A Real Question Get Through to the Mayor On Fake WNYC's Lehrer About Homeless Shelter and the Mayor Blasts the Caller
De Blasio quarrels with callers critical of Crown Heights homeless shelter (NYDN) Hizzoner treated callers to Brian Lehrer’s show on WNYC a bit like reporters — they were limited to the topic of public health and safety, and he repeatedly challenged the premises of their queries. The most heated exchange was with a caller who identified herself as Fior, a Crown Heights resident opposed to the building of a homeless shelter who said her area has 1,700 beds already, while the mayor’s Park Slope has just 330. “I myself have sons and I want the same opportunities that his son Dante had,” the caller said. “And I’m sure the mayor wouldn’t have raised his son around 15 to 19 shelters.” De Blasio noted there’s a shelter about four blocks from his family home, and that his old neighborhood would get new homeless beds under his plan to house homeless people within their own community board districts. But communities like Crown Heights have argued they’re already overburdened with social service facilities, and Lehrer asked whether the plan puts more burden on low-income communities with more homelessness. “If they’re unwanted,” de Blasio said of the shelters, “then that’s a moral question. How can people feel that their very own neighbors and people who grew up and have lived in that community for a long time are quote-unquote unwanted? I reject that.” The caller argued she’d not seen any data proving the people who’d live in the shelter were from Crown Heights — prompting de Blasio to say she “doesn’t know her facts” and calling the argument, used elsewhere in the city, “a smokescreen.” * I-Team: Same Hotel Room Costs $190 for Homeless, $145 forEveryone Else (WNBC) NYC houses thousands of homeless families in hotels; your tax dollars fund the rooms -- but are taxpayers getting the best price?
After an Angry Tweet From NY1 to True News The Station Covers de Blasio's Legal Crisis Hours Later
Note: The video was only on the link for the whole program not post on the news blog as an individual site
Wednesday NY1 Did Report That de Blaso spent most of the day (several hours) at his lawyers Kramer and Levin and that he left in a freight elevator. . . About de Blasio Proposed Legal Fund, Errol Louis said " "Not to pile on to many Hypotheticals, but donating high price legal services to a mayor by a law firm that does business with the city elsewhere with the city is a Huge no no . . . It is called a Loan"
Does NY1's Political Director Bob Hardt Think It is All Over for de Blasio? True News Challenges NY1 to Debate About News Coverage
Bob Hardt Retweeted your (True News') Tweet
You such a fake Hardt (your) man could become the first mayor ever arrested in the history of NYC HAVE YOU NO SHAME
True News Challenges NY1 To End the Ban on the Blog So We Can Debate Live on NY1 the Following:
1. Why Did the Political Director of NY1 Bob Hardt Retweet True News Angry Tweet About NY1's Giving the Mayor A Campaign Commercial Every Week Instead of Asking Him About the Corruption He is Being Invested for by both the U.S. Attorney and the Manhattan DA.
2. What will de Blasio say in his meeting with Preet Bharara?
3, What about de Blasio's lawyers Kramer and Levin lobbying contracts? Is it against NY1 rules to ask the mayor a follow up when he does not answer your question?
True News Challenges NY1 To End the Ban on the Blog So We Can Debate Live on NY1 the Following:
2. What will de Blasio say in his meeting with Preet Bharara?
3, What about de Blasio's lawyers Kramer and Levin lobbying contracts? Is it against NY1 rules to ask the mayor a follow up when he does not answer your question?
The Mayor's Does Not Respect the Press Corp What Are You Going to do NY1 and WNYC Keep Asking Him Questions That Allows Him to Duck Explaining the Criminal Investigations Against Him
In the Feb 6 Weekly Interview With the Mayor Louis Did Not Even Ask de Blasio About the Corruption Investigation
Mondays with the Mayor: A Focus on Crime (NY1)
How the Media Cover-Up WFP's Data and Fields Corruption Which If Exposed Would Have End Team de Blasio Schemes to Go Around the Election Law
How the Media Cover-Up WFP's Data and Fields Corruption Which If Exposed Would Have End Team de Blasio Schemes to Go Around the Election Law
WNYC Lehrer: Will You Meet With U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara
de Blasio: Yes I Will in the Next Few Weeks I Will
No Follow Up By Lehrer on Questions on the Issue
de Blasio Uses NY1 and WNYC to Create Safe Space WeeklyInterviews Fishy Attempt to Spin His Scandals
NYP Agrees With True News the Mayor's Interviews With NY1 and WNYC Are Controlled They Give Him Cover to Duck Answering Questions on ACS Incompetence and the Federal Investigation Against Him
Can the mayor make a habit of not dodging the press? (NYP) Say this about Mayor de Blasio as the entire political world awaits news from his much-heralded sitdown with US Attorney Preet Bharara: He’s more than happy to talk about the weather. And, to be fair, with Niko still raging amid Thursday morning’s press conference, reporters weren’t asking about anything else.
