Inappropriate Sexual Behavior By Our Privileged Elites

Perverts: Father Denis Lyons of Orange County & Don Vito Lopez of Brooklyn

When you want to talk about corruption in Brooklyn the discussion begins with Party Machine Boss and Bushwick Assemblyman Vito Lopez. The Ethics Committee found that he had sexually harassed two female employees (yes, he's a Democrat, so it wasn't underage boys) and unanimously recommended that he be removed as chairman of the Housing Committee. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Lower East Side) fired him and stripped him of his seniority. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) went further, calling on him to resign from the Assembly and as chairman of the Brooklyn Democratic Party. “In light of the reprehensible conduct revealed by the Ethics Committee, I call upon Assembly Lopez to do the only honorable thing by immediately resigning his positions as a Member of the Assembly and as the County Chair of the Brooklyn Democratic Party."

Lopez tried kissing one and made a dirty grab between her legs. Apparently there was no rape that we'd need to ask Todd Akin about being legitimate or otherwise. The NY Daily News summed it up by explaining Lopez had "created a hostile work environment through 'unwelcome verbal and physical conduct' that escalated over time, including one instance where he placed his hand 'as far up between [a staffer’s] legs' as he could go, according to an Assembly ethics committee report made public Friday."

Driving Lopez out of Democratic Party politics will be the bright side of this sordid story. Brooklyn progressive activist George Martinez is well acquainted with Lopez's corrupting influence on local politics. "What so many of us have known for far too long in Brooklyn has come to light once again," George told us Friday afternoon. "Politics in Brooklyn is a cesspool of corruption embodied in the powerful Democratic County machine and its leader, Vito Lopez. Lopez was one of the power brokers working to marginalize my congressional candidacy through his proxy City Councilman Erik Dilan.

"This latest scandal however, is not the run of the mill landlord extortion, judicial bribery, campaign embezzlement or other 'political scandal'. This time Vito, the Don, crossed the line of sexual harassment, in a case so egregious, even his long time political ally and Speaker of the Assembly, Shelly Silver, had to get tough with him and stripped him of his leadership positions in the Assembly. Worst of all, this is another damaging blow to the public trust which is already been shattered by these by types of scandals. I am calling on Vito Lopez to step down as the Democratic county chair and to resign as a member of the NYS Assembly. But if he is unwilling to do that under his own integrity, then I am calling on the Democratic district leaders and the voters of his district to 'bum rush the vote' and remove him with the power of the vote."

Way across the country, in good ole Orange County, there was another kind of sexual harassment case finally coming to a conclusion. Denis Lyons, a Roman Catholic priest, was sentenced to a year in prison for molesting a 14 year old alter boy at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Costa Mesa from 1992- 1995. Lyons, who pleaded guilty to "lewd acts with a child" would have faced 14 years without the plea deal. He's now 78. He finally left the priesthood in 2004, a decade after sexually assaulting a boy on two occasions in the rectory and two different occasions in the sacristy. The D.A. read a statement from the victim: "I have spent the last 16 years living in pain, living in shame. He took away my innocence as a child. This man has ruined my life and many others besides me." Other boys-- as young as 7-- have also complained that Father Lyons molested them as well. Two cases were dismissed of rapes in 1978 and 1981 because of the statute of limitations. The Catholic Church protected Lyons for years and paid off his victims in return for non-disclosure. Is there anyone anywhere that would still allow their underage child to be alone with a Roman Catholic priest under any circumstances?

Of course, as far as I know, there's nothing inherent about being a priest that has anything whatsoever to do with child molesting. It's all about the frustration and mental illness that comes from being forced to live a life in the closet. That's probably the reason most child predators are Republicans, priests and other conservatives. They're the ones menatlly torn apart about their sexual identities. Normal gay people are cool with it and accept themselves and don't molest young boys-- at least not usually. There are still some Democratic politicians with the Republican problem of living in the closet, not many... but a few. Minnesota state Rep. Kerry Gauthier (D-Duluth) isn't one of them. He's not in the closet. Wednesday he ended his reelection campaign because of a rest stop encounter with a 17 year old boy. (The boy had told Gauthier he was 18 and, in any case, the legal age of consent in Minnesota is 16, so there are no criminal aspects to this story. Gauthier had advertised on CraigsList for a sexual encounter and there was no money involved.)

When the scandal first broke Gauthier said he wouldn't resign and would, in fact, seek reelection. That announcement went badly. He wound up in a hospital after overdosing on painkillers.

"I took an overdose of pills to not feel any pain and this resulted in my hospitalization," he said in the statement, adding that he has been in recovery from chemical dependency for 30 years with one relapse.

Gauthier told the station his unwillingness to accept he is gay led him to engage in the inappropriate liaison in a public place. He said he is getting counseling. He also said he feels badly for the teen and wouldn't talk specifically about the incident to protect the boy.

"I can change my behavior, but I cannot change the fact that I am a gay man, and have known this since my college days. I simply must act like a mature gay man would act, and not as the incident portrays me," the network quoted him as saying.

His decision drew condemnation from Democratic leaders including Dayton, who urged Gauthier to drop out of the race. Democrats need to gain at least six House seats in November to take control of the chamber. Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chairman Ken Martin and House Minority Leader Paul Thissen said Gauthier would get no support from the party or the House DFL caucus.

