Message To Corporate Media, NY Politicians And Educrats: The Teachers Union Is NOT The Moving Force Behind Opt-Out

Jon Campbell from Gannett:

On a plane returning Tuesday from Cuba, Gov. Andrew Cuomo was asked about the opt-out effort and the New York State United Teachers union's suggestion that parents consider refusing the tests.

Whether or not to opt-out of the exams is a parent's choice, he told reporters.

"From a parent's point of view, they have the right," Cuomo said. "What the teachers union advocated -- the legality of that, the funding, that I'll leave to the federal government and the (state Education Department)."

Cuomo is canny enough to know that when you already have 185,000 opt outs counted from 73% of the districts on the ELA exam, with 27% of district still to be counted, and the math exams coming up now with even higher numbers of opt-outs expected, it's not a winning political battle to take on parents.

So he, like some of the editorial boards around the state, like the awful reporting in the NY Times this week, tries to put the blame for the opt-out movement onto the teachers union.

Here's a message to the corporate media, the corporate journalists/public relations specialists, the educrats and the politicians:

Parents did NOT decide to opt their children out of the state tests because Karen Magee of NYSUT threw her support behind the movement after Cuomo's education reform agenda was shoved through in the budget deal.

The opt-out movement has been growing every year and the numbers were going to increase dramatically this year no matter what Karen Magee and NYSUT did or said about the movement.

For that matter, even as Magee and NYSUT have thrown support to opting out, Mulgrew and the UFT have criticized the movement and echoed the same jive warnings we're getting from the educrats, the politicians and the newspaper editorial boards (i.e., the feds will take school money away as a result.)

I don't quite get how the state teachers union, which couldn't manage to get Assembly members to vote the way it wanted to on the budget, somehow convinced 185,000 parents to keep their kids from taking the state tests, especially when the largest local in the state is warning against opting out of the state tests.

The only thing I can think is, the corporate-owned media, the educrats, the politicians, they need scapegoats for this massive grassroots rebellion raging in New York State and, as so often is the case these days, the teachers union provides a convenient target.

But they are fools if they dismiss the significance of the anger parents have over the state's Endless Testing regime and imposed Common Core implementation.

As Loy Goss, co-founder of United To Counter The Core wrote:

As we complete the first round of counts for ELA and move into the first round of counts for math, it is important to remember why parents do this.

Make no mistake, this wave of civil disobedience is not just about Andrew Cuomo and his teacher evaluation plan. Cuomo is the flavor-of-the-month in a long line of ill-prepared, ill-advised education reformers, each worse than the one before. These sometimes well-intentioned reformers have nevertheless damaged an entire generation of America's schoolchildren going all the way back to No Child Left Behind.

Hundreds of thousands of parents are not making political statements, they are looking at crying, defeated children around their kitchen tables and demanding meaningful change. NY parents and teachers want education reform that is educator-driven, that is tested and proven, that addresses the real problems facing our schools and our children, and that is implemented with a modicum of competency.

A reduction of testing or evaluations does not address the underlying issue. NY parents want what parents have wanted since time began - a better education for our children.

Education reformers and their propagandists are so used to winning the education reform battles with their reflexive teachers union- and teacher-bashing that they're missing the very real anger many parents around the state have toward the state's education reform policies.

Message To Alexander Nazaryan: Teachers Held In Much Higher Esteem Than Journalists

An insult tweet from Newsweek journalist Alexander Nazaryan was sent Arthur Goldstein's way after Arthur jumped into the fray between Nazaryan and Louis C.K. over Common Core:

@TeacherArthurG People like you are the reason teaching isn't respected more.
— Alexander Nazaryan (@alexnazaryan) May 3, 2014

Nazaryan's been getting beaten up for a few days now after he insulted Louis C.K. for criticizing the Common Core while not being an "expert" on education.

Louis C.K. has dispensed with Nazaryan's criticism prettily handily, as is to be expected from a guy who's worked stand-up and knows how to handle drunks, idiots and hecklers in an audience.

Arthur's not worked the stand-up mike that I know of, but he's handled his share of Internet trolls over the years, so he doesn't need me to defend him against Alexander Nazaryan, but something about Nazaryan's statement really stuck in my craw, so I jumped in anyway:

@alexnazaryan @TeacherArthurG Actually poll after poll shows people still respect teachers.
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) May 3, 2014

@alexnazaryan @TeacherArthurG Should add that journalists rank well below teachers in respect - http://t.co/JtmuTEWuxi
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) May 3, 2014

@alexnazaryan @TeacherArthurG 72% say teachers add a lot to society, only 28% say same about journalists.
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) May 3, 2014

And here's the Pew poll results backing up that Americans overwhelmingly still respect teachers and think they add a lot to society as compared to journalists, who rank low on the respect and value-added list:

Americans continue to hold the military in high regard, with more than three-quarters of U.S. adults (78%) saying that members of the armed services contribute “a lot” to society’s well-being. That’s a modest decline from 84% four years ago, the last time the Pew Research Center asked the public to rate various professions. But the military still tops the list of 10 occupational groups, followed closely by teachers, medical doctors, scientists and engineers. A solid majority of the public says each of those occupations contributes a lot to society.

...

 Compared with the ratings four years ago, journalists have dropped the most in public esteem. The share of the public saying that journalists contribute a lot to society is down 10 percentage points, from 38% in 2009 to 28% in 2013. The drop is particularly pronounced among women (down 17 points). About as many U.S. adults now say journalists contribute “not very much” or “nothing at all” to society (27%) as say they contribute a lot (28%).

Pew is polling the American public at large, not the elite media and political circles journalists like Nazaryan run in, so he might be surprised to find out that the public at large doesn't share the elite's disdain and contempt for teachers.

He might also be surprised to find out that only 28% of the American public believe he and his journalism colleagues add anything of value to society.

When you live and work in an insular circle the way many of these elitist journalists do, it's difficult to understand that the people you chat with while sipping cucumber martinis do not share the same values as the public at large.

You can apply Nazaryan's tunnel vision over the respect the American public feels for teachers to his esteem for the Common Core as well - it's informed as much by the insular world he lives and works in as it is by anything else.

Surprised These Poll Numbers Aren't Worse

A new Quinnipiac poll shows Mayor de Blasio under water in job performance:

Less than half of New York City voters approve of the job Mayor de Blasio is doing in his first three months in office, a mediocre rating that is well below his NYPD Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and City Controller Scott Stringer, according to a new Quinnipiac poll.

Forty-five percent of voters said they approved of de Blasio's job performance, with 34 percent saying they disapprove, the poll found. Another 20 percent said they didn't know enough to form an opinion or didn't want to answer.

