Christine Quinn Sold Out

Prostest Against NYU Expansion

2012-02-23T19:02:00.006-08:00

Not since Robert Moses planned to construct a highway through the Greenwich Village has this special part of Manhattan been under so much threat.

Approximately 500 activists and residents of Greenwich Village turned out for a protest against the destructive expansion plans by New York University and other corrupt real estate developers -- and against their political enabler, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Activists were getting ready to attend a Community Board 2 meeting, which was holding its final public hearing about NYU’s over-development plans. Speaker Quinn, in part, decides who serves on Community Board 2.

The constant over-development of Greenwich Village is uniting community members against the political enablers of corrupt real estate developers. This year alone saw a controversial application by the Rudin family to convert St. Vincent’s Hospital into a mega billion-dollar luxury condo and townhouse complex with no allocation for affordable housing. Now comes NYU, with its own irresponsible expansion plans that promise to shred the fabric of the fragile community feeling in Greenwich Village.

The hundreds of people who stood in line to get into the Community Board 2 meeting expressed support for the campaign to vote Speaker Quinn out of office. Activists distributed hundreds of flyers, until the entire supply of flyers was exhausted. Many people asked for additional flyers to distribute to their friends.

The type of people who attend community board meetings are politically aware, and it is the politically aware voter, who understands why Speaker Quinn must be voted out of public office. When asked after the protest whether the anti-Quinn activists had converted many people, one of the organisers remarked, "We didn't have to try too hard to deliver our message tonight, because the people we spoke with were already on our side. I think we energized them to spread the word about Christine Quinn and provided them with information to help them expose her corrupt support of real estate developers, like the Rudin family and NYU."

It is not just residents, who oppose the reckless NYU expansion plans, but also students, who fear that the billion-dollar expansion budget would result in a vicious cycle of tuition hikes, which, in turn, would lead to higher student loan burdens.

But not only is it the actual cost or the impact on the fragile neighborhood fabric of Greenwich Village that is uniting activists against the NYU expansion plans, but also the dangerous precedent that would be set. The community of Greenwich village, lead by urban activist Jane Jacobs, had decades ago fought and defeated Robert Moses's plan for the Lower Manhattan Expressway, which would have destroyed Greenwich Village and parts of SoHo. Look at how all these many decades later everybody is trying to "correct" the wrongful demolition of the old Penn Station ? What is the difference between Robert Moses back then and each of Bill Rudin and John Sexton today ? Mr. Rudin is the patriarch of the billionaire Rudin family, while Mr. Sexton is president of NYU. Not much, say the community.

And now, the community is beginning to see Speaker Quinn's true colours : She can easily be counted on to be the political enabler of every corrupt real estate developer. For example, she accepted $30,000 in political campaign donations from the Rudin family, all the while Speaker Quinn refuses to recuse herself from ramming the Rudin condo conversion deal through the governmental approval process.

The only thing that can undoubtedly stop corrupt real estate developers like NYU and the Rudin family, among others, and their political enablers, such as Speaker Quinn, would be when the courageous activists, who turned out tonight, join forces with the broader people-powered social movement spurned by a spontaneous popular uprising of regular, average folks, who are demanding a restoration of the democratic process. Stay tuned.

Who has got your back ?

2012-02-19T19:19:00.000-08:00

Join Gays Against Christine Quinn on Facebook.

Which Side Are You On ?

2012-02-19T07:41:00.000-08:00

Is Christine Quinn ever going to do anything to stop all the hospital closings ? Or is she just going to sit around and watch as our social safety net is shredded by budget cuts and corruption ?

Join our Facebook Page : Gays Against Christine Quinn.

Rudin Mayday Hospital Closing Protest

2012-02-18T18:50:00.000-08:00

May Day Protest Against Rudin Management Company, Inc.

On May 1, New York City voters will protest outside the real estate empire offices of the Rudin family.

Activists will issue the "Mayday" signal to indicate the life-threatening emergency caused by the Rudin family's billion-dollar luxury condominium and townhouse conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital.

New York City has been experiencing a massive wave of hospital closings, which is triggering a new wave of the single-payer healthcare movement.

In the time that Christine Quinn has been Speaker of the New York City Council, at least eight city hospitals have closed. In 2010, North General Hospital in Harlem declared bankruptcy and St. Vincent's Hospital in the West Village shut down after shady backroom meetings. In 2009, two hospitals in Queens – St. John's Queens Hospital in Elmhurst and Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica – went bankrupt. In 2008, Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan, Parkway Hospital in Queens, and Victory Memorial Hospital in Bay Ridge closed. And in 2007, St. Vincent's Midtown in Manhattan was closed. Separately, one other hospital in Brooklyn, Long Island College Hospital, was saved in early 2011 : it had been on the brink of closing, and the only way the hospital was saved was by merging it with SUNY Downstate. Still yet one other hospital, Peninsula Hospital Center, filed for bankruptcy in late 2011 and was slated to close ; but Peninsula's bankruptcy workout plan is now threatened, meaning, that Peninsula may yet still close. Everywhere you look, incumbent politicians like Speaker Quinn are overseeing the shredding of the social safety net.

Brooklyn Students Protest Hospital Closing

2012-02-18T17:27:00.000-08:00

A group of students from Progress High School in Bushwick, Brooklyn, held a rally outside of Wyckoff Hospital after school ended on Friday, February 17, 2012.

Here is their flyer :2012 02 17 Wyckoff Flyer Students

Rudin Valentine's Day Protest

2012-02-14T16:00:00.000-08:00

Activists held a Valentine's Day protest outside the luxury apartment building, where Bill Rudin lives, at : 211 East 70th Street.

Activists were protesting the Rudin family, because they have become to symbolise the way corporations and the 1% buy off political enablers and craft legal loopholes that serve the interests of corporations and the 1%. The Rudin family have used campaign donations, lobbying, and legal loopholes to convert St. Vincent's Hospital into a zone-busting billion-dollar luxury condo and townhouse complex. Other corporations and other members of the 1% have created the anti-labor legislation in Wisconsin and the racist bill SB 1070 in Arizona, among so many others. Either they work independently, or they use the American Legislative Exchange Council (''ALEC'') to spread these corporate laws around the country.

To find out what you can do to protest against corporations, the 1%, and others, who pervert our democratic government in the name of corporate greed, please check out the February 29, 2012, ALEC call to action.

Christine Quinn Returns Tainted Cash

2012-02-12T09:38:00.000-08:00

More "Dirty Money" discovered amongst City Council Speaker Christine Quinn political campaign contributions.

From The New York Post :

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (pictured) said she will return a $4,950 contribution for her likely 2013 mayoral run after The Post questioned the source of the funds: an actress and model who admitted under oath to being involved with convicted swindler Norman Hsu. Quinn took the maximum legal donation from Suzanne Raffaelli in 2007 for a campaign that was widely assumed to be for the open mayoral seat.

Quinn’s mayoral campaign was put on hold after the City Council extended term limits allowing Mayor Bloomberg to run again in 2009. But she put the money away for a 2013 citywide campaign.

Raffaelli admitted to being a straw donor for Hsu, who is behind bars for mail and wire fraud in connection with a Ponzi scheme. ....

Kingsboro Psychiatric Center Closing

2012-02-12T06:51:00.000-08:00

Another medical center will close in New York City ; City Council Speaker Christine Quinn maintains her deadly silence on hospital closings.

The New York State Office of Mental Health is closing Kingsboro Psychiatric Center in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Kingsboro Psychiatric Center joins a long list of hospitals that have closed in New York City under City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's watch.

2012 01 31 Kingsboro Psychiatric Center Public Notice Closing

The notice of closing was issued on January 31, 2012. So far, Speaker Christine Quinn has issued no statement about neither Kingsboro Psychiatric Center's closing, nor the numerous other hospital closings across New York City, including the controversial closing of St. Vincent's Hospital, which is now being converted into a massive billion-dollar luxury condo and townhouse complex by the politically-connected Rudin family.

In the time that Christine Quinn has been Speaker of the New York City Council, at least eight city hospitals have closed. In 2010, North General Hospital in Harlem declared bankruptcy and St. Vincent's Hospital in the West Village shut down after shady backroom meetings. In 2009, two hospitals in Queens – St. John's Queens Hospital in Elmhurst and Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica – went bankrupt. In 2008, Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan, Parkway Hospital in Queens, and Victory Memorial Hospital in Bay Ridge closed. And in 2007, St. Vincent's Midtown in Manhattan was closed. Separately, one other hospital in Brooklyn, Long Island College Hospital, was saved in early 2011 : it had been on the brink of closing, and the only way the hospital was saved was by merging it with SUNY Downstate. Still yet one other hospital, Peninsula Hospital Center, filed for bankruptcy in late 2011 and was slated to close ; but Peninsula's bankruptcy workout plan is now threatened, meaning, that Peninsula may yet still close. Everywhere you look, incumbent politicians like Speaker Quinn are overseeing the shredding of the social safety net.

If you want to help make a difference, order this book from Amazon.com and join the movement for a single-payer healthcare system in the United States :

People Against Christine Quinn For Mayor

2012-02-11T14:14:00.000-08:00

Another Protest Against Christine Quinn

On Tuesday, February 7, activists gathered outside of the New School at 55 West 13th Street to protest against New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

Protesters cited many reasons to vote Speaker Quinn out of office.

Many activists held protest signs that reminded passers-by of Speaker Quinn's relentless use of slush funds and other payments to fictional charities in budgetary maneuvers that allow the City Council Speaker to reward her political allies and punish her political opponents.

Still, yet, other activists held up protest signs to remind voters about the back-handed way that the City Council Speaker changed term limits in 2009.

A popular chant that the protesters used went like this : "Given all the laws she's breeched, Christine Quinn should be impeached." All the while, activists distributed flyers with other information about Speaker Quinn's record of corruption.

41 Madison Company

2012-02-06T19:40:00.000-08:00

The Rudin Family owns the office building at 41 Madison Avenue, and three members from the Rudin Family are registered with New York City as trying to do business with New York City government.

Three members of the Rudin family are registered to do business with the government of New York City through an entity named "41 Madison Company." See pp. 608-9 of the June 30, 2011, Doing Business Database People Report. Are Beth Rudin DeWoody, Jack Rudin, and William Rudin listed as lobbyists because they are trying to get business from New York City into their building at 41 Madison Avenue, or is it because they are using their landlord holding company for the New York Merchandise Mart for lobbying activities related to the Luxury Condo Conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital ?

2011 06 30 NYC Doing Business Database People Report

Who is Melanie Meyers ?

2012-02-06T04:17:00.000-08:00

Melanie Meyers is just one of the lobbyists, who Bill Rudin and the Rudin Family hired, to scheme the system to approve their Luxury Condo Conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital.

Over the course of the last 4 years, Rudin Management Company, Inc., has paid at least $371,246 in declared lobbying expenses to the real estate lawyers and other lobbyists at the law firm of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP.

The Fried Frank real estate lobbyist that was most visible during the Community Board 2 hearings was Melanie Meyers. (Fried Frank is the old law firm, where Sarge Shriver once worked as a name partner ; Fried Frank is now disparaging Mr. Shriver's activist commitment to healthcare under President Lyndon B. Johnson's "War on Poverty.")

As of February 5, 2012, information available on the New York City government website indicates that Rudin Management Company, Inc., has declared $576,921 in lobbying expenses under the "Pay-to-Play" campaign finance reform regulations.

Quinn Returns Some Tainted Donations

2012-02-05T08:03:00.000-08:00

Christine Quinn Gives Back $2,000 In Dirty Money, But Keeps $41,000 In Shady Donations, Including $30,000 in Rudin Luxury Condo Conversion Donations.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn "plans to return $2,000 from convicted felons" after reporters from The New York Post questioned suspicious donations in her 2013 Mayoral campaign account.

CAMPAIGN DONOR	QUESTIONABLE DONATIONS

Kenneth Starr	Ms. Quinn's troubled 2013 mayoral campaign was shamed into returning a $1,000 donation from Ponzi schemer Kenneth Starr, formerly of Starr & Co., but she is not so ashamed, because her spokespeople are saying that her campaign is keeping $10,000 from his associates.

Hassan Nemazee	Ms. Quinn's campaign staff also announced their intention to return a $1,000 donation from Hassan Nemazee, a former businessman and Democratic donor who pleaded guilty in 2010 to defrauding banks of $292 million, but naturally, Ms. Quinn's campaign will keep a $1,000 donation from Mr. Nemazee's wife, even though there's no way of telling if her donation comes from co-mingled monies.