"It's a terrible mistake on his part," Dayton told reporters at the Capitol. "I think it's just something that goes beyond the morals of Minnesotans-- to solicit on Craigslist sex with a minor and do it in a public area, publicly owned area, as a state legislator, and come back to the parking lot with his clothes disheveled. It's not about whether it's a same-sex or a heterosexual act. It would be the same if it were the same circumstances involving a heterosexual individual."

Sen. Roger Reinert, DFL-Duluth, who shares a district with Gauthier, earlier urged Gauthier to skip a Friday special session on flood relief for his district and surrounding areas hit by severe flash floods in June. Reinert said Gauthier would be a distraction and could end up being censured by majority Republicans, or even blocked from taking his seat in the House chamber.

"That's not what we need right now," Reinert said. "What we need is all eyes and efforts focused on recovery."

Republican leaders called on Gauthier to resign immediately, but Dayton and other Democrats have not.

Dayton said his signed agreement for the special session with top Republican and Democratic legislative leaders would preclude a House vote on Gauthier's conduct because it limits the scope of the special session. A spokeswoman for the GOP House caucus had no immediate comment.

Rep. Tom Huntley, a Democrat whose Duluth district adjoins Gauthier's, told the Duluth News Tribune he considers Gauthier a "child molester."

"Why would anybody support someone that did what he did?" Huntley said in an Associated Press interview. "I am a strong supporter of gay rights, but that does not mean 55-year-olds with 17-year-olds. And I just can't imagine the public would approve of that."

But Gauthier has support from labor activists, including Alan Netland of the Northeast Area Labor Council.

"He had a personal problem but it doesn't affect the fact that he's a great representative for working people," Netland said.

Duluth firefighter Erik Simonson launched a bid as a write-in Democratic candidate for Gauthier's seat Tuesday. Duluth City Councilor Jay Fosle also has filed paperwork to run as a write-in candidate. Republican Travis Silvers already is on the ballot.

What's Occupy Got To Be Mad About?

George Martinez, censored by TimeWarner

We'll be talking about Brooklyn in a moment, but first I want to take a look at a story from last year in the Daily Telegraph by Daniel Hannan, a Conservative Member of the European Parliament. It was a memo to the Occupy movement about what "we evil capitalists really think." He lists 10 because he claims right-wingers like himself are badly misunderstood. And some of what he's talking about can be valuable for progressive congressional candidates here in America who need to pick up votes from people who have been brainwashed by Fox and Hate Talk Radio. Especially his schpiel-- points number 1 and 2-- on the bankster bailouts-- whether the mother-of-all Bush bailouts or this past weekend's Spanish bailout.

1. Free-marketeers resent the bank bailouts. This might seem obvious: we are, after all, opposed to state subsidies and nationalisations. Yet it often surprises commentators, who mistake our support for open competition and free trade for a belief in plutocracy. There is a world of difference between being pro-market and being pro-business. Sometimes, the two positions happen to coincide; often they don’t.

2. What has happened since 2008 is not capitalism. In a capitalist system, bad banks would have been allowed to fail, their profitable operations bought by more efficient competitors. Shareholders, bondholders and some depositors would have lost money, but taxpayers would not have contributed a penny.

We'll let his utter cluelessness on the Laffer Curve slip by, as well as his delusions of a flat tax without loopholes. He called himself a right-winger so... well, you can't expect a lot. But he does claim that "those of us who believe in small government are not motivated by the desire to make the rich richer. We’re really not... [and] we are not against equality... Our objection is not that egalitarianism is undesirable in itself, but that the policies required to enforce it involve a disproportionate loss of liberty and prosperity." Ah, now we're getting to what makes rightists reprehensible and why their ideals always lead them to taking anti-democracy stands. And don't worry that I've left off the other half of his points. They're all basically rubbish that you've heard before. Instead, I want to move to a reason Occupy movement people-- and those they represent-- do hate the Establishment... and Hannan misses that point, the it isn't rightists that are held in such contempt, but the Establishment, the voice, and muscle, of conservatism-- regardless of the partisan divide-- who are the enemies of progress for ordinary working families. And that's where Brooklyn comes in. I've mentioned George Martinez before, the Occupy activist who decided to take on the grotesquely corrupt Brooklyn Democratic Machine and their dueling congressional candidates, incumbent Nydia Velázquez and Erik Dilan. George is running a people-powered congressional race, a veritable "grassroots experiment of participatory democracy." and isn't engaging in the classic money-grubbing politics that has ceded our whole system over to the corporations and to hereditary billionaires. But local TV station NY1 just banned him from participating in the district's debate-- for exactly that reason: he hasn't raised enough money. He raised enough signatures to put him on the ballot... isn't that enough? Not TimeWarner, apparently.

“Our longstanding policy at NY1 when we’ve held debates is to give seats to candidates who we consider to be viable…who are on the ballot…[and] getting donations from voters in the district and spending the money on basic campaign expenses,” said Bob Hardt, Political Director at NY1, which is owned by Time Warner Cable company.

While Mr. Martinez has indeed been approved by the Board of Elections, and submitted all required Federal Elections Committee (FEC) paperwork, he was not required until recently to submit an FEC financial disclosure form because his campaign had succeeded in getting nearly 3,000 signatures and his place on the ballot without spending the minimum disclosure amount of $5,000. To us, this represents a victory for people-powered, grassroots politics, not a lack of “viability”!

Over the course of the day yesterday, hundreds of people spoke out in support of Mr. Martinez and against the censorship that NY1 would impose by barring a candidate from a debate because of the amount of money his campaign has/hasn’t raised. The group had planned a rally and press conference at NY1’s Chelsea Market studio this afternoon, with allies from OWS.