NY1 Stop Asking de Blasio What He Thinks About Going to Meet Bharara Start Asking Questions What New Yorkers Want to Know About What Their Mayor Did!
De Blasio confident about corruption probe before meetingwith U.S. Attorney (NYDN) "We did everything right. My team did everything right. I did everything right to abide by the law and comport ourselves in an ethical fashion," de Blasio said on NY1's Road to City Hall. "I look forward to going in. I'm happy to set the record straight that we did things the right way." Hizzoner is set to meet with federal prosecutors in the next few weeks, he confirmed Monday night. "The bottom line is we made a decision based on the needs of the people. That's how I've done things throughout my public life. And I think I'll be able to clarify that for them," he said. "This set of allegations just doesn't comport with who I am or the way my team or I have handled ourselves. And I believe that the discussion with the U.S. Attorney will be clarifying. I look forward to setting the record straight."
What is the Record Bill. NY1?
"de Blasio makes the time for short, fast radio hits — the kind guaranteed not to go off-topic — as well as longer, but controlled, one-on-ones on NY1 plus the WNYC call-in" NY Post
Maybe de Blasio just wanted to focus on accepting the United Federation of Teachers endorsement the same night. Or been more worried that, with the snow not yet falling, the media might be too eager to ask the kind of “off-topic” questions he tries to ban. After all, it was just eight days earlier that he stormed out of a press conference after two reporters in a row dared pose queries on “unapproved” topics. The next day, he refused reporters’ questions up in Albany. Yet the unprecedented “on-topic” rules have also allowed the mayor to stay mum on the Administration for Children’s Services mess, even after his own DOI slammed “systemic” and “high-level” dysfunction at ACS.
NY1 Stop Asking de Blasio What He Thinks About Going to Meet Bharara Start Asking Questions What New Yorkers Want to Know About What Their Mayor Did!
What is the Record Bill. NY1?
de Blasio said he’s looking forward to "setting the record straight" when he meets with U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara's office about the corruption probe into his administration. Bharara is investigating whether City Hall gave favorable treatment to donors to the mayor's now-defunct non-profit, Campaign for One New York. De Blasio denies any such favor-trading took place.
Questions Not Asked de Blasio On NY1 But Bharara Will Ask:
1. Why did Donors to Your Campaign for One NY PAC Like the Rat Bag Guy Get City Contracts?
2. How Many on Your Staff Knew About the Rivington Nursing Home Deed Change Before It Was Done?
3. Why Did Federal Witness Rechnitz Donate 35,000 to the Campaign for One NY? Why did Reichberg Donate $102,000 to the Campaign for One NY That Was Used Laundered Through A Upstate County Committee to try to change the senate to Democratic Control
4. Why Did Your Cousin Union Contribute A Quarter of A Million to NYCLASS
5. Why Did You Ask Peebles One of the Bidders for LICH Hospital for A Donation for One NY?
6. You Said You Formed Campaign for One NY to Fight Well Funded Opponents for Universal Pre-Kindergarten. Who Were Those Groups?
7. The Money You Raised to Change the Senate to Democratic Control All Went to Three Candidates Did You Direct the Money to Them and Did Your Lobbyists Like Berlin Rosen Work in Their Campaigns?
8. Why Did the Upstate Campaign Money Go to County Committees? To Avoid Campaign Limits?
8. Will You Ever Produce A List of the Contributors Who Did Not Get A Pay to Play Contract in Return for Contributing to Your PAC Campaign for One NY?
9 Where Their Straw Donors in Your 2013 Campaign
10. Why Did Developers Contribute to Your Campaign for One NY PAC?
11. The Board of Elections Risa Sugerman Said Your Top Aid Emma Wolfe Violated the Election Law "Willful and Flagrantly" and Warranted "Criminal Prosecution" What Say You?
