It's Long Past Time For Congress-- And Queens-- To Be Rid Of Serial Corruptionist Gregory Meeks

In June, Blue America endorsed a bartender, rugby player, former legislative aide and Democratic Socialist, Shaniyat Chowdhury, for Congress. He's running in the deep blue (PVI is D+37) southeast Queens district (NY-05) that includes Jamaica, the Rockaways, Cambra Heights, Laurelton, Rosedale, Ozone Park, St Albans, Kew Gardens (+ a sliver of western Nassau County including Valley Stream and Elmont). Ethnically, it's a very diverse district, about 48% African-America, 20% Hispanic, 13% Asian, and 11% white. The incumbent is one of the most corrupt members of Congress, New Dem Gregory Meeks, more than just garden variety corrupt-- a real criminal.

The meme up top was produced by the highly respected nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) in 2011 when they named Meeks one of the most-corrupt members of Congress, just after the FBI had opened an investigation into fishy loans Meeks had gotten from a friend. Before that he had been fined $63,000 by the FEC for using campaign funds for personal expenses, basically the same charges that are likely to send Duncan Hunter to prison. Meeks always seems to use the race card when he gets into any trouble and manages to slip away with minimal damage to himself.

He's always claiming poverty but has a lifestyle of the rich and famous-- or at least always did til the NY Times and NY Post began writing his spending habits up as news, especially after it became obvious he was using taxpayer funds for fancy vacations and excessive luxuries. For over a decade the papers have been writing about his shady spending. In 2015, for example, Post reporters Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein noted that he "raked in thousands of travel miles last year, crisscrossing the globe in luxury trips to at least 16 countries-- including some funded by taxpayers, including trips to Morocco, Russia, Austria, Hungary, Panama, Israel, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Colombia...

“Congressman Meeks racks up more travel than most other members of Congress,” said Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group. “Not only is he one of the most frequent foreign travelers, but he also has been at political fund-raisers from Las Vegas to the Virgin Islands. It’s a wonder he has any time to do work in his Queens district or Washington.”

Meeks has logged more travel since 2001 than any other Congress member from New York, according to a tally on the Web site LegiStorm.

...Meeks came under fire for shady travel in 2013 when he and nine other federal lawmakers and 32 staff members accepted an all-expenses-paid trip to Azerbaijan. The sponsor was the Council of Turkic-American Associations, but the junket to Baku, where participants received rugs and other expensive gifts, was secretly funded by the country’s oil company, according to a classified report by the Office of Congressional Ethics recently obtained by the Washington Post.

But he wasn't spending all his time globe-trotting. After whining how he lives "paycheck to paycheck" like so many of his constituents, he bought a mansion for $830,000 which seemed excessive for someone on a salary of $174,000; his wife's salary was $79,000. In his official congressional financial disclosures he claimed to have no checking or savings account worth more than $5,000, or any investment account worth more than $1,000."

Last week, the NY Daily News' Chris Sommerfeldt and Dave Goldiner dug around a little into the feud Meeks has been stoking with AOC, The Squad and the Justice Democrats, basically because he's freaking out about the primary challenge from Chowdhury, who hasn't been-- at least not yet-- been endorsed by AOC, The Squad, the Justice Dems or anyone else aside from locals and Blue America. "Queens Democratic boss and 11-term congressman Greg Meeks took a thinly-veiled jab at fellow Big Apple Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday," wrote Sommerfeldt and Goldiner, "urging her to back off her racially-tinged feud with party leaders or face a fight for her political life."

"Racially tinged?" Like every other Black Democrat in Congress, Meeks is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) which, like every other groups has some good members-- like Barbara Lee (AC), Joe Neguse (CO), John Lewis (GA), Alma Adams (NC), Karen Bass (CA), Ayanna Pressley (MA), Gwen Moore (WI) and Ilhan Omar (MN)-- and some bad members-- Meeks coming right to mind, but also David Scott (Blue Dog-GA), Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL) and Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA). The CBC has been having an institutional meltdown at the prospect of primaries and blaming it on The Squad. Meeks has been leading the charge, causing Ayanna Pressley to address Netroots Nation with a statement including "we don't need any more brown faces that don't want to be a brown voice. We don’t need black faces that don't want to be a black voice." Meeks seems to have taken it personally, probably because he's still feeling guilty for endorsing Hillary Clinton against Obama in 2008. More recently Meeks has been backing a series of white conservative candidates against progressive people of color, Tiffany Cabán, opposing for example, in favor of Melinda Katz in a still too-close-to-call race for Queens DA. In 2018 he loudly backed Michael Capuano, a white man, against Ayanna Pressley, a black woman. Meeks: "At a time when Donald Trump continues to spew hateful rhetoric and policies, we need a leader like Rep. Capuano in Congress. Civil rights are under attack, and we need to fight back. Rep. Capuano has built his career on standing up for those who have been left behind, from healthcare, to transportation, to housing. We in the Congressional Black Caucus Political Action Committee have a strong, committed partner in Mike and unanimously support his campaign for Congress." With Meeks it's part of a pattern.

And now he's whining, dishonestly, that Justice Democrats, AOC and the Squad are targeting members of the CBC, never mentioning that their candidates are also black. He also never mentions that he's being challenged by Shaniyat, although that has a lot to do with why he's melting down over primaries.

In an interview with Sommerfeldt and Goldiner, he was flipping out over the Justice Democrats "openly backing insurgent candidates trying to unseat members of the Congressional Black Caucus."

He also said the CBC can play the same game.

“Primaries go two ways," Meeks said when asked whether his wing of the party would consider challenging progressive members next year, including Ocasio-Cortez. “If someone picks a fight with somebody else, you fight back. That’s what my parents told me.”

Meeks stressed there weren’t any current plans to challenge Ocasio-Cortez, but left the door open: "If you get in the ring, expect that people are going to start throwing punches.”

The Justice Democrats, a progressive political action committee that is closely aligned with Ocasio-Cortez and propelled her to victory in 2018, has already backed primary challenges against CBC members, including 10-term Rep. Lacy Clay (D-MO).

The group, which is pushing to get corporate cash out of politics, has also made noise about possibly challenging Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn) and Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-Brooklyn), both CBC members. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-Bronx) is another New York lawmaker who’s being targeted by the group.

Engel is white and his opponent, school principal Jamaal Bowman, happens to be black and, at one time, might have expected a helping hand, instead of slings and arrows, from the CBC. Lacy Clay's opponent, Cori Bush, is black (and Clay is nearly as notoriously corrupt as Meeks). Jeffries has no primary opponent and Clarke has three, all of whom are black and none of whom have been endorsed by Justice Dems, AOC or The Squad. This is all Meeks playing his game.