Where does that rate for Occupy on the reasons-to-be-pissed-off meter? If you'd like to help George raise the small amounts of money he does need, you can do it here on our ActBlue page.

Which Way Occupy?

I'm visiting NYC and a friend asked me if I was planning on going down to Zucotti Park. I hadn't even thought of it; I guess I hadn't realized that there was still an occupation of the Park going on. I did think of getting in touch with George Martinez, one of the Occupy activists who is running for a congressional seat currently held by Democrat Nydia Velázquez. Velázquez isn't a Blue Dog or a New Dem and she has no outstanding ethics charges against her. I had hoped George would run against scandal-prone corrupt New Dem Joseph Crowley, but when the new district boundaries came down, he was in Velázquez' district and her lack of leadership and her longstanding role as a cog in the Democratic machine was enough of an impetus for Martinez.

She's a garden variety Democrat and votes with the leadership. She isn't out front taking a leadership role on any of the policies important to Bum Rush the Vote. Like most of the Members, she's about her career, not the people she's supposed to represent in Congress.Martinez and his OWS allies have a very different idea about what the role of a congressmember should be-- an a very different idea about how to fight for for goals.

The Bum Rush premise is simple: Controlling politics without money is power, people power.

Our goal is to create an open-source, crowd-sourced DIY campaign. All of the resources we need to accomplish this goal are available to us due to the fantastic technology that we now have access to. We started this campaign with no money, and are using our resources in a very efficient and frugal manner.

Our resources come directly from our people. We look toward whomever is involved. We are not seeking to hire anyone. We are seeking those who like us want to see a game change in politics.

As you can see in our website, we are going DIY all the way. Every platform we need online is available for free. This is at the core of the Bum Rush philosophy. We seek to demonstrate a model that you don’t need money to win a race. Certainly, we are accepting donations, but donations don’t allow us to move forward, they simply accelerate the process. Everything we need to run this campaign exists within our community. We are hoping that what is true for us, is true for other citizens out there who look at their representation and find something lacking.

We want to inspire you to work toward making real change by participating in electoral politics. Whether you get involved in George’s campaign, or you get involved in a campaign where you live, all we care about is that you get involved. Don’t think about all of the reasons you can’t do it, think of all the reasons you can. The resources are available in your community to take back our government from the crooked and the ineffectual. It is time to take the power back from the people who think that political office is theirs to trade back and forth, and who sell their legislation to the highest bidder.

This is a Bum Rush, we are running up to the halls of power, and we cannot be ignored.

But, as you probably know, there's a very cogent argument going around that OWS should not be involved in electoral politics and must stay away from being for the Democrats what the Tea Party is-- or was-- for the Republicans. It's not an argument without merits. The Democratic Party is part of the problem. The congressional leadership-- even if you want to leave Pelosi out of the equation-- is part of the toxic Conservative Consensus. The corruption of party leaders like Crowley, Steny Hoyer, Steve Israel and Debbie Wasserman Schultz is exactly the same-- and exactly doesn't mean 99%-- as the corruption of the Republicans. Elect more Democrats-- even good ones-- and you enable this crew of cutthroats. Maybe... Max Berger lays out the argument eloquently in Alternet.

As long as there has been a thing called Occupy Wall Street, there have been people who've suggested it should become the left's version of the Tea Party. Josh Harkinson's piece is a notable contribution to the conversation because it comes after eight months of in-depth reporting on the movement. Harkinson, like Jennifer Granholm, suggests that Occupy should recruit and run candidates, so the left has champions in Congress and can credibly threaten less ideologically aligned Democrats. According to this logic, it doesn't matter if Occupy does this itself or essentially outsources the job to our progressive allies-- the point is to find ways to elect more good Democrats.

The idea of a progressive Tea Party was totally my jam before Occupy started. Like Harkinson, I didn't see how the left could create real change in America without taking control of the Democratic Party. Now I think it's important to recognize that the problems we face as a country can't be solved by electing more Democrats, or even by electing more good Democrats. A progressive Tea Party would be a welcome addition, but it wouldn't be nearly enough to create the kind of change we need.

If Occupy tried to start a left Tea Party, we would be following in the footsteps of several progressive movement efforts that came up short. Howard Dean's presidential campaign turned into Democracy for America to reclaim the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party," the Progressive Change Campaign Committee explicitly references the DCCC, and Rebuild the Dream originally billed itself as the progressive Tea Party. I have worked for each of these organizations and have lots of respect for their work. But unfortunately, none of these projects, despite their many successes, have managed to mount a serious national effort to take out bad Democrats and replace them with good ones. They are constrained by the lack of a grassroots base in many congressional districts and big donors reluctance to fund challenges to Democrats. Even big, collaborative efforts to take out bad Democrats have a relatively poor record (See Sheyman, Ilya; Halter, Bill; or Lamont, Ned).

Occupy is less well suited than the Progressive movement to overcome these challenges. Most occupiers I know aren't interesting in learning how to raise money, knock on doors, or run campaigns. Starting a progressive Tea Party is a completely legitimate, useful goal-- but it's something for the progressive institutions to take on. New York state and city provide a good model for how this can work harmoniously: the Working Families Party is a unified progressive block within the Democratic party. They support Occupy and we support them on the issues. Together, we won a huge, unexpected victory for the millionaires tax.