Ms. Quinn's campaign is on the defensive about having accepted so many questionable campaign donations. In addition to the $11,000 that Ms. Quinn's campaign is keeping in questionable donations, as indicated above, her political handlers are keeping silent about $30,000 in donations that she has accepted from a billionaire family, that is lobbying the city for special treatment. Conflicts of interest are apparent in the $30,000, for example, which Ms. Quinn's campaign has accepted from the Rudin family.

The Rudin family has needed several approvals from the City of New York for its Luxury Condo Conversion Plan for St. Vincent's Hospital, and the large and sizeable donations that the Rudin family has made to Ms. Quinn's campaign raises serious questions if Ms. Quinn runs a "pay-to-play" political campaign.

After Irresponsible Hospital Closings in New York, Where Do Emergency Patients Go ?

2012-01-29T19:33:00.000-08:00

With St. Vincent's Hospital Closed, Where Do Emergency Patients Go ?

With St. Vincent's closed, the West Side still has no hospital beds below 57th Street. How is this responsible city planning ?

How can we bring a hospital back to our community ? How can we get true universal healthcare ? Come Join the Discussion ! RSVP at the Facebook page for the St. Vincent's Community Assembly.

Christine Quinn Buys Votes

2012-01-25T04:50:00.000-08:00

Speaker Quinn doles out loot to cooperative Council members : ‘Lulus’ on top of salaries are vote-buying tools

Criticism is growing over New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's practise of rewarding her political allies with extra pay twice a year, reported The New York Daily News.

Last Friday, New York City Council Speaker handed out her ''lulus'' to City Council members, who vote her way on important legislation. The reason that the payments are called "lulus" is because the stipends were previously deemed “payments in lieu of expenses,” but now they are blatantly described as money that Speaker Quinn corruptly gives to councilmembers, who adhere to Speaker Quinn's political agenda.

The smallest amount of "lulu" can total about $4,000 for unloved councilmembers, while the largest annualised "lulu" totals $28,500, which is the amount that Speaker Quinn pays herself.

The Daily News has published a list of lulu-crazed councilmembers, who cashed their lulu checks, even though they campaigned against the scandalous payments. Other councilmembers are classified whether they cashed their lulu checks, but then turn around and donate the money to charity, and still yet others, who never cashed their checks.

Zone-Busting Rudin Family

2012-01-24T04:28:00.000-08:00

The Zone-Busting and Safety Net-Shredding Rudin Family, aided by Political Enablers

The Rudin Luxury Condo Conversion Plan for St. Vincent's Hospital was approved on Monday, Jan. 23, 2012, by Amanda Burden, the Park Avenue socialite, who volunteers to be City Planner for New York City. Other political enablers have joined Ms. Burden in aiding the Rudin Family's scheme to convert what used to be the only full-service hospital and Level 1 Trauma Center into luxury condominiums and deluxe townhouses.

With St. Vincent's closed, the West Side still has no hospital beds below 57th Street. How can we bring a hospital back to our community ? How can we get true universal healthcare ? Come Join the Discussion ! RSVP at the Facebook page for the Luxury Condos Can't Do CPR ! St. Vincent's Community Assembly.

Richard J. Sheirer, 9/11 Hero, Dies

2012-01-21T04:25:00.000-08:00

Richard J. Sheirer, the former director of New York City's Office of Emergency Management during the September 11th attacks, fell ill a few blocks away from St. Vincent's.

From The New York Times :

Richard J. Sheirer, who as director of New York City’s Office of Emergency Management was thrown into the limelight on Sept. 11, 2001, after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 65.
The immediate cause was fluid in his lungs, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said in an interview. Mr. Sheirer was a senior vice president at Giuliani Partners, a consulting firm.
Mr. Sheirer was driving to work from his home on Staten Island when he began having chest pains, pulled over at 14th Street and 10th Avenue and called 911. He was taken to Beth Israel Hospital, where he died. ...

What role did the closing of St. Vincent's play in Mr. Sheirer's death ?

The NYTimes article doesn't mention if Mr. Scheirer's death could have been prevented if St. Vincent's Hospital was still open. Neither does the article indicate how much time the ambulances took to respond to 14th Street and 10th Avenue, or how much time it took for the ambulances to transport Mr. Sheirer to Beth Israel Hospital.

Luxury Condos Can't Do CPR !

2012-01-19T20:20:00.001-08:00

Join us on Tuesday, Jan. 31, at 6 p.m. at the LGBT Community Center at 208 West 13th Street in the West Village.

With St. Vincent’s closed, the West Side still has no hospital beds below 57th Street. How can we bring a hospital back to our community ? How can we get true universal healthcare ? Come Join the Discussion ! RSVP at the Facebook page for the St. Vincent's Community Assembly.

This "town hall" is a consensus-based conversation facilitated by HEALTHCARE FOR THE 99%, an OCCUPY WALL STREET working group.

2012-01-31 St Vincents Community Assembly - Luxury Condos Cant Do CPR

Berger Debrief Ushery Hospital Closings

2012-01-17T10:36:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday, NBC4 broadcast The Debrief with David Ushery. The news program featured a segment on hospital closings that are about to take place in Brooklyn. Stephen Berger, who is not a doctor, but likes to play God with hospitals, said that three Brooklyn hospitals would close. A reporter from the business journal Crain's said Gov. Andrew Cuomo was scrambling to prevent a St. Vincent's-tyle closing on his watch. (Whatever scrambling Gov. Cuomo is doing, that's more than can be said about New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has allowed eight hospitals to close on her watch.) And providing the "community perspective" was another person, who said she would like to see more access to primary care, to replace the closed hospitals. It is not yet known which hospitals Mr. Berger will be targeting for closure. Also as of yet, there is no link to the Brooklyn hOspital closings segment of the Debrief page on NBC's website.

Rudin Construction Staff Are Working On MLK Day

2012-01-16T07:41:00.000-08:00

Martin Luther King, Jr., Day Protest outside St. Vincent's Hospital.

Stop closing hospitals ! In 1966, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and most inhuman."

Rudin Construction Staff Are Working On MLK Day

News Flash : Suzannah B. Troy reported that Rudin Management Company is making their construction workers are putting up blue walls and scaffolding on Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day on the Seventh Avenue side of St. Vincent's Hospital.

MLK Jr. Day St. Vincent's Hospital Candlelight Vigil

2012-01-15T18:46:00.000-08:00

Monday, January 16, 2012 at 7 p.m., at
130 West 12th Street in the West Village

Stop Closing Hospitals ! In 1966, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and most inhuman."

Activists will participate in a candlelight vigil outside the Rudin Management Company’s sales office at 130 West 12th Street in the West Village. We will celebrate the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s holiday by highlighting the loss of St. Vincent’s Hospital and of our community’s need for a full-service hospital.

Christine Quinn's Latest Quiet Showdown

2012-01-14T05:59:00.000-08:00

''Stage Seven begins when the movement, after a long process of growing bigger and deeper, reaches a new plateau in which the societal consensus turns the tide of power against the powerholders, launching an endgame process that eventually leads to the movement succeeding in reaching its goal.'' -- from Doing Democracy: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

Even though City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has backpedaled and temporarily betrayed her "corporate loyalties" by seeming to support a living wage that may benefit perhaps only 1,000 employees, the reality is that Mayor Michael Bloomberg is triangulating his way out of having to sign the compromise living wage into law.

For her part, Speaker Quinn stopped opposing the living wage bill only after the community exerted too much pressure on her from the left. As in with all politics, once the system becomes afraid that the voters will take something away from the corrupt political machine, that is only when the corrupt political machine will ever answer to the community's demands.

Even though Mayor Bloomberg has never committed to sign the living wage bill into law, let's review how Speaker Quinn "evolved already" :

''A quiet showdown happens when powerholders realize that they can no longer continue their present policies and they launch a face-saving endgame process of “victorious retreat.” Rather than admit defeat and praise the movement for its correct views and its principled stand, the powerholders adopt and carry out many of the goals and policies that were demanded by the movement. The powerholders claim credit for victory, even though they have been forced to reverse their previously held hard-line policies. The mainstream media complies by reporting this as a success of the powerholders.'' -- From Doing Democracy: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements

Once more citizens realise that the corrupt political system won't answer to the community's demands until after immense pressure is put on politicians, then, and only then, will more citizens learn to organise to put immense pressure on politicians on every issue. My prediction : the next issue that Speaker Quinn will have to answer to is the shady closing of St. Vincent's Hospital and the related Rudin luxury condo conversion of the hospital's real estate properties.

Politicization of LGBT Groups

2012-01-12T10:24:00.000-08:00

Which major New York City LGBT community group is politicizing which organizers and activists are allowed to use its conference meeting spaces ? I just got off a call, during which a conference space representative for the major LGBT group told me that there were "other places to have a meeting." This major LGBT community group controls the most affordable meeting spaces for LGBT and other activists in New York City. If this major group is allowed to deny public accommodation based on a political litmus test, then freedom of speech is willfully being perpetrated by this major LGBT group.

Lenox Hill Urgent Care Clinic

2012-01-10T01:36:00.000-08:00

OP-ED :

Will the Lenox Hill Urgent Care Clinic In The O'Toole Building Treat "Less Worthy" Hospital Patients ?

Heard On The Street : when the urgent care clinic that is coming to the West Village opens up, someday, it is being said that Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan's exclusive Upper East Side will use the urgent care clinic to receive average hospital patients whenever Lenox Hill Hospital needs to close one of its wings to accommodate the 1%, like Beyoncé Knowles' celebrity birth. It is a total outrage that Lenox Hill Hospital would stop a father from seeing his premature twin babies in the maternity ward.

Christine Quinn Talking Points Memo

2012-01-05T04:10:00.000-08:00

In Exchange of Tweets Last Night, Talking Points Memo editor casts New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn in dark light.

Josh Marshall, the editor and publisher of Talking Points Memo, called Christine Quinn "standard political flimflam," describing his experience with her as "very negative."

The exchange of Tweets was in regards to 2013 mayoral candidate Tom Allon's full-page newspaper advertisement criticising Speaker Quinn over the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital.

Christine Quinn Federal Investigation

2012-01-04T17:55:00.000-08:00

Christine Quinn Stands Behind Decision on Larry Seabrook Slush Funds

New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn continued to dole out taxpayer money from her discretionary slush fund to Councilman Larry Seabrook, giving him over $350,000 in slush funds in the city's 2012 fiscal year budget, which begins on July 1, The New York Times reported.

What bloggers immediately found shocking was that Speaker Quinn would still dole out taxpayer money to Mr. Seabrook, even though his federal investigation corruption trial ended in a mistrial ; prosecutors are expected to mount a second trial against Mr. Seabrook on corruption charges related to his misuse of Speaker Quinn's slush funds.

Today, the top political bloggers in New York City posted scathing indictments of Speaker Quinn. Gary Tilzer from True News From Change NYC lambasted Speaker Quinn thusly : Showing No Moral Leadership, Quinn Continues to Fund Seabrook.

And Suzannah B. Troy from Christine Quinn Mini Me, reminded her readers that Speaker Quinn left vacant the position of Chief Compliance Officer for an impossible 11 months, even though this job was specifically created to oversee Speaker Quinn's annual multi-million slush fund.

Separately, the editorial boards (not individual columnists, but the entire body of the editorial editors) of The New York Daily News, The New York Times, and The New York Post, which can never agree on ANYTHING, have all denounced Speaker Quinn over the political corruption that is forever tainted with her annual backroom slush fund bonanza.

Hypocrisy Christine Quinn Donations

2012-01-02T09:04:00.000-08:00

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn will return $26,471 in "morally bankrupt" campaign contributions from Steve Nislick, the President and co-Founder of the animal rights lobbying group NYCLASS, but Speaker Quinn will not return in "morally bankrupt" campaign contributions from the Rudin family.

In a secret iPhone audio recording, a top real-estate executive was caught talking about the dirty little secrets behind being a campaign bundler for City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

“Even if it’s a morally corrupt investment, you know what, you’ve got to do it, I think,” Mr. Nislick is heard saying.

The New York Post published a critical look at Speaker Quinn's campaign bundlers, only because activists secretly infiltrated NYCLASS to expose the truth about NYCLASS's double-dealing with animal rights on the one hand, and with Speaker Quinn, an infamous champion for the horse-drawn carriage industry in Central Park, which, at times, has been described as a form of animal exploitation tourism, on the other. It is unknown if The New York Times' own politically-motivated hit job on one of mayoral candidate John Liu's campaign donation bundlers prompted The NYPost to publish it's own critical look at Speaker Quinn's campaign donation bundlers. The NYPost article was written by the reporter David Seifman.

