the police ? She can take credit for "mobilizing" police to provide "protection" to the LGBTQ community following a recent spree of violent hate crimes, but she takes no action to "demobilize" the police from their uses of brutality and discrimination, expressions of homophobia, and violations of dignity and equality of all New Yorkers. What do you expect from the city's highest-elected LGBT official ?

Does NSA Have Proof of St. Vincent's Pay-To-Play ?

So, you mean to tell me that the NSA knows everything that transpired btwn Quinn + Rudin re: St. Vincent's ? #Preet twitter.com/stopchrisquinn…

— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) June 9, 2013

"Mayoral front-runner Christine Quinn refused to criticize President Obama over reports that the federal government has engaged in widespread monitoring of Americans’ Internet activity and telephone calls–arguing that surveillance is crucial to the city’s safety," Jill Colvin is reporting, quoting Quinn as saying, "I do want the City of New York to be doing the type of monitoring and surveillance that is within the power of a municipal government, at times working with the federal government." (Christine Quinn Defends Surveillance in Wake of Monitoring Reports * Politicker)

Christine Quinn Doesn't Believe Voters Should Have A Say In Government

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn accused her opponents of trying to pander to voters.

According to her statements on WOR’s John Gambling show this morning, Speaker Quinn said she did not believe that the mayoral candidates should heed the requests or demands from voters. In this latest revelation of her political ideology, Speaker Quinn said that voters should not have a say in their own governance.

“You know what else is wrong, John? Going into communities and pandering and telling them what they want to hear just so you can get their vote,” she said. “That’s not leadership and that’s not being a mayor.”

Read more : Christine Quinn Accuses Opponents of Pandering on Wide Range of Issues

Christine Quinn and the Environmentally Racist UES Marine Transfer Station

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was booed at a mayoral forum about her controversial plan to place a waste transfer station in the Upper East Side. (The trashed her * The New York Post)

Bill Thompson Demands Christine Quinn ‘Apologize to New Yorkers of Color’

From Politicker :

Last week’s fiery “environmental racism” dispute between two mayoral campaigns doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon.

The alleged offense in question came when Council Speaker Christine Quinn was asked about one of her rivals, former Comptroller Bill Thompson, and his decision to oppose the controversial proposed waste transfer station on the Upper East Side.

“The days of environmental racism have to come to an end,” Ms. Quinn replied, according to her campaign. “We have, for far too long in the City of New York, put all the municipal refuses into low income neighborhoods of color … No community, regardless of how much money that community has, is going to be exempted from its municipal responsibility.”

Mr. Thompson, who is the only black candidate in the race, jumped on the remarks and held a press conference demanding an apology.

“To utter that, and direct it at a black person, at a black man in New York City … those words hurt,” Mr. Thompson intoned at the event. “Those words are damaging.”

Queers Against Christine Quinn will march in the Heritage of Pride Parade !

Here's the Facebook event for the Queers Against Christine Quinn marching contingent in the Heritage of Pride Parade on June 30. RSVP to join us !

Quinn Throws AIDS Activists Under Bus For Koch Endorsement

In act of desperation, Quinn camp goes digging for endorsement from Ed Koch beyond the grave.

Christine Quinn has become so desperate for campaign endorsements that she is going to get one out of a dead man. Let's hope she doesn't try to get some votes the same way, too. She's already trying to fake her popularity with sock puppet Twitter accounts, mind you. But seriously, Ed Koch, whose endorsement she is seeking, was the beginning of the neoliberalism bent in Democratic policies. One needs to look no further than to the cruel betrayal in Mayor Koch's non-response to the AIDS crisis. Mayor Koch refused to take any meaningful action on HIV/AIDS out of fear that he would be outed as a gay man. What kind of a message is Speaker Quinn trying to send by reaching for this grave endorsement ? Mayor Koch's endorsement in encumbered with betrayal and closet politics. This one issue alone should be a clarion call for every New York City LGBT voter to question Speaker Quinn's judgement. How do AIDS activists feel about being thrown under the bus in exchange for an endorsement from the late Mayor Koch ? (Ed Koch’s Sister to Amplify His Support for Christine Quinn * NYTimes)

Will insensitive and revisionist statements like this, from the Quinn campaign, drive LGBT activists to demonstrate against Christine Quinn during Pride Month ?

“Ed Koch was an incredible leader for the city,” said Josh Isay, Ms. Quinn’s chief strategist.

Related : Ed Koch, 88, Dies : "How Am I Doing ?" AIDS Memorial Reality Check

Quinn Sock Puppet Twitter Meme

Last week, in a sign of desperation, Christine Quinn's Twitter account jumped by 20,000 followers overnight. City & State reviewed the sock-puppet Twitter accounts, and this was their analysis before Quinn's campaign people were forced to get rid of these fake followers after the negative publicity.

Some of the fake Twitter accounts, which was pointed out by City & State, included "Mary DeBoos (@deecohunk0106), Sergio Andres (@deecohunk0105), Tiffany Stone (@deecohunk0104), Quy Sin (@deecohunk0102), Osmany Adrian (@deecohunk0100), Mukhtar Bako (@deecohunk0099), Nick Afriza (@deecohunk0098), et cetera, ad infinitum. Then there is the whole series of followers who coincidentally picked some permutation of @byhnoleda0080 as their user name like Rona Ghotra (@byhnoleda0078), Vija Kumar (@byhnoleda0074) and Kelly Batista (@byhnoleda0072)."

The 20,000 fake Twitter accounts is reminiscent of the umpteen fake charity accounts, which Speaker Quinn used to use, to divert her slush funds for years, until her shady practise was exposed.

At the time the slush fund scandal broke, The New York Post reported about the fake slush fund charity account names used by Speaker Quinn : "Among the dozens of fabricated groups that were slated to receive funds were the Immigration Improvement Project of New York ($300,000), the Coalition for a Strong Special Education ($400,000) and the American Association of Concerned Veterans ($422,763)."