Despite the hard work of our progressive allies, the unfortunate reality is that our political system as presently constructed is simply incapable of responding to people's needs. The election of the most progressive Democratic nominee of the past 30 years and a Democratic super majority in Congress resulted in relatively little change in American political economy, even during a time of massive economic crisis. The tepid response showed our political system was designed to serve the whims of the market, and no politician has the power to do much about it.

My generation doesn't put all, or even most, of the blame for this state of affairs on President Obama. We don't hate the player, so much as we hate the game. I believe Democrats are better than Republicans, because Democrats care more about the lives of gays, women, and people of color. I also believe everyone should all vote, because not voting would hurt people that I care about. That being said, we won't just win by getting new players-- we need to change the game. The system is fundamentally incapable of healing itself.

I agree with the idea of changing the game but Berger kind of lost me when he referred to moderates Bill Halter and Ned Lamont as progressive icons, implied that Barack Obama is a progressive and called claimed Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein are "noted radicals." I guess we're on different planets. His evangelical faith in OWS sounded disturbingly like the evangelical faith many people-- not sure if Berger was among them-- put in Obama 4 years ago. Misplaced faith based on the kinds of thinking that can claim with a straight face that Bill Halter is a progressive or Ezra Klein a noted radical. [I'm still rereading to see signs of irony or sarcacism but still coming up empty.] "The Occupy movement," he concludes, "would derelict of duty if we focused on the electoral at the expense of putting pressure on the system as a whole. The entirety of civic life can not be reduced to a get out the vote campaign. The left needs strategies that take aim at all the ways neo-liberalism breaks down our communities. The inherent conservatism of America government, and the limitations of electoral organizing, means we need inside and an outside strategies.

"Occupy has already inspired a new generation of social justice leaders to build an inclusive, radical movement that also speaks to the mainstream. We continue to push institutional groups towards more confrontational forms of resistance, bring new people into the struggle and provide a unifying message. Like the civil rights, women's rights, environmental movements before us, we can't afford to ignore the electoral realm, but we also shouldn't expect to succeed by voting alone. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party didn't succeed by electing candidates-- it succeeded showing the limitations of the electoral system. Occupy should aim to do the same." OK, voting alone won't do it. But I'm glad there's an OWS activist like George Martinez running against Nydia Velázquez and I'm glad that, unlike Bill Halter, there actually are bona fide progressive leaders running for Congress, like Norman Solomon, David Gill, Darcy Burner and Nick Ruiz. Obama had a career before he ran for president. People who were paying attention understood that it wasn't a progressive career. It was a corporate-oriented garden variety Democratic career with good packaging. More lesser of two evils. I suspect Berger is a lot younger than I am and I don't begrudge him his idealism, not for a second-- we had our day in the '60s too-- and, like he implies, there are many paths to the same end. I think we could both agree that OWS doesn't have what it takes to run an electoral campaign. But thank goodness the movement is inspiring candidates and voters who will give us the opportunity-- at least here and there-- to not have to pick between the lesser of two evils. Like George in my native Brooklyn. This was his response to the debate:

Occupy has done more in the last 8 months than progressives in the last 20 years in exposing the social and economic injustices rooted in corporate control over all of us. In that time, we've inspired and energized labor with a spark that they've desperately needed. Together we can overcome the anti-worker, anti-people, anti-Occupy sentiment from the right. Are the labor unions the inspired rank and file that are with us in the streets or are they the staffers conspiring with the status quo of the Democratic party not to rock the boat even as it's sinking with our economy? “Progressive” institutions could be the change they seek by endorsing a change in electoral politics coming from the Occupy movement or they can remain in bed with the entrenched corporate interests that allow state after state to enact anti-union legislation and increase the wealth gap. By standing with career Democratic politicians who have promoted holding the line in the face of full on assaults by the GOP, our communities have in fact fallen further behind. If not now, when? If not us, who? We are the ones we've been waiting for!

This is why I am running for Congress in New York's 7th Congressional District and am promoting the electoral direct action of Bum Rush The Vote.

Goldman Sachs for Congress... In Brooklyn?

General objections have been filed against George Martinez a candidate running for Congress in New York's newly drawn 7th Congressional District. According to public records, Jennifer R. Cruz, 143 S. 4th St. Brooklyn Apt 1 and her neighbor, David Lopez, 153 S. 4th St. Brooklyn Apt 8, have both filed objections. Ms Cruz also filed a general objection against Daniel J. O'Connor. No objections have been filed against either Erik Dilan or Nydia Velázquez sitting electeds and Machine-backed candidates also in this congressional race. Velázquez's people like to portray a difference between her and King's County Boss Vito Lopez's proxy, Dilan, but it's looking like the ballot challenge is coming from Velázquez's camp. So the question is, who are Jennifer Cruz and David Lopez? Why does Ms. Cruz want to knock every candidate but Velázquez and Dilan from the ballot? Why does her neighbor Mr. Lopez want to keep only Martinez from competing? It's clear these two individuals are not going to finance and organize a ballot challenge themselves. Ballot challenges cost big money, the kind of money you might expect from Wall St corporations like Goldman Sachs. Curiously Goldman Sachs just happens to be Velázquez's largest contributor according online watchdog site maplight.org's most recent reporting cycle.

