A Tale Of Two Papers

DailyNews Editorial:

The grand jury’s vote to exonerate the police officer whose chokehold killed Eric Garner on Staten Island has glaring earmarks of a gross miscarriage of justice.

The ruling is painfully far harder to understand than the Missouri grand jury’s decision not to indict for the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson.

To a large degree, the evidence against Officer Daniel Pantaleo was widely scrutinized by the public in the form of a on-scene video posted to the Internet by the Daily News. The image of Pantaleo wrestling Garner to the ground with his arm around Garner’s neck was horrifying.

Even granting that a cop has wide latitude in using force to make an arrest, Pantaleo’s sudden aggressiveness was unnecessary. The fact that it entailed a chokehold only reinforced the excessive quality of his actions.

After the medical examiner found that a chokehold and chest compression led to Garner’s death, the connection between cause and effect seemed enough to many people not only to indict but to convict Pantaleo.

Deep, intense skepticism about the grand jury’s ruling is fully warranted — while recognizing that no one other than the panel and Staten Island prosecutors have reviewed all the evidence and matched the facts against the law.

Bob McManus column:

BLAME ONLY THE MAN WHO TRAGICALLY DECIDED TO RESIST

Eric Garner and Michael Brown had much in common, not the least of which was this: On the last day of their lives, they made bad decisions. Especially bad decisions.

Each broke the law — petty offenses, to be sure, but sufficient to attract the attention of the police.
And then — tragically, stupidly, fatally, inexplicably — each fought the law.

The law won, of course, as it almost always does.

This was underscored yet again Wednesday when a Staten Island grand jury chose not to indict any of the arresting officers in the death in police custody of Garner last July.

Just as a grand jury last week declined to indict the police officer who shot a violently resisting Michael Brown to death in Ferguson, Mo., in August.

Demagoguery rises to an art form in such cases — because, again, the police generally win. (Though not always, as a moment’s reflection before the Police Memorial in lower Manhattan will underscore.) And because those who advocate for cop-fighters are so often such accomplished beguilers.

They cast these tragedies as, if not outright murder, then invincible evidence of an enduringly racist society.

No such thing, as a matter of fact. Virtually always, these cases represent sad, low-impact collisions of cops and criminals — routine in every respect except for an outlier conclusion.

The Garner case is textbook.

Weingarten For Chancellor Is A B.S. Story

Gossip columnist at the the Murdoch Post:

Bill de Blasio is considering hiring teachers’ union boss Randi Weingarten as the next NYC schools chancellor, sources tell me.

Weingarten — who was head of the United Federation of Teachers in New York before becoming chief of the national American Federation of Teachers — is against charter schools, teacher evaluations and most of the other reforms Mayor Bloomberg enacted.

“She wants the job, and de Blasio’s people have been making calls, asking about Weingarten and testing the reaction,” said one well-placed source in the public education sector.

“The idea of putting a union chief in charge of a school system is mind-boggling,” said a political consultant. “It strains credulity that de Blasio would go that far.”

It's a b.s. story, of course, goes without saying.

It's just a Postie printing some crap he pulled straight out of his backside.

That said, one of the last people on earth I'd want running the school system is reform-friendly Randi Weingarten.

The truth is, Weingarten wouldn't want it either.

She'd have to give up the perks she gets at the AFT and submit to public scrutiny for her actions, business connections, etc.

No way she's doing that.

Times, Post, and DN Newspaper Endorsements - NYers Didn't Care About Them

Blake Zeff:

Politicians thought voters cared what the top papers thought. That may not be the case any longer.

In New York, the city’s three largest papers – which each happen to also be among the nation’s top ten in circulation – suffered huge collective whiffs in recent weeks. For the office of mayor, the entire trifecta of the New York Times, Daily News, and Post, all endorsed Christine Quinn in the Democratic primary over Bill de Blasio. This was notable because the papers rarely agree on much (though all supported Michael Bloomberg). And the editorial consensus was viewed as a significant, possible turning point in the campaign for Quinn.