12. Was Data and Field (2009), NYCLASS (2013) and CONY (2014-2016) An Attempt By Your Team to Go Around the Election Law?
2. How Many on Your Staff Knew About the Rivington Nursing Home Deed Change Before It Was Done?
3. Why Did Federal Witness Rechnitz Donate 35,000 to the Campaign for One NY? Why did Reichberg Donate $102,000 to the Campaign for One NY That Was Used Laundered Through A Upstate County Committee to try to change the senate to Democratic Control
4. Why Did Your Cousin Union Contribute A Quarter of A Million to NYCLASS
5. Why Did You Ask Peebles One of the Bidders for LICH Hospital for A Donation for One NY?
6. You Said You Formed Campaign for One NY to Fight Well Funded Opponents for Universal Pre-Kindergarten. Who Were Those Groups?
7. The Money You Raised to Change the Senate to Democratic Control All Went to Three Candidates Did You Direct the Money to Them and Did Your Lobbyists Like Berlin Rosen Work in Their Campaigns?
8. Why Did the Upstate Campaign Money Go to County Committees? To Avoid Campaign Limits?
8. Will You Ever Produce A List of the Contributors Who Did Not Get A Pay to Play Contract in Return for Contributing to Your PAC Campaign for One NY?
9 Where Their Straw Donors in Your 2013 Campaign
10. Why Did Developers Contribute to Your Campaign for One NY PAC?
11. The Board of Elections Risa Sugerman Said Your Top Aid Emma Wolfe Violated the Election Law "Willful and Flagrantly" and Warranted "Criminal Prosecution" What Say You?
12. Was Data and Field (2009), NYCLASS (2013) and CONY (2014-2016) An Attempt By Your Team to Go Around the Election Law?
Even the NYT's Says de Blasio Media Attacks Are Ugly and the Opposite of Transparent Do They Know Something About the Federal Investigation?
Q. Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor —
A. You can keep calling all you want. Go ahead.
Q. Are you going to call on me today? Hey, are you — ?
A. I’m calling on real media outlets.
This was an extreme reaction for a mayor who is already unusually aloof from the press. His predecessors, notably Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani, took questions nearly every day. Mr. de Blasio deigns to answer reporters’ “off topic” questions — those not related to his chosen issue of the day — generally once a week. The Post does not hide its anti-de Blasio feelings and is quick to ridicule. It can also be rather vulnerable to ridicule itself. But the article that set off Mr. de Blasio’s meltdown seemed straightforward, if pointed: It was about the hiring by the mayor’s office of 264 “special assistants,” outside the civil service, who looked to the paper like a “farm team” of political appointees. If Mr. de Blasio had specific complaints about the article’s veracity, he did not reveal them at the news conference. New York has a long tradition of outspoken mayors who have used and abused the media, who have belittled and ranted at reporters, while aides smirked and fawned. But the mayors have always talked. Mr. de Blasio says he is not playing that game, at least not with The Post. But it’s not just The Post — Mr. de Blasio got petulant when pressed by a reporter from Newsday for information about an inquiry into the Administration for Children’s Services and the death of a 6-year-old boy. “Come on — try and ask a real question,” he snapped. Then came this exchange with a Wall Street Journal reporter: Q. I’m just curious — taking questions once a week, and you know, insulting newspapers, media outlets — how do you think it’s helping you? How is it helping you? A. It doesn’t have to help. It doesn’t have to help. It’s the — well, I’m saying what I think is the truth. And by the way, I think the people share a lot of my view.
WNYC Weekly Interview Allows de Blasio To Spin "Fake News" and Avoid A Full Press Conference
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s claim that reports from the New York City Comptroller’s office, reported by the Post, are “fake news” is part of his effort to mask the basic failings of management at the New York City Administration for Children’s Services, the Post writes. * New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio released an elaborate video that was financed with public money to tout his accomplishments in 2016, while ignoring all of his missteps, the Daily News reports.
Its Time to End de Blasio's One on One Spin Weekly Interviews and Let Him Face the Pressure of the Full Press Force
During Monday night’s weekly NY1 appearance, host Errol Louis pushed de Blasio on the streetcar, known as the BQX, as an example of donors who got something they wanted. “That’s a huge assumption on your part, respectfully. Why is that donors who got something if it is a mass transit line for...400,000 people?” de Blasio shot back. “Our mission is to create good public policy that serves people, and if we do it, it doesn’t matter who likes it, who doesn’t like it,” he said. “We don’t care who proposed it. If a bunch of non-profits proposed it, I guess you’d be saying this is just pristine public policy.” Two grand juries are hearing testimony in criminal investigations into de Blasio’s fundraising. Hizzoner said Monday that his only aims were to promote universal pre-kindergarten and affordable housing, and flip the state Senate to Democratic control. “No one was lining their pockets. No one was doing it for personal gain,” he said.
