Spitzer, Madam He Hired Hookers From, Running For Same City Comptroller Office

This is fabulous:

In a bombshell announcement, former Gov. Eliot Spitzer says he is running for city controller this year.

Spitzer told the Daily News this evening that he plans to jump into the race. He joins Anthony Weiner, who is running for mayor, as the latest disgraced politician looking to re-enter the political arena.

...


In an odd twist, the madam linked to his scandal, Kristin Davis, is running for city controller on the libertarian line.

"That's going to an an incredible debate," said one political insider.

Yeah, it sure will.

First question to Ms. Davis:

You blacklisted Mr. Spitzer from hiring prostitutes from your service because you said he acted "violently" towards them.  Can you please illuminate us on just what you meant by "acted 'violently' towards them"?

Yeah, that's going to be a fab-o debate to watch.

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Spitzer To Run For City Comptroller

Another weiner returns to politics:

Eliot Spitzer, who resigned as governor of New York five years ago amid a prostitution scandal, is re-entering political life, with a run for the citywide office of comptroller and a hope that voters are ready to look past his previous misconduct. 

Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, said he was eager to plunge back into politics and believed he could revolutionize the often-overlooked city office into a new model for government accountability and shareholder activism. 

“I’m hopeful there will be forgiveness, I am asking for it,” he said in a telephone interview on Sunday night. 

His re-entry comes in an era when politicians — like Representative Mark Sanford of South Carolina and the New York mayoral contender Anthony D. Weiner — have shown that public disapproval, especially over sexual misconduct, can be fleeting, and voters seem open to those who seek forgiveness and redemption. 

Mr. Spitzer, an aggressive watchdog over Wall Street when he served as attorney general of New York, said he wanted to transform the comptroller’s office into a robust agency that would not merely monitor and account for city spending, as it does now, but conduct regular inquiries into the effectiveness of government policies, in areas like education. 

Such a reading of the office, which would significantly expand its scope, could put Mr. Spitzer into conflict with the city’s next mayor, much as his reign as attorney general put him at odds with federal regulators of Wall Street.

He has to get all his signatures collected by Thursday to make the ballot.

I guess there is no disgrace that can keep a politician from re-entering politics these days.

Good thing Nixon and Agnew are dead, eh?

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Post Attacks Quinn

The NY Posties wrote an editorial today in which they attacked Christine Quinn as "the worst of both worlds: the full Bloomberg nanny without any of his principled stands for common sense."

Leaving aside the nonsense about Bloomberg having "common sense," I want to point out how interesting it is that Rupert Murdoch's paper is attacking Christine Quinn on the editorial page.

She seems to have lost Rupert Murdoch and his merry hacksters at the Post.

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Bringing My Danielson Rubric With Me...

...so that I can go out and have a "highly effective" afternoon in my quantified interactions with human beings I meet upon the way.

Have I assessed them often enough?

Have the assessments been "high quality"?

Am I using the "data" from the "high quality assessments" to plan my future interactions with human beings?

Geez, how did I ever live before Charlotte Danielson, the economist, quantified every human interaction for me?

As Danielson has shown through her high quality research and professional development, any human interaction can be quantified and improved upon using her rubric.

You'd better bring your Danielson rubric with you too.

After all, why trust your own knowledge, experience, and inner spirit for living when you can trust Charlotte Danielson instead?

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NYCDOE Continues To Poison Students, Staff With PCB's In City Schools

Once again, it becomes apparent that the Children First. Always people care nothing about children:

Despite vowing to speed up the process of replacing light fixtures containing dangerous chemicals in city schools, the Education Department does not follow its own protocols to alert parents and quickly remove toxic PCBs, according to emails obtained by the Daily News.

The exchanges between staffers from the DOE and Environmental Protection Agency show that defective light fixtures are still leaking in city schools — and replacement of the faulty fixtures at some were not handled properly.

...

  

At Public School 253 in Brighton Beach, several fixtures did not work in the auditorium this year. School staff discovered one of the lights had leaked toxic liquid in the auditorium in August.

“The custodian did not follow procedures for reporting it or cleaning it,” EPA employee John Gorman wrote in March to his colleagues. “They are removing all of the fixtures in the auditorium tonight and will collect a wipe sample from the floor.”

At P.S. 186 in Bensonhurst, there were five smoking ballasts recorded from March to May, Gorman noted to his colleagues in another email.

In a letter sent to Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott in February regarding more toxins at P.S. 50 in Staten Island, EPA regional administrator Judith Enck called out the DOE for taking 10 days to alert families of smoke emanating from fixtures.

“The students were not immediately removed from the classroom,” Enck wrote. “I am concerned about the DOE’s response to the situation.”

And what was the DOE's response?

 

Why, a jive-ass p.r. statement from Marge Feinberg, of course!

 

“The DOE continues to work with EPA on improving protocols and developing a citywide PCB management plan,” said spokeswoman Margie Feinberg. “As the lighting replacement project progresses, DOE is keeping EPA abreast of ongoing work.”

They don't care about the children in the public school system at all.

Seriously, not at all.

If they did, they would have sped up the removal of the PCB's from the light fixtures in all of the schools instead of fighting the case brought against them and trying to delay the removal as long as possible.

And if money was such a problem, then they could have dumped a few Common Core consultants or testing contracts and put that money to the PCB removal.

But Bloomberg would never do that because he doesn't care about these children (or the staff) at all.

 

Remember, they did this with mold testing and removal after Sandy too.

 

Bloomberg and his Tweedies love spending money on all kinds of testing except for environmental testing of schools to ensure their safety.

Isn't it time that we call him and his Tweedies on their Children First. Always jive once and for all?

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Let Me Know When The Education Reformers Address This

Here's some informational text for you.

The Grapes of Wrath, 21st Century Edition.

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John Liu Says Public Polls Undercount His Support

Politicker had a pretty positive piece about John Liu yesterday.

The WSJ has one today.

As in the Politicker article, the Journal article focuses on Liu's long campaign days and work ethic but notes that despite these, Liu remains an underdog for mayor.

Still, the article says

Mr. Liu said the polls undercount his immigrant supporters. He points to his previous campaigns, for a Flushing City Council seat in 2001 and comptroller in 2009, in which he says pundits discounted his chances. Mr. Liu became the first Asian-American elected to both offices.

"Four years ago, the so-called experts said I didn't have any chance to win a citywide office," Mr. Liu told a crowd on Sunday, a well-worn stump speech. "Well in 2009 our community came out together, we came out in force, and we won that election in 2009. And this year is no different."

It's true that Liu outperformed in both those previous races, but it's hard to see how he outperforms in this one.

As the Journal article says:

Mr. Liu faces steep obstacles in his bid for City Hall. A fundraiser and a campaign aide were convicted of campaign-finance fraud, and the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office declined on Friday to say whether the probe was continuing. Mr. Liu hasn't been accused of any wrongdoing. The fundraising charges could cause the city's Campaign Finance Board to deny him public matching funds.

A recent survey found that the percentage of Democrats who view him unfavorably is higher than that of all his rivals save former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, who resigned from Congress after sending lewd pictures to women on the Internet and lying about it.

A key part of Mr. Liu's biography—that as a child he worked in what he called a "sweatshop," an experience some immigrants identify with—has been challenged by the Daily News.

...


