Mired in the mid-30s in approval in New York with the prospect of losing the Anthony Weiner seat in a huge upset, things just aren't getting any better for Barack Obama. Now he's just being dismissed outright by Democrats. Frankly, I'm stunned the New York Times even mentioned this quote.
Of all the places to hear fulminations against President Obama, one of the least expected is the corner of 71st Avenue and Queens Boulevard, in the heart of a Congressional district that propelled Democrats like Geraldine A. Ferraro, Charles E. Schumer and Anthony D. Weiner to Washington.
But it was there that Dale Weiss, a 64-year-old Democrat, approached the Republican running for Congress in a special election and, without provocation, blasted the president for failing to tame runaway federal spending. “We need to cut Medicaid,” she declared, “but he won’t do that.” She shook her head in disgust. “He is a moron.”
Ouch. Tell us how you really feel.
After nodding approvingly for a time, the Republican candidate, Bob Turner, signaled for an assistant to cut off Ms. Weiss. Frustration with Mr. Obama is so widespread, he explained later, that he tries to limit such rants to about 30 seconds, or else they will consume most of his day.
“It’s endemic in the district,” Mr. Turner said. “You can’t stop them once they get started.”
The Sept. 13 election for the Ninth Congressional District seat became vacant this summer when Mr. Weiner quit over an online sex scandal. The race was widely viewed as a sleepy sideshow — a mere formality that would put David I. Weprin, a Democratic state assemblyman and heir to a Queens political dynasty, into a seat known for its deep blue hue.
Instead, the race has become something far more unsettling to Democrats: a referendum on the president and his party that is highlighting the surprisingly raw emotions of the electorate.
National Democrats, alarmed by a poll that showed the contest far closer than anticipated, are privately fretting that even a close outcome in a working-class swath of Brooklyn and Queens may foreshadow broader troubles for the party in 2012.
You know what should help the Democrats? Just keep calling people extremists. That seems to be working wonders.
That is the results of a poll conducted among his district. All I have to say is that is a large concentration of gullible and naive people. I wonder how many of them made bids on The Brooklyn Bridge on EBay?
Your congressman is a liar and a pervert and yet they don't think this in any way impacts his ability to represent you in congress. In fact in the video that goes along with this little poll several people say just that. These people are naive enough to think that all he lies about is who he sends suggestive pictures to. I just can't grasp how people on the one hand can dismiss lies and coverups and smears on one matter and then say oh but he wouldn't do that on things healthcare legislation or national security matters or the economy. No, we can completely trust him on those things.
One question for these folks. Do you now think twice before opening an email from his office or reading an online newsletter from him out of fear of what might pop up? Especially if your boss happens to be looking over your shoulder?
In yet another example of how unions and the world of academia endear themselves to the taxpayers of this country we have this story of a "custodial engineer" in of course New York who managed to bilk the taxpayers out of thousands of dollars. And will continue to do so.
The new probe found that Radef also profited from a no-show gig that paid him at least $70,000 between 2007 and 2010 for more than 3,000 hours when he clearly wasn’t at work, judging from E-Z pass records obtained by Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon.
"To me what stands out is the length of time and the number of people [implicated] and the various ways in which Radef profited," Condon told The Post. "You wonder why no supervisor ever picked up on this."
If you read the article you will see no mention of unions, but even though I am government school educated I have learned how to add 2 + 2. You see in NYC you don't get the job unless you join the union and the union for "custodial engineers" is Local 891. Their web site proudly proclaims they put children first.
The taxpayers of NYC are not off the hook either if what we have learned about public sector unions because of the fiasco in Wisconsin is any indicator. You see the guy who perpetrated the fraud retired. That probably means the taxpayers will continue to pay his cadillac retirement benefits even if he goes to jail.
The report says Truman HS custodial engineer Nicanor "Nick" Fernandez signed the bogus work checks but it wasn’t clear if he pocketed any of the profits. He retired in December.
Three full days after the blizzard hit New York City a baby falls ill. But thanks to the crack job done by sanitation department EMS workers could not get to the child in time and now he's laying braindead in a hospital.
Congratulations, Mike Bloomberg and the sanitation union. Heckuva job. Also critically wounded: Any future political office aspired to by Bloomberg.
A 3-month-old Queens boy was left brain dead last night after snow-clogged routes prevented medics from reaching him quickly -- and unplowed streets later forced the EMS workers to ditch their ambulance and sprint with the ailing baby to the hospital.
As little Addison Reynoso hovered at death's door, a priest performed last rites, and his family considered pulling him off life support.
The baby's heartbroken father fumed at the city's lax clean-up response to last weekend's monster blizzard.
"Clean the streets," Luis Reynoso said, "because that's why the ambulance came too late."
On top of the half-hour it took rescuers to get Addison to the emergency room, family members and friends said they were forced to call 911 several times before they could even reach a dispatcher.
