BDB compares Sharpton to MLK

From SI Live:

De Blasio said Sharpton has "stayed very connected" to the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr.

"You've carried on Dr. King's -- not only his message, but his approach to making social change," the mayor said. "You've shown that it's just as relevant today as it was 50 years ago."

The mayor also spoke about Sharpton's defense of young people brought to the country as children and here illegally, known as "DREAMers," after President Donald Trump said he would end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Sharpton and Cardinal Timothy Dolan joined the mayor in a September rally at City Hall to support the so-called dreamers.

"That is another example, your activism is just as fresh, just as as powerful today as 50 years ago when you started," de Blasio said.

Wasn't this guy James Brown's tour manager 50 years ago?

I don't think we're in Queens anymore, Toto

From the Juniper Berry:

Have you felt lately like you were conked on the head and awakened inside a nightmare? Or maybe that your house had been picked up by a cyclone and touched down in the Land of Odd? That's kind of what Queens feels like these days. All the characters are here – the witch, the coward, the heartless, the one without a brain. You name the freak, we have it representing us.

Unfortunately, we voters can't click our heels together three times and be brought back to a better time. The Land of Odd is now our reality and our first chance at getting back over the rainbow won't come until Election Day, 2017. Until then, we'll continue our long slog down the yellow brick road with this unsavory cast of characters.

Having said all that, does anyone have a bucket of water?

DeBlasio and Sharpton: still together

NY Post

From the Observer:

Mayor Bill de Blasio joined Rev. Al Sharpton and a host of other Democratic politicians at a demonstration calling for the State Legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo to sign off on a package of proposals to maintain and strengthen the city’s rent laws.

The event, held outside the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building in Harlem and emceed by Assembly Housing Chair Keith Wright, drew a modest crowd of a few dozen people. Mr. de Blasio warned that only days remain before the end of the legislative session—and before New York City’s rent stabilization and rent control laws expire, which could leave roughly one million regulated apartments open to becoming market rate.

“Let’s be clear what’s happening: in the next two weeks in Albany, a decision that will affect well over 2 million New Yorkers who live in over a million apartments. This is the magnitude of what we face,” he said, warning of a potentially dire outcome. “If they do the wrong thing, they will damn thousands and thousands of New Yorkers to be displaced and not have an affordable place to live.”

Mr. de Blasio stressed that he would not be satisfied with a simple extension of the existing regulations, but called for preventing landlords from removing vacant apartments from the rent control program and from increasing the rent 20 percent on stabilized apartments once they become unoccupied. He also demanded new regulations making charges for major capital improvements a temporary, rather than permanent, add-on to a tenant’s rent.

BDB losing support among black community

From the NY Times:

Dozens of black ministers, justice reform advocates and civil rights activists and four black members of Congress gathered last Monday at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem to discuss a delicate matter: What to do about Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Over the course of the morning meeting, attendees voiced a series of concerns: Mr. de Blasio, some complained, seems to have lost his appetite for criminal justice reform. The mayor, they said, has been too slow to take action against the police officer whose use of a chokehold on Eric Garner, an unarmed black man on Staten Island, led to Mr. Garner’s death. Other participants grumbled that Mr. de Blasio and his staff have simply not done enough to communicate with black community leaders on issues like affordable housing.

The unusual congregation of community influencers, convened by the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, was part gripe session, part strategic huddle, revealing the first hints of frustration with a mayor who won 96 percent of the black vote when he was elected in 2013.

Black voters have been an essential base of support for the mayor, remaining largely enthusiastic about him even as his support has wilted with other groups in the city. The bonds were forged in Mr. de Blasio’s early criticism of stop-and-frisk policing, and reinforced by politically resonant images of his biracial family broadcast during the 2013 campaign.

Yet the perception that Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, has eased up on his commitment to police reform has plainly begun to rankle some: At a weekend gathering this month at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat, publicly lamented that “broken windows policing,” the aggressive enforcement of minor violations, was still policy across the city.

Mr. Jeffries, who also attended the gathering at Abyssinian, said in an interview that there was “growing disenchantment with the administration in the black community.”

“The disenchantment relates to policing issues, the mayor’s support of broken windows, his lack of support for banning
chokeholds and his willingness to support making resisting arrest a felony,” Mr. Jeffries said, adding: “We’re very early in the mayor’s first term, and there’s a lot of room for progress.”

NYPD is the wrong target

Why Did the Protesters Go After the Cops When It Was Elected Officials That Control the Prosecutorial System That Let the Garner Chokehold Cops Go?

Pols Set-Up Cops: Blame Game

Community activist Tony Herbert who introduced a family member of officer Rafael Ramos, said it the best: elected officials are using the cops, turning the community against them. 

Herbert asked why are the elected officials forcing to the cops to raise money for the city? The relationship between the community and the police is strained, Herbert said, cops are forced to give out parking tickets, act as tax collectors for government. That creates tension between the community and cops. 

Herbert also has complained about why the cops are forced to deal with people who have mental problems, when it was the elected officials who have not properly dealt with that population. Police did not cause bad schools, high black unemployment, homelessness or the inequities of the criminal justice system that puts male blacks in jail at a much higher rate, elected officials did. 