Mr. Liu is the most stridently anti-Mayor Michael Bloomberg candidate in the Democratic field. He wants to abolish the police practice of stop and frisk, not change it like his opponents. He wants to raise taxes on people making more than $500,000 a year and on commercial real estate to fund infrastructure and social programs.

They are positions that have caused many of the city's elite to dismiss him. While some real-estate and business executives have contributed to three of Mr. Liu's rivals, few have donated to his campaign. At the Inner Circle Show, an annual dinner featuring humorous song-and-dance routines by reporters and the mayor, the line "if John Liu wins, that would be pretty scary" in an otherwise optimistic song about New York's future drew laughs from a crowd heavy on business executives, lobbyists, politicians and journalists.

The elites hate him and wanted him destroyed.

They got their US attorney for hire to do just that.

The neo-liberals at the DN hate him and attack him on the sweat shop thing all the time.

The campaign finance fraud case and the tabloid attacks have driven up his negatives and hurt his fundraising.

I am glad to see a couple of articles that have some positives about him.

I really do like him.

I would love to endorse him and volunteer for his campaign.

Alas, given the negatives he has weighted around his neck, I don't think I can do either.

I just don't see a road to victory for him.

So I am deciding between de Blasio or (holding my nose) Thompson.

I want to wait one more polling cycle before I make a decision.

How about you out there?

Have you made up your mind already?

Or are you, too, waiting?

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Odds On The NYC Mayoral Race

I'm not much of a gambler but it is interesting to see the odds one site has for the 2013 NYC mayoral contest:

Christine Quinn	6/4
Anthony Weiner	3/1
William Thompson	6/1
Bill De Blasio	8/1
Joseph Lhota	10/1
John Liu	16/1
John Catsimatidis	16/1
George McDonald	20/1
Adolfo Carrion	20/1
Sal Albanese	25/1
Eliot Spitzer	33/1
Jack Dorsey	33/1
Kelsey Grammer	100/1

Quinn still the favorite, at least as this site goes, with Weiner close behind.

Thompson and de Blasio are definitely second tier.

 Lhota not fare behind them while Liu and Catsimatidis are longshots.

What do you think?

Is this an apt measurement of where the race stands as of July 6?

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I Really Like John Liu

Liu campaigning today.

They destroyed him with the campaign finance fraud investigation even as Michael Bloomberg, who handed over millions in bribes to the Independence Party for three straight election cycles, remains free and unsullied.

Liu's a labor-friendly guy and he wasn't cowed by Bloomberg.

It wasn't a mistake they destroyed him.

They can work with any of the other candidates in the race.

They weren't so sure about Liu.

So they stuck a shiv in him.

I ask again, how did Bloomberg get away with the bribery that put him on the Independence Party ballot for three straight cycles while Liu has been destroyed over the penny ante charges brought against his campaign people?

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Scotland Yard Seek Tape Of Murdoch Admitting News Corporation Employees Bribed Officials

From The Guardian:

Scotland Yard detectives were on Friday attempting to track down a secret recording of Rupert Murdoch admitting to Sun journalists that payments to public officials were part of "the culture of Fleet Street".

A police officer connected to the Operation Elveden investigation into illicit payments from journalists has made a formal request to Exaro News, the investigations website that broke the story, to hand over the undercover tape.

DCI Laurence Smith told Exaro News that the police would seek a production order compelling it to disclose the recording if it did not do so voluntarily. It is understand the police have also approached Channel 4, which aired a small part of the recordings.

The development is the clearest indication yet that police in London are ready to examine Murdoch's private disclosures since the tapes emerged on Wednesday night. Murdoch is recorded saying the culture of paying police officers for stories "existed at every newspaper in Fleet Street. Long since forgotten. But absolutely."

Mark Watts, the editor-in-chief of Exaro News, said he had not handed any material to Scotland Yard and the force had not made clear "what they want, or why exactly they want it".

He said: "We are making public everything that we have, and I cannot see how else we can help. Like everyone else, they just need to keep logging on to Exaro. One thing is for certain, unlike News International, we will not – under any circumstances – betray confidential sources."

Although the 82-year-old media mogul did not admit knowing that any of his employees specifically paid public officials, he was recorded on two separate occasions describing the practice as part of the culture of Fleet Street.

On one clip published by Exaro News, an unidentified Sun journalist asks him: "I'm pretty confident that the working practices that I've seen here are ones that I've inherited, rather than instigated. Would you recognise that all this predates many of our involvement here?"

Murdoch replies: "We're talking about payments for news tips from cops. That's been going on a hundred years, absolutely. You didn't instigate it." Earlier in the tape, Murdoch tells the Sun journalists: "I don't know of anybody, or anything, that did anything that wasn't being done across Fleet Street and wasn't the culture."

News UK, formerly known as News International, has maintained that Murdoch "never knew of payments made by Sun staff to police before News Corporation disclosed that to UK authorities". Scotland Yard, meanwhile, said it would not give a "running commentary" on Operation Elveden.
The press law campaign group Hacked Off on Friday urged the Commons culture, media and sport select committee to recall Murdoch, and said he "may have committed contempt of parliament".

Evan Harris, the associate director of the group, wrote to the cross-party committee's chairman, John Whittingdale MP, saying: "There is a strong prima facie case that Mr Murdoch may have committed contempt of parliament by misleading your committee over his true response to the police investigations into phone hacking and bribery of public officials.

"As far as the victims of phone hacking are concerned, the appropriate course of action is for the committee to recall him at the earliest available opportunity to explain the discrepancies between the expressions of remorse he made to you and the defiant and unrepentant tone of his private remarks earlier this year."

Murdoch has squirmed out of trouble before and he may squirm out of trouble here.

We'll just have to see how far these inquiries go and what accountability Murdoch faces.

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De Blasio Attacks CUNY Over Petraeus Boondoggle

As we learned earlier in the week, CUNY hired war criminal, er, former general and CIA director David Petraeus to teach 3 hours a week for $150,000 a year.

Considering how CUNY keeps raising tuition and fees on students, the hiring of Petreaus to essentially do nothing (the "class" will be one of those graduate seminars) seemed to be another example of how the gravy train never ends for the members of the oligarchy and their functionaries.

Public Advocate and mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio found the hiring of Petraeus outrageous as well:

In a letter to CUNY’s Interim Chancellor Bill Kelly, Mr. de Blasio, whose mayoral bid has been endorsed by the CUNY faculty’s union, called for Mr. Petraeus’s contract to be replaced with one offering a more modest salary, comparable to other teachers.

“This is symptomatic of what’s gone wrong in higher education. The focus on grabbing headlines and ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ is sending education costs higher and higher, and putting college out of reach for working and middle class families,” Mr. de Blasio fumed in a statement. “CUNY is the gateway to the middle class. Its full resources—both public funding and its private fundraising—should focus on preserving that essential mission.”

Michael Arena, CUNY’s director for communications and marketing,  did not immediately return a request for comment, but in the past has pointed out that Mr. Petraeus’s salary is funded by private sources, not tax dollars.

Mr. de Blasio, however, was undeterred by this point.

“While I understand Gen. Petraeus’ salary comes from private fundraising and not taxpayers, the decision still raises serious questions about whether this represents the best use of these resources,” he writes in the letter. “Public universities should never put headlines ahead of affordable education.”