Bharara to Question de Blasio High Stakes Meeting Delusional or Hail Mary? No Immunity No Protection Offer
de Blasio Legal Fees Paid for by the City to DefendAgainst Federal Investigation $10 Million'
How Pay to Play Works Inside City Hall . . . de Blasio Contributors are his Contractors
How Pay to Play Works Inside City Hall . . . de Blasio Contributors are his Contractors
WNYC Weekly Interview Allows de Blasio To Spin "Fake News" and Avoid A Full Press Conference
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s claim that reports from the New York City Comptroller’s office, reported by the Post, are “fake news” is part of his effort to mask the basic failings of management at the New York City Administration for Children’s Services, the Post writes. * New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio released an elaborate video that was financed with public money to tout his accomplishments in 2016, while ignoring all of his missteps, the Daily News reports.
Its Time to End de Blasio's One on One Spin Weekly Interviews and Let Him Face the Pressure of the Full Press Force
de Blasio Uses NY1 and WNYC to Create Safe Space Weekly Interviews Fishy Attempt to Spin His Scandals
How Pay to Play Works Inside City Hall
During Monday night’s weekly NY1 appearance, host Errol Louis pushed de Blasio on the streetcar, known as the BQX, as an example of donors who got something they wanted. “That’s a huge assumption on your part, respectfully. Why is that donors who got something if it is a mass transit line for...400,000 people?” de Blasio shot back. “Our mission is to create good public policy that serves people, and if we do it, it doesn’t matter who likes it, who doesn’t like it,” he said. “We don’t care who proposed it. If a bunch of non-profits proposed it, I guess you’d be saying this is just pristine public policy.” Two grand juries are hearing testimony in criminal investigations into de Blasio’s fundraising. Hizzoner said Monday that his only aims were to promote universal pre-kindergarten and affordable housing, and flip the state Senate to Democratic control. “No one was lining their pockets. No one was doing it for personal gain,” he said.
As True News Reported Yesterday the NYP The Mayor's New "Safe Space" Weekly Interviews is Fishy Attempt to Spin the News
Mayors aren’t supposed to hide in ‘safe spaces’ (NYP) de Blasio’s deal to do a weekly interview with NY1’s Errol Louis is yet another bid to control his press availability while seeming to be open. Louis is a pro, and we expect he’ll ask some tough questions. But he can’t stand in for the entire, diverse City Hall press corps — which is lucky if the mayor does an open availability once a week. With “Mondays with the Mayor,” Louis joins public radio’s Brian Lehrer as the only journalists Hizzoner opts to speak with regularly. And Lehrer’s task is definitely not asking hard-hitting follow-ups: He’s a host, mainly helping callers “Ask the Mayor.” Nor did de Blasio even start regular call-in shows until we began slamming him on the issue back in May 2015. At the same time, we raised his failure to do town-hall-style public forums — and he still mainly only does fake ones, with tightly controlled audiences primed to ask questions he wants to hear. New York’s 109th mayor still stands as the least accessible in living memory: John Lindsay, Abe Beame, Ed Koch, Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg all had their battles with the media, but they were available to the City Hall press corps on a daily basis, or close to it. Yes, running a city of 8 million is a busy job (or should be) — but it’s a tough job to do well if you largely dodge the media and don’t engage broadly with citizens who aren’t drinking your Kool-Aid. Hiding in a chief executive’s version of one of those campus “safe spaces” — where your values, actions and ideology go unquestioned — signals you’re not even trying to be the mayor of the entire city. It’s a betrayal of basic democracy. And spinning a weekly sitdown with Louis as furthering your “efforts to reach New Yorkers directly” is absurd. If de Blasio wants to be truly open, “Monday with the Mayor” won’t cut it. Try “every day with the entire press.” NY Times Spins for the Mayor No Need to Rise at a de Blasio News Conference: He Will Be Sitting, Too.(NYT) * The Times analyzes de Blasio’s choice to now sit during press conferences, a move political strategists say he believes puts reporters and people more at ease and makes people standing with him at a podium less uncomfortable about his height. * New York City’s tax collections have declined in recent months and are down about one percent for the same period in 2015, bucking the yearslong trend of growth and raising concerns about a sharply rising budget under de Blasio, The Wall Street Journal reports. Campaign 2017 De Blasio shrugged off rumblings of discontent from some city unions and said he would have no problem securing support from the majority of labor groups for his re-election, noting his administration’s success in securing contracts, the Daily News reports.