In reality, of course, the papers’ candidate was trounced, failing to make it into a runoff and trailing the winning primary candidate, Bill de Blasio, by nearly 25 points. One could argue that the margin might have been larger without their endorsements, which is hard to disprove. But polls at the time the papers weighed in showed Quinn with a fighter’s chance at squeezing into the primary. It just didn’t happen.

Fortunately for the editorial boards, there would be a second chance just weeks later. The primary for Public Advocate, the second-ranking office in the city, resulted in a runoff, leaving two candidates: Daniel Squadron and Letitia James.

As they did in the mayoral primary, all three papers of seemingly disparate ideological bents – The Times is generally seen as liberal, the Post conservative, and the News somewhere in between – went for Squadron. And last night when the runoff results came in, their chosen candidate…  was defeated by twenty points.

The next time the newspapers look to mock the UFT for their poor endorsement record - well, the newspapers aren't doing so hot lately either.

Few people want to listen to the Voice of God on the editorial page anymore.

Thank God.

Mad Max In Bloomberg's New York City

Thirty bikers surrounded a man in Upper Manhattan yesterday after a fender bender on the Upper West Side, caused when one of the bikers stopped short in front of the man's SUV, and pummeled him in broad daylight in front of his wife and 2-year-old.

The Daily News reported:

Newspapers Endorsements - Kiss Of Death For Quinn?

As Mario Diaz noted on WPIX, Christine Quinn dropped to third place after all three of the daily NYC newspapers endorsed her.

There are many unknowns about today's primary.

Will de Blasio hit 40% and avoid a runoff?

If Thompson hits his "magic mark" of 25%, does that keep de Blasio from hitting 40%?

Can Stringer's GOTV operation beat Spitzer's money?

Which two candidates in the public advocate's race will make the runoff?

One thing that is no longer unknown is what will happen to Christine Quinn.

Unless all the public polls are completely wrong in their polling, she will lose today's primary and not make a runoff.

Bloomberg famously said the UFT's endorsement of a candidate was the "kiss of death" to that candidate.

He cited the previous endorsements the UFT has made of candidates who lost the race for City Hall.

Bloomberg was expected to endorse Quinn this year but as the primary race went on and it became more and more apparent that a Bloomberg endorsement of Quinn would be the "kiss of death" to her, Bloomberg never did endorse her.

But all three newspapers did.

Those endorsements didn't seem to help her.

In fact, they seemed to have hurt her.

If Thompson doesn't make a runoff against de Blasio, the UFT is going to take a hit for their endorsement strategy.

They will be mocked in the press for again planting the "kiss of death" on a candidate's head by endorsing him/her.

But the truth is, Thompson is only in this game at this stage of the election because of the UFT.

The UFT's cash, the UFT's phone banks, the UFT's ads - you can make a pretty good argument that without those, Thompson would have much less of a shot to make a runoff against de Blasio.

While I am a big fan of mocking the UFT leadership, in the case of the Thompson campaign, I think their endorsement and political work on his behalf have helped him more than hurt him.

The three newspapers, in their endorsements of Quinn, all mentioned that they couldn't endorse Thompson because he had been endorsed by the UFT or was too close to the teachers unions.

So all three endorsed Quinn.

And she dropped to third in the race.

If and when the media come around to knock the UFT for the Thompson endorsement, parroting Bloomberg's "a UFT endorsement is the kiss of death," remember what happened after the three major dailies endorsed Quinn.

She will lose this race for many, many reasons.

But those newspaper endorsements certainly didn't seem to help her, did they?

To the many voters in the Democratic primary looking for a change from Bloomberg, they seemed to say ESTABLISHMENT CANDIDATE - BLOOMBERG MACH IV: DO NOT VOTE!!!!

The Corporatists Go On The Attack Against De Blasio

The Quinnipiac poll showing de Blasio not only in the lead in the Democratic Primary but closing in on the 40% needed to avoid a runoff has the corporatists in this city terrified.

As Politicker noted, they went on the attack this morning.

The NY Post in particular was in hysterics:

Surprise! Bill de Blasio is far ahead in the Democratic race for mayor. The latest Quinnipiac poll’s numbers put him at 36 percent. That’s almost double his chief rivals and inching up on the 40 percent that would give him an outright primary victory without a runoff.

