Imagine This Happened Under De Blasio Instead Of Bloomberg

I'm still on a rant over the Post coverage of the "skyrocketing crime" in NYC because it's politically motivated and jive.

As I pointed out earlier today, horrific crime took place during Mayor Mike's term in Bloombergville, but it never got connected to the larger narrative of "NYC Unraveling" that the Post and others connect these stories to now.

In going back and looking at the last months of the Bloomberg administration, when the Posties were already hawking a "The Bad Old Days Are Coming Back If De Blasio Is Elected" narrative, I found this post.

I reprint it now to point out how the Post easily could have run with a "NYC Unravels Under Absent Bloomberg" narrative if they had so chosen back in 2013 when these horrible crimes occurred and almost certainly would run as a "NYC Unravels Under De Blasio" narrative if they occurred today:

Why The "Historic Low" Crime Statistics Bloomberg Hawks Are Not Believeable

Howie Wolfson likes to tweet the lie that NYC is the safest it's been since the 1950's, with crime at "historic lows."

But tell that to the man who was chased 50 blocks by a motorcycle gang and then beaten on a Washington Heights street in broad daylight in front of his wife and two year old.

The man had called 911 from his cell phone as he was being chased by the motorcycle gang, but police never responded to the call until after the man was brutally beaten and the gang got away.

The chase went on for more than 50 blocks, then ended up in Washington Heights where the motorcycle gang pummeled the man.

There were no NYPD officers anywhere in that stretch that saw this chase?

There were no NYPD officers in the area who could respond to the 911 call from the man?

Where the hell were the cops?

Were they too busy down by Zuccotti Park frisking people to respond to Mad Max on the West Side Highway?

As I wrote last night, this is just an unbelievable story.

And yet, it happened in Bloomberg's New York.

Just the way a man was punched in the face and put into a brain dead coma at Union Square a couple of weeks ago:

A white man who was punched in the face in Union Square by a black man who was spewing anti-white sentiment died early Monday at Bellevue Hospital, a police source said.

Jeffrey Babbitt, 62, fell into a coma after he was randomly attacked Wednesday afternoon by a man who was yelling, “I’m going to punch the first white man I see!”

Lashawn Marten, 31, was arrested on charges of misdemeanor assault in the attack. The unprovoked punch knocked Babbitt backward, and he hit his head on the ground.

Babbitt lived in Brooklyn and was caregiver to his mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease, neighbors said.

After Marten assaulted Babbitt, he attacked two men who tried to help the stricken man, and then challenged two responding cops, officials said.

Just the way another man was pounded by a group of men in a bias crime in Sunset Park last week:

An attack in Brooklyn is being investigated as a hate crime, but the victim says he's not gay.

David Jimenez, 40, was on South Third Street and Bedford Avenue walking his dogs last Wednesday night.

He says he ignored a group of people screaming gay slurs at him, but he says the group attacked him anyway.

He suffered a broken nose and a fractured eye socket.

Police caught one suspect and charge him with assault and possession of a controlled substance, but the Brooklyn District Attorney's office says the defendant wasn't charged because of discrepancies regarding his identity.

"My head, it cannot comprehend how this is the case, where you literally catch someone with blood in their hands, because when he was taken in, his fist was full of blood, and he's out here walking while I'm in here locked in my house because I'm afraid of going outside," Jimenez said.
Jimenez is now resting at home.

He's expected to undergo surgery on Wednesday.

Wolfson and other Bloomberg shills like to point out the official crime statistics that show the lowest levels of violent crime since the 1940's and 1950's as proof positive why Mayor Bloomberg is a municipal genius.

But the statistics are phonied up - the crime data is manipulated.

We know that the NYPD downgrades crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, we know that they try and talk people out of filing crime reports, we know that they play funky with the stats.

That's proven.

We also know that so much of the data the Bloomberg administration touts as being "historic" is manipulated and phony - from the test scores and graduation rates to the emergency response times.

Given the preponderance of these violent stories in the media, it's difficult to believe the "historic lows" propaganda Wolfson and the other Bloomberg shills hawk on Twitter and elsewhere.