In a time where the President is speaking out against voter suppression, who are they proxying for in this conspiracy against the grassroots? Is it Velázquez? Is it Dilan? Both? To find the answer to this, we can look to Pennsylvania's 13th Congressional District, where Velázquez's close friend and crony Rep. Allyson Schwartz did the same thing to Nate Kleinman from Occupy Philadelphia. Clearly these corrupt establishment Democrats fear the Occupy movement. Otherwise, why would they even bother to spend the time knocking them off of the ballot? This sort of voter suppression is generally used by candidates who feel like they could possibly lose if they had to face these challengers in a primary. It's ironic that one of the main narratives in the Presidential campaign is a challenge to Republican led voter suppression. The Obama campaign is going as far as working with universities in swing states such as Ohio to change the format of their university IDs to make them compliant with new laws requiring a voter to present a valid ID at the ballot box. When Barack Obama gets up on television to talk about voter suppression, it's certain that he is not thinking of Democrats like Velázquez and Schwartz, but in practice that's what they are doing too.

With the vast majority of her money coming from the banking industry and PACs it's no wonder Velázquez is terrified of having to face an Occupy Wall Street organizer/candidate who is from the district and has a history of speaking out on behalf of his community and constituencies. Apparently the Congressmember doesn't understand the Occupy movement because thinking that knocking an Occupier off the ballot will end all scrutiny rather than intensify it is just plain wrong. Velázquez faces an uphill battle. Unlike Kleinman in Philadelphia, the Bum Rush the Vote movement activists have collected more than three times the legal number of signatures required to get on the ballot. What must Velázquez's political allies be thinking, knowing that they have seen their preferred candidates knocked off of ballots in the past by the likes of local party boss Vito Lopez? In 2010, shortly before state Senator Gustavo Rivera defeated federally indicted incumbent Pedro Espada, Jr., Espada tried to knock Rivera off of the ballot with this exact same maneuver. This is the type of bullying that big money candidates do. The Rivera campaign had to fund raise and devote campaign staff to the arduous process of defending the signatures line by line. Ballot challenges are expensive. In fact, it's the easiest way for a campaign that's swimming in corrupt corporate money to drown a campaign running on grassroots support. Velázquez joins such morally questionable political peers as Vito Lopez (Dilan's patron), DCCC shill Allyson Schwartz and Pedro Espada. Since only the grassroots candidates in this race have had general objections filed against them, it begs the question: are supposed rivals Lopez and Velázquez really at odds? Has this shell game been played on the Brooklyn electorate for decades, controlling who gets on the Democratic Primary ballots and perhaps even who's allowed to win?

The time is now to stop voter suppression. The people's voices must be heard. Please consider heelping us raise funds so that George can fight back against these sleazy tactics. You can donate here at the Blue America page, Send The Democrats A Message They Can Understand.

Meet Brooklyn Democrat George Martinez And His Open-Source, Crowd-Sourced DIY Campaign

If you follow DWT with any regularity, you've come to know a little about Occupy Wall Street activist George Martinez from two videos we've looked at, one from Monday-- of him campaigning with the help of actor Penn Badgley-- and one from a month ago when we first urged him to run for Congress. Well New York State redistricting is done, George's home is in the 7th district-- and he's running in the Democratic primary for a seat currently held by a longtime goes-along-to-get-along non-leader, Nydia Velazquez. I asked George to write up a brief introduction of himself and explain why he decided to run. If you like what you here, please join me in supporting him here on our ActBlue page.

Bum Rush The Vote

My name is George Martinez

And I am running for Congress in New York's new 7th Congressional District.

I am the child of a single mother.

I have been stopped and frisked many times, in New York City and elsewhere.

I have outstanding student loan debt and have been in default.

I do not have health care insurance.

I have experienced housing displacement.

I am a husband and father.

I am the 99%.

I was born, raised and educated right here in the 7th Congressional District. I know I’m the best choice to represent our community in Congress because my story is your story. I understand the needs and concerns of our community and like you, I care about the future of our nation and securing a better future for our families.

I’m a proud product of the New York public school system and was the first of my family to enter higher education, graduating magna cum laude from Brooklyn College before earning a doctoral fellowship at the CUNY Graduate Center.

While in school, I was a prominent member of the NYC underground hip-hop scene and was recognized by Source Magazine as an Unsigned Hype. I co-founded the Blackout Arts Collective, a grassroots coalition of artists, activists and educators empowering communities of color through the arts. As a student leader at CUNY, I fought against Giuliani’s plans to implement workfare and restrict access to public higher education.

After college I became an adjunct professor at Hunter College and ran political literacy and organized campaigns in the local community.

I ran for City Council in 2001 and served as District Leader for the 51st Assembly District in 2002. There I led the movement for reform in the county Democratic organization and continued to advocate for grassroots political empowerment in our neighborhoods.

I continued my public service as an assistant director in the NYS Attorney General’s office, advocating for Latino issues. I am currently a cultural envoy for the State Department and have undertaken cultural diplomacy missions throughout Latin America and Asia. I helped found both the Hip Hop Association and Global Block non-profits, and am a civil society partner of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and award-winning leader in promoting small business and social entrepreneurship. I am currently an adjunct professor at PACE University and an Occupy Wall St activist.

Throughout my life I faced many challenges and continue to overcome many obstacles. Uncompromised and deeply rooted in my community, I have the Life Experience, a Progressive Vision, & Effective Leadership to represent you in Congress.

Although we can win this election, how we do it is critical. We aim to teach others the process so that through our direct action, a new crop of progressives can recapture the House and sweep our nation forward and away from corporate control. 

Our goal is to create an open-source, crowd-sourced DIY campaign. All of the resources we need to accomplish this goal are available to us due to the fantastic technology that we now have access to. We started this campaign with no money, and are using our resources in a very efficient and frugal manner.