Gearing Up for Re-Election de Blasio Weekly on NY1: Spin City? What About Equal Time for His Opponents and None Supporters? What About U. S. Attorney Bharara Investigation of the Mayor?
Why Does the Press Not Hold de Blasio's Feet to the Fire Like They Have Past Mayors? Instead Print His Press Release Spin
Even the NYT's Says de Blasio Media Attacks Are Ugly and the Opposite of Transparent Do They Know Something About the Federal Investigation?
Q. Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor —
A. You can keep calling all you want. Go ahead.
Q. Are you going to call on me today? Hey, are you — ?
A. I’m calling on real media outlets.
This was an extreme reaction for a mayor who is already unusually aloof from the press. His predecessors, notably Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani, took questions nearly every day. Mr. de Blasio deigns to answer reporters’ “off topic” questions — those not related to his chosen issue of the day — generally once a week. The Post does not hide its anti-de Blasio feelings and is quick to ridicule. It can also be rather vulnerable to ridicule itself. But the article that set off Mr. de Blasio’s meltdown seemed straightforward, if pointed: It was about the hiring by the mayor’s office of 264 “special assistants,” outside the civil service, who looked to the paper like a “farm team” of political appointees. If Mr. de Blasio had specific complaints about the article’s veracity, he did not reveal them at the news conference. New York has a long tradition of outspoken mayors who have used and abused the media, who have belittled and ranted at reporters, while aides smirked and fawned. But the mayors have always talked. Mr. de Blasio says he is not playing that game, at least not with The Post. But it’s not just The Post — Mr. de Blasio got petulant when pressed by a reporter from Newsday for information about an inquiry into the Administration for Children’s Services and the death of a 6-year-old boy. “Come on — try and ask a real question,” he snapped. Then came this exchange with a Wall Street Journal reporter: Q. I’m just curious — taking questions once a week, and you know, insulting newspapers, media outlets — how do you think it’s helping you? How is it helping you? A. It doesn’t have to help. It doesn’t have to help. It’s the — well, I’m saying what I think is the truth. And by the way, I think the people share a lot of my view.
The Media Cover Up of Citizens United
de Blasio Paints the Post As Right Wing Exposes His 2017 Campaign Strategy to Gain Progressive and Liberal Votes
Together With his Black and Orthodox Jewish Base
De Blasio’s tantrum shows just how thin-skinned he is (NYP) Awww, does Little Billy need a time out? Mayor de Blasio acted like a colicky infant at a press conference Thursday, refusing to answer questions posed by a New York Post reporter and then saying it’s because the paper is not a “real” media outlet. “You can keep trying, man. You can talk all you want,” he said, interrupting a question by City Hall bureau Chief Yoav Gonen about a controversial teacher annuity fund that cost taxpayers $1.2 billion last year. As Gonen persisted, de Blasio whined: “I’m calling on real media outlets.” The petulant child’s routine immediately backfired when other reporters, shocked at his behavior, grilled him about why he refused to respond to The Post. “I’m saying what I think is the truth. And by the way, I think the people share a lot of my views,” he told a Wall Street Journal reporter who questioned his antics. “I’ve got no use for a right-wing rag that attacks people who are good public servants and tries to undermine their reputations.” * De Blasio, Frustrated, Chooses to Take His Private Feuds Public, Again (NYT) The mayor condemned The New York Post in a news conference and in an interview with The New York Times on Thursday. Last year, he spoke openly about his divisive relationship with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.* Transcript: Mayor Bill de Blasio on The New York Post (NYT) The mayor discussed his views on the newspaper and his refusal to acknowledge its City Hall bureau chief during a news conference on Thursday.* Crybaby de Blasio spends day hanging out anywhere but City Hall(NYP) A day after he declared The Post was not a “real” media outlet, Hizzoner hardly looked like a real mayor — spending Friday at the gym and then lounging around his old neighborhood without ever going to the office. De Blasio left Gracie Mansion at about 7:45 a.m. and showed up a short time later at the Y in Park Slope looking like an aging frat boy in an orange T-shirt under a black “Brooklyn” hoodie. “He’s not going to make any comment,” one of his reps said as Hizzoner was shielded by his security detail. De Blasio then kicked back for hours at his favorite Park Slope haunt, Bar Toto, with an unidentified guest. De Blasio — who had no scheduled events Friday and was jetting off to Detroit on Sunday to campaign for Hillary Clinton — then vanished, never showing up at City Hall.