Especially when you have a man and his family chased for more than 50 blocks on the West Side Highway and beaten in broad daylight and not one cop is in sight to stop this or responds to the 911 call the man frantically put in.

And especially when we know the cops manipulate the stats because they've been caught doing it.

This is less about defending de Blasio than just pointing out the criminal negligence many in the media displayed in their coverage of Bloomberg as mayor and how they don't give de Blasio the same kid glove treatment.

I guess that's how it goes when one mayor is a media mogul who can hire 30 journalists in one fell swoop and the other, well, isn't.

But when it comes to the NY Post, this is just a daily, concerted effort to frame a narrative meant to destroy de Blasio and usher in a mayor more friendly to Rupert Murdoch's political views.

And you can bet once they get their mayor more friendly to Murdoch's views, they'll drop the "City Unraveling" narrative no matter how many people get punched to death in Union Square or chased and beaten by a 50+ member motorcycle gang of thugs and undercover cops.

The NY Post's Relentless Campaign To Take Out De Blasio

The criminals/hackers who work at the NY Post scour the city daily for "quality of life" stories that can be used to politically drub Bill de Blasio as a weak, liberal mayor who has brought back the "Bad Old Days."

There are real stories that should be covered, of course, and are concerning - like the one about the 13 people shot at the house party last night.

But then there are the stories that they highlight because de Blasio is mayor and they want to make him look bad in order to weaken him and make it more likely he is seriously challenged for re-election.

Take this one about a mugging in Central Park:

A violent beggar choked a West Side man into unconsciousness in Central Park’s Ramble in a hellish mugging that underscores the famed park’s skyrocketing robbery stats.

“If you scream I’ll kill you,” were the last words the 53-year-old victim heard Thursday night as the fiend’s arm tightened around his throat and he collapsed to the ground, cops said.

Upon regaining consciousness about half an hour later, the victim, of West 57th Street, found that his wallet was gone.

His backpack, which held glasses, keys, gift cards, jewelry and cash, was also gone, cops said.

News of the brutal mugging had park-goers on edge Saturday.

“He could have died — that’s awful,” said Martin Ovalle, 38, who runs in the park at night and takes his wife and two young daughters to the Ramble on weekends.

“We are seeing a lot more now than in the past,” Ovalle agreed.

Indeed we are!

The "crime wave" in Central Park has seen crime increase from 10 incidents last year through July to 20 this year - a 50% increase!

From 10 to 20.

Notice too the hyperbole in the writing, "a violent beggar" - a "fiend" - "choked a man into unconsciousness" in a "hellish mugging" that underscores the park's "skyrocketing robbery stats."

From 10 to 20.

How many millions of people visited the park in the first seven months of the year?

There were 20 incidents, a uptick from last year's 10.

AM NY reports the following about a quality of life story in de Blasio's New York that appears to be politically motivated:

"Bathtub of a Bum"

That's how CBS2 political reporter Marcia Kramer described Columbus Circle yesterday, after publishing exclusive pictures of a shirtless and possibly homeless man lathering up in the fountain. She also published video of the same man lounging at the entrance to Central Park, bare-chested, scratching his head and perhaps wondering how the squeegee business would be in the neighborhood.

"At least he's bathing," said one Twitter user, but the quality-of-life offense was no laughing matter to Kramer, who brought the issue to Mayor de Blasio's attention at a press conference.

De Blasio tersely said that the city was paying attention to quality-of-life offenses, and NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton noted the expansion of a pilot program training up to 10,000 officers to deal with the homeless and the emotionally disturbed. The Mayor's wife, Chirlane McCray, is also heading up a mental health initiative with an emphasis on the city's most needy citizens-roadmap to come during the fall (originally, it was planned to be unveiled this summer).

De Blasio's blues.

The rub-a-dub-dub scandal is no laughing matter for de Blasio.

A small uptick in violent crime in the recent months and a campaign by one of the city's newspapers to chronicle some incidents of . . . shall we say public exposure, paired with a City Council plan to rethink the enforcement of some quality-of life offenses has created the impression of a city backsliding through liberal boneheadedness into the tough-city days gone by.