Our resources come directly from our people. We look toward whomever is involved. We are seeking those who like us want to see a game change in politics. Every platform we need online is available for free. This is the core of the Bum Rush philosophy. We seek to demonstrate a model that you don’t need money to win a race. Certainly, we are accepting donations, but donations don’t allow us to move forward, they simply accelerate the process. Everything we need to run this campaign exists within our community! We are hoping that what is true for us, is true for other citizens out there who look at their representation and find something lacking.

We want to inspire you to work toward making real change by participating in electoral politics. Whether you get involved in my campaign, or you get involved in a campaign where you live, all that matters is that you get involved. Don’t think about all of the reasons you can’t do it, think of all the reasons you should. The resources are available in your community to take back our government from the crooked and the ineffectual. It is time to take the power back from the people who think that political office is theirs to trade back and forth, and who sell their legislation to the highest bidder.

This is Bum Rush The Vote and we are running up to the halls of power, and we cannot be ignored.

Penn Badgley Campaigning For OWS Congressional Candidate George Martinez

Although one of my closest friends, David Kahne, was the head of A&R at his label and never stopped raving about what a star he was, I never met Jeff Buckley or saw him perform. And his father, Tim, was a friend of mine. I met Tim-- along with Jackson Brown and Steve Noonan-- at a Velvet Underground show in 1967 and invited them all back to my school, Stony Brook, where they spent a good part of the semester. I was the school's concert chairman and in October I gave Tim the opening slot for a breaking bad I had met that summer, The Doors. (Noonan I put on with Phil Ochs and Jackson opened for Judy Collins.) The stories-- intertwined because they were father and son, who only met once-- are of two young me who were both extraordinary singer-songwriters and who both died so very young and so very tragically. It was a time and a place-- or two times and two places. But I was transported back by watching, of all things, a campaign video (up top) from Occupy Wall Street activist and congressional candidate George Martinez.

We met George back at the beginning for the month when we were encouraging him to run for Congress in my native Brooklyn (born'n'bred). Now he is running and last week he was out in Williamsburg getting petitions signed when neighborhood luminary Penn Badgley stops by to help him bum rush the vote. Badgley, who plays Jeff Buckley in the upcoming film, Greetings From Tim Buckley, reminded me so much of Tim that I was stunned.

And even though he wasn't wearing a hoodie, maybe if he shaved and dressed a little nicer, Penn would have gotten more signatures on George's petitions. Anyway... thanks for putting up with my reminiscences. Reward: two old Tim Buckley live videos from back when I was a kid:

What's An Occupy Movement Candidate?

This week, Mother Jones found 10 candidates running for Congress as supporters of the Occupy or 99% Movement. Most of them are Blue America candidates-- Alan Grayson, Ilya Sheyman, Elizabeth Warren, Norman Solomon, Eric Griego, and Tammy Baldwin, who we are daily urging people to support on our ActBlue House page or our ActBlue Senate page. But there are a four on their list we haven't gotten to yet:

Hakeem Jeffries (New York): "Income inequality is worse now that it has been since prior to the Great Depression," the state assemblyman said during a passionate speech at an Occupy rally in Brooklyn this fall. In January, Jeffries announced that he'd run for Congress in New York's Tenth Congressional District against 15-term incumbent Ed Towns, who'd angered labor unions when he cast the deciding vote in 2005 for the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Since then, Jeffries has picked up endorsements in the Brooklyn district from prominent unions such as the Communications Workers of America.

Prospects: Fair. Jeffries' success could hinge on stopping the Tenth District from being redrawn to exclude his state assembly district, where he's popular.

Lori Saldaña (California): "Lori Saldaña has leapt headlong into the Occupy movement," writes the San Diego Union-Tribune. While that may be a bit of an overstatement, the Democratic former assemblywoman certainly caters to the cause with her campaign slogan: "Fighting for America's middle class." In January, she joined a rally organized by Occupy the Courts in protest of Supreme Court rulings that give corporations the rights of people.

Prospects: Good. A recent poll ranks her as the frontrunner in the primary and just six points behind incumbent Republican Rep. Brian Bilbray. But an independent who may enter the fray could strip away some of her supporters.

Wenona Benally Baldenegro (Arizona): Two years after Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick lost her Arizona congressional seat to tea party Republican Paul Gosar, she's campaigning to retake it. But she could lose in the primary to Baldenegro, who blames her for alienating supporters with votes against the pro-union Employee Free Choice Act and for job-killing foreign trade bills. A Harvard Law grad who'd be the nation's first Native American congresswoman if elected, Baldenegro has renounced campaign donations from corporate lobbyists and supports taxing the rich and public financing for elections. In late October, she joined six other progressive House candidates-- including Griego, Sheyman, and Saldaña-- to hand-deliver House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) 35,000 signatures from people who "stand with the 99 percent."

Prospects: Fair. Though Kirkpatrick sports name recognition and support from the Democratic establishment, Baldenegro has the endorsement of progressive Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz). More important, the district's boundaries were redrawn last year to include Navajo strongholds that will back her.

Hansen Clarke (Michigan): Sponsoring legislation to forgive student debt has made the Detroit Congressman a hero to thousands of college kids involved with Occupy. During the movement's March 1 "Occupy Education" protests in Washington, DC, activists relayed a statement from Clarke using the famous people's mic: "Young people in America should be able to pursue higher education to achieve their dreams without worrying that this decision will devastate their financial futures."