I love the excuse that there's nothing to see here because the Petraeus money is funded by "private sources."

Hey, if private sources want to give CUNY $150,000, that's great - but they don't have to spend it on the salary of one retired war criminal who's going to "teach" three hours a week.

I realize that of course this money is being given to CUNY just so that it can go to Petraeus.

God forbid "private sources" should give this money to CUNY to hire a full-time professor or two.

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More Education Deform Buzz Words I'm Sick Of

Readers added some fine examples of education deform jargon and buzz words that many people are just plain sick of to this post from last week.

Here are some:

High Performing Charter Schools (which often are high performing because they toss anybody who doesn't perform at that level out - see here)

Bold Reform.

Transformational Change.

The Best and Brightest.

Teachers as "Human Capital" and children as "Valuable Assets."

STEM

Data-Driven Instruction

Quality Review

Let me add a few more of my own:

Blended Learning

Adaptive Instruction

PARCC

Virtual Learning.

And let me add "Common Core Assessment" to the list once more because it is the buzz word of the year.

When did "Test" become a four letter word?

When the powers that be decided it was too scary to talk about "Common Core Testing" being added to every subject in every grade all the year through.

That's why we're going to have "Common Core Assessments" in every grade in every subject all the year through.

Don't worry - these aren't high stakes tests, they're common core assessments!

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Cuomo Puts Five People On His Anti-Corruption Commission Who Broke Campaign Finance Laws

This would be funny if it wasn't so emblematic of what an ethically-challenged person Andrew Cuomo is:

If the new investigative commission Gov. Cuomo charged this week with rooting out Albany corruption wants to find examples of dysfunction in the state’s campaign finance system, it doesn’t need to look beyond its own members.

A Daily News review of the 25 commission members found that at least five of them didn’t follow state election law when filing their own campaign financial disclosure forms, records show.

The five are Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson, Nassau County DA Kathleen Rice, Onondaga County Executive Joanne Mahoney, Albany County DA David Soares, and Franklin County DA Derek Champagne.

Most broke only minor rules like improperly omitting addresses for donors or vendors or failing to itemize campaign spending. In some cases, reimbursements didn’t add up.

But one commissioner--Johnson--completely skipped out on filing three required disclosure statements during his 2007 reelection run.

When he ran in 2011, some of his donors were listed as “unknown” or not identified at all.

The findings had some in Albany grumbling that the watchers themselves need to be watched.

"Maybe the governor should appoint another Moreland Commission to investigate the members of this Moreland Commission,” one senior lawmaker cracked.

I say, if the governor wants to root out corruption in Albany, he should start with himself.

Who did Cuomo ally with and takes funds from via the Committee To Save New York?

 Why won't he disclose that information?

Just why didn't Cuomo bring even one charge against any Wall Street player who brought about the '08 collapse through their criminal activities?

How much money did Cuomo take from these criminal Wall Street players to do nothing?

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Independence Day (4th of July, Bloombergville)

First, the good news: In six months, New Yorkers will be officially independent from Nanny Bloomberg.

Now the bad news: In six months, New Yorkers may have to welcome in the reign of Nanny Quinn, Anthony Weiner or Joe Lhota.

Maybe NYC Educator is right.

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Chris Bryant, MP: Murdoch Should Be Charged With Corruption In U.S.

The Fourth of July fireworks continue for Rupert Murdoch:

A prominent Labour MP has said US authorities should press corporate corruption charges against Rupert Murdoch's global empire after he admitted in a secretly recorded meeting with staff on the Sun that payments to police were part of "the culture of Fleet Street".

Chris Bryant, who has been compensated for phone hacking by the defunct News of the World, said the latest revelations were "another reason" for the FBI to take action under the foreign corrupt practices act, which makes it an offence for American companies to pay public officials on foreign soil.

The MP for Rhondda said he had spoken to the Met police, and claimed the force had been in touch with the FBI. But he added that he believed the UK authorities were reluctant to consider bringing any corporate corruption charges in the UK because the force was "waiting for Operation Elveden [the investigation into unlawful payments made to public officials] to finish".

Meanwhile, Labour colleague Tom Watson, MP for West Bromwich East, has written to a leading US politician, Senator John D Rockefeller, asking him to ensure the US authorities' investigations into News Corporation "are not inhibited in going to the very top".

The latest scandal over alleged payments to police erupted after Sun journalists secretly taped a 45-minute meeting in March between Murdoch and at least 24 staff who had been arrested in relation to Scotland Yard's Elveden investigation.

Although Murdoch does not admit to knowing that any of his employees specifically paid officials, he is recorded as saying the culture of paying public officials for stories "existed at every newspaper in Fleet Street. Long since forgotten. But absolutely." Murdoch says he first knew about the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906, which until recently made it a crime to pay police and other public officials, a few weeks before his meeting with staff. The act has since been superseded by the Bribery Act 2010.

On the recording, one unidentified member of staff interjects: "So, completely oblivious to the fact that the long-term practice of this company to pay public officials was illegal, my job description meant that as a result of that, it came directly through my particular department. You can understand how we all feel that we are effectively being made scapegoats."

The News Corporation chief executive replies: "Yeah. And one of these high-priced lawyers would say it's our fault, but that situation existed at every newspaper in Fleet Street. Long since forgotten. But absolutely. It was the culture of Fleet Street."

But then the media mogul appears to admit he knew it was common practice.
A Sun journalist asks him: "I'm pretty confident that the working practices that I've seen here are ones that I've inherited, rather than instigated. Would you recognise that all this predates many of our involvement here?"

Murdoch says: "We're talking about payments for news tips from cops. That's been going on a hundred years, absolutely. You didn't instigate it."

Bryant believes this is enough for the US authorities to act: "American law is much tougher than UK law: you don't have to prove that a director knew it. The mere fact that a company engaged in paying public officials is enough to bring a body corporate charge … the charge can be brought because the directors did not have a governance system in place to stop it."

He said he had been told by the Met that they had been in talks with the FBI.

Mark Lewis, the lawyer representing the Dowler family and other phone-hacking victims, said Murdoch's private remarks would be held up by lawyers in the US where a number of civil claims are being prepared over phone hacking under various US acts, including the stored communications act and the wiretap act.

He said: "No doubt the FBI will be very interested in comments that suggest a senior director of a company was fully aware of payments to foreign officials. As far as the US claims are concerned, this raises further evidence of knowledge at the highest levels of News Corp of unlawful activities."

The Obama administration will never go after Murdoch, of course.

They're too busy going after whistleblowers in the U.S. government to be bothered prosecuting Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

But as more and more becomes known about how Murdoch's newspapers operated and what he knew about those operations, it's clear the evidence is there to prosecute them under FCPA.

Even if the U.S. government doesn't prosecute Murdoch and News Corporation, you can be sure the Mark Lewis and Norman Siegel will use the latest revelations in the civil cases they're bringing against News Corporation for hacking on U.S. soil.

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How Many Members Of Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns Group Have Arrest Records?

Check out the comments after this article that reports Bloomberg is holding a fundraiser for Cory Booker, one of the members of his Mayors Against Illegal Guns group, and see.

My personal favorite is the member of Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns group who was arrested for illegally carrying a gun.

That's an amazing thing.