The NY Post is Too Dumb to Understand That Team de Blasio by Calling Them Right Wing is Building A Progressive Vote to Get Re-Elected
de Blasio Paints the Post As Right Wing Exposes His 2017 Campaign Strategy to Gain Progressive and Liberal Votes
Together With his Black and Orthodox Jewish Base
The NY Post is Too Dumb to Understand That Team de Blasio by Calling Them Right Wing is Building A Progressive Vote to Get Re-Elected
Mayor de Blasio demands his own ‘safe space’ (NYP) Mayor de Blasio is perfectly free to keep ducking Post reporters’ questions . . . as long as he wants to keep coming off like a peevish toddler. A month ago, we wondered if de Blasio was cracking under pressure when he took out after The Post and our City Hall bureau chief, Yoav Gonen, at a press conference. On Thursday, he had another meltdown — refusing to let Gonen even ask a question, saying that’s for “real media outlets.” He got snarky with other reporters, too, but saved his special venom for The Post: “I[’ve] got no use for a right-wing rag that tries to attack public servants.” By which he means he has no use for a newspaper that asks (well, tries to ask) uncomfortable questions and exposes City Hall outrages and incompetence. What set the mayor off this time was a Post exposé of how he’s parked 264 political operatives on the public payroll as “special assistants” — at a cost to the taxpayers of $18.7 million.
de Blasio in Panic Mode Lashing Out At Every Question of His Decisions
de Blasio Barks At Press Again And Again to Avoid Answering Questions
De Blasio lashes out after getting questions he doesn’t like (NYP) America’s touchiest mayor doesn’t like to answer tough questions — and lately, he’s blaming the people who get paid to ask them. Mayor de Blasio this week lashed out at journalists from The Post and The New York Times asking him about issues he would rather not answer, at one point chiding a reporter to “stop wasting my time.” On Thursday, he went after The Post for asking why he pushed back a meeting with blind residentsaffected by the Chelsea terror explosion so he could work out in the gym and sip coffee with First Lady Chirlane McCray. “I’m quite aware of what you guys are up to, and again, you are a paper with a clear right-wing agenda,” he raged. “Let’s be real about it. You’re a propaganda rag.” He then tried to justify his leisurely morning by arguing that maintaining his physique is in New Yorkers’ best interests. De Blasio delays visit to Chelsea bombing site to work out Minutes earlier, he cut off a Times reporter for questioning his senior adviser and 2013 campaign-finance co-chairwoman Gabrielle Fialkoff about how shady donors were appointed to his transition committee. The donors, Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Reichberg, are central figures in probes into de Blasio’s fund-raising. At de Blasio’s prompting, Fialkoff clammed up about the pair. A day earlier, the Times asked Hizzoner about a spike in crime over the last fiscal year..De Blasio, who frequently brags about the city’s falling crime rates, branded the reporter a “contrarian.”
de Blasio's Transparency, FOILS and Keeping Out the Press
Mayor de Blasio’s rant at The Post is good for a laugh (NYP) So New York City has a mayor with feet almost as big as his mouth, a fellow who can’t quite figure out how to get to work on time or what to do when he arrives, whose poll numbers have been underwater since roughly two weeks after he took office — and who’s now having a rant at The New York Post. And I agree that the paper has much for which to answer; name one that doesn’t. But the New York Post hasn’t been under federal, state and local criminal investigation for the past two-plus years, either — which, ahem, is more than can be said of Bill de Blasio. Which certainly could explain why Hizzoner’s been so testy lately; US Attorney Preet Bharara just dropped the hammer on the Cuomo administration, and maybe the mayor figures he’s next. And for sure it could account for his exasperation with The Post — which regularly hauls out the big type to report on his endless adventures with Bharara, state investigators and the Manhattan district attorney. Plus bums in the streets, chaos in the schools and rip-offs of New York’s sorely pressed taxpayers. He hired an advocate, not an expert, to run the city’s social services. No surprise that Grand Central Terminal is once again up to its scuppers in vagrants and worse. He padded the topmost echelon of his administration with fellow Service Employees International Union/1199 alumni. No surprise, then, that 1199 is a vector in at least two de Blasio administration scandals — the Rivington House nursing home deed transfer and the Long Island College Hospital land conversion.