Other activists do not believe that all animal rights activists would bundle money with such a reckless disregard for ethics ; look at how Speaker Quinn readily and so eagerly accepted more donations from the Rudin family in exchange for going along with Rudin luxury condo upzoning project for St. Vincent's Hospital :

As an aside, no wonder Speaker Quinn won't support the Living Wage bill, because it takes funneled campaign donations money and protests, perhaps organised by #OccupyWallStreet, before Speaker Quinn would support a Living Wage.

Silent Heart Attacks

2012-01-01T20:21:00.000-08:00

OP-ED : The Rudin Condo Conversion Of St. Vincent's Hospital : Silent Heart Attacks Waiting To Happen, Which North Shore-LIJ-Lenox Hill Urgent Care Center Cannot Treat.

According to an article in USA Today, ambulances and Fire Rescue crews cannot be counted on transporting the most critically ill patients to stand-alone "emergency departments" such as the one that Bill Rudin is building for the West Village. Mr. Rudin is building a flim-flam urgent care center that has all of 2 "hospital beds" as political cover, so that he can get approved to convert St. Vincent's Hospital into luxury condos. In the rest of the country, in most smaller cities and even in rural communities, trauma patients and those having strokes or heart attacks cannot be transported to urgent care clinics or even to stand-alone "emergency departments," because those facilities cannot save people's lives when every minute matters. In Miami, for example, ambulances are forbidden from bringing patients to stand-alone "emergency departments."

Seeing as how there are acute healthcare emergencies, such as strokes and heart attacks that happen all the time, what is to become of those patients ? How can the Rudin family live with themselves by selling the lie that an urgent care clinic can treat silent heart attacks ? The very definition of a silent heart attack is one that the patient begins to suffer from indications that the patient does not believe are serious, and then the patient waits too long to get help. One must wonder if the entire Rudin Family Luxury Condo Conversion Plan isn't a metaphorical "silent heart attack" all unto itself : the luxury condo plan is a warning sign that the healthcare for the 99% is being eliminated, much like the social safety net is being shredded, and yet there are no alarm bells going off.

Christine Quinn Koch-$laps Peter Vallone, Jr., To The Tune Of About $600,000

2012-01-01T19:30:00.000-08:00

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn gave Astorial Councilman Peter Vallone, Jr., a $600,000 Koch-$lap he'll never forget.

After Astoria City Council Democrat Peter Vallone, Jr., criticised City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's decision to rename the Queensboro Bridge after Former Mayor Ed Koch, Speaker Quinn took an ax to the amount of slush funds she gave to Councilman Vallone.

"Vallone saw a 42 percent drop in district earmarks -- from more than $1.4 million last year to $838,321 in the budget that took effect last week. By comparison, the overall discretionary budget dipped by only 2.3 percent --from $395 million to $386 million," reported The New York Post.

Former mayor Koch now works as a paid spokesman for the Rudin luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital. He is the vanity figurehead of an astroturfing group that publishing propaganda to confuse West Village residents, who are protesting Bill Rudin's planned luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital.

City Hall insiders claim that Speaker Quinn has control issues, and she will lash out in a vindictive streak by cutting her slush fund allocations to councilmembers, who do not follow the instructions issued by Boss Quinn.

Rudin Social Contract Theory

2011-12-26T19:41:00.000-08:00

In this video, an activist talks about the idea that, in our form of government, we owe each other an inter-connected responsibility as a result of having formed a society, that, according to Wikipedia, was created by people through a "process of mutual consent, agreeing to abide by common rules and accept corresponding duties to protect themselves and one another from violence and other kinds of harm."

As a result of Rudin Management Company paying pennies on the dollar for the real estate of St. Vincent's Hospital, what, in effect, Bill Rudin and the Rudin family have done is to violate the terms of our social contract. The Rudin family are saying that they don't care that the larger community is being harmed as a result of their billion-dollar luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's real estate properties. As a result of the luxury condo conversion, the entire Lower West Side of Manhattan is being left with no full-service hospital and no Level 1 Trauma Center.

What should citizens then, therefore, do, now that the top 1% is now in violation of our social compact ?

On Christmas Eve, activists spent the night on the frigid sidewalk, in protest, and in full legal compliance with a court ruling that was issued pre-Zuccotti occupation. That court ruling, People v. Bounville, still allows protesters to occupy a city sidewalk for over-night sleep protests. Whereas powerholders, such as Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn continue to stick to their rationalisations for the eviction of Zuccotti Park and the requirement for protest permits, correspondingly, these politicians join the Rudin family in violation of our social compact. Once more and more activists figure out that the 1% no longer abide by our social compact, then activists will educate citizens. Then, citizens will join activists in their only remaining option : to #Occupy.

Bill Rudin = Old Man Potter

2011-12-26T13:39:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve Protest 2011 at St. Vincent's -- Occupy Your Neighborhood

On Christmas Eve, Timothy Lunceford participated in the protest outside St. Vincent's Hospital. He compared the emerging city that is stacked in favour of the 1% to the Pottersville from the classic Christmas movie, "It's a Wonderful Life."

Christmas Eve Protest at St. Vincent's

2011-12-21T21:11:00.000-08:00

Contact : Louis Flores, 1-646-400-1168, lflores22@gmail.com

STOP THE “POTTERSVILLE” OF NEW YORK CITY : CHRISTMAS EVE CAROLING AND SLEEP-OUT AT ST. VINCENT’S HOSPITAL

New York, NY (Dec. 21, 2011) – On Christmas Eve, an ad hoc group of community activists will be standing outside the former Emergency Room of St. Vincent’s Hospital, singing Christmas Carols and distributing Band-Aids.

START: Saturday, Dec. 24, 2011, 7:00 p.m.
END : Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011, 7:00 a.m.
PLACE : St. Vincent’s Hospital, Seventh Avenue South and West 11th Street

Activists will sing Christmas Carols to celebrate the charitable role of St. Vincent’s in New York City history — for caring for lives during the cholera epidemic of 1849, the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, the AIDS crisis during the 1980’s, the September 11 attacks, and the Hudson River landing of a jet airplane in 2009.

Activists will also hand out Band-Aid bandages as a symbol of the “Band-Aid approach” to public health as a result of the inferior North Shore-LIJ/Lenox Hill urgent care center, which is being pushed onto the community by politicians, lobbyists, and Bill Rudin.

SOME ACTIVISTS WILL SPEND THE NIGHT OUTSIDE IN SLEEPING BAGS ON THE FRIGID SIDEWALK, TO DEMONSTRATE HOW PATIENTS ARE BEING “LEFT OUT IN THE COLD” IN THE NEW “POTTERSVILLE” TREND IN HEALTHCARE IN NEW YORK STATE.

In the short term, activists want to force civic leaders, such as billionaire Bill Rudin of the Rudin Management Company, to take the lead in building a Level 1 Trauma Center and full-service hospital to replace St. Vincent’s.

In the long term, activists demand a single-payer healthcare system in New York State to put an end to the constant healthcare cuts, layoffs, hospital closings, and corruption that is endemic in the state’s broken healthcare system. Just this year alone, witness the bribery cases against MediSys chief executive David P. Rosen and New York State Senator Carl Kruger, each of whom were involved in hospital-related corruption.

For more information : https://www.facebook.com/events/323722307646371/

2011-12-24 St Vincents - Christmas Eve Caroling and Sleep Out

Focus on Health North Shore-LIJ

2011-12-19T02:41:00.000-08:00

FOCUS ON HEALTH AND YOUR COMMUNITY HOSPITAL : Surviving the North Shore-LIJ downsizing of healthcare in the Lower West Side of Manhattan.

Community activists are launching a pamphlet to be called "Focus on Health," which will include a "survival guide" to the North Shore-LIJ downsizing of healthcare in the Lower West Side of Manhattan.

OWS Health Action Meeting at St. Vincent's Hospital

2011-12-17T18:00:00.000-08:00

Community Remains Opposed To Rudin Management Company's Luxury Condo Conversion Up-zoning Plan For St. Vincent's Hospital.

Michael D. D. White is an attorney, urban planner and former government public finance, and development official, has submitted testimony to City Planner Amanda Burden that was critical of Rudin Management Company's "fairly nefarious deal" that foreclosed on St. Vincent's in order to convert it to luxury condos.

Community opinion has uniformly opposed the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital and the subsequent luxury condo conversion up-zoning that would benefit Rudin Management Company.

Meanwhile, as more and more community members and activists become educated on the dire healthcare implications of hospital closings across New York City, new activists are coming together to demand accountability for irresponsible public health decisions.

OWS Protesters March To Protest Healthcare System

OWS Protesters March To Protest Healthcare System: MyFoxNY.com

Updated: Saturday, 17 Dec 2011, 7:42 PM EST
Published : Saturday, 17 Dec 2011, 7:42 PM EST
MYFOXNY.COM - Occupy Wall Street protesters showed up at St. Vincent’s Hospital to take on the health care system.
The protesters say St. Vincent’s Hospital, which was shut down last spring, is the symbol of what’s wrong with the system.
OWS says what used to be a functioning hospital is now being turned into luxury condominiums.

St. Vincent's December 20 Protest

2011-12-16T19:30:00.000-08:00

2011 St. Vincent's Protest Flyer (Dec 20 and Christmas Eve Caroling) Left Out in the Cold - Pottersville

Quinn Visits First Aid Clinic

2011-12-16T18:13:00.000-08:00

Christine Quinn Visits Lenox Hill First Aid Clinic
by: maslowsneeds

Creative and imaginary enactment of the first day of the new first aid clinic that Bill Rudin is opening in the West Village to replace the Level 1 Trauma Center and full-service hospital that used to be at St. Vincent's.

Slush Fund Scandal Boomerang

2011-12-14T05:11:00.000-08:00

Slush Fund Scandal Festers And Haunts Christine Quinn

Tom Allon, a candidate for mayor and challenger to City Council Christine Quinn, published a scathing editorial about Speaker Quinn's slush fund scandal in the opinion pages of The New York Post. Read just some of what Mr. Allon wrote :

City Councilman Larry Seabrook can afford a sigh of relief after the mistrial blocked a corruption conviction. But taxpayers can take no solace, for the abusive waste of “member items” underlying the case was irrefutable.
Council Speaker Christine Quinn should be held accountable; it's high time Mayor Bloomberg and the voters held her feet to the fire for the mismanagement of taxpayer dollars during the last decade.

Mr. Allon added, "You see, the Seabrook scandal wasn’t an isolated action but part of a persistent pattern. The responsibility for deterring corruption in the City Council lies with Quinn, who has failed to hold her members accountable."

Mr. Allon's courageous op-ed was so troublesome for Speaker Quinn that news about the NYPost editorial immediate was reported about (and validated) in a slush fund update post on the City Room blog of The New York Times.

Separately, the True News From Change NYC blog also featured these news developments about Speaker Quinn's slush fund scandal. (You need to scroll down, to find the news items.)

Eric Rudin : "Let Them Eat Cake"

2011-12-11T13:27:00.000-08:00

"Is This How Eric Rudin Does Business ?"

Watch as 1%'er Eric Rudin laughs at community activists, who are fighting for a hospital to replace St. Vincent's.

Christine Quinn #OccupyWaldorf Insensitivity

2011-12-07T19:58:00.000-08:00

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn parties with Alfred E. Smith IV, the former chairman of St. Vincent's Hospital, which was run into the ground by gross mismanagement by its former board of directors.

Alfred E. Smith IV, the great-grandson of the late Alfred Emanuel Smith, a legendary former governor of New York State, was the Master of Ceremonies of the October 20, 2011 dinner, where City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was photographed at the center of the top row, above. Mr. Smith IV was chairman of St. Vincent's Hospital, when Mr. Smith IV voted to close St. Vincent's Hospital, so it could be sold to William Rudin for pennies on the dollar, so that Mr. Rudin could make more hundreds of millions of dollars, because Mr. Rudin wasn't high enough on the Forbes list. Even back, before St. Vincent's Hospital had closed, Speaker Quinn was calling for an urgent care center to replace St. Vincent's. Meanwhile, to make sure that Speaker Quinn would go along with the flow, the Rudin Family love to pay-to-play : they made sure to donate $30,000 to Speaker Quinn's over-flowing campaign war chest. Does anybody else see a conflict of interest in all this ?

