Michael Moore (Who Says The Attacks On Libraries Are An Effort To Dumb Down The Public and That Librarians Saved His Book From Censorship) Has A Terrific New “Must See” Film: Fahrenheit 11/9

Michael Moore, who we met and chatted with about libraries and about whom we've put up two previous posts, has a new "mus see" film in the theaters, "Fahrenheit 11/9" 

Michael Moore has a new film out: Fahrenheit 11/9.  We recommend that everyone see it.

First, before we go on to say a few words about the film, let us remind you about Michael More and libraries and librarians (also that Citizens Defending Libraries co-founders Carolyn McIntyre and Michael D. D. White had a chance to have a few words with Mr. Moore about libraries).

Here are our two Citizens Defending Libraries previous posts about Mr. Moore and the libraries and librarians:

    •    How Did Trump Get Elected?: Michael Moore In “Terms of My Surrender” Envisions That It Was A Dumbing Down of the Country That Involved Closing Libraries

In this post we brag about meeting Michael Moore to have a few words with him (and his informed bodyguard) after his Broadway show where her surmised that part of the way that Trump got elected (and, presciently, that control of the Supreme Court is being lost) is that we  started “closing libraries” (plus shutting down news outlets) to “dumb down this country.”

    •    Michael Moore’s Anti-George Bush Book Was Saved From The Censorious 9/11 Tyranny by A Courageous Librarian Mobilizing Comrades

This our post about the amazing story told by Moore during his Broadway Play one night about how librarians, including one librarian there in the audience that night, saved his book from censorship and non-release so that it able to go on top become a bestseller.

Now to Moore’s film-

Moore’s film is a beautiful, skillful film put together in a way that allows even veterans experienced in lots of political engagement and activism to have new insights about the big picture.

We also learned a few things-  We didn't know about the bombing of Flint by our military!  (Moore keeps returning to his hometown of Flint, Michigan with heartrending effectiveness–  including its ongoing water crisis–  as a lens to frame and more perfectly understand the structural problems that beset our nation's democracy as a whole.)

We know that Moore said in some interviews he had a tough time balancing as he navigated through some difficult territory as he made his film.  Yes, that’s absolutely certain, given that people with a variety of pre-formulated view political points will be watching it.  He does an extraordinary job.

Don’t expect Moore to play favorites letting anyone off the hook.  That includes Democrats Moore says he likes and has worked hard supporting even within the film’s time frame.  Moore also takes on the New York Times: Is that the reason that the New York Times gave Moore's film the teenyist little review?  Fly-specking a review of Moore's film in the back pages of its entertainment section is unlikely to encourage attendance or public consciousness of it.

Buried in the back pages of the Times entertainment section, a brief review of Moore's Fahrenheit 11/9 get short shrift compared to the eye-catching space devoted to Keira Knightley's period costume drama picture biopic about Colette.

On a few things, exceptionally thorny subjects (watch to identify them), we think Moore did a great job of filling in the dots big and bold, putting them up on the screen plain as day, while refraining from actually connecting those dots himself when he was too close to saying the verboten.  He leaves it to the intelligent audience to figure it out and connect the dots, or not. . .  immediately, or in time.

What do we mean?  See the film and we expect you will likely piece it together.

One slight on-target criticism: Moore covered a lot of territory, but he didn’t get to the subject of climate change.

Is the film about Trump?  You’ll probably hear that it is, but Moore has explained that Trump is only on screen for about twenty minutes of the film.  More importantly, the film is about the conditions fostering Trumpism and why, unless we change them, we can’t expect something different even post-Trump.  The film speaks about the extreme danger to our democracy and its existence that must be fended off . . .  Yeah, who would have thought that we would be selling off and shrinking libraries, eliminating books when that is not what the public wants and libraries cost a relative pittance to fund?