Then again, maybe it’s not so surprising. Alone of the candidates of either major party, de Blasio has offered voters a vision. How tragic that it’s of two New Yorks — one prospering, one struggling — and that his answer is to pit them against one another.

Contrast this approach with that of his two leading rivals, City Council Speaker Chris Quinn and former Comptroller Bill Thompson. Each is running on a standard New York Democratic mix of select union endorsements and a grab-bag of feel-good proposals, with a dash of identity politics thrown in for good liberal measure.

On almost all these things, de Blasio trumps everyone else. Husband to an African-American woman and father of a son whose Afro has become a social-media phenomenon, he’s got his own identity cards. And when it comes to the agenda, he doesn’t stint: His policy proposals sound as if they were ripped from 1974 Detroit, with “solutions” that will only make life worse for all — especially those they purport to help.

Our vision is the opposite of de Blasio’s: We dream of a New York whose defining trait is opportunity for all, where those on the public payroll know they’re beholden to taxpayers, and where vital institutions (notably schools) are accountable to the citizens who fund them, not the special interests that run them.

Quinn and Thompson no doubt will spend much of the next 12 days before the primary pointing out that a cash-strapped Albany won’t go for de Blasio’s pie-in-the-sky proposals. If we read the poll numbers correctly, however, many Democrats prefer a leader with vision — no matter how ruinous — to a manager without one.

The class warriors at the Murdoch-owned Post, the ones who backed class warrior Mike Bloomberg on every one of his classist proposals and policies to ensure the 1% of this city gobbled up more and more of the wealth, are worried de Blasio is a class warrior on the side of the rest of us rather than just the plutocrats.

And notice how worried they are about education policy - "where vital institutions (notably schools) are accountable to the citizens who fund them."

By saying they're concerned that schools stay "accountable to the citizens who fund them," the Posties mean they want to make sure only the plutocrats have their say on how things get run, because certainly the citizens of New York had NO say in how Bloomberg ran his education system, not with the Panel for Educational Policy board rigged in his favor.

Again and again, you can see the terror these plutocrats and their p.r. functionaries in journalism are feeling at the thought that somebody might become mayor who isn't as malleable to them as Quinn or Thompson.

They destroyed John Liu long ago because they couldn't control him and they didn't like him.

I remember the day after the election in 2009 - Bloomberg invited the new public advocate and the new comptroller to break bread with him publicly.

De Blasio met with Bloomberg in a diner (they sat in a window table for effect) while Liu told Bloomberg he was busy.

After that day, Bloomberg and his attack dogs in the corporate news went after Liu while leaving de Blasio alone.

The message seemed to be, de Blasio will work with us, Liu won't.

I still think de Blasio will be more malleable to the plutocrats than Liu would have been.

Yet they sure seemed scared at the possibility he could be elected mayor.

They're trotting out the Detroit/1970's card to scare people into voting for one of their corporate sell-outs - Quinn or Thompson.

If you've been sitting on the fence wondering who you're going to vote for on Primary Day, watching the people, groups and corporate entities that have come out to attack de Blasio and/or back Quinn or Thompson ought to settle you on the matter.

As I wrote earlier in the week, you can judge a man by the measure of the enemies he makes.

In this election cycle, De Blasio has made all the right enemies.

Walcott, Threatened By Criticism, Launches Propaganda Offensive

Dennis Walcott and Michael Bloomberg are planning to launch a counteroffensive against all the criticism they have been taking over their running of the school system:

The Democratic candidates for mayor have promised, in varying degrees, to revamp the city’s school system by undoing some of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s signature policies. 

The attacks have put City Hall on the defensive, leaving aides worried about the future of one of the most ambitious efforts in the nation to overhaul education. 

Fearing a sea change, the city’s Education Department has worked over the past few months to lock in critical components of Mr. Bloomberg’s agenda. Education officials have reserved space for charter schools more than a year in advance, called for a permanent system for evaluating teachers and sought new contracts for school bus routes, saving money in part by eliminating union job guarantees. 