"The weather hampered our efforts," an FDNY source said, hours after Addison -- apparently suffering from a respiratory infection -- was declared brain dead. "The snow did impact this."
Addison was being watched by a family friend in Corona Wednesday afternoon when he suddenly lost consciousness.
The frantic baby-sitter knocked on a neighbor's door after failing to reach a 911 dispatcher at around 1 p.m. and told the neighbors to call for help. A few minutes later, the boy's parents arrived, and his father lay the child on the floor and started performing CPR.
Addison's mom, Rocio Xoyatla, meanwhile, made several 911 calls, but only got a tone. She finally reached a dispatcher at 1:12 p.m., a family friend said.
It took at least 12 agonizing minutes longer for EMS crews to reach the home on 39th Avenue, near 108th Street in Corona.
When they arrived, medics found Luis Reynoso hovering over his dying child, desperately trying to blow life into the tiny lungs of the baby.
Reynoso and his wife sprinted down three flights of stairs with their child and climbed into the ambulance, which slogged two miles through the snowy streets with a police escort.
Then, the unthinkable happened. The ambulance got stuck in the snow on an unplowed stretch at Baxter and Layton streets, just 30 yards short of the emergency room door at Elmhurst Hospital.
EMS workers had to sprint the rest of the way cradling the baby, arriving at 1:42 p.m.
"The main street outside of the emergency room wasn't cleaned yet," Luis Reynoso said. "We had to get out of the ambulance and run."
Three days after the snow the entrance outside the emergency room wasn't plowed? This is criminal. Gee, it almost sounds coordinated.
There was a method to their madness.
The selfish Sanitation bosses who sabotaged the blizzard cleanup to fire a salvo at City Hall targeted politically connected and well-heeled neighborhoods in Queens and Brooklyn to get their twisted message across loud and clear, The Post has learned.
Their motives emerged yesterday as the city's Department of Investigation admitted it began a probe earlier this week after hearing rumblings of a coordinated job action.
Sources told The Post several neighborhoods were on the workers' hit list -- including Borough Park and Dyker Heights in Brooklyn and Middle Village in Queens -- because residents there have more money and their politicians carry big sticks.
"It was more targeted than people actually think," said a labor source. "Borough Park was specifically targeted [because of] . . . its ability to sort of gin up the p.r. machine."
The plan worked. Residents of those neighborhoods -- who, after three days, were still trying to dig out their cars -- are apoplectic.
"It's hurting people for greed," seethed Barry Coogan, 60, who lives on 64th Road in Middle Village. "Whoever made those decisions should lose their jobs.
"Don't hurt the neighborhood so you can't get medical help."
In Brooklyn, Democratic Assemblyman Dov Hikind called the clean-up "an absolute disaster."
"You have the most unbelievable anger I've ever seen," he said of his Borough Park constituents.
The revelation came as:
* A Queens baby was brain dead last night after poorly plowed roads hampered efforts to rescue him.
* Sources said Sanitation bosses issued verbal directives during the clean-up to give priority to streets near the homes of agency heads and other city bigwigs. "This happens all the time," one Sanit worker said. "They make sure the bosses and politicians get taken care of."
* Despite Mayor Bloomberg's insistence that all roads would be plowed at least once by yesterday morning, many were untouched, with snow still piled high. "We still have work to do," Bloomberg later said.
* Even as streets in the outer boroughs waited for a single plow to arrive, crews were clearing bicycle lanes on the Upper West Side. Bloomberg, however, insisted that was not happening.
Of course Bloomberg's going to dispute that, but I suspect he's full of it and is in CYA mode. If he had any balls he'd de-certify the union today and the state would beging a criminal probe of this mess. That or he should resign in disgrace.
In the end nothing will happen, though. You have a city run by liberals, a state run by a Democrat governor (and a new one being sworn in tonight) and two Democratic senators who've been noticeably absent this week (where's Chuckie?). If Andrew Cuomo wants to start on solid footing, he immediately appoints an independent prosecutor to investigate this mess.
Well, I guess if there's no good money to be made as a New York City teacher then you turn to selling arms to Hamas and Hezbollah. Seems like an easy way to supplement your income.
He's graduated to gun running.
A former Stuyvesant HS teacher was busted last night for selling high-powered weapons to undercover operatives he thought were connected to Middle East terror organizations, The Post has learned.
Theophilus Burroughs wet his pants when he was slapped with cuffs at a Bronx warehouse, where he was arrested in a sting operation, law-enforcement sources said. The seats on a van waiting to transport him to the 49th Precinct had to be lined with plastic.
The arrest caps a yearlong investigation that saw Burroughs allegedly negotiate the sale of firearms -- including AK-47s, assault rifles with scopes and .40-caliber guns -- during "deals" with informants in which he praised Hamas and Hezbollah and suggested killing cops and Jews, sources said.
