Just when you thought they couldn't stoop any lower...

Jobs for NY is now using dead children to scare families into voting for Paul Vallone.

Jobs? New York? Won't find them here.

There's no shame at all in NYC politics these days.

Read More

Avella denounces Vallone mailer

Statement from State Senator Tony Avella:

“I would like to set the record straight on the mailer that states Tony Avella is no longer running for Borough President, so now the choice is clear: Peter Vallone Jr. The mailer emphasizes that I have endorsed Vallone. In fact I have not endorsed Peter Vallone nor Melinda Katz and I will not be endorsing either candidate.”

From DNA Info:

Avella isn't laughing about the latest fliers, and said they mislead voters into thinking Vallone has picked up Avella's endorsement.

“He had no permission to do that, and I would not have OK'd it,” Avella told DNAinfo New York.

“It's disingenuous, and it misleads the public into thinking I've endorsed him, which I haven’t,” he said. “And never will. Ever.”

Vallone and Avella had sparred at forums throughout the campaign, including one where Avella accused the city councilman of using text messages to cheat on questions during a forum in July.

Avella, who dropped out after the filings were due, will still be on the ballot on Primary Day — and hasn't endorsed either Vallone or his opponent, Melinda Katz, a former member of the City Council and state Assembly.

Vallone, though, said he didn’t intend to confuse voters — only inform them.

The fliers are intended to inform voters that Tony Avella is no longer running, Vallone said.

“It was not my intent to make it look like an endorsement,” he said. “It told people he was off the ballot, and highlighted the views we both share.”

The campaign wanted to make sure voters didn’t “waste” their vote on someone who is no longer running, Vallone said.

Read More

Strange days, indeed!

From NY1:

More negative campaign mail, this one’s out of Queens. Here’s a picture of Dan Halloran getting hauled off. He’s part, of course, of a corruption inquiry. He’s been arrested. “Our community has suffered enough.” You flip it on the other side – “Paul Graziano would be another embarrassment to our community.” Now let’s be clear, folks: Paul Graziano has absolutely nothing to do with Dan Halloran, with the corruption inquiry, or anything involving legal wrongdoing. So this is a pure slam. It’s put out, by the way, by Jobs For New York, Inc. and I should note that it says absolutely nothing about jobs or anything else positive. I thought you should see that.
_______________________________________________________________

The following was sent to Congressmember Meng, Senator Stavisky, Assemblymember Braunstein, Assemblymember Kim and Councilmember Weprin and cc'd to the five District 19 Council candidates:

During the course of the City Council Race in District 19, Jobs for New York has sent a series of "hit pieces" against three of the candidates for the benefit of Paul Vallone. The mailers are paid for by Jobs for New York and upon information and belief, were designed, printed and distributed by Parkside. All legally done and done in the name of politics for the good of the county machine and to promote and theoretically ensure the election of a candidate who will serve the interests of his benefactors, the Real Estate Board of New York.

That legally a candidate can have no connection to the sponsor of such correspondence is a convenient legal fiction enacted into law by the very people it serves to protect. Such politics benefits no one but the County machine and candidates who are willing to sell their offices to the highest bidder at the expense of their communities.

Jobs for New York has thrown down the gauntlet of negative campaigning with a level of vengeance that is beyond comprehension in a local race. The lies, innuendo, out of context quotes and literally inflammatory graphics should be as deplorable to any sitting politician or candidate as they are to me and members of the 19th Council District. They should especially be deplorable to a candidate who continually touts integrity, family values and his Christian church as his hallmarks.

That you all endorsed and continue to support the Vallone candidacy without reservation speaks volumes about your desire to remain in the good graces of the county machine and uncontrolled future benefactors and very little about your actual support of this or any other endorsed candidate. However, there comes a time in human events, including political campaigns, when courage, integrity, decency and standing up against what is wrong separates the public servants from the hacks.

This campaign tactic is one of those watershed events. All of you are current office holders who have either the power to introduce legislation to take back total control of your campaigns and to disallow such spending and return the political process to the constituents you claim to serve or to influence colleagues who have such power. The" poor little candidate" who cannot stop a big bad entity from spewing unwanted campaign literature throughout your districts doesn't play well. It is time to take responsibility for your campaigns and to be accountable to your constituents for what is put out in your names.

This may turn out to be one of those issues which empowers voters to say "NO" at the polls to candidates who support negative independent expenditures, who refuse to take accountability for their campaigns and who are willing by extension to sell their offices. The beginning of such a movement in District 19 may have been the joining of five civic associations in common voice against the practice though the civics themselves support different candidates.