It's similar to results in a Marist poll out earlier this month, which found only 39 percent of voters thought he was doing a "good" or "excellent" job. A Quinnipiac poll from January had de Blasio with a 53-13 percent approval rating.

Hizzoner's latest numbers are much lower than ex-Mayor Michael Bloomberg had at this point in his tenure. A Quinnipiac poll from March 27 2002 showed then-rookie Mayor Bloomberg with a 62 percent approval rating. Sixteen percent disapproved of Bloomberg in that poll.

A January Quinnipiac poll taken right after de Blasio was inaugurated found with a 53-13 approval rating, eight points above his current ranking.

Given that the attacks against de Blasio have been relentless and well-funded, from the Murdoch papers ginning up a snow controversy back in January, the attacks over "Forkgate" (when de Blasio ate pizza with a fork), "speedgate" (when the papers reported de Blasio's mayoral motorcade sped through the city a day after he pushed for new safety rules regarding speeding) and of course the infamous (and phony) "war against charters" that Eva Moskowitz and corporate media outlets claim he is waging, I'm quite frankly surprised he's not in the 30's in job performance approval.

And notice the Quinnipiac people putting the Bloomberg approval in there to stick it to de Blasio even more.

Two things to say here:

First, Bloomberg didn't have the media and charter school assaults de Blasio has taken since he was inaugurated, so the Bloomberg numbers don't mean all that much to me (especially since his fellow media moguls at the Times, Post, Journal and News all took it easy on him for most of his three terms - unlike what they've given de Blasio in his first few months in office.)

Second, there is still plenty of time for de Blasio to turn this around - but he must get better about handling the media, heading off controversies before they start, or, if that fails, putting them to rest after one media cycle.

He can't get beaten up too many more times before the meme that he is a failure as a mayor gets baked in.

If you missed it, Blake Zeff had a very good piece on where de Blasio should go from here at Capital NY.

Advice For De Blasio To Recover From His Early Missteps

I've talked about how de Blasio needs to start getting savvier in his handling of the press and these phony "scandals" that have popped up like "forkgate" (when he ate a slice of pizza with a fork and some in the the press, barely out of middle school, mocked him for days over it) and the UES snow plow scandal that was ginned up by the Murdoch journalists at the Post and WSJ.

Crain's has some advice for the mayor on how to turn things around:

With image repair in order, Crain's asked public-relations pooh-bahs what the mayor might do. Among the suggestions: centralize his communications operation.

Mr. de Blasio has a press secretary, Phil Walzak, and other media handlers, but no single person in charge of communications. Senior advisers Rebecca Kirszner Katz and Peter Ragone come the closest, but the chain of command is unclear.

"I think he needs a communications director," said James Vlasto, a PR veteran who was press secretary to Gov. Hugh Carey. That responsibility "can't be spread out among four or five people."

One-on-ones with local journalists, rather than hyped appearances on national programs like Morning Joe and The Daily Show, should be part of Mr. de Blasio's playbook, Mr. Vlasto suggested.

A better understanding of New York City's breathless media, and stronger relationships with individual reporters, would also improve Mr. de Blasio's image, said one former City Hall staffer. "Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like [the administration isn't] actually picking up the phone and engaging," the staffer said.

Punctuality can help, said Davidson Goldin, founder of Goldin Solutions. "Be on time," he said. "Reporters have bosses breathing down their necks to file."

Mr. de Blasio can still score on pre-K, Mr. Goldin said. "Win gracefully," he said. "Expanded pre-K is a big victory regardless of the silly tax, so acknowledge some pleasure about how New Yorkers have embraced this key priority."

Ken Sunshine—the former chief of staff to David Dinkins whose clients include Leonardo DiCaprio, Barbra Streisand and Ben Affleck—said the mayor would benefit from taking the long view on his PR. The same poll that showed his job approval slumping also showed that a majority of New Yorkers personally like him and his family, he said.

"One might think those numbers would have tumbled, the way he's supposedly gotten beaten up," said Mr. Sunshine. "Not true."

Mr. Sunshine, who calls Mr. de Blasio a personal friend, said the mayor's approval ratings will improve as soon as the weather, and New Yorkers, warm up.

In short, schmooze the press for better coverage and get more organized in the press shop - that's the Crain's advice.

One problem I have with that advice, good as it is, is that I don't think it turns around the press coverage totally.

Murdoch and Zuckerman don't like some of the policies he is pushing and no amount of schmoozing is going to change the negative coverage he gets from news outlets owned by either of those two plutocrats.

That's the reality, which still doesn't mean that de Blasio doesn't have to get better at anticipating firestorms like the Eva Moskowitz thing and figuring out how to handle that before it happens.

The Problem With Supporting De Blasio

A Michael Fiorillo comment from Chaz's blog:

DeBlasio has made some serious errors in judgment. The snow-day-that-wasn't is a sideshow, but his being caught flat-footed by Moskowitz is a big deal; he and the public schools were badly hurt by it.

Sad as it is, he's probably the best we're going to see for quite a while, in that he doesn't want to see us eating cat food in a ditch somewhere. That sets him apart from most of the people we're dealing with in education, and counts as "progress."

I never expected that much from him, but I also think we have an interest in at least not joining Moskowitz, Cuomo, Murdoch and Zuckerman in piling on him.

I don't know if he "deserves" our critical support, but for the time being I'm not sure we have that much choice. The alternatives to DeBlasio, Moskowitz in particular, are pretty sickening.

If nothing else, this whole episode of "Mayoral Control Is Only In Effect If It Helps Charters" shows that its one thing to be mayor, and quite another to control the government.

As usual, Michael makes salient points.

I left a comment at Accountable Talk a while back that addresses my biggest frustration with de Blasio:

I defended de Blasio over the fake snow plow UES crisis the Post ginned up and against the Eva nonsense at Perdido Street School blog.

The problem is, de Blasio and his people have no coherent pushback strategy against the bullshit they're getting hit with.

Given that BdB ran Hillary Clinton's campaign, he ought to know that if you take on the corporate overlords over charter schools, tax increases and the like, they're not going to like that and they're going to go at you.

Yet somehow the de Blasio people seem surprised at the vehemence with which the Murdoch and Zuckerman papers have gone after him, the way the TV stations have gone after him, the way Cuomo and Eva went after him.

I'd be happy to defend this guy for the right reasons, but until he starts to defending himself effectively, it's all for nought.