Perhaps we can stay in that vein to conclude by telling you this . . . .  To illustrate how unaccountable the nation’s elected officials are to the public, the film at one point briefly runs through a long list where the government has gone off in directions quite contrary to what a significant majority of the public (often about 2/3 or more) wants.

We don’t have the exact list Moore came up with and used in his film, but we know it overlaps to a fair extent with this list that we have included to make much the same point in connection with the Sunday, Oct. 7th (1:00 PM) Voter Disenfranchisement Forum!  in which we are participating.  (Love to see you there too!)— 

  • medicare for all; •  protection of women’s reproductive rights; •  stricter gun control laws; • stricter regulations on and breaking up of the big banks; • more environmental regulation; • equal pay for women; • easier, less restrictive immigration; • less surveillance of American citizens; • less military spending and a pull back from the U.S.’s endless and ceaseless military interventions (wars); • continued support for traditional public schools, and free college; • more restrictions on money in politics.

Maybe in the “extras,” when Moore's film comes out on DVD, Moore will throw libraries into that list!

Oh, by the way: The subject of libraries and education does come up in the film.

Brooklyn Heights Association 2017 Annual Meeting- "What To Do In The Age of Trump"

BHA 2017 Annual Meeting- Well attended, but public participation "in the age of Trump" was not invited

This post will be updated.

The Brooklyn Heights Association 2017 Annual Meeting was held Monday, February 27, 20017 at the Saint Francis College auditorium on Remsen Street.

The BHA gave its neighborhood report.  That report contained no mention of the destruction of the Brooklyn Heights Library, the BHA's continuing support of its shrink-and-sink sale or the ongoing abuses such as the felling just days before of five neighborhood trees, at the library's Truth Park excused by the false representation that the developer had already acquired the property from the city.

Things were tightly controlled this year with no invitation for public questioning or input, except that, as part of panel discussion of de Blasio's proposed (and at this meeting largely ridiculed) BQX riverfront trolley proposal, the public could hand in suggestions questions written on index cards.  Virtually no time was devoted to those questions and essentially none of them asked.

An example of one of the many questions from attendees that were submitted, but never asked.

Not surprisingly, the BHA proclaimed with great solemnity how important it was to consider what its role should be "in the age of Trump."   Its answer was that locals should get more involved supporting the BHA and working for better schools. . . . We had a flyer prepared and distributed it to nearly everyone at the very well attended meeting that we think addresses in much more telling and pertinent terms what the BHA's responsibilities should be "in the age of Trump."   

Below, in both text and as a jpg is the flyer we distributed.

ALLOWING SALES THAT LOOT OUR LIBRARIES, (pushing our libraries out the door to plundering plutocrats, handing them over to developers) HAS CONSEQUENCES

It has been noted that if Steve Mnuchin had been vigorously prosecuted at the local level for his business’s mortgage fraud, misrepresentations, backdating and falsification of documents to rev up the pace of his OneWest foreclosure mill, he wouldn’t be Treasury Secretary, appointed by Donald Trump today- Similarly, had NYS Attorney General Eric Schneiderman investigated the shrink-and-sink Donnell Library plunder with Blackstone’s Stephen A. Schwarzman involved on the selling side and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner as principal financial beneficiary, those two Trump henchmen might not be in significant positions of power today.  The whole political landscape at the national level could be different, not to mention having healthier local politics.

When our local officials and organizations allow the corrupt plundering of valuable public assets, like the shrink-and-sink Brooklyn Heights Library deal modeled on the sale of Donnell with some of the same people in the background, it feeds the beasts who go on to prey on us in so many other ways.

It doesn’t serve us that Stephen A. Schwarzman, spearheading Trump’s economic policy, is also one of Senator Schumer’s biggest donors, just as Schumer’s wife’s connections with selling libraries and privatizing public assets also do not.  City Councilman Steve Levin misleadingly assured that he would do his job and insist on transparency respecting the library sales but, betraying his constituents, never has. Thus the lack of transparency in Brooklyn Heights helps Donnell sink unchallenged into the sunset (even as Preet Bhrara investigates the mayor’s play-to-play).