"There's no good money in teaching," Burroughs once griped.
Burroughs, 49, a former Marine from Newark, was on unpaid medical leave from the Department of Education.
He showed up at the Westchester Square warehouse expecting to collect a cool $10,000 for a pair of night-vision goggles, two bulletproof vests and 200,000 counterfeit cigarette stamps, a source said.
Burroughs was instead hauled away by city and state tax agents, and investigators from the Bronx DA's Office.
He faces a slew of charges, including weapons possession and forgery, the source said.
Burroughs began his teaching career as a sub in 1992, and taught music at Stuyvesant in 2002 and 2003.
He went on unpaid medical leave from a Brooklyn high school in September 2009 -- around the time he first went to the Bronx warehouse, where he allegedly bought hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of untaxed cigarettes from informants, sources said.
But he soon set his sights on a more deadly deal, allegedly proposing firearm sales on his third visit.
He later referred to Hamas as "my people" and declared, "Hezbollah good, Hezbollah strong," a source said.
On another occasion, the informants gave him a Koran and said they wanted to do "something big." He suggested they blow up a police station, a police car or the Jewish Community Center on Amsterdam Avenue at West 76th Street, the source said.
Naturally he's still on the NYC payroll, yet to be fired. He should be happy he's not a NJ Transit worker who ripped out pages of the Koran.
After it was revealed that the folks that want to build the Islamic Victory Tower in the shadow of the Ground Zero crater only had about $18,000 on hand questions started to arise about the funding. Good news, New Yorkers. Your Democrat governor and comptroller, John Liu, have come up with an idea to make you pay for it.
The Muslim center planned near the site of the World Trade Center attack could qualify for tax-free financing, a spokesman for City Comptroller John Liu said on Friday, and Liu is willing to consider approving the public subsidy.
The Democratic comptroller's spokesman, Scott Sieber, said Liu supported the project. The center has sparked an intense debate over U.S. religious freedoms and the sanctity of the Trade Center site, where nearly 3,000 perished in the September 11, 2001 attack.
"If it turns out to be financially feasible and if they can demonstrate an ability to pay off the bonds and comply with the laws concerning tax-exempt financing, we'd certainly consider it," Sieber told Reuters.
I remember during the Cold War that there was quote attributed to some Soviet big wig saying they would beat America with it's own freedoms and it certainly seems we have plenty of people nowadays willing to make that become a reality.
But I also remember a Supreme Court Justice saying that the Constitution wasn't a suicide pact.
Some people ask how far away from Ground Zero is appropriate to build a Muslim Center. My answer is anywhere outside of the radius of where that dust settled.
No name yet, but he's a naturalized American from Pakistan. Now there's a stunner.
Federal authorities have identified person of interest in Saturday night's car bomb attempt in New York City's Times Square, Fox News confirms.
The person is a naturalized American citizen who was in Pakistan for several months and returned to the United States recently, investigative sources told Fox News, though the person's identity has not been made public.
The latest developments come as a senior administration official confirmed earlier to Fox News that investigators have begun to suspect the failed attack was the work of an international plot. The official could not definitively say whether a foreign conspiracy was behind the incident, but that the body of evidence was moving in that direction.
The Washington Post first reported that officials were eyeing an international connection. One official told the Post that "some tell-tale signs" have led investigators to look at a "foreign nexus."
How sad the left will be to find out it's not one of those dreaded teabaggers.
"If I had to guess 25 cents, this would be exactly that. Homegrown, or maybe a mentally deranged person, or somebody with a political agenda that doesn't like the health care bill or something. It could be anything," he said.
Good grief. Twelve bucks is about what I pay for six week's worth of coffee that I brew at home. If I were a multibillionaire I wouldn't spend that much on coffee. But this is some special Ethipion blend or something so I guess the idiots will line up for it. Heck, it wasn't that long ago Sally Struthers was pleading for us to send 50 cents so we could feed a starving Ethiopian kid for a week. They must be living large over there now.
If the caffeine doesn't wake you up, the price certainly will.
At $12 a cup, the coffee at Cafe Grumpy makes Starbucks seem like a bargain brew.
Made from handpicked beans grown and coddled in Ethiopia, the pricey grind will be sold starting today at the chain's locations in Park Slope and Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and Chelsea.
"There are flavors you would expect in a really nice glass of wine -- it's a cacophony of nuances," said Steve Holt, vice president of Ninety Plus Coffee, the company distributing the beans.
"You detect flavors of apricot, pineapple, bergamot, kiwi and lime. The deeper tones are levels of chocolate, and the finish is super clean."
Is it just me or does Holt sounds like the kind of guy you'd like to bludgeon with a blunt instrument? A cacophony of nuances? WTF does that mean? Deeper tones? Bergamot? Dude, it's a cup of coffee! But wait, there's more.