BTW, I'm over the snow thing. That's not a big deal, Bloomberg would have had us come in to. The thing that bothered me about the whole mess was HOW de Blasio and Farina tried to defend it. They took what was a problem and made it worse with an ineffectual pushback (Macy's is open...it's a beautiful day...) And that's what's most frustrating to me - there are times when it seems like he fell off a turnip truck, brushed himself off and got right into politics without actually learning how to do it.

I maintain that if de Blasio doesn't get more savvy in how he handles the media, Cuomo, Eva, the plutocrats and all the rest of the enemies he has coming at him (and make no mistake, they are ALL enemies out to get him), nothing we do or say to defend him will matter much.

Last week some in the media tried to blame the Harlem gas explosion on de Blasio, reporting that he hadn't appointed a full time Buildings Commissioner yet and the one he has is a Bloomberg holdover.

That meme didn't stick because it's difficult to see how a newly appointed de Blasio Buildings Commissioner would have helped avert the explosion, but it's not like they're not trying to gin up at least one anti-de Blasio controversy a week there in the press.

I'm hoping as the weeks go on and de Blasio and the people around him get more comfortable, they'll get better at pushing back against this garbage and tamping down the fake controversies before they get blown out proportion.

All I can say is, they had better or otherwise they - and we - are in for a long four years of fake UES snow controversies and phony wars against charters.

Supporting De Blasio On The Charter School Issue

Michael Fiorillo on the war Eva Moskowitz, Andrew Cuomo and the media launched against Bill de Blasio over the charter school issue:

Public school teachers, parents and students are in a tough position here. While De Blasio has not been as strong as people hoped - no surprise to many readers of this blog, I imagine - he nevertheless is making some efforts to right the grotesque inequities caused by charter schools, and can safely assumed to be under tremendous pressure by the local Overclass to allow privatization to continue.

Unless we get out into the streets to show that there is a large constituency willing to fight for the public schools, De Blasio will either give in completely or be destroyed. In either case, that could lead to the endgame coming upon us very soon.

Whatever his temporizing and shortcomings, we probably have no choice but to (critically) support him, get active and loud, and show that there is widespread opposition to the takeover of the schools.

I agree completely - sure it would have been nice to see de Blasio cancel all eight of Eva's charters and give the space to traditional public schools, but you can see from the uproar over de Blasio's cancellation of three schools why that wasn't going to happen.

As Michael notes, the corporate forces have mustered a heavy assault against the moderately progressive policies de Blasio has taken on charters and if those of us who support traditional public schools don't get vocal about supporting him on this, we're going to see, as Michael puts it, "De Blasio will either give in completely or be destroyed."

Let me go on record saying, I support de Blasio on this issue, the so-called "war on charters" is a phonied up meme that came out of Eva Moskowitz's public relations office (as I wrote last night), and we need to hit the media over and over for acting as stenographers rather than journalists in covering this story.

Start with WNBC 4 - give them a call and let them know how you are permanently shutting the channel off over their stenography on the Eva issue.

Patrick Walsh also blogged about the chop job they do on his interview with them over the charter co-location issue.

Here's the number:

866-639-7244

It is time to start talking boycott of the media outlets that carry water for the pro-privatization movement.

NBC and Comcast have carried water for the corporate education reform movement for years now, most notably with their Education Nation pro-privatization propaganda fest (literally subsidized by the for profit University of Phoenix)  and it is high time they pay an economic and political price for this.

Turn off NBC, cancel any business you do with Comcast and let them know this again and again and again.

I just called NBC to let them know.

You should do it too.

Blog it, tweet it, get the story out there - public school teachers have had ENOUGH of the pro-privatization propaganda spewing from NBC and are taking the action to shut the network OFF.

If Eva Moskowitz can get loud and shrill, so we can - WE SUPPORT BILL DE BLASIO ON THE CHARTER SCHOOL ISSUE.

When Will Merryl Tisch Be Investigated For Corruption?

A commenter at Capital Confidential wants to know:

Why are INVESTIGATIVE journalists so afraid to investigate Tisch? Everyone is afraid of her. King is just doing her bidding. If he had a real original thought (not likely), it would not happen without her permission. There is soooo much more to this story. I think Tisch is controlling the journalists..maybe she has connections to the heads of all of these important publications and journalists are told lay off the real story. The real story is MONEY. Her money specifically. She has personally paid for setting up these fellows..said it herself in the paper “what’s not to like about free fellows?” and has virtually wiped out (pushed out or let go) anyone in the SED who had knowledge of actual issues affecting NYS Education. Then somehow miraculously..these same fellows (most without any public teaching experience themselves) have been ushered into these high paying state positions that she cleared the way for. Do you actually think King has the power to do all that? As said above..he doesn’t even have the true qualifications to be a school superintendent in this state. The fact that his children do not go to public school when they live in one of the highest ranking public school systems in Upstate NY makes me think that no public school is good enough for him and his family. Montessori all the way. This is a slap in the face to all of us parents with kids in the public schools (paying his salary) who are subjected to this unproven, nonsense Common Core. You don’t implement something so huge and then have forums to discuss it. If it wasn’t so serious this would be one big joke of how NOT to run a huge state agency. And then of course…what are Tisch’s connections to all of the other money…Pearson, Gates, InBloom,etc……..it all comes back to her.

I'm sure the newspapers and news outlets that are owned by Tisch family cronies like Sulzberger, Zuckerman, Murdoch and Bloomberg (NY Times, NY Daily News, US News, NY Post, Wall Street Journal, FOX News, FOX Business, Bloomberg News, Bloomberg Radio, Bloomberg TV, Bloomberg Views and Bloomberg Businessweek) will get right on that investigation of their fellow plutocrat on the cocktail circuit, Merryl Tisch.

I'm sure the Assembly will look into it as well, with Shelly Silver's chief of staff married to the crook who Tisch appointed to run a Jewish charity who is now accused of stealing millions from under her nose.

Yeah, I'm sure the media and political establishment will get right on holding this woman accountable for her crimes.

Bloomberg Propaganda-Meisters All Over The Internet

You see these Bloomberg shills, paid press whores like Howard Wolfson or Andrew Kirtzman, flacking their Bloomberg propaganda all over the place these days as the mayor's Reign of Error sunsets and Bloomberg's anxiety over his legacy heightens.