And now, after months of campaign-trail criticism, culminating in calls last week for a “truth commission” to investigate Mr. Bloomberg’s management of schools, the administration is taking its battle to the public. 

Dennis M. Walcott, the schools chancellor, is planning a campaign to remind voters of what he sees as the administration’s chief accomplishments, including rises in graduation rates and test scores. He will call on the candidates to put forth a compelling vision for city schools. 

Mr. Walcott will begin his effort on Saturday, in a speech before nearly 2,000 school administrators. He will warn that the school system could fall into disarray if the policies endorsed by the Democratic candidates are put into effect. 

“What these promises have in common is that they would hurt children in the service of political interests,” Mr. Walcott will say, according to a copy of his prepared remarks. “I find that disgraceful.” 

...

 

In an interview on Friday, Mr. Walcott recounted spending Mother’s Day sending incredulous messages to his aides after reading comments made by Democratic candidates at a forum sponsored by the teachers’ union. Several cast doubt on Mr. Bloomberg’s claims of narrowing the racial achievement gap in city schools. “We’re going to create our own truth commission,” Mr. Walcott recalled telling his staff. 

In his speech, Mr. Walcott will warn of a return to the days of the old Board of Education, which he portrays as a time of rampant dysfunction and favoritism in the school system. City Hall views the proposals to return some power to neighborhood boards as a Trojan horse to give critics of reform efforts more say over key hires, since union-backed candidates tended to dominate school board elections. “To dismantle the reforms of the last decade would be a disaster for our children and this city,” he is expected to say. “We cannot turn back the clock on our students.” 

You can see how threatened they are not only by the changes that the candidates are proposing for the system but also the attacks on their "legacy" running the schools.
The charge that the test scores and graduation rates are phonied up seems to bother them the most.

If Walcott wants a Truth Commission of his own on the Bloomberg education legacy, let's have it.

But Bloomberg doesn't get to have that Truth Commission rigged the way he has rigged the Panel for Educational Policy board, with members who must see things the way he sees them or he removes them immediately.

Bloomberg doesn't get to have the Truth Commission filled with the journalists he has been hiring by the droves to shill for him at Bloomberg News, Bloomberg Views, and Bloomberg Philanthropy - propaganda-meisters like Jonathan Alter and Andrew Kirtzman.

Nope - this Truth Commission has to be filled with parents and teachers and students who have lived through 12 years of his autocratic rule and mismanagement of the school system, who have had to deal with his pitting the Have's against the Have Not's by stealing resources from traditional public schools in order to hand them to his charter pals like Eva Moskowitz, who have endured his data-driven system where the only thing that matters is the test score.

Poll after poll shows New Yorkers want a change in how the school system is run and want autocratic mayoral control to end (see here and here for the two most recent examples.)

That is a fact that is clear from the polling data.

It is not some union-contrived propaganda to swing over the candidates to the union's view on policies.

The candidates are simply reacting to what voters want, what parents and students want.

Walcott can launch his propaganda offensive all he wants.

He cannot win because the facts are not with him and the closer the Bloomberg administration gets to sunsetting, the less control they have over the narrative.

It is true that Bloomberg still has the editorial boards to shill for him, especially at the Zuckerman-owned Daily News and the Murdoch-owned Post.

"Independent" news sites beholden to corporate grants and philanthropic gifts like Gotham Schools also carry his water for him.

But the public is no longer fooled by the propaganda - not the kind that emanates from the shills at the Daily News, the Post or Gotham Schools, not the kind that comes directly from Bloomberg and Walcott in the form of speeches, press conferences and press releases.

So I say, let's have that Truth Commission that Walcott is calling for, that Mulgrew has called for.

Let's look at the test scores, the gap between white and Asian students and black and Latino students, the graduation rates, the credit recovery statistics.

Let's look at how Bloomberg and Walcott set up the schools they want to close to fail years before the actual closures by stealing resources and using these schools as dumping grounds for students from other closed schools who need the most support.

Let's look at the outside consultant contracts, all the money they have spent on technology that doesn't work or that people don't use because it doesn't work well (ARIS comes to mind.)