"It is a higher-end coffee, and you have to take a lot of time developing and processing it," said Holt. "Once the coffee is harvested, it is dried on a raised African drying bed -- the actual coffee cherries never sit on the ground."
Oh, I get it now. A raised African drying bed! Why didn't you say so? Still, now that people know of the special raised African drying bed, not everybody is dumb enough to part with $12.
"I've spent $12 on a cocktail, but I'd be reticent to pay that much for a cup of coffee," said Whitney Reuling, 25, after taking a taste.
"It's good -- but I can't taste the difference. My palate is not at an advanced level for coffee -- a $2.50 cup is fine."
How much you want to bet the same people dropping $12 on coffee are the first to whine about $3 gas?
Police in New York are investigating whether a car bomb in Times Square was targeted on the makers of South Park over a controversial depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.
The device, which failed to detonate, was left near the offices of Viacom, which owns the irreverent cartoon series.
Last month postings on an Islamic website warned the creators of South Park - Matt Stone and Trey Parker - that they could face violent reprisals after an episode of the show featured Muhammad in a bear suit.
A posting on the website of a US-based group called Revolution Muslim warned Stone and Parker that they would “probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh”, the Dutch film-maker who was murdered in 2004 by a Muslim angered by his film about Muslim women.
Images of the Prophet are strictly forbidden in Islam, and Comedy Central, which broadcasts South Park, has banned Stone and Parker from depicting Muhammad in the past. In 2006 the network stopped them from featuring Muhammad in an episode which followed worldwide protests over a caricature of the Prophet by a Danish cartoonist.
Detectives are also understood to be investigating striking similarities between the New York bomb and two car bombs planted by Islamic terrorists outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub in London in 2007.
In both cases, the devices comprised cylinders of propane gas and cans full of petrol intended to be ignited by electronic detonators.
David Paterson, the Governor of New York, described the Times Square incident as an "act of terrorism."
He said: “Luckily, no one is hurt, and now the full attention of city, state and federal law enforcement will be turned to bringing the guilty party to justice in this act of terrorism.”
Considering the greatest alleged threat to mankind in recent months has been tea partiers and militia buffoons, it's surprising Janet Napolitano is hesistant to draw any conclusions.
"We're taking this very seriously," Napolitano said, noting that the New York police, FBI and federal Joint Terrorism Task Force were involved in the investigation. "We're treating it as if it could be a potential terrorist attack."
Yeah, nothing suspicious here.
Inside the vehicle, police found three propane tanks, two filled five-gallon gas containers, two clocks with batteries, consumer-grade fireworks and a locked metal box that resembled a gun locker.
Oh wait, this raucous outbreak of anger and violence didn't happen at a Tea Party? It wasn't a bunch of "angry, wild-eyed" white people fomenting violence? It was Democrat constituents in the bluest of blue cities in the nation?
Well, never mind then.
Scores of gangbangers marauded through Times Square and nearby streets last night, storming businesses and harrassing pedestrians as three people were shot in possibly related violence.
Hundreds of cops struggled to disperse the youths. Police made 54 arrests on a variety of charges, including disorderly conduct.
One man was shot in the ankle on West 41st Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues.
Early this morning two people were shot at 34th Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues. Their conditions were not immediately known. Twenty young men were seen fleeing the scene.
And a woman was hit by a bb pellet at West 51st Street and Seventh Avenue. Her wound was not life-threatening, authorities said.
Police were trying to determine whether the three incidents were related to the disturbances.
A cop trying to break up a rowdy group of youths outside the police substation at West 42nd Street was taken away on a stretcher after he sustained a knee injury.
"This kind of nonsense [on Easter night] has been going on for the five years I've been here," said a security guard at a business on West 42nd Street, who asked not to be identified.
"The police try to maintain the crowd, but while one side of the street is maintained, on the other side of the street, a fight breaks out."
Funny, but I see zero mention of this story in the New York Times, whose offices are right in that neighborhood. Guess they're busy "reporting" on some non-stories and fabricated racial hoaxes perpetrated by Democrats.
Need another reason to home school your children? Well, have a look at what went on in a Queens, NY, elementary school. Naturally the "teacher" who presided over this atrocity can't be fired because of his cushy union protection. He may need a lot more than union protection once this story circulates.
The first rule of fourth grade - no talking about fight club.
A Queens teacher turned his classroom into a boxing arena for two feuding students, telling the boys to settle their beef with their fists as their stunned classmates watched the bizarre spectacle, authorities said yesterday.
And to make sure no one found out his twisted teaching technique, the instructor, Joseph Gullotta, 29, allegedly supplied the kids with excuses for the nurse to explain away any injuries.
In one corner was a 10-year-old. His opponent was a year younger. The Post is withholding the kids' names.
Before beginning the match at the impromptu fight club at PS 65 in Ozone Park, Gullotta instructed a girl to close the classroom door. He ordered the rest of his pupils to back up and make way for the battle, Queens DA Richard Brown said.