Here's a recent example from Kevin Sheekey, former deputy mayor and current Bloomberg LP executive (because there is always a gig for you in a BLOOMBERG enterprise if you are a loyal servant to Bloomberg the man):

Is the Progressive the retiring Mayor? Will successor create largest affordable housing plan in nation's history? http://t.co/pVYYQdFGzf
— Kevin Sheekey (@ksheekey) September 18, 2013

Of course it's easy to debunk this jive Sheekey is spewing and somebody quickly does:

.@ksheekey I hope so cuz Bloomberg's 50,000 homeless could use a place to sleep!
— Tom Scocca (@tomscocca) September 21, 2013

Expect the amount of pro-Bloomberg propaganda to increase exponentially as the end of the year nears.

Bloomberg has a ton of press shills and p.r. people on his payroll and tons more who are dying to get on that payroll as their own journalism jobs and outlets die.

Bloomberg is going to have his shills mount a Bloomberg Legacy propaganda-fest that will put Bush's Iraq war propaganda-fest to shame.

New York Daily News Gets Nearly EVERYTHING Wrong On Navy Yard Shooter Story

More classic DN journalism - just about everything wrong:

The cover of Tuesday's New York Daily News about Monday's Navy Yard shooting is now almost entirely wrong.

The cover features a large AR-15 gun with the headline "Same Gun, Different Slay," and a photo widely circulated on Monday of people tending to a man laid out on a Washington, D.C. corner.

In a press conference Tuesday afternoon, the FBI confirmed that an AR-15 was not used in the shooting. Meanwhile, the photo, since retracted by the AP, has now been determined to be of a medical emergency unrelated to the Navy Yard.

Many outlets, including CNN, NBC News and BuzzFeed initially reported that an AR-15 may have been used by the shooter and published the photo, which had been posted to Twitter by Tim Hogan, communications director for Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.).

Requests for comment to the New York Daily News were not returned as of posting time.

Of course they didn't respond to getting nearly everything in their cover story wrong.

Like their hero, Mayor Bloomberg, they never accept accountability for anything.

Not ever.

De Blasio - A Public School Parent Who Could Be Mayor

Dana Rubenstein at Capital NY:

De Blasio pointed out that if he wins, he will become the first mayor in the city's history with children in public school.

It's not a claim I could substantiate. I can say with certainly, however, that he would be the first mayor with a child in public school at the time he was mayor in at least 50 years.

(Abe Beame sent his children to public school, but they graduated long before he became mayor.)

None of the other leading candidates from either party who have children made the decision to send them to public school: Bill Thompson sent his daughter to private school and his step-children are in boarding school, while Republicans Joe Lhota and John Catsimatidis sent their children to private schools.

The two Democrats with connections to public education—John Liu, who sends his son to public school in Manhattan, and Anthony Weiner, who has said he plans to send his son to public school—trail their rivals by significant margins in the polls.

Fernando Ferrer, the Democratic nominee in 2005, said his daughter graduated from public school, although she actually graduated from Catholic school.

In 2001, when Michael Bloomberg was mounting his first run for mayor, his youngest daughter, Georgina, was a senior at the Spence School and his older daughter Emma was a senior at Princeton. 

His opponent Mark Green (and Green's opponents in the Democratic primary: Peter Vallone Sr. and Alan Hevesi) all sent their kids to private schools.

Ruth Messinger, the Democratic candidate for mayor in 1997, sent her kids to public school, but they weren’t school-aged by the time she ran for mayor and anyway she lost to incumbent Rudy Giuliani, who sent his kids to private school.

Ed Koch didn’t have any kids. Dinkins sent his kids to private school, the Ethical Culture School and Fieldston, but they weren’t school-aged.

Beame's two sons went to public school, according to his former campaign manager, though they were grown-ups by the time their father got to City Hall.
 
John Lindsay had school-age children, but he sent them to private school.

Bobby Wagner, the son of Robert Wagner, went to the Buckley School and Phillips Exeter Academy. (I can't find any information about the Wagner siblings. Help, please, if you know.)

Vincent Impellitteri had no children.

Bill de Blasio has two.

His daughter Chiara is in college now, but she graudated from the Beacon School, M.S. 51, and P.S. 372.

Fifteen-year-old Dante de Blasio attended he same elementary and middle schools and is now a student at Brooklyn Tech.

De Blasio’s status as a public school parent comes gives him an undeniably appealing talking point, one he has shown no hesitation in using. "Lucky husband of @Chirlane. Proud public school parent," reads his campaign Twitter profile.

It's been helpful to de Blasio in making his case to voters, no doubt.

“To have a mayor who says, 'I’ll tell you how much I’m going to care about the public schools, I got my own kid there,' is a very powerful signal,” said Ken Sherrill, a Hunter College political science professor. “That’s more than spending one night in public housing."

Good piece by Rubenstein.

This is the kind of piece Gotham Schools should be doing.

Instead, they're doing hit pieces on de Blasio dating back to his time on a school board in the 1990's.

I wonder how much the Quinn campaign paid GS for this advertising spot?

Nah, just kidding - they don't have to take Quinn's money for this post.

They'll be paid in kind by the hedge fundies and Wall Street folks around donation time.

Bloomberg: I'm A Fiscal Genius!

Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave a speech today in which he publicly patted himself on the back for his genius at stewarding the city through rough economic waters and warned that whoever follows him into City Hall had better follow the Bloomberg plan or New York City will turn into Detroit.

Yeah, it was a real humble speech, full of soul-searching and honest reflection for why New York City has income inequality levels approaching Third World proportions, a gap that has significantly worsened under Bloomberg.

No, actually it wasn't that kind of speech at all.

Bloomberg clearly has a fine conception of himself, his abilities and his track record, but as he was touting his fiscal genius in general terms in today's speech, I couldn't help but think of some of that fiscal genius in individual terms.

There was the $500 million Bloomberg allowed to be stolen as part of the CityTime project - the worst fraud perpetrated in NYC history.

There is the 911 system that doesn't work, sometimes crashes half a dozen times a day and puts New Yorkers at risk - but in the end will cost over $2.3 billion, at least $1 billion overbudget.  Oh, and it's at least 7 years past deadline.

Then there is the $80 million ARIS system that everybody in the NYC school system hates and the $36 million dollar NYCHA computer system that doesn't work and the GPS systems he bought for the FDNY that he spent $7.3 million on ($56,000 per GPS unit) that don't work and often gives directions for trucks to drive into the East River and the $43.2 million he allowed some consultant crooks to steal from the DOE with the help of former Tweedie Judith Hederman.

Wow - just look at all that genius! 

I mean, how could NYC ever have survived the 2008 recession without Mike Bloomberg's fiscal genius?

And that's not even tallying up all the little frauds perpetrated by the outside consultants and vendors here and there - the $1.7 million stolen by Willard Lanham from the DOE or the $2.7 million stolen by Nelson Ruiz from the DOE or the myriad other "little" scandals that Bloomberg turned a blind eye to while he pursued his fiscal genius policies.