Carriage Horse Collapses NYC

2011-12-04T17:37:00.000-08:00

Another carriage horse collapsed today while working during the heavy holiday shopping and tourist season in busy Midtown Manhattan. The horse fell onto the pavement near the intersection of 59th Street and Fifth Avenue, according to a Facebook alert posted by animal rights activist Elizabeth Forel. This video was taken by an activist with the animal rights group called Win Animal Rights (WAR), and it is going viral. For years, animal rights activists have been trying to shut down the cruel carriage horse industry over past traffic accidents and unsafe work conditions that the horses must endure, including having to work during hurricane warnings. But the inhumane policies of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Deputy Mayor Christine Quinn, who accept campaign donations bundled by the horse carriage lobbyists, continue to resist efforts to close the unsafe use of horses to pull carriages in the middle of the heavy traffic of Midtown Manhattan.

Bill Rudin Blood Condos

2011-12-04T17:00:00.000-08:00

Surgeon General's Warning : Closing hospitals in order to build luxury condos for the 1% causes serious risks to your health.

Christine Quinn Viral YouTube Video

2011-12-03T16:29:00.000-08:00

Christine Quinn, All The While Chewing Gum, Tells New Yorkers To Drop Dead : ''We Don't Need St. Vincent's Hospital.''

The artist and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy deserves an Academy Award for her portrayal of Christine Quinn in this YouTube video.

LGBT Homeless Shelters NYC

2011-12-02T19:34:00.000-08:00

Look at City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's broader record on homelessness : in 2010, Ms. Quinn refused to let the City Council vote on Intro 48, which would have made an annual count of vacant buildings in New York. What is more, just a few weeks ago, Ms. Quinn forced the City Council to join a lawsuit to close a 200-bed homeless shelter in Chelsea. The next thing you know, New York City will begin to round up homeless people.

Rudin Profits. People Die.

2011-12-01T20:11:00.000-08:00

Quinn iPhone Text Alert

2011-12-01T19:49:00.000-08:00

Christine Quinn iPhone Text Alert

Can somebody set up an iPhone text alert each time that Christine Quinn doles out slush funds, changes term limits, approves restrictive protest permit requirements, or sells out LGBT civil rights in exchange for Bloombo Dicto's approval ? Make sure you have unlimited texting on your service plan. LOL !!!

Christine Quinn - She Has Received Luxury Gifts As A Government Official

2011-12-01T19:29:00.000-08:00

When You're Good To Mama : Flashback : Adam Lisberg exposes the fact that Christine Quinn and others received luxury gifts from Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

According to the artist and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy :

"Mike Bloomberg gives free rides on Air Bloomberg, his private jet, to NYC staff including Christine Quinn. And the Conflict of Interest Board refuses to comment ! The Conflict of Interest Board -- the biggest joke in town, because this board does exist -- almost never thinks anything is a conflict of interest."

Christine Quinn will keep using ''Stop and Frisk'' on Latinos and African-Americans

2011-11-30T19:32:00.000-08:00

Christine Quinn Wound Continue Unconstitutional "Stop and Frisk" Policy Of The NYPD.

"Christine Quinn Says She Would Continue Policy of Stopping and Frisking Black and Latino Males," reported Brooklyn Ron on his website. Brooklyn Ron continued :

The practice of stopping hundreds of thousands of black and Latino young men is a crime, and the city should pay for the innocent men it has detained so far.
Some in the city, including Kirsten John Foy, top aide to City Public Adovocate Bill de Blasio, say millions of New Yorkers are being stopped every year.
The vast majority are known to be innocent of any crime.
This is wrong and it is discriminatory.

"Quinn says she’d continue the NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk tactic . . ." was the information that Brooklyn Ron quoted, from a New York magazine article written by Chris Smith.

Bill Rudin Bird Dogged Viral YouTube

2011-11-29T19:16:00.000-08:00

St. Vincent's Hospital activist bird-dogs billionaire Bill Rudin over controversial luxury condo conversion plan.

Artist and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy confronts Bill Rudin on West 12th Street. Community anger towards Mr. Rudin has inspired many protests, including a sustained protest and vigil outside the sales office of the new luxury condos. Mr. Rudin has ruthlessly ignored the community’s need for a full-service hospital. Mr. Rudin paid pennies on the dollar to buy St. Vincent’s real estate, and Mr. Rudin now stands to sell luxury condos and townhouses that, once constructed, are expected to have a combined fair-market value of over $1 billion.

Save St. Vincent's Petition

2011-11-24T18:38:00.001-08:00

Health Petition : Mayor Michael Bloomberg : Stop the Rudin Luxury Condo Conversion Plan

Sign Our Petition ! The Rudin Luxury Condo Conversion Plan will set a dangerous public health precedent. City politicians would be saying that a top 1% real estate developer can make hundreds of millions of dollars in private profit by converting the charitable public real estate buildings of the former St. Vincent's Hospital, whilst the 99% have no replacement Level One Trauma Center or Full-Service Hospital. If Rudin's Condo Plan is approved, Mayor Bloomberg would be saying that it is O.K. for an entire section of New York City to have no full-service hospital. How can this be a responsible public health care policy ? Mayor Bloomberg needs to stop the Rudin Condo Plan for St. Vincent's Hospital until a full-service hospital is created.

OWS NYPD Raid Backlash

2011-11-20T18:22:00.000-08:00

Brookfield Properties ''Faggot'' Video

2011-11-16T18:14:00.000-08:00

No comment from openly lesbian New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to the homophobic comments and attitude by the private security guards employed Brookfield Properties. Speaker Quinn has a record of betraying the LGBT community, but nobody knows if her silence after an unidentified security guard used the pejorative epithet of ''faggot'' against Joey Boots will be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Note that at 0:24 appears Deputy Inspector Edward Winski, the chief of the First Precinct of Manhattan. An anonymous source said that many of the private security guards that work for Brookfield Properties are off-duty or retired officers from the NYPD. And because Brookfield Properties hires off-duty and retired police officers, it gives Brookfield the inside line of being able to pick up a cellphone and reach a direct line to NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

Quinn Human Rights Report Card

2011-11-15T19:20:00.000-08:00

No wonder New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was absent during the press conference of politicians after the controversial NYPD raid ordered by Mayor Michael Bloomberg of the #OccupyWallStreet encampment. Speaker Quinn has flunked the 2011 New York City Council Human Rights Report Card.

St. Vincent's Speak-Out and Die-In #Nov17

2011-11-15T19:06:00.000-08:00

For Immediate Release :

ST. VINCENT’S ACTIVISTS JOIN #OCCUPYWALLSTREET
IN DAY OF MASS, NON-VIOLENT DIRECT ACTION

Contact : Louis Flores, 1-646-400-1168, lflores22@gmail.com

New York, NY (Nov. 15, 2011) – Activists from Hands Off St. Vincent’s are proud to join #OccupyWallStreet, the labor movement, and the global movement for economic and social equality during the November 17th Day of Action in New York City.

Members of the Healthcare for the 99% Working Group from #OccupyWallStreet will join this action. Activists are undertaking their action on :

DATE : Thursday, November 17, 2011
TIME : 1:00 – 1:30 p.m.
PLACE : St. Vincent’s Hospital, Seventh Avenue South and West 11th Street

Activists will stage a SPEAK-OUT and a DIE-IN.

Activists want to force billionaire Bill Rudin from the Rudin Management Company to take the lead in building a Trauma Level 1, full-service hospital to replace St. Vincent’s.

Did you know that the residents of the Lower West Side of Manhattan below 57th Street have no hospital ?

Did you know that Bill Rudin wants to offer us a two-bed “hospital” in a phony health care facility ?

For more information about Hands Off St. Vincent’s, please like our page on Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hands-off-St-Vincents/156531864396467

For more information about the Healthcare for the 99% Working Group, please visit the blog : http://owshealthcare.wordpress.com/

###
2011-11-17 St Vincents - OWS - Speak-Out and Die-In

Raid happening NOW @ #OccupyWallStreet

2011-11-15T00:22:00.000-08:00

Bloomberg + Quinn = Epic Fail.

Watch live streaming video from occupynyc at livestream.com

Calculating, Cunning Christine Quinn

2011-11-12T05:26:00.000-08:00

Christine Quinn : She has become more and more "calculating."

In a long journalism piece into how City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has sold out, Capital New York has questioned why Speaker Quinn has abandoned those New Yorkers amongst us with the least.

For example, on the social problem of poverty, Speaker Quinn has always sided with the billionaire 1%-er Mayor Michael Bloomberg than with poor New Yorkers. Speaker Quinn has opposed more housing assistance to people with H.I.V., she has opposed paid sick leave, and she is about to kill a living wage bill. Not only that, but she has also done nothing to expand the number of shelters for LGBT homeless youth to the point that activists are beginning to blame the clergy for the problems of homeless LGBT youth shelters rather than the City Council Speaker, who likes to dole out her City Council slush funds to politically-expedient charities to seemingly everybody, except for the broke, disenfranchised, and powerless -- the people, who have no money to donate to her political campaigns.

How did we get to a place where Speaker Quinn's supporters are attacking the Metropolitan Community Church for having no money to improve its homeless LGBT youth shelter, rather than criticise the City Council Speaker, who is in charge of the city budget (and her shady City Council slush funds) to supposedly "fix" social problems ? And did Howard Rubenstein's invisible hand have a part in this ?

Kiss of Death of St. Vincent's

2011-11-11T04:24:00.000-08:00

Christine Quinn Slush Fund Interview (2008)

2011-11-10T18:57:00.000-08:00

Quinn Chewing Gum Etiquette

2011-11-09T19:27:00.000-08:00

Council Speaker Christine Quinn likes to chew gum, but an etiquette expert told CBSNewYork that the speaker’s public mastication is unacceptable “in polite, civil society,” reported WCBS News.

Christine Quinn ABNY Healthcare

2011-11-08T19:56:00.000-08:00

Watch what people in the community are calling the "Kiss of Death of St. Vincent's Hospital" at 1:49

In a speech sponsored by the Association for a Better New York, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn spoke about the Great Recession and the dire straits in which that working families find themselves. Who knew that she was talking about the conditions created by William Rudin ?

You see, William Rudin is the figure head owner of the company called Rudin Management Company. He, his company, and his entire family have bought the real estate of St. Vincent's Hospital from bankruptcy court for only $260 million. After he supersizes the campus and converts it into luxury condominiums, he is going to sell exclusive luxury condos and townhouses for a combined market value of over $1 billion.

It is the #corporategreed of the Rudin family and the Association for a Better New York that is shredding the social safety net right here in New York City by denying emergency and trauma care to the entire Lower West Side. That is why William Rudin and his company have become the targets of protests by #OccupyWallStreet. Has anybody told that to Speaker Quinn ? Will it be the end of her political career for her to be seen kissing the man, who is the target of #OccupyWallStreet ?

Did Christine Quinn Give Up On Saving St. Vincent's In Exchange for Campaign Donations From The Rudin Family ?

In an apparent conflict of interest, Beth R. DeWoody, Madeleine R. Johnson, Eric C. Rudin, Jack Rudin, Katherine Rudin, and William C. Rudin each donated $4,950 to Christine Quinn's presumed 2013 mayoral campaign. During this time, the Rudin family has been trying to salvage a multi-million dollar real estate purchase of the buildings that belong to the bankruptcy estate of St. Vincent's Hospital. Since the Rudin family wants to build luxury high-rise condos on the site of St. Vincent's, do these large campaign donations explain why Speaker Quinn has done nothing to restore a hospital to the former St. Vincent's site ?

Long ER Wait Times NYC

2011-11-05T04:56:00.000-07:00

Long Emergency Room Wait Times In NYC: MyFoxNY.com

I wonder what William Rudin, Jo Hamilton, Brad Hoylman, and Christine Quinn have to say about this :

So, why are patients at New York’s hospitals suffering when it comes to ER wait times lasting well above the national average of four hours? For one, the city has lost seven hospitals since 2007, with two hospitals closing just last year: Harlem's North General Hospital and St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greeenwich Village. Those closures displaced 96-thousand patients.
“Every time you have a closure it affects some place else. It’s the classical case of squeezing balloon here, and it pops up somewhere else,” explained Kenneth Raske, CEO of The Greater New York Hospital Association. He cited the weak economy as the single biggest reason for the long wait times; more people become uninsured, and more hospitals struggle financially.

Gross Imbalance Manhattan Hospital Beds

2011-11-04T19:26:00.000-07:00

How can this be responsible public healthcare policy ? Don't let the congested Lower West Side of Manhattan to be turned into a testing ground for North Shore-LIJ's free-standing first aid clinic experiment. We will pay for this risky experiment with our own lives.