The two combatants came out swinging and then began wrestling.
During the bout, the older boy's head rammed into the younger one's mouth. The younger boy suffered a cut lip; the older one, a bruised head.
"When two fourth-graders became involved in a verbal dispute, their teacher allegedly told one of the students that he should 'take it out' on another student," Brown said.
"When parents send their children off to school, their teachers have an obligation to provide a safe environment for them."
Teacher's aide Abraham Fox, 43, was in the classroom during the clash, but did nothing to break it up, the DA charged.
Neither student was offered a visit to the school nurse, despite Fox's observation that the 9-year-old might need stitches, Brown said.
Then out came the schoolbooks for two periods of more traditional instruction before Gullotta finally allowed the younger boy to visit the nurse.
These two were actually charged with crimes but not yet dismissed.
Gullotta and Fox were charged with two counts each of acting in a manner injurious to a child under 17 and could face up to a year in jail if convicted.
Fox was suspended without pay; Gullotta was reassigned to a rubber room.
People answering the door at the Long Island homes of Fox and Gullotta declined to comment.
You can have one outrage after another at these NYC public schools and despite repeated failures the unions and others go out of their ways to keep the status quo.
You'd think the NAACP would be leading a fight for better schools for these kids. Instead, it's teamed up with the teachers -- at the students' expense. It claims the closures discriminate against minority and special-needs kids.
Only the NAACP knows its true reasons for joining the suit, but perhaps UFT payments it got over the years had something to do with it: In its latest US Labor Department filing, for instance, the union reported funneling some $15,000 to the NAACP through July 31, 2009.
It's heartbreaking that so many minority and other kids have endured such abysmal schools for so long -- and sad indeed to see a group like the NAACP join a move to keep them there.
New Yorkers should really be thrilled to know this guy is on the Department of Education payroll.
A Queens teacher who collects a $100,000 salary for doing nothing spends time in a Department of Education "rubber room" working on his law practice and managing 12 real-estate properties worth an estimated $7.8 million, The Post found.
Alan Rosenfeld hasn't set foot in a classroom for nearly a decade since he was accused in 2001 of making lewd comments to junior-high girls and "staring at their butts," yet the department still pays him handsomely for sitting on his own butt seven hours a day.
In 2001, six eighth-graders at IS 347 in Queens accused Rosenfeld, a typing teacher who filled in for an absent dean, of making comments like "You have a sexy body," asking one whether she had a boyfriend and making others feel uncomfortable with creepy leers.
Because the Department of Education could not produce all the students as witnesses, he was found guilty in only one case. A girl testified that Rosenfeld stopped at her locker, where she was standing with a friend, and "said I love him because I talk to him so much."
A DOE hearing officer gave him a slap on the wrist -- a week off without pay -- for "conduct unbecoming a teacher." He was cleared to return to teaching.
Instead, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein has kept the scruffy 64-year-old in a Brooklyn rubber room, deeming him too dangerous to be near kids, officials said.
The DOE can't fire him.
"We have to abide by the union contract," spokeswoman Ann Forte said.
So Rosenfeld simply collects his $100,049 salary -- top scale for teachers -- plus full health benefits and the promise of a fat pension, about $82,000 a year if he were to retire today.
His pension will grow by $1,700 each year he remains. He could have retired at age 62, but he stays.
He has also accumulated about 435 unused sick days -- and will get paid for half of them when he retires.
If that's not bad enough, this creep spends his time doing other business on city time, an obvious violation. Guess since he's union nodoboy can touch him.
A licensed attorney since 1973, Rosenfeld frequently talks on the phone to clients and other lawyers, insiders say.
"He's always working," one said.
City rules forbid staffers to conduct business on DOE time.
He refers to himself as "Dr. Rosenfeld" and often insults fellow teachers, calling them "losers" and "deadbeats."
He also doles out legal advice to his rubber roommates.
Just last week the tab was at $200 million annually. But like with anything involving Obama, that's probably way low. Well, it's possible it'll cost that amount each year, but expect it to go on for at least five years. Those of you living in New York? Prepare to dig deep, suckers.
Big Apple taxpayers could be on the hook for as much as $1 billion in security costs if the trials of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other terrorists drag on for as long as experts think they will.
That's a staggering sum of money, and New Yorkers shouldn't be required to cover it on their own.
The best solution, of course, would be to deep-six the trials altogether. Terrorists belong at Gitmo -- not in court.
Failing that, President Obama & Co. by rights need to come up with the cash to finance their own folly. All of it.
Fat chance there, too.
So the top guns of New York's congressional delegation need to step up to guarantee that the federal government does right by the city.
Yep, Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, Reps. Jerry Nadler and Charles Rangel, that means you.
Given the way the fearsome foursome rolled over for the billion-dollar hit ObamaCare stands to put on New York, we're not optimistic about the KSM expense.