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Collusion Between Murdoch, Thatcher And The London Police: Strikerbreaker Edition

How did Rupert Murdoch and his merry hacksters at News International (the British edition of News Corporation) get so close with the London police?

It goes back to the strikebreaking war Murdoch waged with the help of Margaret Thatcher and the cops back in the eighties:

The investigation of News Corp is not, as Murdoch claims, about "paying cops for news tips": it is about systemic corruption. The deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police at the time, Sue Akers, explained early last year: "The cases we are investigating are not ones involving the odd drink, or meal, to police officers or other public officials. Instead, these are cases in which arrests have been made involving the delivery of regular, frequent and sometimes significant sums of money to small numbers of public officials by journalists."

One of the decisive moments consolidating Murdoch's relationship to the Metropolitan police was the use of police as armed strikebreakers in the 86-87 Wapping dispute. Margaret Thatcher herself had assured Murdoch that the police would be at his disposal, and their collusion in breaking the strike required an operation costing £14m.

As the Guardian journalist Nick Davies pointed out, this was never simply a matter of criminality. It was always about power. The networks of collusion, bribery and complicity that began to be established in the Thatcher era are beginning to be unravelled.

Murdoch has been pretty skilled at avoiding accountability for helping to set up and support these networks of collusion, bribery, and complicity.

I'm under no illusion that he won't find a way to skate accountability now.

Somebody in the comments wrote the following:

Murdoch is the classic 19th century tycoon. No ethics, no sense of responsibility, no concern for anyone outside of his family and very small circle of personal friends.

His mission has always been to become the richest and most powerful SOB possible. Part of that goal is to bring the world back to the 19th century, when government encouraged that behavior, rather than trying to control it.

That is an excellent description of Murdoch and indeed, a pretty apt description of the world he has helped to usher in.

Think the collusion between FOX and the GOP.

Think the collusion between the NY Post/Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg and Klein.

For Rupert Murdoch, it is all about collusion and systematic corruption mean to enrich and empower himself and his coterie.

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NYSED Commissioner John King: Success Through Suspension And Attrition

Chris Cerrone posts about NYSED Commissioner John King's experience running a charter school:

King is a big charter supporter and earned his limited experience in that realm of education.  Looking at the Roxbury Prep Charter School that King helped to found might show why he steers clear of charters for his own children.  Recent data shows Roxbury’s suspension rate of 56%,  ten times that of other schools in Massachusetts.  Going back in time closer to King’s reign at Roxbury, the suspension rate was an appalling 70%.

70% suspension rate.

Roxbury Prep claims the following on its website:

The mission of Roxbury Preparatory Charter School is to prepare its students to enter, succeed in, and graduate from college.

Hard to do that when you're suspending at a 70% rate, as the school did when NYSED Commissioner John King was running it, or at a 56% rate (ten times other schools in the state) as they do now.

While we're talking about suspension rates, maybe we ought to take a look at the attrition rates at Roxbury Prep Charter School as well.

Statewide the attrition rate for students at Massachusetts schools is 2.6%. 

For male students statewide, the attrition rate is 2.7%

At Roxbury Prep Charter School, the overall attrition rate is 8.5% and for male students it's 11.3%

Statewide the attrition rate for students with disabilities is 2.4%.

For students with disabilities at Roxbury Prep Charter School, the attrition rate is 16.7%. 

Higher suspension rates, higher attrition rates - clearly NYSED Commissioner John King and his successors at Roxbury Prep Charter School understand how you get a school to succeed.

You juke your stats by throwing students out or encouraging them to leave after they've been suspended multiple times.

Remember that the next time you read about how NYSED Commissioner John King founded and once ran a "high quality" charter school.

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Some Fourth Of July Fireworks For Rupert Murdoch

The hacking scandal appears to be a problem for Rupert Murdoch once again.

Not only is his "news" News Corporation having to deal with one and possibly more cases of hacking on U.S. soil that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars in court costs and fees, but now there's a tape out that suggests Rupert Murdoch called for internal management to begin covering up the scandal after they had started cooperating with police:

Labour MP Tom Watson has called on Rupert Murdoch to be questioned by police after a covert recording emerged of him appearing to regret the level of help News Corporation gave to the investigation into alleged wrongdoing at its newspapers.

The News Corporation boss describes payments to police and public officials as "the culture of Fleet Street" in a secret recording made during a meeting with staff from the Sun newspaper this March.

In a transcript of the recording, which was obtained by the investigative website ExaroNews and aired by Channel 4 news on Wednesday evening, he appears to regret the extent of News Corporation's internal management and standards committee's (MSC) co-operation with the police.

After a Sun journalist at the meeting appears in the recording to query the MSC handing over documents to the police, Murdoch is heard saying: "… it was a mistake, I think. But, in that atmosphere, at that time, we said, 'Look, we are an open book, we will show you everything'. And the lawyers just got rich going through millions of emails.

"All I can say is, for the last several months, we have told, the MSC has told, and [**** ****], who's a terrific lawyer, has told the police, has said, 'No, no, no – get a court order. Deal with that.'"

Journalists told Murdoch that they felt like scapegoats and he says: "We're talking about payments for news tips from cops: that's been going on a hundred years, absolutely. You didn't instigate it."

Watson told the Guardian: "I think we need to hear from [Metropolitan police comissioner] Bernard Hogan-Howe when the MSC stopped co-operating with the police inquiry."

In one particularly revealing part of the recording, Murdoch makes reference to those who might succeed him as the head of the media empire. A journalist asks what would happen if the 82-year-old Murdoch was no longer around to give them his support. "The decision would be – well, it will either be with my son, Lachlan, or with Robert Thomson [Murdoch's chief executive at News Corp]. And you don't have any worries about either of them," he tells the meeting.

During the tape, Murdoch accuses the Metropolitan police of incompetence and brands the criminal investigations into journalists as a "disgrace", saying: "The idea that the cops then started coming after you, kick you out of bed, and your families, at six in the morning, is unbelievable."

Watson told Channel 4 News: "What he seems to be saying there is that they stopped co-operating with the police before the Sun staff started to rebel. And what I would like to know is what are they sitting on that they've not given the police. And I'm sure that this transcript and this audiotape should be in the hands of the police tomorrow because I hope that they're going to be interviewing Rupert Murdoch about what he did know about criminality in his organisation."

Roy Greenslade says the tape was leaked by someone on the Sun staff because they're pissed at Murdoch for throwing them under the bus in the scandal:

As for Murdoch, he could be under no illusion about the underlying hostility from staff who felt they were paying the price for doing what was expected of them.

One told me: "We did as we were bid. No-one thought they were doing wrong. There was no training of any kind. No office lawyer raised any question." That genuine feeling of being hung out to dry is shared by almost every one of the arrested journalists.

In the tape Murdoch admits that the culture of bribery the staff engaged in at The Sun and the News of the World had been around at the papers for a long time:

He talks of the News of the World in personal terms: "We got caught with dirty hands, I guess" before launching into a further attack on the police: "The cops are totally incompetent … It's just disgraceful what they're doing … It's the biggest inquiry ever, over next-to-nothing."

A crucial section follows when one of the journalists, who had been with The Sun for under 10 years, points out that the paper's "working practices… were ones that I've inherited, rather than instigated."