Where would you want to be in case of an emergency ?

Google Censors Political Activist - Update

2011-11-01T04:19:00.000-07:00

9:30 p.m. Update : See Google Issues Apology ; Tries To Explain Away Censorship As ''A Processing Error.''

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As of about 7:15 a.m., this blog came back up, but my No Third Term blog remains down. Please contact press@google.com and demand that political blogs stop from getting flagged for spam -- this leads to political censorship.

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Please Contact : Louis Flores : louisflores@louisflores.com : 1 (646) 400-1168

Google Censors Political Activist-Blogger Louis Flores

01 November 2011 (New York) -- This morning, LGBT civil rights activist and political blogger Louis Flores woke up to an e-mail from Google’s Blogger service, informing him that one of his principal political blogs (No Third Term : http://no-third-term.blogspot.com/) was censored by Google. Ostensibly, the No Third Term blog was marked as “spam,” but the blog entirely contains content that has been critical of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Screenshot of No Third Term Blog url : “Blog has been removed” notification : http://s203.photobucket.com/albums/aa235/maslow25/?action=view¤t=2011-11-01GoogleCensorsNoThirdTermBlog-Screenshot2011-11-01at51909AM.png

Screenshot of Louis Flores’ Blogger account : “Account has been disabled” notification : http://s203.photobucket.com/albums/aa235/maslow25/?action=view¤t=2011-11-01GoogleDisablesLouisFloresEntireGoogleAccount-Screenshot2011-11-01at53405AM.png

But not only was the No Third Term blog deleted by Google’s Blogger service, but Mr. Flores’ entire Blogger account was “disabled.” Consequently, all of Mr. Flores’ blogs have also been removed. Examples of other blogs that were removed are : http://christine-quinn-sold-out.blogspot.com/, http://nyc-mayor-2013.blogspot.com/, http://bigotbell.blogspot.com/, and http://ny-popculture-politics.blogspot.com/.

Before sending this press release, Mr. Flores filled out a web form, asking Google to restore his blog.

“I ask all political bloggers to contact Google on my behalf, to demand that they restore my blogs and my account,” said Louis Flores, 38, from Jackson Heights, Queens.

People are encouraged to contact : press@google.com

This morning’s censorship followed just hours after Mr. Flores published a controversial blog post on the Christine Quinn Sold Out blog, which traced back to New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn the problems that the #OccupyWallStreet social movement have been having with protest permits. Note that the Christine Quinn Sold Out blog and the controversial post ( http://christine-quinn-sold-out.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupywallstreet-protest-permits.html) have also been temporarily removed/deäctivated by Google’s Blogger service.

“If Google believes in doing no harm, it should not allow the censorship of political blogs, whose only aim is to demand accountability from elected politicians,” said Mr. Flores. “But Google has a pattern of doing this. Just weeks before the 2009 mayoral election, Google’s YouTube service censored artist and political blogger Suzannah B. Troy’s entire YouTube account, and in March 2011, Google’s Blogger service censored political consultant and activist Gary Tilzer’s blog, too. This harassment of political activists and bloggers must come to an end.”

# # #

Tracking : 02

------ Forwarded Message
From: Blogger
Date: Tue, 01 Nov 2011 08:54:57 +0000
To: Louis Flores
Subject: http://no-third-term.blogspot.com/ has been deleted

Hello, Your blog at http://no-third-term.blogspot.com/ has been reviewed and confirmed as in violation of our Terms of Service for: SPAM. In accordance to these terms, we've removed the blog and the URL is no longer accessible. For more information, please review the following resources: Blogger Terms of Service: http://blogger.com/terms.g Blogger Content Policy: http://blogger.com/content.g -The Blogger Team

------ End of Forwarded Message

OccupyWallStreet Snow Storm

2011-10-29T18:07:00.000-07:00

NYC Texting Alert : City is Closing Parks Due To Snow

I was talking to one of my blogger contacts using my iPhone tonight when NYC.gov sent me a text alert.

Will Mayor Michael Bloomberg use weather as an excuse to close Zuccotti Park ? He already used weather to raid the park for any electric generators.

OccupyWallStreet Protest Permits

2011-10-29T16:50:00.000-07:00

The requirement for "protest permits" in New York City, which bedevils the #OccupyWallStreet movement, can be traced back to Christine Quinn, naturally.

On September 24, 2011, what was then the eighth day of the #OccupyWallStreet protest, about 1,000 protesters went on an unpermitted march from Zuccotti Park to Union Square Park in Manhattan. Along the way, 80 people were arrested for various reasons, according to Gothamist :

The majority of the arrests, which were for disorderly conduct, obstructing governmental administration, blocking vehicular traffic, and one assault on a police officer, occurred around Union Square yesterday afternoon after nearly a thousand demonstrators marched down Broadway. Videos show NYPD officers corralling women with nets, indiscriminately discharging pepper spray, and tackling protestors.

How New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn figures into the arrests of what now numbers well over 1,000 #OccupyWallStreet protesters is a matter of historical record : just take a look at who approved the protest permit requirement in the first place. Not surprisingly, the development of protest permits in New York City can be ascertained by following the course of how Speaker Quinn sold out her liberal roots in pursuit of mayoral electability.

According to a discussion topic posted on September 15, 2007, by David S. Cohen on the Queer Mutiny's Facebook account, Speaker Quinn is responsible for the protest permit requirements in New York City :

In 2006, multiple courts ruled the City’s assembly rules unconstitutional, and City Council was charged with fixing them. Instead of conducting public hearings and placing the matter into the hands of City Council, Speaker Quinn abdicated her responsibilities and allowed the NYPD to write these rules behind closed doors.
In February 2007, she rubberstamped the new rules into effect. Suddenly, it became illegal for 50 or more people to gather and process through New York City—unless they request and are given prior permission from the police.
Of course, the NYPD has a long history of attacking political groups, and one of their favorite tools is to deny permit requests of groups—like the organizers of the 2007 Trans Day of Action—who they don’t like.
Why do police decide who can assemble and who cannot? And since when do the police write rules? And why is all of this okay with Quinn?
Quinn so desperately wants to be mayor that she has sold the queer community and her constituents down the historical river for her own political gain. We’ll remind Quinn that she has her pot of gold, but she better not forgot the rainbow that led her to it!

A political enabler with aims to minimise, and even silence, dissent.

It should come as no surprise that Speaker Quinn "abdicated her responsibilities." When Speaker Quinn is faced with the dilemma between doing the right thing and picking what renders her with an immediate political advantage, Speaker Quinn always picks what is most politically expedient. Even those, who should be her most ardent base of support, leftist LGBT radical activists, know that Speaker Quinn cannot be counted upon to stay true to her liberal roots.

Speaker Quinn has a reputation for bluffing her way through critical public policy issues, like the hole in public health caused by the impending luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital. As has been written on this blog before, Speaker Quinn has mastered the art of the non-answer answer : "She likes to be evasive, but she is definitive about giving you the run-around. She doesn’t have to give you either a proverbial bait-and-switch or back-pedal, provided she never has to first give you any policy position with which to lure you."

But Speaker Quinn's evasiveness begins to wear thin amongst radical activists, who know that the only way to make our elected politicians deliver a tangible solution to a societal problem is by keeping them politically accountable. Here is where direct action protest organisers enter into the political equation.

A Gay City News news report, which is no longer available online, was copied on the Radical Homosexual Agenda's website :

PRIDE AT CITY HALL
by Jefferson Siegel
Gay City News
6/21/2007
On Wednesday night over 500 people filled the City Council chamber for a celebration of "LGBT Pride and the Journey to End Violence and Hate." Among those honored were NYPD Detective Kevin Czartoryski, the Rashawn Brazell Memorial Fund, established in recognition of the brutal 2005 murder of a 19-year-old gay man from Brooklyn, and the Gay-Straight Alliance at Port Richmond High School in Staten Island.
Tony-winning actor Stephen Spinella opened the evening, and Speaker Christine Quinn, the first openly lesbian or gay leader of the Council, flanked in the front row by her partner, Kim Catullo, and her father Lawrence, recalled the city's decades-long struggle to achieve gay rights.
In the midst of her speech, half a dozen protesters from ACT UP and the Radical Homosexual Agenda unfurled protest banners from the balcony. They were criticizing a new police regulation requiring groups of 50 or more to first obtain a police permit. "You've criminalized the Dyke March and the Drag March," Tim Doody (pictured with Nina Resnick) of ACT UP yelled. Quinn allowed the protesters to have their say [for one minute], after which they were escorted from the building. There were no arrests.
Councilwoman Rosie Mendez, the chamber's other out lesbian member, who has been a vocal critic of the regulation, spoke up on Quinn's behalf. "My speaker cannot do anything until the Council is behind her," Mendez told the chamber.

''A Council Speaker Who Tightens the Purse Strings on Dissent''

Back on June 20, 2007, when activists with the Radical Homosexual Agenda were targeting Speaker Quinn over the NYPD's anti-assembly rules, activist James Wagner charged that Speaker Quinn had "made herself inaccessible" to activists, who had been seeking to meet with her about the requirement for protest permits. Mr. Wagner wrote that after the activists had been removed from the City Council Chambers, following their banner drop, Speaker Quinn said that she was "willing to meet with anyone who disagreed with her on the question of Police rules for assembly." But, as Mr. Wagner further wrote, Speaker Quinn's expression of willingness turned out to ring hallow : "For the record, I have been assured several times by those who know groups that have tried to engage her that she has repeatedly refused to do this in the past."

Sometime between the mass NYPD arrests during the 2004 Republican National Convention and the 2008 revelation of Speaker Quinn's slush fund scandal, Speaker Quinn decided that the best way to campaign to become mayor of New York City was to hitch her wagon to Mayor Michael Bloomberg's gravy train. But because she does not have Mayor Bloomberg's billions, she was going to use taxpayer money to buy her way into higher office. When even The New York Times, with its many puff and fluff articles about Speaker Quinn's career, dares to report about how Speaker Quinn uses taxpayer money to stifle political dissent, you know that Speaker Quinn has begun to tread on thin political ice.

And now that activists with #OccupyWallStreet are confronting the use of excessive force of, and even brutality by, NYPD, those very activists are going to question Speaker Quinn's role in approving the restrictions on civil liberties caused by her rubber stamp on the NYPD’s anti-assembly rules. And once again, here comes another time when direct action protest organisers enter into the political equation.

Christine Quinn Pays Lip Service To St. Vincent's Hospital

2011-10-29T05:39:00.000-07:00

''The whole planet pays homage to Ground Zero, but they pay lip service to the hospital that was on the front lines that day,'' said a man named Christopher, who spoke at a rally at the end of a healthcare march by #OccupyWallStreet. Christopher spoke outside St. Vincent's Hospital. Because St. Vincent's was a Level 1 Trauma Center, it was the hospital designated to receive those injured by the September 11 attacks. It was closed in 2010, because we don't have a single-payer healthcare system. Right now, Brad Hoylman and Christine Quinn want to turn St. Vincent's into luxury condominiums in a controversial plan by the Rudin Management Company.

More People Living In Poverty

2011-10-28T20:01:00.000-07:00

Since Christine Quinn Changed Term Limits, More People Are Living In Poverty.

From The New York Times :

More New Yorkers Living in Poverty
By SAM ROBERTS
New York State’s poverty rate climbed to 16 percent last year, the third consecutive annual increase and the highest rate since 1998, according to census figures released Tuesday. Nearly 3.1 million New Yorkers were living below the official poverty rate in 2010, also the highest total in 12 years.

The statewide rate climbed from 14.2 percent in 2008 to 15.8 percent in 2009 and inched up to 16 percent last year.

The poverty rate was 43 percent among households headed by a single mother, 24.6 percent among children younger than 18, 14 percent among 18-to-64-year-olds and 11.1 percent for people 65 and over,

“People have trouble conceptualizing number as large as three million, but this new data means that if New York State residents in poverty all held hands, they could create a line that would run from Times Square to the Golden Gate Bridge,” said Joel Berg, the executive director for the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. “For those of us who see surging lines at food pantries and soup kitchens citywide, these new numbers are no surprise.”

# # #

“Since they changed term limits, more people are living in poverty in New York City. Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg’s wealth has grown over three-fold while has been in office,” said Louis Flores. “With Christine Quinn’s help, Mayor Bloomberg has been laying off police, firefighters, and teachers ; closing senior citizen centers ; cutting childcare ; and closing hospitals – just basically shredding the social safety net. Also, how is Mayor Bloomberg allowed to make money from inside information through his new company called Bloomberg Government ?”