It would be nice if somebody in the press would call him on his propaganda, but that would actually take somebody in the press with the guts or desire to do that.

Instead they suck up to him like Bill Keller at the Times and Michael Wolff at The Guardian, no doubt knowing that someday they, too, will have to work for Bloomberg or one of his rich pals when their newspapers get bought up in a vanity purchase by one of the half dozen oligarchs in this country still willing to own print.

And so we have this myth that follows Bloomberg around, spread by Bloomberg and the journalists and p.r. people on his payroll, that Bloomberg has been a masterful fiscal steward of the city when, even a rudimentary closer look at the history, shows that is just not so.

Weiner Accuses Bloomberg Of Manipulating Test Scores And Closing Schools To Get Around The UFT Contract

Fresh from being told to go ---- himself by a voter on Atlantic Avenue yesterday, Anthony Weiner decided to go on the offensive against Mayor Bloomberg on education policy today:

Former Congressman Anthony Weiner accused Mayor Michael Bloomberg of using school closures to skirt union rules and fudging test scores ahead of his 2005 re-election bid during a conversation on education policy this morning that represented a rare reprieve from relentless questions about his latest sexing scandal.

Still trying to shift the conversation away from revelations that have engulfed his fledgling mayoral campaign in recent weeks, Mr. Weiner spent nearly an hour discussing everything from test scores to classroom diversity during a CUNY Institute of Education Policy Breakfast at Hunter College.

Asked about the Bloomberg administration’s controversial school closure policy, Mr. Weiner made the case that schools are being closed, not to improve them, but because it allows the city to skirt union rules that would otherwise bar the changes.

“It is simply a way to use their tools to be able to do what they want to ultimately do, which is to move teachers. And I think that–frankly–it’s not a particularly productive way to solve what is basically a labor–a contract–negotiation,” he said, describing the process as deeply disruptive to students.

“We’re basically saying to kids, ‘Don’t worry this school is a failure,’” he charged.

The allegations continued as Mr. Weiner accused Mr. Bloomberg of messing with test scores ahead of his 2005 re-election bid in order to make it seem as though more progress was being made.

“The mayor himself, I think, fudged the scores wildly leading up to his re-election in 2005,” said Mr. Weiner, who at the time was also running in the race. “A lot of those early numbers turned out to be discredited.”

In a scrum with mostly education reporters after the forum, Mr. Weiner doubled down on the accusation, pointing to news reports from the time questioning the scores.

“There was a spate of press conferences about how amazing the schools were doing that were later on discredited when those numbers came crashing back to earth,” he said. “These numbers are getting fudged in hundreds of ways,” he said.

Why would the press challenge Weiner on Bloomberg's playing funky with the test score data?

Bloomberg used to scream to holy heaven about how great the test scores were, how his reforms had closed the achievement gap.

But after the state acknowledged that state test scores were inflated, the city scores dropped precipitously and Bloomberg could no longer brag about either high test scores or closing the achievement gap.

Seriously, political journalists can actually look that stuff up if they want and see it for themselves.

Or they can call a journalist like Juan Gonzalez and ask him.

It's a fact - and not even a "Weiner" fact, but a real, honest-to-God true fact:

For years, Mayor Bloomberg, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and top education officials in Albany touted big jumps in math and reading scores statewide - and skyrocketing results among New York City's pupils.

The scores, they said, were proof that mayoral control and Klein's data-driven version of school reform had succeeded.

Schools were winning the "civil rights battle of our time," the chancellor claimed, by closing the racial "achievement gap."

To promote his reforms nationwide, Klein even founded a nonprofit group last year with the Rev. Al Sharpton. They called it the Education Equality Project.

Now, state officials have revealed a startling nosedive in test scores. Admitting that results from previous years had been inflated, the state announced tougher standards this year - resulting in the lower scores. Thousands of parents who had been told their children were at grade level are suddenly learning they aren't.

Even worse, the new scores show the racial "achievement gap" has increased.

Back in 2003, 73.3% of white fourth-grade students met state standards, compared with only 46.3% of black pupils. The gap between the two groups was 26.9 points. This year, the gap between black and white fourth-graders increased to 31.7 points.

For Hispanic fourth-graders, there was a smaller rise, from 29.7 points in 2003 to 30.3 this year - but a rise nonetheless.

Comparisons aren't possible for all grades because the state only tested fourth- and eighth-graders until 2006.

More than 15% of the 400,000 students who took this year's reading test registered at Level 1 - the lowest possible level - while only 2.8% did last year. An astonishing 85% of those lowest achievers were African-American and Hispanic.

The new scores are so bad Sharpton has begun to distance himself from Klein. "I'm very disturbed and concerned by these scores," Sharpton said.

"We were told students were improving, but it seems our kids were victims of dumbed-down tests to make the administration look good."

See?

Too bad the political press are too busy trying to get Weiner to say whether he's seen Sydney Leather's x-rated video released yesterday to look this kind of thing up and see that he's right about Bloomberg manipulating the test score data to make himself and his reforms look better.

This might have been a teachable moment for the political press and the corporate media, but alas, anything that doesn't jibe with Mayor Bloomberg as fiscal and education reform genius doesn't seem to compute with them.

Call it The Bill Keller syndrome - the inability to see Mayor Bloomberg for what he is.

Ed Deformer Jeff Bezos Buys Washington Post

From Kaplan to Amazon:

Billionaire Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos bought himself a new toy on Monday: the 136-year-old newspaper The Washington Post, which he acquired for $250 million from the Washington Post Company. The announcement blindsided the media world, where seemingly no one knew the U.S. capital’s flagship paper was for sale.

Bezos says he will keep the Post separate from Amazon and will not run day-to-day operations at the paper.

But Bezos did tell employees in a letter that there will be "changes" coming to the newspaper.
 
I hope none of those "changes" come to Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet blog.

The Washington Post/Kaplan test prep owners seemingly left her alone to cover education issues as she saw fit.

Bezos does not have a good reputation for being hands-off at Amazon and Amazon does not have a reputation for being a good place to work.

In fact, Amazon has a reputation as a nightmarish workplace.

In addition, Bezos is a charter school proponent/ed deformer.

We'll have to see how these two things play out now that Bezos owns the Post.

Bloomberg's Vaunted New 911 System Crashed Twice More Yesterday

The 911 system crashed twice yesterday after crashing six times on Monday:

Another day, another failure.

The city’s beleaguered ambulance-response system crashed twice yesterday while computer geeks tried to diagnose the glitch that continues to snarl the system.