Meeks said the Justice Democrats and left-leaning lawmakers may be shooting the party in the foot.

“I would hope that these individuals would realize who the opposition is here,” Meeks said, referring to Republicans. “The focus should be to keep the majority, grow the majority and win the presidency.”

The escalating tensions come amid increasingly nasty clashes between party progressives and centrists, boiling over this week with Ocasio-Cortez accusing Pelosi in an interview of being “outright disrespectful” for privately scolding her and other “newly elected women of color" for picking Twitter fights with fellow Dems.

Meeks called Ocasio-Cortez’s Pelosi comments “intolerable."

“We’re all on the same team,” Meeks said. “You don’t go after the speaker like that.”

A Democratic leadership source, who only spoke on condition of anonymity, was harsher.

“Justice Democrats in general are trust fund kids who are funding this with their parents’ money,” the source said, blasting the progressive group as “elitist” for criticizing black lawmakers from poor districts who take corporate donations. “It’s offensive for CBC members when these elites are looking down on them when they don’t have the financial ability to say, ‘I don’t want that money.’”

Asked for an example, the source pointed to Ocasio-Cortez chief of staff and Justice Democrats co-founder Saikat Chakrabarti, a millionaire Harvard graduate who worked on Wall Street before turning to left-wing politics.

A spokesman for Ocasio-Cortez declined to comment Friday, but the Justice Democrats took aim at the party establishment on her behalf.

“Senior members of the Democratic Party can make whatever false claims they want, but it’s clear that their bottom line is: no primary challenges," Justice Democrats board members Alexandra Rojas, Demond Drummer and Nasim Thompson said in a joint statement.

“Let’s make one thing clear," the trio added. "No incumbent is entitled to their seat. That’s why we have elections...Primaries are good for our party.”

The leadership source said the Justice Democrats and Ocasio-Cortez are getting some of their own medicine.

“They have attacked, attacked, attacked and attacked. For the first time, they were attacked back and now they claim to be the victim,” the source said, referencing the pushback from Meeks and Pelosi. “Ocasio-Cortez kind of operates like Trump. She’s hellbent on sowing discord and spreading chaos, but if you look at it, it always traces back to one person: her.”

Trump, of course, has weighed in on Pelosi's side against the reformers. Big surprise! If you'd like to help Shaniyat Chowdhury replace Meeks... see that thermometer above? Just click on that and contribute what you can in the box next to his name.

Movement Politics Meets The Machine-- In Queens... And The Machine Loses Again

Shaniyat Chowdhury is a first-generation American, a young marine corps veteran, for state legislative aide, international rugby star and Queens bartender… and candidate for Congress against one of the most corrupt machine politicians left in New York City— conservative New Dem Gregory Meeks. Last night, Meeks and his predecessor as County boss, Joe Crowley, saw their candidate for Queens District Attorney, former borough president Melinda Katz, defeated by the most unlikely of candidates, 31 year old public defender Tiffany Cabán.

With 99% of precincts counted, Cabán led with 39.6% to Katz’s 38.3%— a 1.3% margin, above the 0.5-point threshold for a mandatory recount. Katz is refusing to concede. Cabán said that if elected she would work towards ending cash bail and closing Rikers Island and wouldn’t waste resources prosecuting farebeaters and sex workers.

Katz had been endorsed not just by Crowley and Meeks but by the widely despised governor, Andrew Cuomo, and by all but one of the Queens County members of Congress-- Pelosi stooge Hakeem Jeffries, Nydia Velazquez, Grace Meng and Tom Suozzi as well as Carolyn Maloney, Adriano Espaillat and all the toothless unions that do whatever the Democratic establishment tells them to do. Cabán had the local and national progressive movement in her camp, including AOC, Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, John Legend, DSA, the Working Families Party. Tuesday morning Meeks attacked Bernie and Elizabeth Warren for endorsing Cabán without getting his permission, calling their move “arrogant” and “patronizing.” And that brings us back to Shan, the young progressive people are counting on to rid Congress of Meeks.

As the last votes were being counted, he told me that “the last couple of years we’ve seen the possibilities of what people powered movements can do. Our Queens DA-elect, Tiffany Cabán, and the many organizers who worked tirelessly for months, have shown that people power is legitimate— WE ARE legitimate. Gone are the days where elected officials take their communities for granted over corporate and real estate interests. We will continue do justice by our communities. We still have a lot of unfinished business.” Keep reading Chowdhury’s statement below... and if you like what you read, please consider contributing to his grassroots campaign by clicking on the Blue America 2020 Primary A Blue Dog thermometer below.

My opponent, Gregory Meeks has represented NY-05 for 20 years. Over the years, he’s sold our communities out to real estate developers and corporate and Wall Street interests from which he has benefited. He put profits over people, leading him to be named one of the most corrupt members of Congress. We will hold him accountable. Our people are tired. Our communities deserve better. Our children deserve a future where they can breathe clean air, get the best education without financial burden, and build a future with their families rather tearing them apart. Our America should reflect a moral and just society; it must.

What working class people of NY-05 need are the Green New Deal, Fair Housing, a reformed criminal justice system, free college tuition, and reparations. We need Medicare for All to make sure every American has health coverage, and a Federal Jobs Guarantee because no person should be too poor to survive in this world, and turned away for being caught up in the criminal justice system.

Or-- as Marie Newman in Chicago put it this morning when she woke up and saw the results out of Queens: "Machines can be broken: AOC, Mayor Lightfoot, Tiffany Cabán... more to come." YES! Good attitude! Same for Tomas Ramos in Bronx. He’s in a tough primary for the open Serrano seat and was very invested in the Cabán race. "The times of machine politics with corporate funded politicians are over," he told me early this morning. "Folks are starting to see that our democracy can work if we organize and get out the vote. New York City politicians should be shaking because not only are they losing power, but this win just proved that people powered campaigns will be the new status quo."  

UPDATE: Eva Putzova (AZ-01):

"Tiffany Cabán's apparent victory in her effort to become the next District Attorney for Queens is an inspiration to me and to all progressive democrats around the nation who are running against the Democratic Party's corporate machine. We are puncturing the aura of invincibility that the machine promotes to thwart challengers. Congratulations to Tiffany and to all those, who will fight for justice and equality for all, publicly and without compromise, despite the efforts by the party establishment to support one of their own and maintain the status quo. Time's Up for the status quo!"

The Democratic Fight Over House Leadership

You read about all these Democratic candidates who say they're not going to vote for Pelosi for Speaker. It's almost de rigueur for them to say it sometime during their campaign. She laughs and says she has the votes anyway. Does she? There have been more than a few discontented right-of-center Blue Dogs and New Dems already in Congress who say she should step now, primarily ambitious malcontents from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party like Kathleen Rice from Long Island. But lately enough normal Democrats are starting to whisper about her time being up as well. I don't know if she actually has the votes anymore.