Meanwhile, five trees were felled at the Heights library by a developer who doesn’t not yet own it, while the Brooklyn Heights Association lets such library-trashing abuses multiply despite having sworn to protect the public. (The library was promised to stay open until it was acquired, and should be open even now.)

We can commend Irene Janner, receiving an award today, for her first CB2 vote against selling the library, but can’t let go unobserved the awkwardness, as the library stills hangs in the balance, of those two subsequent votes involving flip-flops where the BHA forced the library sale through,  overriding the original hearing.  WE DESERVE BETTER!
    
Sign our petition on the web: Citizens Defending Libraries

Who Is Jared Kushner (Trump’s Son-in-law) In Relation To The Sale of Libraries And The Sell-Off Of Public Assets?

Jared Kushner is getting a lot of attention these days (like the cover of New York Magazine) for his ascendancy to enormous power by virtue of being Trump’s son-in-law and key adviser.  See: Jared Kushner's Rise to Unimaginable Power - The Young Trump- Jared Kushner is more like his father-in-law than anyone imagines, by Andrew Rice, January 2017.

Even before he was this, he was an interesting person to keep track of and fairly recently New York Magazine devoted a fair amount ink to him about his and his father’s weird interconnections with Chris Christie’s bridgegate scandal.  See:  The Former Classmate Who Could Take Chris Christie Down- Most Likely to Destroy a Governor- Will David Wildstein, star witness in the Bridgegate trial, take down his old high-school classmate Chris Christie? By Andrew Rice, September 18, 2016.  New York Magazine, picking up from the Washington Post, reported how Kushner sent David Wildstein, going to prison as a mastermind of the Bridgegate plot, an email that said, “For what it's worth, I thought the move you pulled was kind of badass.” - - -

 - - - Kushner actually recruited and hired Bill Stepien for the Trump campaign.  Stepien was Christie’s former top (“ruthless”?) political adviser, one of the people whom Christie fired for being embroiled in the Bridgegate scandal.

Now we have all sorts of articles coming out of the woodwork like the Village Voice and Lo-Down Jared Kushner-is-an-excruciatingly-evil-landlord stories: Jared Kushner's East Village Tenants 'Horrified' Their Landlord Will Be Working in the White House, by Steven Wishnia, January 12, 2017 and Lower East Side Groups to de Blasio: Jared Kushner is No Friend of New York City Tenants (being Tweeted a lot).

It’s time to provide some Citizens Defending Libraries context. . . .

. . .   Who is Jared Kushner in relation to the sale of libraries and the sell-off of public assets?

Here from Noticing New York:

The rushed and secretive sale and shrinkage of the Donnell Library (with a subsequent "ratification" by the NYPL board) stank and looked like an obvious scam with only the merest pretense of an effective bid:  There were only two ostensible bidders on the secret sale and since both bidders were inevitably destined to be doing a coordinated real estate deal there was no real incentive for them not already to be acting in partnership.

The sale was kept confidential until the last possible minute.  It was finally announced publicly in November of 2007 only because, as a publicly traded company, the purchaser, Oriental Express Hotels Ltd., had to disclose the agreement within within four days of the execution of the transaction.

. . .  and one of the principal financial beneficiaries of the secret sale of Donnell was Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and top campaign advisor.

There is, however, apparently one criminal investigation: US Attorney Preet Bharara is understood to be investigating Mayor de Blasio's apparent pay-to-play hand-off the Brooklyn Heights Library.  Like the way that an effective and above-board bid process was apparently side-stepped with the Donnell Library to hand off the library real estate to a new owner for far less than its value, the Brooklyn Heights Library is being handed off for far less than its value to the public and is being given to a developer who was not the high bidder.

See: Noticing New York: Snowden, Booz and the Dismantling of Libraries As We Know Them: Why Was A Private Government Spy Agency Hired to Take Apart New York's Most Important Libraries And Turn Them Into Something Else?,  October 30, 2016.