Dispatchers were forced to go back to using pen and paper to take down calls and using radios to dispatch ambulances.

The EMS CAD system first went down at about 3:30 a.m. yesterday, Fire Department sources said. EMS dispatchers received 23 calls during the five-minute outage.

Then, around 8 a.m., the system went on the fritz yet again, prompting computer techs to stop the diagnostic procedure.

During that period, dispatchers took down jobs from 55 callers.

“This EMS CAD System is 30 years old and has intermittently experienced interruptions,” the FDNY said in a statement. “A backup protocol for manual dispatch is in place to ensure all EMS calls are responded to, and the replacement of the old system is currently under way as part of the 911 overhaul.”

Israel Miranda, the president of FDNY Local 2507, thinks the issue is related to the new ICAD system that rolled out two months ago.

“The system continues to collapse. They continue to blame it on the EMS CAD because it’s old. We never had these problems before until they put in this new ICAD system,” he said.

Emblematic of Bloomberg - replace an older system that works with a very expensive, high tech replacement that doesn't work as billed (or work at all), then blame the old system and/or the city workers using that system.

If Bill Keller and the rest of the suck up press would get their heads out of Bloomberg's ass for long enough to look around them, they might add these failures to their Bloomberg "legacy pieces" they've been writing lately - along with CityTime, the Bloomberg Boxer Day Blizzard, the FDNY GPS fiasco, the NYCHA computer system disaster, etc.

But it's hard for these "journalists" to tell the truth about our oligarch's "legacy" when he's rumored to be in the market for the NY Times to add to his stable of media properties and they just might have to work for him in the near future.

Gotham Charter Schools

Why cover the UFT/parent rally against Bloomberg's extended charter school co-location policies when you can suck up to your corporate funders by writing another piece of charter school propaganda?

That's Gotham Charter Schools - all the pro-corporate education reform news that's fit to post.

Bloomberg's Legacy

Corporate media journalists continue to suck up to Mayor Bloomberg in print, writing all kinds of glowing articles about the mayor's "legacy".

Capital NY has a rundown of the latest "legacy pieces" here.

One thing missing from all these pieces is an accurate assessment of Bloomberg's 12 years in office.

How can any self-respecting journalist write a Bloomberg "legacy piece" and not include these items

Phonied up crime stats.

Phonied up test scores and grad rates.

CityTime.

The 911 system boondoggle.

The Boxer Day Blizzard.

Seriously - the worst fraud ever perpetrated against New York City (CityTime) isn't mentioned, the $2 billion 911 system boondoggle that is now 12 years in the making, 10 years over schedule, hundreds of million over budget, and responsible for the death of a four year old on the Upper West Side isn't mentioned, the bullshit stats from crime to fire fatalities to emergency response times to the school data is never mentioned, the mayor's incompetence in dealing with the Bloomberg Boxer Day Blizzard is never mentioned.

These are Bloomberg's legacy as much as bike lanes or the complete transformation of Manhattan into a rich person's playground or Brooklyn gentrification.

Shame these never get mentioned in the Bloomberg "legacy pieces."

Am I missing any items from Bloomberg's "true legacy"?

Where's The Daily News Cover For Ramarley Graham?

Back on February 2, 2012, Ramarley Graham was followed home by NYPD detectives and shot and killed in his family's apartment.

According to the NY Times, members of the NYPD's Street Narcotics Enforcement Unit pursued Graham after they allegedly received a report that Graham was armed with a gun.

No gun was found on the scene or on Graham's body, though police did find a bag of marijuana in the bathroom where Graham was shot.

Graham was apparently trying to flush the bag of dope when police broke into the apartment and shot him.

The Times describes what happened at the scene this way:

The impression that Mr. Graham had a gun was reinforced as officers tracked the three men. The group next went to a home at 728 East 229th Street, where Mr. Graham was spotted leaving with what appeared to be the butt of a gun in his waistband, according to another set of radio transmissions among the narcotics team members.

Two officers wearing raid jackets and bullet-resistant vests emerged from a van and yelled, “Police! Stop! Don’t move!” said Mr. Kelly, citing the account of a civilian witness. 

But Mr. Graham made it to his home at 749 East 229th Street, and the front door locked, stymieing officers who were pursuing him with their guns drawn. Another tenant, Gene Davis, 60, said he saw the officers rushing through the outside gate before they reached the door. They yelled at him: “Don’t move! Get back!”

Eventually, a man alerted by the commotion let the sergeant in a back door and told him that Mr. Graham lived on the second floor. The officers then spread out: One stayed on the ground floor; the sergeant stayed on the stairs; and two lead officers went to the apartment and knocked. When no one answered, they “broke open” the door, Mr. Kelly said. 

Precisely what happened in the bathroom seconds later is not clear. On Thursday night, the police said Mr. Graham had tussled with an officer, but on Friday, Mr. Kelly said there did not appear to be any evidence of a struggle. 

“We don’t believe there was contact,” he said. 

The officer yelled, “Gun! Gun!” and then fired, Mr. Kelly said. 

The teenager’s grandmother Patricia Hartley was in the hallway. Paulet Minzie, the landlady, who lives on the third floor, said she heard the grandmother shouting at the police: “Why you hitting me? Why you hitting me?” 

Mr. Graham’s 6-year-old brother was also screaming, Ms. Minzie said. “He said, ‘They killed my brother!’ ” she related. 

The two officers involved in the shooting were stripped of their guns while an investigation was pursued.  

At the time, Bloomberg and Kelly said some publicly soothing words about the shooting.  

But later on we learned that the NYPD officers had threatened to shoot the grandmother on the scene, then taken her to the 47th precinct where she was held for hours while the cops worked her over, trying to get her to change her story:

EDENWALD — The NYPD cop accused of gunning down Ramarley Graham also threatened to shoot the slain teen's sobbing grandmother in the chaotic moments after cops burst into their Bronx apartment, a new lawsuit charges.

The blistering 108-page lawsuit filed by Graham's family details how plainclothes officers in street narcotics unit barged into their apartment, fired at the teen and hauled his grandmother away for hours of grueling questioning and intimidation.

Graham's family filed the lawsuit in Bronx Supreme Court on Friday, on the eve of the anniversary of his death. They accused the NYPD of improperly training officers, unfairly targeting minorities in stop-and-frisks and trying to cover up the shooting of the 18-year-old.

Officer Richard Haste shot Graham in the chest on Feb. 2, 2012, after following the teen into his apartment bathroom. Graham's grandmother, Patricia Hartley, who was several feet away from Graham at the time, immediately cried out, "Why did you shoot him, why you killed him?" the lawsuit says.