de Blasio Limits the Press
Since taking office 16 months ago, Mayor Bill de Blasio has not opened himself up to unfiltered questions from constituents via town halls or call-in radio show appearances, as his predecessors did Newsday reports: “De Blasio, unlike past mayors, avoids public Q&A with New Yorkers: Ed Koch did an average of 15 ‘town hall’ meetings each year, no-holds-barred public forums where New Yorkers could bring their concerns to the mayor face-to-face. Rudy Giuliani did them monthly. Mike Bloomberg did them occasionally. Bill de Blasio doesn’t do them at all. The mayor, who promised in his inauguration speech to be a champion of ‘everyday New Yorkers,’ has declined in the nearly 16 months since to open himself to live, unfiltered questions from constituents at town hall meetings or -- as Bloomberg and Giuliani did -- on regular call-in radio shows. … In 2010, de Blasio, then the city's public advocate, hailed the virtues of town hall forums at such a meeting hosted by Ditchek's association. - “‘My goal is to be out in the community a lot, to have folks from my staff out in the community a lot,’ de Blasio said, according to a video of the event. ‘I would be happy to hear concerns, or take questions from anyone and everyone.’ …“Ed Koch did an average of 15 “town hall” meetings each year, no-holds-barred public forums where New Yorkers could bring their concerns to the mayor face-to-face. Rudy Giuliani did them monthly. Mike Bloomberg did them occasionally. Bill de Blasio doesn’t do them at all.”
From @AP yesterday:"De Blasio made little mention of a national focus during his 2013 mayoral campaign...." * After 16 months as mayor of New York , Bill de Blasio seems determined to escape the confines of his day job and to reshape the future of national politics — even as he leaves himself open to criticism that he is not prioritizing problems at home. (Throw in a vacation to Puerto Rico and college visits with his son, and the mayor has spent about a third of April and May on the road.) * Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich blasts de Blasio’s liberal “contract with American,” for which he was the inspiration.
--“Mayor de Blasio’s Days on the Road Fuel Criticism atHome,” by Times’ Michael M. Grynbaum: “A rally by the steps of the United States Capitol. Fire-up-the-base speeches in Iowa and Wisconsin . Cross-country political trips, paid for by private money, and a Silicon Valley fund-raiser hosted by tech moguls, with tickets going for up to $10,000 apiece. Clinton ? Rubio? Bush? Nope. De Blasio. After 16 months as mayor of New York , Bill de Blasio seems determined to escape the confines of his day job and to reshape the future of national politics — even as he leaves himself open to criticism that he is not prioritizing problems at home. ... By the time Mr. de Blasio returns, he will have been traveling outside New York on political trips for at least a portion of 10 of the last 31 days.”* The mayor's Campaign for One New York is paying for histravel to speak at his daughter's college in California: (NYT) * De Blasio says he's been to Staten Island"a number of times." That number is two.
Team de Blasio Crazy Ties to Get His Puppet Council to Boycott the Post With Him
De Blasio’s top lieutenants ordered City Council members not to speak to the Post months ago, even issuing a thinly veiled threat to at least one lawmaker, if he failed to toe the line for the administration
City pol claims de Blasio urged council to stonewall The Post (NYP) Mayor de Blasio’s top lieutenants ordered City Council members not to speak to The Post months ago — even issuing a thinly veiled threat to at least one lawmaker if he failed to toe the line, the pol told The Post. “You shouldn’t be talking to The Post when they’re criticizing the mayor,” de Blasio aide Jon Paul Lupo warned, according to the council member, well before Lupo’s tantrum-tossing boss dismissed the paper as a “right-wing rag’’ last week, taking heat from both sides of the political aisle. “We remember who our friends are, and we remember who kicks us when we’re down,’’ Lupo said, according to the Democratic council member he targeted. The source said mayoral aide Emma Wolfe also issued similar, though “less direct,’’ warnings about talking to The Post. “Anytime a council member is quoted [in The Post] — even when and especially when they’re right — they’re going to get a call from the Mayor’s Office,” the council source said.
