no 'Bill De Blaisio - the truth ' thread yet ?

[cantsin]

Obviously, we have to take some encouragement from the fact that the peoples of NY have voted in, with a landslide, an equality talking, Nicaragua loving, alleged former commie, maybe one of the first mainstream US politicians to easily and successfully ride out a concerted red-scare attempt since pre ww2 .

But can anyone save us the time and start listing the hypocrisy/lies/backsliding/thinly disguised neo-con agenda that no doubt underpins B de B's meteoric rise before we start getting carried away.

Thanks in advance.
A miserable sod.

 

[goldenecitrone]

He loves Russell Brand's version of Arthur.

 

[cantsin]

He loves Russell Brand's version of Arthur.

that cant actually be true

 

[Fez909]

From his Reddit AMA:

As a supporter who loves hearing you talk about the problem of the "Tale of Two Cities," I was a little disappointed to read the Atlantic Wire report that your campaign does not pay its interns. Unpaid internships are perhaps one of the biggest class barriers in the country, and it would be nice to have a leader that changed this pattern.

Why is it that a campaign which is bringing in millions of dollars, is 50 points ahead, and which has inequality as the centerpiece of it's campaign, cannot spare some of its money for its interns, even if it's only in the form of a stipend? Doing a rough calculation for an unlimited Metro and lunch the cost is only about 250 per intern x a guesstimated 15 or so interns max = $3,750 /mo to cover all bases. That is barely a drop in the bucket, and is surely an affordable amount to pay to send a message to the city that you're serious about inequality.

Likewise what are your plans, if any, to change the structure of internships in New York City, so that employers do not exploit labor for free?

He didn't answer the question.

 

[Favelado]

Obviously, we have to take some encouragement from the fact that the peoples of NY have voted in, with a landslide.

Landslide maybe - but 29% turnout.

 

[cantsin]

Landslide maybe - but 29% turnout.

22 % i think !

 

[Idris2002]

There was a big piece on him in the last New York Review of Books. It noted that NY city is heavily dependent on property taxes, which account for about two-thirds of its budget.

That means, this piece argued, that there's a structural bias towards keep property values high, and even towards keeping bubbles going. And this makes it a lot, lot harder to have progressive policies that doing anything for the city's homeless, or for those struggling with housing.

 

[butchersapron]

(It's De Blasio btw)

De Blasio has spent the last six weeks reassuring Wall Street that, despite his occasional rhetoric in the primary campaign, it has absolutely nothing to fear from his taking the reins at City Hall. He recently addressed a group of plutocrats, including Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and Rupert Murdoch, the owner of both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, at the headquarters of Viacom. De Blasio pledged allegiance to what he termed the city’s “hometown industry.”
While the cynical Democratic Party and trade union operatives sing the praises of de Blasio as a crusader for the poor and the working class, the corporate elite has donated well over a million dollars to him in recent weeks. On Monday night former Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for whom de Blasio was campaign manager in her 2000 Senate campaign, hosted her own fundraiser for de Blasio that raised more than $1 million.

De Blasio is a Democratic Party hack, a functionary in the Clinton administration who went on to manage the successful campaign of Hillary Clinton for the US Senate in New York and to seek several minor city offices as rungs in the ladder of his political career.

No sooner than he had won the Democratic primary in September, de Blasio executed a familiar pivot, pitching his candidacy now not to the working class and poor of New York, but to the financial predators of Wall Street. In the end he took in more than three times as much in campaign cash and enjoyed considerably more support from the big banks and finance houses than Lhota, a former investment banker who campaigned against de Blasio’s call for an insignificant rise in city taxes on New York’s richest. De Blasio hobnobbed with and got money from the executives of Goldman Sachs and the top hedge funds as well as others who deserve to be in prison for their actions that provoked the financial meltdown of 2008.

Within this socioeconomic milieu, there were calculations that putting a Democrat who postures as a populist into Gracie Mansion would have definite political uses, particularly under conditions in which the city is projecting a $2 billion budget deficit, even as it faces contract negotiations with unions representing some 300,000 municipal workers, most of whom have been without new agreements for more than four years. De Blasio, no doubt the thinking went, would be better positioned to pitch “equal sacrifice” than Lhota.

 

[petee]

he doesn't hate the bruce rattners of the world either.

Other entries in the files suggest de Blasio has a tougher edge than his populist campaign and feel-good television ads suggest. For example, back in 2007, several constituents accused him of ordering a purge of members of Community Board 6 who'd voted against the Atlantic Yards development project that resulted in a new home in Brooklyn for the NBA's New Jersey Nets franchise.

Nine board members were removed in May 2007 by Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, including four who'd been appointed by de Blasio and fellow Councilman David Yassky. In an interview at the time with the New York Observer, de Blasio acknowledged that he had told Markowitz not to reappoint one of the board members, on the grounds that a vote against Atlantic Yards was a vote against affordable housing.

"I was stunned and very disappointed to learn that you had retaliated against the hard working and very professional CB 6 members," wrote resident Sarah Flanagan.

Wrote Jon Yasgur, a fellow constituent: "Your actions are totally undemocratic and demonstrate a shameful coziness with developers."

A third resident, John Ife, expressed "outrage": "Your action is so redolent with the odor of arrogance . . . that it spits in the eyes of any semblance of democracy."

De Blasio spokesman Levitan did not respond to a query about the so-called purge.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2013-09...ses-questions-about-mayoral-frontrunner/full/

this requires a bit of background:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Yards

long short, he's no enemy of high end developers

 

[petee]

just came across this:

With de Blasio looking almost certain to win the Nov. 5 general election, the city’s chattering classes have largely written Lhota off, making it difficult for him to raise campaign funds. Even the real-estate industry seems reconciled to a de Blasio victory. In an interview published Oct. 10, Real Estate Board of New York president Steven Spinola told Capital New York that REBNY—which dropped $5 million in a largely unsuccessful attempt to elect pro-development candidates to the New York City Council—will not mount an independent-expenditure effort for Lhota.

Spinola shrugged off de Blasio’s arguments leading up to the Sept. 10 primary, when he blasted rival Christine Quinn as a real-estate pawn and attacked Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s aggressive development policies. “He’s not somebody that there’s any reason for us to be frightened of,” Spinola stated. “We’ve worked with him. We have no reason to believe he won’t work with us.”

Since winning the primary, de Blasio has sought out real-estate executives to reassure them that he will listen to their concerns. How he will balance their interests against the promises he has made to tenant advocates remains to be seen.

http://metcouncilonhousing.org/news...ublic_advocate_runoff_elite_accommodate_to_de