De Blasio knows that botched snowstorms and lack of public safety are a good way to become a one-term mayor.

The back story (there always is one in Gotham)

The pictures of the still unidentified man cleaning himself under Columbus' watchful gaze, it's important to note, were not taken by some random concerned citizen, but a media relations professional named Ken Frydman, who served as Rudy Giuliani's spokesman and director of media relations during Giuliani's first successful campaign for mayor.

Frydman is recycling some arguments from his old boss's heyday about a dangerous city where squeegee men run wild.

Perhaps the bather, if he really is homeless, can use help or shelter.  A concerned citizen can always call 311 to get help for a homeless person. The man probably doesn't mean to be the symbol of a pandemic.

Also, it's feels like a gazillion degrees out. Maybe he just needed to cool down.

Yeah, the video made it's way to Kramer from Giuliani's PR guy, then Kramer dutifully ran with it so that it becomes the emblem of the "NYC Unraveling" narrative.

Don't kid yourself, there's a concerted effort going on to undermine de Blasio and bring back the narrative of the "Bad Old Days," as if these kinds of incidents didn't happen under Bloomberg.

Hell, anybody remember that Sunday morning a few years ago when a motorcycle gang (including an undercover cop) terrorized a couple on the West Side Highway?

Let me refresh your memories:




The full video taken by one of the motorcycle thugs is here, but it's been disabled for embedding.

Let us imagine this incident happened during de Blasio's term - how would the Post cover it?

As another "De Blasio Returns Us To Bad Old Days" story - a gang of 50+ motorcycle thugs takes over the West Side Highway, surrounds a man and his family in a threatening way, then chases him for a couple of miles before pulling him out of his SUV and savagely beating him on the street in front of his wife and child.

The family called for help "four times" to 911 but no police arrived to help - although one undercover cop with the motorcycle gang did take part in the beat down.

How awful!

Except this story happened during Bloomberg's term as mayor, so the criminals and hacks at the Post never connected it to a larger narrative of the "City Unraveling!" that they connect every crime and quality of life story to now.

Is the increase in shootings in the city a cause for concern?

Sure and de Blasio had better be concerned and dealing with the issue or he's going to be a one term mayor.

But other crime stats remain down, despite the Post's best efforts to turn the city back into the Dinkins Years when a couple of thousand people were murdered.

And it's not like high profile crime didn't occur during Bloomberg's term - the incidents just didn't get connected to a larger narrative meant to destroy him politically as they do now under de Blasio.

As for the quality of life issues like people defecating on the street, the truth is, the city was gross during the Bloomberg Years and it remains so now during the de Blasio Years.

Or did I miss something and you could eat off the pedestrian plazas Mayor Mike stuck everywhere in Manhattan?

Cuomo's Raised SUNY Tuition 25%+ Over Five Years - But More Increases Are Coming

I'd say this is unbelievable, but it's not:

SUNY WANTS MORE TUITION INCREASES—Capital’s Jessica Bakeman: “SUNY chancellor Nancy Zimpher wants to continue incremental tuition increases after the current plan sunsets in 2016, she told lawmakers during a legislative budget hearing on Tuesday.

Zimpher also asked lawmakers to allocate $50 million a year for the next five years to an investment fund that would support expanding the system’s online education offerings, strengthening the effectiveness of remediation programs and boosting degree completion.” http://bit.ly/17bE4dC

Cuomo says he's concerned about student loan debt and he's issued a plan that would allegedly help NY students pay for some of it for a couple of years.

You know what would be a better plan?

Stop raising SUNY tuition.

Provide more state money for SUNY instead of increasing tuition and fees on students and their families.

The hypocrisy of Andrew Cuomo knows no bounds.

He imposed a plan that raised tuition by more than 25% over five years.

And now if the hack running SUNY gets her way, they'll be even more tuition increases.

More Hackery From Merryl Tisch

Tisch urges rethinking of network system, says it's sustainable but rethink way to include students w special needs and Eng lang learners
— Beth Fertig (@bethfertig) November 21, 2013

Last week, here's what she said:

The next mayor should “reconsider” the current system of school-support networks, State Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch said Monday, adding her voice to a chorus of critics – including mayoral frontrunner Bill de Blasio – who have questioned the signature Bloomberg education policy.