Some members have told me she's trying to broker a deal that would allow her to become Speaker again if she promises to step down after 100 days and retire-- allowing for a special election is San Francisco with her daughter Christine likely to follow in her footsteps. (caveat: I like Christine; I don't like political dynasties).

On Wednesday, a normal, garden variety Democrat and heretofore Pelosi backer, Brian Higgins (D-NY), told the Buffalo News that he will not back Pelosi for another term as Democratic leader, complaining about the lack of a clear Democratic agenda as an alternative to Señor Trumpanzee and the increasingly radicalized GOP. He claims that his opinion is widely shared but only whispered. I've found the same thing, complicated by how so many people feel like her and feels personal loyalty towards her.

Higgins cited the lack of a clear Democratic agenda as an alternative to President Trump, as well as Pelosi's lack of interest in his bills to expand Medicare and invest in infrastructure, as the key sources of his frustration.

"She's listening, but this is my conclusion: She's aloof, frenetic and misguided," Higgins said.

..."I'm giving voice to a frustration that I hear every single day," he said. "It's members. I don't want to call anybody out. But this is the conversation that is taking place."

Higgins' said his disappointment in Pelosi stems in large part from what he sees as his party's weak efforts to develop a compelling alternative agenda to that of Trump, a Republican.

"Our leadership is out of touch with what is going on not only in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan but in Cheektowaga, West Seneca, Hamburg, Orchard Park and Lancaster," he said. "Democratic voters at least and voters writ large feel politically homeless, and it's because we are not offering something affirmative to give people hope and something to invest in, in the way that we want to do things."

Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat, teamed up last July to promote a Democratic agenda called "A Better Deal." The effort calls for increased federal investment in infrastructure, public housing and education, a series of political and labor reforms and an effort to reduce prescription drug prices.

Higgins stressed that he did not mean to criticize Schumer or his role in that effort, but the Buffalo congressman had harsh words for A Better Deal.

"It's thematic, it's well-intentioned, but nobody's buying it," Higgins said of the Democratic agenda. "It's Washington-speak."

Democrats would be better off, Higgins said, if they stressed two issues that he said aren't stressed strongly enough in A Better Deal: health care and infrastructure investment.

Most notably, he mentioned the bill that he introduced last year that would allow Americans from the ages of 50 to 64 to buy into Medicare, the federal health care program for Americans over age 65.

He said Pelosi and her staff have shown little interest in the bill.

"They say it does not comply with the essential benefits of the Affordable Care Act," Higgins said. "That is not true."

...Higgins argued that his Medicare expansion bill would offer health care to a particularly vulnerable population: middle-aged Americans who are coping with huge health insurance price increases because of Republican efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. Every congressional district is home to approximately 14,000 such people, he said.

In addition, he said the bill would stabilize Medicare's finances, given that it would bring younger, healthier Americans into the system.

Higgins' Medicare expansion bill has 49 cosponsors, where his bill to invest $1.5 trillion in American infrastructure has none.

A Better Deal includes a proposal for a smaller, $1 trillion infrastructure plan, but Higgins said Democrats aren't doing a very good job of selling it to the public.

There's little mention of the fact that a huge infrastructure bill would create upwards of 34.5 million jobs and add 1.5 percentage points to the annual growth rate, thereby boosting the economy and cutting the federal deficit, Higgins argued.

"So infrastructure pays for itself and investment helps fund all the other Democratic priorities: education, health care and the environment," he said.

Higgins singled out Pelosi for failing to clearly articulate a Democratic agenda, and mentioned several current House members as possible alternatives to the current leader: Current Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland, Rep. Karen Bass of California and Rep. Joe Crowley of Queens-- a close friend of Higgins.

Karen Bass was elected Speaker of the California State Assembly in 2008, only the second woman to serve in that position. So she knows how to do it. Rated "A" by ProgressivePunch, she has one of the best voting records in Congress. Pelosi doesn't want to leave the speakership to Hoyer, which would be like leaving the speakership to K Street. The only thing worse would be leaving the speakership to Wall Street-- and that the most likely post-Pelosi Speaker: Joe Crowley, a crook, a machine hack, a Wall Street puppet and, until he decided to run for party-wide leadership, head of the Wall Street owned and operated New Dems. I can't think of anyone worse.

But he appears to have it sewn up. Most Democrats in the House are either enthusiastic about him or resigned to what he's made them all think is inevitable. What can we do? Crowley is virtually unknown in his own district where he's like an absentee landlord. He and his family live in Virginia. He has a credible primary challenge in less than 2 weeks (June 26). His opponent, Alexandria Ocasio, is more of the district than he is. And she's making a strong grassroots attempt to dislodge him. If she wins, he won't be Speaker-- and Wall Street will lose it's biggest patsy among House Democrats. Yesterday, Lee Fang, published a brilliant piece in The Intercept, How People Close The Joe Crowley Have Gotten Rich While The Queens Boss Has Risen In Congress. His rise to the speakership could be another death knell for the Democratic Party. The crooks may be tolerated-- bad enough-- but they should never be the top man.

The rise of Congressman Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., has coincided with lucrative lobbying contracts for his younger brother, John Crowley, an attorney who goes by the first name Sean, and previously specialized in wills and estate law.

Sean Crowley serves as a partner at Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP, a powerhouse law firm with offices in Albany, New York City, and Washington, D.C., that advertises its ability to connect clients with congressional leadership.

Over the last decade, clients with interests before Congress have retained Sean Crowley through his lobbying firm, paying more than $4.5 million to influence and monitor government policies, according to a review of contracts by The Intercept.

Clients in recent years have included Oracle, AbbVie, NBCUniversal, Juniper Systems, New York Community Bancorp, Abbott Labs, and Elections Systems & Software.

In many cases, the interests of Sean Crowley’s clients have overlapped with his elder brother’s legislative and political work.

Earlier this year, Joe Crowley voted in favor of President Donald Trump’s effort to repeal a rule established by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau designed to prevent racial discrimination in the auto loan industry.

The legislation was heavily promoted by the National Automobile Dealers Association, the New York affiliate of which retains Sean Crowley as a lobbyist on regulatory issues, including city rules meant to curb predatory lending practices.

In 2013, Joe Crowley helped award $10 million in federal assistance to the Hunts Point Terminal Produce Cooperative, a merchants association in the Bronx that retained Sean Crowley as a lobbyist.