Murdoch replies in what will surely be seen as a crucial statement about The Sun's culture and his acceptance of it:

"We're talking about payments for news tips from cops: that's been going on a hundred years, absolutely. You didn't instigate it."

In my opinion, this offers the journalists a crucial plank of mitigation for their actions. It is also a reminder of the occasion in 2003 when the former Sun editor, Rebekah Brooks, told a Commons select committee that the paper had paid the police for information.
Murdoch continues: "I would have thought 100% … at least 90% of payments were made at the instigation of cops saying, 'I've got a good story here. It's worth 500 quid' or something. And you would say, 'No, it's not' … And they'd say, 'Well, we'll ring the Mirror…' It was the culture of Fleet Street."

In the end, this tape confirms that Rupert Murdoch, the man at the top, was responsible for the culture of bribery and corruption at his newspapers:

But the real significance of the tape is that it reveals the true, unexpurgated Rupert Murdoch. As I have said often since the hacking scandal first broke, as the man at the top I believe he has been responsible for the journalistic culture at Wapping. This tape appears to prove my point.

It is time to bring Rupert Murdoch down to the police station and interview him over the tape contents.

We'll see if they actually do that.

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A Warning Sign On Weiner

From Politicker:

When campaigns schedule voter meet-and-greets outside of subway stops, they typically entail candidates standing on sidewalks with handfuls of flyers, trying desperately to shake hands with frenzied commuters–often disinterested in being pestered on their way to or from work. But this wasn’t the usual candidate.

This was former Congressman Anthony Weiner, who held court this evening on the Upper West Side. For well over an hour, Mr. Weiner stood surrounded by a crowd of attentive voters, spectators and reporters, fielding one question after the next after the next.

“If I had a soap box I’d climb up on it,” mused Mr. Weiner early on in the conversation, which was reminiscent of the atmosphere at the famed Speaker’s Corner in London’s Hyde Park.

Aside from an early heckler, the reception was overwhelmingly positive, with various locals stopping to pose for photos, listen in and wish Mr. Weiner well. Others peppered him with questions on a host of topics, including education, bike lanes, the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk tactic, affordable housing and hospital closings.

If the other campaigns don't put him on the defensive soon, there will be more than just one poll showing him in the lead in the mayoral race.

The last couple of days some unions have been talking about attacking Weiner on two fronts: his ethics and his corporate-friendly retrogressive politics.

They need to be getting that message out there on the air waves soon.

I've gone from an Anybody But Quinn supporter to an Anybody But Weiner supporter.

Not that I want Quinn as mayor, but even she would not be as damaging to the city, to schools, to students, and to teachers as Anthony Weiner.

Somebody needs to expose this narcissistic corporate sell-out for what he is.

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NYC Teacher Evaluation System: Still Rigged Against Teachers

Gotham Schools put a piece up this morning saying the teacher evaluation system imposed upon NYC teachers by NYSED Commissioner/rookie teacher John King is so good that it may be the model for renegotiated evaluation systems in other districts around the state.

Basically the King-imposed system "fixed" problems with the state and local testing components in APPR by increasing the "ineffective" ratings from 2 to 12 (out of a total 20 points per component) and "fixed" problems with the "objective" measures by decreasing the "ineffective" ratings from 49 to 38 (out of a total 60 points.)

But Carol Burris explained in the comments why the system "fixes" are still problematic:

Now here is the problem with the NYC bands....

Teacher gets a 12 and a 12 in the first two components and a 59 out of 60 in the last component. 83 points--a great score in the effective range. Not so fast... it is not. The teacher will be found ineffective overall because they were ineffective in the two student achievement components.

Here is scenario 2. Teacher gets 11 in the first and 13 in the second. They get 59 points in the third. 83 points. This time they are EFFECTIVE, because the score in the second band squeaked into the developing range. Opposite is of course also true. There are of course many permutations on this. The flaw is setting the score for ineffective up to 64 and insisting test scores trump all. This cannot be fixed. Massachusetts has a far more professional system.

John King's "fix" fixes nothing and the system remains rigged against teachers.

Let's see if it stands up to scrutiny in court when the first challenges are brought.

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Bloomberg Administration Knows 1/4 To 1/3 Of All 911 Calls Are Getting Lost In The System, But Continues To Deny The Problem Exists

In case you missed this very important Juan Gonzalez investigation on Bloomberg's faulty 911 system upgrade, here it is in full:

Less than 24 hours after the death of little Ariel Russo in a car accident on the upper West Side, EMS supervisors began an exchange of bombshell emails about repeated “lost calls” from the city’s new 911 system.

The emails obtained by the Daily News show for the first time that high-ranking officials knew the extent of the problems with the $88 million system very early on — just days after the system was launched and before 4-year-old Ariel died.

Lt. Carl Nunziata, an overnight shift boss, sent the first email on June 5. It was at 5:51 a.m. and addressed to Carla Murphy, the head of computer programming for EMS.

“Last night we had a couple of jobs I would like for you to look at,” the email began.

Nunziata said a call came from the NYPD to EMS as a “lost call.” Another call came in for an emotionally disturbed person and inexplicably had no address attached to it.

“Why are these jobs coming in this way?” a perplexed Nunziata asked. “And what are we suppose(sic) to do with these type jobs?”

The startling reply from Murphy came just after 10 a.m. on June 6. Some of the brass already knew.

“[Deputy Fire] Chief Napoli reported the problem to me several days ago and I provided a list of incidents where this had occurred over 3 days for Intergraph to resolve,” Murphy wrote.

A flurry of “lost calls” were “happening to about 1/4 [to] 1/3 of incidents transmitted from NYPD ICAD,” she said.

ICAD is the acronym for the new computer system built by Intergraph Corp. It is used by 911 operators to assign police and to transmit details of emergency calls to EMS and FDNY dispatch centers in downtown Brooklyn.

Given that 911 operators process an average of 3,000 ambulance calls a day, the Murphy email raises the possibility that the number of lost calls may have been in the hundreds or thousands.

A “lost” message, according to fire officials and Intergraph’s own manual, occurs when transmissions from NYPD to EMS fail to reach the intended recipient, usually because of a break in a computer link, or because of a garbled transmission.

  

“We get several of these a day . . . which may not have sufficient information for responding units to find the incident,” Murphy wrote, copying several top brass.

Whatever the number, it certainly points to a bigger problem with the new system than the minor “bugs” Mayor Bloomberg conceded on May 31.
 

Ariel was struck on June 4 at W. 97th St. and Amsterdam Ave., as she walked to school with her grandmother around 8:15 a.m. She was clinging to life, as police on the scene repeatedly asked for an ambulance.

The News revealed a few days later that there was a delay of more than four minutes in dispatching an ambulance. She later died, but it’s not clear if the delay contributed to her death. The girl’s family has filed a $40 million lawsuit against the city.

Fire officials, who blamed that delay on human error, said Monday that everything was fine with the new system.

“There has not been a single lost call with the new system,” Deputy Fire Commissioner Frank Gribbon insisted Monday.
 

They say an EMS worker failed to see the 911 ambulance request on her screen before going on a break, and admitted so afterward. Since then, she has contradicted that account. She denied seeing any new call on her screen before her replacement took over.

And the union for EMS paramedics has claimed the call for help was somehow lost in the system.
The EMS log of that incident lists several “PD-LOST” messages in the first few seconds of the transmission from 911.