Prospects: Good. Though he's running against another incumbent Congressman in a consolidated district, Clarke has an early cash advantage and growing list of union endorsements.

We started covering Wenona back in May and she and Hakeem Jeffries are on the Blue America page we use to send a message to the corrupt Democratic power structure in DC. Ever check that page out? Here's part of the description, which was written in the last cycle but still applies today:

Many of us have been disappointed in the Democratic Party (again) this year-- but electing conservatives in the form of Republicans or Blue Dog Democrats is NOT the answer. People with memories that go back beyond last November, though, probably remember just what 8 years of George W. Bush and a Republican Congress meant for our country. And, stretching out from there a bit, some progressives even remember what happened when we split our votes between Al Gore and Ralph Nader. There is a way to send a message to the Inside the Beltway Democratic Establishment. It's called primaries-- and it works better than blindly empowering crazed, angry, racist teabaggers. When Adam Nagourney, Cokie Roberts or Glenn Beck promote Democratic atomization, they're not pumping for progressive values, as Digby pointed out in the post that inspired this Blue America page. She asks how liberals can exert what power we have and have the results be interpreted the way we want them to be-- as a repudiation of corporatism and conservative governance, not as a repudiation of Democratic governance?

There is a fairly compelling theory in political science that says that after political parties come into power, fulfill some pieces of their agenda, get fat and bloated and are finally removed from office, they then tend to deny the reality of their loss and blame it on everything but themselves until they lose enough elections that they finally realize that their ideology has failed. The current GOP is not there yet by a long shot. They are still in the process of doubling down on their radical agenda at a time when the economy is still in ruins, the effects of globalization are being fully felt, the planet is in peril and about to reach a tipping point, and a radical fundamentalist movement is trying to blow people up. I don't think the world can take any more of the right's prescriptions for these problems right now: Lindsay Graham is considered too liberal and neo-Hooverism is their economic program. Yes, the Democrats are corrupt and inept. But the other side is batshit insane.

However, that doesn't mean that there's nothing we can do but wring our hands about how the system is broken and fret ourselves into inertia. The other way to send messages to the Democratic party is through the unsatisfying and often thankless process of primary challenges. Nobody can have any problem understanding that message, not even Adam Nagourney.

It's hard to find challengers and it's no wonder. It's expensive, time consuming and after all your hard work you will probably lose. It takes real commitment and a desire to not only win a seat in Congress but do it by way of unseating an incumbent of your own party with whom you disagree, an act which is guaranteed to make you an odd man out among the party hierarchy. But if you win, it can send shockwaves through the system.

And guess what? We are in another favorable year for primary challenges in recent memory. The insane teabaggers aren't going to allow any rational Republicans to run and the anti-incumbent fever is going to be as high as it's been since 1994. The Democratic base has an energetic activist faction, the netroots can raise money and there is a burning desire to show the party establishment that they cannot take liberals for granted. It's a perfect environment for successful primary challenges.

Back to the Mother Jones article for a moment. There's a postscript from the author, Josh Harkinson: "Many people have contacted me with the names of other Occupy-friendly candidates. If you have suggestions for other races to check out, leave them in the comments or send them to @JoshHarkinson on Twitter, where I've been RTing them." I doubt there's a more Occupy Movement candidate anywhere than George Martinez in Brooklyn, although I'm not certain if he's made his run official yet.

I didn't write to Josh, but I do want to remind readers of this blog about two Occupy candidates who Blue America endorsed for Congress who are very strongly backing the Occupy Movement. Ken Aden is running against corporate shill Steve Womack in northwest Arkansas. "I am a staunch and proud supporter of the Occupy Wall Street Movement," he told us last May. "In fact, I helped folks here in Arkansas start an Occupy chapter in the Northern part of our state. This is a true grassroots movement made up of young people, veterans, students, and folks from across the middle class just like me who are sick and tired of irresponsible corporations buying politicians of both parties while many in the government stand idly by and give corporate America the keys to the proverbial candy store. It's truly nauseating to know that so many politicians can be so easily bought, and not even loose an ounce of sleep over the fact that they are destroying everything which we hold dear. I  firmly believe that more people need to become involved, and stand up for what is right! Corporate greed is the new pandemic in this country. The ratio of CEO pay to that of the average worker is a prime example of the kind of reckless behavior that corporations in this country are exercising on a daily basis. Just look at how many politicians Koch Industries has bought over the last ten years alone. As the next congressman from Arkansas I would support an amendment to destroy the destructive influence of Citizens United. The last time I checked, corporations are NOT and will never be real people."

And the very first candidate Blue America endorsed this cycle was an independent-minded Orlando-area activist, Nick Ruiz, who has been motivated and animated by the exact same values and objectives that animate and motivate the 99% Movement. I asked him for his perspective on the whole idea of 99% candidates. Worth reading:

"For electoral politics, what the Occupy movement reflects is that the average citizen's feeling of being 'outside' of Washington, DC's insider games, has reached the threshold of what will be tolerated by most people. Citizens know they have to fight to get it back again. Democracy, representation, mutual prosperity. It's what the American Revolution represented for so many Americans living in the 18th century.

"For many decades now, too many people have experienced that their interests were not being adequately represented by their Representatives. It has reached the point where they are ready to do something about it. History and more importantly, progress was made in the 1930s, when a whole lot of people, and personalities, like FDR-- made it happen. And progress happened again, in the 1960s, with a mass of supporters and people like MLK and others. It is set to happen again beginning in 2012.