In 2009, both Crowley brothers worked to assist the life insurance settlement industry. A few months after President Barack Obama’s inauguration, Joe Crowley, newly empowered with his first major leadership post at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and a perch on the powerful committee dealing with tax legislation, traveled to Orlando, Florida, to address hundreds of financial representatives.

Joe Crowley, speaking to the Life Insurance Settlement Association’s annual meeting, reassured executives, and noted that Obama had made no mention of life insurance or life insurance settlements during his recent speech outlining his tax agenda, suggesting the audience might be spared from any future tax hikes.

“I think for your industry, that is a good thing,” said Crowley. “It doesn’t mean that you’re out of the woods, but it’s a good thing.”

The congressman encouraged the attendees to contact Democratic lawmakers on the Ways and Means Committee and continue to lobby to share their views.

The friendly chat coincided with a lucrative contract for Crowley’s younger brother, Sean, who was retained by the Life Insurance Settlement Association earlier that year to influence tax legislation on Capitol Hill. Sean Crowley’s lobbying firm, Davidoff Hutcher & Citron, went on to collect $140,000 on behalf of the life insurance settlement client.

The engagement with the life insurance settlement lobby also provided a lift to Joe Crowley. He was the largest recipient of Life Insurance Settlement Association political action committee donations during the 2010 election cycle.

...A report last year in the New York Post revealed that Joe Crowley has also paid nearly $70,000 in campaign funds to a company owned by Sean, called Killean Enterprises LLC. Joe Crowley claimed the money was rent for a campaign office, though the space owned by the younger Crowley brother is outside the district.

Before working as a lobbyist, Sean served as an attorney at a firm called Crowley, Crowley & Kaufman, a partnership with Scott Kaufman, the treasurer of Joe Crowley’s political action committee.

Joe Crowley has faced years of headlines charging that he engages in nepotism and unethical political patronage. As the boss of the Queens Democratic Party, he has nominated associates to the borough election commission, helped allies win election to the New York City Council, and appointed family friends to the Queens Surrogate’s Court.

The court appointments have gained increasing scrutiny after reports that associates of Joe Crowley are routinely selected as court-appointed guardians who have earned millions of dollars processing the estates of residents who pass away without establishing a will. Gerard Sweeney, an official at the Queens Democratic Party and a Crowley lieutenant, has raked in over $30 million administering estates through his position as an administration attorney at the Surrogate’s Court, which he won through his relationship with Joe Crowley.

Before becoming a lobbyist, Sean Crowley also served as a court-appointed guardian. Kaufman has continued to serve as one, earning around $550,000 from work assigned through the Surrogate’s Court. Notably, Kaufman now faces a state ethics probe for potentially violating court administration rules on compensation.

...The convergence of business and politics in the Queens Democratic machine reflects Joe Crowley’s ascent through the ranks of House Democratic leadership.

Joe Crowley has gathered power through high-level connections with well-placed political figures and business leaders. The previous lawmaker to serve in his seat, Rep. Thomas Manton, D-N.Y., another Queens Democratic Party boss, quietly selected Crowley as his successor just before the legal filing deadline in 1998, while deceiving the public and claiming he would run for re-election, a strategy that effectively prevented a competitive election.

In Congress, Joe Crowley has served as a liaison between K Street and the Democratic Party, often mobilizing opposition to bank regulations and other rules opposed by major donors to the party. In 2005, he won a low-ranking position with the DCCC, helping to serve on an outreach council to the business community. But Joe Crowley proved a prodigious fundraiser, helping to raise $5 million for the party, a capability that catapulted him to serve as vice chair of the DCCC four years later.

In 2009, he was elected as the leader of the New Democrat Coalition, a moderate [shame of Lee for referring to conservatives as "moderrates"] caucus that used its political weight to weaken financial reform. The coalition famously threatened to defeat the Dodd-Frank financial reform law unless amendments were added to provide less stringent rules on derivatives and pre-emption of stronger state-based bank regulations. As Joe Crowley and other New Democrat leaders marshaled political support for changes to the bill, the lawmakers went on a rapid fundraising spree, collecting checks from Wall Street banks that were seeking to influence the legislation.

The Office of Congressional Ethics opened an investigation into Joe Crowley’s financial reform-related fundraisers, though the House Ethics Committee, which outranks the OCE and is stacked with fellow lawmakers, later declined to continue the probe.

In the years since passage of financial reform, Joe Crowley has continued to chip away at tough rules on banks while vacuuming up Wall Street donations. In 2011, he co-authored a letter requesting that regulators withdraw and revise the fiduciary rule, a high-profile consumer safeguard designed to ensure that financial planners act only in the interests of their clients. The following year, after meeting with bank executives, Joe Crowley and other New Democrats sent a letter to regulators requesting a delay to the Volcker Rule, one of the signature restrictions on big banks, designed to prevent reckless proprietary trading.

The letters, again, coincided with a steady flow of bank and corporate contributions to Joe Crowley’s political action committees, which include a leadership PAC, a joint fundraising committee, and a personal PAC. Following the 2016 election, Joe Crowley was elected as chair of the House Democratic Caucus, making him the fourth ranking member in leadership.

Now, the Trump administration has signaled that it is working to unravel both provisions of financial reform criticized by Joe Crowley’s letters and is making headway in relaxing other aspects of the Dodd-Frank law. That Joe Crowley previously targeted the same financial regulations that are now in the crosshairs of Trump contrasts sharply with the image the Queens Democrat has portrayed in his campaign advertising, which depict him as a bold opponent of the president.

Despite a relatively conservative voting record while representing a deeply Democratic district-- Crowley not only has been a consistent friend to the banking lobby, but voted for the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, and a controversial bill in 2005 to limit consumer bankruptcy protections-- he is currently maneuvering to become the next speaker of the House.

Last month, members of the New Democrat caucus provided strong support for a Republican-led bill to increase the bank threshold for systemic risk assessments, raising the size at which regulators provide additional scrutiny from $50 billion to $250 billion in bank assets.

Facing pressure from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive challenging Joe Crowley in the Democratic primary on June 26, the Queens Democratic Party chief abandoned his moderate pro-bank colleagues. This time, he bucked his New Democrat colleagues and voted against the bill weakening Dodd-Frank. Crowley, facing a tightening race, has begun to spend heavily on television to stave off a major upset, and has agreed to debate Ocasio-Cortez. (It will air this eveningy on NY1 in the 7:00 hour.)

As I tried explain yesterday afternoon-- here-- many Democrats in Congress who want to stay on his good side or because they are afraid of him and because freshmen and sophomores are largely unaware of what a crooked conservative Crowley is are going along with his rise. The co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, Mark Pocan, who has the 3rd best voting record in the whole Congress-- and who should be a candidate for Speaker himself-- is actually whipping for Crowley and telling naive progressives that Crowley is trustworthy and a fellow progressive! Pocan is a good man... and he should know better. I would like everyone reading this to please consider helping replace Joe Crowley and the threat he is to the Democratic Party and to the country-- one Trump is already too much-- by contributing to Alexandria Ocasio's campaign. And you can do that by tapping on the Blue America 2018 congressional campaign thermometer on the right and giving what you can.