Fire officials say no calls have been missed and the new system is faster and more reliable than its predecessor.

“The new ICAD system is so fast that the moment the NYPD call taker starts keying in information, the transmission starts to EMS,” Gribbon said. “There are instances when we receive partial data from ICAD. But we always get the full data within seconds.”

So a “lost” call is not really lost, according to Gribbon, just temporarily garbled or unavailable.

“It may not be the perfect term to use,” he conceded.

“That’s nonsense,” a veteran EMS dispatcher said. “He’s obviously never worked a dispatch terminal.”

“Since this new system started, our people get on the phone to 911 every day and ask, ‘where’s the information on that ambulance job you were supposed to send me?’ ” the dispatcher said. “The operator may tells us, ‘I sent it to you 20 minutes or an hour ago,’ but it’s still not our screen. If that isn’t lost, what is?”

Fire officials later acknowledged that dozens of paramedics and supervisors working at the EMS dispatch center the day of the accident should have been able to see the ambulance request on their individual computer monitors. Officials say the request would also have been visible on a huge screen in the EMS center that highlights in white any calls that have been delayed more than three minutes.

A public outcry ensued and officials have promised a full investigation. As of last week, at least 15 people had been interviewed under oath, including an EMS captain and a lieutenant. None has reported seeing the Ariel Russo ambulance request on EMS computer screens, say union leaders with knowledge of the interviews.

“Nobody saw the call for the little girl because it wasn’t there,” said Israel Miranda, president of the paramedics and emergency technicians union. “It was a lost call, and city doesn’t want to admit there’s a big problem with this new system.”

This is horrific but not a surprise.

The Bloomberg people never take responsibility for mistakes or problems, they always look to balme it on others - especially city workers.

We had better hope there is not some major disaster, either weather-related or otherwise, that brings in a ton of 911 calls before Bloomberg finally flies off to Bermuda and the next mayor comes in and (I hope) fixes this system.

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Bloomberg Wrong On Stop-And-Frisk Race Comments

Last week the Mayor of Money said the NYPD stops too many white people and not enough people of color.

Those comments were controversial, to say the least, but the mayor doubled down on them, saying any City Council member who doesn't vote with him on the stop-and-frisk issue may have to deal with the Bloomberg PAC using its money against them.

Today the NY Daily News looks at the Bloomberg comments on stop-and-frisk and finds them wanting:

The mayor made headlines last week with his assertion that white New Yorkers were stopped too often by officers patrolling the five boroughs, and minority-group members weren’t stopped often enough.

But it’s right there in black and white: The mayoral math on stop-and-frisk doesn’t add up.

A Daily News analysis of NYPD data contradicts Bloomberg’s claim, by looking at all crime suspects versus just violent crime suspects — particularly in neighborhoods where blacks and Hispanics are in the population minority, but make up the majority of stops.

 ...
 
City Hall released statistics to support Bloomberg’s controversial claim about stop-and-frisk and race.
The NYPD numbers showed 6.9% of the violent crime suspects were white — although whites made up 9.7% of the total number of people stopped.

But The News’ review of NYPD data found police listed a “violent” offense as the suspected crime on little more than one-quarter of the 532,911 stops made last year — mostly for “robbery.” The rest listed “nonviolent” offenses like weapons possession, larceny, pot possession and criminal trespass.

When the lesser offenses are included, whites comprise 13.8% all crime suspects in the city — meaning they were stopped too infrequently.

The 109th Precinct in Queens — where whites and Asians constitute more than 80% of the population — produced the biggest discrepancy: 48% of local crime suspects were black, while 65% of those stopped were black or Hispanic.

The 17-percentage point difference was the largest of any precinct, followed by the 6th Precinct (Greenwich and West Village, 15.6); Midtown North (Hell’s Kitchen, 15), Central Park (14) and the 104th Precinct (Ridgewood, Queens, 13).

Only four of the 22 precincts with a difference of more than 5 percentage points were home to a majority of black or Hispanic residents.

Bloomberg spokesman Marc La Vorgna defended the mayor’s numbers, sticking to the “violent” suspect standard.

Selective use of data to push their ill-begotten policies is a hallmark of this administration.

They're doing it with the stop-and-frisk and crime data.

Later today I'll take a look at how they're doing it with the 911 system too.

In the case of the stop-and-frisk policy, funking with the data to sell it is going to come back to haunt them in court:

The future of stop-and-frisk could hinge on Manhattan Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin’s ruling on a class-action lawsuit — a decision that could come as early as this week.

Legal experts predict Scheindlin will likely appoint an independent monitor to oversee the nation’s largest police force if she finds the police procedure is unconstitutional.

Scheindlin is widely expected to rule against the NYPD after taking the cops to task for the “high error rate.”

“You reasonably suspect something and you’re wrong 90% of the time,” the judge said. “That’s a lot of misjudgment of suspicion.”

Legal experts predicted she’s likely to order reforms, including a federal monitor who would report to her on problems solely related to stop-and-frisk. She could then compel the NYPD to make changes.

I highlighted part of the judge's statement because it is so emblematic of what is wrong with Bloomberg and Kelly.

 

They pursue an unjust, racist and unconstitutional policy that, at its core, is not about stopping crime but about intimidation and control.

 

Kelly is on record as saying they want every brown and black man in this city worried that they could be stopped at any moment by police and searched, that the city wanted to "instill" fear into them.

 

Kelly and Bloomberg don't care that 90% of the time, stop-and-frisk searches find nothing.

 

The point is to simply stop men of color and intimidate them.

 

At that, the policy is quite successful.

 

I still do not understand, given the racist polices this mayor has pursued, why he does not enjoy the same reputation of being a racist that his predecessor Rudy Giuliani enjoys.

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Report Finds NYPD Crime Statistics Are Easily Manipulated

From the NY Times:

A long-awaited report ordered by the police commissioner in New York has found deficiencies in the Police Department’s efforts to detect whether its crime statistics are being manipulated.

 ...

The report was released on Tuesday, more than two years after Mr. Kelly empaneled a committee of former federal prosecutors to review the department’s internal crime-reporting system. 

The committee’s report did not directly address how often such manipulation occurred, but it identified vulnerabilities in the department’s system for auditing the integrity of its crime statistics.

Before each report of a crime is entered into the department’s computer system, relatively few controls exist to prevent officers on the street from refusing to fill out any paperwork or for supervisors to alter paperwork back in the station house, the review found. 

While praising the department on the considerable resources devoted to auditing crime statistics, the committee noted that most of those efforts were directed at identifying “human error” — that is, unintentional mistakes in a police officer’s paperwork. But for “an officer who wishes to manipulate crime reporting,” the report said there were “few other procedures in place that control the various avenues of potential manipulation.” 

...

The 60-page report describes several instances of manipulation in which felony crimes were marked down as misdemeanors. In one instance “a desk officer scratched out the item values in order to bring the total to below the $1,000 threshold for grand larceny,” which is a felony. 

In another instance, police paperwork for lost property “described a complainant who ‘lost property’ following an assault by multiple individuals,” according to the report, which added, “On its face the narrative appears to describe a robbery.” 