"And once again, we have the same problems they did, with the same lackluster Democratic response from the top. The Democratic Party infrastructure is not ready for us. And the Republicans, of course, want to crush equality of opportunity and representation, in every form. And so we the people, are again-- consciously competing for representation. Competing with the status quo bureaucracy, and the candidates they favor, who are working to ensure that power remains in the unfair hands of those that would enrich them with titles and business favors.

"But this is our United States of America. It belongs to all us. Not just those that have most of the capital and the power that comes with that capital. And we demand a representative seat and a table where truly democratic policy and law-making take place for the benefit of all Americans."

Not your standard garden variety DCCC kind of candidate, huh? You can help Nick win his House race against whichever corporate shill the GOP puts up against him, by contributing here. Let me leave you with George Martinez' Occupy song and video-- and ask you if you think freshly minted Michigan "Democrat" Joe Schwarz will be singing it in the shower?

Politics as Unusual: OWS Activist Prepares to Bum Rush The Vote!

Getting money out of politics has emerged as one of the core objectives of the occupy movement, but for former Brooklyn Democratic District Leader, U.S. Hip Hop Ambassador and OWS Activist, George Martinez, “controlling politics without money is power, People Power.”

With the intention of inspiring and fostering a new generation of political leaders and community-based politics that will challenge the very core of the political system with the Occupy Movement, George and his crew of dedicated community activists created Bum Rush The Vote! This new organization intends bring a paradigm shift through socially/culturally relevant political literacy and electoral direct action.

Occasionally the political structure presents a window of opportunity for a transformative politics. Right NOW is the political opportunity for a real progressive from the Occupy Movement to pull a Congressional seat away from the corrupt power elite of the Democratic Party in Brooklyn. The seat, NY-12, is currently under the possession of 20 year incumbent Nydia Velazquez. Rep. Velazquez voted for every bankster bail out, voted to repeal Glass-Stegall and has pocketed over $5,000 from Goldman Sachs this year alone.

This is a rare once in a decade chance to not only beat a 20 year dead beat in the Democratic Party, but also to break down the door of one of the nation's most corrupt party bosses (Vito Lopez, D-NYS Assembly) and his political proxy (Eric Dilan, D-NY City Council). Bum Rush The Vote! is targeting exactly the same people that corporate corruption is buying out. These party cogs in the machine share blame for destroying the trust and integrity of our electoral system. Willy Rashbaum, New York's most respected investigative journalist, helped lift the rock under which Lopez has been hiding.

Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, a long-serving Brooklyn Democratic leader who is widely viewed as the borough’s patronage king, is at the center of two separate federal investigations, according to several people briefed on the matter. A third inquiry, by the city’s Department of Investigation, those people said, is focused on a network of nonprofit groups Mr. Lopez controls.

All three investigations focus to some extent on the nexus of politics, nonprofit groups and real estate developers in Brooklyn, the people familiar with the inquiries said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing.

“The name of the game” is real estate development, one of the people said, adding that the inquiries have produced masses of records, and in several of the cases the authorities have “mounds of paper to go through.” The person would not name the developers under scrutiny, saying only, “There is a lot of developers in the game here.”

One of the federal investigations began about two years ago, growing out of a corruption case brought by federal prosecutors in Manhattan and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that led to guilty pleas by Assemblymen Brian M. McLaughlin in 2007 and Anthony S. Seminerio in 2009, two of the people said. Mr. McLaughlin cooperated with the authorities and provided information that led to the case against Mr. Seminerio.

To varying degrees, several of the people said, the three inquiries are examining the sprawling social services organization controlled by Mr. Lopez, who in the 1970s and ’80s built the prototype of the modern big-city political machine.

As for Lopez's candidate to take on Velazqquez, Erik Dilan has been exposed as a two-bit crook time and time again. Here's 52nd AD District Leader JoAnne Simon explaining why he'll be "in for a rude awakening when the campaign spotlight focuses on his public record."

“Voters of Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan will call on him to explain why he is the target of an on-going investigation into the use of public discretionary funds benefiting a family member.”

“He must also explain why he illegally accepted affordable housing from a developer who has since been indicted.”

“Voters are rightfully concerned about those these kinds of improprieties, especially when they are at the public’s expense

With the public starting to focus on the criminal shenanigans of Republican hoodlum, Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm on the other end of Brooklyn, maybe it's time for a clean sweep of corruption in both parties and in both ends of the borough. Are there enough Democrats who want to see the system fundamentally transformed? Can WE reclaim the platform and challenge the corporate control of the political parties and the government itself with People Power? The Occupy Movement has already shown that it can, now Bum Rush The Vote! intends to prove that it can be done to take control over the institutional mechanisms that affect our communities.

George, the songwriter/MC of the viral OWS Hip Hop Anthem, "Occupation Freedom" (video up top), has been centrally involved in several areas of the Occupy Movement and was identified in Crains NY as one of the ad-hoc leaders pushing the movement forward.

Twenty-year-old East Harlem native George Machado [another OWS activist] initially assumed Occupy Wall Street was “just some well-meaning liberal arts college kids with money-- same old, same old.”

...Despite the public perception that the movement is leaderless, leaders have in fact emerged-- and they're beginning to tackle tough questions about the next steps for the movement. While the public is riveted by events in Zuccotti Park, which the protesters call Liberty Square, these ad hoc leaders are debating whether to leave it.