Haste then pushed Hartley into a vase and said, "Get the f--- away before I have to shoot you, too," according to the lawsuit.

Hartley, who was 58 and weighed 85 pounds at the time, was then allegedly forced into a seat and had her arm twisted behind her back after she tried to make a phone call.

Cops eventually took Hartley to the 47th Precinct station house, where investigators called her a "f---ing liar" and claimed she was covering for the dead teen, whom cops believed had thrown a gun out a window, the lawsuit says. No gun was ever recovered, and a small bag of marijuana was found in the toilet.

Officers also allegedly dipped their hands into her coffee, then flicked their fingers against a wall to show how blood splatters. They also showed her a picture of a shot man they claimed was Graham, according to the lawsuit.

Hartley was allegedly locked in a station house room for nearly seven hours, and cops ignored her and her daughter's request to leave, the suit says. Hartley's lawyer says he was also denied access to her for more than 90 minutes. When Hartley was eventually released, she was treated at a hospital for trauma.

Officer Richard Haste was indicted on manslaughter charges in June 2012, but no charges for the alleged NYPD cover-up of the Graham shooting that took place at the 47th precinct were filed, nor did the mayor or the commissioner offer any soothing words to the family about how awful it is for an 85 pound grandmother to be worked over by the NYPD after they had threatened to shoot when she got upset over their shooting of her grandson.

What's worse, the indictment of Officer Haste has since been thrown out of court because the DA's office screwed up:

NEW YORK (WABC) -- A Bronx judge threw out the indictment against an NYPD officer in the fatal shooting of a Bronx teenager. 

The judge said the assistant district attorney made an accidental mistake to grand jury, which voted to indict Officer Richard Haste on manslaughter charges in the death of Ramarley Graham.

Graham's mother was in the courtroom at the time, reacted very emotionally and had to be removed from court.

"I am angry and cannot express my feelings alone," Constance Malcolm said. "I am ready to take it to the streets and the highest of the highest. Please be prepared for a major protest."

The family quickly condemned the decision.

"If it means going back to the grand jury or if we have to ask the federal court to deal with this case, we are going to keep fighting, no matter what," dad Frank Graham said. "Whereever it leads us, we will go there. We will never stop until justice is served in this case, until Richard Haste goes to prison for murdering our son. If we start over, we will start stronger."

"Murdering cops must be held accountable," said Frank Graham, Ramarley's father, "Tell Richard Haste we are not going to rest until he goes to prison."

The Daily News ran a extraordinary cover this morning lamenting the shooting of Trayvon Martin and the not guilty verdict of the man who admitted to shooting Martin, George Zimmerman, connecting this travesty of justice to others like the murder of Emmet Till.

But somehow the Daily News editors who are so broken up by the Martin murder and the Zimmerman verdict can't bring themselves to get all broken up about the murder of Ramarley Graham or the treatment his grandmother received at the hands of the NYPD officers in the 47th precinct.

Let's revisit this case once more:

Police broke into Graham's family's apartment and shot him right in front of his grandmother and little brother while he tried to flush a small bag of marijuana down the toilet, then threatened to shoot the grandmother if she didn't go passive at the scene.  They then took her down to the 47th precinct where they worked her over for seven hours, trying to get her to change her story about what she had witnessed at the scene of the shooting, calling her a "fucking liar" and other indelicate things while they put the pressure on her.

What happened to Trayvon Martin is a travesty and should not and cannot be forgotten.

Make no mistake about that.

But we have our own Trayvon Martins right here in New York City and we have our own George Zimmermans too - though here they sometimes wear blue shirts and shiny badges and get away with executing teenagers in their home for the crime of trying to flush some dope down the toilet.

I look forward to the Daily News expanding upon their extraordinary cover from this morning by putting Ramarely Graham on the cover and connecting his murder at the hands of the NYPD with all the other black men murdered by the cops in this city over the years  - from Amadou Diallo to Sean Bell to Patrick Dorismond.

But as usual with this sort of thing, I won't be holding my breath because, as I noted this morning 

the Daily News wants you to believe they're on the Justice For Trayvon Martin bandwagon while they conveniently ignore all the Trayvon Martins murdered here in New York City by the NYPD because linking those murders with Trayvon's doesn't fit into their ideological worldview.

Ben Chapman Back On The Pervert Propaganda Beat

Ben "Where Are The Perv Teachers" Chapman has another ridiculous piece of propaganda in the Daily News today "reporting" the following:

A parents advocacy group will spend $100,000 to rip mayoral candidates William Thompson, Anthony Weiner, Bill de Blasio and John Liu as soft on perv teachers.

The Parents Transparency Project, headed by former CNN anchor Campbell Brown, will begin airing an ad Monday to paint the foursome as too afraid of the teachers union to protect city students from sexual predators.

Four other candidates — Christine Quinn, Sal Albanese, Joe Lhota and George McDonald — signed the group’s pledge to not sign a new contract with teachers until the process for removing teachers accused of inappropriate behavior is overhauled. The union, which endorsed Thompson, has opposed legislation to streamline the process.

Chapman fails to report that the "perv" teachers still working in the NYC school system have never had criminal charges or allegations substantiated against them, which is why they're still working in the NYC school system.

As NYC Educator wrote in his post on the Chapman "perv" piece:

The charges are simply untrue. Legal expert Brown contends that most teachers charged are still working. That's a fact because they were not convicted. I realize that legal expert Brown and the Daily News cannot distinguish between charges and actual guilt, but it's kind of irresponsible they mislead their readers like this. For example, not a single person relying on the Daily News for information will realize that legal expert Campbell Brown wants Walcott to fire teachers who were not convicted.

We have now gotten to a world where unsubstantiated allegations are enough to get you fired and declared guilty in the newspapers - if you're a teacher.   

This is amazing when you think about it, because we still pay lip service in this country to being a "nation of laws" where you are presumed innocent unless guilt of a crime is established and proven.

If guilt is not established and proven, they don't throw you in jail or get you fired from your job or declare you a "perv" when writing about you in the newspaper.

Yeah, that last part is actually part of the presumption of innocence idea, although it's being broken here by the Daily News and Ben Chapman.

To wit:

Guaranteeing the presumption of innocence extends beyond the judicial system. For instance, in many countries journalistic codes of ethics state that journalists should refrain from referring to suspects as though their guilt is certain. For example, they use "suspect" or "defendant" when referring to the suspect, and use "alleged" when referring to the criminal activity that the suspect is accused of.