Keith Olbermann reports about #OccupyWallStreet's march to St. Vincent's Hospital

2011-10-27T17:50:00.000-07:00

#OccupyWallStreet Healthcare march to St. Vincent's Hospital is reported by Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Keith Olbermann interviewed Dr. Steven Auerbach about the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital and the #OccupyWallStreet march for Healthcare for the 99%. (The segment about St. Vincent's and the #OWS march begins at about 0:34.)

St. Vincent’s was a Catholic-run hospital, which had a charity mission to serve the under-insured and uninsured. St. Vincent’s lacked the corporate clout to negotiate fair reimbursement rates from profit-driven insurance companies, leading to financial instability. Moreover, the short-term focus of the highly-paid executives and consultants pushed St. Vincent’s into bankruptcy – leading to a public health emergency: there is now no hospital on the Westside below 57th Street.

Politicians ranging from New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to Manhattan Community Board 2 Chair Brad Hoylman to Mayor Michael Bloomberg did nothing to save St. Vincent's.

Two months ago, The New York Post reported that the Manhattan District Attorney was investigating whether hospital executives intentionally let St. Vincent’s fail, so that the Rudin Management Company could buy the hospital’s real estate as part of a controversial luxury condominium development project.

Rudin paid pennies on the dollar to buy the hospital’s real estate, and Rudin now stands to sell luxury condominiums and townhouses, once constructed, that are expected to have a combined fair-market value of over $1 billion.

#OccupyWallStreet Marches to St. Vincent's

2011-10-23T19:55:00.000-07:00

The activist group called Hands Off St. Vincent's endorses the #OccupyWallStreet march to St. Vincent's Hospital.

St. Vincent's YouTube Documentary

2011-10-23T19:22:00.000-07:00

OccupyWallStreet NYPD Brutality Protest at Union Square

2011-10-23T05:09:00.000-07:00

YouTube video of #OWS protest against NYPD police brutality and use of excessive force, plus an invitation to the three-year anniversary of the term limits extension rammed through the City Council in 2008 by Speaker Christine Quinn.

Quinn Term Limits Protest

2011-10-22T06:16:00.000-07:00

Protest to mark the Third Anniversary of the Term Limits Extension

2011-10-23 Term Limits Protest - Third Anniversary

Bloomberg and Quinn sold the lie that they would save the economy. Have they helped you with the economy ?

Taxpayers and voters are gathering at City Hall Park on Sunday, Oct. 23, at 2 p.m., to commemorate the three-year anniversary of “The Day That Democracy Died” : when Speaker Christine Quinn strong-armed the City Council to extend term limits, allowing herself, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and others to run for a third term in office.

“Since they changed term limits, more people are living in poverty in New York City. Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg’s wealth has grown over three-fold while has been in office,” said Louis Flores. “With Christine Quinn’s help, Mayor Bloomberg has been laying off police, firefighters, and teachers ; closing senior citizen centers ; cutting childcare ; and closing hospitals – just basically shredding the social safety net. Also, how is Mayor Bloomberg allowed to make money from inside information through his new company called Bloomberg Government ?”

Protesters will hold a rally, make speeches, and distribute voter registration applications, so that Speaker Christine Quinn and other City Council Members, who passed the term limits extension, can be voted out of office in 2013.

Christine Quinn Mass Trauma Exercise

2011-10-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

A Mass Civilian Trauma Exercise was held outside St. Vincent’s Hospital.

One of the participants at last night's "mass civilian trauma exercise" at St. Vincent' Hospital asked, "Where is Christine Quinn ?"

As part of the "mass civilian trauma exercise," many participants wore surgical masks and paper signs around their neck. The signs indicated what accidents, diseases, or emergencies they "have." Then, the "sick" participants "waited" for emergency medical treatment on the sidewalks outside St. Vincent's. No emergency help ever came, precisely because there is no longer a hospital in the Lower West Side. Some participants did not "make it." After the "mass civilian trauma exercise" came to an end, team of "survivors" marched to Grace Church, 86 Fourth Avenue, Tuttle Hall, to ask for help from Jason Mansfield, the chair of CB2's Environmental, Public Safety & Public Health Committee.

NYPD Joining OccupyWallStreet ?

2011-10-17T04:58:00.000-07:00

NYPD is One Layoff Away from Joining #OccupyWallStreet

Seeing as how we living under weekly threats by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Mayor Michael Bloomberg of layoffs of important first responders and other providers or protectors of the important social safety net in New York City, it should be noted that the New York Police Department is probably one layoff away from joining the activists at #OccupyWallStreet.

Christine Quinn #OccupyCB2 St. Vincent's

2011-10-10T08:03:00.000-07:00

You are invited to participate in the enactment of a mass civilian trauma exercise on the sidewalk outside St. Vincent's Hospital.

Watch this YouTube documentary for background information about the controversial Rudin condo conversion plan for St. Vincent's Hospital :

2011 10 17 RE ACT OccupyCB2 Flyer
2011-10-17 Stop the Rezoning of St. Vincent's Hospital Flyer #OccupyCB2

Operation #OccupyCB2 Flyer

2011-10-09T13:38:00.001-07:00

Please e-mail me at : louis.equality.flores (at) gmail.com for information about the planning of a sustained direct action campaign against William Rudin, Christine Quinn, and Brad Hoylman.
2011 10 10 OccupyCB2 Flyer

Quinn Living Wage Bill Betrayal

2011-10-07T04:30:00.000-07:00

Christine Quinn, Who Has Already Sold Out On Her Labour Roots, Is On Cusp Of Killing Wage Bill Backed By Labour Supporters

''Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, facing conflicting pressures from her longtime labor allies and her new supporters in the business community, said Wednesday that she was not ready to take a position on a controversial proposal that would require employers who benefit from city subsidies to pay workers higher wages,'' reported The New York Times.

By keeping her silence, Speaker Quinn is bluffing her way through the living wage bill -- another important piece of middle class legislation, precisely because Mayor Michael Bloomberg opposed the living wage bill.

''How can she justify blocking a bill for that requires employers who receive city subsidies to pay workers $10/hour, especially in light of the fact that it is sponsored by a majority of Council Members ? Where's the humanity ? Where's the democracy ? How much of this behavior are you willing to forgive because you like the idea of having a gay person or a woman in higher office ?'' asked the government integrity activist Donny Moss on the Facebook social media site.

Like Medvedev, Like Quinn

2011-10-06T04:25:00.000-07:00

From The New York Times :

Like Putin, Like Bloomberg

October 4, 2011, 8:44 AM
By CLYDE HABERMAN

Political ploys under way in Russia could almost serve as an instruction manual for the leadership at either end of New York’s City Hall. You have to slap your forehead in wonder that the New Yorkers didn’t think up comparable high jinks for themselves.
In case your idea of foreign news is a revised menu at the International House of Pancakes, allow us to explain.
Dmitri A. Medvedev, who is Russia’s president but not the guy in charge, plans to step aside so that his place can be taken by Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, Mr. Medvedev’s predecessor and still the true power. Once Mr. Putin is installed anew as president, Mr. Medvedev will move in as prime minister. In some countries, leaders swap political favors. In Russia, it seems, they swap jobs.
The reason for this folderol is that Mr. Putin, though not thrilled with the idea, yielded the presidency three years ago in accordance with a constitutional provision limiting him to two consecutive terms.
In other words, this former K.G.B. man, known for strong-arm tactics, was more scrupulous about observing the niceties of term limits than were New York’s political leaders: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his Medvedev equivalent, Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker.
You will recall that Mr. Bloomberg and Ms. Quinn could not bother themselves with observing the letter, let alone the spirit, of a voter-imposed city law limiting them to two terms. With the help of complaisant council members, they simply changed the law to reward themselves with third terms. Generally speaking, it’s not a good idea to look less faithful to democratic formalities than Vladimir Putin.
There is no need to belabor the wobbly nature of this third term. Names and phrases like Cathleen P. Black, the 2010 blizzard, Stephen Goldsmith and the CityTime scandal tell you at a glance how things have often gone.
For the privilege of presiding over all that, Mr. Bloomberg distorted campaign financing beyond all recognition — yet again — by spending $108 million in 2009.On Monday, he was forced to testify at the trial of a political consultant accused of stealing $1.1 million from that campaign. Theft, if proved, is bad, of course. But Mr. Bloomberg tosses around money so freely that his losing a million dollars is like an average person’s having coins slip between the sofa cushions.
Nor are finances the only area of distortion. The normal balance between the executive and legislative branches in this city has been knocked askew in the Bloomberg-Quinn era. Theirs is not quite the Putin-Medvedev relationship, but it bears a certain resemblance, sort of a second-rate Moscow on the Hudson. Not unlike the Russians, Mr. Bloomberg and Ms. Quinn are trying to make sure that power remains within their alliance.
He leaves no doubt that he wants her to take his place after 2013. His administration goes out of its way to include her in news conferences even when the Council’s role is close to nonexistent, whether the issue is Hurricane Irene or, as was the case last week, an announcement that New Yorkers were eating more fruits and vegetables.
In turn, Ms. Quinn often acts as if she were not the Council speaker but, rather, the deputy mayor for legislative affairs. The latest example came a week ago when she bottled up a bill loathed by the mayor. It would have required mayors, including the wandering, Bermuda-loving Mr. Bloomberg, to let the rest of us know when he strays far from the city — certainly when he leaves the country, as he did before the 2010 blizzard. Ms. Quinn made sure that the Council would not even debate this proposal.
There is, however, such a thing as excessive coziness. A NY1-Marist College poll last week confirmed that, for now anyway, Ms. Quinn is the Democratic front-runner in the 2013 mayoral election. But it also showed that nearly half of Democratic voters would be less likely to vote for a candidate who had Mr. Bloomberg’s support.
How does that aphorism go about being careful what you wish for?

Quinn Looks The Other Way After Mass Arrests -- Again

2011-10-02T15:47:00.000-07:00

Live Mass Arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge #occupywallstreet - Streaming Video by We are Change

In a flashback to the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, police rounded up and arrested over 700 activists on the Brooklyn Bridge during a political demonstration.

Police said that those activists, who impeded vehicular traffic on the bridge were were arrested. But The New York Times reported that "many protesters said they believed the police had tricked them, allowing them onto the bridge, and even escorting them partway across, only to trap them in orange netting after hundreds had entered." Look at this independent video :

Some of the activists, who were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge, had their hands bound with plastic ties that the NYPD has used at other mass demonstration. Separately, the NYPD admitted that they police force had taken their own videos of the protesters, who had taken part in the demonstration, deliberately and intentionally tracking and monitoring the peaceful activists.

Attorney Wylie Stecklow, whose law firm represents many of the activists, who were arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge, said that the pattern of the NYPD's behaviour toward the Occupy Wall Street protesters was reminiscent of the mass arrests that police made during the 2004 Republican National Convention.

Once again, Speaker Quinn has not challenged the NYPD over the #OccupyWallStreet mass arrests, just like she did nothing over the NYPD mass arrests during the 2004 Republican National Convention.

Ladies Pepper-Sprayed by NYPD

2011-09-25T14:37:00.000-07:00

Lady Protesters Penned on the Sidewalk and Pepper-sprayed by the NYPD in a Show of Excessive Force.

Is City Council Speaker Christine Quinn going to denounce the NYPD for their use of excessive force against unarmed ladies ?

Oct. 23 Term Limits Rally

2011-09-23T11:01:00.000-07:00

The Day Democracy Died : On Oct. 23, 2008, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn strong-armed an extension of term limits through the City Council. Join us for a protest to mark the third anniversary of this egregious act -- help us to register new voters.2011-10-23 Third Anniversary Term Limits Extension Protest - City Hall Park

Melanie Meyers Fried Frank

2011-09-22T04:29:00.000-07:00

Melanie Meyers, a real estate partner at the former law firm of Sarge Shriver, makes part of her case in this excerpt of her presentation before Manhattan Community Board 2 on behalf of the billionaire Rudin Family. Ms. Meyers is advocating, on behalf of William Rudin, to demolish many of the buildings that comprise the St. Vincent's Hospital campus, so that Mr. Rudin may build luxury condos in the heart of the West Village.

Decades ago, Greenwich Village survived plans by Robert Moses to demolish a wide swath across the Village as part of his foolish plan to construct a cross-town highway to the East Side. Now comes Mr. Rudin, with his heartless desires to gut the core of the Village and replace it with more useless luxury condos.