Let's have your Truth Commission, Mr. Chancellor and Mr. Mayor.

But you don't get to pick the members and you don't get to have only your journalists spin the findings.

The Ed Deform Movement Post-Bloomberg

The Post sends out the alarm:

Three mayoral wannabes are now openly promising to perpetuate failure in the schools. That’s right: Ex-Comptroller Bill Thompson, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and current Comptroller John Liu are vowing, if elected, not to shut failing schools.

They’re also pledging to make it harder for good schools — i.e., charters — to open.

No joke: Shutting schools is “an admission of failure,” Thompson says, vowing to ban the practice. Better, we guess, for folks to just hide their eyes, admit nothing and keep depriving kids of a decent education.

Love the straw man arguments they use.

Closing "failing schools" is always a good thing.

Nothing about how the city failed to support those schools or used them as dumping grounds when other schools were closed or systematically set the schools up for failure so that Eva Moskowitz or some other charter entrepreneur could have the space.

There's never any nuance in the Post or News editorials - it's always, shut the schools, stick charters in them, fire the unionized teachers and hire non-unionized ones.

That most of the "mayoral wannabe's" seem to be stepping back from those policies seems to scare the ed deformers.

Now I am under no illusions that whoever replaces Bloomberg won't be bought off by the hedge fundies and begin to pursue ed deform-friendly policies.

But you can see how scared the ed deformers are, because even if they are able to buy off whoever replaces Bloomberg, he/she won't be the true believer of the "Shut Schools/Fire Teachers" philosophy of education that Bloomberg is.

The ed deform movement has been very spoiled here in Bloomberg's NYC, and suddenly they're realizing that some of the gravy is going to come off their gravy train.

You can bet the propagandists at the News and Post (and Times too, for that matter) will work extra hard to sell their straw man arguments for ed deform policies.

The shrillness has already started - look no further than the b.s. in this Post editorial.

New York Times Executive May Have Helped Cover Up Pedophilia Allegations Against Former BBC Personality

In a pot calling the kettle black moment, the scandal-plagued, Murdoch-owned New York Post covers a scandal at the New York Times:

A burgeoning molestation scandal across the pond may have New York Times Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. wishing he had looked closer to home to fill the CEO spot.

Mark Thompson, the former head of the British Broadcasting Corp., is slated to take over the troubled broadsheet next month, but cover-up allegations are swirling about his role in an investigation into a popular television personality.

The scandal involves a TV host named Jimmy Savile, a 40-year employee of the BBC on radio and on TV with an English version of “Bandstand” called “Top of the Pops.”

The flamboyant Savile also hosted a weekly primetime TV show called “Jim’ll Fix It,” on which he made the wishes of many young viewers come true by using his celebrity to get donations.

Savile, who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1972, passed away in October 2011 at the age of 84, and as part of its holiday schedule the BBC scheduled retrospectives on his life and the tens of millions of pounds he collected for charity over the years.

But since his death, more than 20 people, all under the age of 16 at the time of the crimes, have alerted British police that they were molested by Savile.

On Friday, Scotland Yard said it was following more than 400 leads with at least 200 potential pedophile victims. Some girls were as young as 13 when attacked by Savile.

Now the BBC is under fire for an alleged cover-up — both for possibly ignoring early warnings of Savile’s behavior, as well as cancelling a critical documentary about Savile after his death.

The documentary was scheduled to run on “Newsnight,” Britain’s top news show. It was scrapped for editorial reasons, according to Thompson.

“Thompson spoke to the British press and said it was a News Department decision to squash the story, and he was not in the loop — which a subsequent BBC press release apparently partially contradicted,” said Evercore Partners’ Douglas Arthur, who covers the Times.

“It may blow over unless Thompson is called to testify, should Parliament hold hearings. I believe the prime minister has called for a full investigation. So it’s unclear how this unfolds,” he said.

So a newspaper owned by the scandal-plagued Rupert Murdoch covers a pedophilia scandal at the BBC that now is embroiling the New York Times.

Add in the New York Daily News, currently run by the scandal-plagued, former Murdoch employee/hacking criminal Colin Myler, and you can see how the three major newspapers in New York City are going to be run by unaccountable, unethical and, in the case of Murdoch and Myler, criminal men.