Remarkably, even with the insatiable eagerness of virtually the entire media establishment to cover all things Trump (something that surely helped "The Donald" get elected), all the media outlets ignored our Citizens Defending Libraries press release, sent to thousands of press addresses, of the Trmp/Kushner tie to the library sale: PRESS RELEASE: Donald Trump Connected To Sell-Off of NYC Libraries? This Explains Exactly How, August 24, 2015.

In this instance, what the media ignores has consequences and results in the public failing to make relevant connections soon enough.

Donald Trump has gone on to appoint, as a top economic advisor and liaison:

library-destroying Stephen A. Schwarzman, head of Blackstone, the world’s largest real estate investment firm (among other things), the NYPL trustee who helped push the Donnell real estate deal out the door to Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and was even rumored to be personally involved in the deal through his own companies beforehand.

 See: Noticing New York: Donald Trump (Whose Son-In-Law Was In on Donnell Library Sale) Puts Library-Selling Stephen Schwarzman In Charge of Economic Policy, December 8, 2016.

This forebodes a sell-off of public assets in general, something that Citizens Defedning Libraries has been working to raise consciousness of and fight against: Our Public Assets Under Attack- A Calamity of the Commons Unfolding That We Must Act Collectively Against- How best To Express It?

A recent New York Times article started off reporting how privatizing prisons costs the public much more and delivers a far inferior product.  That's not to mention (as the article didn't) how privatizing prisons further incentivizing increased mass incarceration our country that already has the highest incarceration rate in the world housing around 22% or more of the world's prisoners, with less than 5% of the world’s population overall).  The article is probably a too cautiously conservative and somewhat too friendly to the idea of privatization in general, but it goes on to observe that the Trump administration wants to privatize lots of public assets and explain why that wouldn’t be good:

 privatization is likely to sweep through not only prisons. The president-elect wants to privatize health services provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs. He wants to privatize public infrastructure - drawing private sector companies to fix, build and manage bridges and roads, water supplies and airports. He is selling privatization as a surefire winner that will deliver better services for less public money.

"There's a magical thinking among business executives that something about the profit motive makes everything run better," noted Raymond Fisman, a professor of economics at Boston University. "What is government going to be like when it is run by billionaire C.E.O.s that see the private sector as a solution to all the world's problems?"

A serious body of economics, not to mention reams of evidence from decades of privatizations around the world, suggests this belief is false. 

See: Prisons Run by C.E.O.s? Privatization Under Trump Could Carry a Heavy Price, by Eduardo Porter, January 10, 2017

The article tells us about how Trump expressed hopes to privatize prisons on the campaign trail:

"With prisons I do think we can do a lot of privatizations and private prisons," Mr. Trump said on the campaign trail last year. "It seems to work a lot better."

Privatized prisons is one of the investments that library-selling Trump-appointed Stephen Schwarzman has involved himself with.

A month ago the New York Times reported how stocks went up for private companies in the wake of Trump’s election: Trump's Win Gives Stocks in Private Prison Companies a Reprieve, By Jeff Sommer December 3, 2016.

So who is Jared Kushner?

“Jared Kushner is the man,” said none other than Stephen Schwarzman introducing him in December at the Times Square headquarters of Morgan Stanley to a crowed assembly of NYC’s most powerful business leaders there to discuss the results of the presidential election.  . .

. . . That's from the Andrew Rice New York Magazine cover story although the article never mentions either Kushner's or Schwarzman's respective and integral involvements in the Donnell Library sale.  Similarly, although the Mr. Rice's New York Magazine article several times mentions Kuschner's purchase of 666 Fifth Avenue, his family real estate business's "flagship" building where Kuschner and his parents now have their offices, and although it goes into fair detail describing many aspects of that real estate purchase and its importance to Kushner, it never mentions* how integrally the 666 transaction and all its economic were tangled up with Kushner's simultaneous involvement with the sale of the adjacent Donnell.