Can the community come together to fight the blatant greed and dishonesty of the billionaire Rudin family ? Is Yetta Kurland the new Jane Jacobs ?

Join the Facebook page dedicated to saving St. Vincent's and get active.

Jeffrey Kraut North Shore-LIJ

2011-09-21T19:53:00.001-07:00

After William Rudin's giant scheme to take over St. Vincent's Hospital real estate properties has triggered an investigation by prosecutors, the Rudin Family went to great lengths to make sure that its luxury condominium conversion plan would be fast-tracked, pulling out all the stops.

But new information came to light this week : one top official of North Shore-LIJ hospital system, Jeffrey Kraut, is chair of the committee, which will recommend or deny North Shore-LIJ's application for a Department of Health license to operate a controversial stand-alone Emergency Department.

The Emergency Department is a consolation prize for the loss of a full-service hospital and Level 1 trauma center after St. Vincent's Hospital closed on April 30, 2010. Thus far, Mr. Kraut's actions has not been referred to the Attorney General's office, which oversees the ethics of the State's executive agencies, such as the Department of Health.

Mr. Kraut's conflict of interest in having influence over his own company's financial contracts and government licenses provide fresh evidence about the lack of integrity in the Rudin condo version plan.

In order to build its luxury condos, the Rudin Family encouraged North Shore-LIJ's application for the stand-alone Emergency Department. Because the Rudin condo conversion plan depends on the approval of North Shore-LIJ's application before the Department of Health, community members question Mr. Kraut's influence on other members of the Committee on Establishment and Project Review Meeting and Public Hearing, which will determine the outcome of North Shore-LIJ's permit application.

The information about Mr. Kraut's conflict of interest is another negative blight on the Rudin Family, who have also tried astroturfing, lobbying, and distribution of propaganda by mail. The Rudin Family has also been criticised for opposing freedom of information requests that might be useful in investigations.

Separately, the Department of Health has been criticised for its inaction in saving other hospitals from closure, and for the absence of any investigation or prosecution of individuals, who were involved in the hospital closure crisis.

DOH Meeting on St. Vincent's

2011-09-17T20:32:00.001-07:00

2011-09-22 CON NY Department of Health Meeting - St Vincents

St. Vincent's 9/11 Reflection

2011-09-14T04:52:00.000-07:00

On the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, an employee of St. Vincent's Hospital reflects on that horrible day. It is sad to think that City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has picked the side of the billionaire developers, who are trying to convert St. Vincent's into more tacky glass and steel luxury condominiums, over the critical role that a Level 1 Trauma Center can play in the community.

Campaign Slush Fund Row

2011-09-03T07:18:00.000-07:00

The New York Times Editorial to Christine Quinn : Shut Down Your Slush Fund !

Last week, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was hand-picking Christine Quinn to be his heir to the mayoralty of New York City, because Quinn's use of a taxpayer slush fund for political corruption reminded him so much of Bloomberg's three-tiered campaign finance scheme.

Quinn, who is the Speaker of the City Council, is the openly-lesbian politician, around whom many LGBT New Yorkers are rallying around, even though Quinn has had one of her friends diagnose LGBT civil rights activists with ''confusion,'' and this on top of the fact that Quinn has done nothing to investigate the illegal NYPD raid on the Eagle Bar, just some of the many examples of how Quinn has thrown valid LGBT issues under the bus.

Is Christine Quinn going to hold the NYPD accountable for raiding the Eagle on the very night when marriage equality became law ? What kind of an LGBT leader is she, if she does not fight for our LGBT civil rights ? Join our Facebook page : Gays Against Christine Quinn.

Christine Quinn Enablers

2011-08-29T03:42:00.000-07:00

OP-ED : Christine Quinn Enablers Have Infiltrated The New York Times

After a shoddy report about City Council Speaker Christine Quinn ''moving to the political center'' (aka ''selling out''), one of Speaker Quinn's élitist enablers wrote a letter to the Editor all the way from Lyon, France, which is sad, because I would expect better from France. Christopher Murray praised how no other New York City politician had sold the LGBT community down the river ''... as adroitly as Ms. Quinn'' ....

And if that wasn't enough, Mr. Murray, a self-described therapist, analysed and diagnosed LGBT civil rights activists with ''confusion.''

How do you like that : Ms. Quinn's team attacking LGBT civil rights activists for trying to hold an elected politician accountable for delivering on LGBT equality ? Meanwhile, let's remind our readers of Speaker Quinn's atrocious LGBT civil rights record.

To call herself a leader of the LGBT community, Speaker Quinn must pass at least one landmark law to further LGBT civil rights ; meaning, once being a staff member to another LGBT politician doesn't count.

Horse Carriages Work During Hurricane Irene Under Inhumane Conditions

2011-08-27T16:41:00.001-07:00

A horse-drawn carriage makes an illegal U-turn in the middle of a busy Midtown Manhattan street, on wet and slippery pavement no less, on a day when 370,000 people were ordered to evacuation flood zones in New York City.

Carriage Horses Working Despite New York City Shut Down #Hurricane #Irene

New York (27 August 2011) -- An hour ago, the government integrity watchdog and animal rights activist Donny Moss released the following statement by social media :

In spite of the evacuations, transportation shut down, the Mayor's plea to stay off the streets, and a law which states that carriages cannot work during "slippery conditions," carriage drivers worked all day. How does the ASPCA, which collects money in the name of helping the horses, allow this ? This industry is enabled and empowered by Christine Quinn, who has killed all bills to take these horses out of harm's way.

Animal rights activists have long complained that Ms. Quinn, the City Council Speaker, has no integrity at her core, and all of her talk about animal rights (much like all of her policies) are accompanied by touches of a legislative sleight-of-hand.

In a related e-mail newsletter to other animal rights activists, Mr. Moss remarked :

Dear animal advocate:
Several hours ago, portions of New York City were evacuated for the first time in history, and the largest public transportation system in the country was shut down due to Hurricane Irene. With conditions deteriorating, Mayor Michael Bloomberg implored New Yorkers to stay home for our own safety and so that emergency vehicles can easily navigate the streets. Downpours occurred throughout the day.
In spite of all of the above, and the law which clearly states that carriage operators cannot work during "ice, heavy rain or other slippery conditions," dozens of horse-drawn carriage operators were working as of 4:30 p.m. If history repeats itself, the horses will be forced to make the long, treacherous trip through the streets of midtown back to the "stables" when the storm intensifies.
As usual, the ASPCA, which collects an untold amount of money from donors in the name of helping the carriage horses, allowed the carriage drivers to leave the stables this morning and to work all day in the wet streets in spite of the law.
The ASPCA, which was founded to protect the carriage horses, continues to stand by and watch as the carriage operators to break the law. They mock -- instead of support -- the advocates who are working tirelessly to take the horses out of harm's way. And they continue to refuse to use their substantial clout, power and resources to shut this industry down, in spite of their own stance that horse-drawn carriages should be banned from NYC.
The horse-drawn carriage industry is also enabled -- if not empowered -- by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has blocked all efforts to take these horses out of Midtown, killing bills in committee before they see the light of day. In fact, Quinn has killed every meaningful animal protection bill introduced at City Hall since she became Speaker in 2006.
Following are pictures of horses working in the rain at about 3:00 p.m. today. Please share this information with your friends who donate money to animal organizations and/or who vote in NYC.
Thank you.
Donny Moss

Many restaurants were closed across New York City due to the dangerous weather conditions, but carriage horses were still being forced to work under inhumane street conditions.

Officials of the MTA New York City Subway ordered the nation's largest mass transit system to be closed at noon today, due to the dangerous wind and rain conditions in connection with Hurricane Irene, but Donny Moss reported that horses were still pulling carriages at 4:30 p.m. under dangerous street conditions.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed an evacuation order that demanded that approximately 370,000 people leave dangerous flood zones due to Hurricane Irene ; under these conditions, horse-drawn carriages were still working.

While businesses were closed and employees making preparations for Hurricane Irene, horses were lined up to pull unsuspecting tourists through dangerous Midtown traffic.

Riders were carrying umbrellas to protect them from the rain and wind, but horses were left to work completely exposed to the elements. Where is the humanity in this ?

A carriage driver holds up an umbrella to protect himself from the rain and wind, but the tired horse trudges through the elements as the city prepares for Hurricane Irene.

In a burst of rain from the outer bands of Hurricane Irene, a carriage driver uses an umbrella for himself, but he offers no protection from the elements to his horse.

A carriage driver wears a raincoat in a rainstorm from one of the outer bands of Hurricane Irene, as unsuspecting tourists are being driven through dangerous weather conditions. Meanwhile, the horse is being forced to work under inhumane conditions where everybody else is protected from the weather, but for the horse.

Still yet other carriage horse drivers are protected from the rain and wind by giant umbrellas, but there is no protection offered to the horses from the stormy weather arriving in New York from the outer bands of Hurricane Irene.

Quinn NYPD Eagle Raid

2011-08-27T04:46:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Irene Evacuation Emergency

2011-08-25T18:05:00.000-07:00

Due to Hurricane Irene, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has ordered the evacuation of all patients from senior centers and hospitals in low-lying areas in the Evacuation Zone. Too bad Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn have been closing senior centers and closing hospitals all across the city, leading to a mass shortage of senior centers and hospitals during natural disasters or other mass public health emergencies.

Quinn Slush Funds Corruption

2011-08-23T02:45:00.000-07:00

Christine Quinn Uses City Council Funds (aka Taxpayer Money) to Reward Political Bosses

After City Council Speaker Christine Quinn got fluffed by NYTimes reporter David W. Chen, now comes Michael Powell, a columnist for the Gray Lady, who pulls back the curtain on Speaker Quinn's slush fund-tinged campaign for mayor.

Mr. Powell reports that Ms. Quinn was appointed Speaker of the City Council after she "charmed" political bosses from Queens, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. At her coronation ceremony, she put Vito Lopez, the notorious Brooklyn political boss (who is the target of several ethical and corruption investigations) in the front row. Speaker Quinn has also scratched Mr. Vito's back in exchange for his political support. "The fates have smiled on Mr. Lopez’s social-service empire, the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council ; this year the Council sent more than $4 million its way," reported the NYTimes.

In a statement posted Facebook, a government integrity watchdog activist questioned why the latest NYTimes article stops short of probing the status of the federal investigation into Speaker Quinn's slush fund scandal.

"Instead of reporting on Quinn's criminal activity, the NY Times merely raises questions about her ethics and leadership: "But there are questions to be asked about her leadership, and not all cheery." Is it a fear of Bloomberg that prevents the Times from reporting on the well-documented budget and campaign corruption ?" Donny Moss posted on the social network.

This is how the NYTimes article ends :

Last year, a Council majority favored mandatory sick days for New Yorkers with less than a week of vacation. The mayor opposed it. Ms. Quinn killed it.
Some suggest that she has gotten lost in the game, that she can no longer recall the questions she once asked as an advocate. That sounds too definitive. Her arc is not done.
She affects nonchalance when described as a mayoral puppet: “You can call me Mini-Me. I don’t really care.”
The rub is that voters might care a lot.

St. Vincent's Rudin Investigation

2011-08-21T11:19:00.000-07:00

Manhattan District Attorney is investigating St. Vincent's ''go-for-broke plan'' that has supposedly enriched the Rudin Managedment Company, which has been waiting in the wings for the hospital to flatline.

St. Vincent's Hospital is under investigation by the Manhattan DA's office for allegations that the Rudin Management Company has been planning a real estate harvesting/luxury condo conversion plan of the shuttered hospital.

St. Vincent's closed on April 30, 2010, after it laid off many of its employees. Many employees later learned that the hospital was not paying into the state's unemployment fund, so those who were laid off were not eligible for unemployment benefits.

Ever since it closed, the impacted community of the Lower West Side of Manhattan has been calling for investigations into what lead to the hospital's sudden closure. The hospital failed to file a closure plan, as it was required to do, with the New York State Department of Health.

From an article in The New York Post :

Going broke allowed the hospital to get an OK from the state Health Department to sell to the Rudin family, which is building luxury housing on the site. Without bankruptcy, state officials would not have been permitted the hospital to shut down, the sources said.
"This was a well-thought-out plan," said Tom Shanahan, a lawyer for a group of former St. Vincent doctors and nurses suing St. Vincent's. "They wanted out and had to justify it to the state. They were running it into the ground."
DA Cy Vance's team is looking into whether vendors double-billed for services, gave kickbacks for contracts and hired relatives of hospital employees, sources said.

