Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Correcting the Sexism and Homophobia Myths

Pauline Park authored an editorial analyzing the end of openly lesbian NYC mayoral candidate Christine Quinn's political career.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Christine Quinn Concedes. C'est fini.

The blogger Joe Jervis is reporting that Christine Quinn's political campaign has conceded that she lost in today's Democratic primary election.

More to follow...


VIDEO : Broken Lever Voting Machine - No Paper Ballots - Queens 63rd Election District - NYC Primary Election Day

VIDEO : Broken Lever Voting Machine - Queens 63rd Election District - No Paper Ballots - NYC Primary Election Day

Voting problems with the single lever voting machine for the 63rd Election District in Jackson Heights, Queens. I was detained by a police officer and nearly taken into custody for using my iPhone to take a photograph and video of the broken voting machine.

We were denied paper ballots, as you will hear on the video. They tried to let us use another voting machine, but then we were taken back to the using the broken 63rd ED lever voting machine after it was "reset."

I'm taking a risk by uploading this video, but I feel it is important to document what happened and to register my vote.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Christine Quinn, Jennifer Cunningham, Stephen Berger, and Hospital Closings

How did Stephen Berger get away with closing so many hospitals? The story begins like this ....

An excerpt from Chapter 9 of Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn, available now for a free preview on Scribd :

The hospital closings called for by the Berger Commission were formulated at a time when only some hospital patients were covered by job-based health insurance, and hospitals were forced to write down the economic costs from treating underinsured and uninsured patients. The Berger Commission, headed by a Wall Street banker, Stephen Berger, was only capable of seeing the provision of full-service hospital care from perspective of profits, losses, and debts, instead of from the perspective of providing people with the human right to healthcare. “We have a history in this state of pumping money into the system and not letting hospitals close even if they should,” Mr. Berger told The New York Times, adding, “You have to right-size the system, you have to shrink it, that is No. 1.” In typical Wall Street fashion of divorcing any moral dilemma from situational ethics, hospital closings were pushed as inevitable, and patients were expected to have to deal with it. This was about a decade before "Obamacare" would extend healthcare coverage to millions of uninsured Americans. Back then, Mr. Berger observed overcapacity among hospitals, which had to be cut. However, in the future, Mr. Berger’s draconian cuts would prove to gut healthcare infrastructure leading up to the time when Obamacare would lead to a large influx of newly covered healthcare patients. But even without knowing that healthcare coverage would be expanded within the next decade, back then healthcare advocates knew about the dangers of past outbreaks, pandemics, and unforeseen uses of bioterrorism agents, such as anthrax. There were reasons why it was penny wise and dollar foolish to make drastic cuts to full-service hospital capacity in New York City.

One healthcare union, 1199/S.E.I.U., had to scramble to deal with the fallout over job losses from the impending hospital closings. Jennifer Cunningham, who at that time worked as a spokesperson and political operative for 1199 and would later go on to work for Christine as a political campaign consultant, was more concerned at the time about employee retraining and not about the interruption of patient-centered care. The hit list of hospitals that would be targeted for closure by the Berger Commission came to be known as the Berger Commission Report, and Christine, as chair of the City Council Health Committee, was largely absent from the initial public conversation in 2004 and 2005 around Mr. Berger’s recommendation for hospital closings. Taking her cue from former Speaker Gifford Miller’s precedent of maintaining silence on the controversial West Side Stadium until the project’s outcome was clear, Christine was not visible in the resistance movement to fight the Berger Commission Report’s recommendations until very late in 2006, when the City Council issued its own report just weeks before the Berger Commission Report’s final recommendations would go into effect on January 1, 2007.

Read more : Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn, available now for a free preview on Scribd.

Monday, September 2, 2013

Christine Quinn and Michael Bloomberg File for Divorce

For 15 years, voters had to suffer through Christine Quinn's self-interested dealings as she hitched her political wagon to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Speaker Quinn's close working relationship with Mayor Bloomberg is turning off voters from supporting her mayoral campaign. Now that Speaker Quinn is desperate to rescue her political future, she is about to throw Mayor Bloomberg and his legacy under the bus. Her efforts to divorce herself from Mayor Bloomberg may be too little, too late.

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

Word of "Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn" reaches The Guardian newspaper

Christine Quinn Flip-Flopped Six Times On Term Limits : A Chronology

The Guardian reporter Harry Enten tweeted a link to the free Scribd preview of the book, Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn.

His tweet was in connection to a five six-part series of tweets sent by the book's author, Louis Flores, that document Christine Quinn's series of flip-flops on term limits.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Christine Quinn - 8 Years of Slush Funds @NYCCouncil Schedule C

 photo slush-fund-tweets_zps805e5192.jpg

Some of the fake charity groups Christine Quinn used to divert discretionary funds for personal political gain.

  • American Association of Concerned Veterans received $422,763 in slush funds.
  • Association of Community Partners received $400,000 in slush funds.
  • Coalition for a Strong Special Education received $400,000 in slush funds.
  • Community Development for Stronger Neighborhoods received $300,000 in slush funds.
  • Firewood Senior Services Center received $300,000 in slush funds.
  • Immigration Improvement Project of NY received $300,000 in slush funds.
  • Rockwood Regional Development Foundation received $300,000 in slush funds.
  • Moving Up, Building Bridges received $250,000 in slush funds.

FY 2007 City Council Adopted Expense Budget Schedule C

As a follow-up to yesterday's post (that FY 2007 Schedule C was missing), we have turned up a copy, and now all eight years' worth of Schedules C's during Christine Quinn's speakership of the New York City Council are now uploaded onto Scribd. These are public documents, yet FY 2007 was not publicly available. Maybe it was because the FY 2007 Schedule C was used by The New York Post to expose the fact that Speaker Quinn had used fake charity groups to hide a political slush fund to dole out to her supporters. (This $$ Is Hers For The Faking * NYPost)

FY 2008 City Council Adopted Expense Budget Schedule C

FY 2009 City Council Adopted Expense Budget Schedule C

FY 2010 City Council Adopted Expense Budget Schedule C

FY 2011 City Council Adopted Expense Budget Schedule C

FY 2012 City Council Adopted Expense Budget Schedule C

FY 2013 City Council Adopted Expense Budget Schedule C

FY 2014 City Council Adopted Expense Budget Schedule C