In the aggregate, the report found, the effect of such errors, intentional or otherwise, on crime statistics was not negligible. “A close review of the N.Y.P.D.’s statistics and analysis demonstrate that the misclassifications of reports may have an appreciable effect on certain reported crime rates,” the report said. 

The report noted, for instance, that Police Department auditors had already detected an error rate in 2009 suggesting that grand larcenies were undercounted that year by 2,312. The adjusted figures represent a 4.6 percent increase over the figures that the department issued that year. 

I've said this before, I'll say it again:

The NYPD crime statistics under Kelly are as phony as the test scores under Klein.

If there were an independent audit of the NYPD free from Kelly's or Bloomberg's manipulation and influence, they would find every crime category would go up - including homicides.

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Alliance for Quality Education: Cuomo, Lawmakers Get Failing Grade For School Improvement Policies

From the Times-Union:

The labor-backed Alliance for Quality Education released a report today that gives a failing grade to Albany for the way lawmakers have improved New York’s public schools.

Here’s the report  and here is the press release:

The report card found that the state was moving in the right direction in the areas of “Providing Quality Pre-K” and “Creating Community Schools.” However, the report card found that the state is moving in the wrong direction in the areas of “Expanding Learning Time,” “Providing Challenging and Engaging Curriculum,” “Creating a Positive School Climate and Reducing Suspensions,” and “Investing in Equity.” The report card gave the state an “Incomplete” in “Providing Quality Teaching Initiatives,” stating that there is not enough evidence to show whether or not the new teacher evaluation is a step in the right or wrong direction yet. 

“We agree with the Governor, the state should be investing in full-day pre-K, high quality curriculum, teacher mentoring, more time for student learning, and improving low-performing schools by creating community schools,” said Billy Easton, Executive Director of the Alliance for Quality Education. “Now that the state is funding these successful educational strategies for less than two percent of New York students, the next step should be for the state to embrace the reality that we have a moral obligation to make these programs available to students throughout the state.”

The report card finds that, overall, New York State is moving in the wrong direction because it is failing to provide large portions of students with these successful educational opportunities.  New York has created small grant programs in several of these areas, but those programs each serve less than two percent of students in the state.  

“The way that this state is treating my child’s education is just plain wrong,” said Natasha Capers, parent from Brooklyn. “The bare bones of education is unacceptable, and I’m angry that my child has less opportunities to succeed than other children in this state. The state must do its job, so that schools can do their job to give students an equal opportunity to succeed.”

Cuomo, of course, has moved on from education issues and was busy today giving himself a pat on the back for creating yet another blue ribbon state commission - this time on political corruption.

He ought to combine the two initiatives and take a look at some of the corruption at the NYSED over the testing contracts.

For that matter, he might want to get to the bottom of the last NYSED Commissioner, David Steiner, who was treated to junkets via Pearson.

Or the contracts the NYCDOE signed off on.

There is plenty of corruption to take on in education too.

But you can bet neither Cuomo nor his blue ribbon corruption commission will look at that issue.

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Will Bloomberg's Money Bludgeon Matter In City Council Races?

Kristen Meriwether in The Epoch Times says no:

NEW YORK—Mayor Michael Bloomberg has money to spend this election season, and he is taking notes as to who opposed him on the stop-and-frisk legislation, eyeing up which Council member he can get to rescind their vote. Controversial legislation, which would prohibit biased-based profiling, passed in the wee hours of June 27, with just enough votes to override the mayor’s veto.

Following a report in The New York Post that his super PAC, Independent USA, would try and influence local elections, the mayor beat around the bush on Monday as to what exactly he would do.

“We should all support candidates we agree with,” the mayor said at a press conference in the Bronx on July 1. “We will see what I am going to do.”

...

The mayor, a self-made billionaire, may have a seemingly-endless war chest, but considering the slate of local races this year, his attempt at changing the outcomes of local elections based on this issue may fall flat.

...

“There may be a handful of races he could influence. What he has going in his favor is, it does not take too many votes to turn a primary,” said Bruce Berg, associate professor of political science at Fordham University. “The question is, do you have two viable candidates, and do they disagree on this issue?”

It does not appear Bloomberg would find a viable candidate in the Council races that he could support. Of the 34 Council members who voted in favor of Intro 1080, 23 are up for reelection, according to DecideNYC.com, which keeps tabs on all the local races. Seven of those races are unopposed.

Of the opposed races, only three are deemed highly competitive: Council member Inez Dickens, who is facing Vince Morgan in Harlem; Council member Steve Levin in Brooklyn, who is facing attacks from Stephen Pierson who has tied Levin to disgraced Assemblyman Vito Lopez; Council member Melissa Mark-Viverito in District 8 (whose new district lines created quite the fury), who faces a tough primary with seven opponents.

Mark-Viverito, who is Latina, and Dickens, who is African American, spoke passionately in favor of the bills at the Council hearing on June 26, and are very unlikely to turn over their votes even with pressure.

Levin, who is white, is a highly popular council member. His alleged ties to Lopez may do some damage, but not nearly the amount of damage switching his vote would bring.

Five council members are running for other local positions. Council members Gale Brewer, Robert Jackson, and Jessica Lappin are all facing Julie Menin, Chair of Community Board 1, for Manhattan Borough President. It is highly unlikely Bloomberg would be able to leverage any of the candidates against each other, considering they all voted the same way.

Council member Latitia James is running a tight race for Public Advocate with Senator Daniel Squadron, who is leading in the fundraising, and Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code. James, who is African American, has been an outspoken critic of stop-and-frisk and a sponsor of Intro 1080. It would be unlikely she would change her vote at this point.

Bloomberg's PAC was successful nationally last election cycle, backing 19 winning candidates to 7 losing candidates.

Here's hoping that Meriweather is right and he is not very successful at turning any races here.

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GOP Candidate Lhota Wants To Hear From Women "Disrespected" By Anthony Weiner

From The Jewish Daily Forward:

GOP mayoral candidate Joe Lhota says he wants women who have dated Weiner or have been “disrespected” by the disgraced Congressman-turned-wannabe mayor to come forward with their horror stories.

“I hope [women] will come to the right conclusion after enough women come out and talk about what it was like to be with him and date him and things like that,” Lhota said on “The Andrea Tantaros Show” on the Talk Radio Network, according to the New York Post.

“New York women have to decide for themselves if this is someone who has the character to be mayor,” he added.

Weiner’s spokeswoman said he wouldn’t respond to Lhota’s attack, the Post said.

“Anthony is too busy talking about the future of the middle class and those struggling to make it to respond to Mr. Lhota’s mud throwing,” campaign spokeswoman Barbara Morgan said.

Couple of things to say here:

First, it's interesting that the guy who last year challenged a 77 year old man to a fist fight at an MTA board meeting is concerned enough about Weiner's behavior that he wants to hear from women who have been "disrespected" by the former congressman.

Second, what exactly is the strategy here? 

Is the Lhota campaign launching a preemptive strike against Weiner now because theyy're worried Weiner would be the toughest candidate for him to face in the general election?

Are they worried that the conservative/middle of the road policies Weiner is pushing will take some of the juice out of Lhota's "pro-growth" campaign?

I dunno, if I were Lhota, I would lay low for now and let the Dem candidates beat up on Weiner during the summer (and via some surrogates, they're starting to do just that), wait to see who makes the runoff and then, if Weiner emerges in the general, start the "Weiner is a Sexting, Lying Sleaze" campaign in late September.