(* It does however have a quick mention of Kushner in relation to the Robin Hood Foundation.)

More on Privatization of Libraries and Other Public Assets- Trump Appoints Stephen Schwarzman To Chair Economic Policy

Noticing New York article: Donald Trump (Whose Son-In-Law Was In on Donnell Library Sale) Puts Library-Selling Stephen Schwarzman In Charge of Economic Policy, December 8, 2016

This is perfect. . .  Or perfectly absurd and perfectly awful.

If are a library defender you probably already know the background: both president-elect Donald Trump and NYPL trustee and Blackstone head Stephen A. Schwarzman are tied in significantly with NYC library sales, particularly both being tied to the shrink-and-sink Donnell Library sell-off.  Now the connection between these spiritual comrades is ratcheting up a notch: Trump has appointed Schwarzman to chair a panel (that Schwarzman is picking) to advise him national economic policy.

For more about this, what it means in terms of the vulnerability of our public assets and national  infrastructure to extractions of value by the one-percent at the expense of the many see:      

•    Noticing New York: Donald Trump (Whose Son-In-Law Was In on Donnell Library Sale) Puts Library-Selling Stephen Schwarzman In Charge of Economic Policy, December 8, 2016

For Distribution At NYC Democratic and Other Political Clubs: A “Rigged System”: The Case For New Democratic Leadership

Citizens Defending Libraries has prepared a flyer for distribution at NYC Democratic clubs and other political clubs: "A “Rigged System”: The Case For New Democratic Leadership."  The flyer is also good for distribution at events like community board meetings.

The text appears below (you can copy and email it to fiends and associates that way.  You can also right click on the jpg (picture) or pdf version below to print and photocopy it for distribution.  It is set up with two flyers per sheet to reduce the cost and use of paper by half.

You can download and/or print this jpg (picture) for photocopying and distribution.  By cutting it in half your costs will be cut in half

 Text of flyer (can be copied, including its embedded links, into emails) is below.   

* * * * *

A “Rigged System”: The Case For New Democratic Leadership   

Every notable candidate in this last election, Jeb Bush, Bernie Sanders, Hillary, Trump (and more Republican candidates) spoke to the voters about how the system `is rigged’ exacerbating income inequality. . . Between the two choices finally presented the electorate chose the threat of a Trump wrecking ball over Hillary’s status quo.

How “rigged” is the system?: Trump’s de facto campaign manager, chief political advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was a principal financial beneficiary of the sudden, secretively shrink-and-sink sale plundering the Donnell Library.

Did Hillary make political hay of the millions upon millions of dollars that went to Kushner at public expense via a rather non-credible behind-the-scenes “bid”?  (See: Hillary Clinton & The Winning Campaign That Might Have Been- Thoughts From Citizens Defending Libraries.)  Unfortunately, Hillary’s national campaign headquarters were adjacent to and, for real estate development purposes, actually a part of another library, the Brooklyn Heights Library (at Tillary and Clinton), subject to a shrink-and-sink sale modeled on the Donnell sale, some of the same people in the background.  Her landlord, Ratner, is a gatekeeper to the transaction.

That shrink-and-sink Heights library sale entangles local Democrats. It is now subject to a federal pay-to-play investigation of Bill de Blasio (Hillary’s one-time campaign manger) for his hand-off of the library to an inferior bidder who channeled him funds behind-the-scenes.  The shrink-and-sink sale, and the other similar library sales, have been supported by Brad Lander, and his fellow local councilman, Steve Levin, has perpetually refused what he once promised: To insist on transparency for this and the other Brooklyn library sales (See: Citizens Defending Libraries: Open Letter To Councilman Steve Levin About His Letter To Brooklyn Public Library Demanding Transparency About Library Sales).

Despite what Trump may have managed, Democrats should know that they handicap themselves immeasurably when they campaign against `a rigged’ system while embedded with those rigging and who give license to such rigging.

