Brooklyn Ron

Cy Vance Speaks to His Prosecutors

 

Feeling the Hate in Israel Against Barack Obama

This incredible video of liquor-soaked men, and some women, in Israel mouthing hatred of Barack Obama in terms that wouldn't be aired on commercial news stations in the States. This comes courtesy of Max Blumenthal. Look him up.

Feeling the Love in Jerusalem from Joseph Dana on Vimeo.

Ex FBI Informant Sharpton Named Host of MSNBC, Taking the Quality of Cable News to a New Low

This is from The Root Web site:

Al Sharpton has been officially named the host of the 6 PM hour on MSNBC. The network announced Tuesday that Sharpton will host "PoliticsNation" on weeknights starting August 29.

This was to be expected, as a kind of payoff.

My colleague Wayne Barrett of The Daily Beast has written that Sharpton previously "signed a pivotal agreement that helped Comcast and NBC secure Federal Communications Commission approval for their $30 billion merge."

MSNBC is thus seeming to reward Sharpton with a prime-time news show, Wayne said.

Wayne also said he was told by a Comcast spokesperson that "Comcast has given $140,000 to Sharpton's National Action Network since 2009 -- the same year the merger was first proposed."

Back in the late 1980s, several activists (as well as a former FBI agent whom I got to know very well) told me that Sharpton had tried to get blacks to give him information about black revolutionaries like Assata Shakur, who fled to Cuba. Sharpton was doing it as an informant with the FBI. My FBI source had all the dates and records of Sharpton's meeting with blacks who he was trying to trick into giving him information about other blacks who were on the lam. (See here).

Sharpton was not working to trick black activists because he was patriotic, but because he was a hustler who was trying to stave off feds hunting down racketeers, and Sharpton -- let's say -- knew some racketeer types.

He was hustling then, and it pains me to say it -- given all the good that he did, for example, standing with the family of Amadou Diallo, who was murdered by police officers 12 years ago in the Bronx -- but Sharpton is still hustling today.

Most shameful of all is MSNBC, as well as the other cable stations, if you want to know the truth.

They give us Eliot Spitzer and the idiot who's replacing Larry King -- what's his name, yeah, Piers Morgan, the queezy, sexist guy who seems to ask the creepiest, oozy questions of women he interviews.

Not to mention the ex politicians posing as newspeople who get gobs of money pretending to be credible purveyors of the news.

And now the Rev. Al Sharpton.

Tell me this is a bad dream, please.

NY Times's Michael Powell Reveals Quinn as an Old-Fashioned, Bloomberg-Loving', Machine Politico

[photo: Chang W. Lee/New York Times]

Michael Powell has a strong piece today (a proper balance of new information and wise perspective) about City Council Speak Christine Quinn.

(We're proud to say we worked with Michael back in the days when Newsday was forcing the New York Times to cover New York City with more seriousness.)

Here's how his article begins:

"To drive down Kings Highway in East Flatbush is to pass block after block of near-identical brick homes, neat gardens, statuary and ironwork.

"Yet if you live on the road’s north side, in Councilman Jumaane D. Williams's district, the leader of the City Council [i.e., Quinn] allocates about $2.50 per resident each year in discretionary spending. If you live on the south side, in Councilman Lewis A. Fidler's district, the leader showers about four times as much on you, or $10 per resident."

Hmm. Is that to say Quinn is paying off Councilmembers who please her (or the mayor)? With taxpayer money?

Read the article.

 

 

Video of Attempt to Evict Bed-Stuy Woman Who a Victim of Delta Funding

Foreclosure Blockade from brandon jourdan on Vimeo.

Brandon Jourdan did this video about the now famous Bed-Stuy resident Ms. Ward, who was cheated out of tens of thousands of dollars years ago by the infamous Delta Funding Corp. and who is now in danger of being evicted.

Elected officials, including Assemblywoman Annette Robinson, showed up to make sure Ms. Ward was not kicked out of her home on this recent occasion, as activists gathered around Ms. Ward to protect her.

Is The New York Times Completely out of Touch With New York City?

It's one of the most ridiculous political stories ever printed in a New York City daily newspaper.

Today's New York Times has an article -- on the front page, no less -- showing an astounding ignorance of the city's neighborhoods.

Over Michael Barbaro's piece about the Congressional race to succeed Anthony Weiner, the headline refers to "A Suprising Anger at Obama."

The Times says that the neighborhood in question, around Queens Blvd. and 71st Ave., is full of progressives who love Barack Obama but are now turning their backs on him. Hmm.

But here's the really ridiculous part:

Barbaro, in the first paragraph, says that a community like that, that has produced "Democrats like Geraldine A. Ferraro . . .," should be expected to pull the lever for anyone on Obama's side.

What?

Let's recall that Geraldine A. Ferraro three years ago said of Obama, as Obama campaigned against Hillary Clinton, the following:

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is."

It was a comment so offensive that the Clinton campaign had to publicly disavow itself from Ferraro when questioned about her remark.

Let's not even get into the crude hypocrisy of the statement, given that, according to many, Ferraro was named Democratic Vice Presidential candidate back in the '80s largely because she was a woman.

(She lost, in case you don't remember.)

Let's point out also that Time magazine once referred to Ferraro as the "Congresswoman from Archie Bunker's district."

You remember Archie? The Queens guy on TV who couldn't stand being around blacks and maybe loathed Latino immigrants even more.

This all means nothing to The New York Times because their top editors believe that when they print something it becomes, ipso facto, the truth.

I would have written a letter-to-the-editor, but in their exercise of journalistic discretion editors there have routinely rejected Ron's missives in the past.

So we remain thankful for the openness of the Net!

CUNY Journalism Video: Honoring a Brooklyn Political Pioneer

Video below was shot and produced by Tami Cozier, a student at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.

The video was shot on July 16, the day Jefferson Ave. between Tompkins and Throop held a block party honoring Bertram L. Baker, the first black person elected to political office in the borough of Brooklyn. (That was in 1948 when he was elected to the State Assembly.)

Attending the event that day were the First Lady of Massachusetts, attorney Diane Patrick, who was Bertram Baker's granddaughter, and Gov. Deval Patrick, author of the recently published memoir A Reason to Believe.

 The Jefferson Ave. block between Tompkins and Throop, on which the late Baker lived, was co-named after him. Seen on the video are: Assemblymember Annette Robinson, Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, Councilmember Letitia James, and Borough President Marty Markowitz.

Here's Tami Cozier's video report:

Video: Jobs Rejects Marty Plea to Put Apple Store in Brooklyn

Black Scientists May be Facing Bias in Attempts at Funding

A new report suggests there may be bias against blacks in the awarding of research grants aimed at improving health.

In the Aug. 19 issue of the magazine Science, it is shown that from 2000 to 2006 black grant applicants were significantly less likely to receive research funding than were white applicants, even when adjustments were made for background and colleges they were affiliated with.

For report and accompanying articles, click here. [Photo is from Science magazine's website.]

A Crown Heights Video: Two Communities are Closer but Still Apart

[From the Jewish Daily Forward to BrooklynRon]

By Nate Lavey

Twenty years after the Crown Heights Riots, community leaders and activists in the diverse Brooklyn neighborhood are quick to emphasize that community relations are significantly better than in 1991, when three days of riots shook the neighborhood.

But while hostilities and distrust between the Lubavitch and black communities may have dissipated or shifted, residents of Crown Heights told the Forward that there is little, if any, interaction between the groups. In this video we walk the streets of Crown Heights and talk with residents about the continuing racial divisions within the neighborhood.

Living Apart in Crown Heights from Jewish Forward on Vimeo.