In other words, he says, the pols use the cops. Yet they have to deal with the problems that are created by government failure. The pols have escaped any blame with the Grand Jury system which they control. It was the Grand Jury run by the Staten Island DA Donovan that failed to indict the cop who put the chokehold on Garner. Yet the words out of de Blasio, Sharpton and dozens of elected officials many, who have a say on how the state's prosecutorial system works, have all been directed to blame the cops.

Peace on Earth, goodwill to men.

Nicole is in

From the Daily News:

Four years after her fiancé's death on their wedding day, Nicole Paultre Bell is focused on Election Day.

Bell, who typically marks her November by the anniversary of Sean Bell's death in a 51-shot police fusillade, is intent on winning a vacant City Council seat from Queens.

"What happened to me four years ago - I didn't expect that to happen," Bell said in an exclusive interview with the Daily News officially announcing her candidacy.

"This is what life threw my way. It made me realize that there are serious problems out there."

The once-tragic figure says her platform centers on education reform and elderly care - and improving police and community relations.

The inexperienced candidate running to replace the deceased Thomas White Jr. already faces one obstacle: The 26-year-old single mother of two doesn't live in the Jamaica, Queens, district she wants to represent.

Former City Councilman Allan Jennings, one of her opponents in the Nov. 2 special election, was quick to attack Bell's announcement.

"She has name recognition?" snapped Jennings. "So did George Bush. But he couldn't get elected in this district."

Bell widow may run for White's seat

From the Daily News:

Sean Bell's fiancée has the potential to turn a crowded Queens City Council race upside down - if she moves into the district.

Up to a dozen candidates are looking at jumping into the competition to fill the unexpired term of the late Councilman Thomas White Jr.

Nicole Paultre Bell, whose fiancé died in a hail of police bullets almost four years ago, brings name recognition and a heart-stopping personal story.

She declined to outline her political plans, though a source close to her confirmed she is considering a run.

She lives outside the district in Far Rockaway, and is still registered to vote at her mother's house in Suffolk County. Under state election law, however, Bell would have to move into the district by Election Day - and get 899 signatures from registered voters on her nominating petitions.

Bell has been a regular at the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network, and may be able to count on his support for a run as well.

Queens man owes $19M in taxes

Deadbeat butt-head owes 'red' state NY $19M
By FREDRIC U. DICKER and MAGGIE HABERMAN, NY Post

The No. 1 New York state tax deadbeat is a Queens man who owes an eye-popping $19 million on cigarette taxes, newly released records show.

Gui Hong Chen, an Elmhurst man according to state records, tops the list of 200 corporate tax deadbeats, which was released along with the 200 top personal income tax cheats.

Chen owes $19,049,250, records show.

Gov. Paterson has said he wants to create a tax amnesty program to help reap the hundreds of millions in back taxes for the state's budget as it swims in red ink.

But he'll have a tough time collecting from Chen, 31, who recently served time in a federal pen for a raft of charges including trafficking in contraband cigarettes and dealing counterfeit tax stamps, according to state tax officials and the federal Bureau of Prisons.

A prisons spokesman said he was released last February to federal immigration officials, who didn't immediately respond to calls for comment.

In February 2007 he was busted in Alaska by US Customs agents trying to flee the country.

Other names of note on the list of personal income tax delinquents is the Rev. Al Sharpton, who has a new debt notice of more than $100,000 and an overall debt of nearly $1 million.

From the NY Times:

Desperate for cash amid the worst fiscal crisis in years, New York State is pursuing tax debtors more aggressively than ever before, doubling the number of cases it is investigating and seeking to collect from delinquents ranging from JPMorgan Chase to an out-of-business convenience store on the Bowery.

Since the start of 2008, the state has filed more than 340,000 tax “warrants,” public notices of delinquency that can make it harder to get loans or sell property and can lead to garnished wages or even forfeiture proceedings. By the end of this year the state’s Department of Taxation and Finance will have filed the largest number of warrants ever in a single year and settled about a million open cases, the most in state history.

Liu makes fun of Asians at Sharpton birthday bash

From the Daily News:

Speaking before the Rev. Al Sharpton's birthday party, Hazel Dukes noted that Liu - elected the city's first Asian-American councilman in 2001 - was on hand for the festivities.

"I see John Liu here - he's been the little Asian boy running around with us a long time [in] the NAACP," Dukes, president of the NAACP New York State Conference, warmly said to laughter during Sharpton's weekly radio broadcast. "But Rev. [Sharpton], he was a good guy, so we said, 'Come on, come on, come on - we can make you what you want to be,'" Dukes continued to more chuckles and applause as Liu, 42, sat on the stage with a bemused smile.

Bidding Sharpton a happy 55th, Liu also poked a little fun at his own heritage - or maybe just goofed on his own singing abilities. "You know the way Asian-Americans sing 'Happy Birthday,' right? They go, 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY,'" Liu jokingly boomed as the audience broke into laughter. "That's about all you want to hear from me, okay? Happy birthday, Al Sharpton."

Hiram finds religion

From The Politicker:

Here’s Hiram Monserrate this morning at the National Action Network, talking about his decision to return to the Democratic caucus.

At the event, Monserrate likened himself to Jesus, who “began to turn over a few tables” in order “to get the people’s business done right.”

Monserrate went on to say that “if it cost my election because I decided to turn over a table or two, and say that business has got to be done differently, so be it. That means I’m going to be here seven days a week, volunteering at the National Action Network.”

Notice Johnny and the Doorman sitting in the background. Hiram's apostles?