Post's McManus: de Blasio Crazy Attacks on Reporter are About the Federal Investigation, Not His Paper
de Blasio Limits the Press
De Blasio Imposes Limits On Reporters’ Questions At News Conferences (WCBS)*
* De Blasio appears to have imposed new limits on how many questions reporters can ask at his public news conferences, saying that a question and a follow-up is allowed but that if “everyone’s doing like three-part questions, it becomes a problem,” CBS reports.
* De Blasio appears to have imposed new limits on how many questions reporters can ask at his public news conferences, saying that a question and a follow-up is allowed but that if “everyone’s doing like three-part questions, it becomes a problem,” CBS reports.
Mayor Only Allows the Press to Question Him Not the Public at Town Hall Meetings
Meetings with the Public in Iowa Not NYC Boy Does He Hate Us
Dumb and Dumber: Dear NY Post deB is Not About Transparent He is About Building A Progressive Coalition on Your Back
Dear Bill NYP Attack is Not About Free Press It is Because You Cut Out Old Guard Lobbyists Like Arzt for the Berlin Rosen Generation
He hides behind lawyers rather than even discuss why the Administration for Children’s Services ignored repeated warnings that little Zymere Perkins was being abused. He designated his campaign consultants “agents of the city” so the public couldn’t scrutinize his communications with them. And he won’t even fulfill his campaign promise to publicly post lobbyist dealings with his agency heads — then gets testy if anyone asks him about it. Gov. Cuomo is no model of transparency, but at least he doesn’t refuse reporters’ questions. Nor does he hold “on-topic-only” news conferences, either. If de Blasio wants to hide in a protective bubble, fine. We’re not about to tone things down to soothe his hurt feelings. But we doubt New Yorkers are going to have a lot of respect for a mayor who insists on spending all his time in his own version of one of those campus “safe spaces.” The mayor’d be better off recalling Harry Truman’s advice: “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”
de Blasio Channels Spiro Agnew
Yet blaming the messenger is rarely a winning approach — particularly when the self-professed “most transparent mayor in history” is having so much trouble being remotely transparent
Yet blaming the messenger is rarely a winning approach — particularly when the self-professed “most transparent mayor in history” is having so much trouble being remotely transparent
De Blasio thinks homeless crisis is a case of ‘fear-mongering’ (NYP) Mayor de Blasio on Monday ripped The Post’s coverage of the homelessness crisis — and touted an estimated drop in the vagrant population based on a single-day census conducted in sub-freezing temperatures.
He also ranted about a New York Post article that revealed how his administration boosted the number of special assistants on his staff to 264 — a 140-percent increase over Mayor Bloomberg — at a $18.7 million cost to tax payers. Though he didn’t challenge the accuracy of the report, he complained that the Post singled out one of the “public servants,” Office for People with Disabilities Commissioner Victor Calise. “This man is not anything but a change agent, an activist, a man — and go ask people in the disabled community. So I’m not playing that game,” he said. His meltdown continued as reporters tried to ask him out some of the other scandals engulfing his administration. He fumed when a Newsday journalist asked about Monday’s death of an abused 6-year-old Harlem boy — and if he would keep his word about releasing details of how ACS let the child’s case slip through the crack despite prior complains against the boy’s mom. “Don’t even try that, come on, come on . . . try and ask a real question,” he snapped. When another scribe tried to press the question about the city’s lack of transparency in little Zymere Perkins’ death, the mayor implied the Manhattan DA’s office had asked him not to speak about it and fumed: “I don’t know why you’re not hearing my point. . . You really have to try to listen to what I’m saying.” The mayor’s media meltdown drew criticism from his former press secretary, Karen Hinton. “I’ve given him advice before about this very topic,” she told NY1 after the debacle. “Losing your temper with the news media does nothing for you except get you stories about losing your temper, which is I’m afraid what we’re going to see this afternoon and tomorrow.” His office and affiliated non-profit, The Campaign for One New York, are under at least a half-dozen investigations by city, state and federal agencies – including for potential pay-to-play schemes.
“The next president of the Unites States has gone through more investigations than I can count,” de Blasio said. “And I would remind you, go to the end of the road on all those investigations, you will find positively nothing and she’s about to be the next president of the United States.”
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