It is unfortunate for the political process, the integrity of your offices and your standing in the community that none of you have publicly repudiated this practice.

Rhea O'Gorman
Station Road Civic Association
______________________________________________________________

And finally, residents of the 19th Council District received this call last night:

Read More

Vallone supporters now using violent imagery against Graziano

Goodness, now we're setting other candidates on fire, Mr. Vallone?

How many times can you send out different versions of the same hit piece?

I suppose desperate candidates call for desperate measures. This is obviously a stock photo of a "family" nowhere near Queens.

So much for the "family man" Mr. Vallone purports himself to be.

Tony Avella, Chrissy Voskerichian, Paul Graziano, Austin Shafran and John Duane will be denouncing these mailers today at 12 noon at the Bayside LIRR station.

Even the Daily News has noticed. And instead of manning up, Paul Vallone denies any knowledge of the smear campaign:

“Anybody who thinks Paul Vallone’s politics and policies will be affected by a piece of mail clearly does not know him,” he said.

What? How about denouncing the mailer? Obviously, Paul Vallone isn't man enough to do that.

And FYI, from Crains:

The City Council's Progressive Caucus fired a warning shot at the Real Estate Board of New York Monday in the form of a legislative proposal to severely limit the real estate industry's ability to spend money on political campaigns.

The council should seek to close the "LLC loophole" in state campaign finance law that allows many real estate corporations to give $150,000 to independent expenditures like REBNY's "Jobs for New York" political action committee, according to a memo from Councilman Brad Lander obtained by The Insider.

Mr. Lander, who co-chairs the council's Progressive Caucus, is unlikely to find much support for his bill during an election year, with more than half of the council up for re-election and several of the Democrats running for mayor benefiting from independent expenditures on their behalf.

Read More

Pot, meet kettle

From Capital New York:

It's a response to a mailer Vallone sent out earlier, portraying himself as a superhero. Here, he's a right-wing supervillain.

The job of borough president has largely been relegated to monitoring land use issues and allocating capital funds for infrastructure projects. Since there isn't much to separate the two Democrats in this race in terms of their respective records in these areas, the election will come down to name recognition and, beyond that, whatever the voters know about the candidates and their values.

Katz has attacked in the past Vallone for seeking the support of the Conservative Party, which opposes abortion rights and stricter gun control measures.

This, coming from someone who is so enamored with conservative radio host Curtis Sliwa that she is not only shacking up with him, but birthed 2 of his children while he was married to someone else...

Read More

Latest from the Katz is suitable for litterbox

Melinda managed to list a bunch of topics that the borough president has no control over as well as a bunch of non-solutions on her latest mailer. A moratorium on hospital closings? Good luck with that.

Read More

Blast from the past

Back in 2001 when this mailer went out, Mike Bloomberg made a big deal about putting an end to racial profiling. So much for that.

UPDATE: A federal judge has ruled stop-and-frisk unconstitutional.

Read More

Vallone still pandering to illegals

For someone who's positioned himself as tough on illegal immigration, Peter Vallone, Jr. sure has an interesting mailer to the Hispanic community.

Read More

Vito Photoshop bust

How many differences can you spot between these 2 photos?


The top one comes from the Daily News.

The bottom one comes from a recent Vito Lopez mailer.

Miss Heather has the story and the rest of the mailer.

The Daily News goes in depth on what this is about.

This guy is either really stupid, or has cojones the size of cantaloupes.

Read More

Let the pandering begin!

What can be said about this Photoshop nightmare?  Too many layers of stuff here.  The American flag, the Statue of Liberty, an Ellis Island ledger and not one, but two shots of the Queensboro Bridge.  We're laying it on a bit thick here.  On top of all that, a Vallone with some kind of blotchy skin condition, slicked back hair and his shirt open, revealing a gold chain.  Is this what turns on Hispanic voters?  I don't think so.

And here's a photo of him actually talking to them, too!  Somehow I doubt that this conversation resulted in them telling him that their number one concern was funding for the Vallone Scholarship, but that's the first bullet point under "what matters to our immigrant communities."

It seems to me that immigrants aren't so much concerned with what the Borough President can do about immigration reform (which is nothing) as they are with making sure their kids get into the local school and that the neighborhood is clean, quiet and safe.  Just like what the native population wants.  And why the focus on keeping people labeled as "immigrants?"  Immigrants don't vote.  American citizens vote.  Once they are naturalized, most non-natives I have come in contact with say, "I am an American," not "I am an immigrant."  If you're sending this out to voters, they are American citizens.

7 more weeks of this crap...

Read More