This last election should have should have been impossible to lose. . . Impossible to lose even notwithstanding the voter suppression that included a multi-state coordinated Republican-managed voter purge (exit polls and the number uncounted provisional ballots tell us it was probably enough to swing the electoral college result). But that raises another issue: How are we to effectively fight rigged “voter purges” when the Democratic machine similarly purged over 200,000 NYS voters from the rolls in Brooklyn.*

                               Sign our petition on the web: Citizens Defending Libraries
* * * * * *

(* We need to update the flyer, or you cane by hand before photocopying- a more dramatic effect: The number is now recently acknowledged to be more than 200,000 Brooklyn voters purged.)

   16111701 Flyer for in d Meeting New Leadership by MDDWhite on Scribd

Hillary Clinton & The Winning Campaign That Might Have Been- Thoughts From Citizens Defending Libraries

Clinton conceding the election today

What about the campaign that Hillary Clinton could have run?  The one that had she run she’d have been much more likely have won?

For example, one thing Clinton could have done was run a campaign that showed a responsible caring for libraries and concern about the plundering sales of our public assets.  Hillary Clinton could have criticized her landlord, Forest City Ratner, for being a gatekeeper involved in the cynical shrink-and-sink real estate deal selling the second biggest library in Brooklyn, the library standing right next to her national campaign headquarters which is actually, for development purposes, the same piece of real estate.  The library is the downtown Brooklyn Heights Library, but given the intersection where it is located you can call it the “Tillary Clinton Library.”

Yes, criticizing her landlord would have been biting the hand feeding her, but it would have been seen as courageous and honest.  It would also have freed Clinton up to attack Trump’s de facto campaign manager and political advisor, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, for being a principal beneficiary involved in the cynical shrink-and-sink Donnell Library deal.

The Donnell Library, similarly sold for a minuscule fraction of its value to the public, was the model for the “Tillary Clinton Library” shrink-and-sink deal laying right at her doorstep.

Showing that she cared about libraries and fair play, Hillary Clinton could have called for that Donnell Library sale and the Heights Library sale to be investigated.

Yes, investigation might have caused some problems for her one-time campaign manager and fellow Democrat Bill de Blasio given his pay-to-play hand-off of the library to an inferior bidder.  Yes, pointing out the lack of investigation into Donnell could have been awkward for inert  fellow Democrats like NYS Attorney General Eric Schniederman or NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer. . .  That’s part of the point!. . .

. . .  Think how much more credible and independent Hillary would have proven herself to be.  And with a chance to lambaste Trump’s son-in-law/advisor she would have made headlines distinguishing herself.  The public cares about its libraries.  It cares about its public assets.  So long as Clinton was willing to criticize the shrink-and-sink sale her landlord was participating in, Trump could never have turned it around on her.

No, Hillary Clinton didn’t do this.  That would have been a different campaign.  Yes, it would have been a different campaign in all the ways that her campaign needed to be a different campaign overall.

It would have been a different campaign in all the ways that the campaigns of Democrats overall, and the representation they give us when elected, need to be a qualitatively different.

Maybe then, despite everything else they are up against, Democrats could start winning.  A difference they might appreciate.

Here is our Tweet of these Woulda/Coulda sentiments: 

HRC criticizes Ratner, her landlord, 4library sale - ditto, Kushner, Trump's campaign manager- &Result?

https://twitter.com/DefendLibraries/status/796399549204070400?lang=en

Scruffing Things Up As Fast As Possible, De Blasio’s Pay-To-Play Developer Starts Trashing Brooklyn’s Still Publicly Owned Second Largest Library

This week on Wednesday, David Karmer’s Hudson Company sent a crew of men out to start trashing the still publicly owned Brooklyn Heights Library.

This very important destination library is still city-owned.  It’s Brooklyn second biggest and with the substantial enlargement and full upgrading it got in 1993 it is one of the most technologically advanced and up-to-date libraries in terms of supporting computers and modern technology.