But their responsibility is clear.
In a letter to Obama's Office of Management and Budget, Mayor Bloomberg notes that preparation for the trial will cost approximately $216 million. Later costs will be about $200 million a year.
Figure the cumulative trial bill to be at least $1 billion (no way they'll be done in less than four or five years).
Now that tiny tyrant Michael Bloomberg has been sworn in for his third term he's decided it's time to clamp down on one of the great plagues affecting New York City.
Mayor Bloomberg, the mayor who declared war on tobacco, sugary drinks and trans fats, has identified a new public enemy -- now he wants to protect New Yorkers from salt.
Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley launches a campaign today to cut New Yorkers' sodium intake by one-fifth over five years.
"If we achieve our goal, we would talk about saving tens of thousands of lives," Farley said, predicting that deaths from strokes and heart attacks will dramatically fall.
The City Health Department is spearheading the National Salt Reduction Initiative, which will cajole food manufacturers to voluntarily cut sodium content 20 to 25 percent by 2014.
Some 26 other cities, states and organizations, including the American Medical Association, back the campaign.
The initiative is modeled on a program enacted in the United Kingdom to lower sodium in 85 food categories. It resulted in a 9 percent drop in sodium consumption over nine years.
Table salt, which accounts for a minuscule amount of a person's salt intake, is not targeted.
After more than a year of meetings with major food producers, the US food industry is offering cautious support.
"We very much believe we share a common goal with New York City," said Juli Mandel Sloves, a spokeswoman for Campbell Soup Co.
She added, however, "The recommendations proposed are laudable but very aggressive."
I'm all for people eating right and watching their salt intake but let's get real. We've got more than enough government in our lives. Politicians dictating to food companies how to produce their food products is absurd. If Bloomberg is so interested in low-salt products, let him start up a company and sell them himself. Until then, could you please stop with the nanny state nonsense?
The goons are coming and once Michael Bloomberg is gone they'll probably have full control of New York City. Five years from now people will probably look back fondly on the "glory days" of David Dinkins.
The Constitution's framers held as inviolable citizens' right to petition government for a redress of grievances. So what does it say about rookie Public Advocate Bill de Blasio's opinion of himself that he thinks New Yorkers need his help to wave placards on City Hall steps?
De Blasio yesterday announced the creation of a new "community-organizing" department within his office -- purportedly to "help neighborhood activists build grass-roots coalitions."
Funny: We thought that "grass-roots" spring up naturally as concerned citizens exercise their First Amendment rights.
But perhaps the wheels of democracy turn too slowly for de Blasio. He plans:
* Workshops with favored activist groups to teach "organizing strategies."
* "Organizing toolkits" and a new Web site to teach New Yorkers how to conduct petition drives and "civic actions."
* A reworking of the public advocate's telephone hot line to tell callers how they can help change city policies.
Not that New Yorkers in search of, say, tax relief will get much help, of course: De Blasio's community "partners" are the same lefty grabbers who've been picking the city dry in the first place.
And, indeed, who put de Blasio -- a client of the far-left Working Families Party -- in office. This move only formalizes and consolidates their power.
It's bad enough these morons give away free syringes to the junkies. Now they're also providing lessons on how to shoot up.
Wonderful.
Here's the latest smack on taxpayers.
The city spent $32,000 on 70,000 fliers that tell you how to shoot heroin, complete with detailed tips on prepping the dope and injecting it into your arm.
The Health Department handout has outraged New York's top drug prosecutors and abuse experts.
"It's basically step-by-step instruction on how to inject a poison," said John Gilbride, who heads the Drug Enforcement Administration's New York office.
"It's sick," said City Council member Peter Vallone Jr. (D-Queens)
"Foolish," said Columbia University drug researcher and treatment expert Dr. Herbert Kleber.
The 16-page pamphlet features seven comics-like illustrations and offers dope fiends such useful advice as "Warm your body (jump up and down) to show your veins," and "Find the vein before you try to inject."
It even encourages addicts to keep jabbing if their needles miss the mark.
"If you don't 'register,' pull out and try again," it says.
The brochure sends the wrong message about the dangers of the drug, experts said.
"It concerns me that the city would produce a how-to on using drugs," Gilbride said. "Heroin is extremely potent. You may only get the chance to use it once. To suggest there is a method of using that alleviates the dangers, that's very disturbing."
Remarkably, the geniuses behind this say it promotes health.
The Health Department defended its brochure, saying it was helpful and necessary, and has been distributed only to addicts or those at risk of becoming abusers.
"Our goal is to promote health and save lives with this information," said Daliah Heller, assistant commissioner for the Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Use Prevention, Care and Treatment.
Asked why the handout tells people how to shoot up, Heller said, "From a health perspective, there is a less harmful way to inject yourself."