Desperate, Joe Crowley Tries Making His Failing Campaign About Race And Ethnicity

Alexandria Ocasio's race to replace Joe Crowley in her Queens/Bronx district-- Crowley and his family live in Virginia-- could turn out to be the most important primary of 2018. I hope you're following it at Queens Against Crowley. Yesterday they focused on a Ryan Grim report at The Intercept, "Crowley confuses ethnicity and race with power and privilege." Crowley, they pointed out "complained at a recent political event that his Democratic Party primary challenger, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, was focusing her campaign too much on issues of ethnicity or race, remarking, according to the report, that these types of issues were 'unnecessarily divisive.' At many of Crowley’s political events, he loves to brag about his Irish background. Yet, he feels it is fair to deny Ocasio-Cortez any opportunity to speak about her heritage and background, seemingly solely because she is Hispanic."

Having all the power of being the Queens party boss is not enough for Crowley. He wants to use the privilege he has as a White male in power to snuff out his opponent by stoking fears about ethnicity or race to his largely White audiences, as his recent political event was described.



Long before Ocasio-Cortez ever decided to challenge Crowley in a Congressional primary this year, though, Crowley made issues of race central to how Queens was going to be governed. One need not look too far to see how Crowley has used race and White privilege in Queens to further his own ideas about what is fair about who holds elected office.

Before Crowley inherited his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, Richard Brown (Establishment-NY) was first appointed and then reëlected, uninterruptedly, as the District Attorney for Queens County. Now an octogenarian, Brown has said he has no plans for retiring. Though he holds elected office, Brown acts as if being the District Attorney is a job he gets to decide how long he keeps. Like Crowley, Brown acts as if he is entitled to his elected post. The major problem caused to Queens County voters is that Brown is resisting criminal justice reform, as called for by Ocasio-Cortez. Brown wants to keep arresting his way through the opioid crisis, even though Whites are shown to mainly be turning to dangerous synthetic painkillers as lifestyle drugs. Because Brown also resists speedy calls for legalizing marijuana or decriminalizing other crimes that disproportionately affect minority communities, criminal justice in Queens is prosecuted with race-based overtones, notably Broken Windows policing.

Since Brown runs for elected office with the explicit consent of the Queens machine, which is headed by Crowley, Crowley is responsible for how one’s race or ethnicity determines one’s experience when it comes to our justice system. Not only that, but the culture of unaccountability that runs through Queens County politics, which makes Brown believe that his elected office is his until he no longer wants it, is the making of the boss of the Queens machine : Crowley, himself.

Ocasio-Cortez is not making this political primary about ethnicity or race; it is Crowley, who is making it about the privilege and culture of unchallenged power, which he’s gotten so used to. By now, Crowley has been in Congress for 20 years, and he’s been the Queens party boss for 12 years. Crowley’s complaints about divisiveness should rightly fall on deaf ears, because Ocasio-Cortez has been espousing a political campaign that aims to unite New Yorkers on issues that affect everybody, regardless of ethnicity or race, such as the unaffordability crisis in rents and the need to reform our criminal justice system. The only person who is confusing race or ethnicity with power and privilege is Crowley.

Grim reminded his readers that "Crowley is routinely floated as next in line to be the leader of the House Democrats if Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California steps aside or is ousted... To meet with that destiny, however, he has an obstacle to overcome: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez-- a Bronx-born millennial whose scrappy challenge from the left has generated excitement nationally and around the district, which encompasses parts of Queens and the Bronx.

If Crowley positions himself as a photo negative of the president, Ocasio-Cortez is a different medium altogether. A 28-year-old woman and daughter to a Puerto Rican mother and Bronx father, Ocasio-Cortez’s most notable novelty is arguably not her demographic profile, but her policy profile. She calls for the abolition of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Medicare for All, tuition-free public college, a federal jobs guarantee, and criminal justice reform “now.” “It doesn’t take 100 years to do this,” she intones in a viral campaign video [above]. “It takes political courage.”

Crowley, though, when he talked about the campaign, shared his frustration over what he perceives to be an inordinate focus on ethnicity.

His opponent, he said, was trying to make the campaign “about race”-- a strategy he called “unnecessarily divisive” at a time when the party needed to be “fighting Republicans, not other Democrats,” according to two people at the gathering.

“I can’t help that I was born white,” Crowley said. One of those who heard Crowley’s speech, Nick Haby, a Democratic activist who attended the meet-and-greet, agreed to speak on the record, while the second asked for anonymity given Crowley’s power in the Queens political machine.

...Haby said he came to the event with an open mind about Crowley, but he left leaning against him, even though he aligns with the Hillary Clinton wing of the party, whose agenda is most closely mirrored by Crowley’s. (Ocasio-Cortez is a former organizer for Bernie Sanders’s 2016 campaign and has been endorsed by Sanders-affiliated groups Our Revolution and People for Bernie Sanders, as well as the Democratic Socialists of America.)

Most of those at the event were white or white-presenting, Haby said, and he found Crowley’s defense that he couldn’t “help” being born white, coupled with his claims of being “destined” for leadership, odd and off-putting.

The source who originally tipped The Intercept off to Crowley’s alleged remarks in the days following the event was similarly troubled by Crowley’s comments on race. “It just felt really weird and not appropriate,” he explained.

If Crowley’s comments seem odd, it may be because Crowley is relatively inexperienced at campaigning.

Crowley graduated from Queens College in 1985 while his uncle, Walter Crowley, was serving as a city councilor-- a seat he had inherited from then-Queens party boss Tom Manton. Walter Crowley died in 1985, and according to subsequent New York Times reporting, Joe Crowley “set his eyes” on the seat, but was thwarted. “[W]hen Assemblyman Ralph Goldstein died in 1986, Mr. Crowley decided to run in the Democratic primary to succeed him. It was a crowded race with seven candidates. Mr. Crowley, then 24, won that race decisively,” the Times reported.

Crowley fended off a primary challenger in 1988, winning comfortably.

In 1999, when Manton, by then a member of Congress, retired, Crowley got a phone call from him. “On the last legal day to find a replacement, Mr. Manton convened a small meeting and telephoned Joseph Crowley, then an Assemblyman, to tell him he would be on the ballot in November [2000] as a congressional candidate,” the New York Sun reported.