But for whatever reason, the Lhota campaign is going after Weiner now.

Anybody out there have any idea why?

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NYC Parents Union/DC 37 Local 372 Take On Anthony Weiner

Daily Politics has posted two different stories in the last 24 hours detailing how the NYC Parents Union and DC Council Local 372 have launched two separate attack sites against mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner (here and here.)

Here's why:

District Council 37's Local 372 has launched a pre-primary broadside against the ex-congressman and mayoral hopeful, bannering two photos from his 2011 sexting scandal -- one showing Weiner gripping his privates -- on its PAC's homepage under the headline, "Disgraced Weiner Attacks Parent Coordinators."

Local 372 President Santos Crespo Jr. says with Weiner climbing in the polls -- and bent on cutting the 1,600 coordinators, who act as liaisons and advocates -- "We're going to do what we need to do to take him out."

Weiner has said parents should be involved in their kids' schooling, but believes it doesn't require paid intermediaries.

"I would not want to dismiss the possibility that [Weiner] may be the Democratic contender after the smoke clears," said Crespo, who's also a vice president of DC37, the city's biggest municipal worker union.

"Since [Weiner's] already indicated that he wants to come after our parent coordinators, I need to stop this before it gets worse down the road."

That means gearing up Local 372 for what Crespo says will be an anti-Weiner "full-court press. It's going to be press conferences. It's going to be rallies. It's going to be door-to-door [visits and] phone calls."

The point: "Aside from [his] lack of integrity and class, we’re reminding folks that this is a guy who outright lied when he asked if he had done that," Crespo said of Weiner's sketchy snapshots.

"A lot of people unfortunately do not remember that," said Crespo, who says his local will work with community and parent groups, as well as confer with other unions, to go after Weiner. "You've got to think, 'Gee, I wonder what else he would lie to the public about?'"

 ...

Local 372's decision to give Weiner's "junk mail" the Return To Sender treatment online came shortly before the launch of a separate website, stopweiner.com.

Both web pages, which focus on the school workers who act as liaisons between families and city teachers, are the work of Mona Davids, the new political director of Local 372.

Davids said stopweiner.com, which she registered only Sunday night, is a joint effort with Local 372. It's is also meant to highlight Weiner's lewd past and publicize his call for the elimination of the parent liaisons in his "Keys To The City" blueprint for the mayoralty.

32 BJ President Hector Figueroa spoke yesterday about the importance of going after Weiner on both his ethics and his "retrogressive" politics.

It's about time that the unions wake up to the danger Weiner poses for their members and start a widespread campaign to take down his poll numbers and support.

A similar effort against Quinn has really driven down her poll numbers.

I'm betting that a month of "Did Anthony Weiner Lie About Sexting With A 17 Year Old?" ads on NY1 and other local stations would do something similar to Weiner's numbers.

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Joel Klein Diverts Attention From Disappointing News Corp Education Division Debut With Education Speech

According to Gotham Schools, former NYC Schools Chancellor and current News Corporation executive Joel Klein gave a speech defending Bloomberg's education policies and attacking mayoral candidates who aren't fully on board with that agenda.

Not mentioned in the Gotham Schools story is that yesterday was the debut of the "new" News Corporation, with Joel Klein at the helm of the for-profit education technology division that is now paired with the newspapers and the publishing house, Harper Collins.

The much more profitable entertainment business in the old News Corporation has been spun off into a company known as 21st Century Fox.

Here is how Reuters reported on that story:

(Reuters) - Wall Street rewarded Rupert Murdoch's move to create a separate entertainment company, giving 21st Century Fox one of the richest valuations in the media sector on its first day of trading.
 
Investors had waited for Murdoch to split News Corp, giving its cable, movie and equity stakes in pay-TV assets their own spotlight away from the publishing division.

The move is part of larger trend among media companies that are shedding print properties. Tribune announced on Monday it will acquire a stable of TV stations making it one of the largest local TV broadcasters while it seeks a possible sale of its newspapers.

21st Century Fox, which includes the Fox cable network, already has one of the highest valuations among its media peers based on 2013 price to earnings multiple. At 20.7 times, it is higher than Walt Disney, Viacom and Time Warner, and ranks second only to Discovery according to estimates from UBS analyst John Janedis.

Shares in the new 21st Century Fox entertainment operation gained over 2 percent on Monday, or $1.1 billion dollars in market value, from its opening price. Its market capitalization is about $68 billion, reflecting Monday's gain.

"By divesting its less attractive legacy business, Fox has become a pure-play entertainment company with fantastic assets in its cable channels," Gabelli & Co analyst Brett Harriss said.

In contrast, shares of the new News Corp, which includes publishing assets like The Wall Street Journal and HarperCollins, and an education division, lost 3 percent, or half a billion, from their opening price. News Corp has a current market value of about $8.5 billion.

"News Corp is largely seen as ink on paper, and the perception is that the good assets, so to speak, went to Fox," said Gabelli & Co analyst Barry Lucas.

In addition to being seen as the "less valuable" assets from the old News Corporation, the "new" News Corporation education/print division is facing potential lawsuits in the United States related to phone hacking.

Norman Siegel has already filed one for Eunice Huthart, a stunt double for Angelina Jolie, who says she was hacked by News Corporation journalists working for the now closed News of the World and The Sun while on U.S. soil.

According to The Guardian, Siegel said at a press conference that "There are a bunch of people, the majority from England but some from here, who want to bring claims."


The Guardian article goes on to say that:

This is the first time that News Corp, parent company of News International, which controls the UK newspapers, has been named as a defendant in a case. It comes as the Justice Department continues to investigate News Corp under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), used to pursue US companies accused of bribing foreign officials.

Siegel has also worked with the relatives of 9/11 victims who were also reportedly hacked by News Corp employees. Siegel said it was his understanding that a FBI investigation into those allegations was ongoing.

With News Corporation now split into two entities, court fees, fines and settlements related to both British and U.S. hacking claims will come of out Klein's education technology/newspaper division.

 The Associated Press reports that:

News Corp. has spent $388 million in settlements, legal fees and other costs associated with ongoing investigations in the U.K. since the hacking scandal came to light in 2011.

It's not a mistake that just as the "new" News Corporation is debuting on Wall Street by losing 3 percent (half a billion dollars in valuation from its opening price) and is facing a new American front in the hacking scandal that could cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars, Klein is giving a speech touting his education "legacy" when he was NYC chancellor and attacking mayoral candidates who aren't on board with that legacy 100%.

They're looking to divert attention from the poor reception Wall Street gave to the education technology/newspaper division yesterday and the problems they're facing over future hacking claims that put the company's health very much in doubt.

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CUNY Pays David Petraeus $150,000 A Year To Teach One Course

Many CUNY adjuncts are paid less than $3,000 a course.

Retired General David Petraeus will make $2,250 an hour to teach one course.

So glad to see those CUNY fee and tuition hikes going for really important things.

Petraeus, btw, didn't think CUNY was "prestigious" enough for him and had to be persuaded by outgoing CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein to take the gig.

Hey, Dave, CUNY not prestigious enough for you?

Great, take your lying-ass act elsewhere.

I'm sure Harvard would like to have you.

Harvard's loss would be CUNY's gain.

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