“Me, if I were going to take over the school system, I would look heavily to change the networks,” Tisch said during a panel discussion hosted by the nonprofit group, PENCIL.

“I think the networks have basically failed children who are [English-language learners],” added Tisch, who is due to defend the state’s education policies at a state senate hearing Tuesday. “They have failed children who have special needs.”

Yeah, both times she notes how the problem with the networks is especially centered on children with special needs, but somehow she went from "next mayor should reconsider networks" to "networks are sustainable with changes for special needs students..."

As Leonie notes, somebody from Bloomberg's crowd got to her and now she's backtracking what she said.

Just another example of what a hack Tisch is.

Why Is Michael Mulgrew Leading The Attacks Against Eliot Spitzer?

UFT President Michael Mulgrew seems to have a personal vendetta against former governor Eliot Spitzer.

When Spitzer announced his candidacy for New York City comptroller late Sunday night, Mulgrew immediately sprung into action to try and destroy Spitzer's fledgling campaign.

First, Mulgrew told the NY Times that he had put "all options" on the table to deal with Spitzer and he was considering using the UFT's campaign funds to run TV ads against him.

Today the NY Post reports that Spitzer, desperate to get the necessary signatures to get on the ballot by Thursday, reached out to one of the few firms that does petitioning work and got a preliminary agreement from them to join his campaign, but Mulgrew pulled strings with the firm (Red Horse Strategies) and got them to leave Spitzer in the lurch.

Now I know that Spitzer's candidacy has upset many power brokers and their functionaries here in NYC, from Kathryn Wilde, head of the corporate criminal lobbying group New York City Partnership, to the editorial staffs and neo-liberal columnist contingents at the Times, Daily News, and Post, but Mulgrew seems particularly incensed at Spitzer's candidacy.

Sure, Mulgrew and his merry men and women in the Unity/New Action leadership will say this is about making sure they get their guy, Scott Stringer, elected comptroller, but the truth is, what's so special about Stringer?

Frankly, he's a pedestrian political hack who only joined the comptroller's race after it became apparent he couldn't get elected mayor and he dropped out of that race.

As Jonathan Tasini noted in a blogpost:

Stringer, on the other hand, is an unqualified hack. He runs for this position simply because he’s out of job and can’t fathom the idea of having to look for a job outside of politics. He views the comptroller position as a nice place to sit for four or eight years until he can try, god help the city, to run for mayor.

To say he’s a narcissist isn’t really a mark against him in politics. But, worse, he’s a narcissist with a dull mind, which is even worse because people of that ilk think the world revolves around them but they can’t at least return some value for that self-centeredness. One wishes the transcribers of press releases would challenge his supporters to name a single instance — just one — of one original idea he has had, an idea that actually went from start to finish, which took on and took down an established power. It has never happened. (In fact, as an aside, go ask the residents around Columbia University about how he went back on his word on the development around Columbia and screwed the long-time residents, opting to pimp for one of the most powerful real estate interests in the city).

Given Stringer's overall hackery, I think the working people of this city could live without a Scott Stringer comptrollership.

So why the life/death battle coming out of 52 Broadway to get Stringer elected and end Spitzer's candidacy before it even gets started?

Sure, Spitzer tried to take on the unions when he was governor, but no more than Andrew Cuomo has and quite honestly, Cuomo has been much more damaging to labor, teachers and schools then Spitzer ever was, but Mulgrew is happy to continue to back Cuomo unequivocally.

Hell, the UFT leadership weren't even this incensed at Michael Bloomberg's third term in 2009 as they seem to be at Spitzer's candidacy.

They certainly did little-to-nothing to stop Bloomberg's third term while Mulgrew is now saying "all options" are on the table to stop Spitzer.

The UFTsters may argue this is about the politics, that Stringer is a reliable ally while Spitzer is an adversary, but Cuomo and Bloomberg have been much more adversarial than Spitzer and I don't see the same kind of "all options" urgency coming out of 52 Broadway to put a stake through their political careers.