Quality Journalism

Tell me what's wrong with this opening paragraph to this Post article:

The obese former president of a Port Authority union — who admitted yesterday in court to embezzling nearly $300,000 in member dues to pay for a host of personal expenses — used the cash for tawdry hookers and casino trips, sources told The Post.

OK, I get it - the guy is, if the allegations are true, a sleazeball. Stealing money for gambling and hookers is pretty bad stuff.

But why describe him as "obese"?

Seriously, what does that have to do with anything?

I bring this up because the Post got all hot and bothered over a couple of union members joking about the death of another "obese" fellow - New Jersey Governor Chris Christie - a while back.

Can you imagine the Post leading an article about Christie by saying "The obese New Jersey Governor - who could have a stroke or heart attack at any moment given what a fat piece of shit he is - was incensed when members of local teachers union joked about his death"?

No, me either.

So why add "obese" to the article about the Port Authority union guy?

Do only obese guys steal to "feed their carnal and gastronomic appetites," as the Post article put it?

I think not.

The Bloomberg aide who just got indicted for stealing $1.1 million from Mayor Moneybags was an average weight (photo here - story here.)

Apparently weight and thievery do NOT necessarily correlate.

So this is just more hypocrisy from the kings of hypocrisy at the Murdoch Post.

Paterson's Gotta Go

Both the Daily News and the Post are calling for Paterson to resign.

Bloomberg just threw him under a bus during a press conference about the snow and said something like "Well, I think the governor has a serious decision to make about this, but it is a very serious matter..."

Not exactly an endorsement of support from Paterson's charter school buddy.

Can't say I've ever said this before, but I agree with the News, the Post and Bloomberg.

It's time, governor.

Resign.

You're a creep.

To send your security detail to the woman who alleges that your top aide beat her to talk to her about the incident, well, that's pretty horrific.

Then to call her to see if she'd drop the charges, that's even worse.

And to top it off, to be doing all of this while you're calling for Hiram Monseratte to go for beating his girlfriend, well, that's just way too much gall.

So forget about just ending your re-election campaign, governor.

Time to go for good.

Resign.

Immediately.

No Raises For You!!!

Today the Daily News hammers Uncle Joel Klein for cutting the 4% pay raises that Mayor Bloomberg gave to city managers this year to 2% for NYCDOE educrats.

The News says that, given the current state of city finances and the money Bloomberg ordered schools to cut from their budgets, Klein should have made the raises 0%.

They note that UFT head Michael Mulgrew defended Klein because UFT members are hoping for 4% raises as well, so I'm sure that if teachers get even a 1% increase (and of course that will only come with givebacks to the city on ATR's and tenure), they'll be hammering us too.

I understand that times are very tough, believe me. But I also understand that people deserve salary increases and 2% is not a "huge raise," no matter what Mort Zuckerman or his minions at the Daily News editorial board think.

Over the last 12 months, the consumer price index is up 1.8%, which means people need to pay more for the stuff they need to buy, like food and rent and gas and medicine. A 2% raise, minus the 1.8% increase in prices, leaves DOE educrats with .02% when all is said and done. That's not even a raise, let alone a "huge raise."

And the rationale that city and state finances are bad so no raises for anybody working for either government is jive too.

The Daily News and the Post have been hemorrhaging readers and losing millions of dollars for years now.

The Daily News used to be profitable but has struggled recently while the New York Post has never turned a profit under Rupert Murdoch. Times have been so tough that last year the Post and News talked about combining some business operations to save money (though that never came to pass.)

Yet I never see editorials in either paper decrying the amount of money the journalists at those papers make, or the editors for that matter.

And I bet neither the journalists nor the editors offer to give back salary increases when they get them, despite the shitty financial standing of both papers and newspaper journalism in general.

So while I completely understand the incongruity of DOE educrats getting a raise when principals are being forced to cut their budgets, I also understand that the journalists and editorial staffs at the cash-challenged News and Post are, until they take pay cuts to help their papers survive in these challenging times, full of shit.