Why would the de Blasio allow his pay-to-play developer, apparently granting the developer a license, to come in and start wrecking, scuffing up and trashing a still publicly owned building?  Bear in mind that allowing this wreckage before the developer has closed on or acquired rights to the property violates the oft touted promises of Mr. de Blasio and his representatives and people like Councilman Steve Levin that the library and its public property would suffer no destruction until a full set of protections was put in place to ensure that the luxury condo and the teeny replacement library (a much more underground library) would be built.

Here are some thoughts on why this is occurring now.

    1.    De Blasio, the developer and the BPL board and honchos don’t want a pristine and perfect piece of public property sitting grandly and obviously unused on Tuesday, November 8th the day that people are supposed to go out to vote for Hillary Clinton (not Trump, Jill Stein or Gary Johnson according to de Blasio).  The library’s public auditorium has been a key neighborhood polling spot for sometime.  With its doors sealed there isn’t currently an adequate replacement which has caused considerable public complaint about the failure to use this obviously still available valuable public asset.  You don’t want people going to the polls in November more angry than they have to be.  And Hillary surely doesn’t want Democrats showing up angry or not showing up at out of disgust or discouragement–   This library is, after all, given the intersection of the streets where it is located, the “Tillary Clinton Library.”  It is, furthermore, immediately adjacent to the Forest City Ratner owned building where Hillary has her national campaign headquarters.  The building is even, for development purposes, part of the same real estate development parcel as Hillary’s headquarters thus constituting Hillary’s Forest City Ratner landlord a gatekeeper to the library sale, shrink and sink transaction.  Notwithstanding, Hillary did not answer our calls to come forth and oppose this privatization of public assets that was laying at her doorstep. – It is important to note that while Hillary can be scolded for how this library sale lays uncriticized by her at her very doorstep, Trump has much the same problem: The shrink-and-sink sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library was modeled on the shrink-and-sink sale of the Donnell Library (there was an overlap of the people behind both) and one of the principal financial beneficiaries of the sale of Donnell for a pittance was Jered Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and top campaign advisor.

    2.    Via the symbolism attendant with a cavalier degradation of the still publicly owned library, the city wants to help the Hudson Companies prove to banks and those from whom the developer is seeking financing and guarantees that the developer isn’t afraid of the investigations into his deal, including the criminal pay-to-play investigation by Preet Bharara’s US Attorney’s office.   The impunity with which the developer hopes to vandalize the library before he owns it is like a thumb in the eye of the investigators to proclaim that he doesn’t fear them or being held financially responsible for the astronomical losses that will be engendered for the public when he proceeds.  It’s a risky ploy.  The developer is not a good faith purchaser for value of this property and the world is adequately on notice so that the developer and the property can be directly proceeded against resulting in substantial losses sustained by those who do business with him on this property.

    3.    As an extension of number 2 above, the developer wants, with a toe-in-the-water or camels-nose-under-the-tent, to show that no one is going to stop him even as promises are not kept.  While he may not be taking final steps here, the developer would surely like to demonstrate that no one is going to stop him, even as he imitate without keeping promises.   He’d like to show that community won’t stop him and that public officials like Comptroller Scott Stringer and Public Advocate Tish James won’t let out a squeak of opposition.  We buttonholed Comptroller Stringer just the other day and complained about his non-investigation of the library together with his failure to produce the BPL library audit he promised.  “I don’t investigate libraries,” he said.   We responded that his website, his press releases and public statements all represent that he does investigate corruption, fraud and abuse and the waste of city funds.  And Comptroller did produce an audit of the Queens Library where he went into details about much less significant matters comparatively involving just a few dollars: How the former Queen Library head improper used his library credit car to put gasoline in his other family members’ cars.

The head of the crew of men trashing the library didn’t want pictures taken or people walking on the public property near the library.  “You can’t do that!” he said, “they gave us the library!”