So what gives?

Why Is Michael Mulgrew so scared of Eliot Spitzer?

NYCDOE Official Andrew Kirtzman: Teachers Are "Special Interests"

Former NY 1 reporter Andrew Kirtzman, now a "senior advisor to the chancellor" at the NYCDOE, had this response to Randi Weingarten's call for a moratorium on the high stakes tied to the new Common Core tests:

While King and Tisch took pains not to criticize Weingarten, Andrew Kirtzman, senior advisor to the chancellor, came out swinging.

“This is about a special interest that doesn’t want this to happen because of fear for their jobs,” he said, noting that this is a mayoral election year. “This is about the union protecting itself. The UFT cannot wait to get control of the city schools again in the next administration and New Yorkers should be very, very worried about it.”

Although the Department of Education only chose a new curriculum for teachers two months ago, Kirtzman said city teachers have been using Common Core materials all year and that the D.O.E. is not “oblivious” to the stress that they and their pupils experience. But, he said, “we are holding kids to a higher standard so that they can do better in college and their careers. This isn’t a game. This isn’t about politics. This is about improving the future of the children of the public schools.”

Andrew, teachers know "this isn't a game."

We're the people who spend seven hours a day with these children, every day, for 186 days a year, watching the effects the battery of high stakes testing, formative and summative assessments and the rest of the education reforms are having on them.

We're the ones who see the consequences of an education system that forces 20% budget cuts on individual schools even as it ratchets up the testing mandates so that principals have been forced to cut all kinds of programs and services that these children need - especially in the areas of social and emotional learning and support.

We're the ones who see how guidance counselors no longer have time to counsel because they're so busy trying to keep track of the latest testing data for the hundreds of students in their case loads and we're the ones who try and pick up the slack despite the increase in our own mandated duties.

We're the ones who see the increase in self-harm, eating disorders, depression, suicidal feelings and other problems students are experiencing as they try and deal with all the stresses in their lives - from their home lives to the streets to their schools.

Clearly the DOE is oblivious to the "stresses" students are experiencing these days or they wouldn't be cutting the budgets for the programs and services that would help children with these problems.

We're with these children every day and we know what they need - and it surely isn't a battery of high stakes tests on a curriculum they haven't yet been taught that will be used to make decisions on their grade promotion, their teachers' evaluations and their schools' very existence.

As for your "special interests jibe", if you want to see what a "special interest" looks like, take a look at all the washed up reporters and journalists brought onto the Bloomberg payroll these days to churn out the pro-Bloomberg propaganda at Bloomberg Views, Bloomberg Businessweek, Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg's philanthropic endeavors.

There are some special interests for you.

Reading The Tea Leaves On Mulgrew's Evaluation Update

UFT President Mulgrew sent out an update last night on the evaluation negotiations:

Dear colleagues,

Monday marks the third straight day and night of intensive talks with the Department of Education over a new teacher development and evaluation plan. Although our negotiating team has been able to make progress on some matters, there are still many key issues that remain unsolved.

We will continue to negotiate around the clock in an effort to break the stalemate and reach an agreement that gives you the support and time you need to give students a great education. As of now, the DOE will not commit to such a plan and is once again putting politics above children. However, we will persevere.

We continue to plan for two possible scenarios. If we are not able to reach an agreement, we will have to quickly engage with parents and the community. We will need to make sure New Yorkers understand that it was the mayor and his disrespect for teachers and the work that you do that undermined negotiations.

However, if we are able to reach an agreement and the Delegate Assembly approves it, our priority will be getting clear information out to all of you so that we can combat the fear and misinformation that are bound to come with a new teacher development and evaluation system.

We will keep you updated.

Meanwhile, I personally want to thank the thousands of members who participated in Monday's leafleting to parents and commuters across the city as we continue to put pressure on the mayor to do the right thing. School-based efforts like these are critical to the work that we do.

Sincerely,

Michael Mulgrew

James Eterno at ICEUFT blog writes that he holds out hope that "the UFT leadership will reject a bad evaluation system which I believe is the only kind the city would ever agree to."