And if allegations are not substantiated and guilt is not established, the journalistic code of ethics extends to not writing about these teachers as if the allegations were substantiated or guilt was established, when neither is the case.

I wouldn't expect Campbell Brown, the right wing corporatist media shill with the union-busting agenda who is married to neo-con/Students First board member Dan Senor, to explain the disconnect between her charge that the NYCDOE cannot fire "perv" teachers from the reality that these teachers are not guilty of any crime, but it would be nice if the "journalist" from the Daily News would.

But it seems that although Ben Chapman calls himself a "journalist," he's actually a paid propagandist for the powers that be looking to smear teachers as "perverts," turn the public against them and strip them of their constitutional rights.

If Chapman were writing as a journalist he'd report the facts as they are instead of the facts the way Campbell Brown and Chapman's Daily News Boss, Mort Zuckerman, want them reported.

But I guess it's asking too much for Ben Chapman to report facts and truth rather than the propaganda his wealthy oligarch boss wants him to spew.

Alas, such is the state of "journalism" in America these days.

Where Is Campbell Brown On This?

From The Daily News:

An NYPD veteran plied a teenager with porn and booze before a Fourth of July sexual encounter that ended when his wife found the two in bed, police sources said.

Peter Ciollo, 29, was off duty when he allegedly targeted the 16-year-old victim over the holiday weekend, the sources said.

Ciollo was partying with two 16-year-old girls before participating in “multiple sexual acts” with the victim, Staten Island prosecutor Victoria Levin said Thursday at the cop’s arraignment.

Levin, reading from the criminal complaint, said the accused officer blamed the victim for what started on the night of July 4 and finished around 2 a.m. the next day.

 “She came on to me,” Ciollo reportedly told authorities. “She told me she was 17.”

Ciollo was released after posting $1,500 bail following his arraignment on seven misdemeanor charges, including attempted rape and sexual abuse.

 His purportedly cheated-on wife turned out to support her husband, and his lawyer said that Ciollo was innocent.

“Peter denies the allegations, maintains his innocence and looks forward to his day in court to get rid of these charges,” said defense attorney Richard Barrett.

 The wife wept on another relative’s shoulder as she left the courtroom with Ciollo.

According to the sources, Ciollo gave the victim alcohol before letting her drive his car. The cop allegedly provided her with more to drink before they returned to his home.

Ciollo, at some point, used a computer to show the girl pornography before kissing her on the lips and urging her to take her shirt off, the sources said.

The pair wound up in bed, where the officer had the teen climb on top of him while he rubbed his genitals against hers, the sources said.

The woozy girl later said she remembers waking up in somebody else’s underwear before Ciollo’s wife found the two in bed, the sources said.

The Staten Island cop, who joined the force in 2006, was suspended without pay from the 120th Precinct.

NYPD cops (or former cops) have been accused of this kind of thing before.

Last summer, for example, the New York Post reported the following:

An NYPD traffic agent has been arrested on a rape charge, police said yesterday.

A female acquaintance who went on a date with Charles Taylor, 25, of The Bronx, Sunday night told a relative the parking-enforcement worker slipped a drug in her drink while they chatted at Junior’s cheesecake restaurant in Brooklyn, sources said.

The alleged victim said Taylor drove her around, and she wasn’t sure where she was when he took her into an apartment building and raped her, sources added.

The accuser and the alleged attacker had also exchanged texts for at least a week, sources said.

New York Magazine reported that the victim in the Taylor case was 17 years old.

And then there was this case, also from last summer:

Brooklyn cop Arthur Roldan was arrested last night and charged with rape, menacing, and assault for allegedly attacking a woman he used to date at gunpoint while off-duty in Staten Island. He's been suspended without pay, the Daily News reports. NYPD officer Michael Pena was convicted of sexual assault and pleaded guilty to rape in June for a similar crime.

Then there was the case of the former NYPD officer convicted of statutory rape of a 14 year old suffering trauma from the death of her mother.

While I appreciate the Daily News covering some of these crimes and alleged crimes in the pages of their fine newspaper, I wonder where Campbell Brown is with her week-long DN series about all these "pervert" cops having sex with underage girls or assaulting women they taken out for the evening.

These cases all were reported in 2012 and 2013, so it's not like you have to go too far back to find a track record of NYPD cops or former cops engaging in this behavior.

And yet, no week-long series from Brown smearing all cops and law enforcement officers as perverts and rapists.

Maybe she's just been very busy with her "pervert teacher" series and is working on the "pervert cop" series for the future?

Or maybe she just doesn't give a crap about the cops and is going after teachers because she has an agenda (smear teachers/break union protections/bust the union)?

Spitzer Must Be Doing Something Right

The corporate crooks who own this city and the neo-liberal functionaries in the press that shill for them are out for Eliot Spitzer this morning, with all three major daily newspapers attacking Spitzer with all their guns a blazin'.

The Daily News sends out Mike Lupica, Denis Hamill, Bill Hammond, and the editorial staff writer to shoot him down.

The Post puts out the hit on Spitzer with Andrea Peyser, Bob McManus, and the editorial staff writer as well.

Not to be outdone, the NY Times sends out Frank "I Loved 'Won't Back Down'" Bruni, Michael Powell, and the editorial staff writer to shiv Spitzer.

As I posted last night, UFT: A Union Of Retirees President Michael Mulgrew has threatened to personally take out campaign ads against Spitzer himself.

And Kathryn Wilde, head of the corporate criminal lobbying group New York City Partnership, attacked Spitzer in the Times.

Given how much of a reaction Spitzer's announcement to run for comptroller generated from the neo-liberal ruling class and their functionaries in the media, I'm starting to think Eliot Spitzer back with political power is just what we need in this city.

Anybody who upsets Kathryn Wilde, Michael Mulgrew, and the Post, Daily News and Times editorial staff/neo-liberal columnist brigade must be doing something right.

Given the chaotic roll-out of his campaign that makes Weiner's rollout look masterful, they probably have nothing to worry about.

It doesn't look like he's organized enough to get enough signatures to get on the ballot by Thursday's deadline.

But it will be interesting to see what happens if he does.

John Liu scares the neo-liberal ruling class and their functionaries in the media a little bit, which is why they destroyed him with the campaign finance fraud scandal.

But Liu doesn't come close to scaring the corporate criminals, political establishment and media functionaries the way Spitzer does.

Taking a look at the panic Spitzer's announced candidacy is generating in the corridors of power today, I'm starting to think my own initial negative reaction to Spitzer's announcement was a touch misguided.

Anybody who puts this kind of fear into the elite can't be all bad.