Daliah Heller has been involved in community health programs, activism, policy and research for over ten years. Although she has focused particularly on issues related to drug use, HIV/AIDS, and maternal-child health, she is a strong believer in the value of sound humanistic public health policy and practice for all areas of our lives.
The New York City health department has released a nauseating video in an effort to prevent people from drinking sugary beverages.
In the video posted today on YouTube, a man opens a soda can and pours the liquid, which is actually a mess of goop made to look like fat, into a glass. When he swills the disgusting-looking substance, he ends up with globs on his face.
The message: Drinking just one can of soda a day can add up to 10 pounds of weight in a year.
Remember, though, politicians just hate it when people use scare tactics.
After we noted the dubious ACORN HS for Social Justice yesterday you just had to know there were more layers to peel back to uncover some fraud involved. Sure enough today we discover a community organizer involved with ACORN, the New York City Department of Education and the ACORN HS for Social Justice is being accused of fraud.
The free corporate rewards gifts arrived by the dozens: $5,000 IBM gift certificates, $500 travel coupons, Broadway show tickets, tickets to Mets and Yankees games. The only problem was that, according to city schools investigators, it was all based on a scam.
Investigators on Tuesday alleged that a Brooklyn-based bookkeeper and community organizer for the beleaguered anti-poverty group Acorn improperly netted $500,000 in merchandise for a corporate rewards program with Verizon, the telephone company, through a complex scam that went on for more than four years.
“She left no stone unturned,” said Richard J. Condon, the special commissioner of investigations for the city’s schools.
Investigators said the fraud began in 2004, when the woman, Donnett Davis, was working at the financial desk at a Brooklyn office of Acorn. She opened a corporate rewards program for Acorn’s 10 to 20 phone lines with Verizon, but put her name as the recipient in order to get the rewards herself, she told investigators, according to a report submitted to Joel I. Klein, the schools chancellor, on Tuesday.
Shortly afterward, investigators allege, Ms. Davis added about 9,000 Department of Education phone lines to her rewards account. With millions of dollars in billings, the trickle of reward points became a roaring torrent of gift certificates, L.L. Bean merchandise and other freebies, investigators said.
It is not known how Ms. Davis got access to the Department of Education numbers, but Mr. Cordon said he suspects she may have had help from someone within the department or Verizon. “We’re not alleging she did it alone,” Mr. Cordon said. “Quite frankly we would be surprised if she did.”
New York Acorn terminated Ms. Davis’s employment in April 2008, Arthur Schwartz, counsel for Acorn, said Tuesday. Shortly afterward, Ms. Davis went to work directly for the Department of Education, as the parent coordinator for an Acorn-affiliated school, the Acorn High School for Social Justice in Brooklyn.
There, the scam continued until Verizon discovered the suspicious activity in October 2008 while auditing its accounts, and the Department of Education began an investigation. Ms. Davis resigned from her schools job in August, the letter to Mr. Klein said. The matter has been referred to prosecutors.
How is it someone can be terminated from ACORN and then go directly to work for the DoE? Isn't there any vetting? Or did she have cushy union connections that allowed her to glide right in?
Now despite Klein's assertion she was dismissed in August, Davis is still listed as a parent coordinator at the School for Social Justice. There has not been a reply to an email inquiry to that address.
You would think at a time when ACORN has as much credibility as the climate change hoaxers there would be a rush in education circles to distance themselves from the notorious crime syndicate. But no, as it turns out there exist at least three high schools in New York City associated with ACORN, and two of them have ACORN in their names. It makes you wonder if Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein are even aware of all the problems involving ACORN of late.
As long as Mayor Bloomberg is rolling up his sleeves for a brawl over the new teach ers-union contract, it's time for him to take a swing at another problem that's festered too long: the radicalization of New York's public schools.
A growing number of city schools aim to foster resentment and rage among the most uneducated students. Under the guise of "social justice," the fomenting of racial and socio-economic grievances has supplanted the teaching of basic skills. The result is an even wider gap in learning between the poorest minorities and other students.
The corruption of the curriculum is getting harder to conceal. In the wake of the ACORN scandals, it's more obviously problematic that ACORN is affiliated with three city schools -- including two in Brooklyn bearing the group's name: ACORN Community HS and the ACORN HS for Social Justice.
Karen Watts, the principal of the ACORN HS for Social Justice in Bushwick, seems sensitive to the group's bad publicity: She says ACORN no longer has any involvement with the school. But that's news to Debra Burgess, the school's parent coordinator -- who told me the school's "philosophy" is based around ACORN: "We do have to follow their philosophy, and their philosophy is 'reform and change.' "
There you go: Reform and change. I wonder if reform and change involves arranging for teenage girls to be sold into prostitution and dumping incriminating files?
But teacher activism goes far beyond ACORN. Social justice is the guiding academic principle of more than a dozen city high schools, particularly in the newer crop of smaller schools started by community groups.