I'm not as hopeful of that as James is.

Still, it is interesting that we are now less than 72 hours away from the Cuomo deadline (midnight January 17) and still no deal has been reached.

Norm Scott said somewhere (can't remember where now) that Mulgrew and the leadership are just taking this down to the wire to make it look like they fought for the membership before conceding to everything Bloomberg wants.

I suspect that is the game Mulgrew is playing here too.

This is a UFT election year, after all, so Mulgrew has to make it look like he is fighting for the interests of his members, even when he really has done much to harm the interests of his members by first, not fighting the original Race to the Top legislation and APPR law, and then by agreeing to drop the lawsuit against the NYSED and the Regents for changing the test component part of the APPR system from 20% to 40%.

In addition, Mulgrew and the UFT, along with his mentor Randi Weingarten and the AFT, continue to play both sides of the debate on the use of high stakes standardized tests to evaluate teachers.  

On the one hand, they'll say there's too much testing in the system and the tests shouldn't be used to bludgeon teachers, but then they agree to use test scores as part of the Teacher Data Reports that the NYCDOE used against teachers in 2007-2010.  Those TDR's had a median margin of error of 52% and a maximum margin of error of 87% and STILL the UFT agreed to their use.

Or they invite the King of the Testing Data Systems, Bill Gates, to speak to the AFT convention and have their Unity and Weingarten hacks boo anybody who criticizes the choice of Gates as keynote speaker.

Or they send Leo Casey out to attack anybody who points out the flaws in the APPR system that they agreed to last February - as happened when Casey "set the record straight" and attacked Diane Ravitch and Carol Burris for their criticism of the APPR system.

Or they have Unity hack Peter Goodman call anybody who opposes value-added measurements of teachers a Tea Partier.

Or they threaten to "combat the fear and misinformation" that will come when an evaluation agreement is reached, which is a way of saying they will hammer anybody who points out problems with the agreement, which is absurd considering Mulgrew just said one paragraph above that the DOE is fighting them tooth and nail and refusing to agree to a reasonable evaluation system.  Why wouldn't members be suspect of any evaluation agreement reached when the negotiations have been so fraught with suspicion and acrimony?

So the track record of the UFT and Mulgrew himself, along with the AFT and Weingarten herself, is mixed at best when it comes to protecting their members from the ravages of education reform or standing up for a vision of education that does not embrace voodoo science in the form of the error-riddled value added measurement algorithm.

They're playing a two-fold strategy here, talking a good game about fighting the use of high stakes testing (as Weingarten did at the last AFT convention, the one Gates wasn't invited to) while pushing a contract in Newark that promoted the use of high stakes tests and value-added measurements of teachers based on those tests.

When it comes to the AFT and the UFT, you've got to watch what they do, not what they say.

What I've seen from the UFT in the last year is a cave-in to the governor on the APPR test component, a dropping of the lawsuit against the NYSED and the Regents (a suit they actually won, btw), Mulgrew standing on stage with Cuomo, Tisch and King to celebrate the APPR system last February, Leo Casey attacking Diane Ravitch and Carol Burris when they pointed out the flaws in the APPR system, and the UFT failing to take to the airwaves and explain in a coherent, informed manner just why APPR is a damaging evaluation system for BOTH teachers AND students.

Not exactly the actions of a union leadership looking to really put a stake through the heart of the VAM voodoo system, is it?

So the cynic in me (and how can anybody help but be cynical when dealing with Mulgrew, Weingarten and their functionaries) says this is all a kabuki dance and we will have an agreement before midnight January 17, Mulgrew and his Unity hacks will tell us the agreement is the best they could come up with given the circumstances, and they will send out Peter Goodman and the rest of their Unity attack messengers to hammer anybody who dares to criticize the agreement or point out the flaws in it.

As always, hope to be wrong about this.

But I have said time and time again, you will never go broke betting that the UFT leadership will sell out the rank and file membership for political expediency or their own agenda.

And I suspect that is what is happening here.

That paragraph about the union getting ready to fight any "fear or misinformation" that will spread after they reach an agreement on the evaluation system with the DOE ought to tell you exactly where they're going with this.