Quinn NYT Infomercial Fluff

2011-08-16T19:52:00.000-07:00

To find out how real journalists assess City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's record, one needs to look no further than the sensibility expressed in this blog post on True News From Change : NYT Sets the Definition on How To Judge and Pick the Next Mayor and It Fits Quinn

In his blog post, the journalist Gary Tilzer makes many astute observations about David W. Chen's infomercial fluff piece about Speaker Quinn, and perhaps this is the most sharpest of Mr. Tilzer's criticisms : ''It was the publisher of the NYT, along with the NYP and Daily News, that used their papers to support changing the term limits law to allow Bloomberg and Quinn to run for a third term. Mr. Chen does not challenge Quinn when she brushes off her term limits and other critics as 'naïve' ideologues.''

It's already been documented how Christine Quinn bluffs her way through important social issues.

What Speaker Quinn is doing by making her ''unapologetic'' ''move to the middle'' is selling out the working class families of New York City. Her policies favour real estate developers -- and come to the detriment, suffering, and mass displacement of working class New Yorkers. Speaker Quinn's vision of New York City is a continuation of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's vision : more glass and steel luxury condos and less hospitals, firehouses, public schools, and senior centers. Speaker Quinn wants to make life so unbearable to the average wage-earning New Yorker that we all pick up and leave town.

How do we know that Christine Quinn has sold out her values and beliefs and still find herself to be in a place of denial about it, so much so that she accuses her critics of being “naïve” ideologues ?

Speaker Quinn's ideas about leadership in New York, by supporting the luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital, which used to be the only full-service hospital with a Level 1 Trauma Center below 14th Street, is like GLAAD publicly supporting the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger. Not only would AT&T be in an even stronger position to undo net neutrality, but what is GLAAD doing by meddling in a telecom merger approval process with the FCC ? Likewise, why is a ''supposedly!! celebrated LGBT third-term politician like Christine Quinn rushing toward the ''middle'' of the political spectrum, if it means that she has to abandon her idealistic beginnings and instead now oppose paid sick leave and a living wage bill ?

"AT&T was one of the companies whose local representatives sits on the board of directors of the Tennessee chamber of commerce," wrote John Aravosis at Americablog. "You remember them, the group that endorsed and actively lobbied for the measure repealing gay and trans rights ordinances in the state, mandating it so that no trans person can ever change their birth certificate gender in the future, and banning any future civil rights ordinances for anyone in the future. That AT&T."

What does the intersection of St. Vincent's Hospital/Rudin Family Luxury Condo Conversion and the GLAAD/AT&T T-Mobile mega deals have to do with Christine Quinn and New York City politics ?

In each case, you see the erosion of core values of fighting for an activist's central reason for being : serving their constituency. But once you get to be so big, you can blow off you constituency as “naïve” ideologues (or drop the F-bomb on them, the way that one of her administrative assistants did).

If, throughout our nation's history, our goal has been to distribute power and authority equally among voters, then the voters, who have less choices on election day, get their voices muffled. Who is going to challenge GLAAD to focus once again on its original intention ? Who is going to put pressure on Christine Quinn to deliver on the community’s demands to stop all the hospital closings that are happening across New York City ?

It is not too much to expect that the people, who you elect to City Council, start to deliver something tangible for New York City voters.

If you disliked how City Council members extended term limits without a voter referendum, then let her know : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us
If you agree, that Speaker Quinn needs to hear the voices of communities, who are demanding that hospitals stop closing all across the five boroughs, then let her know : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us
If you can no longer accept a weekly threat by Mayor Bloomberg to layoff teachers and firefighters, and to close schools and firehouses, then let her know : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us
If you want Speaker Quinn to shut down her $50 million slush fund, then let her know : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us
If you refuse to settle for City Council members, who take tens of thousands of campaign donations from real estate developers in exchange for what seems like pay-to-play real estate development deal approvals, then let her know : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us
If you believe that Speaker Quinn betrays the LGBT community, then let her know : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us
If you have your own issue, that you'd like to bring to Speaker Quinn's attention, then let her know : quinn@council.nyc.ny.us

What is an LGBT leader doing, supporting real estate deals ? Speak now, or forever hold your peace.

Alec Baldwin Christine Quinn

2011-08-15T18:48:00.000-07:00

Alec Baldwin exposes Christine Quinn for Term Limits Scandal

From The New York Times :

Mr. Baldwin suggested that the term-limit issue would hurt the electoral prospects of the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, who went along with the mayor’s move. “I think it absolutely, positively disqualifies her,” he said. “She totally betrayed a huge constituency here in the city.”

Christine Quinn Betrays Gays

2011-08-15T17:44:00.000-07:00

Christine Quinn Betrays Gays :

What measurable, real, and tangible actions have openly lesbian City Council Speaker Christine Quinn taken in respect of LGBT civil rights ?

Let's examine the following examples of LGBT civil rights violations, to which City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, a high-profile openly lesbian politician, has been spineless in her response :

When over 30 men where being entrapped and were the targets of sexual orientation profiling by the NYPD, what did Christine Quinn do ? That's right, she did nothing to hold the NYPD accountable for their systematic discrimination of LGBTQS men.
Each year, Speaker Quinn allocates taxpayer money to support hate groups that discriminate against LGBT New Yorkers. Ask yourselves : What is an openly lesbian politician doing by funding groups that discriminate against LGBT New Yorkers ?
On the evening when Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the historic marriage equality bill into law, the NYPD raided the Eagle Bar in yet another demonstration of sexual orientation profiling. What has Speaker Quinn done to hold the NYPD accountable for their systematic discrimination of the gay men patrons of the Eagle ? That's right, she's done nothing.
After the Obama administration violated the due process rights of an LGBT whistleblower, what did Speaker Quinn do ? She turned the other way and pretended not to look.
When one of her own staffers, Tony Simone, dropped the F-bomb on gay rights leaders Allen Roskoff and Donny Moss, what did Speaker Quinn do ? She did nothing.
When Mayor Michael Bloomberg appealed the 2005 landmark marriage equality ruling by Judge Doris Ling-Cohan,, what did Christine Quinn do ? BINGO ! She did nothing.

With an LGBT record like this, LGBTQS New Yorkers would do good to question Speaker Quinn's integrity and commitment to LGBT civil rights.

Quinn Gay Bookstore Raids

2011-08-15T17:03:00.000-07:00

REWIND : NYPD Engaged in a Coördinated and Deliberate Sting Operation Targeting Gay Bookstores ; NYPD Entrapped Gay Men in False Prostitution Arrests. What Did Christine Quinn Do ? As usual, nothing.

Robert Pinter spoke on June 13, 2009, at a gathering in protest of a coordinated campaign of police harassment by NYPD. The New York Police Department has allegedly been waging a systematic program targeting gay, bi-sexual, and straight men.

Mr. Pinter, 53, is one of approximately 30 men who, according to several news report investigations, were falsely arrested on questionable charges of prostitution.

As usual, has Speaker Quinn called on the NYPD to account for its systematic harassment and homophobic sexual orientation profiling of customers of gay bookstores ? No. Is this the kind of LGBT leader you want to see elected to be mayor ? Absolutely not.

Homophobia counts on your internalisation of fear and shame. Don't buy into it. If we stand up together, we can live our lives with dignity and respect.

Quinn Plaza Hotel Protest

2011-08-10T19:00:00.000-07:00

Christine Quinn - Plaza Hotel - Gays Against Quinn (Protest Video)

Over 20 activists gathered outside the Plaza Hotel in a demonstration against City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Watch as protesters speak against Christine Quinn to former Mayor David Dinkins' entourage and hand anti-Quinn literature to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Some of us were there because of Speaker Quinn's use of a $50 million slush fund during a time when we live under constant threat by Mayor Bloomberg, that he is going to lay off teachers and close down fire houses. Others were there, because Speaker Quinn pushed through a controversial extension of term limits, allowing Mayor Bloomberg, herself, and others, to run for a third term in office. Still yet others were there because of Speaker Quinn's complete abdication of full civil rights for LGBT New Yorkers, do-nothing record over hospital closings, horrible animal rights record, and use of city staff for campaign work.

Please join us for a Third Anniversary Protest of the Term Limits Extension at 2 pm on Sunday, October 23, at City Hall.

Please also join our Facebook group : Gays Against Christine Quinn.

Politicians and Protesters call for an investigation of Medisys official Robert Levine over Peninsula Hospital closing

2011-08-07T19:49:00.000-07:00

Peninsula Hospital closure draws outraged calls for a state investigation from almost everybody, excepting for Christine Quinn, of course, naturally, it should go without saying.

From The New York Daily News :

Local pols on Sunday called on state officials to investigate the planned closing of Peninsula Hospital in Queens. During a protest that drew dozens of hospital workers and Rockaways residents, State Sen. Malcolm Smith urged Health Commissioner Nirav Shah not to approve the closing plan for the century-old Far Rockaway hospital without conducting a formal investigation of its finances first. "The Rockaways cannot afford for Peninsula to not be there," said Smith (D-Queens), noting its emergency room provides care for more than 30,000 patients per year. At the rally outside the state Health Department's office in Lower Manhattan, protestors chanted, "Keep the hospital open" and waved signs saying, "Rockaway Needs Peninsula" and "Investigate Before Closing." ....

Quinn Campaign Button Contest

2011-08-06T09:48:00.000-07:00

Design your best anti-Quinn campaign buttons, host them on Photobucket, then post links in the comments section.

Let's see who can design the best anti-Christine Quinn campaign buttons !

Here are two of my ideas, to give you an idea of the kind of creativity I'm looking for :

Looking forward to creative submissions !!! :)

Peninsula Hospital Closing Protest

2011-08-04T04:39:00.000-07:00

Peninsula Hospital Center - Protesters Take Over Lobby - Hospital Closings in NYC

Approximately 200 union employees, residents of Far Rockaway, in Queens, and local officials, gathered in the rain outside Peninsula Hospital Center, across the bay from JFK Airport. Peninsula Hospital Center has filed a plan to shut its doors. The hospital’s owner is embroiled in a political and financial scandal, but employees and residents are worried about the threat to public health, should the hospital’s closure plan be approved.

Attendees of the rally braved the rain, then, once the rally had ended, stormed into one of the lobbies of the hospital, until hospital officials called the police, to clear the lobby of its own employees.

In the time that Christine Quinn had been speaker of the City Council, eight hospitals (not counting Peninsula) have closed. If Peninsula closes, it would mark the ninth hospital to close under Speaker Quinn's watch.

This week, President Obama agreed to severe budget cuts to social safety net programs, that underpin the social contract we make with our government and amongst ourselves. More budget cuts to Medicaid and Medicare will lead to a further collapse of our healthcare system. Is Christine Quinn in Bermuda with Mayor Michael Bloomberg each time a hospital closes in New York City ? Is President Obama surfing in Hawaii each time a hospital closes in America ?

If we obediently listen to people, who are in power (the same people who work for us, the very same people who are closing our hospitals), telling us to leave the lobby of a closing hospital, then it just makes it that much easier for the New York State Department of Health/Christine Quinn to keep closing hospitals.

In the time that Christine Quinn has been Speaker of the New York City Council, at least eight city hospitals have closed. In 2010, North General Hospital in Harlem declared bankruptcy and St. Vincent's Hospital in the West Village shut down after shady backroom meetings. In 2009, two hospitals in Queens – St. John's Queens Hospital in Elmhurst and Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica – went bankrupt. In 2008, Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan, Parkway Hospital in Queens, and Victory Memorial Hospital in Bay Ridge closed. And in 2007, St. Vincent's Midtown in Manhattan was closed. Separately, one other hospital in Brooklyn, Long Island College Hospital, was recently saved : it had been on the brink of closing, and the only way the hospital was saved was by merging it with SUNY Downstate.

Rudin Quinn Peninsula Hospital

2011-08-03T03:33:00.000-07:00

Is the Rudin Family eyeing their next real estate harvesting operation on the dead carcass of the Peninsula Hospital Center in Queens ?

After he's done with St. Vincent's Hospital, it has been heard on the street that William Rudin is considering another real estate harvesting operation, this time at the Peninsula Hospital Center in Queens.

Rudin Pays Off Quinn

2011-08-03T02:51:00.000-07:00

Rudin Family Pushes Luxury Condo Conversion Plan With Support From Christine Quinn

In exchange for almost $30,000 in campaign contributions by the billionaire Rudin real estate empire to Christine Quinn, the Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously approved a real estate development plan for the O'Toole Building in a classic bait and switch to replace St. Vincent's Hospital with a first aid clinic.

Is Robert Tierney the second-coming of Robert Moses ?