He was effectively appointed to Congress by the party boss. Crowley also inherited Manton’s role as the new “king of Queens,” and has run the district machine since then. He had to defend his seat against primary challengers in 2002 and 2004 and each time won comfortably.

Despite having been in elected office for more than 30 years, Crowley has faced just four primary contests, and won them all comfortably. He has not faced a challenger since 2004.

His seat is now being challenged by Ocasio-Cortez, who’s running with a grassroots army, national attention, and a popular campaign ad that celebrates her independence from the Queens machine-- her freedom to mount a direct challenge to the throne.

The irony that Crowley laments how he “can’t help” being white, while ignoring the political advantages he inherited, is not lost on Ocasio-Cortez. “The congressman could have helped that he accepted inheritance of his seat from a multigenerational political dynasty without a true primary-- a process by which people of color are historically locked out of representation. The congressman could help that he voted to establish ICE. The congressman can help the fact that he accepts money from developers that are displacing our communities and the folks criminalizing our backyards,” she told The Intercept.

“Additionally, why is it that the congressman can proudly discuss his Irish heritage on the campaign trail, but I am somehow barred from mentioning my Puerto Rican family?”

...Haby said that while he left the event disinclined to vote for Crowley, the next day’s news solidified his decision: Crowley endorsed New York state Sen. Jose Peralta for another term. Peralta had been a member of the Independent Democratic Conference — a group of Democrats who caucused with Republicans to deny Democrats a majority in the chamber. Peralta later rejoined the caucus, and Crowley has said he endorsed Peralta in response to his change of heart.

Haby is a board member of the Lesbian & Gay Democratic Club of Queens and a member of Stonewall Democrats. He’s also the chair of the marketing and social media committee for the Powhatan and Pocahontas Regular Democratic Club.

The LGDCQ later endorsed Crowley, though Ocasio-Cortez did not compete for their backing. She assumed that, as part of the Queens political establishment, the club would never endorse anyone but Crowley, and her campaign decided to invest its limited resources into competing for votes it felt were more winnable. She says that decision was made early on. “At my first attempt to meet a local Dem club, they heard I was coming and rushed to endorse Crowley before I arrived. It’s never been our strategy to court a system led by Crowley,” she said.

Haby said he was disappointed by her decision not to reach out to his club, but accurately guessed at her rationale.

Ocasio-Cortez now says she has rethought that approach after realizing that Crowley’s support was softer than it initially appeared. The LGDCQ’s endorsement is a case in point. “I do think I perhaps overstated how strong this machine was in its loyalty to Crowley,” she said. “When I started, everyone told me it was a done deal. As I’ve gone further, I’ve seen that his support isn’t as strong as people say it is.”

Please consider helping Alexandria replace Crowley, a notoriously corrupt Democrat beholden to Wall Street, by clicking on the thermometer above. It's important. You shouldn't want to see this creep become Speaker; he's far worse than Pelosi or even Hoyer. And folks in Queens and The Bronx deserve better.

The Most Important Congressional Primary Of 2018-- Throw The Bum Out

We've been writing about Alexandria Ocasio, who we endorsed, for some time now and, for far longer, about her opponent Joe Crowley. As you can see from the video above, Alexandria is guaranteed to be a shake 'em up member when she makes it to Congress. Crowley, on the other hand, is exactly what need has needed to be shaken up. Time's up.

Pelosi and Hoyer have groomed him and anointed him as their successor to lead the House Democrats. I can't think of a way to destroy the Democratic Party sooner than for Crowley to lead it. Nor can I think of a more corrupt Democrat in Congress. 

Did you think Chicago Blue Dog Dan Lipinski was bad? No one pays him much attention and there isn't much he can do more than vote badly. Crowley is far worse, since he aspires to lead the Democratic Party. For those who like to say there is no difference between the two parties... they'll be a lot closer to correct if Crowley wins the speakership. But right now, Crowley may not even win his own own Queens-Bronx House seat in the June 26 primary. How is that possible? After all, as of the March 31 FEC reporting deadline, Crowley had raised $2,777,489 and Alexandria just $115,653.

OK, here's how: he and his family live in Virginia and he has virtually nothing to do with the district, a district that has changed drastically since it was first given to him in 1998. Less that 20% of the people are white and very few of them have ever even heard of him or know he's their congressman. As Alexandria says, "It's time we acknowledge that not all Democrats are the same. That a Democrat who takes corporate money, profits off foreclosure, doesn't live here, doesn't send his kids to our schools, doesn't drink our water or breathe our air cannot possibly represent us. What the Bronx and Queens needs is Medicare-for-all, tuition-free public college, a federal jobs guarantee, and criminal justice reform. We can do it now."

And replacing the ones who have prevented this kind progress for years-- whether that's Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell or Joe Crowley and Steny Hoyer-- is the only way to accomplish that. Please consider chipping in to Alexandria's campaign by clicking on the Blue America thermometer above and by sharing that video up top with everyone you know, especially the folks in NY-14, which includes City Island, Baychester, Pelham, Morris Park, Parkchester, Middletown, Throggs Neck and Spencer Estates in the Bronx and Malba, College Point, Corona, Steinway, Woodside, Jackson Heights, Sunnyside and East Elmhurst in Queens. This is a blue, blue district and there's no chance of forfeiting it to the GOP by kicking out Crowley. The PVI is D+29 and Hillary beat Trump in the district 77.7% to 19.8%. (In 2012, Obama won with over 80%.)

Primarying Joe Crowley Is A Noble, Heroic Act-- Alexandria Ocasio Just Took It On

I was very excited yesterday. Do you recall the post about how the big shots and recruiters at the DCCC are not among the 110 co-sponsors of John Conyers' Medicare-For All Act? In it I made the point that Wall Street-captive and Pelosi/Hoyer heir apparent, former New Dem chairman Joe Crowley, the backroom boss of the Queens Democratic Party Machine, is one of the House Democratic Leaders refusing to sign on as a co-sponsor. Soon after the post went up, an inside source called me and said Crowley or one of his staffers read the piece and he decided to become an official co-sponsor. Whatever his motivation-- that's awesome. There are now not 110 but 111 co-sponsors. So I was ready for a victory dance and was even boasting about it on Nicole Sandler's radio show when another congressional staffer sent me a note saying that she thought Crowley was frightened of Alexandria Ocasio and that that was why he signed on.