PRESS RELEASE: Donald Trump Connected To Sell-Off of NYC Libraries? This Explains Exactly How.

Does Donald Trump want media attention on this particular issue?  We'll see when asked.

The Donald, riding high in polls in his race to become president, is connected to the sale of New York City public libraries?  It turns out there is a connection.  As articles in the Huffington Post and Fair have pointed out, this is likely to get reported in The New York Observer only if the reporting of it helps Trump’s real estate business.  Why?  . .

Same thing that connects Trump to the sell-off of New York City Libraries in deals shortchanging the public, but significantly benefitting the wealthy and New York’s real estate industry. . .

What’s that connection? . .

. . .  Donald Trump is Jared Kushner’s father-in-law.  In October 2009, Trump’s daughter Ivanka and Kushner wed.  Kushner is not only the owner of The Observer, he was also, like Trump, born into a wealthy New York City real estate family.

This June, Scott Sherman, who had previously written a series of articles for The Nation on the subject, published a book about the New York Public Library’s losing its way in the pursuit of real estate deals, including the Donnell Library sale debacle that led the way: “Patience and Fortitude- Power, Real Estate, and the Fight to Save a Public Library.”  A significant revelation in that book?: That Kushner family was in on the sale of the beloved Donnell Library from the outset.

Sherman’s book also provides new information that makes ultra-clear that the NYPL sold the Donnell Library to net less than anyone previously thought was the case.  The NYPL netted millions less than $33 million.  And that was for the sale of a 97,000 square foot five-story library, much of it recently renovated with public money on what was documented to be the most valuable block in Mid-Manhattan.  This was November 2007, at the height of the real estate boom.

Was Trump more involved than that?  Ivanka and Jared were dating when the Donnell sale was announced.  No one has ever indicated that Trump was, himself, directly involved in any of the connected real estate transactions like his son-in-law’s related purchase of 666 Fifth Avenue.  Did Trump ever at least look at the numbers underlying the deal?   In the spring of 2011 when, post-fiscal crisis, Kusnher’s 666 Fifth avenue deal was encountering cash flow difficulties the Wall Street Journal observed that “lenders don't expect other backers, including Mr. Trump, to come to Mr. Kushner's aid.”  The Journal quoted Mr. Trump about Jared, “He is a very smart young man. . .  I think it will come out well for him and everybody.”

Of course the real story here is how the public is losing out on the sale of New York City libraries benefitting just a wealthy few. . . a wealthy few who are part of a very small world at that.

Increasing income, political and wealth equality is one of the major themes of the current presidential race, something Trump might like to talk about again.

Yes, very small world: This is not the first time the issue of New York City library sell-offs has come up in the presidential race.  Over on the Democratic side, candidate Hillary Clinton has located her national campaign headquarters in a building that, for real estate development purposes, is part of a major central destination library in Downtown Brooklyn now proposed to be sold and shrunk by the city, turned over to a developer for a fraction of its public value.  The deal proposing to sell and shrink that library is closely modeled on the Donnell Library sale conceived at the same time with some of the same people in the background. . .

What library in Brooklyn is being sold?  It’s the one on Cadman Plaza West at the corner of Tillary and Clinton.  Yes, Tillary & Clinton.

CONTACT:
Carolyn E. McIntyre, Michael D. D. White
Michael White, 718-834-6184, mddwhite [at] aol.com
Carolyn McIntyre, 917-757-6542 cemac62 [at] aol.com

Follow us on Twitter: @defendinglibraries

For photos and videos of prior Citizens Defending Libraries rallies opposing the sale, shrinkage, underfunding of New York City libraries, and elimination of books and librarians in the year and a half since its founding, see:

PHOTO GALLERIES- PAST EVENTS

http://citizensdefendinglibraries.blogspot.com/2014/01/photo-galleries-past-events.html

See also our latest masterpiece video (3 minutes 50 seconds):  Selling Our Libraries!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD88Puy3px8


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