* On the home page of Bushwick Community HS, you'll find a large illustration of Che Guevara wearing a graduation cap.
* Last year, the principal of Vanguard HS in Manhattan hosted a "radical math" conference at his school. The event, according to the program, featured a presentation by a teacher at Performing Arts & Technology HS about "how to use the history of the Black Panther Party to fuel an algebraic curriculum."
* The city honors Columbus Day by closing its schools, but at the Bushwick School for Social Justice, students are taught a . . . different perspective. "Our commitment to providing a high-quality, college-preparatory education for our students is critical to our social-justice mission, which is alive in so many ways in our classes. For example, during a unit on the Age of Exploration, our global-history students put Christopher Columbus on trial for his crimes against humanity," wrote a senior Bushwick teacher in a recent job posting.
* At Banana Kelly HS in The Bronx, the social-justice agenda has extended into its discipline policy. The school is experimenting with "restorative justice" techniques -- in which misbehaving or truant students aren't punished but instead asked to participate in trust-building exercises to help them "acknowledge their feelings."
How well is that going? Well, one Banana Kelly student recently posted a YouTube video titled "OnePeriodinBananaKelly." Recording what appears to be a stroll around the school during the middle of the day, the nine-minute continuous clip offers a glimpse into a school utterly lacking in supervision. Bedlam reigns in the hallways, while students play dominoes in the classroom. At no point does a teacher or administrator intervene.
Here's a look at that video, which comes with this description: thiss is uh typical day in banana kelly high school (:. Needless to say, beware the foul language and casual use of the n-word.
If that's a typical day at Banana Kelly you can expect a bleak future for those kids.
By the way, Banana Kelly was not a person. For some background, go here.
Update: A little further look at Banana Kelly led us to none other than ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis. What a surprise. Seems like in some Bronx neighborhoods this group of community organizers known as Banana Kelly isn't too popular. Apparently rife with corruption throughout the 1990s, theirs was a very disorganized community.
As Banana Kelly rebuilds, it now also faces the challenge of reconstructing relations with community residents. It may have a task ahead of it every bit as challenging as its original effort to reclaim the neighborhood. "Yolanda Rivera says: 'It's a new era, you're going to have to give me a chance.' But Banana Kelly has been in transition for a decade," says Marta Rivera. "You mention Banana Kelly and people want to kill you."
How long until we find out this dubious crew has some links to ACORN? They're got a 501(C)(3) tax exemption and have been in operation since 1985 and just now people have figured out this is a scam?
Just in time for the holidays, state authorities are going for the jug-ular -- seeking to banish forever the panhandling pests who clog Manhattan's busiest corners with folding tables and plastic water bottles.
State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed suit yesterday, charging the United Homeless Organization is a scam run by con artists who pocket most of the change they collect -- hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
The beggars -- most of whom claim to be street people -- say that the money tossed into their jugs goes to the homeless. And it does, the suit says. They just don't bother to say they're talking about themselves.
UHO founder Stephen Riley and director Myra Walker take a big cut of the money to fund personal shopping sprees at the GameStop, Home Shopping Network, Bed Bath & Beyond and P.C. Richard, as well as their monthly cable bills, legal papers charge.
Riley, a beefy 60-year-old, shamelessly used the donated dollars -- which are supposed to be used to "feed the homeless" -- to pay his Weight Watchers bills.
The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, seeks a temporary injunction to shut down the UHO, then permanently disband it and keep Riley and Walker from ever taking part in charitable causes.
The organization, run out of Walker's Bronx apartment, did not return a call for comment.
The scam was strikingly simple, Cuomo said.
Riley, who founded the UHO in 1985 and got tax-exempt status for it eight years later, charges a flat-rate $15 to $25 to rent a table and empty water jug for a four-hour shift.
"In exchange for paying a fee to Riley, UHO workers received tables and UHO-branded materials, including a tablecloth, apron and plastic jug, and the right to claim membership in UHO," the suit charged.
They also get a copy of UHO's New York state incorporation receipt they can use to convince suspicious New Yorkers and trusting tourists that they're legit.
After deducting the "rent," the table worker keeps all the donations -- up to $80 a shift during peak season.
And with 50 tables around Manhattan -- each operating for two to three shifts seven days a week -- Riley and Walker could have collected well over $100,000 in fees a year, officials estimate.
"Riley and Walker treated the 'fees' as their personal kitty, dipping into them whenever they choose," the suit says.
One of their "managers" gives it all up.
"The money goes to the homeless," claimed Rodney Borders, a self-described UHO "manager" who said he's been panhandling with the group for 4½ years.
When pressed, Borders, who was collecting from commuters at Penn Station, admitted, "We don't own any shelters or soup kitchens. The money provides us with everyday money."
It's a good thing a Democrat like Cuomo is the one going after these thugs. Imagine how heartless and cruel a Republican would be portrayed as for going after the "homeless" this time of year?