Who's Alexandria Ocasio? I did a little looking around and BOOM-- more great news! Alexandria is a Bronx-based activist and trained economist who worked for Ted Kennedy and, more recently, was behind Bernie's efforts in New York. She's a BrandNewCongress and Justice Democrats candidate running for the NY-14 seat currently held by... yep, Joe Crowley. I admire Alexandria for taking on such an onerous task. The Democratic Party establishment HATES when one of their members gets primaried. Few deserve one more than Crowley, one of the most corrupt Democrats in Congress. I think he managed to get his House Ethics Committee case thrown out but most powerhouses in both parties can do that fairly easily. The House Ethics Committee only gets serious when the complaint is about a racial minority. Crowley, who lives in Virginia, is the Queens County boss and he never really ran for Congress in a traditional sense. He was just kind of conveniently eased into his seat by the powers that be (retiring Congressman Thomas Manton to be specific). He sees himself as a potential Speaker of the House-- a horrifying prospect on a level with John Boehner-- and he was recently anointed chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, a top leadership position, technically the #4 job among House Dems. If he ever does rise to the speakership, he would certainly be the most corrupt Speaker in contemporary history.

Bronx-born Alexandria has been eager to help effect positive change for working families in her district and is especially eager to do something about "the dearth of educational opportunities in my birthplace and personally address the lack of growth that had forced me out of my original home. I applied for and received a social entrepreneurship grant from NHI and I finally got to return to the Bronx where I launched Brook Avenue Press, dedicated to developing products and curriculum focused on childhood intervention and literacy."

The 14th has a unique capability to lead this country. It’s one of the most progressive districts around. But we need new leadership that amplifies that progressive spirit and energy. Our current congressman is not a representative voice for our community. With over $6M in PAC contributions since 2010, and his failure to co-sponsor, let alone introduce and seriously fight for, any legislation that would help the working families of our district shows he has a different set of priorities.

This district deserves to be represented by someone who’s been in the workforce, someone who has spent more time climbing subway steps than the steps of Capitol Hill. We need a new voice, a new face, a new energy that reflects our evolved community. We need someone with hustle to be our voice in Congress, who is ready to organize and inspire-- both at home and in Washington-- for Queens, for the Bronx, and for our country.

When we have the building blocks for economic mobility in place for more members of our community, we all benefit. If we're committed to bootstrapping to improve the lives of our citizens, we need to make sure everyone has boots to begin with. Free college tuition for all, early childhood education intervention, medicare for all and preventive care access are the strongest laces there are-- and we need them, if we’re to pull ourselves up together as a community and as a country.

Trump didn't even get 20% of the vote in NY-14. Neither had Romney in 2012. The PVI is D+26. It's exactly the kind of district that should be sending smart, dedicated progressives to Congress, not leaders of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party driven by careerism and corruption. Crowley has never had a serious opponent in his entire congressional career. Usually the second highest vote-getter isn't a Republican but votes that are cast blank and as write-ins (sometimes more than a third of the votes cast.) Demographically, the district is about half Hispanic, 25% white, 16% Asian and 10% black. 60% of the voters live in Queens and 40% in the Bronx. The district starts up in Pelham Bay and includes City Island, Baychester, Pelham, Parkchester, Middletown and Throggs Neck in the Bronx and then crosses over the Whitestone Bridge into Queens-- encompassing the Malba, College Point, Jackson Heights, East Elmhurst, Corona, Steinway, Sunnyside, and Woodside neighborhoods of Queens, as well as Rikers Island and La Guardia Airport. Crowley may have been an OK fit for this district 3 or 4 decades ago-- but not now, which is, I suppose, why he lives in Virginia. If you'd like to help drag the Democratic Party into the 21st Century, please consider giving Alexandria a hand by tapping the ActBlue primary thermometer on the right.

"What in hell does [Bloomberg right-hand man Dan Doctoroff] know about life in working class Queens?" (Mitch Waxman)

If you find yourself in the neighborhood -- Sheepshead Bay, that is -- follow Mitch's recommendation of the roast beef "au jus" sandwich, and be sure to have them pile on the (free) onions and extra gravy.


"Something happened during the Bloomberg era, however. 'Gubmint' jobs suddenly accrued a new status and the suits from corporate America began to talk about 'service.' They took the pay cut, accepted a position at this agency or that, and began applying the rules of business to government policy. . . .

"Thing is, most of these 'Gubmint' people aren't from 'here,' and they seem to regard New York City with a thinly veiled disgust. For example - remember when Dan Doctoroff described the Sunnyside Yards as 'a scar' he saw from his office window in Manhattan a couple of years ago? . . . [W]hat in hell does Dan Doctoroff know about life in working class Queens?"

-- Mitch Waxman, in his Newtown
Pentacle blogpost today, "leaden jars"

by Ken

In a July Newtown Pentacle post, "tinkling flames," Mitch finished up his tale of an excursion to Brooklyn's Sheepshead Bay by sharing his discovery that a cherished haunt of his Canarsie youth "is still there, at the corner of Emmons and East 29th, just where I left it . . . And inside of RnR, nothing has changed since the 1980’s, except for the prices."

As I've said here a number of times, Mitch Waxman's Newtown Pentacle blog is the one blog I follow rigorously, reading every damned post, Monday through Friday. I don't know anybody who gets more mileage out of the basic blog tools of words and pictures -- a resource set, he has pointed out to me, that he has been using dating back to his former life as a creator of comic books. Keeping up with The Newtown Pentacle is made easier and more rewarding by the fact that you never know what's going to set Mitch off on any given day.

For example, in the July post "tinkling flames" Mitch finished up his account of an excursion from his current home base, Astoria, Queens, to Brooklyn's Sheepshead Bay by sharing the delighted discovery that a cherished haunt of his Canarsie youth --

is still there, at the corner of Emmons and East 29th, just where I left it. And inside of RnR, nothing has changed since the 1980’s, except for the prices.

Don't think for a moment that that didn't burrow deep into my brain. And sure enough, the next time I found myself within striking distance of the shrine -- one day in September when I'd journeyed out beyond Sheepshead Bay to Plumb (or "Plum"; the point is hotly contested) Beach to participate in a beach cleanup organized by NYC H2O and one or two other environmental groups in conjunction with the National Parks Service -- I had it in mind all day that the distance from Plumb (or Plum) Beach to Roll n Roaster should be eminently walkable. And when the time came, rather than continuing to await the delayed arrival of our promised lunch (tacos, wasn't it?), you better believe I struck out for the hallowed corner of Emmons Ave. and E. 29th St. And when I got there, I remembered Mitch's report, in picture (click to enlarge) and words --

"I went with the lemonade, and the roast beef 'as jus' sandwich. If you have the opportunity, get the above. If it’s wintertime, get the cheese fries as well. Fried potatoes just don’t go with the summer heat, IMHO."

I passed on the lemonade -- and the cheese fries (it was only late September, after all) -- but indeed went for the roast beef sandwich, and while I was devouring it, by studying the changing menu video screens I discovered that at no extra charge I could have had both onions and extra gravy. I've stored that information away for the next time I'm in the vicinity, and by "vicinity" I mean to draw fairly wide boundary lines.


MOST OFTEN, OF COURSE, MITCH CAN BE FOUND
AMBLING ABOUT HIS BELOVED NEWTOWN CREEK

On land or water, camera in hand, with varying amounts of camera gear in stowed in the bag he's schlepping. I've reported frequently on Mitch's wanderings, and you can sample those reports as well as the photographs that accompanied them by hitting the tag below.

Which brings us to today's post, "leaden jars," in which we encounter Mitch in his "outer borough" voice -- a Brooklyn lad now transplanted to western Queens, which is now undergoing rapid transformation at the hands of moneyed Manhattan-based elites who don't know or care anything about it except that it's one of the city's current best places to enrich their kind beyond most of our wildest imaginings, without any concern for the people who live there now -- or how the rich people being deposited there are going to live without any serious infrastructure investment to make life there livable.

The story is told so elegantly and powerfully that I wouldn't dare presume to paraphrase or edit it.

Failure is often the only option, in today's post.


- photo by Mitch Waxman [click to enlarge -- Ed.]

One has been on a holy tear of late on the real estate development and gentrification situation here in Western Queens. I've been pissing off a bunch of people I know in government by doing so, and have received the usual "who do you think you are?" accusations and chides. My standard response is "I'm a citizen, and how dare you act like some sort of landed gentry towards me when ultimately all you've got is a government job." It was common sense when I was growing up that taking a government job (as opposed to working for a corporation) was all about the security and pension benefits. What you didn't get in terms of annual salary today, you'd get back in the long term during retirement. In my neighborhood - DSNY was considered a good career bet, as well as becoming a teacher, as they had the strongest Unions with the best "bennys." My pal "Special Ed"'s dad told us all that we should seriously consider becoming court bailiffs.

Of course, that's my "working class" outlook at work, and back then the gub'mint wasn't the pathway one took in pursuance of eventually securing a high paid corporate consultancy job.


- photo by Mitch Waxman [click to enlarge -- Ed.]

Something happened during the Bloomberg era, however. "Gubmint" jobs suddenly accrued a new status and the suits from corporate America began to talk about "service." They took the pay cut, accepted a position at this agency or that, and began applying the rules of business to government policy. Now, don't get me wrong, these are pretty clever folks and the amount of brain (and Rolodex) power they brought with them to lower Manhattan is impressive. Problem being, they have an inherently profit based modus operandi due to their experiences in the "real world." The "Gubmint" ain't supposed to turn a profit.

Thing is, most of these "Gubmint" people aren't from "here," and they seem to regard New York City with a thinly veiled disgust.

For example - remember when Dan Doctoroff described the Sunnyside Yards as "a scar" he saw from his office window in Manhattan a couple of years ago? Mr. Doctoroff was born in Newark, but grew up in Birmingham, Michigan and then attended Harvard University. A suburb of Detroit, the demographics of Birmingham are 96% Caucasian (according to the 2000 census), and a mere 1.6% of the population of Birmingham lives below the poverty line. The median income for a household in that city in 2000 was $80,861, and the median income for a family was $110,627. Not exactly East New York, or the South Bronx, or Astoria. Mr. Doctoroff is famously Michael Bloomberg's right hand man and the fellow who ran Bloomberg LLC while his boss was Mayor, and is accordingly quite affluent. He's the very definition of the "one percent" and a leading member of the "elite." I don't imagine Mr. Doctoroff goes fishing in his penny jar for bagel money when it's the Thursday before payday, has never had to "borrow from Peter to pay Paul," or lived in financial fear that the City DOB might impoverish him with an unexpected order to repair or replace his concrete sidewalk.

In other words, what in hell does Dan Doctoroff know about life in working class Queens?

Doctoroff and his cohorts created the term "affordable housing" which the current Mayor has made his own. The question often asked is "affordable by who"? The Citizens Budget Commission boiled that down in this post from last year. The upshot of it is that in order to create this so called "affordable" apartment stock, which is unaffordable to the low income people it's meant to serve, the rent on "market" rate apartments actually has to go up to cover the cost. This redistribution of wealth hits the middle and working class on two fronts - higher monthly rents, and the application of their tax dollars to subsidize the real estate development which reluctantly includes the so called "affordable" units.


- photo by Mitch Waxman [click to enlarge -- Ed.]

Personal experience from having actually grown up in NYC suggests that whomever the politicians and planners set out to "help" end up getting hurt.

Having grown up in what would be considered a "low income" family under modern terms, we members of the Waxman clan migrated to the outer edges of the City (Brooklyn's Canarsie section) where housing was found that we could afford. That's where relative affluence and dire poverty comingled, and created a culture. This was possible due to a preexisting infrastructure of subways and highways that allowed egress to and from the commercial center in Manhattan, but there were still plenty of jobs to be had locally. Manufacturing, commercial, shops. If you played your cards right, you could earn a living and never once have to go into the City. That's changed, and the ongoing loss of this manufacturing and commercial side of the working class economy is excaberated by this affordable housing craze which perceives any large footprint lot as being a potential development site.

If a building went up in the 1970's or 80's, which included low income housing, that had a separate entrance or "poor door" there would have been bloody riots.

The reason for that is the City planners and "Gubmint" officialdom were mostly native New Yorkers who lived in and were loyal to the neighborhoods they oversaw, and who understood that "it's not all about Manhattan." Doctoroff and his acolytes see the City as the solution and not the problem. The looming infrastructure crisis this rapid development is causing will impoverish the City. A century ago, when the newly consolidated City of Greater New York was being similarly developed - the politicians built the subways and sewers first, then they sold off or awarded the adjoining properties at bargain prices to their cronies like Cord Meyer and Fred Trump.

The infrastructure investments made between 1898 and 1940 allowed NYC to grow beyond anyone's wildest dreams. Unfortunately, these days we are doing the opposite, and allowing the buildings to be erected first. The bill for all of the municipal machinery will come after the population loading is finished.

I GNASH MY TEETH WHEN SUPPOSEDLY SERIOUS
PUNDITS SUGGEST THAT THE BILLION-DOLLAR LOSER . . .

. . . has staked out a serious position with his stunning insight that our system is broken. The system is broken, of course, but nobody has done more to break it or to profit from the breakage. Oh, he might have in mind some shifting of the exact cast of 1-percent characters destined to pillage and plunder the economy in a Trump administration. But is there anything in his grotesque lifetime's worth of words or deeds to suggest that he has any interest in un-breaking the system, or in fact doing anything but exploit the gullibility of actual victims of the breakage in order to further service his seemingly limitless greed and boundless ego?

#